1:2:9 Sanctuary (Part 2)

They were led to a building at the base of the transmitter. It loomed above them. While the clones knew that Sanctuary Point was a military installation, until now, it had felt just like Celreagaire just without the judgement; the walls and floors were nearly the same grey. Officers darted from room to room, most in uniform but some in familiar armour. There were no labels, no signs, just grey walls and grey floors. The whole place smelt too clean; even through their filters, the clones could almost taste the cleaning fluid.
“Through here.” Smith funnelled the clones into an unsuspecting side room. They were unsure how anyone would have known the room was the office of the commander of the settlement. Smith tapped the door respectfully against the door, striking the same point thrice.
“Enter.” A voice beckoned from within.
Smith pushed the door open. Ace sent Midpoint in ahead of them. They placed a hand on their hip. Behind them, two armed officers walled off their escape. Hidden by Smith and the door, the same waited ahead of them. As soon as Ace had crossed the threshold, the door began closing.
“It’s rare we get visitors.” She stood up and crossed the room. “Welcome. I’m Commander Theresa Farkle.” She held out her hand.
Ace shook it. “Commander Ace.” They returned. “Sorry about your doctor.”
“Thank you.” She took a moment. “She was a valued member of our community. Her talents will be missed.” She took her seat back at her desk and invited Ace and Midpoint over. “The air is perfectly breathable if you wanted to take your helmet off. Could I offer you something to drink?”
“We are cautious about introducing foreign pathogens into your community.” Ace paused. “We’ll have to decline the drink for the same reasons.” They nodded slightly, they tried to look understanding but realised the folly of their attempt.
“A prudent measure.” She tapped at a monitor on a wall. It dispensed a cup then filled it half way full with an amber fluid. “Hope you don’t mind, family tradition.” The beverage was consumed in one hearty mouthful. “So, what brings you to Illia? Finally here to reclaim the fifty two cache?”
“Fifty two cache?” Ace looked to Midpoint.
“Don’t play dumb with me. Your armour is accessorised with items I know are from that cache. It’s gratifying to finally find out what these are for.” She opened her desk drawer and removed a length of wiring identical to that spanning from Ace and Midpoint’s sides and into their weapons. “Well, at least where they’re supposed to go I suppose.”
“Where did you get that?” Ace held their hand out for the wire. They checked it over; it was definitely the same as the one in their side but had never seen use outside of being a paperweight.
“Tell me what it’s for and I’ll tell you where I got it.” A smile crossed her lips.
Ace considered it for a moment before thinking of a palatable half-truth. “It’s a modified length of synthetic Tempora. It allows for energy to be shared efficiently between our armour and our weapons. No magazines, no reloading.”
“Ingenious.” She took the wiring back and continued playing with it. “Seven years ago, maybe eight, an Inquisitoriam requisitions pod crashed down a kilometre away from the current borders of Celreagaire’s oxygen farm. We made sure our agents in the city covered it up, then we sent them to investigate; took more time than you would think to convince them it wasn’t part of an invasion or proof that the Sat’Mach had missiles...” She shook her head. “I swear they chose the thickest people to live there… Anyway, by the time we got there, it had already been partially looted. The cache had three types of item: Cables, these weird microchips and these fabricator units. It had been organised to carry fifty two of the chips and cables and four of the fabrication units. When we got there, two fabricators were missing and five of the chips and cables. When should we be expecting your other officer?”
“There isn’t a fifth. They died.”
“Condolences then.” She made her way to the fabricator and refilled her glass. “To…”
Ace looked to Midpoint. Not knowing how to answer, Midpoint blurted the first vaguely human name that came to his head. “Mark.”
“To Mark.” Once again, she drained the glass in no time at all and with nearly no reaction to the high alcohol content of the fluid she was ingesting. “Wonderful things these fabricators. Apparently they’re all the rage across The Protectorate but we had them first. Our best kept secret. Our best and brightest reverse engineered them and by the gods did it make things so much better. No more worrying about damage to the oxygen piping, no more rationing supplies when the wildlife attacked, no more having to budget between keeping us paid and our undercover agents rent paid.” She placed her glass in the fabricator. With a few button presses, it was gone.
“Nice to see our surplus was effectively utilised.” Ace glared at Midpoint. There was a moment of awkward silence. “I understand you’re preparing to end the experiment?”
“Well, yes.” She spoke as if it should be obvious. There was a twinge of annoyance to her. “We weren’t expecting an Inquisitorial visit for another five months. Thankfully, we started the R-Day drills earlier than The Protectorate schedule suggested. A little warning would have been appreciated however.” She was rather diplomatic in her wording but the tone carried across her annoyance.
“We’re glad to hear that and we apologise for the inconvenience but… it was… important we move the schedule up given the climate that’s developing in Celreagaire.”
“We are aware of the tensions between the undercity and the capital. We have been monitoring them. It was actually rather entertaining. Hopefully our interference doesn’t have too much of an impact.” She smiled.
“Why do this in the first place?” Midpoint finally spoke up.
“So you do have a voice. I suppose your Inquisitor probably didn’t fill you in.” She shrugged. “No harm in telling you, it’s not exactly classified. Since before Illia’s colonisation, one of The Protectorate’s major concerns is a communications blackout between the wider Protectorate and one or more of their colonies. Since Illia was settled during humanities cocky period and the ships that settled Illia were both pre-jump, it was the perfect candidate for experimentation. The primary experiment was to see how badly a colony would be effected by a complete blackout; there was an unexpected secondary experiment though. The long trip created a gap in societal norms. Things that are acceptable on Illia would get you cautioned or arrested anywhere else in The Protectorate so the second experiment became what would happen if a society was left, undisturbed, for a significant amount of time. How would it develop and would it make the same choices the rest of The Protectorate made. Thirty years and nothing has changed.”
“I thought you said that Illia had been out of communication for ten years, not thirty.” Ace fidgeted.
“For the first twenty years, we didn’t have the satellites and the rapid expansion meant that only Inquisitors ships had the capabilities to get to us.” There was a beeping noise coming from the commander’s computer. She tapped at her keyboard then turned her monitor to face Ace. “Is this your Inquisitor?” On the screen, a live camera feed from the airlock showing Destiny straightening her uniform.
“That’s our handler. She works with the Inquisitor.” Ace nodded.
“I’ll let her in then. I’m sure your compatriots will be able to fill her in.” She tapped the enter key and the airlock opened.

They watched as Ace and Midpoint were led towards the transmitter.
“Right then, we best get cracking. If Destiny is going to be here soon then I suppose we should try and find a terminal around here.” Curve gave a brief look at her surroundings. “Hmm… That could be an issue.” There were people everywhere. While a majority of them were taking a tea break, there were still quite a few who were continuing the preparations for R-Day. Curve looked around once again and noticed her brother mysteriously missing. “Mags?” She scanned her surroundings again for anything shiny. “Where has he gotten off to?”
There was a tapping on her armour. She pulled her blade from her belt and held it to her would-be attacker’s throat. “There’s a computer in the decontamination bay. No-one can see us in there, it’s all one way glass.” He pointed towards the door beside the airlock. A quick nose through the window confirmed that the room was empty so, using Smith’s card, they entered.
“Did Destiny tell you what we were supposed to be doing with this disk then?” Curve swiped Smith’s card to log into the computer.
Magpie shook his head. “Haven’t the foggiest. She just told me to hold onto it for Lore.” He shrugged. “Let’s just try and find those files Destiny wanted.”
For a few minutes, all that could be heard in the room was the sound of Magpie and Curve breathing and the clacking of keys as they searched through the years’ worth of files to find the ones highlighted by Destiny. Curve had a question on the tip of her tongue but wasn’t quite sure how to ask it. “What did you think of her then?”
“Who?”
“Destiny?” Curve looked to Magpie as she connected her wrist computer to the terminal.
“We literally spoke for two extra seconds. I went in, she handed me the disk, I left.” Magpie paused. “She did feel cold though. I took off my gloves to try and sneak past the Military Guild and didn’t put them back on till I was at the speeders. When she gave me the disk, I remember thinking that her hands were bloody cold. Not surface cold but still, lower than body temperature.”
Curve sighed. “Anything else, any other thoughts?”
“She’s prettier in person? Maybe it was her human disguise but she looked more attractive than she did in the simulations.”
“Finally!” Curve smiled at the vindication. “The others didn’t see it.”
“I mean, her eyes still creep me out but she isn’t too bad looking.” Magpie thought for a moment. “But it is kind of weird to be talking about her like that. She’s basically our mum.”
“No she’s not.” Curve snapped. “You can’t clone a BioMech… I don’t think…  No, they don’t have DNA do they?”
“I don’t think so but, you do know you don’t have to be biologically related to your mother? I don’t know about you and the others but I’d consider Tolan a parent. They’ve looked after us and made sure we had a bed and stuff but we’re not related.” He shrugged.
“I don’t even think she’s the same person like. She might just look like her.” She started the download of the first file. “I wonder if this is where we’re going: UPC-052?” She opened the file. A map of a dense nebula came up on screen. Curve tried to zoom in to the map. To her dismay, it only made the image appear more pixelated. “What?” She zoomed back out and tried to look at the image at a different angle. Again, to her annoyance, nothing happened; the image just moved around the screen. “Why the hel can’t I do anything with this file?”
“Look at the date.” Magpie pointed at the bottom right. “Nineteen eighty two… That would explain it.” He paused. “How did humanity get that far out that early on?”
“Don’t know.”
Magpie gasped. “Tolan’s history lessons! Humanity discovered the outer rim worlds thanks to the probes they launched in the nineteen seventies. Determination I think.”
“I do not know how you remember all of that.” Curve went back to scouring the files connected to the picture.
“I like learning about humanities history.” He shrugged.
The airlock whirred into life as the outer doors opened. A hooded figure entered then engaged the intercom. A strange shrieking sound played through the speakers shortly followed by a classic industrial dance pop song from Earth’s nineteen eighties. The monitors closest to the speakers flickered before turning dark only moments before the one the clones had been working on joined them. The figure pulled the airlock outer doors closed while the inner doors magnetised shut. Their coat made them look nearly three times larger than they actually were; this became evident when they shed their fur fleece, revealing Destiny. Curve clutched at her box as she hurried Magpie to reset the computer. She looked around for somewhere to hide the box. The computer flickered back to life. A pending request to open the airlock overwrote the maps they had been looking at. Curve tapped the enter key; the airlock began to cycle. The outer door lock engaged and the air in the chamber started to heat up. Although it was unlikely that she could see them, it looked like, on several occasions, that Destiny was staring right at them. Curve shot up and bolted to the door. She opened it just enough to allow her head and shoulders to pass through it and waited for Destiny.
“We’re in here.” She beckoned.
“Impressive place they’ve got here.” Destiny stood by the door, soaking in her surroundings. “I’m guessing there’s a computer in there.”
“Yeah. We’ve got the file for Lore and we’re working on downloading the other stuff but we weren’t sure what to do with the disk.”
Magpie called back to them. “We’re ready to continue the download.”
Destiny rushed to the computer. “Right, how much have you got done?” She sighed in relief, “You’re only half way through the first file. Brilliant.”
“Why?” Magpie looked to Curve.
“Can I have the disk back please?” Destiny held out a hand to Magpie. He handed her the disk from his breastplate. She inserted the disk into the terminal. “What were you storing the files on?”
“My wrist computer. Why?” Curve held out her wrist. Destiny grabbed it and Curve nearly melted.
“Lore said they needed this to play first but to make sure it’s first on the list, we need to add it without them knowing. I’m going to upload the files, I just need you to continue the downloads at the same time. That’s the problem with updated systems running on outdated hardware. It’s very easily exploited.” Destiny began the upload as Curves continued the download. “Sorry about the computer thing. I didn’t realise there was anyone in here. Thought I’d let myself in.”
“It was really weird.” Magpie span on his chair.
“It was quite interesting. How did you do it?”
“Again, it’s an old exploit. Despite years of patching and updating, old issues are forgotten. Over a hundred years ago, computers had a flaw that meant that the song I played resonated with their storage systems, causing major crashing. This was forgotten and now, these computers rely on a version of that part with the same problem.” She shook her head. “Silly buggers.”
“I’ve got the file. Am I ok to start downloading the second one?”
“Sure. The sooner the better. Lore’s speech is taking it’s time.”
Curve nudged the box under the desk, trying not to draw attention to it. She achieved the opposite result. Destiny looked at the box and then to Curve’s extended leg just next to it. Through squinted eyes, Destiny looked Curve up and down before seizing the box and placing it beside the terminal. Unbeknownst to her, both Curve and Magpie’s skin looked like gold straight from the forge.
“Hello, hello, hello, what do we have here then?” Destiny’s fingers hovered around the lip of the box, gently and slowly lifting it.
“It’s a gift.” Curve answered.
“For whom?” There was an innocent smile crossing Destiny’s face.
“For you.” Curve’s blush deepened.
“May I?” Destiny asked. Curve nodded.
Slowly, she lifted the lid. At first she wondered what she was looking at as the perfectly folded jacket made it look as though the box was filled with studded leatherette. As if handling an artefact in a museum, she lifted the jacket out of the box and into the light. Curve hadn’t realised how perfectly the blue of the jacket matched the blue of their armour; it caused her mind to wander.
“Nice but you do realise I can make my own clothing at any time?”
“I realise that but.” Curve shrugged. “I thought that you might like something a little more permanent. Something made for you not by you.”
“That’s actually kind of nice.” Destiny inspected the jacket. “Thanks.” As carefully as she had picked it up, she returned it. There was a silence filled only by the whirring of the fans in the overworked computers around them.
“Did you train us?” Magpie blurted. Curve shot a killer glare at him.
“No!” Destiny scowled. “I’ll explain later. I’m finished here, are you two done?”
“Last file.” Curve responded through gritted teeth. “Sorry about him.” She whispered.
“It’s understandable but no. Just no.” A smile crossed Curve’s face.