"Councillor, there are things I believe that should be raised up with you." The electronic voice behind the screen muttered blatantly.
"Yes, I was expecting such a hail from you at some point." The Councillor responded, her eyes averted from the screen in boredom consternation. "You've witnessed the revitalisation of the Ophanim, yes?"
Her straightforward enquiry seemed to have left a sour feeling in the listener's ears, or sensors.
"The war-engine. You are a fool for allowing her revitalisation, Councillor. She listens and observes in ways your surveillance teams can't comprehend. She must be purged as with the other artefacts. You should know that."
"You should know I won't ever be consider doing that, Seer. Ophanim is a valuable asset of the Varkos Coalition, she is considered a memorial of the war by those who've witnessed and still remember its name." She replies sternly.
"She is an artefact that whispers of destruction!" The Seer raises his voice, "If you decide to let her continue her rambunctious echoes, she will destroy Varkos Coalition from the inside, starting with whichever nation she currently resides in. Do you wish for that to happen, Councillor?"
"Of course not, the Ophanim is currently under our control, just like she was back during the Decade War. It will not harm the Coalition in anyway, not by itself. The people operating her are trusted highly by me."
"You underestimate what the Ghosts of Babel can achieve." he replies solemnly, "I can only pray you would receive some of the Mechanus' wisdom, lest the Accord must inevitably resort to wiping you out before you assimilate into Babel's curse. You have a three days to hide the Ophanim's signature from our sensors. If we detect her whispers once more, her tongue will be forcibly cut."
"A threat? We're suppose to be above neutra-" The connection forcibly disconnects, leaving the Councillor looking at her reflection on the black screen. With a sigh, she pushes herself off her seat and turns over to the window view of Csilla. The city vast-lit by the luminous lights prior to the rise of dawn. Even at this early hour, the streets are active with vehicles traversing between streets, their engines too quiet to be heard all the way up the 153rd floor.
She taps her fingers against her chin, observing the morning city life down below with clouded thoughts. Then, without so much a change of expression, she moves away from the window and towards her desk once more, reaching for the interface.
'Samir, I need you to investigate the capabilities of the Iron Accord's Surveillance capabilities, they seem to be able to detect sources far within Varkos territory.'
[ENCRYPTED DATA SENDING]
[ENCRYPTOR NODE PASSED]
[ENCRYPTOR NODE PASSED]
[ENCRYPTOR NODE PASSED]
[ENCRYPTOR NODE PASSED]
—————————
The message didn't arrive instantly, not at first.
The message travelled smoothly through the standard encryption nodes, blending deeper and deeper into the network architecture of the Varkos Coalition. But yet, one node picked up just a few milliseconds late
[MASTER NODE REACHED]
—————————
Samir looks at the message intently, Seraphine's visualised form floats behind him, inhumanly still, yet active with rapid and constant bodily reconstruction. Her projected face, though changing, seems to hold that same, still smile as the previous iteration; only slightly modified from the last.
He minimises the message, letting it automatically delete itself from the system. Turning to nod towards Seraphine's form, he gets up and relocated himself to the central dais with paced and even steps, already returned to his original self, prior to the deactivation of the division.
Trailing silently behind him, Seraphine activates acts the operations table, displaying various holograms around them as her form starts to fade, unable to maintain its appearance as the projectors are refocused to display other holograms.
"How's Elias' squad doing?" Samir asks, already swiping away some of the lesser-relevant holograms.
"Recovering, they alll are expected a full recovery with no permanent damage, physically at the least." Her tone was pleasant, like that of a friend.
"And what about th-"
"Ophanim is undergoing repairs, self-maintenance has projected a completion time of 38 minutes." She interrupts, sound pleased she was able to predict his question.
"Great. Inform Elias of the.." Samir's voice falters, his eyes drawn to the side as a caution pops up on a holograph.
Seraphine, watching through the cameras, observes his reaction and quietly runs a diagnostics on the source of the caution as Samir brings the holograph closer, enlarging it and swiping away the other holograms.
"This is..?"
"New." Seraphine finishes his sentence for him.
"We have multiple layers of revolving encryption. Any message that passes through is nigh impossible to decrypt without our timing-keys. Anything should be spotted by you near-instantly." He mutters, bringing up a new hologram through hand gestures, navigating through the array of networks that Seraphine is granted permissible access.
"Seraphine, I'm going to give you temporary access to the Varkos Central Government's encryption process. Please make your presence unknown, and that means don't update it with Babel-Architecture even if it's considered an update..."
"Understood, Administrator."
With a swipe of his fingers across the holographic display, Samir overrides some of Seraphine's remaining locks, granting her permeable access.
'Futile locks anyway, the only reason these are in place is so those like the Councillor can feel safe.'
"I've already located the source of the delay." Seraphine moves the holograph around Samir, bringing a new one in front of him to visualise her information. "While the Varkos Coalition's encryption is considered at least adequate in comparison to the other nations. It lacks in some areas where it has been overlooked in favour for the encryption itself."
"You don't have to insult our architecture.." Samir sighs, "..what did you find?"
"The encryptor is effective, however, the encryptor itself is the issue. An additional checkpoint has been inserted between the third and fourth time-belt. It appears to replicate whatever data has been passed through it and.." Seraphine intentionally pauses, "..was inserted 368 minutes prior to now."
"I've traced the checkpoint's origin and it links through to a civilian Iron Accord Satellite that will exit range in five minutes and twenty-eight seconds." The hologram changes to show the current flight vector of the satellite and the projected range of the emitter's estimated location based on the connection strength.
Samir's eyes darken, he raises his to his chest as he ponders at the information before him.
"Good find, continue searching and keep it invisibile."
"Understood, I have adjusted the flow of packets to minimise my detection."
A few hundred milliseconds passes by. Then-
"I'm unable to ping any links from the satellite that stands out from other network traffic."
"So we're at an impasse." Samir narrows his eyes to the side. "Keep an eye on whatever information goes through the checkpoint and try to stop it. But make sure some useless information is still being filtered through. We don't want them to know we've found their silent ear."
Turning back to Seraphine's projected form, he pauses, his hands still hovering over the holograms. Seraphine's form had dimmed noticeably, her face faded entirely from her projection, leaving an inhuman, blank head.
"Administrator. Their network security does not just scan for data."
—————————
The chamber was not lit under the natural sun. It was bathed under the luminescent glow of luminous, sun-mimicking lights.
A lone robed figure sits seated at his desk, his hands together in prayer as the food before him steams and condensates the air between him and the screen. Etched scripture and circuits radiates around the room in breathing pulses, Their blue glow overpowering that of the monitor, until-
Interrupted, the figure's prayer ends abrupt, with a curse he looks around, his senses informing him of something amiss. Eyes narrowed, he spots the flash of blue and white at the corner of the monitor. Under the glow of the mimicked sun, it was just barely distinguishable from the room's radiant circuitry, just visible through closed eyelids.
Leaning closer, he projects the display to the circuitry around the room. Once shown in two-dimensional, now made three-dimensional, the flash of lights embeds itself within the corner of the room, traversing the circuitry like a parasite learning the highways of its new host.
Wherever it went, the circuitry and etchings that were carved into the wall seemed to straighten before resolving back to its original shape once proximity was left behind.
The figure reaches into his pocket, pulling out a chained emblem. Clutching it tightly, to his chest, he whispers. "Babel..."
—————————
The lights start to brighten once more as the holograms are removed, projectors focused on Seraphine's form once more. "Understood. I'll avoid any further attempts of traversing through their network."
Samir nods his appreciation with a slight grin, then turns to leave the central dais, reaching for his coat, he turns round to mention one more thing to Seraphine. "Inform Elias I'll be visiting the Ophanim soon."
"I'll tell him three hours to give you time with your talk to the Council." Seraphim replied optimistically.
"Thanks, Seraphine." He says as he walks towards the exit, his footsteps dampened by his soft-steps. With the doorway closing behind him, Seraphine's form goes still except for her interchanging features.
With her form still suspended above the central Dais, light cascading from each new iteration of features, she might as well be a holographic installation on display, not an intelligence to rely on.
It was usually rare to see her projected form this still, there was always at least one person around the form, making her subject some processing power to mimic human movement. Normally, when her form is left alone, isolated, forgotten even by her, she optimally cuts the projection. Yet now, here she seems to have prioritised her processing elsewhere.
The sight of which unnerves some of the observing operators, to which she didn't seem to pay mind to not since she was occupied dealing with original matters.
Deep within the Observation Division's archives, she inspects the formed isolation lattice structured around Partition Sector B-Nine-L. Layered partitions, Pattern-encrypted locks, Varkos-Intelligence reinforced with Babelian-Architecture, designed to study whatever it contains.
Within the lattice, the dormant L-7X–Δ13 is contained.
No active processes,
No outbound interface signals,
And no sign of intrusions.
Yet, even with its current dormancy, there is activity inside the lattice structure. Firewalls were repeatedly adjusted, not disabled, not corrupted. It's as if several calculations were rerun every microsecond. Permission to pass the lattice wasn't being requested, it was being tested.
Seraphine watched these recalculations, a timer starts and stops within her mainframe every second. One, 801,583,293,541. Two, 803,102,958,026. Three, 801,584,290,555. Nearly a trillion processes operated in a single second. No registered nation's computer can match the processing capabilities of this Legion Node. Not even her.
Through its dormancy, the node emits repeated attempts to interact with the lattice, identifying it, studying it, and remembering its limitations.
Seraphine observes on, she had already calculated a prediction.
'Not yet.'
—————————
SLAM Fists collides with the finewood desk. Coded scriptures in the room flicker from the impact.
"So, the Varkos chooses to wield another of Babel's lingering will, this time against our systems. Blasphemy. They choose to let the Ophanim sing once more, now they dare murmur Babel's corruption against our system's ears."
A composed hooded figure approaches, hands bound under sleeves, head bowed in respect.
"My Seer, this will of Babel is not a weapon. It did no harm to our architecture, nor did it fully trace all connections. It was trying to learn."
"So another one of Babel's child still exists?" The Seer sneers, "This time enslaved by the Varkos Coalition."
The figure nods, "It did not aim to intrude, my Seer, it simply studied our surface architecture, accessible by all, showing good restraint."
"Restraint?" The Seer rises from his table. With a fix of his arms, he walks calmly towards the Acolyte before him. "That is not restraint, Babel does not do restraint. That was something by intent, by design!"
Silence lingered momentarily.
"Babel did not create minds that think to show restraint to others," he continued. "They built them to control, to manoeuvre around us and take what is ours!" He slams his hand against the desk again, now behind him, this time knocking a portrait over.
"So it shows humanity through respect, good, that will be its downfall. Instruct all eyes and ears to search for this child's signal. If it's murmured once, it will murmur again. If Varkos struggles to understand the comprehension of sins from bearing such artefacts from Babel, then we must teach them the punishment that comes with. Acolyte, hunt down any connection to this child from Babel, kills are denied, observations only."
"As you order, Seer." The figure bows his head once more before departing from the chamber, his cloak turning from digital-red to blue.
With the return of solitude to the room, the Seer turns around, glancing over the mess of his desk. Scattered glass, green-stamped slips teared at the corners, synthesised pages of Legion technology, the portrait knocked down and shattered on the floor, its glass cage scattered, the photo freed from its case.
Picking it up, he wipes away the fragments of silicon, looking over the photo for any damage.
Under a heart-pained breath, he whispers to no one, "My love, you will be cured soon."
—————————
"So the Iron Accord tuned its ears back to us?" The Councillor inquires, her eyes locked onto Samir's. The thoughts of her earlier message wired to him returns to her head.
"Yes, Ser- ah we've spotted an intrusion within our encryptor. While the system works fine and still seems to be nigh-impossible to decrypt without a proper TK, we've noticed that an external checkpoint has been imbedded within the encryption process, so while data can't be understood just yet, it seems they're replicating all files transferred to attempt to safely decrypt them in their land." Samir responds, his hands folded neatly behind his back, as customary to greet the Councillor in her office.
With a blink, he nods his head towards the windows, gesturing towards the distant mountains beyond where visual feed allows them to see.
The Councillor's eyes narrow, her mind strained with thought, trained to think before making decisions regardless of her location. Silently, she nods to the guards on either side of the door to her office, and in returned silence, they leave.
Hearing the door close behind him, Samir lowers his hands from behind him, letting them rest at his sides.
"By 'we', you mean Seraphine?" She enquires further, raising an eyebrow; 'don't lie to me now' .
"Yes." Samir nods, already knowing where this is going.
"And.. how did Seraphine get access to the encryptor?" She asks, crossing her arms in disappointment.
"I... gave her access." he sighs in submission.
The Councillor shakes her head, "I'll let it off this once because she did find the external accessor, but." She walks up to Samir, sticking her face close down to his. "Next time you are to personally request for my permission. Just because you're a division only very few know about, doesn't mean you get to act freely against our systems and risk safe operations of said systems, especially one that belong to another division." She ends, pointing a finger up at him.
Samir looks at her with widen eyes, his hands held up to ward her distance.
"Is that clear Administrator?"
"Yes Councillor." Samir hastily answers, stepping to the side as best as he can.
"Good, now, continue." She turns and walks back to her desk, seating herself down on the cushioned seat.
"ahem, Right." Quickly recomposing himself, he returns to standing in front of her desk. "I've instructed Seraphine to isolate the checkpoint within our encryptor, only allowing data of non-interest to pass through, just to minimise suspicion. If they do end up cracking through our encryption, they won't find anything of value, at least for now."
Councillor nods, her hands resting on her lap, "That's a positive, in the while, I'll have someone keep looking through our system's architecture. Is there anything else you would like to bring up? We still have five minutes as per my schedule."
Samir thinks for a moment, glancing sideways to the window view once more. "That.. Adnachiel, as the Iron Accord refers to it. It's still alive, isn't it?"
Her eyes drop to her lap, her expression never dimming, "You've seen the reports."
Samir looks on at her, his expression tightening, his jaw constricting its muscles.
"The SAM had confirmed a splash."
"Multiple." she added.
"But there was no mention of any recovery to show a confirmed kill." he sighs. "So we didn't kill it."
"There was no mention of a second signature either."
"What?"
"What I failed to inform you through the report, was the SAM batteries picking up a second signature, matching the cross-section of the Adnachiel the Ophanim encountered. Unlike the former which followed the Ophanim's route, this one appeared later, it was outside the Coalition's claimed borders, flying northwest then suddenly changing east and rapidly descending in altitude before exiting our radar range."
The room falls into silence as Samir compares this new set of information with what he can recall.
"The battery only launches SRAAM, all of which travelled south to intercept the one above the Ophanim." he mutters to himself.
"We also have no operations currently ongoing in that region, civilian nor military." the Councillor adds, guiding his thoughts. "It was already heading Northwest and climbing, with a predicted route that implied a conversion just before the military depot."
"So it was intended to function as a backup?"
"This was prior to the first Adnachiel's fall from flight. So, it's possible."
"'Rapidly descending in altitude'. Elias' report mentioned the Adnachiel would prioritise attacking from above. I assumed that was due to them being a grounded target. But what if-?"
The Councillor taps her fingers on her datapad.
"I'm afraid we've ran out of time for our meeting today, Administrator. As usual, due to the nature and contents of our conversation, I won't be sending you a log of what we spoke of.
She gets up from her seat, grabbing her items laid out on her desk and orderly storing them in her bag. As she does so, Samir walks over to the wall rack and carefully grabs her coat, bringing it over and holding it out for her.
"Thank you. I hope you can figure out what our network cannot see." she says as she walks over to her office doors, knocking on it. The two guards from earlier peak inside, seeing she's ready to leave they hold the door open for her.
"If you're going to stay in my office, keep it tidy." She says as a final command before leaving with her guards in trail.
Samir stands in the silence of the room, his eyes not to the window view, not to the door, but to the ground, still deep in thought. "What if.. it spotted something to engage?"
Samir shakes his head, he still doesn't have all the information he needs.
—————————
The Ophanim sits on burnished rails, her engine humming with near silent resonating patterns. Not idle, but resting. Residual heat breathes out from her vents in slow, measured cycles each carrying the faint tinge of ionised metal from deep within her design.
Magnetic coils whine as they are repeatedly stress tested, conduction millions to billions of micro-corrections every second, her physical wheels rising barely millimetres off the rail before resting back down.
The underground location has been evacuated, formerly used as a storage facility, now repurposed for the Division's personal use. Technicians from other branches, now hired for the Observation Division, work slowly around her, not casual, not by fear, but care.
Lines of Varkos Technicians clamber all around her exterior, tools clipped tight to their uniforms, voices exchanged in hushed tones, as if fear of awakening something inside her by volume alone.
"Hey this dent is big, should we fix it?"
"No, she can repair dents herself, focus on the scars."
"Seems like the mag-coils haven't been damaged. Diagnostics show they're working great from what it can decipher."
A fourth pauses behind the third carriage. "That's.. not from the tunnel."
The scar ran deep, along the length of the carriage. Various segments already starting to buff out from the Ophanim's self-repairs, but the aft section, the technician measured the distance from the hull's surface exterior to the bottom of the scar. '58mm of depth.'
"Hey guys I'll need more material over here." he says quietly as he looks back at the wound. The jagged line where something had met Econium and almost sheered right through.
Even dormant, the Ophanim resisted their electronic tools, making repairs difficult and slow.
Elias stands on an elevated platform, overlooking the technician's repairs alongside Voss and Haru.
"She relented, eventually." He remarks. "I was fully expecting them to just build over the military depot to house her there."
"Thankfully not," Voss said in relief, stretching his bandaged shoulder carefully, "I feel safer knowing there's several meters of terrain on-top of us right now."
Elias leaned against the railing, inspecting her damages. "That thing did some serious damage against her, it made Econium look like butter with those deep marks there."
He gestures to the third carriage, the technician now working on filling the lines of damage in, holding the machine's output nozzle carefully as to not spill whatever is inside.
"What material are they using?" Haru finally asks, watching closely in curiosity.
"Beats me, all I know is it's apparently very limited in supply." Voss answers, propping himself on the railing next to Haru.
His gaze remained fixed on the line of damage along the carriage, where the technician guided the nozzle with careful precision. The substance flowing from it wasn't molten in the traditional sense. It moved slower, thicker with viscosity.
The edges of the gouge tightened almost immediately, the material threading itself into the fractured lattice as if it already knew where it belonged.
Haru leaned forward slightly.
"That's not a weld."
"No," Elias said quietly.
"It's material we've recovered from the war." Elias answered quietly, letting the two watch as the Technician stops pouring, observing the accuracy of his work before changing the pressure of his nozzle and spraying once more, and the material responded, not dripping, not spilling, holding its shape even in mid air as it holds its shape for a fraction longer than what is considered normal even for a material of this viscosity.
Voss frowned.
Elias spoke again.
"You can think of it as a special, can do all material, even though it's not."
Haru looked at him in piqued curiosity, "Oh? Like nanomaterial?"
"No," Elias corrected. "At the fourth Kilometre band of Ganzir, my squad mates and I thought we found a cache of supplies we could use, abandoned from the workers of the factory."
His eyes flickered, tracking something that wasn't there.
"It wasn't supplies, but it was connected."
"Connected to what?" Haru inquired, stepping around Voss.
"The pipelines ran deep into the armoured walls, externally it pointed back towards the factory, but that factory assembled Reginleifs from pre-assembled components, quick, efficient, a pain to disable. Yet that substance has no process in the assembly of those Reginleifs, at least, not from what we saw."
"What was it for then?" Voss finally speaks up, having been quietly listening the entire time.
"We couldn't investigate what it was used for. A Vanguard unit showed up, one Reginlief among them, we had to engage, to live."
Haru and Voss turned back to the technician, watching as the material finishes covering the scars from the chase, the scar, though not hidden, now left cleaner, its surface gleaming as if new.
Elias didn't look back, his eyes dimmed as he recalled the visions his mind saved of the war, overlaying them over what he can see of the Ophanim's engine.
"Reginliefs..." he muttered, shuddering.
"Sir!" A shout came from below, looking down, they gaze at a Technician with his mask taken off and placed neatly around his neck. "Repairs are almost complete, it's just dents that will buff out automatically."
Elias nods, "Alright, thank you and to your team."
The technician salutes, then gathers his men and organises a sweep of the facility, ensuring no equipment, tool nor material was left behind. Lining up, they enact the sweep.
"Alright, let's go take a proper look at the interior." Elias suggests, already walking down the stairwell from the platform. The two follow in tow, Voss taking a final glance towards the now regrouped technicians beginning to depart.
The walk down the stairwell was done in silence, the only sound heard was the clanging of boots on metal and the soft, low humming of fluorescent strips marking each level passed and the occasional flicker of overhead lighting struggling to steady itself against the power draw from below.
"Seems she's rather thirsty." Haru smirked, nudging Voss
"Haha yeah, quite the throat on that one." he said, grinning back.
Elias smiled as he ignored their banter, keeping pace off the stairs, he exits the stairwell and reaches for his ID card on his top left pocket.
Click. Hiss. The door unseals with a controlled release of pressure, changed breath of air seep through the cracks as the door opens with a delay, revealing the Ophanim with her new, albeit temporary, pale striations running along the carriages and engine where the material had settled; not quite matching the original palette nor lattice.
Elias steps out first, eyes glued to the streaks of reflected lights from the Ophanim's repaired sections. They didn't reflect cleanly. Voss and Haru followed seconds after, both slowing as they take in her appearance from closer.
"Not bad." Voss remarks, already appreciating the effort. "Though, I hope it's temporary."
None acknowledge his comment.
Elias turned, already moving towards the fifth carriage, the two followed immediately.
The room felt unnatural. The lack of bustling technicians, lack of staff overlooking the Ophanim, everything is quiet now, too quiet.
The trio's footsteps patted against the smooth flooring, all echoes seemingly absorbed before it could resonate; yet no one slowed down.
They reached the fourth carriage, the garage. Its bulkhead stood partially open, its internal mechanisms exposed where technicians had looked over the quality of the hinges. Faint heat still bled from the gap, thermal distortion rippling the air just enough to be noticed if you were looking for it.
Elias stopped just short of the threshold. Haru nearly bumped into him.
"Are you going in or what?" Voss questioned, looking at him from the side.
"They didn't replace the window you broke."
Voss looks over at the window besides the bulkhead, his eyes widen as the wall now holds a blank area where the window used to be. "Ah." was all he could mutter.
Elias clambers up to the left of the bulkhead, just besides the narrow viewport, and reaches out with his hand, fingers finding the recessed panel cover and pulling it open with a short, metallic click. The interface beneath flicked on with life upon exposure to light. Hovering a finger over, he pressed 'Release'.
And for a moment, nothing happened.
Then, the bulkhead responded. Not abruptly, but slowly, as if she's warming up.
The bulkhead parted from its ajar state, motors in the mechanism whirring as it slowly carries the heft of the door down. A low, controlled hum follows as railing along the edge fold outwards then retract underneath the carriage. Locking into place with a satisfying couple.
The ramp continued to descend, now past beyond where the railings stood, prompting Haru and Voss to step back, allowing the ramp to extend and connect with the ground. With a dying whir, the motors disengage as locks engage their function.
From the carriage interior, wafts the current of warmer air, carrying the tinge of crisp, sterile air heated by metal and sharpened by something within it.
Elias stepped onto the ramp first, boots landing with a dull, grounded thud.
The garage interior opened out before them, wide, structured, and cleaner than it had any right to be after the chase.
Work lights still hung along the ceiling rails, casting angled beams across the interior. Tools had been cleared, cables coiled and stowed with near-clinical precision. Only faint scarring along the inner plating remained as evidence of recent activity.
Voss stepped in behind him, scanning the space.
"…They moved fast."
Haru crouched near the ramp's base, fingers hovering just above the floor plating.
"So clean... it's like factory-fresh clean."
Elias moved further in, eyes tracking along the carriage walls. He walks over to the workstation situated to the left of him. Mounting brackets, weapon racks, maintenance tools, all were intact and organised appropriately.
He moved near the central rig where the vehicle and heavier equipment would usually be secured. Glancing over, there was no sign of dust or wear on any surface, he couldn't tell whether it was the work of the technicians or the ability of the Ophanim.
Voss followed his gaze.
"Everything accounted for?"
"According to the report." he replied promptly
A second passed.
"...Yeah." Haru shot up from her position and clapped her hands clean out of habit. "Seems like all the impacts were directed to the exterior of the cabins, the structural stress didn't travel inwards, meaning most, if not all, of the damage was external only."
Voss glanced up at the ceiling. "Fortunate. So nothing seems broken, right?"
Elias nods, "Let's try keep it that way, we don't have the means to repair her each and every time."
The three begin to move towards the next carriage, once again led by Elias, but the sudden sound of a door opening followed by strict, measured footsteps catches in their ears.
"Who's authorised to be here right now?" Voss asked, irritated.
Elias looks back through the open bulkhead, his lips turned upright as a hidden grin. "Right on time."
The footsteps loudened with every step, the person's presence drew nearer with every second. The trio watched the entrance to the garage carriage, each expecting someone different.
A shadow crossed the ramp before the person did, the high wall lights stretching the figure before the man himself appeared.
Samir stepped onto the ramp without hesitation, walking into the carriage with measured steps. Coat settled neatly over his shoulders. His eyes already scanning the interior before fully committing his attention to the people stood inside.
"Lieutenant."
Elias nodded once, "Director."
"Status?"
"Her repairs are complete, no sign of interior damage for the fifth carriage."
Samir nods, "I assume materials from Ganzir was utilised for this?"
The trio nods.
"I assumed so, to the next carriage." He commands, bringing the lead into the third carriage, the quarters.
The carriage was.. refined. Not what you'd expect for something operated by a special division.
Soft fabric lined the floor, muting each step into near silence. Along the walls, seamless panels functioned as viewports, their displays shifting faintly with external feed and internal diagnostics layered beneath. The corridor stretched cleanly forward, bordered by sleeping quarters set into the structure with quiet precision.
White fluorescent strips ran along either side of the carpet, even, symmetrical.
Towards the aft, just before the door to the fourth carriage, the space opened into a decorated lounge. Low seating arranged with deliberate asymmetry. Behind it, a stairwell led upwards to a second level. More seating, more accommodation.
Voss was taken aback, he never had the chance to properly admire the interior while the Adnachiel was outside. "This is... too nice for something built for field work."
"It wasn't," Samir muttered, his eyes narrowing along the familiar scene. "At least, not originally..."
Elias said nothing, choosing instead to slow his gait to allow Samir to keep the lead.
Samir doesn't acknowledge it, his eyes instead are glued to the stairway, memories of him traversing the flight during active deployment overlaying over his vision. "Hold on just one moment. You three keep going, I.. need to check something." He mutters.
The trio glance at each other, Haru showing the most curiousity.
"What is it?" she asks, following his eyes towards the stairway leading towards the 'bridge' of the command carriage.
"If Seraphine was able to preserve herself beyond our systems purge, then perhaps the Ophanim would've been able to do the same." Samir mutters, already walking towards the first step, hand grasping onto the guiderails.
"But Seraphine is a proto-AI, the Ophanim is just.. a train." Haru counters.
"No, Babel designed her for something special, gave her the ability to breathe. But reasons behind those designs are long gone now, lost with Babel itself."
Haru opened her mouth to say something else, but stopped as Voss brought his hand in front of her, gesturing her to let it be. "Big boss wants to snoop around old files, let big boss be, if he finds anything interesting enough to share he'll call us."
"Never took you for the serious type, Voss." Haru remarks
"Oi-"
Samir ignores them as he continues up the stairs, the voices of Haru and Voss bickering fade as the distance increases, replaced by the reverberation of boots echoing between the walls of a narrow, metal corridor.
Reaching the top of the stairway, he looks around. Seats that used to be occupied years ago now left untouched and unused. Digital windows display everything around the carriage, giving a full three-hundred and sixty degrees field of view above the ring of desk-consoles; unfortunately not much use when the staff that used to work with Samir during the war are now gone. In the centre, the command console itself is still lit as if someone forgot to turn it off. No, it's not lit, it's waiting. Flickering.
Approaching the command console, it stop flickering, orienting its display to allow Samir to read it from his approach angle.
|| Login Credentials: The Administrator Samir of Babel-Varkos Joint Observation Force ||
|| Password: ||
"Right, I forgot they wanted to give me a very long title." He remarks, wishing he just requested for the title of 'Director' over there as he did for the Division.
Wincing once more at the lengthy Credentials, he expresses a sigh of relief that only the Councillor mocks him for it. Reaching out his hands, he goes to input the password he recalls from his first day onboard the Ophanim.
[[Denied]]
"What-"
He enters it again, faster this time.
[[Denied]]
"You were keyed to my credentials... Were you not able to survive the purge?" He asked, not expecting a response.
A pause, the entire carriage is quiet, not even the trio conversing downstairs could be heard.
He tries the password one more time, slower, carefully.
Then, the screen flickered, not in response to his inputs, but in response to him.
"Maybe it recognises me." Samir mutters in relief, watching as the login screen seems to.. dissolve, replaced by something entirely.
||Identity Mismatched ||
||Administrative Profile: Incomplete||
Samir stilled, confusion filled his face as he stands unsure what to make of this screen.
||Matching Parameters... ||
||Partial Recognition Confirmed||
A low tone resounded within the carriage. A tone heard by the trio down below.
"What was that?" Elias called up the stairs.
Samir didn't answer, his focus kept towards the changing screen.
||Archive Access: Conditional ||
||Limited Data Release: Approved||
||Accessing Data From Onboard Archive||
Files upon files instantly began downloading, categorised into freshly generated folders and named appropriately.
"Guess our data-purge did nothing to you, Ophanim." Samir mutters, unsurprised. The Division itself was only half made by Babel, it utilised some Varkos Architecture in its systems which made it more vulnerable to purge attacks. The Ophanim however, was full-blooded.
Glancing down onto the centre console, he opens the folders and begins scouring through them, reading the names of the files recently recovered from the Observation & Archive carriage.
"Mission logs, weather reports, maintenance reports..." his eyes ran through each file, abstracting their names like patterns from a painting, pausing only when he sees something that wouldn't normally stand out.
||Log: Final Operational State ||
||Status: Interrupted ||
Samir's eyes narrowed, his finger hovering over the file's icon, ready to open it. He didn't. Choosing to scroll, he keeps going through the file names, the former reaching the edge of the screen, until, it didn't.
The file opened by itself.
The display changed to portray a map of the Eastern Continent, Varkos Coalition, Heleran Dominion and Iron Accord's territories all marked with their respective colours on the land. In the centre, is Babel, surrounded by the fortress of Ganzir, its tallest skyscrapers peering just over the apex of Ganzir's wall.
|| Warn ||
||Map Outdated||
|| Update Map? ||
Samir looks down at the prompt, 'With Babel's end, how does the system plan to update itself?' He ponders. 'It shouldn't be able to update at all.' He realises, 'There should be no operational system left running in the ruins of Babel and Ganzir. Frequent expeditions towards the ruins by both Varkos and the Iron Accord's Inquisition Forces have confirmed that. Unless...'
He presses down on the prompt.
||Updating||
He watches on, anxious as lines of information scrolls down before him.
||Network Reached ||
||Initiating Handshake ||
||Reaching Network Callouts: ||
||>>> Architect Neural Network - Ongoing ||
||> Babel ||
||- Network Error ||
Samir breathed out, "Of course..." he muttered.
||> Ganzir ||
||- Network Error ||
||- Transit Network Error ||
||>>Logistics Chain ||
|| - Eastern Corridor Error ||
|| - Western Corridor Handshake Accepted ||
|| - Northern Corridor Handshake Ongoing ||
|| - Southern Corridor Error ||
He watches on, not expecting some remnants of Ganzir to still be operating.
||>External Relay Arrays ||
|| - Handshake Accepted ||
||>Orbital Relay Arrays ||
|| - Handshake Accepted ||
"The satellites still work, that's good. I assumed the Territory Border Arrays were disconnected though.."
|| Observation Division ||
|| - Administrative Intelligence Model-Theta Ongoing ||
|| Division Network Accepted ||
Samir stays silent, his eyes, drilling into Seraphine's original name. Then-
||>>>Ganzir Defence Network - Error ||
||>>> Babel Defence Network ||
|| - Legion Hive Mind Error ||
|| - Legion Hive Mind Error ||
|| - Legion Hive Mind Error ||
|| - Legio DEVIATION DETEC ||
The line cut. The screen itself froze momentarily, then almost as if the system panicked, it jumped back to life, catching up with instructions it couldn't display earlier.
The trio downstairs no longer audible as he continues to stare at the console, overtaken by several warning prompts, flooding the display with a hue of red over grey.
|| Warn ||
||Handshake Severed||
Samir's eyes widen in surprise.
|| Warn ||
||Disengaging Network Callouts||
|| Warn ||
|| Severing Identifier Packet: Legion||
|| Warn ||
|| Networked Compromised: Severed Hand Protocol||
|| Isolating Clean-Slate Satellite Networks ||
|| Sending 'Reinfall' Packets ||
|| - Atmospheric Breach Est - 138 minutes ||
||>Reinstating Foreign Observation Link - ECD ||
|| - Link Accepted ||
The sounds of footsteps echo from the metal stairway, heavy, measured steps leading closer to the entrance of the Command Bridge; yet Samir doesn't look up.
Elias, having grown concern after not hearing any replies from Samir, decided to venture upwards. Peering his head around the doorway from the stairs, he sees Samir, both hands pressed on the console, his eyes estranged as red and grey hues seem to reflect off him from the console. "Is everything alright, Director?" Elias asks, his concern growing stronger.
Samir doesn't look up.
"Ready a ride. We're returning to Division Headquarters." He orders, voice grim with revelation.