TAZ46

==Chapter 46 - The Absolute Zero==
Somewhere....
May 20th, 3159
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[Overview...]
Among the First Circuit, there was a stunned moment of silence, because nothing hinting at what was now playing on hundreds of worlds throughout the Inner Sphere had been detected.  Media from Atreus to Sian, from Sian to recovering, shell shocked New Avalon, and from New Avalon, to Luthien were repeating the same information with only marginal, localized, differences.  
Even Rasalhague's media were playing it, albeit with some consternation among MIMIR officers and the rising anger of both civilian and military authorities alike.
It wasn't stopping with the Inner Sphere.  Sources as far flung as Alphard, and Canopus IV, were also repeating it.
and in Geneva.
There is a limit to what you can do, conditioning a man to think and act a certain way without tipping off his friends that he's acting on conditioning.  When the Master created Devlin Stone, they'd pushed hard to get the result just right-independent enough to be an open adversary, controlled enough to create the desirable outcome durable enough to keep it going indefinitely.  
Those master manipulators who flipped Victor Steiner-Davion, and Brother Lear, who managed Stone were gone. This was an attack aimed squarely at his programming.  For their puppet lord to function, he had to believe he was on the side of right and good, had to forget certain orders and misremember others.
A divided man, a schizoid man, the Apprentice of the Master had to believe in his own legend absolutely and without hesitation.
The ultimate Manei Domini, hand of the master, sat in his command center...and nobody knew what he was going to do, Least of all, the Brotherhood.
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FINI
The Absolute Zero has finished, the next major story arc continues with the The Adjudicator.
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