Defenders of the Universe

Nicole Taylor

## Mission synopsis

Early one morning the agents present in the construct - Cormac being absent on business - are ordered to the briefing room. There waiting is a member of the Void Engineer's ETD, which extended a request for them to join Captain Phillip Broughton's Sidereal Strike Force on a special mission in deep space. Permanently assigned to space, Broughton's Strike Force is very well known among the Void Engineers - with about equal measures of respect and fear.

Captain Broughton presented himself via holoscreen, and the mission details were discussed. A group of Void Engineers was spotted coming from an "Everett Volume" - a manner of parallel universe - and fought some Nephandi near the Oort Cloud. This presented a unique situation - while the Void Engineers deal with Everett Volumes occasionally, there had never been a situation where persons from inside a Volume crossed over to ours.

The team departed for Dark Side Moon Base, where they would board the TUS Resplendent, Captain Broughton's flagship. Curiously, it was docked in a far-separated part of DSMB, through tunnels that subtly discouraged people from visiting that section. Still, within not too much time the three reached a waiting Captain Broughton - all at the same time, despite Salisbury's use of his suit to travel much faster.

Once on the ship, they discussed the situation. The Everett Volume team was situated on Charon, Pluto's moon - currently claimed by the Euthanatos, and personally declared off-limits by archmage Senex. That would normally be slightly problematic, but due to the current diplomatic situation, going in guns blazing was a bad option, so it was slightly more problematic. The team decided instead on the diplomatic approach, and started making tea and crumpets; having met Senex before, they hoped to be able to discuss it directly.

Shortly after, nearing the Pluto system, Taylor called Senex - number still in the smartphone (and the signal boosted by the Resplendent's comm system). Senex answered, but was puzzled why Taylor would call from his bathroom; after some confusion, it turned out that the team - including Cormac - was already present on the Euthanatos base. Turns out, their duplicates were the visitors from the Everett Volume. They obtained permission to head to Charon with a small team, which was when the Respendent, with excellent dramatic timing, arrived.

Welcomed to the Euthanatos base by a small team of guards, the team (the three Antwerp agents and Captain Broughton) were lead to a conference room with a square table Our team marked themselves so they would be able to tell each other apart. After meeting their duplicates with some hesitation, they proceeded to sit down and discuss what happened.

First, the Everett team's journey was discussed - they escaped a dangerous situation through an unstable portal and something went wrong; after arrival, they were picked up by the Euthanatos. It didn't take long, however, for changes in the two timelines to become apparent - for one thing, there were no more traditions in their world, having been exterminated by the Technocracy in the 90's. Meanwhile, their world had experienced a large Nephandic invasion, which our world didn't. More disturbing were the stories about a world without creativity, as that was stamped out by the Technocracy and replaced with order and obedience.

Things came to a head when Everett-Salisbury referred to the world post-Technocratic victory as "Perfect Order" - which our Salisbury responded to rather violently, being diametrically opposed to that idea. Deciding to shoot first he aimed at him, However, Jane had deduced that Everett-Salisbury was lying when he was talking about believing in the "Perfect Order" of the alternate Technocracy.and said so. The result was that Salisbury completely disintegrated Everett-Jane instead of Everett-himself. At least, that happened the first time - until Captain Broughton reversed time to before the shot and put Everett-Jane in a Stasis Bubble.

As it turned out, they weren't happy followers of the new perfect Technocratic Order, and instead were fleeing from it, the only way they could. What followed was a story on how the Everett-Union got corrupted post-victory, with corrupt elements of Iteration-X and the Syndicate being stamped out, only to be replaced by the secret societies that weeded them out. One especially bad one, according to the Everett-team, was Project Invictus.

At that point, a preset trigger went off in agent Jane's mind - she knew about Project Invictus, because they encountered it before - and Levi removed that information from her mind, because he was a prime member of it. After recovering the information, Jane erased it back from her own mind with Mind and Time - periodically re-remembering the information, and putting in triggers so she would be able to recover it when it came up.

What followed was an intense discussion on the inherent problems - or lack thereof - of the Technocracy. The Everett-team was claiming that the Technocracy in our world was doomed to end up the same way if they ever won, because they would always impose Stasis. The best way forward was to keep the Technocracy and Traditions in balance, cancelling each other's worst influences out. Our team was, surprisingly, rather split about this, with Taylor arguing for the Technocratic agenda, and Salisbury agreeing with the Everett-team that the Technocratic ideal was an impossible one. Meanwhile, Taylor and Jane, in a seperate Mind-conversation, were discussing the Everett-team's claim that Levi became corrupted in their timeline, and the possibility of that happening in ours.

It took a while, during all this, for our team to notice Senex's conspicuous absence, not yet having arrived even after all this time. Even more conspicuous was the fact that his teacup was a lot emptier than it used to be.

Realizing he was present for the entire discussion (and realizing they may have spoken too freely up to now), there was a lull in the conversation, as Senex's input was asked for.

As it turns out, his input was as simple as it was surprising as it was shocking; "You should probably start by killing the four Nephandus here".

The room died down for a second, before it erupted in violence. Senex evacuated, and "Everett"-Salisbury - or Nephandus-Salisbury - was quickly dispatched by Salisbury and Taylor as likely the most dangerous target. Nephandus-Cormac let out vicious acid blasts that almost penetrated Salisbury's suit, but he held out. Nephandus-Jane simply shimmered, while Captain Broughton prepared temporal defenses and Jane tried to take out Cormac. In the resulting firefight, our team held together through superior defensive measures - while Taylor took a hit despite her Spatial Ballistics Analytics procedure, it did manage to deflect it slightly so the ballistic mesh armor took the brunt of the punishment. The fightstopper, as usual, was Salisbury, however, as he unleased a rocket barrage into the room. The resulting explosion slightly singed our team, but completely devastated the Nephandic team, already beaten down.

Senex returned, none too pleased about the destruction of the room, but thanking the team for the valuable intelligence. It turned out he knew about their Nephandic status for a while, and figured the best way of extracting information was to let their plan play out in a controlled fashion. Through their discussion with us, he deduced a lot of their plan - mainly, sowing doubt and confusion among our team, a plan that, unfortunataly, seems to have worked. While the Nephandic team was dispatched, the way back to DSMB - after a short farewell from Senex - was rather uncomfortable for the team.

While the team quickly gave a full report to Levi - including their renewed knowledge of Project Invictus - the official report was brief - "Unknown team identified as Nephandic infiltration team and dispatched".

## Existential Doubts

'Nicolas, take the rest of the day off.' says Patricia.

He looks surprised, but knows better than to question her and leaves immediately.

Patricia has her office to herself. Wondering how to write a report about what happened.

Well, first things first. She scans herself for entropic influences. None found. A second attempt yields the same results. That however, does not give her any certainty. She would give herself those results, wouldn't she? She stares at the computerscreens as if she's having a staring contest with it. Which is silly, if anyone should know you can't win those it's her. The Feed has a very well functioning shift system.

So. The mission. That was a failure. A big one. Not like Franklin getting spotted by non-enlightened people, or Nicole blowing up Q-divisions devices again. This was a failure that could kill the TU. Eliminate the TU, she corrects herself quickly. Killing is for humans. Or animals. As if on cue, Charlotte crawls into her lap. Patricia pets her absentmindedly. Black does not seem to be the right colour for her anymore. All fun and games the jokes about her being a mage, even a Nephandic mage when she's certain she won't be. But she's not certain anymore. They got to her. Snowwhite would be a better colour for Charlotte than witchblack now. She types:

> **Request safe nanotech colourchange for Charlotte from black to white**
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At least anything she said about doubting Levi was done through a mind procedure. Would an archmage be able to break throught the encrypment of a brain wave generator that is encrypted by a mindmaster? Some small part of her brain starts calculating the odds. Senex, contact of mindmaster Levi, about 72% chance he can. Patricia locks down the part that's calculating and eradicates the result. Doubting Levi. Why did that seem to be a good idea? Maybe because he seems to lose control somethings. Getting white as a sheet after the events in Aquatopia. Acting irrational. Not doublechecking of the elimination of Project Invictus was carried out well, both by herself and even worse, by Franklin. Being chummy with an archmage. The sarcastic part of her mind chimes in: Maybe you of all people should not be suprised about that. Eliminating the conditioning of his agents years ago, before T0 even existed. Or did it? It was just in time. Time. Time to stop procrastinating. Time to face the consequences. Tea won't cut it this time. She starts typing:

> **Request psychological assistance and counseling for dr P. Jane, MD**
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