My name is Asterius. I am one hundred and seventy two years old. I am the Overseer of the Order of the Cog's Teeth. I am Tired.
I watch Aurelia leave out the bulkhead doors to my combined office and living quarters. She walks timidly, as if I scare her. Perhaps I do, even after all this time. I hear her call out for Harut, down the hall. He had been waiting for quite a while for her - a sweet gesture, all things considered. Despite my quarrels with his Overseer, the man himself was quite pleasant. Good for her, I think. I'm happy that she has someone. I only have one such friend now.
Verdan Zure is willing to take in Aurelia for a time. Provide a “stable presence” for her. I suppose they recognize that her pains hit too close to home for me, however distant that home may be. I could sense the mocking in their voice when they offered, but even still I felt there was no other way. As unfortunate as it is, Zure is right. I can’t help her.
A video of Callisto and Aurelia baking bread and laughing together is hovering in the center of my living quarters. Aurelia had a spot of flour on her cheek, and Callisto is helping her knead. It's comforting. Relaxing, even. The video is overlaid with one of Aurelia in bed in a luxury hotel room, Callisto gently brushing her hair. Only one is real. Verdan would be impressed. The subtleties of electronic neural manipulation, at least in that sense, are lost on me. Zure’s always seen that as their wheelhouse, and direct violence and enforcement more of mine. I can’t blame them. Ever since our time working together when we were young, those are the roles we have slotted into. The friendly field banter has never ceased since, despite the demands of duty keeping us apart. Almost like my protege. Zure as Callisto and I as Aurelia. It’s funny that I’ve only thought of this now, really. I’m sure Verdan has already thought on the comparison - they’ve had their eye on Aurelia for quite a while as well. I should call them again.
For now, though, there is much work to be done, and much to turn my eyes to. Zure will have to wait, and I am sure they would not object. I do worry that I keep in touch too much for their liking, and a break may be good - for their soul at least. Not mine.
Meditation has always been my sanctuary in times like these, where futures are uncertain and the busywork simply grates against my true purpose. I begin to chant my hymns. My frame of mind expands from beyond the limitations of my body. Time, itself, folds in on itself like a tesseract. I invoke the arcane technologies used to allow myself this luxury, diagnostic tests and rituals baked into one. There are familiar faces in the fog - an eyeless golden mask, blonde hair framing a soft face, a sweet smile wreathed in age-worn skin, high cheekbones and piercing eyes. My consciousness separates fully, allowing a gentle separation into my own mind, purely for meditation. The order faces turmoil now, but the root of the problem is ever older.
I ‘come to’ days later. It’s not unusual to lose time these days, as I’ve added efficient automation software to allow me to conduct routine tasks while still meditating in quiet contemplation. I’ve been meditating for longer and longer lately, mulling over the fate of the Order. Despite how much I put my mind to it, the core of the corruption at the heart of the Order of the Cog’s Teeth is not yet evident to me. Only its manifestations are clear - an acidic drip in the veins of the Order, eroding our very foundations. It’s been present since before my time, even, reflected in the words of Minos and his glassy-eyed look when he used to give me sermons. The corruption once took the shape of an evening dress, clinging elegantly to the form of Tethys as she spoke gently, words muffled and mouth hidden. It remains, still, in Lorelai’s tremor and Evie’s smile, Aurelia’s voice speaking it into being.
Aurelia. I took a moment to collect myself, finally processing the sensor feed from the hallway. How long had she been standing outside the door? No matter. I let her in, where she kneels before me.
“What brings you to my sanctum, Sister Aurelia?”
“Your briefing, Overseer.”
Ah. I must have sent the mission briefing automatically. No matter.
“Do you have any questions as to your assignment?”
“None. I only wished to indicate my fealty and request a combustor rifle requisition. I feel it is needed for the mission ahead.”
“And so you have it. Retrieve what you need from the armory on the way out. You are blessed, Aurelia. Do not fail.”
With my blessing, she turns and leaves the room, stride confident and assured. My databanks flutter with a flicker of recognition, but the original neural architecture lights up like the Christmas trees of my youth. I remember her from before the augments. Not Aurelia, but one not unlike her. The same stride, the same flutter of thin blonde hair, the same not-quite-met-the-eyes gaze. Wanting to avoid my own cortisol-soaked neurology at the revelation, I channel in to Aurelia’s sense-feed.
I am first struck by the gentle, warm blanket of morphine-calm that lies over Aurelia’s frame, not unlike a quilt draped over her by a loved one. She reaches a hand to her head in response to the access protocols causing a moment of pain, but quickly recovers. Her posture stiffens. She’s outside the armory now, placing her eye to the retinal scanner. The door chimes and parts, opening a wide weapons cabinet before her. Her eyes pan across the arrayed weapons, eyes lingering on the heavy, blocky form of the combustor rifle. The weapon itself is a milled chunk of metal inlaid with folded copper heatsinks, branching pressure lines, and a rudimentary system of grip and sights. A bank of empty pressure vessel slots line the outside edge of the weapon. Painfully slow to reload, I muse, recalling old missions with this ancient piece of technology. Many times I had been caught out without gas in my gun, and had to resort to more brutal methods.
At the very least, the gun is useful in a melee brawl. Its form, outdated and built around a much more powerful laser core than its successor in the combustor pistol, can hardly be lifted by the average person, much less used as an effective weapon. Aurelia can only lift the weapon due to the servo-assists built directly into her bones, bolstering the strength of her otherwise feeble form. I can feel the servos straining against her reinforced bones, but the pain is dulled by the morphine drip. Her form was weak, poisoned by the circumstances of her upbringing and own curiosity. While the titanium inlay of the servo-assists bonded well with the bone, her own weakness left them always sore. Whenever they strained, Aurelia could feel each snap of each tendril of calcite as they gave out under the pressure. The morphine was the only thing to keep it bearable.
Aurelia takes the initiative and retrieves the pressure cells from the wall, slotting them into the receptacles on the rifle. Two slots in total, ten shots. Enough for a single mission, but no more. A bold choice, to limit oneself so meaningfully. As if sensing my hesitation, she slips one more cell into the pockets of her robes. Quickly, Aurelia returns to the main armory, picking her baton off the wall before marching to her shuttle. I have already dispatched a FTL craft to the hangar for her - something for her to pilot, as a reprieve from her more backseat jobs as of late. Such craft are expensive to run, but the exertion of resources has been deemed appropriate in this case.
An upstart collective is to be destroyed. They’ve taken over an abandoned spacecraft over Neptune, and count among their ranks some of the heretics which dispersed after the wake of Tyr’s blunder over the moon of Callisto. Those who climbed from the great golden wreckage on the surface lost their faith and scattered to the winds, cropping up in all sorts of troublesome situations. For the good of the Orders, they must be eliminated. Tyr is too predisposed with his own circumstances to clean up his own mess, and such an opportunity is perfect for my own advancement. Tyr already doesn’t like me, and showing him up in his own backyard would only inflame such sentiments. No matter. Verdan may despise me for it, but subtle politicking is outside my nature. Better to make a show of force, I figure. Switching off Aurelia’s sense-feed, I turn to my other work and wait for the shuttle to arrive at its destination.
Soon enough, the vessel exits its sub-light bubble and quickly deccelerates, shown on my monitor as an alarm ping, distracting me from my other duties. Quartermastery can wait, though, as I tune in once more to Aurelia’s sense-feed. Slipping back into her body feels almost natural to me, as I welcome the bliss of morphine back into my her neural pathways. She feels… happy… to be behind the controls of such an advanced spacecraft. Such puerile joy has been lost to me for quite some time, and would under normal circumstances be cause for further education, but I can never quite find it within myself to break Aurelia of that instinct.
Pulling her spacecraft adjacent to the seemingly empty hulk, Aurelia matches relative velocity and rotates the vessel so the cargo bay faces towards a flat plate of micrometeorite shielding, bearing down on the larger craft. Quickly, she sets up a targeting solution on the main computer and rushes to the back as the cargo doors start the venting startup sequence. Before any gas is vented into space, Aurelia skillfully tucks herself into a boarding pod. The gel-lined rockets have been in service for hundreds of years, and I remember my first boarding action quite well. As the atmosphere vents from the cargo bay and the gel-seal closes over Aurelia’s eyes, engulfing her in darkness, I feel a twinge of fear. I can’t pin down whether this is my own reaction or if this is Aurelia - a worrying response to something so routine for either of us. I’m able to shove the fear down and focus on the countdown, readying myself for the impulse-blast which would carry us together to our destiny.
All at once, the integrated heavy monoprop jets propel us out of the cargo hold and towards the flat face of the hulking spacecraft, monitors blinking red within the dark, cramped hold of the boarding pod. Aurelia holds her breath during the transit - something I immensely relate to, having taken years for myself to break the habit. I almost whisper to her to breathe, but leaving the vessel undisturbed is best. I cannot assert control now - not when she is given purpose. Given power.
All at once, we slam into the spacecraft, steel mass tearings rents into the aluminum frame, the pod tearing deeper and deeper into the hulk before coming to a stop, lodged between floors. Impact gel dulls the shock, but it’s still jarring, disorienting us before our exit. The integrated explosives within pop the door off its hinges, pushing thin aluminum framing out of the way and creating a passageway large enough for Aurelia to climb through. Our limber body crawls out of the wreckage, oxygen mask held to our face, as we get our bearings in the vessel. A hallway lies ahead, and Aurelia quickly ducks within it. I, simply a passenger, have no choice but to hold my tongue and follow. The adrenaline flooding our system is so beautifully sweet - the warmth of biology, something I’ve long since left behind, reassuring and certain within the action of the now.
Aurelia unslings the combustor rifle from her shoulder, leveling the heavy weapon at the nearest bulkhead door. She pauses for but a moment as she picks out the footsteps of an approaching security guard from the roaring of venting atmosphere through her advanced aural suite. Her optical augmetic lines up with the crude sights of the combustor rifle. As soon as the approaching guard cracks the doorway, she is bisected with a beam of white-pink fluorine light. The beam pulses with a low hum, lasting just about a second as Aurelia sweeps it down the hallway, coring out another approaching guard. Nine.
The ecstasy comes, then, from somewhere deep within our neurology, tiny copper cables guiding pulses of concentrated bliss, exploding like fireworks within us. The exhilaration, the reverence of the act, the font of righteous hatred burning within us as our enemies are cut down. Another down the hallway - a superheated blur of pink and the defender is reduced to ash, burning wreckage painting the wall behind him. Eight. Such glorious ecstasy still remains within our mindshackle augment, the reward of obedience and the essence of the Steeled Lord’s blessings, coursing through Aurelia and myself in tandem. Down the door to the right - so says the internal layout described in the mission brief.
An atrium lies past the door, so Aurelia takes position for a breaching action. Nudging the door open just a little, she cuts down the first defender - seven - but only after a bullet pierces her robes. It’s a brief flash of pain, almost able to be overlooked in the heat of the moment, but we feel the hammer-blow of impact just the same, Aurelia’s breath leaving her in a sharp exhale. The pain hits us a second afterward, searing and nearly overwhelming, before the gentle vibration of the peristaltic pumps and their bitter syrup hit our system, pain washed away in gentle bliss, chemical and electrical beauty mingling together in their pops and fizzes of pleasure.
Bullets ricochet against the heavy bulkhead door Aurelia is hiding behind, but as trained, she waits for a break in the staccato of suppressing fire before sending a laser beam from behind the door. Six. The shot misses, but the defender is forced to keep his head down long enough to allow Aurelia to kick the door all the way open, sending another burst of humming light dragging across his chest, carving a cauterized gash from his shoulder down to his hip as he collapses, slumped against the railing. Five shots. The railing itself gives way under the superheated conditions, unceremoniously dropping the body of the defender onto the first floor of the atrium, body still engulfed in spreading pink flame. The smell is akin to chlorine and overcooked meat.
Aurelia does not give the body a second glance as she walks by. Our body feels… cold. The ecstasy of before is fading, now, dripping out of us like blood. Perhaps it is in fact the blood loss, as a sickly dark stain spreads across our lower stomach. The wound is not fatal, but will need triage once she returns to her vessel. Simple enough for an operator of her caliber. Meanwhile, my own senses - deadened to me, to be sure, but still accessible, like reading a manuscript underwater - are pinging simulacra of heat and excitement. Focusing in on the sensation, Aurelia responds in kind. She knows I’m here in our body, likely feels my sensations as her own. She does not react consciously, but a quick twitch of the jaw and sharp inhale tell me all I need to know.
The door is locked - evidently latched shut. Nothing two bursts from the combustor rifle cannot fix, melting the steel around the door frame into sputtering, boiling slag. Three. The door collapses inwards as Aurelia steps aside, vaulting the burning wreck with an almost clumsy but evidently purposeful motion. I internally cringe for a moment, the depth of Aurelia's frailty becoming obvious to me. I never struggled so much at her age. No such mistake should normally escape my ire, and accordingly Aurelia does twitch for a moment, my fury welling up inside our shared form, but such anger quickly dissipates.
As much as I hold Aurelia to my own standards, to be the operator I once was, I cannot in good conscience expect the same of her. Even now, with our forms blurred together, I can feel the lead in our muscles, the deadened sensations of our fingers, the shortness of breath so endemic to her as her life support system strained against the stresses of the mission at hand.
To put it simply, Aurelia is a shadow of what I was. What I am. Still, though, she is the one that guides us now, not me. I do not pilot her. The release of control into her hands - my one hundred and sixty years of experience in the service of the machine god, and I am guided by a mere novitiate in my terms. The release of my obligations for but a moment, the chance to exist together in our shared morphine-soaked form, our beauty coalescing into something truly divine.
I adore her for what she is. Her failures, her meager successes. She really is a daughter of the Cog's Teeth.
Footsteps down the hall. Aurelia levels her rifle and fires just before the operative crosses the threshold, cutting him in half as his inertia propels him inexorably into the pathway of the beam. Two shots. One more defender remains within the vicinity - one more to eliminate before we can go home.
Turning the corner, Aurelia catches sight of the final defender, leveling her rifle as they duck into a doorway. Under normal circumstances, Aurelia is well trained and tuned enough to bore right through the flimsy aluminum bulkhead and core out the operator inside, but for a moment, I feel our arms twitch out of the way, sending the bolt of energy careening off to the side, tearing rents in the aluminum siding but leaving the defender very much alive. One shot left. Better make it count.
The defender is breathing heavily. I can hear their laboured breaths through our aural array - the fear in their throat is evident. Aurelia, though - her heart rate is spiked, hands rattling like the augmetic stabilizers mean nothing. I replay the footage in my head, searching for an explanation. Upon a closer look of the defender's face before they ducked out of sight, the answer is obvious. The face is a dead ringer for one of the faithful, a maintainer named Sade, who is one Aurelia would be well acquainted with. I understand her hesitation. I had a similar reaction upon laying eyes on her, too- Aurelia's visage bore a striking resemblance to that of the long-departed Tethys.
Aurelia takes another few steps, listening to the heaving chest of the defender within. It seems the room is not deep - not more than just a supply closet, really. A last ditch hiding spot for the last of the defenders. Aurelia steps to the doorway, now closed, and presses the button to slide the metal sheet up and out of the way, weathered aluminum disappearing with a pained creaking into the allotted wells above and below. The defender cowers within, small body curled against the shelves. Aurelia steps through the portal. I hear our footfall against the corrugated floor, deafening in the enclosed space. We listen to the breathing, together, savoring the sensation but for a moment, purpose aligned in divinity.
We take another step, together. The figure shakes, evidently afraid. One more step, only this one is interrupted by a quick burst of speed from the figure on the ground. It explodes from its hiding place, swinging a hammer with reckless abandon at our head, Aurelia managing to jerk out of the way in the nick of time. The figure falls to the floor as Aurelia scrambles backwards before loosing her final burst into the soft flesh of the target's leg, dropping them to the ground. The figure collapses back against the shelving units gracing the far wall of the closet, hoisting itself aloft to compensate for the blown-out leg. Aurelia watches their feeble attempt to right themselves, one hand raised in surrender. Her breathing is even, heart rate at a steady 40 beats per minute, but I can see into her mind.
Aurelia is not fully with us, now, and so neither am I, as we both are in spirit tucked away inside one of the myriad supply lockers aboard the Iron Hand, heartbeats quiet and synced. Our skin feels hot and prickly, unholy in its tactility and an ever-present reminder of what I have left behind, but we keep our focus on the figure vainly trying to haul itself to its feet against flimsy shelving. Aurelia watches the expressions on its face - desperation and fear twisting its visage into something dreadful and pitiable. No pain, though - it seems to not have processed how badly it was hit. It tries to put weight on the laser-burned leg as we watch together, the leather-cracked entry wound proving too much as the Sade-shaped puppet - is that Aurelia thinking there? - collapses back to the floor. It rolls over for a moment, checking out its wound, crying out in shock at the charred, blackened hole where once muscle and nerves ran.
It was then that the smell seemed to hit, overwhelming the puppet with the aroma of their own cooking flesh, overcooked pork and metallic blood-scent, all doused in industrial amounts of water treatment compound. A memory of an oceanic vessel - the Venerable - passes in front of my eyes for just a moment. Aurelia’s eyes narrow on the puppet’s throat as it holds back vomit, the emotional toll of the moment too great for one so poorly trained.
“Please, please don’t do this, you don’t have -”
I feel Aurelia’s hand reaching into her robes, gently brushing sensation against our breast, reaching for something. The last pressure vessel. I cry out within her head; crying for the swift release of death for the heretic, that none should be permitted to defy the Orders in this way. Her demeanor shifts as her hand clasps around the cold metal of the ammunition cell. My breath eases as she does - though she releases her grip just as quickly, hand drifting to the shock baton hanging within her robes. It is then I surrender control fully, letting Aurelia guide us through this brutal exercise.
Our eyes are unfocused. We operate purely through instinct, now, as Aurelia slams her baton into the puppet’s arm, causing the thing to feebly drop the hammer and scream as its arm fractures messily, blood seeping to the surface through the impact site. Pulsing the voltage against the soft skin of its side, the puppet contorts into a protective pose - desired, but the intensity of the shock is minimal. Such protection can no longer be afforded to such a thing. Aurelia’s thoughts filter into mine - I can no longer tell who is the one thinking.
Aurelia bashes the puppet’s chest with the pommel of her baton. Ribs crack under the strike - five of them, all fractured near the sternum - and the puppet wheezes, chest collapsing in on itself, a look of terror plastered onto its face. Its arms lurch out of the way, exposing the thing’s chest as Aurelia seizes the moment - tearing away the jumpsuit it’s wearing, exposing the soft flesh beneath, red blossoms already appearing at the shock site. I look upon the pathetic thing before us, denied even its own dignity in death, in life, in whatever state of brutal half-life Aurelia intends to keep it in. The sensation provokes echoes of familiarity from somewhere within our minds. Aurelia pushes again, shocking the flesh until a char permeates the air around them both, the involuntary muscle contractions causing the puppet to scream in pain. Despite its best efforts, it can produce no protest, only pained coughing staining the skin of its face and chest with blood.
Aurelia takes a moment, surveying the puppet. Pausing for a moment, she runs her hand along the reddened bruised skin, eliciting screams of agony from the puppet, gripping tightly where the shock-burns are most intense. The flesh is soft in our hands. Even the sense-feed is distorted now, incandescent rage and agony pinging to countless other data-points, namely Sade, but others, too. Even my face flashes for a moment, superimposed onto the puppet’s own, causing Aurelia to dig her dull nails deep into the puppet’s flesh. With a scream, she lashes out, slamming her baton into the side of the puppet’s head, arc burning blue. The puppet screams once more, crimson blood pooling behind its white teeth. Aurelia reels back and sends the baton home once more, a sickly crunch reporting the impact. It smells of burned hair. There's a substance leaking from the puppet's ear.
The puppet drops, limp. During its brief moment of unconsciousness Aurelia peels away more of its jumpsuit, watching the internal burst blood vessels spill green-purple slurry of blood and platelets under the skin, feeling the warmth of the skin beneath her touch. The Sade-shaped thing gasps for air once more, jolting to consciousness after some seconds of being out. It doesn't register the hand on its waist, ever so gentle a sensation compared to the vastness of the agony it is experiencing. It cannot even express the pain - the repeated hits to the skull have damaged it so severely that it could do little more than groan, its babbling vocalizations quickly losing all sense of clarity. It reaches out a hand for Aurelia’s sleeve and the surprise of it causes us to jump back, jamming the shock baton far into the thing's soft skin, holding the power on for seconds. For us, the seconds dragged on painfully long. Seeing the puppet writhe and convulse under the arc, screams muffled by pooling blood in its mouth, eyes glazed and unprocessing, I can hardly stop the sickness rising in my own throat as if I still had organs to digest with. Aurelia, after agonizing delay, lets off the trigger.
The puppet is no longer living - at least in the way one like us would quantify. Yes, its chest rises and falls, and it still produces some vocalization (notably, quiet sobbing) as it remains curled in a pathetic heap against the shelving unit, but it no longer lives. All that is left now is to wait for the body to realize the brain is dead. Aurelia, though, does not intend to wait that long. I curse her in my own head - such brutality with no audience is a waste and corrosive to the soul - but she is the only one in control of us now. I enjoy such control, and it cannot be negated now, or else it would ruin the fun for both of us. I simply must grin and bear it. Aurelia summons her strength, caving in the temple of the unrecognizable puppet with her baton. She pulls back again, shattering more skull this time, striking again and again until the puppet resembles little more than a meat slurry. The sense-feed pings with recognition from Aurelia’s databanks - the slurry pings to rage pings to me. Only fitting.
Aurelia pants like a dog while straddling the broken body of the puppet, baton still in her left hand as the right has torn into the flesh of it, warm rivulets of blood seeping from beneath the skin. The baton has been bent at the telescope, unable to retract anymore, the tool having given its life for the cause. She inspects it for a moment, surveying the damage. She drops it without a second thought, hauling herself to her feet.
The game is over, now. I can reassert control. I load a new command into her mindshackle augment - destroy the remains - and close out the sense-feed as Aurelia retrieves the rifle and slides in the final pressure vessel, barrel leveled at the corpse.
I return to myself again, feeling the creeping emptiness enter me once more. Such a vacation into Aurelia’s body can only be managed ever so often, or else I would get lost in it. The sensation is addicting, including the pain. I did not even feel pain when the aircraft wrench collided with my leg on that fateful day - I almost wish I had, to have such searing sensation stop me for a moment, let Aurelia incapacitate me the way she did with the puppet. A creator destroyed by their own legacy, laid low in the way only an Overseer can be. I wonder how beautiful and radiant Aurelia is through blood-soaked eyes.
I suppose I need only ask Corinne.