Building the Collateral - 85 - Early Access (Patreon)

A very long time ago, there was once only just a single building that the Department of Justice and Human Rights tried to confine themselves to. Perhaps it was simply a matter of budgeting at the time. Perhaps it was a sign of how they hoped to never need a larger space for their grim work.

Either way, such an effort to have a single central facility failed. Now there were multiple properties listed across the Metropolitan that bore their name, all both technically headquarters and branches at the same time. That part never was properly clarified, nor was the policy about including home offices.

There just simply was too much to do otherwise.

“We have to stop that purification fleet. The battlegroup here, head towards Gamix immediately. Stop them before they set the world alight.”

“The synthetic rebellion on White Bres has taken a darker turn for the worse. They’re shifting to converting all organics into cyborgs. Quick, get a Liberator Team on standby!”

“Dammit, Trunk Security isn’t backing down and neither is House Stone. Hostilities risk escalating- are they trying to restart the Interest War?!”

“Don’t worry- we have lancers on scene.”

Lyuba exhaled, the familiar chatter of galactic crisis resolution filling her ears. Her hand reached out and lifted up her filled coffee mug from where it rested. Mindful of how her hand shook, she carefully brought it to her lips and drank greedily.

An entire cup, down in one go.

She replaced it back and was already queuing up the next cup. Technically, beverages should only be brewed in the break room; something to do about working conditions. But everybody who wanted to remain sane in the New Division agreed that keeping one such device at their own cubicle was a necessity. ‘Breaks’ were more of a thing one did at their desk in this line of work, as even a minute away from a developing genocide could mean a few thousand lives already gone while one fiddled with a vending machine.

When put that way, drinking and eating on the job was somewhat forgivable.

The Union bureaucrat briefly closed her eyes and felt the heat chase away the encroaching chill. It was not because the office was cold. She’d been just assigned another case on the docket, one that spoke about a quite sobering matter. On a distant Diaspora planet that she would never see with her own eyes, evidence has finally come forth regarding unacceptable labor conditions. The culprit: an interstellar conglomerate that sold children’s toys. The victims?

Children, working desperately to afford medicine. Replacements for their parents, who had acquired chronic illnesses from those very same work environments when they were young. A familial exploitation that stretched back generations, bound by ancient debt-labor laws that could only be enforced beyond their sight.

That it had taken so long for Union to be alerted of a potential scenario was already mortifying. That it had taken so long for them to then be provided hard evidence of the matter, that was agonizing. Those responsible had gone to great lengths to disguise the exploitation, almost hilariously spending far more than if they had simply just… paid for honest and fair labor, in good working environments.

The irony of it was galling. Especially when considering, to those who purchased such toys, they apparently had a stellar reputation of charity.

What was it to them that that pushed them to utilize such cruel, inefficient methods while donning this mask of loving? Was it pride? Persistence? Or… no, it didn’t need dwelling upon any further. Experience as Lyuba was, sometimes it was better to not need to know everything about a situation.

Especially when it came deciding a resolution.

Already, she had just pushed out the coordinated plan. Because of how the information was obtained, the company already knew they had been compromised. They were already likely scrambling a response, but Union moved faster when properly motivated. On-site teams would go in and rescue the children, while affiliate agencies were preparing disenfranchisement campaigns. Within a few cycles, a series of scandals should be pushed to the front page of those worlds who had been the largest patrons of the company. Another couple turns later, then the full story should be out, legal case served.

Within the year, Lyuba would be surprised if anybody spoke of the company or the executive suite positively.

Her tired eyes trailed across and spied one of the few breaks from the stacks of paper that overburdened her desk. A small photograph, taken of a beleaguered but grateful community. One that owed their existence to her past efforts.

The sight pushed a worn, but warm smile to her expression at the reminder, helping to truly chase away the lingering darkness of her most recent work. That had been a close one, where a latent bio-engineered virus from some distant conflict long past nearly culled the population of an entire sector. A terrible plague that almost cost the lives of millions- and requiring an obscure cure that necessitated a team of lancers to raid some forgotten facility with even more terrifying biological monstrosities. Each of them, a host to another terrible illness that required additional research to counter.

It’d been quite the crisis, one that had kept her awake for a record number of days. Never knowing what new complication would be hurled at the team- and what support she had to be able to provide immediately to save lives. The photo that came after days afterwards, passed on by her seniors.

And immediately, upon laying eyes upon it, she knew all her struggles had been well-worth it.

The small chime of her clock shook Lyuba out of the trip down memory lane. Right, mental break over- she needed to actually get back to work now. Next on the agenda… hmm. Interesting.

An update to the Cavia case.

The Half-Committee had been a latent threat that the DoJ./HR had passively been keeping an eye on, wary but ranking as quite low on the scale of matters to tackle. Especially after that little public scandal in which they proved that, at the time, their own experienced SecComm soldiers were superior to the novice and recently inducted ThirdComm. Something that made a lot of generals who fancied themselves future politicians wary of trying again.

Still, they hadn’t committed any so… overt violations of humanity to warrant immediate intervention. Flash cloning definitely had ticked off their department, hence why they began to subtly push for megacorporations to begin sundering and absorbing pieces of the frustrating SecComm successor. It’d looked like it was going well, with factions developing and beginning to fracture the once unified petty empire.

Then whatever old guard was present clumsily realized their fading authority- and launched a suicide attack on a Core World.

Needless to say, Union was not so tolerant of them afterwards.

It was one of the probable few times where their department was told to mobilize all resources towards this focus. A mix of politics and practicality demanded a full response, with nothing held back. Even other critical cases were told to sit and wait, as the public cried out for retribution.

Which did bother Lyuba, along with most colleagues she knew of. It rubbed them all the wrong way. Maybe it was a case of being told how to do their jobs, but it was hard to tell other people in need that vengeance was apparently what took precedence of the docket. It was at least good motivation for them all to do it quickly, toppling the Half-Committee’s former leadership with a single decapitating strike. Thus appeasing the demand from the bosses of their boss.

But now, they also had to deal with those remnants that floated around here and there. All of whom at least seemed aware of what it would take to provoke a Union response, and were thus keeping their activities below their notice… as far as the New Division knew, anyway. Ugh, the situation was a mess across multiple sectors.

And the case that Lyuba had to handle was one such matter that she felt a growing headache about too.

The Cavia Committee, led by a former officer of the Half-Committee. It was a curious deviation that seemed to indicate a willingness to comply with Union standards, which was definitely appreciated. One could maybe even say that whoever was in charge surely turned over to a new leaf.

But as heartening as that might be, Commander Matthew Moores was still on a list that the general Metropolian public did not look favorably upon. Honestly, if he just spent the rest of his days in the Diaspora, continuing his efforts of improving a people far from their reach, then Lyuba would have happily just left the case be to focus elsewhere.

Annoyingly though, politics was once again coming into play. Because apparently, according to recent news broadcast, he revealed that he was taking in newly discovered family member. One Morgan Moores, who immediately flagged multiple databases once pictures of her circulated. Not least of all because it happened to be relevant to another matter on her own plate as well.

Jupiter’s Boon, that ‘scout battleship’ sent to survey the sector- it’d been attacked by somebody that looked an awful lot like her.

That was another pain in its own right. It wasn’t that the bureaucrat couldn’t understand the admiral’s grief- but again, it was somebody yelling at her about how to do her job. Of course she’d arrange for the matter to be elevated and investigated in due time, but the father wasn’t satisfied with waiting. He’d lashed out publicly and that’d gotten the politicians involved. Which escalated into a mess that the DoJ/HR had to once again sweep up thanklessly, not at all pleased by this waste of valuable resources.

… But maybe she was being a bit too critical of a now-dead man, Lyuba reflected with a sigh. It wasn’t like he foresaw the entire bigger mess he was causing. Then he kicked it out there, and now the matter was back on her plate to deal with.

Now, back to the subject at hand. Was it a case of war criminals working together to escape Union justice? There was an argument to be possibly made for, but the more Lyuba studied the case, the less convinced she became. Especially when circumstances didn’t line up.

If Morgan was truly like a super weapon to be kept secret, why announce her official inclusion? Why not just hide her until those desperate moments? Not to mention that there was a sharp image discrepancy, in the form of the recovered footage showing a young girl with a symbiote sylph mask on her. Meanwhile, her new public appearance displayed no such attachment.

After a few more cross references, Lyuba sighed and thought she had a pretty good read on what had happened. Especially when the SSC complied and sent over a report of what they had uncovered based off her nudging. A black project test subject, freed from a life of laboratories- and now finding her own life out there.

It was almost heartwarming, if not for the fact that Lyuba still saw scales that needed to be balanced.

Admittedly, perhaps it was quite unbecoming. A member of ThirdComm certainly shouldn’t be so vindictive. But at the same time, this entire matter was their mess- their mix-up which costed Union even more through a series of unforeseen dominoes knocking against one another.

So. It was only right that she emailed some of her contacts and hint that they really should be doing some more local charity work to offset all those incurred costs. Compensation for the repairs and lost lives had only been just the beginning; now, to properly make them feel the weight of needing to support a cause they might not have been interested in before for some time to come.

Else, the megacorporation could find its interests perhaps being passed over in favor of other competitors.

It wasn’t a favor to Commander Moores. But if he sent her a thank you card later, then well, she wouldn’t turn it down. Though admittedly, it’d be hard to keep on her desk. War criminal status did make affiliations and favors so annoying.

The shared server was administered and fashioned in the likeness of their supreme employer. Was it perhaps a reminder of what they jointly strove for, or simply what was most comfortable for them now? That was a question that sometimes spilled over into their communal chatroom, at least until the moderators shooed it back onto topic.

At present though, there was no such unchecked chatter about that. It was just simply a digital recreation of a Skyhook carrier, those mobile enclaves favored by Smith-Shimano Corpo, but with even fewer constraints. After all, as this was a server run by some of those higher-ups, memory was plentiful.

So there really wasn’t even a room limit to fret about. Meaning that each and every user could request their own quarters to relax in if need be. There was no reason to share, unless there was a specific reason for it.

In this case, it was simply because the two NHPs happened to be good friends in their line of work.

“… So I took a look, and what do you know?” The bespectacled man sighed and shook his head. “Uncredited sourcing, everywhere.”

“Oh my, how dreadful.”

“Yes, to a degree bordering on plagiarism.” He took a sip of his drink, an amalgamation of data that happened to serve as a helpful security scan to bolster his system. “I warned as such, so my student will have to be more diligent in their next essay if they wish to avoid further suspicion.”

“A reasonable step to take,” his colleague told and bit into her own little snack. “Oh, you should really try this. It’s quite excellent.”

“Really? What is it?’

“A pile of literature I have been meaning to read for some time.” Despite it actually resembling something more like a chicken skewer in cyberspace, she was quite adamant about the taste. “It does have an excellent taste to it. Give me a moment, and I’ll copy it.”

But before she could carry out the operation, the slight chirp of her mailbox distracted the two. It was a physical thing in this space, a small postal box that now glowed dimly with the alert of a new message. Her arm lifted out and reached in the direction, uncaring of the distance between the two. A moment later, the limb dissolved into pixels before reforming back, enveloped clasped between her digits.

A finger ran along the top and the message spilled out, letting her read it. Then, a soft gasp. “Oh my. I’m finally receiving a new assignment.”

“Really?” her companion leaned forwards, intrigued. “What is it? Another private tutorship?”

“No, it’s… my word!” She passed the message on with a smile. “It looks like I’m off to a more exciting role now. I’m apparently to present myself to a charity effort to a Diaspora world, an endeavor that will very likely be a commitment for some time. If possible, I ought to look into securing like a role as an educational minister, or something to that equivalent.”

“That is quite the order indeed,” commented her friend, genuinely happy for her as he parsed the message too. “Finally, they recognize the great Kishi’s passion for teaching and are willing to send you out with considerable support to uplift other worlds.”

She blushed and waved a hand. “Please, I just happen to find joy in seeing mortals learn. It is so unlike how we can simply understand things so quickly. I almost wish it were that strenuous for us, to require far more processing to simply… learn something new.”

“Almost?”

“Well, it would be quite a bother to need to review everything ahead of time to prepare suitable test questions.” She laughed quietly at her little joke, only to realize an unusually serious expression coming over her friend. “Is something the matter?”

“Have you reviewed the end list of the letter? The part that details who else will be a part of this expedition?”

Kishi blinked, then took back the message to review the final part. Truth be told, she had mostly just skimmed the remainder of the communique after that personal offer towards her. But it also did contain a very detailed personnel list of who else was coming along. Most of them were names that she did need to lookup in the database, but found nothing so odd about.

That was until she reached the very end and choked upon seeing a single name. One she needed no database to look into. “Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Surely this is in error?”

“I mean, they surely happened to notice the trend where you two happen to be quite productive when placed together-”

“Only because I refuse to allow him to upstage my work!” The letter was very violently ripped apart in her hands, the equivalent of data being immediately deleted in anger within this digital space. “Argh! You have no idea about how just… insufferable that roach is!”

“Yet you’ll go on the expedition all the same?”

She paused briefly, then still nodded. “I will, as this is an opportunity unlike any other. But I’m not happy!” Kishi reached out, then pulled into being something resembling a tankard of beer. Something that contained plenty of rather garbage and pointless data, meant to ‘inebriate’ a system. “Listen, you’ve never worked with them, so you don’t know! But they always got that sort of tired, yet insufferable smug know-it-all attitude! A genius geneticist doctor yes- and one who knows it!”

“Uh-huh.” Feeling his friend was going to probably fall into something like a drunken stupor, the fellow NHP summoned his own can of beer and popped it open. Might as well turn this into proper drinking session now, forgoing the tea on the table. “Go on.”

And so she did and he laughed, two digital voices amid a sea of data that would only appear is blinking lights on the physical server infrastructure.