The Black Garden: Chapter 7

I wasn’t surprised when my ATLAS interface opened up of its own accord, alerting me that it was now connected to CEIDR's Xelphion network: our high-security intelligence channel. No information in the Confluence was truly secret, but intense quantum encryption was used to ensure that unwanted parties weren't listening into sensitive conversations.

"On the 6th of  Tashritu, a Taga Avaya informant and her bodyguard vanished in a small and somewhat problematic human settlement on Ideni." The Commander's voice rang clearly in my ears, as if he were speaking aloud, but his lips remained sealed as we hustled through the station toward the chow hall. "I am about to send you a pair of personnel files. Read both of them completely, then tell me your thoughts."

[New files: Boris Rybak, Gi Sh'Chani]

I arched my brows. Sh'chani's file was J-level, which was as close to true secrecy as one could get in Palae'an branches of the Confluence military. I decided to look at the human first, the bodyguard.

Informant profile: Boris Rybak

·      Planet of origin: Earth 334-07 (X)

·      Residence: New Warder, Kudonia Free Territories, Ideni.

·      Status: Unknown

Rybak was born to parents evacuated from Earth Instance 334-07-X after an Abyssal Breach in 2017 caused the planet’s local reality matrix to unravel. Entities manifesting as ‘dragons’ lay waste to this instance of the human homeworld. Rybak’s father, a Ukrainian military veteran, was the leader of a small enclave of survivors within the remains of an underground subway system in Dnipro, Ukraine. Survivors were evacuated in 2025 by the Abyssal Response First Contact Group. Most survivors were integrated into Confluence communities, but several families, including Rybak’s, elected to join the corporate ‘free town’ of New Warder.

Rybak’s early exposure to abyssal energy resulted in him developing limited Reality Manipulation abilities. He was assessed as a Gamma-rank ReMa at eight years of age and never attended another exam. He left New Warder after graduating charter school, serving with honors in the Panawahu Civil Defense Corps for ten months, but declined offers of Confluence citizenship and elected to return to New Warder. He founded a small private security company and provided services mostly to corporate officials.

A year after resettling, Rybak learned of the existence of CEIDR. He contacted Confluence agents and volunteered to serve as a confidential informant to provide information on New Warder. A personal interview with-” The Commander’s name was there, redacted “-determined that he refused Confluence integration due to his mistrust of non-humans. Despite this, he generally supported Confluence economic and social standards and wished to assist other humans in the fight against Abyssal forces.

I shook my head a little as I read. “A xenophobic company town on a terraformed Confluence world?”

“Indeed.” The Commander waited for his food to assemble, then whisked the tray free so that I could put mine down. He had ordered a very Ukrainian meal of vareniki, onions, and sour cream, bread with butter, and black ‘coffee’. Then it was my turn. I started with a loaded vegetarian hotpot with plenty of ‘beef’; sides of kimchi, pickled radish and carrots, and dotori-muk-muchim, a seasoned acorn jelly. Then I ordered a strawberry protein smoothie, brown sugar bubble tea, a high-calorie mango gel pack, melon bread, and a handful of vitamins. The Commander glanced sidelong at me as the foodweaver helpfully Tetris’d everything so it fit on the tray.

“Don’t judge me. I need the calories.” I flushed, still listening to Boris’s profile as it streamed.

“On 14/13/ 90045, Rybak reported he had been contacted and privately commissioned by Interplanetary Environmental Services to protect a human IES agent, Officer Chani Galette. She was ostensibly assigned to New Warder as part of an ongoing monitoring arrangement between New Warder and the Confluence. The IES informed Rybak that he had been selected due to his service history in Punawahu, his ability to liaise between Confluence and New Warderen officials, and his ReMa abilities. Rybak was to provide close personal protection for Officer Galette during her assignment, but was specifically informed that the IES would NOT register his role on the New Warder local net. They also compensated him in cash Guilders (the local currency). These were the flags which preceded him to alert CEIDR of possible ‘anti-human corruption’.”

“Are you serious? Anti-human corruption?” I snorted at the last line as we found a table, and began to mechanically stuff noodles in my mouth.

“It is a strange situation, no matter how you look at it. Rybak was unaware – as was CEIDR at the time – that Chani Galette was actually the persona of Gi Sh’chani, a Palae’an and Taga Avaya Farscout acting as part of a top-secret mission with unknown goals.”

“Wait,” I thought back. “How could he not know she was Palae’an?”

Eating neatly with knife and fork, The Commander meditatively chewed a dumpling. “Because her shell was a new biomechanical model designed to pass as human.”

I paused with my chopsticks partway to my mouth, eyes widening. “Ah. That’s awkward.”

“It certainly is. For all of us.”

“Did you know about it? I’ve never heard of an organic designed to pass as another species before.”

“I certainly did not.” The Commander paused eating to spread his hands in a graceful gesture, then returned to his plate. “I have… heard rumors of a similar program being implemented to allow Taga agents to go undercover as Nu-suht. But the humanoid shell project was not disclosed to me, or – as far as I can tell – anyone outside of the Taga Avaya and perhaps I.D.W Special Projects.”

Shells are basically robot bodies capable of being remotely piloted by temporarily or permanently digitized Palae. Sorani, for example, piloted a shell that functioned as a mobile medical platform ideally suited to her role as a nurse. Sorani’s real body slept in a stasis pod down in the oceans of Mareka, held in suspension while her consciousness worked and lived up here in J.B.T.

"Damn. All sorts of implications there." I shook my head as I ate. “The Taga and I.D.W still don’t trust us after sixty years of contact. I’d be offended, except… I know exactly why they’re treating humanity the same way they’re approaching the Nu-suht. And we probably deserve it.”

“It is unseemly to speculate. Earth is an active Abyssal battlefield: there are many reasons the Palae may be developing this technology. Which is why the information will remain within the mission’s working group for now,” the Commander replied. “Continue.”

I frowned as I moved to Sh’chani’s profile, which was barely five lines of very brief, generic information. She had opted to die at the end of her natural lifespan and become a Farscout, a fully digitized being. She was a relatively new Taga Avaya hire. Almost all other details were absent, which wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was her status. ‘Deceased’. Farscouts were functionally immortal, and they always created regular backups of themselves, in the event that something went wrong and they were accidentally deleted. But if Sh’chani was dead-dead, then that meant…

“A demon zeroed her?” I asked.

“Precisely. And in fact, a Taga Avaya liaison – in a rare gesture of cooperation – confirmed to me that all of Agent Gi’s backups vanished simultaneously at the approximate time of her death.” The commander nodded, cutting his bread into neat little squares before chewing them.

“Shit. Do we have a timeline of how it went down?”

“We have put together a rough timeline based on our information from Boris, along with the Taga Avaya’s reports. Sh’chani and Boris had attended a meeting concerning Vornn Industries’ new community investment and infrastructure plan, an obvious attempt by the settlement to stop the bleed and make it so more young people wish to live there instead of nearby Confluence cities. They stopped by their favorite bar, Die Hoekkroeg, and had dinner before taking a cab home.  Sh’chani retired to her office to give her daily report on her investigation. The Taga Nexus has declined to share the details with us thus far, but I am working on obtaining them.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fucking hell.”

“Minutes before she extinguished, Rybak sent a fairly typical – if not intriguing – report on Sh’chani’s activities. She was discussing the local pollinators, animals the locals call ‘hoi’pak’. Or, so we think. She was talking to her handler in a Taga cipher that is designed to fool AI translators and decryptors, so it’s possible that our decryptor mistranslated and she was reporting on something completely unrelated. And yet… it gets even stranger.”

I took a long pull off my bubble tea. “Go on.”

“The local authorities investigated the Confluence diplomatic residence, where the pair lived. No signs of disturbance, no evidence of any sort of fight or intrusion. Nothing on cameras, infrared, or any of the sensors at the points of entry,” The Commander continued. “IES pulled the camera footage from the house. However, there is something that we and the Tagas know that the local police do not.”

I made a face. “… Hold up. Police? New Warder has police?”

“And many other legacies of Earth, circa the 1940s thru the late 2050s,” he said.

“And we’re just gonna… let that happen?”

“Humans who don’t want to assimilate into our culture must live somewhere.” The Commander shrugged broad shoulders, leaning back. He cupped his coffee in both hands, mouth drawing to one side. “. What else can we do? Cast them out of Confluence space and force them to turn to piracy? Hand them over to the Nu-Suht? The Nu-suht certainly see a market for humans, as fodder in their military companies or pleasure markets. New Warder’s neighbors have expressed irritation at their non-participation, but non-Confluence citizens have the same rights as all other beings to self-governance. And as of the present moment, the settlement is headed toward a gentle natural extinction. Many New Warderens born on Ideni or taken there as young children are looking at the communities around them and realizing there is a better way. Despite his fears and prejudices, Boris was one such man.”

It made sense, but I didn’t like it. I sighed, and continued to stuff my face full of muk and gluten-beef. “I guess.”

“So yes. We, the Taga Avaya, and probably some working groups within Special Projects know that Sh’chani has been terminated by some Abyssal entity.” The Commander looked pensively toward the wall. A high-res projection made it seem as though it were transparent, revealing the glowing blue curve of Mareka’s atmosphere. The ocean planet was a deep, deep sapphire blue, roiling with a band of black and grey clouds around the equator. “IES does not. They and the New Warder authorities both believe that she and Boris have eloped.”

“You’re kidding me.”

He shook his head. “Their essential luggage was missing. Data on the house’s computers was deleted. The pair of them were apparently moving around the house, frantically packing in between intimate moments. Boris’s car was seen driving to the spaceport. Cameras showed him and Sh’chani, still in her humanoid shell, interacting like a couple and walking quickly to take a flight out of Confluence space. They boarded an unmarked human freelighter ship and vanished.”

“Except it couldn’t be Sh’chani, because Sh’chani was secretly a Taga Farscout, and she got wiped by a demon,” I finished. “So whoever killed her and Boris, they thought she was human and engineered a deepfake. They figured the nullification would blur everyone’s memories.”

“That was also my conclusion. And the Taga Nexus team’s.”

I found myself morbidly fascinated. Typically, everyone had mirror incarnations in different universes. Your being was like one of those old-timey cartoon flip books, every sheet containing an image of the same person with a slightly different form. Soul or consciousness, whatever you wanted to call it, extended through all possible universes in which you might exist. For everyone who wasn’t a world-orphan like me, death was way less problematic than it seemed, because when you died in one place, you simply opened your eyes in another – a different person, but the same being. But if you were killed and consumed by a demon, you ceased to exist entirely. No heaven, no hell, no reincarnation. You lived on only in memories that would rapidly fade and degrade. Within days, weeks, maybe months, even those who had known you would struggle to remember anything about you. Your digital data would corrupt or simply vanish. Photos would become the face of someone nobody thought they knew.

“So, let me summarize this,” I said after a while. “A bunch of humans were rescued from Cold War-era Earth, rejected further help from their rescuers, and built a company town out in the Kudonian wilderness. Fast forward sixty years. Boris Rybak was one of our guys on the ground, a C.I in place to report any odd happenings in New Warder. The IES arranges a squirrely bodyguard gig, which makes him suspicious because he isn’t a big fan of the Palae. He begins reporting on Sh’chani to us, not knowing that she’s actually a Taga on a classified mission. Sh’chani, meanwhile, is probably there because PALAT thinks there’s Abyssal presence in New Warder and the Taga Avaya sent her down to scope it out.”

The Commander absently nodded along. He had already finished his meal. I was about two-thirds of the way through mine, having eaten enough food that I was starting to feel it sitting at the back of my throat.

“They have a normal day. But within minutes of Boris making his report, he and Sh’chani go offline. Poof,” I continued. “Someone either takes them out at top speed, or finds a way to make it look like nothing happened. They stage a fake getaway they splice into the New Warder noosphere. And it probably would have worked, if Sh’chani hadn’t been a Farscout. As soon as she went down and her backups vanished, her handlers knew she’d been nulled. And then… the Taga reached out to us?”

“That is an accurate summary.” The Commander drained his cup and set it aside. I had no idea how he drank the foodweaver coffee – it was one of the Earth flavors it never got right.

“That’s honestly the weirdest part to me,” I said. “Tagas don’t normally tell us shit.”

“That is hopefully changing. We are now collaborating on an inter-agency mission, the first since the Abyssal invasion of Karkinos. It is a tense and subtle affair.”

“I bet. Don’t envy you, boss.”

The Commander sighed softly. “I will soon send you a full brief, but the bones of it is that we need a human agent on the ground to monitor the situation and provide a smokescreen for a small team of Taga operatives. Sh’chani was theirs, and they are spoiling to find what killed her and send it running back to the Abyss. However, the authorities of New Warder will be extremely hostile to any non-human Fleet presence – and all three of the Response Fleet strategic AIs agree that it is highly likely that any Abyssal corruption is at the upper levels of the city’s governance. If we are to get to the bottom of this, we cannot alert any demonic collaborators to the presence of Palae’an agents until it is time to strike. This operation must be handled with utmost secrecy.”

I frowned. “I thought I was on leave.”

“You were. I wish your leave could be honored. But I have reasons for selecting you.”

“Your angel?”

The Commander’s eyes flicked down in acknowledgement. “The Fleet AIs are factoring our role in the mission as we speak. SEER has bowed out of a direct planning role until it has figured out why it flubbed your last mission so badly. Taga Avaya’s PALAT and our own SPECTER are working together on the general strategy.”

I drew a deep breath at that news. Most of the Confluence AGIs – SEER, PALAT, ORCHESTRA, ALETHIA, among others – were hundreds of years old. Our sentient AI, SPECTER, was only about thirty: as far as all the others were concerned, it was still sucking its thumb and shitting its virtual quantum diapers. SPECTER didn’t have collective authorization to command missions by itself. This was the first time PALAT had deigned to cooperate with it and CEIDR outside of Fleet-wide operations.

“Your teammates will be inserted one by one over the span of two local weeks, so as not to arouse suspicion.” The Commander steepled his black-gloved fingers, gazing at me. “This is not a hunt, Zealot.  The Taga Avaya will locate the demons and neutralize the threat. Your job will be to monitor, search for voidsign that Sh’chani may not have been able to sense, and report to us on the ground.”

“Why me, though?” I cocked my head. “I figured you’d want to tap DWO-2. Yanis and Selaphiel would be great for this.”

“They are needed for an operation on another Earth Instance. Your skillset as a surgeon capable of performing unassisted and robot-assisted surgeries is in high demand in New Warder, so developing your cover is relatively straightforward. You are intimately familiar with the workings of capitalist systems.  Taga Avaya Nexus has finally had to admit they do not yet understand humankind well enough to hunt Abyssals the way they are used to within human communities.”

“About fucking time.”

The Commander exhaled a thin, fluted breath through his nose. “I would agree. The secretive deployment of a human bio-shell alone is… problematic. The Abyssal agents in New Warder clearly recognized Sh’chani was spying for someone. It is quite likely she drew attention to herself in some way. A human should have been tapped for this surveillance mission to begin with, and I personally hope our Taga and Kaumodakai comrades have learned their lesson.”

“Hard lesson to learn.”

“Very. Especially for those who were nulled.”

My mouth suddenly itched for a cigarette. I rubbed the patch on my thigh, willing more nicotine to flow out of it into my bloodstream. “Well, I’ll do it. Better than having cappy breathing down the back of my neck, telling me I’m too thin and need to eat.”

“I thought that might be the case. You will board a flight for Ideni in ten hours. Expect your full mission brief, cover details, documents and equipment to be delivered to your team an hour from now. Digger and a COMMs officer of his election will, of course, be providing support from aboard the Punawahu Space Elevator. You will also be liaising with another of our less-informed C.Is on arrival. He has offered to help you settle into the Confluence residence.”

“Anything you can tell me about the C.I?” I chucked the vitamins in my mouth, washing them down with tea. “The live one, that is.”

“He is a detective in the New Warder police force.”

I made a face.

The Commander’s mouth sloped to one side with displeasure. “Regardless of your feelings about law enforcement, you will be expected to befriend him. Seduce him, if possible. He has enough authority to get you places you might not otherwise be able to reach. He also knew Boris well, and is personally motivated to get to the bottom of his friend’s disappearance.”

“Understood, sir. I’ll dab some bacon grease behind my ears before the meet. He won’t be able to resist.”

A flicker of amusement passed through The Commander’s pale eyes. “We already have Fleet StratNex consensus for the mission. You are authorized to defend yourself against any threats that arise. That includes any demon-infected simulacra of Gi Sh’chani or Boris Rybak, should they appear.”

“Yes sir.” I stifled a burp, then gathered my empty dishes and cups and stacked them neatly on my tray. “If you don’t mind me asking…”

He raised an eyebrow.

“What did your angel have to say?” I spoke after a moment of hesitation. “About this, and about what happened on Earth 332-b?”

Even though I didn’t mention the angel’s name, the area around us suddenly felt a little heavier, a little quieter.

“His message was clear enough,” he admitted. “If we do not intervene, there will be a voidout on Ideni Prime.”

A voidout? The entire planet could go down? A chill fluttered through my belly. The Commander was also an angelhost, but the angel that stood behind this man… it was better not to speak his name. Most of them were like Tsariel: sometimes incomprehensible, but generally caring and helpful. Then there were angels who were so ancient, so abstract, that they were little more than Lovecraftian Great Old Ones. Like the Commander’s.

My spine stiffened, and I gave a small, sharp nod. “Understood, sir. Whatever did this, we’ll chase its oily black ass back to the hells.”

“YOU, Zealot, will not be chasing anything.” The Commander flicked his eyes up to look at me. “It is our hope that we caught the infection early and this is a relatively straightforward micro-breach. For now, please go and get what rest you can, and - oh. Do enjoy yourself. Kudonia is a tropical continent; it is reputed to be remarkably beautiful.”

I straightened up and saluted. “I’ll make sure to pack a bikini and send you a postcard from the beach, sir.”

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An image of the Commander that I painted a long time ago. Those who know, know :3