crocuta mentha

System query: target. System response: positive. System feedback: standby-encourage.

There are downsides to using greywash for surveillance. While capable of producing a reasonably sophisticated sensor output in numbers, the need for avoiding notice has limited Mirèlha to dispersing just the one maniple, and the resulting audio/visual output is extremely low quality. She directs the swarm of nanites to reposition slightly behind a support beam, near where the ceiling meets the wall.

“... heard from the Speaker?”

“Not since the shitshow on the Icebreaker.”

Three rooms away, sitting near a food stand pretending to enjoy a sandwich, Mirèlha suppresses a reaction as her suspicions are confirmed. The two Targets are affiliated with the same TargetGroup from the Icebreaker. And with the “Speaker,” known to her as PriorityTarget, Ignatius Aurum. A quick search on the omninet had revealed he is a fairly public man: a generally well-regarded preacher affiliated with the Faith of the One Plumed in Golden Flame. Evidently connected somehow with this inner sect of the faith, as well. She won’t pretend to understand the exact structure of these Union religions. More pertinent is the fact that, despite his existence and activities being more or less a matter of public record, his whereabouts are much more difficult to ascertain. The two Targets, as well, are being no great help, having turned their discussion to some upcoming sporting event. With a twinge of annoyance, the greywash maniple ripples slightly in place. System system: standby. She’ll be notified if any relevant keywords come up again, but she won’t be holding her breath.

She has to admit, this one interests her somewhat on an intellectual level. Her previous Targets have been varied, but in general they tend to be connected to political movements the House of Sand opposes. Sympathisers with the Purview or Union, organisers tied to the Ungratefuls’ labour movement, those sort of figures. The need for this one’s removal is less obvious. Even a cursory search of recordings of his sermons shows an opposition to many of the major corporate and state powers; in ideology, at least, he certainly matches one of the typical profiles for Targets. But he doesn’t seem to be any more prominent in that regard than any one of a dozen other public and political figures, and more of his ire seems to be levied at Union than the Baronies. But at the end of the day, it’s no matter. Those reasons are no more than an idle curiosity to pass the time. What matters is that she has a Target again, and with that a tangible objective. She knows his name and his face, and all that remains now is to kill him.

That’s not to say there aren’t complicating factors, of course. Chief among them is the fact she’s stuck with this group now. (She makes a mental note that the group will probably need a proper designation for clarity, and flags it for the greywash. System system: (PriorityNonTarget-1, PriorityNonTarget-2, PriorityNonTarget-3, PriorityHandler) → PriorityNonTargetGroup.) She pages casually through a slate with her free hand, as just another person in the crowd checking the omninet. She pulls up a segment from an interview on that popular local stream, Live from the Long Rim, that the other PriorityNonTargets had for some reason agreed to give following the Icebreaker job. Mirèlha allows herself a small sigh through the nose in annoyance. For a small blessing, nobody seems to mind if she simply makes it known that she doesn’t care for crowds, and with the other three PriorityNonTargets being much better connected (two being native Calliopeans, another having come here well before herself) she can simply rely on most people not wanting to go out of their way to get to know a Karrak. But even so, just being a part of PriorityNonTargetGroup makes her a subject of public attention. Not to mention the fact she nominally answers to an authority here, Jerry Masters. Hence the need to operate more discreetly on the station; she needs to be able to avoid notice by not just Targets or PotentialTargets, but also NonTargets.

Mirèlha leans back in her seat and tabs away from the interview to another news stream. Some dispute about one of the local corporations abducting people from smaller settlements, and speculations as to why. (Whatever the reason, their work is incredibly sloppy.) She feigns an appropriate expression of concerned interest as she thinks. There was a time when she considered simply breaking with PriorityNonTargetGroup and finding somewhere else to operate from. But if that had ever been an option, it’s no longer viable; leaving the group now for any reason short of successfully faking her own death would draw vastly more scrutiny than staying with them, and even that option had good chances of backfiring on her. No, she’s stuck with them now, whether she likes it or not.

She tries to look on the bright side. They are useful, there’s no denying that, even if their typical methods are less than discreet. She tabs off of the news stream to some other report on the group’s recent exploits. Their popularity — that of the other three, anyways — could be useful in the future as well. What irks her is PriorityTarget. Factoring in his affiliation with the TargetGroup they had just killed, she’ll have to operate on the assumption he’s keeping tabs on PriorityNonTargetGroup as well. That means he knows about her, at least the version of her story she’s “confided” in a few others. Even if he doesn’t know exactly what he’s up against, he’ll know to treat PriorityNonTargetGroup as hostile, and that could make things difficult.