Scribble 19: Imitative Laplace Projection

Hello fellow Wanderers! As promised, this is the third/second part of the Renegade Covert Director series, depending on which one is the first story you read. Sadly though, this would not be the last installment of the series, as I couldn’t cram the final battle here.

Sorry it took so long, real life interfered a bit, although I doubt that anyone actually waiting for this :p.

As you would see, I wrote the perspective of Red/Seventh and Yellow in different font, which is Georgia for Yellow, as Yellow was an agent of UNSED, and Arial for Red/Seventh, which was an agent from Covert.

Would you join me for the ride?

The Scribble will now begin.

Scribble 19: Imitative Laplace Projection

I skillfully maneuvered the Karapace fighter through proton mines, courtesy of Deneb Confederation from the siege of Procyon-SX-180 colony. Really, that Confederation gives me problem even after collapsing.

Procyon-SX-180 is evacuated right before the proton mines were deployed, several that can't make it dies from starvation or insanity. In the end, the war ended without any of the proton mines exploded, which made both exploring the ruins of Procyon-SX-180 and risking being the first victim of the old mines more unappealing than normal deserted colonies.

I chuckled, gaining attention from Red. Oh, wait, she's supposed to be Seventh now, denoted by numbers instead of colors. Oh, how time changes. When we're together in the Colors, she was always the most emotionally unstable, swinging from homicidal impulse one second and affectionate compassion next.

"Yellow, your inner thought leaked out again."

"No, that was intentional." I landed my fighter on the hangar. "There we go. What should we expect?"

"Standard Covert guard, I think. My ID is still valid, the renegade Director can't touch anything that it don't have. This colony belongs to a fellow Director, which had lent me one of the stuff stored here."

"So, this is just an escort mission?"

"Yeah, you can't exactly barge in to kill Covert Director with normal 9 mm."

"Is this asset, uh, Remniscient?"

"Holy Crayfish, Yellow, just sit tight and let me do my job."

"How could Covert took over this colony anyway? This colony was abandoned years ago, before even the War."

"Wasn't it the real reason why Covert took it over? This is perfect base, finely defended, owned by no one, and visited by no one, not even monthly maintenance check. This is the last place UNSED would look for us, and it's right behind their backyard." Seventh stepped down from the fighter, leaving me alone. The woman swiped her card on a panel, and a section of the wall lifted up several meters, showing the bustling city filled with both researchers in white coat and special operatives in black tactical suits alike.

"I'll get you another ship too, another more suited for Covert operation. But for now just wait in the ship."

"Hey, I like my Karapace, and I hate calibrating my orbital sniper."

"No. Just no. Sit tight and let me choose the best for you."

I sighed, and decided to just sleep.

---

I walked through the busy downtown, this is pretty big for a Covert facility, maybe around 5,000 inhabitants? Not even all my facilities combined would be this big.

Not that my facility was much of one. I just have a handful of warehouses filled with skeleton crew ready to deploy if I ever need them, plus several APCs and Exo-suits. If this is a normal assassination I wouldn’t even have to step out from my safe house, the closest warehouse should be enough.

I stood in front of a building marked with small holographic plaque “Remniscient Containment Division Site-93”.

“This better be the one.” I muttered, entering the building.

“Identity, please?” a computerized female voice greeted me.

“Seventh.”

“Hypnos pattern identification complete. Welcome, Director, how may I help you? ”

“Lead me to Apollo-Delta-Aleph.”

“With pleasure. Please follow the blue light.” A line lit up in the wall, guiding my path through the labyrinthine hallways.

I walked through several containment cages when suddenly alarm blared in the hallway, along with red light. “Warning, hostile forces identified as Yellow Hallway is detected surrounding Proton Farm, evacuation advised.”

Yellow Hallway? Is Fifth trying to revive Colors or something?

I raced through the hallway, to a living quarter designated Apollo-Delta-Aleph. I forcefully broke through the steel door with my fist.

“Who are you?” the boy asked, his long gray hair obscured his face, his atrophied body curled in the corner of the cold concrete cell. How old is he? He looked even younger than Blue when he first joined Colors, and yet he exuded aura as if he is as old as time and as vast as space itself.

Which, considering his power, might not be so far from truth.

“I’m Seventh. I need your help. Let’s go.” The sharp red eyes, unlike Fifth’s dull, lifeless eyes, glanced at me suspiciously.

“Bullshit. Even if you did need my help, I have no obligation to obey any commands other than from Third.”

“Oh, I have his permission already.”

“Who cares? I’m not leaving.”

“Warning, fifteen Proton Mines in collision course with RRD-3-15, ETA 15 minutes until impact.”

“Yellow!” I yelled to my communicator.

“I’m holding up as much as I can, but these second-rate imitations are too many. You got 30 minutes, 35 tops, to get on your car and run.”

“Is… is that the real Yellow? The one from Colors that once assassinated a major in his underground shelter from orbit?”

“One and only baby. I could finish them all, but not without annihilating you in the process. Now get moving!”

“You hear that boy? Now let’s get moving!” the boy clicked his tongue as he went up and swiftly run on my side down the hallway, exiting the building and rushing straight into the hangar, entering standard Covert-issue Aslekfar-889 spaceship at the same time as fifteen other pilots.

“Please insert startup key.”

“Director Override. Seventh.”

“Hypnos pattern identification complete. Starting engine.”

“Yellow, fifteen Aslekfar-889 will be joining the battle. Meet me in Vega-Green-99 ASAP. Seventh out.”

I mapped the ship computer to warp into an empty star system, and activated the engine immediately. A cracking sound could be heard reverberating as the reality itself was strained from the paradox caused by the warp engine.

“Let’s get this over with.” with a deafening roar, the ship disappeared from the colony hangar.

We sat in silence for several hours as the ship moved irregularly through warp space, until the boy suddenly approached me.

“In the hangar, you called me ‘boy’”

“Excuse me? In case you didn’t notice, I’m trying to fold a space-time origami right now, so you better off taking your teenage angst somewhere else.”

“I’m a girl.” I stopped fiddling with warp drive control and stared straight to his, no, apparently her eyes.

“Bullshit.”

“I’m a girl.”

“And I’m an UNSED Star Supervisor. You’re clearly a boy.”

“I’m a—look, you’re a Covert Director. It’s practically impossible to lie to you, even with my power.”

“You’re not lying… no, of course you’re not. Even if I were to check your body right now you could basically turn yourself into a boy or a girl at will by changing the stable point of reality.”

“I’ve never been a boy, you insolent old hag.”

“Okay, first off, you’re the insolent one. Second, I’m pretty sure I’m still the youngest living Covert Directors. Just drop it, geez.” I turned my attention back to the navigator.

“Thank you.” a whisper, almost inaudible, escaped her lips. But I said nothing.

Instead, I continued fiddling with the control for the warp drive.

---

Six hundred and seventy six. That’s the number of ships dispatched by the so-called “Yellow Hallway”. I tasked the fifteen Covert pilots to divert the paths of the Proton mines as I shot down every last one of the Yellow Hallway ships.

But of course I hit one of the mines myself and have to float around in a life pod.

“Hey, I’ll let you keep me as a prisoner, so pick me up already.” I yelled to the comm, set into Covert’s frequency.

“Unfortunately, unless you’re a Remniscient, we cannot bring you in without our Director’s authorization.”

“I got Seventh’s authorization, you saw me dropping her few hours ago!”

“This is not Seventh’s facility. Now sit tight, and wait until our Director decide what to do with your desiccated corpse.”

“I don’t have time for this!”

“Neither do we!” a click could be heard, signifying end of conversation.

Now what?

I could use my miniature pocket space generator to envelope this capsule and transported myself to the rendezvous point, but as smart as I am with numbers, the highly unpredictable space made it impossible even for me to make a jump between stars without computers.

As I contemplated various way to explode my oxygen tank and launch me to the colony, a buzzing sound echoed from the capsule’s comm module. I thought it was the life support warning, but then a clump of black material emerged from the corner.

“Identify yourself.” I grabbed my Taser and pointed it to the black clump that become increasingly humanoid.

“You forgot me already?” a makeshift mouth appeared, before a full face emerged on the thing’s head.

“Blue.” I was surprised, but my training kicked in and my head cooled down.

“Third Covert Director at your service, Yellow.” His feature became clearer. I see, it made sense now why she could leisurely walked into this facility despite not being the owner, and the enmity between Covert Council members.

“This is what you do now? Imprisoning kid and using them as weapon?” I ran a scan from my Karapace before, this colony was filled with thousands of prisons filled with children, all with Remniscience wavelength emanating from them.

“That was what UNSED have done to me, to us! I merely gave them new home, picking them from fringe colonies, lost, hungry, alone. I gave them families.”

“Families that they once lost because of you! You even…!” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath “Does Red know?”

“That gullible girl? No, no, why would I told her? She killed me, she killed us all, once. She deserves this.” His eyes glowed with anger “But I have to thank her. Without her, I wouldn’t reach this plane of existence, gaining limited, but definite, access to the multiverse and Boltzmann simulacrum itself… but I digress.”

“What nonsense are you spouting, did you caught something weird in the afterworld?”

“When I think about it, to be able to fully recover after dying once, you’re the most abnormal of us Colors, even in our current state of being.”

“Or maybe I’m the sanest of us all. What do you want from me now? I’d kill myself if you told me to, so you don’t have to do it yourself.”

“No, no, I still have a use for you. Red still have use for you. I’ll give you a fighter, are you fine with Aslekfar 700?” it’s hard to detect his emotion while he was all dark and shadowy, but the way he said Red was somewhat nostalgic and lonely.

Or maybe I’m just projecting myself. I love her, after all, just like this fellow before his death.

“…you’re not seriously giving me that ancient stuff, are you?”

“Well I could just peel this capsule open and let you desiccate while fully conscious, so…”

“Fine, I’ll take it. Now let me land!”

“You’re already there, Yellow.” He laughed as his form dispersed, his voice echoed inside my mind even as his shape disappeared completely. My surrounding undulated and spontaneously changed into what I recognize as standard Covert cockpit.

“Show offs.” I smirked “This better be fun.”

The Scribble will now ends.

Do you like it?

See you in the next scribble, where everything is supposed to end ;)

Scribble 18 : Broken Hero Incursion.

Hello Wanderers! Welcome back aboard the world of Sci-Fi and Magic!

This Scribble is continuation of the previous Scribble 17: Recursive Chaos Theorem.

This Scribble would, as with the previous Scribble, take place in Remniscience Universe, outlines the existence of Covert, UNSED and FWA, and the connection they might have to Colors, Kurayami no Iro, and the War that happens after Scribble 8: "Which kind of Human are you?" which would essentially make this Scribble 18 a spiritual successor to Scribble 8 ten Scribbles ago.

Fasten your seat belts.

The Scribble Will Now Begin.

Scribble 18 : Broken Hero Incursion.

I woke up to the horrifying stench of blood. Apparently I passed out for several minutes after emptying my gun to the Red Landmark operatives.

Sixteen corpses. Fifteen of which died by a gunshot, one for each round of my pistol magazine. The last one however, was far less fortunate. Blood drenched her face and shoulder, her smile remains as she died looking too much into the future.

If only I could tell her the truth...

A shadow moved behind the dark alleyways. I immediately strung into high alert and reloaded my gun.

"Who was there?!" I aimed my gun to the shadow, which slowly moved out from the corner. Slowly, its feature became more pronounced as darkness peeled away from its body.

"To be able to see through my disguise even in such darkness, as expected from Covert's prided Anti-Personnel..." I shot it, no, him right through his head before he could finish his sentences.

"How rude." his blown off head reformed immediately after the bullet passed through his head. "Even though we're both part of the Twelve, you didn't even listen to what I have to say."

"The Twelve, huh." I snorted. "I wonder how much my title worth right now that Red Landmark is after my head."

"Not only you."

"What?"

"All over the Five Worlds, members of Twelve is hunted down by Fifth's personal army."

Fifth? But why would Fifth hunt us?

"I'm offering you my assistance."

"To what end?"

"To purge Fifth from Covert."

"How?"

"Remniscient Asset Apollo-Delta-Aleph, Reality Stabilizer. Just like Fifth's personal army, this is my trump card against fellow members of Twelve."

"I see, true, if you could stabilize the reality, our immortality that was drawn from another reality could be disabled, and then even I could be killed. You have such a nasty weapon on your disposal, huh?" not that stabilizing reality would be enough to kill me without necessary skills.

Wait a second.

If Red Landmark has been taken over by Fifth, then Medic and Janitor is--

"I'll lend her to you. And I'll take care of this little girl too. In exchange, kill Fifth."

"I'm going to do that even if you told me not to. See you, Third."

"May we see each other again, Septimus." the man laughed as he melted back to the shadow where he emerged.

Apollo-Delta-Aleph, huh.

It pains me to be separated from that girl, knowing I could never convince Third to give her back, but I must put that aside. First, I should leave this World, I have to stay alive if I was to meet her again. I took the magazines from Red Landmark members' guns.

"That girl, just what was she thinking?" I gazed again at the bloody alleyways, grinning "Well, it's a great moment for Color Red to make her glorious return."

I began to run, my lungs screaming, my legs burning, but my head was painfully calm. This smell, this feeling, deep down my desire for blood is awakening.

A maniacal laugh could be heard, echoing between the building, swallowed by the perfectly normal city. I was ecstatic, my mind wide awake, my vision filled with Red.

Red. Yes, Red, tonight this city will be.

-----

I reached FWA's Sirius-TE-717 space port five minutes after sunset, killing every single personnel both Red Landmark and FWA send into my way.

"Tch, how dare Fifth named them Red when they can't even scratch me." my blood was rushing, burning from anger, disgust, and ecstasy. Blood splattered on the spaceport, both mine and enemy's, painting a small fighter at the back of the hangar with color of rust and carnage.

"Karapace 59, huh, old ion beam and diffusion engine. Perfect for sneaking out." I searched the FWA ops for activation IDs when the fighter rumbled.

"Yah, Red, fancy meeting you here." the ship's speaker blared as its spotlight blinded my eyes.

"Yellow, is that you?"

"One and only. I'd really appreciate if you don't kill me even though we're technically enemy right now."

I pointed my gun to the ship's cockpit. "I killed you once. I'll do it again."

"Oi oi, don't you need this ship to escape this colony?"

"I could pilot an old Karapace just fine."

"Hmm, but could you snipe a Covert Director from orbit?"

"My trusty pistol is reliable enough to kill it."

"It, huh. Your gun has no infinite ammo though."

"Unlike UNSED, Covert actually went and standardized our arsenal. I would have no difficulty acquiring ammo. I have no need for your orbital sniping talent, and the world become a better place every time a Color die anyway."

"Uuu, Red hates me now, even though we're used to get along so well."

"The last time we talked was the assassination of Transparent. I don't recall we agreed on anything other than Blue's favorite girls."

"Yeah, we both could see he liked you, but even after Kurayami no Iro and that War, both of you never got anywhere."

"Such is the fate of Colors." I even killed him myself, but Yellow already knew everything up to joining Covert. "So you stayed as FWA's dog, huh."

"Better than joining strange cult outta nowhere."

"Hey, being a Covert Director has better paycheck than UNSED spec ops, with better safety too."

"It's not like you can't survive a nuclear blast or two anyway."

"So, what are you going to do? Old as it is, a Karapace could blow me out to the orbit. Whether you shoot me or let me in, I could still finish my mission."

"Hmm, I'm sure Command will understand, this is a mission to assassinate a Covert Director, after all. I could just kill you later, gather photographic and genetic evidence, and brand myself a hero after killing two Covert Directors. Yes, this is good idea indeed."

"Your inner thought is leaking out."

"No, this is intentional. Get in, Red. This is time for Mission Orange Part Deux."

The Scribble Will be Continued.

The next part of the story would be up soon, alternating between Seventh/Red perspective and Yellow's perspective during their journey to obtain Apollo-Delta-Aleph and assassinate Fifth Director of Covert.

See ya, or not? I'll try to make the next Scribble the conclusion of this series!

Scribble 17: Recursive Chaos Theorem

Hello Wanderers!

First of all, happy new year fellow Wanderers! 'Tis been good year, yes? Hope I'll be improving mine stories an' scribbles, and y'all would keep coming back to read my future Scribbles ^_^ 

Our theme today is "Generic Super Hero", an overused theme about how someone with unusual power saved the day. Or at least trying to. A clumsy hero that failed to cast basic spell yet could save an entire city is cute too, no? But no, we wont explore that sacred territory of clumsiness and cuteness just yet.

The Scribble may now begin.

Scribble 17: Recursive Chaos Theorem

She died in front of me, blood splattering from her cleanly sliced neck.

A few seconds ago I saw her die and yet a few seconds later I saw her standing in front of me with inquisitive eyes.

"Excuse me, can I help you?" god, I must have been staring at her or quite a long time for her to notice.

"No, I'm sorry." I stepped back. I stepped back, knowing in the next few moments she would die right in front of me.

I'm done with this. I'm done with seeing people die, knowing I could do something, and yet doing nothing. I won't let this one be the same. I stepped forward.

"Excuse me."

"Yes?" again she turned her face to me.

"Follow my instruction if you don't want to die." she stared right into my eyes.

"Are you threatening me?" I pulled out a screwdriver from my bag and pointed it at her throat.

"Yes, yes I am. Now shut up and duck down."

"Why should I..." there's no time, I stroke her leg, and she fell down to the train floor. Right as the minute hand of the clock turned, the train crashed, and a steel beam slid right where her neck should be.

Her eyes opened wide as the rest of the passenger got mercilessly slaughtered around us.

"How..."

"It's not over yet, we have to move."

The woman sat there on the train floor, dumbfounded and undoubtedly assaulted by extreme guilt of being the sole survivor, but we don't have time for this.

"Stand up and get out, it's not over yet!" I clicked my tongue and forcibly dragged the woman out of the train, escaping the train station right before the blast knocked us to the ground.

A helicopter, squad in black, "Red Landmark".

And she was the target.

"Listen, hey!"

The woman was still unresponsive. Again I pointed my screwdriver at her throat. "Listen to me or both of us will die!" her eyes widened.

Her logical circuit must still pretty shocked as she turned her attention to me.

"In exactly 30 seconds, a squad of "Red Landmark" would descend here."

"Red... Landmark?"

"Tch, run!" I dragged her through the sparsely crowded road.

"Does that name ring a bell in your mind?"

"*pant* yes, but nggh *pant* it's classified."

"Can you, oh seriously." she fell down, panting. I'm not exactly strong enough to carry her all the way, but leaving her here to die would not only nullify my effort but also putting the civilians at risk.

"Listen, I can't exactly carry you all the way across the city. No hard feeling, okay."

"*pant* fine, I'm supposed to be dead in that train anyway." she smiled "Thank you."

I'm going to regret this.

There's only so much someone could see in the future without breaking their neurons, my brain was already overheating just to read the tag on the helicopter. And that's only looking at one timeline. Right now I'm trying to breach even further, finding perfect solution from the entire 24 million possible future per second.

My nose bled, but it's already a miracle my brain didn't spontaneously blow up.

"Your nose..."

"Shut up. It's better than the alternatives. Can you move?"

"I could walk, but not run. You're bleeding!"

"That's not important! Now move!"

"What do you mean not important?!"

"Fine, there's a hospital that way, now move!" my vision flickered between the present and the future, predicting every single path anything larger than a fly might trace.

30 seconds later, the black chopper arrived. Five men in black tactical armor descended to the crowds, wielding MP5 submachinegun, but their target is nowhere to be seen.

We slipped through the buildings, my nose bleed profusely while I overworked my mind to provide the optimal escape route. But that was the least of my problem.

My greatest problem is that the more I collapsed timelines where either of us die, the closer I am to a timeline where I never exist. To put it in a layman's term, my very existence is fading everytime I changed the future. I'll fade out of existence faster than dying from brain hemorrhage.

"Guh!" I collapsed in the alleyway. Not good, we are only three minutes ahead of them, even in best scenario.

"Are you okay?" the woman rushed to my collapsed body.

"No, I'm not." in all remaining possible future, I would die in less than two minutes. "More importantly, they're right behind us, you should..."

"What do you mean more importantly? You're losing so much blood!" that's true, even the blood vessels in my eyes and ears are bursting out. But we can't stop here.

"Just shut up and..."

"No, you shut up. This isn't anywhere near the hospital, did you really think I won't notice that? You are obviously not thinking enough of yourself." the woman pulled out a handgun. "Or maybe you underestimated me?"

"SIG SP 2009, nice taste you got there." I stared at her gun "Yeah, getting shot would probably be better than having my head explode."

"How many."

"What?"

"The enemy, how many of them are there?"

"Five, armed with MP5. ETA 2 minutes."

"I'll handle them, I'm their target after all. You go to the hospital."

"Yeah, not gonna happen. I'm practically counting down to my death right now, even if I could move I won't be able to reach the hospital."

"Ah-" she cursed "tch, I'm so useless, even though you saved me, why can't I save you even once!" without even aiming, she accurately shot the first Red Landmark member.

"Ugh, well, you just saved me from that Red Landmark member so..."

"You know really well that that's not what I meant. Don't talk. It'll end soon."

"Indeed it will." I closed my eyes, drenched in blood.

I smiled. I didn't even get to know her name.

But I'm glad I saved her.

The Scribble would've ended here.

And so is the end of our nameless hero. Or is it? Most probably yes. Does it intrigue you? How do you wish the story would end instead? Does it even have the twist I promised in the beginning?

Do not hesitate to tell me.

Is it really the end of the nameless hero? There's really only one way to know, isn't there?