>> INTEL ACCESS :: ASSET FEED
>> accuser: Meniss, White [SERAPH]
>> asset: Hopeland, Trinity Kismet [JOKER] :: implant ADVERSARY
>> subject: Jaydamn, Flechette H. [EDGE] :: FLAG: SYNC_FAIL_STATUS_1

[00:00:00.004] auth -> adversary[optic_tap] ...... GRANTED
[00:00:00.005] auth -> adversary[aural_tap] ...... GRANTED
[00:00:00.005] auth -> adversary[neural_tap] ..... GRANTED
[00:00:00.006] asset handshake ................... AUTH_OVERRIDE_THAUMIEL
[00:00:00.006] stream open. authorization approved

[live] EDGE within 0.4m. asset heart_rate: 130 BPM 
[live] audio transcript : “—come back for me.” [asset]

>> archive: 811 hrs — access authorization granted
>> asset_insight: STATUS_0
>> asset_status: ACTIVE
>> exit with status code 0

[psychopomp@ARC-RUMSFELD-B16 ~]$ _
//PSYCHOPOMP/ARC/INTEL_DIV/sigint_logs/EID_MATT26v48-52KJV

Low earth orbit, 05/02/454, 0038 hours

Three days earlier

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

For the first time in years, Trinity Hopeland feels out of control in her own skin. The delicate work she does with the advanced neural interface for the ISCARIOT is the easy part — hold your thoughts, the shape of your nerves, in a certain way, fire particular impulses through the connection — and you can turn a 500-foot war machine into a search-and-rescue operation. What she cannot get under control is her own internal experience — the panic, the rising heart rate, the feeling of suffocation. Too many crossed signals. Too much focus needed on the mission. So, those functions stop being held by the user — shunted over to the AI Thaumiel chip in her neck — that host to an alien psyche, which manages her internal states when she is unable to control them herself, or needs to free up resources for mission-critical work. Trinity quietly thanks the wonders of modern medical science for offering to sharpen her tools.

As the entry plug casket is sliced open, Trinity immediately deploys an emergency containment ark, allowing Seraph’s unconscious body to drift gently into it before being automatically strapped down. Omni-monitors and medical cables snake around his body, lodging themselves in the ports of his implants, sending his body emergency supplies. Oxygen. Adrenaline. Cortisol. Etcetera.

Trinity cradles the containment ark in the crook of the ISCARIOT’s arm and rushes back to the RUMSFELD.

Trinity waits anxiously outside Medbay 16. Emergency surgery is underway. Contamination from the HEAVENSPEAR has rendered Seraph’s left arm useless — it’ll need to be amputated, replaced with one of the bionic prostheses that the RUMSFELD’s medical supplies keep on hand for combat ops. Trinity grips her own arm, as if afraid of having it taken from her. The prosthetics are, allegedly, extremely advanced, with full sensory profiles, and stronger than the real thing. But to a proprioceptopath, to whom the inner workings of her body are less like an automatic process, and more like a lifelong companion in conversation with your psyche — the prospect of losing a limb, and replacing it with a machine, sending artificial signals to her severed nerve endings… The thought makes her skin crawl. Trinity notices the cold-sweat signals traveling through her forehead. Shuts them down. Not now. She can indulge her anxieties later. She forcibly slows her heart rate, breathing. Rebalances the constriction of her blood vessels throughout her body. Baseline.

Trinity Hopeland stands at attention at the door to Medbay 16, Room 42. Inside, Acting Commander 3rd Virtue White Meniss rests from his ordeal, still unconscious from surgery. Trinity counts the moments since Flechette left. No. No, I can’t do this right now. The mission…

Emotions swirl in Trinity’s gut. Flechette told her… She said she was going on an intelligence operation — why did she attack a friendly officer? What did Seraph and Flechette say? Could… Could Flechette have…

Trinity closes her eyes. Imagines each of her activated bodily sensations, the transmitters of emotion, as a switch on a switchboard. Flick. Flick. Flick. Off. One after another. Inner peace. Nothing to hurt her.

A cold logic settles inside of her. Flechette left. She left her. Not on a mission. She meant it. She left and she lied. A traitor. And she used Trinity for it.

Flechette Jaydamn. This is not the last you will see of me.

It’s a promise. Upon her life, she will avenge her trampled heart.

Seraph wakes. Trinity is by his side.

“Principality… Hopeland?”

“Yes, Sir! I fished you from the wreckage of the HEAVENSPEAR, sir!”

“I… See…”

“Unfortunately, 2nd Power Jaydamn was successful in h— his escape, sir.” The pronoun catches in her throat. It burns like poison.

Seraph looks at Trinity strangely. An expression that Trinity cannot understand.

“What… What happened to me?”

“Sir! Your left arm has been amputated from midway through the bicep, and replaced with a Mk.66 Bionic Combat Prosthesis, sir! Your eyes were also damaged in the fight — they have been replaced by a MAT-1514 Optical Sensory Array, sir!”

Seraph reaches up for his face. Touches the place where his eyes used to be, now replaced with a sensor array that looks more fitting on a satellite than a face. Trinity feels a violent pang of sympathy.

“Flechette was your cross.” He almost whispers it.

“Yes, sir! His defection represents a failure of oversight on my part, sir! I am willing to accept whatever punishment is deemed necessary, sir!”

“Don’t— You saved my life, Principality Hopeland. Consider your debt paid.”

“Yes, sir!”

“What happened to the HEAVENSPEAR?”

“Burned up in reentry, sir!”

“I see.” Trinity imagines losing the ISCARIOT, that friend she has already come to rely upon. She suspects the Acting Commander is grieving. If so, he isn’t showing it. Incredible control.

“Any other updates?”

“Sir! High Command has reassigned you to the THRONE, RESURRECTION, sir!”

“Ha! High Command isn’t without a sense of humor, evidently.” The laugh is drier than the vacuum of space.

“Principality Hopeland.”

“Sir!”

“You need a new cross.”

“Yes, sir!”

“How would you like to be second-in-command again?”