The Congregation of the Dead

March 25 - NIV

"Give up your life completely to the task; sit daily for six hours in the Old Absinthe House, and sip the icy opal; endure till all things change insensibly before your eyes, you changing with them; till you become as gods, knowing good and evil, and that they are not two but one." - Aleister Crowley

-----

He was waiting at the foot of the stairs. The area was dark and isolated.

"Major." It was Macarthur.

"Trooper," I acknowledged.

"Where would you like me to be during this meeting?" he asked.

I sighed, "It seems my plan of having you nearby has fallen flat... I have to fly from the main station."

I had hoped to meet Ms. Celestalis in a public area, like the last time I was here, but with Macarthur nearby to back me up.

"Okay," he replied, "Can you keep the wave open during the meeting?"

"Yes. If there is trouble, I'll holler."

"I'll listen for anything unusual."

"Good," I acknowledged.

"Ma'am, I'll get there as fast as I can," he promised.

"Thank you Trooper. I'll head up there now."

Trooper Macarthur nodded trying not to salute and make things obvious to any observers.

"I'll commandeer a ship if necessary," he added.

I nodded and moved on.

-----

The offices of the Umbrella Corporation in this district were housed in a spherical craft some distance from the main NIV facility. The landing bay took up the topmost section of the sphere.

Ms. Celestalis was there to greet me when I arrived.

"I apologize for the inconvenience," she said, "Security is strict."

"I understand."

"Prying eyes are bad for business."

"Of course," I answered politely.

"Let me take you to the office," she offered.

"Yes please."

I followed her down to one level to a room that was the diameter of the sphere itself. The floor was carpeted in green. The room was dominated by several screens displaying system functions. There was a desk at one side with a row of jars containing preserved remains of various descriptions sitting close to one edge.

"Be good Schnookums," called Ms. Celestalis, "We have company."

I looked around for 'Schnookums' but could see no one that might answer to that name.

"Have a seat, Major."

"Thank you."

"Schnookums is the organ donor pig next to me," she explained having noticed my look.

"You're growing a nice set of lungs for Mummy aren't you?" Ms. Celestalis reached down and scratched the pig's head. "Good pig," she murmured and fed the animal a strip of soylent green.

I smiled kindly.

"You have quite a collection I see," I said acknowledging the row of jars on her desk.

"Yes, a few knick-knacks. Can I offer you something to drink or eat?"

"Oh no thank you, I have eaten," I said politely. I would rather starve, I thought.

The woman coughed into her hand as she sucked on her cigar. "Would you care for a cigar? They're Habanas."

"No, thank you."

"Take one for your C.O.," she insisted, "In case you need to curry favor in a weak moment." She coughed further.

"You are very kind," I remarked and took the offered cigar. "Thank you."

"You don't mind if I have a drink, do you?" she asked.

"Please go ahead."

She reached for a bottle containing a clear green liquid. Absinthe.

"Have you brought the item?" she asked.

"I have not," I replied, "I wanted to discuss the matter first."

"It is a straightforward matter, what would you care to discuss?"

I explained, "Aurotharius gave strict instructions that the item was to be used to influence the Replicant...."

She poured the green spirit into her glass as I spoke. It turned white with the water.

"...I understand that the project depends upon it," I added.

"I see and what is the intended outcome of said influencing?" she asked. "The navigational data of the Halo Asteroid field, c'est pas?"

"And a few other items," I admitted.

"You can ask Ardra if trading the brain in exchange for the location of her long lost asteroid surveyor is a fair trade or if you should hold out," she proposed, "So long as you do not reveal your sources."

Interesting. She is keeping secrets from Ardra.

Ms. Celestalis put some eyedrops in her eyes.

"I don't understand," I probed, "You support the project do you not?"

"I do, but I am not an unpaid volunteer." she said flatly. She put down the absinthe and picked up her cigar.

"Are you saying that your support is purely for financial gain?" I pressed.

"The project has little value if I cannot afford the end results."

"I see...and after getting me the brain on Ardra's order, why did you want it back?"

She answered, "I believe I can get more from it than you can."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Then the Replicant has been in touch?" I asked.

Ms. Celestalis opened a small vial, picked up some orange powder with her pinky fingernail and snorted it loudly. She then tasted her finger. "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

"Yes," I answered, "You feel you can get more for the cloned brain of Aurora, than I can. I asked if the Replicant had been in touch."

"Oh no, we have other assets in play, not just yourself."

I smiled warmly, "Of course."

She felt around for her glass of absinthe, "No, no, Schnookums, not for you. You have to stay pure for Mummykins." She pet the pig.

"A sweet piggy..." I remarked.

"From a champion line of organ growers," she replied, "Quite a pedigree."

"You mentioned a time frame on the survey ship coordinates..."

"It should be coming into range by Monday or Tuesday."

"Why offer them to me?" I asked, "Why not launch a salvage mission yourself?"

"I have more need of the brain than the surveyor," she said at last, "The surveyor only has some numismatic value to Ardra. Maybe some useful data for her. But I only use sentimentality, I don't trade in it."

I switched topics.

"What do you know of missing refugees from Shadow and Caliban?"

"I know quite a bit. Go ahead, ask me more directly," she fired back. "Don't dance around it. This is not the prom. You want to know, my price is that you ask me properly. Accuse me, get it out."

So I asked her clearly, "Are you involved with the detainment, sale and/or harvesting of missing persons from the colonies: Shadow, Caliban and Blackburne?"

"Close enough," she said firmly, "I am going to help you out."

I waited. "Go on."

She began, "If someone were to exploit the ravaging of Blackburne by reavers, how much advanced notice would it take ...for the specific scenario we are discussing?"

"It would depend on how big an operation," I said.

"Don't worry," she condescended, "I'll walk you through it.... Weeks."

"Fair enough."

"Do you think anyone has weeks notice on a massive reaver attack on Blackburne?" she asked.

"Unlikely," I admitted.

"And if we knew, then would not the guardians, your vaunted Alliance, could have evacuated or protected them?"

"These people are going missing from camps," I clarified.

She ignored my remark, staying focused on the reaver attack.

"So, if we knew, the Alliance knew and was criminally negligent... Does anyone ever get three weeks notice on a reaver attack? How could we get such notice? Three weeks is enough time to mobilize an armada on the cheap?"

These were rhetorical questions.

"So you are saying that there are members of the Alliance involved?" I asked, "And that you know this ...how?" I wanted her to articulate the connection.

"That is another story, we are only talking logistics so far. We are not Blue Sun, we don't have ubiquitous paramilitary assets in the rim. We would only know if someone told us. People only tell us if they want something....and that something would probably be that thing you are asking about."

"A corporation set to exploit such a situation could be in a state of readiness," I countered, "Setting aside the reaver attack, the attack on Shadow, you could see that coming if you read CNS."

"Troops were practicing ground maneuver in the Rim months earlier for the ground assault," she agreed.

"Okay," I continued, "I will ask then... what is the thing that the people who told you about Blackburne wanted so badly?"

She hadn't finished though. She wanted to make some things clear. "We were not called in for Shadow or Caliban. We knew about it, but we go along to get along. We don't frontrun our partners."

"I see."

"So we are really only really talking about Blackburne," she insisted.

"Blackburne it is then," I conceded.

She answered my question. "I don't know what they wanted, they just gave us a list. I have a few theories, but I am not going to test them."

"And in exchange, Umbrella could take what it wanted. What happened to those people?" I asked.

"What we wanted from these people could fit in a syringe."

Without another word she reached across the desk and opened a harvester case full of vials.

"What are these?" I asked, looking at the contents of the case.

"Blood, urine, stool, semen, eggs, stem cells, neural matter, the usual suspects. Have you ever met anyone from Blackburne?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Generalize about them."

"A hardy folk." Winterwolf came to mind.

Ms. Celestalis guffawed. "Yes. Any of them hairier?" she asked.

I blinked.

"Or strike you as different than regular folks?"

"I couldn't say." If she meant Lily, I was sure she was mistaken. The Alliance Medical Database indicated that Lily was born, if that is the right word, on Shadow.

"I thought we were speaking frankly and with candor. I am walking you through this like I promised. Don't make me go Socratic on you."

"Why are you telling me this so openly?" I asked. She must realize she was incriminating herself.

"You don't really believe in Mutants do you? That is laughably bad comic book pseudo-science." She dismissed the concept.

"I believe that genetic engineering has historical roots," I said. I would not be drawn in.

"Where is Ms. Zhangsun and Blue Sun's famous renegade geneticist from? Don't you think it might be more likely that someone was using Blackburne as a testing ground for genetic research and using these people for empirical data? And how else could the Alliance know about the reaver attack if they did not arrange it?"

"And you wanted access to the research..." I prompted.

"They were collecting their uppidty experiments."

"...or more accurately the test subjects..." I added.

"We were allowed to take samples in exchange for delivering the product," she replied.

"The product being what?" I asked.

"They have a generation of genetic experiments germinating there. The people themselves."

"You delivered them to where?"

"They staged some wild controlled chaos to cover their tracks... To the Angels of Mercy. But you knew that already."

"Operation Controlled Chaos," I said out loud.

And it was at that point that I realized what the password was to Ardra's 'Chaos Controlled' file.

-----

Ms. Celestalis got up from her chair and led the way to the spiral staircase in the center of the room. She unlocked the barrier to the lower level and climbed down the stairs. I followed.

She led the way to another large chamber. This one was also surrounded by screens. These screens were monitoring a variety of biological functions.

It was not the screens that dominated the room this time however. It was the rows of heads each floating in a preservation jar near the center of the room.

"Tsk, the boys didn't clean up well," she remarked.

Ms. Celestalis munched on her snack and looked over the heads. She pointed at the head of Adelei Niska as if we were examining celebrity photographs.

"These heads..." I began. The bile rising in my throat.

"Cloned heads, not harvested," she replied.

I shook my head, trying to take it all in. It was too hideous to register all at once.

"Cloned from the 'samples' you took from the people of Blackburne..."

"Some of them," she admitted.

"People you delivered to the Angels of Mercy..."

"There is a lucrative market in cloned replacement organs," she commented.

"If they are indeed cloned..." I felt the anger rise.

"The best ones are grown inside of expectant mothers," she remarked. "Hardly matters, it is all horrid."

I fought back feelings of rage and revulsion.

If I snapped her neck, I may never find the black heart at the center of this corruption. This thought was the only thing keeping me from taking the law into my own hands.

"And who in the Alliance was your contact for the operation?" I asked. I kept my voice steady.

"The Alliance was closing the door on their Wastelander experiments and the advanced orders wanted their product. You would have to ask the Angels of Mercy. We don't do retail."

"That facility was destroyed," I said.

"Then all you have remaining is an internal affairs investigation? Is that above your paygrade?"

"Duties as assigned," I answered. She didn't need my job description.

I was done here.

"I will be in touch," I said, "Thank you for your hospitality."

"A pleasure. Would you care for some Soylent Snaps for your trip back?"

I chuckled and turned to go.

"We get a special professional discount from them," she added.

I'll bet.

"Thanks," I replied, "but I'm trying to cut down."