DHEED's Story

Arya shook her head, mostly in disbelief at Juan. He was bold, but probably stupid if he really thought he could bring down any local mob with his Bulwark. Drinking for free was going to be fun.

"Alright, son, you got a deal." Arya told him, "You and me will go on a date if you can take down a mob. You won't, but..."

The Invictus heavy shrugged, "I'm going to enjoy drinking for free. My buddies too. I want everyone to be a little hammered when I tell them this story." She said, taking his hand in her own. Arya couldn't help but smirk at Juan, she was clearly amused by this whole thing.

"You can come see me at The Palace with any updates when you get started, just ask for Bones and they'll send me your way if I'm around."

It didnt phase her in the least what this droid was to do, ID ? She was an Empress of Shadows, she didnt need ID for that did she ? Not entirely, but then this thing talked sense, she smirked at its words, interesting annolgy for sure. She crossed her arms, recreating her lost identifcation, Ok fine, go for it. She thought. She nodded. "If I were to give you a list, it'd be longer then you are tall, so, lets just go with many and worry about it later mm ?" She smirked at the name, yes she poked at technology a lot. prodded the dead alot too.

Her ear however twitched at the mention of two words "the palace" Turning her gaze slightly to the woman at table she went over what she heard, 'You can come see me at The Palace' Where was this.... Palace ? 'Ask for Bones and they'll send me your way....' This Palace sounded more like a military complex than a royal house. Nevertheless, a place to visit for sure. Maybe get some info, some valued items.... It didnt matter really, anything to get info at this point helped, the more resources she could get her hands on the better.

Pleased with his "bargain", Juan turned and strode directly to the door of the little bar. He had to look pretty confident after all, especially for what he had planned next. "Alright men," he barked it without turning around, "Get your asses front, and center, we've got ourselves a goddamn banger hunt." He almost sounded seriously, and commanding. Almost. Mostly he sounded like a stuff man dude, shouting in a recording studio with the treble maxed, and no bass.

He really needed a new helmet, or some kind of speaker system. Or both.

Never the less, he needed to seem cool, collected, and most importantly in-charge. The only problem being he had no clue how Argus would respond. Not only was the guy new, but nobody in the Bulwark ever have an order beyond the occasional "Fuck yourself." This was uncharted territory for Juan, and anyother Bulwark member he'd deal with today.

Productivity, and orders when against his very core, but matters of the heart were serious business. Apparently, not like this had ever happened to Juan before.

"You too robot, march."

High above the city, a teardrop shaped ship flew on feather wings of light. It came over horizon and began descending steeply in dive towards city center. The ship angled down towards a selected point, and like a star it falls towards the ground.

DHEED just marked down a reasonable description of the obvious weapon at least for her permit and noted a 'historical weapons' collection. It would do for any disinterested data entry or casual review of incoming paperwork. A small printer on its side emitted a few hard temporary IDs. One a 'Security Contractor' ID from its parent company that its database covered one numbered room which was a walled in archive closet. A 'Naturalized Citizen' card spat out by the civil administration from the analog integration project of 'preexisting' citizens. The civil administration computer while it worked much seemed to DHEED like it ate a deal of duct tape while it was being programmed but that seemed appropriate for the punishment the city took on the regular. The third martial weapons permit was fairly bland and extremely close to legit but the paperwork wasn't as robustly defended as the ranged weapons anyhow.

It gingerly stuffed the three laminated pieces of plastic in one of her pockets stating, "Hralenkicvisumf, I strongly suggest showing up at least once for your unpaid corporate sponsor, or the Bulwark for civil service, as to not create any more paperwork. There may be an operation going on soon for which a point guard may be needed. I suggest talking to Estevens of Bulwark if you would like to offer service immediately."

DHEED got notice of some unregistered object above the city. At the short-range bunker sensors were outsourced, but the Bitch was calling for its attention. Uninterested in attending to the object sent an message to ground defenses reporting it as 'Hostile if impactful'. If it wasn't going to hit anything anyone cared about it'd just pound one more crater into the dirt. If not well someone else shooting it down meant less paperwork on its part. Win-win.

The robot sauntered over to Juan as a man with a large black duffel bag hurried over offering a pad. The shipment had clear instructions on where to get the package and to 'shut up and give me the receiving form'. DHEED signed it both without a word the duffel bag set down on the floor by its handles. The man turned and left and DHEED ignored the bagged drone body waiting to see what Juan had in mind.

the vessel falls, and opens as it falls. tear drop shaped seeds of white released from the vessel, scatter and sprint through sky and cloud. The vessel, now empty, it's task completed, will fall and crash in the clay world with lights, shattering upon surface of earth and stone.

Seeds scatter and fly and dance in sky, searching, scanning, watching, waiting. they seek and will find, and once found they will too will be complete, and their task will be done.

Throughout the streets of Wing City, soldiers wearing flak vests began marching through the streets armed with flamers. The Imperial Gaurd had located a strange vessel that was on a collision course with the city. Unfortunately no ship was nearby to blow it out of the sky, and many anti-air defense systems had yet been built.

However the soldiers had a new task, begin purging the strange seeds and prevent any from taking root on the planet. It was an alien ship, and these were alien seeds. For the religious men of the Emperor they would never allow such a thing to tarnish the planet.

The Purging was thorough, every seed was being burned. The Imperial Guard was always ready to defend Wing City from xeno hostiles.

With strange things afoot DHEED preferred to have a front row seat given the option. It wasn't terribly high confidence whether it preferred the newness of the signal or the sheer potential for suffering. No reason not to find out. It wasn't hard for DHEED to be in a lot of places at once its husks and processing nodes were sprinkled all over the city. A smattering of nihilistic droids erupted from walls, nondescript doors, and basement vaults. DHEED directed the soldiers where it had good data the projectiles had hit. Sometimes it just waited to watch the things burn. It half-hoped some would survive, and ignored a few it had evidence of but plausible deniability for, just to see what would happen. DHEED dropped down a sheer impact point into a sub-basement to look at one. He left the husk frozen in place recording into archives with a dying rat twitching over the object.

Once their task was complete, the seeds released the many into the area where they landed, each one cracking and popping as it did, the shell melting as the many took sustanance and material to multiply from it. Fire took the many by surprise, and some seeds failed in their second function. The others learned, and changed. Now the many would feed from fire, rather than Feed it.

The many were unseen by mortal eye, they existed in a fashion too small to be seen. They scattered and spun and dug into the ground, like a dust that shimmered and was gone. They were not yet ready. Soon they would grow, but they were not yet ready.

The Vessel would crash and shatter like a hollow shell, it's pieces scattered about. The many that were part of the vessel waited until all motion had stopped, and then they would break and scatter, the pieces dissolving as the many seperated from a whole and became only living ashes. Unhindered they would vanish soon and become unseen, lest those who lived in the clay light city stopped them.

"Sir! Our scanners are picking up that the seeds have adapted and burrowed into the ground. Flamethrowers are no longer working, we may have a large scale infestation unless we exterminate the area. Permission to call in orbital bombardment to level this area?" One of the Guardsman sergeants spoke into a radio once the equipment was picking up what was going on. "Negative, we have reports of a Space Marine Librarian on the way. He will deal with the seeds and the ship. Ensure nothing gets out."

Just as he finished the radio call, a massive armored figure holding a staff walked into view. The Guardsman quickly fell on their knees as sign of respect. "Greeting M'lord, you honor us with your humble presence Space Marine." The sergeant spoke. The Marine did not speak as he had no need to, he acknowledged the Guardsman with a slight nod and tuned in on this surroundings using Battle Sight, and he located every single trace of seeds down to the very last. Including the very ash in the air. Slamming his staff into the ground he sent fourth a wave of psychic energy utterly obliterating every last seed in an instant leaving no trace of it, as for the floating ash in the air he tore open a hole in reality and forced all the ash through it sending it away into the immaterial realm to which it would soon be nothing.

"Emperor watch over you Guardsman, continue with your duty. Our job here is done, no xeno trace is left. I want you to locate the source, we shall exterminate them when you do. For now I have other important business to attend to." With that the Space Marine Captain walked off.

Utilities were inset to the ground like bunkers in wing city. They had to be just to survive the endless bombardment. DHEED had access to the whole city of surveillance at least of what remained of it. DHEED usually took all night spiking new cameras when they inevitably got shot off. It got DHEED a slice of the maintenance budget and it was probably the most efficiently spent repair bill in wing city. They had speakers too. So when some crazy bastard started pouring whatever into the water tanks DHEED raised its voice at them to stop. Nothing. Figures. Guess that means bring the big guns. DHEED made a mental note to get a sample for Bitch to intake if it was narcotic.

DHEED lept from an upstairs window down to the subbasement floor with a loud CLANG of metal against metal. The reciprocating full-auto gauss-rifle was a damn heavy thing but he had a full machine shop to rebuild the drone bodies so why the fuck not. Dead criminals don't file grievances. Or ornery Jaywalkers. Or pick pockets DHEED really wasn't particular.

Magnetic clamps in its feet allowed DHEED to hup up the side of the metal tank and confront Elijah with a anti-material emplacement that definitely wasn't authorized for use against citizens. Fortunately DHEED seemed to have a license approved by a nameless management AI in its parent company that had taken over its idiot creator's job.

"What are you doing and do I want to know.", DHEED said flatly to the old human.

It was not often that Justice Dee wandered certain parts of the city with recent happenings there. Once in a blue moon perhaps we went and lounged peacefully somewhere on a beach or the like. Which then allowed for him to take in his faveorite pastime. puzzles and cases. He often went over his notes of old cases, using them as a means to figure out his current project or case in progress.

But today was a day he simply wanted to get out of the house and stretch his legs so t ospeak. When he came upon a droid, speaking to a hooded man Dee knew at once the man was trouble by the way the droid was acting.

But it was not until he neared the two beings when he recognised the hooded fellow, Elijah something or other. Dee smiled thinly, ah yes, an old nemsis come back to wreak hell on the populace anew. Another strange happening in Wing City. As he neared however he called out while rasing a hand "Hold a moment, Droid, When I am done with him you may take him into custody when you are ready to do so. Until then, unless otherwise known to us both, he is in your custody already, merely allow me to question him"

Dee had an air of one in command, he was after all a Detective, and loved solving puzzles, hence why he always carried a Soduku book on him at all times, the one with all the impossible puzzles. Dee stepped up to the tank, and from where he stood on the ground looked up to both creatures above, saying simply "perhaps then good Droid, to escort our fellow there down to this interested one so we can speak on even ground ?"

"No one takes him into custody except me, Warden Catherine Dumitrescu. Mythical Crimes Unit." A woman spoke as she stepped out of the nearby shadows, flashing a sliver six pointed star shaped badge. Slipping in and out of the shadows had been a handy charm learned gods only knew when, and now it was even more so convenient when she had spent the last day tracking the man through the city.

There had been almost an inordinate amount of work tracking the man down, hours of scrying and even longer hours of tracing sloppy, complicated, paper trail after paper trail. Luckily though, the WCPD and RIP had done a good deal of the work for her; and after Council had decided to finally get off their sorry asses and do something about all the strange deaths surrounding much of the magic using community things moved quickly. The deaths had been one or two here or there to start with, but then they had grown more numerous to ignore. Eventually it had been traced back to a strange drug named Elysium, and it's ability to somehow boost a magic user's potential, but at the cost of burning them out too soon. "The Council wants this man brought to trial on charges for killing by use of magic." She added stepping further into the street towards DHEED, Dee, and Elijah.

"Now turn around and step down Mr. Kenton. I believe many people would like to speak with you." Catherine motioned one hand resting on the gun on her left hip. She really didn't want to make this any more complicated than it was, and was more than willing to let each party have their turn with the man before whisking him away to Council's draconian facilities.

Watching with the twisted amusement of a man who knew his hour had come, he laughed, "The more you waste your time on me, the more your city suffers. Make a choice, imprison a weak old man, or prevent destruction. I know you can't resist such tantalising figure. Kill me, imprison me, or whatever, I won. Your city suffers and magic users shall die in thousands. Elijah Alexander Kenton has finally cemented his legacy. Weep now for the lives destroyed, weep now for those who suffer my strife." chuckling he watched them all, "MCU, why I am honoured you would send your best after me. And Detective Dee, your reputation precedes. Finally my dear Robotic friend, DHEED. I don't know you, but imagine your system is getting overloaded with mass alerts. That is my cue, so please make your choice. Am I allowed to climb down and surrender or do you instead wish to brutally slaughter me atop the tank? I am sure my blood in the water supply will add much flavour." grinning, he started to step towards the ladder, "May I assume, that you wish for me to climb down and wish to bring justice upon me?"

He stood confidently, his body old, but still recognisable, with snidely whiplash moustache and gaunt features, "My friends, I knew this dance would be my last, so I invited all Wing City to see the spectacle. I sadly, have no encore, I hope the show does please!"

Then the quake began, massive tremors growing quickly that Elijah quickly took grip of the railing.

DHEED looked at Detective Dee first and facial recognition pulled him out of civil files very quickly. Higher up. Didn't have coffee. Then another woman popped out of the woodwork and facial recognition had a lot of sightings but not a lot of data. 'Possibly female' was about the quality of data the surveillance programming could produce on its own. While updating her profile with the information she gave DHEED hated his programmers with every fiber of a hundred thousand optical nodes. A flicker of a second away in his mind DHEED spent a small pile of credits to mail several of them a large anonymous box of 'personal massagers'. Each one of several already received among all of them.

A flicker of a moment later another box addressed to detective Dee's home as DHEED turned his gun safety on and addressed the detective, "The citizen wasn't in my custody yet. I was hoping he would run. It seems the vandal is in too high demand."

DHEED had heard Elijah but completely ignored him to contemplate to this Catherine next while trying to locate an address for the MCU, "Containing magical vagrants is a lot of paperwork. You're welcome to do it all."

Finally the droid looked at Elijah, "It would be overloaded if I cared to read any. I do not. I care about all the paperwork I'm going to fill out to cover all the damages. It pales compared to the minimal amount of paperwork for putting new breathing holes in your meat suit. I think I'd like for you to suffer more than that."

DHEED's grip was quick and sure unbothered by the shaking mag-booted to the tank as he was. Gauss put onto DHEED's back each mag-boot clanked the way over to Elijah yanking him into DHEED's arms. The bot hopped down to the floor DHEED's compensators made for a hard but sure landing. With its stabilization hardware to Elijah rather looked like the world was wobbling.

DHEED commented idly to Catherine, "A sample for my Bitch to 'evaluate' is out of the question I take it. I see the reports are pretty bad. Can't kill my Bitch."

The good news was, Dee had coffee he'd just bought at Fourbucks to make back at home, the bad news was, well, he had coffee he just bought at Fourbucks. Now yes most would remark that it was one thing that was both good and bad, but it was important enough to mention and to himself, think about twice, he knew DHEED, from many incarnations and versions. So naturaklly he withdrew from his left sleeve a vase, a coffee tin actually, from Fourbucks, premium Regular extra roasted coffee grounds ready to turn into coffee.

The ground shook then and didnt seem to stop as Dee moved tpo perch on a bent nearby pipe that flexed when the ground shook under him, keeping him balance. He turned towards Catherine, "Ah, MCU graces this interested one with one of its members, Most aluring I must admit. But now is not the time for arrests in any case, for Jusstice Dee is on the trail and it shall be.... oh my..." he trailed off as a nearby building began to break apart from the earthshake. "I do believe we have bigger problems Lady Catherine" he said giving a nod towards the now starting to crumble off its buiolding faecade. Oh boy.

He tossed the coffee can to DHEED "For you good droid I meant to give it to you before you left but you left too soon before I could give it to you." The cainter was newly bought and was intended for DHEED anyhow. Dee didnt know it yet but DHEED just sent him some fire supplkies for home, it had gotten rather chilly of late and neeeded some warming up, so shit to burn was useful

Catherine sighed as she looked at DHEED with annoyance. She had grown to have quite the hatred for drones and their ilk after working briefly for the Aschen and their anti magic branches. "Look I don't give a shit if you take a sample or not." She told the drone not caring either which way what happened after she took Elijah in. They could all go their separate ways for all she cared, and likely Catherine would go back to flying under the radar, largely unknown outside of certain circles. "And I don't give a shit if he runs or you shoot him... or Confucius here questions him all day long... as long as he's mine in the end." She said pointedly as she started to climb up the ladder but was soon stopped halfway up as a low groan began to work it's way across the landscape.

Earthquakes weren't something she knew to be common in the city, but then again there seemed to be a first time for everything. Frowning, Catherine stood there on the ladder watching the buildings begin to crumble around her and nearby trees began to sway within a nonexistent wind. "You're right!" She shouted up the ladder towards Dee as the roar began to become deafening. Staying anywhere near the tanks would surely result in their drowning; Catherine didn't care what happened to DHEED, the thing was a menace as far as she was concerned. "Bigger problems than that damn droid getting it's fucking coffee!" Catherine snapped. Three entities fighting over this one man, surely this was not what any of them had intended, but apparently Elijah was getting immense amusement from it.

Sending out careful tendrils, hugging close to the veil, Catherine frowned in both concern and potentially fear. She hadn't known just how many leylines had ran beneath the city, and apparently something was tapping into them. 'A god? No... Mage? Maybe..' Catherine thought to herself as she assessed the situation anew.

In truth, he not expected something like this. The destruction, of course, was predicted but the actual quake that was different. Nonetheless, he continued to waltz in a facade and not reveal his true worry to die like this. Being he was being held, there is little he could do, the quake continuing to cause damage, the ground shuddering violently, while cars below crashed.

The water towers were building up the dangerous amounts of tension if it became too much the legs would buckle or bow. With the ground shaking violently and with such colossal reverberation. Each one ringing through the foundations of the building's having their very strength test.

Unfortunately, Wing City was not known for their Earthquake thus the measures that could have saved the city were not in place. Thus, as the shaking continued and appeared to grow the tensile strength of each was being beyond stressed. Some had already succumbed to completely toppling over. Others stood the screaming around them, they were mockeries of defiance as soon their will would break and like other buildings, they would topple, crash down. Just end up in an overall mess of destruction.

Elijah could see this and knew that be better to be on the ground, even if it was like trying to dance on ice currently, "Robot, please take me to the ground now. Unless you wish to hang around while these towers collapse." smirking he blew mock kisses to an invisible crowd, "It seems I have outdone myself!" chuckling he awaits acknowledgement.

The legs holding up the tower were continuing to build up the tension, the quake threatening to completely unbolt and knock it over. This would, of course, be bad since the tanks were enough to flood portion of the city. Altogether there was eight of them all connected to one another. With colossal tanks to contain the entire supply of water, pumped from the station. Again, the city was not used to such heavy destruction by Mother Nature. Invasion. Oh yes. Demonic horrors breaking free, yes. The power of nature, being fraught on the city... That was new and with quake of this scale, Wing City in the end would be lucky to have anything standing...

THIS WAS WING CITY'S, FINAL RECKONING!

Landed earlier DHEED looked up assessing the tanks from various spatial sensors that were at least kinder when operating under vibration than the cameras were. That report is sent off to simulators to figure out what was going on exactly. It needed to know exactly how screwed they were. Then it spied the coffee can on its way up so DHEED took a firm grip on Elija's leg then let go with the other to dangle Elijah from the ground while catching. The can itself went to mag-clip on his side intended for pistols which held the can quite well. The detective knew how the world worked. In the hiss of data world smoothed.

Structural analysis reports came back and the meat target wasn't kidding there were rapid lateral structural failures. Some engineer opted for the cheap bolts and little sway flex. Civil engineers were easier to acquire the addresses for than secret agents of one sort of another. The poor engineer got added to DHEED's list of addresses. Now that it had Elijah near the wobbling ground dangling from one hand it simply let go. Elijah wasn't getting far even if the honorable Detective Dee didn't get him first.

DHEED then quickly clambered up the support his data said was the most stable mag-boots turned high which kept DHEED to a tenuous grip on juddering metal. DHEED offered his hand to Catherine, a fellow officer of the law, his voice smoother and without the disdain, "It's dangerous for you to be up here, Ma'am. I can land you safely do you need assistance? I suggest leaving for a bunker immediately."

A wrench went flying. Sometimes she hated it when others messed with important code. The last of the major coders behind the DHEED drones Car Key found herself called in to do a hurried repair that turbned out to be everything BUT a hurried repair, more like hurled insults, backstabbings and worse, mostly from the DHEED unit she was trying to gain access to so she could get a look at its insides and fucked up code.

Finally she relented and sat back. the DHEEd unit before her amazingly putting itself back together on its own. Then she remembered, her code was still good. But why had it become so twisted with other code strings ? Was there other code that needed repair ? "unit 26K119, code gray. Car Key access Alpha...." Sometimes only the verbal command worked. She rattled off her access key then {which wont be known for secuirity purposes}

All she wanted at that moment was to make sure her personal codec she had made for the inital DHEED units was still stable, it was it. Then again DHEED liked coffee, so she grabbed the coffee can from her belt bag and held it out. When the droid reached for it she pulled her hand back slightly "You give me Alpha access, I give you the coffee..." She said simply. it was true.

Though she WAS going to give him the coffee anyhow even without access