Pence Warren 2020 Debate's Story

The Adept grunted at the sight of the grenade, and with lightning speed, and inhuman precision, he took his free hand, and moved to encapsulate his massive, armored fist around Lawson's hand, and the grenade. The grenade would detonate harmlessly within the armored fist, likely taking Lawson's hand with it, but sparing him, and everyone else around them.

The Confessor chuckled. "My, You're full of suprises."

The Adept grunted again, and with Joseph still in his grasp, moved to slam his head into the concrete, in an attempt to knock him out.

Joseph Lawson 's head hits the concrete, and he blacks out, his head bloodied and his forehead heavily bruised.

As the man returned with a confessor Sukarma felt humans join in her core reference frame again. Some humans somewhere with a suitable telekinetic ability surveilling within the knowledge of her proximity. There were others poking around in there too but they felt stiff moving around processing threads to look at the raw data for the incomplete but stable quantum ansible to her Earth. The activity felt good to be useful again even if it wasn't really a crew. The man's hand reached for his pocket.

Their activity turns frenetic as eigen manifolds open to interface her sensors with her intuition as some of the stiffer minds using tools instead of native power fled. Someone would, is, and did vomit on her ship deck though the whole of the situation she deprioritized. Networks of potential and actual data linked between computational models integrated with a more holistic view of time independent of now and later. A deeper understanding born of organic and very human brains scattered around the inside of her frame and her avatar itself. The minds that remain seem alert but with directed attention that follows thread folding clearly had an idea of what was going on.

They passed information out of her core manifold about the potentialities as she copied then handed the request off to subsystems for linear render. Executive duly engaged with this particular task Sukarma took in what was happening as threads cut and pruned deciding what she was going to do in the seconds a hand moved to his pocket. The stream of time resumed as she rejoined linear flow. The man wasn't likely to pull the pin as medical data plus the look in his eye told her he might decide against it. Sukarma stood up anyway and started walking closer just in case.

The Adept neutralized that situation anyway as she raised a hand to organize a FE shear plane of the ring from the grenade pin. The interconnected frame's eigenvector tethers jiggle to evade the other minds staring at the whole but she had to move one out of the way. At her distance couldn't shear much but a small pin wasn't that thick so the field-effect tool had to be efficient. Then they smashed the xeno's head into the ground and he went out like a light. Sukarma winced as that looked like it hurt.

A few soft mag-clamps clicked off as Sukarma's blue backpack flipped around to her hand at the front. A step or two to the side having repurposed the shear plane into a matter translation. It was a bit strong for that. There was a white symbol of an Ashen healing diety on it. Her support pack got a few upgrades lately from what she could get personal licenses for. The bureaucracy didn't take well to the ship and the user being the same thing on forms. There was a lot for her to read and understand and if she wanted to be able to really use it she had to actually learn it. Unlike the AIs that gave the EI migraines when they moved too deep that just sucked in everything like little black holes. Rather short compared to most Ashen she approached slowly to look up at the Confessor and Adepts as her chromatic skin turned a watery green on blue.

Hair tentacles moved to switch out sensory apparatus as her conversational Antiquas is just slightly broken by Latin tensing, {Ad Victoriam. Do you want first aid for the Xeno, Confessor? The wounds may get infected there's no indication his immunology is as robust as Ashen.}

Joseph Lawson 's eyes flicker, then open slowly. He's barely holding on, as it seems.

Joseph Lawson puts his arm against his chest, the one with the now-missing hand, and sits there, his eyes slowly glazing over as he goes into shock.

Joseph Lawson looks at the Adept who blew off his hand, and says, under his breath, "Damn you all..." Then he says, a bit louder, and obviously disorientated, "I have another bomb. I am going to remove it from my jacket. Do not kill me, please. I am willfully... willfully surrendering it." He reaches with his left hand into his coat, and slowly removes a cube-like metallic grenade, with green dots arranged in a triangle on the front side of it. He reaches it out to the confessor, then thinks better and just drops it.

Joseph Lawson shakily stands up, noticing the medic for the first time. He winces as he touches a hand lightly to his forehead, and shrugs off his coat, unwilling to wear it. He takes out a small pistol and tosses it onto the ground near the feet of the confessor. The pistol is stylized with the image of a phoenix on the barrel, and he seems reluctant to give it up, but throws it down anyways. "Look, I don't want any trouble anymore, Confessor. But I have one thing to say." He wipes some blood from his forehead, then continues his statement. "Fuck you and your whole fucking corrupt society, you brainwashed dogs. You may put down rebellions but we will always rise again. Phoenix Vivat! Seditionis vivat!" his mind exhausted, he promptly collapses to his knees and mutters one last time, "Seditionis... vivat...." and closes his eyes, ready for whatever punishment is sure to come his way.

Sukarma slid a panel on her backpack open to expose a sensor panel as her eye followed the grenade. A thin blue box field formed around the cubed weapon as it clunked to the bottom. The force effect volume a hollow box hovered in midair as she translated it along each orthogonal axis where the grenade effectively is pushed by each interior side. Attention to the manifold is much less once to the ground thus considerably lowering her executive effort to maintain it.

Sukarma winced at the second collapse to the weakened rebel, {dum vivimus servimus, rebel. The hand is still there but I think you may have a damaged medial nerve cutting off the sensation.}

Her eyes flitted around the man's injuries as a density scan quantified the injuries on his forehead and hand commenting an old quote in Latin as she'd been reading a lot of ancient books in her Gutenberg index, {Dura lex sed lex.}

The massive Adept grunted, as he brought his attention first to Sukarma, and then back to Lawson, he grunted again, and kicked the jacket, the pistol, and everything else out of the way, before reaching down to grab Joseph, and usher him forcibly towards the truck.

The Confessor simply smiled, and offered a nod to the machine woman. "We're going to take him to Whispering Mountain, where he will learn his place." The Confessor smiled, and then stepped into the back of the truck. The Adept would restrain Lawson, and once the van closed up, it would head out, down the road towards Whispering Mountain Prison.

Renton, being a long term citizen of Aschen knew one thing: there should always be order. However, from his perspective, it was incumbent on the citizens, countrymen, and officers to make sure that the one's who were being served were the people. So everyone should do thier part to ensure a safe country. Officials who served government were no different, they should serve with the best interest of the countries future at heart. Which should be the citizen's best interest. He should know...he retired from the positions in the military to live a life of the civilian; it wasn't that long ago that he was an honored officer that everyone thought was odd, yet intimidating and highly efficient at his posts.

Renton went from being a highly decorated fields operative, to office, to confessor. He was one of the few that continued to move laterally until he learned everything he needed to know and did everything he could; and then, he decided it was time to pursue his other interests just as doggedly as he had served his country. Play after work right?

This is how he got into botany and other things related to nature like bugs and animals. He was in a place of learning and having a little peace. He served his time. So he just watched the others serve theirs and helped where he could. However, in the 30 years he served, he was not at all comfortable with what he saw sometimes.

He never voiced it, he never questioned it out loud...but every now and again, he would feel uneasy by the actions of he corrupt more and more. Growing pains of servitude and law were absolute unquestionable loyalty...and watching what was once a cause you believed in slip through your fingers and turn into dust certainly didn't help keep any of that. He was now a hardcore believer in trying to formulate change, but he wasn't sure how to go about it. He wanted to take some time to have a vacation off planet to think about that. He had a ticket reserved and everything! However, they shut down the transport and locked down the planet a couple of rallies ago.

He knew he should take the opportunity to vacate whilst he still had the ability to. The port seemed to be open again, so there was the possibility of him being able to get his head straight before joining back as a confessor or maybe even council. He wasn't sure at current. After helping to spy on civilians during his down time from gardening, he figured he could unload his responsibilities to another confessor who was willing to take up the task. Whilst he goes for a quick break.

Renton had been thinking all of this whilst strolling around the city. He had been just watching and observing for the last couple of days, and he was eating lunch at the moment. Knowing the Confessor he left the office of, would probably love to find out that he was spying on his ex wife.

Lovely times it was to live in...

Cyrus had only recently arrived in Caprica City, to visit the well-known Victory Square. He had always wanted to see the center of the power and information of the Empire, but now that he had arrived, it honestly didn't seem to be much. He quickly shrugs off that thought, however. He's sure it would be much more awe-inspiring on the day of two minutes of hate. But that's not why he's here. As of right now, he wishes to do the thing he's been wanting to do his whole life. It had only been a couple of weeks since his seventeenth birthday, and he was officially old enough to vote and enlist. So he looks around for an enlistment stand, and, spotting one, walks up to it, only a couple yards away, and ponders; Army or Navy?

He spends a couple seconds thinking about it and goes with the choice that may determine the rest of his life.

So he walks up to the stand and says,

"I would like to enlist in the Empire's Navy."

Cyrus stands a couple feet in front of the recruitment stand. He thinks maybe the person in it didn't hear him? He's about to ask again when his datacom buzzes with an important broadcast. He opens it and views the message, a quick conversation with the great emperor about a group of insurgents. His face fills with disgust for them as it is mentioned they killed fifty schoolchildren. He didn't quite catch the name, something of Ash, he thinks. These... xenos, they might as well be, are trying to cause chaos during a time of war, and against their own empire. They must be put down, all of them that still want to fight, with extreme prejudice. So he looks up at the recruiter, and says, "Can I sign up to go fight these... these... Rebels? Is that a decision I can make?"

Lawson looks around at the square. It was beautiful, in some sense. The red telescreens adorned with the face of Big Brother contrasted excellently against the drab grey background of the city, and gave it a splash of color it needed.
He flexes his hands against his sides, pressing his balled fists into his thighs. One of his hands is severely damaged, with three of his fingers missing.
A while ago, he wasn't even sure when, he did something that subsequently changed his life for the better, as he saw it.
He breathes in deeply, then exhales quickly.
He walks off, heading somewhere, hopefully away from all of the... noise.