326 Far Future, Chapter 36 – The Tech Tree, Part I (1/2)

To say I had some contacts in high places was not a misnomer.

First of all, about six months ago, I went to a high-end restaurant, rented a room for my lads to see what it was like to eat there, and while they dined, a number of men and women came in, got Marked, and left quietly, ignoring and ignored by everyone else present.

Two of those men were Philius Marwengora and Sir Dorval. When I had first arrived in this place, I hadn't thought much of the two of them, until I found out there were a grand total of six actual Coronal Knights on the planet, and Umbral Inquisitors were similarly limited. As a matter of fact, there was only three of each in this city. They had their own teams, and there were plenty of juniors who got things assigned to them... plenty meaning several dozen.

They mostly fobbed stuff off on the Juris, and used the Striker teams from the organization or the Cohorts they had built up themselves. Only when it concerned truly Tough Stuff, like psykers, the Warp, alien infestations, or outright war, did they tend to get involved personally. Most of their time was spent looking for stuff to get involved in, as it were... and naturally enough finding endless amounts of stuff for others to get involved in as they did so.

The system of email dead drops was proving inconvenient, and since I had an untraceable telepathic corridor that came with a Stat buff, why wouldn't I give it to these two Tens to make quiet use of? Simply them being able to talk to one another without others knowing was a very interesting option... and being able to make quiet use of my people in one fashion or another a new trick that couldn't be traced easily.

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I was also treating their Striker teams, as long as they had their cyberware removed. This was a big stretch for some of the men, but given they were some of the most elite warriors on the planet, it was something that could be done for the promise of psychic abilities, however limited. Being Awakened to a Null Psion and Forsaken status, and able to be a very viable threat to psi-users, was also remarkably attractive to these professionals laboring in the shadows of their Powered colleagues...

Naturally I was also the one introducing them to disciplines and abilities they could acquire, but they were elites, and we had /tellepathic links, so I didn't need to be physically present to instruct them.

Found one infiltrator in the Umbral Strikers, too, true memory sealed into a psychic virus to hide it from brain scans, whose cloaking was totally disrupted by the transpsionic presence of the Mark and its accompanying geas. That fellow went into the Dungeon, never to emerge again... or maybe his original memory was expunged, and he was turned into a double agent against the cult or faction employing him originally... who knows? Mentalists do kooky stuff to one another...

As for me, I could do this because I advanced to Ten in Rantha. A Ten Hit Die being running around wasn't all that unusual, there were tons of them in the crazy landscape outside the city walls. I was still a Six in Class Levels, but with the power of my Rantha bloodline, being a Ten in Race was nearly as good as having my Class Levels there. The additional Stats, defenses, and Health did a lot, and doing so also raised my cap on Ranks of Skills obtainable. I used the Intellect bonuses to keep my techno-knowledge advancing to ten Ranks, meaning I could finally understand how a lot of this shit actually worked, finally.

Knowing is half the battle. I could now put a lot more effort into guiding, and having six viable thoughtstreams with my Charisma and Wisdom both contributing their share of the load helped me manage my increasingly complex organization without much difficulty.

It also meant I was a Ten, and these Sevens couldn't look down on me, and Philius and Sir Dorval could see me as an equal, astonished as they were.

Still, it was a lot of slow, bit by bit improvement. Which was fine, I wasn't in a race. I had to bring down the four greatest gods of this universe, after all. Wasn't going to happen overnight.

I could totally help organize taking down a zwilnik boss first.

And it was for this reason that I saw the next move coming.

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They came into my micro-miniaturized vacuum tube production facility with great huff and guff, bulling their way right past the guards and office workers, shutting down the factory floor and starting a search of the facility within minutes. They seemed pretty cocky as they headed for the office and began to confiscate things.

When the Juris Captain barged into my office, his gun drawn for good effect, I glanced over my shoulder at him, while giving him a full face view of my oversized holoscreen there, where a Mentat woman in the soft greys and whites of that organization's officers, along with golden braid showing she was Up There in rank, was talking with me, and the accountant at my side.

”- on further review of the anti-contaminant properties of the tube boards that you've forwarded to us, the results are uniformly positive to a 99.7% degree of conformity, with Warp Resistance nearly uniform to nearly ten times the current level of most of our current technological standards... Juris? Are you in need of something?” she asked coldly, as her eyes glowed for a second, looking over my shoulder.

He was looking at the woman in the techno-suit and visor-helm of a Juris attache standing next to me, and jumped at the Mentat's words. ”Councilor... Grymshime? You are conversing with a wanted felon. I have a warrant issued for her arrest!” he stated, quite full of himself, and turning his attention on me. ”Sama Rantha, you will submit yourself for arrest and detention. The charge is production and distribution of unlicensed technology-”

”Citizen Sama Rantha does not need a license to produce vacuum tube technology, Captain Hamrin,” the Juris attache next to me immediately spoke up, her voice frosty. ”Her blanket production permits have been reviewed by me personally and are in good order. Who signed that warrant?”

The Juris Captain hesitated at the very cold and uncompromising tone of the Juris woman, and her hard stare. ”Inspector Amalee? I am executing a valid warrant and seizure of the property for one Sama Rantha-”

”Captain, you will tell me who issued that warrant, or you will hand me your gun so I can shoot you with it.”

There was a crackling moment of tension in the air as Inspector faced Captain and thoughts ran through everyone's heads. The Mentat on the screen raised her eyebrow in interest, clearly appreciating the scene. I just ignored everyone and waited for him to go away.