Chapter 352 - Far Future Ch. 62 – Books and Shadows (1/2)

Vivi and Inigo worked together more than my others, as remote information/tech user combined with hands-on infiltrator made for a great team. Vivi especially had a lot more responsibilities ongoing, as she was smack dab in the middle of database management, and worked a lot with the Goldilocks teams. She was also assigned a rather hard-edged crew of combat hackers, whose whole goal was destruction of the enemy's electronic warfare capabilities, and who were used to support Vivi and others engaged in some of the rather illegal shit that needed to be done.

I also used Inigo for a whole lot of outright robbery across the city, some commissioned, some purely for profit, and some for auction. Crews of independents were assembled for jobs, dispersed. Some fixers and arrangers tried to rope her in and keep her once they found out how good she was, and a few ended up dead with their fortunes missing before they got the hint that they'd work for her, not the other way around.

The gold standard for your rep was being willing to kill a Juris, of course, and it wasn't all that hard to find a corrupt one, figure out who they were working for, sell that information to a competitor of said party, and then pick up the termination contract to boot. Vivi also got real good at the bounty hunter side of things, having a nose for agglomerating bounties through different parties into catches or terminations, usually the latter, and arranging to get paid several times for the same job.

Generally, underworlders were specialists, but Inigo's capability as an all-arounder who could fly solo save for a support crew was damn useful for keeping the leaks down... and pulling off non-contract jobs that soon enhanced the legend of a new cat burglar in the city pulling off sly thefts on high Blok dwellers and those Mid- to Upspire, and never did the rep of said burglar and Inigo the reliable crew worker meet.

The girls made a lot of money pulling jobs... targeting the corrupt, of course, who could hardly complain if they were robbed of their ill-gotten gains. Most of them had money in non-electronic forms, and/or hidden accounts or safety deposit boxes here and there, and getting them in and out was a fun puzzle that meant whoever was responsible for x theft was soon issued a bounty on, and if said things were taken as aggregates, it was a considerable amount.

Yay, we were on the bounty ranking, only nobody knew it!

And if necessary, I or half a dozen other Ranthas energetically pursuing the stealth op route could jump in to pull off jobs in her name while she was elsewhere, totally mucking up any kind of statistical analysis of who she might be.

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Emma was expanding our horticultural division nicely. She was also the most popular of the six among the locals in Habberblok, because there were now flowers growing on every floor along the Plunge because of her. The wonders it did for morale was great, and that was before fresh beans and peas were on the menu. There weren't many other Ranthas with agricultural talents, so she basically ended up with top billing in that area.

Aura was working on an online law degree VERY quickly, and already handling all our marketing and contracts. She had a very sweet smile, and was waiting for Eight when she could turn on the Nereid Aura and reduce men, and more than a few women, to idiots with a knowing glance. Our supply and sales partners were already fearing her, which I thought was just wonderful. She was also the only one of the six who was into the social scene Upspire, and she definitely had the looks to fit in, and, well, there were plenty of other Ranthas with social Talents who were happy to go devastate the other gender at parties and meetings and dances with her... broken hearts and drool hitting the floor in their wakes, of course.

Basically, the girls were doing very well. If I could make them truly independent when they opened their past, that would be for the best... although having independent thoughtstreams with their own bodies was very advantageous and plenty cool with all the stuff I could learn and do at the same time.

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”Well, to start the meeting off, happy birthday, girls!”

”THANK YOU, MOM!” they all promptly laughed back.

”There's a bunch of bullshit I have to inform you all of, and we'll get to that. The first and most key thing is that you are all not clones. You do all have the same starting point, but as you look around, you can see that you are all different. You all have different other parents, and in your cases, those other parents are you.”

Their smiles faded somewhat, and they stared at me in interest.

”You've all been reborn, reincarnated, gone through that process and are new people, bless the Rantha Hag Curse. Because you used to be undead ghosts.”

Now they started looking pretty solemn.

”You are in a grimdark future world. The fate you were consigned to was damnation. I gave you the chance for a new life, and you all took it.

”Some of you were not nice people. You were all infected with negative energy, which means you were on the evil side of things when dead, which is how the Curse could grab you. When you get that Charisma to 30 and hit Eight, you're gonna pop open the door to your last reincarnation, take a look at who you used to be, and see what was done to you.”

I let that hang there for a long minute or two. ”Your older sisters had something similar happen to them... they were pslaved and damned by Amourae. You all were brainfried and became puppets of some Warp Sorcerers. To the tune of over one hundred thousand of you and your friends and neighbors.”

The surprise and delight of their birthday was now kind of lost and grimness was settling in.

”The Ranthas are here to fuck with the Warp Gods. When you see what has happened to you, this is going to stop being just a Karma race, and it's going to become personal.

”The Rantha Curse means that even a soul can be your parent, so while there may not be any genetic material, there's enough for the Curse to work with. I dug up what I could about who you were in your last lives, and that's who your names are based on.” I snapped my fingers, and names popped up on their Bands. ”You aren't Sama Rantha, that's just a shell of a name, giving you some free skills and abilities and a foundation for being a Rantha Hag.

”Now, you stand up and introduce yourselves to your sisters.” I nodded at the girl in the front rightmost, a dark-eyed, brown-haired lass with cocoa skin. She nodded and got up, turning around and waving at everyone.

”Hi, sisters, I am Raffie Rantha!”

”HI RAFFIE!” they all waved back soberly, and the second generation of Ranthas was off to start their path of doing what Ranthas did best.

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Second generation didn't accept a Ghost Knight quest. They just went up to Floor 159, and looked around, feeling the presence of the spirits all around... the very familiar presence of those spirits. They wandered up the floors and down them, lingering in areas which might have once been very important to them.