Void Guardian Interlude: Beyond the Elliptic

Interlude 1 - Beyond the Elliptic

“Welcome, fellows. We have much to go over.”

“I would certainly say so.”

“This is dire. We’re losing them!”

“Stop being so melodramatic. We can manage. We’ve patched the holes. We should get outside support for a bit though.”

“I can tell you now that none will be forthcoming.”

“Why not?! We’re being left shorthanded—and that’s before training issues!”

“You could always do a better job training your agents, you know.”

“What would you know, you blowhard?! You haven’t done any serious training of your agents in the entire time I’ve known you!”

“Just because I’m subtle enough to not require barking at them like an overexcited canine doesn’t make me wrong. My agents are more successful and focused.”

“This is relatively serious. Could you two focus please?”

“Shut it! You didn’t have one stolen out from under you!”

“It has happened to myself in times past. Not of late, but I have experienced it.”

“Also, I have lost several and had one of the replacements stolen. It’s not as big a deal as you make it out to be.”

“Recently?!”

“Yeesssss. Recently. At nearly the same time as yours. You don’t see me throwing a fit about it, do you?”

“Yours wasn’t stolen by that jumped up—”

“Oh, your favorite irritant? One would think, with all that you’ve given her, that you would be the best of friends by now.”

“Need I remind you how damnably hard it’s going to be to meet goal with our reduced forces? This is disastrous!”

“Could you two cease bickering for at least a single meeting?!”

“Certainly.”

“Fine.”

“The issue is forces. You have them locally, you can no longer afford to transfer anyone out.”

“Because we’ve lost—”

“No. That is unimportant. You have your emergency agents. They will do the job, even if they cannot be directed easily or to full effectiveness. Your charge is relatively unimportant, if active. The issue is broader than either of you realize.”

“Oh, really? I’m not sure I believe you. The local situation is quite awful. Losses in multiple teams. Single defenders lost in isolated areas. We’re struggling to patch holes all over. How bad is it supposed to be?”

“This report has been passed among overseers. Because of the extent of the problem, it has been decided that it requires wider dissemination. Please observe the third and fifth points in the top summary especially.”

“What? There’s absolutely no way this is correct. This would imply—”

“There is no implication necessary. The events have been corroborated, confirmed.”

“This issue is multi-versal? You are of course, joking.”

“And multi-planar.”

“Not possible.”

“No, look—confirmed. See the annotations.”

“Haz-zet.”

“As you can see, this is considerably worse a situation than you would expect, though you were unaware of it in your backwater.”

“Something of this size… What could have caused it?”

“I’ll tell you who it’s not.”

“You cannot. What has caused it is unknown at this time. The players and organizations operating on this scale that we are aware of either could not, or would not engineer these sequences.”

“Are you kidding? I can think of at least three groups that would!”

“You are as wrong as your colleague. None of the three you are thinking of would engineer all steps to go this way. It has been considered. The deaths would have multiple suspects. The mass creation of new agents? An entirely different set. The fact that every one of you used the same process? One so resource-intensive? Even harder to force. Fewer suspects still.”

“So? We’ll figure it out.”

“I have no faith in coincidence. Nor in the vagaries of something as fickle as Fate. This is enemy action. Known or unknown player, it makes little difference.”

“The scale that this report implies suggests that our job is flat out impossible.”

“Oh, how do you figure?”

“I understand the conclusion being drawn. An organization capable of this level of coordination across this many continuities and planar gaps—this is either a singular being of such immense power as to crush us underfoot on a whim, or an organization of such import and coordination as to make us look hopelessly outclassed.”

“How do you expect to continue on task in the face of something like this?”

“It does look rather bleak. The timing is entirely too suspicious to be anything but deliberate action.”

“That has not been confirmed yet. While deliberate action has been detected at some of these incidents, it is not from a single party. Some of the agent creations have no precipitating incident, merely new contracts or discoveries.”

“So, just coincidence then? But I thought you just said you don’t believe in that sort of thing?”

“The use of multiple fronts, of other forces, suggests to me a different power in play. One of influence, but not of raw strength or impossible coordination.”

“Oh, ho.”

“Ah. I see. Even in our little corner, they push at us?”

“Unfortunately, even the least of my suspicions has yet to be confirmed. But I believe this matches their motives and methods. And it creates the spectre raised by the report, of something grander than it is.”

“Yes but no—a frustrating answer.”

“It is the best that I can offer at the moment.”

“So what are we to do?”

“If you believe the task still viable, are our directives unchanged?”

“I did not say that. Certain aspects must be scaled back in the interim. Others emphasized, prioritized.”

“Of course.”

“Be serious. This will—this has set us back, and not just locally. On all fronts. Some adjustment is to be expected.”

“We will have to shift some priorities. If you can find evidence of my theory, it would be appreciated. Something to pass up and out along the chain, before this paranoia-inducing report is allowed time to fester.”

“We’ll watch for anything unusual. More so than typical, at any rate.”

“You know the whys now, fellows. Let us move on to the whats and hows.”

“Of course.”

“Of course.”