Beacons in The Dark

Chapter 7 - Bloody Deciphering

"The end is only another beginning." - unknown

Sitting on his bed waiting for the cleanup crew to arrive, Blue wondered over many things, his brows furrowed in instense concentration.

Wellsprings of memories spouted through his mind like a geyser, keys and connection; enhanced by biomechanic implants - his processing speed was utterly amazing, but it put Blue into a trance, cutting him almost completely off from his surroundings.

Millions of databits flowed through his mind, splitting into differing tangents, coming back together, swirling together as more data input flowed through his thoughts, some falling apart, others coalescing into something much larger that he couldn't quite compute at the time...it was just too much data to compress into a single thought.

The soul of the situation was changing and there was some nebulous idea that was at the root of it all, but it was escaping his grasp.

It would take some time to figure out what was going on.

Reaching into a bedside dresser, he pulled out a small handheld instrument, his fingers slipping into the device's handle. Hearing an audble click as a sensation of weird scratchiness tingles in his hands as he felt the electrodes slot correctly into the tiny ports built into his palms.

As he walked out from his bedroom, he glimpsed Nami on his terminal speaking with a guild liasion about the incidents, and judging by the time, the Cleaners would come calling soon. That was good; the coppery stink of blood was starting to irk him.

The device in hand was a personal bioscanner, bulky and white, looking like an oversized pistol with a snubbed nose that had a small rectangle of reflective silver nanoglass and when switched on cast a fine line of dazzling green light.

As far as he knew, Blue was the only one in the system  with a bioscanner this small; they were normally large and bulky things the size of a doorway; but being a Loremaster and finder of lost technology let him keep a few of the juiciest secrets to himself.

"Cleaners will be here in a few minutes." Nami said exiting his study, "So you might want to do this quickly unless you'd like to give up that nifty little machine up for the Empire's benefit."

Blue made a face and said, "My ocular scans were only cursory, let us see if there's anything with these guys..some clue, something."

"Mm." Nami said, walking out of the apartment to drag the other body into the room.

"Whoa." Blue mouthed. "My ocular scans picked up none of this!" he exclaimed excitedly as he ran the green line over the mutilated bodies. "Must have some way to scramble weaker scans, hm. Both between ninety and two hundred cycles old, partly cyborg, augmented everything..geez, these guys were urban combat models with polymetal muscle implants and marksman class eyes. They may have been Holy Armada men at one time...or maybe still are." 

He unslotted the bioscanner after a databurst informed him that the Cleaners were there.

"Hello, Loremaster!!" said a deep and cheery voice from the broken doorway.

Standing there were Counselor Bast and Counselor Tylux, two of the five High Council of the Loreseeker's Guild with a coterie of white armored Cleaners behind them.