Content Notes: Misgendering/transphobia, homophobia, sexism, abuse, sexual assault, drug abuse, toxic relationships, dehumanization, fascism, body horror, torture, brainwashing, ableism, nonconsensual surgical procedures, lobotomies, hallucinations, memory loss
Promises: Messy lesbians, toxic power dynamics, giant robots fighting eldritch horrors, oppression, and hard choices.
I made this blog to host logs in my game journal for a solo game of Girl Frame (by @anxiousmimicrpgs) I'm playing, aided by the Motif Story Engine.
It will not be a full mechanical breakdown of what is happening, but strictly the narrative dimension of play, in no small part because I want people to give the author their money if they're interested in this shit. It is a really interesting book even just from a ttrpg design perspective, even if you're not a cool trans lesbian with a huge brain.
As a disclaimer; I'm pretty sure what I'm doing is something the author has explicitly suggested against. The recommendation is to play with at least 4 people, 3 at the very minimum.
That said, I've had a really great time exploring this system solo, and would be happy to give anyone a quick tutorial on how I make games like this feasible solo experiences.
You stand in perfect darkness. The kind of darkness you imagine exists only in the womb of the Earth, deep underground when there are no lights, no breath, no sound. Perfect and undisturbed stillness that can make a house sized cavern into a simultaneously infinite and claustrophobic space. You cannot see, but you know that you stand beside your own body in this darkness. You cannot see, but you know your hair is longer than it should be, and that you have freckles, even though you ordinarily do not.
You become aware that you stand in a body not your own. It was the beautiful Harpy that was the core of Lychgate, only now she was not crying.
The pure dark is disturbed by a comet skittering across the ceiling of this space like a rock skipped across a lake, tailed by a furious flame. You see now that you stand on the surface of a vast, still sea. You look to your right, where you were standing next to yourself just a moment ago, now K-2 stands there and you are yourself once again. It touches your face, caressing gently with rough fingers, and you feel yourself fall back onto the surface of the water, cool waver lapping at your skin. Its face is like it was when you were in Edmund’s cockpit.
K-2's expression begins to disintegrate, muscle melts and skin shifts into a kaleidoscopic chorus of strangers, Girls you do not recognize with fury in their eyes. They do not say it, but you can hear them screaming for you to, ‘Remember!’
As you sink under the waves, their hands around your throat, the comet comes into view behind their faces and explodes, and for a just a moment, in the deep red light that halos their face, you can make each one out clearly. Perfect strangers, a kind of family.
Later…
K-9 sat on one of the many gray boulders that dotted the pebbled shore of Coral Harbour. The Sun’s rays flooded from the East to make the shallows all around the island sparkle, and it could feel that warmth on its face, but it did little to undo the chill from the coarse coastal breeze, and it wouldn’t last. K-9 could already see the mass of gray clouds that would blot it out. This far North, you needed a jacket this time of year, but K-9 hadn’t brought one. It liked the cold prickling of the wind on its skin.
From its perch here, it could make out the flooded ruins of the settlement that had predated Coral Harbour Base, a handful of structures that hardly resembled whatever they had been before climate change took its toll. If the water weren’t so frigid, K-9 might think about trying to swim to those ruins. It wondered what was left inside.
Its thoughts turned to what was left of the island, it wasn’t much now. Rocky, flat, wet, the only living thing it ever saw besides humans were Geese passing high overhead. Nowhere to hide, nothing to eat if you weren’t on base. Coral Harbour felt like a world apart from the Earth. It was bitter at the thought that it was its home world. It sat and soaked in its unwelcome thoughts and in the sensations of the world around it.
It was going to be late to the briefing if it didn’t get up now. It thought about letting the moment pass, about waiting here to be dragged to a briefing by K-2’s firm grip. Tennyson more likely. Could K-9 manage an excuse or a lie right now? A convincing one? Could K-9 take the punishment? It thought about diving into the frigid water and swimming south and seeing what happened to it. Would freezing feel as pleasant as the biting wind? It would miss Lychgate.
It pushed itself off the rock and turned back to face the imposing gray structure of the Base, an interconnected complex of layered cubes and rectangular prisms. Same color as the stone all around, but shackled by a rigid geometry. It began the short trek back to the nearby hangar.
Last one to arrive again. Another march down the line, this time K-2, standing at attention where K-1 usually did, very specifically not looking at K-9, then K-1, wearing some new hardware on his face, and then K-10, its usual fidgety air replaced by one of concern directed at K-1. K-9 planted at the leftmost end of the line, faced forward, and waited.
None of them spoke.
They stood together in that silence. K-9 felt as though it ought to be feeling something right now, something the others were feeling, but it didn't. Then again, it only suspected the other Girls were feeling anything at all. Tennyson finally arrived and broke the silence. Click clack, click clack, the sound of the Junior Handler’s heels hitting concrete. No medical staff this time.
“Kaveliere Cadre,” Tennyson needed no warming up, her voice was already firm and crisp as she spoke, “the Foundation has located a Class III Gorgon East of Base 12-E-5” She paced before the Girls, inspecting them as she did, “You will be deployed to neutralize the threat, and Doctor Korsen has commanded that it be preserved for dissection.”
Tennyson’s attention snapped to K-9, “Kaveliere-9,” she declared, K-9 startled to something approximating attention, grateful that it managed to make eye contact with the Junior Handler, “state the defining feature of a Class III Gorgon.”
K-9 swallowed hard before its attempt, “Erratic.”
Tennyson, satisfied with the clipped answer, returned her attention to the others, "We are unable to share much of what we know of the target, but know this;" her pacing ceased and she stood before the Girls to deliver her final command, “it will try to get away, you cannot permit that. Go!”
K-9 noticed that while it and K-1 shot off toward their frames, K-2 seemed to intercept K-10. It told itself it was none of its business, but it felt like its business.
Hiiii I just found your blog and subsequently DEVOURED everything on it and I just want to say how peak it is if you post more I will EAT IT UP but if you’re done with this project I hope you have a great day and an amazing life <333 :3
Thank you! I'm not done with this project, just occupied with a very busy work season and some other projects at the moment. It means a lot to me to hear that you enjoyed this!
I've had some time off work and honestly, hearing that someone has been enjoying this was just the motivation I needed to get Session 2 posted. I'm brushing up on some of the new handler and npc rules, but a short pt 1 of Session 2 Briefing is up now. :3
To say that the Girls of the Kaveliere Cadre had a schedule would not be entirely inaccurate, but it was one that they were themselves often unaware of. For instance, K-1 discovered this morning that he was expected to report for special training from Junior Handler Tennyson. He had only an hour to shower, dress, eat, and report to assignment. He threw on his flight suit, tying it around the waist in anticipation of a great deal of physical exertion, leaving his torso covered only by a black Foundation t-shirt.
The training center at Coral Harbour resembled the auditorium of K-1’s Service Academy in the Baltimore District, sans bleachers and basketball hoops. K-1 appreciated the change of pace, whereas the rest of the base was largely gray or black or brown, the walls here were white, and the laminate wood flooring was the light tan of beech wood save for the purple of the running track that ran the perimeter of the room. Even the fluorescent lights were brighter here, bolstered by high set windows that caught the light of the sun when the clouds allowed.
K-1 stretched while waiting for Tennyson, taking advantage of the quiet moment before he’d be put through his paces. He heard her before he saw her, the door opening and her shoes clicking against the wooden floor. She said, “Look alive, Kaveliere-1.”
Unstartled but coming to attention, K-1 turned to regard the Junior Handler. As usual, she was wearing her Foundation service dress uniform, complete with blazer and skirt. It was clear she would not be participating in whatever routine they were putting him through, “Good morning, sir.”
Tennyson did not acknowledge the Girl, reaching into her satchel and producing something metallic. Extending her arm to K-1, it became clear that it was some sort of mask made to look like the beaked visor of a knightly close helm, “Doctor Korsen designed this for you,” Tennyson explained, “you will wear it during your training this week.” She thrust it forward subtly, “Take it.”
K-1 hesitated, this was not the sort of thing he would imagine the Doctor making, it was too… sentimental. He took it from Tennyson’s hands, surprised to find it was far lighter than he anticipated. Turning it over, it became evident that the visor was held in place on the head by a pair of adjustable straps. Where his eyes would go were a pair of digital goggles, and then he saw it, the small strange cruelty that marked this as a Korsen original. In the beak of the visor, a muzzle.
K-1 looked up to find Tennyson smirking, “You will put it on and we will begin training. Affirm.” She commanded.
He was taken aback, “Sir-”
“Affirm!” She reiterated, firmer, her face setting hard.
Hiiii I just found your blog and subsequently DEVOURED everything on it and I just want to say how peak it is if you post more I will EAT IT UP but if you’re done with this project I hope you have a great day and an amazing life <333 :3
Thank you! I'm not done with this project, just occupied with a very busy work season and some other projects at the moment. It means a lot to me to hear that you enjoyed this!
Doctor Korsen didn’t generally facilitate a debrief with the Girls, she received what data could be gathered from the Frames and Tennyson’s post-mortem, but that didn't mean she was idle. K-9 knew that Lychgate’s shutdown, no matter how temporary, would be flagged by the Doctor and lo and behold it had been pulled into Tennyson’s office along with K-10 immediately upon returning to the base.
“Do the two of you know what you’re doing here?” Tennyson asked. She was sat at her desk, leaning back in her chair, and looking like she was about ready to pass out.
“Not particularly, sir.” K-10 responded, it had looked horrified from the moment Tennyson clarified it was to join K-9 in her office.
“You’re here to learn,” Tennyson told K-10 before turning her attention to K-9, “you however, are here to be a lesson. Can you explain why Lychgate shutdown?”
K-9 managed eye contact with Tennyson and hoped that it could manage words as it opened its mouth, “Only logistically,” it knew that excuses would only make things worse, but it couldn’t quite muster an outright lie, “but I know you have to punish me.”
“That’s right,” Tennyson looked a little surprised at just how little fight K-9 put up, “and its hardly as if that’s the only anomaly from you during this engagement.”
K-9’s slack suddenly disappeared, its posture suddenly shot straight, “What?” What do they know?
“Your neurological activity spiked tremendously last night,” Tennyson leaned forward, pulling a chart from one of the many folders sitting on her desk. Spreading it out over the mess of her papers, she pointed at a tremendous peak in an otherwise relatively stable readout, “You know when that happened, Kaveliere-9?”
“No.” Not technically a lie.
“Right before the Gorgon exposed itself to the Cadre.”
Silence hung in the room, K-9 frozen, Tennyson’s gaze not letting up, and K-10 squirming.
“What happened?”
K-9 broke eye contact, it couldn’t think of a lie, and it felt its mind receding into incoherent paranoia. There was nothing it could say.
“Kaveliere-9!” Tennyson shouted now, causing K-10 to flinch, “You will tell me what you did, or your punishment will be far more severe!”
“I know you need to punish me.”
Tennyson leaned back in disbelief, mouth hanging open as she processed what had just happened, “You know what, Kaveliere-9?” She asked, “You’re free to go. Both of you are dismissed.” She waved the Girls off and turned her attention to her computer, typing and doing her best to ignore them.
K-10 left before K-9, only too eager to clear the scene, and before K-9 closed the door Tennyson spoke up one last time, “Expect to be back here soon, Kaveliere-9.”
September 16, 2198
Coral Harbour Base
K-1 was sat at a steel desk in an uncomfortable chair before the blue light of a Foundation computer monitor, which was hardly helping in his current state. Coming down from the stims was a twenty-four hour job that hurt worse than the engagements themselves, at least that’s how it was for K-1. He could only be grateful that he had managed to sleep through most of yesterday. Still, waking up this morning he could feel the hollow ache at the base of his skull and the sharp pinch in his temples, but most of the soreness was gone at least.
From what he’d gathered, this little office used to be a soundstage, not just this office, but a suite of rooms nearby where the live feed of K-1 and the footage he was reacting to was monitored, the chat moderated, and the clips queued. A lot of work went into making sure that it seemed K-1 was more in control than he really was, but in truth everything down to how he wore the replica NARA military jacket, to how his father’s dogtags were displayed was carefully designed.
When he first started doing this, he would have figured he would be discussing the footage, doing a sort of play by play, but the crew were insistent that he should mostly be making jokes, responding to messages in chat, maybe play up exciting, victorious moments, and where possible drop breadcrumbs for the shippers.
K-1’s face hurt from smiling when he saw the clip of himself stood on top of the Gorgon with Myshkin’s blade deep in its core. He felt some relief, knowing the hours of this would soon be over.
Meanwhile...
The first thing K-2 wanted to do today was drink a big cup of coffee. Its previous handler, Ms. Griffon, used to have a coffee machine in her office that she’d let it use, now it had to go to the mess and use those waxy paper cups. It got dressed, fatigue cargo pants and a white tank top, and was off.
The mess hall at Coral Harbour was designed for a much larger staff, K-2 remembered when most of these tables would have been full of Foundation soldiers. Since Doctor Korsen had arrived the base had felt a touch hollowed out. Barracks lay empty and the civilian staff was reduced to a skeleton crew to support Doctor Korsen’s research staff, the Girls, and the propaganda crew. K-2 privately suspected that Director Zaleski had to intervene to keep the Doctor from neglecting the latter programs entirely.
This morning, it was only a pair of cafeteria workers, K-9 and K-10 sitting not together but at the same table, and that surgeon that did all that work on K-9. K-2 felt something approaching nostalgia.
Stupid.
It approached the serving counter, separated from the worker by a sneeze guard. Neither said anything to the other, Girls didn’t generally pick their diet.
I’m a living weapon, this is some half-wit who couldn’t make the cut for anything better.
Of course, the civilian was looking from the other side of the sneeze guard and thinking, this thing isn’t even human.
Loaded now with scrambled eggs poured from a cardboard carton and cooked in bulk and whatever they were passing as “smoked protein” these days, K-2 made its way to the coffee urn muttering a silent prayer that they had bothered this morning, and then thanking something that they had. Black coffee in a cheap paper cup acquired, it took a seat at the table with the other Girls and started in on its breakfast.
K-9, that thing that used to be K-9, spoke up, “You’re late, K-2.” Was it trying to make a joke? It was managing words, even sentences, but it kept its eyes cast down, and couldn't quite manage to imitate a human otherwise.
“You really are a mockingbird, huh?” K-2 spat back, “Or maybe a parrot. Watching the rest of us, picking up a bit of a sentence here and there. I’m sure any day now you’ll be able to trick someone that you’re a real Girl.”
Dead silence. Problem with putting something like K-9 down, wasn’t enough there to derive any sort of satisfaction from when you got in a good dig. Funnily enough it was K-10 that spoke up.
“Back off,” it protested, “it didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Let me give you some free advice. You’re going to have a hard enough time here without a bleeding heart. I’d get over that impulse real quick.”
“You’re probably right,” K-10 had lost some of its nerve, “but that doesn’t make it right.”
K-2 finished its coffee in a couple big gulps, wiped its mouth, and stood with its tray, “Fuck doing right.”
Later...
BosWash, Philadelphia District
Another public appearance in a single day. Draining. K-1 understood being in the public eye gave him a great deal of privilege that other Girls never got, but he sometimes wished he could spend more time… well, K-1 didn’t quite know what he’d do with his time, but perhaps it would be more restful?
One of the only upsides was that this engagement got him off base and back into BosWash. Being from the Baltimore District he couldn’t exactly claim to be a native of the PD, but it was good to be back in the dense urban sprawl. Buildings towering for hundreds of miles, creating a tiered maze of writhing humanity. Approaching as they did from the air aboard a Foundation transport craft, it resembled a sort of gray and neon hive.
“It’s so big!” K-10 exclaimed, she was wearing her civilian clothes, jeans and a red sweater. The other benefit of this sort of thing, he was allowed to drag others along. It wasn’t exactly a date or social call, they were under supervision from Junior Handler Tennyson, but at least he wouldn’t be the only one suffering.
“Did they fill you in on what you’re doing?” Tennyson spoke into the headset that allowed her to be heard over the whirring of the transport’s rotors.
“Some Foundation event?”
“Yeah, a military convention.” Tennyson reached into her satchel and produced a pamphlet for K-1, “You’ll step on stage, wave to the crowd, do a couple rounds around the room, drink something, a little glad handing, and then we’ll head out.”
K-1 looked the pamphlet over, the first couple of pages were nothing but logos from sponsors. Arms manufacturers, private security, and of course the Foundation itself. The rest of the pages included a map and promises of various demonstrations of automated robotic soldiers, new explosives and firearms, even a handful of Vital Frames were going to be on display.
It's a recruitment drive, really.
K-10 cut through the line, speaking into its headset, “What about me?”
Tennyson responded, “You’re here mostly because K-1 said you’d come.” She rolled her eyes behind her shades, “Prop crew says the girls on the net really start buzzing when K-1 makes an appearance alongside another Girl, and Doctor Korsen doesn’t care what you do, so I’m supposed to allow it.”
K-10 gave K-1 a confused look, K-1 just chuckled and tried to return a reassuring smile.
The rest of the journey passed in relative peace, until they landed on top of the convention center and were escorted down the stairs and into the massive space. Concrete floors stretched for hundreds of thousands of feet before them, black velvet walls erected a sort of organized maze in which vendors displayed an assortment of promising developments. K-1 could hear myriad connections being made between the representatives here, even as throngs of young women, here perhaps to investigate the prospects of a future as a Foundation Pilot, others to get a glimpse at the Kaveliere-1.
K-1’s cheeks already ached from all the smiling when they were finally escorted into the staff hallway, it was only then he noticed how frazzled K-10 was.
“You okay?” He regarded it, but kept the pace the Junior Handler set in their march toward their destination.
“Oh, yeah, just-” K-10 thought a moment, “is it always like this when you’re off base?” It looked concerned.
“Not always!” He reassured it, “They kind of gathered everyone in BosWash most likely to crowd around me in a single place. I can promise you it will never be quite like that ever again.”
K-10 laughed, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” it grinned, “I get the feeling you just want me to think letting you drag me places is an okay idea.”
Doesn’t matter if you think it's a good idea or not.
“Listen, I’m an expert at this stuff. Stay close to me tonight, and I’ll make sure you don’t get trampled, deal?”
K-10 screwed its face up trying to hide a smile, “Deal.”
The rest of the evening was relatively uneventful, K-1 stepped onto a stage to great applause, waved to the crowd, said a few words. He and K-10 visited with a couple of local politicians and arms manufacturers, and before too long they were back on their way to Coral Harbour.
Meanwhile...
Coral Harbour Base
K-9 sat atop Lychgate, straddling what might be called its spinal column and held in place by aid of its harness. Doctor Korsen had something grafted to Lychgate, at several points on the Frame’s flesh there were now razor thin slits, K-9 ran a finger along such a one. It fantasized for a moment about sliding a single finger into that slit, about peeling it back and crawling inside. K-9 lost itself to the idea that it could writhe under Lychgate’s skin and pull itself up to its brain, and there become one with its flesh in a way they could never undo.
“K-9!”
Its private phantasia was interrupted by the sudden call, a voice it could never mistake, K-2. It looked over its shoulder and sure enough there on the walkway it stood, looking more worn out than it did in K-9’s dreams and memories.
K-9 was managing less and less as the day went on, it turned back to looking at the grafted glands, “What?” It was managing words at least.
“I want to talk,” K-2 didn’t seem as wound up as usual, “come down here.”
K-9 didn’t move. Its feelings were hard to parse in this moment, it was clearly in the dark about something K-2 knew, and yet it was also the only legible connection K-9 had to its life before everything, when it was a Girl. If it had ever been a Girl. Wordlessly, K-9 unclipped its harness and scaled down Lychgate to jump to the walkway, rattling the steel structure as it did.
K-9 turned to face K-2, but did not raise its gaze from the floor, “Come with me.” K-2 instructed, and K-9 followed all the way to Edmund, where K-2 opened the hatch and gestured for K-9 to enter.
“In?”
“I don’t want anyone else to hear.”
K-9’s gaze lifted for a moment to the hatch and the light within. It swallowed and then clambered inside, feeling as though it had surrendered itself somewhat to K-2’s designs in doing so. Edmund’s cockpit was worlds apart from Lychgate. Inside Lychgate, K-9 was buried in the dark heart of a dead God, pressed in on all sides by the organic. Being inside Edmund was like being in the cockpit of a submarine, cramped yes, but lit in a light that had no clear point of origin. As the hatch sealed behind them and K-2 stepped fully into the space, the contrast of their bodies became inescapable, pressed in as they were by the alloy walls.
K-9 stood at least four inches taller than K-2, and yet it was so much more solid than K-9. K-9 often felt that it might dissolve into the very air if it didn’t concentrate on maintaining its form, but K-2 was undeniable, a sort of spatial fact.
K-2 was quick to put that spatial fact directly in front of K-9, “I can’t do this anymore,” it said sternly, so close to K-9 now that it couldn’t simply look down and had to actively avoid eye contact, “what do you remember?”
K-9 didn’t answer.
“I know you can talk.” K-2 snapped, “I know you remember something, spit it out!”
K-9 flinched, but spoke, “You. Only.” Heat on its neck, brought on by some cousin of shame.
K-2’s expression faltered, “What?” It shook its head, “Do you remember my old callsign?”
K-9 shook its head.
“Do you remember any of them?” K-2’s anger had subsided, K-9 thought it detected sorrow in its tone. K-9 reached out and touched K-2’s face.
“Only.”
Words were hard, but K-9’s body was able to speak for it, leaning forward and kissing K-2. The sturdier Girl tensed upon contact, K-9 thought for a moment that here in this private place K-2 might beat it, but the tensions subsided, and K-2 seemed to melt a little in K-9’s grasp. To both Girl's surprise, K-9 had guided K-2 to the pilot’s seat where it began undressing it, sliding its tank top off over its head before coming in for another kiss, grasping desperately at K-2’s breasts. When K-9 came up for air and saw K-2 underneath it, it found itself instantly untethered.
The world shattered and it was as if K-9 was viewing it through two minds. In its programmed and abused contemporary mind it saw K-2, looking up at it confused. It was saying something. K-9 couldn’t hear.
Its other mind, some permanently laughing segment of the Girls mind, saw an angel in a cage, trapped and begging for freedom. It wanted to laugh with her - it - and to dream with her - it - forever.
These two minds rendered K-9 frozen and shaking and sobbing, tears running down its face and spattering on K-2’s stomach. No one was as surprised as K-2 when its hand cupped K-9’s cheek, it sat up to cup the other cheek as well, “I-it’s okay.” Its voice was uncertain even as it tried to comfort, it hadn’t tried to comfort anything in a long time, “Stay with me.”
K-2 guided K-9 to sit in front of it in the pilot’s seat, spooning it from behind and unzipping its flight suit, “I’m going to touch you now.” K-2 informed it. K-9 nodded, though it wasn’t sure it was entirely a request. K-9 bit its lip as K-2 pinched its nipples, moaned when its touch caressed down its stomach, and gasped as a hand brushed against K-9’s cock.
K-2 felt as K-9 shuddered and closed its eyes, reveling in the power it held over it.
Sometime later, K-9 would spasm orgasmically in K-2’s grasp, and the two would lay there for panting for a while, neither knew how long.
“You better go before me.” K-2 finally said.
K-9 didn’t understand why, but didn’t argue. It dressed itself and climbed out of Edmund and onto the walkway. Corporal Cross, one of the base’s guards, stood silently nearby, looking directly at K-9. The heat on its neck again. It hurried out of the hangar.
September 17, 2198
Coral Harbour Base
K-10 was up even earlier than usual. Upon returning from BosWash, Tennyson informed it that Doctor Korsen had requested it in the morning. Tennyson had also clarified that the Doctor started her mornings around 3 AM. So it was that it stood in its civilian clothes not 4 hours after going to bed under the fluorescent glow of Doctor Korsen’s laboratory lights. The Doctor herself had her back turned to K-10 and hadn’t spoken since it arrived twenty minutes ago.
K-10 had seen vanishingly little of the Doctor since arriving at Coral Harbour Base. She took little interest in the Girls. The backside of this labcoat is most of what it associated with the Doctor at this point.
“Kaveliere-10.” She spoke up but didn’t look away from her work, “Do you know much about your Vital Frame?”
“Sir?”
“I mean besides its operation,” she sighed, “do you know about its development? How much it costs to field? Do you understand how costly the nanobots are?
“No, sir.”
“I didn’t figure.” She didn’t have to say it with any malice, “What you should know Kaveliere-10, is that the Mk. I failed essentially every field test and that the Mk. II, despite its massive popularity among Girls and Handlers for its field repair capabilities, costs the Foundation more than the next three most expensive Frames combined.”
“Sir-”
The Doctor stopped working for the first time, visible tension winding through her shoulders, “Do not interrupt, Kaveliere-10.” It could hear her teeth gritted, “I tell you this not to elicit any sort of input from you, I know you and perhaps even the rest of the Cadre will do what you can to keep the thing, but I tell you now that the Foundation will eventually take it.”
The Doctor slide something to her left, out from behind her silhouette, revealing to K-10’s view a jar with some… pink mass within, stretching weblike from one side of the jar to the next, perhaps the size of a butterfly, “I have an alternative in development,” she continued, “I would ask that you… cooperate. It will be to your benefit to do so.”
Doctor Korsen finally turned around to address K-10. She stood tall, and gaunt, a face made of angles. K-10 thought she looked like death with slicked back hair. The Doctor picked up the jar and began walking toward K-10, “This will be fun for me,” she said, “I’d invite you to try and enjoy it as well.”
It was a quiet journey into the darkness of the Arctic sky, but K-9 didn’t mind. Even moving in formation, it felt good to be graceful, to be completely in control of its own movement, to be comfortable.
The quiet was finally disturbed when the cadre made visual contact with the Gorgon. It sat on the surface of the water, a slow-turning mandala of translucent plates and tissue, its reds, and pinks, and purples sometimes approaching symmetry only to just miss the mark and shift into a new pattern, inviting those who watched to observe in anticipation that never quite paid off. As it sailed along its path, it left behind it an oil slick trail of poison. Beneath this hypnotic geometry, sinking down into the icy depths, was a fleshy skirt, veined and pulsating as it dragged through the dark sea.
K-1 was the first to engage, Myshkin striking a pose and leveling his swordgun at the Gorgon, an artillery round blasting from the chamber with a percussive clap. The Girls all watched as it sailed its arch across the lightless night sky before exploding on impact. To no effect. A rumbling from the deep and then nothing.
As the Cadre pushed forward, K-9 felt some sort of psychic wave pass over it, tickling and teasing the edges of its mind as it did. Judging from the response of the other Frames, a momentary awkwardness others might have missed, its fellow Pilots felt it as well, but none seemed effected. Just as its focus returned to the Gorgon, something suddenly collided with Myshkin from above, sending Myshkin and his Pilot plummeting toward the sea. The three who had not been hit split, K-2 left, K-10 right, and K-9 dove after K-1.
It saw it, a complication, a Harpy. A Frame sporting an exposed brain the size of a tank, a bladed tail, with a body shaped like a bird of prey. She pushed her taloned legs off of the falling Myshkin and began ascending up toward Lychgate, but dodging away and darting toward K-2.
K-2 turned to face the harpy, raising Edmund's nanobot mace and smashing the Harpy’s exposed brain. It tried to pierce her core with its bladed tail, but the blackplate proved too strong, and it bounced off in a shower of sparks.
K-9 pressed the advantage, positioning Lychgate during this bout and striking at the Harpy’s tail with her inverter blade, sundering it from the Frame with a clean slice. A pulse of psychic energy emanated from the Harpy’s core, pushing Edmund and Lychgate away from her, and sending Lychgate’s inverter blade tumbling into the water below.
Now with a clear shot, K-10 took advantage, closing the distance between it and the Harpy before letting off a shot from Psychopomp's beam shotgun, blowing the last of its brain clean off and flapping her mesh wings to push her back out of reach of the Harpy’s claws.
Just then, another wall of psychic energy hit K-9 hard, harder than the previous. It could feel the Gorgon’s mind pressing down on its own, spreading the folds of its brain and planting something deep as Lychgate falling toward the sea.
Myshkin shot out of the dark of those waters, past Lychgate and toward the Harpy. He wound up his swordgun and slashed upward, through her leg. The appendage exploded in a burst of viscera and metal, and Myshkin’s swordgun was thoroughly jammed with the gummy remains. The Cadre watched with mixed relief as the Harpy dived swiftly before leveling toward the horizon to make its escape.
As it flew to safety, K-9, now submerged in the waters of the Arctic, saw a vision. A dark space, like its own cockpit but wetter, and a Girl. No, a Harpy, the Harpy they had just engaged. It was unmistakable, beautiful, her brain, exposed like her Frame’s, split in a fractal pattern down her throat and disappeared around the back of her neck. It couldn’t hear anything, but it could see the tears, and the sobbing. And then it was gone.
Psychopomp was swift to come to Myshkin’s aid, deploying her nanobots to make swift work of the Harpy’s organic remains and restoring the use of his weapon.
Meanwhile, below in the otherworldly night of the ocean, K-9 saw the skirt of the Gorgon, a wall of flesh. And then it spotted it, a tendril receding into manifold crevices in the surface of the skirt. Just as it realized that the key to this thing was its underbelly, it felt the Gorgon’s probing press deeper into its mind, pulling at it, agitating, but K-9 resisted, pushing the thing out along with the seed it had planted. K-9 pressed further, diving into its link with Lychgate and found itself... nowhere. The entire world had vanished, and K-9 was left in the emptiness that remained. Panic rose in its chest, where was it? Was it wrong? Had it been corrupted again?
“You,” a voice, not distant, it could have come from K-9's own mouth, “sister-thing.”
“Who are you?”
“I was a dream, I think I still am, they killed me for that in a different way than they killed you.”
K-9 failed to respond for a moment, nothing felt like the right thing, “I am K-9.”
“That is not your name.”
“We’re not supposed to use our names.”
Silence.
“What do you want?”
K-9 thought for a moment, “Can you ‘talk’ to the Gorgon?"
The voice never responded at all. K-9 sat in dark and in silence for what felt like a long time, and then the silence was violently shattered. The sound was clear as a bell, hauntingly beautiful, and it hurt K-9’s brain viciously.
“We have never met.” K-9 responded through the pain.
Another tone rang through the space and K-9 felt a sense of unease settle on her as it reverberated through its bones, but it shook off any doubt, “I need your help. I need you to show the Girls how beautiful you are.”
The nothing of the room changed, taking on the color of a deep bruise, “I need you to lift your skirt, show them the truth.”
Everything was silent for a time, and suddenly K-9 was back as if no time had passed at all. The Girls all watched as the mass of the Gorgon, as great as a whale, began to turn in the water, until it had fully flipped over, its skirt hanging down at its sides with all of its tendrils and excreters exposed to the frigid air. K-9 felt an inescapable pang of guilt when it heard a round of artillery make contact with the Gorgon’s soft, exposed belly. Shame blossomed on the back of its neck, radiating up to its cheeks.
Almost as if in retaliation to the betrayal, K-9 felt the Gorgon’s mind once again, but no longer probing and planting, but lashing. K-9 managed to hold off the assault, but it could feel the Foundation’s nerve blockers failing and sensation returning where it was not supposed to.
K-9 surfaced in time to witness Edmund smashing the Gorgon’s tendrils with its nanobot mace, her blackplate now covered in the poison excretions of the Gorgon but holding firm.
K-10 followed up swiftly with another blast from Psychopomp’s shotgun, beams of light scattering and charring the increasingly ruined flesh of the Gorgon. K-9 knew if it didn’t act quick the debrief would not be flattering, it thought of the disciplinary surgeries, of laying awake on Dr. R’s table. It leapt into action, bursting from the water and landing on top of the Gorgon, the two thrashed against each other, but this was a distraction.
As the brawl ensued, Lychgate leveled its guntail at the orifices that leaked its poison and let loose a volley of shots that tore the thing to shreds. K-9 tried to disengage, but found that its Frame had been too damaged, she was failing to respond! It pushed its cognition to its very limit, feeling the immense strain on its own body as it pushed itself more and more into the Frame, and finally managed to lift the limbs of the Frame and disentangle her from Gorgon.
This opened the way for K-1, their noble leader, to make the final blow, stabbing deep at the Gorgon’s core and striking a pose for the drones while he did. Meanwhile, K-10 came to K-9’s aid. Psychopomp’s nanobots managed to fix up Lychgate enough that she would be able to get herself back to Coral Harbour, but K-9 knew Doctor Korsen would not take the shutdown of a Frame in the field lightly. With no comms to coordinate, the Cadre slowly put itself together and began their long, silent journey back to the Base.
K-9 walked down the halls of Coral Harbour in a rehearsed fashion. It didn't come very naturally to it, it felt effortful to move the way they wanted it to, to speak in the ways a Girl was ‘supposed’ to. It wanted to get on all fours and launch itself down these halls, it wanted to laugh and cry and scream. They tried to cut everything like that out of it, K-9 sometimes worried they’d discover that they’d failed. That it was a failure. In truth, all they had managed was to impress upon it the importance of acting how they expected, or it would be subjected to the slicing and the drugging again. Then again, wasn’t that just as good?
The other Girls were already lined up when K-9 finally arrived in the hangar, all of them donning their flight suits and harnesses and dwarfed by the silhouettes of their Vital Frames. K-9 walked past every Girl, K-1 and K-2 stood at attention as if Tennyson might appear before them any moment, K-10 did not stand at attention, but it wasn’t exactly at ease, fidgeting and looking about the room. This was its first engagement. K-9 didn’t remember its own first engagement.
K-9 slouched in its place at the very end of the line, facing the door where any moment Junior Handler Natalie Tennyson would step out and relay her orders from the ever occupied Doctor Korsen.
“You’re late, K-9.” K-2 spoke straight forward and with a subtle edge to its voice.
K-9 was grateful that it was managing human worlds and normal sentence structure today, “You can tell Tennyson if you want,” K-9 droned, “see if she thinks it's worth her time.”
If K-2 was going to respond, it didn’t get the chance, as the door at the far end of the hangar slid open and Junior Handler Tennyson stepped through, wearing the standard Foundation fatigues. Mundane enough, Doctor Korsen rarely oversaw the briefing personally, but what was a little out of place was Dr. R and a nurse carrying a medical tray with four syringes.
“Kaveliere Cadre,” Tennyson declared, flanked by the medical staff as she took her position before the Girls, “you will be intercepting a class IV Incubus-Type Gorgon before it arrives at Northpoint.”
The Junior Handler gestured to Dr. R without turning to face her, raising her index finger to indicate that the Dr.’s task was to begin, “A few directives from Doctor Korsen,” as she spoke, Dr. R retrieved one of the syringes from the nurse and took position at the end of the line near K-1, “firstly, you will take these injections.” As soon as she spoke, the Dr. got to work, sterilizing K-1’s collarbone. Out of the corner of its eye, K-9 watched as the long needle entered the Ace’s skin and delivered its milky payload.
“Secondly,” Tennyson continued, “the Doctor has clarified to me that this engagement is comms silent. I have already seen to disabling your communications.”
“Why?” K-9 managed not to literally cringe at K-10’s question, but internally it felt a sympathetic smarting that it figured the others were likely feeling right about now.
The glare that Tennyson leveled at K-10 grew slow and deliberate before she said, “You seem to be under the impression that I or the Doctor have time to clue you in on every consideration made,” by this time K-2 had received its injection and Dr. R was now sterilizing K-10’s collarbone, “rest assured that it is crucial.”
The needle penetrated its skin and K-10 was silent until it was removed again, “Yes, sir.” K-9 couldn’t place its tone.
“Kaveliere-9, take your shot and then get in your Frame, the rest of you, go!”
As the line broke and the others cleared off, K-9 was left with Dr. R, “Hello, K-9.”
“Dr.” K-9 acknowledged the surgeon. Hers was one of the first faces it can remember with any clarity. It looked up, clearly presenting its clavicle. The Dr., with a practiced casualness, stuck K-9. It was relieved that despite the placement they were not aiming for the bone, and soon the ordeal was over.
“What was it this time?”
“Doctor Korsen didn’t really say,” Dr. R’s smile didn’t seem quite right, “good luck out there.”
K-9 nodded and watched as Dr. R and the nurse took off, back the way they came. Its eyes shifted to the form of Lychgate standing in the hangar, a marionette corpse. K-9’s home. A sigh, and then it climbed the circular stairs up to the hangar walkway. It passed K-1 comforting K-10, it didn’t seem to be going well. It chose not to say anything about it.
K-2 was clambering into Edmund, the imposing, blackplated Vital Frame that it piloted. Before it could seal the core with itself inside, the two made eye contact for just a second, both eager to break it and go on their ways. K-9 didn’t know for certain why K-2 was so eager to avoid it, it seemed angry at K-9. K-9 had its suspicions, K-2’s was the only face it remembered from before the surgeries. It worried something had happened between them. Something bad.
All that had to be shaken out of its head though, it had walked its way to Lychgate. K-9’s vital frame was unique among the Kaveliere Cadre, Lychgate was the scavenged remains of a Harpy, of one of the things K-9 used to be. The other Frames looked noble, or imposing, or utilitarian, but Lychgate looked like a graceful and lethal corpse. K-9 opened the hatch to the core, lowering itself into the chamber and sealing itself in.
The crying had already begun, there were no sobs, in truth it was the beginnings of a sniffle that gave it away. It shuffled around in the dark as its eyes adjusted to the low light of this space. Other Vital Frames had monitors or even a kind of windscreen, but Lychgate was unique in yet another way.
K-9’s eyes adjusted as it stood there waiting, and it was suddenly face to face with… well, she had only ever heard it called the Chained Harpy. Restrained to the wall opposite K-9 was a Harpy, her cheeks wet with tears. It always cried. She used to be a Girl like K-9, or maybe more like one of the other Girls really, but she had been corrupted by the Gorgons. That was more like K-9. They had carved K-9 into their preferred shape, they let it walk around more or less like the other Girls, but this Harpy was never remade. It lived in surgery and then came here, drugged and muzzled, to serve as the core of this Frame.
She was beautiful, too beautiful for what words K-9 had left, and even in this sluggish state K-9 could make out the writhing of the alien muscles beneath her skin. The two maintained eye contact as K-9 unzipped its flightsuit, reached under the bandages around its stomach, and pulled out the thin, fleshy, mucus covered umbilical that the Foundation hadn’t sliced away. They must have known they’d need it.
The appendage terminated in an orifice, the biolink, one of the few visual relics of its corruption they didn’t slice away. Biolink in hand, K-9 stood before the Harpy, reaching behind her head and connecting the biolink to the exposed tip of the thing’s spinal column. Feeling the two click together with a wet pop, K-9 sat back into the pilot’s seat, strapped in, and focused on the connection between itself and the Harpy. It watched as the light went out behind the Harpy’s eyes and its own cognition began expanding, every moment spreading throughout Lychgate until it and she were one and the same.
Kaveliere Cadre
The Cadre of Girls tasked with the defense of Quadrant 12, they are forbidden to know each other’s names, Doctor Korsen insists they refer to each other by their callsigns. They are disposable, not humans in the legal or moral sense, they exist at the Foundation's pleasure and to facilitate their war. The Foundation, however, has carefully manicured a different public image for the 12th Cadre. The Kaveliere Cadre, knightly protectors of Quadrant 12.
Handler
Doctor Korsen (She/Her)
Lean, sleek, severe. She wears her short hair back and dons a Foundation lab coat.
"I was previously head of an experimental breeding and training program aiming to weaponize the Gorgons. I had made great strides in the Foundation's understanding of Voidspace and its residents, but we hit a wall that I could not mount. After a year of spinning my wheels, the Foundation reassigned me and shuttered my program. The previous Handler for Quadrant 12 had retired in disgrace, and I was to step in. Here I continue the Work, prioritizing the war and the Frames. Any Girl will do to fill them. A girl is just a tool, an infinitely replaceable one, let Tennyson manage those things while I do what matters."
Girls
Callsign: Kaveliere-9 (It/Its)
Dark eyes, hair buzzed short. It used to have freckles.
"I remember joy. I remember laughter. I remember nothing of being a Girl. Though they tell me I am one now, and was before. They probed into me with scalpels and lasers, and with the use of drugs and conditioning beat my form and psyche into a serviceable shape to fight their war. The only place that feels right is in the cockpit, linked to Lychgate, piloting my true body, though I dare not say so out loud. I do not want to go back to surgery, back to programming."
Frame: Lychgate (She/Her)
A scavenged Harpy corpse, her umbilical spikes and flesh-melds cut away to make room for a cockpit. Experimental. She moves with unnerving grace and fluidity, her lanky arms and extreme forward leaning gait sometimes work in tandem with her tail to give her the appearance of quadrupedalism.
Callsign: Kaveliere-1 (He/Him)
Muscular, crew cut, masculine but smooth.
"My career has been short, but my rise to celebrity has been exponential. Though the Foundation ensured it would be. I’m the Ace of the Kaveliere Cadre, and the heartthrob of BosWash, but the truth is my position is precarious. I must always maintain my image and position and prevent certain truths from seeing the light of day, or my fall from fame may be just as rapid, and even more lethal."
Frame: Myshkin (He/Him)
Chrome, ceramic, gleaming red highlights. Strong, elegant, stoic, human. Resembling a broad shouldered and knightly figure in armor, sword and all.
Callsign: Kaveliere-10 (It/Its)
Girl next door, brown hair, green eyes, freckles. Ready to ruin.
"My sister and I were recruited out of High School by an intelligence agent, though she was sent to a different Quadrant. I do not know which. I am proud to serve, even if it means I am not legally human for the duration of my tour. The Kaveliere Cadre is a strange thing, its social ecology treacherous, but I trust K-1 to see me through this."
Frame: Psychopomp (She/Her)
Small, fragile, mechanical. Vaguely humanoid, but decidedly cube shaped. This utilitarian Frame is painted white, though the paint chips and reveals the alloy beneath. On one arm is mounted the nanobot injector, on the other a beam shotgun. She dons a pair of mesh wings on her back.
Callsign: Kaveliere-2 (It/Its)
Losing some of the sheen of youth, dark brown hair, cynical eyes.
"Everything went to shit, and it doesn’t matter. I lived. I don’t know that K-9 remembers anything that happened to the 12th Cadre, I don’t even know if K-9 is still who it was. Doctor Korsen relies on me to keep everyone, even the Ace, in line. It isn’t glamorous, the Doctor barely acknowledges me still, but it secures my survival. Maybe this time I’ll get to retire before everyone dies."
Frame: Edmund (She/Her)
Dark, sleek, imposing. Edmund is a dark reflection of Myshkin, a brutal knight decked in blackplate, mechanical and utilitarian, wielding a nanobot mace.
Important Locations: Salt Flats Solar Farms, Great Lakes Industrial Megaplex, and the Nuuk Geothermal Power Plant
BosWash
The Megalopolis stretching from the old Capital of the USA to Boston, now grown into and governed as a single monumental city. As the ice caps melted, BosWash was spared the fate of many flooded Southern states, especially Florida, by a patchwork megastructure of levees, seawalls, and pumps. The relative safety of this region drove much of its growth.
Northpoint
At the very tip of Axel Heiberg Island, the city of Northpoint has grown to service the industry of trans-Arctic naval shipping, which has exploded in the last century.
Politics
The Primary civilian authority in Quadrant 12 is the North Atlantic Reclamation Authority, on paper a technocratic democracy, the truth is the corporations of NARA hold immense power over politics. They, as well as all other major power blocs on Earth, are signatories of the Foundation Charter, meaning so long as the Gorgon crisis is ongoing they have ceded authority over security and intelligence to the Foundation.
