Little Birds

[Nadir]

As she explained some of the regular procedures to the girl, Huginn found [member="Munin"]’s eyes over the top of the whore’s head. They shared a fond gaze, lips twitching up in a shadow of a smile. Another little bird induced into their ever-growing family.

She had no doubts about how she’d have gone if she hadn’t met Munin, all those years ago. After the hundredth move, her orphanage had reassembled somewhere else, again. Each time they went somewhere more remote, with fewer laws and a myriad of corrupt officials. Huginn – though that was not her name then – had grown apathetic to it all. It was hard to care about a world that only existed in pictures and holovids on the screens scattered around the complex. Everything was white. Blindingly so.

Shaking the memories away, the broker nodded at Faelse, who had finished setting up a few new programs on her datalogger. Huginn had considered getting her a better model than the old rusty piece she carried, but the girl reminded her it would look suspicious.

This time, Huginn didn’t suppress her smile. Mun had chosen wisely.

He always did.

 

[Munin]

[member="Huginn"]

Things moved quickly from there. Eventually the girl was made ready, their plan was set, and everything fell into place. It was funny how that always seemed to happen, funny how things just...worked out. For the first half of their lives things had never been that way, but now...now that they were their own Masters they seemed to simply find a way to the end of the tunnel.

He smiled at the poetry, looking towards the two women.

"Are we ready then?" Munin received a nod from both women in answer. There wasn't really anything ceremonious about the graduation from whore to Little Bird, just a smile, a high five, perhaps a new set of clothes to wear on the jobs. Munin and Huginn never really tried to have The Little Birds expect too much. They were here to provide a steady stream of income, sometimes a place to live, and most importantly a poignant and staunch figure of authority.

Something some desperately needed.

"Good." He said finally. "Then I believe we should begin."

The girl would start her job at the very bar where Munin and Huginn had failed, hopefully she would do better.

 

[Nadir]

And begin they did.

The two were never much for ceremony, and Faelse wasn’t either. With a final nod, she walked away, transforming back into her street persona with the grace and fluidity some so naturally possess. Huginn trampled a pang of jealousy, sighed, and got to work.

This time, they were hanging back a respectable distance. Getting their feet wet had netted them no progress. Clearly they stank too much – or too little – for this cesspool of sentient refuse. Better for them to do what they did best: puppeteering behind the scenes.

Huginn settled back into that same chair and projected the camera feed from Faelse’s datalogger onto the drab gray wall opposite. Soon, research documents and lists joined the video, commanded by the broker’s purposeful strokes on the screen.

“Any ideas?” the infochant asked as the whore sidled up to Red Rook’s group. Her fingers paused above the virtual keyboard as she looked at [member="Munin"], lines of concern etched into her skin.

 

[Munin]

[member="Huginn"]

"We let her be." Munin said simply. There was no need to push it. They had given her what she needed, now it was up to her. They would see how well she actually did at this job. Getting close to the Mandalorians wouldn't be easy, but...she had a shot at the very least. That was all they could really ask for in the end. No matter how much they planned, how much they plotted, there would always be an element of unpredictability to this game.

Always.

"Let's turn our eye towards something else for now." Munin said simply. "Coruscant."

He suggested. The Alliance had taken the jewel of the Galaxy not long ago, and now was the time to press their advantage there. The Mandalorians would be taken care of by the girl...and in good time they would have their source there, but for now it might serve them well to look towards the Alliance. "The Alliance will be the other faction of import, I think."

What else was there?

The Triumvirate? The Sanctum? The Black Empire? All jokes.

Poor ones at that.

 

[Nadir]

A hum was all [member="Munin"] got in response.

Perfectly fine by her, really. Their backlog was sky-high, far as she was concerned. It was time they got back to their real work. The minutia and details of information extraction didn’t all have to be done in the field, with boots on the ground.

That’s why they employed their Little Birds, after all.

No. What Huginn much preferred – loved, perhaps – were the thrilling mental gymnastics of hopping network to network. They were both slicers, with the difference being that she sliced machines, and Munin… well, Munin sliced people.

“I concur.” But... (there was always a but with Huginn.)

She took a breath and looked up from her expanded holographic interface, meeting her partner’s eyes through the blue haze.

“But embedding agents there is going to be hell. Same goes from buying existing people. The administration there is as tight as a Twi’lek whore on her first day.”

 

[Munin]

[member="Huginn"]

He shrugged.

"We've faced more difficult." Munin said quite simply. Of course the first place to start would be with information. That would be the key to everything. They could insert a Little Bird easily enough once they knew where that person had to go and what they actually had to do. "If we have a place to start, then it won't be an issue. They're only good guys after all."

That made things simpler. "We need an in."

If they could get that, then there would be much less of an issue. While the Alliance were stalwart, they were also rapidly expanding, and Coruscant...well Coruscant was an animal all its own. The planet had more than a trillion residents, dozens upon dozens of sectors. Thousands of people were required just to run the world properly, and that was a skeleton crew. The reality was that Coruscant was like an entire nation unto itself, and in all that Chaos...in all that Chaos was where Munin and Huginn could thrive.

"We need to find someone who was on Coruscant before the Sith." He mused. "Someone who was with The Republic."

They would be easier to insert, an old friend come home.

 

[Nadir]

She hummed, flashed him a little smile out of the corner of her lips. Her face screwed up all funny whenever she did that, so [member="Munin"] was the only person alive who knew what it looked like.

“Can’t cheat an honest man,” she sing-songed, fingers dancing across the projected keyboard as she shuffled information around. They weren’t no slouches, the two of them; already they had plenty of intel on the happenings down under. Stuff from the margins, mostly, rumors and slips-of-the-tongue after one too many drinks. Too often folk dismissed those venues of information gathering as useless or a waste of time. Huginn and Munin made no such mistake.

It was then when her digits paused, hovering mere hairs above the holographic display. She chewed her bottom lip in thought, staring emptily into the screens shifting in front of her.

“Yes, that would work. Shouldn’t be difficult at all, what with all the refugees that will surely be returning to Coruscant in the coming months.” She grinned then, tapping something decisively. The images changed again, and she angled the projection so that Munin could see it better.

“I pulled up some of our existing Birds,” she explained as the dossiers arranged neatly before them. “Those at the bottom are a few of the prospects we’ve been looking at. I’m leaning more towards an experienced agent for this, to be honest. The Alliance will be keeping a close eye on anyone we try to embed in their organization. While I’m certain the sheer magnitude of Coruscanti administration will give us some leeway… I’d rather not take any unnecessary risks.”

 

[Munin]

[member="Huginn"]

He nodded. “You’re right.”

There was no need to press too much, after all, that could easily prove disastrous for them. They had to be careful with how they did this. The Alliance was going to be the premiere power within the galaxy, and earning their ire would be...dangerous to say the least. Yet the Alliance wasn’t exactly the same as many other factions either.

“We should look to a governor.” The planets within the Alliance didn’t represent themselves in a normal way, they each had governors that brought their issues to the heads of state. It was a more simplistic way, and ensured that most planets operated in the way they wanted to rather than being dictated by the Alliance.

Save for the obvious Civil Rights laws of course.

“Some ruler of a minor Alliance world.” He waved his hand. “Influence them to gain more power and push for strength, help them.”

It wouldn’t be Coruscant, but it would be a way to fiddle with the Alliance and not get caught.

 

[Nadir]

“All we really need is an in,” Huginn concluded with a shallow nod. Her chins wobbled a bit as she twisted wildly in her chair, facing another screen.

“I’d rather start fresh than try to get one of theirs on our payroll. I’ve poked around some and they’re almost squeaky clean, the lot of them. It’s unlikely that we should uncover one that could be swayed to provide us with information. And even if we did… too much of a gamble, simply because they’d be a known variable to many. Any perceptible deviation from their normal behavior would arise suspicions.”

“But— say we arrange for a low-key removal from some low-key office or – you know, if we’re feeling adventurous – even a rigged election… then we install ourselves a fine bird nobody’ll ever suspect. Someone competent that won’t need a lot of our background meddling to maneuver into position, of course…” she trailed off then, scrutinizing their records for someone who fit the bill.

“Raven Five, perhaps?” Huginn brought up his dossier for [member="Munin"] to look at, complete with his skills, past gigs and a history from the cradle onwards.

 

[Munin]

[member="Huginn"]

He frowned for a moment.

Infiltration was never really easy, democracy made it easier, but there was still an edge that they would have to overcome. He frowned, his eyes glancing at the dossier that she pulled up on the screen. Briefly he wondered if this would even be worth it. He felt as though it would have been simpler simply to automate this process, create some sort of virus that would allow them to get all the information they needed, but such a method would not be fool-proof.

"I suppose it is the most simple solution." That was for the best.

The more complex they made things, the more likely they were to fail.

"Let's begin as soon as possible." He slowly turned towards Huginn. "The longer wait the more difficult this will become."

The Alliance would soon begin to stabilize, not something they could allow.

 

[Nadir]

Huginn nodded. Nothing more needed to be said – they’d made their choice. All that remained now was to enact their plan, plant their Little Bird, and reap the results.

‘Simple’.

__________

‘Simple’ found Huginn slaving away at her terminal several months later, a thin sheen of sweat on her brown skin despite the cool environment. Each of her arms was attending to a different task, her eyes flitting from one screen to another as she worked.

After [member="Munin"] had returned empty-handed from the laboratory, she’d been working around the clock to dig up some other lead. She kept up with their other projects – that’s where the money was, after all – but her attention was minimal. Just enough to keep appraised of any urgent developments. The rest of her attention and efforts were all devoted to the slippery backwaters of the holonet, to the dark depths of back-alley information, to the dregs and drains of intel-gathering.

Nothing so big could remain hidden. Even if only the faintest of footprints remained, they would find them. A project as expansive as… whatever they did to them was, it would require funding.

Follow the money.

 

[Munin]

[member="Huginn"]

Munin frowned slightly as he stepped into the small living room that was attached to his and Huginn's living space.

The area wasn't big, not by any definition of the word, but it had been enough for the two of them, likely always would be. He'd only just returned from the apartment that he had built for him and Spark, they journey having been a rather short one, something he'd assured. A frown pulled at his lips as he stepped into the small room where his sister was waiting. His lips thinned slightly as he saw what she was working on. Huginn hadn't taken the news well, better than he had, but still.

"There was nothing." He said quietly.

The phrase had half haunted him for a while now.

"No records." A sigh. "No servers, not a single piece of flimsy."

Whoever, whatever had created them, messed with their minds, had made sure to leave nothing behind.

 

[Nadir]

Her many fingers paused in their typing, hovering above the holographic interface. She closed her eyes and breathed out. Some of the tension drained from her shoulders with the exhale, but there was a lingering tautness all along her spine.

With a frown, she turned in her chair.

[member="Munin"], beneath his charm, looked like one night of fitful sleep too many, like thoughts and actions rehashed over and over again until his mind was nothing more than a jumble of guilt and anger.

Intelligence was oftentimes a curse.

Asking felt stupid, but the impulse was out of her mouth before she could snap her jaws shut. “Are you alright?”

 

[Munin]

[member="Huginn"]

He paused for a few seconds, unsure of what to say. "I wasn't."

Not when he and Spark had first found the lab, not when he'd collapsed in the middle of that room, not when he'd just crawled into bed and slept for half a week. Munin had expected half a dozen life changing revelations within that Laboratory, he had expected to find out everything about his past, about what he was and what he could become. Instead he'd simply found...nothing. It was a disappointment to both he and Huginn, something that they would have to face together.

"I don't know." He said quietly. "When Spark told me about the Implants..."

He trailed off, they both had them of course, the odd cybernetics laced into their brains, muscles, and even bones. "I thought we may have been created at that Lab, changed somehow, but I don't remember anything like that."

It was all just a blank, gaps.

 

[Nadir]

Be rational.

The words were her mantra of survival, her strength of will, her wall of support. [member="Munin"] was there for her, of course; they’d been looking out for each other since they could remember. Still, sometimes you couldn’t crawl out of your own head, away from whatever demons plagued your mind. That’s when Huginn returned to that simple sentence.

It had helped her brave situations that would have seen many others turn a blaster on themselves. It had helped her crawl out of the gutter of the orphanage where they’d grown up, helped her learn, helped her forge their way through the treacherous waters of the galactic underworld and emerge not only alive, but victorious.

Be rational.

She teetered a moment longer in her chair, then released a deep breath. In a moment she was standing and folding all her arms around her brother in a protective hug, like she used to do when going got tough.

“I think…” Huginn struggled for words. She could always find the thing to say, phrases to articulate her thoughts.

Not now.

“I think, whoever… did this, they were intelligent. Perhaps even more than we are. I think they knew what they were doing… what we would become. I think they knew we had the… capacity to find out about the implants at some point, and so they took precautions.”

She exhaled, eyes still closed.

“But I also think they didn’t know we’d be together. That we’d help each other. That’s what they didn’t count on – us.”

She spoke with more force now, with more determination. Huginn might’ve had been going crazy trying to figure it out on her own while Munin worked through the shock. But now? Now they’d attack the problem together, like they always did.

And they would win.

Like they always did.

 

[Munin]

[member="Huginn"]

She was right of course.

Their partnership, friendship, their state as family was what allowed them to move beyond the others at the orphanage. They had always excelled when working with one another, pushing themselves to new limits. It had allowed them to do a great many things, not the least of which had been founding one of the greatest information networks in the galaxy.

Despite that though, he couldn't help but feel...off.

Munin thought that they should have known more, that they should be able to figure this out, at least get some names. The Keep had been a fantastic lead, but in the end it had simply been a dead end. He frowned for a moment, glancing towards the room where they had stored the Red Codex. The device had been surprisingly useless when it pertained to this task, as if those that had experimented upon them had simply disappeared from the holo-net itself. Slowly he shook his head. "I don't know."

He said quietly.

"Whatever..." He trailed off for a second. "Whoever made us have an advantage."

He didn't want to sound pessimistic, but things didn't look good. "These devices...these things inside of us, we don't even know what half of them are supposed to do."

Cybernetics were complex enough on their own when you had an instruction manual. When things were just put inside you and activated without a single word of command? Well that made it much more difficult. Even Spark couldn't get a full sense of the devices, and she was a technopath.