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2025 12:47 CET", "thumbnail_url_huge_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5472/5472374_morpheuskibbe_atasi_and_nyx_by_sandy_schreiber.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/5472/5472374_morpheuskibbe_atasi_and_nyx_by_sandy_schreiber_noncustom.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium_noncustom": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5472/5472374_morpheuskibbe_atasi_and_nyx_by_sandy_schreiber_noncustom.jpg", "thumb_medium_noncustom_x": "87", "thumb_medium_noncustom_y": "120", "thumb_large_noncustom_x": "145", "thumb_large_noncustom_y": "200", "thumb_huge_noncustom_x": "218", "thumb_huge_noncustom_y": "300" } ], "pools": [], "description": "Art by Sandy Schreiber\n\nFolder for story: [url=https://www.furaffinity.net/gallery/morpheuskibbe/folder/1510271/Clockwork-Souls/]https://www.furaffinity.net/gallery/morpheuskibbe/folder/1510271/Clockwork-Souls/[/url] \nread ahead: [url=https://www.patreon.com/c/Morpheus]https://www.patreon.com/c/Morpheus[/url]\n\nClockwork Souls Chapter 8: Contain\n\nNyx fiddled with a pen, turning it over and over in her hand as the meeting dragged on. She and the other directors of the various divisions were staring at eachother through computer screens and going over the last few weeks of progress, setbacks, findings and just general statuses of things.\n\nHer office was actually fairly nice. Spacious with shelves and nick knacks she had adorned it with, a very high end computer, probably massive overkill since most of her job was paperwork, but the new 3 letter, this FBC, didn’t skimp. In all honesty, she wasn’t super keen on taking the role. She would have preferred her old position in the FBI, hunting normal criminals who did normal crimes with normal guns and drugs. Not chasing crazies and anomalies and demons with a crew of wannabe ghost busters.\n\nShe hadn’t really had a choice though, for a number of reasons. Firstly, she was one of the few people at the time that had had direct interactions with these ‘things’ they were now fighting. She wasn’t sure how well she could sleep at night trusting all these yahoos to keep her family safe in her absence. And of course, the pay was making her wallet flush and filling up a college fund nicely. All that was before one got to the darker implications. If she hadn’t signed up, this agency would probably, eventually, start looking her way.\n\nShe WAS an anomaly after all.\n\nHer wings twitched as it came around to her turn to talk, “The new arrestees haven’t given much of use. The general guff about ascending and true power and being so much better than everyone else. Same old”\n\nShe shifted papers on her desk, “The possessed was at least vaguely more interesting. We think we’ve figured out how to tell when the speaker is the original or the interloper, and some work is progressing on how to suppress or remove the invading consciousness.”\n\n“Are you going to attempt an extraction?” 8 asked though the screen.\n\n“Eventually. The investigators want to see if they can get anything out of it before doing some thing that might ‘damage the potential intelligence asset’ or something” She said that last bit with air quotes. Could the interloper, this so called ‘demon’, tell them useful things? Almost certainly. Would it? Less likely, and would any of what it said be true? Doubtful, or at least they’d have to fish the truth from the lies in an arduous process of trial and error and experimentation that they might as well just do on their own.\n\n“Do you have a suitable containment construct capable of holding your demon if you do, 7?” another asked.\n\n“Old flip phone” Nyx, or 7 in this context, replied with a shrug, eliciting some somewhat surprised reactions from a couple of the other directors, and some knowing nods from the rest.\n\n3 cleared his throat, “A... phone…? We recently developed the new mark 5 paranatural containment systems and would like to see the results in use. Plus aren’t phone sort of by design bad at security? There’s so many ways for it to extrica…”\n\n“I’m sure you’d like field data.” Nyx cut him off. While she could appreciate the passion for his work, million dollar cages were also a budget consideration. She’d use the more high end gizmo’s when needed. For now though she didn’t’ want to make excuses, so an explanation was better, “Escaping via the networks is a general concern yes, but this phone doesn’t have internet capabilities, the 2G networks aren’t even active anymore and with the level of power of this entity, or lack thereof, we can…” Nyx trailed off and sighed, “… We can ‘enchant’ the phone to prevent more direct manifestations.”\n\n“And the speaker means you can still interrogate it.” Another added. Nyx nodded in reply.\n\n“And what of your uncontained anomalies?” 6 asked, “They still feel like a bit of an unnecessary threat, especially the class 5.”\n\nNyx side eyed the bitch. She was a dog yes, but a bitch even besides that, “I am not in the business of intentionally antagonizing allies, Dawn. Don’t forget a decent amount of Jamie’s recent developments that he’s so keen on, only happened because of the willing participation of…”\n\n“I’m 6 here, 7, and I’m sure 3 would also not want you blathering his real name so casually…”\n\n“Its fine 6…” Jamie tried to say, but was ignored.\n\n“…it’s a security concern. As is you being all buddy buddy with one of the most powerful anomalies we’ve come across. And that’s when you aren’t strapping bits of it onto your own back. You do like wearing your little toy all the time huh?”\n\n“Listen here, ‘6’ ...” Nyx started\n\n“Immortal? Invisible? Capable of flight, limited shapeshifting, some level of clairvoyance, and who knows what else, on top of a totally unknown origin.”\n\n“AND!!” Nyx spoke up, “Was basically doing all our jobs for us before the MandM broke everything.”\n\n“Ah yes, Medical Mechanica. They’re still active, aren’t they?”\n\n“Under fully new management and under direct oversight of my division”\n\n“New management being the old management’s protégé? And said old management is still around, in a manner of speaking. Being yet another uncontained….”\n\n“… Maybe you could focus more on your own damn house 6” Nyx snapped, “Mine is conder control but how is ‘insert hometown here’ doing with your ‘purge everything’ approach?”\n\nDawn was clearly pissed, and about to say something before someone hit the ‘mute everyone’ button on their call. The next speaker was 2, older guy and calmer that 6 at least, “I think this may have gotten a bit off the rails. Let’s focus more on facts rather than slinging accusations”\n\nThe rest of the meeting went a little more calmly and mercifully ended fairly soon afterwards. Nyx sat back in her chair and sighed, wings stretching behind her. ‘Little toy’ That’s what Dawn had called them. Nyx was fine with that characterization. It made them seem like a fancy construct that she could hang up when she was done.\n\nShe couldn’t\n\nIt wasn’t obvious when things changed. She did use to be able to put up the wings in a closet when not in use, but they had proven so generally useful in her day to day that she took to just wearing them as part of her day job and then on day, well…\n\nOne of the few people she had told, other than her husband, had concluded that the ‘merger’ was not something that could be easily separated, even with surgery. The semi living metal had invaded her own flesh, reaching in and contacting her ribcage, slivers of the brass like alloy weaving in with the bone. Potentially even more alarmingly, the reverse was also happening. Blood vessels had started to grow into the metal wings.\n\nTo say Nyx was more than a little concerned by this development was putting it mildly. That said, it didn’t hurt, and their performance had not diminished, so for now she was focusing on her job.\n\nAnd pretending no new breakthroughs had happened. ‘something’s going to happen eventually’ She thought to herself and poked at the immaculate feather mounted on her desk. One of the ones she had gotten from Kate. Nyx had reported that she had failed to replicate the process that originally created her wings, but that wasn’t fully true. More accurately she was holding back from doing it. She wasn’t sure what would happen to any other person who would end up volunteering to use them; after all she wasn’t sure what was happening to herself. If she made another set, and someone else… merged… with them then obviously they’d know that Nyx herself had as well. She wasn’t positive how most of the 13 would react to that, Jamie would probably be entranced, Dawn on the other hand… well she would not take kindly to this little revelation.\n\nAn anomaly was running division 7.\n\n[url=http://www.postybirb.com]Posted using PostyBirb[/url]", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Art by Sandy Schreiber

Folder for story: https://www.furaffinity.net/gallery/morpheuskibbe/folder/1510271/Clockwork-Souls/
read ahead: https://www.patreon.com/c/Morpheus

Clockwork Souls Chapter 8: Contain

Nyx fiddled with a pen, turning it over and over in her hand as the meeting dragged on.  She and the other directors of the various divisions were staring at eachother through computer screens and going over the last few weeks of progress, setbacks, findings and just general statuses of things.

Her office was actually fairly nice.  Spacious with shelves and nick knacks she had adorned it with, a very high end computer, probably massive overkill since most of her job was paperwork, but the new 3 letter, this FBC, didn’t skimp.  In all honesty, she wasn’t super keen on taking the role.  She would have preferred her old position in the FBI, hunting normal criminals who did normal crimes with normal guns and drugs.  Not chasing crazies and anomalies and demons with a crew of wannabe ghost busters.

She hadn’t really had a choice though, for a number of reasons.  Firstly, she was one of the few people at the time that had had direct interactions with these ‘things’ they were now fighting.  She wasn’t sure how well she could sleep at night trusting all these yahoos to keep her family safe in her absence.  And of course, the pay was making her wallet flush and filling up a college fund nicely.  All that was before one got to the darker implications.  If she hadn’t signed up, this agency would probably, eventually, start looking her way.

She WAS an anomaly after all.

Her wings twitched as it came around to her turn to talk, “The new arrestees haven’t given much of use.  The general guff about ascending and true power and being so much better than everyone else. Same old”

She shifted papers on her desk, “The possessed was at least vaguely more interesting.  We think we’ve figured out how to tell when the speaker is the original or the interloper, and some work is progressing on how to suppress or remove the invading consciousness.”

“Are you going to attempt an extraction?” 8 asked though the screen.

“Eventually.  The investigators want to see if they can get anything out of it before doing some thing that might ‘damage the potential intelligence asset’ or something”  She said that last bit with air quotes.  Could the interloper, this so called ‘demon’, tell them useful things?  Almost certainly.  Would it? Less likely, and would any of what it said be true?  Doubtful, or at least they’d have to fish the truth from the lies in an arduous process of trial and error and experimentation that they might as well just do on their own.

“Do you have a suitable containment construct capable of holding your demon if you do, 7?”  another asked.

“Old flip phone” Nyx, or 7 in this context, replied with a shrug, eliciting some somewhat surprised reactions from a couple of the other directors, and some knowing nods from the rest.

3 cleared his throat, “A... phone…?  We recently developed the new mark 5 paranatural containment systems and would like to see the results in use.  Plus aren’t phone sort of by design bad at security?  There’s so many ways for it to extrica…”

“I’m sure you’d like field data.” Nyx cut him off.  While she could appreciate the passion for his work, million dollar cages were also a budget consideration.  She’d use the more high end gizmo’s when needed.  For now though she didn’t’ want to make excuses, so an explanation was better, “Escaping via the networks is a general concern yes, but this phone doesn’t have internet capabilities, the 2G networks aren’t even active anymore and with the level of power of this entity, or lack thereof, we can…” Nyx trailed off and sighed, “… We can ‘enchant’ the phone to prevent more direct manifestations.”

“And the speaker means you can still interrogate it.” Another added.  Nyx nodded in reply.

“And what of your uncontained anomalies?” 6 asked, “They still feel like a bit of an unnecessary threat, especially the class 5.”

Nyx side eyed the bitch.  She was a dog yes, but a bitch even besides that, “I am not in the business of intentionally antagonizing allies, Dawn.  Don’t forget a decent amount of Jamie’s recent developments that he’s so keen on, only happened because of the willing participation of…”

“I’m 6 here, 7, and I’m sure 3 would also not want you blathering his real name so casually…”

“Its fine 6…” Jamie tried to say, but was ignored.

“…it’s a security concern.  As is you being all buddy buddy with one of the most powerful anomalies we’ve come across.  And that’s when you aren’t strapping bits of it onto your own back.  You do like wearing your little toy all the time huh?”

“Listen here, ‘6’ ...” Nyx started

“Immortal? Invisible? Capable of flight, limited shapeshifting, some level of clairvoyance, and who knows what else, on top of a totally unknown origin.”

“AND!!” Nyx spoke up, “Was basically doing all our jobs for us before the MandM broke everything.”

“Ah yes, Medical Mechanica.  They’re still active, aren’t they?”

“Under fully new management and under direct oversight of my division”

“New management being the old management’s protégé?  And said old management is still around, in a manner of speaking.  Being yet another uncontained….”

“… Maybe you could focus more on your own damn house 6” Nyx snapped, “Mine is conder control but how is ‘insert hometown here’ doing with your ‘purge everything’ approach?”

Dawn was clearly pissed, and about to say something before someone hit the ‘mute everyone’ button on their call.  The next speaker was 2, older guy and calmer that 6 at least, “I think this may have gotten a bit off the rails.  Let’s focus more on facts rather than slinging accusations”

The rest of the meeting went a little more calmly and mercifully ended fairly soon afterwards.  Nyx sat back in her chair and sighed, wings stretching behind her.  ‘Little toy’ That’s what Dawn had called them.  Nyx was fine with that characterization.  It made them seem like a fancy construct that she could hang up when she was done.

She couldn’t

It wasn’t obvious when things changed.  She did use to be able to put up the wings in a closet when not in use, but they had proven so generally useful in her day to day that she took to just wearing them as part of her day job and then on day, well…

One of the few people she had told, other than her husband, had concluded that the ‘merger’ was not something that could be easily separated, even with surgery.  The semi living metal had invaded her own flesh, reaching in and contacting her ribcage, slivers of the brass like alloy weaving in with the bone.  Potentially even more alarmingly, the reverse was also happening.  Blood vessels had started to grow into the metal wings.

To say Nyx was more than a little concerned by this development was putting it mildly.  That said, it didn’t hurt, and their performance had not diminished, so for now she was focusing on her job.

And pretending no new breakthroughs had happened.  ‘something’s going to happen eventually’ She thought to herself and poked at the immaculate feather mounted on her desk.  One of the ones she had gotten from Kate.  Nyx had reported that she had failed to replicate the process that originally created her wings, but that wasn’t fully true.  More accurately she was holding back from doing it.  She wasn’t sure what would happen to any other person who would end up volunteering to use them; after all she wasn’t sure what was happening to herself.  If she made another set, and someone else… merged… with them then obviously they’d know that Nyx herself had as well.  She wasn’t positive how most of the 13 would react to that, Jamie would probably be entranced, Dawn on the other hand… well she would not take kindly to this little revelation.

An anomaly was running division 7.

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