Super Force Revelations

When in 2004 Super Force was to be revealed to the public, a public relations campaign was prepared. Deep in the Super Force Secure Audio Studio, Hexagon Annex Sub-Level 4, Detroit-Windsor in Dimension Delta Zeta 17-46, Samantha Grey must revisit and confront the devastating trauma of her own origin to produce a propaganda song.

Recording

The Coach and the Crucible

The booth was sterile, but Samantha Grey’s Fiery Aura warmed her against the air conditioning. She wore an SFPA standard-issue vocal headset, the metal cool against her ears.

Outside the glass, Major Elliot Vanier -- a man built entirely of protocol -- stood beside the civilian consultant, Ms. Loretta Sweeny. Loretta, a woman who had once bestrode concert stages, now stood rigid, clutching a clipboard like a life raft. Her face was pale, a genuine fear of the Infernal still visible in her eyes despite weeks of practice sessions. Samantha was a contradiction to her -- everything about her was unnerving, unearthly, unholy, and wrong, yet in the weeks they'd worked together, she came to appreciate the fundamental humanness trapped inside her. Out of her expertise, and in to hers, Samantha lost that timeless and imposing shell, and seemed more like the fearful young girl she must have been those centuries ago.

"Ms. Sweeny," Vanier murmured, his voice low. "Final take. We need the soul now. Remember your brief: she is the Foster Mother of the Republic. Suffering and patience."

Loretta took a breath, forced herself to meet Samantha's intense gaze through the glass, and pressed the talkback button. Her voice was steady, professional, but laced with a tremor that spoke of respect earned through shared artistic effort.

"Alright, Samantha. Major Vanier wants this one for the Republic, but just like we've talked, it’s yours -- do it for you, for your family in Croatoa. Not the fire, but the loneliness before the fire. You were a quiet maid. You loved your family. You were an innocent. Find that quiet, that love, that innocence."

Samantha nodded once. She understood Loretta. Loretta saw her as a woman who had been singing a silent, painful song for three hundred years.

The instrumental track started, the mournful dulcimer and deep bodhrán filling her headphones with its moody, windswept atmosphere.

Tremors of Truth

Samantha began to sing. Her voice was thin, dry, and strained, exactly as Loretta had feared. It had the timbre of a cracked bell, too fragile to carry the weight of the cinematic strings. It had been worse. Practice had helped, as hard to believe as that was.

"Hark! In Croatoa's early days," she sang, her voice devoid of vibrato. "Who walked the wild and hidden ways..."

When she reached the lines about the Tempter and the Illstone, her voice shifted -- not into a powerful belt, but a hiss of ancient, repressed venom. Loretta had witnessed this shift every time; it was the one genuine emotion Samantha allowed herself. It tore at her own heart.

"Those sweet deceits like poison fall, As tempters' words oft do."

Loretta squeezed her eyes shut. Samantha was a natural at this dialect. Modern Neoamerican was radically different. The song writers had used linguistic historians to get the words right. But for Samantha, this was her birth tongue, and after all these years, it still came naturally to her. If only she'd had more time to sing in church as a child. Her voice was technically weak, but emotionally devastating. It was the sound of true, unrelenting solitude. It was the sound of a being whose existence violated every norm in the Republic, forced to recount the moment of her childhood trauma for the benefit of fearful millions in the desperate hope they would judge her less harshly when she was revealed to them. Loretta blinked, clearing away tears.

Collapse and the Compassion

The music swelled, urging her toward the soaring, anthemic final chorus. This was the moment the 'Foster Mother of the Republic' was supposed to defy Hell itself.

Samantha tensed, her delicate frame seeming to shrink from the effort. She pushed the air from her lungs, trying to summon a sound worthy of the role they created for her.

"Oh, the fire didst rise, the soul didst bide," she sang, the line cracking, breaking like thin ice. "Where human heart and hell collide."

When she reached the peak, "They sought to break what God didst make," she choked, fought it down, and faltered onward. "But the human spirit would not break," her voice failed completely, dissolving into a sharp, choking sob. The sound wasn't musical; it was the raw, unedited pain of a soul that had endured centuries of loneliness and pain.

Loretta dropped her clipboard. It clattered to the floor, startling Major Vanier. Loretta’s fear of Samantha’s wings and horns momentarily vanished, replaced by an overwhelming, protective surge of human empathy. She saw not the monster of legend, but a broken, eternal, child.

Vanier, however, remained unmoved. He looked at the waveform. "Unacceptable," he stated flatly. "The cry for pity is excellent, but the collapse is unprofessional. We cannot have the Foster Mother sound defeated."

Loretta snatched up the clipboard and jabbed the talkback button before Vanier could press it.

She spoke into the mic: "Samantha. You are loved. You are so loved. That was... enough. Please, come out now. Just come out."

The Truth of The Machine

Samantha, her posture stiff with the shame of technical failure, exited the booth. Loretta rushed to her, not shrinking back, and placed a hand on Samantha's shoulder, pulling her into an embrace.

"It was honest, dear," Loretta whispered, genuine tears welling. "Too honest. I'm so sorry."

Major Vanier intervened, smoothly placing the high-fidelity headphones onto Samantha's head. "The raw emotion is exactly what we needed, Lieutenant Grey. Thank you, Ms. Sweeny, your work has been exemplary."

He played the track.

The difference was instantaneous and chilling. Samantha heard her own voice -- the familiar, dry timbre; but it was now technically flawless. The flat notes were perfectly pitched. The cracked lines were smooth and rich. The raw, choking sob was gone. The AI had digitally harvested that raw emotion, discarding the 'unprofessional' human failures, and replaced them with soaring, perfectly modulated, anthemic crescendos. A lie. It was a beautiful, flowing, melodic lie, engineered to sound exactly like a human spirit that had never been truly broken.

Samantha's eyes widened. They had taken her genuine, terrible suffering and rendered it into a beautiful, flowing, melodic, lie.

Samantha spoke, her voice cracking, "My soul, taken, stretched, rolled, folded, mutil-" she whispered, choking and holding back her own tears. She turned to Loretta, who was staring, aghast, at her reaction.

Loretta quickly replied, "Oh, God, no, no dear, listen to me." Loretta faced her directly, taking her hands, as if breaking some hard truth of life to her own daughter, and whispered, tears falling freely now. "This is your heartbreak. This is YOUR voice. You can fly, but not into space. You fly on a transport to get there. Your voice can't fly this high, but we have the vehicle to put it in. This is your real voice -- REAL, were your wings strong enough to fly it into space. The computer can lift your voice to heights you could never reach alone. But you had to find the meaning, the real human emotion, to put in it. That the machine can never create from nothing." Her fear of the Infernal was completely gone, replaced by the desire to help this poor, trembling, broken girl tell her story. Much as Super Force wanted to tell a propaganda tale, Loretta realized the deeper truth -- this propagandists' tale was true.

Major Vanier smoothly took the headphones back. "Excellent work, Ms. Sweeny. Her emotions unlocked an inner strength she didn't know she possessed. The machine took that, and elevated it."

Samantha looked at Loretta; the only person to really hear the raw sound of her long years of quiet pain, and then back at Vanier. She understood her role perfectly. The song was not art; it was an advanced piece of technology. Her story -- her pain, her loss, her suffering, and also, her triumph, would be heard. She let the headset set back down onto Vanier’s desk, the brief, quiet clatter of it being the only sound he dared not attempt to fix.

Human Heart

Verse 1: The Setting

Hark! In Croatoa's early days, A child of 'eighty-one, Who walked the wild and hidden ways 'Neath Rhode Island's sun. In field and wood she found her place, Though few could understand, The quiet maid with gentle grace Upon this untamed land.

Verse 2: The Tempter

Then came a woman dark with guile, The Illstone in her hand, "Sweet child," she spoke with honeyed smile, "Your fate is grand and planned. Your gift sets you apart from all, A power rare and true." Those sweet deceits like poison fall, As tempters' words oft do.

Chorus

Oh, the fire didst rise, the soul didst bide, Where human heart and hell collide. They sought to break what God didst make, But the human spirit would not break.

Verse 3: First Person

I remember flames and fear, The midnight ritual's strain, As other maidens disappeared Into the dark and pain. But in my soul, a light burned strong, Defying their dark art, Though flesh transformed, I proved them wrong - Still human beats my heart.

Verse 4: The Betrayal

The mob arose with torch and blade, When morning brought their sight, Of wing and horn that magic made, They feared what seemed not right. My kin paid dear for others' sins, As ignorance held sway, The flames rose high round all my kin, While mercy turned away.

Chorus

Oh, the fire didst rise, the soul didst bide, Where human heart and hell collide. They sought to break what God didst make, But her human spirit would not break.

Verse 5: The Escape

Through smoke and flame, I broke my chain, By powers then unknown, And fled into the wild domain, To wander there alone. Three hundred years have come and passed, Still bearing what was done, That child of grief grown strong at last, Through rain and wind and sun.

Verse 6: The Vigil

The fire within I've learned to guide, Through centuries of care, Though changed without, I still abide, My human heart still there.

Chorus - Final

Oh, the fire didst rise, the soul didst bide, Where human heart and hell collide. They sought to break what God didst make, But my human spirit would not break. Let mortals mark this ancient tale, And heed what time doth show: The human spirit shall prevail, Though forms may come and go.

Album

Click to play: [Human Heart]

See also: The Origin of Samantha Grey