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Eclipse Phase (Private)

Rushing Jaws watches one of the cops grip his side and scream in agony - no doubt one of the thug's agonizers - and take off running down the hall to escape the source of the pain. Whoever he is, he isn't prey - but Rushing Jaws feels the familiar urge to launch in pursuit. Knowing full well that several of the thugs have escaped the garage, however, he is keen on preventing any more of his real targets slip the net. Driven by the rush of adrenaline and the MRDR burning so deliciously in his system, Rushing Jaws has an angle on the blue-suited one within a second. Rushing Jaws sets his machine gun to full auto, a neo-orca grin on his face as he leans it from around the corner and draws a split-second bead on Mr. Blue before unleashing a storm of machine gun fire through whatever cover he has.

The sight of Mr. Blue being perforated by machine gun fire is mercifully obscured by the darkness and the workbench he has attempted to take cover behind, but Rushing Jaws hears screaming cut short under the onslaught of his assault. The other cop's flashlight passes over Mr. Blue for a fraction of a second - his motionless, high-calibre-bullet-ridden morph combined with the stench of blood telling Rushing Jaws everything he needs to know about Mr Blue's combatant status.

"What in the name of-" Leng Xidao begins to ask, audibly astounded by the brutality of the kill.

"Lethal force authorized!!" Rushing Jaws retorts, MRDR and training driving him on to lay down suppressing fire, the DATDATDATDATDATDAT of his machine gun combining with the blaring of Running in the 90s to drown out whatever protests Xidao might be raising to Rushing Jaws' methods.
 
"I'm gonna, I'm gona-" Vidar says getting his bearings as the fight continues to play out, "I'm gonna do some shit. Hang tight," He tells Eppie. He heads north, darting across the hall way to the next doorway, the shot is more oblique than Penny lead him to believe but he flicks his pink hello kitty smg into full auto and takes aim. Watched Mr Red go down hard, he lets out a single bark of a laugh as he lands on the knife hidden in his pocket, the one Mei had passed off to him, "Oh that's a knife, thought he was just happy to see me," He says, almost not registering it as something he said himself and then realizes in that floaty sort of way that he's pleasantly disassociated after his brush with the star's song.
 
Mekhajakumaar {TacNet}: I'm locking down the last doors - if we can keep them pinned in there for a few seconds, the doors will lock and seal them in, leaving us with only three in our way!!

As if on cue, the command she had ready to enter is executed and the screechers on either side of the freight door begin sounding as the large door begins to shut; with some clever programming, Veronica has delayed the side door's closing until the larger and slower freight door shuts fully, allowing her comrade to keep the fire on those pinned down inside until the trap is shut.

As for those outside...

Wheeling around the corner, Veronica spots Mr. Purple turned to face his own fallen comrade - completely exposed to her own burst fire. Her bullets clearly strike something important: she watches Mr Purple stagger and fall backward before hitting the floor. She doesn't waste any time drawing a bead on Mr. Orange - who attempts to throw himself out of the way, her bullets still striking but the hit weaker.

Mekhajakumaar {TacNet}: Keep the pressure on!! We're almost out of here!!!
 
Sleipnir {Tacnet}: Fuck I thought yall were running out the big doors! Repositioning!

Mach ran for the next door. He moved fast, but that new girl moved faster. Still, after she slammed into position, so did he, and he actually did something. He opened the door and started shooting. He picked one that was close and angry, fired a good shot into him, and stayed in cover. Wasn't the plan supposed to be 'lock them in after RJ is out, then let the cops deal with the rest'? Mach thought he'd be driving by now, but NO. He had to shoot. And while he was good at it, he'd never be so bold as to call it his forte. He didn't even like shooting very much, he just liked the comfort of having a big powerful gun between him and his target.

Sleipnir {Tacnet}: We gotta finish fast, we can't be here after the fight's done, we need to leave while people are still shooting! Otherwise the cops'll ask questions or the Cartel backup'll arrive!
 
Mr Red scrambles to his feet, wincing and grimacing under the weight of Vidar's full-auto assault. He sees Purple on the floor - not moving - and Orange also on the ground and snarling at whoever just shot him from the now-open doorway. He breaks into a sprint that he can't sustain, screaming and streaking blood across the tile floor, stumbling and almost falling, perilously exposed as he focuses with all his might to keep from getting killed.

From within the darkened garage, Rushing Jaws spots the glint of an electrolaser fired in haste clean misses him and strikes the wall behind him uselessly, swearing as he bring his storm of lead to bear on the attacker. The second shot is dangerously closer, but Rushing Jaws is able to keep behind cover while firing on his attacker.

"Motherfucker," he curses.

"What??" Xidao asks.

"Behind the fucken - the locker!!"

"I got him-" Xidao says, training his rail pistol where Green is supposed to be: the first shot strikes a support column, the rounds hitting it with a loud ThunkThunkThunk that can be heard over the cacophony. His second burst fire finds its mark - threading the gap between the column and the storage crate Green is hiding behind - and Green screams in pain.

"I got him!!"

"Fantastic, don't get cocky-"
 
Euphemia "Eppie" Cross​

Eppie knows she can't stay here. She is useless as far as combat goes in her current state. Holding her position laying on the ground will only force RJ and Vidar to stay close and watch over her, further distracting them from the combat at hand. As Eppie spasms on the ground, struggling to keep her mind from caving to the song of the Star humming, singing, seething, she looks up, scanning her surroundings for an exit route. It takes a minute, her mind moving too fast and yet far too slow, she spots two possible routes; short and risky, and long but safe.

In any other situation, she'd roll the dice and simply take her chances with the short route. But given that her legs will barely obey her mind and her body aches with lingering pain, she forces herself onto her unsteady feet, taking a moment to make sure she won't fall - or hurl - before she checks that her way is clear of obstacles or Cartel members.

jukeboxmaiden {TacNet}: ive got a good shot to get out. ill see you bois outside.

She staggers towards the exit, keeping sharp watch - or as sharp as she can handle - for any surprises, limping her way along like a trembling elderly person, until she reaches Mach outside. She collapses by him, pull herself behind the cover of the wall.

"That's all I got," She groans, exhausted from what would be a short walk to anyone else, "Might need you to drag me the rest of the way, Fast Boi."
 
With the melodious sounds of gunfire, bullet hitting flesh, and flashes of spray like fireworks, Tali grinned. All was going well according to her. Rising from her crouch she sauntered by Eppie and Mach, giving The Pink One a gentle pat on the head as she passed. Raising her bow up, her eyes glistened over by the fog of Justice, she aimed. SssstthhhTHUNK! Red, in hopes of escaping with his life, dropped forward lifeless, a bolt protruding from the back of his head. Tali turned and continued her saunter. Orange, prone and crawling to hide, turned his gaze toward her. Without hesitation, the young stalker approached, laid her boot heavily on his chest, shoving him into a pin, and sfTH!
Kneeling down, she pulled the bolt out from between Orange's eyes, wiped it with a rag from a lower pocket, and put it in a holster. Angling the neck, Tali unsheathed her cyberclaws and carefully laid the point on the neck of the body, Sparrow interjecting as she did so,
[Sparrow] Tali, I don't recommend an extraction now. The bike is nearly here, which means so is their backup.
A small frown and furrowed brows appeared on her face, and she stood with a huff. "Stupid logic" she mumbled as she began adjusting herself for the appearance of her ride, walking back to Eppie and Mach.
 
Mr. Pink takes his best shot on Rushing Jaws - which, given he is under fire and his target is behind cover, is not a good one. The storm of high calibre bullets makes his shot even worse, and when he finally fires, a too-close shot forces him to duck and throws the shot where it can’t hit its mark. He curses, trying to focus as the light inside the garage is constricted by the closing doors.

Weaver takes the quickest second to assess the situation: it’s bad. Her people are falling all around her, cover is scant, bullets are flying, and this is likely beyond recoverable. Watching Mr. Red go down outside tells her its somehow even less safe out there, and so she does the only sensible thing she can do - break for cover with Mr. Pink and Mr. Green, in the tool storage. She focuses with all her might on evading the suppressing fire - but Rushing Jaws is able to turn his machine gun toward her, several bullets catching her where she has already been struck and sending her to the floor with a scream that is cut short; the dull *thunk* of her head on the floor is the first noise given space after the suppressing fire ceases, and the last noise to be heard before the doors close and seal.

“Fucking hell-“ Corporal Xidao starts to say - but Rushing Jaws is already making for the opening created by the deaths of the thugs outside the garage. Veronica is fast behind him, moving slower as her own attention remains focused on the mesh. Corporal Xidao swears as he finally notices Officer Ju running and screaming in pain down the hallway, taking off to try to calm the officer down.

Rushing Jaws turns the corner and sees the mess that’s been made of the three thugs that got out - smiling briefly to see that Mr. Red paid for kicking him with interest but eager to get the goddamned hell out of here. Running in the 90s has never stopped playing, muffled to only half as loud by being sealed in with the remaining thugs. Hearing the cop‘s yelling down the hall fade reminds Rushing Jaws that they are by no means out of the woods yet.

Azathothwakes {TacNet}: [we all out??]
Azathothwakes: [good!! fucking outstanding!!]
Azathothwakes: [we gotta get the fuck out of here!!]
Mekhajakumaar {TacNet}: [While you all get on figuring out an escape route, I’ll wrap up on their network and scrub our traces - give me thirty seconds tops!]
Azathothwakes: [fucken outstanding - i don’t think that the car’ll seat all four of us, so we better figure out who’s goin’ where - and fast.]
 
A small ping rose up on Tali's visuals as her bike rounded the alley corner, slowing to a stop next to her. Sparrow flew over to it, and adjusting himself, nestled into a holder on the front between the handlebars.

[Sparrow] Tali, I hate to be a pill, but if the bike is here I can imagine we're nearing the "NO-GO Zone" of time.

Letting out a heavy sigh she mounted her 'steed'. Adjusting herself and all her baubles to make room for whoever she was to fit, she gave Sparrow a pat.

"Chart course for nearest Whoosh!"
[Sparrow] I could, but if I may, I see a couple other places that may be a shorter course to Whoosh! Unfortunately they're IN city limits, and I am lacking details on these environments. I'm sure our teammates are more adept at City routes.
 
"Fuck. No choice, I guess!"
Said the resident fast boi, waiting until the last hostile went down before he ran over, grabbed Eppie in a Bridal carry, and didn't really care how bloody he got as he ran her over to the Aircar, swinging the driver's side back door open, helping Eppie into the five-point seatbelt, and then getting himself into the driver's seat, buckling himself, and beginning his preflight checks. Unfortunately, overriding the AI meant he had to do them himself, but everything returned with green indicators, and the system was synced. He didn’t even look as two doors opened, two doors closed, and two of the team buckled in as fast as they could. Then he plotted a course.

“Music and a stopwatch!”
[On it! Trip through Chinatown in a new car, we gotta go with this one.]
{Manuel - Gas Gas Gas}

Mach had the route, the engines were hot, and aside from a beat up Eppie, he had no clue who his riders were. Perfect.
“Shall we go now?”
He said, in perfect sync with the singer. Then, as the engines shot them skyward and he accelerated way faster than was recommended, his voice calling out ‘Gas Gas Gas’ could barely be heard over the actual song and the rush of air past the car. He had a short route, a fast car, and three people who knew how to shoot. What could go wrong?
 
Once the last unfortunate cartel plant hit the floor, Vidar b-lined for the door not wanting to explain himself to an entire Officer Ju or otherwise. He paused at Mr. Red and pulled Mei's knife out of his pocket. He'd killed Mei and in the grand tradition of Goblins that meant her blades were his- what he wasn't expecting was the button near the handle: A cheruf knife. He sucked in his breath through his teeth he'd never seen one in action. Yet. She really had known how to use it, and he pocketed knowing he'd dodged a bullet. He hurried out after the others just in time to see Devin and RJ load in and for the car to rise up and shoot away- the dull thump of running in the ninties echoing from the open emergency exits behind him.
He looked at veronica. He looked at Tali's bike.
"Yehaw," He said without much inflection. He wasn't sure if he felt disappointed or relieved to have missed the Mach-buss as he climbed onto the back of Tali's bike.
 
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There was a very easy joke about how all of the music Mach knew came out of an anime about cars, but Devin stuck it in his pocket rather than say anything. Besides, Gas Gas Gas was a bop, and it certainly fit. He sat backwards in his seat and squinted out the window.

"Oh boy, somebody's found us already!" he said, watching another flying car very obviously tail them. Someone leaned out of it, raising his weapon, but instead of firing at them the gun jerked sharply, and fired at several cars in the opposite flylane. What the hell. What the entire fuck.

Devin pulled out his own gun and fired, though he missed hitting anything useful.

"Fuck," he muttered.
 
Rushing Jaws​

All things considered, Rushing Jaws was having a real good time riding in a flying car driving recklessly and illegally fast - right up until the shooting started.

The decision to pile in to the flying car was one made on the fly - not least because that’s where a wounded Eppie was being carried to, but also owing to the machine gun in his arms that would be nigh-impossible to conceal on a ‘cycle. Rushing Jaws knew Mach could handle himself in a situation, but with wounds starting to accumulate, his instincts drove him to watch out for the wounded. He opted for the seat next to Eppie’s, double-checking her seatbelt before making sure his own would be ready and keeping his machine gun out of sight of the window until absolutely necessary.

Watching Devin lean out of the car to take shots at their pursuers, Rushing Jaws snaps around to see a flying car swerve around to evade the gunfire. With an orcanine grin and the rush of MRDR still bouying him, Rushing Jaws checks his ammo count - 20 - and draws his machine gun from under the cover of the doorframe, leaning out to steady his own shot on their pursuers. Between the distance, firing from a moving platform on a moving platform, and the risk of collateral damage, Rushing Jaws takes several seconds to line up his shot, his mind thinking at the speed of MRDR-

DATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDATDAT

The flying car pursuing them sparks and shudders under his barrage. There is even more commotion in the cabin, pilot and gunners reacting to the bullets that come periously close to striking the turbofans and the glass viewport. It isn’t enough to deter them yet, but it’s a start. Rushing Jaws bellows a battle-cry out from the window before resuming his seat with a maniacal cackle.

Rushing Jaws was having a good time; now he is having a great time.

Veronica Jhadav​

“There-“ Veronica declares, closing her connection to Lupercalia’s network with the last of her intrusion traces erased - just as her rental car goes screaming off into the Elysian night, much too fast for her liking. On the one hand, having spent most of the day hacking her way around the rental company’s anti-theft safeguards, it’s a relief that she was able to prepare it for this very scenario; on the other hand, Veronica has a very bad feeling that she is going to take a hit to her rep at best for what Mach is about to put her car through. Hopefully it would lend credence to her almost-certain need to claim that it was stolen rather than that she had compromised it herself.

Mekhajakumaar {TacNet}: Take care of my rental car!!

With nothing else for it, Veronica takes the last free seat on the ‘cycle behind Vidar. She’d lifted a the microwave agonizer off of one of the thugs back in the club, and with his inserts offline there would be nobody home to stop her attempt to hack its safety system. She makes sure to keep her weapons out of sight of her outfit, a window on her inserts opening as her skinlink interfaces with the agonizer. She is happy to have something to chew on as they get underway into the wild night.

The things I do for Firewall...
 
(Collaborative Post with CelticSol CelticSol , Graystone713 Graystone713 , wickedlittlecritta wickedlittlecritta )​

Mach was a great driver. The best one on mars, if only he had the car he could prove it with. His piloting, on the other hand, left something to be desired. In space, he could pilot just fine. Here, in an atmosphere, his two expertises tried and failed to come together and help him fly this car-turned-chopper. He registered that his passengers were shooting people in the background and registered that he was being shot at somewhere in the foreground but he was focused on center scene, going fast. His first thought was trying to crash his pursuers into the light rail, or at least taking cover behind it, but… The opening was too narrow. And he could see civilians. He bailed, and felt the bullets coming closer. It was time for something more drastic.

“Rough air ahead!”

He banked hard left and spun the vehicle, facing its front bumper owards his pursuers. He thanked Veronica’s killer hacks as he revved up the ground wheels and got low. Then, with a smooth swoop he got wheels on the ground, gave himself a touch of downforce, and went from flying backwards to driving forwards in about one second. One of the two skycars (there were two?) lost the chase. The other was ready for Mach’s little maneuver, and actually gained on him a little. Shit. Then he heard explosions. SHIT. Then a sniper round hit the steering wheel an inch from his hand and he jerked a bit before he corrected himself. S H I T . Okay, no, it was time to pull more shenanigans. And a tunnel up ahead gave him the perfect chance.

“HOLD ONTO SOMETHING!”

The turbofans flipped out, the car flipped over, and the wheels touched down on the ceiling. Mach thought he heard a cry of delight quickly turn into one of anguish, and definitely felt his gun try to leave his hands. And felt/saw Devin fall out of his seat.

“WHAT THE FUCK, DEVIN?!?!? DO YOU WANNA DIE?!?”

“I’VE DIED TOO MANY TIMES TO WORRY ABOUT IT,” Devin snapped, pushing himself back into his seat. This time he buckled in before fishing around in his jacket for the other gun.

“EVEN IN A GROUNDCAR IT’S SEATBELTS OR DEATH! AND THIS IS A SKYCAR!... FUCK!” Mach belted, over the disturbing fact that his passenger seat passenger didn’t belt himself in. But now he was secure, and the tunnel was ending, so Mach brought them back to the ground. The other car kept up. How did it keep up? It shot a car, bowled through it as it swerved, and came up behind. Unfortunately it ran facefirst into a lot of bullets. They were off… And the cops were on. Fuck.

“Okay we can’t pull that kinda runner against cops. We just plain aren’t that lucky. Ideas?”

“I sure as hell can’t shoot at corpsec,” Rushing Jaws says, stowing his machine gun out of sight! “I mean, I can, but I feel like that’s diving deeper into the shit than we can safely go!!”

“Can’t wait to spend the night in corp jail,” Devin said flatly.

The gallows humor is met with grim laughter from Rushing Jaws: “If fucken’ only...”

“Oh, god, I’m still expecting Mars to be civilized, aren’t I?”

“Sure are!! It’s cold storage or a lengthy indenture contract, if we’re lucky - and if we’re not, that’s what we’ll get after the real bad shit-”

“How about we just die instead?” Devin suggested.

“And let ‘em get our stacks?? Like fuck!! We gotta have somethin’ between the four of us! Eppie got the cops thinkin’ we were oversight - maybe we could do somethin’ similar??”

“I’m pretty sure we’re not going to get that trick to work twice,” Devin said.

“I’m dead inside,” Eppie slurs, holding her palm against her forehead to fight the Star induced migraine she feels coming in fast, the pose rather similar to that of a scandalized Victorian maiden. If Victorian maidens wore dresses that were basically a shirt and nipple pasties.

“We’re about to be dead on the outside too, so you’re prepared,” Devin told her.

“Fuck,” Rushing Jaws swears. “Y’all, I’d rather die in the fucking Zone than here. We got two Firewall-class social operators - what kind of bullshit do we gotta sling to get out of here??”

“I dunno, feign that we’re important people? Like… I dunno. Someone exposed and public? Devin, whadya got?”

“I just got fucking made and I’m wanted as hell, so opening my stupid mouth around anybody here is probably the least smart idea.”

“Oh, fuck me,” Eppie hisses, sitting up in her seat and moving to remove her seatbelt to not feel so constricted, but when she catches RJ’s eyebrows turning up in concern, she drops her hand with a petulant sigh. “I mean, we could feign being diplomats. Being politically exposed brings quite a bit of unwanted attention?”

“Security corps hate attention just as much as they love money-” Rushing Jaws comments, glancing back at Apex prowlers preparing to give chase. “The only other thing I got is that we bolt, and if our driver don’t like the odds then you got my full and unequivocal fucking support.”

“God, what the fuck do I even say?” She complains. Pressing her fingers to her face to massage her temples, Eppie tries to consider possible bullshit through the haze of her inevitable arrival into Migrainetown and being psychically tazed via Vidar. Martian hypercorp heiress? She’s definitely dressed the part, but if they ping her rep, she’ll definitely fail any test of being within the proper social circles. And she also can’t name a single Martian based hypercorp off the top of her head. No politicians within the inner systems come to mind, and she can’t recall a single political spat that occured on Mars within her range of memory, though she’s sure they’ve occured. She groans, trying so hard to think…

… when she realizes she’s an absolute fucking dumb gay.

“Yo, my mom is a politician. I’m literally the politically exposed bitch.”

“Goddamned outstanding, we’ll go with that-”

Eppie shakes out her tingling hands, then leans forward in her seat, “Here’s the gig. My mother is an outer system politician. I’m here… um... doing work for GateKeeper. I’m doing cross comparisons of TITAN tech found in the TQZ to cross examine some tech that was found through the Gate, which is something that some of my colleagues have done in the past. You –” she lays a hand on Mach’s shoulder, “–are my driver as I get around the city for work. You–” she lays a hand on RJ’s leg, “– are my bodyguard, because while I’m here for unrelated reasons, I need protection because I’m considered a politically exposed person. Devin is my… I don’t know. He’s a boy I picked up at Lupercalia.”

Eppie looks out the window, seeing the smoke coming out the car-sized hole of a building that was rapidly getting farther and farther away, then suggests, “Cartel could be Jovian extremists. Out to kill me as retaliation against my mother? Thoughts, questions, concerns? Different plan?”

“Wait-” Rushing Jaws says, the realization only hitting him with the aid of some info from his muse, “I thought it was an act - you’re really the kid of a politician??”

“I - yes? Angelica Cross. She’s a Premier of a major hab in Europa. I thought I told you that?”

“I knew you lived on Europa, but somehow I missed that part. Anyways - only thing I’d comment is on not mentioning TITAN tech or anything like that, maybe we were up here before shippin’ down to Pathfinder City or some shit.”

“Yeah, folks get itchy when TITANS come up,” Devin agreed.

Eppie snorts, “Cowards. What else would I be studying on Mars? I literally have a minor in AGI studies.”

“Yer a hotshot gatecrasher, yeah? There’s a whole city on Mars near a pandora gate, they gotta have labs n’ shit there with alien stuff that would be your thing, right??”

“If I were a degenerate capitalist, yes, Pathfinder would be my thing. Gatecrasher out in Pandora don’t fuckin’ talk about Pathfinder city. They hoard info and sell it when it should be shared within the community, and – oooooo I’m getting heated,” She makes an odd, angry thrash to externalize her anger, “But, fine, yeah, this is a rest stop before Pathfinder. Content? You’re making me a disgrace to my peers just for saying that sentence.”

“It’s all good, we’re here on behalf of Europa. You don’t gotta say anything more than what you gotta ‘n order to get corpsec off our hides. N’ you know what, I am content - this whole plan seems crazy enough to work.”

“RJ, you desperately need to watch an XP of my mom going off on the Junta. They’ve tried to kill her no less than eight times. This ain’t crazy, this is genuine shit they get up to.”

Tense with MRDR and really wanting to slip free of this whole situation, Rushing Jaws manages to laugh: “Glad to fucken’ hear it. How ‘bout it boys, think we should pull over??”

“Either that or the corpsec gets clearance to shoot us into the fucking stratosphere,” Eppie replies.

“I was born to play a himbo,” Devin said.

Eppie pats his shoulder, “I know this and you’re iconic for it.”

“Yeah, good enough for me. I’ll pull over, but I’m keeping the engine running.” Said Mach, fairly confident that he could play the shaken but professional driver who’d just been shot at repeatedly. The car pulled over, and Mach put the car in park. But he was ready to hit the turbofans the second shit got hot again.

Seconds after the car rolls to a stop, two Apex Private Security prowlers land with grace in the front and the rear of the car. As the doors open and armed security officers step out with guns leveled on the vehicles, disc-shaped drones deploy from apertures on the rear of the sleek flying cars, encircling the car and proceeding to scan everyone inside. Traffic is automatically routed around the scene by grid control and AR graphics that are dulled to everyone inside the radius of the scene but that warn everyone outside to stand clear.

AR Graphics in the air echo what one of the officers demands with the voice of authority: “Step out of your vehicle with your hands behind your head! You have ten seconds to comply!”

“I think that’s your cue, Eppie,” Rushing Jaws whispers, his gun stowed for sure out of eyesight, but with no such guarantees against the drones.

“I’ve got this.” She says, mostly to herself, then pats his knee, “Bubba, I’ve got this. We’re not going to jail tonight.”

Eppie releases the clasps of her seat belt, then forces open the door. She almost loses her balance stepping out the vehicle, hopefully an unintentional effect that helps her case in being a damsel in distress. She looks towards the officers closest to her with her hands up, then calls to them, “My name is Euphemia Cross. My mother, Angelica Cross, is the Premier of Conamara on Europa, I need protection, the assailants following myself and my team within the car are Jovian extremists.”

A moment of tense silence passes; the officers keep their weapons trained on the four sentinels - but they don’t make any sudden movements, likely keeping their communications on their own TacNet. Their faces are partially concealed beneath tactical masks, their body language unreadable beyond the hair-trigger readiness of private security soldiers. Their drones slowly encircle the car, continuing their scans but taking no further action. Without warning, the guns are lowered, and two of the four agents - along with two of the drones - move to establish a perimeter around the scene.

One of the two officers steps up to Eppie, their mask unfurling from their face to reveal a transhuman with dark skin and handsome features.

jukeboxmaiden {TacNet}: the audacity of this cop to be so fuckin dreamy im DECEASED

Mekhajakumaar: You should meet him when he’s off-duty sometime. ;)

jukeboxmaiden: how bold of u to assume im above fuckin the cop to avoid jail

Mekhajakumaar: I’ve had the pleasure not only of that, but of having been taken out on a date by this man. But that’s a story for another time.

jukeboxmaiden: WIG. also r u telling me that fucking the cop is a viable option to get out of this lmao because that sounds much sexier than what the fuck im tryin to pull

Mekhajakumaar: This one won’t be easy to seduce, but almost certainly worth it if you can play your cards right.

The lead officer scans Eppie quickly, something in his glance like a hushed skepticism slipping through his professional veneer: “Apologies for the welcome, ma’am. My name is Sergeant Silibele Ncusi. We were advised of a pursuit in Chinatown and scrambled to intercept as a precaution. After some initial checks, we’ve verified your initial identity. I’m going to have to ask that you and your, ah, entourage accompany us to our local station for debriefing on the situation, per my superiors.”

Eppie’s face is a smooth poker face as she lowers her hands from above her head, but keeps them visible in front of her to keep things from escalating to hostility, “I’ll be happy to answer any questions for you, Sergeant, but I think we need to be taken to the hospital or a medic first. A few of us have been hurt.”

“Are your injuries serious enough to require immediate attention? We have medical facilities at our station, and if we’re still in danger it will be much easier to protect you there.”

“That’s fine if that’s what you insist on, but… I’ll be frank with you, Sergeant, I may not be able to be as clear as I would like to be in answering questions. I might be concussed, and I’ve been coughing blood during the ride. I think I’m still lucid only by the grace of God.”

“Do you require medical attention?” Sergeant Ncusi repeats, this time with more concern; his comrade, silently cued, goes to fetch a medical kit from their prowler while their drones scan the surrounding block.

“I’m not entirely the kind of doctor to give you anything exact,” She starts with a soft smile, “But I took a couple of nasty hits at the club - those guys attacked us at first at Lupercalia, and we only got in the chase because we we’re trying to get away. I have some medicines, so the bruises ought to be gone by now, but I’ve been coughing blood, and my nose is bleeding on and off, and my friend in there said I’ve got something scary happening with my eyes. My bodyguard is a paramedic and he thinks I’m hemorrhaging.”

Azathothwakes {TacNet}: yo eppie i reall think we oughta start wrappin this up-

“Sir,” Sidibele says, a snap in his tone addressed to Rushing Jaws, “you gave her medical treatment?”

“As best I could,” Rushing Jaws answers. “A lot of her injuries are internal.”

“Noted,” Sidibele says as his comrade arrives with a medical kit. “Do we have your consent to perform a medical examination, ma’am?”

“Of course. Would I, ah, be able to sit somewhere? I got tazed and my legs really just… aren’t working. And… You can call me Eppie. Everyone does.”

“Come with us, please,” Sidibele answers, turning to take Eppie to the rear of their vehicle - the trunk opening up and offering a place for her to sit. “My partner is Amender Pawar, and he has training in paramedic skills along with kit to help treat your injuries. If you are in any fit state - and while I understand this is could be a sensitive diplomatic matter - I must again ask for a statement on tonight’s events. Would you be able to give a statement?”

Eppie follows the officer, her feet unsteady beneath her. On her second stumble, she feels a small tap on her elbow. Looking up, she finds Sidibele offering his arm to her with something of an unreadable expression, but there is a softness through his professional expression. She smiles, murmuring a soft, embarrassed, “thank you,” as she takes his arm.

As Sidibele helps her get seated on the ledge, she tries to keep herself halfway decent, which is rather difficult with a dress designed to be indecent. She blinks up at Sidibele blankly as he speaks, as if it took her a little bit to absorb his words. “I think I can. You might just have to be patient with me - thoughts aren’t exactly coming easy to me right now, as you can imagine. I’ve been told that I look like death.”

She shifts, fidgeting in feigned nervousness, “I’ve never given a statement like this before.What would you like to know?”

“Officer Pawar will see to your injuries while I record your statement,” Sidibele says, a softness perceptible only to Eppie in his face and voice as his partner gets to work diagnosing her wounds. “I need you to be as thorough as possible, starting with the events that lead to an armed pursuit in South Elysium.”

“Well, I work for GateKeeper. It’s why I’m even on Mars - I usually don’t this far into the system, ever, but they wanted me to go to Pathfinder City to speak with some of the local corps there in order to see if any were interested in working together with GateKeeper. Elysium is my stop-over because I wanted to see the city, and then I was taking the train in the afternoon to Pathfinder.”

She tucks her hair behind her ear, “I wanted to have some fun before I had to do several days of work straight, y’know? I asked my bodyguard if what there was for nightlife, and so that’s how I ended up at Lupercalia. I had called a cab to come get us, then we were having one last drink when a group of people came at us. He managed to fend them off - saved my life, actually - then we hopped in the cab with a friend we had made at the bar. I’m tipping that driver the maximum, by the way - he’s probably the only reason we’re not dead.”

“You mentioned something about Jovian operatives, can you tell us anything more about them? Are you in danger?”

“They had to be Jovian. My mother is a vocal opponent to the Junta, and although it’s been a long time since I’ve been threatened by any extremists, it still has happened, even this far out of their reach. They might be rogue terrorists not even tied to the Republic. I’m not sure. With all the police here, I doubt that I’m still in as much danger. I’m… not sure, though. I’m really not an expert. I know they have to Jovians, because there isn’t anyone else I could even dream of that would want to hurt me. I’m not politically engaged, I’m involved in anything shady. I’m just a scientist, Sergeant.”

“It just seems like they had a lot of access to a lot of things a criminal wouldn’t, y’know? I think one of them had a rocket launcher. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Quite, and very troubling besides,” Sidibele says, an edge in his tone. “What can you tell us about the pursuers? Do you have any information on them we could use to tie them back to tonight’s events?”

“I… I’m sorry, I really don’t know. I know you need more than that, and I know you’re doing your best to help me, but I just…” Eppie takes a deep breath to steady herself, then looks up at Sidibele with a soft smile with an easier sigh, “I don’t think I’ve even thanked you. Thank you so much for helping me.”

The faintest hint of a smile passes over Sidibele’s face, gone as quickly as it appears: “Of course, ma’am. I understand you’ve had an ordeal. Ordinarily, given the gravity of the situation, I would ask you to come with us and for your entourage to give statements, but I understand if you must check in with your people, and so do my superiors. A representative of Apex security will likely be contacting you within a few days for follow-up for policy purposes. Is there anything we can do for you?”

“Any chance that representative will be you?” She asks innocently, leaning towards Sidibele.

Despite himself, Sidibele laughs: “It would likely be someone well above my paygrade, but if you would state as much for the record I’m sure we could make appropriate arrangements.”

“Consider it on, record. Also, you deserve a raise. Put that on record, too,” She replies, her legs swinging from where she sits, “Listen, Sergeant, I know this is a little contrary to the procedures you probably have, but I wanted to ask a favour.”

“Is that so? How can we help, Miss Cross?”

“Please, call me Eppie.”

Sidibele grins, likely thinking of the reprimand he’s sure to get for this later: “Very well - how can we be of service, Eppie?”

She smiles, “So, I know your superiors, and their superiors, and so on and so forth until you get to the very top, don’t want this sort of attention; this could spiral into a huge incident, and, honestly, I don’t want that either. I know it got really dicey, but I’ll be heading out of town very soon, and will be protected by Pathfinder once I get there. My… What did you call them? My entourage? They don’t know any more than I do. In fact, they probably know even less - one is just a tourist that got caught at the club at the wrong time, the other is a cab driver that got involved in something that almost seems out of a movie, and the last is a bodyguard that is working far out of his pay grade with everything that’s occurred.”

She sighs, leaning forward and lowering her voice, “So how about this. You can log my statement, and only my statement, with your superiors, and I won’t press charges. This can get framed like young people just racing around like idiots or… something. This doesn’t become an intergalactic incident, your bosses don’t have to deal with the stress, neither do you, and neither does my mother. Do you think we could do something like that?”

Sidibele’s grin stretches to a grimace for a fraction of a second before vanishing, his eyes going to his entoptics: “We certainly don’t want this becoming an incident, however reports about the club incident and car chase are already making headlines. That sort of thing will be difficult to wave off as hooliganism. I can tell you at the very least that your statement will be sufficient for us to conduct an investigation in tandem with the Elysium People’s Militia, but that we might also be reaching out for an, ah, discreet follow-up once we have more information. My bosses and I deal with stress as a matter of course - comes with the job - but we certainly don’t need more than our fill. Before I can let you go - may I take down your Mesh ID for communications purposes?”

Eppie sighs in relief, “Yes, of course. Thank you so much,” She almost sags as the stress of pulling of a dicey move pays off, the grin on her face not even a little bit faked, “If you need anything, don’t be afraid to message me. Business or personal. I am going to be just a train ride away for the next little while, after all, and it would be nice to see a friendly face every now and then.”

“Understood. We’ll be in touch if we need further information,” Sidibele says, his tactical mask folding back over and concealing his face - a blink-and-you-miss-it wink at Eppie just before his eyes vanish behind a reflective visor. Officer Pawar finishes tending to Eppie’s wounds, and Seargent Ncusi walks Eppie back to her vehicle and assists her inside before closing the door and returning to his prowler. Sixty seconds on, the security prowlers rise and disappear into the Elysian night, leaving the four sentinels and their own banged-up vehicle to be on their way.

There’s a beat of silent, then Eppie yells: “Oh my fucking GOD, he was SO HOT-”
 
(Ensemble Post, featuring CelticSol CelticSol , TrashRabbit TrashRabbit , wickedlittlecritta wickedlittlecritta , and Graystone713 Graystone713 )​

Above the canyons that play host to Elysium City, the tablelands of the Elysium Planitia stretch on in all directions, the tablelands dark and well below freezing in the deep Martian night. The only source of light aside from the stars above comes from the canyons themselves, spilling out and reaching for the sky, some of which is caught instead by the looming Elysium Montes beyond them. The campsite is a few kilometers off from the canyons: Tali has located a small cave, a perfect site to set up an inflatable shelter dome complete with its own light, heat, air, water, and food, and even a small airlock. There is a surface just flat enough for the flying car to land on, and a light just bright enough for someone to know to look for it to land their vehicle by, where a cycle and three sentinels are already inside the shelter dome.

Just outside the dome, Veronica watches the flying car descend with as much grace as can be had - wincing to see the bullet holes and signs of damage to it, but happy to see it at all. Despite still being in the armor clothing, Veronica is not in the least bothered by the cold or the thin atmosphere outside the dome, and her synthetic mask is also fortified against the outback. Given how dicey things got, she’s happy to have made it out unscathed, and happy to see everyone else more or less intact.

“I’ve got to say that Tali knows how to camp in comfort,” Veronica says as the doors to the car open. “This isn’t what I ususally go in for when visiting Elysium but for a simple dome? It’s not bad. Come on inside, it’s warm and breathable!”

Vidar threw a peace sign up from where he sat trying to smoke his juul discreetly so Tali wouldn't yell at him again for it. He needed some Kiwi nicotine and he wasn’t even in the exciting car, he’d just watched through the tacnet.

It takes a second to find him, where he’s hunched over in the camp, but Eppie finally finds Vidar smoking a juul like a reluctantly guity teenager. She sits down beside him, holding out her hand for it, “May I?”

“It’s not hash,” He warned handing it to her.

“That’s fine,” She takes it, pressing the small button on the side to smoke. She almost coughs, just barely keeping her composure together to choke on the inside, like a winner. “Thanks. Things got crazy, huh? I’m surprised this isn’t hash.”

“They still don’t sell hash at the 711, the future is a sham,” He said shaking his head, “how are you holding up? You look like shit, gurl.”

“That’s horseshit. I would commit attrocities to be able to be high as fuck right now. I feel like shit,” She sniffs and rubs her nose, thankful that she’s finally not bleeding everywhere, but her mind is still sharply in pain, and the voices of the Star haven’t grown any quieter, “I’m… ah. Hm. Shit, I’m terrible at this shit. I… I’m really sorry I scared you. I wanted to help you but I think I just freaked you out. Now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure that all I’ve done since meeting you has been scaring the shit out of you.”

“Most things scare the shit out of me, Eppie, its okay,” He said making gimmie hands at his Juul. He was not having this conversation without his stim toy.

She hands it back to him, her eyebrows drawing together into a frown. “I… don’t think that it is, Vid. I’m newer to this… y’know. Spooky thing. And I think I put too much stock in having someone like me in you, when it’s pretty clear that I got fucked over in a big, scary way, and… Well, basically… We… I know that I scare you. And that any time you have a brush with any of my abilities, it scares you. Which is okay! They’ve scared everyone that’s ever known about them.”
“We don’t have to talk, or be friends, or do anything, really, unless the mission requires it. I was hoping we could... but, I don’t feel like that’s realistic for me, being the way that I am, nor is it fair to you. So… yeah.” She slaps her hands on the top of her legs, “Yep. That’s what I had to say. You, um, don’t have to say anything.”

Eppie was such a confident person that he hadn't seen the vulnerable crack in her. That she could only see the world in terms of being loved or being hated or worst ignored. All or nothing, but always wanting what was best for other people. But then that was exactly how Magni had been, and all it took was a little patience to make big difrence.

“Hey-” He said with all the gentleness that he could muster up, “First of all it isn't your fault. You know they told us we were alike and I think its safe to say that that's just not true. I mean, that just tells me how little any one understands what the fuck is going on with us. When I see you do things Eppie, I'm not scared of you. It's not you I'm scared of. And its not- all that data-” he said instead of whatever he was going to say instead, it was a small space and although they were all fire wall he would never throw eppie under the bus for having some sort of titan intelligence on direct speed dial, there was something about saying The Star out loud that felt like it would hear you; “Listen. When I get scared cause you've poked something its because—reasons. Things that go on inside of me.” he said lowering his voice, and unable to admit out loud that the unfolding sensation of understanding even the fraction the stars song he'd decrypted made him want to crawl out of his skin with the same tenacity as a map. “So please, don't leave me hanging and don’t think I’m just gonna leave you hanging like that? Shits weird. Shits going to stay weird,” He said.

Eppie sighs, looking away, unable to even look at Vidar, “I don’t get to escape it, or leave it somewhere else. You may not be afraid of me, but it’s part of me - or maybe I’ve just become a part of it. You’re already freaked out enough about it, and you haven’t even seen it hijack me yet. This will only get worse, Vidar. And I… I get it. People can’t deal with it because it’s awful. And I don’t want you to think or feel that you’re obligated to deal with it. Whoosh -” she makes a gesture with her hands, “You are absolved. Now you don’t have to feel guilt about it.”

Vidar makes a face, one of confusion, “I uh,,,what part of don’t leave me hanging and shits going to stay weird turned into I feel guilty and you need to try extra hard to convince me to abandon you? That’s just the opposite of what I’m trying to tell you. If you really want to tell me how I feel and not talk to me and pretend its what I want, I am not gonna stop you. Just. That’s not how is. Jesus Eppie, you’re good people, I’m not gonna let you bail that easy,” He says, leans over and puts a hand on her arm, “We can handle shit as it happens. Please. Chill. It’s good. You’re good."

“If I may interject - ‘only way any of us are gettin’ through any of this is by stayin’ together,” Rushing Jaws adds, entering the dome now that the airlock has cycled for him. Finally hitting the post-MRDR comedown - between that and the bone-deep exhaustion that follows Action - the need to crash pulls him to the nearest cot like gravity. Despite temptation, Rushing Jaws resists the urge to let fatigue take him, the call to help a p- squadmate just strong enough to beat it; he takes a seat on the other side of Eppie, hitting the dome floor with a graceless thud in his best efforts not to fall on Eppie. “We got your back, Eppie. Shit happens? We deal with it. The kind of shit we’re gonna see in this job? ‘no way in hell are we leavin’ you to the wolves.”

“RJ, that was a private conversation, don’t be rude,” Devin said, following him in. It was qlrule number one in the close quarters of a scum swarm: just because you could overhear someone else’s conversation didn’t mean you were part of it, and it was best to pretend like you hadn’t heard shit until you were actively invited.
The rest of the system could be so uncivilized.

“I’m tryin’ to be supportive!!” Rushing Jaws counters, audibly stung. “You hear someone in distress, you don’t leave ‘em driftin there!”
Sapes and their fucken hang-ups.

“Sometimes the nicest thing you can do for some crying is pretend you don’t see tears,” Devin said with a one shouldered shrug.

Vidar looked between all of them, his hand still on Eppie, his Juul half in his mouth and just looked extremely tired.

There is suddenly a lot more people than she expected involved with the conversation, and the effect is almost claustrophobic. She appreciates RJ’s words of support, trying to smile like she feels any sort of support from this and that everything is okay and that everything is fine, but it’s just causing the song in her mind to pick up a more sinister tune, and she feels the expanse of space at the corners of her eyes, and there are too many people too close-

“Vidar and RJ, not to prove my own point or anything, but I really need you both to stop touching me,” Her hands tingle painfully, almost as if the effects of the tazer were resurfacing, but the deafening song in her ears gives her cause to believe its a warning rather than punishment, “Thank you guys for trying to make me feel better about this, but this is just a lot, and this conversation already fucking sucks, and I really just need to talk about this with Vidar because everytime I go near him there’s something about me that -”

She waves her hands frantically, like that grants any sort of information, then pulls Vidar to his feet by his jacket, “Vidar? Come with me? Please?” Then begins to pull him outside. He lets her take him, thank full that the conversation didn’t end on the note it was looking to.

“Vidar, holy fuck - okay.” She lays down on her back on the red Martian rock, “I just need a second. This whole night has been a punch to the teeth and I just need quiet for just a fucking second so I can slow down. I just need a second.”

Eppie covers her eyes with her hands, trying to rub away visions of far off stars, the song too loud and too close for too long, frustration and pain from the migraine of walking the line of an episode for hours and hours forcing tears to her eyes. “I’m not good, Vidar. I haven’t had years to come to terms to this. I have no evidence to the contrary that everyone isn’t going to think I’m an abomination when they see what’s happened to me. I’m a fucking mess, and I’m sorry I’m being so erratic and gross, and you don’t deserve that. I’m trying my best and it’s just not working.”

“I expect people to be scared of the shit I can do. But my brain is going to crack like a fuckin’ egg if I have to deal with rejection over and over again. I get that it’s scary and that most people aren’t equipped, but-” Her voice breaks a little, “Sorry. I’m gonna cry now. Is that okay?”

“Eppie, you’re exhausted you need sleep, and you don’t need my permission to cry. It’s okay,” He said sitting next to her. It was cold, it as cold like home. He realized he had tricked her into thinking he was strong. When in reality his own shut downs were fairly spectacular, frequent and ridiculous. “Listen I have been an async for exactly two years and I’ve spent most of that time relearning how to act like a human. And its hard. And it sucks. But your just tired. No one here is rejecting you, thats just something in your head right now.” His words felt robotic in his mouth, but they were true. Yeah. they were true and that was worth at least, something? “Not to sound like a dad, but, home girl, you need a nap.”

She laughs wetly, “Yeah, I do need a nap. I need a nap so bad. Is it dramatic if I sleep outside?”

“Uh, I mean its not too cold for you? Then I guess that’s fine.”

“Mmmmm, no. I’ll get up. I’ll get eaten by something out here with my luck,” she forces herself to her feet, wiping the makeup she just cried off. “How messy do I look? Scale of one to ten.”

“Hey- don’t go,” He says, “There is something I need to try, and tell you.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. What’s up?”

“I-” He wanted to tell her she was great, that she saved their asses twice, that it wasn’t her fault she was hooked up to a hive a mind or that he was so reactive because it had been so long since he touched on- but that thought made prefrontal was like pouring hot concrete in his head, “You saved our assess like twice-I think you need to give yourself some credit for that, okay?” He stammered, “I don’t think you have to worry about proving yourself to people, certainly not me. Okay? I know maybe you wanted something from me I can’t really give you, I don’t really know what that was, and that we haven't known each other supper long. But I do care about you. Do you believe me?”

Her lips works for a second as if she were going to speak, but nothing coherent comes to mind, so she simply closes her mouth until she can find the words. The odds of Vidar stabbing her if she says something else that is self-critical seem very high at this point, and it takes her longer than she’s proud of to try to think of something nice but sincere to say to him.

[You have nothing to prove to them,] Seze hums in her ear, carrying an overarching harmony to the Star and it’s chorus, [What they fear is a blessing, not a curse. You’re attempting to perform for a lesser being.]

Shhhhhhhhhh. Sh. Shut up. Stop that.

“Okay,” She whispers, “Okay. I believe you. I care about you, too. I’ll try to be nicer to me because…” She hears her therapist in her next words, and it almost makes her lips quirk into a smile, “Because people that care about me want me to be gentle with myself. Um, it also wasn’t fair for me to expect so much. I’m sorry. Do you forgive me?”

“Good, yeah. That’s- yes. That.” He said like she had fianlly put words to the thing he wished he had managed to say earlier, “And of course I can forgive? you, that’s not a thing you need to apologize for-” he was of course a bit flumox why she was apologizing for his inadequacies.

At least I’m already dead
[Vidar. Fucking. Blease. She is rejection sensitive and you’re doing great.]
I know that. And this is not the definition of great.
[Welly thats cause you also need a nap.]
Oh. I. see.

“Also you look alright. You asked me how you looked before and I didn’t want you to run off- you look like a very tiered badass.”

Eppie flips her hair theatrically, “Ah, yes. Me, bright pink. Badass.” She puts her hand on his shoulder - his windbreaker, specifically, careful not to touch his skin for the moment until she is sure she has a handle on her powers, “Thanks for talking with me, Vidar. I appreciate it, and it has made me feel better about… Well, whatever the fuck I’m supposed to be.”

“Do you want to go find a wall to stare at and go into a downtime nap? Because that’s what I’m going to do.”

He deflated in relief, “Oh my god, that would be great.”

Eppie grins, pulling Vidar back into the tent. She settles down in one of the available cots, laying on her side to focus on the tent just beyond RJ’s head. She feels a disconnected peace come to her as she hears the irritated sounds of the Star settle into a lullaby that actually succeeds in soothing her as she settles into downtime, still holding onto Vidar’s arm.

It takes him a little longer, enjoying being close to her. To anyone, having not figured out he’s touch starved. It takes him a minute to turn off all his candy crush- having opened more windows of the game when ever something he didn’t like started to happen, tho not always engaging with it. And it takes a minute to tune ou the sensation of the living things in the room. For him down time was an unfolding sensation, more like unzipping a tight pair pants after a bad day. The feeling in his hands go, then vision and then for one blissful minute he exists, but he’s no one. And then Down.

---

Mach was one of the first ones inside so he could get the fabber working on a Utilitool. Then… He tried to ignore the people drama while he got in a spacesuit. At least they were all too distracted to look at him while he changed, and his death glare was on point the few times he saw eyes wander. The underwear stayed on. He’d spent enough time in saunas with his Shui Fong pals to be somewhat comfortable in less clothes, but none of them (with one unfortunate exception) were perverts. Unfortunately by the time he was suited up and the tool was ready, the drama moved outside. He really didn’t want to follow it out. But what choice did he have? So, he went out towards the car, jealously noting Veronica’s classy synth. Then, a few pilfered glow sticks in hand (the long type people bent into necklaces) he began assessing the car’s bullet holes by scientifically inserting the glow sticks into them, popping the hood, and noting which areas were glowing.

With no need for his help, Rushing Jaws simply finds the nearest available cot, muttering about sapes and backward-ass social mores until he is on is back; within a minute, he is taken by a deep sleep, any concerns drowning quickly in the maelstrom of exhaustion and the MRDR comedown.

Veronica, for her part, is nursing a thermos of chai that is giving its best against the Fifty Below of the Martian night; given her drink is still liquid at all is testament to the engineering, even with the drink long since having become iced. Spotting Mach getting to work on the flying car gives her a reason to ignore the conversation that Eppie and Vidar are having, and she steps up to the car - wincing to see all the bullet holes but still relieved to see it at all.

“Considering what you put it through, I’m impressed it held together half as well,” Veronica says to Mach. “Did you have any issues with the software?”

“Eh. Not really. Came in handy, since the safety protocols wouldn’t have let me pull all those shenanigans.” Said the resident speeder, opening up the turbofan on the wing. Fuck. The magnetic drivers were damaged. He wirelessly queued up more to be printed, and set to work removing the broken ones. “I think I can copy my XP if you didn’t watch it through Tacnet. It was… Wild. But this corpo ego-piece can’t outrun bullets.” He said, pulling out a hunk of copper-wrapped metal with a little more force than was strictly needed, just for emphasis. “Though, if they’d been on, maybe the car would’ve told me that Devin didn’t buckle in. Fuckin… Need to deck him if he doesn’t buckle next time.”

“Y’know, I could probably reinstate the safety protocol that grounds the vehicle until seatbelts are fastened, if that would help,” Veronica suggests, sipping her chai as she follows the repairs from Mach’s TacNet feed as well as her own synthetic eyes, wincing periodically as Mach works with perhaps less gentleness then the ‘corpo ego-piece’ calls for. “How many of these have you worked on before?”

“Aircars specifically? Like… Nine. Keep in mind, one time the boys stole six or seven off the same sales lot. They sell for high prices, especially if you add a little something something. Not as high as on the legal markets, but you buy shady cars for illegal mods or cheap prices.” Mach said, removing the prop blades from the fan with care and using the pliers to pull shrapnel from its housing. Track, really. The track had holes. Damn, he’d have to print that, too. Another part to queue. Fuck. He removed it from the frame elements, sighed, and said “All the parts this one fan needs are gonna take an age, and it won’t be cheap, but the prices these normally sell at means it’d barely dent our profits. But this is a fucking rental… so I’m not gonna bother with anything but functionality until it’s return time. So yeah, it shouldn’t drive like it’s been shot up, but it’ll still look that way. Geez, this one guy had high caliber… You see how deep that one hole is? And the diameter? Fuck.” He said, pointing to the one that went through the wheel, console, and a good portion of the engine. If his hand had been in the way, it wouldn’t still be a hand.

“It makes me wonder what they’d be willing to shoot us with now, given that we escaped weapons like that the first time,” Veronica muses, watching the speeder at work. Although she is far more inclined toward software and electronics than hardware like this, Veronica knows when a tough job is unfolding - particularly in conditions like these, barely insulated against the cold, exposed to dust, and with little more than a fabber being pushed to its limits to supply the necessary parts. While she had been out of the way of the real action - exactly where she tries to be - she can’t help but think ahead, to start thinking on what might come next and how to prepare for it. “If you can’t repair the holes in the chassis, then we shouldn’t take this car anywhere it needs to be presentable,” she says. “West Elysium ought to be fine, although if we’re unlucky it might be recognized, but yes - what matters is that it can serve its purpose. If it can do that…”

Veronica pauses for a beat, wrenching her mind away from thinking about the nightmare trying to disentangle herself from the rental corp’s ledgers would be. She decides talking shop is preferable: “What’s the hardest repair job you’ve ever had to do, and how does it rank against this?”

“Oh god, that’s gotta be that Gargoyle. Had to replace almost a HUNDRED tiny-ass hexagonal cameras. Dropped nine of ‘em because my hands slipped, and I had to custom-order a bunch of the not-quite-hexagonal ones at the plate edges. It was such a PAIN in the ASS. Also I don’t see what the hell you’re talking about. The frame’s untouched, right?” Mach said, getting under the car for a closer look. Then pausing, coming back out from the darkness, and saying “That’s not the chassis. That’s the BODY. The BODYWORK. The chassis is the actual frame and the wheels and everything structural. THIS, is just bodywork. Just cheap light aluminum for aerodynamics and aesthetics. It’s nothing. The holes in the cab are the only ones that need to be patched, really. But you’re right about being recognized. I can fab us a fake license plate and you can hack the ID chip, but… We really need to paint this fucker.” Said Mach, having pointed out the holes in the trunk and panels before he took on a thoughtful look and added a paint gun to the queue. “Okay… Hot electric pink and some kinda blue sound right to you? I can maybe gradient with those, but I think a pattern would be great. Maybe I should put on some lettering? I bet the others could think of something stupid to paint on here.” Said Mach, grinning maniacally. Because messing with the corpo would be FUN.

“Alright, I’ll grant that maybe I’m behind on my vehicle jargon,” Veronica starts, after a long sip of her chai, “but even leaving to one side that painting out here, in the tablelands, where Martian fines are probably already on the car and almost certainly going to foul up any attempt at painting this car - leaving all that to the side, it would be very rude indeed to paint this car in such a way that instead of making it look like nothing even happened to it, you instead absolutely break the contract of the person who was kind enough to put her own name and rep out for it, particularly when one - her hacks are the reason you got out of the city at all, two - she could help you get another car to let your hyperwave kink run wild on, and three - there are so many other cars in the city worth doing that to.”

He wants to make trouble, does he? Let’s get him thinking bigger and save my name in the effort.

“I’m gonna cherish that look on your face. Also, keep in mind that every Night Cartel member in that city is looking to shoot four idiots in a Black Skycar with Bullet holes. If we’re really unlucky they’ll have our make, model, and license number. So. Either I paint it during this repair job and paint it black again when it’s return time, or we get it shot up worse, and get pulled outta the wreckage. If they snuck high-cals and rockets into Elysium, they got good gunrunners. Next ones might have a shipment of seeker missiles. Unless you think I have time to install flares and chaff, the best defense is looking like a totally different car, and registering that way on the system, too… so, final offer, hot rod red with yellow flames? Maybe gold ones, even? I know you hate the idea, but we stand out hard enough, they’ll look, laugh, move on, and look for the guys who ain’t standing out.” Mach said, keeping it light but maintaining the weight behind the Cartel. Those maniacs didn’t think twice about missiles, DUMBFIRE MISSILES, in a dense urban area. Whipping out seekers wouldn’t be a problem for them. Whatever Rob let those fuckers have, it was worth money. Inactive swarmcans, antimatter nukes, and a gate key were what one wild and traitorous bitch could get away with? What else did these monsters have that she couldn’t sneak out?

The thought of being liable for a mangled wreck of a rental vehicle makes insides that Veronica doesn’t even have writhe: it was one thing in a pinch, but that escape was much too close and she wasn’t even in the car. Hers was an entirely different world of criminal activity than Mach’s; he might have been right, or being painted in brilliant colors might simply give them away faster. If they have any time to plan and prepare for their next move, Veronica means to use it. “I invite you to consider the possibility of rather than playing double jeopardy with the car I rented to ferry us around town, we simply...take another one off of someone’s hands for a while,” Veronica suggests instead. “You already ‘service’ cars for a living, what’s one more for a good cause? You handle the hardware, I handle the software, we put it through whatever it needs to be put through, and then we either hand one of your triad’s enemies a poisoned apple or we see the job through and you get an extra payday.”

“We’ll have you thinking like a real Crime Girl yet, Ver. If you think we legitimately have the time, we can definitely do all that. Between fixing this up and stealing a new one to fix up, I think we’d need a full day. But it could be time well spent for both of us, if we have it. Just do me a favor and stop trying to be subtle. We’re in the fuckin’ outback! I can talk about jacking rides from rich assholes all night, ‘cause the corpo deathsquads ain’t listening! Especially since you’re running counter-intel. I mean, C’mon. Come oooonnnn, I know that even you have to know that one guy who won’t shut up about owning a Disney Ferrari and always steals the best parking spot or something.” Mach said, finally divorcing the turbofan from the main body of the car as he removed the last damaged parts from it. It’d be about eight hours to print all those parts. Fuck. But after taking a moment to mourn the loss of so much material, he turned to Veronica with a smirk and an outstretched hand, sheathed in his spacesuit’s lube-soaked glove. “We officially partners in crime?”

Veronica looks at Mach, and then his lube-soaked hand, and back to him with a crooked eyebrow and a smile, charmed despite herself by his impression of her: “I think you could do to learn the value of subtlety. You say you’ll get me thinking like a ‘real crime girl,’ which tells me you must think I’m a simple corporate bird of paradise - which could be exactly what I want you and everyone else to think, while I steal seventy-seven hundred credits from Lupercalia’s profits and edit their books to simply make it look like their night wasn’t as great as it looked. Boldness has its uses, but subtlety is the means by which you become the director of your opponent’s fate.”

Veronica takes his hand and gives it a firm Hypercorp handshake, not in the least bothered by the grease.

--

The team dissipated all at once, Vidar and Eppie to finish their conversation in peace, Mach to fix the car and Veronica to hassle him, and RJ to crash, and Devin sat on the floor and rubbed his head and felt incredibly useless.
He had one job, and he’d fucked up so badly they’d all almost died. What had possessed him to think using Grace’s name was a good idea?
He’d gotten RJ shot.
This was a disaster. He was a disaster.
[You get five minutes on the pity party, and then I’m yelling at you about it,] the Grim interrupted, soft but firm.
Don’t be mean please don’t let me do this for five whole minutes.
[You can be taught!]
In a perfect world Devin would have crawled into Armand’s lap and gotten snuggled and loved about now, but in a perfect world, he wouldn’t have been on fucking Mars. He thought about seeing if he could wake RJ enough to share the bed, but decided against it. Waking him up where he’d just fallen asleep seemed mean, even if he did very badly want some physical contact. So he settled in the corner and pulled his hat down low over his face instead.
We could’ve been stuck here, he thought. God, I could’ve been Grace.
[But you aren’t. You have people who love you now.]
He hadn’t checked his messages since they’d entered Mars orbit. He wondered if they’d heard he’d picked a fight with Valentina yet.
Do I fucking deserve it though?
[Yes, you fucking dummy. Do you think Cris would waste her time on you if she didn’t like you? Or Kostya?]
…no
[And Armand puts up with more bullshit but he’d still have punted you out an airlock by now if he didn’t genuinely like you.]
He almost DID the once, remember?
[No more stealing antimatter couriers and hypercorp heirs for you.]
Biggest mistake of my fuck-up life.
[Stop calling yourself a fuck up!! That’s literally why we’re here!!]
DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE I LITERALLY ALMOST GOT US ALL KILLED!?
[Is the self-deprecation helping?]
Devin exhaled roughly.
[It’s not. It doesn’t help and you know it. You made a mistake, and you’ve acknowledged it, and you won’t make it again. Your team doesn’t blame you. Worry about what comes next. Y’know. What you can do something about.]
He wanted to whine, but he didn’t want to wake RJ, so instead he frowned intensely.
[Pouting doesn’t change the fact that I’m right.]
Fuck you.
[I love you too, dick.]
Jerk. Devin crossed his arms over his midsection, pulling his jacket a little tighter. He hadn’t been somewhere cold in a long time, and it wasn’t so bad in the Theseus, but he was still in a mood to complain. He didn’t fit in his own arms right, and he hated it. God, I hate resleeving. How do people do this?
[Not everyone’s lucky enough to have their body tailored just so.]
It was a hell of a fixer-upper.
[But you fixed it.]
I did. He missed his body almost how he missed the Motherfuck and everyone on it. It was home. It’s been two fuckin’ weeks and I’m still not used to this thing.
[We won’t be here much longer, hopefully.]
A-fuckin’-men.
[Would you like a meme in this trying time?]
Please.
 
Rushing Jaws​

Darkness. Cold. Crushing pressure.
Rushing Jaws finds himself far from any settlement or habitat, the pitch darkness of the subcrustal Cerean ocean absolute. He calls out to the darkness, and his sonar pings off of nothing. Absolutely nothing for miles and miles around him; even the crust - the roof of the ocean - is out of his range. Even his mesh inserts are returning ‘out of range’ errors. He is alone in the pitch black ocean.
Which is not helped by the sound of orca calls that break the terrible silence.
<Hello??>
<Rushing Jaws??>
<Help us!!!>
The calls come from all around him. Rushing Jaws kicks one way, and then another, trying to call out to the lost orcas. Their calls sound familiar somehow, like he should recognize the dialect, but the sound is mangled, as though notes have been cut out of them with a scalpel. His swimming becomes frantic, and no matter where he swims, the pressure only seems to increase, as though every direction is down.
<We are the hunger of the sea given form.>
From every direction at once, Rushing Jaws hears it. He’d know that call anywhere; it is the call of his own pod, the call they came up with when they were little more than pups. They were born and raised to be weapons, a sword in the hand of a thousand-limbed abomination. Now they are scattered. Lost.
<We hunt as a squad, we kill as a pod.>
<Where are you???> Rushing Jaws screams, trying to be heard over the song of his own pod after echoing it back to the darkness, feeling currents begin to carry him along further into the crushing depths. They’re out there. He can hear them. Hear their calls, calls he hasn’t heard in so long. He fights so hard to find them.
<We are savage flesh, with killing teeth.>
The currents are stronger now, and Rushing Jaws fights with all his orcanine strength to battle them and call for his own pod. He thinks he can hear them, but a rumbling from below is drowning them out. He thinks the source is below him, something so vast that its shifting form is creating the currents. He screams with all his might to be heard above the din.
<Help us!!>
<Rushing Jaws!!!>
<Where are you going??>
<We’re not gonna make it!!!>
<You’ve got to get out of here!!!>
<Please, don’t leave us!!!>
He swims. He swims, and he swims, and he swims, but the voices aren’t getting any closer and the pressure is going to crush him flat. The currents are getting stronger, angrier, hungrier, and Rushing Jaws feels himself pulled deeper and deeper. He fights with all his power to escape, but as though having passed through an event horizon, there is no escape. He cries out one last time-
<WE ARE MAELSTROM-9>
-before colossal jaws snap shut around him.
Suddenly his calls echo loudly and violently inside within the chamber he is caught inside of - echoes that are both his own and not his own. The calls of his pod become frantic, deafening within the chamber, and Rushing Jaws feels things slithering on his skin and digging into his flesh. The calls become outraged, indignant, despairing, resignated, as Rushing Jaws feels unseen attackers bite into his skin and begin burrowing their way inside. He thrashes and he gnashes and he bellows in atavistic outrage, his own teeth digging into flesh that melts within his jaws and reforms outside, while his own flesh begins to join with whatever has infected him. The calls become screams, desperate and frenzied, demanding him do something as he fights with every ounce of his fading strength against a corruption that consumes him. He loses sensation first in his tail, then in his fins, then his jaws, then his head, and then his whole body begins to dissolve as Rushing Jaws unleashes one last defiant, agonized scream-

Rushing Jaws’ eyes shoot open, and his first breath is a sharp inhale; he does not allow himself to move, clamps down hard on the sensation of panic as decades of hard training and harder experience have taught him to. There is a weight on him, and he is surrounded by bodies. His head throbs with a dull ache, and his throat is dry. He forces himself to exhale, and then inhale again, as though having come up for air after a long, deep dive. The wave of panic passes, and his grip on his own self eases.
[There you go,] coos Māzǔpó in the strong, soothing voice. [Breathe. You’re safe.]
Rushing Jaws does so, the panic draining from him but still thick as blubber.
[Just keep breathing,] Māzǔpó advises. [It’s seven in the morning, local Martian time. You overslept; your body needed a little more time to rest, so you’ve been out for five hours in total. The sun will just be coming up now. Mach’s queue is finally done; I’ve gone ahead and put some miàn on, hopefully it doesn’t taste too much like turbofan lube.]
Thanks, Māz.
[No problem. Need a minute?]
Yeah. It wasn’t every day he got the luxury of ‘a minute,’ and fuck did he need it.
[Take your time. It’s all quiet; if the cartel’s tracking us, they haven’t made a move yet.]
I really don’t want to think about the fucken cartel right now Māz.
[I’m happy to report you don’t have to. Take your time, I’ll have your morning update when you’re ready for it.]
Rog’ - stand by on that.
Rushing Jaws moves to rub the sleep from his eyes - and finds that both of his arms are currently wrapped around someone. He doesn’t remember much of last night after arriving in the shelter dome aside from that he crashed here, but he finds himself in a cuddle pile consisting of a number of his teammates - Eppie somehow having ended up on top of him and Devin snuggling in on the side of him that isn’t up against the wall of the small cave Tali set up the dome within - on a slant, he now realizes, that they must have slid down in their sleep and ended up in a pile together. Rushing Jaws huffs a soft laugh, smiling to himself as he tries not to wake his comrades in the course of his own stirring.
[You’ve certainly woken up in worse places before.]
Smartass.
Māzǔpó only chuckles like a self-satisfied grandmother as he pulls up the TacNet feed and catches up on the night’s happenings. Most of the team crashed not long after he did; only Mach and Veroncia stayed up, the former to work on the car and the latter having no need for sleep. Of the two, Mach eventually ended up sleeping in the car, and Veronica has sat on an outcrop outside the dome, doing whatever business she could do in the small hours of the Martian morning. Checking on the medical readouts, he smiles to see that the medichines have done their job and gotten everyone equipped with them back in fighting shape.
Okay Māzǔ, what’s the sitrep?
[It’s still quite cold outside, but dawn is in a few minutes and all is quiet in camp. I used the downtime to follow news stories in Elysium; our stunt last night is the talk of the town. No leaked identities yet, but it looks like reports from all over the town are digging in to what happened during the stand-off with Apex. Reporting seems to be just as confused at Lupercalia too - as messy as it got, we did our due diligence, and the filters are doing the rest. Rumors abound of gangland shooting, and it looks like the club is closed by order of the Elysium People’s Militia for undisclosed reasons.]
Updates on the cartel?
[Lots of Guanxi-connected traffic. From what I can access, we kicked a hornet’s nest. Lots of rumors, nothing concrete.]
Are the cops lookin’ for us?
[Hard to say. I think they really did buy that we were Oversight agents, although how long that holds up and whether or not we get a hail from the actual Oversight is anyone’s guess.]
Here’s hopin’ we’re out of here long before they think to check in.
[Here’s to a routine mission.]
Rushing Jaws chuckles, shifting as softly as he can so as not to disturb Eppie. To soothe himself, Rushing Jaws loads up an AR overlay to create the illusion of being in a tropical sea: around him, the rust-red cavern and the dunes outside become submerged beneath cool, clear waters full of fish, an entire ecosystem appearing from nothing to swim, sing, play and hunt around him. He hears distant whale calls, and his thoughts turn toward home.
Load up my feeds from home.
Windows in his entoptics open, showing views of social media and forum feeds from a now-distant world to him. Updates on life in a city called Wujec, a flooded Atlantis full of danger and delight, and home to people he feels close to spill down his feeds. There is the usual quasi-advertising posts of influencers - people he finds attractive enough to put up with their influencing - along with updates following the recent bombings and counter-attacks against the Hidden Concern by unknown actors, and the richter-scale squiggles of the Extropia Exchange and the comparatively smooth lines of the Aventine-Wujec Mutualist Credit Union and his own Trident Defense Solutions. Then there are the winding branches of meshsites that host the thousand discourses of a nascent movement of a people discovering their own light and culture, nurturing it in the dark seas against the burning brilliance of the inner system culture machine. There is no point trying to browse beyond what his muse has prepared; it would take an hour to load a single page. Instead, he leafs through what Māzǔpó has given him, and is comforted...
...until he finds the message from Azure Song, timestamped from three hours ago.
When’d this get here?
[While you were asleep. Azure Song misses you.]
Rushing Jaws feels a stab of melancholy.
I miss her too.
[The sooner we get this done, the sooner everyone goes home.]
Rushing Jaws turns his attention from the message to the small pink sape currently sleeping on him, looking so peaceful in her rest.
Yeah.
[Want to talk about it?]
A beat.
Load up the message.

Playback begins with an underwater camera focusing on a doe orca with blue spiralling patterns tattoed into her flesh in the manner of art nuveau waves painted on her own body. Azure Song and her camera-wielding companion swim through a thoroughfare of one of Wujec's low-pressure districts, the water of which is clean, clear and well-lit, the avenue lined with shops and spacious enough for a single neo-whale to swim through without touching either end. Azure Song glances at the camera from time to time, looking ahead and clicking between sentences in the manner of a neo-orca. Her tone seems generally positive, if weighted with a soft sadness. Azure Song begins speaking to the camera-person, maintaining an upbeat tempo as much as her feelings will allow her.

"Hey big brother!! I know you’re on a super classified operation with Strategicast or whichever milcorp is paying you the big bucks to go out on black ops in your old age, but hopefully this message finds you well! I’m doing- I’m doing okay, back home. Wujec’s been alright - a bit tense lately, but nothing we can’t handle. People are on edge but that’s kinda helped keep things calm - the opposite being bad for business in a city that’s all about business y’know? Melody was asking how you were, had to give her the ol’ cover story. I’m pretty sure she could tell I was covering, although she had the grace not to ask.
"Thing are, ah, things are good with me! - I did some networking and might have a line on a real good gig here soon, real hush-hush project but that could be a real feather in my cap. I also went out on a date with Dibella like you’ve been telling me to!! I was worried she’d be out of my league but I think it went really well?? I’m not used to bougie whales but I think she found my rough-hewn humor and working-class demeanor charming. We swapped contact info and nuzzled some, that’s gotta be a good sign, right??"
"I miss you though. I miss you lots. I wanna be able to talk about all this with you. This city doesn’t feel right without you. It’s big, it’s tense, it’s busy busy busy - never feels like enough time. Melody’s been keeping tabs on me like some kind of grandma, and I keep telling her I’m okay, but just - come home soon, okay Savage Flesh?"
['miss you.]

As the playback ends, Rushing Jaws feels a stab of anxiety at ‘Savage Flesh,’ remembering a flash from the nightmare that woke him up - and lets it roll off of him like a current. Watching his sister swim away before the video ends fills him with another kind of sadness: he misses his sister. More than he should for only having been gone for a little over a week - but he doesn’t let himself think too long about that. His sister’s all he has left of the old pod; she’s worth more to him than an entire private habitat would be. He misses her too, and soon thoughts begin nipping at him like lampreys on his flukes about what could happen to her while he is away.
[She’s why you’re here, remember?] Māzǔpó reminds him.
Wh-
[You’re here to keep her safe.]
I know, I mean, I-
[It’s okay to miss her, just remember why you’re here, Rushing Jaws. Azure Song can fend for herself, but she doesn’t know what’s out there like you do. Neither does Serene Ochre Melody, neither does Nona, neither does the local Mother Leviathan sect or the pod-tribes or Trident or anyone in Wujec.]
I know for a fact that’s bullshit - Serene Ochre Melody alone proably knows more n’ any of us chucklefucks, my money’s still on her turning out to be Starglass.
[She’s a banker with the AW-MCU, you and I both know she’s way too busy for that.]
Is she though?
[Yes.]
Yeah okay, you’re probably right.
[They’ll be okay, Rushing Jaws - otherwise we’d need our sentinel team on Ceres to stop whatever Firewall found out is going on there. We know there’s something here, on Mars, that needs to be stopped - you’re doing this for all of them. You’re keeping them safe.]
Rushing Jaws has no response to that other than silent contemplation of her words. He takes a breath of the clean shelter dome air despite his world being that of the Puget Sound he was immersed in as a pup, the presence of his own squadmates helping anchor him. He misses Azure Song a lot, and wishes he could tell her about where he is as if that would reassure rather than deeply upset her. It’s better for both of them that he maintain opsec. He grounds himself in the present, and sets aside those concerns as the fabber chimes at him over AR to notify him that his chow mein is ready; as gently as he can, he turns onto his side to set Eppie down on the mat, and then gets up to take his breakfast - fabber-grade chow mein with salmon 'flavoring.'
Despite being borderline flavorless fabber-food, there is - mercifully - no hint of turbofan lubricant.
 

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Euphemia "Eppie" Cross

​
The air has become so thin her lungs feel perpetually on the verge of collapsing in her chest. She is cold, agonizingly so, but beyond the pain of ice so cold that it burns, Eppie recognizes the scene before her. Europa’s surface is smooth, slick with ice and stone and snow, but she is not alone, and what accompanies her is not a monster of a far off world, whispering knowledge in tongues she does not speak, but a wolf so tall she has to crane her head to see it’s shoulders.

The wolf is hunched before something; eating it’s fill, based on the movements of it’s head and shoulders. It seems to struggle in this - it chokes on a meal too large for it’s maw, ripping apart pieces from the carcass of its prey that seem to grow in it’s mouth. It spits, but the pieces cling to its jowls, or its neck, or it’s bleeding muzzle. The wolf eats, and eats, and eats, but it’s still moving prey offers no end in sight.

It wheezes, struggles, whines. She notices chains made of the stars hold it in place, and though she wishes she could free it, she is frozen by ice to the ground. She trembles, shaking as the mass of prey grows, squirms - splits appear in the flesh and eyes roll under the flesh, eyes appearing in the jaws of the wolf. Tendrils grip the ground, the wolf, and her, bound together by a monstrous thing that she and the wolf underestimated.

“Euphemia, don’t you know what you’ve done?” A voice purrs from the wolf - no, not the wolf. She recognizes this voice. She glances, and Seze’s half chewed body hangs upside down from the teeth of the wolf, smile splitting her face in half all the way to her ears, “The Star knows him, now. The Star will have you both.”

She feels tears drip down her face, but she is voiceless, and cannot move. The wolf has vanished - Vidar, bloodied by the meal, overwhelmed by his catch, is left in it’s place, tendrils wrapped around him as he whispers softly to himself with the rhythmic pace of someone calculating. In the next blink, the wolf has replaced him again. The pained eyes are gone from it’s face, and it stares to Eppie with the eyes of the Star burned wrongly into it’s face.

She hears a song from the prey, the same eyes she sees in the wolf staring brightly at her. The voice sing, laugh, as the chains of the wolf comes loose. It draws close without a growl, or a snarl, but carried a baritone chorus of their nursery rhyme, and Eppie cannot get breath into her lungs as it’s jaws close around-

She rolls onto the floor, paralyzed by fear. Something slides out from under her. She is powerless to move to see what that might’ve been. She looks into Devin’s sleeping face, but beyond him, there is a shadow lurking in the dark.

A phantom of Seze stands in the dark corner of the tent, plasticine smile stretched far too wide. She breathes hard, trying to breathe evenly to calm down enough to banish the paralysis, but her breathing only quavers as the bites of the wolf opens on her waist and bleed out.

She closes her eyes tight, feeling tears slide over the bridge of her nose as she struggles to will movement back into her body as she hears approaching footsteps.

Her eyes slide open, and Seze has slid between Eppie and Devin.

Eppie starts, movement returning in a rush as she lurches backwards from the spectre of Seze. She breathes hard, blinking rapidly - Seze is nowhere to be seen. She checks among her teammates - Vidar is curled on the mat behind her, Devin is in front of her, and Veronica is on the other side of Devin. Tali, nor Mach, nor RJ, are anywhere to be seen.

She stands on shaking legs, trying to steady her own heartbeat as she looks around the tent for the missing sentinels. When she stills, she can hear soft humming from outside. She moves slowly, a headache dawning on her conscience as she unzips the tent to peek outside at the rising Martian sun. She blinks into the light, then looks down to an eating RJ.

“Hey,” She rasps, “Where did Tali n' Mach go?”
 
Marcus Speidwagon
​
Marcus was driving. It wasn't a car of any type. Not an F-zero, either. A bike?... Monowheel. It was a monowheel. He drove through a forest, along dirt trails. His hands were flesh. His eyes were flesh. Then he saw it. A truck. A massive monster truck, decorated with antlers made of knives. Exhaust pipes spit flame, and the grille morphed into teeth. It bore down on him. He was faster for a time, but the flames jumped from the truck, to the woods, to everything. Everything was on fire. The trees morphed into twisted exhaust pipes, spitting flames and smoke. The smoke seemed to constantly form into faces, and they deformed to skulls, and then the smoke would disperse. The 'trees' kept falling in his path, and he had to duck them or jump them. The truck was gaining on him. The downhill coming up could save him. He went as fast as he could, got some distance, and hit a log-no, an obscenely long torso. The person it belonged to looked to be dead. He only saw the fringe of purple hair as he was thrown, and bounced, skidded. He got up just in time to see the truck's terrible maw. The knife-antlers stabbed his eyes. The grille ate his arms. The impact broke him.

He could feel his body tumbling through darkness. Darkness punctuated by geometic shapes. Triangles. Triangles like shark's teeth. They whizzed around his body, leaving shallow cuts, sending blood flying all through the area. At the 'bottom', he could see it. A Hypersphere. Covered in those Hal-9000 robot eyes. The shape began to unfold, and reveal a seemingly infinite tunnel made of numbers. He tried to swim away. He could not. He slowly. agonizingly. Floated into the uncountably infinite numbers. He saw others floating in the numbers. Other hims. Different sleeves. Different bodies. All with glowing red eyes. They grew sinister smiles. The ones that looked organic started to have growths burst from their faces. Tentacles. Crustacean legs. One's jaws were slowly replaced by a giant set of crab claws. The ones that were synthetic began to shed dust. Nanomachines. They all swam towards him. Steadily. Deliberately. Slavering or sparking or simply smiling with the grins of murderers. The last thing he saw was teeth, claws, and a very clear view of a few nanomachines drilling into his pupils.

Mach jolted awake, hand going for his utilitool. Fuck, that was a rude one. He hadn't thought about that crash in YEARS... Why now? Heck, that wasn't even how it went. No fire. Just... The crash. He was fine. Still in a pod in a spacesuit in a car in the martian outback. In a weird position... Right, he had just finished welding that last hole in the main cab closed when he decided on a ten minute power nap. He fell back into the leather seats and groaned, realizing that he had been out way longer than ten minutes, he could sorta see sunlight.
"fuuuuuuuuuck."
[Bad dreams again, Bossman?]
"You... wait. I should..."
Yeah. I need to be thinking... Didn't I tell you to set an alarm?
[I did! Then I cancelled it because you needed some REST, boiii.]
Dammit... I need to get this stupid thing fixed so Veronica can help our dumb asses steal a different car.
[Wanna tell me about the bad dreams? Which ones were they?]
The crash in Georgia. Getting eaten by Nerrix. Million evil Mes murdering me.
[You need some comfort, my dude... Chicken'n'Waffles?]
I don't know if I should be craving more backwoods memories... But fuck that does sound good.
[Queued my dude. Someone's ahead of us tho.]
Thanks, Nanti. Maybe I should see if anyone has Hash handy.

He stretched, left the car, and entered the dome, removing his helmet and scratching his face as he walked up to the fabber, approaching it as RJ left with his own breakfast, and sitting down. Mach could feel facial hair. He wanted to shave it off, but he didn't want to waste the fabber's time on a razor. He tried to tell himsef it was just stubble. Still, it didn't take long to get his chicken and waffles. It was about on par with frozen food, which is to say it wasn't total crap, but it was a far cry from something 'real'. Even the syrup was off. Tasted burnt. He noticed the others slowly stirring, namely he saw Eppie have a little panic attack. Seemed like he wasn't the only one who had a bad dream. He gave the slowly dispersing cuddle puddle a wave and continued eating. He worked hard on the car, but he still had a LONG way to go... He was sure he needed that sleep. But he needed to work even more, didn't he? Whatever. It was too early for this bullshit.
"So... Anyone awake got Hash?"
He whispered, trying not to wake anyone else up.
 
He is not awake and he is not asleep. He's some where between down time and dead. He is unfolding, shifting, shreiking, the same sensation just before waking from sleeving. He is everywhere static and pins and and needles. He is made of sound and fractal points. And everything. EVERYTHING makes sense. Untill sudenly he is conscious and capable of thoughts and impossibly inescapably himself. In the night he has rolled over so that his face is pressed against Eppies back- he rolls over, puts her back to his and goes back to sleep. Downtime is just like that. Later when he wakes

The sound of movement and the smell of fish is more than enough to trigger vidars hyper vigilance and rouse him up out of deep sleep. The kind of sleep that only comes after downtime with dreams full of monocrome fractalsand the very real sensation that maybe he's been switched on and off. He remembers his night terror of sorts and all that static and humming, the unfolding; and thinks of the song of the star and wish that he had not. The context to much to sit with- so he wonders instead what the fuck is Five fucking cooking. What kind of half rate ramen is ze-

But he's on mars.

MARS.

Maybe it was sleeping in gravity for first time in years that his mind had tried to put him home.

[god your a piece of work boss.]
thanks.

But its enough to keep him from falling down that hole. Its a deep one. He sits up and squints, looking dazed and ruffled with a terminal case of bed head. His armored clothes had become a little black cat kigarumi in the night and he had not yet realized it and wouldn't for several more minutes. Penny did look out for him sometimes even if she liked to use him a bit like a fashion prop. Penny appeared in his AR on his knee because he kept closing all of her pop ups.

[step one; you are awake!]
Yes.
[Alive awake alert enthusiastic!]
Three out of four.
[worth a shot! So while you were being kin with AOL dailup-]
The fuck is AOL dialup-
[I did it! I out old refenced you!] she played a kaching sound and dabbed. And vidar had never felt so anoyed and half asleep and ancient in his whole life.[Any way, its time to get your head on straight. The world stops for nothing you know.]
I said that to you.
[Its good and bears repeating.] She dishes out her morning report with a make rain motion and lit up his ar with it.
Why are you dressed as high fashion sailor moon? He asks her, because she is. It looks good. It looks like something that should also be armor or on a runway. Or at least, not something he's seen before.
[Oh listen mars high fashion is great boss, the 20's are in and they did a chanel reboot and then ultraGlend came out with this magical girl inspired line and its just fucking bespoke.]

uhuh, he mumbles out loud as she continues. The thing about having enough attention spans to sink a ship with was he never really had to tell his muse to stop info dumping.

He clicked through the some of the local media from locus; exhibit openings, two articles on heirloom orchid acquisition, Eddie's latest demo, the bud yeild from the hemp harvest at katagawa. He'd missed the fucking hemp harvest- he made a little noise of diasapointment.

[only two articles at at a time. Damn Girl. Your sleepy,]
Penny there is only one person who gets to damn gurl me and its not you.
[Sorry boss.]

He scrubbed his face as he opened his datapackage from Puck; a five second XP:

MOTHER FUCKER UNLIMITED YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE HOME BY NOW

and in her hands is the softest, cutest bushbaby inspired smart rat he has ever seen. It takes his breath away. And in the XP Pucks amusement and annoyance is crisp and dinstent in that way that emotions via XP can be.
He makes a whale noise. It was cruel. So cruel. The worst. In her data package was also at least 100 photos of Chubs because she knew what he liked. [I'm not sending you any more about the babies until you get home. I'm holding them hostage.]

he sent back simply: PUCK GIVE ME THE BABIES OR ELSE.

He had several more messages that had come in that he still needed to reply to- data packages from the fam; the whole of cohesive detours, the Meg; Zhou Yuhan had been responding to his messages even with the time delay in a manner more consistent than he had anticipated- that made him hopeful that making friend with benefits after 100 wasn't impossible. Mehetan Noorzai, had sent him a small tour of his orchid collection finally after what felt like forever of small talk. All good stuff. Great stuff to wake up to. If he'd been on locus today would automatically be a great day.

But he opened up the folders penny had arranged on Martian doings- even the ones about high fashion...because he hadn't opened up candy crush for the day.

[Candy crush is step three] Penny reminded him. Step two was to 'evaluate his day' which usually meant seeing what was going on on locus and choosing his course of action. He lived very day by day that way and on locus you could get away with it. so to hurry the process along, becuae it was a dumb rule he hated, he opened all of the articles at once, the news, martian gardens of note, Jenni's IMBD listings, Elysium's incident history, Skipkacking on mars for dummies, vintage convience stores on the rise, Blogs like Emilio's about barsoomian nomad- though none of htem held a candle, and one folder devoted to Grace.

This all entertained him long enough to scrub his face and stretch and notice Eppie was leaning half out of the tent letting in the cold. Wich wasn't very long at all. He opened the Grace folder last and singularly just as he opened candy crush. And everything in his mind came screaaching to an absolute halt in a single tabloid hader.

Conflict Of Interest: Grace Callahan and Vera Kryssvinds Romance???

He clicked through. He liked to read the titles of tabloids but hardly ever let them get the click. There she was. Captioned nicly, sitting with one leg crossed over the other side eyeing the camera with a look that was ripped off her zazas face. She looked young. She had always preferred the gravitas of being middle aged which had been a wild ride when he and Five had decided to be young and rowdy forever. But it was recognizably her. Not some one else with the same obscure name. His baby girl. His terrible hypercorp cuckoo bird. One(1) verified human child.

sdkgjhrluewhrgo3rgkwjerfWJEFHKWH1834T984Y6TWO3U4H13WHEFHJEK
[I thought it was a coincidence!!!]
PENNY
[How could I know?!?!]
P E N N Y
[Are you sure?!]
Listen I cooked her in my living room myself I would know!!! I WOULD KNOW! That's my girl. thats exactly how she looked in college. God shes still Fives weird tall clone. oh my god.
[She's dating Devin fork.]
OH fuck.
[Hey boss. I need you to breath or your gonna get the hiccups, but your life is sureal.]
My daughters alive. And she's dating Devin's fork.
My daughters alive. And she's dating Devin's fork.
My daughters alive. And she's dating Devin's fork.
My daughters alive. And she's dating Devin's fork.

The heat behind his sinuses hit him hard and fast. He wondered why Jenni hadn't mentioned anything. He was having too many intense emotions sitting in a cat kiguarim unbeknowingly shaped like a cat girl on mars to play candy crush. He looked over at mach and then away sheepishly.

[Hey I know your having an entire emotion. And that you should try to maybe feel happy instead of this intense sense of dread.]
AFKAHglakhegkwjrhgakwjehfw
[Boss I am not sure how you make these dial up noises but I'm gonna have to ask you to stop.]
His mind was skipping ahead of itself faster than he could fully emotionally process and was quickly over stimulating he very mortal emotional processing speeds.
[If its this upsetting do you want me to run a couple searches??]
For what?
[I can hear you when you think things.] He'd been managing to think several repetitive thoughts at once on his way to an anxiety spiral and it took him a moment to cognitize all of them in a meaningful way; would she want to see him Would she recognize him? Was he really himself? Would she be able to tell? Would she be mad he was dead? Would he hate her? Was Five alive? was five alive? was five ALIVE.
what if all the answers are bad??
[Hmm I can't help you with that but the truth is usually best.]
Run the search.
[hosuc pocus riddle me reee show me a Brooklyn samurai-ee]
I'm sending you back to amazon.
[listen you voided my warranty years ago buddy boy. I'll ping you if I find something. Just breath. All the breathing.]
Okay.

"Jesus Eppie! your letting the fuckin cold in!" He called. Because she was. And he shivered in his kigarumi looking like a disheveled mess. He did his best to not look distressed but everyone on team rincewind usually only did him the politeness of pretending it didn't show.
 
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Devin knew it was a dream because it was morning and his mother was drinking vodka straight from the bottle, which was a thing she only ever did at night in life, and only on bad nights. Also, it was his first day of high school, and he’d done that already.
“Stand up straight. Do you want to embarrass me?” she asked, in her ugly satin bathrobe.
“This is a dream and I’m going to wake up now,” Devin said, because this was his least favorite anxiety dream and he’d had it several times before. She looked at him, but then she was gone, and there was only a soft darkness, and the warmth of someone else pressed against him. Armand, he thought, but that wasn’t quite right, and he wondered if he were dreaming again.
And then the other person got up, and the movements were all wrong—they got up and stepped over him, instead of climbing over and down, and he wasn’t home. He squinted into the soft morning light and remembered all at once and terribly that this was Mars, and he hated everything.
[Good morning, sunshine!]
AUGGHHHHHH
[Oh I see.]
Devin whined again about it.
[ )’: ]
I can’t believe you’re making fun of me first thing in the morning how dare you.
[I thought it would remind you of home]
Get bent.
[ <3 ]
I love you too, you little bastard.
[ c: ]
The news from Mars was mostly confusion, and Devin hoped it stayed that way. He decided to skip the news from the swarm—it would only make him more homesick—and checked his dms instead.

кошак: @the_Magpie we’re going to bang this cute mark speak now or forever hold your peace
bees?: now you’re just being mean
кошак: he’s probably banging his weird 3rd boyfriend and this idiot is very cute
кошак: собачка pls there is a time limit here
bees?: :/
the_Magpie: Kost’ka. darling. love of my life. what about this several hour time delay do you not understand??
the_Magpie: @bees? i’m so sorry i left you alone with this beautiful idiot
the_Magpie: also what scam were you pulling? without me??

sp4rr0wh4wk: YOOOO what are you doing getting into a fight with the Viper without me????!!!
th3r4tk1ng: i didn’t plan on it!!!
th3r4tk1ng: she insulted my honor yfm?

[Hey, uh. Penny sent me something she thinks you should see,] the Grim interrupted. [It’s, uh...You should see it.]
Color me intrigued?
The single header flashed across his entropics: Conflict Of Interest: Grace Callahan and Vera Kryssvinds Romance???
I don’t...? Wait. WAIT.
[So Vidar has a daughter...]
Jesus Fucking Christ.
Devin sat up and looked at Vidar, who looked more miserable than anyone in a cat kigurumi had any right to look.
He looked up at Mach’s question and said, “Oh, you’re so fucking wise. Let’s get baked,” pulling only slightly squished hash from his pockets.

hara[pm to heliotrope]: so...this is weird
 
Heliotrope {Pm t hara}: Is that what you want to call it?
Heliotrope: Your F O R K. is DATING my DÅUGHTER.
Heliotrope: WHAT?
Heliotrope: If my muse censors my question marks one more time. I'm out.
Heliotrope: WHAT?????????????????????????!!!!??!?!?!?!?!?!
 
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"Your F O R K. is DATING my DÅUGHTER." He said to Devin aloud, sternly with all the intense cadence of John Mulany anouncing there was a horse in a Hospital.
 
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