Eclipse Phase (Private)

[TrashRabbit]

Oh. Well. That's a lot to unpack. On week where there is so already so much to unpack.

"I can't protect anything much bigger than a smart rat, so you can keep them," He says with a smile. He's glad he knows at least Jenni is alive becuase he misses his goblins something feirce in this moment, "Dare I ask whomst the fuck thought that trying to keep you in a cage was a good fucking idea?" He asks.

 

[CelticSol]

Jacqueline "Jackie" Sapienti
​

"You got unrelenting dad energy, kitty, so I strongly doubt that. Also, sword," She grins, but her smile slips, just a bit, at Vidar's question. Jackie's leg jiggles in a restless beat, and she picks her fingernail with singleminded intensity as she takes a moment to think on her words. She tries to smile to keep it light, but her smile is short lived, "His name was Xavier Santiago. Don't worry, he's dead, fully so - not that I can take credit. He took care of himself. Fuck, do I wish that I'd been the one to get him, though."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Ah, fucking shame," He says, "If I see him in hell I'll put him on the list." He doesn't argue with the dad vibes, but if he was able to protect anything then maybe he wouldn't be living on locus and his daughter wouldn't be have her fingers shoved up some titans asshole for science. but he doesn't argue it.

 

[CelticSol]

Jacqueline "Jackie" Sapienti
​

Jackie smiles - it's not a smirk or a grin, nor is it as smug or sly as her other smiles. Just a tiny quirk of the corner of her lip. She says, "Thanks, kitty. If you've got anything you need handled, or you ever get in trouble with your Whatever McDonald's, call me. But only if you stab the shit out of Santiago in Hell."

 

[TrashRabbit]

There are few things like revenge defered and the little smile is one that hits home; "Listen once I find hell its all over for him, I've been dead for years and I'd stab a bitch for a chicken nugget." He says, realizing he is in fact not making a lot of sense. But this is what being a goblin is like.

 

[CelticSol]

She laughs, “That’s the spirit, gatito. You got a lot of feral energy and I like it.”

 

[TrashRabbit]

"I should put feral on the resume," hes says. Then no tstopping to think twice takes the chance, cause well they're going to have Jackie around for a while and whether for reals or for convenience he'd like it to go well- and because the more she talks the more she reminds him of home and the more he begrudgingly likes her. "Since we're being all emotionally vulnerable and shit, do you wanna go on like a week long hot date to the TQZ? like. no reason. No presure. "

 

[CelticSol]

Jacqueline "Jackie" Sapienti​

Jackie's eyebrows shoot up, but her small smile is creeping into something more and more genuine. "Sounds dreamy," She says, "You, me, and the countless exsurgents trying to melt our brains. Romance in the modern age," She laughs at her own joke, then continues, "Yeah, I'd be down."

 

[TrashRabbit]

Vidar laughs, "Tight."

Heliotrope: So that's how you do it kids!

 

[ValtheStarGal]

Rushing Jaws
(Collab Post with CelticSol ) ​

Azathothwakes: [You got all that?]
Mekhajakumaar: [...yes.]

Rushing Jaws chuckles to himself, then sits back in his seat, glancing at Deep Blue periodically to mind his Bruiser morph's wounds but mostly content to listen to the back-and-forth of the surprisingly amiable Black Carnival. The openness with which they talk about everything ranging from professional concerns to openly discussing Watts-fucking-McLeod puts him in mind of the metapods of Ceres, making him a little homesick. His mind wanders, and a tune comes unbidden to him, hummed softly so as to not interject any of the conversations. The MRDR waning in his system and the charming banter of the carnies takes a surprising amount of edge off, given that these people were supposedly meant to have killed them all. Rushing Jaws can even feel the temptation to relax.

The mention of Xavier Santiago is like pinging off something swimming at him way too fast.

Māz where do i know that fuckin name?
[The Abyss op, six years ago?]
...oh. oh fuck.

Spoiler: The Abyss

The high, ululating shrieks echoing down pitch-black fallways shock into his mind first, that awful, agonized, hungering shrieking. They tried to move quickly and quietly, but the madman released everything before Duong could take control of the containment systems, and it didn’t matter when ve did. It all went to hell so fast: first Duong got pulled violently into a maintenance shaft, then Halie - the stupid, self-sacrificing motherfucker - sealed himself into a chamber with a swarm of them, Katya got tagged by one of those things and Rushing Jaws watched as her chest blossomed into hateful flesh and Rushing Jaws had to shoot her himself, and then there were distended, warped bodies and the pleading faces and the screaming, god, the screaming that filled every centimeter of that ancestors-forsaken space station and that got into Rushing Jaws' own fucking head and-

[<Rushing Jaws!!!>]
What??
[Unclench your fists and your jaw.]

It took his muse blasting his own name in neo-cetacean at him for Rushing Jaws to realize his knuckles are white and, as he opens his palms, that his fingertips are red.

“Yo, Whale Boy 3000, are you fucking okay? You look like me and gatito just gave you ‘Nam flashbacks or something.”

“Wh-? Oh, no, you’re good, took some uppers before the fight back there and the comedown is rough,” Rushing Jaws says, having missed most of the conversation after the mention of Santiago and hoping he could play it off.

“Oh, bullshit. I can hear the kill bill sirens from here. Why don’t we share with the class?”

“Fine - MRDR tends to set off the kill bill sirens on the comedown. It’s not deep, ‘just hard vibin’ is all.”

“Mmm, you’re so full of shit, amigo, because I know MRDR better than I know some of my family and you were fine until five minutes ago. And now I’m curious; I know why I know the name, but why do you know the name Xavier Santiago?”

Spoiler: ...why do you know the name Xavier Santiago?

-Listen up! Our target for this operation is going to be Xavier Santiago-
-an entire space station, built on Santiago’s dime-
-stay sharp, if Santiago’s here I don’t fuckin doubt his security’s gonna be sharp-
-master control…Santiago let them out?? He let them all out???
-is that him?? Is that Santiago out there-

Fuck it. They must trust their counter-surveillance if they’re willin to talk W/M shit.

“Operation gone bad,” Rushing Jaws answers. “We were meant to capture someone by that name, and the sick fuck didn’t go quietly.”

Jackie squints so tightly that she almost looks like she closed her eyes. Jericho bodily turns around in his seat, making an almost identical expression. Even Elrika looks at RJ through the rearview mirror in utter disbelief.

“Didn’t he-” Elrika begins.

Jackie scoffs, not looking away from her intense scrutiny of RJ, “Yeah, Santiago killed himself. I’m puzzling out how this orca-”

Then, with the word ‘orca’, it seems to dawn on her, her eyes blowing wide as she leans back, as if understanding carried her body backwards. Then, she bursts into a short fit of delirious laughter, “No fucking way,” She says, then smacks RJ’s knee, “You whale motherfucker son of a bitch. What is this -” She laughs again, a sharp bark of a sound, “You- you fuckin’- see, I knew there was no way a motherfucker would be crazy enough to fence TITAN tech in Elysium, I just knew - fuck, man!”

She shoves RJ’s knee, “You papi chulo son of a bitch. You’re telling me the Concerned Citizens Brigade still kept your bitter ass on imaginary-moral-payroll? Fuck, man.”

Rushing Jaws is keenly aware he is a bad liar: he hates keeping secrets at the best of times - fins were never meant to hold secrets, as the saying goes - and even after decades of living with them, trying to puzzle out the nuances of sape communication and put up a convincing front always felt like taking a test he didn’t study for. Even so, watching secrets slip through his grasp leaves him feeling exposed and vulnerable, particularly with the horrors of the Abyss so fresh in mind. Feeling overstimulated and cornered, Rushing Jaws has to suppress the urge to lash out as if these were the hidden seas of Ceres rather than the cab of a seven-seater flying car-

-when another memory, cued by a nickname itself forgotten, sends his jaw hanging open in a neo-orca smile.

“Get the fuck out of here- you- a modern day Guanxi ghost story - you were the fucking stowaway?? I always wondered who had the fuckin guts to get out of there and sneak on board our ship - that was you???”

Jackie uses her hands to smooth out and cover the top of her hair, as if to give to the illusion of baldness, “Is that easier?” She grins broadly, “Yeah, of course it was fuckin’ me. I’m a survivor and all that Destiny’s Child shit. Can’t fuckin’ believe you didn’t recognize me. See, I thought you might be you, just because your whole gang is sus as fuck, but… Damn. Didn’t think I’d be right.”

“Okay first of all, all you sapes look the same to me. Second of all, I’m a big personality whether or not I’m sleeved properly. Third of all, fuck you for that blast from the past. Fourth of all, you weren’t one-hundred-percent right, there; I was on Direct Action’s dime and getting very real credits. Not enough to make going into that fucking slaughterhouse of the damned worth it, mind, but I was being paid for my trouble.”

“Oh, fuck off with all that, dude. You were just craving a PTSD flashback, back there. And you got fucking played, my whale friend - no money in the world would’ve gotten most people there. I stand by the fact that all of you were out of your fucking mind. And now we’re both going into the TQZ, like a perfect example of people not knowing when to cut their damn losses.”

Despite himself, Rushing Jaws laughs; “Gotta correct a couple more misconceptions of yours - Off the top, I was plenty happy before being reminded of that fuckin horror movie of an op. I was also an uplift under contract, which in plain english means I was a slave, and then we also had bad fuckin intel on that space station. I don’t know what chucklefuck put together our dossier but they left out the part where fuckin David Cronenberg was the Director of Body Horror. We’d have turned the shuttle right around and had that place blown into radioactive dust if we knew what was aboard.”

Jackie barks a laugh, leaning in. As the conversation has progressed, her hand gestures have grown more and more animated as her accent grows thicker and thicker, and at this point she is almost a caricature of a New York Italian woman, “Again, I say, go fuck yourself. Let’s unpack this; Harriet Tubman wasn’t the most iconic bitch to walk the Earth for you to have that sort of attitude about capitalism sanctioned slavery. Also, I would love to see the packet where you read it over and thought that it wasn’t going to be a nightmare fucking horror show. ‘Ah, yes, an oligarch with an extensive G-Rep is fucking around with the exsurgent virus. We will arrive, and there will be no exsurgents’. You’re just clowning yourselves, at that point. And last but most importantly, I had to look up who the fuck David Cronenberg was, and you are one antiquated piece of shit. Oh, oh - and with you being a fucking horror nerd, of all things - you should’ve known that it would be a horror show!”

“You shut yer goddamned sape mouth!!” Rushing Jaws shoots back, absolutely delighting in how larger-than-life Jackie has worked herself up into and grinning a gigantic orca grin, “I was a slave whos fuckin mind was D-A’s fuckin chew toy and I didn’t get any fuckin say in that until the day I kicked off this sorry shithole of a planet for good, you got no fuckin place to talk to me about my life as a fuckin science project! I didn’t ask to be born in a fuckin tube and have a fuckin instructor be the real horror nerd n’ give me a taste for classic horror, i don’t know shit about twencen media except for a handful of sapes ‘had the sense to die well before all this shit! And let me repeat since you weren’t listening the first time: we got bad intel from some committee of chucklefucks who thought Xavier ‘Brundlefly’ Santiago was holed up in a high-security private hab who had guards with guns, not the fuckin Cabin In The Woods army of nightmares!! My squad had no fuckin’ way of knowing what we were swimmin’ into because we were just doin a job!!”

“Wow. We don’t have time to unpack all of that, so I’m gonna ignore the suitcase, but I stand by this; the audacity of you, motherfucker. Listen, Linda - you just name-dropped another horror movie, proving my point. You should have known, in your heart of hearts, that it was gonna be a nightmare. C’mon. Bro. Buddy. Pal. Amigo,” She raises an eyebrow, “C’mon.”

“The fuck do you want from me??” Rushing Jaws asks with a guffaw; “I’d been pulling shit ops for years after I lost my squad in the Fall and I only put in as much work as I fuckin’ had to in order to get by - I was a year out from getting out of D-A at that point, I didn’t think anything of some fuckin edgelord habitat in the Martian trojans other than ‘what do we gotta do to nab this fucker and collect a payday?’”

“Welp. Should’ve known, baby boy.”

“Stowaway turned ringmaster,” Rushing Jaws says, mostly to himself as he sits back; “Fuck me diving…”

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Small fucking solar system," Vidar says to himself.

 

[ValtheStarGal]

No fuckin' joke," Rushing Jaws says in agreement, his temper settled somewhat after the chance to yell about it with Jackie. "Been a long six years though, clearly!"

Azathothwakes {TacNet}: [if anyone missed out on that, i will not be repeating myself. suffice it to say Jackie and I have history and that I was a good few years away from Firewall at that point.]

 

[CelticSol]

Jacqueline "Jackie" Sapienti​

"Small fucking solar system," She repeats, in utter disbelief, "And are you calling me old? That feels like a jab. Also, bitch."

 

[ValtheStarGal]

“I’m in my thirties, I just assume everyone's older'n me,” Rushing Jaws quips, chuckling and shaking his head.

Veronica Jhadav​

Azathothwakes: [You got all that?]
Mekhajakumaar: [...yes.]

Veronica has Brumaro compile the next round of questions for Emilio, busy as she is processing the ramifications of Grace Callahan being involved in…whatever this is meant to be. It was bad enough that the Night Cartel was mining a TITAN cache for tech to sell, but the idea that the Callahans - and Vera Kryssvinds, by extension - had not only been one of their clients but went so far as to set up a blacksite to apparently study their purchase and had it moved the moment they knew the site was compromised meant that very important people had an interest in the recovered tech. Veronica had participated in ops to contain such misguided enterprises in the past, but they had always been shell hypercorps, decoys meant to throw investigators off the scent and very rarely so directly incriminating; for them to have identified a possible connection to one of the hyperelite so directly meant that this could be important enough to warrant direct involvement.

Mekhajakumaar {TacNet}: [I am hesitant to speculate without more information, but it is quite concerning that there is even a possibility that someone like Grace Callahan is involved with this. I would be very interested to know what it was they had in that lab.]

[Got anything else for me?]
Yes. Relaying it now.
[(Quote) So, first of all, let that sneaky snitchin’ son of a bitch know that he’s not gonna get any smoke from the Cartel, and that I’ll handle that for ‘em. In those words. No paraphrasing.]
[Was that the lady whose team was mean to kill us?]
...yes. It seems she has an interest in seeing you off of Mars, and her people ran interference to cover our escape.
[Okay. Yeah. Good to know I guess.]
She also wanted to know if you’ve ever ‘lost your head to a headhunter?’
[Yep. Khadijah was kind enough to get my stack back, but sometimes I wish she didn’t.]
I see. She also asked what you would recommend for loadout and equipment to ensure best odds of extracting with all personnel and cargo.

Mekhajakumaar {Tacnet} [(Quote) ...I mean shit, what’s your budget??]

[(Quote) At minimum, you want good fast transportation to cover ground fast and survival gear the outback, including medichines, and at least a good rifle or beam weapon to protect yourself. You wanna minimize radio communication as much as possible between P-C jamming and a hostile ecosystem, so tightbeam communicators and hard-wired gear rather than meshes that anything could sniff out and attack are ideal. You also want a nanodetector, it’ll save either your life or your buddies if you trip over a rogue nanoswarm. If you’re bringing fabbers in with you, then they need to be hard-wired; don’t matter how good your antivirus software is, the viruses love fabbers and will go out of their way to hijack them if you leave them exposed.]

[(Quote) A well funded expedition is gonna be the same idea, but you’re gonna wanna pack a lot of firepower; seeker weapons, plasma rifles, railguns, big game hunting shit. Good body armor helps too, especially the ones with sealed environments, but they’re no substitute for knowing what you’re doing. Your vehicles are gonna want to be equipped for longer runs and possibly even armored. From there, it really depends on what you’re looking to do in the Zone and how long you’ll need to do it. If you’re looking to get in, get what you need, and GTFO, I’d say pack light and fast; if you plan on an extended stay, a good rover with a souped-up engine is always preferable to having to camp in the Zone.]

Thank you, Emilio. One of my associates wanted me to thank you and tell you she would ‘kiss you under moonlight.’

Mekhajakumaar {TacNet}: [@.jukeboxmaiden]
Mekhajakumaar: [(Quote) The pink one? I’ll take her up on that as soon as I got somethin for her to kiss!]
Azathothwakes: [nice.]
Azathothwakes: [Gonna get to work on a report for Starglass.]
Mekhajakumaar: [Last call for questions or quips for dear Emilio before he casts off for his new home - anyone?]

 

[ValtheStarGal]

Rushing Jaws​

Okay Maz, load em up.
Azathothwakes {PM to Starglass}: [Priority Message! Report on TITAN Cache]

Spoiler: Priority Message! Report on TITAN Cache

Azathothwakes [Cache location identified by PoI Emilio Salgado Vega (Profile): ruins of Hubut al-Khaira, within the TITAN Quarantine Zone (summary). PoI testifies to extensive cache and Night Cartel salvage operation currently underway, full extent of which is unknown (summary). Evidence from the blacksite agent Heliotrope identifed suggests possible hyperelite interest in the recovered TITAN technology; along with the high prices the tech had at Gray Xu’s auction, it is advisable that the cache be secured or neutralized ASAP (summary). One casualty: agent hara was killed in action trying to get our PoI to safety; some others wounded, but stable condition. We were targeted by the Night Cartel, specifically Valentina the Viper (profile), but found an enemy-of-my-enemy in Jackie Sapienti (profile) and the Black Carnival (profile); BC ran interference and provided escort for our team to get out of Elysium City and extract our PoI, on condition of rendering assistance with Jackie’s own expedition into the TQZ (compiled recordings of jackie sapienti, regarding valentina the viper). Hostility between the BC and Valentina the Viper’s group suggests dissent within the N-C that could be leveraged, but more info would be required; presently unclear at this time whether Jackie Sapienti has knowledge of Firewall or our interest in Emilio, but is willing to offer material assistance to our team. Sentinel team is presently unequipped for mission into TQZ; please advise.]

Short, but with plenty of supplementary material; Rushing Jaws hopes the report gets Starglass and their people what they need as the message wings its way to Starglass’s office at lightspeed. He takes a single breath, then reclines in his seat, looking out as the flying car merges onto the flyway heading south from Elysium City, the brilliant lights and color of the inner system’s entertainment capital shining out for a kilometer or so before being swallowed by the darkness of the Martian night. As much as he wants to get away from what turned out to be a very dangerous city, Rushing Jaws can’t help but picture things lurking in the darkness, just waiting for them to get far enough from where anyone will find them.

They’re probably gonna make us go after it, huh?
[Probably.]
You reckon they’ll kit us out?
[If what’s in there scares them badly enough, hopefully!]
I hope they give us a breather, at least.
[If they need time to get gear, they’ll probably get us a safehouse in Portmanteau or somewhere to lie low in; Elysium is going to be too dangerous what with an entire criminal cartel out for us.]

Rushing Jaws responds with the neo-cetacean equivalent of a thumbs-up noise at his muse as his mind wanders out to the desert. The car is picking up speed now that it is out on an open flyway and the once-overwhelming lights of the big city recede quickly, leaving only a seemingly endless expanse of rust red desert that feels very far from home.

I miss Ceres. Can you believe that?
[I can.]
I miss Az. I miss Mel. I miss the pods. I miss Wujec. I miss the battlespheres and Trident and the hidden sea. Shit, I kinda miss the H-C!
[You’ll go back to hating most of that when we get back.]
Yeah, yeah, but I know those devils. Too fuckin empty out here. Feels…
[...haunted?]
Yeah. Haunted. Apparently this fuckin planet had water, once upon a time. They ever figure out where it went?
[Leading theory is that the majority of it escaped into space when the planet’s atmosphere decayed. There is technically also plenty of water still on Mars.]
Yeah but its all frozen n shit.
[Did you know Mars has running rivers now?]
Big enough for me?
[...no.]

Rushing Jaws grunts and hums a marching hymn as the flying car speeds on through the night.

Azathothwakes {TacNet}: [Report sent off to Starglass, stand by for response.]

Veronica Jhadav​

That seems to be everything for us.
[And not a moment too soon - seems the upload is just about done. Couple more minutes and I'm off to my new life, thanks to y'all.]
A pleasure to have been of assistance.
[I'm sure.]

There is a moment of quiet between Veronica and Emilio; no one has any words, and so none are said; Veronica expects Emilio to break the silence with news that the upload is complete, so when a notification arrives in their chat window, she is surprised to read:

[What are you all planning to do with it?]
Beg pardon?
[Oh don't fucking do that, you know damn well what I mean. Y'all didn't go to the trouble of getting me out of here and learning about the Hubut as a fucking school history project, right??]
[You want the cache, for one reason or another. Why?]
Veronica does not respond, instead minimizing the entoptic window.

Brumaro?
[Yes, Shambhavi?]
It would be breaching opsec to tell him why we're going out there.
[Yes.]
So I should refrain from telling him, yes? That is the obvious answer.
[Yet you ask the question.]
So I do. Why?

Mekhajakumaar {TacNet}: [It seems Emilio has a question for us, comrades: he wants to know what our intentions are with the cache. What is our response?]

 

[CelticSol]

Euphemia "Eppie" Cross​

"I'll tell you what we do, Veronica," Eppie says out loud, looking to Veronica, "He's suffered enough for that cache that he deserves to know what we plan to do with it."

Veronica's expression is absolutely incredulous, but she is ignored as Eppie rolls to her feet in the tight confines of the rover, maneuvering herself to Veronica's side, "I know you've never really met me, Emilio, beyond the Crypts but we've got a really small degree of separation to knowing each other, believe it or not. My younger brother is Elias Cross - you might know him as Valentina's right hand and her partner. We both grew up on a military space station in Jupiter's orbit, which was destroyed during the Fall. We lost almost everyone we've ever known, and obviously that traumatized us both in different ways. I wanted to understand TITAN tech so the fear of them would stop ruining my life, so I became a scientist. My brother wanted to avoid it, but I think Valentina has played to his fears, because in the past few years, he's spoken to me about the ways TITAN tech can be handled and controlled.

"But the last time I spoke to him, he let slip about the situation with you and that there was a cache of TITAN tech that the Cartel has been salvaging and selling pieces of it into the solar system. I was, obviously, fucking horrified, and as much as I try to understand, rather than fear, what happened to Earth, I felt that fear creep back into my mind in a way I couldn't shake. I couldn't eat, or sleep, or exist, knowing that another Fall existed on Mars."

She sighs, settling into her seat and falling comfortable in her lie, "So I funneled what money I had into finding people from around the solar system that could help me do this. Found people with TITAN or Fall experience and knowledge, be that combat or otherwise, investigative experience, hacking skills, and I set up a team to find you so we could get the coordinates for the cache and destroy it. I..." She trails off, shaking her head, "I just couldn't live with myself, knowing that people were playing around powers they didn't understand for - for what? Money? Power? Influence? The TITANs have ruined my life twice over in ways that have scarred me in irreparable ways - I couldn't live with myself if I just - let that happen. No - we're going into the Zone to destroy it, so it can't be used to hurt anyone else, ever again."

 

[ValtheStarGal]

Initially, Veronica is incredulous; listening to Eppie promise a truth and spin a lie from such solid thread that she'd mistake it for truth, she understands why Eppie is a social operator. Any sting she might have felt from being exposed on TacNet again quickly fades as Eppie's ploy dawns on her, and Veronica locks down her morph's haptics to prevent it from tipping her hand about the lie. She opens the window where her and Emilio chat, and finds no response. Emilio doesn't reply for a long moment, but Veronica can tell that's because he is considering his response.

Emilio breaks the silence with: [I thought she had some fuckin fire to her]
That she does. Veronica doesn't even have to lie.
[Do you got anyone with TQZ experience?]

"Emilio would like to know if any of our team has experience in the Zone," Veronica replies to Eppie - and the tacnet - on Emilio's behalf.

 

[CelticSol]

Euphemia "Eppie" Cross​

"We had Devin, but he, well, y'know..." Eppie makes a face, "I don't think he'll be joining us. So, technically, no, but that'll be something to take up with the Carnival - they must have someone that's gone through the TQZ before. "

 

[ValtheStarGal]

Veronica is silent for the moment it takes for Emilio to respond; "So, you're going to need someone who knows the lay of the land and what to be aware of, correct?"

 

[CelticSol]

Euphemia "Eppie" Cross​

"I mean, probably? But that's a problem for another day."

 

[ValtheStarGal]

Veronica is quiet, because Emilio is quiet. The silence feels contemplative, but Veronica knows better than to try to coax an answer out of Emilio before he is ready. She is jut about to ask him what he intends to do, when-

[Fuck me for a fool with a conscience.]
Beg pardon?
[Look. I don't fully know what I saw in there. lots of TITAN shit, yeah, but that... thing, in the middle of it. That spider tank-lookin thing? It was different from the others in ways I can't fully describe but that give me a real fuckin bad feeling. If anything, that plus all the hardware seems like a powder keg that for all we know the cartel's set the match to!]
Yes- yes, of course.
[I got people here I'm leaving behind. They know why, but it still feels shitty. I got a copy of my ego about to shoot off for a new life. I got skills and experience that y'all are going to need in there. You're a whole fuckin crew that had both the backbone to go up against the Black Carnival and the wherewithal to somehow bring them around to your way of thinking, but none of you know the land or what's in there like I do. Shit, even if I'm just a ghost in your machine, I can be helpful.]
Are you offering to join us, Emilio?

Mekhajakumaar {TacNet} [(Quote) Fuck me for a fool with a conscience, but I can't let y'all go in there without havin at least one stalker 'knows what they're doing, and I wanna see that cache blown up with my own eyes. Yeah: if y'all will have me, I want in.]

 

[ValtheStarGal]

Portmanteau
Industrial Quarter​

Spoiler: Priority Message! Mission Update from Starglass

[Excellent work recovering the location of the cache, Sentinels. We know it was an ordeal, and your efforts have made a big difference. Unfortunately, the work isn’t over yet.

The intel you’ve accumulated is enough to convince many of the proxies involved with this operation that we need a team to go into the TITAN Quarantine Zone and secure the ruins of Hubut al-Khaira as soon as possible; there are a lot of implications that unfold from what you’ve discovered, many of them too dire to sit on. You all likely knew this was coming, but since your team is still together and in the best position to mount an expedition, we’re going to have to ask you to be the team to do it.

We do recognize, however, that you’ve been through a lot within the past few days, and that you aren’t properly equipped to launch that expedition right now. Effective immediately, we’re opening access to a Firewall safehouse in Portmanteau for your team to use during your layover in the settlement. It’s equipped with a meditank, nanofabricator, sleeping pods, a workshop, even some creature comforts; use it to catch up on sleep or recover from the action, we’ll need you back at one hundred percent for this.

Additionally, we’ve opened channels to other servers operational on Mars, and we’re ready to pull plenty of favors left and right for your team to get you equipped with what you need. Send us lists of gear that you need and we’ll see about getting them to you. We’d say ‘expense is no object,’ but that's never true in in this field, so instead we're going to say 'please don't ask us for a tank.' We’ll get you morphs, other non-tank vehicles, augs, weapons, armor, comms equipment, as much of what you need as we can get. You’re not going in there without support, I promise.

Regarding your allies: it seems redundant to tell you to be careful around the like of Jackie Sapienti et al, but if they really helped you extract from Elysium with Emilio, and they’re good for their word in lending support, we ultimately leave it up to your discretion how much you want to bring them in on this. Maintain opsec as much as possible, but this is important enough that we trust your judgement on who you want on your team.

With all of that, here are your orders: send us your gear requests ASAP, then take three days to rest and recuperate while we acquire and ship the gear to the Portmanteau safehouse. Lie low and enjoy the downtime, because at the end of the third day, we need you to kit up and ship out for the Zone. A former colleague of yours is working on opening up a route through the cordon to save you trouble as we speak, so no need to worry about that. We’ll have more on your insertion point on the big day.

Lastly, we just wanted to thank you all for what you’ve done so far. We don’t like running sentinels long and hard like this, especially with an expedition into the TQZ after what has already been a long op, but you’ve risen to the occasion and we see the effort you’re putting in. You’re doing good work out there, Rincewind, and it isn’t going unnoticed. Get me thoses lists ASAP and enjoy your downtime.]

Not as long as he would've figured it would've taken, sentinel team Rincewind finds itself within the bustling industrial quarter of Portmanteau's dome, having worked their way through alleys and piping to find an unassuming row of recycling chutes. It doesn’t surprise him that the Firewall safehouse is hidden near chemical processing plantswithin Portmanteau, but he can’t see any actual doors around here, and his AR doesn’t highlight any cunningly hidden doors in the solid walls of the plants that obscure them from much of the rest of the settlement. He never styled himself the smartest boy in second grade, but Rushing Jaws doesn’t see any obvious means of fitting into the chutes. Nonetheless, he stands and waits for the codes to clear-

-and no sooner does he start to wonder if they have the right place than the recycling chute opens wide and tall to reveal a shadowed walkway. He waves the other members of his team after him and then enters, another door outlined in red on his AR quickly snapping green before opening. Lights snap on as they detect him and the other members of team Rincewind follow in behind him, revealing the safehouse Starglass had set aside for them and giving the truth to the message.

It is certainly one of the nicer safehouses Rushing Jaws has ever seen, comparing favorably to the average Martian apartment even if it is rather spartan in decor. A desk-sized nanofabricator, a meditank, a row of workbenches, another row of sleep pods on the far side from those are the most readily obvious amenities. The creature comforts reveal themselves in short order to be a holosuite, a circular couch with a set of neurotrodes for simulspace use, even a kitchen, dining area and bar send menus to the Sentinels’ mesh inserts for their perusal. A servitor bot turns to face them, first with a <> emoji on its face-screen that quickly gives way to a <> face and awaits any requests from the team; Rushing Jaws waves at the robot and requests a Dark and Stormy, the robot offering a <> before hopping to it.

“Shiiit, this ain’t bad,” Rushing Jaws says, smiling half in pleasant surprise and half in exhuastion; “who knew the best layovers were in fuckin’ refineries?”

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Spared no expense," Vidar says taking it in. He makes a bee line for the row of sleep pods, they're the kind of thing that reminds him of hte sleeper coffins that had been popular in the 80s. He had fished Rats and Jenni and Cold flower up out of enough of them to be familiar- he'd been a bit too tall himself to fit comfortably though. He pulled open the draw next to it and started unstocking his weapon collection into it. It was like a hokey scifi bit at this point. He's been on mars five minutes and he felt like a fucking call of duty character. The battle armor unfolds itself off from him and fits easily back into its little luggage case and he requests;

Penny its time to be cozy

And his smart clothes switch to a calico cat kigarumi.

"Penny, please," he says outloud in anoyance as he begins to pat himself down like he's looking for something- doing hte keys wallet phone sord dance of yore.

[Yes?]
PENNY
[YES?]
YOU AGE ME
[Maximu Hygge Boss]

"Wheres my Vape?" He says instead. He opens the draw where he's just stored his things and then closes it again. "Wheres my fucking vape!!?" He says with feeling and glances around the room at its occupants.

He checks his pockets one more time in distress.

[You should have it.] Penny tells him, [Its receiving pings. it is on your person.]

"No its not!" He tries to argue outloud untll he has a thought standing thee with both hands on his boobs.

Right.

"I got it!" He announces to the room at large as pulls it out of his cleavage. He puts it between his teeth and informs the ceiling; "I'm going to lay down. If you need me- don't." He says before rolling into the pod and shutting the door.

 

[ValtheStarGal]

“Sleep tight, ya goblin!” Rushing Jaws says, taking a sip from the drink taken graciously from the servitor and doing his best not to laugh at the spectacle.

 

[Sophos]

Abby cackles, watching Vidar do the "lost my vape" dance, before turning to take in the rest of the safehouse.
"Wonder what the little dude has in terms of fun products. MRDR was a hell of an experience and I bet it would be useful out there, but for downtime I'd rather almost anything else," she muses out loud, watching the servitor bot.