ValtheStarGal
Supreme Stellar Sorceress
He is thirty seconds late.
Tuathla finds that deeply unusual; Rushing Jaws’ military background lends him to strict, unfailing punctuality. She rarely arrives before her order is completed, and never arrives before Rushing Jaws. She is in rare form today, it seems. Or perhaps Rushing Jaws is slacking. She finds the latter more unlikely than the former, but as the seconds tick by, her fingertips tap an impatient rhythm against the table.
Two minutes late. Perhaps he has died.
“He should be here by now,” She says, mostly to herself.
“Maybe he ran into traffic?” Michaelis offers.
Tuathla scoffs, “He is never late.”
Michaelis shrugs, only half paying attention. She knows his thoughts without needing to browse them, and knows he is still sour about having to drive her so far out of Elysium over a weekend, “Sometimes things happen.”
“That typically means he is in trouble, Michaelis.”
Michaelis sighs, a world-weary sound that he makes any time he engages in a debate with Tuathla, as he thinks she’s a child with a bad attitude, and she thinks the same of him, “Listen-”
Michaelis is thankfully interrupted by the Starbucks’ doors opening wide to accommodate two new patrons; a tall, tough looking Fury, and a small woman that is the colour of bubblegum. She knows without pinging his rep that the Fury is Rushing Jaws; his swagger is impossible to miss. He claims mastery over sape mimicry, but the truth of the matter is that he continues to accommodate the fluidity needed for swimming even when unsubmerged. He and the woman, whom Tuathla confirms is a sape by a browse of her mesh IDs, are hand-in-hand.
Tuathla’s brow furrows. To have a human transhuman as his company, is odd. For him to bring company at all is unheard of. Not forbidden by her, so she does not gather Michaelis to leave that instant, but unheard of for them.
Rushing Jaws and his unknown companion grab pre-orders off the counter, him taking his own and one Tuathla assumes is for herself - an americano and a vanilla frappucino made with almond milk and sweetened whip cream and chocolate flakes, respectively, unless Rushing Jaws is slacking on that front as well - while the pink woman grabs a drink as pink as she. Rushing Jaws finds her through the crowd and waves when they make eye contact, leading along his pink comrade over to Tuathla’s table.
The pink woman makes the briefest eye contact with Tuathla, but it seems to halt the world and shift it off kilter. There is something silent but whispering, neutral but blinding, a bristling energy rumbling under the surface of the pink woman’s skin, and by the way her step stutters, she feels the same as she looks to Tuathla. Tuathla’s brow is pulled into a deeper scowl. What would ever possess Rushing Jaws to bring another async to their rendezvous? Tuathla’s eyes flick to their joined hand, the fact they have not spoken a word to each other since entering, and realizes that the connection is not for contact, but for conversation - this woman has drawn open Rushing Jaws’ mind and looked in on the thoughts inside, and Rushing Jaws allowed it. Whoever she is, she is Firewall, and she finds that off putting.
“You’re four minutes and forty five seconds late, Rushing Jaws,” is what Tuathla says.
The pink woman stops dead as Tuathla addresses him. Tuathla assumes she takes insult on his behalf, but then she says incredulously, looking between Rushing Jaws and Tuathla, “Wait. This is Tuathla?”
“I am she. Who are you?”
“I - You can’t be older than thirteen.”
“I turned twelve two months ago.”
Euphie looks at Rushing Jaws with both bewilderment and concern, “Uh. Should I be worried that your contact is a twelve year old girl? Because… America, explain.”
It’s a long fuckin’ story.
I am losing my fucking mind, RJ. Why does this child have face tattoos. Why do you know her. I am screaming.
“Stand by for that, first things first,” Rushing Jaws says, taking Tuathla’s coffee out of the tray and placing it on the table for her to take; “the drink has to clear.”
Tuathla takes the drink, taking a small, intentional sip from the straw already placed in the cup. As the ice drink melts over her tongue, the flavours and textures are right, the mix of ingredients she requests not too much, nor is it too little, and she takes another sip before she places it back on the table, “You may sit down. Michaelis, you may leave.”
He frowns, focusing in as he seems to close his insert applications, “Fel- Your dad told me that I wasn’t supposed to leave you by yourself.”
“And now I have asked you to allow me a private conversation. Please leave - this will not be a long conversation.”
“T-”
“ Leave, Michaelis.” Tuathla demands, and Michaelis’ expression becomes empty and slackened. Something in her bones thrashes hard, teeth sinking down onto his cognitions, her will a tangible knife that cuts through his connection to his somatics, and it is only as Michaelis stands suddenly that it dawns on her that she has sleighted him. She takes another sip of her drink to clear the nausea that brews in her stomach from the use of her sleight, and ignores him as Michaelis quickly and quietly clears his mess and departs.
“I apologize for my associate,” Tuathla says, her left eye red from a blooming broken blood vessel, “Please, sit down, so that we may speak.”
Rushing Jaws moves to take the far end of the booth, keeping Euphie’s hand in his own. To this day, he isn’t sure how he won over Tuathla - particularly in light of how they met - but the fact that she had wanted to meet with them, and gone out of her way to arrange a meet in a settlement like Portmanteau, was enough to convey the importance of the meeting. So here he is, Euphie coming along in proper observation of the buddy system, sat across the table from who has to be the youngest Firewall agent in all of Sol.
“So uh, ‘he new?” Rushing Jaws asks, taking a sip from his own tea and pointing back as Michaelis drifts out like a specter.
“Yes. He also lacks imperative common sense. I’m not sure that he will last,” Tuathla’s eyes shift to the pink woman, “Speaking of new; Rushing Jaws, you didn’t introduce your friend.”
“Just observin’ protocol! This here’s Euphie, she’s my buddy ‘watchin my back out here, and she’s also the most charmin’ sape this side of the belt,” Rushing Jaws explains, giving Euphie’s hand an affectionate squeeze on the word ‘buddy’ as a tactile wink.
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you!” Euphie says, trying desperately to keep her astonishment off her face.
“Euphie, this is Tuathla! She’s, ah, a local contact I ran into over in Valles-New Shanghai - long story, like I said - who has good info and very particular taste in coffee.”
I am losing my fucking mind, RJ. What is happening?
“Now, what brings you around the world to meet with little ol’ me?”
“Euphie,” Tuathla says as a greeting, then returns to looking at Rushing Jaws, “You spent almost a week in Elysium and did not reach out. I also hear you’ve been stirring up trouble there. Together, those issues made me think it would be appropriate to check in.”
Long story short, she’s been dealt a real bad hand. She’s been living the street kid beat since she learned how to walk, and she was infected with Watts-Mcleod back in the Fall, which makes her the youngest known async in transhuman space - and that is classified beyond top secret does not leave this mindlink chat.
Oh… Damn. This is hard enough as a grown adult… I can’t even imagine dealing with this as a tiny baby child. Poor kid.
“Ah, yeah,” Rushing Jaws says, a small grin on his face; “the situation, while fast movin, was more or less under control. I also figured you’d be in New Shanghai rather than Elysium, didn’t think to check admittedly.”
“It’s so rare to have you on Mars; I would have made the trip regardless.”
“Aw shucks - that’s thoughtful of ya, tigershark! How’ve times been for ya?”
She shrugs, then thinks on her answer before she replies, “Did you hear that my mother and Felix have decided to have a baby? He is being grown as we speak.”
“No shit??” Rushing Jaws blurts. “I mean, ‘probably inevitable between those two, but damn - good for them! You lookin forward to havin a sibling?”
“I would have thought my mother advised you of this. I suppose I’m excited. I am worried that he’ll be…” She trails off, searching for the word, then settles on, “... like us.”
Rushing Jaws crooks his head at that. “I’m not sure if that’s how it works, if it’s any consolation. You said they were havin ‘em grown in an exowomb?”
“Yes. My mother has other things to do, Felix owns fertility labs - the math made sense.”
“Okay, so I’m not an expert, but I don’t think you inherit it from birth. Its somethin that happens to yer ego, not yer genome. Unless he somehow gets exposed while in the creche, he should be normal?”
“Not enough is known to be sure of that. Even through her contacts -” Tuathla stresses the word to pass hidden meaning to Rushing Jaws, “- she knows of none who elected to reproduce, and so it can not be judged how this may affect them. I can only beg for clemency from my patron on his behalf, but His Will is above my knowledge and my capacity to divert.”
Hey, bubba, what the fuck is she talking about?
It takes a moment for Rushing Jaws to formulate a response to either statement, opting first to advise Eppie given that he can already feel the thoughts and images that will help him explain come to mind.
So, to be quite honest, I don’t know. I know different asyncs experience the spooky shit in different ways, and my best guess is that tuathla experiences her, yknow, spooky shit in the form of some kind’a like, cosmic horror squid god thing? She talks about it like she’s religious, but when I asked her about it she clearly said that wasn’t it, like this is something she experiences. Here’s the real weird part though: her mom described something real similar.
That’s… Weird, but it kind of makes sense? If they were both infected at the same time, and have similar genetics, that could just be the infection interacting with them in the same way.
Couldn’t do much more than speculate on the matter and frankly, thinkin about how W/M might be mutating gives me the fuckin creeps.
“Well, like I said, I’m no expert,” Rushing Jaws concedes, the idea of watts-mcleod infecting and directing the growth of an unborn baby chilling his blood. He hopes very much that it doesn’t work that way.
Tuathla shrugs. She is quiet, taking a sip of her drink, then says, “On a separate note, I am well. Felix had me enrolled in private school, which I believe is the last you’ve heard, but we decided homeschooling with tutors would suit me and my interests much better. Mother is well. You know Felix brought her in to work in the nanotechnology department, and she has been enjoying her work and is fulfilled by it. Felix is well, as always. They are both excited for the baby. And you? You are well? How is your sister?”
“Eh, can’t complain,” Rushing Jaws replies, an offhanded lie that helps avoid a great deal of awkward and difficult conversations. The mission ahead, for one, while necessary, was not something he relished the prospect of, and he missed his sister something awful, the last living link to M9 safely worlds away. He worried for Az’s safety, and he worried for the safety of his metapod and for all the metapods of ceres and what was left of transhumanity more broadly, even with all the lampreys attached to it.
That would all have to wait for another time.
“Az’s good! She’s workin with a couple of nanotech corps on a freelance basis, and i think she had a date with a neo-dolphin go really well. We’re kinda just doin our thing, gettin’ by in the Hidden Sea when not called up on garbage disposal. Glad you and yours are doin’ well, though.”
“You have a great deal that you could rightfully complain about, but I am glad to hear that Azure is well,” She sips her drink carefully, before setting it down. She watches condensation develop in a ring around the bottom of the cup instead of looking at RJ, and she says nothing for a moment too long. She gestures for RJ’s hand, and takes it when he holds it out to her.
The song of the Pale Star washes over her senses as forcefully as the tide. Her eyes shut, the song rising in a crescendo as Tuathla’s mind latches onto the connection Euphie already created and -
The song is echoed by another voice.
It lifts above the song of the Pale Star, not a solo but a contesting choir. The song is a mimicry, but the layers of harmonies spread across Tuathla’s mind as alien as she always feels, but deeply familiar to a mind that has been touched by an Other since she was an infant. This song is much more intricate, more elaborate, moving parts and rounds of lyrics that even Tuathla struggles to follow.
And then Rushing Jaws voice rises above that music, and Tuathla remembers herself.
Spanish and neo-cetacean voices join into her mind, the background music of their meeting a duet by the Pale Star and Euphie’s choir. Tuathla’s voice rises above, speaking in English:
I will not pretend that I have ventured this far out of Elysium for a courtesy call. I have been a part of an investigation into Night Cartel intrigues that has been spanning almost a year. I am troubled by the occurrence of Night Cartel soldiers utilizing and selling equipment beyond their understanding. My investigations have overlapped your own activities, and I must confirm with you what I’ve interpolated from my information and sources; you are entering the TQZ shortly, is that correct?
I don’t think you’re meant to know this, but yeah. We got actionable intel on a cache of TITAN hardware in the Zone, and we’re the only squad ready to deploy that knows what’s up. Even with some of the toys that Dispatch is gettin for us, gotta admit to being anxious. What’d you find out about that?.
The Night Cartel has been focusing in on Elysium over the past year, and there’s a correlation to increased trafficking of TITAN tech and that consolidation. A cache was speculated, but the Viper covered her tracks well. She would cover herself far better than we could follow, and when we got a lead, she would scorch what we’d uncovered. But your activities got her to slip, and we managed to find quite a bit of information on where she’s been selling the tech and who has been buying, I’ve already sent through a roster of sentinels for tracking it all down.
Out loud, Euphie laughs, then her mental voice rises, Oh my god, you were dead serious about her being Firewall. I am fucking losing it.
Is a twelve year old secret agent really the weirdest thing you’ve ever encountered in all yer years as both a gatecrasher and a firewall operative? Rushing Jaws asks, semi-seriously but with a varnish of good-natured teasing; Tuathla here’s full of surprises.
Turning his attention to Tuathla, Rushing Jaws continues: Our source on the cache tells us that the Cartel would’ve had access to it for about eight weeks before now, so you’ll probably wanna send word ahead to your contacts to narrow their search to that particular timeframe. Also, make sure your people know to be prepared for blowback: the Night Cartel’s given us a hell of a ride for tryin’ to chase down this cache, to the point of havin’ to do a favor for Jackie goddamned Sapienti in order to get them off our backs, so they had better be ready to catch hell for tryin to pursue these leads. I’m sure everyone is keen to find out who bought into this, but i’m doubly sure that they don’t want to be found out and will fight like hell to avoid being discovered.
I have enough resources behind me that I hardly need to worry. You know this.
Euphie's voice enters the mental fray again, Hey, what the actual fuck is that supposed to mean?
Though her expression stays remarkably even, her exasperation is felt through the mental connection the three of them share. A flash of a man with dark red hair flashes through their minds, just for the briefest moment, then in another moment, it is a woman with the same colour of hair, and then both images are banished, It means my step-father has a great deal of money. And, since I can feel the question arising in your thoughts - yes, enough money to protect me from this brand of trouble. And, for the next question you have, Euphie; he has more money than you’re picturing.
Euphie whistles through the connection, Damn. RJ, please confirm; is he really that loaded?
I ain’t exactly his accountant, but from what I know, yeah. He’s loaded. Rushing Jaws replies to Euphie, the mental image of the red-haired man flashing across his mind seated next to him at a ritzy New Shanghai bar and gone in a blink. He pauses for a moment to clear his mind, any impulse to elaborate quickly suppressed by the demands of Opsec, then looks back to Tuathla, a gesture that is not necessary in the mindlink but that helps him figure out who he’s meant to be talking to, and also helps him ignore the sensation that there are...other presences listening in.
I know you’re gonna be safe - although I feel the need to emphasize you really should be careful on this one - but it’s yer people really digging into this I’d be worried about. As much as we need to know where all that hardware went, the people who got it are likely gonna want us not to know that a fuck of a lot more, and my concern’s that they’re gonna go scorched earth on us if they get a pingback on us. We already got a line on one twitchy and malicious hypercorp paranoiac, fuck knows how many more are in on this clearout sale.
I’ve been doing this long enough to know that I should not step on toes. This is hardly my first investigation. Are you not days from entering the Zone? Your worries are misplaced, Tuathla pats his hand. To loop back… The Cartel has been dealing in TITAN tech for the better part of a year, but the discovery of the cache did explain why they’ve been dealing out tech at much larger quantities in the last couple of weeks.
Speaking of worries, though, Tuathla reaches into a small backpack in the chair beside her while keeping her hand in contact with Rushing Jaws and Euphie, laying a small box onto the counter, Your safety, alongside the urgency of this case, is of the utmost importance, and so I thought outfitting you with a farcaster was appropriate.
Rushing Jaws can’t help but whistle at the presentation of the thing: the box is made of some kind of rich-looking wood with gold filigree, and is just a little too big to fit in one hand. A window in his entoptics pops up, and a tag on the box identifies it as containing the orange-sized magnetic containment for the antimatter needed to actually fire his ego off in the event of an emergency. He’d need a short stint in a meditank to actually install the thing, but the fact that Tuathla had an honest-to-the-ancestors Morningstar Technologies emergency farcaster implant that seemed fresh from the factory meant that the hard part of acquiring the tech had already been taken care of. To his surprise, a digital note appears beneath the description of the item: [haha don’t die in the zone ur so sexy], signed by none other than Festus Abernathy himself.
Rushing Jaws can’t stifle a barked laugh at that.
Good to see Felix’s still his ol self, Rushing Jaws comments. Thanks, tigershark - n’ send yer pops my thanks when ya see him next, this’ll be good to have.
“You’re welcome, and I will be sure to pass on your well wishes,” Tuathla says aloud, separating her hand from Rushing Jaws and his paramour, “If nothing else, I hope you do not make use of my gift to you. I have an engagement later tonight, and to make it time means that, unfortunately, our meeting must come to an end.” She pauses, then says, “Mama is making lasagna, and I would like it to be hot when I get to eat it.”
“Oh shit yeah, you don’t wanna miss out on Lyanna’s cookin!” Rushing Jaws says, beaming with the memory of hand-made lasagna. “Almost wonder if we could get away with taggin’ along!”
“Strongly doubtful. She would be stressed, as she would not be prepared for your arrival.”
“Aww, well no need to stress her out,” Rushing Jaws says. “You just pass on my regards to yer mom, not sure if I’ll be able to do it myself, depending on how this all goes - and you take care of yerself too now, y’hear?”
Tuathla stands, taking her drink and her backpack, “Of course. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Can’t promise that at this point - I’m already on this ancestors-forsaken planet,” Rushing Jaws quips, getting up from the table.
“Before I go, though,” Rushing Jaws begins to say, opening his arms for a hug, “one for the road?”
“Oh, right, my apologies,” Tuathla says, as if just remembering that typically loved ones hugged before leaving a gathering, and steps into Rushing Jaws’ open arms for a hug.
Rushing Jaws gives Tuathla a good squeeze, then lets her go, knowing exactly how long to give an adopted niece a hug before it gets weird and timing it perfectly. “Thanks for checkin in, tigershark. Send my love to the family, now!”
“I will. Take care,” She pauses, looking to Euphie as well, “Both of you. Do not fail.”
Euphie shakes her head, incredulous, “Uh, I’ll try not to.”
Rushing Jaws lets Tuathla leave, watching through the window as she steps into the back of the flying car that pulled up in front of the cafe - just barely noticing that her driver seems confused as to how he got here - before the car takes off for destinations unknown. Taking Eppie’s hand back in his own and letting the uncanny awareness of the mindlink flow around and encompass him as if being submerged in ink, Rushing Jaws leads her out of the cafe and back into the sunny afternoon - a chillier thing on Mars than one would think, but still pleasant given what he is used to. He looks over to Eppie, and follows the impulse to lean over and kiss her on the cheek.
“Thanks for taggin’ along with me,” Rushing Jaws says, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “She sure is somethin, huh?”
Eppie watches the skycar take off, and after a pause, she doubles over in laughter. It’s impulsive and completely instinctive, but she can’t help it - the absurdity of the meeting and the info dump of knowledge was just too much for her, and through her laughter, as she watches the heiress, Watts-McLeod infected child disappear around a corner, all she can say is, “What the actual fuck was that?”
