Eclipse Phase (Private)

Kostya grinned back at Abby. "I sure did," he said. "What's the name of the game, friend? I'll hook you up."

“I don’t think-“ Rushing Jaws starts to say, wincing with a wave of pain issuing from his wounds, “I don’t think I’m gonna be much fun while my guts are shredded. Although- hey, we got any eyes on that ship that’s flying off?”

Feeds are set up on the shuttle’s mesh, but the Annora Arabella is small from any angle the shuttle can get on it, the torch flare from its engines being the most conspicuous thing about it; closing fast is a single anti-ship missile, also a speck against the darkness of space but for its torch flare. The last few seconds of the Annora Arabella’s life pass with the ship attempting to steer itself off its course to evade the incoming missile-

-and failing, the missile striking the hold and its detonation triggering the split-second annihilation of the entire ship. The flash from the blast is so bright that the cameras automatically have to dim to protect themselves from damage, and a burst of radiation from the ship’s direction is picked up by hull sensors. Scans of where the spacecraft once were show a mass of inert flash-molten slag spinning off into space and dust scattering in all directions, with no signs of any activity or survivors.

“Holy shit - hope they had backup insurance!!” Rushing Jaws exclaims, laughing before a stab of pain sharp enough to feel through the MRDR forces him to cut it short.

Rushing Jaws {TacNet}: [And that is why we do not keep antimatter warheads where we sleep.]
Rushing Jaws: [That said, antimatter’s about the only surefire way to take out a nanoswarm, so Gray Xu inadvertently did us a favor.]

“Hey Tuesday, ‘noticed your inserts are offline - how’re you holding up?”

"No one's checked in with you before?" He repeats. But her attention is firmly taken up by the prospect of Kostya's drugs. And hten to Rj says; "I hit my head but I'm fine. You on the other hand, Mr. Fucking bullet belly. How many you got in there? That's not how you eat things. Never mind bullets," He teases. He did not want to turn his mesh back on and knew he was being difficult. It would be fine when he turned them back on but the act of doing so was not one he wanted to do right now, he was all wired up. But he didn't like to cause a fuss so he sat near RJ's feet, and taking a few quiet moments got his mesh and Penny back online. He went through the tacnet and Penny's records from assisting Proxy- most of it meant very little to him other than she'd been busy.

Tuesday {Pm to Manicpixiedreamhacker:@}: I'm your dad now. And I'm going to check in on you.
Tuesday{Pm to Hara:firewall} Get me a blunt or I'll die.
Tuesday{Pme to Azathothwakes:firewall} Happy now?!?!

"Good thing about bullets is that they tend to go right through you," Rushing Jaws jokes back; "I think I caught like, ten? I dunno, I have lost quite a bit of blood..."

Azathothwakes {PM to Heliotrope:Eye}: Ayyyy welcome back
Azathothwakes {PM to Heliotrope:Eye}: Starglass wants us standing by, so looks like we're swimming with the swarm for now

"Murder is one hell of a fucking drug, christ- How are you talking? Pass out already." Tuesday says, prouncing MRDR like the english word like the old man he is.

Rushing Jaws simply laughs until it hurts too much to laugh; "it sure is, my sape. Fuckin' love it..."

"Well I also love candy crush we all make stupid choices- and stop fucking laughing you big idiot-" He says serious and pats his ankle, "This is a very cute morph you aught not to ruin it."

Devin snorted at Vidar's message, and untucked himself from Marina's arms. "I have one order for weed, what's else am I getting?" he asked, mostly at Kostya and Abby, but also vaguely at everyone else.

"Everything? You almost died. Let's party," Kostya said, and Devin pointed at him.

"You're so fucking right."

Abby was in the middle of asking for something when Tuesday's message came in, and she had to stop herself from throwing herself over to hug him. "You know what? Maybe not Petals. How about Buzz? I think regular hallucinations are probably better right now."

"One order of buzz, coming right up," Devin said, and Kostya followed him into the depths of the Motherfuck. When they returned, it was clear that Kostya had not been joking by saying they should bring everything.

"Some good ol' fashioned hash," Devin said, lobbing it gently through the 0g at Vidar. "Buzz for the hacker extraordinaire," he said, and did the same in Abby's direction. "And none for Cris."

"Stop quoting Mean Girls and give me wine, you useless fucking twink," Cris said.

"That's not a very nice thing to say to the useless twink holding your wine," Devin noted. Cris frowned at him, and Devin cackled and lobbed it at her.

Azathothwakes {PM to Atreides Apogee}: [just an fyi, we're partying it up over here so it might be a hot minute before anyone's ready to debrief]
Atreides Apogee: [How bad is it?]
Azathothwakes: [Abby just dosed on Buzz]
Atreides Apogee: [Buzz?]
Azathothwakes: [modified version of BZ, turbo-LSD. real fun stuff.]
Atreides Apogee: [Oh dear...]
Atreides Apogee: [Does she have a minder?]
Azathothwakes: [besides her muse? might have to be you at this rate!]
Atreides Apogee: [Ya allah!]

"Goddamn - would that I could join in the fun," Rushing Jaws laments, grimacing with another stab of pain. "Guess I already did though; I look forward to watching all this from simulspace as I float in a meditank for my sins."

Looking over to Mach, Rushing Jaws notices that he hasn't even removed his helmet, let alone engaged with anyone else: "Hey - Mach, wasn't it? These folks probably got some narcoalgorithms you could plug into that Guard o' yours, maybe take the edge off of all that bullshit back there?"

Armand had vanished slightly before Devin and Kostya had, and now popped back into the room. "The meditank is ready," he said.

Tuesday caught their orbital hash and tucked it into the little breast compartment that he was certain was made for storing blunts. "Okay, look at that, bath time," He said seriously mobilizing to help Armand maneuver RJ from here to there.

Armand directed the three of them into their medbay, where the tank was prepared.

“... What? No. I’m not sure I can trust my fuckin’ muse right now, and I’m so worked up about everything I’d rather step outside without my suit than take one line of code from you guys. No, no period, why the fuck are you guys relaxing? Job’s not done and I’m not gonna slow down now. What specifically do we have on Gray’s tech supplier? I took an educated guess with the boss and I got no clue if he’ll be satisfied with it. Also, we’re 100% sure everything was on Annora, right? Gray denied offload but fuck if I can be sure. Just, we should be-“
Said the paranoid android, having taken a moment to realize that he was being spoken to and offered drugs, then another to realize someone was dragging the fury away. At least they had a legitimate reason to relax, given how beat up they were.
“OKAY I GUESS WE’LL JUST, GET HIGH. RELAX. FORGET ABOUT THE TITAN TECH DEALERS AND THE GUY WHO IMPERSONATED ME. FINE. SURE. Should’ve stacked myself while I had an excuse...”

Tuesday poked their head back out when he heard the yelling, "I- I got this, don't worry-" He told RJ. He had wanted to see him into the tank but, somebody had to throw a temper tantrum. His blood boiled a bit as he caught the gist of Mach's words. And Vidar did have a temper, and had just watched a nano swarm eat a lady, and possessed a piercing headache and nerves that were made out of dull copper wire-

"Hva i helvete!?!" He barked with all the force his small librarian ready voice could muster. He free fell back into the common room- "Do you think you own us? You think you can throw a little fucking kronar around and now we're your dancing puppets? Are we just [Untranslatable]-useless napkins to you, you [untranslatable]. What fucking kindness you ever done me? What good did popping my ass through the [untranslatable] pin ball wizard of cargo holds do for me? What makes you think any of us ever gonna fucking work for you ever again. You sure you don't need anti psychoctic-script my guy? No fucking shame in that but get fucking real you sound like some Disneyland horse cock sucking son of a bitch narcissistic harping on about productivity, you fuck." The end of his tirade brought him close enough that their helmets almost touched and held up one hand, "If I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to fucking catch these hands my good man?"

The sounds are distant, now that the anesthetic is taking effect.

Everything feels a bit dreamlike in the medical tank, that miracle of nanoengineering. Rushing Jaws has his mask fitted perfectly to his Fury's face, clean air circulating in and out, providing his morph with the air it needs while immersed in a protective biogel. The biogel will protect his wounds from getting worse as nanomachines scour his system of MRDR, the anesthetic suppressing the pain that has already started to sharpen as the drug is cleansed from his morph. There are only a few tubes involved, those that are necessary for tending to the processes of biology, and those that allow the nanobots rapid access to Rushing Jaws' body to treat the grievous injuries his morph has sustained. The world beyond his breathing mask is faint, blurry with the gel; with echolocation both unnecessary and severely hampered, the most interface Rushing Jaws has with the outside world is his entoptics and mesh feeds.

Not that Rushing Jaws minds, for the most part.

Being immersed in the gel feels natural. He'd swim around if there were any room, or if his Fury's limbs hadn't gone numb. His thoughts are slow, as they'll have to be for a while as the nanobots tend to the worst of his injuries. Rushing Jaws is okay with a break; Starglass should be handling shit, and there'll be a little downtime for all of them unless this turns out to be some crisis. Rushing Jaws sure hopes there won't be, but that's the way these things tend to shake down. He'll worry about all that later.

In the mean time, something's going on back in the other room.
[Sounds like Mach got sharp and Vidar's finally had it] Māzǔpó reports.
Aw heck, I'm gonna miss a fight too, Rushing Jaws thinks, the words slippery in his mind.
[Good thing too. You're in no shape for it,] Māzǔpó is quick to respond.
Rather than respond with words, Rushing Jaws focuses on an image of playful carnage.
[I'm sure you'll find your way into that once you're out of here, let the nanomachines tend to their work in the mean time. You've had a hard day.]
Rushing Jaws gives the internal monologue equivalent of a conciliatory nod in response.

Rushing Jaws {TacNet}: [Give 'em hell, Viddy]

“You’re fucking right. I didn’t pay a few fucking ‘Kroner’ to own you. I paid a bunch of Guanxi favors for some FUCKING PROFESSIONALS who would understand that there is a time to get high, and there is a time to PUT THE PEDAL TO THE MOTHERFUCKING METAL. So if you wanna break your fist on my tit-inator face, go ahead! But it’s official, I’m canceling the contract! You fuckers aren’t special ops, and I’m not sure anyone but the fury is even a vet! I-... I don’t have time for this shit. Other me’s getting away, and you’re not helping. I’m going back to the silence, maybe those security people have him on film...”

He/she said, stomping back towards the shuttle bay and thinking up a scathing review for ‘the rat king’ as he slammed a thumbs-down on their profile.

[Sold his ‘B-list’ team as special ops, expected professionals. Got one possible veteran, and four strung-out swarmers. Doesn’t deserve the B-list rating, they’re pretty much all rookies. One excellent hacker on board, but no idea which one it is. Team as a whole is F-list, and is willing to let quarry run. Would’ve been better off with that Autonomist girl who kidnapped me. If I could get my favor refunded, I would.

TLDR: they’re the worst, say they’re the best, can’t get a job done.]

Then, without skipping a beat, he laid down a much simpler review for Gray Xu.

[Bitch sided with an errant fork over me, AND opened a Nanoswarm deathcan in the middle of a tense firefight that she would have survived with plenty of room to negotiate, nearly destroyed the entire scum swarm. If she’s backed up anywhere, she should wake up to being blacklisted.]

Then, with nothing else to do, he spoke to the shuttle pilot.
“Hey, I need a shuttle ride back to silence. I know it’s a hassle, but I can spot you a twenty.”

"Fucking incredible. We save your rusty ass and this is how you thank us? Go ahead and post your shitty little review. Two can play at that game, and I'd like to remind you that I've got more rep than you do to start with. Come back to the Peculiar Taste and see if you can get shit done then, asshole," Devin said. He gave Mach a little wave. "I love when the garbage takes itself out."

"Okay. Bye!" Vidar yelled after him. "Christ. Hell," He said to himself with a laugh. He had a habit of laughing whenever he felt particularly strong emotions of any kind and his chuckle now had that slight manic tint to it that meant, for those who knew him, that he didn't think anything was funny. He finally popped off his helmet and lite up his blunt, hands shaky, nose and mouth bloody, his left eye's pupil undulating in size in time to his stray chuckle.

"Jesus," Devin said, forgetting Mach completely and going over to squint at Vidar's bloody face. "What did you do, faceplant in the helmet?"

"So this must be Vidar," Cris pipped up. "What with the Norwegian and all."

"Will you stop stalking me and my friends?"

"You were being a cagey little shit today, so how else were we going to figure anything out?"

"I sure fucking did," he said blowing a perfect ring of smoke at him. They glanced at Cris and said; "You sound like a needling shrike and all- so you must be Cris."

Heliotrope{Pm the Hara:Firewall}: I'm fine. Really. Could use with some kenalog-40 or Oxcarbazepine. But I'll be alright.

"I like him," Cris said, sounding pleased.

Hara{pm to Heliotrope} You got it, my dude. I like your face all in one piece, you know?

Aboard the Peculiar Taste of Silence

Timestamp: [REDACTED]


This was bad. Of course ‘Dai Ruogang’ was having problems because he wasn’t really ‘Dai Ruogang’ And everyone here knew he’d been flashing his G-rep as SpeedMachZX. As the other him. Thank god that his other self wouldn’t know his other G-rep username, Dai\ja\vu. But unless he hotswapped morphs, he couldn’t use that name-Cams would have his face on record, and if the G-rep to that face swapped, he’d be linked back. He had to either make it look like he darkcast out and ‘Dai’ cast into a different body, or he’d have to actually Darkcast out. Guards had mentioned something about the other him’s ‘traffic violation’ to his face and he had to fess up to the kite incident… Despite being in a pod. Now that the Annora (but hopefully not its cargo) was blown to smithereens, he was running out of places to run where he wouldn’t be questioned about the ship or its contents… Damn it, where the hell was Zuangzhi? He’d asked for friendly assets in the area at least thirty minutes ago!


Antique Zuangzhi {PM to Sleipnir}: [Contact established with sentinel team in operation in your area. Seek out operative Atreides Apogee; they are coordinating operations on behalf of proxy: Starglass. PM agent over local Eye channels, she will assist you with evading your fork. Current orders: evade notice of your fork. Remain on the barge if possible, avoid direct confrontation with your fork unless as a last resort. Link up with sentinel team, they will assist you. Once threat has passed, remain with the team and stand by for further orders.]

Sleipnir {reply to Antique Zuangzhi}: Confirm or deny: Sentinel team onsite engaged in operations aboard Annora Arabella]

After a few minutes’ light delay; Antique Zhaungzhi: [Negative - Annora Arabella confirmed destroyed by proxy: Starglass. Sentinel team standing by to assist.]

No delay, Sleipnir: [Misinterpreted. Confirm or deny, WAS the sentinel team engaged in ops aboard Annora Arabella.]

Another few minutes’ delay, then: [Able to confirm - sentinel team engaged in operation abord Annora Arabella. Team successfully contained X-threat, escaped vessel prior to destruction; one wounded in action, agent Atreides Apogee able to provide direct support.]

No delay, Sleipnir: [Any reports of recovered/seized assets?]

After light delay: [Current data indicates release of X-risk warranted abandonment of assets - presumed lost with the ship]

Mild delay, sleipnir: [Requesting we drop the formal tone.]

After delay: [Granted. Do you have any further questions?]

No delay, sleipnir: [What breed of idiots bungled the op bad enough to open the deathcan (I assume, not sure yet) and destroy a motherfucking index-type artifact?]

After delay: [The breed caught in between a squad of unknown assailants and a dealer who decided it was better to release the nanoswarm than let such an artifact fall into hostile hands. Considering the situation, the operatives performed well and saved tens of thousands of lives by their quick thinking. You don’t have to agree with their prioritizing, but you would do well to show them respect, agent Sleipnir, especially given they are the ones about to help you.]

Brief delay, Sleipnir: [Okay yeah I can forgive having no choice. Still pisses me off, but I knew Gray Xu was an unstable bitch. Wonder if any of them even knew it could’ve been a gate-key. Gonna go radio dark while I look for Atreides. Anything to add?]

After delay: [Loss of artifacts is indeed unfortunate. Sending rendezvous coordinates for Atreides Apogee; contact the agent prior to arriving at location.]

With the closing transmission from Mach’s current proxy is indeed included a set of coordinates located within the immense rotating drum of The Peculiar Taste of Silence; Mach’s muse loads up directions on his entoptic displays and awaits Mach’s decision.

D!Mach:[Let’s go, Nanti.]

Nanti:[Roger that. When are we gonna light that hash we bought off the guards?]

D!Mach: [Later. We gotta meet Atreides.]

He thought to the beautiful angel that P-surgeon put in his head, and floated off to the rendezvous, going pretty fast, but not recklessly so, because using your own identity as your cover identity was a fucking trip.

Moving from the microgravity of the outer bulkheads to the spin gravity of the barge’s drum, and then on toward the shop indicated by the coordinates is simple, but not easy: the party doesn’t stop within a scum barge, both a blessing in that it helps draw the eye away from those who don’t want it on them and a curse in that it makes maneuvering around the menagerie of debauchery a task in itself. Within a few minutes of arriving at the shop, a window opens in Mach’s entoptics

Nanti: [I grabbed a connection to Atreides Apogee’s i-rep profile - you want to say hello or should I?]

D!Mach: [I feel like I oughta speak for myself on this one. Pretty sure she knows about other me’s bullshit already and I don’t want her flipping when I walk up with his G-rep profile.]

Sleipnir to Atreides Apogee: [So you’re managing the team that ran in with ‘SpeedmachZX’? Proxy says you guys can help us out.]

Atreides Apogee: [Salaam! Yes, we are preparing to assist you, come along to the rendevous coordinates, the door should recognize your mesh ID and open. Meet us there, we’ll talk more then.]

Sleipnir: [Uh. Even if SpeedmachZX is my rogue fork and I’m using his G-rep as camoflauge?]

Atreides Apogee: [Yes! You might be spoofing his rep profiles, but your mesh ID ought to be unique, and while we’ve been chatting your muse did you the favor of forwarding it to us to key into the door. Come along, the sooner we can work out a plan the sooner we can ensure your safety.]

Sleipnir: [I know. Just trying to make sure you don’t slam the door on me. You… Didn’t talk to him, did you?]

Atreides Apogee: [I did, for better or worse. He was a thoroughly unpleasant person. You’ve been vetted by two different proxies, however, so I am more inclined to work with you than I am with him.]

Sleipnir: [Yeah. I’m not really unpleasant. I think. At least I’m not totally rude. Most of the time. Okay I hit bedrock I’m just gonna knock on the door once I find it.]

The remainder of the journey goes by without incident, and Mach arrives at a closed door that advertises itself as the workshop of a neo-raven named Scirocco. An additional AR window attached to the unintrusive graphics confirms that this is the location of the rendezvous, the door remaining closed to the surrounding festival.

Mach didn’t really hesitate until after the door opened up. Then he paused briefly, reminded himself he had a Security Pod that could take getting slapped in the face, and went inside, almost slipping into mandarin but remembering that he was himself, and it was time for english.

“Hey, I made it! How secure is this place? We can chat, right?”

Awaiting Mach are two people, the neo-raven keeper of the shop - appearing half a synth for the amount of cybernetics integrated into their morph - and a bouncer with an automatic rifle slung over her back and her smart-fabric done up in a hijab-and-jumpsuit. As soon as the door shuts behind him, the neo-raven says in a coarse french: “Now that the door is shut, we can speak freely.”

“Salaam alaykum,” the bouncer code-named Atreides Apogee greets in her native arabic. “For the moment, we ought to be safe. Depending on how determined your fork is to meet you, however, that may not remain the case. It wouldn’t surprise me that this would be the first place he would think to look. I’m getting in touch with the sentinel team that went with your fork to the Annora Arabella now.”

Atreides Apogee {PM to Hara, Heliotrope, Azathothwakes}: [Sentinels, I’m afraid our work is not over yet. There is a time-sensitive issue I need your immediate assistance with back aboard the Peculiar Taste of Silence. If agent Azathothwakes is safe, please gather up and meet me at the workshop where you retrieved Mach from as soon as possible - and I implore haste, as we are not out of the woods yet.]

“I have sent a message,” agent Atreides says to Mach, her eyes refocusing on him after a moment to compose the message on her entoptics. “They took a beating on that mission, so let us hope they are able to move quickly.”

“I don’t like sitting still much… But if you insist.” said the much nicer version of the speed demon that RJ and his team knew.

Devin supposed they should have expected Atreides Apogee to want to meet up sooner rather than later. He just wished they'd thought of it before they'd gotten fucked up.

He knocked on the workshop door and then lead them all in. "What's up? You got us in the middle of celebrating not dyi--" he said, and stopped. There was Atreides and her hijab, and the little corvid uplift tinkerer, and someone in a security pod with the same profile as Mach, only with an I-rep profile as well.

"I'm too fucking high for this," Devin said, and gestured broadly at Mach 2.0. "What the entire fuck?"

Abby was blitzed, but in the best way. She was fine one moment, then the instant she floated through the door she was experiencing roughly six dimensions at once. Time had always been a meaningless concept for her, but now it was doubly so. She spotted Yasmin Al-Rundi, and her two friends. One of whom was a cybercrow. No, better, a cyborg raven! She pushed off, waved at Yasmin as she passed, and wrapped the bird up in a hug. When Devin spoke, the words caused ripples of color through the air, and she stared, entranced. She was dimly aware of Proxy trying to tell her something, but honestly it just didn't seem as important right now as the way everything shimmered and swam. Finally she spoke, causing her own ripples of color to mix with Devin's.
"You're all beautiful beings, now where can a girl get food?"

"Abby~" Vidar called after her. As her newly appointed dad he had held her by the arm most of the way there only for her to slip his grip now. He followed after her and pulled her away from Mach 2.0. Vidy decied to let Devin do the tlaking. He wasn't so high to be an idiot, but he'd rather not incriminate himself- Not that he was too concerned about reprecutions personally. He was an asset, what was starglass gonna do? Fire him? He patted Abby's arm and said softly, "Food later darling."