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« on: September 19, 2011, 10:34:44 PM »
Here is a short story I wrote for the EP campaign. A bit of flavor text for the players, if you will. There isn't any actionable plot information the players can use, but avoid reading if you don't like SPOILERS.
Errand
Kyler glided past the dank conduits of the maintenance tunnel, swimming through zero-G with the practiced ease of a born brinker. He was full-burn down the pipe, in serious danger of a bang up if he missed one of the handholds his muse was highlighting in his entropics. Mom had programmed Tilda for maximum physical safety, but the personality matrix was developing a narrow reading of the command and often allowed Kyler off-mesh for jaunts such as this.
He was excited to get back to his hideout. He’d been forbidden from going to the disused storage capsule in the old cluster ever since Vera was forced off-station. But Mom was doing her tenth-day duties on EVA maintenance, a 16-hour shift if you added in the decompression time, and Kyler had plenty of time to get back to the sleeper pod before she got wise.
Kyler booted up Parabola Coaster before he even reached the hatch. He’d gotten sick good at mapping vertexes since Vera had tutored him, and he loved to ride down the curves he’d made on his entropics, feeling the nanos simulate wind on his face and coming so close to yakking as the inner-ear mod Pavlov-ed him with that crazy, gut-dropping sensation he imagined kids with gravity got all the time. Mom would totally red alert if she found out he was logging extra credit hours on Parabola instead of Word Sensation, but that game vac-ed without the dedicated drug gland and Hackops hadn’t cracked DRM on the bluies yet.
Kyler cycled the hatch and nestled into his favorite corner, the one near the hot water pipes. Entrhalled as he was mapping a mad-queasy ride of high-frequency waves, he almost didn’t see the man. He appeared as little more than an outline lit by the glow of LED’s.
Kyler was kicking for the door when the man spoke. “No need to run. I’m not maintenance.”
Kyler snagged some cable and looked back at the shadow. “Who you blowing up my spot then, morph?”
“My?” said the man, floating closer but never leaving the shadow. “Possessive pronouns? Such profiteering language for so young a ladka.”
Kyler blushed for having cussed in front of an adult. He was in for it now.
“Besides,” the man smiled, his teeth glowing dull blue in the haze, “it isn’t as if your name is on it.”
“Is too, morph!” Kyler said, unwilling to go down without a fight. “Spec it, low-rez, gots a tag right there.” Kyler pointed to the place where he and Vera had burnt their names in some ceramic with a hacked laser communicator.
“Are you Kyler?” asked the man.
“True”
“And who is Vera?”
Kyler looked down, uncomfortable with the man’s questions and slow drift towards him. “Vera was m…a friend. We came here to play school. It was quieter and she knew how to get admin on the levels. More fun.”
The dark shape nodded as he slowly adjusted course, thankfully veering towards the hatch rather than the boy. He looked damn tall up close, those long limbs of his not so much drawn shadow as they first appeared. “And why isn’t Vera here today?”
Kyler went back to his game’s entropics, trying to drool the guy out. “Mom said we could co-op no more. Said Vera weren’t no kid, but like an adult sleeving a kid, spec it? She was a Neolithic or something.”
“Neotecnic?” asked the man.
“Yeah. That one.”
“Shame,” he whispered, drifting past within inches. “It is the dharma of the old to train the new.”
Kyler squirmed, “Whatever. You gonna post or should I find another spot? I’m going for high scores, here.”
“Oh, by all means,” the man was halfway out the hatch already, “stay here. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your studies.”
“Like. Tetyell.”
Kyler hit play on the game. He was part way down the first parabola when his vids flicked off. He wanted to say something, but for some reason the words wouldn’t come. The weightless feeling, that one that came before you hit the bottom of the conic and that fabled gravity took hold again, that feeling he’d felt his entire life, took on a new intensity. He looked down, down, down until he could see his feet, until he could see the fronts of his knees. He could see himself, upside down, with the dark shape behind him and shrouded in a red sheet, and then the world went dark.
* * *
The monowire cut clean before snapping. The boy’s stack glistened at the base of the exposed spinal column. He wrenched it free with a gloved hand and kicked the body across the room, leaving a comet trail of blood frozen in the half-light.
Sir, Shiva entreated, her do-not-disturb parameters no longer active, message waiting from the inner system.
He commanded it play while fishing for the case slung behind his back.
Cypher: Octopus and the rest made me. No idea how. He and the courier just fucking rezzed into the room as I was assuming Hoffman. One of them was coordinating security as I bailed with the beta-forks, I assume. Had to Ctrl-Alt the shapers and most of the tour group. Opsec maintained but the objective was not achieved. Luna is blown.
“Interesting.” He removed the scour ring from its containment field, careful to only touch the outer rim. “Of all the variables…hmmm….” He placed Kyler’s stack atop the ring’s center cavity and watched it slowly sink, somehow not coming out the other side.
Shiva, he commanded, dictation. Maximum encrypt.
Go.
He placed the ring back in its container, unable to resist a hand wave through the space where the non-stack was violating the Conservation of Matter. @ cypher: Will be casting into the theater by the time you receive this. Prep a clone and call a conference simulspace for immediate debrief. Signature.
@ operations.oversight.pc.mars: Operation complete. Confirm body bank operative’s orders to space my morph after casting. Set operative’s memory lock countdown to thirty minutes at receiving of this message. Engage countdown. Signature.
@ intel.oversight.pc.mars: Keep me briefed on any further farcasts scheduled by Vera Dax. She may enjoy slumming with the Brinkers, but demographic testing of unapproved software mods is clear a breach of Intellectual Property Act 745CA9 of the PC charter and I’d rather not be distracted with any more of these errands. Signature.
@ e-feeder.mesh: Purchase a season pass of “Release the Kraken.” Identity L confirmation code. Identity L Signature.
End dictation. Send.
The hive at his belt hummed as it fed nanos across his body. The tiny machines licked blood from their master’s hands like a loyal hunting dogs. The man held on to the hatch’s handle and looked back at the tiny, gore-strewn capsule.
“Soana, Kyler. I release you from Samsara.”
Manjappa closed the door.
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