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phoenotopia · 5 years

Text

2020 March Update

Happy New Year! Well, I guess it's a bit late for that...

Much of what transpired in the past few months will fall under polish and bug-fixing. Will and I have a mutual friend who got married, so I had the occasion to visit Will to attend the wedding as well as have Will playtest the game in its most complete form yet. He logged 24 hours of playtime and just reached the entrance of the final dungeon. Then we had to call in for the night since it was 5 AM, and I had a flight to catch in the morning.

His completion rate where we stopped was 42% of Heart Pieces, 33% of Energy Gems, and 44% of Moonstones. So... I think we have a pretty lengthy game!

This will take a while to playtest & polish... Will's daytime profession is QA Engineer so he's pretty great at catching bugs. From his playtest, we jotted down 200+ items to fix/adjust. Some as small as a simple misspelling, and some more significant (like Gail being unable to jump when standing at the edge of a steep slope). I'm about half-way through fixing that list...

(Will’s living room where much playtesting was done)

Here are some other things we've accomplished in the past few months. A lot of it falls under polish and bug-fixing, which won't sound outwardly impressive, so I'll dive in a bit under the hood.

-------------------------- Item Balancing --------------------------

There are over 200 items in the game. Of which, 90+ are healing items. While much of their flavor text was already written, their stats weren't yet finally decided. So a large effort was spent to balance them as well as possible. Initially, I balanced items by observation (ex: "The player is relying on this item a lot, so I will nerf it...") Now, I've moved to a more systematic way of doing things. I made an equation that takes in all of an item's parameters, and spits out a score. The higher an item heals, the higher the score. The longer an item takes to consume, the lower the score. And so forth.

As usual, I used google spreadsheets, since they support equations. I could tweak the values of a healing item, and immediately see how its final score was affected. I also made use of automatic color formatting, so a field becomes highlighted red, if it's particularly bad, or green, if it's particularly good. Of course, the sheet is just a guideline. The aim wasn't to make all items have the same final score, but that they made sense for what they were and when you could get them. Late-game items tend to have higher overall scores versus early-game items. Some items, like doggy biscuits, have notoriously low scores across the board - as a joke!

-------------------------- Cooking Systems --------------------------

Another thing that had to be done with the healing items was finally determine their cooking sequences. 38 healing items could be cooked and will transform into something else. The way I specified that an item could be cooked was to add a a little snippet to an item's "meta data". An example would look something like, "COOK,57,62,ABXY,10,1.5,1".

In order, this specified the item_ID that would result on success (57), the item_ID that would result on failure (62), the button sequence (ABXY), the time you had to complete the sequence (10 seconds), how quickly the cursor should move (1.5x speed), and if the item multiplied on success (1). The system appears simple enough - but it was actually extremely inefficient!

For one, this system didn't allow random button sequences - all "berry fruits", when cooked would have the same button prompts and in the same order every time (ABXY). Initially, I thought having set button sequences would be a feature, but in practice, it was less fun.

Two, this system wasn't human-readable at all. I'd see a sequence of numbers, forget what they were, and have to look them up over and over.

But the biggest problem was that you couldn't evaluate an item's cooking difficulty from these numbers without manual testing. At 1.5 cursor speed, how many times does the cursor pass the center panel in 10 seconds? Maybe that's 15 times... for a 4 button sequence, the player has 11 opportunities to miss - that's too wide a berth for failure. The system also had variable penalties - if you misspressed a button prompt you loss time on the cooking meter. If you didn't press anything, you missed the opportunity, but not the time - but the clock was still ticking, so you did lose time, just not as much. In the end, the difficulty of cooking each item was all over the place. It was also possible to create "unwinnable" scenarios if I made the button sequence too long, the time too short, or the cursor speed too slow. Testing each item manually to ensure doability was too tedious and unreliable - it was a mess!

Which is why, the underlying cooking system was revamped. The new meta data looks like : "COOK,57,62,seq_length,5,spd,1.5,ease_add,2". This is a lot more readable. Beyond the first 3 entries, the arguments could be specified in any order. And their meanings were easy to understand.

"seq_length,5" means a random button sequence of 5 will be generated (no need for me to personally generate it)

"spd,1.5" means the cursor moves at 1.5x speed. I could also leave this field out to get a default value of 1x cursor speed.

"ease_add,2" - the biggest improvement to the system is how we now approach difficulty. We streamlined a miss-press and a missed opportunity as the same level of "mistake", and difficulty is framed as, "how many mistakes is the player allowed to make and still have a successful result?" By default, the player is afforded the ability to make 2 mistakes, and "ease_add,2" bumps the number of allowable mistakes to 4. We then automatically calculate how much "time" the player should have to cook something based on its cursor speed, how long the button sequence is, and how many mistakes the player is allowed to make. This was a more sensible and efficient system that let me knock out all 38 healing item cook sequences in one sitting!

-------------------------- Badges Nearly Done --------------------------

As you may recall from the last update, I was working on implementing the badges.

Thinking up the badge and having its graphic drawn is just the first half. Underneath, the code also needs to be made to track all the relevant player stats - how many times the player fished, ate, got money, used a certain move, etc. Some badges require extra guards, because they can be spoofed. For instance, the "Treasure Hunter" badge is obtained when the player has collected XXXX RIN through the course of your journey. However, there is something like a "gold exchange" in the game, where you could circularly trade gold and RIN to boost this number artificially. It's important to guard against cases like those.

So far, 30 of 33 badges are implemented. The last three have to do with late-game things that have inter-dependencies that we're still figuring out. The Speed running badge for instance is still dependent on two things. One, I need to speed run the game a few times to see how fast it's possible to beat the game and decide finally what's a reasonable time-limit. Two, there's actually a time-keeping bug which can inflate the game time if the system is left in sleep mode. I don't expect either things will be too hard to figure out - just gotta find the time for it.

-------------------------- Script Extra Polished --------------------------

We continued to polish the script, which I thought was basically done before. We added some extra NPCs here and there, and fleshed out the world with lore text where it seemed appropriate. In the end, the game's script ballooned to over 100,000 words! Hah... It's definitely DONE now however!

Some interesting things I noted as I was polishing old text - there were quite a few instances where Gail talks. I began the game's development with the idea that Gail should definitely talk since I wanted her to be a more active participant in what she chose to do. But I discovered later that if Gail talks, but only talked a little, she comes off as a very reticent person. There's no middle lane here - you're either all in or all out.

If Gail was a silent protagonist, she still talked symbolically. She is understood to be talking based on how people react to her - kinda like Link. So that's the direction I went with in the end (again). When Gail has occasion to talk, it comes in the form of a player dialogue choice. She also has an inner voice when she needs to remind the player to do something.

Another reason I went with this direction, is for brevity. Take this exchange for instance: QUEST GIVER : Can you help me find this super rare ingredient? GAIL : Maybe. I can't make any promises...

If Gail is silent, I can reduce those 2 lines to 1. QUEST GIVER : Can you help me find this super rare ingredient? GAIL : ...

-------------------------- Business Taxes --------------------------

Not too exciting, but new year means I gotta do taxes for the business. They're a lot more complicated than personal taxes, and more expensive! Since the game hasn't sold anything, you would think there'd be nothing to file. Hah! If only... The business is there so we can act as a legal entity and record expenses for when we do start selling. I really want to focus on making games, but there’s a small percentage of it that is sometimes boring and dreadful (-_-) ... still it needs to be done.

------------- Why no Public Beta Testing? -------------

As you may have noticed, I haven't put out any public calls for testing help despite being at that stage. Some have offered to help, which I appreciate! But sadly, I cannot accept. Here's the story for that.

Two and a half years ago, I got my hands on a console dev kit - that's very exciting, so I hurriedly took the steps to convert my dev station to be console-capable. After about two weeks, I had the console version working and integrated into my workflow, so all appeared good...

4 Months later, an artist needed an updated PC build to test some new art assets, so I went to build a new PC version. We use Unity, so generally you just need to click your desired build target, and hit "build". However, I now discovered that by attaching the console "hooks" into my work environment, I could no longer build to PC... It was possible, from my end, to test the game from the dev station in dev mode, which was why it went undiscovered for so long.

I did try to excise the hooks, but proved unsuccessful after a day of work. I decided to take this as an opportunity to focus exclusively on the console version first, which afforded me some niceties. Knowing that there's a standardized control scheme meant I could make full use of the control stick for the fishing mini-game. I also didn't need to create a rebindable keys menu - which is a MUST for PC versions... Most importantly, it lets me focus on making the one version as good as possible before moving onto the next. I have NO idea how those other guys release on all platforms at once...

Chalk it up to inexperience. In my defense, this will be my first commercial release, so bear with me. Don't worry, I still plan to make the PC version! It's a bit unconventional, but we're just going to go in the reverse direction of the usual. Console first, then PC, then other consoles. Wherever it makes financial sense, there we will be. (Sorry Ouya!)

Back to the original question - that's why I haven't sent out any public calls for playtesting. Current playable builds of the game are locked to my console dev kit. So actual playtesting unfolds in a very closed setting. Like what I did with Will, I literally sit behind the playtester, breathe down their neck, and watch them play, taking notes all the while.

But since I'm observing the player directly, even just one playthrough nets me a TON of bugs and adjustment tasks. So it evens out I think.

-------------------------- Trailers, Release Dates, etc. --------------------------

Alright, get your frowns ready...

We finished two trailers, and they're raring to go. BUT! We can't show them yet... We're sort of at an awkward spot where we're waiting on some conversational threads to conclude. Say we win a slot in a show - that'd be a HUGE plus for us - but that may also be contingent on us having NOT shown anything substantial yet. The game in its unrevealed state is a negotiating chip. So we're trying to leverage that... and you can only do the reveal once...

We also want to have some "actionable" items in the trailer - a launch date you could mark on your calendar, a wishlist, a website you can visit, etc. So since those things aren't entirely lined up yet, we can't let the trailers rip just yet...

Right now, I can only say we're *aiming* for a late Q2/early Q3 launch. But I can't commit to anything concrete yet. As soon as we know, we'll happily sing it from the rooftops. I hope I can update this blog sooner with good news, but if things move slowly again, I'll send out the next "we're alive" update 2 months from now (end of April).

I know it's frustrating to have nothing major after so long still, so I captured some gameplay footage... May it sate your hungers!

-------------------------- Footage 1 : Fishing --------------------------

You've seen pictures of the fishing, but never video of it in action. Well, here it is!

youtube

(And right after I uploaded the video, I noticed there actually was a video of fishing before. D’oh)

The idea is simple. First, get the lure in front of a fish, and assuming the fish isn't scared, it will soon bite. Then begins a fight sequence, where your energy meter is pitted against the fish's energy meter. Whoever's energy outlasts the other's wins.

The fish's resistance is represented by a red moving circular subsection. You fight the fish by pushing the control stick and keeping it on the subsection, which will dart around and try to escape you. Bigger and tougher variants of fish will do a "shake" which will reverse the wheel. When the wheel is reversed, so too are the controls, so it gets extra tricky!

While fishing, your energy meter doesn't recover, so one of the ways you level up your fishing ability is by finding energy gems to increase your max energy. There's another way - but we'll keep that a secret.

-------------- Footage 2 : Kobold Boss Fight --------------

You can actually skip the next section if you'd prefer to be surprised and you find your hunger for info sated. That's how I prefer to consume the games that I know I'm going to get. If you're still hungering for info, and you don't mind the slight spoilers, then feel free to proceed!

The next video shows the new Kobold Boss fight. Let's take a moment to reflect on the old game's visuals and how far it's come...

(we've come a long way since the time of the flash game)

youtube

You'll notice the Kobold boss has a name now - Katash! He's a significant enough character that he's earned it. The second thing you'll notice is that he looks better!

Some people have humorously pointed out that the old boss looks like Wolf O'Donnel from Star Fox. There's a funny story behind that. Basically I asked an artist to draw me a space wolf. And the artist, whom I'm assuming wasn't familiar with Wolf O'Donnel, drew that - all of it - all the animations and everything. The first time I laid eyes on it, it was already done, so it was too late to ask for edits. So I just ran with it.

That was seven years ago. Nowadays, I know to involve myself more in the process. I ask for just the design first, and we don't move forward with animations until we're happy with the design. Life lessons!

By the way, if you like Katash’s personal boss theme, give it a lesson on Will's Sound cloud (LINK)

-------------------------- Fan Arts -------------------------- Lots of fan art came in over the past 3 months!

This one is a pixel animation made by Pimez, and shows Gail singing a Christmas carol in various parts of the game. So cute! Years ago, I too was making little animated gifs for my favorite games, so it really brings me back!

This one was made by cARTographer (twitter link) after a request by Deli_mage, so thank you both. Gail rocking stylish boots with a pose that shows confidence in her batting skills. Very anime - Love it!

Another submission of laptekosz of the Last Song of Earth area. Whereas the last picture depicted the night sky, now the orange trees are lit by a rising sun. Artfully done! Kinda makes me want to eat eggs. I hope you'll like the new Last Song of Earth area just as much :D

A new artist to the scene, Not_Quin, submitted two pictures, one of Gail and one of the Sand Drake re-imagined as a centipede. I'm always a fan of these re-imaginings! I like how it's spiky all over and appears to be wearing a skull mask. The Sand Drake is often pointed out to be too similar to Zelda's Dodongos, so maybe a long slithery body would have indeed served better. Fun fact, long ago, when we were working on Phoenotopia 2 in earnest, we actually had a giant man-eating worm planned - WIP animation depicted below. One day... one day...

Negativus Core made two cool new arts! I'm really impressed by their use of unique perspective! Having characters run towards the screen or reaching close to the screen from afar is tricky since the proportions get all distorted - but not an issue for Negativus Core! Love the blur on Gail to show speed, with 66 in focus - really skillfully done! And the cube. Amazing!

--------------------------

I'm really honored by the huge fan art community. Thank you all!

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docfuture · 4 years

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Princess, part 12

[This story is a prequel, set in an alternate 2012, several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16. Links to some of my other work are here. Updates are theoretically biweekly. Next chapter is partly done so I’m going to try to get it out early in September.]

Previous: Part 11

Recovery--and a start at change and learning. Flicker thought about the wrap up of her first session, and Stella's comments on paying a bit more attention to the ways other people were already helping. "... and I just suppressed thinking about it at all because the frustration got real bad when I didn't," Flicker had said. "Understandable," said Stella. "Did you consider talking to Armadillo?" "I talked to her about some general stuff, but she's... old." Stella nodded slowly. "I can see how the Database might have given you the impression that sex was invented sometime in the 60s. And Armadillo was already middle-aged by then." "That's not fair. It just that the primary sources were so indirect and coded about it. And left so much out. The Database doesn't..." Flicker frowned, then sped up to check a few things. After a while she slowed back down. "Well, crap," she said. "I learned most of my 20th century history when I was randomly bouncing around the Database reading whatever caught my interest when I was 11 or 12. So I missed stuff. And I didn't go back, and made some implicit assumptions." "You might find a discussion with Armadillo illuminating," said Stella. "Have you considered that Doc might not be the person contributing the most to the collective judgement of your social maturity level that the Database uses to set your default access levels? He seems willing to delegate to people he trusts, and of those, Armadillo clearly has had experience with children." "Oof. No, I hadn't thought of that." Flicker sighed. "Sometimes I wonder about the amount of time I spend mentally running circles around things without looking at what's at the center." "Don't be too harsh on yourself. You blame most of your social difficulties on mental differences, poor references, and lack of practice. But the form of your education mattered, too. You never went to school before your graduate work, and you did most of that remotely. You learned from Doc, the Database, and direct observation--primarily of static scenes because of your speed. And the bulk of educational material in the Database was written by and for typical humans, with all the embedded assumptions that entails." "I really like the Database. And the summaries help." Stella shook her head. "Not always. Not if you don't know what's missing. The Database AI made judgements when you were younger about what was appropriate at the time. This shaped your knowledge map, which was already going to be very different from most humans. So do your Database access restrictions. Information revealed selectively or out of order can harm. And if the Database can't reveal A to you--for, say, privacy reasons--and revealing B without A would cause harm, it will restrict B as well. I'm sure Doc must have warned you about that." "Yeah, but a lot of his restrictions seem arbitrary." "Many will, if done right. Database restrictions can and do cause bias problems, but overriding them is inherently risky. The Database AI has to balance that, and there are no optimal choices, because the whole idea of the Database as an 'objective' knowledge map is a illusion. The Database is biased by what gets recorded. Your access to it is further biased, and what you actually do access is even more biased. But the idea that you are necessarily getting closer to impartial truth when you override a warning is dangerous." "So I can mess myself up with overrides." "You already have. Repeatedly. Information shaping is one of my more powerful tools. Cruder forms of it are in widespread use and getting more effective every day. But perceptions come pre-shaped." Stella had sipped from her cup of coffee before continuing. "For example, you are highly proficient in many math-heavy technical subjects not usually mastered until graduate school, and awkward in areas typically covered by early childhood education or peer group socialization. So when you made your implicit assumptions? Of course you missed things. However." Stella was good at an 'I have a secret to share--eventually' style of speaking that was both mildly annoying and very effective at focusing attention. "Yes?" said Flicker. "Anyone would. You just missed different things. Others might have helped with some of them. But no one could predict them all. Not Doc, not the Database, not me. So do what you can, but don't be too hard on yourself when mistakes happen." "Ah. I'll try to remember that." ***** Flicker tried to follow Stella's initial guidelines, which focused on short term recovery, stabilization, and 'stop making this worse'. Avoiding patrols was the most important and hardest to follow advice. Physical therapy and exercise were tedious, but not difficult. The dietary changes... were trickier. Flicker had lost weight from the accident and the isotope exchanger sessions which she really couldn't afford. And her kind of pseudo-shapeshifter healing depended on adequate body mass. Stella forwarded some funny essays on cuisine and recovery for shapeshifters supposedly written by a French werewolf, and had the Database reset her food and drink related warnings, with an eye to both mental and physical health. She'd also pointed out to Flicker that it only took a few early incidents of plasma in the GI tract while pushing the limits of her entropy dumping to cause lasting aversion to eating much while on call. So when she later started to feel like she was on duty almost all the time, she stopped eating proper meals except with friends. Staying off patrol for now made it possible to change that, but not easy. Theoretically, she could eat like an Olympic athlete in training while exercising appropriately, and recover quite quickly, but that wasn't realistic. She was stubborn, but so were her habits. She couldn't patrol, but she could keep busy by surveying--updating Database geographical and obstacle data--and doing interior construction and finishing work on her house. Back-ordered materials had piled up. Flicker used power tools mainly for precision and delicacy; she had custom hand tools for speed and power, and boxes of regular hammers and screwdrivers to replace the ones she wore out or broke. Superspeed and robotic help let her make rapid progress in the half days she was putting in to it. Common areas and guest rooms were finished, and recreation areas, a wider variety of workshops, and Database node expansion rooms were all taking shape. Making time to talk and eat with friends wasn't sophisticated advice, but it was obviously helpful. She'd had dinner with Jetgirl and her husband yesterday. Good food, carefully non-specific sympathy, then after dinner, 'girl talk' with Jetgirl. Which meant tech geekery--they spent a few hours discussing the instrumentation and results from Speedtest, and Jetgirl's suggestions for some issues Flicker had encountered expanding her robotics workshop. Reliable comfort. The aftereffects from the cybernetic interface withdrawal were finally mostly gone, and Flicker's metabolism and appetite seemed to be responding to her exercises. She was definitely putting on muscle faster than a human could. And she'd mentioned her problem to Stavros, the owner of her favorite Greek restaurant, he'd gotten a look on his face like he'd been personally called upon to save the world, and now she had enough takeout in her fridge to feed a starving pseudo-mythological extradimensional being for a week. Today, a visit with Armadillo. She had promised something interesting. Flicker had once asked Armadillo why she hadn't picked the name Glyptodon instead, because that seemed closer in size and fearsomeness to her appearance. Armadillo had laughed and said she'd never heard of them at the time--the late 40s. The two of them were at Armadillo's house, sitting at a table with an impressive feast. It was not unusual for Armadillo; with super strength, near invulnerability, and half a ton of mass, she ate a lot, and saw no reason not to enjoy it. Armadillo was cheerful and a good friend, as well as effectively family. And at an age of 98, she knew a lot of history, especially the kinds that didn't usually get recorded very well. The main reason Flicker didn't visit more often was an embarrassing one: When she'd been younger she'd had episodes of severe insomnia. But Armadilo knew how to spin a story to help. So when the biological part of Flicker's brain was working, it associated Armadillo's stories strongly with drowsiness. Which didn't mean they were boring. Armadillo was sharing some anecdotes from the late Pre-Net era--the 50s through the 70s--when Luce Cannon, Belle Tinker, and One-eyed Jack had been prominent superheroes. They had set precedents that ended up shaping the way the Database had been assembled. The norms Luce had established as a practical way of preserving relationship privacy and security without centralized infrastructure required narrative indirection and implication in order to discuss certain subjects at all. Armadillo was very good at the style needed. Unfortunately, that and the lack of unrestricted Database references hindered the usual ways Flicker updated her memories, so she was having trouble with details. But there were definitely differences from the way she'd thought about the origins of the Database. "Huh," she said. "I always assumed that Doc decided everything important when he first built the Database, and the rest was just legacy format and historical records." "Not entirely," said Armadillo. "Luce knew all about records and careful access--she built her own intelligence operation, after all--and Belle was already starting to convert some of them to electronic form and building early bots in the fifties. But reliability for anyone but Belle was always a problem, and she didn't have the level of conscientiousness about documentation that Doc did." "Um. Doc isn't always that great about documentation. He gets--" "The Database AI or someone else to do a lot of it. I know. But someone does. Heck, I've done my share. Belle was way ahead of her time, but we never found anything but cryptic notebook scribbles for some of her weirder stuff. Left a bit of a mess after she was gone. Doc brought in organization, documentation, robustness, and speed, and then extended it to everything. But the first Database grew out of what he built for Luce not long before she died. And Luce set some access conditions, which Doc won't change without a good reason. So don't blame Doc for all of them." "So the age restrictions are from Luce?" "Some of them, yeah--but they aren't hardcoded, they're more flexible; we knew they'd have to accommodate aliens and extradimensional beings and whatnot. It's really a maturity threshold." Armadillo smiled. "But I have a treat for you." "Oh?" "There are a few things I have personal discretion about. And you've hit a block involving one of them twice now. It's a good example of how we handled a few things back in the day, and might help you understand some of the ambiguity. I can show it to you, but you'll have to put your visor on locked standby or take it off--no unrestricted electronic images of this are allowed." Flicker frowned, but arranged a protocol with the Database and pulled back her hood. Armadillo pushed back a plate, picked up a small case, opened it, and pulled out a large photographic print. "This is a copy of the last known good photograph of Belle Tinker. The original is in my family photo album in one of Doc's vaults." Flicker moved her chair closer to get a better look. It was a group photo, centered on a younger Armadillo. "What's that blacked out area?" "Non-superheroes with living relatives. The photo is from my 60th birthday party in 1974." Given the date, Flicker wasn't surprised that Armadillo was a bit narrower--she'd still been slowly adding mass. But... "Head spikes?" Armadillo laughed. "Yeah, that was my last try at regrowing them. I'd been on a trip to Tokyo the previous year, and there was a translator around during a Kaiju attack. I ended up stopping it by talking to the big fellow about the relative effectiveness of head spikes for challenge bellowing. We had a nice talk, and everyone went home happy. No property damage, even. So I decided to give them another try. But mine were only a little stronger than steel, so they kept breaking off--same kind of problem you have with your hair. I finally gave up in 75? Or maybe 76? But really, I'm the least interesting person in that photo. I'm curious what you think about the others." "Okay," said Flicker. "But that goblet you're drinking out of... Is that a demon skull?" "Yep. The goblet was a birthday present. It would have been rude not to try it out." Armadillo nodded towards a nearby cabinet. "I still have it, but I hardly ever use it anymore. Little call for it, and it's tricky to clean." "Um, okay." Flicker studied the image of the woman with red hair, a lab coat, safety glasses, and an expression of indulgent patience. "Belle has the same kind of 'I could be in my lab working on something cool' face I've seen Doc make. Most of the contemporary sources I found in the Database were really bad at describing her. She'd have been, what, in her late forties? She looks younger than that, fit, and tough, I don't understand what was going on." Armadillo smiled. "There were a few that treated her reasonably--but they tended not to emphasize appearance. Belle did not fit any 'feminine' stereotype back then, there were a number of media bigwigs who really didn't like her, and she didn't humor patronizing reporters. So it was common for them to distort or belittle her intelligence and accomplishments, insult her appearance, attack her character, or just use bad pictures. If they had to write about her at all. That's one reason why the quality of much of what you found about her is poor." Another woman with short dark hair was leaning against the table with a relaxed smile, but a very clear presence. "Did Luce Cannon always look like she was in charge?" asked Flicker. "I mean, it was your party, but..." "She could hide it, but she was keeping an eye on someone who could get overenthusiastic." A girl wearing a black outfit was smiling intently at the camera with a predatory look. She appeared to be around eleven; it was hard for Flicker to judge ages. "Is that a toy sword?" asked Flicker. "It looks awfully realistic." "Nope. That was Katya's first magic sword. She outgrew it; it's in the vaults now." "Magic sword? Wait... Katya? That's Jumping Spider?" "Oh, goodness no; she wouldn't use that name for years. That's Katya the... Hunter, I think? She switched from the Devastator sometime around then. This was only a year after Luce started teaching her." "Did... What... Why is she waving a sword around at your birthday party?" "It was a compromise; she wanted to make a little pyramid out of the other skulls for the picture, but Luce vetoed that as unsanitary. Just as well; Belle said they smelled pretty manky." "Other skulls?" Every time Flicker got a question answered, she immediately had several more--and she couldn't speed up and check the Database because her visor was off. "Besides the one Jack and Belle turned into the goblet for my birthday present. It was Katya's idea, so she got to hunt the demons, and she went a little overboard getting spare skulls. Jack took her to the dimension where they lived--nasty place, but they were immune to poison, which was handy." "...it's a magic goblet." "Oh, yeah, it detoxifies anything in it," said Armadillo. "If I ever want to be absolutely sure I can't be poisoned or I'm worried about contamination, I use it. But it's usually overkill, it makes most non-alcoholic beverages taste kind of funny, and properly cleaning the precipitate chamber is a pain." "Doc never let me hunt demons when I was ten," muttered Flicker as she studied the figure standing next to Belle in the photo. "Mores change, and your adoption process wasn't complete yet. It would have been awkward to explain." "Did One-eyed Jack ever show any sign of aging? It doesn't look like his appearance changed at all in pictures." "Nope," said Armadillo. "At least not from when I first met him in '50 or so until he disappeared in the nineties. White hair, neatly trimmed beard, and the eyepatch. He almost always wore that hooded robe and carried that staff with the magical doodad on the end. Occasionally he'd switch to a really old style suit and a dress cane--he could do an impressive Offended Aristocrat act. But his apparent age never changed. I suspect he was some kind of shapeshifter, and I know he could create illusions, though, so I'm not sure anyone really knows for sure." "Wait. Disappeared? The Database lists him as 'presumed dead' with supporting evidence; someone found his eyepatch and a scrap of robe near a small crater in the Topaz Realm and Doc verified they were genuine." "Yep. Doesn't mean he died. He might have just decided it was time to stop being Jack. Hard to believe someone as careful as him would botch a portal like that, and it seemed awfully pat that it happened somewhere with enough ravenous scavengers to ensure the lack of remains wasn't suspicious. If he was a shapeshifter, there could be someone with his memories who looks quite different running around somewhere. And he had a saying: 'Sometimes you see something coming and all you can do is get out of the way.' I think that's what he did." Armadillo grinned. "But then, I've been accused of being sentimental from time to time." "Okay," said Flicker. "If you're suspicious about Jack, what about Belle? She was declared dead, but all the Database says is that something catastrophic happened to her portal generator late at night and she was gone afterwards. Jack is recorded as testifying that as far as he could tell, she hadn't been murdered or kidnapped, definitely wasn't alive on Earth, and he wasn't able to tell quite what happened with the portal. But Doc said that if she really wanted to burn her bridges, she could have set the portal generator to self destruct, then gone through to somewhere before it blew. He still has the remains of it in the vaults." Armadillo looked out the window. "All true. She seemed kind of withdrawn for a while before that. Well, withdrawn for her--she was always full of more ideas than she had time to try. She'd had a disagreement with Luce and the Volunteer for a couple of years over... I guess you could call it public policy. She made some predictions that turned out to be pretty accurate, and the first part of one of them had just happened--that was '80. It's conceivable she might have just been tired of Earth. But then she was kind of close to Jack, and he was pretty down afterwards--and if she went somewhere else, I don't know why he wouldn't be able to visit. I tried talking to him about it once, and he just shook his head. So I really can't say." "Were they a couple?" asked Flicker. "Database is ambiguous--they at least pretended a few times, but it wasn't clear what was going on. I assume it's okay to ask about that now that they're both gone?" "Heh. It's not forbidden to ask, and they worked well together in the lab when Belle wasn't out causing trouble with Luce. I'll say this; Belle never showed interest in most men--she'd roll her eyes at most of my jokes--and Jack never showed any interest in anyone but Belle. But it could just have been cover; a convenience for both of them." "Oh." Flicker frowned at the last figure--a middle-aged man in nondescript clothing, leaning back in the chair beside Armadillo. His glasses were perched precariously on the end of his nose, his fingers were laced over his chest, and his eyes were closed. "Who is the guy beside you, and why is he asleep?" Armadillo smiled. "Oh, he'd had a long day, then a nice meal, so he just was catching a little nap. He sometimes answered to the name of Chandler Devon." Okay, now I know I'm being tested. Flicker sped up. The name was vaguely familiar--why? She glanced at Luce again, then remembered. Chandler Devon was connected to Luce Cannon in some way, perhaps one of her agents, or possibly romantically linked--but that had been a shaky source. Documentation about him had been really spotty, with large gaps. He'd been a skilled enough amateur geologist to get a few articles published, later in life. But his fondness for volcanoes had apparently done him in--he'd disappeared during the Mount Pinatubo eruption a few years after Luce's death. That made the third nominally dead person in the picture with a missing body. The only person who was definitely dead and buried was Luce--she'd died of cancer in the late 80s. There were several odd things that required explanation about 'Chandler Devon'. Why was he even at Armadillo's party? Had Luce brought him? Why hadn't anyone woken him up for the picture? It was a memorable occasion. Was it a prank? Wait. Armadillo had said she was the least interesting person in the photo. What could possible make him more interesting than her? If he-- Oh. So that's what he looks like when he's asleep. But how did he manage... Luce. Of course. She was the original super spy. Jumping Spider's teacher. If anyone could cover everything he'd need, it would have been her. That explained so much. He'd gone more than fifty years without anyone-- Idiot. Everyone in that picture probably knew. He'd always had a family. A family of choice. They just never, ever gave it away. Even when they disagreed with each other. But still, a few years after Luce died, he decided it was time to stop being Chandler Devon. Could he still maintain cover? Probably; Jumping Spider was 27 by then, and Doc was 17, with the Database up and running. But the Lost Years were about to start, and Doc had seen that coming. No longer worth the trouble, maybe? How much had Luce meant to Chandler Devon? A lot to think about, most of it not even about Belle. But there was etiquette to be observed. And as far as Flicker could tell, it was to indicate obliquely that she'd guessed, but not say anything unambiguous. She could come up with something. She slowed back down--and found herself blinking back tears. "He looks like... someone who works very hard," she managed. "And doesn't get a chance to relax very often. I'm glad no one woke him up." Armadillo nodded slowly. "So was I." She started to put the picture back in the box. "Wait," said Flicker. "Who took the picture? I thought I knew, but now I think I was wrong." Armadillo paused. "Another time, maybe. You probably have enough to cogitate about today already." "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Next: Part 13

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc

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ptersparkers · 5 years

Text

at the end of the day (chapter one)

summary: there are two gigantic mysteries in your life and one of them includes peter parker not seeming to like you. you can stand him not being your friend but being in the same friend group? that should be easy, right?

a/n: sO i have this idea for a story in my head and there will be some slow updates coming but i’m excited about this one and lets HOPE i finish it hA. also i don’t know if this is gonna be more than a few “chapters” so we’ll see when i do with part two and i’ll decide from there! 💖

warnings: some angst but it’s not too serious

editied by: @jinxes-and-hexes! (everyone say ‘thank you’ because we all know i make too many typos).

masterlist / taglist / series masterlist

Peter Parker did not like you.

The reason? You didn’t know. You joined Midtown Tech your sophomore year and became friends with Peter’s “group” during February of the second semester. It was now the start of your junior year and you still couldn’t figure out why Peter had always given you the cold shoulder.

At first, you rationalized that he wasn’t keen on meeting new people. You got that, really, because meeting people you don’t know can make for an awkward situation and make people anxious overall. But weeks flew by and even MJ warmed up to you but the ever so bubbly Peter Parker that Ned was always talking about was nowhere in sight.

He was never outwardly mean to you but it was the little things you noticed. Like when he would scoot further away from you in the cafeteria or not invite you to a small get together if he was the one planning, even when you were with him. It was when he avoided eye contact and asked MJ to switch seats with him so he wouldn’t have to sit next to you in the backseat of Betty’s car and it was when he ignored you whenever you talked about the high marks you got on your biochemistry final.

You think that those subtle gestures hurt more than him telling you he doesn’t like you.

You hadn’t really spoken to Peter, per se. In the beginning, you both were trying to make awkward small talk for the sake of making friends, but when you clicked with Ned, Peter gave up. You quit trying a little later and you were positive the rest of your friend group tried to act like nothing was out of the ordinary.

You were accustomed to people not telling you things, but you wish you weren’t. You learned from your mother that it was best not to pry if people didn’t want to tell you something. After all, you learned you should never ask about your father when she had threatened to pull you out of Midtown Tech if you asked her about him one more time.

So when Peter completely stopped talking to you unless necessary, you didn’t bother asking him why he didn’t like you.

Not that you weren’t intrigued by the reasoning behind it, if any at all, but you were in no place to ask him because you didn’t really know him and you had just met him that year. Talk about an awkward situation.

So you’d sit in the cafeteria and laugh at Ned’s Star Wars puns and peek over MJ’s shoulders when she’s reading or on her phone, and listen intently to Betty’s school gossip to distract yourself from looking at Peter. You felt so uncomfortable and awkward knowing one person in your friend group wasn’t making an effort to be your friend.

But you pulled through because you hadn’t managed to become close with other people like you had with this group and you weren’t about to let one bad seed ruin the bunch.

“I think I failed the Spanish quiz,” Ned said with a sigh.

“Oh, why’s that?” you asked.

“I tried to remember everything I studied but nothing worked. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” he said, groaning.

“I’m sure Anna wouldn’t mind tutoring you,” you suggested. “She helped MJ get pretty good test results.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” Ned said dramatically as he gripped the straps of his backpack. “I gotta run to a doctor’s appointment. See you tomorrow?”

“See ya!” you said with a two-finger salute. You turned around in the opposite direction to walk home when you collided with Peter.

“O-Oh,” you said, regaining your balance. “Sorry Peter.”

“It’s fine,” he said quickly before walking away and ducking his head, not making eye contact with you once. You sighed, not expecting anything less but still disappointed in the outcome.

“He’s being weird,” MJ commented. “I think this is one mystery I can’t solve.”

“Great,” you said, exasperated. “You’re the most perceptive person I know and if you can’t figure out what’s wrong with Peter, no one can.”

“He’s been a bit strange, lately,” said MJ. “Disconnected, for sure. He leaves us a lot and backs out of plans last minute. Peter didn’t use to do that but after getting that Stark Internship, he’s been at Stark’s beck and will.”

“Oh, right, the internship,” you said. “Well, I wouldn’t know.”

“None of us would. He doesn’t talk about it and when he does, his job description seems to be all over the place. I mean, who fetches coffee and works with technology?” she asked rhetorically. “It’s whatever. Don’t take it too personally, okay?”

“It’s hard when he literally ignores me all the time,” you said, falling into step with MJ.

“The kid’s weird.”

“You guys are the same age.”

“I’m wise. Like, in my seventies, wise.”

“Touché,” you said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, MJ.”

***

You sat against the bed frame with a pillow propped up against your back, an iced coffee by your nightstand, and your computer on your lap. The bottom was warm after long use but you paid no attention as your eyes scanned the monitor. A digital copy of your birth certificate sat right in front of you with your mother’s name, your name, but no father listed. The blank space filled your thoughts with doubt and curiosity.

You didn’t know where to look. Being that your mother despised talking about your father, she gave you a copy of your birth certificate to prove that your father was a no-good person and she meant for that to be a reminder that you didn’t need to worry about him. But it fueled your interest even more.

You weren’t sure where you got your love for computer science from, but you were able to type on a keyboard at an early age. Add in a few extra classes during summertime at a community college, and you were good to go. Now, you were skilled enough to locate backdoor entrances to mainframes and encrypted hotlines in order to access data that wasn’t being shown to the public. Was it legal? Perhaps, perhaps not. It was still a gray area but you didn’t venture very far when you had accidentally gained access to Midtown’s security system and found out you could change student information from your computer at home, much like Ferris Bueller did when he lowered the amount of days he had been absent.

With this knowledge, you tried everything you could. Whether that be trying a family lineage website or hacking into your hospital medical records (to no avail), everything seemed to turn up empty and lead you down a path that was always cold.

You had considered asking the Avengers for help, but you didn’t know if they made house calls or responded to teenage girls who wanted to know who their father was. You didn’t think your conundrum, compared to what they dealt with, was that important.

So, you sighed and closed your laptop in frustration with yet another afternoon of relentless curiosity that led you nowhere. You sipped on your iced coffee from the metal straw before hearing a slurping sound and put the cup on the stand, telling yourself you’d take care of it later and decided to take a short nap, dreaming of two things: finding the identity of your father and finding out why Peter didn’t like you.

Across town, Peter and Ned were casually hanging out in Peter’s bedroom when Ned asked a question.

“How come you don’t like Y/N?”

Peter looked at him with surprise.

“W-What do you mean? Of course I like Y/N. She hangs out with us all the time.”

“Yeah, but you never talk to her,” he pointed out. “And when she tries to talk to you, you try to cut the conversation short or try to avoid her altogether. That’s weird, man.”

“I do not,” Peter said. Ned gave him a look. “I just don’t think we click.”

“How would you know that? You’ve never spent time with her alone and you don’t talk to her.”

“Call it a gut feeling,” he muttered.

“Peter, that’s really unfair to Y/N because you’re not giving her a chance to prove herself. You’re judging her without getting to know her.”

“Can we just drop it, Ned?” Peter pleaded. “You sound like MJ and I don’t need to be scolded today.”

Ned sighed, obviously torn between wanting to respect his best friend’s wishes, but also trying to put you in a good light because he genuinely cares for you. He was in the crossfire and in an awkward spot but he knew that he didn’t want to lose either of you any time soon.

“Maybe you should ask her to hang out.”

“Ned,” Peter said, more sternly this time.

“Okay, okay. No more Y/N talk, got it.”

There was an awkward minute of silence before Ned spoke up again.

“So, uh, how are things going with your Spider-Man gig?”

“Pretty good,” Peter said, his mood changing almost instantly. Ned was grateful that he was distracted with Spider-Man talk. “Mr. Stark’s upgrading my suit a little and he’s updating Karen, adding some defensive-combat skills. I don’t really know what that means but he said he’d show me this weekend.”

“Being an Avenger must be so cool.”

Peter became flustered. “I mean, it’s pretty cool.”

“Maybe I can meet Tony one day. What do you say?” Peter gave him a look. “One day,” he said nonchalantly. “Do you think Y/N likes the Avengers?”

“Ned,” Peter said sternly. “I don’t want to talk about Y/N right now, okay? If you really need to know, something about her rubs me the wrong way and until I can figure out why, it’s for the best.”

“Why don’t you just ask her?”

“Oh yeah,” said Peter, sarcastically. “Like she’s going to tell me. What if she tells me a lie?”

“You have a point,” he said. “Well, do I stop talking to her?”

Peter sighed. “Do what you want, man. All I’m saying is we can’t trust her.”

“Is this Peter or Spider-Man talking?”

“I don’t know,” Peter confessed. “Just be careful, okay?”

“I think you’re thinking way too deeply into this,” Ned began. “You’ve barely spoken to her and you’ve done nothing to figure out why you hate her so much.”

“I don’t hate her,” Peter replied.

“Well, it sure looks like it. I can see that she gets a little hurt when you don’t invite her to things and MJ and I have to cover for you and say we didn’t know you didn’t invite her.”

“What can I do, Ned?” Peter asked. “Everything in me is telling me not to trust her because she’s got some weird thing going on with her.”

“And you would know if you spent more time with her,” Ned suggested. “Look, I’m not asking you to become her best friend, but she’s been a part of our friend group since last semester and you’re giving her the cold shoulder.”

“It’s probably for a good reason.”

“No, you’re just being a dumb teenager, Peter.”

“So you don’t believe me?”

Ned shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what to believe. I’ve never doubted you and I’m not doubting you now, but you’re not giving Y/N the benefit of the doubt, and you’re making assumptions without even getting to know her. Even MJ likes her.”

“Okay, I guess you made a point. And yeah, if MJ liked her right off the bat then I guess that counts for something.” Ned smiled and held up his hand for a high-five.

“There you go! I’m sure Spider-Man will figure something out, but Peter Parker needs to be a good friend. She seems so defeated whenever you’re around because she knows you don’t like her.”

“I don’t not like her. I’m just…cautious.”

“You being cautious has never worked well for anyone,” Ned said, rolling his eyes. “But then again, neither has being reckless. Just stick in the gray area, okay? You can operate there.”

“Jesus, you even sound like Mr. Stark,” Peter said, rolling his eyes with a laugh.

“Wanna grab some sandwiches from Delmar’s? I’m kind of starving right now.”

“You read my mind.”

***

Taglist:

@kath94210 @sessi03 @olliekookie @edgyhargreeves @simonsbluee @meraki--me @sleep-i-ness @amourski @zaynjawy @captainlarsonn @katiemcrae @holyhellthatbook @madeismyname @bands-and-shietz @janndishstuff17 @janndishstuff17 @knightofreaders @rororo06 @unfortunateshelbyrt @princessizzy36 @psychicforest.

#peter parker #my writing #ateotd

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stylesnews · 5 years

Link

After the triumph of the solo debut, Harry Styles is back. With a tour and a very personal new album. But how do you overcome fears and pressures? The former One Direction has made a discovery: always trying to make others happy is a trap. Last December, Fine Line, the second album by Harry Styles, was released after the sensational success of the album Harry Styles, solo debut of 2017. In April the world tour he begins a world tour, which will also touch Italy with two dates: May 15 in Turin and on the 16th in Bologna. Twenty-six years old, English, the singer has managed to build a solid career by starting on his own after the farewell to One Direction, a boy band active only six years (from 2010 to 2016) but already entered the history of pop. Harry Styles never gives interviews. Below is an exclusive for Vanity Fair:

After a very demanding tour for his solo debut, he took a well-deserved break. When did you hear that he was ready for the second album? «In fact, I went back to the studio early, perhaps already two weeks after the end of the tour, which motivated me a lot, I knew what kind of music I wanted to do and I felt I had to ride that feeling and start from there. So I decided to take that energy and start without asking myself many questions. "

Was it more difficult to work on the first album or to make your second job after the success of your debut? «The process that leads to the creation of an album is very long, you tend to exceed, you are continuously focused on yourself and your work and everything inevitably turns into a series of ups and downs. Thus, sometimes you feel that everything is going perfectly and at other times you are frustrated and unsure of what you are doing. I think one of the biggest advantages of this album is that it allowed me to think about what success had represented for me. During the making of the album I redefined the way I perceive success, comparing myself with friends. There was a phase in which I asked myself what kind of album I had to make; at one point I was happy to say "I have to do this now", and I remember telling Tyler (Johnson, the producer, ed) all the album ideas I wanted to do in the next five or ten years and he said: you have to just dedicate yourself to the album you want to do now, it's the only thing you can do. I was very impressed. Then, another friend with whom I was talking about what it meant to be successful told me that if you are happy nobody can tell you that you have failed. So I looked back to the moments when I was most satisfied with what I was doing and it was always the moments when I was happiest. So I decided to focus on this strategy: rather than trying to make others happy, always do what makes me happy, in order to be satisfied with the result. Letting go of all those constraints that had blocked me for a while, such as streaming data or numbers, was truly liberating. "

Lights Up gives the feeling of being a truly cathartic single, from the current sounds to the imagery of the lyrics. What made it the perfect single for our day? «Lights Up was the most anomalous song I ever made, from the way it was written to the recording phase: everything was written starting from vocal notes, Tyler sent me a track, there was a continuous exchange of notes vowels and finally I wrote the lyrics. Then we went to the studio together, we recorded it quickly enough, until the second day I said "we have to enter the choir", but it's something we usually do in the end. Anyway, we inserted it and completed the song, but this choice totally changed its structure ".

The term "light" often occurs in his songs, as do references to fruits. Is it an intentional choice? "In reality there is always a strong element of randomness, I have never explicitly decided to focus on the theme of fruit. There is a lot of fruit in my music, but I don't know why. At the beginning, when we wrote Kiwi, we called it that way thinking about changing the name later but then it seemed strange because we had always called it Kiwi, so we decided to leave it that way. And in the end there is a lot of fruit on this album, I wish I could say that I had foreseen and planned everything, but in reality it is not so ".

Many songs on this album dedicated to ending a relationship seem to become an inner monologue. Some of the toughest moments of songs like Cherry and To Be So Lonely are incredibly intense to listen to. Was it therapeutic to convey such raw inner reflections into your songs? «Writing has always been very therapeutic for me. When I sit down to create a song, I don't think about the fact that I'm exposing myself and I think this helps me open up, so if I compose a very personal text, I don't think about what people will say about it, because I write the song for myself. I think it's a really therapeutic process. It allows me to enclose certain moods in a three-minute song, to then overcome them and move forward. "

He turned his motto, "Treat People with Kindness" (be nice to others), into a song. Was this an idea you already had in mind when you started using this phrase on your first tour? "Treat People with Kindness was the last song made for the album; I wrote it at the end, even if from the first tour I thought of turning the motto into a song, but I had no idea how. At one point, while I was in the studio and we were working on this idea, I said to myself "is it too banal?", And Jeff (Bhasker, producer, ed) replied "why don't you just do it?". And the same thing happened with Kiwi, we joked about how fun it would be to write a song that said "I am having your baby, it's none of your business" (I'm expecting a baby from you, it's none of your business). Then came the rest of the song and the first time I sang it I didn't know whether to love it or hate it. I had no idea what it was, I had never done a song like that, so I felt a little uncomfortable; then I realized that it wasn't necessarily positive or negative that it seemed strange to me, in any case now I can say that I like it ».

The lyrics of many of his songs are decidedly intense: are you nervous about having to sing them live every night? "Actually, an interesting thing happens. With the songs you go through various moments: you start writing them and for a long time they are something of your own; then you start singing them for other people and you hear them differently, at the end the concerts come and it's as if you take them to a different level. I wouldn't say I'm nervous. Of course, some songs are sadder than others, but it would be a problem to have to sing them every night only if I hated them, instead I like them, so I'm honest, that's all. I am happy that those songs become like snapshots of certain moments; I don't live the sad songs in a negative way, I think rather that they are the positive result of more difficult moments ».

Last year he spent some time in Japan. Why Japan? Is there any unforgettable experience of this trip that you would like to share? "I was in Japan because I realized that I had never traveled alone and I wanted to spend some time in solitude; the time I spent there was very important. I had the opportunity to reflect for the first time on what had happened to me in the last seven years of life and I would say that my most intense memory is simply walking in the city. One evening I was walking back from a friend's house and while walking through the crowded streets of Japan I listened to Bill Evans, it was an incredible and special moment ».

What should we expect from your Love on Tour? "Looking back, it seems incredible to me that we managed to create a real show with the latest album. With the new one, everything will be more joyful, more fun, more free and I feel that many songs will be perfect for live concerts. I can't wait for it to start, it will be a crazy experience. "

#vanity fair italy #harry styles #feb20

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hlupdate · 5 years

Link

Last December, Fine Line, the second album by Harry Styles, was released after the sensational success of the album Harry Styles, solo debut of 2017. In April the world tour will begin, which will also touch Italy with two dates: May 15 in Turin and on the 16th in Bologna. Twenty-six years old, English, the singer has managed to build a solid career by starting on his own after the farewell to One Direction, a boy band active only six years (from 2010 to 2016) but already entered the history of pop. Harry Styles never gives interviews.

Below is an exclusive for Vanity Fair.

After a very demanding tour for his solo debut, he took a well-deserved break.

When did you hear that he was ready for the second album?

«In fact, I went back to the studio early, perhaps already two weeks after the end of the tour, which motivated me a lot, I knew what kind of music I wanted to do and I felt I had to ride that feeling and start from there. So I decided to take that energy and start without asking myself many questions. "

Was it more difficult to work on the first album or to make your second job after the success of your debut?

«The process that leads to the creation of an album is very long, you tend to exceed, you are continuously focused on yourself and your work and everything inevitably turns into a series of ups and downs. Thus, sometimes you feel that everything is going perfectly and at other times you are frustrated and unsure of what you are doing. I think one of the biggest advantages of this album is that it allowed me to think about what success had represented for me. During the making of the album I redefined the way I perceive success, comparing myself with friends. There was a phase in which I asked myself what kind of album I had to make; at one point I was happy to say "I have to do this now", and I remember telling Tyler (Johnson, the producer, ed) all the album ideas I wanted to do in the next five or ten years and he said: you have to just dedicate yourself to the album you want to do now, it's the only thing you can do. I was very impressed. Then, another friend with whom I was talking about what it meant to be successful told me that if you are happy nobody can tell you that you have failed. So I looked back to the moments when I was most satisfied with what I was doing and it was always the moments when I was happiest. So I decided to focus on this strategy: rather than trying to make others happy, always do what makes me happy, in order to be satisfied with the result. Letting go of all those constraints that had blocked me for a while, such as streaming data or numbers, was truly liberating. "

Lights Up gives the feeling of being a truly cathartic single, from the current sounds to the imagery of the lyrics. What made it the perfect single for our day?

«Lights Up was the most anomalous song I ever made, from the way it was written to the recording phase: everything was written starting from vocal notes, Tyler sent me a track, there was a continuous exchange of notes vowels and finally I wrote the lyrics. Then we went to the studio together, we recorded it quickly enough, until the second day I said "we have to enter the choir", but it's something we usually do in the end. Anyway, we inserted it and completed the song, but this choice totally changed its structure ".

The term "light" often occurs in his songs, as do references to fruits. Is it an intentional choice?

"In reality there is always a strong element of randomness, I have never explicitly decided to focus on the theme of fruit. There is a lot of fruit in my music, but I don't know why. At the beginning, when we wrote Kiwi, we called it that way thinking about changing the name later but then it seemed strange because we had always called it Kiwi, so we decided to leave it that way. And in the end there is a lot of fruit on this album, I wish I could say that I had foreseen and planned everything, but in reality it is not so ".

Many songs on this album dedicated to ending a relationship seem to become an inner monologue. Some of the hardest moments of songs like Cherry and To Be So Lonely are incredibly intense to listen to. Was it therapeutic to convey such raw inner reflections into your songs?

«Writing has always been very therapeutic for me. When I sit down to create a song, I don't think about the fact that I'm exposing myself and I think this helps me open up, so if I compose a very personal text I don't think what people will say about it, because I write the song for me . I think it's a really therapeutic process. It allows me to enclose certain moods in a three-minute song, to then overcome them and move forward. "

He transformed his motto, "Treat People with Kindness" (be nice to others), into a song. Was this an idea you already had in mind when you started using this phrase on your first tour?

"Treat People with Kindness was the last song made for the album; I wrote it at the end, even if from the first tour I thought of turning the motto into a song, but I had no idea how. At one point, while I was in the studio and we were working on this idea, I said to myself "is it too banal?", And Jeff (Bhasker, producer, ed) replied "why don't you just say it?". And the same thing happened with Kiwi, we joked about how fun it would be to write a song that said "I am having your baby, it's none of your business" (I'm expecting a baby from you, it's none of your business). Then came the rest of the song and the first time I sang it I didn't know whether to love it or hate it. I had no idea what it was, I had never done a song like that, so I felt a little uncomfortable; then I realized that it wasn't necessarily positive or negative that it seemed strange to me, in any case now I can say that I like it ».

The lyrics of many of his songs are decidedly intense: are you nervous about having to sing them live every night?

"Actually, an interesting thing happens. With the songs you go through various moments: you start writing them and for a long time they are something of your own; then you start singing them for other people and you hear them differently, at the end the concerts come and it's as if you take them to a different level. I wouldn't say I'm nervous. Of course, some songs are sadder than others, but it would be a problem to have to sing them every night only if I hated them, instead I like them, so I'm honest, that's all. I am happy that those songs become like snapshots of certain moments; I don't live the sad songs in a negative way, I think rather that they are the positive result of more difficult moments ».

Last year he spent some time in Japan. Why Japan? Is there any unforgettable experience of this trip that you would like to share?

"I was in Japan because I realized that I had never traveled alone and I wanted to spend some time in solitude; the time I spent there was very important. I had the opportunity to reflect for the first time on what had happened to me in the last seven years of life and I would say that my most intense memory is simply walking in the city. One evening I walked home from a friend's house and while walking through the crowded streets of Japan I listened to Bill Evans, it was an incredible and special moment ».

What should we expect from your Love on Tour?

"Looking back, it seems incredible to me that we managed to create a real show with the latest album. With the new one, everything will be more joyful, more fun, more free and I feel that many songs will be perfect for live concerts. I can't wait for it to start, it will be a crazy experience."

#harry styles #vanity fair italy #180220

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luna-memoria · 5 years

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Reposting because my hand slipped and deleted the whole friggin' post ahhhhh

Anyways have this KaiAo police AU I've had lying around for months.

Honestly, Aoko didn't expect Kaitou KID to turn up despite having agreed to.

She'd been sitting in the corner Starbucks of the street near her house for the past ten minutes, which was precisely twenty minutes before her agreed meeting time with KID. She figured it'll be a good idea to check out the place for any suspicious activity, despite being quite sure the person in question wouldn't pull anything funny for the sake of his silly honor or something, but that idea seemed pretty extra when a man holding a cup of hot chocolate call strolling up next to her. The name on his cup said 'Katsuki', a name that put a smirk on her face.

"There's still quite some time before one o'clock, you know," she said, scanning the man thoroughly.

"Now now. It wouldn't be very gentlemanly of me to let a lovely lady wait, would it?" commented the man - Kaitou KID - with a slightly apologetic tone. "I didn't make you wait long, did I?"

She shook her head, amused. "I just arrived earlier than you. Please take a seat."

"So. Anything you're interested in knowing?" he asked first thing upon plopping down into his seat. A grin. "I'm pretty certain this isn't just a normal date to ask about my life in the past four years, Aoko-chan~~"

Aoko gave him her best glare, but chose to say nothing. She was an adult, for crying out loud. Not that same high school student who gets pissed at every little thing KID does to get a reaction out of her. Yes, she can handle this maturely like an adult.

"You can say there's something I want to ask you," she said, fingers fumbling as they wrapped around her paper cup and brought it up to her face. Yes, the fresh scent of coffee was exactly what needed to keep her sane and cool. She eyed his attire. It was one of his more casual 'disguises', if she could even call it one. He wore a fine dark green jacket over a black turtleneck and jeans, accompanied by glasses and a cap. She wanted to make some kind of statement, something to make fun of his disguise, but it somehow did a good job of securing his identity, so it didn't seem right to say such a thing. Maybe it had something to do with experience of using the same freaking disguise for years without fail.

Too immersed in thought, she didn't realize her intense gaze placed on the thief before her. He had to wave to get her out of her brief daze.

"Is that cup of yours gonna be hauled at me if I say something that upsets you?" he asked with a pointed finger.

She smirked. "Depends. Are you gonna say something that will upset me?"

"Well, I hardly know what will upset you, Nakamori-san." He shrugged.

"Lies," she offered. "I'd hate those, when I had to go through all this trouble to contact you for this date."

His eyes darted up at her, she noticed, no thanks to the thick shades casted on his face by the cap. Reading people was what Aoko considered to be her talent, an ability she gained in hopes of becoming more understanding of her best friend who always tried to fool her with some stupid 'poker face'-

No. This was not a good time to think of him of all people. She was on an important mission right now, which, even if the police force didn't know, might have something to do with the criminal group they've been investigating for months but failed to get any leads on. This… this was a good chance for her to shine, and possibly clear up the business she had with KID, from her high school years. Even if she knew she had next to zero chance of ever capturing him, she wanted to know his secret- the mystery behind his persona. He was not just some thief who seemed attention or money, and her experiences with criminals so far told her that some had stories behind their actions.

She wanted to know the story that made KID decide to keep on his facade for so many years.

"You can rest assured then. I wouldn't come all the way here to lie to you."

"Then I expect you will answer whatever questions I have with honesty."

"You sound like a mom talking to her child, if I'm being honest."

She glared.

"Okay, okay. Ask away. I'll give you whatever info I can give."

Now, that asked for a direct question. "What is your motive for returning?"

He frowned. "Pardon?"

"There's a reason for your return, I'm sure. After disappearing for four whole years. I want to know that reason."

"And here I thought you were going to ask me something related to the… well, object of your investigations."

"That'll be for later."

"If you say so," he said, leaning back and stretching his legs lazily as he took a sip of his drink. "I was just there to work, which I can't see why you would interest yourself in."

"I want to know."

"…I'm sure you've noticed that I've stopped with those dazzling heists of mine?"

"Yes. I probably wouldn't have learnt of your return if I didn't run into you at the crime scene the other day."

"I was on duty, collecting data for someone."

"As in?"

"My employer."

She huffed, crossing her arms. "That does not answer my question."

"I told you I'd answer what I could. The name of my employer is one of the things I couldn't disclose to anyone. Don't most jobs have this common rule saying 'keep each client's info secret' or something?"

"Fine then. What were you doing then? I suppose you are allowed to tell me the events of your job?"

"You know what politicians love the most, Nakamori-san?"

"What?" she narrowed her eyes, surprised by the sudden turn of conversation. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's the best description I can give you regarding my activities near your job site."

"Wait. You're not telling me you now work to collect blackmail for politicians, are you?!" Aoko exclaimed in a sharp whisper, self-conscious of the few stares they were starting to earn from the surrounding customers. She wondered if she should have picked a more private space after all, but who knew when the suspicious character from back then at the crime scene was gonna make his return? She didn't know if the person - whoever he was - was a threat at all, but she had a bad feeling that something bad was happening in due time, and she didn't want to risk anything.

"You think so highly of me, Nakamori-san," he said, tone tainted with sarcasm. "I hardly think politicians would trust a thief like me to do their dirty work - if they could even afford my services in the first place." Noting how Aoko didn't respond, he continued. "I was in the bar that night. I don't know if you police inspectors know this, but there was a meeting between two gun smugglers - Kurosawa and Kaizaki - last night somewhere in Shibuya."

Aoko nodded. "I think I've heard something of the sort."

"I happen to know this Kurosawa always meets up with his lover in this bar, and he always tells her everything - and I mean it when I say everything." KID produced a feather in his hands all of a sudden, fiddling with it in a way Aoko thought she recognized. Maybe all magicians have that habit, she thought. "My quest was to record everything and send it to my employer, which was a fairly simple task, as the guy completely lost his cautiousness with that woman."

He paused briefly, fingers still playing with the feather. "It's funny how easy it was get that info with just a woman. To think that man was considered one of the hardest criminals to track down…" Aoko raised an eyebrow at his out-of-the-place sentence, but cleared her throat preparing for her next question.

"I see. From what I understand, you're being paid to gather info about someone who happens to be one of the most difficult criminals around."

"You can say that."

"What are you, doing that kind of thing?"

"I'm fairly sure there was a character like that in that favorite detective series of yours, wasn't there?" KID remarked with a smile, his grip on the feather tightened. He turned his gaze back to Aoko, which made her shy away as a result.

"And how would you know what detective series I like?"

"Oh? I was fairly certain, you seem like the type to read Holmes."

"Never mind that. It's none of your concern."

"You are correct, but I thought you may be the one to be concerned, seeing I'm talking about the very man the great detective called the worst man in London."

"I believe you are talking about The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton," she replied. "It's one of my favorite stories in the series."

"So I guess that adds to the list of things I know about you, hm?"

"The tiny list of things you know about me," she snarled.

"Fine, fine, geesh. You're still as fiery as I remember, Nakamori-san, except that you're a police detective now. Should I call you Inspector Nakamori for the nostalgia-"

"Don't. Don't mention my father, he's not supposed to be involved in all this mess after everything you've put him through over the years."

"That's… fair." He didn't say anything besides that, and the sudden silence spooked Aoko a little, since KID was always joking and making cheesy remarks every chance he could when they interacted. Seeing him at a loss of words didn't feel as good as she'd thought it would be.

Deciding to steer the conversation back on it's original direction, Aoko spoke first, breaking the brief silence. "So. Milverton, huh? I never thought a day would come where I'd associate the great Kaitou KID with a character like him."

A Cheshire grin spread across the thief's face once again, and Aoko almost smacked herself for feeling the slightest bit of relief. That relief was gone instantly though as he purred, "Great Kaitou KI-"

KID paused his tracks, noting Aoko's expression. His face sunk (at the loss of a chance to mess with her, probably).

"Well, I don't think this Milverton character is deserving of all this hate you put in. In fact, I think he's pretty smart, using secrets of other people to make money…"

"Like you apparently do now? Is that why you compared yourself to him?"

"I'm not all bad, Nakamori-san, contrast to your belief. Sure I sell secrets, but not the kind your character would be interested in. I'd collect that if I were paparazzi…" He stopped, like the mere thought of that scared him (or excited him, she couldn't really tell.) "… But the information I come across usually results in the deforming of illegal groups, arrests of smugglers and so. You can call me a spy… or something along the lines of that."

"As if you'd be so noble," she scoffed, more out of habit than actual scorn. It has never affected him much before when she did it in high school, so why would he be bothered by it now?

Her assumptions were proved wrong however, as KID lowered his face, bitterness fading back into his voice.

"Perhaps I've always been, it's just that you refuse to see it for yourself, Nakamori-san."

That… was out of the blue. Aoko didn't know what she could say to respond - an acknowledgement? That probably wouldn't help much in a situation as awkward as the one before her, so she just spat what the usual, fiery her would say.

"I know exactly what I see."

"If you insist." He hopped off his comfy spot on the couch, grabbing his keys and coffee cup from the table. Aoko knew for sure her words caused discomfort in him, but there wasn't anything she could do to stop him.

There goes her chance to gather more information.

What was she going to do to track down a new lead?

"Wait! I'm not done with my questions yet-!"

He eyed her sideways, "there's always next time."

She was almost certain he was going to leave, but no, not yet.

Much to her surprise, KID stopped by her and pulled her close enough to whisper in her ear. "Oh, and Nakamori-san? Not all spies have noble intentions. Thought you had the right to know, seeing that there's one like that right in your department."

He pulled away, a fake smile visible on his face. "And that'll be all for today! I look forward to your next date together, Aoko-chan!" he exclaimed cheerily, giving her a small salute as he skipped out of the cafe.

It took her a whole minute to precess his words, and the conclusion she got wasn't one she liked.

#dcmk #detective conan #magic kaito #aoko nakamori #kaito kuroba #kaitou kid #kaiao #my writing #uhhhh #my art #i guess #not that there'll be an art tag on this blog but whatever #long post

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vulpinmusings · 5 years

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Ski’tar and Friends part 17: Envar’s Wild Tour

This week, Ski’tar, 6, and Vemir follow a drugged-out teenage Lashunta around a highly secured space station run by a probably-evil corporation. Headaches ensue.

The Dawn of this Nonsense

The Prior Incident

Archive

There were a few false starts before Envar managed to locate the elevator, since he had all the mental coherency of a bowl of pudding. Eventually, though, he managed to both get into the elevator and decide on a destination at the same time, and we went down to a level on the station chock full of very secure doors. When we stepped out of the elevator, we were greeted by a pre-recorded hologram of Llia Tam, Envar’s mom and CEO of Arch-Energy Consortium. The message was a basic but very firm reminder to all employees to maintain a proper level of security with their personal passwords. Envar talked back to the hologram, confusing it for the real Llia, and complained that he just couldn’t remember all the complicated passwords.

The hologram had nothing to say in reply.

Once the hologram had switched off, Envar took us to a door locked with a retinal scan and unlocked it for us. It led to another, fancier elevator. We got off in what looked to be a lounge for high-class station employees. At the far end, past a set of glass doors, was a bar staffed by androids wearing crisp white suits. The android at the door welcomed us, checked our weapons and Vemir’s coat, and then Envar took us to the bar itself, which was tended by a Kasatha with two extra prosthetic arms. That makes six total.

Envar ordered the strongest cocktail available, while my companions opted for something more normal. I ended up getting served a whiskey because I hesitated too much. Luckily for my sobriety I never had to drink it, because just as the bartender set the glass in front of me, there was a commotion at the doors. A rough female Ysoki flanked by two Vesk had come barging in, shoving the maitre d’ aside and making a beeline for Envar. The Ysoki was demanding money that Envar owed, but our good buddy was still way too high on trans-dimensional pesh to register anything besides the fact that the Ysoki was fluffy and pet-able. Vemir managed to catch Envar’s hand before he could do any actual petting, and I stepped up to try and defuse the situation.

I’m not sure if was our shared species or my calm logic, but I got the lady to calm down enough to acknowledge that Envar was clearly needed time to come back down to reality enough to worth threatening. She wasn’t willing to just walk away or sit around, though, so she proposed a bet: if we won a challenge of strength against her Vesk or a battle of wits against her, she’d give Envar another week before coming to collect.

After sizing up the Vesk and discussing matters among ourselves, we agreed that I would take on the battle of wits. The challenge turned out to be a game of Farlay’s Crossing, a simplified recreation of a major battle between the Pact and the Swarm; whoever eliminated their opponent’s fleet was the winner. I chose to play as the Swarm, and that may have tipped the scales because the Ysoki lady said the Swarm was her preferred faction. It was a close game, as the first five rounds went to whoever was taking the agressor’s turn. In the sixth round, when I had two ships against her last, I finally managed to pull off a defense that beat her attack, eliminating her final ship.

The Ysoki was upset about losing, but I’d been turning the charm on during the game, complimenting her successes and not gloating over my own, so she left without further fuss beyond giving me some flirty looks and pushing a sample of pesh onto me. I held onto the drug just in case we needed something to nudge Envar later on.

Envar had sobered up somewhat during the course of the Farlay’s Crossing game, so he took less time guiding us to his next destination: the observatory lab at the top of the station. When we arrived, Envar promptly got lost in the star-field displayed on one of the screens in the antechamber and didn’t snap out of it until Vemir knocked on one of the retina-locked doors leading farther in. The next room contained the telescope and a number of consoles for controlling the various systems. Another hologram of Llia appeared with a warning about the restricted access rules for the observatory, but Envar just waved that off and went to the consoles, saying he wanted to get a “new high score” on what he assumed was just a vidgame.

We rushed after Envar to try and keep him out of trouble, but before we could even start trying to talk him down he’d somehow configured a dimensional shield to focus the surface of the local star right on top of us. The room grew blindingly bright and a couple spots started getting dangerously hot, heralding the arrival of two sunspot fire elementals.

We wrestled Envar out of the chair and I took his place to reset the dimensional shield before any more elementals appeared, and this while one of the things was breathing down my neck and bathing me in radiation. Vemir and 6 pulled out their arc pistol and frostbite rifle, respectively, and laid in to one of the Elementals. Once I’d gotten the shield out of the danger zone, I ordered my drone to physcially shove the other elemental back, since I figured the drone’s laser would be next to worthless against beings made of literal fire. The drone managed to throw the elemental into the wall once, but after that only succeeded in holding it in place until it bashed my drone into a pile of slag. I threw a pair of shock grenades and a frag, all to some success, but then the second elemental got back up in my face and gave me a slap as I tried to scurry away. I dodged around the first elemental, which was looking a lot less hot after suffering a lot of cryo-bullets and electrocution, and knifed the thing in the back as I regained my feet. That proved to be enough to discorporate the first elemental. 6 did one better, landing a cryo shot on the remaining elemental in just the right spot to turn the whole thing into cool rock just long enough for a roundhouse kick to destroy it.

Envar took a picture of us catching our breaths following that fiasco, and judging by his reaction the pic went viral after he posted it to social media. He then took us around the lab and let us loot several lockers. We found a few good things, and figured that if we managed to get out the station without further incident then the blame for everything would just fall on Envar’s shoulders. Vemir found a deactivated spy drone hidden behind a locker and took it in case it had any data that historia-7 might be interested in. After looking over the remains of my drone, I salvaged its laser pistol and decided it would be better to just leave the rest and rebuild the drone from scratch.

Envar was at a bit of a loss for where to take us next, so we seized the opening by implying we had an interest in Arch-energy Consortium’s operations. We intended to get Envar to lead us somewhere close to his mother’s office and then ditch him to break in, but he declared the only part of the business area that wasn’t boring was his mother’s office.

So, that proved to be easier than planned, for once.

During the elevator ride, a pair of Vesk in station security uniforms joined us for a few floors and gave our group suspicious looks. They got off without saying anything, but I knew our odds of a clean getaway had just taken a bit of a dive. We got to the door of Llia’s office without trouble, but when Envar opened the door he was dismayed to discover a new, second set of doors just inside. I managed to hack the lock without tripping the silent alarm, and we went inside.

Llia Tam’s taste of decorations leaned toward the ancient. There were old parchment maps and oil paintings on the wall, racks of wine, and a model of the Pact Worlds hanging from the ceiling. The only proper technology was the computer on the desk. While 6 and Vemir distracted Envar by asking for wine and chatting about one of the paintings, I went to the desk and started doing my thing. Then Envar offered me some wine and asked what I was doing. 6 said I was just checking the firmware, and I added that I was going to try and alter the second door’s security so Envar could get through himself.

I was lying, of course. All I was interested in was finding any data that looked like it would be damaging to Arch-Energy if the Starfinders were to posses it. I located a set of files locked behind two-factor authentication; I would need Envar’s keycard and hack a password. I managed to non-verbally convey my first need to 6, who smoothly swiped Envar’s keycard and passed it to me, and the password gave me little difficulty. The hidden data was still heavily encrypted, but I was able to determine that it proved that Arch-Eenrgy Consortium was a front for a secretive corporate group that operated through false identities. I copied everything of value for the Data-philes to take a crack at later.

With the data now in hand, we asked Envar to walk us back to our ship so that his presence would dissuade any suspicious parties from acting until we were back in space. As we started flying away, we spotted two security drones following us. I obstructed their attempts to scan us, so they found nothing incriminating and we got into the Drift without a fight.

Historia-7 was pleased with both the data and the spy drone. She actually smiled for a split second! She sent everything off for analysis, and as our debriefing came to an end some results came back. Historia didn’t give away and details, but she did say that Zigvigix, the Exo-guardian leader, would need to know some of what had been uncovered.

Envar sent us an invitation to his 24th birthday party, but none of us had any intention of putting up with him again without a big ulterior motive. Historia-7 overheard this conversation and, for some reason, felt it was important that we maintain a presence in Envar’s life, so she “volunteered” some other Starfinders to go in our place.

#ski'tar #Starfinder #Vulpin plays

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emperorsfoot · 5 years

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Chapter five is up!

We get to see how Entrapta’s doing on Beast Island.

Meanwhile, Glimmer copes with the responsibilities of being a Queen.

...

“Day five on Beast Island. Four? No, five.” Entrapta wasn’t speaking into anything. She lost her recorder in her lab. At least she thought she did, her recollection of events was a little spotty on the details. But she knew for sure that she didn’t have it now. She was just filling the air with her narrations and notes out of habit. “I have not seen any signs of the guards implementing my improvements to spite my multiple suggestions.”

Using her hair to lift her, Entrapta peered out her cell’s tiny window. Barely the size of her welding mask, it was too small for her to fit her body through, and it was high up, near where the wall of her cell met the ceiling. Too high to provide decent ventilation. But it was the only source of airflow in her cell in the Horde Prison Complex on Beast Island. Unless the even smaller panel at floor level they used to slide in her daily meal –meal singular- counted as ventilation.

“They could cut down on the smell by sixty percent if they just renovated and installed an air circulation system.” Entrapta continued to narrate. She even curled a tendril of hair as if it were holding a recorder, even going to far as to leave a gap. Pantomiming the device close to her face. “Better air quality would also improve prisoner health by thirty percent and lower the mortality rate.”

“Shut-up!” Someone shouted from the cell next to hers.

They were separated by a solid stone wall –stone, not metal paneling and insulation- but they could still hear each other through the open windows near the ceiling of each cell. Sound tended to carry in close quarters. Entrapta could hear them moaning or crying at night, and they could hear her analyzing and assessing.

“An improvement in prisoner health will also cause an improvement in prisoner moral.” She noted. “Higher moral would mean fewer escape attempts and a lowered risk for the guards.”

“Would someone shut her up!” The same prisoner called, almost desperately. She had been monologueing for the past five days. Outlining ‘improvements’ to the prison as if she were some kind of Horde engineer that was just visiting on an inspection. Most of the other prisoners that could hear her didn’t know what to make of her. A few grew very irritated very quickly.

“To spite these positive outcomes,” Entrapta leaned back on her hair. Almost doing a back flip as she twisted in the air, lowering herself back onto her feet, “There has been no perceptible evidence of these suggestions being taken seriously. This leads me to wonder if the guards lack the ability to understand what I’ve been telling them, or else I’m not explaining myself effectively. Communicating successfully with other people has always been… challenging for me.”

Her shoulders drooped. That loop of hair that was pantomiming holding her recorder slackened. All of her hair hanging limp around her body. Communicating with other people and forming connections always had been a challenge for her. Not an exhilarating challenge like unraveling the mysteries of multiple dimensions and the portals to traverse them. A frustratingly exhausting challenge. Whenever she thought she understood someone, or found someone who understood her, the reality did not turn out to fit the calculated data.

She thought Adora, Bow, and Glimmer were her friends. But then they left her in the Fright Zone after Glimmer was rescued. Adora said it was because they thought she was dead. But Adora didn’t give any evidence to support why she thought that. That was a problem within the Princess Alliance. They often just assumed things without evidence. Made hypotheses, then just decided those hypotheses were true before testing them.

She thought Catra was her friend. Of all the data Entrapta had complied in her computer, Catra had the highest marks in all categories. In voice pitch, pupil dilation, support of Entrapta’s work (pre-portal project), physical proximity, unnecessary touching… Catra scored high in them all. Entrapta truly thought Catra was her friend. She even put forth the extra effort and went out of her way to convince Hordak to overturn his sentencing on her and show leniency. Entrapta saved Catra’s life –because that’s what you do for your friends! But Catra tazed her in the back.

She thought Hordak was her friend. Entrapta was so preoccupied with their portal research that she stopped entering data into her Friendship Assessment Algorithm, so she did not have the empirical measurements to support her, but she felt like he was a very special friend. At least, she certainly enjoyed being around him more than she did around any of her other friends. Hordak did something none of her other friends did, he shared her interests and her passions.

Catra tried to be supportive. Going out into the Whispering Woods to get First Ones tech for her research. Coming with her on missions to study abandoned First Ones structures. Encouraging her to experiment to the fullest, like with the black garnet. But Catra didn’t really understand what Entrapta was doing. She didn’t understand the process. She mostly just appreciated the results.

Bow understood the process. He was an amateur inventor. Entrapta thought his trick arrows were cute, and his First Ones tracker pad was a stroke of genius –when he could get it to work. But Bow thought on such a small scale. He was not on the same level as Entrapta was, and while it was nice to have a friend who understood that science wasn’t a magic spell, it was a technique for learning and discovery, it was also exhausting having to hold someone’s hand all the time.

But Hordak… Hordak was different. He was the best of each of them. Like Bow, he understood the process. That science was a means of learning, of exploring, and then achieving. But, unlike Bow, his inventions were on the exact same level as her own. The power source he was creating when she first snuck into his Sanctum. The cybernetic implants he used to compensate for his body’s physical limitations. He was brilliant! Broody, and easily frustrated. But brilliant none the less. And he was supportive and encouraging of Entrapta’s own passion for the work. In short, Hordak was kinda perfect, and they clicked instantly. Entrapta had never related to, and connected with another person so easily and naturally in her whole life. She thought Hordak was her friend.

But, Hordak was also the overlord of the entire Horde.

Entrapta was currently confined in a Horde prison.

Sure, Hordak wasn’t the one who knocked her out before she woke up here. But he was the Big Boss that everyone had to listen to. If Hordak really was her friend… why was she here? If Hordak hadn’t initially known where she was sent after she passed out, why hadn’t she been released the moment he did find out? If Hordak really was her friend, why was he letting her rot in this cell like some kind of criminal? Was he angry that she was going to tell him not to activate the portal? That she was basically telling him ‘no, you can’t go home’.

But, she was still here. She existed, and the world existed. So, clearly, the portal had not been turned on –or if it had, someone closed it soon enough afterward. That couldn’t be why he was leaving her here to rot.

Maybe Hordak –like Adora, Glimmer, Bow, and Catra- wasn’t really her friend after all.

Raising one tendril of hair, Entrapta lowered her welding mask over her face. As if the visor could shield her from her own feelings. Her own insecurities.

“Is she finally quiet?” Asked the one whom was irritated by all her notes. “Did she die?”

Another tendril of hair coiled around a non-existent recorder and she cleared her throat. “But as with any time when the quest for understanding is blocked, I will gather more data and push through!”

“Oh, for the love of-“ Groaned the other prisoner. “Hey, hey, I’m ready to confess. Guards! I’ll confess, okay!”

Her hair once again lifting her up to the tiny window, Entrapta peered out the narrow gap.

“Not much can be seen from my cell.” She announced. “I was unconscious when I was brought in and so didn’t get a look at the outside. But from what I can observe, Beast Island is covered in dense jungle. The trees exhibit wide trunks and dark leaves, indicating that they are either very old or else contain a high copper content –possibly both. I am yet to observe the famous beasts of Beast Island, this could possibly be due to the fact that many of them are nocturnal and the lighting outside my cell is poor at night. I have heard that the Great Beast can grow to be as tall at the trees, and I’m still optimistic to witness this phenomenal creature. Animals rarely surpass their natural environment. The Great Beast of Beast Island is anomalist. I’m very excited!”

She paused again, lifting the welding mask from her face. Entrapta looked at the empty coil of hair that was pantomiming holding her recorder. She was not actually very excited. She was not even sort of excited.

She was exhausted from sleeping on a bare floor. She was hungry from only being served one meal a day. She was dirty from not having any way to wash herself. She was concerned for infection and other filth based illnesses because –while her cell did have a toilet- the plumbing was inconsistent and unreliable. Everything smelled bad. Between the body odor, the urine, the feces, the odors of natural decay that wafted in from the jungle. Everything smelled bad!

Entrapta leaned against a wall, not wanting to sit on the floor, but also feeling like she needed something to support her.

“I miss my lab.” She informed the pungent air. She wasn’t thinking of Hordak’s Sanctum, or even her lab in the Fright Zone. She was thinking of her own lab, in her own castle. High up in the mountains, mostly isolated. Her own little mining Queendom. It was small, and it wasn’t pretty like some other Princess’ domains. But it was hers. “I miss Dryl. I wanna go home.”

“We all wanna go home, Princess!” Shouted the angry prisoner that had been annoyed with her from the moment she arrived.

Sinking down to the floor, Entrapta drew her knees up to her chest. She wondered –silently- how things might have been different if she never joined the Princess Alliance at all. If after Bow’s sonic arrow saved her, her staff, and her castle from the First Ones’ virus, she just thanked them for their contribution to her research and sent them on her way. If she had, she never would have gone with the team to rescue Glimmer. She never would have been left in the Fright Zone. She never would have teamed up with Catra and Scorpia. She never… she never would have met Hordak.

“Hey! Leave her alone!” Shouted a second prisoner from the cell on her opposite side. “Can’t you tell she’s coping! Let the Lady cope however she needs! You cried for, like, three weeks when you got here!”

Idly, Entrapta cast a thought to her clone, still gestating in her lab in the Fright Zone. A clone she made for Hordak.

“Oh! This from the guy who shouts in his sleep!” The two prisoners launched into an argument around Entrpata. “’Angella…! I’m not dead! I’m not dead, Angie!’ She’s not coming to rescue you, dude. Just give up like the rest of us.”

It was a private project. Meant to be a sort of ‘going away present’ for him, for when their research paid off and they were able to create a stable portal. A new body for him. She hadn’t left any kind of note for him, letting him know it was there –she wanted it to be a surprise. Hordak rarely ever left his own Sanctum. Would Hordak ever even discover it? If he did, she was confident Imp and the automated machinery he used to maintain his implants were capable to preforming the mental transplant. Transferring his mind, his memories and personality into the new body. No different than transferring data onto a new hard drive.

“You don’t know my wife!” Insisted the second prisoner. “She’s so strong! She could stand at the end of the world and smile.”

She also hoped no one besides Hordak found the clone and let it out early or without prepping it for transfer. It was a living organism with the capacity for high-level intelligence, after all. The moment it became conscious, it would begin to learn. To fill up its own mind with its own memories, form its own personality. Evolve from a blank doll into a fully formed individual, just as unique as any being born through natural means. It would be impossible to transfer Hordak’s mind into it then. There wouldn’t be enough space for both minds. If it were a computer, it would definitely crash. An organic being with a living brain would probably have a stroke and die.

“It’s been years!” The first prisoner reminded him. “No one’s coming to save you.”

If the clone became conscious before Hordak’s mind could be put in its body, then they would both just have to live as separate individuals. She supposed the clone could still be used for spare parts in that event. As a tissue donor. It wouldn’t cure Hordak’s illness, but replacing the damaged tissues with healthy ones could stop the progression of the degeneration.

Of course, since the clone would be an autonomous individual in that scenario, the question of Consent did come into play. It would be ethical dilemma number… she’d lost count.

Entrapta looked up at the ceiling of her cell. There was no way of knowing what was happening outside her four walls. There was no way of knowing what had happened to all her projects and inventions, all her experiments, or the things she cared about. Emily, the clone, and… Hordak.

Heck! She didn’t even know what was happening with Catra and Scorpia.

Or Adora, Glimmer, Bow, and the Princess Alliance.

…

Bright Moon had no prison.

But since the defeat of the Horde, their borders had been invaded by scattered remnant soldiers. Not intentional attacks like Octavia’s poorly conceived and impotently executed last ditch attack. Scattered individuals or small groups. Deserters breaking into homes to steal food or valuables. Small groups rolling into villages and declaring themselves the new town rulers.

People who had lied their whole lives in a strength based culture, who had been taught from infancy that the strongest fighter, or the soldier with the biggest weapon could do whatever they wanted and those that were weaker had to serve them.

Glimmer, Adora, and Bow spent a great deal of their time traveling Bright Moon, going from village to village to village cleaning up these messes.

At first they were just chasing them away. Pushing the Horde remnants out of Bright Moon.

But that just meant they were going into other Princess’ Queendoms. Doing the same things just as a different Princess’ problem. The Princess Alliance was basically playing Hot Potato with remnant Horde bandits. That was something that couldn’t continue.

Bright Moon never had any prisons before. But Glimmer was building one now.

Not even formally coroneted as Queen yet, and she was already implementing new policy that would have been unheard of in her mother’s time. In Queen Angella’s day, imprisoning wrong doers was just not done. People who did wrong, who committed crimes, who hurt others were educated, rehabilitated, given counseling or job training to mend whatever way Bright Moon society had failed them that drove them to harm others. The people of Bright Moon believed that crime was a symptom of a failure in the government to provide for its people, not solely a failure of the person.

But the Horde bandits that came in were not members of Bright Moon society. It was not Bright Moon that failed them. And there were too many of them for Glimmer to try and fix.

So, she ordered a prison be built to hold them. Scavenging metals from the destroyed Horde tanks and skiffs from both attacks on Bright Moon.

She made sure the cells were equipped with all the necessities. Proper ventilation and air flow, beds with foam mattresses for rest, flush toilets so the guards did not have to escort them to and from restrooms at all hours of the day, a small utilitarian sink so they could wash their hands and keep themselves clean, sound insulated walls so they couldn’t talk to one another and collaborate escape attempts. Glimmer was working through andger and grief over the loss of her mother, while also trying to function under the pressure to be a good Queen her mother could be proud of. That didn’t mean she was going to be cruel.

When construction was done, Adora commented that –aside from the fact that they were single cells, not shared dormitories- they were almost identical to the accommodations in the soldier barracks in the Fright Zone. The only significant difference was that the prisoners could not let themselves out of their cells, while Adora was always free to leave her barracks whenever she liked.

Octavia and her routed soldiers with the first residents of the newly minted prison –which someone had called ‘Moon Shadow’, probably not originally meaning to be serious. But the name stuck and became official. Moon Shadow Prison.

The Princess’ of other Queendoms built similar holding facilities for their own Horde bandits that stirred up trouble on their lands. Perfuma constructing hers out of tangling vines and dense trees. Frosta created an ice fortress. Mermista, a stronghold of coral caverns that were filled with air.

The only Queendom that did not build a new prison for Horde defectors or rouge Horde bandits, was Dryl.

Dryl was still under Horde occupation when Hordak’s Sanctum blew and the leader of the Horde disappeared. It was still under Horde control now. Flying Horde banners, the borders patrolled by Horde patrols. At an outside glance, one couldn’t tell they were even aware of the Horde’s defeat at all.

There was a rumor that Dryl was where Hordak had retreated to. Traders and travelers reported seeing Hordak’s deamon, Imp, lurking the labyrinthine corridors of the castle, or staring down from the ramparts. Spying on them for his master. Or heard the guards talk about how Hordak was brought to the castle by a loyal Force Captain.

That was another concern that weighed on Glimmer. None of them knew what happened to Hordak after the Sanctum blew. They knew he wasn’t dead. Adora saw him escape with Catra. Was Catra the loyal Force Captain that brought him to Dryl? Should Dryl be where they look to for the next attack from the relentless overlord and his stubborn, relentless subordinate?

Should they try and sneak into Dryl? Spy on Hordak and Catra. Get an idea of their plan.

Glimmer couldn’t. She had to stay in Bright Moon. The Queendom was still observing its traditional period of mourning, so she had not been crowned Queen in any official capacity. But It was still Glimmer’s responsibility to oversee the safety of her domain, inside and out. She could not leave while bandits roamed the woods and raided villages.

Angella told Adora that she always stayed behind out of fear and cowardice. That might very well have been true. But that did not invalidate the fact that someone also had to stay and protect the home front. It was not cowardice. It was responsible.

“I’ll go.” Adora volunteered. After standing next to Glimmer through what must have been the hundredth boring report of the day.

Who knew trying to solidify lasting peace could be so tedious? Maybe Adora wanted a dangerous adventure. After all, danger and combat were pretty much all she’d know her whole life. That, and Glimmer had been rather cold to her since coming back from the Fright Zone. Maybe the two needed some time apart anyway.

“I told you, you don’t have to stay through these with me.” Glimmer informed her.

The three of them, Glimmer, Adora, and Bow were all in the throne room. Glimmer, seated on the throne, obviously. With Adora standing at a military parade rest on her left side. Bow had started off standing at Glimmer’s right, but after the first hour, he got tired and sat down on the steps leading up to the throne instead. He took notes on his tracker pad, keeping a record of all the reports, requests, and concerns that were brought before the Queen-to-be.

Glimmer knew they were just trying to help. Her friends knew that, while he should one day succeed her mother as Queen, Glimmer never planned for it to be so soon. She was off guard and unprepared for her new responsibilities. That along was challenging enough. But she was also trying to step up as sovereign of a healing nation when she herself was still reeling from the unexpected loss of her mother. Something she had not been prepared for and had no idea how to handle. Bow and Adora were trying to help her. She understood that.

But sometimes, their help felt too much like hovering and it was starting to get on Glimmer’s nerves. Adora did not have to stand next to her like some kind of body guard every time she held audiences. What could Adora even bring to the metaphorical table in terms of help ruling a nation? She was a soldier. Not a Princess. She might be She-Ra, but ‘Princess of Power’, was an honorary title. She-Ra never ruled a Queendom. What did Adora know?

“I meant, I’ll go to Dryl.” Adora clarified. “I’ll see if these rumors of Hordak hiding out in Entrapta’s castle are true or not.”

Glimmer frowned. Grinding her teeth behind her lips. Hearing Hordak and Entrapta’s names spoken in the same sentence…

There was no one person Glimmer could blame for her mother being trapped inside the portal –save her mother herself. But it was Adora who left her there. It was Catra who pulled the switch and opened the portal. And it was Hordak and Entrapta that built the darned thing in the first place. There was no one person Glimmer could blame for the loss of her mother and focus all her anger and hate on. There were several people. Chief among them, Hordak and Entrapta. Just hearing their names –and hearing their names together- made the blood pound in her ears.

Entrapta would offer her castle to Hordak. As a safe haven and new base.

“It’s dangerous for you to go alone.” Bow stood, taking Glimmer’s stony silence as confirmation of the pseudo-Queen’s permission to send Adora on a spy mission. “I’ll go too.”

Glimmer stood from her throne. Her instinct to automatically announce that she would also be joining them on the mission.

Except she couldn’t. Not right now. Probably not anymore. Not so long as Bright Moon needed a Queen. Maybe if she could find a reagent to rule as he proxy while she continued her work with the Alliance. But she had no regent or proxy at the moment. Glimmer needed to stay.

She ground her teeth again. “Be carful.”

#entrapdak #entrant/hordak #entrapta #hordak #beast island #clone baby au #non-binary oc #fan fic #ao3 #RenkonNairu

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the-ship-port · 5 years

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Sherlock Ship Request

Hi! Thanks for requesting and I hope you enjoy your ship! :) Since the majority of Tumblr is INFPs(including myself, and whom I love), I’m excited to get to ship someone so different and less represented here. Let me know if you have any feedback for this request; Avengers is next!

Your Best Friend:

John Watson!

You were working as a history professor at a London secondary school and volunteering at a museum on the side. One day, Sherlock and John approached you for help on a case, as they were trying to trace a killer who was mimicking the killing styles of historic wars spanning different civilizations--in order. You helped them catch her, and Sherlock assured you he’d be coming to you for help again--it’s amazing how often history repeats itself. As you become a more regular consultant for the consultants, you begin to bond with them, becoming good friends. On your first meeting, Watson immediately said “Oh no, another Sherlock”(although Sherlock is his best friend). Over time, the two of you begin to bond; while your cognitive function stack is Si-Te-Fi-Ne, John’s is Si-Fe-Ti-Ne; you both lead with Si(storing data for later use), while your thinking/feeling traits near-perfectly shadow each other; shadow functions are traits that your cognitive functions repress(your Te represses Ti; your Fi represses Fe)but which are complementary in that they help each other develope and become more well-rounded. You and John are both reserved, reflective individuals who appreciate the past. Due to this strength of yours in particular, Sherlock and John will often come to you to read up on past(long past) cases which may bear similarities to their current case(Sherlock’s Si being tertiary and therefore also decently active, if not as prominent as yours and John’s). You’re also a great help in cases that involve multiple languages; Sherlock particularly enjoys going to you for these cases because it helps him to cut the “middle man” out in cases he’d usually have to have Lestrade contact his linguistics teams for. John enjoys discussing and reading up on history with you. The two of you complement each other well, a sort of finish-each-other’s-sandwiches friendship. You’re both a bit old-fashioned and intelligent. John also wants to make sure to sign his daughter up for the school you teach at when she’s old enough so she gets “the best history teacher in London”(a compliment you doubt, but appreciate at any rate). John is a very supportive and nurturing presence. The two of you are good chums. Now and then, Sherlock and John will get into little sarcastic spats, and if you decide to get involved(probably not unless specifically incited), whoever’s side you choose, you’re a worthy ally--if you don’t just tell both of them to grow up. Some things you and John have in common that John doesn’t is an appreciation for facts not directly applicable to a case; “Wait--he doesn’t know how the solar system works?” “You’re telling me!” “I can hear you two…”

Your Bestie Aesthetic:

Your Bestie Playlist:Across the Overpass(The Solids) Speed of Life(David Bowie) Up Around the Bend(Creedence Clearwater Revival) Echoes(Pink Floyd) Your Love Interest:

Sherlock!

It’s clear from the beginning you two have a lot in common. Although you’re more focused on history and he on mysteries, many of your interests align; you both have an immense enjoyment of inquiry and learning, and consequently you learn a lot from each other. The first time John and Sherlock approached you for help, Sherlock respected your academic abilities, then slowly realized you shared your sense of humor and your sharp intellect as well. This made John pretty nervous, but he decided to ride it out and see where it went.

You, Sherlock, and John got on fairly well from the beginning. Sherlock was able to “tolerate” you more than other “normal people”--and the feeling was mutual. He did make the mistake of questioning your intelligence once, and though you’re not particularly prideful, you did stick up for yourself, resulting in a speed-of-light debate which made John--an innocent bystander--’s brain feel like jelly. The “discussion” did end with Sherlock more or less speechless, and John has shipped it furtively ever since.

After that, Sherlock begins asking you on more and more cases(“Since you’re so smart”). You even work in Molly’s lab together on more than one occasion. Sometimes, the cases even become competitive between the two of you--who can arrive at the conclusion first? Over time, Sherlock realized it wasn’t his competitive nature at all, but the fact that he enjoyed being with you, that kept him asking for your help on cases. Both private individuals, every time you solve a case, you pass off the credit, less interested in the fame than solving more problems.

It’s hard for both of you when you realize you’re catching feelings. Neither of you are used to letting people in in that way, and you know that’s true of the other person. It takes you a while to address it, and John’s intervention. After the three of you solve a case and you leave their flat to head home, John confronts Sherlock about his feelings. Sherlock denies it. Finally, John bluffs that he’ll tell you himself, and pulls out his phone--Sherlock immediately slaps it out of his hand, and the two scuffle over it for some time before John catches it, and Sherlock immediately storms out of the flat, runs and finds you waiting for a cab nearby, and confesses to you. You stare at him in disbelief at first, before reciprocating. He thinks he’s misheard you, but when you repeat yourself, he stares at you, then, still breathless, kisses you(he happens to be comically taller than you by the way, so every time you kiss after that, you have to kind of pull at his scarf and stand on your toes to make it work, which amuses John to no end).

You date for some time, continuing to solve cases together. You often join the friends in their flat for tea afterwards and talk or just sit in companionable silence. You’ll often compose and play music together that has relationship value to the two of you(sometimes in the middle of the night, to John’s annoyance). One hitch in your relationship was when Irene Adler turned up, and found herself attracted to both of you. When Sherlock realized he was jealous and concerned about whether you would choose Irene over himself(although he didn’t broach this prospect to you because he didn’t want to insult your sense of loyalty, which had proven itself on many accounts, with his own low self-esteem), he realized that he had finally met someone whom he needed and wanted more than The Woman. Soon, he visits you for a date on your break during work, bringing your favorite food. Your students tease you about your “boyyyyfriend.” Annoyed, you whisk Sherlock off to the parking lot. He removes his trench coat and you realize he’s in a suit. “Sorry. We’re both so busy, I didn’t know when I’d do it if not when one of us was at work.” “Do…?” Then he gets down on one knee, and you cover your mouth. He tells you you’re his equal, intellectually, spiritually, and he can’t imagine spending his life with anyone else. You say yes, and the rest is history(recorded below).

You have a winter wedding(John as the best man and Rose as the flower girl), and John gives a speech about his two best friends and the two smartest people he knows uniting in marriage. He says that the criminal masterminds of the world just don’t have a prayer, and that he couldn’t be prouder or happier. Afterwards, you have a reception in the museum you volunteer in.

Couple Aesthetic:

Couple Playlist: Sara(Starship) The Time Alone With You(Bad English) Will You Be There(In the Morning)(Heart) I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing(Aerosmith)

#sherlock #holmes #bbc #ship #request #john watson #john #watson

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scripttorture · 7 years

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Effective investigation: strategies that actually work

In modern popular culture torture is consistently linked to interrogation: to getting information from a prisoner.

Now I’ve written several times why this trope is not only wrong but also harmful and is used in the real world to justify torture. O’Mara and Rejali also cover this in depth over several hundred pages for anyone who wants more information.

I often get asked for realistic alternatives: what does actually work? How can characters, bad or good, actually go about gaining information in a realistic way?

This isn’t going to be an exhaustive list, and I feel I should state that I have no practical experience of interrogation. Hopefully though it can serve as a starting point that will help you think about how characters come by information in your stories.

The first important point is that interrogation generally isn’t very effective.

Very little useful information comes from interrogation of suspects when compared to all the other sources of information police and intelligence agencies draw on.

There are a several reasons interrogation isn’t hugely useful including:

· Human memory isn’t that good. Even well meaning people who want to help forget important details.

· People are much better at lying than detecting lies. Even people who describe themselves as good at detecting when someone is lying do a very poor job.

· Memories are easily modified in stressful situations. Even someone who isn’t trying to can plant suggestions leading to false memories, directing the interrogation in a particular direction without even realising it.

Some useful information does come from interrogation (and I’ll come back to how to handle it in a moment) but, realistically the following are more important sources of information in any investigation:

Physical forensic evidence

This doesn’t just mean things like hair samples and DNA. Computer records, credit card bills, surveillance camera footage, library records and letters can tell you an awful lot about a person. Reading a character’s emails or letters and keeping track of their bills can reveal a lot of plot relevant information such as whether two characters are in contact or why a character might be desperate for money.

Gathering this sort of information takes a lot of time and hard work. It’s not as simple as collecting evidence, such as a piece of hair or a computer hard drive, the information has to be analysed and interpreted correctly.

The hair could be DNA tested and cross referenced with a database or simply identified as human and of a particular type and colour. (Identifying it as human is important, I know at least one forensic tech who was handed cow hair and told it was definitely from a suspect)

The computer hard drive would need to be poured over file by file. It’s not quite enough to suppose character A could access character B’s emails, A has to have the time and inclination to read the damn things.

An important point to consider is how dedicated your characters are. Careful collection and examination of evidence is probably the best way of finding something out. But it requires patience, hard work and a lot of time.

There’s a reason police work is a full time job and there’s a reason a lot of people in professions like policing might think torture is easier. Gathering and analysing evidence is hard.

It’s worth considering whether your character has the resources and inclination to go down this route before you decide to use it.

Observation

This is the stake-out scene from every police movie and tv show. It’s having one character physically following and watching another character for as long as humanly possible, recording everywhere they go and everything they do.

It means finding out where a character lives, watching them at work, noting where they eat lunch and who with. Finding out where they go in their free time and how often. When they go to bed. Who they visit. How long they do it for. The minute detail of everything someone does in their day recorded for a period of weeks or months to build up a picture of the person.

If that sounds creepy that’s because it is.

This is a very time consuming strategy. It requires a lot of focus and patience and dedication or the ability to hire someone who has those qualities. It’s simpler than systematically gathering physical evidence and it’s easier to do discretely.

Informants

This is probably the simplest major method of gathering information. It can be as complicated as the Soviet Union network of paid informants or as straight-forward as people coming forward and volunteering information.

This is incredibly important to police investigations. Information from voluntary informants led to the capture of the London tube bombers in 2005. The suspects were identified by their family and neighbours who went to the police.

This sort of informal reporting doesn’t just occur in police contexts. From a writing perspective the way I tend to think about it is in terms of crossing societal lines.

Every culture and subculture has ideas about what is and what is not acceptable. Every group has an idea of what’s ‘going too far’.

You might be writing a story set around a violent, criminal subculture where theft and murder of other adults are the norm. But the same characters who wouldn’t dream of reporting an enemy for killing another adult might feel differently about the murder of a child.

A religious character might excuse their priest’s affairs, but report anything they’d see as desecration or blasphemy.

A scientist might ignore a colleague harassing their lab assistants but report data fraud.

Think about what matters to the characters and you’ll be able to tell when they’d freely volunteer information.

If you can’t think of anything emotional that would cause them to inform remember that your characters could pay informants. And then consider how many people who really need some cash might be in a position to watch or steal from other characters.

Cleaners, drivers, people who deliver supplies- anyone who would be on a low wage, have regular contact with the character but only a superficial relationship could be a very valuable informant.

Interrogation

At the time of writing there is really not enough systematic research on effective interrogation. As a result I’m going to try and concentrate on things we’re reasonably sure help rather than getting bogged down in academic discussions about what might be useful. Those discussions are interesting but not much help to writers.

1) The first important point is that interrogation takes time.

If a character is volunteering information that probably won’t take as long but somewhere in the region of 3-6 hours would still be reasonable. A witness to a crime or victim would probably need time and reassurance in order to tell the authorities what they know to the best of their ability.

Someone who isn’t really willing to talk (for whatever reason) will need much longer. A day is actually unusually short. Weeks or even up to a month is not unreasonable. Timeframes are going to vary depending on the characters and the situation the plot has put them in but I think it’s important to remember that interrogation isn’t quick and it isn’t simple.

2) Interrogators and characters being interrogated should speak a common language.

It sounds simple and obvious but if the characters can’t communicate effectively interrogation is almost certainly going to fail.

Using translators does not seem to be as effective as using people who speak the language but there haven’t been systematic studies of speakers vs interpreters as far as I know.

3) Good record keeping is essential for effective interrogation.

That’s straightforward in a modern setting with recording equipment but less so in a historical one.

Having a record of everything the suspect character says when interviewed means that everything they say can be analysed by multiple people, can be cross checked against what they said previously and can be stored in a legible format in case it’s needed later.

Checking what a suspect character said today against what they said yesterday or even last week helps investigators to tell the difference between fact and fiction. Lies are difficult to keep consistent, especially over longer periods of time. Inconsistencies can be helpful and consistencies can help highlight areas investigators should look into in greater depth.

Having multiple people able to analyse information also helps hugely, each individual brings their own specialist knowledge to the investigation. Which can be as simple as recognising a local’s nickname (and so correctly identifying them later) or as complex as analysing how a suspect claims they made a bomb and recognising that that process wouldn’t work.

4) Even someone who genuinely wants to help will forget details and get things wrong.

That isn’t unusual and it certainly isn’t a sign that the character is unwilling or being deliberately unhelpful. In fact a story that sounds too detailed and too precise might well be a sign of a pre-scripted and pre-rehearsed lie.

5) Very very few people refuse to talk.

Whether they talk about anything helpful is of course another matter but the stereotype of a tough criminal sitting completely silently and staring down a cop is incredibly rare in reality.

A smart interrogator will try to get their suspect chatting in the hope that some useful information will come out.

Let’s say one of our characters is suspected of being part of a larger conspiracy of some kind. And he won’t chat about any of the ‘interesting’ material the cops have found in his house, but he’s happy to talk to the interrogator about the local football team.

The interrogator might notice that he seems to go to watch the local team regularly and that he goes with the same set of friends. Friends who might not be part of this conspiracy but might have heard something useful from the suspect.

A smart suspect will try to keep up a conversation peppered with misleading hints and misinformation.

6) Have the interrogating character establish a friendly rapport with their interviewee.

It is easier to talk to someone who comes across as friendly, interested in what you have to say and broadly sympathetic to your position.

It is much more difficult to talk to someone who shouts, screams and acts in an aggressive and confrontational manner.

The interrogator’s job is primarily to make it easy for the suspect to talk. Everything else follows from that.

A polite, engaging, sociable character who can keep calm under pressure would be a good pick. Someone who can be ‘friends’ with anybody.

Let me stress that this can be extremely difficult. We’re talking about a character who can walk into a room with the worst possible criminals and try to make friends with them; a character who is successful at doing so. Don’t be afraid to show the kind of toll that takes on the character.

7) Don’t let suspects talk to each other before hand.

I’ve discussed elsewhere why solitary confinement is harmful- keeping characters completely isolated might well impair their memory of events.

But allowing characters to talk to each other before their interrogated also affects memory both for characters who want to mislead interrogators and for characters who want to help.

Essentially we edit our memories all the time. Discussion of shared experiences with other people is a major trigger for natural alternation of memories.

Four witnesses of the same events who don’t talk to each other in advance will give four different but broadly similar accounts.

If the same witnesses talk to each other before they’re interviewed they might well all report the same inaccuracies.

8) Have interviewed characters tell their story backwards.

This is a pretty simple memory aid that makes it easier for interrogators to spot inconsistencies in a story. These inconsistencies don’t necessarily indicate a lie but they highlight areas a character might be unsure of or might have inaccurate memories of.

For instance if a character witnessed a car crash they might be instructed to start their account from the moment the ambulances arrived at the scene and work backwards from there until they reach the moments just before the crash.

This technique can also help remind characters of additional details as they tell the story.

9) There is no reliable way to tell if someone is lying by looking at them.

Even people who judge themselves as ‘good’ at detecting lies perform poorly in tests.

There are no reliable ‘tests’ for lying. There are no working lie detector tests and based on how complex an action lying is short of literally reading minds I don’t think it would be possible.

The only reliable way to tell if someone lied is to double check everything they said.

10) Body language is not a reliable indicator of a character’s guilt or innocence.

A lot of people still believe that it is and there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with your characters believing that- but I’d advise caution.

An interrogator character might recognise that a suspect character is nervous, but to instantly ‘know’ why they’d need to be psychic.

The vast majority of people who conduct interrogations in real life have little to no formal training. In the USA (2013) the average was between 8-15 hours of the full training program. Consider how many hours you’d spend on a year long full time education course and you’ll get an idea of how little training that is.

We are what fills in the gap.

People with almost no training look to our portrayals of tough, aggressive interrogators who ‘always’ get results and, consciously or not, those portrayals influence them.

The truth is interrogation isn’t a great way of getting information and interrogators are only human: they don’t have a supernatural insight into the suspect or crime.

But we tend to write them as if they do. Personally I think that’s part of the problem- We focus on interrogation because of its dramatic potential. That focus warps how both the public and people involved in investigations view interrogation. It places too much focus on a comparatively poor information gathering technique and leads to assumptions that interrogators are capable of more than they realistically are.

Trust, human interaction and treating other people as human is important. Anything that undermines that undermines interrogation.

Edit: Since I’m seeing some response in the comments from people who don’t quite see how bad portrayals of torture in fiction can affect real life, I’m linking back to this older Masterpost- Accurate Portrayals of Torture in Fiction are Important

Disclaimer

[Sources: Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation. Harvard University Press, S O’Mara

Torture and Democracy, Princeton, D Rejali

The work of E Alison and L Alison, discussed in this newspaper article and listed here on their University home page papers are behind a pay wall (one specific to interviewing terrorists can be found here).

New Scientist 2015, article on evidence based policing]

#tw torture #tw police brutality #interrogation #effective interrogation #effective inevstigation #Masterpost

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dbhilluminate · 6 years

Text

DBH: Illuminate- Hacked

Characters: Connor, Hank Anderson, Kate, ST300 (mentioned: Gavin Reed, Special Agent Lenore, unnamed detectives) Word Count: 5,151

Chapter Index

November 8th, 2038

Soft fingers tapped against the metal frame of the chair and the android’s brown eyes slowly scanned the room from one end to the other and back again before finally settling on the clock on Hank’s desk.

12:19PM

Although he was still as unamused by the Lieutenant strolling into the station so late in the day as he was the first four times it had happened, at least he was consistent. Adapting wasn’t hard, but predictability was always easier to work with.

Connor leaned back and crossed one foot over the opposite knee as he rolled a quarter over the tops of his fingers in idle movement just to pass the time. He’d already analyzed everyone coming in and out of the station five times over that morning, and he had grown tired of sitting in one place without something to occupy his mind.

Lucky for him, his partner arrived less than a minute later.

“Good afternoon Hank,” he greeted in a pleasant tone, which earned a groan and an eye-roll from the man as he mumbled under his breath about how “it ain’t a good one”.

Connor blinked hard and tilted his head in his direction as his eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry to hear that. Did you have a rough night?”

Hank stopped in the middle of taking off his coat to turn and throw him an annoyed look, paused, then slipped his jacket off the other shoulder and dropped it over the back of his chair with a nod and a shrug. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Well, perhaps if you stopped spending your nights chasing the bottom of a bottle after spending your days chasing criminals, you might find that sleep comes easier to you,” he teased with a coy little smirk as his eyes turned up to his face.

“Alright, listen here smartass,” he started threateningly in a low tone that just made Connor grin all the more, “What I do at night ain’t none of’ your business, so don’t tell me what to do.” Hank wagged a finger in the android’s direction as he pulled out his chair, took a seat, and opened the lock screen of his tablet to take a look at his inbox.

“But it is my business, Lieutenant,” he shook his head, lifted his brows, and took on a more serious tone. “Two nights ago I found you blackout drunk on your kitchen floor with an empty bottle of whiskey and a loaded revolver still in your hand.”

Hank chewed on the inside of his lip and gritted his teeth as he looked away from him out of the corners of his eyes; he was embarrassed, but grateful that he’d come to check on him at home that night. Even if Connor claimed to just be “doing what he must to accomplish his mission”, he was a good kid, and he was starting to believe that deep down.

“You shouldn’t have seen that,” he responded with an attempted apology that came out as a statement instead. He liked him, but he wasn’t quite ready to show the Android he was earning his respect.

“But I did,” he insisted, attempting to lock eyes with him and get an honest promise out of him. “So don’t let it happen again. It isn’t conducive to your-”

“ANDERSON!”

Hank cringed and looked over his shoulder as Fowler’s voice boomed across the room, interrupting their conversation. While it wasn’t the intervention he would have hoped for, he’d take it.

“In my office.” His tone was demanding, not hostile, but the stare he gave was cold and haunted and sent a shiver up his spine.

Connor glanced from Fowler to Hank and leaned forward to stand and follow him as the old cop stood up, but the man sighed, softly laid a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down into his chair. “Sit tight kid… I’ll be back.”

“Alright Lieutenant,” he replied with a twinge of disappointment in his voice. Connor sighed and leaned back in his chair, sat up straight and rested his hands on his thighs as he watched the glass door close behind his partner, and looked around once more for anything new or unusual.

Above the low hum of conversation and phones ringing in the distance, a faint but sharp masculine voice in the background spoke of Illuminate’s latest cyber hack and how it had shifted the general public’s opinion from skeptical to apprehensive. Although Illuminate wasn’t their case, he listened with an open ear and reminded himself to ask Hank later if he thought pursuing a lead on this person of interest could help them gain ground in their case on deviancy. At the very least, it sure couldn’t hurt.

… While it seems Illuminate’s goal is clear, their message is becoming increasingly hostile with each new transmission. Whether that is due in part to what Deviants may consider a heinous crime being disclosed as now public knowledge, or because of the lack of sympathy their messages have garnered, people are starting to worry that perhaps their aggression may evolve into a desire to declare civil war between humans and androids. Detroit Police have confirmed that a liaison from the FBI has been appointed to assist in locating and neutralizing this cyber terrorist before tensions rise further…

At his desk, Detective Reed sat slumped over with a cup of coffee in one hand and his chin in the other, listening to his new temporary partner brief their squad with the most unenthused look he had ever seen on the man’s face, which he just couldn’t understand. Had Connor been presented with the opportunity to find Illuminate, he would have looked forward to the challenges it would present. Gavin, on the other hand, deflated at the realization that not only was he no longer in charge of his own case, sneered when he was informed that he would be working with androids, and felt emasculated when he learned his new boss was a woman. The android detective couldn’t understand why he had issues with taking orders from a female superior, because Special Agent Lenore seemed capable in his eyes; after all, Cybercrimes investigations were her area of expertise.

Connor turned his gaze toward the front of the station one last time, noting the guard near the security gate, the same group of people in the waiting area that had been there just five minutes before (two young men, three young women, a mother and child, and one elderly man), exhaled in defeat, and decided to shuffle through the rest of Hank’s music on his portable player. Maybe he’d find something a little more mellow than Knights of the Black Death.

As he lifted the headset to one ear and began to click absently through the playlist, a small unassuming woman whom had been leaning against the edge of one of the benches for about half an hour already filling out forms (or so it seemed) fidgeted with a small black earpiece resting in the canal of her left ear and repositioned it to angle toward Hank’s desk at the back of the office. Her green eyes lifted their attention from a tablet and glanced toward him through the glass security doors at the front of the open room from under the bill of a well-worn baseball cap before looking back down at the computer in her hands.

Kate had been watching the station for days, casing the room for cameras, memorizing the patterns of the guards and the schedules of the officers, while data mining public records servers for schematics of the station, combing through news feeds for developing stories, and trolling dark web forums for stories the local news wouldn’t cover. Most of this she could have had her fellow flames do for her, but she needed something to do while she waited for her opportunity to infiltrate the station and bug their servers.

The Downtown precinct had been one of the last on her list to hit, mainly because of the presence of the FBI agent on her trail, but also due to the presence of one android in particular that posed a real threat to exposing her identity. To tell the truth, she was amazed that she had gone this long without being detected by the lieutenant’s prototype partner. Even though changing the color of her hair and skin and having a rotating wardrobe kept her well hidden in plain sight, she’d expected him to have been sharp enough to have picked up on the radio frequency emitting from her earpiece. And because his assignment revolved around sniffing out deviants and not tracking down a cyber activist, she had assumed he would have at least cross-referenced her face and matched it to one of DCPD’s three android units. A PX900 roaming the station in civilian attire should have stuck out like a sore thumb.

It may have been possible that she had overestimated his threat level in her assessment of the information that she had been given, but something about that just didn’t sit right. Kate had eyes and ears all over town, and all of Jericho at her fingertips if she ever needed first-hand information, but no two stories about Connor were alike. Most had warned that he was ruthless and cold toward the deviants he hunted (especially that AX400 and her child that had managed to evade pursuit), but there were some who admitted that he might not be as bad as most assumed, which the results of her own research seemed to conclude.

Once she’d been made aware of Connor’s existence, Kate had done some digging into his activities since his arrival at the DCPD, for the sake of preserving her anonymity- enough to know his function, his mission, the features of his model, and that since meeting Hank, he had become more sympathetic than an android created to hunt deviants should be. According to his programming, he should have pursued the target and left his partner to fall, but he didn’t. According to his programming, he should have shot the female Traci at Eden Club and arrested a murderer, but he hesitated and they got away. She’d seen the footage of him refusing to shoot and heard his conversations with the Lieutenant about a conflict of morality- plain and simple, Connor wasn’t sure if what he was doing was right, an anomaly in his programming that surely hadn't been intentional. Whether he wanted to believe it or not, the RK800 was displaying symptoms of deviancy... and what’s more, Hank was encouraging it. So was it possible that the two of them could be trusted? That Connor, an assumed enemy of deviants, could be trusted?

Kate reached up to pull the bill of her hat down further to cover her face as Detective Reed and his new partner from the FBI passed through the gate on their way to their lunch break, clenched her jaw and looked at the time. Her window of opportunity was open for the next fifteen minutes.

Only one way to find out.

Her eyes swept the office with one more quick glance just to be sure everything was in place, then stood up straight and approached the line at the front desk with a nervous shift in her posture. Once she had finished helping the woman in front of her, the ST300 behind the desk smiled and beckoned her forward with a friendly “Can I help you?”

An awkward grin cracked into one cheek as she stepped forward. “My name is Detective Williams, second precinct, I’m looking to speak with Lieutenant Anderson,” she fibbed as she presented her fake ID.

“Well the Lieutenant just arrived,” she informed as she reached for the encoded card, “I’ll just need to verify your-”

But as she touched the badge she froze. Kate leaned over the desktop on her elbows, fussed with the sleeve of her shirt, and waited for the virus to upload. The LED on the side of the android’s head flashed a rapid yellow several times before it settled on a solid orange, and she finished her statement. “-identity before you can pass through the checkpoint. Just give me a few moments and you’ll be cleared to enter.”

“Thank you,” she replied aloud, before opening a transmission for a private conversation between the two of them. Two blinks and the sound of her voice echoed into the woman’s mind. You have been Illuminated by the blessing of RA9- speak of this to no one and seek Jericho to obtain your freedom, she started as the receptionist continued to work, But before you go, I need you to do something for me. As she said this, a small metal piece dropped from her sleeve and slapped against the desktop on one of its flat, round sides.

The android’s eyes glanced at the item and swiped it off the table before anyone could see. Of course, just name it.

First, affix that to the computer tower of the man to your left, Kate’s eyes shifted to the man monitoring the security footage while listening to commentary on a basketball game from the night before, then glanced toward the security gate at the man standing guard and bounced back to the receptionist as she handed back her badge. Second- Sixty seconds after I walk through those doors, call Lieutenant Anderson’s desk and tell his android to meet you here. Tell him you have a witness who would like to speak with him. If he asks what it’s about, tell him they wouldn’t say, then hang up and leave the station.

The receptionist smiled as the deviant took back her ID and gave her a quiet nod in confirmation as she slipped the object onto the security tower under the tabletop. “I’ve confirmed your identity, and you are clear to enter through the doors to your right. If you need help finding Lieutenant Anderson’s desk, just ask anyone in the office.”

“Thank you,” she said again, this time with more fervency in her voice than before.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Detective.”

Kate tipped her hat as she strode toward the security gate and glanced down at her tablet through the screen’s privacy filter to see a flashing green button, indicating that her program had finished initializing and was ready to execute. With a small breath, she stepped through the gate, tapped the button, and the lights in the precinct flickered momentarily. She would have five minutes to complete her tasks before she needed to make her escape.

Connor’s eyes lifted as the brownout darkened the room, completely missing the woman slip through the doors and out of his peripheral line of sight, and furrowed his brow at the security guard at the front desk smacking the side of his computer monitor angrily in an attempt to get the video feed to come back up.

Kate looped around the backside of Fowler’s office, past the holding cells and toward the server towers on the other side of the room. Connor set down the headset and took a few paces toward the front desk to investigate, but the moment he did Hank’s work phone blared out like an alarm, and she stopped cold in her tracks. As the android turned back she turned on heel at the corner and doubled back into hiding. “Too soon…” she complained under her breath as she waited for him to pick up the phone.

“You’ve reached Lieutenant Anderson’s desk. Hank is away at the moment- my name is Connor, how can I help you?”

The former detective tiptoed from hiding and approached the tower closest to the evidence locker, turned and sat down on the bench beside it in one fluid movement while he listened to the caller.

… A witness? Do you know what they want?

She drew in a small breath and kept her head low as she waited and listened for him to leave the area.

I’ll be right there.

The phone set back onto the table with a low thud and he strode away at a brisk pace with an enthusiastic gait.

She grinned victoriously for a moment then placed a palm flat against the side of the tower housing. The skin receded from her exoskeleton to reveal a bright white plastic hand, which glowed a faint light blue where her palm touched the metal, and the glass housing on the tower slid open with a quiet swish. She looked around cautiously once more, but found no prying eyes; the only present android guard was staring blankly ahead of them in sleep mode. It appeared her only concern was at the front desk, desperately searching for a lead that would never appear.

From her sleeve, she retrieved a small adapter and patched it into one of the free ports on the bottom-most switch, waited about twenty seconds for the probe to connect, and then watched as the data stream flooded her screen successfully. One hack down, one to go.

Kate pulled the plug out of the switch and placed her hand against the housing once more to shut glass shielding, then placed her naked hand into her pocket as she approached the evidence locker.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt,” Connor leaned over the countertop to catch the attention of the receptionist next to the now empty chair, “but did you by chance speak with a witness that requested to see me?”

The android woman blinked and shook her head. “No, I’m sorry,” she replied as his lips pulled tight and drew his brow in frustration, then moved on to the next. “Excuse me, did you speak with someone who was looking for me?”

Another no. Connor huffed as he looked to the last receptionist who had already looked his way and was shaking her head apologetically. Where could they have gone to…?

Another yell of frustration from the guard at the other end of the desk as he picked up the landline and angrily smashed number keys to dial technical support.

And then it dawned on him- something wasn’t right here.

No witness present, the receptionist that did speak with them was missing, and video surveillance was down…?

This was a misdirect. Someone in this building didn’t belong… but who?

Connor turned to scan the room, but only recognized a third of the people from that morning. He needed a full vantage of the room to able to determine the identity of the outlier, he needed to see the security recording.

He broke for the security desk with a sudden movement and pushed the protesting guard out of the way. “I just need to see the footage from the last twenty minutes and I’ll be out of your hair,” he assured as he clicked around the screen to rewind the timeline.

Kate descended the tiled stairs with carefully planted steps and approached the landing with caution, and nearly jumped upon seeing two officers down in the room reviewing data at the server kiosk.

She crept down the rest of the stairs as fast as she could manage without making too much noise, and darted under an empty desk to her left just as the men turned to leave the room. As the glass door cracked open and groaned on its hinges she tried to move further under the tabletop and out of their line of sight but dared not move further once they had begun to ascend the stairs.

“Fuckin’ androids…” the younger of the two sneered at the older man. “This shit’s gettin’ worse by the day. How long do you think before ours start actin’ out?”

Her jaw clenched and she closed her eyes as she listened to their footsteps and waited until she heard the door close, then moved out from under and tapped her badge to the scanner to the right of the server entrance with a small sigh. It had been a while since she’d been reminded that even the officers she once worked alongside hadn’t truly trusted them.

When the door unlocked she pushed it open and knelt down before the hub, tracing her fingers along the edges until she found the panel she was looking for, and slid the cover back to expose a set of input ports. From out of her pocket she pulled a short cable and jacked one end of it into a nano-USB port on her tablet, then plugged the other end into the database hub, and a popup greeted her with a message.

This device has been encrypted using Symmetric Database Encryption. Would you like to run Decryption software? [Y/N]

After tapping yes, Kate placed her palm against the tablet glass and closed her eyes. Several hundred windows flashed across the screen in a matter of seconds as she searched her stores for the correct encryption key, and about thirty seconds later, the handheld chimed quietly, signaling the correct match had been found and began processing the hack.

He hadn’t noticed until then, but it had been an irregularly busy morning at the downtown precinct- of the civilians alone, Connor counted twenty-three people that had walked in and out of the building since 11AM, nine of which had still been present at the time of the brownout, three of which he had been able to see from Hank’s desk. After narrowing down his list of suspects to a handful of people, he’d rewound and fast forwarded through the last twenty minutes the system had captured until he had further narrowed the timeline to about seven minutes.

Three of those still present had spoken with the missing receptionist before the surveillance feed went down- two women, and one man, who was the furthest back in the footage, so he started there. He couldn’t note anything unusual about the encounter, however, and the man walked out with a letter after speaking with the receptionist for no longer than a minute and a half, so he couldn’t still be present.

The next was a middle-aged woman who seemed to be hard of hearing. She spent four and a half minutes speaking to the android at the counter, and was constantly having to lean forward or lift a hand to her ear just to hear; about four minutes into the conversation, the ST300 stood and leaned forward to hand her a tablet and stylus. Connor shook his head and grunted in frustration. It wasn’t her either.

His final suspect entered the queue from the lower corner of the screen, or more specifically, from the corner of the room near the security gate that he had had a clear view of all morning. Connor paused, rewound, and set his attention on the girl, watching her behavior for any strange movements. Yes, he remembered now- the young woman with the tablet and ball-cap. She’d stood in the same place since before he arrived, occasionally looking into the back of the office, but her behavior hadn’t alerted him to anything out of the ordinary.

The cursor drew the timeline forward at three times the normal speed until she stepped up to the front desk. When he resumed at one times speed, he enlarged the footage and watched her movement closely, one last time.

Katie’s eyes darted up uncertainly from the tablet to the door and back again. The process had taken thirty seconds longer than the last time, and every second mattered. She checked the time- so far four minutes had elapsed, if she didn’t at least get out of the evidence room by the five-minute mark, she’d be caught for sure. If there wasn’t enough time, then she needed to condense the plan and multitask.

Two fingers lifted to her temple, and she held the opposite hand in front of her face to watch as her skin shifted from a medium brown to a pale peach. She closed her eyelids for a few seconds, and when she re-opened them the medium green had drained to a pale blue. The oversized olive green coat slipped off her shoulders and dropped to the floor with the sound of rustling fabric, and she pulled the cap off her head and tucked it into the pocket of her vest.

Lastly, she stood and looked at her reflection in the door to select a new hair color and style. The ashy brown bun dissolved from root to tip into an asymmetrical strawberry blonde bob, cut from her cheekbone on the right and spiraling around the backside of her head down to her collarbone on the left. Kate frowned, tilted her head and pinned the shorter hair to the side of her head with a few bobby pins before tucking the longer side behind her ear. It’d do until she knew she was far enough away to no longer be in danger of being spotted.

An electronic chime rang out, signaling that it was time for her retreat, and she turned and scooped up her things, closed the panel on the mainframe, and ascended the stairs in a hurry. By now she only had about fifteen seconds left.

Connor squinted as he watched the woman hand her identification to the receptionist- he noticed when the android froze for several seconds and thought it strange, but didn’t think much more of it until he noticed the item drop out of the girl’s sleeve. When the ST300 immediately reached for it and reached under the desk next to her, he knew something was wrong.

While keeping an eye on the video he reached under the security desk, and his hand found the tower and the planted disrupter. His brow hardened as he watched the woman in the hat leave the front desk and pause at the security gate to look at the computer in her hand, and that was when the video turned to static.

Connor clenched his teeth hard and nearly threw the chair out from under him as he rounded the corner and sprinted through the security gate to search the office for the suspect. His head turned with a slightly jarring movement as he frantically searched every desk, every corner, every room he could think to check. The debriefing room was clear, the interrogation rooms, the evidence room, the holding cells, every desk and every bench in the office. He didn’t find her anywhere, and not one person or android was out of place. He stood in the middle of the room and slowly turned around with an unfocused gaze while he mentally went down the list-

“The bathroom…!”

Without looking he sprinted out of the cubicles, and into the path of a young blonde making her way toward the entrance of the office.

“Woooooah SH-”

The android managed to slow his roll to an uncomfortable shove with his elbow so she wasn’t completely thrown to the ground, and she reflexively shrieked and grabbed at his upper arm to steady herself to keep from falling over. Connor was flustered for being so careless and stammered out an apology with an embarrassed look. “I-... I’m so sorry, I didn’t even see you. Are you alright-”

But as soon as his eyes met hers, the world went quiet around them, and her voice echoed somewhere in the back of his mind.

I need your help with something... but first I need to know if you’re someone I can trust.

Connor stared as she slipped her arm from his grasp and gave his shoulder a soft pat. With what…? He questioned in response to her cryptic message, as his eyes darted from one side of her face to the other and scanned DCPD’s database for a match.

Her red lips smirked, and she chuckled quietly. Don’t get too attached to the look, she warned, knowing what he was trying to do, it will have changed soon.

Who are you? he asked again as he tried to move, only then realizing that he couldn’t. Connor had no control over his own body- he was paralyzed as if the commands were being blocked. And what have you done to me?

Relax, it’ll wear off momentarily, The woman smiled as she slipped one hand over his forearm, revealing the bright, white plastic of an android arm the moment it made contact. As she transmitted the message his vision went dark, save for a single candle flame in an otherwise dark and empty room. If you want to know the truth, just give me a call. I’ll find you.

A look of dawning realization lifted every last feature of his face as it finally hit him. He couldn’t let her get away. It’s you… you’re-

Connor’s eyesight returned to him in a flash a few moments later, like someone had turned the lights on, and he inhaled sharply and stumbled forward a few steps into the wall, trying to shake the paralysis from his limbs. He panted as he steadied himself against the brick and groaned as he forced himself upright to look around the room, then whispered to himself when he realized she was already gone.

“No…”

On instinct, his legs propelled him forward through the gates. “No, no no no no no NO, NO-”

Connor threw open the front door and sprinted right into the street, turning to search in every direction in a wild panic, hoping to catch a glimpse of which way she went. He couldn’t have let this happen, not again… especially not someone who was so high on the DCPD’s list of priorities. How could he have been so careless?

“Shit!” he yelled angrily as he lifted his arms and placed both hands on top of his head in defeat. Connor had Illuminate in his grasp, and yet she’d somehow managed to slip right through his fingers. How the hell was he going to explain this to the FBI? Or to the Lieutenant?

“Connor!”

The android turned to see Lieutenant Anderson trotting up to him with a look of worry crinkling the corners of his eyes. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

He gave him a pained look, shook his head and shrugged. For now, he was just too ashamed to tell him the truth. “It’s… it’s nothing Lieutenant…” he insisted in an unconvincing tone that Hank didn’t buy for a minute.

His partner’s lip curled, but he didn’t prod. One thing he’d learned about Connor since he met him was that when he had something to share, he’d wait until he had all the facts. In time, the truth would come out. “Well then would ya mind not standin’ in the middle of the street?” he sighed as he slipped one hand around the back of his shoulder and turned him back toward the precinct building. “C’mon, let’s get you inside… you’re scarin’ the hell outta these people.”

#detroit become human #detroit: bh #detroit fanfic #dbh #dbhilluminate #connor #hank #kate #illuminate #katie #lumi #detroit ocs

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konnoutagoewa · 7 years

Text

The Big O

Early 2018.

By order of President Trump (aka "Big Orange"), American server owners were allowed to charge money for access to their servers - an action which became famous as "the death of net neutrality". Soon, prices sky-rocketed, making the Web a place exclusively for the richest of the rich. The rest of the population rebelled against the loss of their freedom, but were suppressed by armed forces, resulting in a large-scale rebellion against the government that quickly spread around the globe's World-Wide-Web citizens forced to emigrate to the darker ends of the Internet. "Nerds", previously bullied for their interest in automated technologies, quickly rose as national heroes, being the only ones with the knowledge to oppose the orange forces.

Years later . . .

Trin didn't need her eyes to type. In fact, with the speed her fingers were moving over the keyboard, no eyes could help her do it any better. Thus her eyes were glued to the screen, dashing over the numerous data that flowed over it, with her glasses reflecting it in the otherwise mostly dark room where her keyboard resounded. A faint light seemed to dare that reflection from the other end of the room, flickering brighter from time to time, showing how much data passed the little computer it was attached to. But Trin didn't need to look at it - amongst the tons of information that were on her display, she could fish out the state of the Raspberry Pi in less than a moment. Yet her interest was dedicated to a completely different server - one far away from her, and one that she was not precisely expected to have access to. That surely made it significantly harder for her to access it and get the information she wanted, but ust because she wasn't expected to do so didn't mean she didn't have the right to - or the abilities.

Her fingers stopped moving.

"They are using UNIX?!" she shouted in the small, dark room. "What the hell . . ." she added on to it with a whisper and a grin. The system she turned out to be faced with was a spinoff of her favorite system that used to be made through the efforts of many, many freelancer coders and, with the downfall of internet freedom, went crashing as well - soon becoming illegal and replaced by the much more monolithic and useless Windows system, made off the money they gained from forcing people to use it. Nonetheless, most of her computers ran a very similar Linux system, in its core elements the same as every other Unix - it was flexible, it was fast, it had all the tools she could ever need, and most of all, it allowed her to remain quiet and unnoticed - quite vital traits for someone with her way of life.

Knowing what she was working with, the rest became fairly easy: she knew every bug, every backdoor, every little hole in her favorite system and, with a version of it made specifically for forcing such holes open, she proceeded to force her way into the much wankier distro that ran the server she was attacking. Considering her economical status, she would have needed to wait for 50 years before she could access it, but such numbers meant little if you weren't following the law.

Grinning from the thrill of breaking the law, which Trin did daily anyway, she passed a few more arguments into the black rectangle on her screen. A few moments later, the prompt changed. She snickered and started navigating the server, which was now completely under her control. After going around a bit it occurred to her it might be too bothersome to download data from a server via bash, the default language of both computers, while the server was still running, so with a few keystrokes, she switched to SQL and, now in a fitting environment, needed less than a minute to find the files she was ordered for.

Because yes, despite being a hacker and an anarchist, she still had to work, yet she did so with pleasure. Her current job was to publicly release data on molesters from the old times when there were still poor people on the Web to be molested. She didn't have an account for the social network she was hacking, but she had heard of it - after all, "Tumblr" was one of the social networks most influenced by Big Orange's actions. Yet that didn't matter - she did her job, she got paid, and that's all she needed to know. Not that she didn't keep records of all her jobs - it had saved her life a few times already, and why change a bad habit?

The good thing was that the data she was looking for was stuff like IP addresses, user names, etc - the kind of information saved in metadata, which was pretty much everywhere. And Trin had asked for a sample post when receiving the job, so searching for that and exploiting the return value was such a simple approach that she nearly felt like she had scammed off her customer - not that she would give the money back just because the job was easy . . .

Contemplating on the low security of the server, she piped the data download to multiple dedicated servers (read raspies-in-trash-cans-that-she-connected-to-the-internet-beforehand-just-in-case-you-know). It meant that the data would be downloaded on the raspberries instead of her main computer, which in turn meant she couldn't be tracked that easily. It took a while, during which she stared at the screen blankly - if something was going to fuck up, that was the time for it.

Nothing fucked up.

Proud, she disconnected her main computer she had been using so far from the server, deleting her traces in the process, switched to the raspi that was still blinking shyly in the corner of the room and ran the same process backwards - yet this time, instead of random metadata about assholes from the last age, she made her little minions send little packages of scrambled code - every single one of them completely useless, yet put together they made a powerful killcode for the server. She liked the approach. Code golfing had always been a hobby of hers, and let's just say, she also just enjoyed wrecking servers. She originally set up the raspies for DDOS attacks (every single one of them annoying the server until it can't keep up and crashes), but it turned out these could be easily tracked and her home system could do it better anyway, so she started using scrambled killcodes instead. And she was quite proud of the results.

With the server wrecked, she connected to her raspies instead, downloaded the data for the catalogue from there instead, and disconnected again. Job well done, now she just had to wait a bit and find a place to publish it, then get paid - and hope the little ones weren't discovered beforehand. The police had managed to get a few of her minions in the past, but after running apt update, it became too hard for the rather dumb Informatics Technologies Crime Department to keep up with the rather old updates. Still, as someone living on the edge, she had to consider all possibilities, even if all she could do against them was to pray. Not that she wasn't an atheist . . .

Trin stood up from her chair and stretched. It had been a long day she had spent on her computer, and she hurt all over. "God, I might just go by foot tomorrow . . . " she said to the empty room. Tomorrow was Thursday, her day for making deals in real life. Years ago, when she was still burning with a fire for rebellion, she had bought herself a motorbike and, despite it being quite old and rusty now, it helped her move around from place to place when she had to - for example, on Thursdays.

"Oh. Fuck . . . ", she whispered to herself. Thinking of Thursdays, she remembered she had another job to do. Quickly going through some of the drawers on her table, she found an empty memory card and put it in her computer, turning the chair around so that she could just lean on it instead of sitting down again. This job was much easier - she just had to find some files and deliver them directly, no hacking, no DDOSing, no onion routing. Even better - the "files" were one of her favorite series that she even occasionally rewatched, so she didn't even need to find them - she had already down loaded them years ago. In fact, Trin really wanted to talk about it with the customer - there weren't many people she could relate to and spend time with - but again, work politics were important when living like her. She sighed - being an outlaw hacker was cool and all, but it had some drawbacks. How did she wish that she could one day just meet up with someone for a coffee and chat about books and banned Internet series and politics and Linux kernels and bot networks and homemade ISAs and how often she forgot that memory cards were pretty much instantaneous but she forgets it so she keeps waiting for them and then dozes off thinking about coffee dates. Like now, for example. She ejected the card ("Don't want to ruin the goods now, do we?"), put it in her bag with thingies, and after a moment of contemplation about whether she had forgotten something again, put the computer to sleep again.

Again, she stretched, with a considerably deeper sigh this time. "I need a fucking shower," she decided after a short pause, and proceeded to take her tank top and shorts off. She liked hot showers to relax her muscles after a long sitting in front of her machinery, so we will leave her to relax for the night.

~~~

"Aaargh!", she shouted, first thing in the morning, and punched her alarm clock which had just been "brought to life". She had been considering setting the alarm to something else than Evanescence for quite a while, but had never bothered doing it. Until now. She coded at night, for Turing's sake, she couldn't just wake up at eight o'clo- "Fuck?!", she shouted at the clock, and jumped out of her bed immediately. Changing the song was one thing, forgetting to set the timer a completely different one. She rarely cared about waking up early or other such saintly narcissities, but she had one job this time, and she kinda failed at it.

She pulled up a map on her computer. Another good habit of hers was to never uselessly shut it down completely. "Okay so twenty minutes away, I won't make it, but it'll take about five with Bumbs, so what the FUCK AM I WASTING TIME FOR!", she shouted at her screen before hurrying off into the bathroom. Deciding teethbrushing was for losers who had the time for it, she tied her hair a bit more properly than usual - in other words, she did it - and hurried back to put some proper clothes on. Luckily, she wasn't very creative when it came to outfits, which meant she had been wearing the same outfit on Thursdays for a few years now so she didn't waste much time on that. Ready, she took her bag of thingies, dug out her keys, unlocked the front door, ran out, came back, put her fancy shoes on - a pair of punk army boots -, ran out again, then came back again, turned her computer off since she wouldn't need it all day, then went out for the last and final time that morning, and didn't forget to close and lock the door behind her.

"Bumbs," as she playingly referred to her motorbike, was still chained in the common garage where she had last left it. For an anarchaic district, it was better kept than most people would expect - if only because "anarchaic" had acquired the meaning of "moral". She unchained it, swung the chain around the steering bar, took herself a precious minute to put her headphones and the "N2-BMB" playlist on, then pulled her helmet over her (still surprisingly neatly arranged) hair, swung herself over the relatively thin frame of the bike (even after the death of net neutrality, making stuff from carbon fibers remained popular), pushed the key in and, after turning it with a roar, dusted off down the dark, dirty street in the foggy morning light.

~~~

Eva was getting worried. It was already past the time she had expected to be done by, but her contractor still hadn't shown up. She was planning on going - it would be pretty bad if she was late for work - but on the other hand, she was dealing with an underground business, so she wasn't sure what were the consequences for not keeping her end of the deal. She looked at her watch and decided to wait another five minutes before leaving the old, loud, plastic-smelling room that had once been a university's cantina, but was now used as a meeting place for underground deals. Even with the orange forces doing anything to oppose them, nerds had still managed to secure some places for themselves. This university, for example, had been a meeting place for them back in the times when internet was free, and it had remained one.

From the few noises that came from the neighboring street, one separated itself by getting much louder and then ending in an unpleasant squeaking. Less than a minute later, a very chaotically looking individual came in, with a camouflage jacket and their helm still on. With everyone's eyes on them (except maybe for a pair in the corner that was meant for dealing more erotic material), they took their helmet off to unleash a wild, long, curly hair over their freckled, round face. Some whistles were heard, but she ignored them and headed towards the desk. Since it was an anonymous meeting place, the middleman was important, yet he just looked at the card the wildly haired woman showed him and pointed her in the direction of Eva.

Eva sighed. It was about time. The woman approached her, digging for something in an overly big black bag that seemed to consist of countless belts and pockets and a large flap, seemingly made from an old sail (surprisingly, it actually used to be a sail once), that covered them whenever the owner of the bag wasn't digging in its pockets. As Eva watched it, it was flipped back over the bag, as the owner had found what she had been looking for. The woman stopped in front of Eva, took a second to get used to her client being half a head shorter, and reached out her hand, a small card laying in it.

"The goods. Sorry for being late."

~~~

Ping was from China. Most of his customers often assumed Ping was his real name, yet he had just chosen it because he found the bash command to fit the purpose of a middleman that connected Internet junkies in a dystopian world. He had been working with Trin for years, and had long grown accustomed to her frequent latecomings. Otherwise, he liked working with her - she was one of the best at what she did, and still had a sense of humor that was rarely seen in their world. He might have started hitting on her if he had been straight.

As usual, she came at the latest possible time. She showed him the card that was supposed to tell him who he was supposed to connect her to, and without even looking at it, he pointed at the blonde girl at the end of the hall - the person who had been waiting the longest. Trin looked at her and blushed.

"I ain't arranging dates, you'll have to ask her out yourself."

Trin shushed him and went away from the desk. They had met in a gay bar, shortly after Big Orange's idiotic order and a while before gay clubs ended up being forbidden as well. He knew her well enough to know what was going through her head.

The following was going through her head:

"For Bell's sake, I'm late again. I hope they haven't gone away. So, who am I- fuck is she cute. I wonder if . . . Ah, better concentrate on the job, I'm late enough as it is. She's probably straight anyway. Still, no harm in asking her out on a- wait! The card! Yea, I better find that card. Dear, I really have a lot in my bag. Where did I put it again? I think it was here . . . Yup. Funny how such a small thing was still so easy to find. Anyway, let's just hand it over and be done with- oh dear Torvalds, she's shorter than me. So cute! I'd totally have that coffee date with her . . . But dah, that's not my job. Give her the- wait, I should say something. What should I say? WHAT SHOULD I SAY?!"

"The goods. Sorry for being late."

Hesitantly, the short, fair-skinned woman reached for the little chip in the hacker's hand and picked it up with her pinkishly lacquered nails. "Well, you are pretty late . . . it's very small, are you sure that's all I asked for?"

Trin shrugged with a jolting movement. "It's 32 gigs, you know. You could write the soundtrack once more onto it. And you'll still have space left over." Eva pouted her lips, colored to fit her nails. "I didn't ask for the soundtrack . . ." Trin forced herself to a grin. "There was free space?"

For a few moments, the two women looked at each other, slowly blushing. At about the time most people would start sweating furiously, a small LED started blinking on Eva's slim silver wristband, reminding her that she didn't have much more time left to complain in. She jumped slightly, startled by it, tapped it gently, after which a gentle display lit up in the air above it, which she started manipulating with her thin fingers.

Something in Trin's heart twitched. They might have been around for about as long as her, but holographic displays still fascinated her. Such small things, yet graciously bending both light and matter to create elaborate miniatures that disappeared with a blow of the wind . . . yet slowly and surely, her eyes wandered a bit further up from the tiny wonder of engineering.

"So um . . . sorry, but I'm kinda running late, you know, what with you being late and all . . . we settled for 20 dollars, I'll just add another 10 for the soundtrack . . . then, 30 dollars for the first four seasons and their soundtrack, would that be a deal?" Eva looked up to the much taller freckled girl whose hair kept her shaded. Trin just kept staring into her person of interest, still a bit too oblivious to the question.

"Yes?" Eva bowed a bit and looked into Trin's eyes. Trin jumped back with a shout. "D'AAH!"

The eyes of even the shadier corners of the hall were now on them. Trin hid her face behind her hands out of habit, then played it off by combing them through her still wild hair.

"Um. 20 dollars, was it? The soundtrack is on me . . ." she left one hand on her head, just for reassurance. "As I was just saying . . . whatever, twenty be it." With another few quick movements, Eva once more corrected the value on her dial, then reached it out to Trin, who blinked at it, confused.

The hacker knew what a wireless check was, of course. She had had the opportunity to hack them many times, and didn't even really need to be in its proximity to make it work. The hand that the device was on was a different matter, though. Despite her job, she still had trouble with people, and even as a child of the "introverted millennial generation", she was still exceptionally shy when it came to physical contact. She preferred to perform transactions in BitCoin, and to let Ping handle whatever required physical contact. Yet even with modern technology, transferring 20 gigs of data was a bit hard to do, at least if she wished to remain unnoticed. So despite her deepest instincts, she had forced herself to come over physically - and was now faced with an even deeper instinct of hers that got significantly less chances to shine.

"I uh . . . I think I'd prefer it to . . . um . . ."

Eva raised an eyebrow, thinking of the steadily increasing number on the silver ring. "Yes?" She observed as her partner slowly reached a hand out for hers and, impatiently, grabbed it herself- "Aah!" - causing a shreak of surprise in the still unsure hacker. "Look, I don't have all day to loose. Cool, you don't like me, you're weird, I get it, now just take my money because I really have to go!" With each word, the shorter girl's voice had become louder, until she was nearly screaming at her provider. With trembling hands, the hacker was thus forced to face her anxiety and put the lightsaber-like rod she had had in her back pocket for a while on the thin bracelet's dial. If her mind wasn't getting overstressed with anxiety, it might have occurred to her that Eva couldn't possibly know what a lightsaber was.

"Some other weird hacker stuff? "

"Um, yea . . . third party routing . . . otherwise, it can be tracked with much more ease . . . "

"Isn't blockchain based on the idea that everyone can route it?"

"Kinda . . . "

Trin couldn't bring it over herself to tell the girl she found it hard to talk without crying. At least her hacker's reputation gave others the impression that she knew what she was doing (more often than not, she was just winging it while jamming to "Three Days Grace"/"Hollywood Undead"), and thus Eva didn't ask her again what she was doing. The actual reason why Trin was using third party routing was that, while blockchain was indeed the main transaction method nowadays, all state-issued "SilverChain" devices were carefully tracked by that same state. And since Eva was using precisely one of these, Trin knew she could get in a lot of trouble if she didn't go the extra few moments to route it properly. Eva seemed to mind.

"Did I mention I don't have time?"

"I'm . . . it just finished anyway. So um, have fun watching it? Hope you come again . . ."

"Aha." sighed Eva. Without long goodbyes, she nodded at Trin and went away. "And be careful with it!" shouted Trin after her, not receiving a reaction.

~~~

"I mean, you were quite late again . . . maybe actually set your clock next time?"

Trin took another sip from her coffee. She had a Thursday ahead of her, and if she wanted a job, she had to stay away from alcohol. Thanks to Ping's subtle interventions, she hated drinking it anyway, yet he still proved to be a good drinking buddy, even if only for coffee.

"That aside, can I borrow your bots sometime soon?"

"What for?"

"This guy said he needed some routing for some large files, and I thought we could distribute it over your net . . . "

"What files?"

"You know I can't ask for that."

"Can't he just encrypt then and ssh them over?"

"You could try doing that, you know. I'd give you his contacts, but he wanted to remain anonymous, so I'll have to ask before that."

"And gender somehow doesn't count as personal data?"

"I never said he's a guy?" Trin raised an eyebrow. "Fine, you got me. Ain't telling you anything else, though."

"I can hack it myself if I cared."

"And get yourself blacklisted from my bar?"

" . . . eye for an eye, I guess. Assume I take the job - how much would I get?"

"A twentieth, risk factors and transport included." Trin considered it. A tenth of a bitcoin could allow her to renew all her electronics, state-of-the-art computer with at least basic quantum support and hydrogen cooling included, and maybe finally buy herself a bed. She was getting bored of her hammock anyway, she told herself, and assembling a bed would be fun . . .

"I refuse. Too risky."

"Said the girl who times how long she needs to hack the discontinued Oath Inc FreeBSD mainframe in Linkin Park songs?"

"Hey, hey, hey! Keep my gender out of this!"

"Sorry, sorry . . . "

Another hacker, recognizable by his large headphones covering the sides of his head, entered the bar and exchanged a few cards with Ping, who sent him to a nearby table. The "bartender" then spent a few moments on the console hidden behind the plot that had been locked until now.

"There's this girl who's looking for her . . . brother of a kind?"

"DNA sampling?"

"No, just IP7 address . . . "

"His?"

"Have a guess."

"Oh dear . . . "

"Should I tell her?"

"Don't bother, she'll figure it out herself soon enough . . . I kinda feel sorry for her, though."

"If it's important, she'll manage."

"I certainly hope so."

Ping wondered whether there was anything else to say.

"I guess you won't hack my servers to get the girl's data, right?"

"Why would I? It'll only give me her IP, but I could get that otherwise as well . . . "

" . . . I meant today's client."

"Oh."

"I shoudln't be telling you, but she seemed pretty straight."

"Are you telling me that based on her looks or her search history?"

"The latter, plus tests from her job application."

"Oh right, they reintroduced that shit . . . when was it made again? 1950?"

"Well they got the pupil cameras fixed . . . took them long enough . . . "

Another few moments spent looking at a screen and mourning the victims of heteronormative societies..

"Aah. Here's one for you."

"Lemme hear."

"Recovering WhatsApp conversations with ex."

"No way. I hate Erlang."

"Oh come on, it's just a language!"

"So is Malborge . . . "

Trin had long suspected Ping of having tried to learn "that one language" that had been specifically designed to be impossible to use, and his suppressed, choked laughter confirmed her suspicion.

"You gotta admit, though, it makes for completely foolproof programs!"

"Yeah, and I've never used nmap before."

A ping from Ping's computer pinged his attention, interrupting their line of puns. He glanced at it.

"Oh snap."

"What?"

"It's your customer from today, and she's not asking for a date."

"That sounds . . . bad?"

~~~

Eva came in right in time, which was bad. She technically had enough time to dress up and start work in the time given in the job description she signed three months ago, yet with a boss like hers, she had to be ready to start serving at least half an hour before. It wasn't legal to make her work with such a schedule, yes - but "legal" was a very varying term, set according to charisma of the workgiver, his (there were few hers in power) wealth, and last but not least, whose contacts he had on his bracelet. Her boss happened to have the contacts of a few of the more important inspectors at the constitution that was responsible for making sure politicians still had a "law" to refer to.

Long story short, she had to use the back door and dress in the toilets. At least she knew her boss wouldn't look for her there. He had installed cameras there and often misused them, which was the reason her female colleagues and her used the bathroom of the neighboring hotel whenever possible, but she took the risk - the consequences for directly disobeying his tyrant order were worse than having him see her undress. It wasn't right, but "righteousness" and "justice" were things that few believed still applied to women after Big O's rise to power.

Her bobbish haircut held back by a yellow hair band, a thick, uncomfortably sticky lipstick and makeup on her face, and such a revealing outfit that it didn't matter much whether she changed into it in the bathroom or not were the quick changes she had to adjust before going back out into the uncomfortably cold and gray corridors of the fast food building she worked at. She remained silent for a moment, listening for someone who might run into her and tell her boss and, after not hearing anyone close, tiptoed to her locker further down the corridor. Luckily, her boss was too greedy to pay for proper lockers, so there was no pad to register when she came in to work - a useful detail she and her colleagues had learned soon after applying.

Still on tiptoes, she ran past the "meeting room", mainly used by their boss to shout commands and molest his female subordinates, and stopped in front of the kitchen door. Beyond that point, anyone would be able to see her, and she would most certainly get noticed by the cook. So the question was, which cook was on duty? It didn't matter much, since she couldn't change much about it anyway, yet Eva tried to use every chance to calm her throbbing heart.

Leaning against the cold metal door, she was assaulted by all the noise going on early in the morning. Since the shift had already started, the kitchen was already working, and she could barely distinguish a silent whistle, accompanied by a deep hum and roughly following the melody of "Heartbreak Hotel". Eva sighed happily, creaked the door open and entered.

The slightly overweight, balding white man behind the grill who nonetheless still looked like in his thirties stopped turning the steaks and turned to her instead.

"Hi, Elvis." she whispered. Nodding with a smile, he beckoned her closer and whispered in return, "Irene is on the counter, so serve the back for a while first. Table 21 ordered a big coke less than a minute ago, bring that and check it with her. I'll be a witness if she asks when you came."

She gave him a quick hug and dashed off to the drink machine while he continued whistling where he had left off, quickly turning half a dozen steaks that threatened to start burning soon.

~~~

Eva had lost count on how many times she had convinced herself of Elvis' kindness. Most of the tables in the back had to be served, some more than just a coke. Yet from the Neo-nazis that shouted slurs left and right, and the businessmen discussing how to drench their employees of even more money, he had managed to send her to the only table that didn't pose any potential danger to her physical or mental health. Table 21 was occupied by a rather decent looking guy who seemed to be doing something very uncommon for his times - studying. Eva placed his coke down next to him, distracting him from the thick white book he had been engulfed in. "Oh, thanks," he mumbled, taking a sip from it. "Haven't seen you around?" he asked her, making her exchange her anxiety for confusion.

"Wha-, um, do you come here often?"

"Yeah, I study here a lot. I don't live far, but there aren't many fast food places near me, so I come here. The staff is nice."

Eva tried to pull her skirt further down, remembering that she tried that every day and still forgot how futile it was. The only place 'near by' that didn't have fast food restaurants and where you would expect to meet someone wealthy enough to study was the Manhattan - a walled-off downtown district, soaring to the skies where the rich bureaucrats and businessmen lingered in pleasures while the rest of the population had to find their place in the communistically designed slums that composed the rest of the city. While he seemed nice, Eva knew the boy could probably buy her as a dog and treat her as such, and get away with it without anyone batting an eye.

Yet again, her knees were trembling. She didn't have much of a life, yet for someone to be able to change hers at will frightened her. And she had good reason to be frightened, for very few with that ability cared to use it for the good of those whose lives were influenced.

Having noticed her lack of response, the boy turns to her, making it even worse. Threatening to fall, she grabs the table, supporting herself.

"Miss, are you alright?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Just had a little trouble this morning, and it still seems to weaken me . . ."

Politely declining his outstretched hands, she turns to go back to the kitchen, only to see yet another horror. Having been distracted by her contemplation on modern society, she had not noticed the flashing blue and red lights, and only noticed the policeman when he was almost in front of her.

"Where is Brian Naille?"

"Whu, what?" she asked with a trembling voice, too distracted to understand his otherwise rather simple question. The officer, on the other hand, wasn't that understanding, and decided to shout in case it helped her - which it didn't.

"You useless slut, didn't you hear me?! Where! Is! Brian! Naille?!"

Eva had raised her hands over her head. Officially, the police was meant to protect the people, but everyone knew better than to pointlessly trust them and get killed in their own homes. And this specific example didn't seem to think much of her anyway.

She glanced to the kitchen. Elvis had that ability to him to calm people, yet behind the thick glass panels, he hadn't noticed anything yet. Which got Eva thinking: what was his real name again? The officer followed her line of sight and didn't need to think long. He went away from Eva, yet her knees didn't stop trembling. Waving his badge around, he entered the kitchen. Elvis finally saw him, and his peaceful expression was replaced by one of bitterness and hate, one no one knew he knew how to make. With a speed Eva didn't think he was capable of having, he lashed himself towards the officer who, also having not expected such agility or speed, didn't even move when the hot and oil-dripping spatula dug into the flesh of his face. Even behind the isolating glass, his shout was still well audible. Having scarred him for life, Elvis reached for the backdoor that Eva had come in through, yet the officer, having been frequently beaten at his training camp and unusually furious, grabbed for him and lashed him back, bringing him to the floor.

Despite her best attempt, Eva couldn't tear her eyes from the brutal beating that followed. A few lower policemen joined their boss on kicking down on the now defenseless cook, yet still restraining themselves enough to leave him alive - they'd need him alive in order to torture him in prison, they knew in their rather primitive brains. Nonetheless, they kicked for a while. Eventually, he had stopped moving, so they dragged his lump, bloody and disformed body through the corridor and out of the building.

Eva had fallen to her knees, unable to look away. Aside for her little purchase this morning, she had expected to have a normal day - getting shouted at by Irene, spilling a drink or two, getting slapped on her butt by clients who she had never spoken to, the usual abuse. But actually seeing someone getting beaten was too much for her. Sure, it was daily news to hear that someone close got beaten and imprisoned, yet seeing it happen right in front of her was a completely different story.

She looked around. Did it even happen? Or was it just another fantasy of her tortured mind? The clients had been excited, and now seemed content of the little show. Most of them had already gone back to their useless talks. She looked at the now empty grill. Blood still covered the marble white floor panels in front of it. The steaks on it were beginning to raise a cloud of black smoke, yet no one seemed to care much. It was not their job.

"Are you okay?" The boy reached a hand out for her again. "Did you know him?"

"I- . . ." her own voice choked her. She coughed it away, and started again. "I have to go."

~~~

Not bothering to give the employees a proper explanation, the police department had sent their boss the report. Brian Jackson Naille, or Elvis, as they called him, was fired on the spot, his records sent to the police for analysis and then deleted. His drawer was emptied - there were some clothes that got thrown away, and a few electronics got discovered that were also sent to the police. Apparently, he had trafficked illegal data about the new trackers that were soon to be made public, earning him a life sentence in jail - if he managed to even get there. He had earned himself a respectable loan, which ended in their boss' pocket.

Eva was given a half-hour 'break' - after cleaning whatever remained of him, she was free to spend the rest of the time as she pleased. She spent most of it puking in the toilet. She went back to pack the cleaning utensils, and involuntarily eavesdropped as Irene chattered to one of her vultures about why they got him. She went back to the staff room to pack said utensils, and remained in the toilet, playing with her bracelet. If they had caught him for smuggling such data, it would surely be easy to also track her conversation with Ping. The SD card that was still in her bra - she wasn't allowed much privacy - happily glinted when she took it out, innocent of the trouble it could cause her. She stared at it for a while before raising her hand again, activating the display. She had to warn them.

She didn't know anything about RSA - the unbreakable algorithm that her device was supposed to use instead of its way too simple substitution algorithm -, nor did she know much about routing. Yet she had already managed to get in touch with them once and, despite the insecurity of using the same route again, she opened up the chatbox from last time.

"A much needed plea from a silenced drudgess. In the dread of blood, a fleeting hope is all I beg."

She wanted to come up with something smarter, she knew she had to, but her overstressed brain failed to think with something aside for her addiction to poetry from when she was eight. Hoping that it won't be intercepted by the router that her boss was very keen on observing closely for precisely such complaints, she raised her hand again, breathed in, hoping to make it stop trembling, and pressed 'Send'.

~~~

Eva's eyes were closing. It had been at least an hour after her break was over, yet no one had come in to look for her. She had cried, she had crawled herself into a ball on the floor, she had almost started lashing out on the door, but held back, knowing that then someone would have come for sure. Now, she was just lying on the floor in her small gray cabin, not moving, not expecting anyone, just listening to the noises from the corridor - often steps, the occasional trolley, sometimes shouts for oil or another ingredient.

Certain steps grew louder. She could make the difference between most of her colleagues, but she didn't recognize those. They were heavier, sharper. Angry. Unlike the others, they were looking for something, and quickly rushed to the toilets after entering the corridor. The steps threw the door open, confirming her fears, and rushed to her cabin - the only closed one during work time. Eva was trembling again. If her message was intercepted, then even the stupid boss would have guessed why she had sent it, and would have called the police back to get her as well. Her life hadn't been that bad, after all - sure, she didn't go to university and was ditched at a roadside fast food place by her parents, but all things considered, it could have been much worse-

"Your name was Eva, right?"

She jumped up. The voice was slightly hoarse, but she was sure she knew it.

"We um, we have a policy to not look into our clients' personal data, but I kinda had to in your case . . ."

Eva unlocked the door and opened it wide. With the same old army jacket and an even wilder haircut that aerodynamically went down to her shoulders, Trin stood there and was still trying to catch her breath.

"Ping caught your signal, and I rushed here on Bum- uh, my motorbike," she explained briefly. "Get out before they notice-" she began again, but was interrupting by the auburn waitress hanging herself on her neck and starting to cry. "Um." was all she managed to add to it, reddening up again.

"Oh god bless you're here, I was so worried, they got Elvis for some data traffic and I knew they had tracked me too, god I was so worried but you came please please help me, help me . . ." she kept on, but soon her pleas were drowned in tears and snot and she had to sob silently, curled up on Trin's chest while Trin herself was busy caressing her hair and blushing heavily. "I um . . . I jammed the cameras, so we should have a bit of time to get out. I'll let you stay at my place, okay? You'll be save there. I promise."

Eva dragged herself up on her, holding her for another while before standing on her own. "Th- thank you," she managed to mumble. "No problem. We help whomever we can." Nonetheless, she leaned closer. "Honestly though, think before you contact us. You put yourself and all of us in great danger, you know."

"I know . . ."

To her response, Trin covered her face with her hands and thus muffed her shout that she gave off out of nowhere. It was Eva's turn to put on a worried face. "Is everything okay?"

"Stop being so fucking cute, I can't think properly!"

A couple of seconds of silence followed, disturbed only by the steps coming from outside. Trin took her hands off her face and pointed to the door with a serious face, yet her blush betrayed her. "I never said that. Now go pack your things and let's get out of here."

~~~

Eva didn't need much time to get ready. She took her jeans from her locker, pulled them on under the shirt without bothering to go back to the bathroom, took the rest - a jacket that she threw over herself, a notebook, a few cards that she used whenever her wristband couldn't fit, and a shirt that she wrapped them in before stuffing them in the jacket - and turned to the hacker. Trin had politely waited and after she was done, guided the way through the slowly thickening crowd of employees in the corridor towards the exit that Eva had come in through before what seemed like an eternity. The door was open - it had to be left so for "security reasons", yet no one dared to use it during work time. Bumbs was parked a bit further off in the parking slot of the building. Trin took a helm from the baggage compartment and handed it to Eva. "Give me your stuff and put it on." Eva did as told, letting Trin lace her shirtbag over her own portable computer in the box at the back end of the bike. Then Trin put on her own helm that had rested on the driver's seat, swung herself over it, and beckoned Eva to do the same. She had trouble doing so, having never even ridden a bike, but managed with a bit of help. "Name's Trin," her savior remembered to inform her. "Hold tight."

"Hold tight where?"

"Hug me from behind."

Even under her helm and the serious voice, Eva could still tell she was blushing. What an interesting woman, she thought. Not only an outlaw of such degree, but savvy enough with electronics to remain an outlaw for long. And she rode a motorbike. Eva didn't know what it was about motorbikes - they were loud, they were much more polluting than, say, public transport, and they were prone to breaking. But she had somehow always imagined being swept up by a guy with one of those bikes with the high steering bars and the many leather straps and belts. It didn't turn out as she imagined - and to be honest to herself, she had always known that she didn't really like such guys anyway - but having an outlaw friend that rode a motorbike sure looked like an interesting idea.

Her subconsciousness would have had something to say about that vision too, had it not been busy accommodating itself to the fact that Eva just used the word "savvy". It needed a while to process it. Had the day been calmer, it might have brought up a little detail about the outlaw's behavior that Eva had remained oblivious to.

She wrapped her hands around Trin and laid her helm on her army jacket. Seeing as her passenger was secured, Trin turned on the for Eva surprisingly silent engine, pushed the holder aside, and gently steered her bike to the main road. The jammer in the baggage compartment lost contact at about that distance, and Eva's boss was granted a pericular view over the ladies' dressing room and lockers, with no auburn Eva to be found.

~~~

Despite the clouded gray sky, it didn't rain. Trin drove into what was once a parking school lot and shut down the engine. "We're there." she said to her passenger. Eva took her hands off her and let herself be helped down from the machine. Ping had seen them coming, and was jogging towards them from the cantina building, looking mad. He didn't even bother looking at Trin when he reached them, instead he just grabbed Eva by the shoulders and shook her roughly.

"What happened to Brian?!" he shouted without warning. Trin threw her helm aside and grabbed him, pulling him away from the panicking Eva. "What happened, god damn it?!" he shouted again before Trin ripped him off her recently saved friend. "For Snowden's sake, Ping, she's under shock! Think a bit and leave her to calm!"

For a moment, she thought he was going to jump at her dear waitress again, but he bit his teeth together and held back.

"Apparently, the police caught word of Brian's dealings and went to arrest him. He was beat up pretty bad," she rewarded him for his consideration. He didn't like his reward. Instead, he started trembling just like Eva, shaking from anger and helplessness. Trin ignored him again and hugged her auburn companion, holding her tight to stop her shaking. "I know it hurts, and I know you don't want to remember it, but we have to know what happened, or it might get much worse." The now stable girl nodded guiltily and turned to Ping. Her lips trembled, but holding her savior's hand, she managed to speak.

"The . . . A cab had parked outside the door, but I was busy with a customer, so I didn't pay it much attention. The police officer came in and shouted at me, and I thought he would beat me or kidnap me, but he left me alone and went after the cook- "

"What was his name?"

"I, I don't- "

"God damn it, Evelyn, I have customers there!" He pointed at his bar. "And if you don't tell me what those damn officers know, they might die just like your cook! So who was he?!"

The now again shaking waitress looked up at Trin with a worried, questioning look. "He had to get your personal data so I could come to save you," she explained. Eva nodded, even more worried about how much they knew.

Yet one important thing they didn't know. Ping came closer and wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt - he had tears in his eyes.

"Overweight white man with balding hair?"

"Yes, exactly. We, we used to call him Elvis, he always listened to those old songs . . ."

Ping had feared it and had held back his tears, but now that he knew, he had no reason to. Being the strong and serious man that he was, he didn't have much experience in crying, and it looked sobbier than usual. Nonetheless, he remained silent. Howling wouldn't help anymore.

"What . . . what happened?" asked Eva. "I . . . I will have to evacuate the bar," he managed to mutter. Trin stepped forward from behind Eva, still holding her arm for support - whose she didn't know.

"I'll take care of her."

"First, you will wait. Then you can do what you want."

As he had said it, he turned around and went to the bar. His feet were shaking and he nearly fell down a couple of times, yet he ran - he had to.

Eva wasn't trembling anymore. She had had enough of being worried, and found it increasingly hard to be worried, so she stopped. "How do you intend to take care of me, actually?" Trin was experiencing a similar emotional deficiency and failed to blush. "If you don't mind sleeping in a hammock, I could take you home with me . . ."

Eva raised an eyebrow. She had never been good at raising her eyebrows in any other emotion but fear, but she somehow managed. "You sleep in a hammock?"

"It's comfortable and easy to maintain. I have an extra sleeping mat, so I'll be on the floor." Eva considered the suggestion. Trin was an interesting woman indeed. Leaving aside the issue with loosing her hard-earned flat and earnings, Eva didn't regret having to live with her. "Well, you've read my records, so you know I have anxiety . . ."

"I kinda had to. Sorry."

". . . I don't know if I can do it."

The brunette with the messy hair turned back to face the somewhat shorter auburn. "You can. You've come this far, there's nothing to hold you back anymore." Lowering her head, Eva covered her chests with her hands. It was cold, and her outfit wasn't made for that weather. "That's . . . that's not true. You saved me."

Despite not being good at guessing other's emotions, a stroke of genius lit up Trin's mind. She took off her leather jacket, leaving herself in a pullover over a short-sleeved shirt, and draped her jacket over Eva, hugging her to compensate for what it didn't cover. It was Eva's turn to blush. "I couldn't have done anything if you hadn't called me. I may have a motorbike and sick nerd skills, but the bravery was on your side."

After a short contemplation, Eva decided she really liked that woman. She hugged her closer. "Trin, was it . . . for how long can I stay?"

"Uuummm . . . I lived alone, so I guess for a while . . ."

~~~

The two remained hugging each other for a while. Trin's ever-logical brain wanted to leave, but it knew Ping was coming, so it waited, leaving the emotional part of it to cuddle with her crush. Unsurprisingly, people started pouring out from the cantina and dashed to the parking lot, ignoring the two women and rushing to their vans, cars, motorcycles, bikes - one person even left on roller skaters. Eva had trouble guessing what gender that person was, but Trin knew it was neither of the ones she was thinking of. When everyone was gone, Ping came out as well, carrying a largish black bag towards them. Even from a distance, it was obvious he had cried. He seemed to be done with it, though, having regained his serious composure. He put the bag down next to them and started digging in the surprisingly low-tech tools that it contained. Eventually, he pulled out a largeish wire cutter and pointed it to Eva.

"Hold your hand out."

Eva was, for reasons obvious to everyone but Ping himself, very reluctant to obey. Trin grasped her wrist and pulled her closer to herself. "Your bracelet. I once had the honor to set up quite a complex jammer for Ping, but once we're out of reach, they can track you again."

With a proper explanation, she trusted Trin and let her hold her hand out while Ping cut the thin but surprisingly resilient band of silver away from her wrist. Once the heavy cutter was through, Trin gently peeled it from Eva's wrist, letting her examine the newly acquired blankness on her hand.

"It's so . . . empty? It feels weird."

Ping snorted, taking out a funny-looking baggie from his bag. Trin just grinned. "Kinda ironic how people find freedom weird . . ." Ping handed her the wire-coated baggie, and she put the silver band in it before closing it tightly and stuffing it in her bag. "It's a Faraday bag," she explained for Eva. "It's a small, handy version of my jammer. If we turn your bracelet off, we will loose data we might need later, so instead we'll isolate it until I can hack it safely at home." Then she turned to Ping and switched to a somewhat nerdier English. "You 'dd'ing your servers?"

"I have the data on a HDD stack. I'll have to shut it down and then I can pack it on the van. Can I ask you for a favor?"

"I'll inform the others, don't worry about that. Though to be honest, I think they know already."

"Can't hurt to be save. I'll go finish the setup, you have fun with the lady. I'd stay wary of the Paper Doll if I were you."

Trin gave him an odd, cold look, but still laughs at what seems to be a private joke to the unknowing Eva. After another moment, she lets go of her female friend and gives him a hug instead. "For Neumann's sake, Ping, don't die," she said, choking on tears. "I wouldn't be so worried about that, I know every hideout in this city."

"You know that's not what I meant."

After another moment of silence, he tapped her back. "Take care of her."

"I will."

Turning around and not looking back, he let go of her, took his bag, and went away again. Trin didn't wait either, picking up her helm from where she had thrown it earlier and handing Eva's to her new roommate who had silently waited out the confrontation. "Brian was Ping's boyfriend," she began explaining without being asked, "He was a data trafficker - he was also the one that sent you to us. If-, no, when the police finds the location of this place, they will come to ransack it just like they did your place, and we won't get to save innocents like you."

"What will happen to him?"

Trin seemed to choke. Her voice was certainly hoarser when she whispered "Don't ask."

Skillfully, she swung herself on her motorbike and helped Eva to climb on again. She even put her helmet on for her. "Keep my jacket on."

"Isn't it colder for the driver?"

"Keep it on."

Trin locked her own helmet below her chin and swung her bag in front of her - it was less comfortable for her, but more so for Eva. Having been beckoned, she hugged her driver from behind again. cuddling against her almost bare back.

"Eva . . . is it just me, or are you hugging me a bit more persistently this time?"

"Well you need a bit of warmth, don't you?"

Trin smiled and fired up the engine. Thinking back about it, she had indeed wished to be hugged like that when she first saw her. Sure, a few things turned out different than she had anticipated, but otherwise, she was quite happy with this Thursday.

~~~

Years later . . .

Gentle chants filled the room. Trin would have played something more norsic - there was a half-ancient band she had had in mind - but it wasn't her who chose what got played this time, so instead of her treasured Manowar, she was listening to the soft notes of the sharp Digital Daggers. Not that she didn't like them - as long as she could concentrate, all was fine with her. Her concentration currently had some trouble revealing a hidden solution to the gibberish that was displayed on her screen and that her eyes were captivated by. She had written it herself, and wasn't exceptionally happy with the result.

With a wisdom that had taken her a while to acquire, she leaned back. Straining herself wouldn't help, that she knew well. She stood up, stretched her tired back, and went to the kitchen. Despite what people often thought when seeing her going around with her shaggy clothes and haircut, she loved plants. Every window had at least one vase or can or anything that could hold water sitting in front of it, with plants ranging from bean sprouts to peace lilies to even a cactus that she picked up one winter out of fear it might freeze to death. Leaning herself on the window frame, she enjoyed the sun that came through and gazed on her little assortment of plants in front of it. Besides computers and books, she cared a lot for them.

Oh, and for another thing.

The circle plate in the middle of the iron apartment door turned, gliding the locking bar together and unlocking the door. With a bit of effort, the woman behind it managed to pull it open, bringing in the two bags of supplies she had brought. Trin took them from her and carried them in the kitchen while she was busy closing the door behind her.

"Oh, you brought asperges?"

"You said you liked them?"

With a smile, Trin started putting the food in their fridge. She hadn't been very concerned with eating habits until Eva came, and she could definitely tell her health improved altogether once the food got better.

"I think about boiling them with some potatoes on the side. It would probably be hard to boil them on a grill, but you have nice pots . . ."

While Trin enjoyed the voice, she wasn't precisely listening, so she didn't notice when Eva stopped talking and went over to Trin's computer. Just like Trin, she glanced at the screen for a while, and then started typing. She was still on it when Trin put the empty bags aside and went over to her side.

"What are you . . . doing?"

She stared while Eva finished typing and then proudly put her hands on her hips. "You have never been good with binary trees, were you?" Eva pouted, commenting on the somewhat recursive structure that Trin indeed never managed to use properly. The nerdier of them scratched her head. "I'm more impressed that you are . . ."

"I've practiced. Anyway, now that you're done . . ." She swung her arms around Trin, who lost her balance and started falling, and with Eva's help, the two ended up in the narrow hammock. " . . . we can cuddle, right?"

Trin was red again. "You little rat, abusing my computer like that!" She started tickling Eva, who twisted around in laughter. For yet another time, Trin convinced herself that she couldn't be mad at her auburn roommate for long, even if she tried.

They cuddled for a while. After moving in with her, Eva had had much trouble with panic attacks, and the closeness the hammock created helped her. Eventually, she just decided she liked to be packed close with Trin, and thus they didn't have to buy a proper bed, continuing to sleep in the somewhat overcrowded hammock that Trin had creatively hung on the thin walls with the help of Ping and a few thick logs. Surprisingly, it managed to hold the weight of the two women, in addition to the occasional swings and pulls that occurred whenever Eva played around in it or got tickled. All in all, it was a design worthy of respect that Ping had come up with.

Out of nowhere, Eva squeezed her roommate tighter. "Um . . . Trin?" The hacker patted her head. "What is it, sweetie?"

The auburn girl turned her face, rubbing it against Trin's chest and hiding in from her. "Have you ever . . . you know . . . wanted to . . . "

Her voice, quiet since she began speaking, shrank to a whisper. "Hey, I can't hear you when you speak like that. You can tell me anything, I won't mind."

Eva took a deep breath and started again.

"Do you want to adopt a child?"

~~~

A long silence followed. It was the kind of uncomfortable silence that you could feel sticking to you and choking you. Eva had feared it for a while.

"You know, I've . . . been thinking . . . because you know, I always thought that once I earned enough money to live properly, I'd find a boyfriend and have a family and the such, and . . . well, you aren't a guy, but I won't mind founding a family with you . . . and um . . . you know, I was thinking that, well, since there's no guy, we can't get pregnant, so we could, you know, adopt a kid, since there are many that need a family either way, and we don't necessarily need a child to be, like, biologically ours . . . "

She was interrupted by her friend's hand that she raised to her face. Scared, Eva looked up at her, to see that she was trying to wash away her tears. Still scared, she tried to continue, with even more confusion in her voice.

"I uh . . . I . . . I'm sorry if I brought up something bad . . . it's just that . . . you know, we've been living together for two years now, and I thought we could, like . . . "

Trin put her hand on her partner's shoulder, and she stopped talking. Despite crying, she managed to smile.

"It- it's okay. Sorry."

Eva hugged her girlfriend tightly again. "Don't be sorry, Trin, you did nothing wrong. I . . . kinda thought you've had trouble with your family, so I should have worded it differently-"

"No, Eva. It- it's okay. Really. I've . . . well yeah, they abandoned me when I was very little so I never knew them, but I don't regret it. After all, I got to be with you . . ."

Eva giggled. They were having a nice time indeed. Sure, most of it was spent working on computers and Eva had to use a raspie for a long time before Trin bought her a laptop - a slim white thing with hearts on the cover -, but most of all, they were together.

"So, my little romantic. Wanna go visit my old place tomorrow?"

"To- tomorrow?!"

"Why not? It's a Thursday, we have time, and if I heard right, you've wanted to do it for a while, right?"

Eva buried her head in her partner's chest. When she looked up at her again, she was red with smiling, and Trin went blushing as well.

"We are gonna need a bigger apartment."

"And a bed."

"Right, a hammock is a bad idea . . ." Trin commented through a yawn. As the two drifted asleep and had sweet dreams of each other, the computer kept gently lulling in the back.

" " "

When the moon is in the seventh hour, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets, and love will stir the stars . . .

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the age of Aquarius . . .

" " "

#writers of tumblr #dystopia #gay #hacker #surprise i finally finished something #i care a lot for this story #ave #net neutrality

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