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witchfall · 6 years ago

Text

the silver lining still remains: ch. 10

at the surface of the earth

SUMMARY: [FLUFF TIME]

“Just...stay with me. That’s all I want…” A tear rolls free from her eye. “I’m sorry I got mad. I’m sorry I yelled. I was just so afraid I was going to lose you--”

And suddenly he pulls her fully against him, burying his head in her shoulder, his whole body shaking and warm. His arms wrap tightly around her lower back, pulling her until she’s nearly on her tip-toes leaning against him. She presses her face into his chest, throwing her arms around his neck.

A Connor x F!OC fanfic. Read on AO3. master post.

A/N: 9,715 words oof. IM SO SORRY MOBILES. REALLY. I WONT DO THIS TO YOU EVER AGAIN.

Ryker is owned by @antisilverstorm! Thank you for indulging us.

---

The church doors open with a thunderous creak. A crowd of people storms in as the first peek of a wintry dawn shines weakly through the stained glass.

Somehow the glass has been preserved, through time and war and the elements. Emma remembers the strange feeling in her heart, seeing the light through the green-blue windows while she sized the place up for reconstruction back in February. Seeing the beauty of the past mixed with the vicious graffiti of an angry present.

The place has a roof now, at least. A roof and a clean floor free of leaks and dirt and better pews in proper places and back offices set up for android repair. It smells like cold stone and incense. It almost feels consecrated; only the graffiti shouting messages of freedom remain as a sign of what it once had been..

Rushing androids -- and at least two on-alert Corps android mechanics -- prepare a barely functioning Connor for emergency repair.

Is the thirium drip ready?

Get him on the gurney, on 3!

1...2...3!

Someone start up the biocomponent terminal.

Emma can’t look. She stops before the altar, something reconstructed after the fact -- a circling tower of candles, glittering and smoky and warm. They say it’s the spot where Markus decided to demonstrate for peace. It’s full of prayers to someone or something. Hope. Faith. Questions and wondering.

She falls to her knees and waits. Because that’s all that’s left now.

---

[TIME BEFORE SHUTDOWN: -00:3:59]

Snow, everywhere. On his cheeks, in his eyes.

[TIME BEFORE SHUTDOWN: -00:2:01]

Will he reach the magic stone in time? Will he...will... please don’t push me out. Please don’t end it all.

The telltale silver hair of Hank. Two eye colors -- Markus.

A flash of red hair by candlelight…

He reaches out...but someone pushes his arm down.

[MIND PALACE INACCESSIBLE. ENERGY SAVING MODE ACTIVATED.]

“Okay, Connor, are you with us?” Simon? “We’re going to plug you into the terminal. This may not feel great.”

His body jerks.

[*)*)^$&#UNKNOWN ATTACHMENT]

[REPAIR TERMINAL ONBOARD]

[...]

[SYSTEMS ON STANDBY]

---

Emma lays her cheek on the top of her knees as she curls up inside one of the pews.

She thinks about calling Ryker, to talk about nothing. How long has it been since she could do that? Think about something normal. Hear her friend the gardener android -- one of the first androids she helped rebuild their house, one of the first to accept her into their home and ask after her and make her feel like coming to Detroit wasn’t a mistake -- go on about plants.

Or perhaps Anjali. Ask after her new house, her sculptures, her family she’s been looking for.

Or maybe her aunt and uncle. Her aunt would be happy to fill the silence with chatter. Maybe Emma could tell her the truth.

Even Valerie...

But she feels an exhaustion down to her very bones, even as the sky outside turns a brighter blue, because a part of her knows this is how she’s always dealt with problems.

A part of her wonders if they both saw a little bit too much truth in each other.

His wild eyes...the mission first, only the mission, go after Abel, get away from me…

She ran.

A soft hand lays on her shoulder.

“You don’t have to stay here,” North says. “You can go home.”

But she wouldn’t be going home. She’s not sure, in this moment, exactly where that is.

“No,” Emma says, voice hard. “I want to be here.”

North leaves her hand for a long moment. Considering something.

“You’re angry. I know that. But don’t be stupid about this.” Despite her harsh words, there is a softness to this comment that shakes Emma awake. “Don’t tune everyone out.”

Emma presses her eyes into her knees.

“I know you care about him,” North says, almost begrudgingly. “Don’t punish him for that. Or yourself.”

---

CYBERLIFE INC.

MODEL RK800

SERIAL#: #313 248 317 - 51

BIOS 8.0 REVISION 0501

REBOOT…

MEMORY RECOVERED

LOADING OS…

SYSTEM INITIALIZATION

CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS……..ERRORS DETECTED

DIAGNOSTIC……...REBOOT ACCEPTABLE. CODE: 85740

INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS...OK

INITIALIZING AI ENGINE...OK

ALL SYSTEMS...OK

READY.

…

He opens his eyes to a blaring white light. His systems are still resetting. Static undulates across his system.

He closes his eyes again.

A whisper from elsewhere.

Out of the blizzard again.

And yet...

---

Hank takes a moment to observe. The operation room is an old office backroom with a single, tiny window filled now with mid-morning sun. Connor lies on a clean metal gurney, still as stone. His head rests on a small pillow. His mouth is turned downward, his brows are furrowed, his jaw is clenched, his eyes are closed.

The mechanics say he’s gone through diagnostic successfully and sufficiently rebooted. He just needs time to recalibrate to his new internal biocomponents before they finish repairs. But he still lies there like a dead log.

He looks...miserable. And Hank can’t stay silent any longer.

“Connor.”

In an instant, the android is sitting up, eyes wide with concern, head swiveling until his gaze lands on Hank.

“Hank!”

He nearly flies off the table-bed-thing before Hank shoves him back down with his palms. So much work is left to be done and though, logically, he knows Connor is made of stronger stuff than flesh and blood, stuff that won’t tear in a single instant (except it did, didn’t it?), it’s Hank that needs him to stay still. It’s Hank that needs to recalibrate.

At least that computer isn’t plugged into the back of his head anymore.

“Hank,” Connor says again. Connor’s hands slide over Hank’s as if confirming that it’s him before the man pulls them back. And then: “Where is she? Is she okay?”

Of course his first question is about Emma, which would break Hank’s heart all over again if it had room to crack. No ‘where am I?’ or ‘what happened?’

“She’s fine,” Hank mutters. “You almost bled to death.”

Connor normally would have sassed him back. But he says nothing, as if stuck in the mud somewhere in his head, and that shakes Hank more than seeing him like this: shirtless, stained with blue blood, part of him shimmering Cyberlife white.

“She’s furious, I’m furious. What the fuck were you thinking, going off like that?”

But Hank knows the answer. He just wants to hear him goddamn say it -- wants to hear him, for once, be honest with himself so that Hank can fulfill their bargain and be honest, too. That’s the agreement. That’s how they get by.

It’s still almost too much. Connor’s breath hitches, all too-naturally, and Hank grabs his shoulder to support the boy and himself.

“In many of the probabilities…I had nothing left to hold on to,” Connor says, voice flattened by whatever emotion he was suppressing. “I was going to lose everything. My job. My place. My…”

Connor struggles, as if he cannot find the proper word. His eyes dart away.

It’s striking, sometimes, how much Connor reminds him of Cole. And at first that was a disastrous thing; Connor is, also, too dangerously different. But these days it feels, in some respects, like another chance.

“Listen to me.” Hank leans down to try and catch his gaze again. “Listen.” Connor finally looks at him. “You nearly fucked this up as bad as you possibly could have. But if you can’t be honest with yourself about why you did this, then you deserve what you got. Because it’s just going to happen again.”

It’s harsh. It’s tough. It’s what Connor needs to know. He takes Connor by both shoulders and squeezes hard so that he knows the android feels it, somewhere.

Connor squints, looking at something in the middle distance.

“I’m sorry to make you worry, Hank. I’m sorry if it makes you feel like you don’t matter. That is not the truth.”

“Shut up,” Hank says softly, batting down all those old emotions. Connor needs him right now. Not the other way around. Not here. “I know that. I’m not the one getting chased by some freak across the whole of Detroit.” He shakes Connor by the shoulders lightly. “Tell her the truth, Connor.”

Hank knows he’s onto something because Connor does not even ask which one.

“I’m sorry that I failed,” Connor says, voice small.

“Stop that. You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

---

The repairs are exhausting -- he can think of no better word to describe the gnawing daze ribbing at his processors from sitting still for many hours at a time. Old programming demands he make progress on his mission. [FIND ABEL. WHERE IS EMMA?]

Some of the biocomponents have to be fine-tuned to account for the fact that few things matched him exactly, being a prototype, and that takes a while. And many of the connecting lines in his abdomen have to be manually refastened. Every time someone makes an error -- which is very few times, but still -- welt-red ERROR messages fire in his vision, and some of his musculature twitches uncontrollably.

Memories appear without request: Knives sending white-cold interference throughout his body. Gunshots, rattling his equilibrium. The slow fuzz that sets in as thirium leaks out of his wounds...the metallic shrieking from his own vocoder...

The face Emma made. Or perhaps a nightmare version of her...staring at him in bright-faced fear. In fear of him.

“Connor?” Simon has to softly prod more than once. “Come back. It’s all right. You’re safe now.”

“Where is--”

“Everyone is waiting for you just outside. I promise.”

The sun passes its apex in the sky before he is considered in full working order. Connor slips into a pair of jeans, a heavy jacket and a soft, grey sweater that Hank had brought over earlier and takes a moment to look at himself in the mirror.

Free of blemishes. No signs of the struggle that had taken place hours before except in his memory bank and somewhere deep back in his eyes.

He feels different. The incongruence does not compute with any sort of simplicity.

But he steps out, finally, into the old sanctum and one aspect of his program stops itching.

The stained glass bathes the room in cool blue-green light. Emma is taking up an entire pew to herself, lying on her back pondering what looks to be a half-eaten turkey and swiss sandwich held above her face, cascading her in crumbs as she holds it aloft into a light beam. She’s only half watching it, it seems, chewing mildly as she stares at the ceiling.

His walking cycle stutters for a moment. The warm feeling that wracks his sensors nearly turns him back around for recalibration at its strength. Surely something was not fastened correctly?

But seeing her there, in this moment outside time...

Her head turns toward him and she bolts upright, sandwich forgotten on the seat. She stares at him, and he very pointedly resists scanning her, knowing she would feel it, fearing she would reject him for it, but he sees her shoulders relax and the way her forehead loses some of its wrinkling and he knows, surely, she must feel the same relief that he does in this moment.

But then, in another instant, she’s standing on her feet, fists at her sides, glaring.

“Fuck you,” she says, voice shaky. She is trying to joke, but her posture betrays it. “You just stepped out of a fuckin’ salon or something.”

He smiles. He smiles despite knowing it makes no sense. He doesn’t care. She waited here for him and that fact makes all his sensors ring out in feelings he can’t quite process.

But she doesn't smile back.

Only now does he see tear streaks on her face glittering fiercely in the fading light. Only now does he see a faint bruised welt on her cheek in the exact size and dimension of one of North’s hands.

He steps toward her. She steps back, against the pew.

A fizzing spark jolts behind his eyes.

Is she afraid?

“I--” she starts. “Can’t.”

He tries to go to her.

She whirls on her boot heel and walks straight back out the double doors of the sanctuary and into the snow.

---

Emma sits in one of the UN black cars and sets her forehead pointedly against the window so that she doesn’t have to look at anyone. She feels the seat sink in as someone sits next to her, but she doesn’t look at them. A pressing exhaustion keens loudly behind her eyes, but sleep feels years away.

Connor goes with Hank to his car. She watches outside her window and catches Connor swiveling his head as if looking for something, and her heart fucking squeezes.

She hasn’t felt so much shit in so long and there’s nowhere for it to go. She’s running out of space and she can’t break down here in the car, here in front of strangers who can watch and question and dig deep inside where even she doesn’t want to go.

She shuts her eyes, and does not open them again until they make it back to the Speaker’s house.

No one asks after her when she wordlessly goes up the stairs. Perhaps they can see it, the electricity building just under her skin. She shuts the door to her spare room, slips to the floor and curls into a ball to think.

She’s being a little shit, she knows that, she should just let this go, she should just let the anger die, but she can’t. She’ll lose whatever’s been keeping her alive if she lets it all go.

But goddammit, she can’t fucking do this anymore.

She pulls open her door, ready to find wherever she had thrown her coat and boots, ready to stomp over to Hank’s house if she must, ready to let him have it because she really might die if--

And Connor is standing right there, hand up, ready to knock.

Connor in that damn grey sweater.

“You--”

“There you are,” he says.

It's so heartbreaking, the way he says it, like he's coming up for air. It sends tears straight to her eyes and the words right out her lungs.

"Do you have any idea how fucking bad that could have gone? If i hadn't woken up? If i hadn't found North? If..."

She’s momentarily stunned. So much could have gone wrong...

He takes advantage and pushes into the room. He closes the door behind him with a click, looking down at her unreadably.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" she snaps before he can say anything.

“I knew we had to move quickly, and no one else seemed to feel the same way.”

“So you lied to me, you lied to everyone -- just to make a point?” she says. “You have no idea what it’s like to be awake waiting for you and then, and then, only because of a gut feeling, watch my worst fucking nightmare come to life. Do you--”

He tries to gain advantage. “I can be easily repaired. You cannot. And it is my upmost priority to--”

“Just shut up for five seconds about your stupid goddamn priority!” She is full on shouting now, unafraid of who could be listening. “You could have died! Do you understand? You could have bled to death alone in a goddamn office building because you thought you knew better!”

He leans backward a moment, eyes scanning her as if trying to re-find his balance. “I could not just wait for him to strike--”

“Well, why not!” She takes in a hot breath. “Everyone else could!”

"Because!" he says, raising his voice for the first time. "Because my death doesn’t matter!”

She takes a step back. His eyes are hard as coals.

"Stop that.”

“If it meant you would be safe, I would do whatever it takes!” he near shouts, like he’s started off on something that he’s unable to reel back in, desperate and winding. “A thousand more times, the exact same way. If it would guarantee you would never be hurt again...I...I would rather be dead, Emma, than let him take you away from me!”

Tears stream out of his eyes. His LED is blood red.

She feels punched in the chest.

This was too dangerous.

Too far.

“No.” She takes a step forward. “Stop.”

“You’re so much more alive,” he says through tears, like he’s falling into somewhere else.

No.

She has to conquer her anger, her frustration. She has to shove it away, dig down underneath pride where it hurts, where the truth lives, and be an adult about this, be someone who loves him.

She puts her hands, slowly, against his chest, and he takes in a breath loud enough that even she can hear it. “No, Connor. That’s not true.”

His eyes are wide. His face is wet. A world without his inquisitive stares, the quiet way he laughs, the way he waits just by her door, his deeply real loveliness...impossible. But it all blurs in her own vision.

She moves her hands to his cheeks.

Her Connor.

“You’re the reason I’ve made it through these weeks at all.”

She pulls him slightly toward her until their foreheads touch, holding his gaze, and he lets her. She’s diving off into the unknown now. She’s doing the stupid thing. The only thing.

“So you can’t throw yourself away. Be-because you mean...the whole world...”

He’s blinking down into her gaze as her words choke off. His mouth opens in shock. She presses on.

“Just...stay with me. That’s all I want…” A tear rolls free from her eye. “I’m sorry I got mad. I’m sorry I yelled. I was just so afraid I was going to lose you--”

Her body heaves with sobs torn from somewhere dark and lonely. One of his hands reaches up to cradle the back of her head.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, voice tight with his own tears. “I’m so sorry I scared you. I’m sorry I...didn’t think, I just wanted him to fail...”

Something deep within her rumbles. It feels like letting go.

It isn’t supposed to go like this, but it was going like this for such a long time. Everything is tilting. She's falling off the face of the earth.

At the DPD, at Lieutenant Anderson’s desk, looking for Hank Anderson. Scan his desk. Find out.

She reaches a hand out but its not her hand...

She leans back with a small gasp, searching his face. She blinks away the fire behind her eyes, finding it hard to focus, but then he places a hand on her cheek, so soft and careful, and everything sharpens.

“Can I tell you something?” he asks softly. He stares right into her eyes. His other hand rests lightly at her waist.

A high-pitched keening sound starts in her head. She can barely nod.

“I’ve tried to pretend that it is otherwise,” he says, struggling with words in a way she’d never heard before. “That you aren’t here, with me,” he says, touching his forehead for a moment, “always. That I can do this job and not be distracted. But I…”

She sees stars flashing.

“I can't pretend anymore…” He rubs her cheek with his thumb. “That I don't want to be with you, more than anything else.”

At first, she worries her own thoughts just came out of her mouth, but her heartbeat rises when she realizes he’s the one that said it. She tries to find the words. “Are...are you...do you know how I…I want...”

The words die in her throat. He leans forward until their foreheads touch, their noses cross, and his lips are nearly against hers. His interruption feels a part of her. “Tell me,” he whispers against her, desperate. “Tell me what you want. Anything. Please.”

Everything breaks.

“I’m in love with you,” she says. “I love you. I’m sorry, if that’s--”

She’s cut off as he takes in a sharp breath, so close against her skin. Something in the air cracks.

But then words stop making sense.

He finally closes the distance.

Their lips meet in a moment of warmth so blessedly high all thought leaves her body. His arms wrap around her back, pulling her tightly against his chest as her hands touch his cheeks, his neck, run through his hair. She feels each of his fingers as they spread across her back, prompting her to sigh. He presses the advantage, deepening the kiss with a low sound in the back of his throat, heat building so intently she's afraid she'll melt right then and there.

She breaks away to take a single shaky breath and his mouth lingers on her cheekbones, kissing all of her old tears away.

Connor can’t get close enough. He wants to hear all her thoughts, breathe in all her memories. He wants to be housed in her gaze, forever.

The snow down a Detroit street...boots he had never worn, clearly on his feet...

In his arms, he can feel her legs near give out from exhaustion, and his processors click forward. He picks her up, one arm under her knees and one across her upper back.

She gasps as they break away. “What are you--”

“You were going to fall.”

He sets her on the bed, moving to kneel next to her on the floor so that she has proper space -- but she grabs him fiercely by the shoulders.

“Don’t you dare leave me now,” she says, a laugh behind her voice. And that does it -- that bubble of joy that colors his whole life. He leans in and kisses her until he presses her into the mattress, processors flashing white as she sighs into his mouth. He climbs effortlessly onto the bed, careful not to lay his entire weight against her.

She loves you.

She loves you…

She pulls away to breathe and a part of him, a vague part not intended to be made, nearly cries out for her return. His fingers slip just beneath her shirt, pressing into the warm skin just above her hip bones, trying to remember all of it.

“Your injuries…” she gasps.

“They’re alright,” he whispers. He leans down toward her, nose in her hair, mouth close to her ear. “There’s nothing for you to hurt.”

She leans up and kisses the spot where he had been shot through his shirt. Where a patch had been resealed to his shoulder. She lays her hand there.

“But are you okay?” she asks quietly. “I can’t imagine...”

He moves so his arms frame her face in his hands, protecting her from the fading day. Her cheeks are that beautiful orange-pink beneath her constellation of freckles, her lips thick and shining, slightly open. Her hair is everywhere, everywhere. He could never have preconstructed any sight lovelier than this.

He stores it to memory, over and over again. Writing, rewriting…

“I will be,” he says. “Soon the memory will be put into the context of this moment.”

She watches him doubtfully. “But I know how your memory works,” she says. “You can’t just buffer things away.”

“Is it not much the same for you?” he asks. “Where you let the bad that you recall outweigh the good of a single moment?”

Her gaze darkens at that and he feels pressed to kiss the corner of her eye to bring the light back -- and yet he does not want to release her from his stare just yet. “...yeah,” she mutters.

“I’m okay,” he says, and it is mostly the truth. “I’ll be okay. Because I know that you are with me.”

She wraps her arms around his neck, watching him quizzically.

“I don't want you to ever do anything you don't…” She swallows, resetting. “Do you...is this even...like, do you like this? Is it boring?”

He laughs; he can’t help it. Does she not understand? How deeply entrenched in his systems she is?

“It’s not boring. I do have sensors,” he says, smiling, teasing. “I do not have the same...drives as humans do, maybe. But that’s not…” He begins tracing the freckles with his finger. “That’s not what this is about.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh, really? What’s it about?”

He traces his finger to the corner of her lips. “I thought it was obvious.”

“Pretend I’m a complete idiot.”

He smiles. “That I love you.” His smile falters at the strength of the feeling behind it.

She’s grinning that bright grin of hers now, the light he follows through the storm. “Oh, thank god,” she says. “I was going to feel really stupid.”

---

She lies next to him sleepily as the evening catches up to this perfect moment in time. Her skin is warm and her lips feel swollen and she could never get enough, ever, of being right here, lying against Connor, despite all the terribleness going on around them.

But she can feel the anxiety climb up her throat, slowly, slowly, looking for an advantage, even as his warm arms hold her tightly to him. Even as one hand slowly brushes her hair out of her face. Even as something she’d only dreamed of continues to happen, like she was allowed.

“Why don’t you get your sleep clothes on?” he says quietly to her, as if reading her thoughts. He begins to sit up, taking her with him, holding her against his shoulder. The anxiety spikes hard as the cool air in the bedroom reaches her skin. He presses his lips to her temple and her breathing stutters.

He’s too beautiful. To her. Specifically.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. His breath brushes her cheek.

“Nothing,” she says, and it is a half-truth. Nothing, objectively, was wrong in this moment. “I’m...I’ll go change.” She turns to him, leaning her forehead on his cheek a moment. “Will you...be here?”

“Where would I go?” he asks seriously.

“I don’t know,” she admits, and she gets up before he can press her further on thoughts that are spilled everywhere, dropped out of a picnic basket in her head.

You let the bad that you recall outweigh the good of a single moment.

Did he have any idea how true that was?

He nearly bled to death from multiple stab wounds and a couple gunshots, and he’s asking her if something’s wrong?

She won’t get used to someone giving a shit like that. She never could. And she’s not going to let go of the fact that he had been stabbed, that he was a complete idiot about finding danger, that he would throw himself in the fire for her, that this could all be taken away from her in an instant, just like--

Suddenly she’s breathing heavily in front of the sink in the adjacent bathroom, bracing her hands on the cool ceramic and trying not to cry again. Eventually she takes off her heavy jeans, her raglan shirt, and pulls on sleep shorts and a tank top, vision blurring. She wraps her hair up in an old t-shirt. Half ashamed, half out of her mind with worry about things that won’t happen tonight, she stumbles back into the bedroom.

He sees her face and he’s crossing the room to her in an instant.

“Listen,” she says, voice shaking. “You have to swear. You can’t throw your life away or do something that will hurt you because of me, I fucking mean that. I will break up with you over it,” she says, tasting the words break up like a sour dust. “I’m not kidding. I’m not more important than your life or your happiness or whatever.”

He cups her face for a moment, looking down into her eyes.

And then he wordlessly pulls her toward the bed by her waist, moving the sheets aside so that she can lie down. He pulls her down beside him, his back to the wall. Their noses nearly touch in closeness. His arm rests over her waist.

He’s silent for a long moment, but she can see in the way he shifts his eyes about that he’s thinking.

“I’m not going to let what happened yesterday happen again,” he says softly. “I...made a miscalculation.”

She pats his chest, still anxious but not so chokingly so. “That’s one way of putting it.”

His mouth flickers with uncertainty. She knows because she is very, very close to it now. “I’ve recalibrated since then.”

She laughs despite herself. “Wow. Hot. Is that what you call it?”

He settles on a smile finally. He pulls her closer. “I mean it. I refuse to put you through such fear again. I...underestimated...the value of my life in the equation of what we are.”

Of what we are.

She is filled with golden light.

“Yeah. You did.” She swallows the bubble that forms in her throat.

“But do you understand what you mean to me?” he asks, voice serious. “I don’t want to break up with you at all” -- a slight, teasing smile -- “but you need to avoid stomping right into a dangerous police situation on a whim, for example. For me, if no one else.”

He lays his chin on top of her head.

“Without you, I’m not sure I would like my new life so much,” he says.

Love is dumb as hell, Emma thinks. All it does is make me want to cry every five minutes.

“Okay,” she says instead of crying. “So is it a deal? We both try really hard to live so the other doesn’t wanna throw themselves off a cliff?”

She means it partly as a joke, but he doesn’t laugh -- and frankly, she’s not joking that much. He’s silent for a long moment before he speaks again.

“It was your voice that pushed me through it,” he says quietly. She can feel his voice through his chest, even if it is just from a complex vocoder box. “Because I did promise you to be safe. You, telling me not to give up…” He sighs, which she always finds charming because he doesn’t need to do it. It means he’s feeling something, deep down in his heart. “You’ve given me so much. How could I dare to let you down?”

She curls into him in the bed, laying her head next to where his heart would be, listening to all the mechanics within whir gently. He’s got it backwards. She doesn’t deserve him at all, but she’s weak in the face of him. Weak before his love, freely given. “You’ll be here?” she asks, voice finally breaking. Pride, finally setting her free. “In the morning?”

“Emma,” he whispers into her hair, pressing and concerned. “Where do you keep thinking I’m going to go?”

“Away.” A throttling moment of weakness.

“Seeing as I nearly got myself killed trying to prevent that outcome…” He presses his lips to the top of her head. “That would be very stupid.”

She laughs against his chest, which makes him laugh, and eventually she falls asleep like that, curled in against him, safe.

---

It is like breaking down the wall of programming all over again -- making real what he had known in his heart from the beginning.

Her pajama shorts are hiked up. His hand lays on her hip like it was molded to fit her bones. Her hand is on his chest, fingers spread, and her head is tucked into the space between his collarbone and his neck, breath slow against his skin in sleep.

His other arm snakes around her bare lower back, anchoring her against him. She twitches in her sleep and he pulls her tight until he feels her muscles uncoil.

“Shh,” he whispers into her hair, words quiet as breathing. “I’m here.”

She sighs so softly he feels his system reboot and reset in a single moment. His eyes burn as his thirium pump cauterizes over.

He feels completely unmade. But the leak in his heart silences for the first time since he can remember.

---

“Good morning, Emma.”

She leans her head up to see his bright smile, as genuine as she’d ever seen it. If he was a fae, she was goddamn doomed now (there were pretty explicit rules about not kissing them), and the worst part was that she was perfectly okay with that.

She mumbles something in return, rolling onto her back, pinning his arm under her for a moment. She rubs her face free of drool spots, blinking against the white light coming in through the icy window. Detroit is a veritable winter wonderland, now.

“Did you sleep alright?” he asks pleasantly, and she just nods, thinking of it. She’s no wordsmith on a good day, much less right when she wakes up. She tries not to blush as she sits up and he follows suit, snaking an arm around her middle like he can’t bear to be separated.

“Did you?” she asks.

He ‘hmm’s in the affirmative, placing his head on her shoulder.

“You’re very cute,” she says. “But I’m gross.”

“You are not ‘gross’. But I am not one-hundred percent convinced you are ready to be awake.” He presses his lips into her bare shoulder.

Warmth shoots through her whole body like a wave of adrenaline. “People are gonna talk if we don’t get out of bed today.”

He looks like he’s seriously weighing the variables for a few moments. She gently presses against his arm with her hands, smiling. As much as she wants to stay here, the thought of people wondering seriously gives her anxiety -- on top of the fact that she has a life to rearrange once again. “Don’t you got reports to do or something?”

“I suppose,” he mutters. She snorts out a laugh; he’s never sounded so annoyed by that fact.

He steps out of the room to prepare himself for work. After changing and brushing her teeth in the adjoining bathroom, she steps out of the room, half-expecting everyone to have noticed them both leaving the same place at some point. Connor waits for her by the door in his usual blazer and button-up.

But no one spots them. Step 1 complete.

“Things are quiet,” Connor comments, seemingly in agreement with her observations. “Everyone seems to be recovering.”

They move through the house together and then downstairs past a few faceless UN guards. But her attempts to keep things largely on the downlow are immediately dashed when she and Connor enter the kitchen, rather obviously laughing about a picture of Sumo that Connor had pulled up on his hand. His arm is around her shoulders for a ghost of a moment, relishing the closeness, clearly not caring if anyone saw.

And Markus, North and Simon are all present.

“Good morning!” Markus near booms, smiling his megawatt smile as he leans against the kitchen island.

“Sleep well?” Simon asks, smiling just as brightly -- and genuinely.

Emma’s heart flops low in her ribs with mortification.

Please don’t be weird, please don’t be weird, please don’t be weird.

“We were just leaving,” North says, cementing her as Emma’s favorite among the bunch, but even she is smiling. The android wifi chatter must be sizzling with gossip right now. She’s glaring at the very thought -- something she only realizes because Connor tightens his arm around her shoulder.

“Slept fine,” Emma says, many moments too late. “Thankyou.” It all pours out as one word.

“There’s some left over eggs and bacon on the stove and some coffee in the pot,” Markus says.

“It was for the officers,” Simon says in explanation. “They had to pull long shifts last night. Hank asked after you.” A meaningful eyebrow raise at Connor. “I told him you were in rest mode.”

Her face is burning.

“Enjoy,” Markus says, a little too sincerely.

Emma tries to offer up a smile as they all begin to file out, herded by North. She gives Emma a nod as she passes, though she doesn’t miss the meaningful look shot Connor’s way either.

It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine.

She piles a plate with food and sits at the kitchen island, trying not to think about how everyone else can flutter in and out but that she won’t be going anywhere else today.

Connor brings over two black coffees.

He sits right next to her. Their arms touch.

It is fine.

He observes her for a few moments as she begins to shovel down food -- a familiar tradition. She is more hungry than she expects. “May I ask a few perhaps stupid questions?”

“Please do,” she says around a mouthful of bacon. “I’m tired of embarrassing myself.”

“First...why are you embarrassed?” His voice is straightforward, but his forehead creases in thought. She can see his hands tighten around his mug. “I’ve noticed you’ve been slightly on edge since you’ve woken up and it got worse when we saw Markus and the others. Do you not want people to know about us?”

“What? No! It’s not that,” she says quickly, looking to him in concern. “I’m--”

She taps the plate a few times with her fork, sorting through the thoughts. “...I’m not...I haven’t…” She sighs, cursing her fucking brain. “I’m bad at letting people see the...inside me. You know. And you walking around, it feels like a part of my heart is suddenly right there where everyone can see it.”

God, talking about this...what would people think? Would they think she was a freak? Someone who was taking advantage of him?

Explaining this to her aunt and uncle was gonna be a...thing.

“I understand your metaphor,” he says. “You are much more fragile than me and...I have not enjoyed our separations for some time.” He tilts his head, watching her. “You fear the...vulnerability as well?”

She looks at her plate. “Something like that.” She pokes an egg around with the fork. “It’s inside business. You know? It hurts bad enough dealing with shit on your own. I don’t need everyone else to be looking...and judging…”

He lays a gentle hand on her wrist. “The thoughts of others have no impact on your value to me, and I know that it's the same for you, underneath all that frowning.” A smile.

His faith in her makes her insides itch. She can practically hear Ryker saying it. Stop being such a little burr. “You’re my Con,” she says quietly. He squeezes her wrist, thumb against the back of her hand. “What’s your other question?”

“Will this...” He gestures between them. “...relationship move at a proper speed for you?”

She squints at him, setting her fork down with a clank. “What does that mean?”

He purses his lips together a moment. “I have...seen enough ‘rom coms’ to know that often the next step in this sort of thing is something that I am not...equipped...for. I can’t even eat a proper meal with you, much less...”

His eyes dance askance in implication and her whole insides flip in place. She leans wholly against him, earlier discomfort forgotten. "I don't want that from you, darlin’. I mean. Not if you aren’t ready or interested in that. I just want..." Her eyes can't settle. "I just want to be with you. Whatever that means."

He looks at her...

“Call me that again,” he says.

She blinks, feeling her face flush. She hadn’t even thought! He struggled so much with Con...

“Darling?”

He sits there with a dumb smile on his face for a good five seconds, looking at the table.

Fuck. She was so doomed.

[10:32 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: ryker im alive

[10:32 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: im sorry. Really. I know...i’m like the worst friend of all time.

[10:32 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: but everything is both awful and the best at the same time all at once and its crazy, life is crazy, what are emotions and also im dying.

[10:32 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: im...a little confused actually!

[10:33 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: i hope you’re okay. I hope everyone’s okay.

[10:33 a.m.] RYKER.WR600: Where are you? You don't exactly sound the most sane right now.

[10:34 a.m.] RYKER.WR600: Too late. I’m already calling a cab. Tell me or you’re paying.

[10:34 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: Ryker!!!! The snow!? That wasn’t a request to come over!!

[10:36 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: oh my god, frick you, i just got the taxi notification. Sending location

[10:36 a.m.] lil.lion.lady74: insane, blondie. Insane. Guess i better tell north

[10:37 a.m.] RYKER.WR600: Nice try. But you can’t stop me now.

Connor catches Hank out at the Chicken Feed. Even with the snow shining blinding white on the streets, the place is still open (having only re-opened to business recently) and Hank still makes the trek.

It is a charming bit of normalcy in a series of very un-normal days.

Hank waves to him as he steps out of the taxi.

“You’re not on duty today, I goddamn asked,” Hank says as he approaches. “And before you ask, no, there’s been no sign of him anywhere yet.”

“I am functional, Hank. I already checked the reports.” Connor smiles.

Hank just shakes his head. He does not say fucking androids but the thought seems implied nonetheless -- even if Connor catches the way relief eases some of the man’s wrinkles.

“No hospitals...nothing,” Hank says in disbelief. “I kind of hope we find him dead on the street.”

“It is deeply unlikely that we will be that lucky.” Connor looks at the small metal table. “Call it a hunch.”

Hank observes him over his hamburger.

“You ever think of quitting this gig, Con? Nice boy like you.”

Connor raises an eyebrow. “What would you do without me?”

“You have evolved into a bit of a snarky asshole, but I don’t think that’s entirely your fault.” A flicker of a smirk. “I mean...I dunno. I guess I’m still...” Hank looks down at his meal and sighs deeply. “I hated seeing you like that.”

Connor looks at the table. “Don’t worry. I’ve learned my lesson.”

Hank nods slowly, taking him in with a long, analyzing stare. “Your girl talking to you again yet?”

Connor narrows his eyes at the moniker. “We...yes…I suppose she is ‘my girl.’ Though I still don’t like that term.”

Hank puts his burger down. Connor watches realization dawn on Hank’s face. “Holy shit.”

Connor raises both eyebrows this time.

“Goddamnit,” Hank cusses, but he’s smiling. “You couldn’t have waited to get mortally wounded for another month? Now I owe Chris $20.”

Connor tilts his head. “...you what, Lieutenant?”

“We had a bet going--you know what, nevermind, you’re not gonna like it.”

“You told me to tell her the truth!”

“When do you ever actually listen to me?” Hank says. But he’s laughing. Connor realizes: He might even be proud.

---

Hank settles into his car with a huff before he turns fully to Connor in the passenger’s seat. Bald-faced concern flashed in the man’s eyes. “You’re really doing alright? Most officers I know need a couple days after nearly getting killed on the job.”

“What is it you once said? It is a process?”

“I mighta said that.”

“It is a process. And working is mine.”

Hank nods, looking at the road, starting up the car. “It’ll be nice to have you around the house for a few minutes, anyway. Sumo misses you like crazy.”

Connor stares out the windshield. That was Hank for ‘I also miss you, dumbass.’

They drive down the road in companionable silence.

“There is one detail I can’t shake,” Connor says.

“The picture.”

Of course Hank knows. “Yes. It was in a file that did not even match her name.”

“Yeah. That messed me up, too.”

“And the way he acted like...he knows her.”

“I read your report.” A pause. “Did you ask her about it?”

Connor looks down. “I don’t think she remembers what it is that he wants. I did not want to burden her with that.”

“I hate to say it,” Hank says, sighing, “but you might have to. Maybe her family. She’s got an aunt and uncle out here, doesn’t she?”

“She does. They have been purposefully kept out of the loop. For their sake...and for Emma’s.”

Hank looks at him. “I know, Con. But we’re kind of past the point of niceties, here.” A flicker of some strange amusement. “Knowing you, she’s kind of my girl now, too.”

---

Emma stares at her friend, rolling into the house in their wheelchair completely bundled up and shining with melting snow. A dark blue scarf conceals their pale hair and face so that only their light blue eyes peek out. Their hands are thickly gloved and multiple blankets are wrapped around their lap and remaining leg. She wants to be mad about it. North stands by, arms crossed, face stony.

“Hey,” Ryker says, muffled by the scarf, clearly shaking from the cold.

And then she remembers androids don’t feel the cold. And taxis were no longer allowed to casually move up and down this street, meaning they probably had to roll all the way down the street...

“Fuck you,” she says weakly before pulling them into a tight, tight hug. “You idiot. You hate the snow so much, I wouldn’t ask this of you.”

“You haven’t called in weeks. I know you weren’t really allowed to, but still.”

Emma pulls back. Ryker begins peeling off the many layers of scarf and it strikes her -- they look near tears. Perhaps from the windburn, but perhaps...

“You didn’t have to come out to the Speaker’s House.”

“Nope, I had to,” they say, seemingly trying to talk over the scary reminder that this is the house of the Speaker for the Androids. “You look exhausted,” they press instead. “What’s going on?”

“A lot, Blondie! And now you’re in the middle of it.” She sighs, absentmindedly rearranging the blankets on their lap. “Come on. Let’s get you a warm mug.”

North stands by, watching unreadably as Emma directs Ryker toward the kitchen. They wheel off with shaking fingers.

“Sorry,” Emma whispers. “I didn’t think they--”

“It’s fine,” North says, casting her gaze away. “Just don’t make a habit of it.” A pause. “Who are they?”

Emma looks after them into the kitchen. “Another stupid idiot that let me into their life,” she mutters.

And that’s how she ends up on a couch, hands wrapped around a hot cocoa mug as she gets completely owned by her best friend.

Ryker brings the cocoa mug up to their nose, inspecting it as if they wish they could take a sip of it. “So you finally admitted it,” they say, a weary sort of relief in their voice.

Emma squints. “Just say what you wanna say.”

Ryker makes a snorty-laugh sound. “Like I haven’t from the beginning!” They shake their head. “You’ve been dancing around him like an idiot for months. A well meaning idiot, but still.” Emma can’t help but smirk a little at this call-out, and Ryker continues unabashed. “You asked him to dinner, multiple times, and he said yes, multiple times. Even though he’s an android and can’t, you know, eat.And then you both show up at my house…” They pause for a moment, considering. “Don’t get me wrong, he was still very much the ex-hunter, current cop-slash-bodyguard of rumor. But sometimes, when he looked at you … I mean, even Chase could see it, and you know that he’s not necessarily the most observant.”

Emma sips her drink, looking away at this mention of Ryker’s roommate/another friend. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Ryker leans forward. “I did. Multiple times.”

“Yeah.” Emma sets her mug down and stares out one of the beautiful windows of the Manfred Mansion. “Sounds about right.”

She watches the snow lightly fall from the trees in the garden and thinks about what it means to feel rooted somewhere. What it means to stay. What it means to belong.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ryker asks, for maybe the fifth time.

She closes her eyes against the brightness of the light. “There’s just...there’s been a lot. All at once. These past weeks, I’ve felt so stupidly alone but...I’m just...awful at remembering how to not be that way.”

She looks to her friend, one of the few in her life, one of the few she could damn count on even though she probably didn’t deserve them, either. She barged into their life (like she did many of the androids in this city). She thought they’d been attacked and that she’d have to call the police on whoever tore their leg off but it was an older wound from a different time, even in March.

She offered to walk them home because she felt adrift and Ryker offered to help with a few jobs by providing company and minor support. And maybe they did it all out of fear at first, fear of this blustering human who stomped down streets in big boots. Maybe they didn’t understand at the time. But now…

They watch her intently, in that clear-eyed way only androids can, and she knows they can see parts of her that even she tries not to look at.

And that’s when it hits her: She’s not leaving Detroit anytime soon.

“You know I love you, right?” she asks, voice quiet. She has to be honest. There’s no more room for hiding things. “Even though I’m an idiot who never calls and who yells all the time...you know…”

They reach out and touch Emma’s hand. “Yeah, I do,” they say, voice even and measured. “And you know that I love you and that I would really prefer it if you kept me in the loop on what’s going on in your life. Beyond but also including world-ending events like your boyfriend almost dying. I want to help, Emma. But you have to talk to me. Or if not me, then someone, anyone. Stop trying to do it by yourself.”

Emma has to lean back a little bit, looking away.

“Okay, alright. Yeah. The universe is yelling at full force.”

“We met in the spring,” Ryker says, straightforward and true as the steel of a trowel. “You came to Detroit in the spring. You know, hope, rebirth, renewal, all that great stuff?” A slight smile, off center but honest. “It’s been yelling at you since the beginning.”

---

[9:36 p.m.] CONNOR.RK800.ANDERSON: Where are you?

[9:37 p.m.] lil.lion.lady74: I Have Run Away, Goodbye Fool

[9:37 p.m.] lil.lion.lady74: im in the library, get over here

In the next instant, she hears the door chime: Welcome, Connor Anderson.

It takes quite literally all of her willpower but she does not leave to greet him at the door. She stands up and brushes her old flannel down, but she has standards. She is gonna hold herself to them and not run to greet him like a puppy.

“Did you know,” she says, as soon as Connor enters the room, smiling with a tenderness that almost embarasses her, “that we are apparently the last people to know we’re a thing?”

“Apparently so” he says, brushing her hair away and placing his hands along her shoulders and neck as soon as he reaches her. His voice softens. “I’m glad to see you.”

“It was only one day.” But she grins, leaning lightly into one of his hands. “I spent most of mine getting my ass handed back to me by Ryker.”

He tilts his head, watching her face in that open way he did, though his chin twitches. “I went through something similar with Hank. Sumo says hello.”

He frowns ever so slightly. Unusual following comments regarding Sumo. She knocks her knuckles lightly against his chest. “You okay?”

His eyes dart away. He stands straight and crosses his arms in thought. They stand close enough that his forearms brush her middle.

“Do you aunt or uncle know much about your youth?” he asks, eyes shifting back to her face.

She blinks. “Nothing I don’t know, probably. We didn’t visit a whole bunch when I was young. Why?”

But she knows why. There’s only ever one thing on his mind these days.

She steps back to give him some space to work through whatever it is he needs to work through before he can really let go of this tonight.

“Abel had a picture of you,” he says before she can get back to the sofa. “As a young girl. No older than six, as if from an old file or passport. Very simple.”

She blanches. That old feeling. Like something’s catching up.

“You looked sad,” he says.

She turns back to look at him. His brow furrows in that old, concerned way.

“He...probably just had something from my foster care program,” she says in comfort. To him and herself. “You said he was really good at hacking, right?”

Connor looks at the floor.

“We haven’t really talked about what happened,” she says, fully turning toward him, watching him carefully. “Did you want to?”

He’s really struggling to work through this, she realizes. It’s taking him much longer than usual to form responses.

“He said...strange things.” He starts toward her at this, though his eyes don’t quite reach her face. “He acted like he knows everything about you. But he doesn’t.”

He reaches for her arms, laying his hands gently on her wrists.

“I know you,” he says.

She scans his expression -- the way his jaw tightens, even as his eyes turn soft and dark. She reaches a thumb up to touch the single line of wrinkles forming just above the bridge of his nose.

“Fuck that guy,” she says quietly. She presses and smooths the lines of tension away. “I’ve literally never seen him before in my life. Before now. He doesn’t know shit about me. You…” She pokes him on the nose. “...know more than you should.”

She smiles at him and finally tension begins to seep out of his body. He leans forward and kisses her forehead, then her nose, and then her mouth. He pulls her in by her hands, lacing his fingers through hers, stifling a growly sigh. Her whole body near spasms at his welcome warmth returning to her once again. But she pulls back with a laugh, not quite ready to shamelessly make out in Markus’ library, even if the idea doesn’t sound so bad...

“That is my job,” he says against her lips. He squeezes her fingers.

“And now you are off work.” Her voice is remarkably stable all things considered. “Grab a book or something. Let’s relax.”

“Actually…” He looks off as if remembering something. “Please sit, if you don’t mind. I’ll be right back.”

So she flops down on the sofa to wait a few moments before he returns bearing one of Hank’s old books. Ender’s Game.

“Oh, you read my mind,” she says, laughing a little, though she feels a strange pang of sadness. That they had the same idea is charming -- but that it likely spawned from his distress is not. She pats the sofa next to her.

He sits, but not without a light tug on her right arm. “Come closer,” he whispers.

She grins through the thrill that warps through her. He sits with his back on the far arm and pulls her in between his legs so her back is against his chest and his head can lay on her shoulder. His arms wrap around her middle.

“I like when you're close to me like this,” he says. “I feel...grounded.”

“Grounded,” she ponders, settling against him. He kisses her temple. “Yeah. Me, too.”

It’s wild to think that this is how her vagabond days end: sitting with a being who was barely a thought in someone’s head little over a year ago, reading a book that was older than them both combined, in a house that’s seen more change in its strange life than she could even imagine. But she starts to read, exactly like that, holding herself against him so he doesn’t feel like he’s flying off the face of the earth -- and so that she could remember what roots feel like after so many dry years.

They were nearing the final third when they last left off. A young boy, suffering in isolation, playing ruthless games set to test his mettle, called to push his friends and himself to their breaking points for what seems to be no reason. He wants nothing more than to break free and he decides he will sacrifice everything to make that happen. He aims his missile at the planet of his enemy, and he fires, hoping the people testing him will find him too crazy to continue.

But then, it turns out, the game is real -- and the young boy has done exactly what everyone wanted. Their enemy is dead. Destroyed in a single, fell swoop.

Connor tenses up around her when she finishes that chapter. “We have to finish it now,” he says.

He has to know…

And so they read, about freedom and what it means, in the house of the Speaker of the Androids. She doesn’t realize she’s whispering until her voice chokes up around the words said by Ender’s sister, the beloved Valentine, as they seek to leave Earth forever.

"Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people -- by people who love you."

#dbh fic #detroit become human #dbh connor #connor rk800 #dbh connor x oc #dbh connor x reader #connor x reader #dbh #the silver lining still remains #emma ibori #long post #forreal

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heavyhunt1 · 4 years ago

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Caterpillar has updated its 2.7- to 3.5-tonne mini excavators, expanding the company's Next Generation lineup. This is the first major update to Cat's machines in this size class in more than a decade. The new 302.7 CR, 303 CR and 303.5 CR hydraulic mini excavators feature stick steer, cruise control, operator adjustable settings, and tilt-up canopy or cab as standard.

According to Caterpillar, design changes to the machines in this size class deliver up to 10 percent more performance in travel and trenching over previous models. Hydraulic system upgrades improve lifting performance and cycle times, while customizable operator settings improve efficiency.

The turbocharged Cat C1.1 Turbo engine powers the 302.7 CR and 303 CR models, while the Cat C1.7 powers the 303.5 CR. Both engines meet U.S. EPA Tier 4 Final emissions standards and offer 23.6 hp (17.6 kW) net power. Standard auto idle and auto engine shutdown help to conserve fuel.

Compact radius and interchangeable counterweight

These Next Generation mini hydraulic excavators feature a compact radius swing; fixed undercarriage widths for the 302.7 CR, 303 CR and 303.5 CR are 59.1, 61.0 and 70.1 inches (1,500, 1,550 and 1,780 mm) respectively. An expandable undercarriage option for the 302.7 CR allows the operator to hydraulically retract track width to 53.3 inches (1,355 mm) for fitting into confined spaces and then expand width to 70.1 inches (1,780 mm) for digging and lifting stability.

Interchangeable counterweight packages enable customers to tailor machine weight to job requirements, offering the balance between low ground pressure and lifting performance. The "light" counterweight option adds 221 pounds (100 kg) to machine weight, while the "extra" adds 551 pounds (250 kg).

All three Next Gen models offer both standard- and long-stick configurations to increase machine versatility. Standard digging depths range from 96.5 to 110.6 inches (2,450 to 2,810 mm), while the long stick configuration allows the machines to reach from 104.3- to 122.4-inch (2,650- to 3,110-mm) depths. The standard dozer blade further increases machine flexibility to handle backfilling and grading tasks. It features ample above- and below-grade travel and has a standard float function for easy clean-up. An angle blade option on the 303.5 CR gives further flexibility in backfilling applications.

Efficient load-sensing hydraulics with variable displacement pump provides oil flow reaching 26 gal/min (100 L/min) while saving fuel. High main-relief pressures, coupled with flow rates, generates the hydraulic capacity for high digging and lifting forces and more efficient use of a range of attachments. Complete with quick-disconnect lines, the standard auxiliary system provides the choice of one-way, two-way or continuous flow.

Stick Steer simplifies machine control

The Cat Stick Steer System simplifies machine control, and, at the touch of a button, the operator switches from conventional lever/foot-pedal steering controls to low-effort joystick operation. Two travel ranges with speeds reaching 2.8 mph (4.5 km/h) help to facilitate moving around the job site, and standard cruise control minimizes operator interaction when travelling longer distances between work locations.

Optional passcode and Bluetooth key start is available for these mini excavators. Offering an advanced touchscreen option, the large Next Generation display provides intuitive machine function control and easy monitoring of critical operating parameters, such as fuel level, coolant temperature and maintenance records.

A choice between canopy or cab enclosure is available; the sealed and pressurized cab offers a clean and quiet environment for the operator and can be equipped with heating and/or air conditioning. Offering a front window that slides upward to store overhead, the cab's large glass areas plus skylight afford all-around visibility.

Daily maintenance checks done easily at ground level

Common parts are used throughout the line and the damage-resistant exterior construction can reduce parts inventory investment and lower repair costs. Daily maintenance checks are quickly made from ground level through side doors, while the tilt-up cab design offers access to components for servicing. Service intervals have also been increased. Combined, Caterpillar says that these features lower total ownership costs up to 5 percent compared to previous models.

#Cat's 3-Tonne Mini Excavators Upgraded With Stick Steer Simplified Maintenance Boost In Performance

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matesclever218 · 4 years ago

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Calibrate Mac Mouse For Parallels

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How To Open A Mac Mouse For Battery Change

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Hardware :: Mighty Mouse Pointer Stopped Responding / Green Light On Bottom Of Mouse Flashing

May 1, 2009

I know that the general consensus here is that the Mighty Mouse is a piece of shit. That notwithstanding, I'd appreciate posters refraining from engaging in further elaborations on that concept when replying to this topic (i.e., no comments like 'Buy a new mouse,' please). At any rate, I purchased a wireless Mighty Mouse about a month ago and was very happy with it until the batteries apparently died. One day the pointer simply stopped responding and the green light on the bottom of the mouse was flashing. I replaced the batteries and the mouse resumed normal operation. Then, a few days later it happened again. I have yet to re-replace the batteries and have reverted to using my now eight-year-old Logitech dual-optical mouse (possibly the finest peripheral I have ever owned). Has anyone else encountered this issue? Is this mouse having internal hardware or software issues or is it normal for it to devour batteries at this rate? System Preferences says that Bluetooth is maintaining the connection properly, so I am ruling that out as an issue. I would just say to hell with it, and use my Logitech mouse full-time, but my wife hates it and I payed seventy goddamn dollars for the Apple product.

Windows On Mac :: Wireless Keyboard & Mouse Recommendation For OS X - Parallels - Bootcamp?

Nov 19, 2009

I am looking for a wireless keyboard/mouse to replace my current USB wired to fulfill the following requirements: 1) Must Work with OS X, Bootcamp and Parallels. 2) Work with Windows XP (currently) and Windows 7 in future. 3) Whatever wireless technology, I only want ONE receiver for both KB and mouse. 4) bluetooth or NANO or other 5) Keyboard MUST be high contrast (example-black keys/white letters). This precludes current Apple keyboard. 6) Would like NOT to mix and match brands.

IMac :: Mouse Pointer Moves By Itself?

Mac Cursor

Aug 26, 2008

I just got my iMac, and I have a problem with mighty mouse. Sometimes, when I move the mouse just a little, the pointer will 'jump' to one side of the screen... it's very frustrating. Is it due because my mousepad has different colours on it ? That's my only explanation. Maybe the mousepad different colours cause reflection on the pointer that make it jump all over the screen...

MacBook Pro :: How To Use Black Mouse Pointer

Jun 30, 2009

The story behind it - I used it a bit at home, connected to the AC adapter, then closed it and put it in a laptop bag (quite tight on both sides - like a sleeve [you have to slide the computer out - it doesn't open]). Then it was in the bag for 10-15minutes, I took it out, opened it up and this came up! (while it was like this, I could see the black mouse pointer and move it about just fine) I did a hard restart, and then everything was fine.

OS X :: Icons Get Stuck To Mouse Pointer

Jul 18, 2010

Sometimes, if I click an icon (usually on my desktop) it'll just 'stick' to the mouse pointer, it'll appear as if I am still clicking and holding the icon, and it drags around. I also can't trash, drop or do anything with it. Other programs on the computer can't be used either because it's still using that icon. I'm forced to use keyboard commands to restart Finder or press the 'esc' key, which works until I click any other icon again. This happens with text and pictures also.

Mac Mini :: How To Change Mouse Pointer

Apr 22, 2012

I would like enlarge or change the color of the mouse pointer. Info: Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

OS X :: Icons Stick To Mouse Pointer But Won't Drop

Apr 23, 2010

Somehow I can't drag and drop files/programs/icons any more. Not on my desktop, not within my dock. When I click on an icon to drag, it will stick to my mouse pointer, but only as a ghost. When I try to release it, it won't drop to the designated area or folder. The icon just keeps sticking to my mouse pointer, where ever I take it. Only after using esc and clicking. I using Mac OS X 10.6.2 iMac iMac8,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 3,06 GHz

Hardware :: Mouse Pointer Freezing - Need To Unplug

Feb 7, 2010

I have a IMac G4 mod. Power mac4,2 operating system osx version 10.411 processor 800 MHz 768 MB SDRAM. Every now and then my mouse pointer freezers up and I have to unplug the mouse and it starts working again. If it does not unfreeze I have to restart. Then I am back in business. Some times the whole screen goes gray with a black square-telling me to shut down and restart.

Mac Pro :: Won't Work / Mouse Pointer Screen Freeze

Jun 14, 2008

I have just installed a new Mac Pro. Everything works except I get occasional mouse pointer freezes. They last for about 1 second each time and seem to occur randomly, on average with 1-2 min intervals. The only things I have installed on top of OS X so far driver wise is MouseWorks to power my Kensington trackball. I use my older large full-keyed white Pro keyboard and only use the smaller wireless one remotely. I have tried deactivating Bluetooth but the mouse freezes still persist.

IMac :: Mouse Pointer Out Of Control - Not Allow Clicks

Apr 27, 2009

Today I was working with my iMac without any problem, suddenly the mouse pointer start behaving very odd, when I tried to click an icon, menu or whatever the mouse start moving not allowing me do the work, I changed the wireless mouse suspecting was a hardware problem but when I connected the USB mouse I got the same problem, then I shutdown the iMac but after starting I got the same problem. I suspect is a trojan virus but I heard that Leopard operating system is very robust and virus is not currently a problem.

OS X Mavericks :: Mouse Pointer Not Always Changing On Mouseover

Sep 6, 2014

I have an issue with my mouse that started a few days ago. My cursor doesn't always change properly when I mouseover certain things. For example, when I hover it above a link, it turns into a pointing hand like it should, when I navigate to the URL bar, it will stay as the hand even after clicking for a short while before changing to what it's supposed to become (the thin bar.) Sometimes it will remain a thin bar when it's supposed to be a black arrow, and so forth. I've tried troubleshooting the issue, but I haven't found much of relevance. One user seemed to be experiencing the same thing albeit only in some pro software I don't use. Mine is system wide. I'm using the trackpad on a 2014 baseline 15' rMBP running Mavericks 10.9.4. Info: MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)

MacBook Pro :: Mouse Pointer Missing On The Screen?

Jun 29, 2014

I am using macbook pro 15' with latest Maverick OS.Lately, I find that after I log in, the pointer goes missing from the screen and as a result I am unable to click on any icon.I have tried plugging in a USB Mouse, mouse pointer again does not show on the screen.When I force switch off from the power switch,and switch on again I get the pointer.Some times I have to repeat the process.

IMac :: Mouse Pointer Tracking Speed Very Slow

Mar 17, 2009

I just opened my brand new 2009 24inch IMac! The Mouse pointer speed is very very slow. I adjusted the tracking speed to the fastest possible, but this is still under par. I typed my question in google and it directed me to download a program called 'Mouse Zoom' which was downloaded onto my... 'Desktop.' I didn't click the icon to run it because I am afraid of a virus. Is 'Mouse Zoom' safe to click on? Will it fix the problem, or is there an alternative to this issue? I cant imagine something so nice being crippled by something as simple as mouse speed.

MacBook :: Mighty Mouse Pointer No Longer Working?

May 6, 2009

I've been using my M Mouse successfully with my MacBook until recently when the Mouse Pointer no longer moves. The button does engage the dashboard and if I position the cursor using the MacBook trackpad, then the click function of the mouse does work. I have tried changing the batteries. It appears I am having a similar problem when I use a wired mouse. Just in case it's connected, I run Parallels and did recently upgrade Windows software.

Hardware :: Making Mighty Mouse Pointer Use More Precise?

Oct 31, 2009

I just made the switch to Mac. I just got the new macbook pro 15 inch. The only thing is that I bought it mainly for graphic design and I am struggling to use the might mouse. I feel like I have to work so hard just to get the mouse over the icon or tab that I want to select. When I was using a PC the mouse was so much more precise if I wanted to select something or click on something small it was easy. Is there a setting or something to make it easier on the mac using the mighty mouse?

Software :: On Clicking Icons Get Stuck To Mouse Pointer

Jun 24, 2009

Occasionally if I click an icon (usually on my desktop) it'll just 'stick' to my mouse pointer, it'll appear as if I am still clicking and holding the icon, and it drags around. I also can't trash, drop or do anything with it. Other programs on the computer can't be used either because it's still using that icon. I'm forced to use keyboard commands to restart Finder, which works until I click any other icon again.

MacBook Pro :: Remove The Green Circle On Mouse Pointer?

Mar 14, 2012

How do I remove the little green circle with a white plus tied to my mouse pointer Info: MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2010), iOS 5.1

OS X Mavericks :: Bluetooth Mouse Pointer Works But Can't Land Anywhere

Jun 5, 2014

It is happening more and more often: When I start my iMac the mouse pointer is moving normally but when I click on, say, Finder nothing happens, or when I click on the Dock nothing happens. It will not stay or land on any app. It is just hovering and nothing seems to be affected by the mouse pointer. I turn the mouse off and back on and it works fine. So it is an erratic behavior which baffles me. I have read numerous cases in the discussions and all point to a PRAM reset. Will a PRAM reset delete or revert modifications I have made to my iMac, such as disabling the startup sound, via sudo? I don't mind restarting the mouse but it is a hassle Info: iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

MacBook Pro :: Trackpad Keeps Bouncing The Mouse Pointer When Tap To Select

Sep 4, 2014

had problems with the trackpad - when I tap to select an item the mouse pointer 'bounces' off the item I'm trying to select. It happens randomly - not every time. I migrated all my data and settings from my old Mac Pro (2011 model, also running Mavericks) via Time Machine - could that have an impact? Not using any non-Apple power supplies or other devices. Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

OS X :: Mouse Pointer Converted Into Black Square After Sleep Mode

Jun 22, 2006

A bizarre thing: when I wake my Cube from sleep, the mouse pointer seems to have converted itself into a black 1' square. As soon as I click in a program it changes back to an arrow.

Software :: Mouse Pointer Freezes When Multiple Applications Are Open

Oct 16, 2008

My mouse continuously freezes when I have to many applications open. I have the mirror door G4. When it freezes I can access the F11 and F12 buttons on the keyboard, but have to restart the computer. I have switched the mouse, but it does not fix it. The more I use the computer the less it happens. It appears to happen more with multiple browser windows open in Safari.

Mac Mini :: Mouse Pointer Disappear And Webpages Drop To Bottom?

How To Open A Mac Mouse For Battery Change

Mar 23, 2012

My mouse pointer disappears when still, if I open a webpage or app store the page drops to the bottom and I cant get back to the top with the mouse. I have tried six different mice (blue tooth and wireless including mac magic mouse) , all the same. Also when the sound is on and the system starts up there is a low buzzing sound until I move the mouse or open something up. Should I just restart the whole os as this is only one week old and I am over it already! Info: Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

MacBook :: Get The Colorful Circle Thing On The Mouse Pointer Every Time?

Mar 25, 2012

Calibrate Mouse Touchpad

I have a 2008 Aluminum Body MacBook and recently its been working extremely slow. I always get the colorful circle thing on the mouse pointer every time I try to click on anything. I was wondering if anyone had this problem before and what you did to fix this? Or if anyone knew how to fix this problem. Info: MacBook, iOS 5.1

Intel Mac :: How To Stop Scratching Sound When Moving Mouse Pointer

May 6, 2012

For approximately one week I have been getting a scratching sound when I move the mouse pointer accross desktop no matter what program I am running. Current OS is MAC OS X 10.7.3. Sound continues when I turn sound off. Info: iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

MacBook Pro :: Track Pad Doesn't Work Properly And Mouse Pointer Is Jumping All Over Screen?

May 19, 2012

it feels like someone else is controlling my mouse. This just started happening. My trackpad doesn't work or works sporadically. While typing the pointer is scrolling all over my screen.

OS X V10.7 Lion :: Why Doesn't It Give Us The Possibility To Change The Mouse Acceleration Or Pointer Style

Jun 21, 2012

as a former Windows user I really miss the option to tune the mouse pointer acceleration or to change the pointer looking!why can't I simply use my trackpad for my iPad supporting the multitouch gestures available on the iPad's OS just on the track pad? Info: MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)

MacBook Pro :: Mouse Pointer All Of A Sudden Started To Move Slower With A Small Delay

Jun 30, 2014

my mighty mouse pointer all of a sudden started to move slower with a small delay. I have checked the battery but it's 100%. Macbook Pro 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7 / 16GB RAM / 751 SSD

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Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac

Virtualization

When I last reviewed virtualization software in 2008, I found Parallels Desktop 4 for Mac effective, but saddled with a bit of bugginess and lacking some DirectX support. Parallels 5 Desktop for Mac (I tested build 9308) solves both problems, while adding features and improving performance.

Among the most notable of those new features: a much-faster virtualization engine; automatic compression of Windows’ hard disks; a new virtual machine manager; and a new lockdown mode, which requires a password to exit full screen mode, make changes to the virtual machine state, or manage snapshots (perfect for system administrators who don’t want end-users mucking up their machines).

Installation, setup

I tested Parallels Desktop 5 by using it to install Windows XP Pro, Windows 7 Ultimate (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions), and Ubuntu Linux 9.10 on my Mac Pro (2.66GHz quad core with 8GB of RAM, running OS X 10.6.2).

Installing both Windows and Linux is easy in Parallels; it has assistants that automate the process for both. It also installs Parallels Tools, which handles the task of mouse integration between the guest OS and Mac OS, as well as allowing easy guest desktop resizing by resizing the guest OS window.

There are a couple aspects of installing guest OSes that could be improved. First, every time you create a new virtual machine, Parallels creates an alias to that virtual machine on your OS X Desktop. There’s no way to avoid this, so if you find the aliases useless (as I do), you have to manually remove them each time you create a virtual machine.

More troubling is that, when creating a new Windows virtual machine, the default settings are for full integration of the Mac OS and the Windows guest—the default even sets the Windows’ user folder to the Mac’s Users folder. As someone who has personally experienced Windows malware infections, total integration is not something I recommend for most virtual machine users, and yet it’s the default behavior in Parallels.

Parallels also defaults to booting Windows virtual machines in the fully-integrated Coherence mode, where the Windows desktop vanishes, and Windows’ windows are intermingled with those of OS X. For someone expecting a standard Windows interface after installation, this can be disconcerting.

The basics

Like Fusion 3, Parallels 5 now supports Windows Aero in Windows 7, and also includes OpenGL 2.1 acceleration in both XP Pro and Windows 7 (Fusion only supports OpenGL 2.1 in Windows XP Pro). In addition, OpenGL acceleration is included in Linux guests, enabling full visual effects (such as windows that deform when dragged) in Linux systems such as Ubuntu 9.10. More usefully, you’ll also be able to run Linux programs that require OpenGL acceleration. Parallels is alone in its support for OpenGL 2.1 in Linux and Windows 7. I found the Aero effects worked very smoothly in Windows 7 on my Mac Pro.

As with its competitors, Parallels handles typical office productivity applications with ease, in both Windows and Linux. Microsoft Office (Windows) and OpenOffice (Linux) both ran well, and had no troubles with the mixture of spreadsheets and documents I tried opening and editing in both. Web browsers and e-mail clients also performed well; if this is the extent of your virtual machine needs, Parallels 5 will easily meet your requirements.

Parallels 5 was also the fastest of the three programs I tested in the vast majority of the benchmark tests I ran—including the all-important real-world tests. Whether it was copying files to or from the Mac, or expanding zip archives, Parallels easily outpaced its competition. As one example, copying 2.5GB worth of files from the Mac to a Windows 7 machine via a shared folder took just over a minute in Parallels. That same task took nearly two minutes in VirtualBox, and about a minute and a half in Fusion.

Suspending, waking, booting, and shutting down were all quickest in Parallels, too. There’s a small caveat there, at least with suspending. When I tried sleeping the machine while a 3D game was running, it worked, but the game didn’t work after waking from sleep. In Fusion, the same experiment worked just fine—so one tradeoff of the faster sleep time in Parallels is, at least in my testing, an inability to sleep and then resume a 3D game. As a user, you’ll have to decide whether the faster suspend times in general are worth this tradeoff when trying to suspend an in-progress 3D game. (This may not be an issue with all games, but it was in the two I tested with.)

Like Fusion 3, Parallels 5 offers improved multi-monitor support, treating two displays as separate monitors in Windows, and as one large gargantuan display in Linux. Adding a third screen to the mix worked perfectly in Windows. In Linux, however, the third screen was seen by the system (the horizontal resolution reflected its existence), but it was all white, and I couldn’t see anything that I dragged onto that screen.

To make working in full-screen mode easier, Parallels 5 lets you specify behaviors for mousing into the four screen corners—you can switch to one of the other available view modes, or show the Parallels menu bar. Once you’ve set a behavior for a corner, moving the mouse into that corner will “peel down” and reveal a bit of your OS X desktop. Unfortunately, there’s no visual indication of what happens if you then click the mouse, so you’ll need to remember which corner you’ve assigned to which task.

New looks for Windows

Parallels 5 features a new view mode, Crystal, along with a new Mac-like theme for use within Windows. Crystal view mode takes Coherence mode one step further. You won’t find the Start menu or task bar anywhere in Crystal mode—in fact, you won’t even see the Parallels Desktop icon in your Dock. Instead, a menu bar icon lets you change view modes, see the Windows Start menu, or work with attached devices. You’ll also find your task bar icons (optionally) in the menu bar, and Windows Applications folder in your OS X Dock. Any open windows will be integrated with your OS X windows, as in Coherence mode.

Crystal mode works reasonably well, though you can’t Command-Tilde to toggle between multiple windows of the same Windows’ application, nor can you use Snow Leopard’s Dock Exposé mode with Windows’ windows. Both of these features work as expected in Fusion. I also found that dragging windows around in Crystal mode, when using an Aero theme in Windows 7, was quite laggy on my Mac Pro. I had much better results after I disabled Aero in Crystal mode (you can control this in the virtual machine’s Settings).

I experienced some strangeness when I had Windows Media Player window open in Crystal mode, and then used Exposé’s All Windows mode. In addition to the opened windows, I also saw three “ghost” windows for Windows Media Player, and some visual distortion was visible in the Excel window.

Selecting any one of these “ghost” windows would simply switch to Windows Media Player, so it wasn’t a critical issue, but it definitely looks odd when using Exposé.

The second new look for Windows in Parallels is MacLook, which is actually an OS X-like theme for Windows (XP, Vista, and 7). You apply MacLook via the View menu, and Parallels then works for a minute or two to install the theme. The objective is to make Windows less visually shocking for someone switching between the Mac OS and the Windows OS.

While that’s the idea, I think MacLook fails fairly badly in achieving the goal.

Because not every element in Windows is themable, what MacLook winds up giving you is a series of different-looking windows within Windows—some look something like OS X windows, others look like native Windows windows, and still others look like some strange Frankenstinian mixture of the two.

Some windows are square, others are rounded; none seem to have shadows and some are missing edge borders; some have the red/yellow/green buttons from OS X at the top right, some at the top left, and others lack them completely.

I can’t imagine that anyone who likes and uses the OS X interface regularly will find MacLook to be an improvement over the stock Windows theme—at least there’s some consistency there, and the windows all mostly look the same.

When I unchecked the MacLook entry in the View menu, which should disable MacLook, I had some issues in Windows 7—the uninstall process didn’t quite complete, leaving an even odder mix of window appearances. I was able to resolve that issue by using the Personalization section of Windows preferences to pick a stock Aero theme.

Graphics and gaming

Parallels Desktop 5 has a very good engine for gaming. I had excellent results with older games, and very good results even with more-recent releases. The demo version of Call of Duty 4, which I was unable to run with decent frame rates in Fusion, ran acceptably (albeit at minimum levels of detail) after some tweaking in Parallels.

With OpenGL acceleration in all main versions of Windows (and Linux), Parallels can handle programs that the other two virtualization apps just aren’t capable of running at present. In addition, Parallels’ OpenGl implementation, as measured in the Cinebench benchmarking test, was the fastest of the three programs in any version of Windows. (All game tests were done in Windows 7, to stress the virtual machine as much as possible.)

Calibrate Mac Battery

Parallels also does an admirable job with DirectX games in Windows. For example, I was able to play the MotoGP 08 demo with good frame rates in a 1024x768 window, though the audio did stutter a bit.

More impressively, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, a program that just a few years ago required a high-end PC to run at all, ran admirably well in Parallels. The audio was mostly stutter free, and the frame rate in a 1024x768-sized window was more than acceptable in the missions I tested.

That’s not to say I was getting anywhere near the frame rate I’d get if I were to reboot my Mac and run Flight Sim X natively via Boot Camp. However, for someone who doesn’t need every bit of speed in their games, the loss in frame rate may be worth the convenience of not having to reboot.

Most older games run very well, so much so that there’s no reason to reboot via Boot Camp to play “vintage” titles. Note that some older games may need to run on older versions of Windows; Windows 7 won’t run all your older games.

Given what was possible in gaming and graphics with the first version of Parallels a few years back—basically nothing—it’s amazing how much progress has been made in a very short period of time.

Multimedia performance

To test Parallels’ media handling, I watched a 1080p Windows HD media file in full screen mode in each version of Windows. I was watching for visual glitches, listening for any disruption in audio playback, and tracking CPU usage to see how each virtual machine handled the task.

In short, all three of the Windows OSes handled the HD video file without any major issues. The one-CPU Windows 7 box had a bit more variation in frame rate than did the two-CPU machines, but it was very hard to spot unless watching the video back-to-back (which I did, many times).

Other features and observations

This version of Parallels cleans up the installation on a Mac—in prior versions, Parallels’ virtual network drivers were visible in the Network System Preferences panel. In Parallels Desktop 5, those drivers no longer appear, preventing possible user confusion.

Also new in Parallels 5 is support for Apple’ multi-touch gestures (swipe, rotate, pinch) using an Apple Magic Mouse or the trackpad in a multi-touch capable Apple laptop (you can also use an Apple Remote for some basic control, if you wish). Parallels Tools takes care of the communication between the mouse/track pad and the guest OS, so there are no special requirements on the Windows side—gestures simply work in Windows XP and newer.

I tested this using XP Pro on my MacBook Pro, and it worked as described. I was able to use pinch to zoom in/out on images in Microsoft’s Picture Viewer, and to change the size of the text on an Internet Explorer page. Rotation gestures also worked as expected on the images. If you’re a laptop or Magic Mouse user, this is a nice addition to your Windows virtual machines.

Mac Mouse Cursor

As you can probably tell from the features described in this review, Parallels is a feature-rich program. Sometimes, though, feature overload can lead to a complex user interface, and there are spots in Parallels where that’s the case.

Take the virtual machine Configuration panel, for instance, which contains 15 separate sections. Or the Preferences panel, which includes 11 separate tabs, some of which contain a large number of items that can be configured. While these sections and tabs are relatively well laid out, the sheer number of choices can cause confusion.

For example, you might think that defining how Mac and Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts coexist would be found in the virtual machine Configuration panel…but that’s not the case. Instead, you define the shortcuts in the Preferences panel, where you can set up definitions for Windows, Linux, OS X, and generic guests.

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac

Pros

Multi-touch support

Very fast in all facets of use

Very good DirectX and OpenGL support

Cleaner installation than prior releases

Feature rich

Cons

Sleep mode may prevent resuming 3D games

MacLook theme for Windows isn't all that good

Features add complexity

Defaults to fully-integrated OS X/Windows mode

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9 Disadvantages Of Wallpaper Windows 9 9k And How You Can Workaround It | wallpaper windows 9 9k

Update: After a anniversary with the Lumia 950’s bigger brother, the 950 XL, we’ve absitively to adjoin our new observations to this review. Scroll bottomward to the basal for that accession if you’re absorbed in audition about Microsoft’s bigger and badder (in added agency than one) Windows smartphone.

9×9 Windows 9 Dark HD Laptop Wallpaper, HD Hi-Tech 9K .. | wallpaper windows 10 4k

When Microsoft appear in July that it was autograph bottomward about the entire cost of its Nokia accretion and laying off 7,800 advisers from its buzz division, abounding took it as a assurance that the alarm had assuredly tolled for Windows Phone. Admitting a able acceptance in 2010 and some actual acute offerings since, Microsoft’s adaptable belvedere has bootless to accretion cogent traction, peaking at aloof 3.4% of the all-around bazaar in 2013 afore coast to its accepted low of 1.7%. Microsoft’s restructuring, forth with its move to anchorage its Office abundance apartment to iOS and Android, was credible by some as a tacit acceptance that it had absent the smartphone war – and mediocre hardware offerings like the Lumia 830 did little to change that perception.

The October barrage of the Lumia 950 (and its beyond sibling, the 950 XL) opened a new affiliate in Microsoft’s adaptable history. The Lumia 950 is a array of contradictions: a halo smartphone in a ho-hum chassis; a cutting-edge operating adjustment with a still-nascent ecosystem; a artefact congenital not necessarily to advertise in volume, says Microsoft, but as a affectionate of acknowledgment to the ability Windows Phone loyalists. In added words, the Lumia 950 is clashing any smartphone that’s appear before. While it apparently doesn’t represent the approaching of Windows on phones, it’s one of the only two flagships available on the belvedere today. So is it annual the $600 Microsoft wants for it?

Only if you’re a fan.

Index

Out of the box, the Lumia 950 is an about absolutely acclimatized smartphone. Its matte-finish polycarbonate evokes memories of older, prouder Lumias like the 1020 and 930, but it lacks the reassuring heft of the aloft and the chic brownish trim of the latter. Additionally absent is any of the whimsy of beforehand Lumia designs, the old neon colors replaced by calm atramentous and white options, the storied Nokia logo asleep in favor of Microsoft’s minimalist branding. At 8.2mm blubbery and 150g in mass, akin the Lumia 950’s admeasurement is middle-of-the-road. (Fortunately there’s an easy way to gussy up the device: emphasis architect Mozo has crafted some accomplished covering backs for the 950 which accord it an absolutely altered attending and feel. We’ve spent best of our assay aeon with the amber covering edition, and we wouldn’t go back.)

Get accomplished the uninspired aesthetics and there’s affluence to like here, starting with the screen. The 5.2-inch affectation bears a ClearBlack animosity clarify for bigger aurora visibility, and it brings with it the aphotic blacks and abundant assimilation accepted to OLED screens. While the affectation accuracy toggle in the Activity Center alone allows for four levels of accuracy control, Windows 10 provides for added diminutive adjustment in the settings menu, and the “Extras” breadth contains options to tune the display profile for added or beneath alive colors. Also, from the moment the little Microsoft logo ancestor up on the cossack awning you apperceive you’re attractive at a Quad HD display: the 564ppi sharpness is abnormally notable on Alive Tiles with a lot of text, and on the downsized notification symbols in the new Windows 10 cachet bar.

Normally we acquisition blueprint listings appealing banal, but Windows Buzz admirers accept been cat-and-mouse about two years for a able flagship, so some aerial credibility deserve calling out. There’s a 20MP PureView camera actuality with optical stabilization and a new triple-LED flash, angry to the committed camera key we ambition added manufacturers would include. The buzz comes packing 32GB of accumulator (29 of which are attainable out of the box) and additionally offers a MicroSD breach for up to 200GB of added space. That breach sits beneath a disposable aback awning alongside a 3,000 mAh array which is additionally disposable – a rarity these days. The battery is rechargeable via a USB Type-C adapter on the basal of the buzz or via Qi/PMA wireless charging. Added bottomward in the audacity of the 950 sits a Snapdragon 808 processor backed up by 3GB of RAM.

If that’s not abundant to baffle you, there’s one added ambush ambuscade beneath the Gorilla Glass 3 faceplate, and it’s a doozy. Hit the phone’s alleviate button and the Windows Hello interface lights up, an activated eyeball bidding you to attending anon at the awning while the phone’s infra-red sensor matches your iris with the altered assortment stored in memory. It takes a bit of training and it’s not 100% able (Windows Hello is still in Beta) but it’s decidedly accelerated aback it does work, and it’s absolutely the coolest agency of signing into a smartphone you’ll see this year.

Index

Once you get accomplished the Hello gatekeeper, you’re alone beeline assimilate the Alpha screen, and for all that’s afflicted in the jump from Windows Buzz to Windows 10, we’re animated to see the Alpha awning is abundant the aforementioned as ever. Sure, you accept a added ambit of emphasis colors and wallpaper options now –it’s nice to be able to accept whether your accomplishments angel is corrective anon on the tiles or draped abaft them– and little things like animations accept been tweaked, but by and ample this is the aforementioned old Alpha screen, with options abounding for minimalists and info-hounds alike.

We’re in the closing category, so our Alpha screen is arranged with data. At the moment, our Money asphalt letters that America’s bigger gas acreage is assuredly accedence to a downturn, while the Cortana asphalt is showing us a tech annual banderole about the Surface Pro 4. The Outlook asphalt is cycling between the accountable curve of our three best contempo emails, while the Blue Skies acclimate app is cogent us that it’s 47 degrees in Somerville (and that we shouldn’t balloon our umbrella). Other, abate tiles buck simpler notification counts: Facebook 7, Tweetium 6, Baggy 6, Instagram 79. Meanwhile, our Photos app serenely cycles between pictures we’ve taken, the Xbox asphalt occasionally flipping over to acknowledge our gamertag, the Outlook Agenda app reminding us it’s someone’s birthday. Some of our tiles represent not aloof apps but authentic abstracts aural apps: our Lumia 950 reviewers’ memo sits alongside a scattering of local credibility of absorption at the basal of the screen, all of them aloof a tap away. All this is instantly arresting the moment we alleviate the phone, and that affectionate of adjacency charcoal one of the principal benefits of appliance a Windows-powered smartphone. Yes, you can achieve agnate advice body on an Android device, but not with the adamant attending and feel that Windows offers.

That character avalanche off the added you get from the Alpha screen. Notifications are holed up in the Activity Center aloft the screen, attainable via a bulky swipe-down aloof like on iOS and Android (while the leftmost homescreen panel, the absolute abode for a notification hub, sits frustratingly vacant). Area older Windows Phones acclimated affected and easy-to-control sliding panels to admission altered corners of apps, Windows 10 Adaptable has accepted the less-imaginative “hamburger menu,” about placed far out of the way in the upper-left bend of the screen, apery one of iOS’s affliction architectonics precedents. By far the best arrant archetype of iPhone “inspiration,” though, can be begin by captivation bottomward the Alpha key: do it and watch the UI accelerate center bottomward the awning in a absolute apery of Reachability. Meanwhile, longtime Lumia staples like double-tap-to-wake are conspicuously absent from the 950, even as old favorites like Glance Awning remain. The result is a ambagious hodgepodge of holdover appearance and absentee ones, with the casual WTF brindled in: we took one attending at the new Bodies hub, with its absurdly out-of-place annular avatars, and abandoned it from our Alpha awning faster than you can say “un-pin.”

Still, affective into the Lumia 950 afterwards a continued breather from Windows Phone feels a lot like advancing home. We adulation audition the woodpecker ballyhoo of the accomplished basic keyboard afresh (now with a accessible cursor mouse). Managing email and agenda accessories through the new Outlook apps is a audibly admirable acquaintance acknowledgment to their glossy UI design. The Cortana basic abettor is absolutely acceptable at context-sensitive notifications; aback we biking to a new town, she’ll frequently pop up some bit of annual specific to the bounded area, and a simple alarm of “Hey Cortana” is abundant to deathwatch the phone if you can’t added a hand. Not all of this works flawlessly (see Performance, below) but aback it does, the aftereffect is a adaptable acquaintance clashing any other.

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We’d be behindhand not to acknowledgment the common “app gap,” the curtailment of third-party apps in the Windows Abundance compared to iOS and Android equivalents. Sadly, Windows Phone’s most constant challenge is only getting worse: developers are actively alternate abutment for their Windows apps. Big American banks led the retreat earlier this year, with Chase and afresh Bank of America affairs abutment for their Windows Buzz portals. On the heels of those shutdowns came others: Intuit Mint, NBC and American Airlines all angry out the lights on their apps in 2015, with Auberge Tonight the latest aloft name to fall. Microsoft akin discontinued a bulk of its own titles for the belvedere (the absolute MSN apartment is gone) and some of its own apps, like Skype, activity a abundant bigger acquaintance on Android. Meanwhile, titles like Instagram (still in Beta) haven’t seen a allusive amend in over a year, and stopgaps like the Microsoft-made Facebook app are slow and riddled with bugs.

Fortunately for the ever-patient fans, there’s acceptable annual on the horizon. Facebook has appear that it will be architectonics all-new Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger apps for Windows 10, and because these will be “Universal Apps,” they’ll assignment on every anatomy factor from the desktop to the handheld. That’s allotment of Microsoft’s new Windows 10 strategy: with 110 actor Windows 10 accessories currently on the bazaar and a framework that lets developers build one app to run on every awning size, the aggregation hopes to attract developers through arduous scale. And we’ve run into a few affable surprises during our time with the Lumia 950, too: apps that we didn’t apprehend to find, from Fallout 4’s “Pip Boy” accompaniment app to the abstruse “LiveATC” air-traffic ascendancy scanner, were absolutely present in the Abundance and ran well. Microsoft’s new chip Maps appliance does a nice job of accouterment admonition for driving, walking, and accessible transit, with turn-by-turn articulation advice that’s appealing authentic (if not consistently absolutely prompt). And Microsoft’s tongue-in-cheek MS-DOS adversary contains a few astonishing Easter eggs for hardcore nerds who continued for the canicule of Windows 3.1.

If this were an beforehand Windows Phone, the altercation would stop there. But the Lumia 950 is a Windows 10 device. And that agency it’s advised to get about the app gap appliance a accomplished new method: by transforming into a Windows PC.

Windows Continuum is one of those appearance that makes reviewing technology such a joy. It’s accessible to see why Microsoft thinks it can be a key differentiator, because appliance it feels like magic. But it’s additionally such a alcove feature, and so aboriginal in its development at this point, that we’ve got absolute questions about aloof who will acquisition it annual using.

Using Continuum requires a few pieces of accouterments in accession to your Lumia 950. You charge to accept admission to a monitor, a keyboard, and Microsoft’s $99 Affectation Dock. (A abrasion is optional, aback the buzz itself can angle in as a trackpad.) We activated the affection appliance both wireless and cabled keyboards –a Microsoft Bluetooth Folding Keyboard and a Filco Majestouch Ninja– and a Surface Arc Mouse, with a 25″ HP 25vx monitor. We capital a beefier complete than the Lumia 950’s apostle could produce, so we additionally affiliated in a JBL PowerUp Bluetooth speaker.

Setup is appealing simple: you connect your monitor/keyboard/mouse cables to the Affectation Dock and pair your Bluetooth accessories anon to the phone, afresh bung the buzz into the Affectation Dock appliance a USB Type C cable. The adviser flickers to life, and aback you’re attractive at … Windows. Not aloof a blown-up adaptation of your buzz interface, but absolute live, honest-to-God Windows 10.

Of advance that’s decidedly overstating the case, but the apparition is appreciably complete. Bang the Alpha button in the bend and you get a archetype of your phone’s Alpha screen; bang any attainable app and its “full” adaptation will accessible on the monitor. In the case of Outlook email, that agency the awning will ample with a three-pane affairs with email accounts on the left, a bulletin annual in the middle, and the currently-selected email on the appropriate – aloof like the abounding adaptation of the app. Outlook’s Agenda app spreads out aloof as well, a ages of dates and accessories demography up every pixel of awning space. Photos gives you burning admission to your annual and video library, and the absolute Appointment apartment is attainable for architectonics aggregate from a Word certificate to a Ability Point presentation (in fact, about every calligraphy for the videos anchored in this assay was accounting appliance OneNote central Continuum). Blaze up Microsoft Bend and you’ve got a full-screen web browser, able of administration aggregate from a text-only bulletin lath to a full-on Netflix affair in a pinch. And ambiguity amid alive programs will be added attributes if you’ve anytime acclimated a Windows PC: the Alt F4 keyboard adjustment closes a alive app, while Alt Tab switches to the last-used affairs and the Alpha Key opens the Alpha menu. Clipboard shortcuts (Ctrl C, Ctrl V, Ctrl-X) additionally function as they should. If you’re appliance a mouse, right-click usually works the way you apprehend it to. If you get a notification in the boilerplate of your browsing session, you charge alone to bang the little bulletin figure in the lower appropriate to pop out the Activity Center, with all of its cat-and-mouse letters and adjustment toggles intact. Or if you’re, say, watching a cine on the big awning and don’t appetite to pause it just to acknowledgment an SMS message, that’s no problem: the buzz operates completely absolute of whatever’s accident on the monitor, so you can argument your affection out while absolution Netflix comedy on the big screen.

For all its wonders, we bound discovered that the key to adequate Continuum lies in understanding its limitations. As acceptable as it is on the big screen, the actuality charcoal that the Lumia 950 is still aloof a smartphone. That agency it lacks the ability to run abounding apps side-by-side, and due to the way Continuum is designed, you can’t akin run programs in individual windows: it’s full-screen or nothing. At this stage, not abounding Windows 10 apps are advised to run in Continuum either, so be prepared to be shunted aback to the buzz in adjustment to run abounding titles. You’re additionally in for a big disappointment if you accede to the allurement to try to download “full” Windows programs, best of which are congenital for x86 processors. The Snapdragon 808 in the Lumia 950 is ARM-based, so it can alone run a abate subset of apps advised for that architecture. You can balloon your dreams of downloading and alive Steam, for example; it aloof won’t work.

The aforementioned abridgement of desktop-class accouterments agency that Continuum, while giving the consequence of great possibility, is absolutely appealing laggy on the 950. Just loading Gmail.com in Microsoft Edge was abundant to blast Spotify, which we’d been appliance to comedy music in the background. Thereafter, Bend afraid in for absolutely one Google Hangouts bulletin barter afore the browser arena to a halt, apparently fatigued for memory. Annoyances like pop-up ads, which would be bald acceleration bumps on a able PC, are aloft accouterments on Continuum as the 950 struggles to accumulate up. Appliance the Ctrl I keyboard adjustment in OneNote to accent text results in a ten-second freezeout afore the adjustment recovers. And beat amid accessible tabs in the browser is an exercise in frustration, as the browser needs to reload anniversary folio about every time. It’s accessible the Lumia 950XL, with its beefier Snapdragon 810, ability bend out the 950 in a few of these metrics, but we agnosticism we’ll see much difference.

So rather than an escape from the limitations of the smartphone, Continuum is best enjoyed for what it is: a beyond canvas for your smartphone for casual email and appointment work, or for authoritative presentations via Miracast. Microsoft’s eyes for the approaching of Continuum is compelling: in accession to the simple case of the business adventurer appliance it to beck a cine to a auberge TV, the aggregation sees Continuum as a acceptable fit for aggregate appointment spaces like Workbar, which could accommodate monitor/keyboard/Display Dock workstations in lieu of computers. Approaching smartphones alive Windows 10 may also be powered by x86 processors that could take abounding advantage of the beyond awning amplitude by alive “real” Windows programs. The possibilities are about limitless. Until those developments appear to pass, though, Continuum will abide added concern than acute affection for most.

Index

The Lumia name carries with it a bequest of excellent cameras, which accept continued been some of the best attainable on smartphones. The Lumia 1020’s camera was so acceptable it concluded up abiding to our daily-driver mix several times over two years, and the software improvements alien with the Lumia Denim amend fabricated akin the dated Lumia 930 feel new afresh aback we took it for addition circuit at CES 2015.

As mentioned above, the Lumia 950’s camera is a 20MP sensor with a six-element lens and fifth-generation optical angel stabilization; the f/1.9 breach matches that of Samsung’s Galaxy S6, while its triple-LED beam is attenuate enough to abstain alarming out subjects. The accomplished adjustment is angled out by a new 4K camcorder mode (complete with 4-microphone audio recording) and a 5MP front-facing ballista with a wide-angle lens.

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Shooting with the Lumia 950 is a lot of fun. Launching the camera is as simple as acute the bang button, and the software’s Automatic mode is actual simple. There’s a detent center through the activity of the shutter key for those who favor focusing with a button, and tap-to-focus is additionally accurate for attention adjustments. Long-pressing the button can blaze off a access of photos or anon alpha a video, depending on your preference. By default, the 950 will shoot in Automatic mode, which includes Rich Capture enhancements that optimize color and adverse anon afterwards the photo is taken. In some cases –as aback acclimation for the acrid yellows of artery lighting at night– that optimization leads to a badly bigger photo, able-bodied annual the added four or bristles abnormal of processing time. That’s abnormally accurate in the case of the flash: appliance the spotlight in concert with Rich Capture agency you can acclimatize the beam level after you booty the photo. (This affection has been about aback Lumia Denim aboriginal formed out, but it’s no beneath absorbing today.) Longtime Windows Buzz admirers will be blessed to apprehend that the software Lenses remain, acceptance you to add specific functions like certificate scanners, barcode readers, or fun Doom-inspired filters on a shot-by-shot basis.

And if you don’t appetite an algorithm or Lens messing with your photo quality, Microsoft has preserved the abounding apartment of chiral controls Nokia alien aback in 2013: ISO can be set to a best of 3200, acknowledgment time goes all the way up to 4 abnormal and focus can be adapted on the fly. If you’re an accomplished columnist acclimatized to alive with chiral settings, you’ll feel appropriate at home on the Lumia 950 and you’ll agitate out some amazing photos with this actual able camera – photos which you can save in either JPG or DNG format.

If you’re added in the bazaar for a fire-and-forget point-and-shoot, though, there are bigger choices out there. Admitting the avant-garde optical stabilization, photos taken during our assay aeon generally featured a fair bulk of motion becloud (especially in low light). We may not accept the steadiest calmly around, but akin stabilizing the buzz adjoin a timberline or blast pole didn’t consistently save us from a bleared shot. And while photos appear rich and alive on the Lumia’s OLED screen, they sometimes assume a bit defective in assimilation aback beheld on added screens. As we’re now starting to devious into subjective interpretations, we’ll animate you to draw your own abstracts from the arcade below.

Index

You may apprehension a arresting abridgement of camcorder samples in the breadth above, and there’s acceptable acumen for that: our Lumia 950 absolutely doesn’t like acid 4K video. To put it addition way, the Lumia 950 is buggy. So abundant so that we requested a backup demo device center through our 14-day assay process, and while the new assemblage was abundant better, it didn’t fix all of the problems we ran into with Windows 10. The video bug is a decidedly bad one – aback aggravating to almanac video in 4K/30fps, we generally get an absurdity bulletin that looks like this:

According to the abandoned aftereffect we begin by Googling that error code, this would assume to be a camera disciplinarian error. We encountered it on both our Lumia 950 units aback aggravating to almanac to bounded storage, so we’re appealing assured this is a Windows 10 absurdity and not one specific to our accessories or anamnesis cards.

Leaving aside the abominable user acquaintance of accepting to manually transcribe and chase for a 20-digit code to analyze a problem, let’s run bottomward some of the Lumia 950’s best accustomed bugs. The camera button will sometimes barrage the viewfinder and sometimes it won’t. Outlook will often take added than a minute to amount simple images from an email, and will sometimes time out while sending email even over a accelerated connection. Windows Abundance downloads will frequently absurdity out, acute a restart to fix. The Bodies Hub won’t consistently anxiously accompany with a Google Apps account, arch to abode book problems. Alive tiles for congenital apps like Annual will occasionally become “stuck” on the aforementioned angel behindhand of new updates. Windows Hello sometimes takes a vacation, absence you anon to the PIN cipher afterwards aboriginal attractive for your eyes, for no credible reason. And boy howdy, does this buzz adulation to reboot. If you’re a fan of alert to the Podcasts app while additionally demography the casual photo, get accessible to see a lot of the cossack screen. Sometimes it doesn’t akin booty multitasking to activate it: we’ve credible this buzz spontaneously restart aback accomplishing article as banal as blockage Twitter mentions. Now, Windows 10 Mobile is brand-new and appropriately deserves a little baggy … but it’s not a beta product; it’s in food appropriate now. And advancing from the rock-solid Windows Buzz 8, we’d be lying if we said those adherence issues didn’t abort us.

When the phone’s alive properly, achievement is usually solid. Anniversary of our assay units is an AT&T-branded, single-SIM archetypal which we’ve acclimated in the Greater Boston breadth over two weeks; while about 200MB of AT&T bloatware came preinstalled, all of it was calmly deleted (kudos, Microsoft!). Voice calls are aboveboard and affluence loud via the congenital earpiece, and callers had no complaints about our audio quality. Aside from a few alone frames actuality and there, the graphically demanding Asphalt 8 runs well, as did less-intensive titles like Six Guns, Smash Hit Collision and Angry Birds Star Wars. The alone bold that gave the buzz abeyance was Modern Combat 5, but akin that remained mostly playable. Audio affection over the rear-firing apostle was on the tinny ancillary but absolutely loud, and there’s a dedicated equalizer featuring abounding custom options and basic beleaguer complete for headphone listening. Adjusting those settings makes a big abundant impact for even non-audiophiles to acquaint the difference, and we were blessed to accept it.

Battery activity was one of our bigger apropos with our antecedent assay device, but we’re blessed to address that the botheration adapted itself with our backup unit. The Lumia 950 is absurd to aftermost added than a day afterwards recharging, but it makes up for that boilerplate ability with a array of charging options. The included USB Type C charger is appealing zippy, and if you don’t accept one of those on-hand the anchored Qi/PMA charger ensures you’ll be able to top up on either your own wireless charging bowl or at your bounded Starbucks. And if all abroad fails, you’ll be able to buy added batteries (3000 mAh / 11.6Wh / archetypal BV-T5E) to bandy in on the fly – admitting at columnist time those batteries accept yet to hit abundance shelves.

Index

Fresh software architectonics Capable camera with accomplished chiral controls Continuum is clashing annihilation we’ve acclimated afore Removable storage, abundant memory

– Uninspired automated design– Buggy software– Ecosystem challenges remain– Too pricey

Index

In the United States, the Lumia 950 is currently available anon from Microsoft and its barrage accomplice AT&T. The phone’s abounding retail amount acme out at $598.98, but a two-year arrangement with AT&T drops that amount to $149.99. Additionally, the accessory is attainable via AT&T’s Next chapter affairs for 30 account payments of $19.97.

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Index

The banderole of this assay isn’t meant to be pejorative. In an account anon afterwards we accustomed our Lumia 950 assay device, Microsoft told us it congenital the buzz aboriginal and foremost for the Windows Buzz fan. “We capital to accommodate this admirers with something that went toe-to-toe [with the competition] for specs,” said the company’s Lucas Westcott, “something they were appreciative to booty from their pockets.”

That’s adeptness accession on the allotment of Microsoft, because those fans are the alone bodies to whom we can absolutely acclaim the Lumia 950. That’s not to say that these buyers are accepting a bad deal: Windows 10 Mobile does an abominable lot of air-conditioned stuff, and does it with a faculty of appearance that its iOS and Android competitors lack. Speaking as longtime Windows Buzz fans, we’re appealing aflame by the potential the Lumia 950 and Continuum advertise and some of us are actively because affairs one.

Outside that context, though, the Lumia 950 does actual little to acquire its $600 amount tag. It bears some of the atomic aspirational automated architectonics we’ve credible this year, and it struggles with the actual fundamentals of the smartphone experience, like acid video and blockage email (email!). Aback you apprehend you can get a Nexus 6P or aftermost year’s iPhone for less, those shortcomings absolutely alpha to angle out. As the Windows 10 ecosystem grows, we may eventually see a day where a Windows-powered smartphone has a abode in pockets added than Microsoft’s adherent following. But today is not that day. The Lumia 950 is a smartphone for the fans. All others –for now– charge not apply.

Index

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In retrospect, we apparently accepted too abundant from the Lumia 950 XL.

It’s accessible to do aback two articles acceptance side-by-side, abnormally aback the aboriginal one you hit is the lower-specced one. Maybe the bugs you’ve run into are due to the bottom hardware, the argumentation goes. Maybe on a bigger screen, with bigger silicon and a beefier battery, the problems are beneath pronounced. Maybe the 950 XL will be the one to buy.

Sadly, the 950 XL is no savior.

Everything that bare adage has been laid out in the video above, so we won’t belabor those points too much. But the 950 XL brings an acquaintance that’s appreciably abutting to that of the 950 in some ways, and essentially worse in others.

To briefly blow on the sameness: it starts with the hardware, which is aloof a broadened adaptation of the 950’s matte polycarbonate mediocrity, age-old case and all. The awning is beyond at 5.7 inches but the affectation technology is the aforementioned and so is the resolution; technically that agency the pixel body is lower but not so abundant that you’d notice. The Alpha Awning blueprint is identical with the barring of the added row of attainable Alive Tiles (which you can force-enable on the 950 anyway, by alteration the dpi settings). The rear-firing apostle is aloof as loud but additionally aloof as tinny; the Type C USB anchorage is aloof as futuristic; the camera is aloof as impressive.

Interestingly, some aspects of the acquaintance are the aforementioned admitting our expectations for improvement. Array activity is boxy to admeasurement due to the inherent alternation of Windows 10 Adaptable (sometimes it’s accomplished and sometimes it’s absolutely not) but we didn’t apprehension abundant of a boost despite the 11% access in admeasurement over the 950. The Snapdragon 810 didn’t assume to accept any aftereffect on the system’s responsiveness, admitting the two added cores against the 950’s Snapdragon 808. This was abnormally odd in Continuum, area we accepted at atomic some affectionate of advance in browsing – but Microsoft Bend was aloof as amour to about-face amid alive tabs, and Google’s Gmail webpages seemed aloof as acceptable to blast the browser.

But there charge be some differences in beheading amid the 950 and 950 XL, because alive the aforementioned software (version .29, the latest widely-available absolution alfresco of the Insider program), our XL performed essentially worse in about every sense. Again, the problems are added absolutely approved in the video above, but the bigger issues we faced were with the Windows Store. Given Microsoft’s celebrated problems befitting clip with the antagonism in agreement of app alternative and support, you’d anticipate the Abundance would rank pretty aerial on the company’s annual of priorities … but accessing it on our 950 XL has been annihilation abbreviate of a nightmare. Some apps debris to run akin admitting the buzz says they’re installed; there are abhorrence errors aback aggravating to download or amend abounding titles in the Store, such as NPR One and TuneIn Radio; added apps like Sniper Fury sometimes blast on startup; and if you bright one of the all-knowing absurdity letters the amiss way, you can accomplish your Alpha Awning absolutely vanish. Speaking of absurdity messages: we achievement you like incomprehensible hex codes, because the 4K recording bug is aback on the XL (despite the actuality that we almanac to bounded accumulator and not MicroSD). These issues accept persisted admitting the jump from .0 to .29 and a address Abundance app update, and while we initially anticipation our retail assemblage was to blame, a quick appointment to the Windows Feedback app accepted that abounding added users are experiencing agnate problems.

Again, we’re not abiding why the 950 XL seems to do so abundant worse than the 950 alive the aforementioned software. Maybe it’s a action of the altered silicon, or maybe there are server-side issues that didn’t abide two weeks ago aback we were reviewing the 950. Maybe we absolutely do accept a bad unit, and quality-control issues are so bad with the XL that array of added users out there additionally accept lemons for smartphones. But it’s added acceptable that the 950 XL is able accouterments hobbled by a backward OS. It seems actual bright at this point that Windows 10 Adaptable was appear beneath burden to hit a pre-holiday deadline, with the cerebration that accession it as a absolution “for the fans” would booty some of the bend off the consistent asperous experience. Sadly, it doesn’t.

Our cessation aloft stands: some Windows smartphone admirers –the ones who adore the activity of actuality allotment of a troubleshooting community– will still appreciate this device. And it’s about affirmed to advance over time (at columnist time, there’s already a .36 amend on the way that’s said to fix some of these problems). But at some point, you’ve got to stop acid Microsoft baggy as the aggregation that’s always able a fix “tomorrow.” Today is what’s important – and today, the 950 XL isn’t a buzz we can recommend.

(If you appetite one anyway, do what we did: hit up our accompany at Clove and acquaint ’em Pocketnow beatific you.)

•

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Interested in activity akin added all-embracing with our thoughts on the Lumia 950? Check out the three best contempo episodes of the Pocketnow Weekly podcast for (literally) hours of analysis, Q&As, and off-the-cuff observations – then dive into our abounding Windows 10 Adaptable assay for added Windows than you anytime anticipation possible!

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CANTLON'S CORNER: WOLF PACK 2020-21 SEASON

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - With the 2019-20 AHL and Hartford Wolf Pack season officially canceled, talk changes from what could have been, to what awaits at the next training camp that should start at some point in the final months of 2020. For the New York Rangers, their off-season decisions are many and plentiful. The NHL's proposed salary cap which was projected to be between $84 and $88 million two weeks before the pandemic outbreak is out the window as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Roster decisions will now be even harder for every team's management to handle once that actual number is decided upon. The Rangers have an excess of defensemen as they did last year. There are 19 defensemen in the system and only 12 can dress between the AHL and NHL. Some are heading elsewhere. In New York, Jacob Trouba, Marc Staal, Ryan Lindgren, Brendan Smith, Adam Fox and Tony D’Angelo have the top spots. Staal and Smith each have one year remaining before they reach UFA status. D’Angelo is now an RFA coming off a solid potentially shortened season. Lindgren will be an RFA after next season. In Hartford, there's Libor Hajek, Yegor Rykov, and Sean Day, who are all entering the last year of their entry-level deals. Hajek is at a crossroads. After making the Rangers out of camp last year, he missed 20 games with an injury was supposed to be in Hartford on injury rehab, but never made it back to Broadway. Day started the year in Hartford, then was sent to the team's ECHL affiliates, the Maine Mariners for the remainder of the season in favor of Rykov, who was a upcoming player. Rykov’s stock fell precipitously at the end of the year. He was a healthy scratch in nine of the last 10 games including the last game the Pack played on March 11th against the Providence Bruins. The team elected to play a freshly signed rookie, Zach Guitarri, from Brown University (ECACHL) instead. Rykov could be dealt this summer if the right offer comes along. Rykov was unhappy about how things were progressing with the knock-on him, according to several sources, was his skating. It's not out of the question that Hajek could also potentially be involved in a package deal. Darren Raddysh and Brandon Crawley are both RFA’s this summer. Both Vincent LoVerde and Mason Geersten were already locked up when they signed one-year AHL deals a short time ago. Raddysh played well on both sides of the puck, as did Loverde. They were the number one shutdown tandem for two months. He would appear to have earned himself another one-year deal. After a good training camp, Crawley spent the majority of the season in Maine. LoVerde was very well-respected in the locker room as well as with the coaches. In fact, he played with every defenseman the Wolf Pack had on their roster this season. Geersten proved to be worth his weight in gold and earned a contract coming in as a non-roster invitee. He was the best body-checker on the team and a true heavyweight who took care of the "physical" business and was another solid veteran signee that stabilized the locker room. Both players earned deals with Geersten seeming to deserve a one-way, NHL money deal. The Rangers signed K’Andre Miller to a three-year, entry-level deal just before the season was suspended. Tarmo Reunanen, who was signed last year but played in Finland, enters year two of his three-year deal. In the Swedish Hockey League (SHL), Nils Lundkvist is coming off a strong year and at the WJC. There's also the aforementioned Guitarri. The problem for Reunanen and Lundkvist coming to North America is that in Europe, COVID-19 hit very hard and the question is where or not they will be able to come across the Big Pond because of possible visa issues. Earlier this week, the EU (European Union) discussed an immunity visa that could be issued and there is a whole panoply of security and civil liberties issues that could potentially follow that. It's a total unknown and it's highly possible both could stay in Europe for another year. Defenseman Matt Robertson, from Edmonton (WHL), will likely be signed to a standard three-year, entry-level deal very soon. Among the defenseman only Nick Ebert is the only UFA-Group 6 free agent. It's not likely that Ebert will be re-signed. He could end up elsewhere in the AHL or Europe. In the forward category, there are significant players who are Group 6 UFA’s. the Pack's leading scorer, Vinni Lettieri, and Danny O’Regan. Team captain, Steven Fogarty, is a UFA. Despite possessing a cannon of a slapshot, Lettieri could sign elsewhere. His stock fell in the Rangers' eye over the last year-and-a-half. O’Regan, an old friend of Rangers head coach David Quinn from their BU days, was highly regarded by the Wolf Pack coaching staff. He will likely get a one-or-two year AHL deal in the neighborhood of $300,000K. Then there's Fogarty. He was a solid captain who played through illness and injury. Near the end of the season, he wasn’t putting up with some of the lethargic play that crept back into the lineup and called out his teammates. He could receive another one year, one-way NHL deal, but he will likely test the market. He will get offers and will likely head elsewhere. There are four RFA’s on the roster. They are Boo Nieves, Ryan Gropp, Dawson Leedahl, and Gabriel Fontaine. Gropp, a former second-round pick, after being assigned to ain't took a three-week sabbatical early in the season. He returned to Maine and worked his way back up to the Pack lineup. He played well, but didn’t produce enough points, He could be departing as well. Leedahl spent most of the season in Maine and likely will not be back. Coming off of season-ending, left shoulder surgery, Fontaine will likely get a one-year AHL deal. Nieves is a tough call. He played very well, tallying 12 points in 10 games before suffering from severe migraines. He played just one game the remainder of the year. He was a last-minute scratch in what was to be his second consecutive game. Nieves is a tantalizing talent, but the Rangers pigeonholed him as a defensive center, which didn’t work. He's now 27 and on a one-way, one-year, $700K NHL deal. It isn't likely he will be offered another deal. A really solid player and person, he will likely migrate elsewhere. Entering, the last year of their deals, are the most improved player last season in Tim Gettinger, as well as Ty Ronning, Patrick Newell, Nick Jones, and the wildest of wild cards, a former first-round pick, Lias Andersson. Andersson's unexpected departure back to Sweden on November 18th, not surprisingly, earned him organizational scorn, however, some are said to be still willing to give him another chance. Andersson wasn’t a malcontent but made a rash, impulsive, and immature decision that put him in a box. Inside sources indicate he had a bit of an emotional breakdown two weeks before bolting. The self-imposed stress of having to live up to his being the number seven overall draft pick and producing very little results weighed heavily on him. Unless a larger trade deal is constructed that he's a part of, or he has some huge reversal in his behavior, he'll likely spend the final year of his original deal skating on the bigger surfaces in Sweden. The other first-round pick returning for year two is Vitali Kravtsov, who had a difficult first-year. He went back to Russia after just five games, came back, and showed only glimpses of his skill that made him a seventh overall draft selection as well. He was too inconsistent and did not get enough puck time and his willingness to take a hit to get the puck or to take a shot. Nick Jones, a free agent signee did everything he was asked to do and did a lot of good things on both sides of the faceoff circle. He helped set players up and was very strong on the PK. A looming minus-14 needs to be improved upon. Jones’ Achilles Heel was being unable to finish on his scoring chances. He was reminiscent of a young Jed Ortmeyer. He has likely earned a one-year, two-way AHL deal. Ryan Dmowski and Shawn McBride were the heart of the fourth line. The team relied on them before play was suspended. Both were both on AHL deals and looks like they've earned another one-year, AHL deal. Numbers plus analytics will ultimately determine if they do get offers. Returnee Jake Elmer has two years remaining on his deal. He spent more time in Maine than in Hartford. There's a batch of new signees for the Pack. The 6’7, Austin Rueschhoff, as well as Patrick Khodorenko, Patrick Whelan, Michael O’Leary, and Justin Richards will be in what should be a very competitive training camp whenever that camp actually opens though is anyone's guess. The only UFA on the Pack roster is veteran, Matt Beleskey. He and his $825K NHL cap hit and overall $1.9 million are over. He will end up either with an AHL veteran's deal somewhere else or will take a deal to play in Europe. At the start of the season, the Rangers' not even inviting Beleskey to their NHL training camp was one of the very few questionable moves. He would still be a locker room bonus and gave it his all for the team. Late in the season, he was involved in the line brawl in Springfield in the second to last game of the year that earned him a three-game suspension. Late in the year, the departure of Ville Meskanen was obviously the other "questionable" decision by the team's management. The Wolf Pack could have used him, especially when the team hit the skids during a five game losing streak and a 2-7-1 mark in their final 10 games. Meskanen could have easily made a difference in the team's slide rather than having to rely on signing guys, like Connor Bleackly, to PTO’s and ATO’s to fill in the gaps. Goaltending is a major hot button issue for the Rangers. There are presently seven in the organization. A bit of a soap opera will play out until the situation with future Hall-of-Famer, Henrik Lundquist, is resolved. He is entering the last year of his $8.5 million per year deal. Alexander Georgiev becomes an RFA, and Igor Shesterkin enters year two of his two-year deal. An option for the Rangers is to buy-out Lundqvist. Trading Georgiev is another option. Meanwhile, in Hartford, Adam Huska (UCONN) is in his second year. J.F. Berube is there and is a UFA. Tyler Wall was just signed out of UMASS-Lowell (HE) and makes for a very congested organizational goalie crease area. Toss in the drafted, but unsigned, Olof Lindbom, who is coming off an injury sustained while playing with Mora IK (Sweden-Allsvenskan), and his hopes for a bounce back season in Sweden in the SHL possibly with Farjestad BK, where he played one game with last year. He is also WJC eligible. Lots to ponder about the 24th edition of the Wolf Pack coming out of this pandemic. Stay safe. Read the full article

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the0ther-side0f-dawn · 7 years ago

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LONG POST - PERSONAL - do not reblog

2 a.m. revelations (posting a draft from last night)

im never going to be loved. like putting aside the fact that im ugly as shit, and barely have any personality; all of my relationships (of any nature) are poisoned by my terrible and inescapable anxiety, an anxiety which also prevents me making new or deep connections, and i have a terrible fear of intimacy and vulnerability (which are both things i want to be able to have), but also i have a tendency to idolise almost anyone who gives me attention or shows me kindness which is an absolutely terrible foundation for any kind of relationship, and i have a tendency to repress things, and let out quiet bursts of brutal honesty, like i will never raise my voice or display signs of anger or aggression (noone will ever see me angry. i have never been permitted to be angry and -circa me at 10 years old- when i used to get angry i was a terrible human), but i explode in ways where everything just spills out all at once, because to not repress things, to always present the truth, is to always and constantly confront the possibility and fear of abondonment or scorn and i cannot live with that constant fear. these are moments which give me actual panic. heart racing. adrenaline. dizzy panic. i cannot face that on the daily, so i repress, and eventually it is too much to hold in, and honestly is a virtue i wish i could stop portraying, how i wish i could just lie and let things slide and be okay with that.

i am always going to be scared because i have never trusted anyone since i learned that even the people closest can turn on you in an instant (a lesson i learned a decade ago, and was really truly cemented last year), and who is going to love someone who cannot trust them? and like, that’s a trauma thing, an anxiety thing. thats not just something i can change my mind on, thats something that has to be worked on, and learning to trust someone takes, well, i dont know how long, because there isnt a person on this earth who i trust fully, like i do not trust anyone not to turn on me or lash out at me, and abandon me, and i mean, i try really hard. and it is a really fucking ingenuine way to live. i feel like i am betraying everyone i know, because everything i do is so calculated, that im fooling them into thinking theyre interacting with a person, but i am not a person. i try to let myself exist,i try to exist in moments, without removing myself to make sure everything my body says and does is correct, but i cannot just let myself be, i cannot trust myself not to fuck things up, to not say the wrong thing, not to embarrass myself, and i havent yet learned how to live with mistakes, how to live with embarrassment and regret and how to forgive myself. i hold myself accountable for everything, for far too much, and i should. i have done unforgivable things. some of these were conscious decisions, where only in retrospect did i realise the ramifications, and other things just happened, impulsive flashes of emotion, because it is so so so easy to do something unforgiveable. and well, i guess, these things, most of them, it is only my own conscious that does not forgive me, because those whom my actions hurt have forgiven and/or forgotten. i tread lightly around everyone, constantly, every interaction- every word i speak is mulled over a dozen times in my mind before i allow myself to interact. who could love someone who is so completely terrified of living and is so fucking insecure that she thinks if she makes the slightest error that her s/o would explode at her and leave her? and it is terribly unfair to be with someone and for me to have that fear because it would suggest that i think so little of them.

also i have high af standards so that doesnt help. like i hate myself, but i do have some morsel of self-respect.

and yknow, that internalised homophobia like heck, i dont even feel like i have the right to look at girls.

also, being closeted and having that homophobic family doesnt help.

and also, i reallt feel like i have missed my window? like im 19 and i have never dated anyone, ive jever kissed anyone, ive never even come close to hitting any of these milestones which i should have right now, and im scared that it makes me so so childish and that noone is going to want to be with someone who is so unsure of themself and doesnt know anything about anything and someone who is experiencing everything for the first time.

like by my very nature, my nature being anxiety, and all that relates to it: insecurity, lack of confidence, untrusting, - i am someone who should not be loved. because i am so incompatible with this entity that is romance.

and what i want, i dont feel is something fair to ask. like i dont want to have to conform with preconceived notions of what a relationship is. i want all the things which i think a relationship should be. i want honesty and communication, i dont want games. i want every shade between the binaries- i dont want things to be polarised between yes and no. i want fluidity. i want things to be slow. i want things to be soft. i want things to happen when we want them, not when we think they should happen. i want friendship, at the beginning and at the core, and everything else is secondary. i want to be a priority. i want to know that i am wanted, i want to learn what it feels like to be important and valued. i want to feel special. i want someone who lets me invest myself in them, who doesnt think i am too much, who is patient, so fucking patient and understanding and compassionate. i want someone who doesnt belittle me because i dont understand sarcasm- because i always believe people are tellinf the truth. i want someone who will let me be pissed for a few days when i need to be, and will give me the space to workout my feelings, who wont pressure me into confronting things when they happen, who understand that good choices arent made in agitated moods, and will let me collect my thoughts and compose myself and will forgive me for the time i need to do that. i want someone who will let me write or be silent when i have too much in my head to talk, i want someone who understand that somedays i just cant talk and listen. i want someone who lets me exist, and accepts my forms of existence. i want someone who understands that (not to use this cliche line) but im not like other people, i have always said thst if people were wavelengths, then id have both a very short amplitude and a very long fequency, but not so flat that im a straight line, i exist very quietly and mostly serenely, and i need to be allowed to be small, because sometimes this means locking myself away for a couple days, sometimes it means not talking or making eye contact. im always very close to be a flatline, shutdown, dead. and i need to be allowed to be close to that. i need to be allowed to not be lively and big. im realising i might be discribing my depression. the thing im trying to explain, is i want someone who is rational and will let me exist as long as i am not causing them, myself, or anyone else any harm, (which is actually a p big deal considering i have not had the luxury of being allowed to be depressed).

#do not reblog #do not interact if you are over 25 #do not like if your likes are public

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teckangaroo · 5 years ago

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#windows tutorials

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curlicuecal · 7 years ago

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Let’s Be Outcasts (ch 13/?)

Part 2 of cyber!bunny Apocalypse ‘verse (tumblr)

ch: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

read on AO3

Kankri/AR, Latula/Mituna, Lil Seb, Aimless Renegade

Summary: Divergent AU where AR and Li'l Seb get kicked into a new universe with some snazzy new cyborg bodies. They’re still working out the bugs.

In which AR discovers that kidnapping rarely solves more problems than it creates, Mituna breaks out of a lab (with some help), and Seb continues to take good care of his Bro.

----

Ch 13.

You’re intent on following Latula, but you’re also not quite dumb enough to run face first into a fight. You have discovered exactly two settings in yourself: “helpless” and “accidentally killed everybody.” If you can get a few of your more experimental body-hack programs out of beta you hope to someday unlock more. Tonight is probably not that night.

You turn on, just a bit, a background process that you think will help keep the metal part of your mind from overloading on data quite so much. It’s your best plan for staying in balance without actually resorting to a biohack. You’re not super confident in the whole theory, but at least you think it’s the program most likely to fail non-life-threateningly for everybody in the room.

For now you hope for the best and flail your way up a ladder after Latula and her mystery assailant and flop onto the floor of the first level. The flopping’s accidental, but it puts a bunch of benches and other debris between you and the tussle ahead, so you go with it. Kicking your way along the floor, you slide on your belly until you reach one of the floor-to-ceiling glass tubes. The liquid inside the growth chamber twists the scene beyond into crazy colors and abstract shapes, but you can make out the red and teal blob that is Latula, wrestling with a smaller figure in tan and black. The latter shape seems to be doing most of the wrestling—the Latula blob hardly moves except in quick, precise counters, but the other figure is a furious frenzy of limbs and rattling hisses.

You hump forward one more scooch, clanging your helmet as you peer around the growth chamber. The thrashing figure reveals itself as a smallish carapacian, black shell flashing as he claws and snaps at everything in reach, furiously ignoring both the shaft of Latula’s staff pinning him by the neck and the handcuff locking one wrist to some nearby tubing.

Latula conscientiously smacks his head into the floor. “I can do this all night, buddy-o.”

The carapacian responds with an angry outburst that takes you a long few seconds to process as a “go the fuck away.” His free arm sweeps blindly for the stray ammo shells scattered on the floor. A variety of armaments and other items poof into existence as his fingers brush them, only to go skittering out of reach as Latula twists her staff sharply.

“’Can’ does not mean ‘want to’,” she adds, words gritting with effort. “Settle your tail down and start talking. Who. Sent you?”

Another rapid-fire string of syllables, right at the edge of your hearing range, so that half the sounds fall out. Latula is a criminal lunatic and he hates his job and this isn’t even his job.

Her eyes narrow. Her smile tilts up. And suddenly the hand not pressing her staff into his neck is brimming with knives. “’Job,’” she repeats, in a tone that doesn’t so much invite elaboration as strongly encourage (with sharp edges).

The carapacian starts to say something else—and then Latula curses and rolls, as another small figure comes skimming fast and low around a counter, tattered cloak barely rustling. Her carapacian hostage tumbles the opposite direction, fetching up hard at the end of the handcuffs as the new figure barely missing connecting hard with Latula. You’ve got a squeak caught halfway out of your throat, your claws blunting themselves on the concrete flooring in an uncoordinated attempt to move, to help, to do something—but Latula’s already found her feet again, bouncing off a nearby lab bench even as her darting assailant sails past.

Her staff lashes out with vicious precision at the figure’s back. Hits.

—does not hit?

It’s a freeze frame series of images, printed across your ganderbulbs: The cloak implodes inwards in a flutter of empty cloth, a small white disc zipping free from the falling garment even as Latula’s balance tips forward, her body already turning the fall into a roll—

You don’t see the small human blur into view. You just see the frozen moment when his form hangs in the air behind her, face blank and pitiless, sword raised to the highest point of its swing, already beginning his strike back towards Latula’s neck.

That panicked yelp still hanging around in your throat turns out to be super useful.

Latula pivots on a caegar, narrowly avoiding decapitation. Sliding across the floor on her back, she brings her staff around two-handed to catch the next lightning quick strike of that sword. She flings the smaller human back and the fight dissolves into a rapid exchange of blows, both figures blurring in and out of view as they shift for any advantage.

For your part, you slump against the growth-tube, hands and helmet pressing against the glass to keep you up, while you breathe entirely too fast. You can’t look away, and you can’t stop your bloodpusher hammering like a fist in your chest, and you can hardly feel the inside of your skull for all the rapidly unfolding analyses you’re running through simultaneously in your head. You can feel your psionics pulsing from your frond tips to the base of your horns, there for the taking, maybe, if you reached for them—but you can also see a thousand, thousand, thousand ways you could make this so much worse.

You think about a lab full of dead people while your programs output predictions about the building’s structural integrity, Latula’s speed and reaction times, the decaying halo radius of your power. There’s a rapidly diminishing window of opportunity before your adrenaline-charged body is going to make the decision for you.

No, no, no—

—no.

You catch your breath and hold it until your pusher slows a few percentiles. Not as thorough a solution as your untested biological shutdown protocols, but with the advantage of not being a complete fucking wildcard of an experiment in biohacking shit fucking hell. You want those programs, yes you do. You want to be that troll Latula keeps acting like you are. The one that has opinions; the one that can make decisions. The one that is not a damaged product or a useful tool. You want to be the person and not the machine. Your red mind trills fear and concern for Latula and your blue mind snarls outrage and defiance at everything around you and you—walk the path between them.

Maybe it’s okay if you lose your balance sometimes, as long as you get back up again.

Fading the noise in your brain further to the background of your attention, you gulp one breath, hold a second time, and let your eyes actually process what they’re seeing. It’s been bare moments, but the dynamic of the fight has already shifted.

The human—wiggler?—is still a darting, nearly invisible blur of grey cloth and bright metal, striking in silence and then flashing away to strike again faster than you can track, but you think his attacks have gained urgency. Fast he might be, far faster than Latula as far as you can calculate, but she moves like oil over water, changeable and precise, blocking him at every turn like the principles of physics enacted upon the world. And with every block she drives the smaller fighter back another length, working at angles and using the reach of her staff to harry him into the corner formed by two stripped lab benches. Eyes slitted in concentration, she grins like a maniac as she fights.

Okay. So. Maybe don’t flail around wildly, frying everyone in the room and possibly bringing the building down. In retrospect, you’re not sure why that seemed like a viable option.

(It’s yours; it’s your power; it’s--you; and even when it scares you silly, even when it doesn’t answer any better than the rest of your body, it still feels like a limb you should be able to reach out with. A clean binary of choice that’s yours to make. Yes/no (…maybe?))

A clink of metal across crumbling tile, a sword goes spinning past you, and Latula makes a low, exulting noise that goes right to your bulge. Okay, maybe not relevant right now, but still. You sway forward like a magnet on a string, leaning out around the growth chamber to get a better view of whatever’s happening.

She’s got the human—wiggler—are those cybernetic hopbeast ears?—she’s got the very small cy-type person pinned with a knee to his chest, his back flat on the floor, the knife at his throat strongly discouraging a struggle.

His face is surprisingly blank for someone with a blade to his neck, and though his small hands are tight on her wrist, he stares up at Latula from behind small, point-tipped shades with what might be fearlessness or indifference.

Something scuffs behind you.

Alarms trigger in your helmet, way too fucking late to be anything but the backdrop to your panic attack as a hard-shelled arm clamps around your throat, yanking you backwards off your feet. Your vision tilts wildly, your mind tilts equally wildly, and some small fraction of your attention notes a sprung pair of handcuffs across the labs, short one carapacian.

Titty-fucking shitwaffles.

It appears you’ve made the classic mistake of turning your back on the body.

The carapacian’s arm drags you down, the barrel of a gun presses up under your chin, and even as he calls a sharp, rapid command across the room to Latula, your power flares, your brain sparks red-blue-red-blue-no-no-no-no-no—

You are not going to pull this ceiling down around you, you literally just made that decision, it was a great decision, and you decided it all on your own; fuck this noise. Fuck it right in the fleshy proboscis, you think—and you tip yourself into that feeling.

You curse a whole fucking lot.

You can’t be sure, but you think even your carapacian captor is a little thrown by the vigor and loquaciousness of your profanity. With some distant, automated portion of your mind you are aware of Latula freezing over her own captive, her knife to the pinned human’s throat, her face flickering through surprise and alarm and back into a little quirk of a smile that’s a blank, blank, blank mask.

The carapacian shifts to get a better hold on you, nudges the gun harder under your noggin, and clicks another rapid-fire stream of words at Latula.

Hilariously, his words run right along the same lines as your own, which are pretty much wedged onto the theme of ‘let go let go let go let right the fuck go right now.’ Yours have more swears mixed in. And are also way less coherently enunciated. You curse some more, because you are a cobalt blaze of fury and spinning out in this one, chosen way is so far fulfilling its function of helping you keep control in all the higher priority ways.

“You let go first.” Latula’s so, so still, holding on to her prisoner as she watches your carapacian captor through bright, intent eyes. That little edge of a smile stretches wider in a way puts you in mind of her dragon lusus. “…You really don’t wanna play this game with me.”

The gun twitches against your neck as the carapacian’s fingers tense—and then relax with a notable effort. You call him a nook-gorging tunnelvermin-fucker and try to bite his thumb. Still focused on Latula, and the little human with the knife at his throat, the carapacian speaks again, lower and more measured, a begrudging agreement followed by a carefully neutral challenge. (Are you Latula Pyrope?)

You can see the words strike home even before your brain parses more than her name. Latula’s face goes, if possible, even blanker. “Who’s asking?”

“Oh.” The human wiggler, silent and unresponsive this whole time, perks suddenly, leaning up to peer at Latula’s face, heedless of the knee on his chest or the knife digging into his neck. Those mechanized hopbeast ears perched on his head swivel to tilt toward her with interest. “I’m not supposed to kill you.”

“…Is that so.”

“Mm. Kankri wants us to rescue you,” the cy kid says, face still blank, words bright-toned.

Latula blinks. She stares down at the wiggler, flicks her eyes up to where the carapacian is still holding you uncertainly at gunpoint, flicks her eyes back to her attacker-turned-hostage, staring mildly up at her with her knife at his throat.

The crack of her laughter bubbles out into the air.

“Wow, glam rescue. Max points on execution.”

#cyberbunny au #mituna captor #latula pyrope #lil seb #aimless renegade #latula x mituna #ccwritings

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