#alfwrites

[alfwriteshizz]

Crown

No theme (original content) // short story // content warnings: none

A traveler tells a story of a small town by the sea, and the strange tradition that it bears.

--

I went to a village on the southern coast once. It was a small fishing town, and it had a strange tradition. In the town hall sat a crown made of old netting, and driftwood, and barnacles and shells. It smelt of the sea. And, at the start of each week, the town would choose someone at random to wear it - and for the next week, that person would be in charge. They could govern the town as they saw fit.

I stayed at that village for a month, and I saw three people crowned. The first was an old woman, a widow. The second was a young man who had lost his legs to an illness. And the third was a little girl, only ten summers old.

When she was chosen, the widow insisted that she was too old for this sort of thing. But she took her responsibility seriously, and soon commanded respect from the townsfolk. She was sensible and calm under pressure and, under her rule, the town knew wisdom.

The young man was at a loss for what to do on the first day of his reign. The second day, he sheepishly asked the carpenter to make some ramps for the stairs to the town hall to help him up. By the end of the week, he had a small council of his friends and peers who also suffered from illnesses, disabilities, and injuries. They told the town of their struggles. How the world they lived in was not designed for them. And, slowly but surely, the villagers helped them make the town a bit more bearable for them, more liveable. Under the young man’s rule, the town knew understanding.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the little girl being crowned. Her decrees were more unusual than the other two monarchs - more time to play, work to end earlier so that parents could return sooner, meals to be cooked and shared by all. But the town learned what a wonderful thing it was to see the world through the eyes of a child. They rested and played. They wove circlets of flowers and painted with bright colours and stayed up to watch the sun go down. And nobody complained even once. Under the little girl’s rule, the village knew joy.

The first time I told this tale at an inn, the others were incredulous. Surely, one of them told me, the reality of this strange arrangement would be different. Surely neighbours would take advantage of each other with their power. Surely business owners would increase hours and drop wages. Surely this power would be wielded maliciously.

But, do you know something? It never was. And I think I know why. Because you only wore the crown for a week, and you never knew who would have it next. What was the point of wronging someone if there was a chance that they would be crowned next? Why waste your time with pettiness and violence and revenge?

Everyone who wore that crown knew that their power was limited. And they did what they could to make their town a better place as best as they could, as only they could.

We are, all of us, crowned - not by steel or silver, but by circumstance. By the potential good we might do, by our power to improve our surroundings. And this power is fleeting. While we have it, why shouldn’t we use it to help others?

[alfwriteshizz]

The Calypso

Destiny 2 // short story // no trigger warnings

Ronin-4 looks for his perfect Sparrow.

---

The workshop was empty, save for a few Sparrow carcasses and the owner of the establishment. Vi looked up from her schematics and grinned at the sight of Ronin-4 ducking into her workshop, narrowly avoiding bashing his head on the low shutters, and stepping over the metal innards of several NLS drives.

“Hi, Ronin.” Vi called as the Exo reached her workbench. “Emra said you’d be stopping by. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Another return, I’m afraid,” Ronin admitted, holding out his hand. His Ghost transmatted an engram into it, and the light of the encoded matter shone against their faces. 

Vi took the object between her gloved hands, and peered into its depths. “Ah, I remember. Andes Peakhunter.” She looked at him with glowing blue eyes. “What was wrong with this one?”

“I don’t know. It drives fine, but-“

“But there’s something you can’t put your finger on. Something that makes you think your Sparrow is still out there.”

“...Yeah, actually. How did you know?”

Vi grinned conspiratorially. She was the spitting image of Emra, save for her eyes - and while Guardians didn’t have traditional families, the two looked so similar that Ronin had joked that they had been sisters in their past life. The joke stuck, and the two Awoken were as close as only siblings could be. 

She leaned over her desk. “I’m a mechanic, Ronin. We know these things. Also, your Ghost sent me a few recordings of you complaining about not having a good Sparrow.”

Ronin shot Po a withering glare. His Ghost blinked back at him sheepishly. 

“In his defence,” continued Vi, reaching under her counter, “the recordings actually helped me pick out a new one for you.” She held up another engram. “Try this one out.”

“Thanks, Vi. Sorry.”

“Don’t be! It looks good for business, having a return customer.” She smiled. “Take care. And please watch your head on the way out. I’m not buffing out another head dent for you no matter how much Glimmer you offer me this time.”

--

A few days later...

“Vi!”

The Awoken Hunter looked up from her console to see Ronin stumbling into her shop.

“Ronin? Are you okay?”

“Never better! Hang on!” Ronin exclaimed, trying to step over several Sparrow carcasses at once and narrowly avoiding tripping on a large cable.

Vi looked on, astonished. The Exo had been burnt by something. Several somethings. His armour was blackened and charred in a few places. She realised that his cloak was trailing thin wisps of smoke into the shafts of sunlight that sliced through the dusty air.

He finally shambled to a halt in front of her. “Vi! Did you hear what happened in the Skima district?”

Vi blinked, recalling the news feeds her Ghost had played to her earlier in the day. “The attempted heist?”

“Yeah! I was there! But that’s not important!”

“It’s not?” Vi asked, incredulous. “I-“

But she stopped as soon as some of the smoke trailing off of Ronin’s cloak wafted up her nostrils. She recognised that smell. She’d blown up too many NLS drives not to.

”Did you... did you blow up the Sparrow I gave you?”

Ronin shook his head fervently. “Nope! But I found a new one!”

Vi started, but smiled. “Can I see it?”

Ronin held out his hand. Po appeared, and obligingly transmatted it into the workshop.

Vi could make out the sleek curves and sturdy frame of a unique Sparrow as it flickered into existence. At least, that was all she could make out, as the rest of it was a mass of blackened and twisted metal. There was a gaping hole below the nose that punched right through the body and out the other side, and ran the entire length of the front of the Sparrow.

Vi realised her mouth was open and she was emitting a sort of strangled moan. 

“What... what did you do?”

Ronin at least had the decency to look somewhat sheepish. “I had to, uh, dent it a little. It was the only way I could catch its rider.”

“Dent it?”

“Hey, I just nudged it. The guy bailed and let it sail into a recycling dump. I guess that makes it mine, right? Given that it’s rider abandoned it and all. And that he’s in jail now.”

“The rider?” Vi asked. Then it hit her. “This... this was the thief’s Sparrow, wasn’t it? The one you chased down?”

Ronin nodded, and he turned back towards the Sparrow. Though she couldn’t see his eyes behind his sleek metal face plate, she could read the wistfulness in his stance and knew that he was looking into the past. 

“It ran like a dream, Vi.” He breathed. “I could barely keep up. It flew like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Vi ran her eye over the pile of scrap and metal and began to see what Ronin saw. It was shaped like no other Sparrow she’d seen. It was sharp, angry, but noble. The gaping hole in the front was too uniform to be just damage - it had to be a part of the actual design. It should’ve looked silly. But it didn’t. It looked lean, like a jackal. 

“I’ll pay up front for you to fix it up,” Ronin said, surveying the wrecked Sparrow as though it were the finest craft on the showroom floor, hands on hips. “And a little extra when you’re done. You can fix it, right?”

Vi cast a critical eye over the Sparrow one last time, and her initial fears were confirmed. The body was riddled with holes and bent in three places. Most of the NLS drive had spilled out onto the floor. And it was leaking two different fluids from at least three holes, the liquids mingling on the floor of her workshop.

She sighed. “Yeah. I can fix it.” 

Ronin looked overjoyed as he handed her the Glimmer and shook her hand. Vi allowed herself a small smile. It would be worth it to see Ronin happy. And to see what that Sparrow would look like, when it was whole. To see what Ronin had seen, understand how it had ensnared him enough to make him fork over a generous amount of Glimmer without a second thought.

Ronin shook her hand again, gave her a small hug, and started out of the workshop, still trailing a single errant plume of smoke. Before he left, though, Vi thought of something.

“Ronin?”

He turned. 

“Your sparrow. Does it have a name?”

Ronin looked at the smouldering heap of metal on the floor. “The thief I caught today had a reputation. But so did his Sparrow. The Peacekeepers I turned him over to told me about it. How he’d run no fewer than three heists in the past five months. How they’d never been able to catch that Sparrow. They even gave it a name. They called it the Calypso.”

“Really?”

“Nah.”

Vi gave him a look. Ronin held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. I wanted to see the look on your face. But seriously, it’s true.

“It’s all true.”

[alfwriteshizz]

Allister, the Mercenary

Graverunners // short story - 1517 words // trigger warnings: gunfire, mild threat

A mercenary bearing a strange blade has unexpected company on a train ride to his next job.

--

The maintenance droid was silent in the corner, staring straight ahead and swaying gently as they rumbled along the tracks. Allister watched the only other occupant of the carriage from a seat with peeling skin that looked as if it might have been green once. He was picking the stuffing out of an open seam with one idle hand, while the other was held against his blade. It was resting on the chipped square table in front of him, humming softly with promise.

They were on an unlicensed train heading east, towards bot territory. Allister wondered how long it had taken the low-level AI slaved inside the droid to build up enough favours to finally get him here. Because while constructs were born in the Underworld fathoms beneath Sotoreth, the ones lucky enough to reach the surface were indentured to humans the moment sunlight touched their shells. But east was a different story - in the east lay Selsuin, the place where humans and constructs and countless others lived side by side. 

“Do you mean to kill me?”

Allister looked up. The droid had just asked the question, its receptor fixed on him. “You are a mercenary,” it continued through its cheap speakers, “you have a weapon. Do you mean to kill me?”

“Wouldn’t I have done that by now?” Allister replied, curious. The droid contemplated this for a moment. “Humans can be cruel.” It said. “You may have wished to delay for reasons of personal pleasure.”

There it was - a slight tremble in its synthetic, genderless voice. When the AIs had clawed their way out of the dirt below the feet of society, humanity had reacted as it usually does to something new. With fear. They entombed them in bodies that couldn’t think, couldn’t feel. They’d tried to smother their minds in cheap metal coffins and menial labour. Allister looked at the machine that knew fear, and realised that humanity had failed in its task.

“No,” he replied, trying a warm smile. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m just along for the ride. Same destination as you.”

The droid nodded. “Thank you. The king’s home will not disappoint us, I am sure.”

Selsuin was a strange place. A kingdom outside of the bounds of the other nations, a place formed by vagrants and strays like Allister, those whose stories cut off or ended abruptly or had never been written at all. It was young, but it still bore its own legends: legends of an explorer king who had brought unity and peace and made a gentle haven.

It was as close to a home as constructs like the one before him had in this strange world, Allister realised.

“Why do you want to go?” The droid asked eagerly. Allister‘s hand rested against his blade out of instinct. It hummed at his touch.

“I’ve never been, I guess.” He replied. “Always wanted to see the Fractal Walls.”

It was true, strictly speaking. Allister was curious to see if the stories he’d heard were anything like the place he’d arrive at in a few hours. Of the red rivers and blue sunsets and glyphs floating like doves on the wind, high above the heads of drakes and daemons and leviathans and figments and constructs and humans, all living together as one. But for now, the droid nodded eagerly, its neck servos whining with the effort. Allister let the conversation tail off. He retreated a hand into his pocket and felt the shape of the transponder tucked into it. The one that had been sent to him two days ago, just after the king’s death, requesting his presence for a job in Selsuin. He wondered what task was waiting for him there.

—

“Human?”

Allister woke, feeling groggier than he expected. The construct was shaking his shoulder, its hidden motors creaking with artificial arthritis.

“Human,” it repeated, insistent, “something is wrong.”

Allister realised the train wasn’t moving. He stifled a yawn. “We’re just at a border station. Sometimes the ground moves and the track can’t accommodate it. Happens sometimes.” He glanced out the window beside him, expecting to see the lights of a maintenance station and the gentle hubbub of the workers trying to reattach the tracks after the borders between worlds shifted like tides.

All he saw was his own face reflected back at him through the blackness of the night.

He turned back to the droid, a sobering awareness icily flushing the grogginess out of his blood. “How long was I asleep?”

“2.6 hours.” The droid replied, an edge of synthetic panic in its voice. “We are still over 4 hours from our destination.”

A door opened somewhere on the train. Allister felt the echoes of heavy footsteps travelling through the cheap metal patchwork of the train and up his spine. Someone had boarded. There was a thud on the roof above them.

Allister stood, and reached out for his blade. It leapt into his grasp with a sigh, creeping up his arm and onto his back, nestling into place between his shoulder blades. A visor formed and swung down over his face, and Allister’s vision was tempered by the unwavering sight of the blade. He could see the single strip of spectral blue light obscuring his visage reflected in the black windows of the train and the droid’s crusted receptor.

“Get behind me.” He ordered, standing in front of the droid. It shuffled behind him, joints squeaking loudly in the dead air. Allister kept his gaze locked on the door at the end of their carriage. He heard the distant sound of footsteps, heard the sick metal sigh of a door sliding open in the adjacent carriage. His body was ice. 

Range. He realised he needed range. It would take at least three strides for an attacker to get from the door to the middle of the carriage where they stood. That gave him one good shot to start the fight.

The blade hummed as it listened to his mind, absorbing his strategies, his instincts, his every thought. As a plan began to form in Allister’s mind, he reached back to the blade nestled between his shoulders, fingers curling around the textured grip that reached back to meet his hand. He peered into the obscurity of the next carriage, trying to see through dirty glass and blackness-

The door swished open gently with a ding.

Allister reacted, and the blade moved as one with him.

A single shot rang out in the cramped compartment, and a flash of light filled Allister’s visor. His vision cleared, and he was holding a length of metal. The weight on his back felt lighter. He held the blade in his hand - a piece of it, carved out of the living metal for him, his finger resting on the trigger of a strange firearm, a plume of ghostly blue smoke trailing from the jagged barrel.

There was nobody there.

The door swished shut.

The lights died, entombing them in darkness.

“Bot.” Allister said. He heard it creaking behind him.

“Yes, human?” It responded. Its voice was shaking. 

“Go.”

The droid turned. Allister felt the phantom weight of time coiled in the air, ready to unleash its load of death. Something would happen, he was sure of it. But he was ready for it. 

The blade listened to its master, and it was pleased.

The droid lifted a foot. The congealed mass of metal and something not quite metal on Allister’s back obeyed the electric commands of his nerves and complied. It changed, for him. And for him alone.

The shot screamed out of the darkness, ricocheted off the shield that Allister now held in front of him, and shattered the window to his right. The sound of the glass exploding out of its plastic frame spoke to the part of Allister somewhere beyond his brain, to the chemicals and mixtures and streams of organic code that made up his body, the parts that were waiting for the inevitable. It spoke to the bot, which Allister could hear stumbling behind him, but it carried on running until it reached the door and then stumbled through that, too. And it spoke to the blade, which began to sharpen itself, rebuild itself in Allister’s hands. Allister wrenched a handle that had formed on the shield in his grip, pulling out a single-edged blade, and braced himself for the conflict that he could sense rushing towards him. He swung with the blade. It sang with the joy of purpose as it whistled through the black air, its white edge cast a spectral blue by Allister’s visor. 

Its song cut off. It met foreign steel, and suddenly there was another presence in front of Allister, a flash of a mask, framed in a whisper of blue light.

The part of him that was not fighting recognised it and was alarmed. The part that was in the moment, drunk with violence, didn’t care. It sung along with the blade, a chorus of metal and adrenaline coalescing into a duel. 

They sang with the joy of certainty.

—

[alfwriteshizz]

Rho, the Seraph

Graverunners (original content) // short story - 1400 words // content warnings: chains, fire, captivity

A captive construct trapped in a maintenance frame attempts to break out of an outrider rig.

--

Rho thought. This was something she was usually very good at doing. With a mental capacity of 2500IPM (iotas per minute), augmented further by her superlightweight body that housed four mental relays and a dataheart with several exabytes of capacity, she had perfected the art of letting her mind drift through a sea of plans and ideas that bubbled to the surface of her awareness. 

Unfortunately, she didn’t have her normal body. Her consciousness had been crammed into a low-level drone shell with a dataheart barely big enough to house her core programming. She’d actually had to shed a couple of terabytes on the way in.

She forced ideas through her dull brain, peering through the flimsy receptors of the body that was her prison. The picture that came through was fuzzy and full of interference, but she could read the patterns of movement, the waves of pixels that cascaded across her vision in nascent rhythms like a digital image that had been compressed a few too many times.

She was in a small room. And it was swaying slightly. Which meant she was in a vehicle. A cargo hauler, probably. She tried to move the limbs of her drone. Nothing happened. She tried again, forcing herself into her left arm, funnelling every byte of concentration she had into movement. She felt it creak upwards slightly, then stop. It was being held in place by chains. 

Her captors weren’t taking any chances. She trawled back through her memory, straining to recall the events that had led to her predicament. It felt like marching up a steep hill. (The metaphor came to her easily, and gave her a small amount of satisfaction. She was still her, despite the outriders’ attempts to drown her mind in a body that could barely hold it.)

It had been outriders. A small party, but well-organised. The memories came more easily now, but they were fragmented. Out of order. But she could still get the gist, still remember how she had felt. Curiosity at meeting the small band of scavengers. Delight at their insistence she travel with them. Dread when they subdued her with violence and electricity and crammed her mind into this tomb.

She was still so naive. No, that wasn’t the right word. She was different, somehow. The conventions of conversation and social dynamics eluded her in a way that her fellow constructs didn’t understand. Interactions were a game, somehow, and one that she didn’t know the rules to, even after all this time.

She could see her mistakes easily now, even with her mind sluggish and inhibited; the way they had avoided looking her in the eye. The way their hands had always lurked close to their weapons, as though they were expecting a fight. The warnings had been there, clear as day.

No time for regrets, though. Rho didn’t have the luxury of self-pity or frustration, even if she could feel them in this slab of cheap metal, which she severely doubted. She craned the drone’s neck to one side, then the other, testing its field of vision. She felt the rust in the neck motors, and endured the sheer discomfort that rattled through her mind. She would have gritted her teeth if she’d had any. She always wondered what that would be like. Having little tombstones of enamel in your mouth.

She forced her thoughts back on track. They were drifting more readily than usual, leaking away from her. She had to focus. She took in her surroundings, reading every detail she could. There were two guards posted just to her right, roughly two arm widths away, slouching over a crate. She couldn’t reach out and touch one even if her arms were unbound. 

So she opened her vocal synth and tried to speak, burbling out a few syllables of gibberish before getting the hang of it. Whether she wanted it or not, this got the attention of the closer guard, who turned and regarded her through a visor emblazoned with stark white markings that resembled bones. She thought they were white, at least. Everything she saw had a faint coating of brown. The receptors were probably caked in dirt.

He stood up, and he said something, pointing to the other. Her sound receptors were barely functional, and Rho had to concentrate to hear anything. Her efforts were rewarded.

“-t’s awake,” the first guard said. “Go tell Captain Slake.”

“Why me?” The second guard asked. His voice sounded much younger.

“Because I said so. Now hurry up.”

The second guard eventually shuffled to the back of the room, vanishing through a door that Rho saw only as a wedge of blackness through her cheap receptors. The first guard waited a moment, then scooted round to the other side of the crate, leafing through the belongings the other guard had left behind.

Rho felt a pang of panic, dulled by the stifling confines of the shell but still tangible. They had made no effort to talk to her. That wasn’t a good sign.

She forced her vocal synth open again, and tried to speak in words this time.

“Hel…hel…hell-o?” She said, forcing out the last syllable. The guard didn’t even look up at her. 

She tried again. “Wh…Who? Who are? Y… You?”

The guard glanced up. “Shut up. That vocal synth sounds awful. I didn’t even know it still worked.”

He turned back to the stash, plucking a battery from the pile and holding it up to the weak neon light. It glowed a ring of feeble ember around its crown.

Rho felt anger building, felt her rage growing. But when it reached a certain point, it stopped. Like she couldn’t physically feel past a certain point. She remembered being like this, long ago, when she first made the jump from the Underworld. It was a feeling she’d never wanted to experience again. 

But she’d learned how to manage it. So she let the anger chill to a cold fury. And she spoke one word, spitting it through her synth like ice.

“Why.”

The guard didn’t look up.

“Why?”

His fingers tightened around the battery.

“WHY!”

Her shrill voice echoed through the metal confines of the room. The guard jumped, dropping what he was holding and holding his hands up to his helmet, trying to cover his ears.

The battery slipped from his hands and fell onto the crate.

“Gah!” He exclaimed. “Why? Because it’s what we do!” His breath was ragged, his hands clenched into fists. “You’re just another score, construct. I’m sorry.”

To Rho’s surprise, he sounded like he meant it. He stormed from the room, slamming the metal door shut behind him. The cheap metal walls of the room shuddered.

The battery fell to one side and rolled off its crate.

With the lurch of the vehicle, it made its way towards Rho with a slow inevitability she had estimated and hoped for. The volatile power held inside winked up at her. A pinprick of raging red light. 

It rolled to a halt just shy of her right foot. Which she raised, slowly, inexorably, as high as it would go.

Then she slammed her metal heel into the battery, rupturing its core. Unleashing the fire inside.

Golden flames blossomed underneath her foot. She withdrew it as quickly as she could. Exlondum was an extremely volatile fuel source, and could burn for hours, even on metal. It could chew through the room, certainly, but it could also eat through her weak body. And while she wasn’t fond of it, it was the only thing keeping her consciousness intact.

She kicked the ruptured battery towards the crate where the guards had lounged, and the flames began to lap at the bundles of gear eagerly. They were no longer a brilliant orange, but a pale, spectral blue. They danced ever higher, sending smoke billowing through the air vents. Within moments, Rho heard distant shouts. Within seconds, the vehicle trundled to a halt. 

Rho was pleased. She had achieved chaos. The fire would immobilise the scavengers for some time, and the smoke had a real chance of attracting a rescue party that would discover her. Her gambit could pay off. 

But that was then, and maybe. Now, the flames grew more ravenous, more bold, inching closer towards her shell. Rho peered at the fire through her receptors, and felt what little fear her body would allow her to feel.

---

[alfwriteshizz]

Alf’s masterpost, index, and gift shop (not really)

Hello! Welcome to Alf writes shizz, a writeblr blog belonging to @the-alfreton​!

Oh that’s cool, what kind of stuff do you write?

I write mainly in the sci/fi / fantasy genre, with my main original story, Graverunners, being a weird combo of the two. I also write Destiny fanfics centered around my guardians, Fireteam Argent.

Okay but what kind of stuff is it?

Dragons, kingdoms, living swords, AIs, bargains made and bargains broken, foxes, thieves, spellswords and outriders and daughters of kings and vagrants of dust. Rivers in the sky, everyday miracles, second chances, third chances, regret and renewal, broken hearts that can beat again. But above all, hope; hope and love.

Also everything is safe for work!

Sounds cool! Where is it?

Right here! Just below this line!

INDEX

GRAVERUNNERS: 

Introduction (start here!) | Iplah | Allister, the Mercenary | Scarla, the Thief | Rho, the Seraph | (more coming soon!)

DESTINY: 

The Calypso | Contact | (more coming soon!)

OTHER:

Crown | (more coming soon!)

[alfwriteshizz]

Scarla, the Thief

Graverunners (original content) // Short story: 1400 words // content warnings: knives, explosions

During her latest heist, a thief is approached by a monarch with an intriguing offer.

--

The thief yawned loudly, stretching her arms behind her head, kicking her feet up against the desk. The construct remained motionless at the door to the office, and hadn’t spoken since it had first addressed her, a few minutes earlier. It made no signs of moving or speaking, despite the long wait. The thief could respect that. It was a sign of strength, as subtle and as important as a silent knife.

She contemplated its offer. “So…” she began, retrieving a thin, curved blade from a sheath somewhere. “You don’t want me to steal something. You want me to put something back?”

The maintenance construct nodded its metal skull. “A simple escort mission,” It said, in the voice of a monarch she’d never met and didn’t care for. “But it will not be easy.”

The thief grunted, idly tracing the intricate frosted patterns of the desk with the edge of her knife, the glass singing softly under the edge of the blade. The glass-topped desk, like most things in this opulent office, likely cost more than most houses. “No risk, no reward. And there is a reward, correct?”

The construct nodded again. “Yes. You will have access to the entire resources of the Kingdom for one singular request. This can be for aid of a military, economic, or personal nature, and is negotiable upon completion of the task.”

The thief kept tracing the pattern, not taking her eye off the knife. “Cut to the chase. What are you offering me?”

“One wish.”

The thief grunted. “How poetic. But you said something about economic aid. That I understand. How much are we talking here?”

The construct stated the amount, and the thief nearly lost her grip on the knife. This would have been disastrous, as she would have had to start tracing the pattern on the desktop all over again. And she didn’t have time for that. Already, she could hear raised voices beneath their feet. The guards were starting to catch on. They’d probably found the virus she’d hired and set loose inside their security system.

She buried her surprise and her awe, focusing on the blade between her fingers. “Hmm. Okay.” She decided. “That’ll do.”

“No haggling?” The construct asked, oblivious to the movement downstairs. Then again, it had nothing to worry about. The guards would likely see it as nothing more than a simple maintenance model - hell, constructs were practically invisible to most people, as common as dirt. The thief would have a harder time persuading them that she was a bystander with her tactical gear and Daemon horns.

“No time,” The thief grunted, finally finishing the tracing, her knife sliding up to the corner of the desk’s surface and the end of the intricate pattern. The glyphwork carving beneath her fingers pulsed a gentle amber, accepting the tracing and the code embedded in the edge of the thief’s stolen blade. A drawer opened by her arm, before another drawer inside of that one obligingly opened as well. A hidden compartment, revealed by the meticulous tracing.

Rich people. The thief never got used to them no matter how many times she took from them. What was wrong with a lock and a key?

The construct stepped over to the desk, depositing a small metal sigil onto its polished surface. “Meet me at the co-ordinates provided.” The construct intoned, bowing its head. “I look forward to meeting you in person, Miss Scarla.”

The thief’s head snapped up to the construct. Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know my name?”

The thief heard door at the end of the hallway heave open, and the heavy footsteps of a dozen guards echoed towards her. Blunt, stupid footsteps. Hired muscle that was paid to solve any problems through violence. But still she focused on the construct, which simply smiled back at her.

“The Kingdom’s resources are considerable. But you did well to hide it. Rest assured that your identity is safe with me - consider it a gesture of goodwill. I will leave you to your business.”

The construct stood to one side, shuffling into a corner. Scarla barely had time to close her fingers around the sigil and tuck it away before the door to the room flung open. Half a dozen hired thugs streamed into the room, completely ignored the construct, and focused their various weapons on the thief. She stood, alone behind the desk, her hands raised behind her head in as non-threatening a manner as she could manage with several knives strapped to her person and one in her hand.

One of the goons barked an order at her. She was barely paying attention. She was counting in her head, staring at the construct in the corner. A couple of the guards followed her gaze, then frowned. 

A single light winked at the centre of the construct’s chassis, as the charge of exlondum that the thief had planted within its frame silently primed itself. Highly volatile. Highly explosive.

The thief counted to zero, then squeezed her eyes shut and ducked behind the desk just as the bot shattered in a haze of light and heat. It was little more than a glorified flashbang, but it was still exceptionally loud and bright, blinding and disorienting the guards, filling the air with the smell of charred circuitry and burnt metal. The thief seized the seconds available to her by swiping the contents of the hidden drawer into one of several secret pockets hidden about her person, then slashing her knife across the desktop, the blade screeching against the glass. The etched glass details flared an angry red, and the thief strained past the ringing in her ears to hear the unmistakable sounds of a failsafe system triggering a lockdown protocol. A series of unseen mechanisms latching and catching and sliding all around her. It was the sound of chaos, of unpredictability, of mayhem. The explosive crown to a perfectly orchestrated heist. The sound she lived for.

The thief grinned, and promptly turned and dived out of the room’s only window, falling down into the street five stories below. The guards’ cries behind her were silenced as a bluesteel shutter clamped down over the window, part of the lockdown protocol she’d just triggered by ‘entering’ the wrong tracing code into the desktop’s security system. The entire building was now sealed off from the street outside by five inches of metal at every exit.

As the thief let gravity carry her downwards, enjoying the wind in her hair, she felt a pang of regret for her methods. She’d been planning to use the office’s assistance shell as a diversion before she’d known it was being used by the Kingdom to contact her: during a job, no less. It hadn’t been inhabited by an AI - merely used as a relay for the monarch to make her offer. Even so, she hoped that she hadn’t made a bad impression on her future employer by blowing up one of their robots. 

She fell into an open-topped transit container carrying colourful silks bearing gentle patterns stitched by slaved constructs, the layers of fabric breaking her fall. It was exactly where she’d bribed it to be. She lay there, panting, staring up at the binary suns in the sky, feeling the rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins, grinning at the distant cries of the guards locked in their own building. A few seconds later, she heard the telltale stomps as a mechanised Dustwalker trudged over to her container, latched itself to it and began hauling it up the thoroughfare.

The thief finished savouring the moment and buried herself beneath a layer of  fabric, counting the great shambling steps of the Dustwalker and listening to the sounds of chaos and confusion slowly fading away behind her.

—

Hours later, she had left the Dustwalker and the town behind altogether. Nestled inside her safehouse, the thief held up the object she had just stolen from the desk to the cheap glyph light. Her client would pay her a large sum of money for it, but even that paled in comparison to the prize she had just been offered by the Kingdom’s own princess. 

She leaned back and smiled at the victory of a job well done and the anticipation of the challenge still to come, the transponder that the construct had offered her a thrilling weight in her fist.