#microchip gun

[fusionsprunt]

me when my meteor-powered robot gf attempts to murder me 😳😳

[object-vault-9]

Week 117

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[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #13

April 5-12 2024

President Biden announced the cancellation of a student loan debt for a further 277,000 Americans. This brings the number of a Americans who had their debt canceled by the Biden administration through different means since the Supreme Court struck down Biden's first place in 2023 to 4.3 million and a total of $153 billion of debt canceled so far. Most of these borrowers were a part of the President's SAVE Plan, a debt repayment program with 8 million enrollees, over 4 million of whom don't have to make monthly repayments and are still on the path to debt forgiveness.

President Biden announced a plan that would cancel student loan debt for 4 million borrowers and bring debt relief to 30 million Americans The plan takes steps like making automatic debt forgiveness through the public service forgiveness so qualified borrowers who don't know to apply will have their debts forgiven. The plan will wipe out the interest on the debt of 23 million Americans. President Biden touted how the plan will help black and Latino borrowers the most who carry the heavily debt burdens. The plan is expected to go into effect this fall ahead of the election.

President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced the closing of the so-called gun show loophole. For years people selling guns outside of traditional stores, such as at gun shows and in the 21st century over the internet have not been required to preform a background check to see if buyers are legally allowed to own a fire arm. Now all sellers of guns, even over the internet, are required to be licensed and preform a background check. This is the largest single expansion of the background check system since its creation.

The EPA published the first ever regulations on PFAS, known as forever chemicals, in drinking water. The new rules would reduce PFAS exposure for 100 million people according to the EPA. The Biden Administration announced along side the EPA regulations it would make available $1 billion dollars for state and local water treatment to help test for and filter out PFAS in line with the new rule. This marks the first time since 1996 that the EPA has passed a drinking water rule for new contaminants.

The Department of Commerce announced a deal with microchip giant TSMC to bring billions in investment and manufacturing to Arizona. The US makes only about 10% of the world's microchips and none of the most advanced chips. Under the CHIPS and Science Act the Biden Administration hopes to expand America's high-tech manufacturing so that 20% of advanced chips are made in America. TSMC makes about 90% of the world's advanced chips. The deal which sees a $6.6 billion dollar grant from the US government in exchange for $65 billion worth of investment by TSMC in 3 high tech manufacturing facilities in Arizona, the first of which will open next year. This represents the single largest foreign investment in Arizona's history and will bring thousands of new jobs to the state and boost America's microchip manufacturing.

The EPA finalized rules strengthening clean air standards around chemical plants. The new rule will lower the risk of cancer in communities near chemical plants by 96% and eliminate 6,200 tons of toxic air pollution each year. The rules target two dangerous cancer causing chemicals, ethylene oxide and chloroprene, the rule will reduce emissions of these chemicals by 80%.

the Department of the Interior announced it had beaten the Biden Administration goals when it comes to new clean energy projects. The Department has now permitted more than 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects on public lands, surpass the Administrations goal for 2025 already. These solar, wind, and hydro projects will power 12 million American homes with totally green power. Currently 10 gigawatts of clean energy are currently being generated on public lands, powering more than 5 million homes across the West. 

The Department of Transportation announced $830 million to support local communities in becoming more climate resilient. The money will go to 80 projects across 37 states, DC, and the US Virgin Islands The projects will help local Infrastructure better stand up to extreme weather causes by climate change.

The Senate confirmed Susan Bazis, Robert White, and Ann Marie McIff Allen to lifetime federal judgeships in Nebraska, Michigan, and Utah respectively. This brings the total number of judges appointed by President Biden to 193

[nyree2712]

Top Gun - Incorrect Quote 293

Iceman: Maverick is missing, can you find him?

Viper: What, do you think I have him microchipped or something?

Goose: Well, do you?

Viper:

Viper: Yes, but only because when he was a child he always disappear....

Viper: I'm a god parent I promise

[strawberryforks]

cops & chaos // tim bradford x f!reader

(part 1/3)

warnings: violence, kidnapping, guns, uhh probably other stuff too

a/n: thank you @113littlecrime for requesting i lovelovelove a good angsty plot-line. also, i wrote this instead of doing my classwork (#pleasevalidatemypreferredprocrastinationmethods) and i’m really hoping this means that the writers-block is gone because i’ve written over 5k words today after a way-too-long break. four-something-thousand of them was fanfic but trust, i’ll get back to my originally scheduled program (my silly little romantasies) soon

You lost your phone during the struggle so Life 360, the app your boyfriend insisted you download, would not come in clutch. The only person you could rely on right now was yourself and you… well, you were a little bit busy. Tied up with something, if you will.

You wanted your phone–wanted whatever invasion of privacy you could get. As long as it screamed: Here! I’m right here! And now? You were regretting turning down the one-month anniversary gift Tim had tried to give you, too.

“Baby,” he’d said, “please take it.” Tim Bradford tried pushing the box with a custom necklace inside of it back to you. Upon first glance, you had loved it. Studded with your birthstone, you were in awe. Immediately, you plucked it from where it lie and studied it appreciatively. When your thumb and index finger brushed over the jewelry, Tim looked nervous. You repeated the motion and something poked you—you moved it closer to your eyes and barked out an anxious bout of laughter. An incredulous one. Your boyfriend of one month (sure, you had known each other forever. Gone to elementary school together, then to the military, then, after being discharged you had decided to join him in his next adventure: becoming a cop. You and Tim had known the inner workings of each other’s mind, always. You were best friends but the label was never strong enough; best friends but did things best friends didn’t. Tim and you went out to eat and he always insisted on paying. When he was anywhere he needed a DD–or anything really–you were who he called. Once upon a time, he would rescue you from shitty boyfriends, then, he’d be jealous of the decent ones. Happy for you, but jealous, as you wasted time better spent with another whatshisface. You realised pretty quickly that your relationship, the only serious one you ever had, wasn’t fulfilling you. When you realised what was missing, that Tim was missing, you broke it off, lest you lead on a poor bloke while being in love, because that’s what you were) with your best friend. Things went back to the normal you knew. For three more years, you and Tim were friends with all kinds of benefits and just… no label. It took a friend and coworker, Angela Lopez, starting a family for him to realise he wanted to, too. And sure, the two of you, with your unorthodox relationship could’ve moved in together and called yourself roommates. You could’ve eventually had kids and called yourself co-parents but Tim came to the conclusion he wanted to call you his, instead. You always had been but the label was nice) still, your boyfriend of one month had given you a necklace with a tracker in it and you were only one half of shocked and appalled. “Tim, no,” you told him. You handed the box back, necklace plopped unceremoniously inside of it. “That, just so you know, is crazy.”

You two argued. Nothing bad but nothing good, either.

“Please, it’s for your safety”//”I’m just as capable of taking care of myself as you are. Do you want to wear a glorified collar and be microchipped like a dog?”//”I’ll wear one if you do,” and you snorted at that one, but,//”No, Tim. I already downloaded that stupid app of yours. (Life 360) Just because we slapped a label on this—us—doesn’t mean you need my location every second of every day.”//”You already tell me where you’re going, Y/n/n–”//”Exactly! I already tell you where I’m going so this is unnecessary. It’s a pretty necklace so I’ll wear it on one condition”//Of course. Anything”//”The tracker comes out.”

You were stubborn and you were an idiot. So, while a pretty necklace, covered in your birthstone, rested below your collarbone it was useless. Pretty but useless: how you were feeling right about now. Well, scratch that… with your hands wrenched behind your back, your wrists rubbed raw from the rope that pinned them together, and the blood smeared on your cheek and dripping from your bottom lip, you weren’t feeling too hot. Pretty wasn’t a descriptor you could use unless it was a prefix. You were in a pretty shit situation, you had been pretty stupid, walking home alone in the dark when you had a feeling the black SUV parked at the gas station you shopped at was the same one that had been parked on your street when you went for your morning job. You were pretty embarrassed that you’d gotten into your current situation and moreover, you were pretty pissed off.

Tied to a shitty chair inside of a shitty warehouse you felt like the stereotypical victim and that was something that, in all your years on this earth, you had never been. Water dripped onto the ground from a hole in the rusted sheet metal roof and a crowd of thugs assembled a few dozen feet away from you. Some of them wore skee masks but the ones that were too dumb to, you cataloged, taking note of their appearances and adding them to your shit-list. When, not if, you got out of here you would make it your personal mission to send all of these losers to jail.

Wonder how they’ll like being trapped.

You’re getting ahead of yourself.

Way.

There’s duct tape covering your mouth and you lick it until there’s space between the plush of your lips and the grey of the tape. Some skin goes with but we can’t all be winners, can we? Then, able to speak again and ready to make them regret the shoddy attempt at shutting you up: spoiler they can’t, you start seeking some attention. “Hey assholes!” you yell, “you know you’re supposed to treat your house-guests well, right? I mean, you’re halfway there! Thanks for taking my coat, and all! (you’re fucking cold) But like, I could use some water. And not introducing yourselves? Dick move.”

You get your water. A bucket of it, thrown in your face.

Like a wet dog, you shake your head. Hair, weighed down by wetness, whips every which way. It slaps against your skin. Burns, a little.

You’re like a dog. A wet dog, shaking off. You snarl like a dog too, spit like one. You let them know you’ll bite like one, too, if the opportunity presents itself.

Your wrists twist behind you, toying with the rope. It doesn’t loosen, barely has any give, and all it does is chafe and chafe.

“I thought I told you to shut her up!” Shouted one of the mask-wearing men.

“You’re buddies are incompetent,” you spit, wishing you could swipe the water away from your face. The hair out of your eyes,

The man, the one whose running this circus you’ve unfortunately found yourself a part of stalks closer, and you figure this is as good of time as ever to try and figure out what the hell is going on. “What do you want?” you ask, cautiously, as he moves even closer.

His shadow falls over you like a cloak; like the rescue blanket the EMTS will drape over your shoulders if your cop-buddies find you, like the arms that would wrap around you if Tim, did, and like the black sheet that would cover you if it all went wrong. As skilled as you were - you weren’t naive and knew this situation was a precarious one. At any time, it could go bad. If you had an idea of the man’s motivation, maybe you could pull a Nolan. Talk to them until their ears bled and their hearts, too, until they let you go and begged for forgiveness in confession at a church. “What’s your plan here, bud? Why me?”

“Y/n L/n.”

Well that’s fan-fucking-tastic. It’s personal.

You pay special attention to his voice, then. To the man's brown eyes and the bushy eyebrows half-visible in the mask’s holes. It’s not familiar but… but maybe your wrong. In your various careers, both dangerous, you’ve seen many faces. On case files, mid-battle, on the street. This one is unspecial; nothing new. “That’s me,” you say (because the dude knows already)

“What’s your name?” you return wearing a too-shitty smile. Maybe you’re a glutton for punishment.

His calloused hand smacked into your face. A sharp sensation stung your cheek and the silver band he wore on his ring ringer (married? No way) sliced your flesh. You could feel it swell, wiped it onto your shoulder anyways. You bite your tongue, lest you say anything else that ends up with you being hit again. “What do you want? Is it money?” you don’t suggest the possibility that it’s revenge; you don’t want to give whoever this is the idea. You know it’s likely, know you’ve made enemies and–

“Your partner,” he sneers, “is digging around where he shouldn’t be. We figured that this would change his attitude, take something of his, and he would focus on you. Not… well, sweetheart, that’s none of your business.”

It was revenge. Not on you. Hm, you thought, I feel a little less shitty now that I know this isn’t all my fault.

“So what? You’re going to kill me? Distract him with grief?” You really hope that’s not the fucking plan. The man, he doesn’t react to your statement–it’s chilling and reassuring. Chilling, because the thought of death doesn’t phase him and reassuring, comforting, because he isn’t overtly eager. He doesn’t smirk, doesn’t smack you again.

“No. You’re worth more alive than in the ground, though… an unmarked grave might be how our plans change if you don’t cooperate. He’d keep searching until he found a body, wouldn’t he? So loyal, so determined. (You’re starting to think this guy has a thing for your boyfriend. A little crush, maybe?) So stupid, poking around where he doesn’t belong. If Tim doesn’t learn to play our game you won’t be the only one cold and gone.”

You cringed.

“You’re just going to keep me here, then? Tied up? Under lock and fucking key?”

“Under rope and duct tape, you mean.”

You can’t help it. It’s instinct first, then it’s a slowly brewing plan. You won’t let them hurt Tim; you’ve protected him before, will again. The mixture of spit and blood in your mouth passes your pursed lips and lands on the uppermost bridge of your kidnapper’s nose. “Dumb little–” and then there’s that hand, in your face again. This time he hit you so hard your head spun. Ears ringing, the chair you were tied to wobbled and hit the ground with a large crack. The stupid fucker left you like that, on your side, not mindful of your hands while he continued to gloat and monologue like some wannabe Doofensmirtz protege.

“Tim will be so busy looking for you he won’t realise that my guys, they’re looking for him. A bullet will do nicely, won’t it? WIA to KIA, just like that? Survive in the–”

In the military. This man is military.

You wonder how he got in. Wonder, how someone so stupid, so ignorant, so blinded by ego and cockiness, could’ve been trusted to serve the country.

You don’t find out.

Not as you’re stood back up and leaned against a wall (because one of the chair’s legs broke) not as your neck bends at an angle you know you’ll feel for weeks, and not as in your closed fist, sits a piece of broken glass.

[freelancelobotomy]

gravity part 2 please!!!

freudian [s.r.]

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader

wc: 1.6k

summary: After fleeing Vegas and hiding out in a grimy Montana motel with a supposedly "abandoned" kitten—and the weight of your role in a murder—the last person you expect at your door is Spencer Reid, your ex-situationship from the FBI Academy, here to retrieve his friend’s missing cat.

content warnings: fluff, angst, guns, mentions of sex, reader is mean but its okay bc Spencer was meaner, death, almost kiss

a/n: this is pt 2 to gravity which you can find here. It kinda wont make any sense if you don't read it first but it!

`✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹

The sound of bare feet slapping against wet pavement might be the least sexy sound on earth. Which is ironic, considering seduction is your entire brand. It’s the reason Saesha recruited you in the first place. You’re hot—long legs, sultry voice, those eyes that never blink first.

You sometimes laugh at how absurdly contradictory your life has become.

Graduated high school at twelve. Wanted to be a profiler. Ended up part of a murderous vigilante cabal. Spencer Reid broke your heart when he left—and saved your life when he killed Saesha and cleaned up the mess you made.

Moonlight dances on your flawless legs—and on the sewage puddle you just stepped in. Perfect. This morning’s pedicure was a waste. Your crimson-polished toes now carry tetanus as a plus-one.

A siren wails in the distance.

You duck behind a trash can.

I'm so fucking scared. My life is over. The thought is sharp and breathless.

Something brushes your arm. Furry.

"AH!" you yelp, imagining the worst—a rat.

“Mrow.”

A tiny black kitten stares up at you with glassy eyes too big for its head. It’s absurdly adorable.

"Hey, little guy," you whisper, scooping him up. He melts into your arms with a rumbling purr.

No collar. No home. Well—he has one now.

The motel is the kind of place you don’t even want to touch with socks on. Threadbare sheets. Mold in the shower. The wallpaper's been peeled back like it was trying to escape.

You’ve been holed up here for a week. Montana feels far enough from Vegas—for now. Next week, you’re catching a train to North Dakota. Then out of the country. You're spacing your movements so they don’t raise suspicion. Also, you’re bringing the kitten—who you've named Jiji, after the one from Kiki’s Delivery Service—and bringing a pet onto a plane requires paperwork.

It’s risky. You’re attached anyway.

You're fresh out of the shower, damp hair wrapped in a towel. Buldak noodles spin slowly in the microwave when there’s a knock at the door. Probably Greg, the motel owner, bringing the clean sheets he promised three days ago.

You open the door—and freeze.

Of course. It’s him.

Spencer Reid.

“Y/N?”

Your body reacts before your brain does. You stumble back, make a beeline for the drawer beside the bed—the one with your gun.

“Relax! It’s just me! I’m—I’m unarmed! Check me!”

You rush him. Weapon drawn. Your hands are fast and clinical, patting him down with muscle memory. You don’t forget the ankles—he always kept a second piece there. You yank up his shirt.

“Hey!” he yelps, eyes wide.

“Turn around,” you snap. He obeys. You lift the back of his shirt, checking for wires. None. Just spine and skin.

No lies—yet.

“What the hell do you want from me, Spencer?”

You get a better look at him now. He’s a mess. Eyes bloodshot, dark circles, lips cracked. He's been crying.

“I was catsitting. For my friend Emily. Well—not because she trusts me, but JJ’s on maternity leave and Garcia’s on vacation. Emily's on sabbatical and no one else was available. So I brought her cat to Vegas during a case. Checked him into one of those ‘cat hotels.’” His voice shakes, spiraling. “And he got out. Because the hotel was incompetent. Emily loves that cat–and–I lost him. And then—Garcia tracked his microchip to this address and—”

“Mrow.”

Jiji hops onto the bed like it’s choreographed.

“You have Sergio?” Spencer gasps.

“Who?”

“The cat! Emily’s cat! Why would you steal her cat?!”

“I found him by a dumpster! No collar. I didn’t steal him. Finders keepers.”

Spencer blinks at you like he’s seeing you for the first time in years.

“It’s… it’s really good to see you again.”

You blink back. What the actual fuck.

“Yeah. You too.”

His eyes lower to the floor.

“I’ve had a rough few days. Made me… reevaluate some things. Can we talk?”

You nod slowly. You need to figure out why he’s pretending last week never happened.

“Come in. Sorry for the mess,” you lie.

“It’s not messy,” he replies automatically, stepping inside.

“Why do you have a gun?” he asks, gently. “Why’d you pat me down?”

You study him. He really doesn’t remember.

You breathe once. Twice. Then you lie the way you were trained to lie—grounded in truth.

“Alexander…my ex. He just got out of prison,” you say. ���He used to hit me. Last thing he told me, as they shoved him in the car, was that he’d find me and kill me. Lately I’ve been getting weird messages from burner accounts. Slurs. Insults. I got scared. So I left town.”

The pain is real. But the reason is fake. Neither is the fear. As long as he doesn’t catch you off guard, you’ll be fine.

“Y/N, you should’ve called. The BAU handles cases like that all the time.”

“I deleted your number.”

His gaze softens.

“Y/N… I’m so sorry. For everything.”

You sit through it. Again. Nodding in the right places. Keeping your face a mask.

Then finally: “You said you had a rough few days. What happened?”

Spencer swallows.

“My friend Ethan was killed. Active shooting at a night club. I—I tried to help. I shot a chandelier that crushed the gunman. But it brought down the ceiling. Debris hit my head. I don’t… I don’t remember any of it.”

He smiles bitterly. “First time in my life I’ve ever forgotten something. And it’s the worst thing I’ve ever felt.”

You rub his back, guilt curling hot in your chest. You didn’t mean for Ethan to die. You didn’t mean for any of it.

“All we know is that it was a terrorist cell. The other members all killed themselves before we could interrogate anyone.”

Control your microexpressions. Control your microexpressions. Control your microexpressions.

“Ethan…when did he pass?” you ask, softly.

“He uh…died at the scene.”

“I’m sorry, Spencer.” You thread your fingers through his. “I'm here to listen if you need to talk. If you need to talk, I’m here.”

He hesitates. Then says, “I’m staying in Vegas a while. Visiting my mom. The funeral’s next week. When you come back… you can give me the cat.”

“I was planning on heading back tomorrow, actually. Want to drive back together?”

“I was gonna leave tonight, but… yeah. That sounds good. Flights were crazy expensive anyway. Holiday weekend.”

“You drove?”

He nods. “Didn’t have a choice.”

“You need coffee?”

He shakes his head.

“No. I need sleep. You’re right. I’d be nodding off at the wheel by now.”

“Then stay the night,” you offer. Your hand grazes his thigh lightly. The contact is casual. It lingers anyway.

He clears his throat. “I—I don’t want to intrude.”

“Jiji and I don’t mind,” you smirk. “Right, Jiji?”

“Mrow.”

“Oh. Listen to that. He says you can’t stay.”

Spencer chuckles. “Man of the house has spoken.”

“Got a bag?”

“Yeah. I’ll grab it.”

“And I’m paying for gas.”

“No, you’re not.”

“If I can’t pay for gas, I’m keeping the cat.”

He stares you down.

“…Fine. You can pay for the gas.”

He returns smelling like lavender and wearing the cologne he wore that night at the Savoy.

You turn off the lights and slide under the covers. You should leave things where they are. Clean break. New passport. Fresh start.

But Spencer doesn’t remember. And you can’t help but wonder.

Should you get involved again?

It’s a question for tomorrow.

“Goodnight,” you mumble.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

You wake up to silence. You turn.

Spencer’s still awake.

“Spencer?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay? It’s, like… three something in the morning.” You ask, concerned.

“Yea…Yea—I’m sorry If I woke you. I get…nightmares. They keep me up some nights..”

You hesitate.

“Want me to lie next to you? That helps me when I can't sleep.”

“I…” He fumbles. “I mean, studies show that sleeping beside someone you trust can reduce cortisol levels and—”

“Spencer.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

He slips into the bed beside you. Close. Warm. He still uses that stupid lavender shampoo. You feel his arm flex as he adjusts the covers to make sure you’re both tucked in evenly.

You’re both quiet.

Then—you move first. You always move first.

You drape your arm across his chest and rest your head against him. His breath catches.

“I knew it,” he says.

“Knew what?”

“That you—Nothing.”

“No. Tell me or go back to your bed.”

“You and your either-or fallacies,” he laughs. “Fine I’ll tell you–”

“Ha! I knew it!” you shout, springing off his chest, finger pointed like you’ve just cracked a decades-old cold case.

Spencer blinks, incredulous. “Knew what?”

“That you want to sleep with me!” you grin, then pause—realizing how it sounded. You clamp a hand over your mouth. “I mean—sleep next to me—”

“Freudian slip,” he smirks, victorious. “I knew it. You want to sleep with me.”

“Oh please.” You scoff, crossing your arms like you’re not suddenly way too aware of how close you still are. “And you think I’d just do that with Jiji in the room? How bad of a cat mom do you think I am?”

“Cat mom?” Spencer snorts. “More like cat burglar.”

You roll your eyes, resisting the smile tugging at your mouth. “You think you're soooo funny.”

“You think so too. Your carotid’s pulsing faster than usual. Pupils are dilated. You’re flushed—”

“Oh my God, I hate profilers,” you mutter, spinning away from him and yanking the blanket over your head like a dramatic teenager.

But your heart’s thudding too fast.

His laugh is quiet behind you, warm in the dark. You pretend not to notice how he’s shifted slightly closer. You definitely pretend not to notice how good he smells, or how the back of your neck is tingling from proximity alone.

You force yourself to shut your eyes.

Somehow, against all logic, exhaustion drags you under.

You wake to a strange pressure.

Your first thought is Spencer’s arm. He’s wrapped around your waist—just as you suspected. His hand is splayed across your stomach, his breathing slow and even.

Your second thought is your heart. It’s racing. Not just fluttery, not butterflies—warning bells.

That’s when you feel it. Cold. Metal.

The barrel of a gun.

Pressed against your temple.

“Get up,” a voice growls, low and intimate. “And don’t make a sound.”

Your blood freezes.

It’s Alexander.

And he’s come to make good on his promise.

[fictionfanatic-wren]

The robin games, part 1.

chapter 1/7.

“Who’s the best Robin? Me, obviously,” Dick declared with a grin, arms crossed over his chest. His Nightwing suit gleamed faintly under the Batcave lights. Jason snorted from where he leaned on a couch in the cave, polishing one of his guns. “You’ve been riding that ‘firstborn’ privilege for too long, Grayson.” “Yeah, well, the best Robin doesn’t turn into a walking midlife crisis in red leather, nor does he die by a crowbar,” Tim chimed in, earning a growl from Jason. “Silence,” Damian cut in smoothly. “You’re all delusional. I was bred to be superior. The best Robin is the current Robin. Obviously.” Batman had barely looked up from the Batcomputer. In fact, Bruce had endured this same argument every day for the past month. But today, he’d reached his limit. So, Batman did what any rational man with four hyper-competitive vigilante children would do: he weaponized their nonsense into a peacekeeping strategy. He turned in his chair, cape swishing dramatically behind him and like the diva he was, asked. “You want to know who the best Robin is?” All four stared at him. “Prove it,” Bruce said. “You get one challenge. Break into the Watchtower. Stay hidden. Longest undetected wins.” “Wins what?” Dick asked suspiciously. “Bragging rights,” Bruce answered. Then, after a beat: “And Alfred’s triple-chocolate cookies. The whole batch.” The room went silent. Jason immediately straightened. “I’m in.” “Me too,” said Tim. “Tt. Prepare to be humiliated,” Damian said, already reaching for his sword. Bruce tapped a few keys and turned back to the screen. “You’ll be given a 30 minute window to begin. All at once. Entry clearance for five minutes. After that, the Watchtower security system goes live.” “And you won’t help us?” Dick asked, raising an eyebrow. “Absolutely not,” Bruce replied. “I’ll act like i dont know you’re there, unless the other Leaguers have discovered you.”

And so the game was on. The rules? Winner is whoever stays hidden the longest. sabotaging others is allowed as long as you havent been found. you may mess with the league to your heart's desires. Bruce wont take action or even acknowledge them unless other leaguers do.

Dick POV. The zeta tube opened silently beside the Justice League’s Watchtower, and the robins dropped in, all running off in different directions. The massive space station hummed with quiet power, sensors and monitors blinking in blue and green. They’ve only gotten thirty minutes before the alarms would reactivate. Enough time, Dick thought with a smirk. First order of business: find a secure spot. With years of experience as Nightwing, and a history of infiltrating high-security facilities, Dick moved swiftly, scanning for blind spots in camera feeds and sensor fields. The Watchtower’s security protocols were sophisticated, designed to detect even a single unauthorized microchip, Tim made sure of that. But he wasn’t just any intruder. Batman’s override meant he had limited access and a short window to disable as much as he could before systems rebooted. In a quiet hallway near the Justice League’s common area, Dick found the security hub, a wall of consoles and displays constantly flickering with data streams. Using his wrist computer, he quickly interfaced with the terminal, fingers flying over the virtual keyboard. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with,” he muttered. The Watchtower’s AI security system was impressive, with multi-layered firewalls and encrypted protocols that even Batman respected. But Dick had his own tricks, an amalgam of hacking skills learned from Oracle and Tim. Within minutes, he was rerouting some camera feeds to loop previous footage and injecting false sensor data to mask his movement. “Should keep them guessing for a while,” he said with a grin. Next came the tricky part: setting up camp. The Watchtower wasn’t designed for stealth camping, but Dick was adaptable. He slipped into the ventilation ducts, finding a tight crawlspace above the main observation deck. It was cramped but perfect for hiding and monitoring the activity below. He set up his comms receiver on a low power mode, just enough to listen but not give away his position. Time to wait and watch the chaos unfold. He chuckled quietly. “Let the games begin.”

Jason POV.

Jason Todd’s lips curled into a crooked grin the moment he materialized through the zeta tube. The Watchtower was a fortress of order and high-tech sophistication, but Jason saw it as a playground ripe for chaos. Thirty minutes before the alarms kick back on. Plenty of time to make things interesting. He flexed his fingers, itching to leave his mark. Jason moved like a shadow, his footsteps silent on the sleek floors. The Justice League was out on a mission, leaving the Watchtower eerily empty. Perfect. First order of business? Set some minor traps. He darted to the kitchen, grinning as he eyed the pristine food prep area. With a flick of his wrist, he swapped the labels on some juice containers and scattered a handful of salt where the sugar normally sat. A couple of coffee mugs he rearranged, one just slightly off balance, ready to fall off the counter if nudged, and so much more. Nothing that would cause real damage, but definitely enough to raise eyebrows. Next, he snuck into the common area. He moved some of the furniture just a few inches, chairs slightly askew, cushions flipped upside down, and rigged a small trip wire with a piece of spare cable from the maintenance closet. Nothing lethal, just a mild surprise for whoever wandered through next. Jason smirked. A little chaos goes a long way. But Jason’s favorite bit was saved for last. Wonder Woman’s quarters. He approached the door, heart beating a little faster than usual, not from nerves, but from a strange mix of admiration and excitement. Diana was his favorite hero. Her strength, honor, and no-nonsense attitude always fascinated him. Careful to avoid the pressure sensors, Jason cracked the door open just a sliver and peeked inside. The room was exactly how he imagined, a blend of ancient warrior’s simplicity and modern sophistication. A polished spear rested against the wall, the iconic tiara and bracelets glinting under the soft light. The smell of sandalwood lingered faintly in the air. Jason lingered for a moment, taking it all in. Then, he slipped away without a trace. Now, to find a hiding spot. Jason scouted the upper decks and found a storage bay filled with old League gear and unused supplies. Dark, cluttered, and with multiple exit points, perfect for a quick escape or setting traps if needed. He ducked inside, settling in behind a stack of crates. “Let them come find me,” he whispered, already plotting how to mess with the league andd his brother.

Tim POV. Tim Drake slipped through the zeta tube with barely a sound, landing softly on the metallic floor of the Watchtower’s lower level. A compact bag hung over one shoulder, meticulously packed with everything he’d need: energy drinks, snacks, his trusty toolkit, and, of course, a sleek laptop. “Thirty minutes before security kicks back in. Should be plenty of time,” Tim thought, already running through his plan. Unlike his brothers, Tim wasn’t just relying on stealth or sabotage. He knew the Watchtower’s security system inside and out, after all, he had been the one who helped code many of its protocols. The system was a masterpiece of layered encryption, but no system was perfect. He made his way quickly but cautiously to the maintenance room, tucked deep in a rarely accessed corner of the station. The room was filled with cables, panels, and emergency controls, the perfect hidden spot and a strategic advantage point. As he settled in, Tim pulled out his laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard. Screens popped up as he accessed the Watchtower’s security matrix. “Let’s see... disable the motion sensors in my vicinity, loop camera feeds in adjacent corridors, and set a few false positives to keep them chasing ghosts,” he muttered, systematically dismantling the surveillance around him. The hacking felt like second nature. The familiar rhythms of code and commands were a comforting contrast to the chaos his brothers would be causing elsewhere. Snacking on a protein bar and sipping an energy drink, Tim settled in to monitor the system, ready to respond if anyone got close. “Precision and patience,” he reminded himself. “The best Robin doesn’t just fight, he outthinks.” And with that, Tim vanished into the digital shadows of the Watchtower.

Damian POV.

Damian Wayne didn’t waste time. The zeta tube shimmered around him for only a moment before he was moving, sleek, silent, and purposeful. Unlike his brothers, who probably wasted precious minutes indulging in petty games or nostalgia, Damian had a clear objective. Victory. He slipped into the shadows, immediately identifying the overhead vent grating near the hallway junction. It took him less than six seconds to reach it, unscrew the bolts with a compact tool, and vanish into the ductwork like a phantom. “Only fools camp on the ground,” he thought with disdain. The Watchtower’s ventilation system was extensive, a labyrinthine network that wove above and between every major area of the station. Most importantly, it was outside the range of most biometric sensors and offered clear vantage points for observation and, when needed, sabotage. As he crawled deeper into the vents, Damian passed over the common area and glimpsed a flicker of movement below. Probably Todd, doing something immature. No doubt he'd leave evidence. “Amateur,” Damian muttered, unimpressed. Deeper still, he found what he was looking for: a wide junction above the Watchtower’s central data core. The duct opened up into a cross-section of airways, allowing easy escape in any direction. He unfolded a compact mat, securing it with suction clips inside the metal walls, and arranged his gear in orderly fashion. Smoke pellets, flash bombs, sleeping darts, a wristpad to monitor security feeds, and, more importantly, a small, encrypted communicator linked to the Watchtower’s maintenance channels. He activated a localized white-noise emitter, just strong enough to confuse nearby audio sensors. With everything in place, Damian sat cross-legged in the duct and exhaled slowly. “Let them play their little games. I will simply outlast them all.”

[in1-nutshell]

Sunstreakers Toddler Buddy being turned into a Cybertronian?And perhaps the establish a creator-creation bond?

Got to think of a new name for Toddler Buddy...Hope you enjoy!

Hope you enjoy!

Sunstreaker's Human toddler turn Bot

SFW, Platonic, Familial, Slight Angst, Human/ Cybertronian reader

IDW/G1

It was a case of ‘wrong place at the wrong time’.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had to leave for patrol that morning, leaving Buddy at the base.

They were on break from school and was sleeping in.

Sunstreaker himself would have loved to get in another hour of sleep, but duty calls.

Buddy was left in the care of most of the bots in the base.

The more optics looking after them the better right?

…Right?

Out on patrol… Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are driving down the empty road. Sunstreaker: “How much longer until we can go back?” Sideswipe: “Just a couple more miles Sunny.” Sunstreaker grumbles. Sideswipe: “Don’t get your tailpipe twisted. We’ll be back and helping Buddy color their books before you know it.” BEEP! BEEP! The com line was sounding off. The twins both pick up the call. Sideswipe: “This is Sideswipe, what’s—” CRASH! Smokescreen: “Bluestreak get them out of there! Oh! You guys answered.” Sunstreaker: “Smokescreen what’s going on? Is Buddy all right?” SCREECH! Smokescreen: “Umm, okay is subjective right now…” Sunstreaker: “I am only going to repeat this one more time. What is GOING ON!?” Sideswipe: “Geez Sunny let the mech speak. Go on Smokes.” Smokescreen: “I—well they—You know what I think its better if you guys came in an—SCRAP! BLUESTREAK GRAB THEM BEFORE THEY GET OUT THE DOOR! WHAT DO YOU MENA THEY’RE GONE!” BLITZ! The line went dead. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe sharply turn around and burn rubber to get to the base.

By the time the twins made it to the base, there were already search parties looking around for Buddy.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe get the summary from Prowl and Jazz.

Laserbeak had entered in the base not too long after they had gone out and fired a strange looking gun blindly before retreating.

The beam had hit Buddy turning them into a sparkling.

Yes, Sunstreaker nearly passed out at the news, but Sideswipe hoisted him back to his pedes as the other mechs continued.

Buddy was very scared and confused at first, before they found out how much easier it was to inerct with everyone as a bot.

Bluestreak and Smokescreen had done a good job in making sure Buddy was comfortable and held their new servos when things got a bit scary for them.

Buddy kept on asking where Sunstreaker was and that they wanted him to see them like this.

Cue the sparkling chase throughout the entire base before they slipped into a vent that lead to the outside world.

Sunstreaker: “Well, do we know where they are now?” Prowl pulls up a data pad: “We are getting the information now. Wheeljack had the idea of microchipping Buddy before they learned how to walk.” Sideswipe and Sunstreaker: “They couldn’t walk!” Jazz: “Like we said before, they were turned into a sparkling, a NEW sparkling. The little thing could barely walk without falling on their face.” Sunstreaker feels increasing stress. PING! Prowl: “The locztion is set for…” Prowl pauses before showing the data pad to Jazz. The twin get a bad feeling after swings both mech’ door wings stiffen. Sunstreaker: “Well!? Where’s my sparkling!?” Jazz and Prowl look at each other for a minute before nodding. Prowl starts walking away calling several bots to come and follow him. Jazz: “Okay fellas, you might wanna sit down for this.” Sunstreaker and Sideswipe sit down. Jazz: “…Buddy’s location was last seen outside Decepticon HQ.” THUD! Sunstreaker passes out and lands on his face with a sick looking Sideswipe.

With Buddy…

Buddy was lost for a while now.

All they wanted to do was show Sunstreaker their new frame, and now they couldn’t even remember the way back home.

They were by the shoreline when something started flying around.

For a split-second Buddy thought the planes were Decepticon’s they had seen on Teletran-One’s screens.

Buddy’s optics widen as well as their smile seeing the familiar red plane land in front of them. Buddy: “Mr. Powerglide!” Powerglide runs up and scoops them up in a hug. Powerglide: “Geez kiddo! You’re a bit far from home, aren’t you?” Buddy nods feeling bad about running off. Powerglide: “Lets get you home. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are worried sick for ya.” Buddy perks up a bit when the name of the yellow mech is dropped. Buddy: “Okay!” Powerglide: “And AWAY we go!”

All the bots sighed in relief hearing that Powerglide had found Buddy safe and sound.

Today’s events could have gone much worse if the Decepticons had found out about Buddy’s whereabouts.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe where taken into a different room before they could meet Buddy.

Mainly because Sunsreaker kept on pulling ‘Prowl’s’ on every surface he could turn over.

Prowl and Jazz accompany the sparkling to the room.

The door opens. The twins both stand up at the sound of the door opening. Sunstreaker: “Any sign of them? Are they okay!” Sideswipe notices a small frame behind Jazz’s pedes. He nugdes his twin’s arm and points to Jazz’s pedes. Sunstreaker pauses. Sunstreaker: “Buddy?” The sparkling’s helm pops from Jazz’s side. They smile widely. Buddy: “Sunny!” Sunstreaker falls to his knees as Buddy leaps into his arms. Sunstreaker just holds them tightly as they ramble on about their frame and how cool they look.

The answer of how to get Buddy back to normal is still unknown given the machine used to turn Buddy Cybertronian was in Decpticon hands.

For now Buddy was Cybertronian until further notice.

Buddy did miss being able to hide in certain places, but on the bright side they were much stronger and durable.

Just like Sunstreaker!

Speaking of the yellow mech, it takes a long time for anyone to convince him to leave the room without Buddy in his arms or nearby.

He makes sure that Buddy has a shiny finish and buffed frame.

His spark melted a bit when they wanted their paintjob to have the same yellow as his.

It is much easier to handle Buddy being much bigger and the same species, not that Sunstreaker would ever admit it out loud.

Honestly as long as Buddy is safe and happy, the mech couldn’t care what species they were.

[ink-flavored]

👽100 Question Sci-Fi Worldbuilding Ask Game🚀

Do you have a sci-fi world? Does it have aliens, robots, and/or apocalypses? Do you want to talk about it for way too long? Look no further than this ask game to give you an excuse! Remember to send an ask to the person you reblog it from to make sure everyone gets to play!

📅 How far in the future is your WIP set? Is it a “near” or “distant” future?

🌍 What’s the state of the Earth in your WIP? Basically the same? Better or worse? Does it even exist at all?

🏥What’s the state of healthcare technology in your WIP? Are diseases like cancer obsolete, or is a cure still far off?

♿What’s the state of assistive technology in your WIP? How are people with disabilities managing their conditions?

💅What’s the state of cosmetic technology in your WIP? Are people getting painless tattoos in 15 minutes, or are they still box-dyeing their hair in the sink?

🔋What’s the state of energy technology in your WIP? Is solar old news, or still being fought for?

🚗What’s the state of transportation technology in your WIP? Are there hundreds of mass-market spaceships, or are cars still stuck on the ground?

📱What’s the state of communication technology in your WIP? Do people communicate through their microchipped brains, or is a cell phone still the best way to get a hold of someone?

🏢What’s the state of architectural technology in your WIP? Are there cities floating in the sky, or are houses still made of bricks and steel?

🧑‍🌾What’s the state of agricultural technology in your WIP? Can any plant be grown to excess anywhere in the galaxy, or are farms still beholden to nature?

🎭What’s the state of entertainment technology in your WIP? Are hologram TV shows the best way to spend a Friday night, or is it still Netflix and Chill?

🪛What’s the state of manufacturing technology in your WIP? How are things being produced?

🪖What’s the state of military technology in your WIP? Are armored giant robots fighting wars, or still regular people with guns?

🤔What kind of technology is still being developed in your WIP? What’s something they’re still trying to figure out?

💼What sorts of jobs exist in your WIP that don’t exist currently?

🤷Are there any jobs that seem obsolete, but still exist? Why are they still around?

🏈Have any new sports or games been invented with the advancement of technology? What are they?

💵Is currency different in your WIP? Is it all digital, or does physical money still play a role?

✊What is the social climate of your setting? Has society progressed towards equality or regressed? Has it stayed mostly the same?

😠What’s happening politically in your setting? Are tensions brewing, a cold war threatening to go hot? Has there been peace for generations?

🌌Are humans living amongst the stars in your setting? Are they somewhere other than on Earth?

🚀Did humanity abandon Earth for other planets? Why?

👋Were there any humans left behind on Earth, while the rest disappeared into the stars? What happened to them?

❌Does humanity have any sort of “Prime Directive” à la Star Trek – are there limits about what they can do when they discover a new planet (inhabited or not)? If not, why not?

⛳How many planet settlements do humans have across the galaxy? What’s the biggest non-Earth human stronghold?

🏜️How many of humanity’s settlements on other planets have been abandoned? Why?

💰Who’s funding these settlements? Why? What are they for?

😟Do people have mixed feelings about colonizing space? Are there movements to stop humanity’s expansion?

💡Has humanity invented faster-than-light travel? If not, are they working on it?

🌱Has humanity invented the technology necessary to terraform planets? If not, are they working on it?

🧊Has humanity invented “cryosleep” or some way of preserving the body indefinitely? If not, are they working on it?

🛰️Is there a culture among humans who were born on space-stations or ships and don’t truly belong to a planet? How do “planet-born” humans treat them?

☄️Are there humans who travel from station to station, never settling down on a single planet and living amongst the stars? How do others treat them for living this way?

😎Are there any famous (or infamous) planets known for a particular cultural or material export? What is it? Are the planet’s residents annoyed or proud of this notoriety?

👽Have humans made first contact with an alien species? How did it go? If not, is there a possibility they ever will?

🖖Did the aliens reach out to humanity first? Why?

👾How many different kinds of aliens are there in your WIP? Describe them!

🔬How technologically advanced are the aliens in your WIP? Are they at the same level as humans? Far below or above them?

🧬How different are the aliens, biologically, from humans in your WIP? Are they bonding over shared mammalian traits or unable to comprehend each other?

🧍If the aliens and humans are very biologically different, how do they exist in the same area together? Can they?

🗣️How do aliens and humans communicate with each other? Can they?

💭What do the aliens think of humanity? Are they friendly, indifferent, or hostile? What does humanity think of their alien neighbors?

🌕What planet(s) do the aliens come from? How different is it from Earth?

🗺️Do the aliens have settlements on other planets? How many?

⚔️Have the aliens and humanity ever fought over the right to settle a planet? Who won?

🔁Do alien politics influence humanity’s political sphere? In what ways?

🏠Do aliens and humans live together, or does each keep to their own kind? Why?

🤫Are the aliens’ cultural customs something they explain and share openly with humanity, or keep to themselves? Have any humans been invited into the fold?

😲Are there any human customs that the aliens find strange, offensive, gross, or confusing? Which ones?

🛸Are there any stereotypes about the aliens that humans believe? Vice versa?

🤝Are human/alien friendships normal or disgraceful? From one or both sides?

💋Are human/alien sexual relationships normal or disgraceful? From one or both sides?

💒Are human/alien romantic relationships normal or disgraceful? From one or both sides?

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Are human/alien families normal or disgraceful? From one or both sides?

👶Is it biologically possible for humans and (any of the species of) aliens to reproduce?

✨Is there an entire galactic society of all aliens in the galaxy, or are the different species largely separate?

💔Are there people, groups, or governments working to change the sociopolitical relationship between humans and aliens, for better or worse?

🤖Has synthetic life been created in your WIP? Robots/androids/etc. that can think and feel like sapient living creatures? If not, is there a possibility it ever will be?

🔨What are synthetic lifeforms made of? How are they powered?

🤩What do synthetic lifeforms look like? Describe them!

🧪Was synthetic life invented on purpose or by accident? How did it happen?

⚙️Were the synthetic lifeforms intended for a specific purpose? What was it? Do they still fulfill this purpose, or reject it?

🧐What do synthetic lifeforms think of humanity (and/or aliens)? Are they friendly, indifferent, or hostile? What do humans (and/or aliens) think about this new form of life?

🟰How are synthetic lifeforms treated, in comparison to humans (and/or aliens)? Are they given the same rights and respect as a biological organism?

🏭How are synthetic lifeforms made? Are they mass-produced? Was there a set number built, never to increase?

⛓️‍💥If a synthetic lifeform gets damaged, how do they get the damage repaired?

💄Are there cosmetic options synthetic lifeforms use to spruce themselves up? What kinds?

➕Are there “upgrades” or optional parts that the synthetic lifeforms can get installed if they want? What kinds?

⚠️Are there any unique dangers that synthetic lifeforms face that biological organisms don’t?

💀Can synthetic lifeforms ever die? Do many of them think about death?

🍼How do synthetic lifeforms feel about being created out of parts, like an object, instead of “born”?

😢Are there synthetic lifeforms that wish they were biological organisms instead? Are there humans (and/or aliens) that wish they were synthetic?

🫂Are biological/synthetic friendships normal or disgraceful? From one or both sides?

❤️‍🔥Are biological/synthetic sexual relationships normal or disgraceful? From one or both sides?

🥰Are biological/synthetic romantic relationships normal or disgraceful? From one or both sides?

💕Are biological/synthetic families normal or disgraceful? From one or both sides?

🪤Are there people, groups, or governments working to change the sociopolitical relationship between biological and synthetic lifeforms, for better or worse?

🐒Has humanity evolved past the point where we would recognize ourselves? Does that species still call itself “human”?

😵Is humanity, as we think of it today, extinct? What happened?

🔭Are there still humans out there somewhere, even if they’re all presumed dead?

❓What took humanity’s place on Earth, if anything?

🗽Do cultural artifacts of human society remain?

📚Is the abandoned society on Earth a site of study or mystery?

🛤️What does society on Earth look like without humans? Is there one?

0️⃣Has the human population been devastated to almost nothing? What happened?

🤏What does society look like with only a fraction of the humans that used to exist in it?

💥Did the Earth go through some kind of apocalyptic disaster? What was it?

⛺How does humanity exist on Earth after the apocalypse? Where do they live?

🚰Are resources scarce? How do people survive?

🐣How many generations have passed since the apocalypse?

😷Is the post-apocalyptic Earth toxic to live on, or just dangerous?

🖥️How far did humanity get, technologically, before the apocalypse? What remnants of that technology are left?

🩻Are people trying to build humanity back up to what it used to be? Are they trying to pave a new way forward?

📖Is history already repeating itself on the post-apocalyptic Earth? Are humans already making the same mistakes that got them here in the first place?

💐Are people kinder on the post-apocalyptic Earth? Are people more willing to cherish what life still exists instead of squandering it?

🌠Do people have hope that humanity will survive? Are they convinced humanity is doomed?

🙅Were there people completely untouched by the apocalypse? How?

👓Was humanity able to see the apocalypse coming and prepare? Did it help?

🏞️Is there anyone alive who remembers what the Earth was like before the apocalypse? Does anyone believe them?

🃏Wild card! Mention anything else about your WIP that you want!

[johannestevans]

Its my fault for listening to medical mystery and true crime stories but i stg every story from a white american perspective is like

"i was living alone, so i obviously lived in fear for my life from 4pm until morning. I kept a baseball bat and a frying pan and my own ak-47 at intervals down my hallway, and i have three locks on each of my doors and metal safety shutters on my windows. I call the police whenever i see someone who looks like they might own a hooded sweatshirt in the street.

My car's cab is six feet off the ground and i paid extra for an autopilot that will mow down up to 12 children to prioritise my life during a car crash. There are no sidewalks within 5 miles of my house.

My mother broke her hip and i drove her to the hospital in my childmower 2000 range rover because an ambulance ride costs $26000 and my medical insurance provider spits in my face personally for every dollar they provide toward medical care.

My dog does not wear a collar or have a microchip but i keep him in a small crate whenever i leave the house.

My HOA measures the height of my grass and demanded money from me at gun point because my lemon tree's fruit didn't match the aesthetic of our neighbourhood.

I receive a military discount at walmart calculated by adding up every brown child i helped murder during my time in the military, and also i was forced to join the military because there was no other way for me to seek employment or go to university or get health insurance."

[dragonnarrative-writes]

Data Breach

Read on AO3

Word count: 12.8k

Alternatively titled "Lockdown."

CW: Public partial-nudity, references to sex work, Kidnapping, implied trafficking, threats of violence, anxiety/panic, body horror, brief mentions of medical trauma, character being hunted, brief mention of cannibalism, guns, knives

Notes: Naya "Bambi" Walker and Veronica "Bricks" Mason are my characters. Morgan "Sparrow" Voss belongs to @sentientcave.

I'm very excited because this is my first "complete" fic. And I wrote it within my first year of posting fanfiction! Thanks to everyone who has been here with me through it all!

The genetic and cybernetic enhancements that the public took for granted were a drop in the bucket. No one protested the same-day medical procedures for aesthetics and practicality and security. What harm is a microchip to automate one’s home, modified musculature that needed less exercise to maintain? Who was ever going to protest genetically coded locking mechanisms?

Soldier modifications are a violation of human rights. The deployment of those soldiers isn’t, unless they use their enhanced abilities to commit a war crime. But the process of modification, experimental and unregulated, driven by greed, desperation, a cold war that bled and screamed…

In the early days of accelerated genetics, on the heels of the prosthetic revolution, things had been hellish. Rejected limb grafts.    Explosively contagious viral infections previously rare in humans. Incompatible bones and organs and structures drowning experimental groups in their own fluids. Hunting and prey drives that only became apparent on the battlefield.

The deployment of modified soldiers isn’t a violation of human rights. But if even a single civilian is caught in the crossfire, it’s a war crime.

What the governments of the world did to the men and women who served them - and the populations they were supposed to serve - was a flood of destruction that led to international court-martial and proposed executions.

Only proposed though.

Naya, green around the gills from her latest information dive, wonders if maybe those proposals had more merit than she’d initially thought.

The files she found about the modified joint task forces, the Ghost Team JTFs, are more horrifying than anything she’s ever seen. Bone and dental removal, replacement, and additions. Brain implants, deeper and more invasive than most civilian interface units, which go just under the skin. Increased metabolism, shortening of the digestive tract, automatic injectors with stim packs that keep soldiers awake and lucid through unimaginable horrors.

Her hands shake, spilling tea leaves on the counter as she disconnects from her VPN network. She’d stumbled upon the initial files surrounding what had been Task Force 141 days ago, had quickly skimmed and duplicated their contents to read and review on her own time. Those had been bad enough. Reading about a Scottish soldier, shot in the head and brought back only to have his body altered. Another sergeant suspended in a tank as his genetically altered body attempted and failed to process all of the poisons they wanted him resistant to. A lieutenant who’s frontal lobe was hacked through to make room for a larger processor. The Captain captured and tortured and changed for investigating what was happening to his unit…

And that was before the videos.

Finding more information on Ghost Teams is virtually impossible. Official reports, even the ones she breaks into, list the 141 as defunct. Her fellow archivists don’t have any other information, and aren’t willing to help her dive again.

>>>Flower: even if the GTs are still alive >>>Flower: it’s too dangerous >>>Flower: too many powers want them to stay buried >>>Flower: we’ll lose everything if we go digging >>>Bambi: you don’t have any contacts i could ask? >>>Flower: i‘m sorry bambi

There’s more security, when she returns to the original server, too much for her to feel comfortable to try to force her way in. Her bots identify a couple of devices on the network that might be exploitable - a printer, two coffee machines - but she leaves them alone, for now.

Instead, she trawls conspiracy theory forums for any mention of experimental modifications, missing soldiers, and questionable medical equipment shipments. Experience means her bots filter through everything, which saves her more than a few headaches, but also means that she waits hours before a possible hit. And that hit is a dead end.

The hours turn to days before she’s able to find an abandoned, locked forum with deleted answers to heavily coded questions. The last post is seven years old, ostensibly informing community members of upcoming changes to the forum. The veil over the warning of government surveillance is thinner than tissue paper.

It’s the closest thing she has to a lead, so she makes a new post and sets her bots to monitor it.

>>18|\/|48(Guest): GTJTFs producing new 141 units? Leaked production reports, new specs?

She doesn’t expect a response, but maybe an auto-responder will give her a clue of where to look next. So it’s jarring when she gets an encrypted email with a reply from “dimentionspoker@noreply.co,” an hour later.

new units? have info on old units if you need references. let me know.

—

The middle city isn’t the safest, for all that the well-to-dos topside like to pretend that the truly unsavory elements aren’t that close to their picturesque lawns. Naya’s lived here her whole life, though she’s worked above a time or two. Even so, she’s never ventured this close to the freight shafts down to the docks.

The bar she steps into is loud and smells like liquor and motor fluid. It’s dim, and smoky, and she feels eyes on her as she makes her way to the bar. Her interface lights up with pings and an attempted ID and bank chip skim. All they get for their trouble is her least informative ID tag - Bambi.

The bartender, a large bodied person with the simple tag of Engine, operates behind the bar with four cybernetic arms. There’s no digital queue for her to log in to, or even a service request button on the seemingly organic wood bar. So she stands, hands folded on top of the bar for them to finish pouring drinks and notice her standing there.

Just as the barkeep’s attention slides her way, a warm body presses up behind hers. She stiffens as a the person jostles her to lean heavily on the bar. “Eng! Another for me. And whatever my cute new friend wants.”

A refusal is on the tip of her tongue, but when she looks up into slitted yellow eyes haloed by curled black and purple freeform locs, she gets an encrypted message.

>>>Bricks: Hello Bambi. >>>Bricks: Order a drink and come with me.

—

"They shouldn't be locked up. They're people, not mindless killing machines."

Across the table, under the dim lights, the woman called Bricks cocks her head. She’s a true cyborg, someone who’s modifications are probably keeping them alive. The cybernetics of her left arm extending well into her ribcage. She doesn’t hide it. Under dark overclothes, a slouching shirt exposes the metal of her collarbones, the servos that whir as she breathes. She swirls her glass of Jack and Coke with an amused look on her face as a barely muffled moan pierces through loud music.

Naya takes a deep breath to keep from fidgeting. It took three months to arrange even this meeting with the elusive American arms dealer, in the back of this dingy bar on a busy Friday. She wasn't about to lose the lead just because she could hear lewd comments and barely muffled squeals of pleasure from the nearby hall to the washrooms. The more concerning noise was coming from behind her, anyhow, the thump of knives into a dart board, distressed beeping from the unlucky mini-droid bound to the target.

"You want me to set up a meeting with the Watcher," Bricks drawls, sitting back in her chair. Her pointed cybernetic nails drum against the table. She doesn’t bother to whisper, but both of them have been disrupting any listening devices in range. "So you can make sure that Price's monsters are being treated humanely?"

"They're not monsters," Naya hisses.

"You've never seen them." It's not a question.

"I don't need to see them to know they shouldn't be kept locked in cages."

Bricks freezes with her glass halfway to her lips. Her eyes narrow. “Cages?”

“That’s what I saw.” Gritting her teeth, Naya hisses. “Look. You know what it means to be augmented, what extensive modifications are like. But without anesthesia? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even my worst enemy.”

“You’d be surprised what I would wish on my worst enemy, sweetheart.” Bricks chuckles and throws back the last dregs of her drink. "But you know what? Fine."

"Fine?"

"Fine. You want in so bad? I'll set up a meeting with the Watcher, and Price."

Well. That was easier than expected. "What'll it cost me?"

"Oh, your whole life, probably. Your whole world view, certainly," Bricks chuckles. She gives Naya an obvious once over, gaze lingering on her breasts. "But you don't owe me any more than a quick flash of your tits."

That does make Naya’s confidence falter. "W-what?"

"You heard me. C'mon, give me a little peek, and I'll send a message right now. You can have Price's monsters off their leashes by the end of the week." Bricks grins, slit pupils pulsing wide with interest. "We don't even have to go anywhere, just pull down your shirt a little bit."

"I'm not..." Naya looks around, furtively. "This isn't exactly priv-" She flinches as she's interrupted by a loud moan, followed by a cheer from the rest of the bar.

"You're asking me to let your hands get real dirty, sweetheart." Bricks stands and circles the table to crowd Naya against the wall. She dips down to breathe into her ear. "And unless you want word to spread of a cute, clean cut, little topsider digging into illegal soldier mods, you're gonna pull your tits out and take the money I give you, after, Bambi."

There’s something behind the predatory look in the taller woman’s eyes. A challenge. She’s called Naya’s bluff, hasn’t she? When she refuses, Bricks will send her off with a laugh and a pat on her ass. And she’ll be back at square one, unable to face the danger of diving deeper again.

But Naya’s never been accused of knowing when to back down.

It’s the work of a moment to have the various video feeds in the room start a ten second loop. Her bots use movement patterns to make the video seem natural to anyone not looking closely. Bricks makes an interested noise when the video feed from her cybernetic eye continues showing Naya’s darting eyes and regular breaths. Her organic eye takes in the way Naya’s hands come up to unclasp the front of her shirt.

She takes a deep breath before hooking her fingers into the neck of her undershirt. She looks down as she inches it down to reveal the scalloped edge of her bra, instead of looking to see if Bricks is aroused or amused or some other, worse thing.

Before she can truly expose herself, a warm hand touches her wrist. “So eager. Not even gonna give me a little tease?”

>>>Bricks: Nice trick with the cameras, but you’re going to call attention.

Naya tips her chin up and immediately regrets it when Bricks leans down to meet her. Her breath shivers between their lips. When a metal arm comes up to block her view of the rest of the room, she turns her face away.

>>>Bambi: It’d be more suspicious if I let everyone have a clip for distribution.

“Smart girl,” Bricks whispers against her temple. “Take the credits.”

The fund transfer Bricks initiates has a public comment attached. ‘Classy. Could almost be the real thing.’ Naya glares up at Brick’s smirking face as she accepts the transaction. Two hundred. It feels like too little and too much money at the same time. Almost immediately, she gets inquiry pings from six other patrons the bar.

“And that’s your alibi,” Bricks chuckles, stepping back so quickly that she barely has time to put herself to rights. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”

—

Naya tries not to fidget in the freight elevator, down, down, down, into The Throat. Bricks's arm is a possessive weight on her shoulder. On the other side of the lift, a startlingly tall man stares at them through the holes in a cloth sack. When she meets his eyes, something writhes where his mouth should be.

"Eyes to yourself," Bricks growls when he takes a half step in their direction. Her cybernetic arm crackles warningly.

The man visibly considers his options before making a guttural sound. A thick appendage, tongue or tentacle, Naya can’t really tell, pokes out from under the hood. He mutters something she doesn’t understand in under-tongue. Bricks hisses something back, pushing Naya behind her as she takes a threatening step forward. The man flinches, then crowds himself into his corner. He doesn’t even look in their direction for the rest of the descent.

When the doors open, Bricks holds her back until the man leaves, then steers her out into the street. Naya's been under-city before, but not in this bloc. The air is just as stale and hazy as she remembers, but this shaft doesn't see as much vertical commuter traffic as some of the others, so the street is dark instead of lit with neon. The faintest bit of light filters down from straight above.

Groping for something to say, she asks, "Did you know that guy?"

Bricks snorts, keeping an arm around her's waist as she steers her along. "Yeah."

“What did he want?”

She gets an uninterested shrug. “The same thing any bottom dwelling opportunist wants.”

It’s not hard to imagine what she means. When she doesn't say anything else, Naya searches for another topic. She swallows her pride and forces herself to say, "Thank you for setting up this meeting."

"Don't thank me yet, sweetheart. You're gonna hate me soon enough."

"I know it's dangerous for you," she insists as Bricks draws her down a side street. Dangerous is an understatement, if the Ghost Teams are so far gone that they’re experimenting on human beings. "Even if things are hard, moving forward, I appreciate your help."

Bricks doesn't answer. Instead, she knocks on a barred door. It opens a crack, and she and the other person hiss low words at each other. A shining green eye looks Naya up and down, the door shuts, and Bricks draws her away.

They stride, briskly, back to the main street. Bricks asks, "Do you have a respirator?"

"Yes."

"Put it on, don't speak."

Wordlessly, Naya unfolds the mask from her pocket and covers her mouth and nose. Bricks pulls a dark scarf from her shoulders and wraps it around Naya’s head and neck, and then drops a poncho over her head. Somehow, the mercinary looks bigger in just her thin shirt, the muscles and metal in her shoulders more pronounced.

Ten minutes into their silent walk, a man melts from the shadows and starts walking on Naya's other side. Though she can’t see much under his baggy clothes, his gait speaks to digitigrade modifications. When she glances up, he has a faceplate under his own hood. His voice, when he speaks, is robotic. "Bricks."

"Roach."

“You’re looking smug and determined.”

“I’m on a very… interesting job.” An encrypted message gets passed between the two of them, and Naya frowns behind her mask. She shouldn’t be able to tell that a message was sent, though, so she bites her tongue. Bricks smirks down at her, then turns her eyes forward. “What’s on your mind?”

"Shadows are hunting you. Seven thousand credits."

"That's insulting," Bricks dismisses. "Mace take the job?"

"That's insulting," Roach parrots back. Somehow, his metered and inflectionless voice sounds amused. A flurry of encrypted messages flows between them. Once those have finished, he says, "Come see us when your business with the Watcher is done." And then he fades away into the shadows again.

"Good job," Bricks whispers. "Stay silent. Keep taking deep breaths. Walk straight ahead. Don't run." And then she ducks down a side street, leaving Naya alone in the dark.

Fuck.

She keeps putting one foot in front of the other. Measured. Brisk, but unhurried. A couple of people pass on the other side of the street, then a man passes on her side. Under her poncho, she palms her pocket knife, but no one spares her a second glance.

After a full minute, Bricks slides out of the next alley and falls into step with her, a cigarette that smells like real tobacco between her lips. In her cybernetic hand, she has a twitching, bleeding length of what looks like an octopus tentacle the size of Naya’s forearm.

"You can talk now,” she says. “But you don't want to ask about this."

—

The respirator makes a lot more sense when Naya is led to a shaft to the Belly.

She’s never been to the middle level of the true undercity. Technically, no one should live in this industrial level, so there’s very little in the way of individual commerce and amenities. There is an abundance of dead “topsider tourists” every year, mangled and hacked to drain all of their resources before anyone can realize that they haven’t come home.

This lift is much smaller, just big enough for her to stand behind Bricks as the woman primes her arm. The edge of a plasma knife glows blue from within the mechanics of her bicep. When Naya activates the plasma in her own knife, Bricks looks over her shoulder at the near silent hum.

“You ever use that before?”

“Once.”

That earns an interested noise as the other woman faces forward again. “On a person?”

“…No.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” is all she says about that as the elevator shudders to a stop. “Stay behind my right arm. If I tell you to drop, you fall to the ground and don’t move until I tell you.”

When the door opens, it’s into a pitch black alley. The only light is the obscured gleam from with Brick’s left shoulder. Something in the darkness hisses. Bricks strides forward, and Naya has no choice but to follow after.

They walk for a few minutes without incident before Bricks knocks on a nondescript door. Next to it, a biometric scanner creaks open and scans one of her eyes, then one of her metal fingers. Naya flinches at the noise of a series of locks grinding open.

A stern faced blonde woman is on the other side of the door when Bricks gestures Naya inside. She’s not wearing a respirator, but then, neither is Bricks. The woman doesn’t say anything, so Naya doesn’t either. She just waits for Bricks to finish securing the door, then returns to her spot just behind her.

“Watcher,” Bricks greets with clear good humor. “I brought you a little something.”

Naya huffs a surprised breath from her nose, but stays silent. The Watcher. The overseer of at least one of five active Modified Task Forces. She looks so… normal. A woman in her mid forties, maybe, face lined with stress but open. Naya feels a little thrown off. When the lights flicker, however, she catches the red shine of a cybernetic eye. Whatever mods she has, they’re hidden so well that Naya can’t even sense them.

The Watcher’s eyes scan her for a moment before she’s looking back to Bricks. Naya only has a moment to wonder why she hasn’t been pinged before she asks, “Alive?”

“You always pay more when they’re alive.”

What? Naya stumbles backwards until she hits the door. “What?”

Bricks throws a grin over her shoulder. “I told you not to thank me.” Turning back to the Watcher, she says, “Thirty thousand credits. Had a run in with the King on the way here.”

“No one told you to bring her alive. Fifteen, and we void the Shadows bounty on you.”

“Twenty five. You want her alive, trust me. And I can handle the Shadows on my own.”

Naya gapes at the two of them. A quick glance over her shoulder and query to the door confirms that the locks won’t open again without a lot more force than she could manage, even if she wouldn’t have to fight Bricks to get out. And the Watcher… isn’t motivated to let her live. Fuck. The little knife in her hands feels less than useless.

“She wanted to meet you,” Bricks continues, crossing her arms. “And Price.”

That makes the Watcher pause and look over Naya again. “Oh?”

“She used his name,” Bricks confirms. “Real skilled code-breaker.”

“Hm.” The Watcher frowns, then says. “Thirty thousand is a low ball offer, then.”

“She thinks you’re keeping the task force in cages,” Bricks chuckles. “I want to watch when she sees them for the first time.”

That gets a huff of amusement. “Thirty thousand and a show… Deal. Bring her.”

When the Watcher turns away, Bricks looks back at Naya with a surprisingly gentle smile. “Good job. Now comes the hard part. Let’s go.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” she doesn’t want to walk forward, but there’s not much else to do. She tries to stand away from Bricks, but it’s hard in the narrow hallway.

“Nothing, now,” Bricks laughs. “Got you through the door alive, and Watcher can always use a code breaker.”

It’s hard not to feel stupid. Naya struggles to keep her voice even. “So this was just… a bounty for you?”

“Better me than König.” Bricks wiggles the tentacle that she’s still holding in metal fingers. “And better now than when an actual bounty was on your head. Diving into secure government information brings out the worst kind of trouble. The Shadows would have killed you in your bed. Kortac would have chipped you, if they decided keeping you was worth it. This way, everyone gets what they want.”

“Except me,” Naya points out.

“You’re still alive, for now,” the Watcher points out from a few steps ahead, without looking back. “Considering the problems you’ve caused me, it’s tempting to kill you myself. But Bricks is right. I can always use a Breaker.”

“I don’t do that professionally,” Naya protests weakly.

The Watcher doesn’t break stride. “You do, now.”

They get into another elevator, big enough for eight people. There aren’t any floor indicators, but as soon as the doors close, it starts to descend. Wrapping her arms around herself, Naya shivers. At this rate, she realizes, she may never see the sky again. She’ll be locked in a cage next to the 141, underground, let out to circumvent code for… what? To support more killing? More human experimentation? If she doesn’t cooperate, will they experiment on her? Put a processor in her brain to erase everything about her except for her skill?

Tears gather in the corners of her eyes, and she can’t help a sniffle.

“None of that,” comes the surprisingly gentle voice of the Watcher. When she approaches, she puts a gentle hand on Naya’s shoulder. “You’re here now. There’s no going back. But we take care of our own.”

Bricks snorts. “For given values of taking care of. You are keeping the boys in cages after all.”

“That’s not helpful,” the Watcher says, producing a tissue from her pocket and dabbing at Naya’s eyes. She pushes the makeshift hood back and gently removes her respirator, scanning her face with hard blue eyes. Eventually, she asks, “Why did you come here, Bambi?”

Shoulders coming up around her ears, Naya gets the feeling that because I’m an idiot isn’t the answer she’s looking for. She looks down at her sensible shoes, bracketed by the Watcher’s own worn work boots, and confesses, “Bricks said I could meet with you, and Price. And… I thought I could… encourage you to treat the modified soldiers more like people than animals.”

“And I suppose this encouragement was going to come with a threat to leak records to the public?” The Watcher’s mouth twitches into a sardonic smile when Naya looks up at her again. “Bold.”

Bricks chuckles. “Naive.”

“Hopeful. And some of the best plans are the simplest,” the Watcher dismisses.

Naya wouldn’t call her plan to connect to the building’s intranet and threatening to disrupt all of the life support systems “naive.” Now that she’s locked in, it feels like a distinctly hopeless course of action. She’ll have to think of something else, fast.

The Watcher steps away as the elevator comes to a stop. The doors open into a large control room, huge observation windows giving a 360 degree view out into dimly lit halls. Bricks ushers Naya out, heavy hands on her shoulders, until she pushes her into a chair facing a window to the left side of the room.

“Did we miss feeding time?” Bricks grins and pulls a puzzle ball from her bag. Her cybernetic hand twitches and whirs as it clicks through combinations.

“Luckily for Bambi, yes.”

Before Naya can ask what feeding time entails, something drops from the ceiling on the other side of the glass, startling a yelp from her. It’s a man, tall and lean, slitted eyes shining a red orange as he stares at her face through the glass. He’s half dressed, only in loose pants. Thick, dark streaks of something wet cover his chest and splatter down his legs. The grin that splits his pretty face puts three pairs of sharp canines on display, stained red.

The Watcher pushes a button, an intercom. “Gaz.”

“Who’s this cute little thing, Laswell?” Naya shivers as Kyle “Gaz” Garrick looks her up and down. He looks just like his personnel file, except for a wildness around his eyes that changes his face from welcoming to something dangerous. “Could practically smell her from the street.”

“Back away from the glass, you’re filthy. What the hell did you roll in?”

The man ignores the Watcher, face going soft as he leans down to get on a level with Naya. “Hello, honey. Such a pretty girl, what are you doing down here? You a friend of Bricks?”

Something about his crooning voice makes Naya’s hair stand on end. At the same time, she finds that she can’t look away from the man’s eyes as he tilts his head. They’re such an interesting color, and he keeps shifting ever so slightly in ways that draw her eyes to follow. He jerks quickly to one side when her eyes dip down to the red and brown splashed down his chest, then smiles when she looks back at his face. His teeth - even the extra ones - are perfect and red. Naya’s heart beats a little faster.

A loud pop and sudden flash makes Naya jump as Gaz reels back with a snarl.

“I told you not to touch the glass,” the Watcher grumbles. “Clean up. Make yourself presentable. And remind the others to put their masks on.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” he hisses. With one last, sweet smile to Naya, he turns and strides away before leaping up to grab an exposed beam and hoist himself into the shadows above the observation room. He disappears in the space of a moment. No matter how Naya squints, she can’t tell where he’s gone.

“Don’t look any of them in the eye,” Bricks whispers from close behind, chuckling at the way Naya jumps. “They’re predators, sweetheart, and you’re the sweetest bite of prey they’ve had in a long while.”

“Bricks,” the Watcher (Laswell?) chides. “Get her keyed in. Bambi, you’re not to be alone in here. We’ll get you interfaced with security so you know how to do a lockdown sequence before you’re introduced to the Task Force.”

When she’s handed an interface chip, Naya blanches. “I can’t, I don’t have a hard disk reader. Why do I need to know the facility’s lockdown sequences?”

“There’s no where in this facility that they can’t get,” Bricks replies, distracted as she opens a floor panel to extract a series of wires, and what looks like a very robust integration cable. “And if you’re going to work here, you’re going to need to be able to keep them from dragging you off and eating you.”

“Bricks.” Laswell snaps. To Naya she explains,    “Everyone who works here needs to know how to lock down in case of emergency.”

Naya gapes. “Emergencies? They can - They’re not -! They have full access to the facility?”

“Of course. They can get out of the facility, too,” Bricks snickers. “Who’s going to stop them?”

“Bricks!”

“All of the records say that they’re severely restricted.” The tight squeak in Naya’s voice is undeniable. “What do you mean they could eat me?”

“Old records,” Laswell answers without looking. A terminal lights up under her fingertips. “The only way the SAS would let us keep the facilities without bomb chips. Let me know when you’re ready for input.”

“The part about eating me?” Naya flinches as Bricks circles behind and pushes her hair up to expose the port beneath her left ear.

“If you’re as good as I think you are, you don’t have to worry about that,” Bricks says, shoving the cable into place. “Go.”

“What-”

Laswell launches the integration before she can get the question out. Naya’s whole body jolts, brain flooded with sudden input. She doesn’t dive into the data so much as she’s dragged under the tidal wave of the facility.

The whole structure unfolds around her, five floors, twelve stories down, three shafts up, two elevators, one stair. She’s in the observation tower, which descends three more floors. Heat, cooling, air filtration, power, food storage, office of Watcher One Kate Laswell, office of Bravo One John Price, research labs east and south, conference rooms, break rooms, sleeping quarters, inventory, directory of personnel.

Access Denied.

It’s nothing to shuffle the alert away. Asset Records. Veronica “Bricks” Mason, Gary “Roach” Sanderson, Mason “Mace” Ward, [Redacted] Nikto, Morgan “Sparrow” Voss. The list goes on. Task Force 141. Kyle “Gaz” Garrick, John “Soap” MacTavish, John “Bravo One” Price, Simon “Ghost” Riley. Vital statistics steady, duplicate identification signals, three dead copies, one living set. Security, kill switch overrides. These doors won’t close, but they’ll tell the observation tower that they have. Interesting.

Diving a layer deeper, she observes three separate security records. One is distressingly familiar, the records she’d found before, that spurred her to find Bricks, full of echoes of old code, now that she can see it. Then the one with logs going to Watcher One Kate Laswell, current and accurate. Except that the third log indicates security discrepancies and pings to KGKLJMJPSR. She logs the discrepancy on her own, internal system, a reminder to see if she can piggyback on someone else’s clearance.

Now that she’s thinking about it, she scans for what her clearance is supposed to have access to. It’s the second level, the one that doesn’t actually close the security doors surrounding the servers, sleeping quarters, and the observation tower. Well, that won’t do. She makes a digital copy of KL’s access and patches it into her own.

Just as she finishes, four ID tags simply labeled “Ghost” enter the lowest observation tower floor. That’s a glaring red security alert, and it only doubles in urgency as he accesses the hatch to the system port cable.

“Oh, that’s bad,” she hears herself say aloud as she gropes, blindly for the cable in her neck. “Ghost is accessing, I need to disconnect before he-“

Three more security alerts come up as the ID tags for Bravo One, Gaz, and Soap appear around the top floor of the observation tower, their floor. Naya quickly circumvents the overrides on the blast doors, and half observes rolling shutters covering the windows as Laswell makes a startled noise. Unfortunately, Ghost finds her while she’s distracted.

And he is a ghost, sliding between the layers of Naya’s own security code like a cold breeze. He rifles through her ID cards before she can even try to lock down. When she tries to lock him out of her interface, he slams through so fast it sends her reeling. Unfortunately for him, and for her, he trips over her Brain Blast in the process. The packet of musical theater data explodes to override everything she’s connected to, knocking her out of her connection to the facility and blaring Ohmigod You Guys through the speaker systems of the facility.

“What the fuck,” Veronica Bricks Mason shouts, covering her ears.

“Sorry, sorry,” Naya yelps. She manually reopens her access to the facility and cuts the sound. Her head spins with new information that she doesn’t have time to let her organic brain process. Ghost is nowhere to be found, but she doesn’t wait around to see where he pops up again before locking herself down and physically removing the cable from her neck. “Ghost tripped my security protocol.”

“You shouldn’t be able to influence any part of the facility,” Watcher One Kate Laswell observes. “Which means you’re every bit as good as Bricks says you are. Why did you lock down the tower?”

“Just this floor,” she answers absently, looking around as her interface flashes and labels new data points about her surroundings. It takes a moment for her to filter through everything enough to focus. “Bravo One, Gaz, and Soap were approaching as Ghost tapped in on the bottom floor.”

“I should have charged more,” Asset:Mason chuckles.

“Maybe you should have, Veronica,” Naya replies without thinking.

The woman just laughs. “Oh ho ho, you’re even better than I thought.

Watcher One Laswell drums her fingers on the table. “You don’t have a hard disk reader. Can you still access the facility without a hard line?”

Naya has to shake her head before she runs a quick system check. A ping to the 141 Facility gets a happy little ping back. “Yeah. My, um… my interface is a bit more robust than standard.”

Watcher Laswell nods. “Noted. Reset the security settings.”

Naya almost does it on autopilot, but stops herself. Running a quick check, she shivers. “They’re still out there. Three of them.” When Laswell only nods, she nudges the blast doors and security shutters to open. It takes a moment, but eventually they start to rumble to life.

Worryingly, when she can see through the windows again, Bravo One, Gaz, and Soap are no where to be found. The only active vitals in the facility say they’re right across the glass from where Naya is sitting. It sends a chill down her spine. Diving through the facility systems, she had felt untouchable. But she’s been outmaneuvered again. Unless…

She stands and leans closer to the glass, looking up into the shadows above.

Three pairs of eyes shine down at her from the darkness.

“They’re up there,” Naya whispers. When Laswell simply answers in the affirmative, she activates the intercom with a gulp. “Um. I’m sorry about the noise.”

“That’s quite alright, sweetheart,” a deep voice answers. “Ghost has a way of startling pretty girls. And I quite like a bit of theater.”

Well it’s not Gaz, and there’s no hint of a Scottish accent. “Are you… Bravo One? John Price?”

“You are a clever one.” One of the pairs of eyes squints and tilts. Another shuts, and doesn’t open again. Soap’s tags move a short ways away as Price continues. “Bricks says you asked to meet me.”

“Yes, sir,” Naya says, and then remembers too late that Bricks said not to meet their eyes. She tears her eyes away and jumps at the sight of John “Soap” MacTavish standing a few feet down the hall in front of her.

He looks good, surprisingly so. His hair is long, braided mohawk shining. A gleaming scar is the only indication of the wound that almost killed him. He’s healthy, big and bulky and dressed casually in black joggers and a tight black tshirt. Bright blue eyes with crossed pupils scan her face with interest. When he grins at her, his sharp teeth flash with titanium augments.

“Gaz wisna exaggeratin,’ ye smell quite nice, Bambi,” Soap purrs.

“What part of ‘masks on’ don’t you all understand?” Laswell grumbles.

“They’ve already got her scent,” Bricks snickers. “Did Ghost get your tags Bambi?”

“He did,” Price confirms from above. “Naya Walker, also known as Bambi. Computer scientist, you’ve sold a couple of database systems. Quite impressive.”

A pit opens in her stomach. Ghost had access to her system for less than three seconds. Her throat is tight when she says, “Thank you, sir.”

“So polite,” Gaz chuckles from above. “Come say hello, doll.”

Naya chances a glance back at Kate, then looks back at Soap, then up at the single pair of shining eyes above as Price’s ID winks away from your awareness. “I’m not sure I have clearance for that.”

“You didn’t have clearance to know about this facility,” Gaz points out. “And yet, here you are. Pretty as a picture.”

“Jesus,” Bricks mutters as Laswell makes a startled sound. “We really should put a bell on you.”

And then a huge hand presses against the glass next to Naya’s face. She startles backwards and runs into a huge, solid body, and yelps as a strong arm catches her about the waist.

“Caught ya,” a fourth, deeper voice rumbles above her. His other hand catches both of her wrists and immobilizes her as she stares at dark brown stains up to his wrists. “Been teasin’ us f’ months, dippin’ in an’ out ‘f m’code. So careful, li’l fawn. But not careful enough.”

“Ghost,” Laswell says. The whine of a plasma weapon being primed pierces through the otherwise silent room. Naya squeezes her eyes closed.“Hands off. That’s my Breaker.”

“’S’at so?” Ghost bends down, so far down, it seems, to drag the tip of his nose along Naya’s temple. “Seems she moight be mine, since I invited ‘er.”

“Speaking of,” Bricks interjects. “I’ll take my finder’s fee, now.”

“Bricks.” Laswell hisses.

“Transfer’s cleared, Bricks,” John Price says with a chuckle. “Pleasure doing business, as always.”

Like Gaz and Soap, Captain Price is bigger than his file made him seem. They’d shaved him, when they had replaced some of his bones with metal, but now his facial hair is as full and vital as the rest of him. This close, Naya can see the mechanics whirling within his eyes.

Leaning against his free side, Gaz licks his lips with a tongue that seems too long. But she only sees them for a moment before she’s being turned around, still wrapped in Ghost’s arms.

On the left side of the room Bricks lounges in a chair, tossing and catching and cycling through the combinations on her ball. She’s grinning like she’s gotten away with murder. Maybe she has - she’s been paid three times today for possibly the easiest bounty of her career. Across from her, Laswell holds a glowing knife in a loose grip by her side, shooting an annoyed glare at the other woman.

“What the hell is this?” Laswell hisses.

“You told us to stop hunting your techs,” Price chuckles.

“Bambi is mine,” Kate reiterates, glaring out the glass.

“Just a wee taste, Watcher,” Soap burrs from somewhere. “Ghost is code breaker enough, ye dinnae need another.”

Naya feels her entire body go cold. She takes a deep breath, reconnects with the facility, and runs Flash_Bang.exe.

—

The underground building has a straightforward layout, but that’s dangerous. Naya flicks away the alert when Ghost manages to patch his way back into the facility and silence the music - fuck, it only took him twenty eight seconds? - and ducks under a desk in the office she broke into, one floor down.

It’s hard to stay one step ahead of him, but her spiders and bots repair the five second camera feed loops as soon as he forces the cameras back online. He only wastes time breaking a third of the bot codes before he seems to realize that they’re replicating and switches to tagging, leaving them to run their processes.

It takes two agonizing seconds for her to open the audio relay from the observation tower without revealing her location to Ghost’s sweeping pings.

“-vilian running wild and scared through a secure facility, John.” Kate snaps.

“I thought she was your new breaker,” Gaz snickers. “Not really a civilian.”

“Nae,” Soap interjects. Naya is glad she doesn’t have video to see the nasty smile she can hear in his voice. “Watcher’s right. We cannae let her get too far.”

“She’s fucked the cameras,” Ghost chuckles. “Could get them back online, but it’d take some time.”

Price hums. “Location?”

“West labs’re pingin’,” Ghost answers. He sounds pleased. “Don’t mean much. She’s got bots spoofin’ her IDs.”

“Smells like she’s gone to the east wing,” Gaz purrs. “Lots of classified documents that way, Laswell. Hate to think of what she might come across if she makes it down to the third floor.”

There’s a tense silence before something slams. Eventually, Laswell hisses, “Fine. Bring her back. Alive and unharmed.”

“No promises,” Soap laughs.

Naya scrambles from her hiding spot as she confirms that the cameras in this south wing hall are looped. She needs to get back to the north side of the facility to get to the stairs that might take her up and out. But first she needs to get them off her trail… Somehow.

There’s a janitor closet two doors down, and she spoofs the signal to unlock the door just long enough to slip through it. She looks for bleach and prays it will be enough to mask her scent, then curses to herself when she realizes the bleach will be an obvious mark of her presence. She can’t just erase herself in the physical world the way she can, digitally.

An encrypted message alert calls her attention.

>>>Bricks: Soap will run at you directly. Gaz likes to ambush. Good Luck!

“I c’n see that, Bricks,” Ghost rumbles.

“She’s already at a disadvantage,” the mercenary chuckles. “Poor little thing, you’re going to eat her alive.”

“Oh, she’s not as harmless as all that,” Price laughs. “Took over the whole facility, gave Ghost the slip-“

“I let her go,” Ghost interrupts.

“Set up the meeting so there’d be no one here but us. Got her hands on the codes she thought would let her take control of us, the mindless killing machines.” John continues. He chuckles. “She’s a smart little thing.”

“She got the deadswitches?” Bricks sounds genuinely surprised.

“Command codes. The first ones,” Ghost confirms. “Duds, since we don’t have the chips, but she don’t know that.”

Well, she does now. Naya grabs three bottles of bleach and puts her respirator back on as her mind races. Part of what made soldier modifications so disgusting were the control processors. The irony of finding out that the 141 had somehow removed theirs was not lost on her. They’re already as free as she’d hoped to help them be, and they’re using that freedom to hunt her like animals.

The IDs for Soap and Gaz are still a floor above, moving slowly, following her trail. Ghost and Bravo One are still in the observation tower. She opens one bottle and rolls it back down the hall she came down, then jogs the other way, splashing the bleach as she goes. The observation tower in the center of the floor has mirrored glass, spiking her heart rate every time she catches sight of herself out of the corner of her eye. It’s so jarring that she almost doesn’t realize Gaz and Soap are coming out of the nearest elevator.

She ducks into an office just as the bell dings around the corner.

“Ach, that’s nae very nice, Bambi,” Soap calls. When he speaks next, it’s muffled, likely by his own respirator. “Ghost, she’s scent bombed the whole steamin’ floor. Where is she?”

“Don’t be lazy, Johnny,” Ghost chuckles. “’Ardly a hunt if there’s no challenge.”

“She’ll want the stairwell,” Gaz says. “Lock it down.”

“Already done,” Ghost says. “But locks aren’t exactly a deterrent, if you ‘aven’t noticed.”

“Bottle rolled down this hall,” Gaz says. “So she probably took the other.”

“Aye, that’s what she wants us to think,” Soap chuckles. “I’ll clear this side.”

Naya holds her breath as heavy footsteps start toward her hiding spot, then go so light she almost can’t hear them. She watches the light under the door and resists the urge to flinch at the appearance of a shadow. The man - Soap’s ID sits like a brand so close to her own in her interface - lingers by the door for a long moment then moves on. He’s so quiet that she keeps the map of the floor up to watch his progress. He’s listening for her, she realizes, stopping at each door. She’s lucky that the air circulation vents are above the door, or he might have heard her heart racing.

When Soap and Gaz each turn corners to start investigating the south wing, Naya finally lets herself take more than the shortest breath. She eases the lock open with a flinch at the mechanical click, but neither Soap nor Gaz change their trajectory. When she opens the door and peeks out, the hall is empty. So she eases her way out, crouches low, and shuffles as fast as she can to the stairwell.

She gives the locks three scans before coding them to unlock. The light turns green without incident. She waits for a moment. Soap and Gaz move just a bit farther away. Naya breathes a silent sigh and eases the door open.

“Got her,” Ghost says. “She’s in the stairwell.”

Above her, a door slams open. Naya yelps and starts jogging down the stairs before she can hear what Captain Price yells down at her. She brute forces her way through the lock codes for the third floor and pulls the door open, throwing her bottle of bleach at the wall before slamming it shut. She trips every proximity alarm she can, leading west through the third floor as she throws herself down the next flight. At the fourth floor door, she creates a signal loop, mindful of the door sensor she’d overlooked before. She hears Gaz and Soap slam through the second floor door open just as the door to the fourth closes behind her.

Too late, she realizes that she can’t hear into the tower anymore, and the map of this floor is all static in her interface. The schematics she had before are corrupted - Ghost’s doing, most likely. She can still see the locks on the doors, the terminals connected to the intranet in the various offices. It will have to be enough.

She darts into the eastern wing of the floor and realizes that no, it won’t be enough. The layout is different than the upper floors. The observation tower has no windows in this direction to speak of, for one. And the cameras are few and far between. The doors are also farther apart, and low pile carpet gives way to hard linoleum.

When she turns the corner, she gasps and ducks. Not that it would have helped any. She’s faced with a gymnasium, weight machines and benches and treadmills like a normal gym, except with weights so large it’s almost comical. There’s no one here, but the open space feels like a threat all the same. She turns tail and jogs back toward the observation tower.

As she turns south, she realizes that the tower has no windows on this floor. It’s not a relief, not really. Even if no one can see her, she’s trapped. Gaz and Soap are still looking for her, one floor up. How long will that last? The bleach trick can only work for so long, probably. And Ghost is good, it’s only a matter of time before he breaks into the camera bot code and finds her. How is she going to get up, past the first floor, let alone the next twelve flights of stairs to the streets of the Belly.

God, how is she going to make it home?

Her vision blurs with tears before she can finish taking her next breath.

“No, no, no, no, no,” she whimpers before a hiccup jolts through her. Her breath shudders from her throat as she swipes at her eyes. “No, no, keep it together, it’s gonna be okay. I can figure this out, I can. I can, it’s okay.”

“Bambi? Talk to me,” Brick’s serious voice comes through, suddenly, fuzzy but definitely there. “Those sound like tears, sweetheart.”

Naya sobs, she can’t help it. It’s a few seconds before she can force more words out. “Why did you do this to me?”

“You asked me to bring you,” Bricks reminds her with a soft chuckle. “Didn’t know you were gonna try to take over the whole facility, or I might have set something else up. But if you come out now -“

A hand touches Naya from behind and she screams, throwing a HardReset packet into the space before she can even wonder if that would have any impact on Soap or Gaz. When she whirls around, though, a man she doesn’t recognize is slumped against the wall, barely keeping the weight of a bricked cybernetic leg from dragging him to the floor. Her interface has a moment to tell her this is “Mace,” before she’s darting around him and running again.

“Fuck!” the man shouts. “Watcher what the fuck- No, I’m on the fucking training floor, why the hell-“

“Bambi,” Bricks shouts, “Do not go into the w-“

She slams the connection shut and tries, unsuccessfully, to wipe her tears away. The distraction is probably why she doesn’t realize she’s heading north, but she knows her mistake as soon as she hears the stairwell door open.

She screams again, right in Gaz’s face, can’t help it now that she’s finally made noise. She dodges his reaching hand and bolts, knowing she can’t outrun him, but what else can she do?

“Shite. Ghost!” Soap calls. “Lock it doon!”

Naya dives through a blast door as it slides shut, ignoring the myriad of voices that shout at her. Through the panic, she terminates all of her bots and slams all of her processing power into separating Ghost from the security access from the floor. He puts up a fight, but another BrainBlast and FlashBang gives her the two seconds she needs to take control.

An alert flashes.

<<Message from: WatcherOneKL. Accept?>>

Sitting on the floor, panting and sniffling, she gulps a deep breath. Someone pounds on the door, but it’s solid, and Ghost can’t get past her bots to regain control. She’s safe.

—

In the observation tower, Price frowns at the data pad in his hands. “Ghost, Bricks. Where did you say you found Ms. Walker?”

“Found us, really,” Ghost mutters, focused on the 3D hologram of the facility. Bambi’s ID markers dance all over the place. He’s running algorithms to try to find a pattern, but she’s three steps ahead, it seems. “Set out a lure and she tore through it like tissue paper. An’ then she made a forum post lookin’ f’r information on soldier mods.”

“Scrubbed everything clean,” Bricks adds. “We couldn’t find her for days after she blew through everything. I got lucky that I found the forum post, it didn’t even trigger Ghost’s spiders.”

Price hums. “And… did either of you confirm which hacker group she’s a part of?”

“Didn’t really have time,” Bricks answers with a shrug. “As soon as I confirmed who I was, she demanded to meet Laswell, and you.”

“Interesting. Any of you ever hear of a group called the Archivist Collective?”

Laswell frowns. “Collective for Anarchy?”

“No.” Price shakes his head. “Archivist Collective. It’s the only thing coming up with her background check. And she’s not a known member of any of the major hacking groups.”

Bricks shrugs. “Obviously, she’d use another alias.”

“No,” Price says again, walking over to show Laswell and Bricks the data pad. “None of her aliases are connected with anything but this Archivist Collective. And their only mission is to ‘Counter censorship through the collection, preservation, and dissemination of contested and classified texts.’”

Ghost makes an interested noise and leaves the hologram to start another terminal whirring. “Let’s see what they’ve got then -… oh.”

Bricks sits up from her sprawl. “Oh?”

“They’ve got an archive. Barely any security at all. Hosted on the GaiaPet: Craft servers.”

“GaiaPet?” Kate frowns. “Isn’t that a… virtual pet game? Where people make things with voxels? Procedurally generated…. They’re definitely robust enough servers for cyberattacks-“

“It’s jus’ a fuckin’ library,” Ghost grunts, navigating through. “Huge text files, embedded images. Some of it’s definitely classified. But tha’s oll… Oh, shite. Jus’ found our records.”

Bricks looks from the terminal in Price’s hand, to Ghost, and back. “Wait. John, you said she sold a couple of database systems. She’s got to be working with some data brokers, at least.”

“This says she developed and sold literal systems,” John says, horror dawning on his face. “A spreadsheet editor and a UI designed to organize complex data sets. As far as I can tell, she doesn’t sell information. Everything she’s got, besides those systems, is open source.”

“Oh, fuck,” Ghost breathes.

Kate strides up to look at his screen. “What?”

“She’s got an active account on GaiaPet. A pet frog named Señor fuckin’ Snuggly. Her last login was today, and her chat with the AI said ‘Wish me luck, if we can’t get those soldiers released, we can at least get the information out there.’”

The silence in the room is palpable. And then Bricks says, “Bambi? Talk to me. Those sound like tears, sweetheart.”

—

Naya keeps her arms wrapped around her knees until she stops shivering. In that time, two more message request alerts pop up, from BravoOneJP and GhostSR. All of them are marked maximum priority, and she has no desire to touch them. She can see the signal burst of Bricks trying to talk to her, but she’s muted the feed so that she can just have… a single second to breathe.

Her interface pushes everything away to prioritize an SOS signal, then automatically begins transcribing the subsequent Morse code message.

SOH. West wing dangerous stop. Battle androids stop. 15 active 20 inactive stop. GSR give code for control stop. Confirm stop. SOH. West wing dangerous stop. Battle androids stop. 15 active 20 inactive stop. GSR give-

She minimizes the message and sucks in the deepest breath she can, holds it, and forces herself to focus on her body. If she thinks about fifteen battle droids on this side of the door while modified soldiers hunt her on the other, she’ll start screaming and never stop. A part of her wants to lay down and just… give up. A big part. The whole part.

She opens the message from Laswell.

Bambi: You’re in a hazardous section of the facility. Ghost is standing down, for your safety. You will have to establish connection with the control tower to gain codes for control of battle -

Naya deletes the message and opens the one from Price. It’s more of the same, a demand that she open communication, a warning that the west wing of the floor is dangerous. She almost doesn’t open the message from Ghost, but… she doesn’t have much to lose.

She jumps when the message contains an audio file.

“Bambi, fuck, we didn’t know you was a literal archivist. Bricks an’ I fucked up. This is a truce, a suspension of hostilities. SOH. The training floor you’re on is fuckin’ dangerous, Bambi. Too dangerous for me to try t’ take it from you. You gotta take control of the droids. I can’t fuck wit’ ‘em while you’re in control of the space. I managed to confirm shut down of 20, but there’s 15 more. I c’n try to send the control codes this way, but the codes expire every 2 seconds. Better if you open comms. If you can’t, Morse confirmation, I’ll send the codes. Once you grab one, the rest will come for you. You’re fuckin’ fast, I know you can do it, but if you have an issue, open the door an’ Soap and Gaz’ll support.”

She’d rather be shot full of holes by military grade turrets than open the door. Her map of the facility is complete again, and she can see four IDs on the other side of the barrier. Soap, Gaz, Mace, and the redacted asset, Nikto, mill around, pacing between the blast doors and the central tower. But no one is pounding on the door or trying to open it, physically or otherwise. When she checks, her bots are idly cycling through access code randomization, but there’s no attempts at a breach.

Maybe Ghost is telling the truth?

She sends a Morse message.

Received stop. Hold for confirmation stop.

The answer is immediate.

Received stop. Holding for confirmation stop.

Does she want to open the comms? What if it’s a trap? Without knowing how long the code chains are, she’s at a disadvantage without a direct link to the tower. But if she opens connection to the tower, how can she guarantee that Ghost won’t command the androids to terminate her? On the other hand, if he is telling the truth, and the codes expire that fast, there’s no way she can locate and override that many machines that are actively trying to keep her out in time. And they are definitely trying to keep her out - her spiders have been able to confirm twenty units on standby, and fifteen empty holding stations, but there’s no sign of the other droids.

With a shaking breath, Naya opens the comms.

Brick's voice is the one she hears first. "Oh, thank fuck, she's back. Bambi? Can you hear me? Sweetheart, I need you to keep the blast doors static. If they cycle, they might start a lockdown sequence, and that will get the droids moving.” It takes two tries to get the words past her tight throat. "I don't want to die." "I'm so sorry, dove," Captain Price croons. "We’re gonna get you out of there.” "I won't tell anyone, I promise," Naya babbles though gasps. "I just want to go home." "You're gonna be okay, Bambi," Ghosts voice is surprisingly gentle. “Cleverest breaker above and below the city, yeah? Gave Soap an’ Gaz a proper chase an’ knocked Mace on ‘is arse. Coupl’a droids don’t stand a chance.”

“I’m not - I don’t know how to fight,” she whimpers.

“Who said anythin’ about fightin’? Pretty girl like you don’ have t’ lift a finger. Laswell?”

“Working on it,” the woman mutters. “Bambi, I need you to try to give us cameras without initiating any other processes. That’ll help- oh. You are fast. Give me a few seconds to find the nearest droids and we can give you the serial numbers.”

“She’s so small,” Price notes, somewhere in the background. “Possible the droids won’t even register her as a target.”

“I think we’ve fucked up enough today that we don’t need to risk it,” is Brick’s bone dry reply. “Sparrow is going to beat all of our asses.”

“Well, we’re about to give Bambi control of thirty-five full combat units,” the Captain points out. “Might not be much left of us to kick.”

Laswell breaks in. “Ghost-”

“Got em,” Ghost answers. “Bambi, ‘ve got a bead on the nearest units. ‘ow do you want to do this?”

Naya takes a couple of deep breaths and tries to hype herself up. It’s just code work. There are other variables, but at the core of it all, it’s just code. Yes, many of the variables have potentially painful and fatal consequences… But in the end, she can either do the code or not. And if there’s one thing she can do, it’s code.

“H-how,” she clears her throat and blinks back tears. “How many bits, per unit? For the key, I mean.”

“Forty ninety-six.”

Oh, just the highest security rating in the world, she thinks to herself, a little hysterical. She nods to herself and talks through the urge to giggle with nerves. “Okay. That’s seven hundredths of a second per unit, with the key. That’s… not so bad. I can probably handle them in batches of 5. Can I have the first hardware address? Morse, please.”

It takes a second, but the information comes through. It only takes a moment for a spider to highlight the machine in the network. Very quickly, her bots are able to identify and tag seven other units on her map. She shoots a summary data packet back to Ghost.

“Are these all droids?”

“Yeah, that’s half of ‘em. Laswell, she was able to identify all of the A-27 units, do you have eyes on any of the E-243s?”

In the background, Price mutters, “Kate hasn’t even laid eyes on all of the 27s.”

Another data packet comes through, and Naya is able to tag seven more dots on her map. Fifteen battle androids, and two of them just down the hall and around the corner on either side.

Naya takes another hiccuping breath. “How fast can they move?”

“A-27s are closest to you, they’re about a meter per second. The 243s move at about 4 per second.”

“Okay,” she says, holding her breath through another hiccup. She has two of her bots run movement simulations, and decides she’ll focus on the closest two A-27s, then the closest four E-243s. She has the processing power to do it, between her own interface and the facility. But… “I’m going to need these six keys first, but I have to let the doors cycle. How long is the lockdown sequence?”

Bricks makes a concerned noise before answering, “Fifteen seconds before you can open the door.”

So, if she messes this up, she’ll be dead for about 11 seconds before they’d be able to retrieve her body. Wonderful. “Ghost, I need all of the codes at once, in two packets, with the keys in this order. And then the next set of keys as soon as you have them. There’s a half second delay, so I need them as soon as they’re generated.”

Laswell sounds genuinely concerned when she asks, “Is that going to give you enough time?”

Naya runs the numbers again, and realizes that she’s fallen into a very peculiar state of calm. “I should have one point three seconds plus a little wiggle room per key. That’s plenty, for the first part. And if the first part doesn’t work… I don’t really have to worry about the rest of it.”

Captain Price’s voice is stern as he gives commands. “Gaz, tell Nikto to power up the cutter, in case we need to get you through the door. Bambi’s going to override the droids.” He’s quiet a moment, then, “Ghost says she can do it, and from what I’m seeing up here, I’m inclined to believe him. But the resets she did mean the door is going to lock down before she can open it again.”

Ghost says, “Ready to send the next round of codes on your mark, Bambi.”

Naya squeezes her eyes shut and sets her bots to be ready to receive and engage the keys. She takes one long, deep breath. Another. Lets all the air out in a huff. “Mark.”

As soon as the packet comes through, her interface is a flurry of executables and intrusion alerts. Her bots are fast, but the activation of the keys isn’t instantaneous. Just as she was warned, as soon as the first set of keys starts running, all of the droids set themselves to Active:Seeking, Objective:Eliminate. But almost as fast, they’re all placed back into Standby:HoldPosition in a wave that flows through the entire wing.

"That's all of em," Ghost sighs, four seconds later. Something creaks, probably the chair he's sunk himself into. "Fuckin' 'ell, she got all of em. Don' think she even needed me to provide the third set of keys. If she don't run screamin', I want her runnin' the damn-" Naya's heart spikes as an alert pings her interface. Her voice squeaks when she calls, "Ghost? There's two units coming online. They’re not listening to me, I can't stop them. What do I do?" Before she can hear his response, the power to the hall cuts out. Naya holds in a scream as everything goes dark and then red with emergency lighting. Captain Price's voice is overtaken by static, and then she loses the tower completely. Somewhere, in the darkness, she can just barely hear the whine of attack units Riley and Merlin priming their weapons.

—

“Goddamn it,” Kate snarls. “It’s the 9s. They’re jamming the signal.”

Bricks jumps up from her chair. “Bambi’s in there without access to the system?”

Ghost makes a disagreeing noise. “They’re active because she’s not an authorized user. They’re jamming anything that isn’t local to the wing, I should be able to patch- Johnny!”

“We cuttin, LT?”

“Forward these packets to Bambi, nothing else.”

“Aye - fuck!”

—

A message request from SoapJM flashes on Naya’s screen just as she finds out that these new droids can move at thirteen meters per second. When she opens it, she gets an immediate key packet. Every bot she has gets set to receive, but the keys are expired, so she has to wait an agonizing three-quarters of a second before the next ones come through.

Just as a next packet arrives, a blue beam of light slices across the end of the hall, then a second from the opposite side. She barely has time to match the keys to the hardware addresses before two furry muzzles round the corner, guns glowing from their shoulders. Naya has only a moment to recognize the controversial K-9 battle units before they both take a step in her direction. And freeze.

It’s an harrowing second of silence, two, three. She doesn’t even breathe.

With a whir, mounted turrets power down and withdraw back behind artificial fur. The K-9s change their status to Standby:AcceptNewObjective with identical head tilts. The one tagged Riley wags its tail and trots forward, tongue lolling like the average bio-dog. Merlin approaches with a little more hesitant body language, though Naya can see the way it’s integrating her tags into the authorized user list in its software.

She flinches away from the door at the high pitched whine of a plasma cutter on metal. Hastily, she sends an ‘All Clear’ message back to Soap, just as the lights come back on.

Captain Price’s voice resolves with renewed connection to the control tower. “-both of your necks. What were you thinking?”

“Oh, suddenly we’re all about vetting assets?” Bricks laughs. “You recruited me with a bag over my head.”

“You were an establlished CIA asset,” Laswell grits out.

Bricks scoffs. “And Sparrow and Nikto?”

“We wasn’t wrong,” Ghost interjects. “Bad intel aside-”

“No intel!” Captain Price half-shouts.

“-she took the facility from me twice and disarmed 15 droids in less than 4 seconds without any formal training. She’s good.”

“None of that matters if she’s dead,” Laswell snaps.

Naya clears her throat. “I’m not dead.”

“Bambi!” Bricks sound downright cheerful. “Doors are almost done cycling, you’re almost out. Hold tight.”

Petting a hand over the soft fur of Riley’s head, Naya feels for the lumps of it’s internal machinery. Of course, she can’t find it - K-9s were built for stealth and surveillance, to blend in with any other dog. These ones are modified for combat, but they’re still adorable.

It’s almost hard to believe that they were going to shoot her, less than ten seconds ago.

The blast door’s status changes to ready, an almost cheerful ping in her interface. She barely gives it a thought before initiating another lockdown sequence, then queuing two more behind it.

Ghost notices. “Bambi?”

“I need a minute, please,” she answers, then cuts the camera feeds.

Merlin eventually comes and sits just out of reach, tail thumping once against the ground. Naya pulls up it’s configuration settings and examines the personality controls. Calm, but friendly, alert, reserved, breaks “arbitrary dog rules” at a rate of 6%. Riley: open and playful, eager to please, breaks rules 17% of the time. Both locked to 141 facility 4th floor, west wing training center.

Do Not Remove.

—

When the blast doors open, Naya is standning a few feet back. Riley and Merlin lay on either side of her feet, solidly in a sleep cycle. Her fingers dig into the opposite sleeves of her cardigan as Soap and Gaz come into view, along with a fully functional Mace, and a fully helmeted cyborg she can only assume is Nikto.

“Steamin’ Jesus, bon,” Soap says taking a step forward. “Ye gave us a wee fright!”

“If you get within three feet of me,” Bambi says, pausing for a deep breath. “I’ll shoot you.”

Three set of eyebrows shoot up. Nikto’s faceplate remains unchanged. Gaz looks at the others before answering, “We’re sorry we frightened you, love. We didn’t know Bricks hadn’t-”

Naya interrupts him. “I would like to leave now.”

“Well…” Soap says with a shrug. “We can take ye back t’ Laswell?”

“That’s fine. Riley, Merlin, up.”

When the dogs “wake” and stand, Mace says, “They can’t pass that door.”

She takes a step forward, flanked by the dogs. “I think you’ll find that they can.”

“Nae, Bambi,” Soap says gently. “They’re hard coded-”

Riley’s turret activates as soon as Soap takes a step toward her. Naya takes another deep breath, and repeats, “If you get within three feet of me, I will shoot you.”

“Well you certainly won’t be doing that with the dogs,” Gaz scoffs. “We won’t touch you, but you really should come with… us.”

The dogs cross the threshold of the door with her, and the plasma cannon in Merlin primes with a dangerous, high pitched sound. When the stunned soldiers don’t step back, the dog’s chest panel opens with a blue glow.

“Three feet,” Mace says, taking two big steps back, hands in the air near his head. “You got it.”

“Yes, sir,” Gaz says aloud, taking his own step backwards. “The doors are open and we have eyes on her. She’s got the 9s with her. Well sir, it seems she’s taken a liking to them.” He pauses. “Soap did tell her that, but apparently she doesn’t really care.”

Naya rolls her eyes and enables the cameras in the hall. “So you’re all allergic to just saying things outright?” The muted audio feed is a flurry of activity, but she just gestures down the hall. “After you.”

—

In the end, everyone ends up in a second floor conference room. Naya stands by the far wall, Riley and Merlin a deadly guard panting in front of her feet. The other eight sit and stand at the other end, fidgeting and clearly searching for a way to break the silence.

Bricks tries first, “Sweetheart-”

“Give me a reason not to overload the filtration systems,” Naya interrupts.

That makes everyone flinch. Laswell clears her throat. “What-”

“Because,” Naya nearly shouts, “I could shoot at least two of you, but then you really would kill me this time. But if I backflow and spark the air, that would kill all of you.”

“Kill ye, as well,” Soap points out.

“I thought I was going to die about five times in the last hour,” Naya says, much calmer than she feels. “Mention me dying again and I’ll fry your interface.”

“Ghost just aboot did tha’ already,” Soap mutters.

“Need a hacker for an op. Thought you was a professional,” Ghost finally admits after a moment of tense fidgeting. “Way you ate through the files I laid out, blew through a 256 like tissue paper. Couldn’t find you after… Figured you knew what you was doin’. And y’do.”

Naya’s eye twitches. “And you couldn’t send me an email? Set up an interview?”

“I did try,” Bricks points out. “But you said all the keywords that tend to get a person fast tracked to a very classified meeting.”

“A very classified meeting where you sell me, twice and then hunt me for sport?”

“Everything sounds bad when you say it like that,” the other woman chuckles.

The air circulator over the door falls silent. In the ensuing silence, Naya can hear the servos whir in Bricks’s arm.

“Clearly, we made mistakes,” Laswell admits. “So. What do you want?”

“I want to not have been sold and hunted for sport. Barring that, I would like a time machine. I’d love to know what you consider an equitable offer, Watcher One.”

“What the fuck did you do?” Mace hisses at Captain Price.

“Apparently we made a tactical error,” the man grumbles. “And then a series of compounding tactical errors.”

“You did not ask Nikolai,” Nikto says, matter of fact. It’s the first Naya’s heard his voice, human and heavily accented. “Or Sparrow. She will not be pleased, I think.”

“None of Nik’s contacts c’n do what Bambi c’n do,” Ghost counters.

“Bambi can kill every person in this room,” Naya says, voice flat, emphasized by the glow of two plasma cannons. “Bambi can turn this whole facility into a goddamn crater. Bambi can post videos of the human experimentation to the holonet.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Gaz says. “What human experimentation? No one’s experimenting on anybody.”

“I saw the videos!” Naya yells. “People in cages, people on operating tables, awake, screaming, crying. I saw people eating raw meat, off of leg bones, eating people!”

“Oh fuck,” Ghost says, voice wavering. His face is stricken when she looks at him. “Bambi, that weren’t for you to see, fuck, ‘ow deep did you fuckin’ go? I didn’t even-”

“That’s the job,” Bricks cuts in. “That’s why we needed a hacker, because we’re trying to stop that from happening, and we can’t get through their walls or exploit their vulnerabilities.”

“Oh, that’s just the “bad guys”?” Naya scoffs. “Okay. Why was Gaz covered in blood when I arrived?”

“Blood!” Soap yelps. “That was hydraulic fluid an’ oil! One of the bikes is actin’ up, and our mechanic isnae aroond!”

“It was in his teeth!”

“He’s bonnier than he is graceful!”

“Oh, fuck you, Tav!”

“You said you couldn’t promise to bring me back alive! Ghost called it a hunt!”

“Ah was jokin’!” Soap runs and hand over his mohawk. “We’re a right frightful lot, and sometimes we sneak aboot, but mostly people just cannae always hear us coming! Ye’d think we could catch one wee little civilian withoot incident!”

“You’re the one who was running through a secure facility,” Captain Price points out.

A plasma cannon discharges into the wall above his head. The whole room freezes for a beat before Naya hisses. “If you ever even think of implying-”

“Any information you find about Makarov and his dealings, you can make public,” Bricks interrupts. “Who, what, when, where, how. All of it can go into your archive.”

Laswell scowls. “Now hold on-”

Bricks talks over her. “We don’t have anything you want that you can’t just outright take, Bambi. That’s what you came here for. Information, and to get people out of cages.”

Nikto looks at Bricks and snorts before muttering something under his breath in Russian. Mace crosses his arms, leaning back in his seat and doing a much better job of keeping his thoughts off of his face than Soap and Gaz. The sergeants look horrified. Ghost looks about ready to throw up. Captain Price and Laswell share a sour, resigned look.

“You’ll have our backing,” Laswell sighs. “You’ll need something a bit more secure than the GaiaPet servers, or you’ll be tracked. But yes. You can disseminate the information.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Naya considers her options, arms around herself. The air circulator kicks back on.    Eventually, she says, “I want an advance. Thirty thousand credits, plus however much Price paid.”

“Done,” Bricks answers.

“And… I want seventy five credits an hour.”

“…Fine,” Laswell agrees.

“And I keep the dogs.”

Captain Price makes a disagreeing noise. “Those are government property.”

“Either I keep them, or I set them to self destruct and detonate every android on the fourth floor.”

Nikto says, “You are a bloodthirsty hind.”

“I’m really not,” Naya says. “But I’ve had a very long day. Do we have a deal?”

“Don’t think we have much of a choice,” Captain Price concedes.

Just then, the door to the conference room opens, and a brunette peeks her head in. Morgan Voss, “Sparrow,” as her ID tags her, nods at Laswell. “Just got in, didn’t know there was a meeting scheduled. What did I miss?” Her eyes drift up. “What the hell happened to the wall?”

[rowanthestrange]

I think it’s so good for the Master subtext that Conrad wasn’t entirely wrong about UNIT. That yes obviously all the shit he did was wrong and deranged, but that we also see UNIT: employing children, accessing insane levels of information, using an AiBot of unknown origin, microchipping their employees, and Kate literally willing to brutally murder a guy to make a point.

like i know rusty’s the guy who built up the noble time lords for 4 series just to have the Absolute Banger of a moment where wilf says “the time lords are coming back isn’t that good?” and Ten immediately grab his fucking gun. but still nice to see we’re still in that framework.

[distinguisheddwarffriend]

Today on Hobbit-Headcanons:

What would the company of Thorin Oakenshield enjoy about the Modern World?

One of my WIP transports the company to our world shortly before they're supposed to reach Rivendell, and into the apartment of my OFC.

So here is a list of things I think each character would enjoy about the Modern World:

Thorin: Google Maps, Siri (will totally argue with her like she's real), Shows like The Crown, Game of Thrones, but also Bridgerton, Democracy (yes you read that correctly), Rock music

Fili: Birth Control (can finally fuck around without risking the royal lineage), Superhero Movies (has an huuuhe crush on Black Widow), Tinder, Martial Arts, Feminism, Henley shirts to show of his muscles, bars & clubs

Kili : TikTok (LOVES cat videos, Top Content Creator about Archery, 'deep thoughts'/rambling, 'prank my uncle/brother with me', does EVERY challenge, accidental thirsttraps & flustered by the comments), Parkour, Man Buns & (Hipster-) Fashion, LGBTQ+ - Community , karaoke bars, team sports, the zoo

Bofur: modern music (especially pop songs with dirty lyrics), Tumblr (is no. 1 shit-poster), music festivals, arts&crafts blogs, Christopher's Streets Day

Bifur: Google Translate, Modern Medicine, Pain Medication, ASL, RomComs (trust me), helps out in an animal shelter, country music

Bombur: Cooking Shows (has his own Online Show), Kindergarten (he had so many children, the reprieve would be SO appreciated), international foodstuff to try

Dwalin: Guns, MMF, store-bought cookies, sport shows (AGRESSIVE fan for whatever team he randomly picks), Barbecues

Balin: Twitter (the political possibilities!!!), mental healthcare (he's sending the whole line of Durin he had no time for their shit), Spa Days, public schools, classical music

Oin: Modern Medicine (Duh), hearing aids, physiotherapy

Gloin: bitcoins, the stock market, Facebook (posts daily about Gimli)

Dori: hair tutorials, fashion shows, tracking devices (has totally microchipped a drunk Nori at some point)

Nori: hacking, movies with the lovable rogue as the MC (Pirates of the Carribbean, Deadpool etc.), spy movies (duh), the mafia (yes, he becomes a boss within weeks)

Ori: Wikipedia, public libraries, tutorials for EVERYTHING (knitting, cutting your own hair, how to talk to royalty, fancy war cries, you name it), fantasy novels, public schools

Bilbo: Food blogs, the "ignore call"-button, Instagram, university (will mayor in at least three subjects), museums

Gandalf: the Internet as a whole, email/ instant messaging, yard sales, modern weed, museums (has a knack for finding cursed items), adventure movies (after watching Indiana Jones he seriously debated obtaining a whip)

[ballinandcantgetup452]

Terry McGinnis is the only person who can be the next Batman

I don't normally make hard statements like this. I typically hate it when somebody makes hard statements like this, but hear me out.

No prior Batfamily character can be the next Batman. I'll keep it brief and explain why going person by person (obvious headcanon warning)

Dick is definitely a likelier candidate than most. He can cover for Batman if the need ever arises. But I believe that Dick Grayson hates the idea of actually becoming Batman. He can play the role. He was a circus kid and he's got the heart of a theatre kid, he can play the role all day long. But he was the first. He arguably saw Batman at his natural worst. He and Alfred, anyways. I'm going to drop some OP lore to further elaborate. My dad's a pastor. He's a really good pastor. He's a good man, and he may be an ass, but that's because I know him as "dad". For YEARS, people would tell me that I was just like him, and for a long time, I wanted to be him. It's what boys do when their dad is at the very least decent. But, as I got older, I saw the tapestry and saw the flaws. I saw how tired being a pastor made my dad. I saw how much of his life being a pastor was taking up. I would never tell my dad to stop being a pastor, because that's him. That's his calling; and if he was anything else, then he'd be a soulless, husk of a man. But I've seen what being a pastor does to you, and I don't want that. I want to be better than that. Dick Grayson has seen what The Batman does to a person. He's seen Bruce do things that Dick would never do, and the idea of being the next Batman is something that got soured to him. And it definitely doesn't help that that's what a lot of people used to do to him. So yeah, traumadumping aside, Dick would never STAY Batman. Even if he doesn't know it.

I honestly think it's best if Jason stays as far away from the idea of The Batman legacy as possible. Jason's at the best possible spot right now. He's taken his trauma and has turned it into his empowerment. I don't care what Three Jokers says, that's dumb. Joker's an ass, we don't listen to him. ESPECIALLY if he's swapped out his gun for a crowbar and has a no-kill rule, Jason could be Red Hood until he's 90 and it'll be narratively fulfilling.

Tim is one I see get thrown around a lot. However, I believe that The Batman would absolutely DESTROY him and he would be too stubborn to acknowledge it. One common denominator I believe every Robin goes through is the realization of "oh wow, Bruce is not okay" and trying to be better than that. While I do believe that Tim went through that, I also believe that Tim is arrogant enough to believe that he's better than that. Even putting all of the "alternate Tim evil gun toting Batman" futures aside, I think that Tim is obsessive enough as is. Giving him the mantle of The Batman would cause him to obsess even more to be like Bruce thus causing ANOTHER evil gun toting alternate future Batman. Tim is best as Red Robin. An independent agent that can go well with ANY Batman to keep them on the straight and narrow.

Babs is best as Oracle. No I will not be elaborating. If you want her to be Batgirl, then say that she can Batgirl every once and a while but doing it stresses out the microchip in her back.

Steph is best as Spoiler. She backdoored her way into the Batfamily by being competent enough as Spoiler. I honestly wish that she could be like Batwoman and establish herself as Batfamily adjacent and have her own supporting cast and such. If she does have one, then I'm sorry. Cassie is kind of a blind spot.

Sadly, Cassandra Cain, Duke Thomas, and Harper Row are even bigger blindspots of mine. From what I've seen of them, I can't think of any reasons they couldn't be Batman. However, I can't think of any reasons why they especially should be Batman.

Damian Wayne is my personal vote for becoming the next Batman out of everybody pre established. Not for any birthright reasons. That's dumb. Admittedly, DCeased really turned me on to the idea. I think that the idea of Damian being the child raised by Bruce that turned out the best is a really good idea. In retrospect, I guess the idea of birthright is technically why I'm choosing Damian. BUT, understand I'm doing it with the caveat that Damian is fully developed as a person and as a character. That is the END of his arc.

HOWEVER, Terry McGinnis takes the cake for me in terms of Batman successor. This is going off of the idea that he isn't a Bruce clone. I don't know how canon we've made that, but canon is relative, so I'm saying it's not for the sake of argument. Terry is an outsider. He has no baggage with the idea of The Batman. He's just a guy working through some grief with The Batman being used as a vehicle. He doesn't know any of the Bruceisms. He never had to explain to his friends that his dad is crazy and he's sorry he made contingency plans for all of them. Terry McGinnis gets to make Batman his own. And, luckily, he gets to have a fully realized Bruce to guide him along the way. I also think that it opens so much more story potential. It's essentially a soft reboot for The Batman as an idea. Everybody else can be out doing their own thing. But I think this works in the same way that Miguel O'Hara can ALSO be Spider-Man. I believe that every intimate Batfamily member would follow Bruce's footsteps by making Batman an UNHEALTHY obsession. Terry would be different, he'd lead the pack by turning The Batman into something HEALTHY.

Or maybe I don't read enough comics and all my interpretations are super surface level. Let me know. I'm willing to be wrong.

[narawryana]

Narayana/Brangta's (my oc) personal opinions of each Lis!!

{note : all of these are platonic}

English is not my first language, so apologies for any grammatical error ><

♛┈⛧┈•༶Lumiere༶•┈⛧┈♛

The moonlight shone through the cracks of the workshop's door, reflecting on the various tools and equipments laying around the room.

The mechanic wiped his(her) forehead, using her(his) hand as a fan.

Working as a weapon mechanic for mainly the deepspace hunters can be quite a taxing job.. Not only is their weapon brittle, it's also equipped with so many tiny compartments he(she) might as well be fixing a microchip. It truly never ends to piss her(him) off. Sadly, their weapons only get more complicated each day. There's this big thing... ray gun, was it? Dropped onto his(her) doorstep. Rude, really, but what can she(he) do? sigh, he(she) almost missed the simplicity of fixing a good old taurus 44 mag magnum...

—creaakk...

"Hm? Ah, I'm about to close..."

...oh well, it's not like there's any harm in a little midnight work. Probably has their gun jammed or their blade crooked or something.

"How can I help you?"

"..."

Now that she(he) looks at the stranger properly, they don't have those flimsy deepspace hunter's uniform. They look more like.. a performer? They got the looks for it, it seems. Fancy clothes too. How did they fight in that—?

—clank! clank! clank! clank! clank!

"..ah?"

...oh, those blades are in a very, very, poor condition.

At least most of them are half-melted (Wanderers have a temperature of 1000°C now? He(she) has to implement some upgrades on the hunter's weapon again..), one of the blade's handle is missing, of course— most are crooked.

Huh.. seems like most of these poor babies will need a re-melting. She(he)'s only one person, though, and he(she) wasn't finished with the wand yet. Maybe this'll take like.. 4, 5 months-?

"I need them done by next month. "

....huh????

"...okay. For whom will these be returned to?"

"Lumiere. "

—-

Like always, all he has been doing ever since returning to Linkon is doing whatever it is pipsqueak wants to do. Sometimes they just go in a circle, sometimes they play kitty cards, most of the time they're in the arcade, and today she wants to eat his (former) adjutant's meatbun.

The bell on top of the door rings on impact, sending a cheery, almost serene atmosphere paired with the warm spring breeze and the scent of braised meat.

"Āyí!"

He chuckles at the nickname his pipsqueak always uses on the old man, amused by her ability to bring light with just a nickname with a sing-song voice.

"Can I have a—"

He knows it so well at this point. "Two green chili meatbuns with chili oil on the side? Oh, and make that suuuper juicy! Oh, and some chicken meatbun to-go!", like clockwork.

He sat down once the two rotund buns is ready, ushering his pipsqueak to sit down as well.

"How's life, Narayana?"

"Ugh, there's this guy Lumiere—"

COUGH! COUGH! COUGH!

"Whoops. Was it too dry? Here's some water. Anyways—"

"Why'd he have to ask for those blades of his to be done in a month? How does one damage their weapons so severely anyways?!"

*+:｡.｡ Dr. Li ｡.｡:+*

She(he)'s been having sudden heartbeat spikes, lately.

Lots of motor problems too. Bending down sometimes send his(her) muscles taut, it always stings a lot and too long whenever that happens. She(he) tried drinking those milk for people with osteoporosis, but it doesn't seem like it's working? Is it possible he(she)'s already showing signs of deteriorating at the ripe age of 36?

"You should go see a doctor!" The madam (Colonel Caleb's wife(?)) oft suggested.

"Yeah.. I don't know. Seems a bit too complicated. I'd have to arrange appointments and it's hard to do that with you deepspace hunters breaking your guns.."

The madam looks a bit guilty, thankfully she doesn't seem offended.

"You just have to do a check-up! There's this great doctor I know..."

For like... 15 minutes straight (might be more, might be less, truthfully), the madam rambled about this doctor. Apparently, he's a cardiologist who's also her childhood bestfriend alongside Boss (Caleb). He's her primary physician and is in charge of checking her up every month to make sure her heart is still functioning properly.

Seems like a great guy, this doctor is. Being a well-accomplished at such a young age. His parents ought to be proud.

"Here, I'll arrange an appointment for you.."

"—wait, ma'am—"

—-

It's not so bad. The doctor kept it professional, gave helpful insights, and gave him(her) prescriptions. Really nice with it, too. He tried to joke sometimes. She(he)'s not really sure how to reply, since most of the time it flew over his head.

"Thank you, Dr. Li. Oh— the madam said she couldn't come and give you your weekly sweets, so she had me make it instead. "

"...the madam?"

"Oh, y'know, your childhood friend?"

The recognition seems to click with him.

"Here you go. "

He looks like he wants to physically recoil, but can't.

"...is this.. Carrot cake?"

"..yeah?"

"..."

"... Boss told me you like carrot cakes. "

"Who's this 'Boss'?"

"Colonel Caleb?"

He sighs like he has been deeply perturbed.

"Alright, you're dismissed now. "

"..okay. "

"Is he deathly allergic to carrots? Did I just trigger some trauma of his? What's going on???"

❃.✮:▹ Rafayel ◃:✮.❃

The beach is not particularly nice in this time of year. Maybe it's because it's a holiday, but there's more trash laying around and the beach guards are too overwhelmed to cover the whole area.

The sunset does look nice from here, though. A soft hint of purple mixed together with hues of pink and orange. And.. hm?

Is that a person walking barefoot on the sand? He looks quite deep in thought... is he not worried about crabs pinching on his legs and other types of sand-dwellers lurking beneath?

Eh, whatever. Maybe he's already used to it. That's nice, at least.

—-

"Where are you going again, ma'am?"

The madam only looks back with a smile, putting her hair up in a ponytail.

"To bodyguard an artist. "

"Ah, can you tell me which one? I'm kinda lost.."

The madam pulls out her phone and points at a particularly pouty looking man with a rather childish expression.

...didn't I see this guy before?

"He's really whiny, so he's gonna rant for at least 2 hours if I'm a minute late, so bye!"

...huh.

"...i guess painters are well-known for being strange?"

ﾟ+*:;;:* 2nd Boss *:;;:*+ﾟ

Oftentimes, HA paycheck isn't enough to pay his(her) bills and her(his) rent, so he(she) has to look for alternative jobs.

Being a meatbun shop owner is one thing, but people doesn't exactly crave a meatbun from a traditional looking place nowadays.

Turning to illegal jobs feels as easy as moving her(his) limbs. Not like he(she) hasn't done it before, but at the same time it feels quite strange to dabble in it.

Thankfully, this boss she(he)'s working under is quite nice. Generous with his pays, too. He(she) should probably send him some blueprints he might like.

Most of the time he just asked for supplies. Gunpowder, pistol compartments, etc. He never asked for more so far. He's quite grateful. Keeping up with the HA's demands is hard already...

Speaking of which, here comes his sons.

"Mornin'!"

"It's afternoon, idiot. "

"Good day to you too. "

As per usual, they get into business. Some of their daggers are crooked and their weapons are easily jammed. Nothing she(he) couldn't fix. Looks like today's gonna be a slow day—

"Dad also asked for 500 4×4 boxes of gunpowder, by the way. "

"...what the fuck. "

"He goes overboard sometimes... but he pays me well, I suppose?"

»»—⍟—««Boss»»—⍟—««

He(she) feels bad for the kid.

In his early 20s, a good student, a good family, a bright future and an accomplished kid... only to have all of it snuffed out by Ever.

She(he) stands over his bed, sometimes, mourning for the young lad's future. Unlike him, his(her) future is bleak. There was no hope from the start, and there's no hope now.

...she(he) supposed all he(she) could do was help him find his footing. He still looks tense and uneasy, and he looks at that prosthetic like it's a parasite. He doesn't eat, too. She(he) has to do something about that, at least.

—-

"Boss?"

"I'm busy, Adjutant. "

"I already did your work, though. "

"..."

The kid finally came over, though he still looks uneasy. "Speak now. " "I noticed you weren't eating. " "Who'd eat a cardboard box dressed as MRE?" "...true. "

He(she) gestured to the stove before them, and the crate of fishes below. There's a scent of grilled meat, probably from the MRE and the fishes combined.

"What's this?" "Lunch. " "I don't need—" "I'll crush your prosthetics, Boss. " "..."

That seems to coax him over, at least. She(he) dished out a plate, scooping out a few spoonfuls.

"Eat. "

Like someone who just got scolded, the young lad finally sat down and ate properly, eating the food given to him. There's a spark of recognition in his eyes, something that makes him remember his time on land out of Ever's clutches.

"..what is this?" "Eh, just some grilled fish with MRE and soy sauce. "

The man sat in contemplation, like he wants to say something but.. couldn't.

"You wanna know how to make it?" "..yes. "

—-

"This is my wife. "

Colonel Caleb pointed at a picture of a girl hugging him close, a bright smile on her face.

That's.. sad. He's already married before being brought here. He must've missed her dearly. Not only is he unable to contact his wife, she's probably unaware if he's alive or not. He probably just got married before being abducted, too..

"That's nice, Boss. " "...i miss her so much. " "I understand, Boss. " "I've kept cameras on her house. " "...pardon?"

—-

The girl standing before his(her) counter cheerfully asking for a green chili meatbun now looks awfully similar to the girl in that photo...

"Okay, would you like any condiments, ma'am?" "Oh, please don't call me ma'am, I'm only 24.."

She(he) supposed that makes sense. Being called sir for the first time does make him(her) recoil for a moment. No one with two heads in their age likes being called formally, she(he) supposed.

"It's out of formality. You're my Boss's wife. "

"...who?"

"My Boss. Colonel Caleb?"

"Who told you this?"

"Himself..?"

"...????"

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

I'm over here stroking my dih I got lotion on my dih rn I'm stroking my shi. I'm horny asf man I'm a freak man.

[atiny-for-life]

I apologize if you’ve answered this before, but is there a reason why the Kingdom performances are not included in the Ateez lore masterlist? Thank you!

No one's ever asked before, actually! I'm happy to explain:

There are multiple things making me hesitant about this right now. For one, I wouldn't expect them to assume all Atinys will watch these performances and look to them for lore clues since most only go by official MVs and the albums.

To me, these performances have always had the energy of getting people hyped and excited about their lore themes of revolution, pro expression, anti oppression and their team was likely working on putting together The World series at the time so it made sense to trial run some of their ideas here.

I actually tried to fit these performances in before but I could never find a place where it'd make 100% sense - they seem to be a blend of real lore and stuff just meant for Kingdom.

To start with: in "The Awakening of Summer" (the Rhythm Ta performance), Hongjoong breaks the Cromer out of a glass case at the end. Based on that, timeline wise, this would've had to happen in the Z-World before Ateez ever got there because the only time they lost the Cromer after was when Yeosang smashed it and the recovery of that was in the A-World and we know how that went down (Museum heist gone wrong) and it was nothing like this.

However, with it happening before Ateez's arrival, I wouldn't expect to see them distributing flyers (with the anarchy logo from Guerrilla) and for Hongjoong to hold a speech at a podium because something of that scale didn't really happen before they hijacked the Strictland transmission system in Guerrilla.

From everything we know, the Black Pirates were only doing street performances before their movement picked up speed after Ateez got there. They didn't have the manpower and means to pull off large scale heists prior to that; they were operating out of an abandoned warehouse and they didn't really start getting allies until Left Eye set up the Black Link where people could reach out after waking up.

And on top of that, it was A-World Yeosang's tech know-how that got them spy gear and everything so I kinda don't see them breaking into a Strictland government facility full of armed guards in their early days.

But, if I did have to fit it in somehow, I'd put it pre-Ateez's arrival as the event in which the Black Pirates first got hold of the Cromer:

The Awakening of Summer

They caught wind the government found the Cromer and know of its unique abilities like teleportation, entering the dreamscape - powers which could help them free their world

So they get all the guns they can find, hop into their bulletproof van (like in Guerrilla) and take off

They shoot down the guards stationed at the facility but then also somehow manage to bring them back to life with the magical masks they own (?) or perhaps they used rubber bullets or stun guns to merely temporarily knock them out

Regardless, the masks presumably contain breaker technology which separates the guards' microchip link connection, allowing them to now feel and think freely

However, Ateez aren't dumb so they keep the guards tied up for now to prevent them from running off and ratting them out in case their loyalties go beyond the chips‘ control

While some of the members are looking for the Cromer, San straps a bomb to a security guard's chest and ties him to his desk chair

During the heist, Yunho and Wooyoung find their Wanted Posters and a bunch of newspapers

The front page headline of the newspaper reads: "The Central Government defined The Black Pirates as a terrorist"

San then goes off on his own and climbs up a rope to an emergency button which opens the massive double doors to a high security section of the building (the one where the Cromer is kept)

This allows the rest of Ateez to waltz right in with Hongjoong immediately making a beeline for the confiscated art section

In the official lore, art like this is stored in the Android Guardian bunker, the converted museum on Guardian Island, but I guess they must've used another type of building before - maybe they changed it after the Black Pirates broke into this place (I digress)

Either way, the former guards are now freely raiding the place, making me assume they've switched sides after discovering what art is and that the government's intentionally been withholding it from all of them

While Hongjoong's raiding the place with the guards they captured in the beginning, Wooyoung, Jongho, and Yeosang are handling the guards stationed in this section

During the following dance break, Hongjoong walks off right as something interferes with everyone's ear pieces (I assume they were using them to communicate while they were separated)

Immediately after, Hongjoong begins his speech, indicating he hijacked all frequencies, including the one they'd been using, so he could broadcast his message to the entire city:

"People, open your eyes! For our lives! Keep your mind! Now is the time for freedom, if we try! Listen, look, write! Open your eyes!"

(Note the slogan "Hearts Awakened" on the podium and the small-scale version of the blimp we saw in Guerrilla above Hongjoong - these, plus the van, are part of the reason why I think this was a test run for The World series and the Guerrilla mv in particular)

After the speech, they head out and Jongho throws up a handful of flyers (which, again, look exactly like the ones from Guerrilla)

During Jongho's high note, Hongjoong wanders off again to put on the Black Pirates' getup (signature fedora) and break the glass case in which the Cromer is kept)

(The clothes are likely to ensure we as the audience know this isn't A-World's Ateez but the Black Pirates)

Cromer in hand, he smiles and walks off. Mission complete. The performance ends.

Ode to Joy

Now, regarding Ode to Joy, this one feels like it's more so meant to connect some dots between the former two series and the (then) upcoming one.

To start with, they filled in the small gap between the Fever and Treasure series by exploring how they - Ateez and the Black Pirates - managed to break out Yeosang after he was captured by the Android Guardians at the end of Deja Vu/the Fever Pt. 3 Diary Entries since the only canon thing we know about this event is from Say My Name and this one section from the Fever Epilogue Diary Entries:

"Somebody please get me out of here! Please!" The light that I hadn't seen for ages slid in when the door opened. Men in black fedoras were fighting with Android Guardians behind the opened door. "Hey, Yeosang." I heard a warm voice calling my name. A guy came near my glass room and pulled down his black mask. Tears of relief burst out of my eyes. It was Seonghwa.

We open on Yeosang in the glass prison during the Full Moon (meaning reality jumping is possible with the Cromer right now so Ateez can switch over from A to Z World)

One of the Android Guardians walks in and the camera moves to the moon where we get to see the Cromer in action (sand disappearing from the bottom, indicating it's flowing up like we saw in the Diary Film)

Seonghwa, holding the Cromer, then appears in Yeosang's cell (small deviation from Yeosang's diary entry but I'll take it)

Yeosang and Seonghwa then, together, turn the Cromer once more, causing Yunho to appear who immediately starts fighting the Android Guardian

After distracting the Guardian for long enough, Yunho pushes him away and runs off, leaving the Guardian to turn around and realize the cell is empty - Yeosang escaped

Following this, we move right on to Answer and that one iconic meeting where Ateez and the Black Pirates got together and formally established an alliance - they're even on the same sides

We then see Hongjoong walking along during his verse while, behind him, people in different get ups are throwing each other guns, etc., indicating the spread of the movement we later read about in the Movement Diary Version: The Revolution

And then we get to the part where I first went "eh?" which made me realize I can't see this performance being fully canon:

San, during his verse, tries to run off but Wooyoung grabs him, clutching him by the jacket, to stop him from leaving

But it doesn't work - San's made up his mind

He holds eye contact, yes, indicating they would've exchanged words if this weren't a song (likely something along the lines of "Stop, don't do this, it's suicide!" and "I have to, I'm sorry.") before he removes Wooyoung's hand from his jacket and runs off-

- and literally hurls himself at an Android Guardian - presumably sacrificing himself by knocking them both off this ledge for the sake of protecting the others

Then we've got Jongho fighting an Android Guardian while Hongjoong is blindfolded and gets captured by four more

Jongho wins his fight (potentially) and makes his way to the grand staircase where he receives a crown on the way up, only to hold it out and toss it aside once he makes it to the top

However, I'm quite certain this isn't related to the lore at all but rather the concept of the show which wants all groups to compete for the crown and see each other as opponents

Ateez refused to align with this idea - they wanted to make their time on the show about friendship and collaboration, having fun, which is very obvious when you watch their performance of The Real

But to really drive this point home:

The song "An die Freude" ("To: Joy" as in it's addressed to Joy), which is being sung here by a guest performer, is actually a famous German poem by Friedrich Schiller

It’s an ode all about an idealistic society in which everyone is connected through joy and friendship

While this is being sung, Ateez, the Black Pirates, and the Android Guardians all dance together - it’s a truly idealistic but also unrealistic outcome to this battle, but it’s also one that wouldn't have required the loss of life we just saw with San throwing himself off a ledge and Hongjoong getting surrounded and captured

The implication here is clear: in a world where everyone treats each other kindly, where there is no oppression, a peaceful coexistence for all is 100% possible

But in a world of injustice and oppression, the loss of life, the deaths of some of the kindest people, are inevitable because the ones who are oppressed will always rise up to free themselves of their shackles, even when they know some of them will have to die to make it happen

In conclusion: I think the performances do hold lore beats but they're not fully canon and the lore gaps they fill in are small enough that I always considered it easier to toss them entirely than to potentially confuse anyone by telling them to disregard some aspects and embrace others. I hope this helps!