[b]The Anthrozine:[/b] [b]JuntaSThompson[/b]: York did you know about this? [b]LatheOfHeathens[/b]: DM me. [b]IAmWhatIAm[/b]: Do not think ill of me that I could not trust more freely. [b]PerfidiouslyFickle[/b]: Pope? [b]IAmWhatIAm[/b]:[b] [/b]That sounded more ominous than I intended it to. [b]IAmWhatIAm[/b]: I do not want York to be put in a worse position than I already have. I received a very sensitive leak, and I gave him instructions on what he could do with it. [b]IAmWhatIAm[/b]: I apologize that most of you were kept out of the loop, but I promise you that I mean no offense by it. It was simply important that the fewest people were exposed to this, the better. [b]IAmWhatIAm[/b]: If you weren’t chosen, all it means is it wasn’t worth the danger this information would have put you in. [b]JuntaSThompson[/b]: That’s not your decision to make [b]LatheOfHeathens[/b]: It was mine though [b]LatheOfHeathens[/b]: Hows the arm Junta? [b]JuntaSThompson[/b]: … I shouldn’t say. [b]3V[/b]:[b] [/b]Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh [b]PerfidiouslyFickle[/b]: You’re just going to lie if I ask about it aren’t you? [b]JuntaSThompson[/b]: It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. [b]LatheOfHeathens[/b]: Turn the news on. [b]Fiona and John:[/b] The ambulance knows the route to the old Everest mansion very well by now. “Davey, Celia.” John greets them by name with a firm handshake, Pink still on his back. He puts her down on the passenger seat in the back of the ambulance. “Snake.” Celia, a Dwarven looking Irish woman takes the second handshake while ‘Davey’, a large black man with cornrows, moves past to get Fiona onto a stretcher. “I’ll be damned. No blood.” “Told you!” John says proudly. “These two are friends, aren’t they just? Next time they’ll be coming through the front door even, won’t they? Won’t they, ey? Ah, well.” “Must be friends.” Davey says to Fiona, checking the swelling on her legs and massaging to check for clots. “Do you even need me, really?” It’s the kind of joke you make when someone needs to leave the Everest mansion in an ambulance but still has all their limbs attached, a rare combination. “You ever jumped down a flight of stairs that tall carrying someone on your back?” Davey considers it. “Well, it was out a window? About this high, though. Trust me, bad as it is now, it’ll hurt way worse tomorrow, and worse the day after that. It gets easier after that.” “Wait, it’ll be worse tomorrow?” Fiona panics, like, really panics. “I can still… Pinball, fried food, lego in the park…” She calms down. “I can do everything I promised from a wheelchair.” “Doesn’t need to be a wheelchair, I don’t think.” Celia takes the other side of the stretcher while John starts hop-skipping around the grounds again, whistling with his fingers in his mouth to clear the wolves away from the ambulance. “It’s just sprains, you should be able to make do with a H.A.L, if your insurance covers it? We’ll start getting your fit in the ride over.” Hybrid Assisted Limb. External cybernetics. For the next few weeks, Fiona’s going to be walking on robot legs. “I’ll start talking to Brown about this, you don’t have to worry about it until it’s ready.” Fiona reaches out to touch Pink’s hand as the stretcher is loaded onto the ambulance beside her. “Just think if there’s anything else you want to do tomorrow.” She knows what’s coming, and it would be wrong to say she doesn’t care. It’s just that she cares about Pink more. [b]Apostle:[/b] Apostle flicks out five identical business cards. Each one is pure white, and the paper is coarse and fibrous. “If you can figure out how to read it, come find me sometime. Otherwise I’m here Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.” There are other people here to meet, to take Yellow’s interest, but people are always wary about new faces at these things. Great supervillainy is about learning to be charming and personable in spite of your goals, but typically it attracts antisocial personalities. “Five’s a compliment.” Bill murmurs. “Usually they give out a fistful.” [b]Crystal:[/b] The hologram is still taking shape. For now the mechanics of it are little more sophisticated than a pair of articulated robot arms on a hardway-laden segway. The hologram projects around it in panels and bursts, mostly concealing what lies underneath - the robotic arms wearing the projected holograms like shirt sleeves. It’s an early experimental beta. The only thing that really needs to be tested here is matching the movement to the projection 1:1 so the physical pieces never desynchronize with the appearance. Still, now that this tests well - the bright blue hands reconstruct Crystal’s hair wonderfully - more complicated bodies can be layered under this, more detailed holograms projected over it. “Alright. Good. Now.” … … [b]Exhibition:[/b] The lights fade and dim like a theater screening. The huge rose window over the exhibits flickers to the news. OESN broadcasts what you already know, what it already means. We know how this sort of thing is reported. We know what is being said. To some this is new. There’s no sound at all for the first few seconds, a collective intake of breath. Many cover their mouths with either one hand, or both, as if to hold something inside them back from escaping. Some eyes widen, others narrow in anger. As many hands grab the back of owners heads in shock as dig nails into the meat of their palms in anger. The silence breaks in a noise like a shimmer of emotions, the way a reflective surface shakes and white light is split in its constituent rainbow unevenly across it, this noise is a shine of all these diffracted feelings happening all at once, from inhaled “No” to low wails to shouts of “Fuck you!” In Apollo, Pope sits on a bench in Turing plaza where the biggest android modder movement tends to hang out. He just watches. It’s like people-watching Castro District San Francisco the day after Stonewall. In the hall, Eli watches the news from the back of a centaur. Even they cannot comprehend how they feel right now. The feeling is so blinding that it isn’t even safe to look at out of only the corner of your eye. Crystal’s video cuts off the newsfeed, and she looks impervious to this. She manages to look like a people’s champion even on a throne. Yellow has said as much about that, today. That is why it had to be a video, in part. She couldn’t pretend to be like this now. “I’m sorry you all had to see that.” Crystal says, sincerely. “I’m sorry that it is true. Tomorrow will be the hardest day for us, and we must survive it. Not a single one of you is an acceptable loss, because we will win and I need you there beside me to see it. We will see justice on a day without eulogy. This ruling is justice stolen from us, and what is stolen can be reclaimed. The loss of any one of you is an injustice that cannot be restored.” “We are surrounded by family here, and this home is our castle. For those of you still here from yesterday… thank you. Truly. Help each other. I am at your service, and I am at your side. We will make it through the hardest day, and that is another day to find someone to go back out into the world with. Nobody will face this alone. Please make sure of that - and that is not the job of the lonely. Find them among you and make them feel welcome.” “And for those new, who have come here to observe, to learn of this way of life? Do not flinch from this. This is our reality. In the coming days these people will be angry, scared and threatened. Remember us to others, that this is who we wished we could be and who we would be again. Were but circumstances different.” It’s a surprisingly bold line from Crystal given her playbook, it’s a blank cheque refusing to denounce whatever Stonewall hasn’t happened yet. “I wish things were different - I will see that wish granted for us.” The lights come back on. … … [b]Zeus:[/b] Almost an hour later, a simulacra of dusk. The Supreme Justices move to make it out of court. Junta pursues Costa-Silva, since Anthropozine’s singled her out and she was one of the 5-4 on this, it makes sense. It’s the judge representing the Prime that should do press conferences, but other niche reporters like Junta chase and single out the smaller judges instead. She makes her way to the helipad that will get her to her secure apartment in Zeus. A mouse girl pushes through the crowd of about six or seven reporters and makes a motion like she’s going for a handshake. Junta’s right next to her, one of the guys she’s brushed aside, and he still doesn’t see the small ceramic pistol in her hand even when he’s standing right next to her. Justice Costa-Silva goes down to five bullets fired in under two seconds, it's impossible for her to miss at this distance even having to aim between the bodyguards. Three in the gut, one in the lung, one through the heart. She’s dead before it can hurt. Three shots are fired at the mouse girl before she can get off her sixth. Head, center of mass, the hollow points burst her into unrecognizability. The third bullet goes through Junta’s side.