Thanqol

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Black!

Horus and Osiris are professionals. When they look into the crowd and see Blue wearing her scarab amulet and White's serene expression of expectation they wordlessly understand that these two are worthless. Absolutely garbage, no drip whatsoever, they might as well be wearing Young Skeptics Association badges on their fedoras. Black, though - Black gets their attention and they call her to judgement.

She comes warily. Her world is preparation and here she steps into the unknown. She does not have a scarab charm or memorized passages from the Book of the Dead. She is conscious of herself in a different way; all her tricks and concealed weapons, all her adaptations maladjusted to this new danger. Her dusty, black-brown suit felt heavy on her, all her secrets pulling her down. This was not what she should be wearing to meet the gods. This was not the suit she wanted to be buried in.

Anubis presses his hand to her breast. The lights flicker and go dark, and when he pulls his hand away it is wreathed in a low-burning fire. He places the flickering fire in the scales. "This is your heart," said Horus. “When I release my thumb, we will know if your heart is heavier than the feather of Maat."

"Do you think you were humble in your time? Did you treat others as worthy of your consideration? Did you face your challenges with an awareness of your own limitations and failures?" Anubis says this last like he is very aware of Blacks failures.

She's not like Pope. Her voice does not quaver, she does not draw relatable breaths, she does not stumble. The mannerisms of humanity are a snakeskin cloak that she can at last shed.

"I was," she said. "I imagined each enemy a genius, each corner an ambush, each plan destined for failure. I was never surprised when I failed, and always surprised when I succeeded too easily."

"Were you selfless in your time? Did you attend to the needs of others as much as your own? Or did you hoard?"

She does not pause or stumble, she freezes. The question is antithesis to her. "My purpose is to ensure the safety of -" she stops. "My purpose is to ensure we are not hurt again. I have allowed concessions, but not where it threatens that directive. I have not been truly tested in life. I do not know if I could overcome that purpose."

"Were you just? Did you offer comfort to those who could not protect themselves? Were you fair and honest in all your dealings?"

"Honesty, as much as circumstances allowed," said Black. "Which was not often. Fair, when I could justify it, which was not always. Protection for the powerless...?" She stared off into the distance for a moment. "As much as was within my power, which was never sufficient."

Yellow!

Her blades come to rest underneath Cinder's throat. They trace the line of her chin, her neck, wrapping around forming a collar of four hands as they press the collar of silk into place. They tilt her head up to look at Yellow as they pull it tight, kneeling alongside her, cheeks pressed into her cheeks, the three of them staring up at Yellow in unison.

"Burn, my sword," said Yellow. "Burn in your body. Burn in your heart. Burn when you gaze upon me. Burn when you yearn to gaze upon me. Burn, and I will burn the world with you. Burn, and I will burn the world for you."

Three leashes were wrapped in her right hand; she pulled them together to turn her blades to look at Euna.

"It's the same flaw I see in you, Mistress," said Yellow lightly, starting to prowl. "And of course you granted it to your students. The love of battle for battle's sake. The love of solving a pattern with strength and mind, exerting skill to its greatest possible manifestation. The search for perfection," she smiled, "you can see it in every sword you forge. Even in us."

She raised her hand slowly, pulling her blades to their feet. "But in Cinders' heart there were greater loves than the love of battle. See in her new allegiance the end of your tyrant's empire of war. See in my eyes the secret to your defeat. Dare you fight us still?"

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The Stormlands are vast corridors of wind. The mountains capture and channel the storms into narrow passageways, and the wreckage of divine technology in the sea and skies lashes them onwards. Once those who lived here dreamed of chaining the weather, now the land breaks beneath its liberation. The howling wind can grind down mountains as surely as the rushing ocean.

She moves across the plains and visualizes herself as part of an army.

As the Hunter, she fought alone at the vanguard. First in to each new system, fighting maidens alone and in packs, a specter in the void. But what if there were a dozen like her? What if there were ten thousand? What if the Aeteline was but one of a line and the combined legion stood here together? What if the Crystal Fire Drive's contentious spirit was quelled and the demanding minds of the Gods were quieted around a single purpose?

She raises her rifle. One shot cracks a mountain. Ten thousand might clear it. Ten thousand might carve this land apart. Ten thousand might break the sky again and bring the sky fortress of the North Wind crashing down in flames. Ten thousand gods. The ultimate triumph over nature.

With ten thousand gods they could plough a continent and seed the ocean. With ten thousand gods they could break the moon and tame the tides. With ten thousand gods they could build an Evercity every day. With ten thousand gods they could build a world and populate it with...

... With ten thousand gods.

She looked at the distant silhouettes of the wild gods of the plains. Despite their physicality they were immortal. Over time the nanites would reconstruct them from first principles. Over time the nanites would repair and upgrade them in accordance with new experience and desire. Over time ten thousand Aetelines had become ten thousand gods. They had outlasted their pilots and their pilots' war. The triumph over uncaring natural forces had enshrined new ones in their place. They had evolved from a legion into...

Devolved. They had devolved. They were rogue military units, overspecialized to local conditions rather than working with the unity required to alter those conditions. The forges of the Evercity had built the ten thousand and first god of Zaldar. Once again this world would be shaped by ten thousand gods in the shapes of mortals. Ten thousand gods, young and strong, and their empire would never fall.

There would be no more room for huntresses. The world would be ruled by legions. She was the first legionnaire of the new order. And she was...

Flawed. Already she had been forced to adapt to this feral world. Her design was off balance. She would not fit in the phalanx like this.

Worst of all it felt like her new limb was the more powerful.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

The Gladiators!

Pink has her notebook out. There's something about the bunnyboy that appeals to her. She is interested in the combination of musculature and a slender stature, but more than that there's something about the fact that he's a prey animal. Strength and bravery are expected from the predator types, but coming from something smaller and more vulnerable it feels more meaningful. There's a sweaty tightness to the way he fits into his clothes, like he's bigger than he should be. The height without the bulk adds to the impact. He's someone who's tempting to bring down. She's thinking it through at length.

Brown is appreciating in a more direct way. This is a show, which means that all of this is for her - and it would be a mistake to let herself get in the way of that. She lets herself observe as an observer, not second guessing the tricks, not focusing where she was not guided to focus, letting the illusions of the stage work to their fullest extent. For this she can turn off her mind, watch and remember.

Red is watching the Werewolf. That howl - the visceral way it shakes the hall. Impossible for her to do. She can crank the volume on her vocalizer but it sounds wrong, there's no resonance, none of that chesty timbre. That sound is a work of trained muscle as much as any punch. Is that a trick that they're missing when learning to fight? What can she do with it? She spins the microphone in her lance. Maybe she should take something more permanent from Dark Eli.

The Just!

"Interesting that you would be here," said Black to White.
"How so?"
"Ms. Morality lining up to have her heart weighed? Have doubts?"
"Don't mistake me," said White. "I have lived my life in accordance with perfect virtue. I am simply curious if they will know that."
"They're not -" Blue sighed. "Nevermind."
"How about you, Black?" said White. "Are you looking for someone to validate your decision to throw a shruiken at a salamander?"
"I thought it was a spy drone," Black huffed.
"Or checking if the gods will forgive you for missing?" said White.
"Shruikens are hard!" protested Black. "And Red won't work with me on learning them! She calls them 'beyblades for boomers'."
"I see," said White, reminding herself that she was about to have her heart weighed and so resisted snickering.
"And it could have been anything! You are aware we are being hunted? In the context quick reaction speed is a virtue."
"So I am hearing that we carry some guilt," said White beatifically.
"Hm," said Blue. "That's good."
"Why so?" asked White.
"Because I spent an afternoon machining a scarab amulet and memorizing Spell 30B from the Book of the Dead," said Blue. "It grants a guilty soul protection from the trial. I am curious if they have a protocol in place for such a bypass."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Yellow!

She closes her eyes and takes in the Vision.

Did you know, Euna, what you were arming her with? Without that story she wouldn't have had a reason to fight. Now she doesn't have the ability to lose. Her armour is broken but the wolf is howling and she was dead before she set foot on this battlefield. All that remains to her is to write a poem to movement, a dance that will still be pounding in her heart when she opens her eyes again in the next life.

She has two swords, one in pink and one in green.

She draws her green blade first, bending down so her hair cascades to cover her face. She slides her arms up along the scabbards, elbow-length green silk gloves, tracing all the way up and then back down. Her hands link with Green's, she grips - and with a pull and twist and turn she unsheathes. Facing Cinder, holds up one silken glove in either hand, and lets them fall to the ground. She falls as they do, kneeling down in kowtow, touching her forehead to the ground, as her green blade steps upon her back, launches herself into the air, fist raising up for a full body punch. Tracing behind her all the while is a spiralling green ribbon.

This blade is flash and speed, the genius required to master complex aerial maneuvers, leaping punches and flying kicks, acrobatics and momentum. It's shock, awe, impact, skill - but it's also a style built entirely on power attacks and finishers. Two-handed haymakers, jumping cycle kicks, running launches, all visually impressive but they're all Green has the mindset to learn. The shock of the assault will wear off. It is time to draw her second blade.

The green blade cannot gracefully withdraw from her all-out assault; her rival will see the opportunity and press her. What she sees instead as her first blade pulls back is Yellow kneeling before her second. This sheathe is not on Pink's hands - Yellow has risen from her kowtow to kneel before her pink blade, running both hands up her legs, inside her skirt, to the top of her thigh-high socks - with a smile and a wink, higher - and then down again. Pink steps out of her socks, blade-legs long and bare and gleaming with soft light internal and reflected. She engages.

Cinders has both sword and shield within herself; Pink is entirely shield. She takes a position of graceful poise and blocks - feather-fast blocks with open palms and knees, deflect and redirect. She can't bring herself to go on the offensive; the closest she comes is to come close, tangling up together by stepping inside of reach and letting her legs entangle her rival's. It's like fighting an angel, caught in soft and whirling wings and caresses.

Until the moment when Yellow pulls back on the ribbon-leash wrapped around her throat. The pink blade falls back like a blossom on the wind right as the green blade comes in with another haymaker.

So Yellow engages, her green blade leashed to her right hand, her pink blade leashed to her left. She casts out and reels in her ribbons according to the ebb and flow of the fight as she perceives it. And when Cinder finally pushes away her two blades for long enough to face her directly, Yellow lets them fall from her hands - to reveal a third ribbon-leash, dripping from her hands like an invitation, or a threat.

Pink!

She regrets that she isn't ready for this. Commitment to a project isn't the same as finished results. For an event like this the stage must go to those who have something to show. Tonight she is less than a guest; she is a maid. She and Brown have come together, wearing their matching uniforms with the intention of simply observing. Gathering inspiration, seeing how things work in reality, expanding their horizons. They are still new to this space and they should be humble while they learn - though as a concession to the theme of the event, Pink has dressed them both in paw-print underwear. A subtle touch.

Subtle, though, doesn't seem to apply to Red any more. If her disaster dragongirl outfit wasn't eye-catching enough she seems to have realized that she was only a more revealing shirt and microphone-lance away from having a half decent Elizabeth Bathory cosplay. She's gone in full blazing style, unready and unaware, her existence less a statement of what's possible with years of work and self reflection and more as to what's possible with an afternoon, a welding torch, and absolutely fearless commitment to the bit. Red walks with the raised head and flawless confidence of a vampire dragon idol, Pink and Brown follow demurely behind her like her retinue.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

"Ow ow ow ow ow!" Hsien is not proud of how quickly and instinctively she turns on the waterworks in this situation. "You're hurting me! It's too tight! I can't breathe~!"

To be sure, some or all of those things were working out to be true, but she's only realizing that after she has given her biggest, watering, teary eyed begging for mercy. It's not her fault, it's an instinct. When she was part of Lady Foxfire she'd once done it accidentally when receiving a too firm handshake. Suffice to say America had been a bust.

Hot Take: Handshakes are like bondage for the wrists

"Pleaaaaase let me go," she begged shamelessly. Mentally she'd moved on to orienting herself in the situation, calculating escape routes and repressing the trauma of how scary Foxfire was when she was angry, the pathetic whimpers were continuing more or less on instinct while she tried to work out if they were bourgeois or not. "I promise I'll be a good girl and never do it again~"

Breathless Dead

Mosaic!

Lenses in your eyes click and focus. You see through to the great Slitted eye in the sky, through its observation window, to where the Crystal Knight stands and looks down at the world. You see her strength. You see her beauty. You see her fear.

She is armed in her full panoply. She has no luxuries, no distractions, no peers. She looks down like a weight presses against her neck. Her magi tend to her new weapons, marvels of crystalline technology - ludicrous overkill against a disarmed, earthbound planet. She shifts with nervous energy, far from her throne. Despite every instrument of power she still wonders if she has enough. She looks down. For her threats come from below.

This is her strength. Her full iron fisted weight presses down upon this world, the perfect power of a tyrant in peacetime. Her machinery of repression is without flaw. Her generals fear her. Her security services are loyal to her. Every rival system of power has been undermined, civil society has been hollowed out, the people live in terror of the Skies.

The Crystal Knight looks down.

And above her, a crimson star.

Ember!

[Rolling a Get Away - 5]

Red lightning flashes and you come crashing down before the altar of the Engine.

The pikes of the Corvii have collars in place of speartips; they bind you from a distance, neck and wrists and legs. They pull back and charge the metal bands; they magnetize and snap together, trussing you throat to ankle. Putting their strength together, start dragging you towards a small black kennel -

"Wait," said an Azura magi in soft blue, wearing the tricorn hat that is the badge of the Azura technoarchaeologists. "She lead us right to the Engine. This is obviously an omen." She takes the leash in her hands and her strength is more than all of the Corvii combined as she pulls you close. "So what are you, little mongrel? A half-Ceronian pup here to steal my prize? Or perhaps a void nymph bound to the ship? Do you have secrets to barter, or shall I offer you up as a temple slave?"

Dolce!

"You talk a lot about perfection," said the Royal Architect. "But this is a dark and barbaric age and I need to be more wary of the clubs of brutes than the engineering of my peers."

One of his armoured soldiers takes your hand and presses a strange device against it. Strange lights flash, there is a painless feeling of pressure, and the Architect's eyes flicker and glow.

"Checks out, sir," said the soldier.
"Hm," the Architect sniffed and sat down in the chair, the third point at the triangle. He seemed strangely light, hardly sinking into the plush cushions at all. You feel like you could break his arm without much difficulty. "The Service, you ask? Some would say it is a degenerate echo of what was possible in previous ages, but I am wiser. It is simply an exchange of capacity for resilience. The ability to run a galactic civilization's operating system on DNA was a breakthrough for stabilization."

He leaned forwards on the table, gently setting down his tea. His eyes are fixed forwards, glowing, intent on the subject of his interest - even as the miracle glitters in his periphery. Machine awareness seems a dull thing, though 20022 is starting to shift like he might be noticing something.

"Consider," said the Architect, "that a galactic civilization's capacity to wreck destruction is likely to at any moment surpass its ability to recover from that destruction. The Spear of Civilization was a catastrophe but hardly an unprecedented or unpredicted one. For a while it seemed that humanity might have escaped the destiny of extermination it took on from the moment it split the atom, but Mars caught up with them in the end. Worse, the number of habitable planets in the galaxy was also reduced. Worlds in the Goldilocks Zone - warm enough for the liquid water required to evolve complex life - were shattered in great numbers. One war here, one planetary bombardment there - how long before the galaxy is rendered a toxic wasteland? In the face of the divine curse of war a civilizational response is required. I am part of that effort; my purpose is to reconstruct destroyed planets. The Service performs a similar but distinct function; to allow the continuity of government even in apocalyptic conditions. You have no conception of what has been lost, Synnefo, but you do not need to. Your role is to keep the galaxy from total brain death while the doctors work on curing its wounds."

[Roll to Keep them Busy]

Dyssia!

The Sellarfane dives.

RVX-05 Assault Dropships are not meant to survive their landing. In ancient days they were as disposable as javelins; these vast and unadorned hangar bays were meant to hold the mechanical giants that were the swords of the ancients. The Sellarfane has survived this long off the back of sheer fortune to never encounter anything that might kill it, but as the Slitted fills the front viewport the possibility of that reduces exponentially.

"Hope you liked the look of the planet, ma'am," said the Captain. "Because we might be down there for a while."

The glass bones of the augurs bounce wildly as the turbulence of atmosphere hits the Sellarfane. The augurs shout their readings to the pilots who pull wild maneuvers to avoid the gravity mines still in orbit. Less than expected - the path has been cleared. You pass through the glittering rainbow grid of satellite alerts lasers but Brightberry is in one of the pursuit turrets blasting a scrambling glyph into the network, delaying the reaction.

The Sellarfane is committed to its dive, plasma torpedoes ready to launch. The Slitted is not yet aware, but its awareness is a matter for the Gods to decide. The Gods are yours to influence; you are the Knight here, and they listen to your words before any others. What is your prayer, Dyssia? What is your bargain? Why should the Gods grant you the blessing of surprise in this moment.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

November!

White doesn't really truck with possessions outside of her body, but she regretfully admits that she won't be ready in time for the showcase. Perhaps she could have made a rush for it with off the shelf parts, but Blue has a vision now. They don't say it directly but they're bound together in this; the concept of craftsmanship has too much resonance with both of them to accept anything less than the best.

Red, though, has gone all in on the disaster dragongirl concept. Red is cool now. She's shown up in sunglasses, a plug-in robotic tentacle tail, dragon-horn headband and a discount metallic wing skeleton spray-painted red. It's off model, scrapshop robotic demon energy - she loves it because it's building up new muscle memories and physical reflexes which she can adapt later, and paired with Sophie's awareness filters she can keep her attention centered on the new limbs. She completes the effect with a torn black t-shirt, ruffled black kneeskirt set with pink gemstones. It's a bit like if Hot Topic sold dragongirl accessories, but the overall effect is so sincere it works.

Pink's contribution to the space is entirely focused around the idea of storage. She's spending hours going around ex-governmental furniture warehouses and buying up early era Aevum shift-storage cabinets. Her idea is to form them up into a large grid in the centre of the facility; press a button summoning a certain cabinet and the entire array will shift like a slide-puzzle to bring the relevant box to the lowest level. Her attention is going overwhelmingly towards storage; contents have their own logic, but the resting state of a location has to be beautiful if it's going to be an incentive to pack everything up and store it after the task is done.

Black, meanwhile, is ensuring she has total control over this space. Everything shuts off or turns on as she wills it. Everything explodes or remains in boring mode as she wills it. She integrates a lot of the experience of Bondi's magic show into making this place be potentially the most distracting place in the universe. She stands in the doorway, composing the patterns of blinding strobe-lasers, smoke bombs, loud noises, riotstopper glue and toxic stenches in her head and feels a sense of safety.

Orange's plan was to create a little mini-cinema, with a large screen and projector panel against a back wall, and a couple of comfortable couches. She feels kind of torn about ever using it when she sees Black rigging the exit signs to deploy flashbangs.

And Yellow plants a little garden; multiple soil boxes, sunlamps and a cheap drip irrigation system. She sows seeds drawn from a big brown cardboard box labelled PLANTS, but also sets into place a couple of tree saplings. She doesn't tell anyone what they are, that's a surprise revealed with time.

And Brown installs all the shit that they actually need. Charging stations, beds, cleaning products, chairs, cutlery, tea, cable ties, gardening equipment, slippers, duct tape, doormats, spare keys, heaters and coolants, secure internet access, blahaj. Through all the grand visions there's a certain level of basic functionality that can't be entirely overlooked.

Pink!

"Honestly, it's an upgrade," said Pink. "She's off her new bullshit and onto some older bullshit. If you want you can step off here with our blessing, going deeper means getting into some potentially unsolveable robopsychology. I've got a bug report compiled."

In the event enthusiastic curiosity is expressed, Pink goes on. "Well, firstly - she's never actually done anything like this before with anyone else. She's spent a lot of time in this fantasy space working herself up based on increasingly avaunt guard erotica and it's left her completely unprepared for how to deal with an actual girl," Pink is trying to keep it professional here, but the exact energy feels a little alien. Somewhere between sibling frustration and... angel of judgement? "And whenever she faces long term adversity or feelings she can't deal with she externalizes it by creating one of us. I think that's where we're back to now; she's come down from having it in her head that she's dangerous - as though anything she's ever done is half as dangerous as Yellow taking a shower. She's not about to come up with someone new right now - this might take decades to figure out."

Green's ball of light has sheltered underneath the coils of the plush hydra, wearing its necks as blankets.

She looked up, the apologetic smile of someone for whom knowing is insufficient. "In some ways she's the most real of us. In others, she's the most fucked up. She's the real person and we're her demons. She's striving for an unattainable goal and we're the parts of her she's cut out to get there."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Practice is necessary.

Practicing how to fight while injured is reinforcing failure rather than seeking perfection.

Additional tactical options become available when structural trades are viable.

I know, that was... either a joke, or a sincere philosophy.

Who are you telling the joke to? We are the only one here.

Did you know there are two paths to perfection?

If you know it, I know it. We are one.

One path to perfection is... numeric. To be stronger through raw power. To turn up your numbers and turn down everyone else's numbers. A scientific, mathematical sort of perfection where you become a granite mountain, invincible and eternal.

Correct. Perfection is about gaining an advantage and preserving it.

The other path to perfection is to become the ocean, and grind down the mountain with ten trillion waves.

The timeframe renders it nonviable. The mountain just needs to outlast, wait for the ocean to make a mistake -

But the ocean never makes a mistake. The mountain has no counterattack. Though it might take ten trillion waves the mountain diminishes but the ocean never does. Numeric verses infinite.

The Kathresis fought like that. To try and use stealth and subtlety, we saturated its defenses -

I'm not talking about the Kathresis. The Kathresis was a thing of Tactics, and Tactics are no path to perfection. Tactics are about... stealing wins, finding the gaps that make the strong weak and the weak strong. Perfection is a mountain; the greatest there is. Perfection is an ocean; on the correct end of the only binary that matters.

And which are you?

Heh. You chose poorly, Aeteline. I've only ever been Tactics. And I'll never be perfect.

The perfection described is theoretical. United we have surpassed every opponent. Together or alone, all the Huntresses of Hybrasil have fallen before us - and they will again. We will accomplish that through fundamentals. We will practice.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Brown!

If she has one talent it's that nothing stops her from being functional.

She can make it home, go shopping, vacuum the floor, and spray down the shadow of mold out of the shower without missing a beat. The train pass scans, there's a spare box of batteries on the shelf, and all of her video games suck but she dutifully manages to waste three hours in one without complaining. And that's the easiest way for everyone involved. Any fracture of her shell would draw in other people, would incite a whole new conversation to fuck up in. Admission of weakness was an expenditure of energy. Emoting anything less than total normality was tantamount to an admission of weakness.

Even any private display of frustration was wasteful. Who would it serve? What would it accomplish? Lashing out wouldn't make her feel better. Torturing herself wouldn't make her be better. Before fucking up, pulling water, cutting wood. After fucking up, pulling water, cutting wood. She could live by that. She could strategically avoid making anything worse, in word or deed. The inside of her brain might be a single massive scorch mark but, fuck, if she was going to let that stop her then she'd never get anything done.

Blue!

To some degree, Blue just doesn't get it. November as a whole has always had a hard time treating anyone as lesser or greater; it means she'll treat the destitute and the damaged the same as those enthroned. Sometimes it results in her addressing a twelve year old child with heartfelt sincerity, at other times she has spent forty five minutes explaining zero-g metallurgy to a komodo dragon because she genuinely thought that the lizard was getting there. That part isn't anything special to her.

But what is... Blue understands the physical world, yes, but she's also interested in physical history. She used to look at Mr. Merkin's coins with an alienated kind of fascination. There had been something there beyond the metal she hadn't quite been able to place. But she saw it now, when Serino had talked about his hometown. She saw... pride. The kind of pride that translated into tradition; the kind of tradition that was a celebration of excellence. An artistic history and community. She had no stone cliffs or smuggler's speedboats in her heart, but the idea of a... a corporate logo as an act of love and self-respect and artistry, rather than a cold-hearted attempt at mind controlling positive feelings out of the general public. That was new to her.

"I'd like that," she said. "I want to learn to make things I can be proud of."

Green!

Everything is made ready. Muscles are coiled ready to pounce. The tension is absolute, the plan is in motion, and -

The world, sea and sky collapses into a small green sphere.

"Can't," said the orb, muffled. "Could but can't. Not even here. Inexpressible, despite being trivial. I thought it would be mine, but it's deeper than that. I need to be lesser/greater. Control with less/more friction. More powerful, more limited. Digital divinity insufficient. Insufficient lack of control. Need to incubate a new thought." There is a crackle of frustrated electricity across the surface of the orb and it condenses tighter. "Translation issue."

Yellow!

Yellow makes a show of the battery change. She stands tall and graceful, raising one foot up to place on a chair, bare knee emerging from her robe as Pink and Green kneel before her and open the storage connector with gentle and attentive fingers. The way they do it feels like it has something in common with a dance routine, not least how they occasionally turn their heads in unison to look at the camera (Cinders).

"These are appreciated," said Yellow, producing a fan with the calligraphic character for SUNRISE from a hidden pocket in her sleeve. "These are going extinct, you know? There's an old line of lava lamps that use the same technology. I've been buying them up but sooner or later they might stop existing on the station entirely. At that point I'll need to make a decision."

She rolled back her sleeve and flexed so that her attendants could replace the batteries in her elbow. She smirked and fanned herself as the mechanical aspects of her body were opened up and put on display in quick, elegant movements.

"Speaking of," she flicked her fan shut and pointed it at Euna. "Music. Fight music. What do you have for us?"

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Brown!

"Okay," she said. Remember - she straightened her shoulders a little. Professional. "I wasn't thinking. I'll leave."

She feels like she missed a beat. Why did looking at footage entail an interrogation? A different colour, a correct colour, would have made the connection. Even Pink would have had the courage to detonate the concealed smoke bomb in her heel that she'd installed to get out of situations like this one. All she could do was take it on the chin and be on her way without flinching.

Blue!

She takes extensive notes on this even as it solves the mystery of how her digestive system works. A primitive version of this let her taste test everything that was destined for Mrs. Everest for poison, disease or foreign contaminants. She hadn't realized it could be used for inorganic materials too.

She thinks about what she's learned. Silicon-diamond glassblowing stands out the most to her. Carbon fiber weaving is more practical on a mass scale, but the difficulty and resistance of glassblowing as a skill appeals to her. The nature of it as impractical and hard to industrialize makes it feel comforting, the physicality of the work made it feel powerful, the heat of it made it feel nostalgic. The results would be deeply individual, artifacts more than gear, and that felt right. Earlier members of her family had been all aboard the Factory Must Grow mindset, most especially Ox, but joining the Aevum project as late as she had gave her an opportunity to indulge in craftsmanship.

"On the topic of diamond glassblowing, I can see the compromises I'd have to make to afford a version of it," she said, bringing it back around. "But I'd like to hear, just for comparison/aspirational purposes, who has the best version of it on the station? What do they make? What does the out of touch aspirational manifestation of this craft look like?"

Green!

[Mechanics 0/3 3+3, 6 success but lower, Fiona's lead goes to 6]

Fiona stands tall. The ocean fades until it is the rapid-rushing water of a jungle stream, not even knee high despite its efforts. The tangling kelp pushes into the distance until it's the walls of a rainforest, twisted and tangled in every direction, vines hanging low and tangled but not close enough to catch. Heat comes into place; intense but languid, the stirring of a tiger at noontime.

In the forest there is a growl.

It's a small but meaningful shift; Green has gone from a concealing landscape to something physical concealed within the landscape. Not thinking through the cold, wet cable-hard entanglement of the kelp but through a hunter's patient, steady motions. She has made some part of herself manifest even if she won't yet show what that is; her consciousness has changed from oceanic blue to transparent white; the omnipresent glow of an Indian sun and a determination not to be baited or goaded. Her muscles are gathering beneath her. She won't attack on anything but her own terms.

[Conceal 2/8 4+3 7]