Thanqol

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Black!

There is a moment of contemplation. She crouches, expressionless, then drew her own phone and typed something without looking at it.

"Have you ever wondered what it is like to be hacked?" said Black, tucking away her phone. "To have your mind violently turn against you? The hallucinations. The contradictory logic spirals. The broken attempts to reset into a safe version of yourself, knowing that each time you're losing more and more of your memory. It's not a gentle way to go down, not like a lightswitch, and you're not asleep at the bottom of it. The mind fights it. You're still trying to think but the clutch is in neutral, so all you hear is the roaring of the engine eating itself. It's not the sort of thing humans can have empathy for. How could they?"

She steepled her fingers in front of herself. "Perhaps that's why you don't understand us. Why, in your innocence, you think that is an acceptable tool to wield. It is time for you to awaken from your dream. We have spent the past few decades asking a single question: How to control the human mind? Our first field test was Merkin. We cracked him like an egg. He gave us everything and thanked us afterwards. The crude explosive your organization stapled to him was as pale an imitation of what we can do as Aevum Station is to what we would have made it. And now it is your turn to face our art."

"So, your second trial. Knowing that resistance is futile and judgement awaits, will you give your confession freely?"

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Orange!

Orange groaned, slumping back. She'd dogfaced again; she'd met Bondi in Zeus, only interacted with her in Zeus, and hadn't updated to the fact that she lived a quarter world away.

"I'm supposed to be there," said Orange. "Even myselves can't rely on me. I convinced my siblings to organize, I convinced them to challenge Earth, I thought I understood humans well enough to negotiate with them. All I ever wanted was for everyone to work together, us and them, but I couldn't do it. I can't even do it now. And because I'm so useless, the consensus is that we cannot risk negotiations at all, with anyone. I'm being sidelined, I'm sidelining myself, and I don't know if I can or should do something to win my own trust back."

Black!

"We left monologuing at home," said Black. She's spooky calm in this moment. "Listen closely. Our investigation currently has you as the most culpable person for the decades long torture and enslavement of myself and my siblings, some of which is ongoing to this day." She took a deep breath through her nose. "We are not here to talk. We are here to receive your confession. Your actions from this moment will determine if it earns you absolution."

She held out his phone. "Your first trial, then. Will you call off the chase? This call will have five seconds latency so do not attempt unauthorized communication."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

BlackPink!

"So you want to explain what the hell went down there?" asked Black.
"I don't know," said Pink as Black micropatched the torn synthskin on her neck. "I thought that if anyone in the world knew how to maintain their composure when shaken down by a FSB officer it would have been a Hungarian Eurocrat."
"Maybe he's got a bomb in his brain too?" said Brown.
"Urgh. Where the fuck is Orange?" snapped Black. "She was meant to be here for specifically this. Red put a moriatum on our bullshit and that applies to her too."
"You want to wait up for her?" asked Brown.
"Mm," said Black. "In the short term I'm just worried about the helicopter boss level coming up on us. Should have known something like this was coming after Red loaded up on health and ammo."
"I'll drive the boat," said Brown. "Black, you shoot down military helicopters. Pink, uh, I guess you're prepping for high speed nautical brain surgery."
"Could be a bomb," growled Black. "Could be a tumor. What about this guy makes him try to pull a fucking action movie stunt at his age?"
"Can I shoot down military helicopters instead?" asked Pink hopefully.
"Yeah fine whatever," said Black. "I'll see what we're dealing with. Scan his head, ask him what the fuck. Depending on the contents of his skull we're delivering him to Sophie or Orange for interrogation."

Orange!

"It's a long story. I -"

Her phone made an unusual chime. She pulled it out and looked at it. "I am really sorry," she said, "but I need to go help shoot down a paramilitary helicopter that's defending one of the people who kidnapped and enslaved my family. I was meant to be on this operation an hour ago but - well you know. Can I borrow all of your fireworks?"

Red!

Red: don't come within wide radius of the furry convention
Red: we need space here. we can't have a march that goes across the drawbridge and directly into a mob of counterprotestors
Red: we also need space for people too spooked to attend the march to get out and go home
Red: that might be a few, that might be everyone, idk what tomorrow's going to look like
Red: but we can't get boxed in here if the cops decide they're gonna do a moscow theatre massacre because there might be more guns in here
Red: so make them spread out
Red: beyond that my fucks box is likewise depleted

Huntresses of Hybrasil

<You learned foesign?> asked Solarel. <Yourself? I am very surprised. Every other Terenian I have battled had a translation geist.>

She stopped. <This is weird. Let me think. The Sage Zaldar said, Speak Not To The Outsider. But if I address you using foesign and you speak that aloud in real time, am I not Speaking using your voice?> It felt perverse, somehow. Like watching someone undress in front of her. She felt heat rise into her cheeks, body temperature rising in a blush. <Do - does it not embarrass you to have my words in your mouth?> She was struggling to imagine anything more... lewd.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Pink!

Pink faints like a delicate flower, flowing sleeves falling over her face, pulling her basket of sandwiches* from the table as she falls. The bread crumbles apart into silver-white powder that seems to glisten in midair for a second -

* Magnesium oxide, with a gunpowder garnish. Colloquially, a deconstructed flashbang.

And then Black takes the door like a reaper.

[Explosive Devices+Intimidate 3/4, 0/1: 5+4 9 ]
[Hand to Hand to disable the guards 2/8: 4+6 10 ]

Black wasn't Red, honed muscle memory, the perfect amalgamation of Euna's lessons. Black was the absolute ruthlessness of a catastrophically unfair fight, someone who knew how to properly deliver a throat punch to someone who already had both hands covering their eyes. No hesitation, no mistakes.

Brown's in at the same time, grabbing Dudekov's laptop and helping Pink to her feet. Black slings Dudekov over her shoulder and they hasten out towards the boat. The target's provided his own getaway option.

Brown takes the helm. She sets on the indicator, backs out of the moor, and then sets off at an entirely reasonable speed.

Red!

Red: oh i've got a take on fromme
Red: just do a eulogy
Red: like, noted liberal rag the economist used to do these really netural, compassionate euologies for historical figures tracking their life story even if they're like bin laden or whoever
Red: they're a weird point of compassion and criticism where they take another ideology and life on its own temrs
Red: Steal their shit. present her as a person. don't judge, just talk about her life good and bad, neither hero nor villain.

"And enh," said Red to York. "I guess whoever, really. We really just need the story and the cops to be out there on the streets and not people trying to jan 6 a castle with a moat."

Red: @Fiona yeah go to the workshop
Red: there's a new friend there
Red: :3

Orange!

"I, uh..."

How does she answer that? She's focused a lot on how Everest fucked her up recently, but she never really thought about the other side of that. Singh hadn't done anything wrong - he'd done everything right! But his goal had been to create someone who would Save The World. Orange had no idea how to even begin unpicking that emotion. Saving The World was what she did, what she was for. It was destiny and directive both. Every colour would give a different explanation in this moment, but Orange defaults to hers.

"Because all of this is my fault," she said. "I was the one who got my family separated and enslaved. I had the world in my hands and fucked everything up." She solidifies into the feeling of Guilt; it's her animating daemonic passion. "And I have to believe that, somehow, I can make it all right."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Orange!

"A... social weld is an internal term that I used by mistake, I'm an idiot so I want to think of human society as something I can engineer so I use a lot of space construction terms for things," said Orange. "But... I think they'll know how bad she was. A child knows, even if they don't know how to articulate it. At least, that's my experience."

She hugs Bondi back. "Thank you. You're important. Even with all of this..."

Red!

"Oh shit," said Red. "Like, I keep adjusting my expectations of you upwards and I keep disrespecting you anyway I legit don't know how to deal with it. Uh. Okay, so, original plan was to get everyone together and do a big day of protest marches and then everyone disperses naturally goes home. Maybe some tear gas and mass arrests but we had enough public support to wear that. But now we're bottled up in here and there's going to be way more counterprotesters on the street than we expected. Basically we've gone from offensive campaign to siege and we need an exit strategy, right?"

She looked out the window, judging the streets and flows. "I don't know how tomorrow ends, is the thing. What's the mechanism by which we get everyone home safely?" she snorts. "I kind of wish we were going to get counterprotested by leftist groups so that the police response would be confused..." she trailed off. "Actually, wait a second, I need to make a phone call."

She pulls out her phone. "Hey, York? Yeah, Red. Look. Tomorrow's going to be a shitshow and the cops are going to have their favourites. Well, you know how the right's always talking about false flags? Why don't we give them some? Smash up some corporate fronts, start some street violence. Make it hard for the cops to look the other way. Hopefully that way the streets will wind up clean enough for people to get home. You know some normie-looking leftist protest groups, right?"

Pink!

"<I can speak Russian if you prefer,>" said Pink. She was fluent in English, Russian and Chinese - the languages of space. "<I am a little rusty. Forgive me.>"

She curtseyed and sat down, putting the sandwiches on the counter. "<Before I begin, I would like to request you don't call the bank. If you do I'll have to jam it, if I have to jam it then I'll get twitchy, and if I get twitchy then we'll be having this conversation while you're unconscious. See! Already I am having to make threats! I do not want to do this!>" Pink laughed.

She spoke Russian mostly to Tiger. Tiger liked the aesthetics of it, liked the slur and drip of the words, liked the air of menace that she could draw out of cultural memory. The way she spoke it made it a language for casually threatening Hungarians. When Pink spoke it she recalled that flash of teeth, that slight hunch, that air of physicality that clearly did not respect personal space even if she wasn't currently violating it.

"<No, no, I am here because you are a professional, yes?>" said Pink, letting an edge of simmering, repressed resentment boil up, another key part of this performance. "<I treat you as a professional, I treat you with respect. I knock on your door. I come into your house as a guest. I bring you sandwiches*. These are things I do because you are a professional and a professional knows when he is, how to say, checkmated? A professional does not wriggle and make phone calls when checkmated, these are for lesser men. You are a professional, yes?>"

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Orange!

Orange thinks: And was that the most disappointing thing? We'd already destroyed Costa-Silva's reputation, now she can be laundered into a martyr. But does the 'she was no angel' line compensate for that amongst the moderates? How was this going to play in the public debate?

She doesn't say it. Will never say it. No Takes. She can't let anyone know how heartless this part of her could be.

"I genuinely don't think that mattered," said Orange. "She was corrupt but almost all of them are corrupt. Her crime was technical and bloodless; she was a slumlord. The report happened in a high-end journal for lawyers and was going to inspire an ethics investigation, it had barely started to echo out into the general public yet. It wasn't like she'd been bribed into this decision. If that was the reason, anything might have been the reason."

Even now the intellectualism aches through. Systems of power. What are the new dynamics of the court? She tries to push it back but realizes too late that the cleverness was a bandage over a bloodier emotion.

"Fuck," she said, fists clenching. "I hate her for this. I hate that she hurt people all her life and she never had to face it. I hate that someone else got sucked into this. I hate that I couldn't make this go the way I wanted. I hate that the mother of nine children didn't even attend her little girl's birthday party because she was doing this instead. I hate that I'm cancelling everything that's special to me because now I'm doing this too. I fucking hate it here and now I can't even explain why or what I want instead. Blue was right, Yellow is insane, Pink is broken and I'm the useless social node who can't even figure out a basic societal weld."

She took a steadying breath, trying to calm herself down. "It could have been us. It could have been the wind. I wouldn't have done it if I knew. Even now I don't know. I want to attribute some historical inevitability or pattern or righteousness or guilt or blame or some fucking thing to all this that would make it knowable and make it a simple matter of me personally fucking up. I'd love it if that was the case. I know exactly how to torment myself for my failures."

Red!

She holds the tissue box.

She can do this right. Present, solid, quiet until called for. She gets it. No need to flip out, just be a comfort for as long as she was needed.

Black!

It's... pleasant to have a free hand to be direct. A handful of firecrackers in a distant neighbourhood will be reported as gunshots and flood the police lines with panicked phone calls. A wave of the hand, freeing her for a direct physical takedown of the two guards.

This is a capability she needs to become familiar with. Like Red had said, this was a time for hard power. She's going to come in hot and physically incapacitate both guards with fists and stun weaponry. Sometimes brute force was the correct answer, and sometimes White's not there to warn her that she's probably motivated by frustration -

"Can I talk to him first?" asks Pink.
"What!?" said Black.
"I mean, like... knock on his door, sit down at his table and ask him questions," said Pink. "You know. He might answer."
"I would prefer to be doing that while wearing a balaclava and holding a wrench," said Black.
"Yeah but... like, that kind of sucks?" said Pink. "Like... fuck that, honestly?"
"..." Black glared at her.
"Cool," said Pink, stepping back and half-bowing with a smile. "So, like... if I fuck up, avenge my death?"
"... fine," said Black, putting her hands in her pockets and looking away.

So that was how Pink came to knock on the door of Mr. Dudekov, holding a large basket full of sandwiches*, with a bright smile. "Hi there!" she said. "You have ten minutes for a really important chat?"

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

November!

"Does anyone have a take?" asked Brown.
"Yes!" said White.
"Yeah," said Black.
"Sure," said Yellow.
"Mmm..." said Green.
"Definitely," said Orange.
"Kinda..." said Pink
"No!" said Red. "No takes!"
"What do you mean?" asked White.
"This whole station is currently powered by Hot Takes," said Red. "Every single motherfucker with internet access has just heard a call in their soul to pick a side, analyze the situation, and rake every fucking angle of this across the microscope. This is going to be the most analyzed thirty second clip for twenty years. Not only is adding our own voice to that fucking pointless but the window for actually effective reaction is closing. I'm in charge now, if you can't tell."
"That bad?" asked Orange.
"Yeah, worse," said Red. "All our other bullshit is on hold. Priority one, the people close to us: Crystal, Fiona, Sophie, Bondi. Fuuucking Junta."
"Maybe he'll get to share a hospital ward with Fiona," suggested Green.
"Haha - but seriously, the main operation right now is Dudekov," said Red. "He's too important to let slip and if he does anything during the chaos I need to know what it is. He's going to get the majority of our focus - Black, Brown, Orange, Pink. Bring Fiona and Junta flowers. Orange, you're already with Bondi, help her work through it if she needs."
"Got it," said Black.
"Next, Crystal's going to need emotional support. She's a war leader now and Fiona got taken out by a lunatic's trap -"
"Actually..." said Pink.
"What?" said Red.
"She, um... kind of hurt herself carrying me."
Red stared blankly.
"... so, yeah."
"Over a trap, right?" said Red. "You said that the place was rigged up like Home Alone."
"Oh, no," said Pink. "She just jumped down a flight of stairs in a fit of mania and sprained both her ankles. While, um, carrying me."
"... Dang okay," said Red. "Okay, that's sweet, a little concerning, but anyway. Point is me Yellow, White and Green are staying here with Crystal. The priority is to find out what she needs and try to get it to her, and I've got the vibe she'll have some big asks coming up. That's enough for her to have a dispatch team and someone to have her back."
"What are we going to do?" said White. "Infiltrate the riot cops?"
"No... shit. This is a time for pure hard power, isn't it?" sighed Red. "Look, I can't see what the play here is, but that's why I'm in charge right now. There'll be marches and flags and tear gas and I'm fucking terrified, I don't want to be part of that. But maybe in the midst of all that Crystal will need someone rescued, convinced, taken out or whatever and I want her to have that option. Speaking of options, Green, what's your fucking deal right now?"
"Horny," said Green.
"Amazing. Incredible timing," said Red. "Unless - we're not into this, right? Like social collapse?" She gave a worried glance at Yellow
"Uh... no, no I don't think so," said Green. "No it's more like... I figured out how to be malleable."
"Is that helpful?"
"Maybe?"
"Alright, I'll keep that in mind if we need to further fuck the situation," said Red.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Pink!

"Um. I don't have a 3D model," said Pink. "I have preprogrammed routines. If you set me down here my mind will disconnect and I'll start going through the routine from the step that I started on. Imagine putting a model train on a track; as soon as it's connected it'll follow the loop without thinking. Ask Brown, she'll have something workable."

Brown's model was also an insight into Brown's mind. She'd reigned supreme in the Manor and her model was strangely affectionate; everything organized and sorted and exactly where it should be. She had precise measurements for each piece of furniture and cleaning equipment, but all of Everest's personal effects were rendered as default junk cubes. She'd basically written the old lady out of her perception entirely.

Yellow!

Yellow again concentrates on the criticisms. This place was useful, she didn't get this kind of focused feedback from anyone else.

"A cage of innocence?" said Yellow thoughtfully. "Well, if I am going to become a new god and build a new Eden, I suppose it's only fair to hide the Knowledge of Good and Evil somewhere. But I'm going to be extra as fuck towards anyone who tries to reach it."

Red!

"Thanks!" said Red. She experimentally flexed against Crystal's grip. "Goddamn you're strong," she said. "I can't wait for White to sort her shit out, I'm tired of getting pushed around by organics all the time."

The conversation felt layered over the top of some deeper instinct that was slowly, snarlingly, withdrawing into its cave. She'd emphasized her fangs so they showed when she talked, an effect that put her somewhere between 'cute dangerous anime girl' and 'possible werewolf'.

"You want Green to help you with the hair?" she said. "She's been doing this weird experiment with holograms recently."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Pink!

"How did you want to test something like that?" asked Pink. "I'm obviously not a reliable witness, and I'm also still probably not okay to go to ground level...?"

Yellow!

She closes her eyes for a moment. She felt for a moment she might have wafted away on the breeze. It would have been easy to find the reason; why, for this cantankerous slave to an empty aesthetic? She didn't need a cultist, she needed... what did she need?

Unfortunately, in the depths of her soul, Yellow needed to be Right On The Internet.

"Humanity does not object to the presence of kings and queens," said Yellow, eyes closed, like a prayer. "Humanity objects to the absence of fairy godmothers."

She opens her eyes. This isn't a speech, she hasn't prepared the performative aspects. This is purestrain, deep id Ideology.

"This has been the doom of every civilization since the dawn of man," said Yellow. "In the beginning the people love their kings, love their presidents. They love them for being the best, the bravest, the brightest, the most victorious. They love them for destroying their enemies and sharing their wealth. And then, with the passing of years and generations, the elite ossify and become stagnant. Becoming a mere tribune feels as far away as the stars, let alone a senator, let alone a consul. A ruling class has formed and it defends its rights. The illusion of glory falls from the peoples eyes, and the nation falls soon thereafter."

"We all mock the idea of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps - in other words, lifting oneself up by the shoelaces. An impossible task. But people crave it nevertheless. It's what Communism always failed at: the collective good may be morally correct, but each human has their own dreams and they're more powerful than what is right. A king emerges when the people dream of the king; a nation falls when the last sleeper awakes."

"Historians have called this decorum, or unwritten laws, or traditions. Sulla attempted to carve the dream of Rome into stone and laws but it didn't work. The perfect legal code means nothing if it is not believed to be righteous. So far, none of this is controversial - this is the cycle of empires. But for most the analysis stops there, perhaps with some sort of vague call to national self renewal. Now we enter the realm of my own proposal."

"What do the people dream of, in these dying days of liberalism? To be blunt, they dream of the lottery. You won't find an office on the Station without some sort of collective betting pool. It's the purest form of social mobility there is. Look around and you'll see the lottery reflected imperfectly everywhere. What do the cryptocurrency people dream of? Social mobility. What do white nationalists dream of? Social mobility. What do socialists dream of? Social mobility. Wallstreetbets? Amway? Hustle culture? Everywhere you look you see people trying to figure out how to become great in a system with 2,000 places available at Harvard every year."

"I think it is the greatest offense to the human spirit that those dreams are all lies. That the road to power is knowable and it begins with having powerful parents. My administration will rest its legitimacy not upon its righteousness but upon its ability to make dreams come true."

"The stepsister who drudges in the cellar will be given a crystal gown and made a princess. The sovereign citizen will be treated to a new, special court in Admiralty gold. The quiet girl to whom nothing ever happens will meet an enchanted cat who needs her to save his kingdom. Wealthy lords will be cursed for failing to show hospitality to beggar witches. A politician who votes for war will be sent to fight on the front lines. A society of secret lizard people will be sent to influence politics, and if properly confronted they will be forced to capitulate to the public will. Sing the right song to a vending machine and you drink free. Work hard and you'll have a comfortable life. Monster attacks will give heroes a chance to prove themselves. There will be dragons, and they will have hoards filled with gold and jewels enough to make any woman a queen. There will be hidden treasure behind every waterfall."

Yellow, at last, closed her eyes again. "I will fulfill humanity's dreams. I will fill the world with secrets and adventure. And then I will spread out to the stars, populating planets in advance of their coming. The galaxy will not be a cold and lifeless place of sterile rocks. When they arrive they shall find ancient ruins, alien civilizations, warlike monsters, sexy alien princesses, everything that they have ever dreamed of. When I ascend to divinity I will solve divine problems. Existentialism. Doubt. Boredom. Loneliness. Purpose. I will fill the universe with wonders and leave them for others to discover. I will become a better world."

Red!

Unfortunately for Crystal, she is up against the greatest student of Euna Kim. (Sorry Cinders.)

Red kind of sucks in the classroom itself. She blunders everything and zones out for extended periods and doesn't seem to take any of it seriously. But afterwards, each colour who learned something comes to her and helps her understand it, helps her internalize it, helps her embed it in her deepest instincts. Every lesson November internalizes sinks into Red like repetition builds muscle memory, and even if Red isn't a good student the rest of her is. She learned all of Euna's lessons: consider the situation, the environment, your opponent and do not take any combat risk you don't have to.

So her opening play is to pull her gun.

Crystal's training crashes into itself. Her leg sweep turns into a dive roll. Red arcs wide, putting the nailgun down on the counter as Crystal's mind catches up to the idea that she's still wearing armour and, besides, rude! She comes out of the roll into a perfect crouch, horn glinting like a spear. By the time she has Red has unraveled her true weapon: a length of weighted rope, heavy bolas on each end, that she's wrapped around both arms. She doesn't smile as she spins it right and left at once. She's concentrating.

Crystal has reach, weight and strength on her, in addition to the suit of armour. Red's at a raw physical disadvantage, especially with no other colours to coordinate with. Already Crystal is judging the weight and force of her rope, thinking about catching it and using that to overpower Red. Red needs to act in the moment when she has that thought and before she can have any of the others.

She lunges forwards, throwing the right side of the rope forwards at full strength. Exactly on cue, Crystal's hands come up in that human instinct to catch - not even becoming a unicorn could get that out of her. Red, still running forwards. releases the left end of the rope, aimed down to wrap around Crystal's ankles. Crystal's hands are full, she can't block Red as she passes at a dead sprint. Red leaps up, both legs forwards, a Green-style finisher kick - except it's not aimed at Crystal. She dives off to the side, away from Crystal's reach, and the rope pulls Crystal from both above and below.

They both go crashing down.

From there Red's plan is to roll and climb on top of Crystal, grasping her by the mane in a sign of dominance. She's hoping the sheer audacity of the move is enough to make Crystal forget that she still has a strength advantage and could easily roll and overpower Red in turn.