*blinkblink* Yeesh, it has been a while, hasn't it? Damn.
Okay. Here's what I've had lying around for chapter four, though it's only about a quarter of the way done. Would have been more, but my more recent drafts are currently stuck back several hundred kilometers away, where I forgot my flash drive.
Oh, and guys? Thanks for the kick in the ass. I need those on occasion.
Everybody's waiting for something to happen,
Everybody's waiting for something to see,
Lunatics waiting for bigger disasters,
Everyone's waiting for news on TV,
- Face in the Sand, Iron Maiden
Take two people, have them just ... fit ... without much of an initial reason, but getting to trust one-another more and more as time went on. Similar in some respects, different in just enough to make things interesting. Stir liberally, and let stew for a month or so.
Add in an appropriate number of secrets on either side. They don't exactly go unmentioned, no, but with both the people in question having severe trust issues said secrets are worked around.
Then have both of them almost kill one-another in a showdown that was such a comedy of errors, or simply badly matched coincidences, that it could have been written by the old Greeks - everything had been going in a suitably tragic manner, in any case.
And then, after all that was said and done and mulled over, have them meet and at least _try_ to deal with things like reasonable beings - a course of events which, had the acquaintances of one of the participants found out about it, they would likely not have believed her capable of cooling down enough to make that last decision.
What you get - other than the queen of run-on explanations - is the mother of all awkward silences.
At least there was beer, thought Priss distractedly, even if it did taste like watered down piss.
She stiffened momentarily, as a slight weight settled on her right shoulder, opting to ignore it for the moment.
Behind her back, a dozen or two meters, two bikes sat on a smallish parking lot, a lonely lantern lighting the space and providing at least some illumination other than moonlight to the area. In front of her, waves rolled and frothed, barely perceptible in the faint lighting.
"Do you ... hate me?"
The problem with long, awkward silences, Priss groused to herself, was that they were often broken by things that made the situation even more-so.
In this case, it was because, though she hated to admit it ...
"I don't know, Sylvie," she finally managed. "I don't even know what to _think_ right now."
If there was anything about herself that she knew, and knew well, it was anger. She'd always been passionate, but somewhere back in the grit, gunpowder and gasoline, and the wake of blood spilled on paved highways, it had been anger and determination which let her drag herself out of a spiral of depression and self-doubt.
GENOM had been the focus of most of that anger, and over time it had easily spilled over into other related avenues.
The first chink in the cast-iron world-view she'd forged for herself hadn't occurred so very long ago, either. That boomers didn't necessarily equal hate.
It only took the death of, for all intents and purposes, a little girl, to drive that point home.
Now?
Priss didn't have many friends. She was just that kind of person. She had acquaintances, and some of them were friendly, but people she considered friends were few and far in-between ... even with the Knight Sabers, the only one she thought of as such was Sylia.
Linna and Nene were Good People, she knew and realized that, but still couldn't help but keep her distance most of the time. She trusted them with her back, yes, but ... it had been a long time since she'd trusted someone with her emotions.
Sylia was one of those rare people who'd managed to get behind that last line of defense, though exactly how that had come about even Priss wasn't entirely sure of.
Sylvie, though she'd only known her for what Priss realized was a very brief, comparatively speaking, period of time, had somehow achieved that as well.
"As far back as I can remember, I've wanted to be free," the amber eyed woman said into the night. "I never thought it would be this ..."
"What?" the singer turned her head slightly, to where Sylvie's was leaning against her shoulder.
"Priss, you were the first person who cared about me that didn't have a serial number. And I ... don't know if any of the others are still alive," the cyberoid confessed. "There were five of us when we ran, three who'd stayed behind, volunteering to be the distraction. Even with that, only Anri and myself made it out of Genaros, and I don't even know if Anri's," she choked back what sounded like a sob.
Well, what did you say to that.
Priss decided not to try and say anything to it, in any case. Her reaction would have had anyone who knew her rub their eyes in disbelief, though, as she - somewhat jerkily, and with not a small amount of hesitation - brought her arm up behind Sylvie and hugged her.
--
Demonbane Ltd.
presents
Machine Spirit
Arc One->Largo
Four->Who wants to live forever?
the follow up of a short in the BGC world
by Griever
Disclaimer: I make no claim to own the characters and settings used.
--
"I've got good news," he heard, the partially synthesized voice taking him away from some ruminations.
He'd always been a bit of a recluse, yes, but he'd also had many timesinks to turn to ... which, sadly, didn't really work all that well anymore. For example, he'd managed to discover that the most recently integrated sections of the J-1 battle computer had a tendency to activate whenever something they could relate to was being considered ... it made trying to play any sort of game lose its appeal, even with restricting his mind's 'processing speed' to just around human baseline.
So Kiba's interruption, for whatever reason, was a welcome one.
"Unfortunately, I've also got bad news, and worse news."
Alright, so maybe not that welcome.
He imagined it was a bit of an amusing sight, a battlemover hanging its head despondently, but he really didn't feel much like laughing at the moment.
"Bad news first, then," he sighed.
"You've been drawing attention, and not of the good kind either," Kiba said, plopping down atop an empty ammo crate. She had a lot of those around, sometimes in lieu of furniture. Her coffee table had once held a couple hundred 40mm HE shells, for instance. "My people tell me the JSDF's brought in one of their contractors, since the USSD's political clout took a nosedive ever since the Aqua-City incident, and more-so now that they'd been unable to retrieve a certain rogue superweapon."
"It's so nice to be wanted," the battlemover grumbled. "Not. Okay, what's the worse news?"
"Actually, that ties in with the former. I'm going to have to evict you. The contractor they've brought in is pretty damn good at what she does, _and_ she knows the city well enough to realize exactly where she ought to dig."
No, it wasn't entirely unexpected ... it was still pretty damn bad, though.
"Well, shit," Griever's own synthesizer wasn't very sophisticated, but it managed to convey the sentiment accurately enough. "Right. I'm just about ready for the good news now, thankyouverymuch."
"There's some old safehouses I don't have a use for anymore that you could rotate through," said the arms dealer and occasional middle-woman, "not much, but you two've been an investment with good returns, so there you go."
"For what it's worth, thanks. I don't suppose you could throw in a couple of cases worth of reloads for me?"
"What do you take me for, charity?" she asked with a wry chuckle. "Wasn't all of the good news, though. This last bit isn't big, but you'll want to know it."
"Okay, you've got my ear. And a few independent recording tracks."
"No need," she set a palm sized, flat and flat black object on the crate beside her. "It took a while, but I've got you your commission's worth here. Physical description fits to a tee, and the timeline works out as well. Here's all a few favors got me on Millie Jackson."
***
He grunted, part annoyance, part effort ... Mackie Stingray was, despite what a fair number of people in his acquaintance assumed, in more than decent shape. Unfortunately, he was also both still a teenager, and not exactly in possession of the sort of physical frame that lent itself to feats of great strength.
Dragging his nigh-insensate older sister through the sub-basement, into an elevator, then putting her to bed took a bit more effort than he was used to, to tell the truth.
And wasn't _he_ supposed to be the younger, immature sibling?
Of course, working yourself into the ground with the sort of obsessiveness some people approached drinking a bar dry wasn't the same as trying to get nude photos of people (or 'person' at least) known for their quickness in resorting to violent responses, but he'd firmly resolved to forget about that little tidbit next time Sylia wanted to give him a chewing-out.
The younger Stingray's thoughts quickly, surprisingly so in fact, went back to the matter at hand as he got onto the elevator and headed for the sub-basement again.
After all, he thought with a sigh, he knew his sister well enough to realize that she wouldn't let up until she was done with this. She hadn't been this bad about upgrading their equipment since an inadequacy in the early model of Linna's suit had nearly gotten the dancer killed during a sortie, and the young man could sympathize.
She'd always taken her responsibilities seriously. Sometimes too seriously at that.
Well, at least she'd learned how to delegate over the years ... or rather, Doc Raven had damn near beaten that into her head once upon a fall in '29.
The workshop door hissed open, and Mackie went in, resigning himself to another mostly sleepless night checking Sylia's work over as best he could.
He supposed that it could be genetic. Or maybe it was just enlightened self-interest.
After all, the part of his mind that always kept some levity about it remarked, if someone on the team got injured he'd have one less knock-out to perv on.
"One can't be seen as too responsible, after all. Bad for the image."
The door *swooshed* shut behind him.
***
That last bit is there to establish Mackie as something more than just a lecher.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Okay. Here's what I've had lying around for chapter four, though it's only about a quarter of the way done. Would have been more, but my more recent drafts are currently stuck back several hundred kilometers away, where I forgot my flash drive.
Oh, and guys? Thanks for the kick in the ass. I need those on occasion.
Everybody's waiting for something to happen,
Everybody's waiting for something to see,
Lunatics waiting for bigger disasters,
Everyone's waiting for news on TV,
- Face in the Sand, Iron Maiden
Take two people, have them just ... fit ... without much of an initial reason, but getting to trust one-another more and more as time went on. Similar in some respects, different in just enough to make things interesting. Stir liberally, and let stew for a month or so.
Add in an appropriate number of secrets on either side. They don't exactly go unmentioned, no, but with both the people in question having severe trust issues said secrets are worked around.
Then have both of them almost kill one-another in a showdown that was such a comedy of errors, or simply badly matched coincidences, that it could have been written by the old Greeks - everything had been going in a suitably tragic manner, in any case.
And then, after all that was said and done and mulled over, have them meet and at least _try_ to deal with things like reasonable beings - a course of events which, had the acquaintances of one of the participants found out about it, they would likely not have believed her capable of cooling down enough to make that last decision.
What you get - other than the queen of run-on explanations - is the mother of all awkward silences.
At least there was beer, thought Priss distractedly, even if it did taste like watered down piss.
She stiffened momentarily, as a slight weight settled on her right shoulder, opting to ignore it for the moment.
Behind her back, a dozen or two meters, two bikes sat on a smallish parking lot, a lonely lantern lighting the space and providing at least some illumination other than moonlight to the area. In front of her, waves rolled and frothed, barely perceptible in the faint lighting.
"Do you ... hate me?"
The problem with long, awkward silences, Priss groused to herself, was that they were often broken by things that made the situation even more-so.
In this case, it was because, though she hated to admit it ...
"I don't know, Sylvie," she finally managed. "I don't even know what to _think_ right now."
If there was anything about herself that she knew, and knew well, it was anger. She'd always been passionate, but somewhere back in the grit, gunpowder and gasoline, and the wake of blood spilled on paved highways, it had been anger and determination which let her drag herself out of a spiral of depression and self-doubt.
GENOM had been the focus of most of that anger, and over time it had easily spilled over into other related avenues.
The first chink in the cast-iron world-view she'd forged for herself hadn't occurred so very long ago, either. That boomers didn't necessarily equal hate.
It only took the death of, for all intents and purposes, a little girl, to drive that point home.
Now?
Priss didn't have many friends. She was just that kind of person. She had acquaintances, and some of them were friendly, but people she considered friends were few and far in-between ... even with the Knight Sabers, the only one she thought of as such was Sylia.
Linna and Nene were Good People, she knew and realized that, but still couldn't help but keep her distance most of the time. She trusted them with her back, yes, but ... it had been a long time since she'd trusted someone with her emotions.
Sylia was one of those rare people who'd managed to get behind that last line of defense, though exactly how that had come about even Priss wasn't entirely sure of.
Sylvie, though she'd only known her for what Priss realized was a very brief, comparatively speaking, period of time, had somehow achieved that as well.
"As far back as I can remember, I've wanted to be free," the amber eyed woman said into the night. "I never thought it would be this ..."
"What?" the singer turned her head slightly, to where Sylvie's was leaning against her shoulder.
"Priss, you were the first person who cared about me that didn't have a serial number. And I ... don't know if any of the others are still alive," the cyberoid confessed. "There were five of us when we ran, three who'd stayed behind, volunteering to be the distraction. Even with that, only Anri and myself made it out of Genaros, and I don't even know if Anri's," she choked back what sounded like a sob.
Well, what did you say to that.
Priss decided not to try and say anything to it, in any case. Her reaction would have had anyone who knew her rub their eyes in disbelief, though, as she - somewhat jerkily, and with not a small amount of hesitation - brought her arm up behind Sylvie and hugged her.
--
Demonbane Ltd.
presents
Machine Spirit
Arc One->Largo
Four->Who wants to live forever?
the follow up of a short in the BGC world
by Griever
Disclaimer: I make no claim to own the characters and settings used.
--
"I've got good news," he heard, the partially synthesized voice taking him away from some ruminations.
He'd always been a bit of a recluse, yes, but he'd also had many timesinks to turn to ... which, sadly, didn't really work all that well anymore. For example, he'd managed to discover that the most recently integrated sections of the J-1 battle computer had a tendency to activate whenever something they could relate to was being considered ... it made trying to play any sort of game lose its appeal, even with restricting his mind's 'processing speed' to just around human baseline.
So Kiba's interruption, for whatever reason, was a welcome one.
"Unfortunately, I've also got bad news, and worse news."
Alright, so maybe not that welcome.
He imagined it was a bit of an amusing sight, a battlemover hanging its head despondently, but he really didn't feel much like laughing at the moment.
"Bad news first, then," he sighed.
"You've been drawing attention, and not of the good kind either," Kiba said, plopping down atop an empty ammo crate. She had a lot of those around, sometimes in lieu of furniture. Her coffee table had once held a couple hundred 40mm HE shells, for instance. "My people tell me the JSDF's brought in one of their contractors, since the USSD's political clout took a nosedive ever since the Aqua-City incident, and more-so now that they'd been unable to retrieve a certain rogue superweapon."
"It's so nice to be wanted," the battlemover grumbled. "Not. Okay, what's the worse news?"
"Actually, that ties in with the former. I'm going to have to evict you. The contractor they've brought in is pretty damn good at what she does, _and_ she knows the city well enough to realize exactly where she ought to dig."
No, it wasn't entirely unexpected ... it was still pretty damn bad, though.
"Well, shit," Griever's own synthesizer wasn't very sophisticated, but it managed to convey the sentiment accurately enough. "Right. I'm just about ready for the good news now, thankyouverymuch."
"There's some old safehouses I don't have a use for anymore that you could rotate through," said the arms dealer and occasional middle-woman, "not much, but you two've been an investment with good returns, so there you go."
"For what it's worth, thanks. I don't suppose you could throw in a couple of cases worth of reloads for me?"
"What do you take me for, charity?" she asked with a wry chuckle. "Wasn't all of the good news, though. This last bit isn't big, but you'll want to know it."
"Okay, you've got my ear. And a few independent recording tracks."
"No need," she set a palm sized, flat and flat black object on the crate beside her. "It took a while, but I've got you your commission's worth here. Physical description fits to a tee, and the timeline works out as well. Here's all a few favors got me on Millie Jackson."
***
He grunted, part annoyance, part effort ... Mackie Stingray was, despite what a fair number of people in his acquaintance assumed, in more than decent shape. Unfortunately, he was also both still a teenager, and not exactly in possession of the sort of physical frame that lent itself to feats of great strength.
Dragging his nigh-insensate older sister through the sub-basement, into an elevator, then putting her to bed took a bit more effort than he was used to, to tell the truth.
And wasn't _he_ supposed to be the younger, immature sibling?
Of course, working yourself into the ground with the sort of obsessiveness some people approached drinking a bar dry wasn't the same as trying to get nude photos of people (or 'person' at least) known for their quickness in resorting to violent responses, but he'd firmly resolved to forget about that little tidbit next time Sylia wanted to give him a chewing-out.
The younger Stingray's thoughts quickly, surprisingly so in fact, went back to the matter at hand as he got onto the elevator and headed for the sub-basement again.
After all, he thought with a sigh, he knew his sister well enough to realize that she wouldn't let up until she was done with this. She hadn't been this bad about upgrading their equipment since an inadequacy in the early model of Linna's suit had nearly gotten the dancer killed during a sortie, and the young man could sympathize.
She'd always taken her responsibilities seriously. Sometimes too seriously at that.
Well, at least she'd learned how to delegate over the years ... or rather, Doc Raven had damn near beaten that into her head once upon a fall in '29.
The workshop door hissed open, and Mackie went in, resigning himself to another mostly sleepless night checking Sylia's work over as best he could.
He supposed that it could be genetic. Or maybe it was just enlightened self-interest.
After all, the part of his mind that always kept some levity about it remarked, if someone on the team got injured he'd have one less knock-out to perv on.
"One can't be seen as too responsible, after all. Bad for the image."
The door *swooshed* shut behind him.
***
That last bit is there to establish Mackie as something more than just a lecher.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm