[RFC][Story]It's not the speed....

[Dartz]

And completed...

Ended up expanding that out into a full scene. Mostly to work in a line I'd wanted to add in earlier, but couldn't find a place.

Mackie found the sanctuary of his room in the old house and locked the door. And that’s where he stayed. He did his best to get that image out of his mind, but it just sat there - burned in. The interwave had been shut down to prioritise the convention.

He couldn’t even read to escape. Empty fanservice just didn’t have any attraction at the moment. All he could do was sit and wait to find out just how bad it was, while staring up at the model B-1 hanging above his bed. It remained dead still in the air. Life would’ve been easier if he’d never left the Knightwing. Considerably more boring, but if this was the alternative, definitely better. A draught of air caught the model and caused it to start to rotate slowly around on it’s wire hanger.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel outside. Mackie sat bolt-upright, listening for clues. He prayed it wasn’t someone with an article to write.

He lay back down and checked the time. It’d startled him to find it’d been over twelve hours since the accident. He’d already decided to pretend he wasn’t inside when the first knock on the door came. It occurred to him that maybe it was someone coming to deliver the bad news - only an asshole would give bad news by phone.

Another knock insisted.

Go away, he willed. He didn’t want to know

“S’me boy! I know you’re in there.”

Kohran?

She knocked for a third time, making it plainly clear that she wasn’t going away.

“Alright!”

He trudged down the stairs in his socks, taking a few moments to confirm that Kohran was alone. The front door gave an oaken creak as he opened it.

“Yeah?”

“Thought I might find you here.”

She sounded so cheerful it burned.

“Yeah,” he repeated sullenly. “You heard something about sis?”

He felt like the turkey asking what was so special about Christmas day.

“Nobody told you?”

Her shock was obvious. It was written across her face

“No.”

Maybe. It wasn’t possible

“Well. Last I heard, she was critical but stable - but that was an hour ago.”

I didn’t kill my own sister. The weight fell from his shoulders.

“Can I come in?” Asked Kohran.

“...uh.” Mackie nodded softly.

“Nice house,” Kohran commented. Mackie closed the door behind her. “Your Sister’s in good hands. I know Mom’s done work on her before. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I amn’t worrying. Not like that,” said Mackie. Not anymore anyway. In truth, not much after the first ten minutes. “ It’s just. When I was trapped in the computer system I awakened in, Jet would come and see me every day. She didn’t just leave me in the hanger alone, she tried to give me a good life. She did that for two years. As soon as Survival Shot got its first paying customer she used the cash to buy me this body from Vulpine Fury. And now....”

I almost killed them both. He couldn’t even say it.

“Ow.” Kohran winced visibly. She stood outside the living room, leaning back against the panelled wooden wall. Jet’s puppet was parked on the couch inside - inert and waiting while dressed for the anime panel. Mackie forced himself to look at Kohran, trying his hardest to ignore its lifeless stare.

"Well,” she continued. “I came up to say talked with Ford about all this, and we've come to an agreement. I'm paying one hundred credits as the rental charge for getting to ride the Highway Star for an hour. Well, less than an hour."

Mackie stared at her. "You helped save my life, and you're paying us?"

Kohran grinned warmly at him. "Saving lives is just the right thing to do. Getting to ride that bike was a thrill. You gotta learn the difference between what's important and what's fun." Seeing Mackie's expression on hearing that, she quickly added, "But I think you're starting to figure that one out. And sometimes they even overlap."

He glanced at the body behind her, still dead to the world.

“Thanks,” he said, forcing his gaze away from it once more. ”It’ll help cover the cost.”

“I guess Ford’s making you pay for the damages too?”

Her smile was kind. It soothed the pain.

He answered with a rueful smile of his own. “How’d you guess?”

She giggled. “Well, you’re not the first person to make a mess in a convention car park. An’ I don’t think you’ll be the last.”

--------

4 weeks later.

“Come in.”

This was going to be a tough appointment, and Eljay knew it. It’d already taken nearly a week of encouragement to get him to actually turn up. The door opened with a bell-chime, an apparent teenager stepping in. He wore the jacket of the Nekomi Motor Club, shuffling through the door with his hands in his pockets.

“So, how’ve you been, Mackie?”

Eljay tried to sound as if everything was normal - for the boy’s sake. It didn’t stop his eyes going wide as soon as he entered. Eljay couldn’t really blame him for that. The differences were so...up front. And that wasn’t even mentioning the reason why Mackie had a Vulpine Fury body in the first place.

“Fine. he said. His voice was smothered, like all the life had been sucked out of him somehow. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

VF smiled at him, trying to reassure him it was okay.

"You know how hard it is to find old-school modest outfits in my new size anymore?" VF sheepishly traced her hairline. "Don't mind the hair, though." She absently tugged at the hem of the knee-length skirt of her costume. “But if it matters, Apology accepted.”

Mackie blinked owlishly at her.

"So..... you're not.... mad about it?" he asked tentatively.

"Not your fault it turned out like this." A look of studious concentration crossed her face as she called the microscale waldoes to order on the workbench. "Heck, now I can roughhouse with Lime, and even survive one of her hugs like she used to give Karen. Excuse me." She sniffed daintily, emotion coloring her voice.

"Besides," she said, mastering herself. "I heard about the tongue lashings afterwards. Nah. It was only a matter of time before I got modded one way or another. I work with the stuff too much."

An impish smile crossed her face. "But now I can finally go to Disney World. This face isn't on their 'do not admit' board." She twisted her lips into a moue of disgust. "Good thing I don't smoke or drink though. I'd get carded for the rest of my life."

Mackie answered with a grateful smile. “Welcome to my world.”

"Right, let's see what wear and tear you have on your mimetics."

------

Being docked with a ‘workbench’ in Prometheus Forge wasn’t a new experience for Jet. It was all just a part of being a cyberpunk, really; relax and feel the lab hardware unite with her body. Connectors penetrated through opened armour panels, docking with her dataports. Warm currents flowed through her systems. Data needles intercepted nerve signals. Her schematics were displayed on a monitor opposite alongside her vital statistics, showing the full complexity of what she was and the modifications that’d been made.

A mirror showed a reflection of her body. Her breast panels had been taken off, along with parts of her legs including her engine cowlings.

Most of her actuators had been locked offline - a safety protocol in case of a stray signal. Jet also needed to be strapped down. She didn’t mind. It was a consequence of her unique nature. She could understand why it could feel like a waking nightmare for some new cybers, but for her it was a fact of life.

She could still turn her head to look over at A.C.’s bare back. A.C. was dressed in a skintight leotard - tight enough that Jet was having second thoughts about taking her up on the Shockskin offer. The puppet always just felt a little distant compared to real skin. It never really felt like the sensations it broadcast were a part of her.

One of the new interfaces woke up, detected her interest and decided to offer up a full sensor analysis of A.C. It began to insist on uncovering what was beneath the white leotard inspite of Jet’s effort to shut it up.

It was overlayed on top of - and simultaneously in parallel to - her natural eyesight, reporting intimate details straight to her mind.

“Stop that,” Jet hissed through her teeth at it.

“It’ll take time for the interface to get used to you, as much as it’ll take time for you to get used to the interface.”

The note of amusement in A.C’s voice was clear. One of the holo-windows surrounding her was gleefully reporting exactly what that particular software agent was looking at.

Besides, as often as she’d dreamed about popping open the armour and letting bare skin be caressed by a cool breeze the fact was that the armour had saved her life. It fractured on impact, dissipating the energy where Shockskin would just have been torn apart by the concrete.

It’d allowed her to save Mackie’s life. It was safe inside. Being naked against the world seemed terrifyingly risky, no matter how cybered she was underneath.

A.C. pulled up another feed from Jet’s body. Her green eyes stared at it, as she willed it to make sense. “I’m still trying to tie down this gap anomaly in your psychograph. It might be a sign of lingering neural damage, but there’s no biological signs. Synaptic fibres show normal signalling levels.”

She double checked something, humming to herself as it proved not to be the cause. Jet thought for a moment, debating with herself whether it was worth revealing or truth or not.

“No,” she said, figuring that it was better to say it now than after six hours of intensive diagnostics.“That might be Mackie.”

“Mackie?”

A.C. turned to face, showing that her leotard covered almost as little on the front aswell.

“Mackie awakened in the Knightwing’s computer. He awakened during a test of the datalink, while I was hooked up to the system. The system crashed then automatically restarted. It used the datalink as a boot device while I was still hooked up to it.”

She could see A.C’s mind working behind her green eyes, investigating the possible reasons and outcomes.

“It was interrupted halfway through by someone realising there was a problem and pulling the plug. Handwavium patched up the missing holes, with the end result being Mackie in a computer wondering how he got there and me wondering how my younger brother got into a computer.”

The implications were as obvious as they were unsettling.

“I can see why you didn’t tell anyone,” said A.C. after a moment’s contemplation.

“It’s better for him that nobody knows.” Jet answered. “I thought I’d gotten away with it until I looked at my ID card and wondered why there was an M beside my name.”

A.C quirked an eyebrow. “Memory damage?”

Jet smirked at her. “Mackie was born out of my manhood. Like I said, handwavium patched up the gaps with what was left.”

“That explains a lot.” A.C. said dryly. “The family resemblance can be striking sometimes.”

Jet momentarily recalled herself dancing through the wake vortices trailing behind Boeings, or playing games with the Air-Forces of Europe. That'd been a long time ago.

“Well. I think he’s learned a lesson anyway.”

“His recklessness nearly killed dozens of people, he’d be a fool not to. And dangerous if he didn’t care.”

“Well. The first thing he did when he went to VF for a checkup was apologise for what happened.” She was almost smiling with pride.

“Poor dear. The first few weeks are always the hardest. I’ve already sent her my best - and an offer of assistance.”

Jet snorted inspite of herself.

“My, My. Dirty minds.” A.C. chided gently, before grasping for another holo-window. “The new systems are integrating well. We can do a full combat system trial tomorrow.”

“It feels good to be back in one piece.” Jet clenched her hands tightly together, confirming it to herself. The new sensory pads answered with satisfying a burst of electric feedback. “The drone with the two power packs should get here anyway tomorrow. Though I still have no idea how you found out about it. ”

A.C. smiled impishly at her. “There’s a consortium working on reverse engineering gate-metal using original samples from Yggdrasil and Arcadia. One of the other members just happens to be Stellviacorp.”

“Shinji?”

“...Didn’t say a word about it.” A.C finished. “But once Prim Snowlight analysed the energy signature of his motoroid, he didn’t have to. It didn’t take a genius level intellect to look at where you’d been and join up the dots.”

“I should’ve guessed.” Jet muttered to herself.

“Well, The only question left is how much more you have to hand?”

“We’ve enough to use it for the KS hardware, with a good stock of spare parts. How much do you need?”

A.C. thought on it. “These two packs and another thirty kilograms. That will cover everything.”

Jet didn’t even give her face a chance to betray how much she really had.

“Sounds fair,” she nodded. “Lebia’s asked me to do that photoshoot thing with the puppet, so I’ll bring it in the chopper in a week.”

A.C. blinked. “You actually agreed to that?”

Jet couldn’t shrug her shoulders - she was still docked. “She helped save Mackie. I owe her that much.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t want help.” A.C. muttered, turning back to the holo-windows.

Jet could only thank her lucky stars. As much as it would make her look good, everyone has their limits.

------

And done. Thanks for all the help, commentary and assistance.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?