Tetra-Phi 5 News
Reporter: Alucia Touchbase
Startling events occurred this evening on Checktiza. In a small city south of the capital, a train carrying six hundred passengers was hit by what first-responders are claiming was a missile attack. The first three cars detonated, killing over one hundred instantly. The four car flipped over, and eventually derailed, Lances managed to crash the car into a nearby warehouse, but casualties are still coming in.
A firefight with an unnamed assailant caused extreme damage to the city, collapsing four whole buildings and severely damaging several others. Cost expectations are to be in the trillions, with the injured and dead numbering over three thousand.
Information is still scanty, but we will update when the official press-conference is held in six hours.
Cirrhosis and Cannata land in Olm-tok with no problems. Olm-tok, itself, is having problems, however, as there is a big train crash of some sort in the east, preliminary reports claim some sort of terrorist fired a rocket. Very little footage, most people were not randomly recording the train ride, but the two people that had sensers of the incident saw a man is a tight gray suit, very thin and very tall. Cirrhosis watches the footage six times as they ride a cab to Unz Unz Unzt, just to do a drive-by before the actual thing at midnight. The building looks like a normal club, a lot larger percentage of patio to inside space than Cirrhosis would expect back home, but backwater planets tend to be a bit sprawl heavy.
“Vii.”
“What?”
“Vii Ariable is here. He shot that train. I would recognize him anywhere.”
“Well, it is to be expected.”
“Right, the sale. Anyone who is anyone should be here.”
“Or at least have an emissary here, yeah. Although starting something that major during the sale is a little ridiculous. He must have wanted that train derailed very badly.”
“Particularly as he is running the sale in a few hours.”
“What could he be thinking?” Cannata mutters, the cab they are in parks in front of a small hotel complex. Three fifty-story buildings surrounding an artificial lagoon of pools and bars, two boulevards of trees lines the lagoon thinly, as to keep it viewable by the inhabitants of the hotel. A relatively standard three-star affair, but for a planet as purposefully mediocre as Checktiza it is the crème deluxe with cheese, a drink, and the He’s Just Not that Into You 16: The Reckoning fully automated action figure included.
“This place is nice enough.” Cirrhosis says, getting out of the taxi. He waves his wrist in front of the reader on the door. Cannata gets out the other door and brings her bags with her, walking away without looking back. Cirrhosis has to grab his bags quickly to catch up.
“I had about thirty minutes to book. Crawl out of my ass.” She says, still looking forward.
“I was being honest.”
“When did you start that practice?” Finally making eye contact, Cirrhosis takes a big breath. Finally time, eh?
“Okay. If we are going to work together it would be helpful if you didn’t relate everything I say through the filter of ‘he cheated on me forty years ago’. I think that, just maybe, we should be past that.”
“That isn’t going to happen.” Blunt as ever.
“I was a first lifer, you were my first girlfriend.” Lie, Cirrhosis was seventeen, but Cannata was his second girlfriend. First girl was a real firecracker, Cirrhosis always had a thing for crazy tom-boys.
“First and third.” She says through her teeth as they enter the open atrium. Huge vaulted ceiling with a holographic metal sculpture turning light millions of ways, giving the whole room the sense of being underwater. Large stone pillars mark off arches in a semicircle, the second floor mirroring the first before hitting the dome, which has a fresco of Corialis founding the planet and the bland history thereafter. Many men and women with farm implements working flowing fields of grain. Cirrhosis would probably stop and look at it if Cannata wasn’t being such a bitch.
“I made out with her.” He says, exasperated, finally willing to continue talking.
“She touched your cock.”
“Like grazed it.”
“Grazed it back and forth until-“
“Seriously?” Cirrhosis looks to his left and sees the restaurant on the first floor is full of children. One is getting out of his chair, his eyes not blinking. Hoping to get a senser.
“You never even apologized.”
“You wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t of told you.”
“You want a trophy for that too?”
“Hello, kiddo.”
“Sir.” The kid says to Cirrhosis. Cirrhosis and Cannata fake smiles for the child. Cirrhosis pulls a shooting pose, recording his senses as he aims his imaginary bow at the boy, then pans up to shoot at the main doorway.
“Bang.”
“You going to win?”
“Obviously, kid. Who even stands a chance?”
“Nobody!” The kid smiles as Cirrhosis sends the sense recording to a temporary address in the hotels bank.
“Go ask the main desk, I sent you a little something.”
“Thank you sir!”
“No problem.”
The boy starts to walk away, but turns around before Cirrhosis turned to leave. “You should have stayed with the first girl. This one is scary.”
“I get that a lot.” Cannata smiles to the kid, who smiles back. Satisfied, he leaves for the desk.
“You were groveling.” Cannata starts again.
“I apologized when I told you. I’m not going through this again.” Cirrhosis says, smiling and waving at the boy, but making a point of walking swiftly to the elevators.
“Oh, because it’s so hard on you.”
“Why the hell are you here?” He hits the button so hard he’s sure the elevator is either not going to come, or plummet down the shaft and save him the trouble.
“You know why.”
“You didn’t need to come with me to get the fucking jewel.”
“I only knew that was what they were talking about because you came.” She says, getting into the elevator.
“What, so it’s fair then?” Cirrhosis mutters, feeling sorry for the boy. Yeah, they aren’t any better when you get older, kid.
“No. You plan on stealing the fucking thing out of here. I want it. We have a mutual interest.”
“Except that I plan on giving it to Toro.” Cirrhosis says, looking her square in the eye. She knows the stakes.
“We can fight about THAT later.” She turns towards the front of the elevator. Conversation over, apparently.
“Fantastic.”
The elevator ride is awkward to say the least, silence permeates the walls. It’s hard not to be awkward when your ex-girlfriend basically states that she wants some ridiculous bauble over your continued life. They head to the hotel on the thirtieth floor in silence, only muttering to each other as Cannata fumbles with the door.
“Look…” She begins.
“We really will just deal with that later. We need to focus if we are going to pull this off.”
“Hmm… Yeah, even with illegal alien technology we aren’t going to be able to steal that jewel without some precise orchestration.”
“Your specialty.”
“Not your style.” Flattery.
“I know.” Cirrhosis says, unpacking various boxes from their luggage onto his bed. The room has two queen-size beds set in the ‘traditional’ style, which basically translates to a place that is fine for sleeping but too small and awkwardly lit to serve for awake functionality.
“It is unlikely either one of us will survive this you know.” Cannata says, opening a small box, inside a red ball. It glows in an uneven way, some sort of power core.
“Is that you attempting to apologize?”
“Perhaps I do know that everything between us was a long time ago.”
“It’s hard to avoid thinking long-term when you live forever.”
“I’m not that much older than you.” She says, not looking up, but raising an eyebrow.
“Only 160 years.”
“Hmm… that did doom us from the start didn’t it?”
“Most likely.”
“Do you know what this jewel does?” She states with curiosity, the metal bits she was twisting all seem to click together at once. A slow whirring sound can be heard.
“Not really. I know that Truckee used it to get where he is… somehow. Although how owning some expensive rock equals success sauce, and then makes you a media mogul, is a mystery to me.”
“I heard… Hmm… Whatever.”
“What?” Cirrhosis puts down what he was working on, some sort of long gun that Cannata gave his eButler the blueprint and instructions for, but not the use.
“Okay. I heard that it grants a wish.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure how it works, I figure some sort of colossus hack program. I mean, ultimate amounts of money can buy you literally anything.”
“True, but isn’t Truckee in debt?”
“Maybe you can only use it once?”
“That doesn’t seem right.”
“What you think it’s magic?”
“Not really.” But Code Name did jump out of a window and vanish. Or was that Vii's hackjob? Who knows?
“You do don’t you?”
“Technology sufficiently advanced beyond what you understand will look like magic.”
“Regardless, it needs to be something big to be worth the trouble.” She says, getting back to work on another box of parts.
“We can agree on that.”
“The secret.”
“What are you vibrating about now?” Truckee mutters.
“I will ask you once. You will answer or I will kill that woman, your strange child, and yourself.” Vii aims his guns at the three of them. Truckee knows what Vii wants, but also knows that he should probably not say anything for the sake of other people. Truckee doesn’t care about other people, however. Although he doesn’t want Sunshine to be killed either… A quandary for someone as self preserving as Truckee Dumpstar.
“Okay, fine. Can you stop pointing guns at me and just listen.”
“Yeah. I’d recommend that.” A woman says behind Vii, right before slamming the butt of a pistol in his temple. Vii drops off the car and manages a roll on the concrete, landing on his back. Truckee sees the woman, but turns to his left in confusion.
“Holy shit, you’re twins?” Truckee yells, mostly because he needs somewhere to throw his anxiety.
“Not exactly, although I don’t appreciate this freak pointing a gun at her. More principal than anything else.” Apocalypse says shooting a tazer into Vii’s face, even though Vii was already unconscious.
“Oh my god. Pepper is here isn’t he?” Sunshine finds herself crying, not entirely sure why.
“Somewhere. He said he had a friend in some rubble or something.”
“Fuck. Do you know where we are going?” Truckee mutters, hope almost filtering into his thought patterns. A disconcerting process for someone who constantly has his hopes dashed.
“GPS in the car; grab your infant and follow me.” Apocalypse grunts as she jumps off the car.
“If you aren’t related…”
“Some sort of sex robot.”
“How many of these are we going to get saddled with?” Truckee says to Big as much as to Sunshine.
“I’m a SHOE salesman, son!” Big says, scratching his balls. Or, more accurately, where his balls would have been were he to be an adult model.
“Keep telling yourself that, artificial bait.”
“Do you know where we are going?” Sunshine mutters.
“Not really, Big?”
“About twenty yards away from that rocket coming from over there!” Big screams, for once logically, tazing Truckee which makes him stumble forward and trip over a bit of concrete to land on his face. Sunshine takes the cue to dive and the rocket hits a group of pedestrians behind them. Blood- carnage-smoke-dust-bones-screams-carnage-smoke-fire-noise-more screams-dust-glass.
“Run, bitches!” Apocalypse screams and shoots blindly into a mass of screaming and running people.
“Are you even aiming?” Truckee says as they start running as a group.
“Not particularly.”
“What if you hit some random?”
“Fuck if I care.”
“Fair enough.” Truckee yells as another rocket shoots above them, raining glass all over the street. Several people, stupidly, dive for the ground as opposed to the intelligent people, who continue to run for their lives. Truckee pulls Sunshine’s hand, while holding Big like a football. “Which way?”
“That robot is leading us to a hover she is speaking to via a direct dive link.”
“Fantastic. Should we trust her?” Truckee can barely hear himself over the random people screaming.
“Yes. She is working with Pepper!” Sunshine screeches, fires are breaking out in the ground floors of the buildings nearby.
“I…” Truckee looks back as a woman gets shot in the chest by their ‘ride’. Apocalypse turns ahead again, running a few paces before someone starts taking pot shots at her from her right. Apocalypse dives forward over a car, Truckee sees the blur of a man shooting at her. Truckee looks back at Sunshine, who was dazzled by the blood spray and some bits of window falling from above.
“No.” Truckee pulls Sunshine left into an alley, and keeps running. “I don’t feel right. Cannot explain it.”
“But…” Sunshine yelps, but continues running. She can’t really argue about not trusting a sex robot with a gun. The alley is lurching right-ward, dust and rocks blowing everywhere. Less people screaming, less chance of rockets hitting you in the face.
“We need to find a way to contact your friend.” Truckee yells as they hit another major street, looking left and seeing a wall of fire and right and seeing a wall of people. Another alley sounds like the plan, and they continue running straight.
“Why? He isn’t going to have access either.”
“Epic kept saying this Pepper guy was supposed to be a fantastic planner.”
“Yes. I guess so.” Except for the space ninjas.
“He probably left you a message. Did he tell you anything?”
“Pepper didn’t give me… If I can get a signal to the World, I could eS his house servitor.”
“He gave you?”
“A code to his house. For when we got there.”
“Fantastic. Big?”
“Nothing. We have GPS from the satellites, but the World is being jammed! Localized interference is likely, as the power for the ansible is off-world.”
“Smarter than I thought.” Sunshine says, looking around a corner because the area seems a lot less busy than the rest. This street leads to some sort of train station, which is useless in this sort of train station explosion related environment. However, there is probably an overpass leading to the next neighborhood. They turn right and risk the station.
“Personality programming, bitch!”
“There we go.”
“Just keep running.” Sunshine laughs slightly, as much as someone can when they are taking stairs two at a time while running from both a robot duplicate of themselves with a gun and a tazer and a seven foot tall man with dual rocket launchers. Not to mention the buildings collapsing or the maniacal traffic clotting the streets or the people running incoherently ‘away from’.
The station is barren, tipped over trashcans and shattered glass. A smoldering bit of train fell into the concrete building housing the payment kiosks. The station itself is two flights above the street, one elevator leading to the main platform, and with four elevators leading to the platforms people actually get on the trains from. It is like an open knot, eight twists of trac
k lead into the station, and pull out somewhat logically at the other side. The main platform is relatively calm looking, plain concrete covered in motion adverts and holographic tagging. The crushed payment kiosk is still smoldering, but it doesn’t look like anyone was caught in the crash. The car that hit the station looks to have been the conductor’s, which wouldn’t have had anyone in it.
“So Vii shot the second car then.”
“Seems that way.” Truckee mutters as they walk through the station. A small icon blinks violet in his vision.
“You saw that too?” Sunshine says as they both stop.
“The payment system still has World access.” Truckee says, as Sunshine attempts to get her eButler to call Pepper’s house servitor.
“What can I do for you?”
“Thank the gods.” Sunshine laughs out loud.
“I need to know if there is a message for me.”
“Yes. The man of the house states that he is out. While he is out he says that the woman of the house should be sure to stay away from herself. Herself is not a good person to be alone with. She is, in fact, quite the robber baron. The good sir recommends that she get herself to her favorite restaurant and await her suitor. End of message.”
“What the time period is he from?” Sunshine giggles. Pepper is alive.
“So I was right then?” Truckee says, quite proud of his womanly intuition. Sunshine just nods.
“Robber… Oh, she must be working for someone trying to get the jewel. I wonder who?”
“This Pepper person seems to know at least. Where are we going now?”
“I know just the place.” Sunshine says, realizing quite quickly that they are going to have to find a way to get to the capital in this mess. “Big, can you get us a car?”
“Lances always have a car. Go to the basement.”
“If you weren’t already fingering yourself I would do it for you.” Truckee states, relieved. He puts Big down to lead the way.