it feels weird.  remaining on pandora ,  in hollow point.  squatting in the old safe house ,  the one with their picture on the wall young and triumphant with less sins weighing them down.  less monsters nipping at their heels.  it’s weird.  seeing felix’s chair ,  his work bench where him and fiona had spent countless hours hunched over counterfeit bills ,  poured over projects destined for fraudulent schemes while she’d paced the floor.  flicked cards into an upturned hat ,  found something to complain about … 

it’s weird being  alone.  not something she’s had much experience with ,  she’s always been one part of a set of two.  fiona and sasha.  sash and fi.  born with the luxury of having a older sister who somehow filled the family role  and  the best friend one.  someone who has always had her back ,  no matter what.  and then there was felix.  and that was  complicated.  but after certain truths came to light ,  milling around in the old stomping ground for as long as she has …  it’s  —   it’s easy to miss him too. 

maybe that’s why she avoids this place as much as possible.  yeah ,  there’s  definitely  no other reason … 

not like she finds herself occupying a bar stool in the purple skag because of the  idiot  behind the bar.  not like after some drinks ,  after the riff-raff are shoo-ed from the premises and the sign flips to  closed  she doesn’t find herself in his bed more often then not. 

point being ,  he’s lucky.  or not-so-lucky ,  that he finds her there.  that the knock doesn’t just ring into empty space.  that she drags herself from a lumpy mattress ,  pulled from an attempt to sleep off the previous night’s mistakes.  that the door swings inward and he’s greeted with a familiar form that doesn’t ,  at first ,  know what to make of his appearance.  

‘  rhys …  ’   it’s surprise first ,  then  relief.  flooding like water from a broken dam as she unfreezes.  steps forward to pull him into a  hug.   ‘  where the hell have you been ??  ’

FINGERS RAKING BACK THROUGH THE BROWN OF THAT HAIR makes something in Junior’s stomach twist a fresh kind of envious. Has his gaze lingering on the gesture for a moment long enough that he doesn’t even notice the guy shifting out from beneath his palm. Which he would’ve understood, of course. Any CEO is a busy man who’s got places to go, people to see. Katagawa’s used to a certain other executive brushing him off all the more, after all.

But Strongfork does throw him something. And something – anything – is better than the nothing he’s been chewing on since childhood. Nothing is hardly pleasure yachts and a diamond-studded Rolex for every day of the week, but it is the lack of a father’s approval or a mother’s fondness. The absence of faith, the void where loyalty would live if this family knew any. So to be thrown even the scrawniest scrap? A stupid joke that shouldn’t land its mark? It’s the shred of a something Katagawa’s more than happy to take and run with.

He laughs even though it’s not funny. He laughs and it feels good to do so without the tight clench of his jaw or a hefty breath of bitterness dry as a martini. “You are, aren’t you? Damn well, too!” comes the eventual response as his smile widens with utmost sincerity. Now if only Rhys didn’t have that pesky meeting of his.

So he steps in closer, clearly not keen on turning back for the elevator in spite of so many hints and cues. “Are you sure you couldn’t just… talk with me for that half an hour you still have? Just a tiny, itty bitty half of an hour? Not about anything confidential obviously, just… you!” His eyelids lower slightly and his smile slants up at one edge, more a smirk offering something playful. “C'moooon. No stuffy board meetings and appealing to all those stuck up has-beens. I just wanna hang out and get real here for a bit, y’know? People like us always have to put on such a show. It’s exhausting.”

@stardustvein​ (sasha) » shoot the messenger

“Well, I’m sure as hell not comfortable here.”  ‘Here’ meaning Pandora, this caravan, this situation, this conversation.  All of it fits.  She can’t admit that she hadn’t even considered cost of living on Dionysus.  All she knew about the place was that loads of celebrities lived there.  People on Dionysus painted, wrote poetry, lounged in bungalows all day and danced to live music all night.  It was less of a place to her and more of an ideal.  Something she could say she aspired to when someone asked.  Fiona can’t even imagine what she’d do when she got there.  All she’s ever done was steal.

It’s a little … endearing (?) to hear Rhys tell her about herself.  It almost sounds like he’s been paying attention this whole time instead of scheming up ways to get one up on her.  It’s something a friend would do; make little observations aside.  And it’s not even a little bit derogatory.  “That’s the best idea you’ve had since we’ve met, Rhys.”  She grins, the side of her mouth pulling up sly.  Space-pirateering can’t be half bad, at least in the Border Systems.  Not too many galactic police cruising about, at any rate.  Just a buttload of trade routes rife for the picking.  “Sasha could be my first mate, Vaughn’s the cabin boy. You could … I dunno, do something with the computers. Navigate?”

THE FUTURE ISN’T COMPLICATED for an AI with a simple, singular objective, though spanners still find themselves wedged within the works. Like how such a harmless proposition plucks at a dead tyrant’s fleeting attention span. Draws his gaze back to a smile where it lingers ever so slightly over-long. Been a while since he’s seen someone grin without so much rotten malice splitting the seams. And it’s contagious.

“Heyyy now. I like the way you think!” There’s no teeth flashed dangerous in the image of the hologram’s smile this time. More a crease that meets his eyes and doesn’t narrow them tight into a pair of dangerous slits hungry for cash and corpses alike. “Laser eyes are a no-brainer. Gooootta have a collapsible chainsaw somewhere in there.  Next to the flamethrower, ya think? Not next to the, uh, other attachment. Y'know, the uh. The big ol’ massive attachment. Just ginormous. Very sexy, very functional. A real crowd pleaser, if, uh– if ya know what I mean.” He leans in all the closer, sleazy smirk spreading wide to match the smugness of a building, snickering laugh. “Dicks are what I mean.”

Dicks aside, Jack catches himself yet again in one of those moments. Moments that don’t have wretched rhythms of 1s and 0s matching together all the murderous schemes that try to label Rhys a nameless body, a barcoded shell. It’s the pesky kind that somehow sticks; a concept where they build him back a place in this life and Hyperion is theirs. An empire bigger, better, brighter than ever before.

Such is the result he plans for, regardless of the messy means that make it so. Still, this very naive, charming scenario has itself jammed between tangles of code. Tangles that might tie a noose just as much as they flicker a shine of something curious in a spectre’s eyes.

“So you’d actually… make that happen? Like, seriously?”

IT’S EASY FOR JACK TO FORGET THE NATURE OF WHAT HE IS. Easy to confuse the essence of an electric ghost for ever-ravenous meat and bone. He’s fully self aware at this point, yet the lines still blur when the heat of a moment flushes white-hot through those strands of code growing, feeding, evolving. Like it’d be so easy to sink into the lanky framework Rhys provides and resume where his death had put so many plans on hold. Except it’s not that easy.

And his host sure paints a picture that the AI’s already considered in the confines of his well-coiffed cage. “Oh man that would suuuuuck,” he laughs out. “‘Cause– ‘Cause your brain would be total psycho dinner. Like, they’d 100% scoop that puppy out with spoons for brain-bean stew and I’d just be right there! Front and center! Can’t do shit while that beauty’s outta commish.” (Unless there was a fully-functional robotic skeleton waiting to just… slip into that skin). “Now if you were put in a coma? Totally different story. Oh-ho-ho the stuff I’d do if that happened would be freakin’ legendary, baby! It’d be like handin’ the wheel over to someone who really knows how to drive!” But he clears his throat and shrugs like the idea hadn’t gotten him slightly excited. “Dead, though… Yeah, that, uh. That would suck.” 

At least tech-talk doesn’t leave the ugly imagining of a taste in the mouth he doesn’t have. Doesn’t have his software itching with why the death of one man would matter as more than anything than a rude roadblock on his trip back to the top. “Let’s just say I’d be stuck in lag-town if my code doesn’t have room to work its magic. Pretty sure Naka-whatshisname programmed some work-arounds so I’d still function, just with a few lame-o complications. Not that I think we’re gonna have that to worry about. Already checked your systems and I’ll be good for a while. Hyperion sure did ya a solid with these cybernetics, pal! You’re welcome.” 

He falls an unsettling (uncharacteristic) silent as he gazes out into the desert again, hideous and barren as it is. “Hope you’re not askin’ me all this 'cause you’re gettin’ cold feet, here.”

there was a part of him, once, that used to have fun watching him like this.  rhys’ frantic stumbling around a point he was trying to make.  how he often took to speaking with his hands or the roll of his eyes.  because  the point  wasn’t always easy to find.  and, now, sat in the shadow of a break-down poised, timothy didn’t find it  fun  at all.  had adopted a silence he’d been told by others was  unnerving  with a face like his.  the calm jack had imposed right before he’d storm his way through a line of interns.  when he’d pluck them up with all the force needed to get the truth and then some.  false truths, typically.  push a man far enough and he would say just about anything.  do just about anything..  he would stammer and labor and look as wide-eyed and haggard as rhys looked right then.

“ i know it’s not. ”   a man like him ?  there’d never been a day where he’d slipped up that much.  impeccable.  concerned about the wrong things.  an image and how it could slide one way or the other if he smiled too wide or laughed too loud.  if he wore the wrong tie to the wrong meeting.  enough of a reason, at the time, for tim’s departure.  a break from promethea and atlas and all of the specifics that kept him collared to a penthouse while someone important was visiting or…

even when he’d  gotten it,  there’d always been a  WHY.  as there was now.

“ so you’re afraid ? ”   of him ?  of a situation spiraling out of his control, judging by the horde of soldiers he’d cut his way through to get inside.  it lacked judgement, but an expression to beg him pause surfaced, still.  made to quiet whatever objection rhys’ ego would throw out to try and salvage something that’d never been at risk to start.   “ and you’re  worried  that something worse will happen because  I’M  here. ”   because the hands that’d cupped his face had dropped to the slight of his waist instead.  worried that, for the wrong eyes seeing his thumbs hook into belt loops, there would be a price to pay.  steep and burdening and—  how was he to say he knew debt better than any man ?  that he’d been shooting at overdue payments since he was old enough to owe them ?

“ do i look like i’m afraid of some crazy corporate asshole, babe ? ”   had his newfound grin, subtle in an effort to hinge on reassuring, faltered ?  he’d been wearing the face of one for a decade now.   “ i’m not..  and by the looks of you, you could use a little more fire power.  which.. hope you don’t mind that i’m packin’ jakobs right now.  you know i’m not much of a fan of the flashy stuff. ”

that nastiness was her father’s.  where something sweet went bitter in the back of angel’s throat and this man —— this  stranger  come up from the wreckage of a nightmare —— looked..  small.  he looked  fragile.  more breakable than her body.  more malleable than the loaders that speckled the dark hollows of her makeshift refuge, ready and eager to obey a shifting whim.  and for that…  for that,  it was easy to swallow back.  blink away a spiteful want.  where greedy fingers had thought to wrench apart the patches of cybernetics that pieced him whole.  make easy work out of his hidden prize.  one she’d dream about, later.  how easily she could crack it like a walnut.  get to the meat of what demons laid inside.

but he didn’t have to come.  rhys didn’t have to be there…  he didn’t have to warn her in such a backwards way that a phantom still floated in the ethos.  a ghost wearing her father’s rotten mug.  what’d torn him apart once and, she imagined, what sat behind his exhaustion, now, too.  a fine line between passive indecision and a fear palpable enough to see.  to needle.  to pick if she wanted.  make him squirm like jack’d have liked.

but… for the crinkle they shared over their noses and that small patch of freckles, unseen beneath her collar that smeared a similar galaxy as she remembered speckling his, once —— the similarities between them stopped there.

“ okay…  okay, ”    two nods and the third came while she crouched.  smuggled away the very minor advantages that his continued crumple had allotted her for the sake of eye contact that didn’t feel or look imposing.  equals adjacent, angel’s smile was small, but apologetic.    “ thank you for coming, rhys. ”    for doing what no one else had had the nerve or will to do.  digging up jack’s secrets had that effect on people and, as far as most had ever been concerned, that the 4N631 satellite remained in orbit was consolation enough.

“ you came a long way for someone who wasn’t asked to… ”    for someone who didn’t have to.  for someone who——

it wasn’t her business anymore than it was her place to find that passive contact.  the brushed fingers over his shoulder… a careful squeeze while that smile spread.    “ i.. don’t have much experiences with visitors, but i could get you something to drink.. if you wanted it ?  no weird siren strings attached.  promise. ”

Fl4k’s hands curl firm against Rhys’ arms, lifting him overhead and physically turning him to see. A brief second, and the lumbering hunter sets him down before searching manually; fingers tracing along the contoured panels of the wall in search of a hidden door. 

“Given your elevated glutamate levels paired with adrenaline output, I have concerns that you are near breaking point.” They rap against one of the panels – if Fl4k were capable of frowning, they would be now. 

“If we are unable to find a conventional way out, it will have to be unconventional. Thus why I do not think you would enjoy that option.” It’s then that they nod the chin of their face-plate towards the large window. “We would then have to jump. It will not be long before our foes close in.”  

A CLUTCH OF WARMTH IN THE BROADNESS OF AN AVARICIOUS PALM is one of the little things Jack misses. Thinks he misses. An AI trapped comatose in a data stick for so many years only knows the things his coded memories tell him. Implanted at the whims of Nakayama’s fingertips, they spin stories of how iced whiskey used to blaze a pleasant burn down the back of his throat and the soft curves of hips used to lean so good into his squeeze. Experience and memory is what makes a man, what molds him in so many sharp edges and bold lines. And yet, the AI knows, at his core, that these things have never been properly his. That his data might be outdated depending on how long he’s been cooped up on a mad scientist’s corpse.

It’s enough to make him scowl every time he pays too much mind to the disappointment sinking a short plunge through twisted lines of code. To how unfulfilling it is to reach for the touch he is constantly denied in stagnant air and the droning buzz of static.

So he ignores it in favor of watching Rhys try to take his advice. Always a ripe chestnut, that one. Rocks the hologram’s head with a short snort as soon as that face pulls a wince. “Nailed it, champ.” The guy might not yet have hair enough on his chest to deliver the swagger of Hyperion’s golden savior, but it’s a start. B- for effort.

Forever is a big word, though. Enough to net Jack’s attention in rare silence as he considers the likelihood of being stuck in a squeamish middle manager’s metal-grafted skull for an entire lifetime. His own programmer’s know-how tells him otherwise, but it’s still a question worded in such a way that nearly narrows a squint. Nearly. “Ohhhh yeah. Dead on the spot for sure. Eject this ass and you’re on your way to goin’ total serial killer.” A lazy digi-smirk curls its sinuous slant as his eyes roll and he lets him off the hook. “Use your brain, for chrissake. Obviously you can transfer data from one system to another. The only way ya ‘kill’ any AI is to physically destroy whatever hardware it’s stored in at the time.” He leans in, practically nudging noses with him. “That means you, smart guy.”

He remains there for a second over-long. Lingers with stare fixed somewhat searching through his host’s. “And for the record? It was dark.” That gaze averts. “Hated it.”