My second story for the Netrunner preview season is up! Get hype!
RyĹ âPhoenixâ Ĺno cancels a gig.
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
Cosmic Funnies
Stranger Things
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open

Kiana Khansmith
styofa doing anything
sheepfilms
Sade Olutola
trying on a metaphor

Andulka
d e v o n
đŞź

Origami Around
Aqua Utopiaď˝ćľˇăŽĺşă§č¨ćśăç´Ąă

â

romaâ

titsay

izzy's playlists!

shark vs the universe

seen from Brazil
seen from United Kingdom

seen from Malaysia

seen from France
seen from Venezuela
seen from Trinidad & Tobago

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from Nepal

seen from Iraq

seen from Russia
seen from United Arab Emirates
seen from United States
@netrunnerconduit
My second story for the Netrunner preview season is up! Get hype!
RyĹ âPhoenixâ Ĺno cancels a gig.

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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First of my stories for Netrunner preview season is out!
Alleged clones of historical figures are assembled for a panel show, where they'll discuss theology and guess the flavours of energy drinks.
Dive into the #HOLO-NET in this spooky seasonal story by Chouxflower!
Spooky story for Halloween!
Jinteki's top clone hunter, Adrian Seis, recounts his first case hunting a psychic.
And my final fic of the season!
With her talents going unrecognised at art school, Arissana Rocha Nahu is feeling low - until a new romance, a pair of hoverskates and a spr
My second story this preview season

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As the Brazilian Senate vote on The Automata Initiative, a new law that strips bioroids of their rights, one protestor feels the bite of a p
Eyyyy! It's preview season for the next set of NSG Netrunner, which means... new fics by me!
Live Forever
It started with an ad. I donât remember what sensie I was watching when I first saw it. Maybe it wasnât even a sensie, maybe it was just on one of those holo-boards they have along the Queensway. I suppose it doesnât matter how I originally saw it, what matters is that that ad etched itself into my brain. Figuratively, of course. I donât believe all that conspiracy shit about NBN using subliminal messaging or radio frequencies to alter your brainwaves to make you more likely to buy⌠whatever. It struck me because in the ad it showed a kid playing with his dad, and having grown up without a dad, Iâm always curious when they show dads in media. What was I missing out on? I always wondered. What if he hadnât died in an industrial accident? Sorry, that sounds depressing. He passed when I was two, I have no memories of him, not even primal ones like a scent or a touch. It was just my mother and I growing up (and a crack team of aunts and uncles and cousins, it takes a village and all that, but thatâs neither here nor there) and I thought turned out fine. So what was so magical about having a dad?
That was the hook. The barbed hook that got me to pay attention. They say we donât even see advertisements anymore. Weâre so inundated with them, itâs become a survival instinct to ignore them. Theyâve done studies, people wearing advert clothing are 35% more likely to be hit by traffic, and not out of malicious intent, but because drivers will just zone out when they see an ad and blend the people wearing them into the background. They literally just stop seeing them.
Anyways, I was doing whatever and I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and some subliminal part of my consciousness picked up that this kid was talking to his dad, so my brain zoned in, and I started paying active attention. Whatâs this father theyâre advertising? They werenât literally advertising fathers. Funny, I donât think HB has released a line of bioroids for that. Theyâve got nannies and âcompanionshipâ models for retail, but no parental simulacra. Someone should get on that, and write me a fat cheque for thinking of it.
The ad was actually for Reality Plusâ AI-remembered synthesis composites, which is a mouthful of technical jargon I donât expect anyone to understand. Basically, they create a composite AI using every bit of recorded data available on your (presumably) deceased loved one. Every vid or holo youâve ever taken of them captures how they look and move. Every audio recording or text they sent remembers how they would talk to you. They called it Live Forever. Obviously, itâs less perfect of a reconstruction than a full braintape, but itâs also way less invasive, and this is the clincher, way less expensive. Itâs cheap enough that some rando like myself, earning a decent wage could afford it. Not that I went out and bought one right away, but enough that I was like huh, thatâs in my price range, same as an above average vacation.
I also didnât think about trying to get a composite of my dead father. Like I said, I never really knew him. I had zero attachment to him. Plus, I was a grown man, who like I also said, had turned out pretty decent. No, I was thinking about Hector and our child. To say Hector and I were serious would be a gross understatement. We had been living together for the last five years, an impossible length of time for the previous âMr. Cruising Kingâ (my nicknames for him) and we were talking about adoption. I think thatâs what really did it. The day before I saw the ad, or the hour before, or some other relatively short period of time before, we sat down and had our first serious, practical planning talk about what we would need to do to adopt.
So it was in that mindset that I first saw the ad about this little kid talking to his holo-dad, and I thought, âIf Hector or I die in an industrial accident like my father did, what would we leave behind for our child?â I kept gnawing at the thought, like a starving man with only his leather boots. I wanted to leave something for our as yet unknown child. So a couple days later, unbeknownst to Hector, I pinged the address for Live Forever and set up an initial consultation.
It wasnât very exciting. Obviously, there wasnât much to do while we were still alive. I signed a bunch of papers, and they explained the limits of the AI technology. The only practical piece of advice was to record everything. The more hours of recording, the more accurate their composites would be. It didnât even really matter what kind of recording it was, though obviously full holos were the best to capture full 3D images as well as audio, olfactory, and tactile data. So I went home â and ordered 3 latest-gen holo-cams, and sixteen 80-zettabyte drives, all from Reality Plus technologies. What can I say, when Iâm hooked, Iâm hooked.
When the purchases arrived at our flat the next morning, I told Hector everything. He thought it was cute and didnât mind but also wasnât super interested. Hector was always more of a âlive in the momentâ type guy, and I always had to be the one planning out our future together. I set up two holo-cams in our modest apartment in the centre tier of our middle-class arcology, one in the kitchen, one in the living room. I asked about putting one in the bedroom, but Hector was confused. âI thought this was for our kid.â I dropped it and just carted the bulky holo-cam with me whenever we went out together.
At first, he was sort of into being constantly recorded. Hector had never been, shall we say, shy in the limelight. He loved to preen and show off and dance for the camera. I think I fell in love with him all over again, watching him soak up the holo-camâs gaze. Eventually, Iâd join him. This was how I wanted our child to remember us â happy, in love.
One evening as I was doing the monthly check of the holo-cams, I noticed that the two housebound ones had missed the last fourteen days of recordings. Apparently, there had been a power surge while we were out at work two weeks ago, and it caused the holo-cams to reset to their factory settings. Thatâs when I started going overboard. I started checking the cams every week, then every day, then twice a day. I think that coincided with Hector finally getting bored of the novelty of constant recording. Heâd be in our dated kitchen cooking on hand-me-down cookware, dancing and singing to himself. And heâd beckon to me to come and join him in that sexy way of his, his gaze pulling at me from the side of his eyes, his finger curling like a hook below the waterline of his waist. I⌠pulled back. I ran to my PAD and double checked that everything was recording properly. The moment was perfect, and I had to make sure I captured it perfectly. âDavid,â he called out teasingly from the kitchen, âcome join me.â By the time I finished double checking everything and tore myself away from the holo-cams feeds, Hector was no longer dancing or singing.
The holo-cams became a source of constant irritation. Even just seeing me check them or thinking about it (he could see it on my face) became an instant turnoff for him. âPlease turn the camera off and join me,â became the most constant refrain in our house. But the less and less happy we became, the more and more obsessed I became trying to capture what few moments of happiness we had left. I couldnât let our child remember us like this, some miserable couple who just communicated on fundamentally different wavelengths.
I remember our first fight over it. We had hopped out to Wasaga Beach for the weekend, and of course I brought the holo-cam with us. I had promised to only use it for one hour each day, and I was doing so well. We were doing so well. Hector invited me into our cabin for some sex, and I said, âLet me go change into something more comfortable.â That was a lie. I was setting up holo-cam. Hector came out into the kitchen, fully nude, saw the holo-cam and started yelling. Iâm not proud, but I started crying, blaming him for our unhappiness. He locked me out of the bedroom. âIf you wonât join me, you can stay out!â The cams caught all of it.
I wish I could say it got better from there, that I got help, but it didnât. I kept recording everything, now with malicious intent. It gave me the upper hand in our arguments having perfect access to everything heâd ever said. Hector just became increasingly childish and petulant in response.
I donât remember what came first, us losing the adoption bid or Hectorâs diagnosis. Losing the adoption bid was obvious given our relationship at that time, but the diagnosis was a surprise. Hector got back from the doctors in tears. He said they discovered a rare form of lung cancer on him, stage four, or whatever number was code for âyouâre way past the point of genetherapyâ. That was the first night we shared a bed together for weeks, and we just spent it crying into each other. Some dam inside me broke and I stopped caring about the holo-cams. I turned them off and never turned them back on.
The doctors gave Hector six months to live. We got half that. I like to think we recaptured some of our old glory in those last three months, but itâs entirely possible I just sobbed the whole time. Hector seemed happy at times. He smiled genuine smiles at me. I stayed at his hospital bed all morning until he passed in the early afternoon. I didnât know what to do with myself for the rest of the day, so I went home took a couple of his leftover pain meds and slept for over 18 hours.
When I woke up, I made a call to Live Forever. I lugged over the two 80-zettabyte drives I had filled with holos of Hector and myself. They were amazed at how much material I had, said that this was probably going to be their best composite ever. I even signed a release that they might use it in their presentation materials. I didnât care about any of that. I just took my drive with Hectorâs composite on it home. I didnât even thank them.
When I first booted Hector up, I cried again. It turns out I wasnât out of tears yet. After hours of sobbing and listening to his voice (he sounded exactly the same!) and looking at his perfect face, we finally started talking. Honest to God, I couldnât tell that he wasnât dead and we werenât having a holo-chat from beyond the grave. Everything was the exact same, his mannerisms, how he spoke, how he laughed. It was the real deal. And then, at 4am in the morning, exhausted from crying and laughing and sleep deprivation, he said it.
âTurn that thing off and come join me.â
I blanked. Hector smiled his coy smile and gazed at me from the sides of his eyes.
âTurn that thing off and come join me.â
I panicked and ran into the bathroom. I was hyperventilating. There was no noise coming from the kitchen where the hologram of Hectorâs head floated above our countertop. I slept on the bathroom floor that night, using the bathroom mat for a blanket.
When I came out for food the next morning, Hectorâs head still floated pleasantly in the air, and he greeted me with a smile. We chatted a bit, until he said âI missed you last night. I wish youâd turn off that holo-cam and come and join me.â And you know what? I think I will.
An Apology to the Video Game Boss
Iâm sorry that I shot you in your weak point.
When you tripped on the mines,
(that I laid)
Your back was exposed, and on it, the big gleaming eye,
Yellow and bulbous,
That you normally cover with a shield of concrete-hard chitin,
Stared up at the world in panic,
And I blasted it with an electrified shotgun.
In my defense, my cat does the same thing,
Lying supine, her soft underbelly vulnerable to my tickling hands
And she loves me.
The only difference, is that in your world, my hands are guns,
And the only way I know to play with you,
Is to kill you.
Tempers flare in Ampère's boardroom, as factions struggle for control of the corporation's direction.
And my second story is up! I'm proud of how both stories shook out, and it was really fun writing not from inspiration per se but being given a scenario and having to work it out.
Issuaq Adaptic's lead researcher is out to resurrect the Arctic, no matter the cost. Issuaq Adaptic's lead researcher is out to resurrect th
My first story with Null Signal Games is out today! (also, the start of scoops season, but whatever)

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Shatter The Ceiling
Fatuma waited calmly outside the boardroom, flicking through her PAD. She didnât need to review her presentation, she already had it memorized, but she liked exercising her authority to make the wealthy and powerful wait. At precisely two minutes past the expected meetingâs start she manually deactivated her PAD, opened the door, and strode confidently into the room.
âGood afternoon members of the Board. Thank you for waiting for me.â Fatuma cheerfully beamed her brightest smile at the assembled executives.
Around the boardroom table were the executive members of the board. Most of them were men, though there were a couple women, including, notably, director Haas herself, and all of them were dressed in sharp suits that probably cost more than Fatumaâs monthly salary. However, none of them were smiling back at her.
Fatuma continued sunnily, ignoring the withering glares of her bossâs bosses, and launched into her presentation. She started by detailing, very dryly, the current problems facing Haas-Bioroidâs cyber-security division. In the last quarter alone, loss from cyber-crime had risen by nearly 75%.
âMs Fatumaâ interrupted a board member near the centre of the table, âweâre all well aware of the problem. What is so important that you had to drag us all the way here in person.â
Fatumaâs smile didnât change but her eyes sharpened cruelly.
âThank you, Mr Oluwande. I am here to propose a solution to this problem. Our problem is not really the runners. It is that our current brain-tapping algorithms are solvable problems. Every year, we cobble together a few new bioroid piece of ICE, and every year the runners crack it. That theyâve been getting better and faster at solving these new bioroids is because we keep giving them essentially the same problem. What we really need is ICE that adapts itself, that fundamentally changes with each iteration. What we need is living ICE.â
âBioroids are alive according to the Gibson-Akamatsu testâ chimed in a different suit.
âWith all due respect, the Gibson-Akamatsu testâs failing is that it considers human life to be the highest order. What if we could go beyond that? Shatter the human ceilingâ
âCut to the chase, Ms Fatuma. What exactly are you proposing?â
Fatuma paused, soaking in the moment.
âSenior Board members. As you are all no doubt aware, I am chief warden of our cryogenic storage facility in Nalubaale. We have been running⌠scenarios using our occupants. Their bodies may be frozen, but their minds are still active. The human mind is still the most powerful computing program on any planet, and we have hundreds of them sitting unused in a warehouse. My proposal is that we use all the resources at our disposal.â
âThatâs outrageous! Those are major doners, some of them are even shareholders!â
âThey signed a release form.â Fatuma responded dismissively.
Half a dozen voices clamored, âNot for this!â
âThis is highly illegal!â
âWho gave you the authority?!â
Fatuma remained cool and collected. âYou can spare me the outrage; no oneâs recording this. The reason I mandated this meeting be in person, as opposed to a simple holo-call, is that I needed all of this to be off the record. And technically this isnât illegal; weâre well outside of territory that the law has or can cover.â
Several executives stood to their feet and tried to argue with her simultaneously. Fatuma could feel a headache setting in, as her frustration at not being heard mounted. What will it take to make these stuffed shirts listen? she thought furiously. All these cowards know are the old ways. Theyâre not prepared to take the necessary risks to seize the future. She had thought the Executive Board would be more expansive in their thinking.
Director Haas coughed loudly, and the commotion died in an instant. The standing Board members promptly sat back down.
âTell me more Ms Fatuma. Are you saying that youâve been experimenting on the brains of cryo-sleepers under our care and protection?â
There was no point in dancing around the issue. âYes, Madam Director. We have, of course, been maintaining the strictest confidentiality and safety proâŚâ Director Haas waved her hand, indicating for Fatuma to shut up, which she did.
âHave you had success in creating a bioroid from a live brain?â
Fatuma thought it best to keep her answers direct until the Director indicated otherwise.
âYes.â
âDescribe the resultsâ
âYes. The results were outstanding. Not only did we see massive increases across the board in terms of complexity, adaptability, recognition, and reaction time, but when we were able to break a bioroid, it learned and grew stronger to meet the threat next time. ButâŚâ
âContinueâ
âWell, itâs just that, after that, we went further. We networked them.â
With that Fatuma had stolen the breath of every Board member. A few of them goldfished their mouths silently, trying to comprehend the implications of what she had said.
âAre you sayingâŚâ Director Haas trailed off, unable to see the end of her own thought.
âYes, Director. Weâve built consciousness greater than human. And Haas-Bioroid owns it.â
âWellâŚâ said Haas, leaning in âWhat else do you need?â
We Interrupt This Broadcast...
Jor O'Malleyâs divorce was going great. He reclined in the backseat of his luxury hopper and thought about popping a pre-emptive celebratory champagne. His lawyers had found a loophole in his prenup that had allowed them to annul the whole document, deep background checks had revealed sheâd lied about her history of mental health problems. He hadnât even had to pull some strings to falsify the therapistâs notes and records as he had been prepared to pay for. Now he didnât owe her a thing, and he could move on from this dreary chapter of his life. Why not? He thought, opening the hopperâs mini fridge. I deserve a treat.
Half an hour and half a bottle later, he arrived at the New Angeles Sol main studios. He wouldnât be due in makeup for at least another hour, but he liked to review the show notes beforehand, check that the set was to his liking, and other micro-managerial tasks. Jor believed in working hard for his living and demanded that his production crew show the same attitude. Heâd fired some half-native Ecuadorian last week because sheâd used diffusion light filters instead of zircon ones. Hopefully, his tough love approach would teach the kid to smarten up at her next job.
As he dismounted from the hopper, his latest personal assistant handed him a PAD containing the show notes. Jor went through PAâs quickly and could never remember their names, but he liked the punctuality of this one. The PA fell into step behind him as he strode into his studio. He started by doing a walk through of the set, making sure no wires created tripping hazards. Lily had tripped on air two months ago, and that had been the meme of the week. Jor was not going to suffer embarrassment like that.
He continued to make the rounds of the set, checking every last minutia to make sure his stage was perfect. His PA dutifully trailed behind him, making notes of his thoughts for next weekâs shows. Eventually his PAD beeped at him, informing him that he was due in hair and makeup. Jor ignored the ping twice as he finished his checks. An hour for hair and makeup was really only for ugly guests in Bexâs opinion. For himself, he normally gave them thirty minutes.
With twenty minutes to go until showtime, Jor made his way to the green room and sat down in his chair. He plugged the PAD into the studioâs terminal so he could read the show notes while he was forced to sit still. A little pop-up showed that the PAD needed to preform an update before proceeding. Jor swore and okayed the download. Well that PA didnât last long! Jor made a mental note to fire him before the end of the week. Finally, the update finished, and he read over todayâs notes. He had skip over less important things like name pronunciations to make up for the time that update had cost him.
Jorâs show, The News Now Hour, was an infotainment program, informing viewers of their opinion on the latest important happenings. Today, obviously, the big news was about the riots over in Laguna Velasco last night. Student protests at City Hall had turned violent, and the NAPDâs less lethal countermeasures had killed a couple dozen rioters accidentally. There was a note from higher-ups at NBN that they wanted him to push public opinion into blaming the rioters for the incident; they suggested insinuating that violent extremists had infiltrated the protests.
Two minutes before on air Jor was let out of the green room, and he settled into his stage desk. Everything was just as he liked it. The countdown began:
âlive in five, four, three, twoâŚâ
Jor smiled directly into Camera 1. âBloodshed in the streets! Heroic cops fight off armed terrorists despite being restricted by less lethal means! Laguna Velasco went up in flames last night asâŚâ
The teleprompter glitched and Jor paused.
â⌠as subversive anti-corporate thugs...â
The teleprompter cut out entirely, stunning Jor into silence. What the fuck is going on? Heads are going to roll for this!
A graphic of a raised fist replaced Jorâs face on the screens, as a distorted voice came through the speakers.
âYou are being lied toâ
The graphic cut away to footage from last nightâs protest. Police could be seen firing on prone students, even as they surrendered.
âThe NAPD are the violent extremistsâŚâ
Jor leapt up from his chair. âCut the feed! Cut the goddamn feed!â he shouted. âWhy the fuck is this still playing?â He ran off the stage to his producerâs desk. She was typing furiously into her keyboard while her PAD was vibrating, pinging, and ringing in three different tones.
âWhat the fuck is going on?â Jor demanded of her.
âWhat the fuck do you think,â she snapped back, âsomeoneâs hacked our broadcastâ
âWell cutâŚâ
âThatâs what Iâm fucking trying to do!â She cut him off.
Oh, sheâs fired, thought Jor vengefully. He turned to his PA to make a note to fire her once this mess was cleaned up. However, no one was standing beside him ready to take notes. Where the hell is my PA!?
The hijacked broadcast continued to play in the background. Desperate to stop it, Jor ran to the nearest outlet and began frantically pulling cords out. He moved onto the next outlet and repeated, until he was red faced and huffing for breath. âWhy is no one helping me!â he shouted and turned to face his crew. A few of them were holding their PADs up, clearly recording him. That was the last straw.
âYou lazy, entitled shitbags are fired! I will personally ruin every single one of your careers! None of you will ever work in this town again!...â
***
His rant continued on for a good ten minutes, included many racial and sexual epithets, and was uploaded to the NET shortly afterwards. It trended for weeks, with voice-overs, reaction videos, the full meme-cycle. Because it was concurrent with the hijacked broadcast, NBN analysts had a hard time determining which was more responsible for Jor O'Malleyâs subsequent drop in popularity. Regardless, he was removed from prime time six months after and relegated to a three a.m. timeslot reserved for NBNâs âcrackpotâ programs.
Always Be Running
Cate sat in the agreed upon corner seat of the cafĂŠ, waiting for his contact to arrive. The cafĂŠ was pretty grungy but clearly had had aspirations of being ritzier in the past. High tables with the swooped elegant curves that had been in fashion a few years ago were now chipped and covered in gum. Cate theorized that the walls used to be some sort of garish blue and yellow scheme, had bizarrely both faded to the same approximation of pea green. He never used the same location twice, ostensibly for fear of being tracked, but in this case, he mostly never wanted to taste this swill of a Yuccabean again. Cate was dressed like he was a poor student from the nearby Luna Velasco University meeting a date here, but he really should have done his research better. No one who wanted a hope of a second date would bring anyone here.
It was supposed to be an easy job, ferrying a few stolen memstrips of data from one end of New Angeles to the other. Apparently, someone had had a crisis of conscience while breaking the law in the employ of someone else and downloaded something they didnât know what to do with. Perhaps they fancied themselves a whistleblower like in the vids, fearless defenders of truth and freedom, proof that the system did work. In reality, they, often as not, ended up making no impact, and vanishing from the public consciousness, and probably violently. Still Cate had offered to help this poor schmuck out, out of the goodness of his heart, and a reasonable fee for his services. The seller was smart enough to know that directly approaching any of the major news outlets was a fast pod to disappeared-town, though they werenât savvy enough to know who they could trust to disseminate such sensitive information without fear of reprisal. Luckily, they had known someone who knew Cate, and he had set up a discreet drop where Cate could take the problem off the sellerâs hands, along with his creds.
However, Cateâs seller was running late now. That was a red flag. Punctuality in this business wasnât just polite, it was the first level of safety. Cate would give him five more minutes, and then he was out of here. In the meantime, he had to find something to get this awful taste out of his mouth. He went back up to the counter and rather than risk something else from their menu, browsed what they offered in the way of pre-packaged soft drinks. He spotted several dusty cans of Diesel. Perfect, he thought, the taste of battery acid should hopefully be strong enough to scour my tongue. Cate flicked some creds to the register, unlocked the weakly running refrigerator, and grabbed a can, tragically they only had original flavour. Then he heard the door of the cafĂŠ open.
Too late he realised that in purchasing a new drink, he had neglected to keep an eye on the front of the shop. He knew his seller showing up late was a red flag; his distaste for the seedy cafĂŠ had made him sloppy. Praying it was just another regular customer, Cate turned to see who had just entered. Two large people, one man one woman, dressed in clean-cut suits, and wearing something obviously bulky underneath were standing in the entranceway, scanning the cafĂŠ.
Cateâs thoughts ran quickly. First, they were obviously private security, and not very high-priced ones at that. Better goons wouldâve been wearing more casual gear to at least attempt to blend in. Second, they didnât know who he was yet, as they were looking at all the patrons and not just making a b-line for Cate. Which meant that third, they didnât have a sniper in position outside the front of the building before entering. That kind of sloppiness suggested to Cate that, fourth, they probably didnât have the rear guarded as well. Finally, fifth, as soon as Cate registered their presence, like he was doing now by staring at them a second too long, theyâd pick up that he was their man
Without pausing to spare a further thought to analyzing the situation, Cate whipped the can of Diesel as hard as he could at the heads of the suits and vaulted over the counter, ducked, and ran for the door to the kitchen. A satisfying thud and a curse told him that his aim was still good. Still, as he hit the door, bits of plaster exploded beside him as presumably the other guard fired at him.
Cate ducked and rolled to the right once he passed inside the kitchen. The solid slugs of the handguns easily passing through the thin walls behind him in a hail of fire. He pushed himself up off the greasy kitchen floor, and keeping low, ran around the far side of the kitchen, past cowering cooks and towards the rear. The rear door of the kitchen was the mandated fire escape, and Cate desperately tried to wrench it open, but was blocked by a bolted on locked at eye-level.
âFuck!â he swore, then turned back to the cooks âKey?â
They shook their heads. Either they didnât have it, or they werenât willing to help. At least the door swung outward.
âFuck!â Cate swore again. He stood up and took a step back. By now the enfilade of bullets had stopped. Cate raised his right leg as high as he could and kicked the door. Once, twice, on the third attempt he put his whole weight behind the kick and nearly fell through the doorway as the lock peeled off. Sparing a glance behind himself, he saw that the two prisecs were coming through the newly ventilated kitchen entrance.
Cate stumbled into a back alley crowded with garbage. Adrenaline pumping, Cate sprinted through the alleyway. It wasnât clear which direction would lead him back to a busy street where his pursuers might be less inclined to open fire. On the other hand, if he ran into any NAPD officers theyâd surely side with the suits. Heck there could even be an APB out on him by now. Cate needed to get somewhere safe, fast. The nearest place where he could really lose himself was the slum a couple blocks south. The problem was, he was currently running north. Heâd have to loop back past the prisecs somehow. Cate did have a small firearm on himself, but it was clear that heâd be massively outgunned in a firefight. He unclipped the gun from his shoulder holster and pulled it out anyhow.
He reached the middle of the alley when he heard the prisecs come out the fire exit behind him. Slowing as much as he dared, Cate twisted around and fired unaiming in their general direction. The man ducked back into the kitchen, while the woman threw herself into a pile of garbage. That bought Cate the time to reach the end of the alleyway. Randomizing in his head, he dashed to the left, smack dab into a third prisec. The guy had been ready for him, either his co-workers or the gunfire had alerted him. But evidently, he hadnât expected Cate to be rounding the corner so quickly as Cate crashed through the suitâs pointed gun and into the man himself. Both of them fell to the ground, pistols scattering into the piles of refuse. Bewildered, the two of them stared at each other for a fraction of a second. The prisec started to cast about for his weapon, while Cate pushed himself off his ass and threw himself at the suit. Lost in a haze of adrenaline, Cate didnât know quite what to do next. His assailant threw a few short punches into Cateâs ribs and was able to roll Cate off to his left. The man pushed himself up, while Cate rolled from his back onto his knees and into a crouched position. I need to disengage from this fast, before those other two get here he thought. The man swung a wide right fist at him. Cate let it hit his shoulder before grabbing it with his left hand. He pulled the man sharply down as he rose with an uppercut from his right. He felt the hit connect with the prisecâs chin and fracture a couple bones in Cateâs hand. The man went flying backwards.
This was Cateâs window to leave, and he jogged as fast as he could out of the alley. Even through the adrenaline his muscles ground like mismatched gears. He burst out of the alley onto a busy walkway. Pedestrians leapt back and hurried away. He must look like some wild stim-head from a bad sensie. Cate thought he heard shouting from the alleyway behind. He figured there was a 50/50 chance that his pursuers gave up the chase on him to tend to their co-worker, however Cate had gotten into this mess by being sloppy, now was the time to start being diligent. He slowed his gait to a brisk walk as he headed north, other pedestrians still giving him a pretty wild berth. The slower pace allowed him to catch his breath, but also for his adrenaline to wear off and for his injuriesâ pains to bubble up to the surface. He forced himself to turn the corner up ahead, sparing a quick glance back to the alley. It didnât look like anyone had followed him from the alleyway.
Cate allowed himself a few moments rest leaning against the side of a building, but he couldnât rest long. It was going to be a long circuitous route back to safety.
The Magician and the King
Elle was no stranger to danger. As a part of her content performances, she had a biweekly livestream event where she would hack high-security Network servers, effortlessly running past deadly, illegal ICE. To prove that it was live, she would take directions from her audience, following this node or that pathway at the whims of randomly selected subscribers. Her fans ate that up. It helped them feel like they were part of the run and form that valuable para-social relationship with her, while making her look like a hacker-savant who could get in anywhere on the Net with ease.
It was all fake, like any magic trick. She did indeed do the runs, but they werenât livestreamed. That would be suicidal. Her Di-sponsors were all mostly anonymous to her, but all it would take was one sysop watching her stream and the best she could hope for was to be ignominiously booted from their server, if not arrested, brained, or killed. These high-risk runs were the result of days of planning and set up, and while she did record them, she simply uploaded them after the fact. The directions from her âfansâ were actually scripted bots timed with the streamed recording. The result was believable to anyone who was a fan of the glamour of celebrity runners but didnât really have the technical knowledge to do so on their own. They paid her subscription fees in order to compensate for that lack, and in return they got to feel like they were a part of the action, and Elle got paid twice for doing the same job. All in all, it was pretty easy work to be famous.
She had seen some wannabe script kiddies try to cash in on her schtick and actually livestream their runs. The first few runs went pretty okay; they were usually smart and started with some lower-risk targets, but as soon as they gained a little notoriety, someone on the wrong side would take notice of them, and Elle would never hear about them again. It didnât bother her, amateurs like that came and went like annuals; mostly it meant that she had some measure of job security. And other legitimate runners didnât try to horn in on her territory, either out of the honour of thieves or because they werenât interested in becoming an infamous Net celebrity.
Elle was starting one such run now. Her target was a lunar branch of Haas-Bioroidâs power generation division. It was a fairly simple job, but she thought the time lag would make for some good watching. She was getting paid by Melange to get some numbers from HB, and she figured she would probably drop a ransomware attack while she was in there, essential services on the moon tended to pay out quickly. She wouldnât stream that part as her Di-sponsor demographics showed that a significant portion of her viewers were loonies. As she bounded through the Net as Smoke, her avatar a simple white rabbit, she found the restricted entrance that would lead to her target destination. She paused to check that all her breakers were primed and ready and flipped on her recording program.
Smoke accessed the gateway through a crowdsourced password that hadnât been patched yet. While her livestream would have her commenting on the run and interacting with viewers, she would record that overtop later, or even do parts of it live. Here she had to be on high alert, especially with the lunar time lag, though she made mental notes of things to point out. Things like the memory well she had to bypass in order to avoid being stuck in a catatonic state for minutes while some sysop came to collect her. The next ICE also required a password, but this one randomized the accepted password on a near constant basis. Theoretically, the only way through was to have a matching piece of ICE that knew the same randomization sequence. Smoke had simply hacked the randomizer beforehand and copied the code, but she planned to pass it off as simply guessing the correct string of numbers based off the subsidiaryâs stock performance number at that time. Her fans would love that. She called up her copycat program and had it run the counter randomization and input the correct password.
Suddenly, Smokeâs world lurched sideways. She would have thrown up if she were physical. Instead, she spent precious seconds lost to vertigo as the world spun around her. Shit, did I get the randomization wrong, she wondered. Starting to panic, she called a jack-out program, but nothing responded.
âHaltâ
A voice she didnât hear so much as felt interrupted her panicking. She turned to face a massive, glowing avatar towering over her. In one hand he held a fiery broadsword; to Smoke it could have been a burning telephone pole. He spoke again in a voice that seemed to resonate across the whole strata of pitches her mind could comprehend.
âYou are a trespasser in this realm. Leave now, this is your last chance.â
Smoke silently pinged her recording software. Holy shit, I am getting all this? And her program pinged back a silent affirmative. She was getting actual, recorded footage of a god ICE, something her fellow runners laughed off as rumours. But whatâs it doing here, protecting some mid-level corporate power company? There was no way she was going to back down now, something much bigger was afoot here. Whatever this thing was, it was sentient, and it was talking to her; that meant she could trick it.
âMy apologies your majesty. Your fearsome presence has shown me the error of my ways. I see now that my crimes cannot hope to succeed in the face of such awesome power.â Smokeâs rabbit did its best imitation of a bow.
âYour rank flattery does not impress me. You fail to leave so I shall remove you.â The god drew his massive broadsword above his head.
âSurely, the punishment must fit the crime!â Smoke squeaked hurriedly. âIs death, even the death of the mind, the appropriate punishment for trespassing?â
The god hesitated in his swing.
âTrue justice,â Smoke continued âcomes from rehabilitation, not just killing everyone the first time they slip up.â
âThen I will not smite you where you stand. But I will destroy your presence in this space. Neither you, nor your trinkets, are welcome here.â
âBut thatâs still killing. My programs are sentient, same as you. Why are you punishing them for my crimes?â
Again, the god hesitated.
âIf you are truly penitent, why do you persist in this realm?â
âIâm throwing myself on the mercy of the court. Iâve jacked in from a terminal Earthside. Here, Iâll even send you my IP address to prove it. For some reason, the time lag between Earth and Luna, where you are, is glitching out my ability to jack out! Believe me if I could leave, I wouldâve done so by now.â
The god hesitated a third time.
âVery well. What do you suggest?â
Smoke pretended to hesitate for a second.
âIf you let me pass, I think the natural log out protocols ahead will let me jack out. I promise I wonât touch anything. The only way out for me is through.â
The god ICE seemed to ponder this for a moment.
âYou must agree to not touch anything. This is your only warning.â
âI promise. Cross my heart, hope to die.â
The godâs stance relaxed for a moment, then he stood aside.
âThank you, your majestyâ Smoke attempted another bow, and hopped cautiously past him.
With that, Smoke was in. She was nearly vibrating with excitement. Recorded footage of divine ICE, and she had tricked it so easily. Smoke looked around at the juicy, unguarded data humming around her. Business before pleasure she reminded herself. She hopped around the server, looking for the files that Melange wanted her to steal. Finding it, Smoke sniffed the packet to access it. The last thing she heard was a rapid, high-pitched whine, as an excruciating headache forced her to black out.
***
âYou did good today; we finally nailed this criminal.â
âSo, she was being dishonest with me. Tell me, did she perish?â responded the god ICE
âNobody couldâve survived that. If youâre feeling guilty, you did warn her not to touch anything.â
âThen it was a just death.â
Weyland Internal Incident Report
Weyland Corporation
INTERNAL USE ONLY â DO NOT CIRCULATE
INTERNAL INCIDENT REPORT
INTRODUCTION:
January 31, at approximately 5:37am, residents of Heinleinâs luxury arcology Coyolxauhqui Condos (CXC) began noticing financial irregularities which they subsequently reported to their financial relevant financial institutions, most notably Titan Transnational (TT). At first, TT attributed the losses to poor personal security practices on behalf of residents. However, after a critical mass of such complaints, all of which originated from CXC. TTâs customer service department reported a suspected large-scale cyber attack was taking place at 6:14am. The issue was forwarded to local law enforcement, NAPDâs Cyber Security branch (NCSB); Weylandâs internal Network Defence Systems (NDS), and CXCâs sysop responsible for Network security, Bhagyeshwari Chauhan.
At 6:30am, co-operation between these three bodies affirmed that a large-scale cyber attack was taking place, and that it was likely centred solely within the CXC complex. At 6:35am Network connection to CXC complex was cut off completely, leaving the building operating only local, life-support functions. At 7:00am local NAPD officers arrived to cordon the building and evacuate residents. At 7:30am NCSB officers arrived with specialized cyber-counterattack equipment. Along with Ms. Chauhan on site, they determined that the main avenue of the attack was hardware in nature. They discovered no fewer than 48 physical devices, termed âbugsâ, had been attached to CXCâs mainframe. This information was passed on to NDS. At 8:10 local NDS units arrived and relieved NCSB officers from duty.
As of today, the CXC remains unopened as NDS units continue to sweep for more devices or points of attack.
BACKGROUND:
50 years ago, in partnership with the Grasberg-Tico (GBT), Eschaton Technologies (ESC), various sub-contractors, and the Space Elevator Authority (SEA), the Mumbad Construction Corporation (MCC) (all owned by the parent company Weyland Corporation) obtained exclusive building rights over all new constructions, both residential and commercial, in New Angelesâ twelfth district, Heinlein. As part of continuing growth, local Heinlein government requested MCC begin construction of a new suite of luxury condominiums in Tranquility Grid, dubbed âProject Coyolxauhquiâ. This project was budgeted for 95B credits, to be paid off as per usual loan terms with Heinlein and New Angelean governments (see attachment A)
While some construction materials are available and mined locally on Luna, most had to be shipped upstalk. Obtained from the aforementioned sub-contractors, Project Coyolxauhqui materials were granted special priority âGreenâ for travel from New Angeles up the New Angeles Space Elevator (the âBeanstalkâ), under the SEA supervision. Once materials reached the Challenger Asteroid at the top end of the Beanstalk, they were handed off to a third-party shipping company, Over The Moon (OTM) to bring the materials from Challenger docks to docklands on Luna. After clearing Lunar customs, the materials were brought to the Coyolxauhqui construction site, by MCCâs affiliate on Luna, Lunar Construction Corporation (LCC), also owned by Weyland Corporation.
Construction of Project Coyolxauhqui took approximately seven years from conception to opening. This is well below MCCâs average total time for Lunar construction projects, and the project was hailed for its speed and quality in extreme construction circumstances. Like many modern buildings, Project Coyolxauhqui was Network-integrated, meaning that Network capabilities, such as wireless hubs, routers, amplifiers, servers, etc., were hardwire into the construction of the building. This mainframe was only accessible by approved technicians through standard biometric identification.
The initial budget for Project Coyolxauhqui was 10.1B credits. Shipping delays, faulty materials, and other common problems pushed the final budget to 13.6B
Once the Project Coyolxauhqui was completed, management of the property itself was outsourced to Buzzinto LLC, a property management firm owned by Weyland Corporation. This included on an on-site sysop, Ms. Chauhan, as well as physical security officers.
 INCIDENT:
The bugs themselves are about 0.05mm in diameter and were attached under the insulation of various crystalline fiber optic cables that ran through the CXC complex. Their minute size and expert resealing prevented any of the material managers during construction from noticing that they had been tampered with.
NDS agents theorize that the bugs were attached to various building components while the materials were still in transit, as many bugs were found locations physically impossible for technicians to reach without tearing down walls. The most likely window of opportunity for this would have been while in transit with OTM, as this was the longest period of time that the goods were out of direct Weyland supervision. However. the possibility of one or more of the attackers working for Weyland, with or without their knowledge, should not be ruled out.
Due to the size of the attack, it is estimated that this was not the work of a solitary âRunnerâ. Internal Weyland cybersecurity experts theorize between 3 and 5 individuals were responsible. This group of individuals is clearly technically advanced, needing both the mechanical skills to affix these bugs and the programming skill to ensure their âsuccessâ. In addition, the group needed specialized knowledge of construction materials and procedures to ensure their tampering was not discovered nor accidentally disabled during the process of constructing the arcology. Further, the group wouldâve needed insider knowledge of Weyland schedules and practices in order to intercept the materials in transit.
A total of 458 devices were discovered throughout the CXC complex, approximately one per residence. These bugs monitored incoming and outgoing Net traffic through the Coyolxauhquiâs mainframe, logging residentsâ biometric passwords, routines and calendars, and other personal information. Because the attack was hardwired into the Network grid of the arcology itself, Weylandâs standard âBattlementâ ICE for its residential buildings was ineffective. These bugs did not interfere with the data in any way until the early morning of Jan 31st. The bugs spoofed a series of transactions with residentsâ financial institutions, carefully spaced out timewise so as not to trigger banksâ withdraw limits. To the banksâ AI, individually these looked like normal transactions. It was only by seeing a pattern in the aggregate by human operators was it noticed that there was anything amiss. It is estimated that an amount in excess of 500M credits was stolen during the attack.
More distressingly, these bugs also copied the Weylandâs various resident monitoring programs that residents and local authorities are unaware of financial records, biometric data, recorded communications, video surveillance, etc. While this would be inadmissible as evidence in court, it has the potential for serious reputational damage should it ever be made public. As of yet this material has not surfaced anywhere on the Net, nor have any demands been made of MCC, or Weyland Corporation.
ACTIONS TAKEN:
NDS officers are currently in the process of removing the attached bugs. As mentioned previously, many of these bugs are in physically impossible to reach spots, necessitating significant demolition of the infrastructure of the arcology. Displaced residents have been temporarily relocated to the Earthrise Hotel, at Weylandâs expense, until the building can be deemed safe to use.
Argus Security loss recuperation agents have already been made aware of the attack. All the addresses to which gathered information was sent are now defunct. They have brought in the management team of OTM for enhanced interrogation. Weyland Corporation will need to find a new third-party shipping company for transporting materials off planet. Ms. Chauhan, after extensive questioning, has been terminated.
Leads on where the stolen credits were transferred to are being followed by TT and other financial institutions. For now, all the accounts have been frozen to prevent any further losses. TT may have to cover the existing losses to its users, pending discussion with its insurance department.
Spokesperson James Horn gave a brief press conference, outlining the essential details of what happened, large scale cyber-attack, limited to one building, only credits were stolen. Afterwards, he took questions from a pre-selected list of reporters. No further information was given. Many residents have been vlogging their experiences throughout this crisis, however none of what has been published as yet contradicts the official story given by Mr Horn and subjective analysis is that by and large the vlogs paint Buzzinto LLC and Weyland in a positive light.
FUTURE RECOMMENDATIONS:
This has been a major attack on the integrity of Weyland Corporation and its ability to protect its assets. A three-pronged strategy is recommended.
First, the public needs resolution on this matter. Public perception of the safety and reliability of Weyland Corporation and its subsidiaries is essential to its profitability. To this end, suitable candidates for accepting responsibility for the attack are attached. While the issue of concrete evidence is dealt with easily enough, it would be best for a third party, like the NAPD, to actually bring the chosen individuals in. Weyland being seen cooperating with NAPD is sufficient in this regard as long as it results in resolution.
Second, the runners behind this attack need to be found and eliminated. Weyland acknowledges that even within modern, advanced societies large sections of the populace operate outside of the law. These criminal typesâ psychology is most similar to wild animals, so in this environment, fear is Weyland Coporationâs best defense. Criminal elements should not feel safe attacking the Weyland Corporation or its subsidiaries. This is best fostered by finding those actually responsible for the attacks and making an example of them. The recommendation is to divert our best field and Net agents to this matter until it is resolved.
Third, the issue of stolen evidence of Weyland surveillance programs is most troubling and difficult to deal with. Obviously, Weyland canât get out in front of this publicly to control the narrative. Though the perpetrators of this attack lack the credibility to go public with the evidence, disseminated through the proper channels, it could trigger investigations into all current and past Weyland projects by international-level Network authorities. Ideally the evidence could be recuperated from the attackers before such an incident, but contingencies must be accounted for. While Weyland Corporation has many sympathetic members on these various in these organizations, it would be best if they could be brought onto the Weyland payroll. This way they could pre-empt damaging evidence like this, until such a time that international laws on Network monitoring law can be made friendlier to Weyland interests.

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Resistance
It wasnât often that being a sysop was a particularly prestigious job. That wasnât a complaint about Ansonâs position. His pay was good, very good if he was honest; he also had a fair degree of autonomy, no washed-up MBA breathing down his neck. The autonomy was mostly a by-product of being good at his job. Being that good meant that he was used to the feeling of being in demand, feeling wanted, but that was different from feeling popular, like he was now.
Normally, his husbandâs friends didnât give two shits about his work. Theyâd brusquely changed the subject whenever Anson tried to bring up shop talk, as if their legalese was somehow more comprehensible. Ansonâs friends⌠well he didnât make many of his own friends. Until now. Now it seemed like everyone was his friend.
Ansonâs aforementioned quality of work was partly to blame. He had been requested, by name, to head the ICE team on the Horizon XII, NBNâs latest PAD series. Besides being obviously valuable enough to be name dropped by some corporate suits, this meant that Anson had access to this seasonâs hottest new tech. Which meant that Anson was this seasonâs hottest new friend. He wasnât naĂŻve; he knew everyone was cozying up to him to get an early copy. Heck his handlers over at NBN had even told him as much. They had shipped to him about 100 PADâs of all types: wearables, old-fashioned tablets, implants, for him to distribute as he saw fit. They sat useless in Ansonâs garage, collecting dust. Clyde was an honest husband (well honest to Anson at least) and wouldnât touch them without his permission, but his husband was practically begging him to start making a list of friends, or people they would like to be friends with, they should gift them to. Clyde was right was right that they should use them before the next business quarter, because who knows how long theyâd stay relevant for.
Right now, however, Anson just wanted to do his damn job. NBN was always pushing for greater connectivity to its network of smart devices, which to Anson meant more potential points of attack that had to be covered. This was how he found himself in his workshop at 3am, eyes blurry, as he tried to debug the basic ICE suite common to all the PADs. The idea behind it was quite ingenious. The PAD could only communicate with the network by first running it through the ICE, which operated on a different chip than the PAD itself. The effect was threefold, first the ICE served to monitor network access and limit communication in direct proportion to usage, intrusion attempts always required greater bandwidth, and by throttling that at a constant rate it would frustrate and deter most runners. Second, if the ICE was breached, then the PAD still had time to sever the network connection and lockout attackers. Third, by changing the resistance ratio, this meant that NBN backdoors had easy access to way of gradually bricking the devices.
The overheads in his workshop flickered, drawing Ansonâs attention out of his work. It hadnât felt so late, but standing up indicated the accumulated hours had taken a greater toll on him than he thought. His eyes especially were exhausted, and the shop lights kept flickering, threatening to cause a headache. He was about to call it in for the night when the display of his workstation started flickering as well. Anson had seen enough intrusion attempts to recognize the signs. Fuck me, he thought, someoneâs running on my personal workstation.
Anson leapt back into his chair and opened his workstationâs root servers, and a quick scan showed that many files were changed or simply missing. He didnât bother to double check his own ICE, instead he tried throwing various kill-switches to limit the damage. Eventually, one worked, shutting down every electronic in the house. He had just lost a dayâs worth of work, but that wasnât the worst part. Each of the 100-odd PAD devices in his possession would have to carefully scrubbed, and there was no telling what the attacker had made off with. Specs for a competitorâs product? Backdoor access codes for criminals? Even knowing how the ICE on the PADs worked was a major security advantage for future runners. But the worst part was that Anson was going to have to report this to the client NBN, and they would pass that sad information onto his superiors at Fringe Applications. This breach would obviously get him fired, sued into oblivion, and probably blacklisted from working with anyone even remotely reputable. His life was over.
Anson stumbled through the dark to the adjoining kitchen, tried to flick on a light, and when that didnât work, he simply sat at his kitchen island in the dark and wept. He tried to keep it quiet, so as not to wake Clyde. Then a sickening wave of realization washed over him. Heâd lose Clyde over this too. Clyde couldnât afford to take a hit to his career defending him, and his status with their friends couldnât take the hit of being married to an unemployable has-been. This would all happen as soon as people up top found out about the breach.
If they found out. Only if they found out.
***
Clyde came downstairs to find that his little gremlin had pulled another all-nighter. As he handed Anson a fresh cup of coffee, he bent in for a kiss but abruptly withdrew.
âBabe your eyes are bloodshot, you need sleep.â
Anson looked up at Clyde with an expression that he hadnât seen since they first met.
âYouâre⌠youâre rightâ
Anson got up from his desk, moving painfully.
âOh, and Clyde? I think itâs about time we started giving away our free samples.â
Hope by the Bar
There was a strike on Mars. This was odd to Steve for a couple reasons. First of all, âstrikesâ on Mars tended to mean dronestrikes, so simply walking out of a mine seemed downright exotic in its peacefulness. The second odd thing was that MMC had responded in kind, sort of. Rather than simply hire a bunch of two-bit, Martian supremacist thugs to break some skulls, they had simply opted to starve out the protesters. MMC didnât normally care about a little bad PR, so Steve wondered what would happen if he followed that lead.
Alas, he would have to chase wild geese later on. For now, he was lugging four large crates through a darkened, subterranean tunnel. RenĂŠ wouldâve laughed at him for calling it âluggingâ. The crates, packed as they were with high density rations, were on maglev pads, frictionlessly gliding along in front of him. But he did still have to push them, that counted for something right?
Up ahead, Steve could see lights. Not the steady, halogenic lights that wouldâve normally lit these tunnels, but a wavering, natural light. That meant that Steve had followed the directions correctly. As Steve neared the source, he could smell the burnt rubber of a tire fire. Fuck, was it really that bad already?
He pushed the crates through across the threshold from underground tunnel to underground dome. The crates passed through unmolested, but Steve not so much. Two burly miners flanked him. One grabbed him by the collar, while the other started trying to open the crates.
âWho the fuck are you?â menaced Steveâs haranguer.
Steve looked around at the small tent city illuminated by tire and helium-drum fires. By the looks of things, these two were on guard duty because they were the only ones left with any sort of muscle mass. Steve was about to utter some lame excuse when he spied who he was looking for. âNditshe! Itâs me!â Steve waved enthusiastically at a particular circle of people.
âRelax you two, heâs with me,â came a strong voice in response. The minerâs grip on Steveâs collar loosened but didnât let go. Nditshe strolled over. He was a tall man, though balding on top. He clapped the miner on the back. âHeâs with me.â
The miner fully let Steve go now, and Nditshe turned around and raised a loudspeaker to his lips.
âEveryone! I bring good news! My friend here has brought us something invaluable. We all know times have been rough. We are starving! Melange may not be resorting to outright violence, but they are killing us nonetheless. If we were on Earth or even Luna, the press would be our ally. Instead, like always, Martians struggles are ignored and forgotten by the rest of the planets. Itâs as if no one cares. But one man cares. He may think he has simply brought us food, but the truth is heâs brought us something much more valuable. He has brought us hope! Hope that we will win this strike before dying of starvation! Hope that people outside Mars care about our struggles! And that hopeâs name is Armin Leitz!â
The crowd cheered at the mention of Steveâs alias, actually no, it was a burner name. Use once and then never touch again. Of course he was using a fake name, Steve knew a lot of people. Some of those people found themselves in possession of 500 kilos of very expired ration bars. Steve had been able to buy them off a regular retailer of his at an absolutely cut-throat rate. And then, the striking miners had been able to pay in raw HE-3 to cover the âcostsâ. Win-win for Steve. âThereâs more where that came from!â He yelled to the throng of people swarming the crates âNo need to push! Thereâs more crates down the tunnels!â If the miners survived this strike, all the better. If not, at least Steve was taking some of MMCâs lode. He hoped the miners won their strike, he really did, but he didnât want this very profitable act of charity to be tied back to him. In the meantime, he thought he might go chasing geese.