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The gradual unfolding of consciousness moved through Rowan as he rolled over in bed. He had been asleep for only 4 hours, give or take. The sweet temptation to once more close his eyes had begun to fill his mind like a warm shower. He knew what must be done, thrust the covers off and away, and creaked his way upright from his low lying bed. Bone and muscle felt stiff, stomach nauseous. “I probably shouldn’t have had that seventh beer last night”, he thought. It wasn’t the number of drinks, but they had been drank in rapid succession. “Oh well, yolo. It seemed like a good idea at the time”. Gingerly he strode towards the blinds, glancing past the mirror, he was reminded what he looked like; face had grown stern, almost severe, piercing eyes, scruffy beard. “could be worse” he thought, as he unwound the kitschy, retro, manual vertical blinds to take in the scene on the busy lattice street below. Shuttle pods zipping by with illegal, deafeningly loud exhaust boomers, the zap-shoomph of pedestrian jump bays as they teleported their charges from point to point with a static flare across the interlacing traffic. “One of my usual, and a ginseng glow”. Rowan’s husky baritone voice gently growled. Holding out his hands, the serving tray supporting his drinks materialized with a soft shimmering ruffle. “Enjoy your triple shot espresso, on black coffee with a double shot of teacher’s, just how you like it, sir” The voice of his apartments iVuss (Intelligent Voice operated Universal Service System) unit drolly spruiked. He had spent hours tuning the voice system, it was set to a basso profundo, very low. It was funny, he had just the other day realised why he liked it set like this; this voice setting made him feel empowered due to his servant sounding so formidable. “Psychology is weird” he thought. But on the other hand, maybe it just sounds cool. “Thankyou Ivuss”. He turned back toward his bed, and half strode, half swanned his way to his companion. “For you, my dear”, he handed the extremely well proportioned female one of the beverages. “Ginseng glow! It’s ma fayvret! How did you know!?”. “Intuition” he responded as he flicked her a wink. The impressed female companion beamed, unable to hide her approval as she took a sip of her bevvie. Her smile matching the effects of the phosphorescent microspheres as they illuminated the lower half of her face, reacting with her PH level and fading as they glimmered their way down her neck. “what a time we live in” thought Rowan. “Seeriuslee, how could you know how much I love this drink?” She grinned. “You’re like magic or something”. Rowan simply smiled back and planted a kiss on her neck, thinking back to last night, when he had run a quick mindmap on her after she fell asleep. He did this firstly for security purposes, one can never be too careful in his line of work; however, it was hard to pass up this kind of insider info; like most humans, on some level he craved approval. Plus she was cute, so he wanted to impress her. And yet as his mind wandered to the inevitable outcome of them sharing time, space and other more intimate things together, he had to stifle a tear, taking a deep gulp of his drink to distract his tear ducts. “You hungry?” He asked. “Absolutely” she replied. “I was thinking cafe”.

Seven hundred and one floors below they sat outside a newly opened beach themed establishment, below the atmoshield the air was fresh. At least it felt fresh; of course it was just an illusion. But if it smells like fresh air, tastes like fresh air, and looks like fresh air, it must be fresh air… Right? Without their weekly mandatory bioflashes their lungs would soon let on the truth about the air. What did it matter? People were used to the system, sure, time on the surface was a luxury that most couldn’t afford, but down here on the sub-levels, the skyfloors did a relatively good job of simulating the experience of being outside. The rampant claustrophobia had been effectively cut down. “such cowigshit” Thought Rowan, “The fatdats on the top levels don’t give a shit about anything but th…” His thoughts were interrupted by their waiter - a shod (standard hospitality operations droid), kinda looked like one of those inflatable bounce-back clown punch bags, only it was relatively featureless, levitating, and equipped with neutral force mini-levitractors for carrying the freshly selected purchases of clientele. “Welcome to Sandy Slims, are you ready to order?” beamed the shod at it’s optimum happiness setting “fuuck me, over the top much?” thought Rowan. “What would you like, my dear?” He asked. “I’ll take a cowig spiral, hold the sheese and a ginseng glow”. “I am sorry mademoiselle, we do not serve that beverage here” the shod responded. “Shit! Of course” thought Rowan, they didn’t serve ginseng here, it was against their parent companies corporate religion - no stimulants or depressants. “Stupid, stupid!” He thought. He tried to think of what to say to smooth things over, but his mind was a fog, too many beers last night, not to mention for the past year or so. He breathed a sigh of relief as his companion ordered ordered a limon merlkshake instead, she seemed happy as Larry. “phew, close call” He thought. “I’ll have a lakeburger with a side of chorango hash, an iced sandy, and we’ll take an orange mini-dat for the table companion.

A comfortable silence passed as they waited for their order, atleast it was relatively comfortable compared to Rowan’s standard level of internal awkwardness. His female companion smiled wider than ever at him. He knew why: She loved orange mini-dats, a pocket sized cat/dog hybrid; another handy snippet from the mindmap he had ran. Rowan glanced around, feeling a sudden twinge of intuitive nervousness. A fodder druid lurched by menacingly, Rowan put his hand to his belt mounted shintogun. On it laboured in that odd top heavy wayi, he removed his hand, and relaxed slightly. “it’s only a matter of time” he thought, and choked back another pang of anxiety. The shod brought out their orders, suspended in it’s levitracs which softly hummed as their food descended in a perfect layout in front of them. Cutlery was next to be set, from a concealed compartment in the side of the shod. Lastly, the centre of the circular table retracted like an iris to reveal the orange mini-dat in the middle of the table within it’s neutral force cleantainment dome. It was pretty cool, the cleantaindome simultaneously gently held the animal within a preset radius while allowing external objects, like hands, to pass through, sanitizing them on the way out so you can enjoy your food without having to wash your hands every few minutes. “Your mini-dats name is Cheebles. Enjoy your meal, and thankyou for dining at Sandy Slims” proclaimed the shod as it drifted over to a nearby table which had just been seated by three dubious looking bipeds in semi-cloaks; insect legs, synthetic eyes. Rowan tried to repress the intuitive knowledge of who these guys were, and what they were here to do. But he couldn’t quash the truth as it revealed itself to him. He had 45-60 seconds before this date was over, so he decided to make the most of it. Her turned back to his companion, they smiled at each other, and then towards their mini-table-dat. They each reached in through the cleantaindome and petted Cheebles, who snuggled up to their hands in adorable appreciation, purowling softly and rolling over for a belly scratch which caused their hands to touch… As she smiled up at him, Rowan, not the most consistently confident guy in the world was reconsidering if this was a good place to bring his companion… A beach themed cafe bar? What in the holy crap had made him think this was a good idea? Had he become a douche bag? “Fuck it” he thought, “she’s loving it… It’s ok, just chill… Try to enjoy it.” it doesn’t matter anyway, it was just a matter of time; ~30 seconds to be precise. “Thankyou for bringing me here, this place is… so cool” squealed his companion. “I was wondering… Are you free this Wognesday? There is a screening of a vintage film at the palaidiun. I don’t know if you like that kind of thing, I’ve just had a really good time, and I have these two tickets…” “I can’t do Wognesday, I’m going to be offworld” Thought Rowan. But then he caught himself, and remembered that it didn’t matter, he may as well tell her what she wanted to hear “That sounds A-mazing. I would love to go” Beamed Rowan, and he meant it. Just then he noticed an almost imperceptible change in his companion’s expression, and he instinctively unholstered his shintogun with his right hand, clicking the time disruptor up to 50%. Whirling, he engaged his left-handed levitrac around his companion and dug his toes down to activate his jump boots, boosting a sideways dive hard to the right, towards the lattice street above. As his perception of time slowed down towards 50%, he felt the usual exponential shift in awareness. The three cyborg-insect-bipeds had removed their semi-cloaks to reveal a back mounted trigun which was now in it’s final stages of assembly as they stood in attack formation. He recognized the weapon model and knew that it, like most weapons, could not fully penetrate his shields. He suspected his attackers knew this too, and he felt that same wave of melancholy sweep over him, knowing that his new companion did not possess a shield system, and stood almost no chance of survival in this skirmish. As he unleashed an attack pattern with his shintogun, carving out the runes which would give him the highest chance of protecting his companion (which was nonetheless infinitesimally miniscule), he couldn’t help but reflect on the tragedy it was that fertile female humans could not possess a shielding system without becoming barren. The trigun was now assembled and began powering up. Having been alerted to the situation by the resident shod’s, the cypolice were inbound, and due in 10 seconds, but it would be too long to save anyone from these time disruptive weapons. With time now at 75%, Rowan had now chosen a four rune defence: High, Low, negative force-Forward, & Wave. as he completed the third rune “forward”, as he whipped through space and into the lattice street above, he could see that the trigun was now fully charged and about to fire. He was now 20 metres up, 30 metres up, accelerating, and weaving between traffic,  his companion strategically placed behind him, for now suspended safely in his levitrac as his final rune: “wave” finished being perfectly weaved in his masterly crafted shintogun calligraphy. The trigun’s blast reached out to them like a sinister blue ravenous electric hand, about to collide with a civilian buspod. Rowans first rune high met the blue wave of the trigun, redirecting it, barely missing the civilian buspod, and toward a passing double truckpod hauling gas causing it ignite in a furious explosion, sending out a shockwave which disrupted several cells of latticeroad traffic, and setting off countless collisions. Time was now at 50%. If one without the requisite knowledge and training to wield a time disruption armoury were able to somehow perceive time slowly enough to take in this scene; to such a casual observer, it would look like utter chaos. Even in the midst of the depths of this drawn out moment, Rowan wondered if he miscalculated his response, should he have selected 60%? These kinds of tactical decisions were always a trade off; power conservation, optimum time/space distortion… Not to mention the sympathetic interactions which would occur if your enemy is distorting time. Time weapons training was never an exact science, there was always some kind of trade off. Did it even matter? He could never hide. No matter where he went, or what defences he built, they always found him. The Stagsect were evil motherfuckers. They knew they couldn’t kill him, they needed him, but as they promised, they would never allow him to procreate. As a result, they interpreted any interaction beyond shaking hands with a woman to be an indication of intent to procreate. Fucking assholes. He sometimes wondered if he was being selfish by finding new companions. Then he remembered, he definitely was being selfish, he had already figured that out, but his companions always seemed to find him, and after a few beers, he didn’t have the self control to knock back their company, especially when they got along so well. It wasn’t even about the sex, so much as he loved their company…... Bringing his attention back to the moment, he watched as the blue wave blast from the trigun interacted with the 2nd and 3rd runes: low, and forward, and was effectively reduced down to a single finger of blue light, as it crackled towards them, allowing the forward rune to continue towards their assailants. Then he activated the 4th and final rune “wave”, and he and his companion began to spin intensely as all else became a roaring blur, and the electric bolt chased them into their wave vortex. Wave runes were oftentimes unpredictable, bending time and space, sometimes you would go back in time, forward in time, find yourself in an unexpected place. Of course the safety constants made it very unlikely that you would pop up in a void, or in deep space, but nevertheless wave runes, functioning on the precepts of chaos theory, were almost exclusively used by shintos who were deemed reckless. As Rowan directed his gaze out of the wave void and towards the Stagsects, he felt a brief moment of satisfaction as his forward rune crushed his attackers flat and compacted them out of physical existence. Such a neat attack method, no mess, no fuss. The moment of relief was over, as he felt the familiar sensation of wave induced timespace shift teleport his body, he became aware of a beach, and a falling sensation. It must have been all the beach imagery in his head from Sandy Slims, causing them to jump to an actual beach. Where was this? Perhaps more importantly, when was this!? There were no beaches anymore, not anywhere, not that he knew of... Still whirling, the electric bolt edged toward his companion, and with a flick of his left wrist, manipulated his levitrac to place himself between her and the bolt. his vision became distorted as the bolt collided with his shield, sending stabbing pains into his torso, pushing him almost to the point of unconsciousness. But he was alert enough to sense the bolt tearing partially through, passing partially around his body, and directly into the field of the levitrac supporting his companion. Paralyzed, he could do nothing as the bolt easily disrupted the levitrac field, piercing her heart, heating her from the inside, she began to scream, but could not, as she burst into super hot flames, and then in an instant, was nothing but ashes. The next moment, whirling, she was gone, and he was back on the lattice street below his 701st floor apartment, at the apex of his jump, spinning no more, with time quickly accelerating back to 100%, he began to freefall. He considered the danger in his uncontrolled descent, but was filled with an overwhelming disconnected apathy. Down he hurtled through the vertical latticeroad cells, straight through a tricked-out shuttle pod which skittered off into a nearby building, “One less loud-ass exhaust I have listen to, I guess” he thought, and absentmindedly gave a thumbs up, expression blank. Down he hurtled faster still, and then he was unconscious… When he awoke, he was in a catch field operated by the cypolice.