Gap Stories #19

[Sync Rate 3000]

Log Date: 10/21/12768

Data Sources: Jack Noir

Event Log: Jack Noir

Sovenor District: Blackburt Building, Suite 2025

11:56am SGT

I got the case on a Tuesday, of all days.

I suppose that should’ve been a sign of the kind of case it would be. Tuesday is the day that pretends not to be as bad as Monday. It flies under the radar, makes you think that because it’s the second day in the workweek, it really ain’t that bad. But the truth is that Tuesday is Monday’s twin. And twins don’t like being compared to each other.

Well, on this Tuesday, the twin was lettin’ me have it. Rain. Thunder. Grey clouds. The whole nine yards. You come to expect this stuff in Sovenor; it’s just how the fall weather is. You can go weeks without ever seeing the sun, but who needs it in a place like this? If I wanted to feel happy, I’d take a field trip to Valcorria. But nah, I’m a workin’ man.

On this particular day, my work just happened to show up around noon. A bona fide Marshy dame — jet-black hair, crimson eyes, and a nerdy little set of glasses perched on a cute little button of a nose. I wouldn’t call her a siren by any stretch of the imagination, but if you asked me, I think she could clean up nicely. Get her out of that labcoat, put her in a little black dress, swap the glasses for contacts and get her to stand up straight, and you might have the makings of a real lady.

But I suppose I wasn’t in any position to talk. Sure, I could clean up nice in a suit, but those cost money, and if I could afford one of those, I wouldn’t be kicking back in a trenchcoat and secondhand boots.

“Have a seat, Ms. Minervella.” I say, gesturing to one of the cracked chairs across my desk. “Real kind of you to show up on time.”

“Oh, I try to be punctual.” she says quietly, sitting gingerly in one of the chairs. “Uhm, I appreciate you taking this job—”

“Whoa now, let’s put the brakes on.” I say quickly, checking her email on my phone. “I never said I was taking it; I just said I was interested. Tell me a little bit more about this job you’ve got for me. The email you sent me was skimpier than a Venusian bikini.”

“Oh! Right. I didn’t want to say too much, in case, you know, the comms were being monitored.” she says quickly, leaning towards my desk a little. “Like I told you, I work in R&D for the Praetorian Guard, specifically with experimental psi technologies. A series of reports have come through our department over the past couple of months about one of our research branches out in the Mistilteinn System — maybe you’ve seen the news reports about it? It’s the world where the Valiant are helping train Titan pilots to fight off Leviathans.”

“Eh, I’ve seen stuff here and there.” I say, pulling out my vape and turning it on. “Most of it looked like propaganda clips released by the Valiant, tryin’ to spit-shine their reputation as protectors and defenders. I heard CURSE ain’t too happy the Marshy Republic is cozying up to the Valiant.”

“Oh, well, I, I wouldn’t know anything about that.” Minervella says hastily. “I’m not much for the politics; all I know is that the Valiant have a Titan squad and CURSE doesn’t, so that’s probably why the government went to the Valiant to get help on Halcyon. Oh, but, uh, let me get back on topic. So, the research branch on Halcyon’s been sending back data from the pilots operating on Halcyon, and the data is… well, it’s concerning. We think the Valiant might’ve made a major breakthrough in Titan tech.”

I was about to set my vape to my lips, but lower it. “You don’t say.”

“Yes. I won’t get into all the technical details, but one of their pilot pairs… they’ve got a sync rate of three thousand. Consistently. Across multiple reports. Both in test chambers and in the pilot chamber.”

I raise an eyebrow, waving my vape around a little. “And?”

“Well, it’s impossible.” Minervella stammers, pulling out a data slate, unlocking it, and setting it on my desk so she can push it towards me. “For empath pilots, standard sync rates are between eighty to a hundred and twenty percent. For high-performing psi pilots, the sync rate can get up to two hundred and fifty percent. A sync rate of three thousand percent is over ten times higher than the highest sync rate ever recorded on any pilot, ever, across the entire galaxy, for the last several hundred years.”

“You sure it’s not an equipment malfunction?” I ask, taking a drag from my vape. “A little mathematical error? Someone forgot to carry the zero somewhere?”

“The research branch on Halcyon has ruled that out. Like I said, they’ve gotten the telemetry from multiple field operations, and the readings from sessions in the test chambers and in the training chambers.” Minervella says, pulling up a bar graph on her slate that shows the sync rates of different pilots. Or at least that’s what it looks like to me. There’s a single tall bar, surrounded by little short midget bars on either side. “The readings always come back around three thousand, every time. Both on the Valiant systems and in the chamber systems in the Genista outpost, under our control. So we know the Valiant aren’t tampering with the telemetry. That number is authentic. What we can’t figure out is how they’re doing it.”

I raise an eyebrow. “What, and you think I can figure that out? I’m a private eye, Ms. Minervella, not a psientist. That’s your job.”

“Well, no, I know that, but, we— look, we can’t figure it out.” Minervella stammers. “We don’t have enough information to figure out what they’re doing, and Genista’s scientists haven’t been able to pry anything out of the Valiant pilots. Plus, we don’t have access to the Sunthorn Bastion, where the answers or the tech might be.”

“Ahhh.” I say, tilting my head back. “So you want me to sneak onto Sunthorn and do some snoopin’.”

“Yes! More or less. The Praetorian Guard would’ve done it themselves, but, uh…” She rubs the back of her neck, looking a little embarrassed. “…the Valiant angelnet is… extremely competent, let’s put it that way.”

I exhale a bit of vapor. “Their digital angel keeps shutting you down.”

“It’s been a source of frustration for the espionage department.”

“I can imagine.” I pick up the slate, looking over the bar graph. “This pilot pair. It wouldn’t happen to be… Songbird and his lady friend, would it?”

“That’s them, yes.”

“Mmm. That’s a tall order, madam.” I say, setting the slate back down on my desk. “So to sum it up, you want me to head out there to Halcyon, find a way to slip onto one of the legendary Bastions, and snoop around the most dangerous man in the galaxy and his girlfriend. That ain’t a walk in the park, honey.”

“Oh, we know, we know.” Minervella says quickly. “The Guard knows that this will be asking a lot of you, and they are willing to compensate your accordingly for your time. Just give us your quote, and I’ll let them know so they can decide if they’re willing to accept it.”

“I’ll need to do a risk assessment before I can give you a quote. Easy jobs, I can just throw a number out there, but complicated jobs like this? I’m gonna need to think through it.” I say, pushing the data slate back towards her. “Gimme forty-eight hours to do my research and risk assessment. If I think it’s viable, I’ll call you back by then.”

“Oh! Of course, totally, I understand. Do you need my number, or—”

“I got your email; that’ll do just fine. Once I’ve made a decision, I’ll reply on the chain we’ve got going.” I say, taking another drag from my vape. “Forty-eight hours. Go take a load off, relax a bit, and I’ll let you know once I’ve made a decision.”

“Oh! Of course. Thank you, Mr. Noir.” she says, hastily taking back the data slate and tucking it in her bag as she stands. “I’ll, uh, see myself out and wait to hear back from you. Thank you for taking the time!”

“My pleasure, milady.” I say, graciously motioning to the office door. “Stay dry out there. I hear it’s supposed to rain this afternoon.”

She flashes me a quick smile as she bustles out the door, and closes it behind her. Once she’s gone, I swivel in my chair to face the window behind my desk, taking a long drag on my vape as I stare out at the grey clouds over the Sovenor District.

Looks like it’s time to start planning for a trip offworld.

Event Log: Jack Noir

C.V. Destiny South: Passenger Overlook

11/3/12768 10:38pm SGT

The truth is, I hadn’t entirely been honest when I said I’d gotten the case on a Tuesday.

Technically, I’d gotten the case on Wednesday of the prior week, right as I was wrapping up my evening takeout from the Moksan noodlehouse down the street. Finch can whip up a killer toullo tá lein, and he’s a familiar name in the business, so I make a point of hitting him up every few weeks, even though I haven’t the damnedest idea what he’s saying whenever he opens his mouth. The man’s got an accent so thick and greasy it can clog your arteries just listenin’ to it.

Anyhow, Finch said he had something special for me that day, or at least that’s what I think he said. It sounded something like Weel, weel, la’ie, lookin’s s’liek sumone s’agonna be taekin’ eh trip ta pehradice lawst, yeh? ’S’won’s onna ‘ouse, cour’sey o’mah girl Vickaay. ‘Aown sey Ah nevah did hennything fer yah. After spending twelve seconds parsing through the linguistic carnage, I thanked him for his time and agreed that the law should mandate a pair of fuzzy dice for each car on the road. He rolled his eyes and sent me off without charging me for my toulla tá lein; I considered going back and telling him he hadn’t charged my account, but I was cuttin’ it pretty close to missing next month’s payment on the office lease. And I figured a spy of Finch’s fame wouldn’t miss a few credits here and there.

Taking my noodles back to the office, I set about the task of demolishing them with all the usual enthusiasm, and had my fortune cookie in hand shortly after. But instead of giving me advice about my nonexistent love life, or chiding me for my many and sundry flaws, this time it yielded a little button-sized holoprojector. Typical spy fare, hiding prerecorded messages in pastry desserts. It wasn’t new to me; one time I’d almost choked on a similar button projector that someone had slipped into a raspberry creme danish. Someone almost got promoted from spy to assassin that day.

Anyhow, I turned that sucker on and got hit with a message from a couple of work pals I’d partnered with in the past. Valentine Vice and Vicky Virtue — the galaxy’s greatest vampire detectives, or so the saying goes. I hadn’t seen ‘em since the summer of ’63, before all this Valiant hullaboo had kicked off. It’s crazy, what a difference five years can make.

Evidently Vice and Virtue had heard that I was going through a bit of a dry spell with cases, and decided they’ve give me a bit of a hand. They’d gotten a request for a case — something about clones, and the Valiant, and Titan pilots — but they were too busy to take it on at the moment, and figured I could use the work. I wasn’t really keen on the idea of going offworld, but a case is a case, and Vicky and Val said the money would be good. And what’s a detective to do when he’s down on his luck and a couple months behind on rent?

So I took the case. Although I’d soon find out that it was more along the lines of the case taking me.

Where it took me, in particular, was the starport. After pretending to think about Minervella’s offer, I emailed her back and let her know I’d take the case, and we were off to the races. Apparently the Praetorian Guard had already done all of the heavy lifting, and gotten us press credentials and cover stories so we could join a group of journalists traveling to the Sunthorn Bastion. A rare occurrence, I was told, and a unique opportunity — the Valiant media office was allowing the media to visit so they could learn a bit more about Sunthorn’s posting over Halcyon, and interview some of their Special Agents. Probably looking for favorable coverage to burnish their reputation in the galactic eye, though, listening to the journalists at the starport, a lot of them were hoping to score an interview with the man himself — Songbird, the dark hero of the Valiant.

Unfortunately, the trip to the Mistilteinn System was decidedly less glamorous than an interview with a galactic celebrity. To save on travel costs, the news orgs had gotten a deal on passenger fare aboard a resupply freighter heading to Halcyon. Our accommodations were decidedly… utilitarian. Luxury and entertainment were in short supply, so we had to make our own; during which time I endeared myself to the other journalists we were traveling with. I passed myself off as a senior correspondent showing a junior correspondent the ropes, making full use of Minervella’s perennial nervousness to highlight my own confidence. Sharing coffee and cards went a long way to building connections, and by the time we stepped off the resupply freighter and into the Sunthorn Bastion, I’d cultivated a few contacts that I might be able to lean on in the course of my investigation.

And a good thing too, because that was where the real work began. My sleuthing senses were tingling from the moment my boots hit the hangar floor; there was a welcome committee waiting for us, composed of the Valiant’s media office and some of the Command officers. While introductions were had and itineraries were handed out, my attention was on the members of Valiant Command that had decided to show up for the press. After all, these would be the big players, the ones pulling the strings.

Starting in order of importance, there was the infamous Nympho — the vampire siren that had seduced thousands men and women alike. Even in uniform, sporting her old Challenger dress jacket and cap, there was a rakish, ravenous sensuality that just couldn’t be contained by the formality of attire. Her body was a bomb custom-designed to decimate the attention span of anyone that caught sight of it, with a blast radius that could hit a person from a quarter-mile out. And even worse still, she knew it — if she caught you looking, you’d get a smirk, and maybe a wink from the one eye that wasn’t covered by an eyepatch. I made a mental note to avoid her at all costs — not that I didn’t like those kinds of dames; quite the opposite. But I knew that if she managed to corner me, I wouldn’t just talk — I would sing the entirety of Blueberry Bubblegum’s second album. Deluxe version, bonus tracks included.

Next up on the list was Drill. Dwarves often get stereotyped as self-starters and small business owners that know how to grind out a profit, and Drill fell into that category the same way I fell for Blueberry Bubblegum the first time I saw her perform live a dozen years ago. The mainstream news rarely mentioned him, but several holomags had done exposés on the Valiant, many of which hinted at a shadowy financial mastermind that kept the Valiant afloat with his accounting prowess and razor-sharp business acumen. After all, someone had to be responsible for the yearly Valiant swimsuit calendar that had taken the galaxy by storm for three years running. Someone had to have hashed out a deal with the Junko Corporation to sell Junko orbs featuring the most prominent Special Agents of the Valiant. And someone had to have masterminded the sale of limited-edition Nympho dakimakuras for the vampire’s salivating fanbase. Only one dwarf that could be so bold, so daring, so visionary in his pursuit of alternative revenue streams, and that dwarf was Drill.

Finally, there was the Legaci. A digital intelligence so powerful, so advanced, that it qualified for the definition of an angelnet. Rumors on the galaxynet gave her another name — the TASEr, short for The All-Seeing Eye. Hobby hackers and blackhats alike told cautionary tales of ill-fated attacks on the Bastion network that invariably ended in failure, but it did not stop at failure. Retaliation always followed — and while it was not always swift, it was always brutal, and often had a petty, vindictive touch. Entire server farms would be laid to waste. Vast bot networks, infected and turned against their masters. Hard drive corruptions so horrific that even the backup of the backup of the backup was unrecoverable. And those were the lucky ones — if you were unlucky, the TASEr wouldn’t stop there. Maybe you’d wake up to find your blockchain wallet had been emptied, or half your retirement savings had been donated to charity. Perhaps you’d check your socmed account to find you’d posted something very embarrassing and extremely career-damaging in the middle of the night. Or maybe you’d find that that you apparently ordered a thirty-pound box of various sex toys delivered to your residence in very conspicuous, identifiable packaging. No matter the case, the message was always clear: cyberattacks on the Valiant would be repaid with a TASEring of epic and unforgettable proportions.

There were other members of Valiant Command, of course, but those were the three that were present for welcoming the arrival of the press. Watching them make the rounds with the other members of the press corp, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that this was old hat for most of them. They held themselves with ease, and always answered with confidence, never hesitating to stonewall the other journalists if questions strayed into an off-limits topic. These were professionals, veterans of the scene — and because of that, they would likely be the toughest nuts to crack.

Which probably meant we should start with them first.

“Alright, Mini.” I murmured, taking my vape from my mouth. Beside me, Minervella jumped a little at the nickname I’d given her during the trip here. It was pretty apt, if I do say so myself. “I know where to start, but this is gonna have to be a team effort. It’ll take me forever to weasel my way into interviewing all the members of Valiant Command, so we’re gonna have to split it up. For the three that we’ve got right here — can you handle one of them if I get the other two?”

“Oh! Uh. Yeah. Sure.” she acquiesces quickly. “That… that seems fair. I’m… I’m not great at asking questions, but I’ll do my best.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’ve got a list of questions before your interview, in case you forget what we’re investigating.” I say, huffing out a swirl of apple-raspberry-scented vapor. My blood was starting to stir; the hunt for the truth would soon be afoot. “I’ll take Drill and Legaci. Those two seem a bit more slippery, and will require a bit more work. Which means you’ll have to take Nympho. She should be a bit easier. She reads like a picture book, from what I can see.”

Minervella’s nervousness morphs into panic. “Wait, w-whw-whw-wh-what? Wh- why, why, why can’t y-yu-you take her? She’s really, really, uh—”

“Don’t worry, kid, you got this.” I say, clapping a hand on her back. “With the way you dress, she’s out of your league. You’ll be safe from her.”

“Wh! What does that mean! And why are you calling me kid, I’m only two years younger than you!” she protests as I give her a push towards Nympho, and start making my own way towards Drill. “Jack! You can’t do this to me! It’s like throwing a bunny into a cage fight with a leopard! She’s gonna eat me alive!”

“You’ll be fine, Mini, I believe in you.” I say, giving her a wink as I head off. “Go talk to her and set up a time for an interview. What’s the worst that could happen — you end up in her bed?”

Little did I know — I’d be eating those words in the next couple of days.

Event Log: Jack Noir

Sunthorn Bastion: Press Corp Apartment Block

11/5/12768 9:39am SGT

The two days to follow, if not fruitful, were at least enlightening.

The nice thing about being an undercover detective embedded with a press junket is that nobody will ask questions about why you’re asking questions. After all, journalists and correspondents weren’t that much different from detectives — it was mostly a matter of who we shared our findings with. Detectives tended to keep the information to themselves, and the client, of course. News orgs were a bit more generous with their sharing.

My interviews with Drill and Legaci were… well, they didn’t yield much that I didn’t already know. Legaci stuck to the talking points, and stonewalled me anytime I tried to get into the nitty-gritty of the Valiant’s Titan operation. Drill, on the other hand, was happy to stray from the talking points — but only onto topics that were completely irrelevant, like how he built his comic book empire, or the finer points of tax evasion strategy. Trying to get useful intel out of him was like reaching into my ex-boyfriend’s purse. You never knew what you’d come up with, but it probably wasn’t going to be what you were looking for.

So with those two leads deadended, it was up to Mini to get something useful out of Nympho. I’d done my homework on the rest of Valiant Command, and it wasn’t looking promising — the remaining members of Command didn’t seem like they’d be easy to crack.

First up, there was Kaiser, the infamous Butcher of Balmorrah, and the head of Accounting for the Challenger program. The rumors were many, and always spoken in whispers; some said that he’d been operating in the criminal underworld for decades, maybe even centuries. He was a force to be reckoned with; cold, calculating, ruthless, and efficient, consistently delivering results with very little fuss or fanfare. That seemed to line up with his personal preferences — he often operated out of sight, working behind the scenes and facilitating things from the shadows. His influence could be seen everywhere in the Valiant’s operations, but you almost never saw the man himself. And it seemed like he preferred it that way, so I couldn’t count on luring him into the limelight for an interview.

Next was Valkyrie. A well-known name as a former Challenger, it made sense that she was now helping lead the Valiant. She might be a better prospect than the other members of Valiant Command; she had sat for interviews before, though it seemed like she would rather be working than hobnobbing. From the interviews I’d seen, she was a sensible woman, and a brilliant medic with a strong sense of integrity. If I had to take a shot in the dark, I’d peg her as the moral compass of Valiant Command — her presence might be understated, but it was still important.

Finally, there was Forecast — a mysterious shadow in the Command lineup. He’d been seen many times in the company of the other members of Valiant Command, but he’d never been interviewed, and his role in the organization had never been clarified. Rumors had it that he was a member of the Maskling government, and conspiracy theories claimed he was helping steer the Valiant to carry out the agenda of the Maskling Republic. None of this had ever been substantiated, of course; he was an elusive fellow, and like Kaiser, seemed to prefer doing his job just out of view of the public… whatever that job was.

It was those three that I was currently musing over in the suite that Mini and I had been assigned in the apartment block for the press corp. The accommodations were nice; there was no denying that — the luxuries of the Challengers was on par with some of the best resorts I’d ever been to. But most of that was lost on me, because I was staring down a growing map of connections and persons of interest, splayed across the wall I’d chosen for my investigation. Right now we were still on the fringes of it, but I had a feeling that as we got closer to the center of this web, we’d find Songbird and his lady love, and the secret of sync rate 3000.

Of course, that was still a hunch at this point; I didn’t have any proof, but just to stay ahead of the curve, I’d already put Songbird and the Mask Knight at the center of my investigation board. I have to admit, the two of them did make a cute couple.

The sound of the door spiraling open snags my attention, and I turn around to see Mini leaning back against the door once it closes, in a state of uncharacteristic dishevelment. Clutching her purse and jacket to her chest, one strap of her top hanging off her shoulder, hair slightly rumpled, one of her heels missing, and long, thousand-mile stare I’ve often seen on reminiscing war vets. The signs are all there — I suppose I should’ve seen this coming, in a job like this.

“Lemme guess.” I sigh, folding my arms. “The Praetorian Guard sent a team to silence you already, did they?”

Mini jerks her traumatized stare to me. “What? No! She fucks like a maniac! Why did you do that to me? Why did I agree to this? You’re supposed to be the detective here; why am I doing your job for you?!”

My brow furrows. “Oh, wait. This wasn’t an assassination attempt?” I say, making a broad wave to her general state of dishevelment.

“I don’t know! It might’ve been, because she damn near worked me to death in that bed of hers!” Mini seethes, pushing off the door and kicking off her other heel as she marches to the kitchen. “That woman is, is, is— I have never— she is insatiable! You know how many hours of sleep I got last night?”

“Oohhhhhhhh.” I say, tilting my head back as I realize what went down. “So I take it your dinner-date interview with Nympho went well?”

“Two hours, Jack! I got two hours of sleep!” she snaps at me, throwing her purse and jacket on the counter as she yanks open the fridge. “I don’t even know how she— one moment we were at dinner, and then suddenly we were back at her apartment— wait, I remember how she lured me back there! You know she told me she had a cat? I went back to her apartment to see her cat!” She swipes a water bottle out of the fridge and points it at me. “And you know what I see when we got back to her apartment? It was a, a, I think it was a Calyri, or maybe a feline vashy, but it was a literal catboi, but then she kicked him out and pulled the moves on me! And I— look, in my defense, she has hella moves, but oh my god, Jack, that vampire, she—” She braces on the counter, pressing a forearm to her mouth. “—son of a bitch, I think I can still taste her—”

I make my way over, gently patting her back. “First time?”

“What?! No! No, this isn’t my first time, like, I mean— well, technically yes with a woman, but not my first time overall, I’ve, I’ve done this before, I’ve totally done this before, it’s just that it was never this crazy, like oh my god—”

“Don’t worry, kid. Take it from a pro — being a disastrous bisexual is par for the course in this line of work.” I assure her, taking the water bottle, cracking it open, and handing it back to her. “Hydrate. You’re gonna need it if you run into her again.”

Mini looks at me like I suggested doing yoga in the middle of a four-lane highway.

I shrug. “Look, all I’m saying is that you made more progress with her than I made with Drill or Legaci. You remembered to squeeze some intel out of her while you had the chance, right?”

She glares at me, snatching the water bottle back. “I hate you. But yes, I uh… I got some… I got her to run her mouth. It wasn’t hard, she likes venting between… nevermind. I got the intel and you better be damn grateful for it.”

“Perfect! Let’s hear it, then.” I say, stepping out of the way and motioning to the investigation wall.

“Should’ve never agreed to this.” she mutters, walking past me and taking a swig of water before arriving at the wall. “Okay, so. From what I gathered, Nympho isn’t the brains of this operation, so she probably doesn’t know jack shit about pilot syncing, or any of the science behind it. But she is the social butterfly of Valiant Command. She makes all the connections—”

“In more ways than one.” I observe.

“Shut up! I didn’t expect her to be that persuasive, okay? As I was saying, she’s the one that makes all the connections for Valiant, buttering people up and convincing them to work with the Valiant. So even though she’s not involved in a lot of the decisionmaking, she’s got a lot of contact with people both inside and outside of the Valiant.” she says, drawing a box on the wall’s holoarray, and writing the name Genista in it. “One thing she revealed is that the Valiant aren’t happy with the Genistans right now, even though they’re here to help them. Apparently the Genistans have been hiding things from the Valiant — she wouldn’t say what they were hiding, but whatever it is, it’s really gotten under the Valiant’s skin, to the point of eroding the Valiant’s willingness to trust them.”

“Hmm. Back when you hired me, didn’t you say that Genista’s scientists were having trouble prying information out of the Valiant pilots?” I recall. “Maybe this is why. This partnership might not be as stable as they’re selling it to the public.”

“That’s the vibe I was getting off Nympho. Smiling for the cameras in public, but gritting their teeth behind the scenes.” Mini says, tapping and dragging Nympho’s box from the edges and into the web. “Apparently the relationship started off fine, but there’s been a slow drip of revelations that have been turning things sour. And recently, the Valiant seem to have found out something major that Genista was hiding from them — something that’s bigger than the other secrets that were being kept up until this point. She wouldn’t say what it was, though.”

“And you don’t know what this thing is?” I ask, following her over to the wall. “The Genista research outpost is literally a project of the Marshy Republic, right? It’s not a private enterprise; it’s government-organized and government-funded. So whatever it is Genista is hiding from the Valiant, the government should know about it, and the Praetorian Guard should be able to access that information. And since you work for the Praetorian Guard…”

“Clearance isn’t high enough.” she says, tilting her head back for another swig of water. “And besides, if the Guard wanted me to know about it, they would’ve told me when they gave me this assignment. W-what do you think’s going to happen if I start asking them questions about something I’m not supposed to know about?”

“Ah. Admittedly, they do have a track record for that sort of thing.” I concede, folding my arms and stroking my chin. “So we might actually have two investigations on our hands here.”

“What? No! I d-didn’t come here to dig up Genista’s secrets, I came here to find out what the Valiant were hiding!” she protests, looking at me in panic. “I wasn’t even supposed to come! You were the one that was supposed to do this, but you dragged me along!”

“True. I am getting paid for just the one investigation.” I say, tapping my chin. “But you may forgive me for postulatin’ that there may be more at play here than just Sync Rate 3000. Somethin’ don’t smell right, and it ain’t just the fact that you haven’t had a shower yet.”

“Wh— you ass! Were you not listening when I told you I only got two hours of sleep last night?!”

“Oh no, I heard you, but I figured you’d at least take a shower before makin’ the walk of shame back here.”

“A sh- a shower?! Are you out of your mind? I barely managed to escape her room while she was sleeping in! A shower would’ve woken her up; I had to get out of there as quietly as possible, or she might’ve woken me up and pounced me again!”

“Pssshaa, it can’t have been that bad.”

“You know nothing, Jack Noir! Next time you can interview the nymphomaniac and I’ll take the dwarf and the hologram lady!”

“Fine. If we get the chance to turn the tables, then I’ll take you up on that. For now though, I need to think. We still need to get to the bottom of Sync Rate 3000, but there are still unanswered questions… questions about what the Genistans are hiding. I’ve got a hunch that we might’ve stumbled onto a bigger bowl of noodles than we bargained for…”

“Well, you question away. I’m gonna go take a shower and collapse into bed for the next six hours. Do we have anything stronger than water in here?”

“Unfortunately not. I’ve heard they’ve got a bar on the equatorial rim somewhere, though. Rumor says it’s the preferred watering hole for the Special Agents; I was thinking about hitting it up tonight.”

“Kuh. Fine, I’ll tag along tonight. And you better not throw me into any impromptu interviews.”

“Aye, lassie, no promises. You gotta be flexible in this line of work.”

“Oh, I was plenty flexible last night…”

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m taking my shower now.”

Event Log: Jack Noir

Sunthorn Bastion: Sunthorn Spice

11/5/12768 8:32pm SGT

Evening found me slummin’ it around the Sunthorn Spice — the go-to bar for Valiant Agents. I’d heard that back in the day, the Challenger Bastions used to be miniature cities, flush with retail establishments and restaurants. Of course, that all went away after the Songbird Incident, and the Valiant had yet to build up that commercial space again. The retail portions of the equatorial rim were still ghost towns — abandoned storefronts dark and shuttered, waiting for the return of enterprising businesses that would cater to the Bastion’s resident population.

Which might’ve been why the Spice was open at all — unlike a lot of the businesses that once held leases on commercial space on the Bastion, the Spice was a homegrown operation. It wasn’t part of a franchise or a chain that had locations across the galaxy already; it was a bar that could only be found on Sunthorn Bastion, staffed and run by locals. The barkeep was a Cyber by the name of Sandago, and he clearly knew his way around the drinks and the regulars. I had no doubts he’d be a wealth of information; the only problem was pryin’ it out of him. He seemed like a good barkeep, and that was the problem — a good barkeep doesn’t spill drinks or secrets, especially to outsiders.

So that left me with half a Fluffernutter and nothing to do but sit in one of the corner booths and watch the regulars. The exercise wasn’t totally useless; if I could—

“Would you stop that?” Mini demands, swatting the hand I’m using to hold my recorder close to my mouth. “Why do you always have to narrate yourself?”

“Hey now, manners.” I say, holding the recorder away from her. “I’m recordin’ this for posterity. And maybe an audiobook deal a few years from now. Bein’ a detective ain’t exactly a steady paycheck, y’know.”

“You’re supposed to be working!” she says, gesturing to the Valiant Agents across the counter and booths. Here and there, I can spot some of the journalists that we came here with, clearly trying to work the same angles I was working. “Someone in here has to know about Torikago’s sync rate!”

“I am workin’!” I protest, taking a sip of my Fluffernutter. “I am ruminatin’ on the complexities of the case. A man has got to think aloud sometimes to figure out the way forward, okay?”

“What if someone hears you, though?” she hisses quietly. “You’ll blow our cover!”

“Yeah, it’s a little too late for that.” The voice comes from the booth next to us, and a pair of feline ears poke up above the seat, followed by a tousled head of mahogany hair. An arm is slung over the back of the seat as a bona-fide catboi with green eyes peers over the divider and into our booth. “You do know we know you aren’t journalists, right?”

I huff a breath through my clenched teeth. “Shit. Our cover’s been blown.” My eyes dart around, measuring the distance to the exit and how many Agents we’d have to evade to get there. But even if we could escape, there’d still be the matter of getting off the Bastion itself…

“Don’t bother.” the catboi says, sipping from what looks like cheritza in a shallow glass. “Legaci knows everything that happens on Sunthorn. She could have you detained within seconds if she needed.” Leaning over, he sets his stemmed drink down on our table, then rolls over the divider and into our booth, landing beside Mini, who flinches away from him. “By the way, Sierra told me to give you her regards. I think she likes you — she said she’d be up for round two if you are.”

Mini immediately turns as red a springtime strawberry. “Ah— OH! It’s you! The kitty!” she yelps, scrambling away from him.

“That’s me. What do you got here?” he says, leaning over to examine Mini’s glass. “No way. Is that fizzwater? You and Songbird would get along. He never drinks.”

“Alright, you win, you little fluff-eared freak.” I concede, glaring at him. “What do you want from us?”

The catboi picks up his drink, sipping from it. “Me? I’m just an innocent little kitty. Whatever do you mean?”

“Don’t play coy with me, you feline femboy. I know a schemer when I see one.” I growl. “Out with it. What’s your price?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Femboy?… nevermind. Look, I’m not here to blackmail you. I just overheard you guys, and noticed you’re the sort of person that digs up information. And I might be able to provide you some of the information you’re looking for, if you can dig up some information for me.”

I narrow my eyes at him while Mini tries to compose herself. “A schemer. I had you pegged for one… but I’m listening. Go on.”

“As your cute little friend here knows, I am a close friend of the person you all refer to as Nympho.” he says, steepling his fingers over his drink and pointing them towards me. “You are looking for information on the sync rate for the Torikago pilots. I can get you that information.”

“It’s not just the sync rate.” Mini interjects quickly. “It’s the mechanism. We need to know how they managed to achieve a sync rate of three thousand percent, every time, without fail. Is there a specific technology in the Torikago? Were they trained a certain way? Was it genetic engineering? There has to be some neuranium microdosing involved, right?”

The catboi smiles at Mini. “Whether I tell you any of that will depend on what you two can tell me about Genista’s pilot project.”

I lean forward a little, stroking my chin. “Genista’s Titan pilots, you say?”

“Indeed.” the catboi says, hitting the button for the booth’s privacy screen. A faint blue sheen goes up around the booth before he goes on. “Genista’s Titan squad is composed of clones that were stolen from the Challenger program after it was shuttered. Valiant Command is very interested in knowing where Genista got those clones.”

“Because they’ve got a bone to pick with whoever sold them to Genista.” I muse, rolling over this new connection in my head and linking it with everything I know so far. “Whoever sold them to Genista probably also stole them from the Challengers. And may’ve sold them to other buyers as well…”

“Yeah. Of course.” the catboi says, taking the umbrella in his drink and delicately biting the cherry off the end of it. “But that’s not all. We’d like any and all information you can get on the pilots themselves. Training regimens, psych profiles, genetic modifications — all of it. The more you bring back to us, the more we’ll tell you about the sync rate for the Torikago and her pilots.” His eyes flick up to me. “Do we have a deal?”

I roll the rim of my glass against my lip, glancing at Mini. “Whaddya think, kiddo? Sound like a good deal to you?”

“Yes. Yes, let’s take it.” she replies immediately.

“Could be dangerous.” I point out. “We’ll have to head down to Genista and do some snoopin’.”

“We could arrange for a press tour to get you and the rest of the journalists down there.” the catboi suggests, the tips of his steepled fingers tapping together. “All I have to do is ask Sierra, and she can make it happen.”

“Oh really.” I say, leaning back in my side of the booth. “You’ve got that much influence?”

The catboi smiles. “No. But I’m sleeping with the people that do.”

Mini gasps. “Wait— you…?”

The catboi gives her a sidelong look. “…what, did you think I was in Sierra’s room for a game of checkers?”

She turns strawberry-red again. “Wait, so when she kicked you out— oh. I am so, so sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“Nah, don’t worry about that. She and I aren’t exclusive, and she does that all the time.” the catboi says, waving off the apology. “Honestly, I should be thanking you. Having her obsessed with someone else gives me a little break for a while.”

“So let me get this straight — you get us down there, we do some espionage for you, and you’ll give us what we’re looking for once we bring back the intel?” I say, summing it all up. “How do we know you won’t stab us in the back once you’ve got what you want?”

The catboi scoffs, sipping from his drink. “Who do you think we are, CURSE? Nah. We keep our word, and follow through on our deals. So long as you hold up your end of the bargain, we’ll get you what you’re looking for.” Lapping at his drink a couple more times, he stands up like he’s preparing to leave. “Do we have a deal?”

“Fine. We have a deal.” I concede. “When should we expect to head down there?”

“You’ll know when we send for you.” he says, turning off the privacy screen and stepping out of the booth. “Sit back and enjoy yourself in the meantime. Take a tour of the place. Just don’t go too deep into the woods. You might run into a red panda.”

He departs with that warning, leaving us a little baffled. “A red panda? Why’s that a bad thing?” Mini asks, scratching her ear. “Aren’t they, like, fluffy and cute?”

“I could say the same thing about feline femboys.” I grunt, nodding at the departing catboi’s swaying tail. “But they’re more dangerous than their fluffy little tails let on. Take it from somebody that knows.”

Mini glances at me. “You’ve deal with catbois before?”

I sip from my drink. “You could say that. I used to be a femboy myself, but then I took a coilgun spike to the knee, and that put an end to my effeminate espionage career.”

“Your what?”

“It happened in the winter of ’62, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Still got my Marshy maid uniform in the closet back on Talingrad. Sometimes I glance at it, and think to myself — one day I’ll leave behind the boots of a hardbitten detective, shave my legs, and slip back into the silky white stockings of the Republic’s Marshy Maid Service. One day…”

“Wh— no. Stop; stop that. Put the recorder down. Nobody needs to hear you narrate that…”

Event Log: Jack Noir

Genista: Genista Titan Yard

11/8/12768 10:35am LPT

As promised, we found ourselves on the surface of Halcyon three days later. The catboi — we never did get his name — must’ve followed through on his promise, because the press junket got an unexpected addition to its itinerary. Apparently the Valiant had convinced the Genistans to let the journalists visit the research outpost. Tour the Titan Yard, get a look at the mechs, interview some of the scientists and outpost leaders, all the usual jazz. And let’s be honest — though the media is technically there to chase the story, nobody would turn down the chance to get an up-close and personal look at some of the coolest war machines in the galaxy.

So here we were, gettin’ the VIP tour of the Genista Titan Yard. The yard itself looks like a stadium with a retractable roof to cover it from the elements; and instead of rows of seats around the side, they’ve got alcoves for the Titans, with elevators along the sides, and scaffolding rings that can be raised of lowered in the alcove for maintenance on the giant war machines. It’s easy to tell which Titans are local to Genista and which ones belong to the Valiant — mostly because the Genista Titans are all grouped together, while the Valiant Titans are separated from them by a couple empty alcoves. But also because the Genista Titans are all uniform models, while the Valiant Titans appear to have unique designs.

“A common misconception is that the pilot chamber is located within the Titan’s head unit. This is actually not the case in the vast majority of Titan models.” the yard manager explains as he leads our group of journalists along the walkway built into the side of the stadium, somewhere around shoulder or head height for most Titans. “The pilot chamber is, in most models, located somewhere in the upper torso of the Titan. This serves two purposes: it provides more protection for the pilots, and allows the designers to either reduce the profile of the head unit to make it less targetable, or to dedicate more sensors, instruments, and equipment to the space that otherwise would’ve been taken up by the pilot chamber.”

“So does this mean that if the head unit is destroyed or damaged, the Titan can still function?” one of the journalists asks.

“Technically yes. Its navigation and targeting capabilities will be considerably diminished, since the bulk of sensorcomms systems are located in the head unit, but there are secondary sensor systems elsewhere in a Titan.” the yard manager answers as we near the next alcove, which looks like it houses the Firefly II, the shorter mech in the Valiant squad. So short, in fact, that from the walkway we’re on, we’re actually staring down at its head unit, rather than looking directly at its face, as we were with the Genista Titans. “There have been instances where decapitated Titans have continued fighting, and even won battles.”

“There must’ve been an operation recently.” Mini murmurs to me, her attention directed behind us. I glance to see that she’s watching the hangar crews replace damaged plates on the Genista Titans.

“Must cost a fortune to do those repairs.” I muse. “A single one of those replacement plates looks like it has enough metal for an entire tank.”

“Would it be possible for us to meet the pilots?” one of the journalists asks the yard manager, bringing our attention forward again.

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that. Here at the Titan Yard, we handle the hard element — the metal, the machines, the maintenance, and munitions.” the yard manager deflects. “We make sure that the hard element — the Titans themselves — stay in top condition, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. The pilots — what we refer to as the soft element — are someone else’s cup of tea.”

“Well, wait — isn’t that one of the pilots over there?” one of the journalists asks, pointing past the yard manager.

We all look to see that at the next alcove, which houses the Torikago, there’s a pilot stepping out of the hatch recessed into the base of the mech’s neck. On a person, it’d be the spot where you’d usually find the hollow of a person’s throat; there’s a pier running from the hatch to the mobile scaffolding ring, and a linking bridge leading from the ring to the walkway we’re currently on. The pilot himself is wearing an armored black plug, with slivers of blue light peeking from the plug ports on his chestplate, pauldrons, greaves, and spinal chain. He’s a tall, lean fellow, and most telling of all — he’s got tropical blue hair.

“Wait, is that… Songbird?” another journalist says, squinting through her glasses.

“Songbird!” shouts another journalist, apparently testing to see if she’ll get a response.

The pilot, who was running a suited hand through his hair as he stepped onto the walkway, pauses and looks to the side at the shout. Despite lacking his Special Agent jacket or uniform, the face is unmistakable — that is definitely Songbird.

And to this gaggle of journalists, he looks like the story of the year.

They immediately surge forward like a flock of ducklings rushing towards a parent, leaving the yard manager staggering and trying to rein them in. Songbird, on the other hand, goes wide-eyed and immediately bolts, turning and sprinting in the other direction. He could’ve easily been a track runner with the distance he covers in only a few seconds, and it seems pretty obvious that the journalists aren’t going to catch up to him. But they don’t seem to have realized that yet, because the whole group is running after him, shouting questions as they go, with the yard manager in the back scrambling to catch up with them.

“Not a fan of the spotlight, I see.” I say, taking my vape out of my mouth and exhaling a puff of applecherry-flavored vapor. “You think he’s hiding something?”

“Well, he wasn’t leaving anything to the imagination in that plugsuit.” Mini murmurs beside me.

I glance at her. “What?”

“Oh! Nothing.” she says quickly, coloring slightly and hurrying forward. “Quick, c’mon. Now’s our chance.”

“Our chance to what?” I ask, following after her and wondering if she’s on the same wavelength as the rest of the journalists. Surely she can’t think that we’ll actually be able to catch up with Songbird, especially with the headstart he’s gotten.

“It’s our chance to check out the Torikago!” she hisses quietly, motioning to the scaffolding ring and the open hatch that Songbird had exited through. “There’s no one around. We can take a look at the pilot chamber and see if there’s any tech in there that might explain the crazy-high sync rate.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, are you sure that’s a good idea?” I say, trying to put the brakes on as she reaches the bridge and hurries across it, the struts rattling slightly as I follow her onto the scaffolding ring. “It’s probably not gonna go over well if we get caught snooping around inside one of the Valiant’s Titans… and besides, we’re gonna be gettin’ this intel from the catboi anyway, remember? Seems like a bit of an unnecessary risk…”

“That’s only if we get them the intel about the Genista pilots. If we can’t get that for them, they won’t give us the sync rate data.” Mini says, crossing the pier to the neck of the Titan. “This is our chance to get some of that intel, so that I’ve got something to take back to the Guard, even if we fail to get the intel on the Genista pilots.”

“Okay, well…” I say as she reaches the hatch and easily slides into the diagonal tube leading down into the pilot chamber. I follow after her, a little surprised at the length of the tube — it’s recessed deeper into the Titan than I thought it would be. Then again, that probably provides more protection for the pilots in combat. “Can’t you just ask the Praetorian Guard to get that information from Genista’s leadership? The Guard is a Marshy intelligence department, and Genista is a Marshy research outpost. I’d figure they’d be talking to each other…”

“I t-told you this earlier, my clearance isn’t high enough.” she says as she lands in the chamber, and I land right behind her. “The only reason I agreed to go this route is because it would get me what I need to take back to the Guard.”

“Yeah, but the Guard are the ones that could help you with this.” I point out. “If you’d ask them for that information, then we wouldn’t have had to come planetside in the first place.”

“Do you really think the Guard are going to give me classified information just so I can feed it to the Valiant so we can get back information from them that they weren’t even supposed to know that we were trying to get from them?” Mini demands, wheeling on me.

“I… don’t know!” I say, scratching my head with the end of my vape. “Say that one more time. I’m a little confused.”

“The answer is no, the Guard isn’t going to do that! Because if they were going to do that, they would’ve just made the offer to the Valiant themselves, instead of sending me on this convoluted errand!” Mini protests. “And if they find out I stole Genista secrets in order to get them the information they want, I’m going to get in trouble!” She rubs her hands over her face. “Oh my gods, why did this become so complicated? How did it get to this point? How did I end up in a position where I’m committing treason against the nation just so I can follow the orders they gave me?”

“Take a breath, kiddo.” I say, offering her my vape. “Save the mental breakdown for later. We’re on the job right now.”

She uses a finger to push the vape away. “Those are bad for your lungs. But fine, you’re right, we’re on the job. Hoo… haa… focus.” She turns around, sizing up the pilot chamber we’re in. “Alright. Sync rate. What can improve the sync rate in a pilot chamber? It’s got to be in the synchronizer…”

She heads towards what looks like some sort of open dome thing in the center of the chamber, while I get a good look around the place. The chamber’s shaped weird — the walls, floor, and ceiling all kind of curve into each other; it isn’t a traditional box room. There’s no corners, no flat surfaces; even the floor beneath our feet isn’t quite level. There’s also a lot fewer buttons and dials in here; I was expecting consoles with all sorts of switches, control sticks, and high-tech screens. I’ll spot an occasional screen built into the wall, a couple dial meters here and there, maybe the occasional manual hatch lever, but that’s about it — the rest of the room’s structure looks like it’s dedicated to managing all the pipes, cables, power relays, and other doodads and gadgetry that goes into a machine like this.

“Pretty weird. They don’t even have seats in here.” I say, sauntering around the chamber as I take it all in. The center is dominated by the open dome thingy that Mini is looking at, and on either side of it are two giant glass spheres, inset into the floor, big enough to fit a person with room to spare. A thick, pale blue gel fills both spheres, and it looks like there’s a hermetically-sealed hatch for each of the spheres. “Figured they’d at least have a desk, or a console, or something.”

“Empath pilots don’t need them. They pilot their mechs through direct neural interface.” Mini says, clambering over the thing she’s looking at as she tries to peer deeper into bunches of components that look super advanced, and are carefully shielded with tempered glass covers. “I don’t get it. This looks like a standard synchronizer. It’s even a little dated, honestly. There’s optical cables and solution recyclers in here that were more common twenty years ago. If anything, this should be working against them. What the hell are they doing to get their sync rate so high?”

I finish my circuit of the chamber, ending up near the tube where we slid in. “You tell me. You’re the expert on this stuff, kiddo.” I say, taking my vape out of my mouth as I strain my ears, seeing if I can hear the journalist group outside. “How much longer do you need here?”

“What I need is like a screwdriver, or an access key — something that will let me crack the hood on this thing so I can get a good look at what’s underneath…”

The longer Mini’s complaining goes, the more I relegate it to the background, squinting up at the entry tube we came through. I’d thought at first there was nothing out there, but now I was picking up something faint. The soft sound of plugsuit boots over pavement, and then…

The clang of those same boots marching along a scaffolding bridge.

“Shit. We’re out of time.” I mutter, whipping around and grabbing Mini, hauling her off the synchronizer and dragging her back towards one of the thicker pipes running up the side of the pilot chamber. She yelps and starts to struggle, and I hook a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. “Shut up, kid! There’s someone coming!” I hiss as I press back against the pipe, trying to reduce our profile and keep us out of view.

She quiets at that, and then goes deathly still when she hears the boots echoing over the boarding pier outside. There’s the soft pat of hands landing on the rungs near the hatch, and a voice calling down the tube. “Feroce? You still in there? We just got wrapped up with the debriefing; let’s go grab something to eat. I’m starving.”

We remain dead silent, and I can feel Mini’s breathing picking up through the arm I’ve got around her. She’s clearly not used to being in situations like this, and I’m hoping to every god in the galaxy that she keeps calm and doesn’t lose her cool. “It’s like a game of hide and seek.” I whisper to her at the lowest volume I can manage. “No matter what happens, stay silent. Stay still.”

“God, I hope you’re still in there. I don’t wanna have to hunt you down.” the voice says from the hatch, before there’s the soft sound of someone sliding down the tube, their boots thumping to the floor of the pilot chamber as they arrive. There’s a few more steps, a moment of silence, then an aggravated sigh. “Great. Where’d he get off to now? I wonder if I can ask Legaci to put a tracker in his plugsuit…”

A few more footsteps, then the hollow echo of hands over metal rungs as the person climbs back out of the pilot chamber. Even as she departs, I remain where I am, keeping Mini hugged tight into the shadow behind the pipe, listening to the rattling echo of bootsteps over the scaffolding ring. It’s only when it’s faded that I start to relax.

“Is she gone?” Mini murmurs behind my hand.

“I think so, yeah. I don’t hear anything.” I say, straining my ears but hearing nothing.

“You can… p-probably let go of me now.” Mini says quietly.

“Oh. Right.” I say, rapidly releasing her. We step away from each other, both of us awkwardly straightening out our clothes and averting our gazes from each other. “I think we should get out of here before we risk getting caught again.”

“Y-yeah, that would probably be smart.” Mini says, hurrying to the entry tube and clambering into it. “We should probably catch up with the group before they notice we’re gone.”

“Wait, Mini, why don’t you let me go—” I begin, but she’s already in the tube and climbing up the rungs… providing a rather comprehensive view from below. “—ahead…”

“Let you what?” she calls down to me.

“Nothing. Nothing. Go on.” I say, rubbing the back of my neck as I look away.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“Yeah yeah, I’ll be up there in a sec.”

“Well c’mon, we don’t wanna get caught!”

“Okay fine, I’m coming!” I concede, looking back up the tube as I grab the rungs and start to climb up behind her, muttering to myself as I go. It’s a nice view, and besides, she had insisted. “I’ll go to hell for a lot of things, but this better not be one of them…”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Event Log: Jack Noir

Genista: the Black Moon Bar

11/9/12768 7:34pm LPT

“They’ve got this place locked down tighter than the plugsuits that they put their pilots in.” I sigh, running my hands through my hair as I lean back in the corner booth we’ve taken. “This is a research outpost. I was expecting a lab and a bunch of eggheads, not a fortress with armed security.”

“You think we could bribe one of them?” Mini says, chewing nervously on one of her thumbnails. “The tailgating didn’t work, and stealing credentials wouldn’t work since the security is biometric. Maybe… what about the sewage system? Maybe there’s a way to use the outpost’s sewers to access the command complex?”

“Nah. That’s movie-type stuff. Most places, you’re not going to be able to get in through the sewers unless you can somehow squeeze your ass through the s-bend in the toilets.” I grumble, watching the bubbles in my beer stein. “Best way to do this would’ve been to forge credentials, but that takes time.”

“Still kinda pissed that the scientist we interviewed insisted on doing it in the park instead of in the command complex.” Mini mutters, sipping from her drink. “There’s g-gotta be something. We can’t go back to Sunthorn emptyhanded.”

“Is there anywhere else we could get the data on the Genista pilots?” I ask, wracking my brain for different ways to approach this problem. “It can’t all be stored in one place, right? Maybe we can find it at that place where the pilots live.”

“No, that’s not going to happen.” Mini says, shaking her head. “For some reason, they protect their pilots as much as they protect the data about them. We don’t even know what the Genista pilots look like; they won’t let them go into public.”

“Well damn, what’s the big deal with these pilots, then?” I say, pulling my vape out and turning it on. “They gotta be super special if the outpost won’t let anyone see them. You think it has something to do with the fact that they’re clones stolen from the Challenger program?”

“It’s gotta be; I d-don’t see any other reason they’d be hiding them.” Mini says, waving a hand. “And it would explain why the Valiant are annoyed at the Genistans, and why they want the data about the pilots so bad.”

“Gyah, this is a tough nut to crack.” I mutter, taking a drag off my vape. “I knew this case wouldn’t be easy, but I’m starting to wonder if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.”

“Well, if you can’t properly masticate this mystery, perhaps I could be of assistance.”

Mini and I both turn to see what looks like a painfully average man with brown hair and brown eyes, in a brown trenchcoat and a button-down shirt, standing at the edge of our booth. He’s got fedora on, and tips it to us as we look at him. “Mind if I take a seat?”

“Yes.” Mini and I say at the same time.

“Too bad, I’m doing it anyway.” he says, sitting down on my side of the booth and hitting the button for the privacy screen. As it flares to life around our booth, he takes his fedora off and starts making himself comfortable. “I couldn’t help but overhear that you two seem to be in a bit of a predicament.”

Mini looks at me. “We’re really g-gotta stop talking about these things in public places.”

“Yeah, we do seem to have a bad habit of doing that, don’t we.” I muse, running a knuckle over my scruff.

“Might be lucky for you that you did, because I might just be able to help you.” the stranger says, lacing his fingers together as he leans on the table. “So, you two are needing to sneak into the command complex to get some classified information, do you now?”

“And lemme guess. You’re going to offer to help us with that… for a price.” I say, taking another drag on my vape.

“But of course. Do I look like a charity worker to you?” he says, peering at our drinks. “I could if I wanted to. In fact, I can look like pretty much anything I need to. Which is how I’ve made a habit of sneaking around in places I’m not supposed to be.”

I snort out a puff of vapor. “You expect us to believe you can just waltz into the command complex any time you like?”

“With a face like this?” he says as his face shifts and ripples, the structure and contours shifting around slightly until he looks like Songbird — with the blue hair being the last element to fill in. “You’d be surprised at the number of places I could get into.”

Mini recoils with a gasp. “Songbird?!”

“He’s not Songbird; he’s a Shifter.” I say before Mini’s shock can get the best of her. “Which means he’s probably a spy, and he’s probably been here for quite a while on another assignment.”

“Well well well, look who’s a clever boy.” the Shifter says, tapping a finger to his bottom lip as he gives me a coy look. “If you’ve got that figured out, you must know that I’m your best chance for infiltrating the command complex, since it looks like you two haven’t cracked that nut yet.”

“We got the request on short notice. We didn’t have time to do our homework.” It’s a bit of a stiff reply, but I don’t like what he’s implying about our capability. “And lucky for you, we’re on a time crunch, so we might just take you up on the offer. Can you get us what we need before we have to leave tomorrow?”

“Depends on what you need, doesn’t it?” he says, morphing back to the very generic face he was wearing before — and it makes sense now, why he was so painfully average. Average people didn’t draw attention. “I know you’re trying to get into the command complex, but I don’t know what you’re actually trying to get your hands on. Gimme a little somethin’ to work with, yeah?”

“Information on the Genista pilots. Anything and everything. Physicals, training program, medical history, genetic profiles, psych evals — anything having to do with the pilots or the program they’re in. The more, the better.” I say, taking a sip from my drink afterwards. “Can you do that?”

“Castin’ a pretty wide net there, bucko.” the Shifter says. “The chances that they’re keeping all that stuff in one place… it’s not that high.”

“Want to make sure you have a lot of targets to go after in case one or two of them don’t pan out.” I say, rolling my vape between my fingers. “Can you do it?”

“Sure, I can do that.” he says, before holding up a finger. “If you can help me catch a ride up to Sunthorn.”

Mini’s eyes dart to me, and I pause, lowering my vape a little. “You want us to help sneak you onto the Bastion? What for?”

The Shifter shrugs. “I didn’t ask why you needed the data on the Genista pilots.”

I tap my knuckle against my lips. “…alright, fine. You get us the data, we’ll get you up to Sunthorn. But only if you get us the data.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal, then.” he says, offering me a hand to shake. “Expect me tomorrow morning. I’ll have your data for you.”

“I’ll pass on the handshake. They’re bad luck on this line of business, especially when you should be gettin’ everything in writing.” I say, taking a drag on my vape. “Why don’t you give us a name instead. I’d like to know who I’m workin’ with.”

“The one and only Kenkai Gekku, at your service.” he says as he stands and collects his fedora, seating it back on his head.

Mini gasps, her eyes widening. “You’re the porn star! The leading actor for R34 Studios!”

Gekku smiles a takes a bow. “A fan! I always love it when my reputation precedes me. Would you like an autograph?”

My mouth drops open halfway, and I glance at Mini, then at Gekku. “Wait. We just made a deal with a porn star?”

“I prefer ‘professional actor’, detective.” Gekku demures. “But I’ll excuse myself now. I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight. I’ll see you two tomorrow morning.”

He hits the button for the privacy screen and departs the booth with that, leaving us in stunned silence. Once he’s left the bar, I take another drag from my vape, then slowly turn to Mini, blowing out a slow stream of vapor as I do so.

“So.” I say. “You seemed very familiar with that name.”

“I, I, I, uh, have a f-few friends that are b-big fans of his…” she stammers, looking away. “I think we should pay up and head b-back to the hotel now…”

“Agreed. Just know that we’re sticking him in your suitcase, not mine.”

“Wh-what?”

“We gotta get him onto the Bastion somehow. Besides, he’s a Shifter. He can adjust his body to squash himself into a suitcase, it won’t be a problem for him.”

“But why my suitcase?!”

“Because I ain’t squeezin’ a porn star into my suitcase. I’ll cram your clothes into my suitcase so there’s more room for him in your suitcase.”

“Why are you so mean!”

“Because I’m paying for your drink even though you’re the one with the steady paycheck. C’mon, we should get to bed early so we’re awake by the time he shows up tomorrow morning.”

“You’re trying to trick me into paying for your drink!”

“Is it working?”

“No!”

“Alright then, stop complaining. I pay for drinks, you stuff the porn star in your suitcase. That’s how this works.”

“I’m starting to regret hiring you for this job…”

“Me too, kid. C’mon, we’ve got work to do.”

Event Log: Jack Noir

Genista: The Halcyon Hotel

11/10/12768 8:04am LPT

So there I found myself sixteen hours later, sipping on coffee as I did a bit of a background check on this Gekku character. The sun was just barely breaking the horizon over Halcyon, casting thin rays of orange light across our hotel room as I jotted down notes on a napkin; it was a habit that I’d retained from my days in the Marshy Maid Service. Early mornings, coffee, and the gentle light of sunrise — it did good things for the weary soul of a retired femboy.

The tranquil morning had done wonders for my focus, and had allowed me to start making the connections I’d missed last night. A quick search of the galaxynet had yielded a surprising finding — this Kenkai Gekku that we’d run into wasn’t just a professional actor. While it was true that he’d been a leading name in adult entertainment for the last two decades, his résumé went even further back than that, with a surprisingly strong pedigree. The Shifter had once been part of the Challenger program, operating underneath the codename “Chameleon” — fairly self-explanatory, as codenames went. So despite his questionable employment, it seemed like his credentials were solid, and his confidence about infiltrating the command complex probably wasn’t misplaced.

But then it begged the question of why he was here, and who he was really working for. The natural assumption was that he was in the employ of the Valiant; after all, many retired Challengers had found their way onto the Valiant’s roster, carrying on the legacy of the fallen program. Yet that couldn’t be the case for Gekku, who was trading intel for access to Sunthorn. If he was working for the Valiant, he wouldn’t need help getting onto Sunthorn; he could just call them up and ask for a ride.

So who was he working for?

That question was still bouncing around in my head as Mini shuffled out of her room, yawning something that passed for a morning greeting. I gave her brief nod, still preoccupied with chasing the mystery of Gekku’s employer, and mumbled something about muffins I’d brought up from the breakfast buffet downstairs. Processing this information, she leans down and gives me a kiss on the cheek, murmuring “yu so sweet” and heads in the direction of the muffin plate. It’s not until she’s halfway through her first bite that she realizes what she did, and a silent panic sets in as our eyes meet. After a moment, we both look in opposite directions, having come to an unspoken agreement to pretend that didn’t just happen.

A knocking at the door has both of us jumping, and I shoot up from my chair, heading over to check the door cam. Gekku is outside, so I unbolt the door and pull it open; he slips inside, pulling off his fedora and giving a relieved sigh. “Thank god. Close the door, will you? It gets so stuffy, looking like this.” Without waiting for reply, he starts to shift, losing some of his stockiness while his face acquires a more defined bone structure. The hair goes from brown to flamboyant red, while his ears lengthen and acquire similarly brilliant feathers. It doesn’t take much to see the vashy influences as he shrugs off his trenchcoat, draping it over the back of a chair.

“Oh!” Mini exclaims, her eyes widening. “You look… a lot… different.”

“Well, my dear, I can’t always look like a nobody.” Gekku says with faux modesty, running a hand through his luxurious hair. “A face like this deserves to be witnessed in all its glory. That being said, I do take requests, if this face isn’t to your liking — I could do something with a stronger jawline, if that tickles your fancy.”

“This isn’t a talent show. We’ll skip the parlor tricks.” I say before Mini can take him up on that offer. “Let’s get down to business. Were you able to get the intel on the pilots?”

“Indeed I did.” he says, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a drive. “I found all that, and more. Do you have a holoarray in this room?”

“Yeah, it’s right over here.” Mini says, motioning to the panel that controls the room’s entertainment array.

“Perfect.” he says, heading over to the panel to plug in the drive. “While I’m getting this set up, let’s have a little bit of a history lesson. Are either of you familiar with Cherriki?”

“Cherriki? Yeah, she was a legendary Challenger around the turn of the last century, wasn’t she?” Mini says, taking a bite of the muffin she’d been working on.

“Correct.” Gekku says as the holoarray comes on. “She was a powerful psion, and an top-rated Titan pilot. One of the jewels of the Challenger program during that era. She could kick your ass in a mech battle, and then she’d get out of the mech and kick your ass in person. But as both of you probably know, she was eventually killed in action during a battle with Jett Black.”

“Yeah. It was a big blow to the program back then.” Mini says, while I take a seat at the table and watch while Gekku turns and starts opening folders from the drive he’s plugged into the holoarray. “Battleaxe swore vengeance on her, but he was never able to follow through on it.”

“Ah, Battleaxe swore a lot of things. He was a pompous old bastard when I was in the program.” Gekku says as he sorts through the files. “After Cherriki died, they recovered her body. She’d been a critical part of the program, and losing her created a void that would have to be filled by others. But the Challenger leadership couldn’t ignore how pivotal she had been. So they decided to clone her.”

“Color me surprised.” I grunt. “Leave it to management to try and recreate success by copypasting something that worked once. I’m guessing that didn’t go well?”

Gekku shrugs as he groups some files off to one side, while pulling up a couple of video files. “The results were mixed. I’m sure both of you are familiar with Laughing Alice, right?”

Mini nearly chokes on her muffin. “Wait, she’s Cherriki’s clone?” she coughs, reaching for a napkin.

“One of them. I suppose you could argue she was one of the worst-case scenarios.” Gekku says, finding a specific video file and opening it.

“Wait.” I say, holding up a finger. “‘One of them’? You’re telling us there were multiple Cherriki clones?”

Gekku finally turns around and smiles, expanding the video window to make it easier for us to see. “Hundreds of them. Possibly thousands.” he says, hitting the play button on the video file. It looks like a surreptitious recording of a subterranean lab, walking down an aisle of containment tubes, each one containing what looked like embryos or fetuses in various stages of development.

Mini covers her mouth, setting her muffin down. “Is t-this…?”

“This is what’s in the research lab on the lowest floor of the command complex.” Gekku confirms, hitting pause on the video as it pans to a wide shot of the aisle. “And the files confirm it.”

I know it’s a little early in the morning, but I pull out my vape nonetheless. Revelations like this got me antsy, and vaping helped keep me focused. “So how did Genista end up with all of the Challenger program’s Cherriki clones?”

“Oh, they didn’t end up with all of them.” Gekku says, pulling over another one of the folders and pushing away the video window. “I got my hands on the files going way back. After the Challenger program collapsed, CURSE got their hands on some of the Cherriki assets that were being held on planetside Challenger facilities. They sold a small batch of them to the Marshy Republic for a heeeeeefty sum, totaling in the double-digit millions. That’s how the Genista outpost ended up with…” He opens a text file, grabbing it and looking it over. “… forty-eight Cherriki clone embryos and ninety-six of her eggs.”

“Eggs?” Mini blurts out, her eyes wide. “From… like… her ovaries?”

Gekku raises an eyebrow. “Well, yeah… that’s where eggs come from.”

I massage my brow while my vape is warming up. “Wait, does that mean… after she died and they recovered the body… they cut her open and extracted the eggs from her ovaries?”

Gekku shrugs. “I’m not privy to the particulars, but yeah. Unless she donated them while she was alive, they would’ve had to be harvested after she died.”

Mini bites her lip. “That’s just so… wrong, harvesting eggs from a dead person…”

“Well, you probably figured it out twenty years ago, but the Challenger program wasn’t all sunshine and butterflies.” Gekku says, starting to go through other files. “It just looked that way on the outside. You guys were looking for information on the Genista Titan pilots, right?”

“Yes, that is what is most important to us.” I say, leaning forward and taking a drag off my vape.

“Well, there it is.” Gekku says, flicking a folder towards me. “In case you haven’t connected the dots yet, guess what Genista’s Titan pilots are?”

Mini looks up. “They’re Cherriki clones too?”

“Probably explains why they don’t want them shown in public.” I say, opening the folder and starting to go through the files. “And that probably explains why the Valiant are pissed at Genista. They’ve got Challenger property, which is technically Valiant property now.”

“Not according to the courts. Challenger assets were transferred to CURSE control when the Challenger program shuttered.” Gekku says, closing the video of Genista’s subterranean lab. “And because CURSE sold these Cherriki clones and eggs to the Marshy Republic, they are the legitimate property of the Genista outpost now.”

“Try telling that to the Valiant.” I say, opening a picture of the Genista squad’s roster, and perusing it for a moment before passing the file over to Mini for her to take a look. “The Nova Incident undermined the whole narrative around the shuttering of the Challenger program. And the raids on CURSE storage sites make it clear that the Valiant won’t hesitate to reclaim what they consider theirs.”

“The squad only has ten pilots, so what did they do with the other thirty-eight embryos?” Mini asks as she studies the roster. “And the eggs. What are they gonna do with the eggs?”

“Couldn’t tell ya. Maybe that squad is their test team, and everything they learn from this team will be used to refine and improve their next series of Cherriki clone pilots.” Gekku says. “As for the eggs, Genista will probably go shopping for sperm at a gene bank and look for good genetic matches that might increase the chance of creating a kid with a strong affinity for psionics. If they get a really good one out of it, then they might try to clone that one the same way the Challengers cloned Cherriki.”

Mini shakes her head, pushing the roster file away. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. The Republic, that is. Cloning’s okay in some situations, but what the Challengers did with Cherriki was wrong… and we’re using the products of that research, of those cloning runs. If the public knew about this…”

“That would not be smart.” Gekku warns as he starts to put files back into their folders. “This information here is definitely a state secret. I don’t know who you plan on giving it to, but if you release it to the public and put your name to it, then the Praetorian Guard is gonna come down on you like a meteor. The Marshy Republic might be a lot more democratic than the Venusian Monarchy, but they’ll still blacksite you if you look like enough of a threat.”

“Yeah, but this is clearly illegal! We have laws against this stuff!” Mini protests. “This isn’t the Mercurial Consortium; you can’t just run around cloning people and raising them for a specific purpose without giving them a choice in their lives!”

“Well, the law keeps corporations and individuals from doing that. But the government makes the laws.” I point out, checking a series of yearly psych evals for each of the pilots. “As they say, it’s different when the government does it. Corporations and individuals can’t kidnap people and hold them for ransom, but when the government does it, it’s called arrest and setting bail, and nobody blinks an eye. The only thing that keeps a government in check is the personal integrity of those involved in it, and the disapproval of the voting masses… which is where whistleblowers come in, but that’s a gamble. If the public doesn’t rally around you, or your disclosure doesn’t get enough attention from them, then you’re in trouble.”

“Personal advice? You give this information to the person that was asking for it, and keep your head down.” Gekku says as he finishes organizing the files he’d been digging through. “Leaking this to the public would be taking a big risk, especially in the middle of a war.  Government power usually expands during a war; there’s more they can get away with, especially in the name of protecting the nation.”

Mini looks to me, as if hoping to get backup, but I shake my head. “He’s got a point, kid. If things were calmer in the galaxy right now, you might look like a whistleblower for leaking this intel. But in the middle of a war with the Collective, leaking this kind of sensitive military information makes you look like a traitor.” I point out. “You can still leak it after we get done with this case, but I wouldn’t put my name to it. If you choose to own it, the Praetorian Guard are going to be making a house call, and you and I both know they won’t be shy about it.”

She takes in a deep breath, and lets it out as a heavy sigh. “Yeah… yeah, I suppose that’s true. It just… doesn’t feel right, staying silent about something like this.”

“There’ll be time to blow the lid off this later. This program isn’t going anywhere; cloning programs like this take years, decades to pay off their experiments.” I say, starting to put files back in the folder that was pushed towards me. “We finish the case, wait for things to cool off a little, then find a news corp willing to take a leak from anonymous sources. Better than throwing the middle finger to the Republic by going public with it ourselves.”

“Looka that, ain’t you two just the paragons of journalistic integrity. I’m sure that you’d be the envy of that press junket you’re currently traveling with… or would be, if you could afford to tell them everything we know.” Gekku says, trying to lighten the mood a little. “A scoop like this would blow the rest of those chatterboxes out of the water. Of course, they’d be able to hide behind the news corps that they work for. Shame you two don’t have the same luxury.”

I snort. “The one time I wish I was actually what I’m pretending to be.” Putting away the last of the files, I push the folder back towards Gekku. “I assume you’re gonna give us that drive, or a copy of it? ‘Cause if not, we’re gonna have to make our own copy.”

“Oh please. Do I look like an amateur to you?” Gekku says, ejecting the drive from the holoarray and tossing it to me. “There’s your copy. And I believe you now owe me a trip to Sunthorn.”

I reach up, catching the drive out of the air and pocketing it. “That we do. Mini?”

Mini gives me a look. “I still don’t like this idea.”

I shrug. “And I don’t like taxes, but the government still makes me pay ‘em. Welcome to life; you spend most of it doing stuff you don’t wanna do.”

She pouts, but heads back to her room, and returns pulling her suitcase behind her. Rolling it around in front of her, she gives me a pointed stare; clearly she’s not going to take the fall for what’s about to be suggested.

Leaning forward, I take a pull from my vape, then lean forward. “You’re a Shifter. And a spy. And a former Challenger. I’m guessin’ you’ve squeezed into some pretty tight spaces before, right?”

Gekku’s eyes flick to the suitcase, and I can see him almost visibly deflate. “Ah, naw. Really? That’s the best you could do?”

“C’mon, you were a Challenger.” I say, balling up the napkin I’d been writing on, and throwing it away. “You know the deal. This is a Bastion you’re trying to sneak onto. You don’t think they’re gonna do a head count when we come back from Genista?”

He blows out a long breath, running a hand through his hair. “…fine. If that’s the best you can do, I guess I’ll take it.” Without further ado, he starts unbuttoning his shirt.

Mini starts to color. “Wh-what are you doing?” she stammers. 

“You don’t think I’m going to squash myself in there with my clothes on, do you?” he says as he starts divesting himself of his shirt. “Clothes are person-shaped. A suitcase is not person-shaped.”

“O-oh.” Mini says, looking away. “Right. Of course.”

“You can look if you want. I don’t mind.” Gekku says as the pants start coming off. “You’d be surprised how many offers I got for anatomy classes. I suppose adult entertainers are less shy for the cameras…”

“No, no, I’m g-g-good.” Mini stutters, eyes still averted as she lays the suitcase on the floor and opens it. “I’ll just put this here, you know, for wh-whenever you’re ready…”

“Your friend doesn’t seem to mind watching.”

“Gotta make sure you don’t pull anything sneaky.”

“Sure, that’s what they all say…”

Event Log: Jack Noir

Sunthorn Bastion: Press Corp Apartment Block

11/11/12768 7:54pm SGT

The return to the Bastion was a staid affair.

After a few days on the surface, the press junket was eager to get back to orbit. It was a combination of things, really; I think many of the journalists found that the Genista scientists were more tightlipped than they’d been expecting. That, and some of them were definitely worried about spending too long in the danger zone. Everyone likes watching Titans battle Leviathans — but only from a safe distance. Being able to see the fins of Leviathans sharking around the outpost by a few miles was a little to close for some people’s comfort.

So we returned back to Sunthorn, having worn out our hastily manufactured welcome on Genista. Some of the journalists came away disappointed that they hadn’t been able to get more material for their articles, but Mini and I were satisfied — we’d gotten the bargaining chip we needed, and all it cost us was one stowaway. We were understandably nervous when returning to Sunthorn; there was a head count, and a security check, but we seemed to get through it easily enough. The guy that scanned Mini’s suitcase must not have been paying attention, because there were no questions raised afterwards.

So with that fine bit of luck, we headed straight back to our assigned apartment in the press block. And once the door was locked, the suitcase was opened so that Gekku — now shaped like a rectangle of morphic meat — could escape his confinement posthaste and begin reconstituting himself into something that was decidedly less square. The whole process was… well, I’ll not traumatize you with describing it. Let’s just say that Mini had to excuse herself, and my stomach of iron found itself a little wobbly.

After fully reconstituting, Gekku quickly took some clothes, and took his leave. There was something of a pep in his step, and at first I thought it was his eagerness to undertake whatever spy mission he was undoubtedly embarking upon. But that didn’t quite seem to fit, and it was only in retrospect that I realized his excitement wasn’t the excitement of a successful infiltration — it was the excitement of someone that was returning home after two decades. The excitement of seeing familiar faces and places once more.

And, his porn star résumé notwithstanding, I found that oddly heartwarming.

But it wasn’t something I would be able to linger on for very long. We’d gotten the intel that the catboi had asked us to grab, and now—

“Do you really have to do that here?” Mini hisses at me, swatting the hand I’m using to hold my recorder close to my lips. “What if someone overhears you monologuing to yourself? You’re gonna blow our cover!”

I twist my recorder away from Mini’s swatting hand, giving her a dirty look. “Really, kid? I was in the zone. Why you gotta ruin my groove like that?”

“Because you’re blabbing away our entire cover!” she mutters, nervously peeking her head around the corner of the alley that we’re waiting in. It’s not far from the press block apartments, and it’s where we’d agreed to meet the catboi for the intel handoff. “What if somebody walks by and hears you? Do you have any idea of what the Valiant does to spies?”

“I don’t, actually.” I say, lowering my recorder. “Do you?”

She opens her mouth, then closes it, as if realizing something. “…I don’t, actually. What do they do to spies?”

I shrug. “Evidently it’s not the problem they deal with often, because there’s no rumors about it.”

“There’s no way.” she mutters, pulling back into the alley and leaning back against the wall opposite the one I’m leaning back against. “An organization that has access to the Bastions, and the legacy of the Challengers… there’d be tons of people that would want to spy on them, and infiltrate the organization.”

“Yeah, probably. But you never hear any big leaks about the Valiant, so they’ve gotta have that shit locked down or something.” I say, trading my recorder for my vape. “They do have Kaiser as part of their Command. That dude’s an espionage legend. And a stone-cold killer. They call him the Butcher of Balmorrah in the criminal world.” I grimace. “Damn. That was some good exposition. Wish I’d had my recorder on for that.”

“You need to stop smoking that.” Mini says, snatching my vape out of my hand before I can turn it on. “It’s bad for you. And no, I don’t care how cool it makes you look; you’re gonna ruin your lungs before you’re forty.”

“Good gravy, kid, what is up with you?” I demand as I try to swipe my vape back, only for her to hold it out of my reach. “You’re strung up like a cello at the Valcorria Philharmonic.”

“You’re the one that’s making me nervous.” she says, looking around again as if she was afraid someone would hear us. “You’re playing it fast and loose, and if our cover gets blown… how are we supposed to get back to Talingrad if the press group realizes we’re not actually journalists?”

“We could probably arrange a separate flight home for you.”

Mini and I both jump, twisting around to see that the catboi with the mahogany hair is in the alley behind us. I’m not sure how he got here, because the alley is a dead end, and if he climbed down from the neighboring buildings, then he was dead silent about it. “Maelstrom have mercy! You about gave me a heart attack.” I huff, properly turning to him. “Would it kill you to make some noise next time?”

“Nah. That’s not how I roll.” he says, sauntering up to us. “I assume you must’ve found what we asked for, since you agreed to meet here.”

“And I assume you must have what we asked for, since you’re here as well.” I say, reaching into my trenchcoat and pulling out the drive that Gekku gave us.

“You guessed correctly.” he says, finishing a nondescript drive out of his jacket, holding it out to me as he reaches for the drive I’ve got. “Color me surprised. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to pull it off.”

“You’re not the only one. I’m surprised a cat like you’s got access to this kind of intel.” I say, taking the drive he’s offering while giving him the one he’s reaching for. “Looks can be deceiving.”

“I can’t argue that.” he says once the exchange has been completed. “I’ll leave you to it. Sierra’s expecting me back at her place…”

“Hold on, not so fast.” Mini says, coming forward to grab my arm before I can pocket the drive. “I want to make sure you actually gave us what we were asking for. Gimme that, Jack, I’ve got my data slate right here.”

“Oh yeah, that’s a good point.” I say, handing the drive over to her as she pulls out her slate. “Gotta make sure the goods are… well, good.”

“What, you don’t believe me? C’mon, would a face like this lie to you?” the catboi says uneasily, waving around the drive we gave him. “You don’t see me checking your drive, do you?”

“If you gave us what we asked for, then you won’t have anything to worry about.” I say, adjusting my stance to block the alley as Mini plugs the drive into her slate. “You can go ahead and check the drive we gave you. Nobody’s stopping you.”

“Yes, but I’m not doing that, which shows that I trust you, right?” the catboi wheedles. “The same way you should be trusting me, mm?”

“Well, as the saying goes, trust but verify.” I say, snatching my vape back from Mini while she’s distracted, and turning it on. “Don’t be offended. It’s just a matter of business.”

“What the hell is this?” Mini suddenly exclaims beside me. “You little lying shit!”

“What is it?” I say, glancing over at her.

“Look at this! He lied to us!” Mini says, turning the slate to face me. On it is is a file that looks like a picture of a handwritten note that says ‘LOL yeah we have no idea, we think it’s some weird Maskling thing because Songbird’s tangled with Kiwi but the research department doesn’t really have time to check because they’re working on other stuff, and Boaris says he’s got better things to do than dig into it, so yeah, go figure, it is what it is’.

I squint at the photo. “Who wrote that? Their handwriting is atrocious.”

“That’s not important! This isn’t what we asked for!” Mini snaps. “We can’t take this back, this is basically nothing!”

“Well, I mean, it does have a little bit of information—” I begin.

“It’s just half-baked excuses and vague clues! That’s not what we came here for!” Mini says, reaching into her jacket and pulling out a pistol, pointing it at the catboi. “Give us what we asked for, now!”

“Good grief, where’d that come from?” I exclaim, raising an eyebrow at the pistol. “You didn’t tell me you were packin’, kid!”

“Whoa hey, hold your horses!” the catboi says, eyes widening as the pistol is pointed at him. He holds his hands up, like he thinks it’ll calm her down. “We agreed to tell you what we knew, remember? And that— that is what we know, about the Torikago’s sync rate, like, we’ve held up our end of the bargain.”

“You know basically nothing!” Mini snaps at him. “Give us back that drive! You don’t deserve it, with the shit you pulled!”

“Uh yeah, sorry, no can do, we kinda need this information.” the catboi says, quickly tucking the drive in his jacket as he starts to back up. “Look, if you’ve got a problem with it, you can take it up with—”

He’s cut off by the crackle of a coilgun spike, and his head jerks back with a spray of blood as he’s thrown flat on his back in the alley. I flinch away from Mini, nearly dropping my vape in the process. “Jesu Christi, kid, I didn’t know you were actually gonna do it!”

Mini swings the pistol towards me. “Shut it! I should nail you too, after everything you’ve dragged me through just to end up with this useless note!”

I gape at her. “Excuse you! You’re the one that came to me and asked me to take the case!”

“Because I thought you were competent! Instead, I’ve had to tag along while you bumble your way through this investigation, feeding your ego by monologuing to yourself the entire time, and the only ‘investigating’ you’ve actually done are Swipe searches and trading favors to get other people to do the investigative work for you!” Mini retorts, jabbing the pistol in my face. “All you’ve done is get other people to do the infiltration and intel-gathering for you by playing both sides! You’re not a detective, you’re a washed-up egotistical con man playing shell games and hoping that you don’t get caught!”

“Oh ho ho, look who’s bold after she spent the entire trip stuttering and stammering her way through the whole investigation!” I shoot back, swatting the pistol out of my face as I fold my arms and lean down towards her. “Don’t act like you were any better, little miss mipsy! You spent the entire investigation scuttling around, fumbling basic questions when we were with the press group and almost blowing our cover multiple times, and now you’re gonna come after me for being a liability after you cracked and killed our only lead here in the Valiant?”

“That was a cover, you dense clod! The difference between the two of us is that I only act like I’m incompetent, while you actually are incompetent!” she snarls at me, reaching up to grab her hair and yank it off in a single fell swoop, revealing a shock of ruby-red hair beneath. “The reason I know you’re a fraud is because you never figured out that I’m a Mercurial spy, not a Marshy scientist-turned-whistleblower!”

I gasp, taking a step back. “You lied to me! I should’ve know you were a vixenous dame from the moment you stepped in my office!”

“You should’ve but you didn’t, and that’s the problem!” she says, shoving the wig into my chest as she pushes me back another step. “I spent this entire time thinking that you were competent, and that you’d sniff me out eventually. I about had a heart attack when you insisted I accompany you on your investigation! But you never figured it out, even at the times when I almost let my cover slip. Did you really think a mousey little Marshy scientist could hold her own against a sex-crazed vampire? Or that she’d be bold enough to sneak into the pilot chamber of a Titan piloted by one of the most dangerous people in the galaxy? I kept thinking that you’d put the pieces together, but you never did! Which tells me you never would’ve solved this case on your own!”

“Excuse you! I’m the one that did the heavy lifting when it came to making the connections that would dig up all the intel that we’ve managed to grab so far!” I snap back at her, holding my ground. “Your bumbling, chumbling cover wouldn’t have gotten us anywhere without my smooth-talking skills! And contrary to what you may think, little miss Mercurial mercenary, detective work is about more than breaking into places and stealing intel. It’s about knowing the right people!… so you can ask them to break into places and steal intel for you. So you don’t have to do it yourself. Which is exactly what I did!”

“The only reason any of that worked is because you got lucky.” Mini seethes at me. “And because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut, so people kept overhearing you whenever you rambled on about the case, which I’m starting to think you did on purpose!”

“Yeah? And what if I did? It worked, didn’t it?” I counter. “It put us in contact with Gekku and the catboi, except you killed him, so now we’re in a whole new world of trouble!”

“Which is why you are going to help me hide the body, unless you want to find out what the Valiant do to spies.” Mini growls, motioning down the alley with her pistol. “We are going to— wait. Where’d the body go?”

I glance down the alley, to find that body is indeed very much gone. “Wasn’t it just…?” I say, scratching the back of my neck.

“Yeah. I shot him, right in the head. And he fell on his back, right there.” Mini says, peering down the alley, then looking around. “There’s no way he survived that. And even if he did, he would’ve had to crawl past us to get out of the alley.”

“It’s not like there’s anything for him to hide behind here; this alley is basically empty…” I say, starting to look around. “Where’d he go? We only took our eyes off him for a minute…”

“Over here! They’re in here!” comes a shout from outside the alley. Both of us turn to see the catboi poking his head around the corner of the alley, miraculously healed from the headshot the Mini gave him minutes earlier. “They’re the ones that shot me!”

The question of who he’s talking to is answered a second later when Nympho stomps into the alley, rolling up the sleeves of her dress jacket.

“Oh shit.” I say, immediately starting to back away from the one-eyed vampire. Mini, perhaps unwisely, decides to stand her ground.

“Don’t come any closer!” she shouts, swinging her pistol up at Nympho. It doesn’t deter her in the slightest, and Mini manages to get off two shots; Nympho eats both spikes without stopping, grabbing the pistol and jerking it to the side while backhanding Mini.

“I’m a vampire, you idiot! You don’t think I can tank a few coilgun shots?” Nympho snaps, yanking the pistol out of Mini’s grip.

Mini staggers and rights herself, reaching inside her jacket for what’s probably a knife. “I’m warning you—” she begins as she starts to unsheathe something.

“Warn this, bitch!” Nympho shouts, punching Mini in the tits, then kicking her between the legs, and when she doubles over, whacking her on the back of the head with the butt of the confiscated pistol, laying her out flat on the pavement. “You don’t mess with my cat!”

With Mini clobbered into an insensate heap on the ground, Nympho’s single red eye goes to me next, and I immediately throw my hands up. “I didn’t have anything to do with it! I didn’t shoot him! I didn’t tell her to shoot him! She did it all o—”

But Nympho isn’t having it. She ratchets her arm back, then hucks the pistol at me, and the last thing I remember is getting nailed square in the forehead before everything goes black.

Event Log: Jack Noir

C.V. Destiny South: Brig

11/14/12768 10:45pm SGT

And that’s how we ended up on brig of the the Destiny South on our return trip back to Talingrad.

We were obviously taken into custody after getting our asses handed to us by Nympho, and after getting the bare minimum in terms of medical care, we were then placed in detention cells. I’d been expecting an interrogation, maybe some light torture, perhaps a little bit of good cop, bad cop. Y’know, the standard stuff you get when dealing with elite organizations like this.

Instead, they released us into the custody of the crew of the Destiny South without so much as a single interview.

We were in detention for barely more than a day before we were discharged to the Destiny’s security officers. During the release, as the Valiant Agent was signing the discharge forms, I decided to push my luck and ask why we were being released. If, maybe, somebody had pulled some strings to get us safely off the Bastion.

The Agent had looked up at us with a singular expression of faint disdain that I’ll never forget. “What? No. Nobody pulled any strings. We’re letting you go because you’re too dumb to be a threat, you’re taking up space, and nobody’s interested in interrogating you.”

I had been vaguely offended at that. “Wait, hold up, what do you mean, nobody’s interested in interrogating us? You don’t know what kind of secrets we could be hiding!”

“Shut up.” Mini had muttered sidelong at me.

“Mhmm. Like what?” the Agent had said, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh… well…” I’d said, blanking on what to say. “I mean… I couldn’t tell you, because they’re supposed to be secrets.”

“If you say so.” the Agent had said, going back to signing the discharge documents.

I’d felt my indignation rising with the level of indifference demonstrated by the Agent. “Well, there is a Shifter spy on the loose in your base.” I’d declared.

“What are you doing?!” Mini hissed at me.

“Yes, we’re aware. You brought him back in your suitcase.” the Agent had said without looking up from the screen where he was scribbling out his signatures. “Legaci’s going to let him run around for a bit before we drop the cage on him. Command wants to see if they can get him to flip and turn him into a double agent.” The Agent looked up at that point. “Anything else?”

“Oh. Huh. You knew all along.” I had said, deflating a little. After a moment, I point at Mini. “Did you know that she’s a Mercurial spy?”

The Agent had rolled his eyes and motioned to the Destiny’s security officers. “The discharge forms are signed. Get ‘em out of here.”

“You’re gonna regret this, y’know!” I had shouted as the security officers bundled us out of the detention lobby. “We’re full of all sorts of secrets! Secrets you would never dare dream of! You’re missing out on the interrogation of a lifetime!”

Unfortunately, it seemed like my reverse psychology was a little too subtle for them, because we shortly found ourselves back onboard the Destiny, and thrown in the brig with little fanfare. Comfort was minimal, but meals were regular, so at least we weren’t starving. Since they’d confiscated our stuff, we had to track time by the intervals of our meals, and it was about two days before the freighter left Sunthorn for its return trip back to Talingrad. I could tell by the way the entire ship vibrated, the groaning of strained metal echoing through its depths as it entered tunnelspace, then smoothed out into silence once more.

With that sign that we were on our way, I’d sat up on my unpadded bed, and started rolling up the right leg of my pants. I’d been thinking over our predicament over the last couple of days, and had arrived to the conclusion that there was probably an arrest waiting for us back on Talingrad, with the possibility of jailtime. They wouldn’t have thrown us in the brig otherwise, and the guards hadn’t been forthcoming with any information about the potential legal peril we might find ourselves in. If we were in for a penny, we might as well be in for a pound.

Upon hearing me fiddling around with my leg, Mini rolls over on her bed, where she’d been keeping her back to me. “What are you doing?” she demands.

“Oh ho ho, now she wants to talk to me, after giving me the silent treatment for two days.” I say, sliding back a panel on my artificial leg and digging around inside. “Only interested in socializing when I’ve got something you want, is it?”

“You’re the one that landed us in this situation!” she growls at me.

“Says the one that shot the catboi in the face when she lost her cool.” I retort, pulling out my backup vape and turning it on. “We wouldn’t be in this brig right now if you hadn’t killed someone.”

“He turned out fine. I dunno how, but he was alive.” she scoffs.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetheart.” I say, taking a drag from my vape before I continue to root around in my leg compartment.

She rolls her eyes as she starts to sit up. “You never told me you had a fake leg. Is that why you always wear pants?”

“Ah, so now she wants to make small talk after I spent the last two days trying to make nice with her.” I say, blowing out a cloud of vapor. “If you’d paid attention earlier, you’d already know I had a mech leg. I guess you weren’t listening when I told you I lost my career in the Marshy Maid Service because I took a coilgun spike to the knee.”

“How was I supposed to know you were serious about being a femboy… maid… spy… thing?!” she exclaims. “And besides, it’s your fault we’re here!”

“Deflection and projection, as usual.” I mutter, setting aside my vape as I pull my backup recorder out of my leg compartment, and pocket it in my trenchcoat. “My therapist was right. I should stop doin’ time with toxic people.”

“What’s that mean?” Mini demands. 

“I should’ve listened to him, but no, somehow I always end up in close proximity to the dangerous types.” I grumble, rooting around in my leg compartment until I come up with a tiny chip slate, with cords wrapped around it. “Manipulative, selfish, emotionally unavailable, narcissistic… I thought he was talking about me, but apparently he was referring to my past partners. Go figure.”

“Hey! I’m right here, y’know!” she snaps at me, letting her legs hang off the edge of her bed.

“Indeed you are. And you have spent the last two days acting like I didn’t exist.” I say, setting aside the chip slate and pulling out a tiny screwdriver from my leg compartment. “I tried apologizing, making small talk, trying to get to know you a little better, even considering the fact that you concealed who you actually were, but noooooo, you had to be a pouty little princess and give me the cold shoulder despite being the one that lied to me and killed a man in cold blood, landing us in this equally cold brig.”

“I got my ass handed to me three days ago! I’m still recovering from gettin’ my cooch kicked!” she protests.

“Still not an excuse for bein’ a rude-ass liddl’ bitch.” I mutter, sliding open another panel on my leg and pulling out a miniature power cell. “‘specially when you dragged me down with you.”

“Oh what, you want an apology now?” she scoffs.

“Mm. Well, it couldn’t hurt. I might actually considering taking you with me when I manage to escape this brig.” I say, picking up the chip slate and starting to unwind the cords so I can plug one of them into the power cell.

Mini’s face cycles through a range of emotions in a remarkably short span of time, starting with indignation and progressing through prideful resentment, anger, doubt, irritation, denial, surrender, and then spite. Standing off her cot, she marches across the brig, thumping a hand against the wall beside my head as she leans down. “Fiiiine. I’m sorrrrrrry I got paired with a washed-up, low-grade, budget-bin excuse for a detective who couldn’t sleuth his way out of a paper bag if you gave him a map and directions.” she sneers. “Feel better now?”

I take my vape out of my mouth, tilting my head back to give her a cool-eyed look. “I’m not really feelin’ the sincerity, kid. Why don’t you put a little more…” I let off a little puff of vapor as I wave my vape around in a circle. “…backbone into it. You’re not really sellin’ me with that tone.”

She narrows her eyes at me, snatching my vape and taking a long drag off of it. I’m expecting her to blow it into my face, because I’d seen the spite in her eyes earlier, and I wouldn’t put it past her to be that childish. I open my mouth, about to warn her against doing something she’ll regret.

Before I can get a word out, she grabs the back of neck, leans down, and liplocks me, exhaling a mouthful of apple-caramel vapor right down my throat.

I let out a startled grunt, pulling back as soon as I realize I can’t breathe, and topple to the side on my cot, hacking and wheezing as I brace myself on one arm. As I gasp for breath, Mini takes another drag off my vape, savoring it a bit before blowing out a long stream of vapor. “That enough backbone for you?”

“Apology accepted.” I grunt as I push myself back upright, reaching over to snatch my vape back from her. “And it’d be much appreciated if you could give me some warning before you try to ‘apologize’ next time.”

“No promises.”

“Yeah, don’t know why I’d expect any better from you…” Taking off my fedora, I plant it on her head, giving her a little push. “Be a good girl and go see if you can get your hand through the food tray in the door. We’ll need to reach one of the ports on the access panel outside the door. If we can do that, I can run a password cracker on it and get us out of here.”

She smirks, swiping the chip slate and its bundle of cables from me. “Color me surprised. Maybe you’re good for something after all.” With that, she turns and saunters over to the door, leaving me to recover my composure as I take another long drag from my vape. I think I should’ve known, from the moment she stepped into my office, that this dame was gonna be the death of me.

But hey, at least I’ll die happy, and mildly horny.

Case closed.