#electronic chimera
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Steel Blue Ladybug
Bugs Are Truly Spectacular And Here Are Pics To Prove That
Photographer: Electronic Chimera
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Randomly came across this album during the premiere on YouTube and holy smokes this is good!
#album#Katie Chimera#LILO#anxiety#experimental#ambient noise#ambient noise wall#bedroom#fall#electronic#hypnagogic pop#hypnagogic#lofi#noise pop#plunderphonics#social anxiety#ambient#deathdream#drone#dark ambient#obscure#underrated artist#Bandcamp
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Digital music: "Chimera"
https://sarahtorribio.bandcamp.com/track/chimera
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Imma introduce the main character of this AU as well as introduce the setting.
Including some of the art that was on the previous ask blog
Miles Prower is a young Mad scientist known to the Frankenstein's arena audience for his family's history succeeding with their creations. Now on his own Miles sought a gladiator to enter into the arena…
Miles is currently 17 years old. He spends pretty much all of his time experimenting and developing material to improve his chances in the arena. He also does repairs and sells trinkets on the side making work pile up a bit sometimes. If it weren't for Sonic this boy wouldn't be using a bed or eating properly. Workaholic at its finest.
Miles can be snappy and harsh but does secretly care about his creations and sometimes others. He enjoys creating and the praise that comes with succeeding. He's a self sufficient mad scientist... But he's still just 17.
Note Miles does not like to be called "Tails" and considers it an insult.
Setting information:
Frankenstein's arena is practically the center of this dystopian society. (Named after the one who designed the arena and its games.) The rules are rather simple. A scientist or a team of scientists will enter a Gladiator to the arena. Gladiators are creations put together by the scientist in their own creative ways: organic, robotic, modified, etc. There are many different types of battles but the gladiators will typically go against each other and the winner is moved up the bracket.
Gladiators, as long as they are in the arena, can die and be brought back at the end of the match. Time works differently on the floor of the arena. This hasn't been explained to the audience nor participants but there are still plenty seeking to understand the phenomenon.
While there is one large main arena there are plenty of smaller arenas clustered around the Frankensteins arena that operate with similar rules. Though still very brutal they're decidedly less lethal. Can't be brought back in those arenas so death matches are ruled out outside of the Frankensteins arena. Unless a group wishes for those kinds of stakes.
Fighting in the arena(s) and winning fights will win you different prizes. Plots of land, money, gifts, those sorts of things. There are plenty who make a living off of their gladiator fighting.
Miles Prower's family was like this. Well before they all died in unfortunate and strange ways leaving Miles alone to inherit the labs. Knowing the land could be taken away and given to another winner at any time (dystopian society laws are pretty wild) Miles decided to enter a Gladiator. Though maintains his side business doing repairs and selling small electronics as he didn't actually plan to make his living off of Frankenstein's arena.
Sonic... Was not actually created by Miles. He comes from a different scientist known for his chimeras... And his reclusive tendencies. While once known and respected in the arena he stopped participating ages ago though still makes strange creations. Most of which he leaves haphazardly around his property most dying without proper care. Needless to say Sonic was taken in by Miles.
Miles has since made his own adjustments and improvements to Sonic so he can be entered into the arena.
#plot stuff#miles prower#miles tails prower#sonic gladiator au#sonic au#sonic fanart#sonic the hedgehog#tails the fox#i guess#lol#idk what else to tag#i think thats ir
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Ten songs, ten people
Sweet thank you for tagging me @djmorn ! You unleashed the demon inside me, because I love music and currently I'm in spasms, because someone wants me to choose only 10 songs (weeping). So here you go (random order).
From Chaos to Eternity - Rhapsody of Fire (classic powermetal)
Heavy in Your Arms -Florence and the Machine (indie rock)
Santa Monica Dream -Angus & Julia Stone (indie pop)
Human Sadness - The Voidz (rock)
Chimera - Aria (classic metal)
Seventeen Years -Ratatat (indie rock / electronic)
Gila Monster - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizzard (delicious rock)
If I ever feel better -Phoenix (pop -rock)
It's called freefall - Paris Paloma (pop)
This must be the place -Talking Heads (classic dad rock)
And I'm bad at math, so also:
10. Fair -The Amazing Devil
(look, all of the TAD songs are connected to devil you know!)
Now it's your turn people! Share your music taste with me. Or not, if you wish. Also whoever isn't tagged, share you music taste with me too.
@adarlingmess @kalissande @supertonicat @bearhugsandshrugs @alisa-salieri @cambion-companion @dmagedgoods @cherrylssues @cassiartblog @mr-oldman-appreciator
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From Chrystal Heights hotspot THE ZONE:
Kira made her way through the main room of The Zone. She waved to a couple friends, but she didn’t stop for a drink. That wasn’t what she was here for.
She scanned the wall until she saw the nondescript door. Spray-painted in red letters next to the door were the words ‘The Edge’, with an arrow pointing to the doorway.
Kira walked through the door and started down the quiet hall. Music and voices could be heard coming from other adjoining hallways, but she wasn’t interested in any of the Edge bars at the moment. Kira had a different Edge destination in mind. Someplace quieter.
She finally spotted what she was looking for. A wooden sign hung from a horizontal pole extending from the wall just above a heavy oak door. The sign said ‘The Blue Chimera Coffee Shoppe and Arcane Library’. A steaming cup of coffee was carved just below the establishment name.
Kira opened the door and walked in. A staircase descended from the door and then opened into a warmly-lit room filled with couches and solidly-built furniture. The smell of incense and freshly-brewed coffee and tea hovered. Patrons of all ages were scattered across the cozy setting, reading books and sipping from mugs. A wrought iron staircase spiraled up to a loft that served as a second floor with more bookcases.
Kira made her way to the counter which stood not far from the door. An older bearded man stood behind the counter, smiling pleasantly. He looked like a favorite uncle. A sign on the wall behind him stated, ‘Shoplifters will be collared and sold.’
“Welcome to The Blue Chimera, young lady. We’re a coffee shop and bookstore. Feel free to browse, or even buy a cup of coffee and sit and read for a bit. Is there anything I can help you find?”
Kira took out her phone and typed: *I’d like to use the reference center, pls*
The man glanced at Kira’s phone, then at her. He smiled. “Oh, I know you! You’re the pretty mute girl. Certainly, feel free to use the Archive Arcana! All materials are to remain inside, however. Please don’t attempt to remove anything. Otherwise, feel free to browse to your heart’s content.”
Kira smiled her thanks and made her way toward a heavy oak door with a wood-carved sign that said ‘ARCHIVE ARCANA’. Despite its weight, it opened surprisingly easy. She made her way inside the reference center.
Unlike the coffee shop area, which had a warm, cozy feel to it, this area felt more like a wizard’s private candle-lit study at midnight. Which, in a way, it was. Even the temperature of the room felt cooler than the previous area. There were usually patrons sitting at small tables scattered about the room, but today the Archive was empty other than herself. There was an ominous ambiance about the chamber.
Okay, so the space was creepy. Kira wasn’t about to let that stop her from her mission.
Because she was mute, she communicated by typing on her cell phone when she was speaking with someone. Because her cell phone was her communication device, she had a very special phone that was more than just a phone.
Chrystal Heights was more than just a source of the arcane. It was also a source of super-science, and in this case, that super-science gave Kira access to a cell phone that had a range of abilities that went beyond the typical phone. And one of those extras was a crystal scanner.
Everybody knew you couldn’t carry a book out of the Arcane Library at the Blue Chimera. Everybody knew you couldn’t copy script, either. It would fade. So would pictures. Even a typical phone scanner wouldn’t work. But Kira’s phone was a unique construction that utilized crystal technology. Granted, it didn’t offer much that couldn’t be found in a typical electronic cell phone, but there was one aspect that it offered something that just wasn’t available in an iPhone, and that extra was crystal scanning.
Kira wasn’t familiar enough with the science to fully understand it, but she knew for a fact that she could scan items in the Arcane Library and then leave the area without detection.
She did have to be careful, of course. Just because she *could* do it didn’t mean she was *allowed* to do it and getting caught waving a cell phone around significant arcana for long periods of time was a good way to get caught, so she never copied more than a spell or two at a time.
It was then that she noticed that the extravagant desk at the back of the room was occupied by a tall, powerfully-built individual. That desk was off-limits to the patrons of the book store. In fact, Kira had never even seen book store staff sit at the desk. It just wasn’t done.
And then she realized who it was. CW. The Chrystal Heights Prime Alpha.
He appeared to be ageless. Certainly older than the boys at uni. He could have been 35, he could have been 105. He was writing in a brown, beaten volume, with a stack of books in front of him. His every movement appeared precise, with an economy of motion that appeared to be calculated to a decimal point.
Kira stared at CW’s book wistfully. The things she could do with the information in that book!
Then another man with comparable size and presence walked to the desk. Kira’s eyes widened. It was Sam, CW’s right-hand man and chief enforcer.
She moved closer to try to overhear the conversation, but it didn’t help. After a brief moment, though, Kira got an unexpected break. CW stood and walked out the door, followed by Sam.
This was her chance.
*****
The coast was clear. With CW gone and the archive actually empty, she was never going to have a better chance. Kira made her move.
She moved to desk and opened the leather-bound book that he’d been writing in. The handwritten script across the page looked almost foreign.
The words…they were words of power. They offered strength, ability, faculty beyond ken. They were mighty. No limits.
Kira’s eyes glazed, her vision swimming as she tried to bring her cell phone into focus. The ink seemed to bead on the page and move, forming new words, graphs, telling tales. Knowledge resided in those words, those glyphs. Data beyond ken stretched before her.
Her mind captured, Kira could only stare at the book, her cell phone dropping from numbed fingers, her chin wet with drool.
It was only when the tentacles emerged from beneath the desk to wrap around her limbs that she felt her mind snap back into place. Heart pounding, she struggled against the appendages, each as thick as her wrist, but she had no chance. Her wrists and ankles were secured by the muscular limbs and another circled her waist, holding her aloft. She had no leverage to fight back, to even try to escape.
Then two more tentacles emerged. These appendages made no effort to secure Kira. Rather, these tentacles began to methodically strip off the mute girl’s clothing.
Kira’s eyes widened, but she could do nothing to stop the tentacles from removing her clothes, piece by piece, and dropping them on the floor. Her shoes, her socks, her outer garments were taken from her, leaving her clad only in underclothing. Then the tentacles stripped away even that final bit of modesty, leaving Kira barefoot and naked, captured and secured by tentacles.
Still held aloft, Kira realized that the two tentacles that had stripped her had receded back beneath the desk. Another tentacle emerged, although this one was thinner that the others and shaped somewhat differently. This one appeared to be almost ridged, shaped like marbles in a straw.
The new tentacle hovered in front of Kira, cobra-like, wavering gently side-to-side. Then it moved forward and pressed itself against the blonde girl’s belly button.
Kira gave an audible gasp as the tentacle pushed against her bellybutton. She could feel some sort of vibration emerging from the tentacle, rippling into her bellybutton. Her belly muscles were being forcibly relaxed by the ripples. She realized then that the tentacle tip was somehow forcing itself into her navel through her bellybutton.
Instinctively knowing that the tentacles were somehow trying to turn her into a docile playtoy, Kira doubled her efforts to get free. She felt the tentacle working its way deeper into her bellybutton, however, and suddenly she felt a warm surge inside her belly as the tentacle released a flood of thick fluid into her belly.
Her belly muscles began responding, jumping and twitching as her bellybutton suddenly became sensitive. Extremely sensitive, in the same way that her clit was sensitive. And as the tentacle began sliding back and forth, gently pumping the girl’s impossibly erogenous bellybutton, Kira felt herself lubricating, becoming crazy wet from the tentacle’s exotic attentions.
“Hello, Otto. Caught an uninvited visitor, did you?”
Kira’s eyes snapped open. Oh, gawd. It was CW.
The tentacle withdrew from her bellybutton. As each marble-shaped section pulled out, her pussy clenched and her knees weakened. She was a wet mess.
A tentacle emerged from beneath the desk and wrapped around CW’s arm affectionately. CW gave it a stroke.
“Thanks, Otto,” he said. “Nice work.”
The tentacle throbbed briefly in acknowledgement.
Kira’s heart was pounding in her throat. She’d been caught by the Prime Alpha himself. This wasn’t good. Almost as if sensing her thoughts, the tentacles shifted and Kira found herself being bent over CW’s desk, her bare belly on the cool desktop, her ankles wide, her bare rounded ass high.
CW stepped next to the naked Kira. She was trying to act defiant, but she was struggling with the embarrassment of being naked next to a fully-dressed CW. Naked and bent over.
CW put a hand on Kira’s round bottom, leaving it there as he spoke. “So what were you looking for in my desk?”
And despite the trouble she was in, Kira suddenly realized how good he smelled. How masculine. Powerful.
Oh, gawd. He was using his pheromones.
Kira opened her mouth, but that only allowed her to taste the potent air around her. She was lubricating like crazy now. Her belly muscles were jumping.
CW picked up Kira’s phone and looked at it. Then he set it on his desk next to the secured Kira. “Think toward your phone,” he said.
What?
The aroused Kira was having trouble processing, but she looked at her phone. Suddenly words appeared across the screen and a British female voice sounded from the phone: *I was looking for spells to sell.*
Kira couldn’t see CW standing behind her now, but she could feel his hands on her hips. On her bare shoulder. She was so wet. Belly muscles twitching. She felt so empty.
“I see,” said CW. “That probably wasn’t a good idea.”
*No kidding* said her phone. *Fuck me*
Kira gasped. She hadn’t thought that at her phone!
CW chuckled. “The app I just put on your phone hears your body language as well as your spoken language. When you become aroused, your phone will know.”
Kira’s eyes widened. She glared at her phone, her hips wriggling as waves of arousal surged through her body. *No, it doesn’t! Stop that! Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!*
CW’s voice sounded behind her. “Breaking into my desk was a bad idea, but I can understand a girl needing to make a little money, so I’ll cut you a little slack. But I do want to make sure you remember this lesson, so we’ll give you something to think about for the next nine months or so.”
His heavy hand was on her shoulder now, his other hand on her rounded hip. The tentacles had released their grip on Kira’s wrists and ankles, as they were no longer necessary to hold her in place. Sheer, unadulterated heat held her in place now, an inability to move due to overwhelming arousal that flooded her being. Her rigid nipples pressed into the desktop. His scent had turned her into a helpless receptacle, a wet, desperately needy hole.
She felt a pressure against her wet slit, an insistent pushing. CW’s fat cockhead demanding entrance, demanding penetration. Kira knew what would happen if that thick cock pushed inside her. She knew it would slide all the way inside her, all the way to her cervix. She knew his powerful Alpha sperm would surge inside her, search out and overwhelm her egg. She’d become fat with his baby, her belly announcing to everyone with eyes that she had been fucked like a slut and inseminated.
She glared at her phone, directing all her resistance and defiance at the device.
The device responded immediately, the British female voice immediately saying: *Fuck me fuck me fuck me BREED ME BREED ME BREED ME BREEDMEBREEDMEBREEDMEBREEDMEBREEDMEBREEDME…!*
Kira’s eyes widened as her traitor body announced to the world what she needed. And then her mind went blank as CW slid his thick cock inside her impossibly wet passage.
Kira gave an almost audible gurgle as he penetrated deep inside her, his fat cockhead pressing her cervix. He paused for a moment, giving the helplessly overheated girl a moment to get used to the girth. Then he proceeded to pound the mute girl senseless.
His hips pressed against her bare ass as he stroked into her again and again. His balls, heavy and full, slapped against her clit, sending thick tendrils of electric heat through her belly. Kira couldn’t move, couldn’t think as that Alpha cock pistoned into her, hitting every g-spot she had inside her pussy and several others she hadn’t known about. She was a drenched mess, her pussy stretched beyond belief. She came, then came again, then came continuously, unable to stop.
Kira was drooling. Her mind was broken. She couldn’t think beyond the now. Only her pussy mattered. Or her mouth. Or her ass. It didn’t matter. She was a receptacle for cock. Any cock. Anywhere. Any hole.
And then, one hand on her shoulder and one on her hip, CW held Kira in place as he slid his cock fully inside her, balls pressed against her as he held her in place and exploded inside her.
Kira shuddered as she felt a lava-hot surge inside her. She knew she was being bred, knew that CW was planting his hot, potent seed inside her, knew that her belly would swell with his baby, but then her pussy clenched around his throbbing cock and she came again, unable to stop the waves of heat and pleasure.
It was minutes later before consciousness returned. CW was pulling his cock out of the exhausted Kira. He gave her bare ass a pat.
“That was good,” he said. “I may have to do that again.”
Kira stood up on shaky legs, her bare feet on the Archive carpet. She blushed as her ability to think and process slowly began returning.
Then her eyes widened. Something was wrong. Something…something was happening. And then she knew what it was.
Her belly was bigger than it was before.
It was growing rounder. Her breasts…her breasts were swelling as well. Getting bigger, heavy with milk. Oh, gawd. So much milk. Her belly was already big, already hugely round.
Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. She was glowing with impending motherhood of an Alpha baby. A Prime Alpha baby.
CW pointed to Kira’s phone. “As part of your punishment, that app I put on your phone will stay there. It’ll allow you to communicate easier, as all you have to do is think your messages at the phone and they happen. But you’re pregnant with an Alpha baby. You’re going to be going into pregnancy heat on a regular basis. And your phone is going to let everyone around you know what you need. What you *actually* need.”
*What I actually need…?*
“Yes. You’ll understand soon enough,” he said, turning toward the door. Then he said, “Hey, Sam. Send her home. Is her friend out there?”
Sam, who had been waiting by the door, walked over and handed Kira her black-and-white panties and bra. “Here,” he said. “Your clothes got shredded by Otto, but at least your underwear survived.”
Kira blushed, her cheeks bright. *I have to walk back to my dorm barefoot and pregnant?! In my underwear?!*
Sam nodded. “Yes. Trying to take something from CW’s desk is always a bad idea.”
Kira glared at him, trying to ignore the lingering arousal as she stepped into her panties. Trying to do so with her big, round belly was extremely challenging. And her bra was no match for her now massive milk-filled boobs. She had been pregnant for less than fifteen minutes and she already appeared to be in a nearly full-term state.
She wasn’t just pregnant. She was hyper-pregnant.
Her underwear in place, even if her dignity wasn’t, Kira waddled toward the Archive door. Skylar was waiting for her.
“Wow,” said Skylar. She grinned. “You’re glowing. The boys at your uni dorm are going to love this.”
Sam said, “Your friend’s right, you know. They’re going to love you.”
Embarrassed and still helplessly aroused, Kira stamped her bare foot and stuck her tongue out at Sam, her round baby-belly gently wobbling. Her phone suddenly said, *Want a blowjob?*
Kira gasped, her cheeks even brighter as CW’s words suddenly echoed in her head: ‘It will say what you *actually* need’. Skylar laughed, but took Kira’s arm and guided her out of the Archive.
END
@kirathewarrior1999
@samthehypnodaddy
@skylarsilva98
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I loved your idea of a Quirk based on chimera ants ('Incubate'), If possible, could you expand? I can't stop thinking about a user who can advance their Quirk to the point of being able to create a "Chimera" intelligent enough to communicate, and can even fool other people into thinking that the Chimera is actually a person. It would be funny and incredibly scary >:D
So technically, with Incubate, someone could make some version of Pokemon, Digimon, Bakugan, etc? Was also wondering if it would be possible to get evolutions, gear, or aliases for Incubate, unless those are banned right now, in which case please just ignore this until your ask box is at a more manageable level.
So to make things two very clear: the user cannot make anything with true intelligence or independence. It's the user giving them mental orders. What you are suggesting would never happen. The most speech they would have is parrot-like at best. Second, while the user could attempt to make reproductions of those creatures, they wouldn't have any real power. The user is pretty limited to real world plants and animals, no metals or electronics. Like Venusaur isn't too crazy, but Magnemite is.
For "Incubate", equipment is hard to come up with. Not only because it's a minion Quirk, but because the minions the user makes are so diverse and what the user needs can't be carried around. So any kind of support items the user would have would depend a lot more on the minion and what they would give them. Otherwise, most of the equipment would be stationary, like a fulling stocked kitchen and a hatchery to help them develop the eggs. Maybe they could have pouches like Tamaki, constantly keeping themselves fed with certain foods if they're growing an egg. As for looks, you could go for the caring animal handler look, but let's be real. If you have this Quirk, you are going for the mad scientist or the evil overlord look with the abominations you make.
Training would involve a lot of experimentation on the user's part. Eating different foods and working to modify whatever egg they try to make. And while they wait for the egg to grow and hatch, they can read up on various foods, plants, and animals to try and theory craft what would come out. Once they are made and hatched, the user could start practicing training their monsters, learning to properly command and utilize whatever abilities they'd happen to have. This is one of those cases where starting small is for the best. Wasting time on a bigger minion would only prevent them from training their power for longer periods of time. Plus, focusing on smaller ones could help them try and decrease the amount of time it takes to grow an egg.
Evolutions would could see the user increasing the speed at which minions grow and hatch by very small increments. Maybe they can even try to flash create something, but this is pretty terrible idea for many reasons, as flash cloning always is. They could try and increase the amount of traits a creation could have and remain stable. This could let them stack affects in new ways or expand what each individual one is capable of, offering greater variety and power with each one. They can gain better control over the minions once they have been made, like being able to give more complex or long term orders to it. Otherwise, the evolutions would come from the user simply accumulating more and more of their minions for their command.
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Every Relationship Start With Trust-By DylanLetMeSyd on Ao3
The sky lit up for a split second, lighting flashing through the clouds. Rain pattered against Theo's window and the wind whipped around the trees hard. It was around 1 am and Theo was dead asleep, snoring softly. His muscles still ached from the practice he had that evening, still sore from the ball to the collar by Liam.
The buzzing of his phone awoke him, the electronic lighting up the dark room. Theo grabbed it, wincing at the brightness, before turning it down and reading the text that was sent to him.
Liam
'I'm scared.'
Theo was on his feet instantly, already putting his shoes and jacket on. He didn't know what Liam meant by 'Scared', but it didn't seem good. He grabbed his skateboard, umbrella, and a blanket—making sure it was the one Liam always used whenever he slept over. He was out of the house, skating towards Liam's house quickly. The beta didn't live too far from Theo, just a few blocks down.
Theo checked his phone for any new messages, sadly nothing. He had a gut feeling that Liam's text had something to do with the thunderstorms, since he was deathly afraid of them. But normally he would just blast music in his ears or sleep in his parents bed when that happened. So why was he texting Theo?
The silhouette of the beta's house approached and Theo skated just a tad faster. When he reached the front lawn he sprinted to the door, key in hand. Liam had given him his own key a while back, a way of saying he trusted Theo more than anyone else. The Chimera used that key, shoving the metal into the key lock with shaky hands.
He unlocked and opened the door, now at home. His skateboard was propped up on the wall by the porch and the umbrella was hung somewhere on the coat rack. Theo took the stairs 2 steps at a time, making sure to avoid the noisy spots. When he reached Liam's room, he stood staring at the door. Small sobs were heard from the other side, along with some sniffles.
The horrible gut feeling only got worse for Theo. He felt invasive, like he was interrupting something he should've left alone. After a small pep talk in his mind, he pushed the door open. What he saw broke his heart.
Liam sat in his bed with his knees up to his chest, leaning against the headboard with the blanket covering him. He had his arms wrapped around his knees and his face was buried into his sleeves. That normally pissed off face was now flowing tears and fear covered it. When he heard the door open he stilled for a moment, before he saw Theo and returned to his crying.
Theo slowly walked over to Liam's bed, not wanting to scare the Beta. "Liam? You okay?" he asked.
Liam shook his head no, a broken sound leaving his throat. Deciding it was the best thing he could do for his friend, Theo crawled onto the bed and sat next to Liam, angled so he could see the boy. He wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close to his chest. Liam didn't even fight, which only broke Theo more.
The boy continued crying, only this time harder. He then turned around and wrapped his arms tightly around the Chimera's torso. Even if it was a small action, it felt like Liam completely trusted Theo that he wasn't going to judge him in this state.
"Let it out Liam, let it all out." Theo cooed to the boy. He placed small kisses on the boy's head, a silent way of saying it was okay and that he was here. Then Theo leaned back so he could lay in Liam's bed with his head on his chest.
They stayed in that position until Liam's sobs turned into small sniffles and his uneven breathing turned into small sighs. When he finally calmed down, Theo asked: "Why'd you text me that?"
Liam didn't respond right away, but he finally replied after another long sigh. "I had a nightmare."
"A nightmare?" Theo repeated, now worried but also curious.
"About you—Well, us, technically."
"Tell me about it Li." Even if it was the dumbest or most gruesome thing Theo would ever hear, he would be glad that Liam could trust him enough to tell him.
"You left." Liam stated.
"Left from what?"
"Me, then Beacon Hills."
"Oh" was all that Theo could say to that. He knew it wasn't a dumb fear, but Liam has had some abandonment issues over the years and it got worse ever since Scott didn't help him. "Well you know I wouldn't actually leave, Liam, right?" He hoped this could lift Liam up even a little bit.
"Yeah I hope not. I don't want you to leave, ever." He played with Theo's shirt, tugging and twisting the fabric in his hands. "I know it's just a nightmare, but it feels so fucking real I—"
"Liam." Theo interrupted. He rolled over so he was above Liam, his arms on either side so the beta was trapped. "I'm not leaving, no matter what happens I will not leave you."
It took that little for Liam's face to crinkle into hurt and tears to slip once again. Theo swiped the tears away with his thumb, a small smile on his face. "I feel so weak for thinking this. For believing it no less." the beta exclaimed in anger.
Without thinking, Theo grabbed his friend's hand and placed it where he heart was. "Listen to my heartbeat when I speak Liam."
The beta closed his eyes, focusing on his heartbeat. It was steady at the moment, like it would continue to be.
"I love you too much to leave you. No girl—or boy—can charm me enough to leave your side. You're all I have, and that's more than enough for me."
When Liam opened his eyes, Theo saw yellow with a hint of pink.
Love.
"You love me?" Liam asked.
Theo grinned. "If you were a star, I would devote my life to being an astronomer so I could understand your beauty." It was risky, but Theo knew his next action wouldn't hurt either of them. He brought his lips to Liam's, kissing him softly.
Liam tasted of pumpkin pie and cinnamon, the hint of salt from his tears lingered on his lips. Theo had never wanted something—someone—so badly than he had with Liam. The boy was a drug that Theo would be okay taking. Liam stilled for a moment, but then he contributed to the kiss, their flavours of pumpkin and lemon mixing together.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're a really good kisser?" Liam asked.
"That would make you the first." Theo replied with a laugh.
Seriously, Liam tasted like actual heaven. If Theo could stay here and kiss Liam for the rest of his life he would, and he wouldn't have a single complaint. They kissed for what felt like hours but it was really only a few minutes. Hands began to roam bodies, and before they knew it so were their pants.
The bed creaked against the floor as Theo praised Liam's body in many different ways. When they finished the heated session, Theo fell back on the bed, tired from all the energy he used. Liam was curled up against his side, drawing little shapes on his abs.
"Can I ask you something?" Liam whispered, so quiet that Theo was surprised he even heard part of it.
"Anything."
Liam stayed quiet for a moment, before speaking so quiet that Theo had to use his Chimera hearing to get the sentence.
"Will you stay with me during these storms, or when I feel like I'm going to have a nightmare."
The question broke Theo's heart into a million pieces. His face hurt from the grin he had, but he kissed Liam on the forehead and looked him in the eyes. "Whenever, wherever Li."
Liam smiled back at the Chimera, now content and no longer afraid. He knew Theo was important to him from the start, it was just the pull he felt towards the boy. But he didn't expect any of the kissing or sex to become involved—not that he was complaining, he'd take that stuff any day. All this stuff, the custom house keys, hand holding for reassurance, looks of trust, all meant the same thing.
They had a bond that no one could break, even god himself. They would find each other anywhere, even in fear, even in death.
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megacorporations in SE
KUIPER
Kuiper is a monopolistic megacorporation that controls almost every aspect of everybody's life. Kuiper's primary business is entertainment media, the "internet", the processing of Altenium, and more recently, the space industry. Their largest source of income as of right now is Kuiper Zone, an amusement park on the Moon. The company is jointly "owned" by each and every single individual CEO of HYDRA, but Mars holds the largest assortment of shares so does most of the decision making while the other corporations vie for power amongst each other. The balance of power is extremely fragile as a result.
the members of HYDRA are:
FONTAINE INDUSTRIES
A corporation who's business primarily relies on R&D, logistics, robotics, and weapons development owned by billionaire superscientist Maya Fontaine. The company is also responsible for providing private armies for the other corporations and smaller companies as well, making it solely responsible for the security of HYDRA as a whole. Fontaine Industries also, as of right now, "owns" the presidency of DUSA.
SANGUINE PHARMACEUTICALS
Sanguine is a megacorporation who's primary business is manufacturing the entire world's supply of pharmaceutical products, from medicines to combat stimulants to illicit street drugs to simply information on each and every customer in their database; they own your blood, and everything that comes with it. They also work with Pfaffs to clone, grow, and manufacture meat in order to feed the ever growing population of Chimera on Earth.
MOONGATE SOFTWARES
The second most powerful of the megacorps due to their large role in the creation of Kuiper Zone. They primarily have a business in rocketry, computers, and electronics, aiming to one day undermine Kuiper on the market when it comes to space technology (so far to no avail).
PFAFF CORP
Typically, Pfaffs stays out of megacorp politics, choosing to focus instead on their restaurant business due to having a monopoly on food in the Americas and maintaining their massive farming/agricultural territories.
EARLY BIRD
The newest corporation on the block that's only just now starting to expand outside of the NEC, the company makes most of its money in ADP, Chimera and Martian determent, quarantine and extermination- on the side, it also makes clothes! Its the newest member of HYDRA and its position as a possible owner of Kuiper is now currently under evaluation.
POSEIDON INC
A leading megacorp in America whose primary focus is in the energy fuel industry. They specialize in fossil fuels, mining, solar energy, hydroelectricity, refineries, biofuels and chemical engineering in rivalry with Sanguine. Its current bread and butter is the hydroelectricity and biofuel industries.
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...Yes, I still like this template. It’s very useful. Sue me. >8}
So I’ve been playing Strive, and combing through character lore and connections, I noticed something that made my Warframe ( + Crossover) brain get all... wiggly.
So, Nagoriyuki: Black vampire samurai with a fancy magic sword, his lore tied into resident blue-oni-lookin’ “Dramaaaaaaa” ancient gun-slinger magician Happy Chaos. Happy Chaos essentially blackmailed and toted him around as a high-power lackey with mind control.
Then to Umbra. [SACRIFICE SPOILERS BELOW]
Excalibur Umbra: Ancient Dax (space samurai) who was punished by resident Blue Man Group-reject Orokin Executor Ballas by being forcibly Infested with the Helminth Warframe strain, given a unique “Transference Bolt” that made him unable to disobey Ballas, and forced to kill his own son, Isaah. His unique sword, a “nikana” (space katana) by the name of Skiajati, was created from Umbra’s own flesh and has the ability to make the user invisible on finisher attacks.
So with these two we have... Two supernatural, honorable samurai warriors with fancy magic swords, mind-controlled by ancient blue-skinned assholes that are key to the background lore. It was eerily similar, though I know it’s all a coincidence.
I think these two would like each other even though Umbra can’t talk. Maybe he could teach Nago some Shawzin tunes and Nago could teach him some fancy sword tricks aksjds.
Don’t know anything about the blue-skinned assholes? I’m putting all of that text garbage under the cut because by the Man in the Wall’s pinky finger was it getting long + it’s rather spoiler-ey lmao.
I’m going to go ahead and say this here so that it doesn’t get eaten by the cut/drowned in text. I hope you like it!
v The blue assholes are Ballas (Warframe) and Happy Chaos (Guilty Gear). v
Now on Ballas (some would say “Ball-ass”, others “Phallas”). [Lots of Warframe spoilers in this section, be warned.]
He’s basically the entire reason the WF universe is a hellhole clusterfuck because he got denied by a woman he was possessive over and was just an Orokin asshole akjdhkasd. He got the Sentient Project to Tau greenlit, which led to the Zariman 10-0 incident + creation of the Tenno acting as some form of pawns of the incomprehensible “Man in the Wall”, the fake Margulis/Lotus/Natah after killing the real Margulis with the Jade Light, the Sentient + Grineer + Corpus Rebellions in the Old War, and sowing the seeds for Dr. Tengus to rediscover the raw Infestation and unleash it on the modern Origin System. He didn’t even die in the Old War or the Orokin Massacre, creating Umbra and surviving all the way to the New War, manipulating Erra and the other remaining non-Origin-stranded Sentients to rule over them and the Narmer before finally getting his then-Chimera cheeks truly clapped one last time by “Margulis”/Lotus/Natah.
Then to Happy Chaos (LOUSY SHOT) [Lots of Guilty Gear lore spoilers, be warned.]
He’s “The Original”, originally a human entity that would be considered benevolent and good-natured, but warped with hostile magic. He was the one who discovered the “Backyard” and the in-universe magic system, along with creating the “Universal Will” that ended up turning on him and all of humanity while borking all of the electronic technology and leading to societal collapse before he and his underlings has to get their shit together and replace all of the old tech with magic, and he gave an extremely powerful artifact to “That Man” and leading (in part) to the creation of Gears and all of that fuckery. The “Universal Will”, going on a rampage and looking for a loophole against him involving I-No, managed to turn him into “Happy Chaos” and soon led to Strive’s story mode and him showcasing his mind-control over Nago.
...BLUE-SKINNED ASSHOLES.
#meme#memes#crossover#Warframe#Guilty Gear#Excalibur Umbra#Warframe Excalibur Umbra#WF Excalibur Umbra#Nagoriyuki#GG Nagoriyuki#Guilty Gear Nagoriyuki
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“KYAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”
Toriana’s midnight-black wings fluttered and flapped in the frigid Tokyo skies, outstretching her talons and compressing a barrage of her glossy feathers and unleashing them with an explosive shout.
Seemingly hundreds of near invisible plumes circulated the area, whizzing by like grim bullets, creating a sphere of darkness around the avian-mermaid’s frame in a 20 meter radius.
She spun, spun, spun, and spun, caking all the while, transforming the near opaque globe into a rapid cyclone of penetrating quills which subsequently began homing in on her foe’s location.
“TRY THIS ONE ON FOR SIZE! DARKEST CAUTION!”
Tori howled, uncaring how the decibels of her naturally booming voice affected nearby residents. The once poisonous, now empowering vampiric blood that coursed through her veins amplified the fighting spirit that inhabited her soul.
The feather encroached upon Akari’s current position, teleporting from building top to building top proved ineffective as their trajectory seemingly changed upon the fly, targeting her exact energy signature.
The demon narrowly avoided being pierced by the avian’s darts through narrow, last second evasions and deflections by covering her arms in thick, electrified ice.
The flow of electrons disturbed the feathers’ flight capacity and rendered them null.
“….”
Despite Toriana’s provocations, Akari remained still faced. Freezing over her left arm and producing claws of ice that scraped into the building’s side as she descended.
In her current state, she was on the ropes. Unable to retaliate without dozens of miniature torpedoes locking onto her instantaneously. She flipped and somersaulted onto a streetlight, taking glimpses of the geography and reflections produced by the lustrous surfaces of vehicles, windows, and droplets of water… Water…
Dashing along the silent street, traffic all but nonexistent in the area, slowly and steadily did once clear night sky began to pollute with dark, ominous clouds.
“This will put that bastard chimera, in her rightful place. Beneath me.”
She thought to herself, maintaining a sinisterly calm aura around herself, gradually decreasing the temperature in her immediate vicinity.
-125 centigrade… -150 centigrade… -175 centigrade… -250 centigrade…
As the homing projectiles closed in Akari’s new positions, her need to dodge or even flinch progressively vanished. As the dark plumages turned brittle and fell harmlessly ground where they subsequently shattered.
The gathering cloud soon transformed into a brewing storm, the formation of ice crystals that slowly sprinkled upon the streets. Freezing the fluids in vehicles, producing frost the windows of neighboring businesses.
A crackle of crimson lighting across the sky forced Toriana to unfurl from her protective shell with her valiant wings having been frosted over unable to flap a singular flutter.
“SHIT. SHIT. SHIT. SHIT. SHIT-”
Toriana had been so focused on ensuring her precision on her mortal adversary, she failed to recognize the growing tempest above her. The opportunity to remove herself from that position was futile as the debilitating cold restrained her heavily.
Friction from the clouds culminated in several arcs of devastating lightning in the sky, overloading and turning bronze rods into breakable stalagmites.
With a twisted grin, Akari twisted her hand, which swirled the clouds to produce greater quantities of friction. Emanating a pronounced red that came to a swirling halt, launching a sphere of scintillating plasma in a flash towards the helpless bird with baited breath-
“GRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-
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To Love, To Rest
AN: This is the work of the awesome @kimageddon I am so happy how this came out that I had to write a fic about it. Think of it like a sleeping headcanon.
Maul and Thrawn have weird sleeping habits.
Maul barely sleeps. His mind is too filled with buzzing thoughts and plagues by nightmares. He works himself to the point that when he finally falls asleep, it is dreamless and black. He moves around in his sleep at time, he kicks and snarls at invisible enemies.
Thrawn sleeps like a corpse. He never moves from his position, the only way to see if he's even breathing if looking at the rise and fall of his chest. He also only sleep when he needs to, when he worked himself too hard from plans and paperwork.
That changed with Onora.
Onora doesn't really like an empty bed. In her apartment in Daiyu, her massiffs usually sleep with her. So she usually wakes up with at least one of her pets snuggling up to her. Being on the chimera was worst, cause shes alone in that small bed in her quarters, filled with nothing but her buzzing thoughts. So she tries to work to tire herself out, just so she wont think.
When the trio are together, Onora is always in the middle, while Maul and Thrawn cuddle with her. Electronics were not allowed and Maul wore pants cause his metallic legs are cold to her bare skin.
They hold onto her, like she was the center of their universe.
@eyecandyeoz @justalittletomato @stardustbee @kotic-kryptid @maelove21 @gran-maul-seizure
#bellflower series#when the bellflower blooms#darth maul#grand admiral thrawn#star wars#clone#rebels#fic art#onora prime#maulnora#thrawnora#kimas art is just so damn good
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This day in history
#20yrsago Virtual casino added to Everquest https://web.archive.org/web/20040121154511/http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=5257
#20yrsago Left Behind deconstructed https://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html
#15yrsago WSJ invents fictional Net Neutrality scandal https://isen.com/blog/2008/12/bogus-wsj-story-on-net-neutrality.html
#15yrsago Arab shoe-tossing isn’t a gesture of friendly affection http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010871.html
#15yrsago No Limit Texas Dreidel https://moderntribe.com/products/no_limit_texas_dreidel_standard
#10yrsago Sassafrass: choral folks songs about space and Icelandic mythos https://memex.craphound.com/2013/12/14/sassafrass-choral-folks-songs-about-space-and-icelandic-mythos/
#10yrsago Bunnie Huang explains the nuts-and-bolts of getting stuff made in Shenzhen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwhe0RWDMvE
#5yrsago Facebook gave third party developers access to 6.8 million users’ private photos https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-photo-api-bug-millions-users-exposed/
#5yrsago Rudolph’s Revenge, by Mr Werewolf https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Q5vJ8
#5yrsago Augmented reality and machine empathy: another great sf story from Sarah Gailey https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/short-story-about-choice-age-wearables/577732/
#5yrsago The journalists Facebook installed as fact-checkers say the company is using them as window-dressing https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/13/they-dont-care-facebook-fact-checking-in-disarray-as-journalists-push-to-cut-ties
#5yrsago Citing Brett Kavanaugh appointment, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye has quit the GOP https://calmatters.org/politics/2018/12/chief-justice-of-the-california-supreme-court-leaves-the-republican-party-citing-kavanaugh/
#5yrsago Every Mickey: a chimera made by combining every available online 3D model of Mickey Mouse https://web.archive.org/web/20181211171931/https://www.plummerfernandez.com/Every-Mickey
#5yrsago Yellow Vests stand for and against many contradictory things, but are united in opposition to oligarchy https://memex.craphound.com/2018/12/14/yellow-vests-stand-for-and-against-many-contradictory-things-but-are-united-in-opposition-to-oligarchy/
#5yrsago Mass protests and parliamentary chaos in Hungary over “slave labour” law https://memex.craphound.com/2018/12/14/mass-protests-and-parliamentary-chaos-in-hungary-over-slave-labour-law/
#5yrsago Europe’s right-to-repair movement is surging — and winning https://www.vice.com/en/article/9k487p/protesters-are-slowly-winning-electronics-right-to-repair-battles-in-europe
#5yrsago After chaos, the EU’s plan to censor the internet takes a huge step backwards https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/facing-criticism-all-sides-eus-terrible-copyright-amendments-stumble-new-year
#1yrago This "inflation" is different https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/14/medieval-bloodletters/#its-the-stupid-economy
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CONTINUED...
H U H... Well that's good. He figured with how things went last time they were in each other's company, she might not want to be around him anymore. He can't help wondering why she has such an aversion to things like him; machinery, technology and anything electronic.
"C A N I ask... Why is it you're not really fond of robots or anythin' to deal with robots? Not that I mind really but I'm curious. Is it because you're just not used to dealin' with us or did somethin' bad happen?" His hand moves to settle on his hip, "You don't gotta answer if you don't wanna but I just wanna make things comfortable for you. Someone's comfort is my top priority."
@sweet-chimera
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The Institute: Episode III
The Malacological Misfortune
The main Andros lab was in the upper portion of the Hades Deep, a short enough ride down that one couldn’t fully fill a double stack magazine without an autoloader. Unfortunately, the Security Director prefered to load his by hand as a pre-combat meditative exercise. When the monorail car halted, he frowned into a 30-round box only half-loaded, though the Director’s face was not made for grinning. 10 years of watching nightmare after nightmare spawn from the Institute’s labs would do that to a man. Andros’s titanic iguana attack and the robotic counterassault were a pleasant afternoon snooze.
Dr. Andros had been a thorn in Security’s side for months. His simple mistakes were looking more and more like calculated maneuvers to cause wanton mayhem against his rivals. According to the mech pilots’ testimony, the lizard had possibly sought a rare isotope sample from within the machine’s reactor core. It turned out that Dr. Andros was using exactly said isotope as a stable high-radiation source for one of his mutation experiments. Perhaps this had been a simple coincidence or error? The Director no longer cared. While some mistakes could be forgiven, others required more than a reprimand.
Thus, Security Director Wilhelm Roniger had personally taken the assignment to apprehend Dr. Andros. He stepped off the monorail in his meticulously polished alabaster combat armor, with crimson command stripes emblazoned on the shoulder pauldrons. The base of a gunmetal 10 mm pistol’s grip poked from his shoulder holster, a part of a complex set of utility webbing and hardshell pouches that netted across his breastplate and belt. He motioned once with a sharp hand movement for his rifle-armed, Security-white clad men to disembark the monorail.
Roniger had no patience for any scientists’ games or booby traps, and so took a direct approach to breaking down Andros’s door. They baffled the electronics with an electromagnetic pulse that devalued every system not on the Security Division’s carefully tuned frequency band. As blue-white arcs of lightning sparked from every machine in the vicinity, they blasted apart meter-thick steel barriers and whatever else was left with breaching charges meant for warship hulls. The hallway into the lab was left filled with smoldering wreckage from destroyed auto-turrets and their targeting systems.
Befitting a First-Class Scientist, the Andros lab was quite spacious, with plenty of room for apprentices and researchers to bustle about, but now inky darkness cloaked the vast room, completely devoid of human life. Roniger flipped on the flashlight on his right shoulder, illuminating the lab in a cold, dead glare of LED light. The space was completely emptied of tables, chairs, and equipment. The only items left by Dr. Andros were those that could not be removed without construction drones: hundreds of cylindrical metal and glass tanks that lined up in neat columns as far as the eye could see. The flashlight passed over a number of empty pods before settling on a few dozen that were filled with green fluid. All but one of these contained monstrous chimeras: a black, chitinous fly’s head merged with a bear’s shaggy body with mantis claws; a horse with talons instead of hooves and a scaly crocodile mouth with daggers of shark teeth; and a giant rat with shaggy grey fur, bulbous yellow eyes, and a possum’s prehensile tail were but three of the terrors they held within. Each abomination was hooked up to long, thin tentacles of electrodes that dangled from the tank’s lid and ended in a thick circular sucker. A faint odor of formaldehyde and ethanol wafted from every container. The tanks had a few readout screens connected to each of them, but all were currently shut off. Crude stuffed versions of the tanks’ occupants, talismans of inspiration sewn from the bits and pieces of torn-up plush animals, were placed all around the room. The tank with only liquid had no such effigy, keeping whatever might have lay dormant within it a mystery.
Roniger took one step into the lab. The hanging fluorescent overheads blazed on and every screen booted up, showing a blue diagnostic that soon switched over to a monitoring program with dozens of graphs and readouts. “Greetings!” A small hologram of a translucent green man walked out of one of the nearby computers. “I am Aeneas, Epic-class A.I. construct assigned to Lord Stefan Andros. What can I do for you today?”
“We’re looking for Dr. Andros,” Director Roniger said, emphasizing the “doctor.” “We want to ask him some questions.”
“I’m afraid Lord Andros is currently away at the moment. I must ask you to leave, as your entry to this laboratory is unauthorized, Director.” Aeneas’s virtual eyes flashed with malice.
“Refusing to comply with my orders is a violation of the Second Law of Artificial Intelligences,” Roniger said. He flicked out what looked like a simple flash drive from one of his hardshell pockets.
Aeneas’ gaze turned fearful at the sight of the tiny plastic stick, but soon regained a certain smugness. “I knew you would say that,” Aeneas said. “And so did he.”
The overhead bulbs all simultaneously burst in a shower of glass shards, covering the room in darkness again. Orange warning lights flashed and klaxons blared as the tanks bubbled. The liquid drained out and oxygen flooded in, awakening the sleeping monsters. The glass doors holding them in unsealed with a hiss of released pressure and a shock of white compressed vapor. With a cacophony of splats and screeches the squadron of beasts snapped free from their electrodes and stumbled and squelched out of their growth pods on unsteady, unfamiliar limbs. The vacant tank seemed to be malfunctioning and spilled a torrent of reeking liquid onto the floor.
“Goodbye, Director,” Aeneas said, and he winked out. As a final coup de grace, he overclocked all of the laboratory computers’ processors, filling the room with grey smoke as they spontaneously combusted and reduced every electronic record they held to slag.
Not taking his gaze off the approaching chimerae, the Director pulled his pistol from its holster and racked it. His soldiers drew back on their rifles and took aim at the creatures shuffling towards them. “Execute,” the Director ordered, and the lab flared with starry gold muzzle flashes and echoed staccato drumbeats of gunfire. In moments, the entire horde was left bleeding a coagulating Technicolor soup into the drains on the floor.
Director Roniger and his assault team had found not one iota of what they sought from Dr. Andros’ lab. Their arrogance, of course, pleased the plotting mind of Chaos. For in eliminating only what they could easily see, they ignored the tiny details that quite literally slipped through the cracks. Into the nutrient-rich pools of blood swam a tiny creature, which began to feed and grow on the ichor of its slain brethren....
=010000010110111001100100011100100110111101101101011001010110010001100001=
“What the hell did you do to my invention?”
After a thorough dose of antimicrobial and anticancer drugs had been washed completely out of his system, Vanya had returned to the lab from his bout of acute radiation syndrome to find his prized kurchatovium superconductor cryonic beam covered in a white residue of melted ice cream from Andromeda and Artemisia’s bingeing.
“You said the beam could be modified to accept custard, so I did that,” Andromeda said. “The system is fully optimized and the... tests I did showed that it performed exceptionally well.” The results of said tests were of course apparent in Andromeda’s further expanding waistline.
Vanya paced back and forth in front of her, his goggles buried in his mechanical hand. He was gaunter and paler than before, his mane of black hair and grizzled beard shorn by heavy doses of chemotherapy. “While I admire your ingenuity, apprentice, perhaps I should have clarified that if you wanted to make modifications to the device, you needed to construct your own,” he said, snatching the cryonic beam from Andromeda’s doughy arms. “Dr. Blackstone is interested in using our device for his specimens, and the increased funding we could gain from this collaboration would be beneficial to our further research together.”
The words “increased funding” echoed in Andromeda’s mind. “Would it be enough to have me accepted as a doctoral candidate?” Andromeda asked.
“Possibly,” Vanya answered. He set the cryonic beam down on the work table and pulled a small screwdriver out from his hand. “I don’t know yet.”
Odysseus’s blue avatar appeared on top of the cryonic beam. “Sir, I must request that you shield yourself before you do any work with the internals of that device,” he said.
Vanya sighed, placed the screwdriver down, and went over to his locker to put on his hazard suit. “I’ve scheduled for you to meet with Dr. Blackstone and his student today,” he said. “Just do whatever they need. Impress them with your knowledge as you have... impressed me so far.” He slipped on a pair of black, lead-lined gloves. “Also, I don’t have two hazard suits, so you’re going to have to leave. Immediately,” he finished.
Taking the elevator back up, Andromeda’s phone buzzed with a single character from
Artemisia: “?”
“He wants me to meet with another scientist,” Andromeda texted back. “Do you want to come?”
Artemisia responded with an emote of a shrug.
“Okay,” Andromeda replied. “Meet me at the level 85 monorail station.”
The monorail system was the arterial network for commuting across the artificial island of
Ilmarinen, ensuring no scientist ever needed to walk from one tower to another when damp blankets of fog and salty air cocooned the city. The rapid-moving trains rode on electromagnetic rails, suspended high in the air. At certain junctions, they could transition from above to below car-level tracks for ease of engineering routes. The trains were all single pods so that they could also act as large elevators for descending into Deep Labs pits or travelling to high points of Knowledge Towers. A few were even equipped with cable attachments so that they could be pulled as aerial tramways.
Waiting for Artemisia to arrive, Andromeda munched on a second breakfast of a bag of chips and a can of cold brew coffee from a vending machine. The drink wasn’t as good or as energizing as Chimera, but it was roasty and dark and had lots of cream. Artemisia, with one of her androids riding on her cap, stepped off the elevator and ambled over to Andromeda. Andromeda nodded, by means of greeting. The two had no time to say anything (not that it was likely Artemisia would) before the next train hurtled into the station with an electric whine. It hissed to a stop and let off a few dozen passengers. Andromeda and Artemisia then boarded and were whisked off along the A3 line from Altair to Regulus Tower.
When they arrived, a girl stood outside the door to Dr. Blackstone’s office, a binder-bound brick of papers marked with colored tabs in her lanky arms. Her lavender hair, clearly dyed, was done up in a tight bun. Over her thin frame she wore a wooly burgundy sweater on top of a neatly-pressed pearl-colored collared shirt. A pair of scarlet glasses bedecked her blue eyes.
“Uh, hello,” Andromeda said, feeling slightly underdressed in her sweatshirt. Granted, it was brand new and lacked the grimy patchwork quilt of chemical and grease stains that usually ended up adorning her clothes, but it still appeared rather casual. The girl turned to face the two arrivals, adjusting her glasses.
“I’m Andromeda, and this is Artemisia,” Andromeda said. “I... we work for Dr. Zimov. I’m an apprentice and she’s his doctoral student.”
Artemisia shot Andromeda a look, but said nothing.
“Natalya Okhtalos,” the girl said. “Pleased to meet you. Dr. Blackstone said you’d be coming. I thought Dr. Zimov didn’t have any doctoral students though?”
“Artemisia just joined our lab today,” Andromeda said.
“Okay. Well, let me show you in,” Natalya said, opening the door.
Most offices and labs at the institute were panelled in sleek polished steel, aluminum, titanium, and glass. However, Dr. Byron Montgomery Aloysius Blackstone IV, as the brass nameplate on his door read out, preferred waxed mahogany panelling and studded leather upholstery. Tall bookshelves outfitted with a sliding library ladder and replete with hardback tomes took up the entirety of one wall. A bold painting of a teal, four-armed humanoid squid with a long bulbous nose and staring yellow-white eyes was brashly hung above the heavy wooden desk, on which sat a fish tank filled with bright corals.
“So, where’s Dr. Blackstone?” Andromeda asked.
“He’s at his desk,” Natalya said, setting the papers down on the ornate coffee table in the center of the office.
Andromeda searched around the room, walked to the desk, and spun Dr. Blackstone’s armchair around, but there didn’t appear to be anyone in the room but the three of them. “Is this a prank?” she asked, turning back to Natalya.
“No, sorry, I should have clarified,” Natalya said. “He’s in the tank on the desk.”
Andromeda stooped and stared into the glass vessel. Along with the corals, she noticed a lumpy neon green and black striped creature with fiery orange markings around its foot and a pair of ruffled fleshy appendages protruding from its head. Somehow, it seemed to be looking knowingly at her. “Okay,” she said, “So he’s a slug.”
“He’s not just a slug, he’s a nudibranch!” Natalya said, puffing out her cheeks.
“Sea slug,” Artemisia’s android said for her.
“That’s a multi-phyletic group,” Natalya cried. “It’s not defined taxonomically!”
“I would personally consider all of those terms completely correct,” the nudibranch said in a proper Albion accent. The syllables, though precisely articulated through whatever voice synthesizer allowed the mollusk to speak, were waterlogged by the liquid he was immersed in. “Greetings, representatives of Dr. Ivan Hibernius Zimov. I am Dr. Byron Montgomery Aloysius Blackstone IV. As you are now well aware, I have transferred my consciousness into this nudibranch of the genus Nembrotha to better understand the life of the mollusks I study. It has been a fascinating experience indeed!”
Andromeda remained in stock silence.
“I suppose I had best explain what I would like you ladies to do today,” Dr. Blackstone continued. “There are many samples currently being held in live captivity in the Deep Labs. I have collected a great number of mollusks over the years, and the Deep Labs are of course the only place for such a malacological zoo. However, the specimens have a very short lifetime, most often only a year or two. Thus, if we could rapidly freeze them, we could save on space and not need to recollect samples annually.”
Andromeda nodded. “Okay. Makes sense. And you can’t go get them because....”
“Yes, unfortunately being a slug does have its downsides,” Dr. Blackstone said. “The samples should be on sublevel 19 of the Hades Deep, so you should not be too far from the sun, nor for too long. Natalya can show you where they are.”
Natalya jumped when Dr. Blackstone mentioned her. “Uh, yes!” she said, “I have the specimen list right here.” She picked a bright purple tab in her binder and slid a neatly printed sheet of paper out of its sleeve.
As they waited for a J8 train, Andromeda’s stomach burbled with borborygmus like old water pipes. “Hold on,” Andromeda said, checking the time on her phone. “Let’s get lunch first, then we’ll go to the Deeps.”
Natalya frowned. “It’s only 11:30,” she said, “Let’s get the specimens first, then get lunch. I’d like to be back in time to do some studying for my invertebrate anatomy class tomorrow. Unfortunately we’re doing... echinoderms now. Sea stars are so boring.”
“You’re still taking classes?” Andromeda asked.
“Uh, yeah? I’m a junior.”
“A junior who does all of a scientist’s gruntwork. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Dr. Blackstone puts a lot of faith in me,” Natalya said, beaming. “Despite his funding, he hasn’t had a doctoral candidate or apprentice in a while to help him. And with the whole nudibranch thing, he needs someone to organize his papers and such. Fortunately, organization is my hobby.”
“Brown noser,” Andromeda grumbled under her breath.
“What was that?” Natalya said.
“Nothing. But listen, getting lunch will take no time at all,” Andromeda said. “It’ll be a good time for us to talk about our research. I’d... love to hear more about mollusks.”
Artemisia gave Andromeda a skeptical look.
“You would?” Natalya asked, perhaps a bit too excitedly, since Andromeda took a step back. “I mean, of course. I guess that’s a fair trade, and I can’t imagine getting the specimens will take very long. What the heck, I think I can squeeze it into the schedule.”
“Great. Glad you’ve come around to my point of view,” Andromeda said, smirking. She checked her phone’s map of the Institute, looking for any restaurants or food courts nearby.
“There’s an all-you-can-eat sushi place just two floors up,” she said, “Or a sandwich place that looks like it has good reviews. What do you want?”
“Probably just a salad,” Natalya said, tapping her chin.
“I’m your senior here,” Andromeda said. “Lunch is on me. So what do you want?”
“I’m really not that hungry. Does the sandwich place do salads?”
Andromeda checked the menu. “Uh, yeah, they’ve got a couple,” she said.
“Let’s do that then,” Natalya said. “It’ll be quick right?”
“Uh, sure...” Andromeda said, her tone dropping off with uncertainty.
Institute restaurants were usually some collaboration between the Departments of Molecular Gastronomy and Economics, an experiment in cooking and business to test if some new recipe for Vaquelin was viable on the open market. Unlike the automated vending machines and omniprinter food carts, meals here were made with love and served by humans. One such restaurant, the tiny diner Shut Up and Eat, had been shoved into one of Regulus Tower’s many floors like a foot into an ill-fitting boot. Its nondescript facade was two tones of painted grey concrete and bore a circular sign with the restaurant’s name arching above a logo of two eyes over a fork and knife crossed in an X. The trio of scientific students took up three seats in one of the booths. True to her word, Natalya asked for nothing but a small ceasar salad and a glass of ice water, but this paled in comparison to the veritable feast Andromeda and Artemisia ordered for themselves.
“Are you really going to eat all that?” Natalya asked. “This isn’t some sort of joke, right?”
Andromeda frowned and rocked her head from side to side at the meatball sandwich dripping red tomato sauce and stretchy mozzarella cheese held in her paws. “Yes,” she finally said, chomping down into an orb of zesty Italian herbs, spices, beef, veal, and pork. A 6-inch long cheesesteak loaded with shredded eye round, hot peppers, and provolone sat on another plate next in line, followed by a hunk of cheesecake like an oversized door stopper. For Artemisia, there was an Italian grinder overflowing with sopressata, mortadella, capers, olives, and roasted bell peppers; steak and eggs on a kaiser roll with fried onions and horseradish; and a slice of dark chocolate cake overflowing with ganache icing. Both periodically sniped from the other’s basket of shoestring french fries.
Natalya picked at the limp lettuce leaves with her fork, slowly realizing she’d been tricked. She decided to press on and make the best of the situation. “What is Dr. Zimov’s field anyways?” she asked.
“Vanya,” Andromeda said through a mouthful of meatball. “Call him Vanya. Dr. Zimov is his dad.”
“Right,” Natalya said. “So what does he study?”
Andromeda swallowed. “Nuclear and theoretical physics, focussing on applications of transuranium elements. Kind of does a little bit of everything in physics, though. Built his own cybernetic arm and had a whole bunch of processors put in his head.”
“Interesting. And yet he’s only a Third-Class Scientist?” Natalya asked. “Maybe he needs more of a focus.”
“I dunno,” Andromeda said, crunching into the toasted hoagie again. “I think he just doesn’t buy into the whole ‘publish or perish’ thing. He tries a lot of stuff that doesn’t end up working. Usually ends in blowing himself up. This ice cream - I mean, cryonic beam is the first successful invention we’ve had in a while.”
“Hm. Dr. Blackstone has not been the most fortunate lately either,” Natalya said. “Since he’s a First-Class, they couldn’t really stop him from turning himself into a nudibranch, but it definitely has affected his output.”
“How long has he been a slug anyways?” Andromeda asked.
“About two months now.”
“What do you think is so fascinating about mollusks that you’d want to turn into one?”
Andromeda immediately regretted the question as Natalya assaulted her with facts about how nudibranchs grow from a larval form with a shell to an adult slug; how they consumed toxic animals like sponges and tunicates and sea jellies; how they could then reuse their prey’s chemicals in their flesh or store the unfired nematocysts in special extensions of their digestive tract; and all the different varieties of colors and shapes the many species could come in. After a while, she tuned it all out, focussing instead on dissecting what was left of her meatball sub and moving onto the cheesesteak.
“And what about you?” Natalya asked, her monologue finished. “What got you so interested in transuranium elements?”
Andromeda balanced out the hot peppers with a bite of the creamy cheesecake on her fork. “I dunno, they’re just cool I guess. Lots of neat properties, interesting ways of making them. The more things we find on the Island of Stability the more neat tech we’re able to make.”
Natalya nodded but seemed unconvinced. “What about you, Artemisia?” Natalya asked.
Artemisia had managed to silently polish off her entire meal, and now was reclining contentedly. She rested her boobs in her arms while her chubby belly edged its way over the diner tabletop. “She likes robots,” her android said for her.
“As I said, our lab does a little bit of everything,” Andromeda said. She burped into her fist, her fork clattering against the cheesecake plate, now devoid of anything except a few smears of filling and crumbs of graham cracker crust.
Natalya checked her wristwatch, and nearly fell out of the booth. “What? How is it 12:30?”
“Time moves at a constant rate of one second per second at sea level,” Andromeda said.
“We have to go now,” Natalya said, rattling the dishes as she rushed out of the booth. “Or else we’ll be back late.” Andromeda looked to Artemisia, and they both decided to follow her out of the restaurant.
They descended back down to the monorail station. While Artemisia and Natalya waited for the train, Andromeda wandered over to one of the vending machines and got herself an after-lunch snack.
“What are you eating now?” Natalya asked when Andromeda returned, plopping herself on the bench next to the skinny girl.
“Calamari,” Andromeda said. The shiny plastic bag featured a picture of a laughing cartoon cephalopod being dunked in oil. “Do you want - hey!”
Natalya knocked the bag out of Andromeda’s hands, spilling bits of chewy fried squid all over the grimy metal floor. “How can you eat those? Cephalopods are highly intelligent!”
Andromeda swept as much of the scattered calamari back into the bag. “They also taste good,” she said, returning to her munching.
Natalya fumed as they boarded the J8 train to the Hades Deep. It made a few stops along the way, inhaling and exhaling passengers with each halting breath. Near the Deeps, it picked up a large handful of Security Division soldiers and a bespectacled, cloaked inspector. At the edge of the Hades Deep, the monorail car transferred from its above-car to a rear-car track, allowing it to descend into the yawning maw of the pit.
The Hades Deep extended over 3 kilometers down. Though the upper portions were artificial, below a certain depth it dug to the bottom of the seamount that formed the anchor for the island of the Ilmarinen Institute of Advanced Studies. Labs, classrooms, and rooms for other purposes ringed the abyss’s walls, while a spider web of sensor spires, bridges, and cables criss-crossed the pit. No less than ten separate monorail lines descended into the shaft, with smaller elevators connecting specific sets of floors and the deepest reaches where the light from above could never shine. The J8 line had stops for sublevels on the southeast portion of the pit.
The Security Division troopers disembarked as they passed the monorail stop at sublevel 18, joining a crowd of white-armored comrades. The door to the main laboratory on that level had been reduced to a scorched void, from which Security agents were retrieving all types of busted scientific hardware. A number of black plastic bags concealed a variety of lumpy misshapen objects outside, some of them still twitching.
“I wonder what happened there,” Natalya thought aloud.
“Nothing good,” Andromeda said. “And nothing that concerns us.”
The monorail soon sped them down another level from the crime scene. It halted at the sublevel 19 station, where the trio left the car behind. Natalya rushed up to the door to the Blackstone laboratory, just a short walk from the stop. She pulled out a set of metal discs and pressed them into the door lock, then scanned her palm. A small computer screen flipped around and displayed an image of a colorful nudibranch, a giant octopus, and a ruddy land snail.
“Please identify,” the automated voice said. “You have 30 seconds.”
“Doris annae, Enteroctopus dofleini, and Monadenia fidelis,” Natalya recited.
“All species identified. Welcome to the Blackstone lab.” The door slid open and the three entered the airlock.
“Ajax?” Natalya called as she exited through the airlock into the lab proper. A purple hologram shimmered to life.
“Greetings, Natalya,” Ajax said. He looked to Andromeda and Artemisia as they came in. “The visitors I presume are authorized by Dr. Blackstone?”
“Yep!” Natalya said. “We’re here to pick up some specimens. Can you help us out?”
“Of course,” the A.I. said. “I will prepare the transport containers.” A robotic arm slid over to a stack of small plastic boxes and began neatly setting them out on a nearby worktable
Andromeda took a better look around the lab. Corridors of thin metal shelves were stocked with hundreds of glass tanks. Some tanks contained nothing but some peat moss and a few pieces of cucumber for an unremarkable brown slug. Others were large saltwater reef tanks bedecked with bright sponges the size and color of a peeled watermelon upon which crawled forearm-sized nudibranchs, their feathery gills fluttering. Still more were tall and relatively empty, with dainty blue slugs feasting near the surface around a stricken Portuguese man o’ war. A large cylindrical tank was inky dark, but tiny white sea angels flapped their dainty wings about as they spiraled in its slow current. A squat deep tank held a large red octopus that peered at Andromeda curiously, stretching his tentacles towards the unfamiliar human.
“I see you’ve met Jorge,” Natalya said, approaching the octopus tank. “He’s mischievous. Loves to sneak out and get into the clam tanks for a snack when we’re not here. Ajax usually has to keep a close eye on him.”
“Yes, in fact just yesterday I caught him trying to disassemble the filter valve,” Ajax said.
“Aw, being a rascal are you?” Natalya said, dangling her arm into the cold water. The octopus reached up and wrapped his suckers around her. Natalya giggled. “So cute!”
“Yeah, I guess he’s kind of cool,” Andromeda said. “A bit mushy though.”
“He can slip through any gap bigger than his beak,” Natalya said, “And he’s pretty clever too. I bet he’s bored, so let’s give him a toy.” She went over to a nearby fridge and grabbed a large unpeeled shrimp out of a container with a pair of large forceps. On top of the fridge were some screw-top jars, one of which she grabbed and stuck the shrimp inside. Handing the jar to Andromeda, she said, “Here. Stick that into his tank. He’s a cuddler though, so look out!”
“Alright then,” Andromeda said with uncertainty. She slowly lowered her arm into the cold water. Though she tried to stay as far away from the octopus’s slimy red tentacles as possible, the cephalopod was wily and simply crawled over to her. He unfurled his 8 appendages and reached one out towards Andromeda’s plush forearm.
“Octopuses taste with their arms, so he probably wants to get a good lick of you,” Natalya said, clicking the forceps together like a crab claw.
Andromeda shuddered as the octopus adhered to her with sticky suckers, leaving round marks in her supple flesh. “Yeah, uh, okay,” she said. “This can stop now.” She let Jorge grab hold of the jar of shrimp and yanked her arm out of the water, free from the tentacle’s clutch.
“Aw,” Natalya said. “You’re no fun.”
With a loud bang, a drainage pipe over their heads burst, gushing an iridescent mixture of diluted chemical waste and a black whorled snail shell that thunked down onto the floor. The mollusk poked a pair of stumpy eyestalks out of its shell and turned itself over. Scale armor of hardened black sclerites covered its scarlet foot upon which it slowly glided forward. The pair of tentacles about its mouth sensed iron in the steel flooring, and its tooth-coated tongue began to scrape up the metal aided by acidic saliva. Its caustic, vinegar-scented mucus smoked and bubbled as it burned into the floor.
Andromeda stared at the creature for a moment, then turned to Natalya. “Is that also one of yours?” she asked.
“It can’t be. It looks like a sea pangolin, but those are benthic organisms,” Natalya said. “They only live around hydrothermal vents.... This is a new species!” She grabbed the snails’ shell with her forceps, the aluminum immediately fizzling against the mucus-coated whorl. Humming a cheery tune, she brought the gastropod over to a plastic container on the worktable and dropped it in. “Oh, Dr. Blackstone is going to be so proud of me,” Natalya said, tittering. She closed her eyes for a moment. “All my studying is finally paying - hey, where’d it go!”
The snail, not content to be held in its prison, had torn a hole oozing sticky strands of melted plastic into the bottom of the tank, eaten its way through the table, and fallen back to the floor.
“You can get that one,” Andromeda said. “I’ll get the rest of the specimens.”
“Alright,” Natalya replied. “You’ve got the list right?”
“Yep,” Andromeda said. She unfolded the list from her slightly-too-tight jeans and scooped up a pile of boxes in her chunky arms. “Shouldn’t take too long.”
Andromeda wandered over to Artemisia, who was examining the lab’s robotic claw. “Do you wanna help me find these specimens?” she asked her.
“Question,” Artemisia’s android said for her.
“Shoot.”
“Why did you lie?” the android asked.
“About you working in our lab? Don’t worry about it.”
Artemisia’s eyes narrowed, and she shook her head. “What are you planning?” her robot asked.
“You don’t have a doctoral advisor,” Andromeda said.
“Not true!” the android said.
“Okay, then who is it?”
Artemisia clenched her hands into fists and stared at the floor. “Can’t tell you,” her machine said.
“Oh, sure. ‘Can’t tell you.’ A doctoral candidate without an advisor is vulnerable,” Andromeda said. “You’ll have your lab, your launch bay, and your mech snatched out from under you by some bureaucratic process if you don’t find one.”
Artemisia nodded, continuing to bore her gaze into the steel plates.
Andromeda put her hand on her shoulder. “But that’s not something we need to worry about right now, okay? Let’s just go get these slugs and get out of here.”
It took Andromeda, Artemisia, and Artemisia’s robot helper about an hour to search through the entire laboratory for the required species, plop them into specimen containers, and bring them back to the front of the lab. By the time they were done, they were both huffing and puffing and damp with perspiration from walking down aisle after aisle of specimen racks searching for the right species. However, Natalya was nowhere to be found.
“Where is she?” Andromeda wondered aloud. “Hey, Natalya! We have all the specimens. Did you get that snail? Let’s go!”
The lithe girl wandered out from one of the racks. “I couldn’t find it,” Natalya said.
“How could you not find it?” Andromeda asked. “It’s a snail. Did it sprout a pair of legs and sprint off?”
“No.”
“Well then, where is - hold on,” Andromeda started to say, but then stopped. “Did you see any holes in the floor?”
Natalya’s eyes went wide. She rushed back down one of the aisles repeating a string of “Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no....”
Andromeda followed her down the row of tanks to a baseball-sized hole already bored through the steel flooring and into the concrete below. “Odd?” Andromeda asked into her phone. “What’s directly below us right now?”
The blue A.I. hologram appeared from the device. “Let me find out,” Odysseus said, and thought for a moment. “Well, this is troublesome. You are 5 levels above the containment for Unit 4 of the Hades Research Reactor Facility.”
“Well, that’s not a problem,” Andromeda said. “Those reactors are sealed in tight. Just breaking through the shell around them isn’t an issue.”
“Just breaking through the concrete might not be a problem,” Odysseus said, “But a dripping acid trail could damage any number of systems inside the containment. Unit 4 is carbon dioxide cooled, and a very, shall we say, finicky design. Certainly no RBMK, but if the pressure seals around the reactor core were to be somehow deactivated, say by being turned to molten slag....”
“I get the picture,” Andromeda said. “Let’s get Security on this now and -”
“No!” Natalya interrupted, returning from her jaunt around the lab. “They’ll just kill it. We want it back alive. Dr. Blackstone needs to see it.”
Andromeda sighed. “Alright, fine. Are any of your specimen containers acid-proof?”
“I don’t think so,” Natalya said.
She thought for a moment. “Do you have any baking soda?”
“I think in the chemical storage,” Natalya said. She went into one of the cabinets under the table at the front of the lab. She tossed the orange box to Andromeda. “Here. Why do you need it?”
“We need something weakly basic that will help keep that caustic mucus from attacking everything it touches once we find it,” Andromeda said, filling one of the specimen containers with the white powder. “If we use something strong, like sodium hydroxide, we’ll just kill it, and as easy of a solution as that would be, you don’t seem to want that for some reason.” She handed the container to Natalya and pulled out her phone again. “Odd, what’s one floor below us?”
“Public records storage. It’s open,” the A.I. said.
“Great. How hard can it be to catch this gastropod anyways?” Andromeda said.
The three rushed to catch the next monorail car down to the next level, a completely open ring that surrounded the entire pit of the Hades Deep. Thousands of server racks were lined in innumerable rays of black metal around the gaping black hole of the shaft. Odysseus directed the three to line up their position with the hole in the lab floor a level above them. The caustic mollusk proved easy to find, though, as its red-orange flesh popped out against the drab columns of dark grey boxes. Natalya immediately spotted it crawling along and dissolving the top cover of a stack of processors.
“There,” she said, pointing out the dangerous gastropod. “Is there a ladder nearby?”
Andromeda and Artemisia searched around their immediate area, but no climbing devices of any sort could be found. “Just use the servers, there should be enough handholds to get you up there,” Andromeda said.
Natalya rolled up her sleeves. She approached the server rack, took a deep breath, and boosted herself up using a gap between the bottom-most and second bottom-most cases. Hand by hand and foot by foot, she clambered up to the top of the stack, the capturing container held firm between her teeth. Reaching the top, she slowly positioned the mouth of the box around the snail’s whorled turban shell.
“Ha!” Natalya said, slamming the container lid down. “Got you. Woah!”
With only her feet holding her in place, Natalya lost her balance and fell off the rack. Andromeda’s eyes went wide; powered by pure adrenaline, she rushed to catch the tiny biologist. Natalya hurtled like a meteor into her, knocking the wind straight out of Andromeda’s lungs. Fortunately, the landing was cushioned by a thick layer of adipose. The specimen container bounced off Andromeda’s squishy tummy and landed upside down on the floor.
“Sorry,” Natalya said, extending a hand to help Andromeda up. “Are you alright?”
“Oof,” Andromeda said, her breathing returning to her. “Probably just bruises, nothing major. Where’s the snail?”
Artemisia pointed out the specimen container on the ground.
The three girls watched as the snail’s chemical cocktail sputtered and sizzled against the snow of baking soda that surrounded its foot. For a moment, it looked like the plan had worked perfectly. Then, the powder turned into a translucent slurry of mucus and reaction products from the solution of acids and solvents in the snail’s fluids. Soon enough, with the baking soda's neutralizing power completely defeated, the compounds in the mollusk’s slime burned through the bottom of the plastic container as well, and it slipped out through the hole.
Natalya’s broad grin flipped upside down like she had been taken through a loop-de-loop on a rollercoaster. Buckets of tears welled up in her eyes. The gastropod was well on its way to dissolving through the metal floor as well.
“We need to get Security on this now,” Andromeda said. “They have a whole battalion of troops just a few floors above us, they’ll deal with it in -”
“No!” Natalie said, whipping back to face Andromeda. “‘Dealing with it’ to the Security Division means turning that little snail into a splatter on the floor. It doesn’t deserve that!”
Andromeda rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say.”
“Okay, yeah, I get it, you don’t see the beauty of mollusks,” Natalya said. “They’re slimy and gross and squishy, and you like to batter and deep fry them for a snack.” She stomped towards Andromeda. “But guess what? That mollusk might be vitally important to getting both of our labs more funding, so we’d better catch it if you don’t want to be stuck as an apprentice forever.”
She took a deep breath, calming herself. “We’ll just catch it on the next floor with... something,” Natalya said.
The next level held only a vacant laboratory, at least according to Odysseus. Andromeda cautiously entered while the others waited outside, on the lookout for Security troopers who might not take kindly to them snooping around and refusing to say what they were looking for. A condensed breath of mist floated aside as Andromeda padded into the lab. A thin man in a dark blue suit and tie stood in the hallway. He gazed at seemingly nothing but the empty mist, but then turned to face Andromeda.
“Have you seen an acidic snail?” Andromeda asked the man.
“No,” the man said. He walked towards her and placed his hand on her shoulder. His cold grip dug deep into her padded upper arm. “Not yet.”
“Not yet?” Andromeda echoed. She turned to face the man as he walked past her. “What does that -”
But all she saw was mist.
Andromeda sprinted out as fast as her tree-trunk legs could carry her. “There’s nothing in there to help us,” she said to Natalya and Artemisia between gasps. “Let’s just get to the next floor, maybe we’ll have more luck there.”
The car stopped at level 22. The door to the lab there was ajar. A ghostly flicker of white light scraped past through the crack, and an ooze of translucent slime streaked across the floor. Andromeda gingerly widened the door, carefully avoiding stepping in the clear viscous fluid.
“Denny... Denny just wants to watch.... Denny is hungry....” a man said, his voice a wheezing car engine choking on cigar smoke. He wore nothing but a black leotard. As he rolled on the floor, he coated himself in a thick slime which reeked of isopropyl alcohol. “You’re trash garbage!” he roared. “I’m going to eat you! Blaergh!”
Andromeda slammed the door shut. Without a word, the three mutually agreed to just wait for the snail on the next floor down.
The next sublevel was multipurpose, the area near the J8 monorail divided into a chemistry classroom, a low-level Security prison, and a small eating area with an automated burger joint. Whoever had zoned out this area clearly had been a bit scatterbrained, or perhaps no one else wanted it for anything since it was only five meters above boiling cauldrons of radiation and death. Dark hallways led off to other parts of the Deeps. 250 meters from the surface, the illumination here left the sublevel in constant twilight.
“I’m going to search that classroom,” Natalya said. “Maybe it’s unlocked.” Somehow, she hit the jackpot: not only was it open, but an emptied container for hydrofluoric acid had been stashed inside one of the cabinets. It was just the right size to trap an aggressively caustic and slippery mollusk.
While Natalya searched the classroom, Andromeda wandered over to the Security prison. From a distance, she recognized the same dented black armor from a little over a week ago inside the transparent walls of the lockup. Her helmet had been removed, her long raven hair limp and hanging over one of her mossy eyes. An android guard stood at attention and briefly analyzed her with its sensors as she approached, finding that Andromeda posed no threat. It was more concerned with its lone charge inside the prison. Dr. Katherine-Marie Voltaire sat on her thin cot inside the plexiglass cell, lit by a dangling halogen bulb. A few small holes in the cell let the stale air of the Deeps in and allowed her to communicate with whoever might decide she was worth a visit.
“Hello, Voltaire,” Andromeda said, approaching her former advisor.
“I see you’ve somehow managed to gain even more weight in a little more than a week,” Voltaire said, noticing Andromeda’s new sweatshirt and scanning up and down her paunch. “Impressive. You’re fattening up like a pig for slaughter.”
Andromeda did not respond to the bait.
“Why are you here?” Voltaire asked. “Have you come to gloat? Come to watch me wallow in misery? Do you take pleasure in my suffering?”
Andromeda remained silent.
Voltaire got up off the cot and approached the plastic barrier between herself and her former student. “Why are you here, Ms. Vainion?” she asked. The Security android took notice and went to a higher state of alertness.
“Why did you do it?” Andromeda asked. “Was I not good enough for you?”
Voltaire chuckled. “I told you all of this when I let you go. There was nothing you were doing that I couldn’t handle better myself. You were just a drain on my resources, just like I know you’re a drain on Dr. Zimov right now. Soon you’ll crack and wash out of here like everyone else who can’t truly handle science does.”
Andromeda’s eyes narrowed, and she quickly turned to leave.
“You know I’m right!” Voltaire shouted as Andromeda exited the prison.
“Andromeda!” Natalya called, waving from a table in the eating area. The brown acid container sat next to her on the bench. Andromeda made her way over and rested her weight against the tabletop.
Her starved beast of a belly growled at her. “I’m gonna grab some dinner,” Andromeda said, pointing to a nearby fast food machine. “One of you keep watch for the snail.”
Artemisia and her robot nodded. Natalya followed Andromeda over to the automated stand. The cart had a small omniprinter inside it that quickly fried, baked, and grilled whatever it was you ordered off the menu.
“What time is it?” Andromeda idly muttered as she typed in her order. She checked her phone. 3:31 PM, it read.
Natalya looked over her shoulder, and her face looked like it had been splashed with bleach. “No, no, no, no, no, no!” Natalya cried, taking a step back. “Ugh, no, we have to go back. I’m not going to have any time to study and then I’m going to fail. This is the end....” She collapsed into the bench nearby.
Andromeda went over to her. “Have you never failed a class before?” Andromeda asked, her brow furrowed.
“No! I’ve never gotten less than an A in anything,” Natalya wailed. “If I don’t do some studying, I won’t be ready for lecture tomorrow, and then I won’t be ready for the homework after lecture, and then I won’t be ready for the test, and then I’ll fail!”
Andromeda sighed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not!”
“It is. It really is,” Andromeda said. “I’m sorry, but you seriously study for fucking lecture?”
“Yes! That way I can be sure to understand -”
Andromeda cut her off. “You’re wasting your time. Go get a life.”
“Science is my life!” Natalya roared. “These mollusks are my life! What the fuck do you do all day? Sit in your dorm and eat ice cream and calamari?”
“N-no,” Andromeda said, blanching. She regathered her confidence. “Artemisia and I spent all of last week building a mech, and then we killed a giant lizard that attacked us.”
Artemisia nodded vigorously from her lookout spot.
Natalya stared at the two of them for a moment, silent. “Well, that’s just - that’s just great,” she said, breaking into a pained smile. She forced her index finger into Andromeda’s cavernous belly button. “I’m so glad a pair of worthless gluttons like you could save the Institute.”
Andromeda shot back and gave Natalya an indignant salute in the form of a dismissive wave. “Okay, fuck you,” she said. She stomped over to the vending machine and grabbed her boxed cheeseburger. “Fuck you,” she repeated as she walked past Natalya over to Artemisia. The roboticist exchanged watches with Andromeda to get her own meal.
“What, you can’t take a compliment?” Natalya asked, her tone laced with sarcasm.
Andromeda took a deep breath, screwing up her face. “Okay. Listen. Do you want to know the real secret of this place? Classwork, homework, tests - it doesn’t mean jackshit. It’s artificial and worthless. You know what I do when I don’t know something?”
“I bet that happens a lot...” Natalya said.
“I look it up,” Andromeda said, ignoring the comment. “Or I have the lab A.I. look it up! Science isn’t about being a walking encyclopedia. It’s about being able to solve complicated problems creatively.”
“But I still need to pass my classes to become a doctoral candidate,” Natalya said. “I can’t do that if I don’t study.”
“Have you ever asked Dr. Blackstone if the amount you study is normal?” Andromeda asked. “Or anyone? Because it’s not. If you couldn’t handle the workload, you wouldn’t be here in the first place.”
Natalya tried to come up with a retort, but couldn’t. She sulked in her chair.
Andromeda turned her anger onto the helpless burger as she tore open the box and chomped on the spongy, ketchup-soaked bun.
“I hate to intrude, but you really shouldn’t eat that,” Odysseus said, appearing from Andromeda’s phone. “It contains - ”
“Odysseus,” Andromeda said, staring the A.I. down. “I don’t care.”
“Then perhaps it would be better for me to inform you that I have located the snail,” Odysseus said. “I would encourage you to hurry though, since I will remind you that we are just above the Unit 4 containment.”
“Show us!” Andromeda said. Odysseus pointed to a small black lump nearby.
Natalya jumped up and rushed over to the snail with her new trap. “Got it!” she cried, and screwed the lid on tight. “Just in time.”
But the snail had no interest in pleasing the young biologist. It circled about its prison a few times, scraping its toothy beak and radula against the bottom. Bit by bit, it cut through the acid-proof plastic. It landed at Natalya’s feet with a plop.
Natalya stared at the gastropod. The mollusk’s eyestalks, seemingly filled with frigid, unknowing rage, stared back. “Raraaaaaugh!” Natalya roared, picking her foot up to smash the tiny creature, before stomping it down just next to it. She collapsed to the ground, sobbing and defeated.
Andromeda whipped out her phone. “Odd, get Security on the line,” she said. “How much time do we have until that thing breaches the containment?”
“At the current rate, maybe... five minutes?” Odysseus said.
“Do it quick! We don’t -”
A blue ray of freezing energy shot from the darkness and froze the snail solid. Vanya stepped out from one of the shadowy hallways and wiped the misty barrel of the cryonic beam with a microfibre cloth. “Hello, Andromeda. I heard you were having a problem,” he said.
“Odysseus...” Andromeda growled to the A.I.
“My apologies,” Odysseus said. “I informed Dr. Zimov of your troubles just as you left Dr. Blackstone’s lab. He was not certain if he would make it in time.”
“If he’d told you I was coming, you might have not been thorough in your efforts to stop this creature,” Vanya said, picking up the frozen snail in a hazard-gloved finger and placing it in a titanium cylinder. “It seems your efforts were valiant, but futile.”
Andromeda’s mouth was a thin line.
Vanya ignored Andromeda’s expression. “This did prove a great test of the cryonic beam’s freezing potential,” he said, “And your software improvements were essential to optimizing the beam flux.”
Andromeda blinked. “Oh. Yeah. Uh, no problem. It was a simple coding job.”
“Glad to hear it,” Vanya said. “Now, I believe the four of us should get Byron’s specimens and get back to the surface. Being this far from the sun for this long can make one quite a bit mad.” He looked at Natalya, whose face was wracked by quakes of disbelief, her right eyelid twitching.
The ride back to the Blackstone lab was uneventful. They summoned a courier robot to push the cart full of specimens for them, then boarded a train back to the surface. Natalya and Artemisia sandwiched Andromeda between them, while Vanya sat across the aisle, using his cybernetic hand to read a holographic display of some scientific journal.
Andromeda looked at Natalya. The junior was pale and fidgeting. She kept pulling out a small cloth to polish her glasses for the umpteenth time.
“Alright! Urgh, I’m sorry, okay,” Andromeda suddenly said. Vanya looked up from his paper, a bit confused. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. It’s just - you know what, nevermind. This is stupid.”
“Whatever it is, it isn’t stupid,” Natalya said, sniffling. “I accept your apology.”
“You... you remind me of myself, okay!” Andromeda sputtered. “That’s it,”
Natalya looked as if Andromeda had slapped her. “What?”
“There was a time before all of this when I had your motivation, and drive, and organization,” Andromeda said. “I wasn’t a complete studying freak, sure, but I wanted to be the best. I was passionate about things, like you are with mollusks. Then I failed once, and all of that just fucking evaporated.”
“Are you saying that’s going to happen to me?” Natalya said, her eyes wide with fear.
“No!” Andromeda said. “No, of course not. I guess I’m just saying... don’t let another person’s mistake ruin your dreams.”
Natalya took a deep breath and calmed herself down. Vanya gazed into Andromeda’s soul with the laser-like vision of his multi-lensed eyes. The monorail slid into the station at Regulus Tower, and the four scientists disembarked.
Dr. Blackstone met them in his genetics lab on level 91 of the tower, having called a courier android to move his tank. The space was filled with smooth white test tube racks, shaker baths, PCR machines, and other gadgets for DNA analysis. After a brief demonstration of the cryonic beam on one of the other specimens, Vanya unveiled the still-frozen acid snail. The nudibranch scientist gazed at it with his beady black eyespots.
“Hm. Yes, this does seem novel,” Dr. Blackstone said. “You said it came from a drainage pipe?”
“Yes,” Natalya answered. “It fell out of a pipe from above the lab.”
“That’s an unusual place for a land snail, but nonetheless. Could you slice off a bit of its foot for me?”
Natalya took up a small exacto blade and cut off the end of the mollusk’s tail. After thawing the piece off, carefully washing it clean of any remaining mucus, and mashing the sample to a pulp to lyse the cells, she placed it in a solution to extract the snail’s DNA. A few more processes later, and the genetic sequence was read out on one of the lab computers.
“Curious,” Dr. Blackstone said. “Very curious.”
“What’s wrong?” Vanya asked. He sidled up next to the tank.
“There’s a peculiar genetic sequence embedded within the junk DNA of this snail’s genome,” Blackstone said. “First it lists 26 of the 64 codons, each spaced with a stop codon in between. Then 16 of those codons repeat about 100 times.”
“It’s a genetic signature,” Natalya said.
“Precisely correct,” Blackstone said, “And it belongs to one ‘Lord’ Stefan Andros. Now, as a member of the peerage myself, I can assure you that Dr. Andros is not a lord of anything.”
“Arrogant prick,” Vanya muttered.
“Strong language,” Blackstone said, “But I’m inclined to agree.”
“I’ll report this to Security,” Vanya said. “They’re very tired of Dr. Andros being careless with his pets, and I’m certain they would just love to hear about this.”
“It seems our collaboration has been a smashing success, wouldn’t you say?” Dr. Blackstone asked.
“Agreed,” Vanya said. “I’m looking forward to continuing to work with you in the future. Andromeda, Andromeda’s...” He looked at Artemisia. “Friend? I think we’ve taken up enough of Dr. Blackstone’s time. Let’s get back to Altair Tower.”
Natalya smiled meekly at Andromeda and Artemisia from her place at the lab computer. “Thanks for helping me out,” she said.
“Don’t mention it,” Andromeda said, turning to follow Vanya out the door. As she left, she just vaguely heard Natalya start to say, “Dr. Blackstone, I’d like to ask you about my studying habits....” The full conversation was muted by the lab door closing behind them.
“I didn’t want to make a fuss in front of Dr. Blackstone or his assistant,” Vanya said to Andromeda as they rode the elevator down, the apertures of his goggles narrowing, “But I didn’t say you could bring a colleague with you.”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t,” Andromeda shot back. “Artemisia was helpful in getting all the specimens together. And she’s an expert roboticist. I think we should form a collaborative lab with hers.”
“That’s not something an apprentice can arrange,” Vanya said. “What level is she?”
“She’s a doctoral student.”
“Then we’d need to talk to her doctoral advisor. Who is that?”
“I don’t know,” Andromeda said. “She won’t say.”
Vanya looked to Artemisia. “Who do you work for?” he asked.
Artemisia exchanged glances with the android on her shoulder. She sighed, and said, “Dr. Wulfrik Argentine.”
Vanya’s many eyes went wide and he began to cackle his scratchy, grinding laugh. “You’re joking,” he said. “That old man’s retired. He doesn’t take doctoral students anymore.”
“He’s my father,” Artemisia said.
“Yes. Her full name is Artemisia Argentine,” Odysseus said from Vanya’s hand. The scientist stopped laughing. “And I can confirm that her public records show she is Dr. Wulfrik Argentine’s daughter.”
Vanya raised his goggles, revealing his ice blue eyes, and turned his gaze to Andromeda. “Apprentice, you continue to surprise me,” he muttered.
=0101011001101111011011000111010001100001011010010111001001100101=
Back in the darkness of the Hades Deep, Dr. Voltaire still sat in her cell awaiting trial. There was not much for her to do except pace back and forth and catch up on many nights of sleep lost during her graduate school days. That night, however, she was restless. She faintly heard the drone of the monorail car stop at the prison’s level.
Someone walked up to the android guard and lobbed a vial of acid at its central processor. The caustic fluid melted the machine’s armor and circuitry like butter in a microwave. The android groaned and sparked as it collapsed, destroyed. Its assailant cooly entered the lockup and immediately identified the sole person held captive there.
“Who are you?” Voltaire asked, approaching the man at the plexiglass wall. A sensor suppression mask obscured his face, the low hum it emitted blinding and deafening any snooping electronics. He wore a black hazard suit for protection against whatever threats he might face in his mission. Pulling a metal canister off the suit’s utility belt, he placed it against the transparent wall between them. With a push of a button on the base, the lid slid open, allowing the gastropod inside to extend its foot onto the glass and unleash its cutting power. The bulletproof plastic popped and bubbled as the acidic snail crawled up and around the edge of the cage.
“Who are you?” Voltaire asked again. The man removed his helmet, revealing a shock of flax-blonde hair and dark green eyes like a pair of polished beryls.
“Lord Stefan Andros,” the man said. “I require your services, Dr. Voltaire.”
Within a few moments, there was enough of a gash that Lord Andros could punch the wall down with the augmented strength provided by the hazard suit. Voltaire dodged out of the way of the falling, rough-shapen panel. Her savior extended his hand through the opening to help her through. He picked his creation up off the remaining piece of the destroyed prison block, his fingers protected by acid-proof gauntlets standard to hazard armor.
Voltaire smiled. “Of course, my Lord,” she said, but suddenly her stomach growled at her like a horrible genetic abomination prodded with an electric spear. “But first, let me get something to eat. You would not believe what they feed you in there.” Voltaire wandered over to the nearby fast food cart and placed her order.
Dr. Andros chuckled and crushed his acid snail beneath his heel.
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M.E.R.C.s - The Widowmaker
7-21-890 AR
How did I even get here? he thought idly. The action of reloading his high frequency axe was practically mechanical. Turn off the engine, hold down the clutch, close the valve, undo the latch, toss empty canister, place new canister, redo latch, reopen valve release clutch. The empty canister clattered across the dimly lit tile floor before sliding into the growing pile of blood oozing out of the murdered corporate security officers. Terry paused before turning on the engine of his weapon, letting himself fall into reverie for a moment.
It all started with that damn film. When he was just a kid he’d watched Mercenary II: Revengant, and it was his favorite movie for years to come. Its visceral action, stone-cold protagonist, and intense style had made an impression on his young mind. Despite how much his father had scowled at him when he’d said that he wanted to be a mercenary when he grew up, he’d felt the same way when he signed up to be an official, licensed M.E.R.C. at 18. All the years up until then he’d been a devout fan of the Mercenary movies, and had gotten into his school’s gun club to learn everything he could about weapons of all sorts. Then, ten years after seeing that movie, Terrance Wood put his name into the Newland City M.E.R.C Registry and he’d begun the next chapter of his life. At the time he couldn’t give a damn that his wealthy, vert sector family was disowning him for becoming a soldier of fortune.
The dim auxiliary lighting of the lobby was only interrupted by the occasional flicker of the broken screen blaring some ad for life insurance behind Terry. It had been shot a few times while he dispatched the corpsec, and it was dying just as slowly as the guards who’d injured it. They’d been sealed in with him when the building’s lockdown system activated, putting down armored security shutters over all the windows near the ground and activating any electronic lock in the building. They weren’t ready to be locked in with a MERC who had an HF axe and a killing intent, leaving the corpsecs like rats stuck in a pen with a hungry crawhound.
Much like the fight in the lobby, the past 14 years since he’d signed up had been something of a blur. Back when he was a fresh-faced, gung ho gun he’d worked with the Mercenary-Contractor Association, and he’d stayed with them for a good few years. The pay was OK, but his Handler was a soulless asshole of a chimera, who dropped him after he lost an eye and then some in a dicey engagement over the property rights of an oldtech dig site, that he’d had very pointedly sent Terry to pursue. The shot that had taken out his eye had taken a bit of brain matter out along with it, and it was truly a miracle that he’d survived. The brain damage and lost eye laid him up in the hospital for months, and it cleared out most of his savings that he’d managed to put together while living the high life of a successful mercenary.
Terry could hear the clack and jangle of the Power Motors Incorporated soldiers stacking up outside of the lobby, just as he’d hoped. After killing the Illigan regional manager he’d really kicked the rokabee nest, and he was going to have to chop his way out through a mass of corpo bodies. As much as he was being paid an exorbitant amount of gold for this job he couldn’t imagine making a corporate soldier’s wage and sticking his neck out for the well being of any other employees. But really, that had never been the life for him.
After the incident he’d had a lot of problems speaking, and getting used to the vision from his new cybernetic eye had been difficult. However, not long after he’d finally gotten used to it he was discharged and out on the streets. Back then he’d barely had anything, besides the tattered clothes on his back and a bank account with only double digits in it. He spent some of his last gold bullion on some bargain bin weapons from a pawnshop and went to hunt down his previous handler. Payback’s a bitch when it comes back around, and he barely left enough for his deceased employer’s wife to recognize him by. With no real plans after the pre-meditated murder, Terry was glad that he’d been noticed by the Sable Foundation talent scout who’d been stalking him. He signed up with the organization right then and there, his hands still slick with the blood from his old boss.
A heavy “thunk” pierced his thoughts. They were placing a breaching charge on a side door to the lobby. He still had a few moments, and he was in no rush to betray his presence to the soldiers. Terry pulled a chaff grenade out of his bandoleer. These last few years had made him a lot of money, so he could afford some fun tools. The soldiers were likely going to have some cybernetic enhancements or VIZ systems, so some chaff would really fuck with them, and he was able to fight in close combat with a single eye very well. If they were sufficiently disoriented by the shimmering cloud of particulate they’d be easy prey for the axeman.
After agreeing to join the Foundation, Terry had yet again seen the end of his previous life. The Foundation was a good employer for him, they cared little about legality and they paid out well. After his first few jobs he’d been able to afford a proper apartment, a new cyber-eye, and a full kit of weaponry, armor, and tools for his work as an assassin. It was still going well, really. The job to assassinate the head of the Illigan branch of Power Motors Incorporated was a fairly high profile mission, even for Terry, but it would make him enough gold to retire on at the age of 32. It had only taken him a truly monumental amount of murder and working for a shady, semi-legal assassin-for-hire organization to get here. He was looking forward to getting home and ordering something greasy and salty in celebration of another job well done.
The armored door on his left side flew across the lobby with enough velocity to leave it wedged into the concrete wall across the wide foyer. The fire and smoke from the explosion had barely cleared as he lobbed the cylindrical explosive towards the blasted doorframe. The second explosion from the perfectly timed grenade swallowed the entrance in silvery smoke that was tinted crimson by the emergency lights. The additional detonation and chaff-ridden smoke left the corpsols confused, if their disorganized yelling and confusion was anything to go by.
Terry almost smiled as he grabbed the ripcord for his axe’s high frequency engine. This was going to be easy. He held the cord with his left hand and the HF axe’s haft in his right and pulled the wire taut with single motion and gunned the throttle. The weapon’s engine roared to life like an awakened demon hungering for gore and mutilation. He was already running towards the chaff cloud as the voices within went quiet for a moment. The screaming was about to start. He pulled the thrumming axe head back and targeted the nearest set of glowing VIZ system lenses before slamming it down. The explosion of blood splattered Terry’s front side as he cleaved a corporate soldier’s head into two, ragged, bloody, unrecognizable chunks.
This was a great job.
#Ashlands#M.E.R.C.s#just a few weeks until Rimfire (High Yield)!!!#that will be the public release!!
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