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[x] Head down and do a death defying infiltration up the side of the megastructure.


"I don't really want to try to get between these two groups," you say. "Let's get off at the next station."

You alight onto an empty, automated platform. The outer part of the platform is in the open air, merging seamlessly into interior as it meets the main bulk of the megastructure. Through the archway you can see a sitting area, with new flowers and synthetic cloth sofas and thick walls of ancient climbing plants. On one wall is a set of public fabricators and delivery tubes. It seems like it should have an attendant but doesn't.

At the back is a set of brass-doored lifts, incongruously bright against the dark stone of a facade built centuries before, or after.

<<So what I suggest we do,>> you say, <<is we go down to one of the lower levels, and then we climb back up along the side of the Arcade and make entry to the spire from there. Once we've got access to the systems, we can just read everything without having to worry about talking our way in.>>

<<Hang on.>> says Shenla. <<Wouldn't it be a lot less dangerous if we were to just talk to them?>>

<<Well, I think you should stay back and run comms.>> Mirareki says. <<But it doesn't really matter if one of us falls off right? We just wake up in the nearest resurrection centre.>>

Shenla frowns. You expect her to object, but she just shrugs. <<I guess not. Do we want to fabricate our climbing gear here or down below?>>

<<Down below.>> Mirareki says. <<If there's intact monitoring it'll be exactly at stations like this that seem unattended.>>

Reizay nods to herself and heads for the lift. <<I think I want to come along on this climb.>>

<<Are you sure?>> you ask. She's not usually one of the more physically active members of the team.

<<I'm not sure if I'll be able to breach the data centre by remote.>> She says, then takes a deep breath and looks down. Like she's forcing herself to regard the vast distance below. <<You should do things like this while you're young.>>

<<Eh.>> Luyu says. <<I think it's better when you're old. When you're young, normal things are more fresh to you.>>

You head for the lift and step inside, dropping some forty stories.The levels are standard ten metre constructs so it'll be something like four hundred metres up. The glass walls of the elevator show cityscape below.

Descent takes several minutes. About half way down, Shenla speaks up <<You know, if we have gecko pads, this isn't actually that dangerous is it? I kind of think I should come along just to prove that I'm not going to die if I do something dangerous.>>

Mirareki frowns. <<It's a huge risk. We're several kilometres in the air.>>

<<On the other hand.>> Luyu says. <<If we have her with us and get caught, they'd need to talk, not rumble.>>

<<But what if they do actually shoot?>> asks Mirareki. Shenla gives her a sour look.

The lift dings and opens into a lower concourse. It's similar to the one above, a weird combination of black hypercarbon, dressed stone and new synthetic cloth fittings. This isn't a travel station but rather an arcade of shops and shrines and galleries, a lot busier than higher up. Such offsetting is usual in structures this size so you can more easily access areas between transit stations. You pass some foot traffic, a group of Rose side tourists laughing about the fact the local fashion doesn't include body swapping, a group of students in last stage of juvenile uniforms talking about the revolutionary youth movement, and a large AI core walking around on spider legs with a couple of flower robbed women walking with him.

Much as you like the flower dress, it wouldn't be good for climbing a megastructure. You stop briefly to change into your casuals and then at one of the fabricators and cycle some climbing gear out of its archives. It limits your selections but it means you don't have to wait for the fabricator to print off. You and Luyu make a set of selections from gear from known reliable coops and get it delivered. The machine automatically warms each item as it exits to give it the feel of something freshly printed, which you think is slightly ridiculous.

Another short train run takes you to the area under the station, and after a brief check for prying eyes you gear up, putting on harnesses and fixing on gecko grip gloves and other attachment points. Shenla and Mirareki are bickering, but both are putting on their equipment.

Reizay is bobbing up and down on her toes near the edge. She walks up to it and then back., then there and back again, then again before Luyu catches her on the step back and provokes a hideous shriek.

"What???"

Luyu keeps hold of her shoulders. "If it would help, I could throw you off to start."

"No thank you!"

The argument between Mirareki and Shenla has come to a head. "I'm going," Shenla snaps, "and that's final." Then she stomps off and pulls herself upwards. Mirareki presses her mouth closed and goes after her. The Ettas follow, and you notice Aletta is back in control. Odd as it seems for people who used to be a fighter craft, maybe they don't like heights?

Standing on the edge, you can understand Reizay's reaction. The fractal cityscape beneath the gulf seems almost scale-less, but for the weather and the pinpricks of air traffic that resolve that ambiguity into a yawning infinity. Your deep brain revolts, overpowered by the object presented to consciousness. But you have so many layers above to absorb its thrashing.

You climb up the sheer walls with long loping strides that leave Reizay and Shenla complaining until they find the rhythm for it. You pass air-clear windows onto multilevel municipal gardens. Anonymous complexes of tubes and vents that blot out the city sounds with a low roar. Ancient graffiti layered over and under equally ancient lichen. At one point you nearly surprise a pair of lovers on a secluded gantry they probably thought was private, but your countermeasures saved everyone's embarrassment and you moved on quickly.

Finally, you arrive at the top. The spike is not as solid as you expected. The bottom part is all windows. You send your drone screen up to check and pause. It seems like things are in the process of disintegrating up there. Inside the spike's main concourse, a group of militia women are moving up toward the barricade with a heavy three barrelled weapon on spider legs between them. Your drone can detect a half dozen targeting systems active. The Clock militia, a lot more professional, are moving forward cautiously outside behind a screen of inorganics.

There's a few ways you could approach this.

[ ] It's fine, not really your business. Let the two groups work their differences out and just climb across to a less dangerous section to gain access.
[ ] Communicate there's someone without a queue on the side of the tower and use that to try to terminate the oncoming fight.
[ ] Ambush the militia inside and then make a deal with the clocks outside.
[ ] Move to assist the militia inside and make a deal with them after the situation is resolved.

[X] It's fine, not really your business. Let the two groups work their differences out and just climb across to a less dangerous section to gain access.

You look up at the window. The activity inside has done one of those pauses that you remember often happening in violence like this, with weapons pointed but no actual shooting. The big gun drone has been brought up as a threat, but not actually fired.

<<I don't think we need to get involved in this,>> you say.

<<No objection here,>> says Luyu. <<Wouldn't be good sport, anyway.>>

<<How can you even think of it that way?>> snaps Mirareki. <<This is politics.>>

<<We don't even know what the politics are, so it's sport.>> Luyu returns, seemingly totally unbothered.

You continue to climb around the structure, following a new route that leaves a comfortable gap between you and the hot zone. The data spike is kind of annoying to climb because it has huge windows on the side with narrow bracings of concrete that's been varnished to look like it's unpainted. Maybe that's why the militia haven't really covered the outside.

The smooth concrete supports would be a challenging climbing surface if you didn't have gecko grip, but here it really isn't. You leave a drone to keep an eye on events which settles into a nicely sheltered gap between two blocky dormers. You realise a moment later that someone else's drone is also hiding in the same gap and watching the same standoff, right as it also spots yours, but there's nothing much either of you can do about it without compromising your positions so the two of you awkwardly pretend to ignore one another.

<<Someone else is watching,>> you say.

<<Probably just concerned locals,>> says Mirareki. <<It's good to keep an eye out when people are waving guns around. There's like three competing neighbourhood watch groups near here and it they all hate each other.>>

The Clock politicals and the militia inside have started to yell at one another on amplification.

""We are here with the authority of the regional revolutionary committee and a general vote of the whole. We ask that you immediately clear the structure and allow us to do our work."

"We're not attempting to assess any actual phenomena,. We simply seek to archive and save the data for posterity."

"You are talking about the private lives of a lot of people who want them back."

"The destruction of any collected data is a massive expansion of entropy! By attempting to wipe this data you are directly damaging the omega point!"

<<The inside guys are negentropists I guess.>> Luyu says. <<Good to know.>> Negentropists are one of the more fringe ideologies in the Garden, the universe has such plentiful sources of energy, everything from fusion to spin-state generators that the idea of needing to preserve everything for some notional point at the end of time feels fanciful. Still they have enough adherents that they tend to turn up just about everywhere. Always for data preservation, occasionally as useful tools of more oppressive states who want to render people legible to state power.

You pass into the shadow of a brutally cuboidal overhang and the thick fringe of foliage hanging over it. There's the crack of a carbine down below and small arms begin to sound regularly. This is still posturing of course. If things get serious you'd hear the boom of minimissiles and catapults. Instead you continue to climb slowly toward the top, bypassing several external drones probably laid by either the Clocks or the negentropists.

<<There's a pair of clock gunships to the north that might get involved.>> Luyu has, somehow, been monitoring air activity even as you climb up. The exchange of carbine fire dies away again and the two sides return to shouting at one another as you begin to ascend the spire. The sheer walls and large windows of the lower give way to a geometric porcupine of inverted spikes. It's a real pain to climb even though you're pretty sure it's just aesthetic, and you have to work out a new climbing gait to maintain a decent speed. You're afraid that if you're not quick, someone in the Clock unit is going to think of assaulting the building the same way you are. Indeed, you're surprised they haven't made a wall incursion given the relatively light recce screen that the Negentropists have out.

Finally, you reach near the top of the spike, a large area of servers. Inside, your drones show several negentropists are working, possibly preparing to try to data burst as much of the archive out to a remote story before the clock militia comes in as possible.

<<We could tap the data pulse.>> Mirareki suggests.

<<We don't know it'll have what we need.>> Atet objects.

<<I think I could get in there without anyone noticing and plug Reizay into it,>> you say.

<<There's still five of them in there. Are you that sure of your countermeasures?>> Mirareki asks.

Luyu unslings her plasma gun. <<Well alternatively, we could just send them all for a vat farm vacation.>> Shenla starts spluttering and asking her if she's insane, but the local resurrection coverage is pretty good so they probably wouldn't lose more than a few minutes of memory.

[ ] Wait till the battle below goes hot and use it as a distraction to sneak in.
[ ] Wait till the battle below goes hot and use it as a distraction to clear the data room by fire and grab what you need.
[ ] Sneak in immediately while the rest cover you.
[ ] Assault the room immediately and hope the distraction below is enough to keep you from having to fight everyone.