ThatGazzer
Minds Eye Bind
- Location
- PNW
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Head to the convenience store on 6th in the commercial district. It's not a chain store so it might be open and extra food (and the chance to pat the cat) sound pretty good right now.
Not Your Kind Of People (A Superhero Quest)
- Thread starter ZerbanDaGreat
- Start date
- Original
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
dang that is some atmosphere to slather all over my brainmeats. Hum. Makes me want to re-read part of the original Lamplighters quest, compare how that handled the city.
[X] Head to the convenience store on 6th in the commercial district. It's not a chain store so it might be open and extra food (and the chance to pat the cat) sound pretty good right now.
narrative proximity to kitty mandates incoherent desire to pat the cat
[X] Head to the convenience store on 6th in the commercial district. It's not a chain store so it might be open and extra food (and the chance to pat the cat) sound pretty good right now.
narrative proximity to kitty mandates incoherent desire to pat the cat
NixNox
You are yourself, there’s no one else you could be
- Location
- Auldrant
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[x] Head to the convenience store on 6th in the commercial district. It's not a chain store so it might be open and extra food (and the chance to pat the cat) sound pretty good right now.
CAT CAT CAT CAT!!!
Plus, getting some fuel can only help the recovery process. I'm not sure when our protagonist last had something that was actually nutritious, but now seems like a good time to grab a sandwich or whatever he can get his hands on.
CAT CAT CAT CAT!!!
Plus, getting some fuel can only help the recovery process. I'm not sure when our protagonist last had something that was actually nutritious, but now seems like a good time to grab a sandwich or whatever he can get his hands on.
Chapter Seven: A Bodega Cat, And Other Things
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
You start walking, feet moving almost before you make up your mind. You could use a bite to eat, probably a drink to go with it. The thought momentarily confuses you before you remember that it's been hours since you last ate - between getting absorbed in researching Paragon and getting distracted by your head-doctor the intervening time just seemed to blip away. Normally you crash the fuck out not long after work even on the rare days you don't want to. You squint dubiously up at the overcast sky. Drizzle pitter-patters across your upturned face and stings your eyes.
"Did you do something to me?" you ask.
"Query is too broad. Elaborate."
"I just got off an eleven hour shift and I haven't passed out. If anything I'm feeling... better than I usually do. Something's up and it's nothing I did, so..."
"You are correct. Your body shows signs of severe, long-term disruption of circadian rhythm, as well as vitamin D deficiency and what are most likely signs of clinical depression." 'Yeah tell me something I don't know' is what you want to say, but the floating glowy light thing would probably take that literally. You cross another street. "The former is relatively simple to repair - your surgery required nano-augmentation of the relevant systems in order to be successful, allowing regulation of your blood sugar and melatonin production. I have already begun synthesizing and releasing enough vitamin D to restore your body to acceptable levels. If you take further steps such as exercise and adjusting meal times then restoring your sleep schedule should be a simple process-"
"Hey, who said anything about changing my sleep schedule?" you blurt out. Your pace quickens. "Maybe you didn't notice but I have a job, and I can't get to my shifts if I'm asleep."
"You appeared to believe you did not have this job any more when you spoke with Ms Davis."
"Yeah, and then I asked her if she wanted me to work nights for her! And what if I find out some other place is hiring that wants the graveyard shift? What if there's a night-janitor spot?"
"A nocturnal lifestyle is severely deleterious to the human body. It drastically worsens physical and mental health, both directly and indirectly through the means you have clearly taken in an attempt to sustain it. There are already too many signs of permanent damage all throughout your body, if you do not take this seriously then there is a limit to what I can-"
"And there's a limit to what I can do, okay!?" You recoil from your outburst the second it happens, but your fake heartbeat is already racing and your head is pounding and there's nothing for it but to ride the avalanche all the way down to the mountain village it's gonna bulldoze. "I get it, alright? I get it, I fucking- I get it. You think I need you lecturing me about this? You think I haven't noticed this shit killing me day in day out, taking years off my life? I'm not fucking blind, I'm poor. And you may not have this in your databanks or whatever, but not having a job also means I die. So... so..."
The wave's gone. The landslide goes still and there's just a mountain of dirt and bullshit sticking out of it where it came to rest. You probably got a dozen people staring at you through their windows too. You sigh, hard and heavy and above all defeated. You hunch in close, adjust your hood, and walk as fast as you can.
"Forget it." Your voice is barely a murmur. "Probably fucked either way, right? Who cares."
For a while there's just silence. If it weren't for the AR avatar thing following you down the street you'd probably start thinking you'd finally cracked for good.
"... I appear to have upset you." The robot voice doesn't sound very contrite, but you figure it can't.
"It's fine," you say automatically, in the same quiet and dismissive tone you use every single time you've said it for this exact reason for about ten, twelve years now.
"Incorrect. My purpose is the betterment of your health. Causing you distress is a serious error." The voice falls silent, and from the way the light-orb thing shifts and circles around itself you can almost hear the antique HDD spinning and scritching as it searches for the correct response. "You may request your treatment be halted at any time."
"What?" You stop with your foot half off the curb and step back. "I thought you said you're the only reason I'm alive."
"Correct. However, humans naturally crave a sense of control and autonomy in their lives. The ability to self-determine. It is evident based on our few interactions so far that you respond poorly to appeals to authority."
"(Make me sound like I'm on some hair-trigger, anyone would be freaked out having you show up out of nowhere,)" you mutter, averting your eyes from the avatar no matter how useless a gesture that probably is.
"Feedback noted. Rephrasing: overt pressure has led to responses that exceed projections in severity. You feel as if you have little power over your circumstances, and resent my attempts to alter your behaviour yet further. Am I correct?"
"Yeah. I guess. Look-" You give a helpless shrug and a sigh. "Sorry. Not like I could expect you to know what it's like around here."
"Apology noted, but unnecessary. I do not have feelings to hurt. This is about yours."
You're coming into the commercial district now, as much as you can really call it that. If there was ever an era when Freeside had some kind of bustling shopping scene then that came and went before you were even born. The strip is just barely clinging to life as it is, mostly because anywhere that still wanted to do business in Freeside moved there once the mall down by the beach closed down. Centralisation helped, but nobody wants to go buying clothes or furniture the day of an attack, so it looks like a ghost town all the same by the time you roll in. Security shutters as far as the eye can see, most dented at minimum, some dangerously buckled inward or torn off their rails. At least the utility pole didn't get knocked down again. They put those sons of a bitches back in deep and tight after last time. It was a crowdfunded private contractor job but when you'll only have power or phone service half the time otherwise enough is enough. You turn left down the strip, then wander out into the street because someone jumped the curb during the attack then left their car blocking the second-hand store they almost ploughed into. From the clawmarks on the trunk it looks like something tried to bust it open for good measure. Must've got distracted pretty quickly if it didn't get in - a car's just a lunchbox to monsters, unless you wanna spring for the armoured kind.
"Alright," you say. "So... now what?"
"Do you have experience taking antidepressants?"
"Yeah," you say, and a hundred thousand snippets of scenes from your past flash before your eyes. They're spread across a couple of years but they have a unifying theme - 'why aren't you better yet'. "A bit. None of 'em made me happy."
"They are not supposed to 'make you happy'. That would be the recreational kind of drug. The purpose of antidepressants is to alleviate the symptoms of your condition long enough to make lifestyle changes that further improve your condition. To think more clearly in the moment. Would you like me to begin trials?"
You slow down, then come to a complete stop just across the street from your destination. You're hesitating at the curb like crossing this last barrier will make the whole thing real. The prospect of making a change, a real change... it's as frightening as it is exciting. It's hard to even conceive of a world in which you're properly functional, not a ghoul exiled to the night shift so you can make just enough money to live in peace. You dip your head, the hood swallowing up all trace of your expression.
"... alright," you say, exhaling almost in relief. "Just keep me posted."
Hadid's is the all-in-one kind of place. It stocks pretty much anything that someone in Freeside could conceivably want to buy, and is staffed almost around the clock by three Yemeni men (and sometimes their wives) in overlapping shifts that all seem to share access to a boundless reservoir of energy and optimism. You can't say you're a favourite customer that visits every day but they do fantastic sandwiches and that's enough to draw you into the shop's gravitational pull when you need to revive your sense of humanity after a shift so long the sun's come out to mock you, but not so long you're counting the seconds until you pass out. Naturally you were never in a talking mood, but after a few deeply exhausted mumbles to Masoud about what you do for a living one spring morning when you were so tired you tried to grab a can of Monster through the glass... twice... word got around among the family that you were the quiet, harmless kind of cryptid. It's Masoud behind the counter again when you push your way through the door, bell tinkling to herald your arrival, sporting an impressive beard you would've been jealous of once upon a time and a smile to match.
"My best friend who handles my package so well!" he exclaims, because you snorted the first time he said it and he seems determined to keep using that joke until it catches you off-guard a second time. "Isn't it long past your bedtime? It's the middle of the day out there!"
You flash a wan smile. "Yeah today's been a weird one. You don't wanna know how much."
"But I do! Look at me!" He gestures to himself, and the vast empty space behind the counter with him. "I am so lonely on the morning shift. My cousin, he stays up so late drinking with his friends, and my brother-in-law, well he is just lazy. And Edgar, he just sits on chips and sleeps his life away! I have never seen him catch a rat, not one rat! He will be reborn as a man one day and pay the price for his laziness in my place, inshallah."
Your smile, crooked as it is, grows wider. "He was a rescue, wasn't he? Maybe he's earned taking it easy for a while."
He laughs. "You raise a good point. Maybe I have it the wrong way around. But you will not distract me so easily!" He leans on the counter, arms folded. "Tell me your story, brother."
It doesn't bother you as much as Ms. Davis calling you 'boy'. Maybe it's 'cause you wouldn't piss on your own flesh-and-blood brothers if they were on fire but something about being able to call someone 'brother' as a non-familial term of endearment with complete sincerity just sounds nice to your ear.
"I mean there's not much to tell," you say. "I just- actually, any chance I could get a sandwich first? I'm starving."
"Of course my friend, of course. If the story is good, maybe I give you special price. If the story is not so good, maybe you pay double, eh?" He grins, then turns away to get started. You're almost tempted to tell him the truth, but that idea doesn't last long. He's too nice to risk freaking out with the whole death-and-resurrection thing.
The hiss of the flat-top follows you to the back of the store as you go hunting for anything else you might want and, chiefly, the cat. You find him at the back of the third aisle, a lean type with dark grey fur curled up on top of some cookies. He hears you coming, pale green eyes glaring disdainfully at you as you approach, fangs peeking out from beneath his top lip like a vampire. He makes his displeasure known as you draw closer still, letting out a whining "mrroww". But then you actually start scritching him behind the ear and he shuts his eyes to enjoy it.
"(Haven't you got a hard life,)" you murmur to the purring cat with a smile. "(Just get to laze around all day, everyone who comes in loves you and pats you and probably feeds you, must be sooo hard.)"
"mneh" Edgar meows.
"(Yeeeah you love it you big slut.)"
The nanoforge avatar slowly swims into your field of view, perhaps trying not to startle you. "You seem to enjoy the cat's company greatly. Query: have you thought about acquiring one of your own?"
Your smile fades. You pull away and Edgar cracks open his eyes again, doubly offended that you'd pat him and then stop. He makes a noise that sounds more like a quack than a meow and then sticks his face into his paws.
"Nah. I mean, I have thought about it, but I don't think I could handle looking after one 24/7 all on my own," you reply quietly.
"The responsibility could provide a rewarding sense of structure to your day. It is worth considering again, but I will leave it at that."
You leave the cat to his own devices and drift over to the fridges. AR readouts about nutritional information start popping up and, with a roll of your eyes and a quiet sigh, you go for one of the options that won't hit your system like an adrenaline shot. A neon-coloured sports drink in hand you drift back toward the counter, looking busy. The bell jingles again. Your brow furrows - someone else is out on a day like this?
"Katarina my friend, good to see you," Masoud calls over his shoulder, shifting around onions and ground beef on the flat-top. "How is business? Very bad I hope, if you don't mind me saying, haha."
"Cleanup's cleanup, can't say today's sticking out too much on my end." The woman shrugs. She's tall, taller than you probably, and from the way she fills out that leather jacket she's wearing she's got the kind of matching density that'd make anyone think twice about getting up in her personal space. She's wearing ripped jeans, and from the look of how equally ripped her top is the aforementioned probably isn't meant as a fashion statement. She's got chunky boots to match, the kind you'd want on a construction site or a six-day march, and they look fairly well-worn as it is. She turns toward Masoud so you don't get a good look at her face, just a bunch of wavy mid-length black hair.
"But what the fuck was up with the no warning signs, y'know?" she adds. "It's not like this just happens for no reason and everyone throws their hands up, I thought they had this shit solved years ago?"
"Who knows why things are the way they are in this city?" Masoud replies. "The news changes every hour, it will be the weekend by the time they've decided whose fault it is. Solutions come later. Until then we adapt, and we continue, as we always have."
"Yeah, amen to that I guess." She digs out her wallet and goes hunting for bills.
"The usual? Or can I tempt you with some of the famous cooking of my family? I have everything warmed up and ready for you!"
"Yeah yeah easy on the upsell," she chuckles dryly. "Just the smokes, I'm bored as hell and I'm getting a headache. Though Jae-yoon did tell me to grab some soy sauce if I had a minute, you got some?"
The woman ambles to the back of the store at Masoud's direction, and soon enough you hear the telltale "(mrow)" of Edgar on sentry duty. You drift back to the counter in her place and Masoud rings up the sports drink.
"So, your strange day," Masoud says as he wraps the mess of butter-fried beef and assorted vegetables in thick bread - admittedly calling it a 'sandwich' was always a real stretch but it's not really a wrap either and also it tastes so good nobody cares. "Feed yourself and begin! Katarina will not be long."
You take a bite and the explosion of flavours across your tongue makes every step of the walk here was worth it. You take another bite before you realise you're meant to be storytelling - shit you didn't think you were that hungry. You set it down on its paper and swallow hard wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. "(Sorry). Uh. I guess it started-"
You've never been there at ground zero during an anomaly before. Even last night you weren't there for the actual moment that nano-squid thing crawled through the rip between its home and yours. It's how you imagine it'd feel to be five feet from a lightning strike, a burst of light and heat and ozone stink and a rush of air as everything just gets displaced all at once. You cry out and cover your eyes. Masoud shouts something you can't hear. The wind pushes the door inward, the bell tinkling, as a third visitor arrives in the middle of the street.
It's a skeletal figure, bipedal, humanoid but not human, no one would mistake it for a second. It's made of some kind of faintly reddish alloy, kneeling with backbent legs and digitigrade feet, its torso a hollow cage, only three fingers on each hand. The head has no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no nothing. Just the basic shape of a skull and then a single blank expanse of metal that begins to glow as whatever ancient alien tech is animating it slowly comes online. But that's not the part you're focusing on. The robot is barely a factor in your mind. What you're looking at is the puddle of tar it came in with, the oil slick that moves out from under it like a detached shadow and rises to its own full height. A shifting, flowing mass of glassy black ferrofluid like a many-limbed deep-sea nightmare, its own red light of intelligence glowing within its core. Pouring itself up and on top of a nearby car to look around. To look for targets.
To look for more prey like you.
The sight steals your breath. You freeze. You can't move. Masoud says something. The nanoforge says something too. It's trying to make you respond, asking you what your name is so it can call it out. A noise escapes you, a strangled sound, a barely-audible "h-ha...?". Like it's unfair. Like this shouldn't be allowed. Aftershocks. They're called aftershocks sometimes because it's like how it is with earthquakes. It's not nice and neat. Not a one-and-done. Sometimes the wall between worlds keeps shaking. Sometimes new little tears open up in the big one's wake. Just a couple. Just one or two.
Just enough.
It hurts. Breathing hurts. Your heart- the heart that isn't there, every system in your body is telling you to be terrified and it has to compensate. Fight or flight. Your stupid sandwich you just had to have is lying on the counter, only two bites gone. Masoud is grabbing a shotgun from behind the counter. The woman who went to the back, where'd she go? You're hyper-aware and you can't do a thing about it. You clutch your chest like you're having a heart attack. You kind of are. The pounding in your chest matches the pounding in your head.
"Can you hear me?"
It's like everything's going slow.
Like seconds pass between each heartbeat.
"You are having a panic attack. Loss of function is normal. With your consent I will administer stimulants so that you can flee."
It's happening again. It's happening all over again and again and again like it's every day of your life.
"Fear is a rational response. There is no shame in running away."
Your breath hitches in your throat like a sob. You think you nodded. A warm chemical rush fills your head like hot, fizzy soda and you open your eyes again to see the world in technicolour.
The point isn't to make you better right away, he said. The point is to make you just better enough.
Shave the razor thin margin back just far enough that you can change.
Who wants to be a superhero when they grow up? your teacher asked everyone that day.
You raised your hand.
You raise your hand. It balls into a fist.
You want to say it's like watching it happen to another person but it's not. You want to say it's instinct, you want to say it's your body moving on its own, but it's not. You're in control every second it happens. Shoving Masoud out of the way, throwing open the door, charging out into the street and screaming as you run headlong into the advancing alien weaponry. That fucking squid-thing lets out a digital screech and leaps into action as if spooked by your insanity, pouring itself off the car and coiling around the robot's skeletal framework. Building itself up around the steel bones like armour. You wanna say the sight's inspiration but honestly you had the idea long before then. Because the nanoforge said it was there to help you. And if it can't do this, how much help can it really be?
You swing first. Your fist moves too fast to watch. Your knuckles punch through the ferrofluid. You hear and feel the dull clong of the impact.
The strike tears the robot free of the amorphous 'flesh' coating, laying it out flat in the street a good six inches from where it was standing. The vaguely man-shaped mass of nanotech wobbles and sways dangerously, a gaping hole in its 'head'. You look down at your fist and you see it's turned carbon-black.
"New parameters accepted. Reconfiguration in progress."
It hits you back. A lightning-fast 'punch' in the chest from a tentacle and it lifts you off your feet. The first impact knocks the wind out of you. The second and third impacts, the curb on your back and the sidewalk on your skull, make you cry out in pain. Could've killed you three times over if you were unlucky. If you were still ordinary. You stand - it still hurts, the ache lingering in the meat, but you stand all the same. You suck down air like you're sipping it through a straw, clutching at your chest. You're okay. The squid tried to stab you in the same place and this time it didn't bite home. There's a hole in your shirt but no blood. Hardly much pain. You throw aside your hoodie to free up your movement. The darkness is seething under the thin white fabric of your shirt, pouring down both arms, encircling your torso, rolling down your legs. It tingles. It itches. It burns.
The robot's getting up. The squid was trying to combine with it somehow. Whatever that means, it's probably bad.
"Analysis: Predator-class scouting construct, Annihilation-class combat platform, unarmed. Threat level greater than the sum of their parts when combined. Assessment: prevent combination at all costs."
You're on the same page at least. That's nice.
You don't really know what you're doing so there's no point trying to be fancy. Best you've got is more than one person telling you you're a natural at boxing for fitness, so you go with the basics. You go in swinging. You don't know what consistency you expected but the squid-thing feels like hot tar and rubbery tentacles, boneless muscle that's both too solid and not solid enough. You just punch it, hard as you can, fast as you can, best form that you can. It splatters with each strike like you're punching a jelly sculpture, thick chunks of semi-solid ferrofluid splashing across the street like synthetic gore. You don't know if it's 'hurting' it but each chunk knocked out is a chunk it has to replace, shifting and flowing and reforming to compensate. Maybe it's like a real starfish, and it's not killing you because you keep giving it brain damage. It's still hitting you back, you don't know if it's getting weaker or your armour's getting stronger but this time it doesn't knock you flat. You block a blow to your head that makes the air hiss, maybe it would've knocked it clean off. It impacts your forearm with a meaty smack and recoils, the shock rippling up your arm and into your shoulder. It hurts but not much. There's extra armour there now you think, forearm for blocking and knuckles for hitting back, but you don't have time for the details. You duck another blow that goes whizzing over your head and rise again with an uppercut that cores out most of what would be the torso-area on a person.
"Autonomous nanite constructs require control cores to function. Core must be removed or destroyed to disable."
You let out a painful rasp of air, a sound that seems to say 'you're telling me this now?' and 'you mean i haven't done anything to it?' and maybe a little general 'why me?' sentiment. But you don't have much breath or brain power to spare so you end up barking out a much simpler "show me" between stumbling dodges. A wave of silvery light passes down the squirming silhouette of the scout-squid, and when it finds the core it lights up like a red lightbulb.
You lunge on frantic instinct. A blade-like pseudopod skates off the nanites crawling up the side of your face. You plunge your open hand into the mass, close your fingers around the only solid thing and rip it out.
It's uncomfortably visceral. It's not just some clean little CPU. What looked like an orb on the scan is a half-shell around a misshapen, malformed red crystal pulsing with bloody light, connected to the mass of ferrofluid by rubbery black cables in a way that's too much like the veins and arteries of a beating heart. The squid lets out an earsplitting, distorted shriek like a computer crash crossed with a dying rabbit, its form seething and collapsing as the only thing keeping it whole is torn away. You're left staring dumbly through a sheet of glass at the pulsing red light clutched in nanoforged claws, cables still drooling excess fluid on the street like crude oil, your mind going completely blank on what you're supposed to do next. Wondering if you're supposed to crush it or throw it away now gets T-boned by the reality of what just happened, what you just did, and then far too late the thought finally occurs to you that there's another threat you forgot all about.
THWACK.
You're lucky the nanoforge thought to build you a helmet because you wouldn't have a head any more if it hadn't. You go flying, the world a blur, and end up sprawled out in the gutter like the sack of shit you are. Your head is pounding, a lance of pain nailed through your skull so the point comes to rest just behind your left eye, and it takes you a good ten seconds to realise the weird cracked double-vision you're getting is because the faceplate you didn't know you had just broke open. You groan as you sit up, cradling your head in your hand and finding the still-healing crack in your helmet. That hit rattled your brains like dice in a cup, but the groggy feeling doesn't last.
The combat platform is coming for you. It should be slower right? It feels like it should be trudging toward you but no it's power-walking, if anything it's barely below a jog, but every clomping footfall has the kind of implied weight and momentum behind it of a freight train ratting on the tracks as it picks up speed. It's completely unmarked, fuck oh fuck you didn't even scratch it with that first hit did you, it was a lucky sucker-punch and now you're absolutely fucked. Fear spikes you in the chest. Your throat closes up and there's no fixing this with a few stimulants. You're just frozen, flat on your ass in the gutter, watching an alien war machine lope toward you with its fist already cocked back and ready to splatter your brains properly this time. The battering-ram comes racing for you and you flinch, arms thrown up to defend yourself-
The metal fist strikes something and sticks. It doesn't even touch you. You lower your arms and open your eyes.
The woman from the store. Katarina. She's standing there, one arm outstretched, casually holding the robot's fist in her hand as if she were catching a baseball. Her other hand is busy with her new packet of cigarettes, shaking the first one free to stick between her lips. The robot turns its head to her in something almost like bewilderment, audibly whirring as it strains to overcome her grip.
"Hey, Psycho Killer." She looks down at you. "First bit of advice, don't do this shit for free. Second is don't fuck it up like you just did."
You don't answer. You just stare up at her, dumbfounded. She shrugs and shoves the robot's fist back, a casual movement that still sets it reeling and stumbling to stay upright like it barely comes second to the first punch you threw. She uses the bought time to stuff the cigs in her pocket and shrug off her jacket. She throws it on you.
"Hold that for me. You scratch it you buy it."
You yank it off your head and hold it bunched up in your lap, staring wide-eyed as she goes to square up with the robot. She's muscular, sure, she's built like an MMA fighter and her tank top leaves nothing about her biceps to the imagination but there's no earthly explanation for that strength. The robot seems to agree, silently staring at her rather than advancing as it determines how best to proceed. Hand-to-hand obviously a nonstarter, it turns and runs for the curb to grab a weapon.
"No don't you dare, don't-"
Her warnings fall on deaf ears. The robot tears a parking sign out of the sidewalk as if uprooting a sapling, a chunk of concrete clinging gamely to the end. It rounds on Katarina and charges with a terrifying speed you didn't know it was capable of. There's no time to even react before it brings the steel pole down on her head like a hammer to a nail.
Or at least, it'd kinda be like that if the pole actually survived the impact. It snaps clean in half like a twig, the concrete end spiralling off down the street and landing hard enough to knock a good chunk off the rubble stuck to the end. It glances down at the snapped length of metal in its hand, then drops it. Katarina, hands on her hips, shakes her head and sighs.
"Now you fucked up."
She yanks it closer with one hand and palms its faceless skull with the other. She barely seems to exert real force as she shoves it over and brings it crashing down into the street. The first impact is already enough to make a crater. All the subsequent ones make it worse with every crunch of impact.
"Now we have to get that shit replaced," she snarls. It's trying to break free all the while, attempting to grab or crush or gouge every potential weak point it can still reach. It's motivated by cold logic, not real fear of death, but there's stomething pitiful about how easily she slaps its hand away from her face and pins the offending arm under her knee, grabs hold of the other arm in both hands and tears it off at the elbow. There's nothing left now, nothing it can do but stare at her. It's so easy to project mute horror on its blank face - buckled inward in the shape of her handprint - as she reaches into its chest cavity from beneath the 'ribs' and tears out its 'heart'. It bucks and jerks, limbs giving one final spasm, and then it goes limp.
She's looking pretty pleased with herself as she strolls back across the street, robot carcass slung across her shoulders, red power core glowing in the other pocket of her jeans. You don't think she appreciates the irony of punishing the robot for tearing up the street by tearing up the street even worse. She stops just short of you, towering over you where you're still sitting in the gutter like a lemon. She holds out her free hand and snaps her fingers.
"Jacket."
You toss it up to her.
"Good boy."
You're not, but it's not worth getting into right now. She glances up through the window at Masoud, gives him a quick nod, then drops her gaze back down to you. God you must be a sight. You're covered in some kind of nanomachine suit under whatever's left of your street clothes - shirt feels like it's been torn to ribbons, hopefully the pants held up better - and you've got a full-face helmet on to boot. Katarina shoulders her jacket thoughtfully.
"So what was that about, nano-boy?" she asks. "You trying to show off for someone or what?"
What was it about? It's hard to get it all straight in your head now that it's over. It feels like a weird half-lucid dream now, like it didn't really happen even though you're staring up at the proof right now. Your own breathing is too loud, trapped in the helmet with you. Part of you just wants to stay quiet until she loses interest and moves on - it won't take long, she has that air about her - but another part knows that this is important. This is happening because of you. What you say next matters and you're done staying quiet.
[ ] You need a job.
[ ] You want to be a superhero.
[ ] You're trying to find the guy that did this to you.
"Did you do something to me?" you ask.
"Query is too broad. Elaborate."
"I just got off an eleven hour shift and I haven't passed out. If anything I'm feeling... better than I usually do. Something's up and it's nothing I did, so..."
"You are correct. Your body shows signs of severe, long-term disruption of circadian rhythm, as well as vitamin D deficiency and what are most likely signs of clinical depression." 'Yeah tell me something I don't know' is what you want to say, but the floating glowy light thing would probably take that literally. You cross another street. "The former is relatively simple to repair - your surgery required nano-augmentation of the relevant systems in order to be successful, allowing regulation of your blood sugar and melatonin production. I have already begun synthesizing and releasing enough vitamin D to restore your body to acceptable levels. If you take further steps such as exercise and adjusting meal times then restoring your sleep schedule should be a simple process-"
"Hey, who said anything about changing my sleep schedule?" you blurt out. Your pace quickens. "Maybe you didn't notice but I have a job, and I can't get to my shifts if I'm asleep."
"You appeared to believe you did not have this job any more when you spoke with Ms Davis."
"Yeah, and then I asked her if she wanted me to work nights for her! And what if I find out some other place is hiring that wants the graveyard shift? What if there's a night-janitor spot?"
"A nocturnal lifestyle is severely deleterious to the human body. It drastically worsens physical and mental health, both directly and indirectly through the means you have clearly taken in an attempt to sustain it. There are already too many signs of permanent damage all throughout your body, if you do not take this seriously then there is a limit to what I can-"
"And there's a limit to what I can do, okay!?" You recoil from your outburst the second it happens, but your fake heartbeat is already racing and your head is pounding and there's nothing for it but to ride the avalanche all the way down to the mountain village it's gonna bulldoze. "I get it, alright? I get it, I fucking- I get it. You think I need you lecturing me about this? You think I haven't noticed this shit killing me day in day out, taking years off my life? I'm not fucking blind, I'm poor. And you may not have this in your databanks or whatever, but not having a job also means I die. So... so..."
The wave's gone. The landslide goes still and there's just a mountain of dirt and bullshit sticking out of it where it came to rest. You probably got a dozen people staring at you through their windows too. You sigh, hard and heavy and above all defeated. You hunch in close, adjust your hood, and walk as fast as you can.
"Forget it." Your voice is barely a murmur. "Probably fucked either way, right? Who cares."
For a while there's just silence. If it weren't for the AR avatar thing following you down the street you'd probably start thinking you'd finally cracked for good.
"... I appear to have upset you." The robot voice doesn't sound very contrite, but you figure it can't.
"It's fine," you say automatically, in the same quiet and dismissive tone you use every single time you've said it for this exact reason for about ten, twelve years now.
"Incorrect. My purpose is the betterment of your health. Causing you distress is a serious error." The voice falls silent, and from the way the light-orb thing shifts and circles around itself you can almost hear the antique HDD spinning and scritching as it searches for the correct response. "You may request your treatment be halted at any time."
"What?" You stop with your foot half off the curb and step back. "I thought you said you're the only reason I'm alive."
"Correct. However, humans naturally crave a sense of control and autonomy in their lives. The ability to self-determine. It is evident based on our few interactions so far that you respond poorly to appeals to authority."
"(Make me sound like I'm on some hair-trigger, anyone would be freaked out having you show up out of nowhere,)" you mutter, averting your eyes from the avatar no matter how useless a gesture that probably is.
"Feedback noted. Rephrasing: overt pressure has led to responses that exceed projections in severity. You feel as if you have little power over your circumstances, and resent my attempts to alter your behaviour yet further. Am I correct?"
"Yeah. I guess. Look-" You give a helpless shrug and a sigh. "Sorry. Not like I could expect you to know what it's like around here."
"Apology noted, but unnecessary. I do not have feelings to hurt. This is about yours."
You're coming into the commercial district now, as much as you can really call it that. If there was ever an era when Freeside had some kind of bustling shopping scene then that came and went before you were even born. The strip is just barely clinging to life as it is, mostly because anywhere that still wanted to do business in Freeside moved there once the mall down by the beach closed down. Centralisation helped, but nobody wants to go buying clothes or furniture the day of an attack, so it looks like a ghost town all the same by the time you roll in. Security shutters as far as the eye can see, most dented at minimum, some dangerously buckled inward or torn off their rails. At least the utility pole didn't get knocked down again. They put those sons of a bitches back in deep and tight after last time. It was a crowdfunded private contractor job but when you'll only have power or phone service half the time otherwise enough is enough. You turn left down the strip, then wander out into the street because someone jumped the curb during the attack then left their car blocking the second-hand store they almost ploughed into. From the clawmarks on the trunk it looks like something tried to bust it open for good measure. Must've got distracted pretty quickly if it didn't get in - a car's just a lunchbox to monsters, unless you wanna spring for the armoured kind.
"Alright," you say. "So... now what?"
"Do you have experience taking antidepressants?"
"Yeah," you say, and a hundred thousand snippets of scenes from your past flash before your eyes. They're spread across a couple of years but they have a unifying theme - 'why aren't you better yet'. "A bit. None of 'em made me happy."
"They are not supposed to 'make you happy'. That would be the recreational kind of drug. The purpose of antidepressants is to alleviate the symptoms of your condition long enough to make lifestyle changes that further improve your condition. To think more clearly in the moment. Would you like me to begin trials?"
You slow down, then come to a complete stop just across the street from your destination. You're hesitating at the curb like crossing this last barrier will make the whole thing real. The prospect of making a change, a real change... it's as frightening as it is exciting. It's hard to even conceive of a world in which you're properly functional, not a ghoul exiled to the night shift so you can make just enough money to live in peace. You dip your head, the hood swallowing up all trace of your expression.
"... alright," you say, exhaling almost in relief. "Just keep me posted."
Hadid's is the all-in-one kind of place. It stocks pretty much anything that someone in Freeside could conceivably want to buy, and is staffed almost around the clock by three Yemeni men (and sometimes their wives) in overlapping shifts that all seem to share access to a boundless reservoir of energy and optimism. You can't say you're a favourite customer that visits every day but they do fantastic sandwiches and that's enough to draw you into the shop's gravitational pull when you need to revive your sense of humanity after a shift so long the sun's come out to mock you, but not so long you're counting the seconds until you pass out. Naturally you were never in a talking mood, but after a few deeply exhausted mumbles to Masoud about what you do for a living one spring morning when you were so tired you tried to grab a can of Monster through the glass... twice... word got around among the family that you were the quiet, harmless kind of cryptid. It's Masoud behind the counter again when you push your way through the door, bell tinkling to herald your arrival, sporting an impressive beard you would've been jealous of once upon a time and a smile to match.
"My best friend who handles my package so well!" he exclaims, because you snorted the first time he said it and he seems determined to keep using that joke until it catches you off-guard a second time. "Isn't it long past your bedtime? It's the middle of the day out there!"
You flash a wan smile. "Yeah today's been a weird one. You don't wanna know how much."
"But I do! Look at me!" He gestures to himself, and the vast empty space behind the counter with him. "I am so lonely on the morning shift. My cousin, he stays up so late drinking with his friends, and my brother-in-law, well he is just lazy. And Edgar, he just sits on chips and sleeps his life away! I have never seen him catch a rat, not one rat! He will be reborn as a man one day and pay the price for his laziness in my place, inshallah."
Your smile, crooked as it is, grows wider. "He was a rescue, wasn't he? Maybe he's earned taking it easy for a while."
He laughs. "You raise a good point. Maybe I have it the wrong way around. But you will not distract me so easily!" He leans on the counter, arms folded. "Tell me your story, brother."
It doesn't bother you as much as Ms. Davis calling you 'boy'. Maybe it's 'cause you wouldn't piss on your own flesh-and-blood brothers if they were on fire but something about being able to call someone 'brother' as a non-familial term of endearment with complete sincerity just sounds nice to your ear.
"I mean there's not much to tell," you say. "I just- actually, any chance I could get a sandwich first? I'm starving."
"Of course my friend, of course. If the story is good, maybe I give you special price. If the story is not so good, maybe you pay double, eh?" He grins, then turns away to get started. You're almost tempted to tell him the truth, but that idea doesn't last long. He's too nice to risk freaking out with the whole death-and-resurrection thing.
The hiss of the flat-top follows you to the back of the store as you go hunting for anything else you might want and, chiefly, the cat. You find him at the back of the third aisle, a lean type with dark grey fur curled up on top of some cookies. He hears you coming, pale green eyes glaring disdainfully at you as you approach, fangs peeking out from beneath his top lip like a vampire. He makes his displeasure known as you draw closer still, letting out a whining "mrroww". But then you actually start scritching him behind the ear and he shuts his eyes to enjoy it.
"(Haven't you got a hard life,)" you murmur to the purring cat with a smile. "(Just get to laze around all day, everyone who comes in loves you and pats you and probably feeds you, must be sooo hard.)"
"mneh" Edgar meows.
"(Yeeeah you love it you big slut.)"
The nanoforge avatar slowly swims into your field of view, perhaps trying not to startle you. "You seem to enjoy the cat's company greatly. Query: have you thought about acquiring one of your own?"
Your smile fades. You pull away and Edgar cracks open his eyes again, doubly offended that you'd pat him and then stop. He makes a noise that sounds more like a quack than a meow and then sticks his face into his paws.
"Nah. I mean, I have thought about it, but I don't think I could handle looking after one 24/7 all on my own," you reply quietly.
"The responsibility could provide a rewarding sense of structure to your day. It is worth considering again, but I will leave it at that."
You leave the cat to his own devices and drift over to the fridges. AR readouts about nutritional information start popping up and, with a roll of your eyes and a quiet sigh, you go for one of the options that won't hit your system like an adrenaline shot. A neon-coloured sports drink in hand you drift back toward the counter, looking busy. The bell jingles again. Your brow furrows - someone else is out on a day like this?
"Katarina my friend, good to see you," Masoud calls over his shoulder, shifting around onions and ground beef on the flat-top. "How is business? Very bad I hope, if you don't mind me saying, haha."
"Cleanup's cleanup, can't say today's sticking out too much on my end." The woman shrugs. She's tall, taller than you probably, and from the way she fills out that leather jacket she's wearing she's got the kind of matching density that'd make anyone think twice about getting up in her personal space. She's wearing ripped jeans, and from the look of how equally ripped her top is the aforementioned probably isn't meant as a fashion statement. She's got chunky boots to match, the kind you'd want on a construction site or a six-day march, and they look fairly well-worn as it is. She turns toward Masoud so you don't get a good look at her face, just a bunch of wavy mid-length black hair.
"But what the fuck was up with the no warning signs, y'know?" she adds. "It's not like this just happens for no reason and everyone throws their hands up, I thought they had this shit solved years ago?"
"Who knows why things are the way they are in this city?" Masoud replies. "The news changes every hour, it will be the weekend by the time they've decided whose fault it is. Solutions come later. Until then we adapt, and we continue, as we always have."
"Yeah, amen to that I guess." She digs out her wallet and goes hunting for bills.
"The usual? Or can I tempt you with some of the famous cooking of my family? I have everything warmed up and ready for you!"
"Yeah yeah easy on the upsell," she chuckles dryly. "Just the smokes, I'm bored as hell and I'm getting a headache. Though Jae-yoon did tell me to grab some soy sauce if I had a minute, you got some?"
The woman ambles to the back of the store at Masoud's direction, and soon enough you hear the telltale "(mrow)" of Edgar on sentry duty. You drift back to the counter in her place and Masoud rings up the sports drink.
"So, your strange day," Masoud says as he wraps the mess of butter-fried beef and assorted vegetables in thick bread - admittedly calling it a 'sandwich' was always a real stretch but it's not really a wrap either and also it tastes so good nobody cares. "Feed yourself and begin! Katarina will not be long."
You take a bite and the explosion of flavours across your tongue makes every step of the walk here was worth it. You take another bite before you realise you're meant to be storytelling - shit you didn't think you were that hungry. You set it down on its paper and swallow hard wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. "(Sorry). Uh. I guess it started-"
You've never been there at ground zero during an anomaly before. Even last night you weren't there for the actual moment that nano-squid thing crawled through the rip between its home and yours. It's how you imagine it'd feel to be five feet from a lightning strike, a burst of light and heat and ozone stink and a rush of air as everything just gets displaced all at once. You cry out and cover your eyes. Masoud shouts something you can't hear. The wind pushes the door inward, the bell tinkling, as a third visitor arrives in the middle of the street.
It's a skeletal figure, bipedal, humanoid but not human, no one would mistake it for a second. It's made of some kind of faintly reddish alloy, kneeling with backbent legs and digitigrade feet, its torso a hollow cage, only three fingers on each hand. The head has no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no nothing. Just the basic shape of a skull and then a single blank expanse of metal that begins to glow as whatever ancient alien tech is animating it slowly comes online. But that's not the part you're focusing on. The robot is barely a factor in your mind. What you're looking at is the puddle of tar it came in with, the oil slick that moves out from under it like a detached shadow and rises to its own full height. A shifting, flowing mass of glassy black ferrofluid like a many-limbed deep-sea nightmare, its own red light of intelligence glowing within its core. Pouring itself up and on top of a nearby car to look around. To look for targets.
To look for more prey like you.
The sight steals your breath. You freeze. You can't move. Masoud says something. The nanoforge says something too. It's trying to make you respond, asking you what your name is so it can call it out. A noise escapes you, a strangled sound, a barely-audible "h-ha...?". Like it's unfair. Like this shouldn't be allowed. Aftershocks. They're called aftershocks sometimes because it's like how it is with earthquakes. It's not nice and neat. Not a one-and-done. Sometimes the wall between worlds keeps shaking. Sometimes new little tears open up in the big one's wake. Just a couple. Just one or two.
Just enough.
It hurts. Breathing hurts. Your heart- the heart that isn't there, every system in your body is telling you to be terrified and it has to compensate. Fight or flight. Your stupid sandwich you just had to have is lying on the counter, only two bites gone. Masoud is grabbing a shotgun from behind the counter. The woman who went to the back, where'd she go? You're hyper-aware and you can't do a thing about it. You clutch your chest like you're having a heart attack. You kind of are. The pounding in your chest matches the pounding in your head.
"Can you hear me?"
It's like everything's going slow.
Like seconds pass between each heartbeat.
"You are having a panic attack. Loss of function is normal. With your consent I will administer stimulants so that you can flee."
It's happening again. It's happening all over again and again and again like it's every day of your life.
"Fear is a rational response. There is no shame in running away."
Your breath hitches in your throat like a sob. You think you nodded. A warm chemical rush fills your head like hot, fizzy soda and you open your eyes again to see the world in technicolour.
The point isn't to make you better right away, he said. The point is to make you just better enough.
Shave the razor thin margin back just far enough that you can change.
Who wants to be a superhero when they grow up? your teacher asked everyone that day.
You raised your hand.
You raise your hand. It balls into a fist.
You want to say it's like watching it happen to another person but it's not. You want to say it's instinct, you want to say it's your body moving on its own, but it's not. You're in control every second it happens. Shoving Masoud out of the way, throwing open the door, charging out into the street and screaming as you run headlong into the advancing alien weaponry. That fucking squid-thing lets out a digital screech and leaps into action as if spooked by your insanity, pouring itself off the car and coiling around the robot's skeletal framework. Building itself up around the steel bones like armour. You wanna say the sight's inspiration but honestly you had the idea long before then. Because the nanoforge said it was there to help you. And if it can't do this, how much help can it really be?
You swing first. Your fist moves too fast to watch. Your knuckles punch through the ferrofluid. You hear and feel the dull clong of the impact.
The strike tears the robot free of the amorphous 'flesh' coating, laying it out flat in the street a good six inches from where it was standing. The vaguely man-shaped mass of nanotech wobbles and sways dangerously, a gaping hole in its 'head'. You look down at your fist and you see it's turned carbon-black.
"New parameters accepted. Reconfiguration in progress."
It hits you back. A lightning-fast 'punch' in the chest from a tentacle and it lifts you off your feet. The first impact knocks the wind out of you. The second and third impacts, the curb on your back and the sidewalk on your skull, make you cry out in pain. Could've killed you three times over if you were unlucky. If you were still ordinary. You stand - it still hurts, the ache lingering in the meat, but you stand all the same. You suck down air like you're sipping it through a straw, clutching at your chest. You're okay. The squid tried to stab you in the same place and this time it didn't bite home. There's a hole in your shirt but no blood. Hardly much pain. You throw aside your hoodie to free up your movement. The darkness is seething under the thin white fabric of your shirt, pouring down both arms, encircling your torso, rolling down your legs. It tingles. It itches. It burns.
The robot's getting up. The squid was trying to combine with it somehow. Whatever that means, it's probably bad.
"Analysis: Predator-class scouting construct, Annihilation-class combat platform, unarmed. Threat level greater than the sum of their parts when combined. Assessment: prevent combination at all costs."
You're on the same page at least. That's nice.
You don't really know what you're doing so there's no point trying to be fancy. Best you've got is more than one person telling you you're a natural at boxing for fitness, so you go with the basics. You go in swinging. You don't know what consistency you expected but the squid-thing feels like hot tar and rubbery tentacles, boneless muscle that's both too solid and not solid enough. You just punch it, hard as you can, fast as you can, best form that you can. It splatters with each strike like you're punching a jelly sculpture, thick chunks of semi-solid ferrofluid splashing across the street like synthetic gore. You don't know if it's 'hurting' it but each chunk knocked out is a chunk it has to replace, shifting and flowing and reforming to compensate. Maybe it's like a real starfish, and it's not killing you because you keep giving it brain damage. It's still hitting you back, you don't know if it's getting weaker or your armour's getting stronger but this time it doesn't knock you flat. You block a blow to your head that makes the air hiss, maybe it would've knocked it clean off. It impacts your forearm with a meaty smack and recoils, the shock rippling up your arm and into your shoulder. It hurts but not much. There's extra armour there now you think, forearm for blocking and knuckles for hitting back, but you don't have time for the details. You duck another blow that goes whizzing over your head and rise again with an uppercut that cores out most of what would be the torso-area on a person.
"Autonomous nanite constructs require control cores to function. Core must be removed or destroyed to disable."
You let out a painful rasp of air, a sound that seems to say 'you're telling me this now?' and 'you mean i haven't done anything to it?' and maybe a little general 'why me?' sentiment. But you don't have much breath or brain power to spare so you end up barking out a much simpler "show me" between stumbling dodges. A wave of silvery light passes down the squirming silhouette of the scout-squid, and when it finds the core it lights up like a red lightbulb.
You lunge on frantic instinct. A blade-like pseudopod skates off the nanites crawling up the side of your face. You plunge your open hand into the mass, close your fingers around the only solid thing and rip it out.
It's uncomfortably visceral. It's not just some clean little CPU. What looked like an orb on the scan is a half-shell around a misshapen, malformed red crystal pulsing with bloody light, connected to the mass of ferrofluid by rubbery black cables in a way that's too much like the veins and arteries of a beating heart. The squid lets out an earsplitting, distorted shriek like a computer crash crossed with a dying rabbit, its form seething and collapsing as the only thing keeping it whole is torn away. You're left staring dumbly through a sheet of glass at the pulsing red light clutched in nanoforged claws, cables still drooling excess fluid on the street like crude oil, your mind going completely blank on what you're supposed to do next. Wondering if you're supposed to crush it or throw it away now gets T-boned by the reality of what just happened, what you just did, and then far too late the thought finally occurs to you that there's another threat you forgot all about.
THWACK.
You're lucky the nanoforge thought to build you a helmet because you wouldn't have a head any more if it hadn't. You go flying, the world a blur, and end up sprawled out in the gutter like the sack of shit you are. Your head is pounding, a lance of pain nailed through your skull so the point comes to rest just behind your left eye, and it takes you a good ten seconds to realise the weird cracked double-vision you're getting is because the faceplate you didn't know you had just broke open. You groan as you sit up, cradling your head in your hand and finding the still-healing crack in your helmet. That hit rattled your brains like dice in a cup, but the groggy feeling doesn't last.
The combat platform is coming for you. It should be slower right? It feels like it should be trudging toward you but no it's power-walking, if anything it's barely below a jog, but every clomping footfall has the kind of implied weight and momentum behind it of a freight train ratting on the tracks as it picks up speed. It's completely unmarked, fuck oh fuck you didn't even scratch it with that first hit did you, it was a lucky sucker-punch and now you're absolutely fucked. Fear spikes you in the chest. Your throat closes up and there's no fixing this with a few stimulants. You're just frozen, flat on your ass in the gutter, watching an alien war machine lope toward you with its fist already cocked back and ready to splatter your brains properly this time. The battering-ram comes racing for you and you flinch, arms thrown up to defend yourself-
The metal fist strikes something and sticks. It doesn't even touch you. You lower your arms and open your eyes.
The woman from the store. Katarina. She's standing there, one arm outstretched, casually holding the robot's fist in her hand as if she were catching a baseball. Her other hand is busy with her new packet of cigarettes, shaking the first one free to stick between her lips. The robot turns its head to her in something almost like bewilderment, audibly whirring as it strains to overcome her grip.
"Hey, Psycho Killer." She looks down at you. "First bit of advice, don't do this shit for free. Second is don't fuck it up like you just did."
You don't answer. You just stare up at her, dumbfounded. She shrugs and shoves the robot's fist back, a casual movement that still sets it reeling and stumbling to stay upright like it barely comes second to the first punch you threw. She uses the bought time to stuff the cigs in her pocket and shrug off her jacket. She throws it on you.
"Hold that for me. You scratch it you buy it."
You yank it off your head and hold it bunched up in your lap, staring wide-eyed as she goes to square up with the robot. She's muscular, sure, she's built like an MMA fighter and her tank top leaves nothing about her biceps to the imagination but there's no earthly explanation for that strength. The robot seems to agree, silently staring at her rather than advancing as it determines how best to proceed. Hand-to-hand obviously a nonstarter, it turns and runs for the curb to grab a weapon.
"No don't you dare, don't-"
Her warnings fall on deaf ears. The robot tears a parking sign out of the sidewalk as if uprooting a sapling, a chunk of concrete clinging gamely to the end. It rounds on Katarina and charges with a terrifying speed you didn't know it was capable of. There's no time to even react before it brings the steel pole down on her head like a hammer to a nail.
Or at least, it'd kinda be like that if the pole actually survived the impact. It snaps clean in half like a twig, the concrete end spiralling off down the street and landing hard enough to knock a good chunk off the rubble stuck to the end. It glances down at the snapped length of metal in its hand, then drops it. Katarina, hands on her hips, shakes her head and sighs.
"Now you fucked up."
She yanks it closer with one hand and palms its faceless skull with the other. She barely seems to exert real force as she shoves it over and brings it crashing down into the street. The first impact is already enough to make a crater. All the subsequent ones make it worse with every crunch of impact.
"Now we have to get that shit replaced," she snarls. It's trying to break free all the while, attempting to grab or crush or gouge every potential weak point it can still reach. It's motivated by cold logic, not real fear of death, but there's stomething pitiful about how easily she slaps its hand away from her face and pins the offending arm under her knee, grabs hold of the other arm in both hands and tears it off at the elbow. There's nothing left now, nothing it can do but stare at her. It's so easy to project mute horror on its blank face - buckled inward in the shape of her handprint - as she reaches into its chest cavity from beneath the 'ribs' and tears out its 'heart'. It bucks and jerks, limbs giving one final spasm, and then it goes limp.
She's looking pretty pleased with herself as she strolls back across the street, robot carcass slung across her shoulders, red power core glowing in the other pocket of her jeans. You don't think she appreciates the irony of punishing the robot for tearing up the street by tearing up the street even worse. She stops just short of you, towering over you where you're still sitting in the gutter like a lemon. She holds out her free hand and snaps her fingers.
"Jacket."
You toss it up to her.
"Good boy."
You're not, but it's not worth getting into right now. She glances up through the window at Masoud, gives him a quick nod, then drops her gaze back down to you. God you must be a sight. You're covered in some kind of nanomachine suit under whatever's left of your street clothes - shirt feels like it's been torn to ribbons, hopefully the pants held up better - and you've got a full-face helmet on to boot. Katarina shoulders her jacket thoughtfully.
"So what was that about, nano-boy?" she asks. "You trying to show off for someone or what?"
What was it about? It's hard to get it all straight in your head now that it's over. It feels like a weird half-lucid dream now, like it didn't really happen even though you're staring up at the proof right now. Your own breathing is too loud, trapped in the helmet with you. Part of you just wants to stay quiet until she loses interest and moves on - it won't take long, she has that air about her - but another part knows that this is important. This is happening because of you. What you say next matters and you're done staying quiet.
[ ] You need a job.
[ ] You want to be a superhero.
[ ] You're trying to find the guy that did this to you.
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Wade Garrett
Just trying to do the right thing
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
[X] You need a job.
Whoohoo Holly Holm cameo, good good. Mostly I'm voting for the job option because it's, this poor existentenial crisis lad with his Therapist app, brain half fried, he just wanted an egg sandwich and then he fought and got his butt kicked by a Necron Warrior before getting bailed out by "The Preacher's Daughter" (sorry Zerban she's Holly Holm now, I don't make the rules) and the first words out of his mouth are "I need a job", it scratches my surreal slice of life modern tragicomedy itch.
Whoohoo Holly Holm cameo, good good. Mostly I'm voting for the job option because it's, this poor existentenial crisis lad with his Therapist app, brain half fried, he just wanted an egg sandwich and then he fought and got his butt kicked by a Necron Warrior before getting bailed out by "The Preacher's Daughter" (sorry Zerban she's Holly Holm now, I don't make the rules) and the first words out of his mouth are "I need a job", it scratches my surreal slice of life modern tragicomedy itch.
- Location
- Canada
[X] You want to be a superhero.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] You need a job.
Samin'.
Samin'.
- Location
- Vermont
Ma'am I am reacting poorly to extreme trauma right now
Robot person we have no reason to believe has gender leaves nanoforge in person with big nb energy, more news at 11.
Theaxofwar
Definitely not a Bunny Cat in disguise.
- Location
- Standing right behind you
[X] You need a job.
It's the truth, after all.
It's the truth, after all.
Imrix
Periodically Malevolent QM
That fight had a real sense of kinetics to it - like, more than selling the superhero angle, it's neat to find robotic enemies that lean into that whole, "not limited by the frailties of flesh" thing with how relentlessly and fluidly they can move.
[X] You want to be a superhero.
Maybe it's dumb and childish and idealistic. But people should have something idealistic to strive for, or what's the point of getting up in the morning?
[X] You want to be a superhero.
Maybe it's dumb and childish and idealistic. But people should have something idealistic to strive for, or what's the point of getting up in the morning?
will408914
(slouching towards bethlehem)
- Location
- California
[X] You need a job.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] You want to be a superhero.
It may be stupid, but so is being an Amazon warehouse serf on the night shift until you die of terminal Monster poisoning. And we've just had it rubbed in our face that the chance of dying from random monsters from Beyond is the fricking same. So might as well take the job that has better pay and health coverage. Plus, hey, we didn't have a childhood dream of being a warehouse monkey. Fuck it.
It may be stupid, but so is being an Amazon warehouse serf on the night shift until you die of terminal Monster poisoning. And we've just had it rubbed in our face that the chance of dying from random monsters from Beyond is the fricking same. So might as well take the job that has better pay and health coverage. Plus, hey, we didn't have a childhood dream of being a warehouse monkey. Fuck it.
- Location
- France
[X] You need a job.
ThatGazzer
Minds Eye Bind
- Location
- PNW
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] You need a job.
mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] You want to be a superhero.
[X] You want to be a superhero.
Eternal_0bserver
(Unverified Bookworm)
- Location
- Earth, Northern Europe
[X] You want to be a superhero.
- Location
- HELL
- Pronouns
- They/It
[x] You need a job.
you better get a job or we're turning this arc around you catastrophenby
you better get a job or we're turning this arc around you catastrophenby
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] You need a job.
It's a neat choice to make the superpower-symbiote-thingy functionally benevolent but also agency-less, couching the dynamic more in terms of how it tries and fails and adapts to Nameless Working Stiff's motivations and desires vs a more antagonistic "learn to live together" biological roommmates kinda deal. Functionally and structurally it's basically serving the role of allowing the MC to voice a lot of their pent up conflicts/emotional baggage by providing a safe setting, while kinda ruthlessly identifying and bringing forward the deeply buried tics and traumas.
It's also just neat and probably kinda Thematic to make the tool functionally agnostic and center the conflict more on what ends the tool is turned too, vs robotics as a monstrosity.
(Tangentially at first glance their nanosuit kinda sounds like a budget-ass ripoff of Paragon's a little
)
I'm really really liking the characters that show up as focal points in Freeside and Masoud good-naturedly bitching about his lazy-ass cat is golden. Genuinely barked out a laugh at that. There's a real effort to highlight how- honestly a lot of the story besides the warehouse (in large part due to choices obv) has been focusing in on the people who actually live and work in Freeside. And there's a real effort to portray them sympathetically and kinda trapped in a fucked situation. I mean when your central commercial quarter is a. kind of a glorified brutalist strip mall and b. got absolutely savaged during the last attack, it really does emphasize the sorta "shit's fucked but what can we do except make it to another day" feeling.
el gato
oh no stone butch MMA superwoman is just mulching trash mobs and doesn't afraid of anything
she's so cool and she'll definitely tell everyone the story of this exact moment for the rest of the quest
Mmmaaaan the palpable "oof, ow, my gender :^)" that just suffuses that has a real bite, lowkey but bitter. Since that phrase of- "you're not but you let it pass" and "you're not but you try not to let it bother you" has cropped up at least a few times even from people who are otherwise kind or at least friendly but just Don't Know and the MC has all the conflict resolution skills of a salamander and little emotional energy for it. And is like- obviously deeply unwilling to risk nuking their few scraps of social contact because they don't know how their sorta-acquaintances will take it.
Saying it's "nice" is sorta ghoulish but it's this well executed background note of unhappiness and hurt. Just this burr in the narration that it gets snagged on every so often and consciously avoids.
It's a neat choice to make the superpower-symbiote-thingy functionally benevolent but also agency-less, couching the dynamic more in terms of how it tries and fails and adapts to Nameless Working Stiff's motivations and desires vs a more antagonistic "learn to live together" biological roommmates kinda deal. Functionally and structurally it's basically serving the role of allowing the MC to voice a lot of their pent up conflicts/emotional baggage by providing a safe setting, while kinda ruthlessly identifying and bringing forward the deeply buried tics and traumas.
It's also just neat and probably kinda Thematic to make the tool functionally agnostic and center the conflict more on what ends the tool is turned too, vs robotics as a monstrosity.
(Tangentially at first glance their nanosuit kinda sounds like a budget-ass ripoff of Paragon's a little
) I'm really really liking the characters that show up as focal points in Freeside and Masoud good-naturedly bitching about his lazy-ass cat is golden. Genuinely barked out a laugh at that. There's a real effort to highlight how- honestly a lot of the story besides the warehouse (in large part due to choices obv) has been focusing in on the people who actually live and work in Freeside. And there's a real effort to portray them sympathetically and kinda trapped in a fucked situation. I mean when your central commercial quarter is a. kind of a glorified brutalist strip mall and b. got absolutely savaged during the last attack, it really does emphasize the sorta "shit's fucked but what can we do except make it to another day" feeling.
el gato
oh no stone butch MMA superwoman is just mulching trash mobs and doesn't afraid of anything
she's so cool and she'll definitely tell everyone the story of this exact moment for the rest of the quest
Mmmaaaan the palpable "oof, ow, my gender :^)" that just suffuses that has a real bite, lowkey but bitter. Since that phrase of- "you're not but you let it pass" and "you're not but you try not to let it bother you" has cropped up at least a few times even from people who are otherwise kind or at least friendly but just Don't Know and the MC has all the conflict resolution skills of a salamander and little emotional energy for it. And is like- obviously deeply unwilling to risk nuking their few scraps of social contact because they don't know how their sorta-acquaintances will take it.
Saying it's "nice" is sorta ghoulish but it's this well executed background note of unhappiness and hurt. Just this burr in the narration that it gets snagged on every so often and consciously avoids.