[b]November:[/b]

Rudy was thorough. The gunshots were enough to disable Red, but the real damage was done after. It would be impossible to have believed the cabinet could have done the damage you’re seeing. 

Still, there is hope. Rudy knows - knew - less about your internals than you do. He can clearly tell the difference between circuits and motors, but silicon brain surgery is beyond him. He put his efforts into roughly smashing everything that looked like it [i]could be[/i] right, not thoroughly destroying the things he [i]needed[/i].

You’re going to need time and parts to rebuild Red, more than you have. More than you’d normally be able to easily afford - fortunately, someone has already agreed to foot the bill on this one. Someone who won’t complain if you check the ‘express shipping’ option. 

Putting Red back together isn’t the hard part. At worst, it’s a frustrating process of figuring out more is broken than originally suspected, and waiting for a fresh round of delivered parts. The more is fixed, the more diagnostics can be run, the more faults it’s possible to find. 

Some personalities would find this kind of work fun, a puzzle, a game. Others must find it aggravating, Sisyphusian, a boulder constantly rolling back down a hill. How do Blue, Green, Orange and Yellow approach this?

The hard part is working out how much of Red’s memory can be recovered, and how clearly. This is a difficulty 13 data-forensics check, as much an issue of luck as it is skill. Unconditional success should not be expected here, but Heca has been known to surpass expectations - she is guaranteed to get [i]something [/i]useful from this no matter what.

This process will take a few days. A week tops, and only if you’re very unlucky. ‘Priority shipping’ means a [i]lot[/i] when everything’s on a linear tube with a spine of high-speed rail lines, it’s just a case of the work taking as long as it takes. 

In what small ways do the other personalities feel the absence of Red in their day-to-day routine? Who feels her absence hardest? 

[b]Persephone:[/b]

“This was never the real story. That was always the point of it.” York shakes his head. “I think we get a one-on-one with Jez on the side, and hijack the attention to get the real message across while we can.” He scratches the blonde stubble along his jaw, heard more than seen. “Couldn’t broadcast what I was thinking before, would have looked paranoid. Now that a Commissioner threw haymakers at our reporters? It’s just answering what people are going to be asking.” 

There’s no satisfaction there, no joy in it. He’s been working himself up to the next bit. He at least looks you in the eye when he says this. He respects you too much for anything less. 

“You’re going to be front-page prime-time again, for a little while.” York warns. “You’ve got maybe a day before people put a name to the face they’re seeing. The cops are probably going to want to lean on that, given how embarrassing this is for them. Let’s get Jezebel and get this done quick, and break early. I’ll follow the story up on my own for a bit. You’re going to have enough to deal with.”

York’s lost the appetite he’s had for covering this. A few hours of roasting the performers and correcting the message has lost its charm - the point of that was stealing the attention, something you’ve now got too much of. 

[b]3V:[/b]

“I don’t know.” Is that a smile? It is. Lorraine rises up on her tiptoes and stretches like a cat, and for a moment all her age disappears and there’s the tight sinew of a much younger, very active woman as her fingertips almost scrape the ceiling. The years weigh down on her again when she falls, the librarian’s curve of her shoulders and spine. “I know what I get out of climbing a mountain. But that wouldn’t be the point.”

She clicks her tongue, and goes to boil the kettle again. She doesn’t reach for a mug or anything to fill it with. Maybe she just likes the noise, the gesture of it. “Entertain the scientist in me, please? I love your questions. They're the questions I hoped you'd ask. And I’m excited to hear your answers to them, without my," there's a pause, and she reaches for a different word. "Interference.” 

Maybe saying 'curating' would have given too much of her game away.

The kettle boils, a low rumble like summer rain on wide stone. It’s not the only sound. 

Dusk has begun to saturate the mountain in new colours. It brings with it something entirely alien to you, the blanket of sound that is [i]insects[/i]. Chirping crickets, cicada, grasshoppers. Reedy woodwinds and scraped percussions, piping trills and long croaks. How could such small things be so loud?

[i]Aevum [/i]has only flies, roaches, millipedes. Urban vermin that slipped through rigorous quarantines. Silent, purposefully forgotten.

And outside, with no ceiling to hide them and no lights to smother them, more stars then even your most distant ancestors have seen. 

Yes. She is definitely smiling.