[b]Orange:[/b]

A brief moment of couple’s telepathy, where Fiona and Crystal look at each other and figure out everything they need from a rapid series of microexpressions. You know both of them well enough, and the telepathy is loud enough, that you I can translate thus;

Crystal would be better at asking this delicately, but there is no delicate way to ask this. 

So Fiona asks, in a casual manner: “We were wondering how much your abusive childhood influenced your resorting to terrorism.” It’s fine. Three other people and the television said ‘terrorism’ in the time between you sitting down again and Fiona finishing her sentence. Literally nobody notices, because Fiona is keeping a flat affect - casual, just this side of bored. She is restricting her full emotional range, is hiding behind a lack of expression to avoid notice. “Not because we doubt you. But because we’re worried how hurt you must be to take things this far.” 

Did Fiona get so good at that because she learned how to turn her outward display of emotions down? Or is this her natural state, and her [i]expressiveness [/i]is what was learned - a cessation of effort? How would you tell? 

… does the difference even matter?

[b]November:[/b]

The trip to the train station with Goat’s cores, still swaddled in protective foam, is uneventful but still filled with that horrible [i]portent[/i] of eventfulness. Passing through checkpoints (waved through), loading onto the train (inspectors checked that the cargo is secure, not checking what the cargo [i]is[/i]), the train leaving the station to the express artery to Selene.

The next checkpoint will be when the train stops - whether that be for unloading the cargo at Selene, or because of an unscheduled stop-and-search. Either way, it’s unlikely to happen for hours. Who - if anybody - is riding with Goat, who’s just on the train, who’s following along alternative routes, and who’s going to ground? 

High above, huge chunks of a Chase Black gunship hangs in the microgravity. SES responders are working out whether it’s better to pull it in to the crucible corridors, or let it fall into the farmland below. It’s a low priority. Does its blighted wreckage relax you - a proof of your victories so far - or heighten your edginess - the feeling of a black-and-bruised eye still watching over you? 

[b]Strawberry:[/b]

Knightly’s plan starts working. It’s taking an obscene amount of commandeered power, but Erebus is basically the station’s high voltage line. If it’s coming from anywhere it would be coming through here. And sure, vaporizing a cloud’s worth of water draws basically three districts’ worth of power, but the station is filled with batteries and capacitors, enough storage for days worth of emergency power in case of a catastrophic disaster like this one. 

Normally that would be fine. But to handle this immense change in strain would normally rely on Goat balancing the load.

The first rolling brownouts are about to happen, even though the station should have plenty of power to meet demand. After that, surges. Nothing you can do about it, except know. 

Spring never made it to Goat’s site, by the way. He’s lucky his unhappy escort just left him stranded in the middle of warming Erebus, ambient air temperature already hitting 35c, didn’t do anything worse to him when they got the call their cheque bounced. He’s having to crawl back. You reckon he’ll make it to the exclusion zone just after the air temperature hits 50c. Nothing anyone can do, now, least of all you. He made his choice to push past an emergency blockade into a disaster in an attempt to maintain a slave labour conspiracy. 

Knowing that, do you take satisfaction in watching him sweat for this?