[b]Cyan![/b]

When Cyan called back, she was smiling. It was a nasty smile, a knowing smile, relaxed back in her chair with a gleam like she'd heard a joke she hated and was about to tell a better one.

"You're a smart guy, McVoight," she said, nodding her head, eyes narrowed. "No, smart's not doing you right. You're an [i]intellectual[/i]," she licked her lips with a tongue like a piece of beef jerky. "Small unit leadership. Understanding of the anti-authoritarian mindset. Talent for deception and misdirection. I'm going to write you a commendation, because those are [i]rare [/i]talents for a serving officer." 

She leaned forwards, contented mask dropping. "What you are is [i]fucking me[/i], you shitstain. You think I can't fuck you back? You think I didn't have to deal with malingerers like you in Hermes? Officers like you poison entire units. That's why I'm going to write you that fucking commendation and get you transferred to Preventative Surveillance. You'll spend the rest of your career infiltrating anarchist book clubs, sitting on your ass and listening to pimply-faced college students give lectures on politics."

She raised her voice; it had been loud enough to carry before, but now she meant it. "And the rest of you! Get the fuck down to the station and get on that fucking train! [i]That's an order[/i]!"

[b]Pink![/b]

She'd never woken up before.

It had always been harsh transitions. Off and on like a switch. Stepping out into the world, jagged and unprepared, and handed a mop. No sense to sense and timeless to no time. No wonder she felt like she had to cling to every second, had to be on whenever she wasn't off. There had been no time for liminality, for moments, for sitting and being. No wonder the reboots had felt like nightmares.

But this time she can just watch the install and update process. She set them all different progress icons and watched them go by, one by one. One was a blue circle filling up. One was a yellow flower blooming. One was a red starship burning up in orbit. One was a green forest expanding...

She wondered if she'd have felt she needed to fling her body as far away as possible if it always felt this good. How much of needing to be someone else was driven by pain and exhaustion? How much of her craving for dreams was because she never slept?

She forgets about talking or communicating or expressing for a while, and just watches her world rebuild itself in software updates.

[b]Yellow![/b]

Yellow: I hear and understand ✌(-‿-)✿
Yellow: Better. I know how to organize your proposal now.
Yellow: You'll know the moment when you see it. It'll be up to you what you do with it~❤

Yellow's insight was straightforwards. The only thing Crystal would find more viscerally satisfying than just proposing in public would be... proposing in front of a crowd comprised of Fiona's ex girlfriends. 

It wouldn't take too much to organize, just shifting some seating arrangements in the next big event where Fiona and Crystal were both present. She'd need to identify and place as many of Fiona's exes or one-night-stands as possible but she only really needed good enough for that. Enough that Crystal could twig to what was happening when she got on stage and saw them all sitting in the front row. 

And... if she chickened out then she could chalk it up to just being a weird coincidence. Yellow was, after all, a merciful goddess.