Atrophy

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

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Somewhere Else

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Billy sighed. Just when there looked like there was about to be a good old fashion catfight, his damn sister and her pal came in and ruined everything by making sense for once. He wasn’t as interested as Penny was in trying to act the hero and take down the Glutton. It seemed like quite a bit of work that was also very much improbable if not just straight up impossible. He would rather just enjoy their final days then stress out over something he couldn’t control. They were in a hospital, and there seemed to be not figures of authority around. It wouldn’t be tough to find a key that led to some of the fun, mind-melting meds.

Although maybe he didn’t need them, because everything shifted away to some kind of ghost realm. At first Billy thought he was somehow tripping, but then it became clear that everyone else also saw the weird ghost kid and could hear the weird ghost kid and could touch the weird ghost kid and oh god they were being transported to somewhere else by the weird ghost kid and—you know what? The place they were taken wasn’t half bad. In fact, it was pretty wonderful. Billy let out a little delighted chuckle as they floated above some massive tree while little other God kiddies played around it like they were characters in an early Disney film.

The Child went on to do his little spiel like it was Sunday morning and they were all stuck in a sermon, and like the days when his parents dragged him to church Billy spent most of the time half-listening and instead letting his eyes wander around the area while his mind drifted even further. The others seemed a bit more invested and peppered the Child with questions. His sister was strangely silent, although if Billy had paid more attention he would’ve noticed that she was watching Britney and Sharon for reactions. The mousy girl spoke instead.

“Maybe we should just let it continue,” suggested Rita, curious to see what the Child had to tell them.

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

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@Ciaran@MagratheanWhale@Zombiedude101@Majoras End@Eric Horst@FernStone@Atrophy

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Quick survey!

What are your thoughts on the RP so far? Any problems, comments, or concerns?

@Ruler Inc

I dislike how we went from having all our asses out to having none of our asses out. Otherwise, I'm still having a good time.

Annnnnd I should be able to bang a post out on Wednesday.

The Jericho Road

Subterranean Robot Blues II
_{• Errant •}

She also hated what she was doing. It was something other Ciphers could do at a distance, but with her being disconnected from the network she had to directly make contact with a port. However, once a touch-based connection was made, she had access to all of the robot’s memory. In a matter of moments it was copied into her memory bank, her system rapidly sorting through the information to see what was and was not relevant. The junk was flushed from her mind, but for the briefest of seconds Errant had two individual life experiences living inside of her mind. Back before she had gone rogue her life experience was also shared, but everything that happened from one Cipher to another was processed the same way whereas with another type of robot it felt different. It was strange, and foreign, sometimes horrific, and always an invasion of privacy that made her feel dirty.

Flushed were the memories of the servant model’s master, the other servants that it interacted with, the child that spoke to it like a person, the repairwoman that spoke to it like a child. They were irrelevant, no matter how much they clearly meant to the robot. Saved were the memories buried behind encryption. A sense of loneliness crept through all of them, and that feeling of isolation was what led to the drug Synthony. Errant could feel the same euphoria that robot had felt the first time it had inserted the data stick, she could see it connect for the first time to other technology in a way that was eerily reminiscent of the Ciphers, how it could communicate through great distances to other users to temper its loneliness. She felt the same anger the robot felt when it discovered the drug had left open a backdoor that would allow a virus on the data stick to move in, and then experienced the hopelessness when that virus reprogrammed the robot to want more Synthony.

Why, though? That was a mystery that the robot’s mind could not answer. Errant disconnected; the markings faded to black. She did learn that the data stick the robot had picked up from the bartender was not Synthony. Instead, it contained a ledger for one of Vargas-IV’s Capos, and she now knew where they would be meeting. The decision was made: she would be the one delivering the ledger. She palmed the stick and stood up, aware that some citizens had stopped to gawk at the scene. Errant couldn’t just ice this robot; hell, even if there were no witnesses that wouldn’t have been the plan.

So she stomped in its ankle and then ran like hell. The crunch of metal on metal, then the clank of metal on concrete. Nobody came after her, or at least nobody kept up with her as she ran past flows of sewage and vendors selling the fried meats of mutated rodents. It might have seemed as if she was only fleeing the scene, but in reality she was following a map in her mind to the location of the meeting. She knew what the capo looked like, and she knew that she needed him alive for now. What she didn’t know was how many other creeps she’d be up against, or what their level of lethality would be. Still, she imagined hers was better.

She slowed her pace when she emerged from the Gutters into the crowded streets of the Reach’s bazaar, knowing both that it would alarm any merchant guard to see a robot running and that she’d likely end up trampling someone who would then seek an altercation. Errant weaved in and out of the throngs of people as they argued with shopkeepers and held scarves up to their necks. She found her destination at the end of the marketplace—a smoke shop. An elaborate weave of curtains and beads masked the exterior and muffled the music that came from inside, and a group of juveniles had crowded around the entrance. Which was fine; she was going in through the back.

Her knuckles rapped against the door in a one, pause, two three, pause, four pattern. Just as Errant began to think that perhaps she had gotten the code wrong she heard the door unlatch, and then everything from there was fluid. She kicked the door in as it started to open and didn’t even give the poor woman a chance to hold her bleeding nose as Errant rushed in and slammed the back of her head against the wall with a measured blow. It was hard enough to knock her out, hard enough to probably give a concussion, but wouldn’t leave her leaking out brains. Errant knew that they were probably all crooks, and it was that “probably” that made her restrain herself.

She pressed forward down the hall as she passed by shelves of defunct hookahs and burnt out pipes. She turned the corner and came upon two men. The first dropped before he even realized what had happened; the second got off a shout before Errant chopped him in the throat and slammed him to the ground. The shout roused a woman out of the sideroom she had been resting in; she attempted to punch Errant. It connected and the woman recoiled back and grabbed her fist, perhaps realizing now that it was a colossally stupid idea to punch a robot. Errant punched her back. Once was enough. She pushed on and tore her way through a bead curtain, where she caught a rather surprised man eating a sandwich. Vargas-IV’s Capo, in all of his glory, with a bit of mayo on the corner of his mouth.

Truth be told, Errant had expected a bit more resistance than a handful of unarmed humans.

“Hello,” said Errant.

“Hello,” repeated the Capo, more confused than anything.

“I have the ledger.”

“You have the..what was all of that noise?” asked the Capo as he pushed up from his chair to try and look around Errant. She stepped to one side and then the other to block his view. “Who are you?”

“I’m the one with the ledger.”

“What ledger? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why are you here?”

“I have the ledger for Vargas-IV,” said Errant. Something wasn’t adding up. For a drug dealer, the man seemed less aggressive and more nervous than anything.

“Y-you work for Vargas-IV?” asked the Capo. “Are you here to collect already? It’s been only three days. I was told I would have a week.”

“What? No. Wait,” said Errant. He could be lying, but her scans of him detected no usual tells that all humans suffered from when they stretched the truth. “Why do you think I work for him?”

“Because you’re a robot.”

“And you don’t work for him?”

“That’d be impossible!” shouted the “Capo”.

Errant paused.

“Okay,” she said, “I’m new here. Maybe you should just sit right back down and explain to me what’s actually going on in this town.”

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

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_{@Ruler Inc@Zombiedude101}
St. Mercer Hospital

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Penny frowned when Britney admitted to not knowing how to kill the Glutton. Of course she didn’t. Certainly, Penny was disappointed that there wasn’t something that Britney had just been holding back, although given her track record she still could’ve been lying, and the others descend upon her like starving hyenas. Normally if Penny saw something like that she would’ve felt some kind of satisfaction, but a social victory was hollow now. She was about to continue probing their disgraced leader when Sharon appeared and added more fuel to the fire that was licking at Britney’s heels.

Justin and Nate openly expressed their disgust to the vision; Penny chewed on the cigarette in her mouth and stared down Sharon. The bloody knife was alarming, sure, but what puzzled Penny more was her coat. There was something about the girl that Penny just didn’t like; they had been at odds since Sharon had argued with Paige. Penny sighed. She didn’t like what she was about to do, but doing anything else seemed impossible.

“Okay, let’s hold the fuck on for a minute,” said Penny as she kicked off of the wall and made her way to join Britney in the middle. “Nate, maybe we should consider that the goddamn rules got changed a little once we all got magic powers after the Sheriff’s fucking son started actively murdering kids for sport. And...I’m, sorry, but why are you being a bitch about this?” asked Penny as she gestured at Sharon. “I was there. I saw what happened! Andrea was killed by the bugs being controlled by your shitty abstraction. Accidentally, maybe, but I think it’s a little worse than hiding someone’s manslaughter. Whatever! Now is not the goddamn time for a trial. How about we say that both of you suck and move on to the things that matter, like stopping the rest of the goddamn town from being devoured by some monster god thing? Fuck!”

“So,” Penny pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to calm herself, “We can’t kill it. Okay. You said something woke it up, right Britney? Then...then we have to make it go back to sleep, right? Do you even know what woke it up?”

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

@Ruler IncHeck yeah do it.

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

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St. Mercer Hospital - Hall

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Penny was thankful to be back in real clothes. They weren’t clean by any means, but the smell of stale cigarettes covered up any other foul odors. She had even found a half-crushed pack of the culprits in her jacket’s pocket, and considering the circumstances the “No Smoking” signs littering the hospital could go fuck themselves. She waited by the makeshift changing room for her brother. He was going to get an earful for abandoning them during the fight with the Glutton, plus a hug for making it through it, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing his dumbass could do to get out of it.

“Hey,” said a quiet voice. Penny looked down from the smoke cloud she had been staring at to see Rita standing there in an old gray sweater with a pile of gowns in her hands..

“Oh hey,” said Penny. It was weird for Rita to be talking to her. The two of them didn’t really have much of a rapport, outside of the camp incident and the chest moment. There was a stillness in the air that forced Penny to continue, “What’s up?”

Rita shuffled her feet and looked down. Penny sighed; she remembered now why the two of them didn’t have a close relationship. “Okay, look, I don’t know if this shrinking violet thing is a fucking bit or if you really have this much social anxiety, but if you need something just say it.”

“Can we talk, later? Once we’re out of here?” asked Rita, still looking away.

“We’re talking now,” said Penny.

“Alone,” said Rita, her voice barely there.

Penny sighed, “Sure. I can’t think of a better way to spend my time.”

Rita muttered a thanks and then took off towards the lobby. Penny barely had time to consider the odd girl when Billy entered the hall where she was waiting, decked out in some god awful combo of cargo shorts and hooded sweatshirt. She launched herself at him.

“Jesus, Penny, there are people around,” said Billy, squirming as his sister locked her arms around him.

“Shut up you’re ruining it,” she said with her head pressed into his chest, the urge to yell at him gone. “Don’t run away next time. I know things are fucking scary and you’re absolutely useless in a fight, but don’t run. Not unless everyone’s running, too.”

“Penny, come on, I—”

“Promise me,” she said, “Promise me you won’t run away.”

“Okay,” said Billy, his voice lowering, “I promise.”

“Good,” said Penny as she pulled away. “Cause next time I’ll blast you with a bunch of quarters.”

“Cool,” he said, as his sister headed back to join the group. “Cool, cool, cool…”

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St. Mercer's Hospital - Lobby

_{@Ruler Inc@MagratheanWhale}

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Rita had taken it upon herself to cover the dead with the discarded hospital gowns. There was still a lot of blood in the lobby, but at least they didn’t have to look at the fresh corpses anymore. She wiped her eyes and pulled down the sleeves of her sweater after the task to recover the sigil on her arm. By the time her task was complete most of the others had returned in their new old duds, and Rita found a nice wall to become a flower on. Billy sat on top of the receptionist’s desk, zero fucks given about the papers he had knocked to the floor, while Penny stood by the front door and watched the snowstorm outside.

The God-Child had warned them that the Glutton was coming for them, and Penny doubted that one zealot with a pipe was all of its forces sent to descend upon the hospital while they were out of commission. She tried to use her abstraction to see any movement beyond the blinding snow, but was quickly overwhelmed when she saw every snowflake’s projected path of descent. She shut down her abstraction as fast and she could and picked up the dropped cigarette, rubbing the butt of it with her fingers as if it would clean it before she put it back in her mouth. If a few germs killed her then she’d be lucky, considering what happened to the rest of their group.

“Well, here I am.”

Penny felt her temper flare up in an instant as she looked back at the group and saw Britney take center stage. It was easy to blame her for everything. In reality, everything was way more complex than it seemed, but when Penny looked at Britney and thought, this bitch is why everyone is dead, it just felt right. She couldn’t help but smile when Jordan shouted Britney down, although her own desire to jump in on the beatdown was kept at bay when Britney agreed to spill her guts. She took another drag of her cigarette and held back.

“...And was he right when he said that the world might be ending?” asked one of the new kids.

“Well, man, even if it doesn’t end now, the Sun is eventually going to expand and swallow up the Earth anyway,” said Billy from his perch, ever unhelpful. “So don’t sweat it, dude.”

Britney offered a more insightful explanation.

"... And we will stop it," Justin optimistically said. "Screw that end of the world bullshit, I promise that everyone here will live a happy life!"

“We’ll fucking stop it, at least,” said Penny, holding back a rare laugh. She quickly swallowed it and glared at Britney, the smile on her face turning sour. “Let’s say I’m a fucking idiot that doesn’t learn from her mistakes and actually believes you. You’re saying the reason we have to deal with the fucking Glutton trying to destroy our little shithole town is because some assholes from a different universe decided to lock him up here, right? Maybe there is some way to send it back there, then—except no, fuck that. Clearly that didn’t solve shit!” Penny slammed her fist against the wall. The thought of other people pushing this off on them pissed her off, even if it was the way the world worked. Let the next generation deal with our problems; let the other universe fight our abominations. “How the fuck do we kill that thing?”

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

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St. Mercer Hospital
_{@Ruler Inc@Fernstone}

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Oh no, this was her fault. Rita recoiled as she watched Zoey grab Penny and shove her; the blonde girl shouted in protest and balled up her fists. If she had just kept her mouth shut, Penny wouldn’t have said anything. Yet between the bloody bodies and the frightful reunions her nerves had gotten the best of her, and the question had just blurted itself out. She pressed herself up against the reception desk and made herself as tiny as possible, a hand tightly shoved against her lips to keep her mouth from asking any more damning questions. Rita cast a nervous glance over at Tuyen. Tuyen would know that she was responsible.

“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered as she lifted her hand for just a second before she slapped it shut again.

Rita was ready for things to turn explosive. Penny didn’t have the best track record of keeping a cool head, and this Zoey girl had clearly taken plays from her friend’s book. Her dead friend’s book. Rita hadn’t known that. She was afraid of Claire, but didn’t like the idea of her being killed. It implanted the idea that maybe more of their ragtag group of misfits had also died in the chaos with their run-in with the Glutton. The hospital had records and ways to look up patients, right? She looked over her shoulder at the desk. Maybe there was something. Even a calendar. Anything to give them perspective.

“Zoey, calm down…”

Rita turned her attention back to the two girls, ready to watch Penny drop an atom bomb of assholery on Zoey.

But screw harsh words. Zoey was lucky that Penny didn’t repulse her across the room. She didn’t drop Zoey’s death glare. If the other girl thought that Penny would back down then she was in for a world of disappointment. This was the same girl who had gone after Scott Reese on her own before; who had stood on the same ground as the Glutton and gotten away. A bitch with a bad dye job in a hospital gown wasn’t going to intimidate her, even if she did have a few unimpressive sparks. Hell, Penny had stood against Claire a number of times, even though she knew fully well that her abstraction would likely have been pulverized by that girl’s aura.

Penny felt her stare waver. Despite their differences, Claire had also gone after Reese—Penny had just rushed off first. And if it wasn’t for Claire and that damn good punch of hers, Penny would’ve been skewered by the Glutton. She felt tears come to her eyes. It wasn’t like this was a new realization or anything; Penny had been aware in the moment that she owed a lot of things to Claire, as awful as that girl could be. She just didn’t realize until now that she never really would be able to pay that off. She opened her mouth to talk, a dry crackle came out instead. For a moment, she was speechless. A rarity, and in just about every case except this one, a blessing. By the time her voice came to her, Caelea was already trying to defuse the situation.

“For fucksakes...Zoey, she’s right. Look, I’m sorry for what I said. I’m an asshole, but I’m still on your side. Before anything else we need to make sure that we’re safe,” said Penny as she caught sight of the stranger’s arrival. Another awakened, judging by the shades, and scared out of his wits too. Damn it, in comparison to this she rather be fighting those two goons again. “I swear to you, I’ll explain everything the moment we’re out of here. We need to just find anyone else that survived first.”

As Penny tried to calm Zoey down, Tuyen attempted to help explain to the newbie why everyone else seemed so nonchalant about a couple of dead bodies and some powered-up young adults. Rita couldn’t blame him for freaking out, but she did find it odd how numb she had become towards witnessing death. Back at the camp, she had been absolutely paralyzed by even the sight of violence. Now, well, she wasn’t comfortable with it at all, but she could still function. That realization didn’t really make her feel any better; it was just simply a fact.

“It’s hard to explain,” finished Tuyen after having told Cyrus just about the worst of it.

“Looks like he understood well enough,” said Rita under her breath as the man turned and bolted. She heard Penny swear loudly and bark at Justin to go after him, but it ended up not mattering. Within a few moments he had warped back to the location he had been before and fell to one knee. Rita began to walk over to him to offer some sort of comfort—God knows she would want some if she was in his position—but stopped a few feet before him, a quiet “shit” escaping from her lips as a figure loomed behind Cyrus.

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St. Mercer Hospital
_{@MagratheanWhale}

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“Man, this looks about right,” said Billy, a smirk on his face as he scanned the lobby. “Can’t leave you kids alone without y’all making a mess.”

It was quite the vivid scene, and he took it all in. Almost immediately below him was some guy he didn’t know having a classic freak out; considering Billy had witnessed him running away from the lobby to suddenly snapback to it, it was probably justified. Still, the dude should cheer up. The kind of shenanigans one could get in with an abstraction like that. Across from the cry baby was the pair of dorks. He was surprised the lamer of the two hadn’t bolted yet; it was her new favorite hobby. Billy was excited to see that Zoey was back, or was it that he was excited to see Zoey’s back in that hospital gown? That left Caelea, Justin, and, of course, Penny, or the Albino, the Asian Guy, and the Asshole. Sounded like the lineup to a tasteless joke.

Oh, and there were also a couple of freshly deaded folks. Nothing out of the ordinary. Billy let out a low whistle.

“Shit, that’s pretty fucked up. You do this, sis?” he said, his voice definitely too sunny for the mood of the room.

“Oh my fucking God, I’m glad you’re alive but now is not the time, Billy!” barked Penny, her voice growing hoarse.

“I’mma take that as a maybe. Hey dude, you’re not crying are you?” said Billy, craning his neck to look down on Cyrus. “It’s gonna be okay, bud. It’s not like it’s the end of the world. I mean, it might be, but we had a good run.” He gave him two uncomforting pats on the shoulder before turning back to the group. “Sooooo, what does a guy have to do to get some pants around here?”

“Please let me go so I can hit him,” muttered Penny.

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

@MagratheanWhaleHey I got a question about Cyrus's abstraction: when he uses "Hike!" he returns back to a place he was before. Am I correct in assuming this is pretty much instantaneous? And does he warp/teleport back to the spot, or does he reverse quickly back through everything? As in, if he goes through a door and then someone else closes it, would he reverse back and hit the door, would the door somehow just open, or would he phase through the door like it was open?

This is really just to help me with describing what my characters see.

_{And to potentially put a banana peel in the way of him if I'm feeling frisky...}

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

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St. Mercer Hospital
_{@Ruler Inc@Fernstone}

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A little “yes!” erupted from Penny’s mouth as her shot hit true and forced the man to drop Justin’s tiger, which allowed it to go full force on the bastard. Their little moment of victory was soon ruined by the smell of burning flesh followed up by some self-surgery. Penny looked away, but she knew she’d hear that sound like pudding being plopped on a cafeteria tray anytime she closed her eyes to go to sleep for the rest of her life. She instead focused on the nurse, ready to go to Caelea’s aid—and beaten to it by a girl she did not expect to see. Zoey Gray, Claire’s old BFF and yet another person in the long list of individuals whom Penny had spurned in the past. None of that petty school shit really mattered anymore, but she still felt her demeanor grow icy as they made eye contact.

That little moment was enough to make it so that Penny did not realize what the path of the scissors in the nurse’s hand meant until it was too late. She had only made it three steps towards the woman before the scissors were plunged into her neck and made the floor slick with her blood. Penny let out a noise of disgust as she deactivated her abstraction, the world losing its shimmering effect as is projected motion disappeared. She bent down a picked up the scissors and took a second to wipe it off on the gown before stashing it in the pocket of her smock. If any more of these redemption freaks popped up, she needed to be armed.

“Thanks for the help,” she said quietly to Caelea, before she heard Zoey pop a question that Justin was incapable of answering. Penny turned on her heels and folded her arms over her chest, ready to drop the bomb on Zoey. She paused when she saw Justin. Wouldn’t it be better for Zoey to hear this from a friend? It wouldn’t hurt if she just kept silent on this, would it?

No, worse, it would make Penny like Britney.

“Justin, she deserves to know,” said Penny, taking a step towards Zoey. “Claire was protecting…”

Protect? She had been on a goddamn rampage, probably put them more at risk than anything. Penny shook the thought out of her head. Those were unnecessary details. As she tried to collect her thoughts and put the rest of it in the most gentle way possible, two girls ran into the lobby. The quiet ones, finally loud, their breath heavy and their ability to dismantle a moment impeccable. Penny frowned. She was already bad at this, and now there was an audience. Penny gave Justin a guilty look and then decided to keep her tongue still. She turned and caught the mousy girl’s eye.

“What...the hell...is happening?” demanded Rita, terrified by the scene around her, doubled over to catch her breath, her greasy hair clamped to the side of her face.

Penny tried to roll her eyes. Instead, they couldn’t even move away from the wreck of a girl. She felt as if hands were forcing her mouth open, prying apart her gritted teeth, and then reaching down inside her throat to pull words out. Her head began to hurt as she tried to keep herself silent, and then she swelled with relief as the words came out in short, staccato bursts.

“God, you’re nosy. Those things attacked. We fought them. We won. They killed themselves. Justin refuses to tell Zoey that her stupid friend was a dumb bitch and got herself killed. Happy?”

Penny blinked. Shit, why did she say that last part? She turned towards Zoey, a pit already formed in her stomach. Her voice was low and grave as she said, “Zoey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that last part. I don’t...I don’t…” She put a hand on her hip and looked away. Apologizing was pointless; she had fucked up.

The Jericho Road

Subterranean Robot Blues
_{• Errant •}

It bustled. That was Errant’s first take when she arrived at Jericho’s Reach just shy of seventy-two hours ago. She had hitched alongside a trade caravan that she had met outside the town north of Podunk. The common folk were always wary of an errant. It seemed that once there was no longer a guarantee that they wouldn’t be slaughtered by a Cipher the added perks of having one around quickly diminished; Errant usually put her best foot forward by arriving to places that didn’t know of her with a completed bounty in one hand and her badge in another. As long as she killed the right people, she was normally fine. Of course, a caravan wasn’t a settlement; their only enemies were their competitors, and the only thing criminal about traders were their rates.

So she had hidden with their supplies (the security measures in the cargo hold were easy enough to reprogram to view her as a friendly) and ditched the caravan a half-day’s walk from the Reach.

She loved how much life there was in the Reach. Within her first couple of hours inside of the walls of Jericho she had stepped over drunks covered in sawdust and stomach contents, smacked away the hands of dirty children trying to get under her robes and into her wallet, and walked by men, women, creatures, and robots that offered to show her a “good time”. How they thought they would manage to pull that off was a mystery that Errant was fine with leaving unsolved. She had siphoned enough information from remnants of old systems to know that whatever they were offering did not appeal to her.

What appealed to Errant was the fact that with so many people and so much technology around her she would be drowned out of any Cipher’s scan like a voice in a corrupted sea of white noise. Even when they did find her—and it was a when, not an if—all of the outside factors would heavily limit what actions they could take. To be part of the crowd was the safest course of action for her. She managed to do it for two and a half days before a poster caught her eye and implanted an itch inside of her that she just had to scratch. Vargas-IV, the poster said, wanted Dead or Alive for the production and distribution of the illegal substance Synthony. Errant had stared at that last word for a long time. Synthony? Never heard of it. Didn’t matter. Vargas-IV was her route in with the law around here, and even without her old programs she still felt drawn to serving it.

Plus, she didn’t like hiding like some yellow-bellied coward. Maybe if she made herself useful, she’d have some guns on her side when the Ciphers showed their stupid faces.

Unfortunately, Errant was new in town and did not know exactly where to start, so she went with her gut. She found herself in a bar in one of the wetter and seedier areas of the Reach that sprawled underneath the settlement like a sewer system lovingly called the Gutters. She did not smell, perse, and the chemical compound in the air that was picked up by her sensors informed her that she should be thankful for that; the Gutters registered somewhere between a dirty bathroom and a bloated corpse. The bar was named the Moist Hole, which made Errant feel a sickness in the pit of her motherboard, and it was the fifth similarly disgusting named bar to she been to that day. After spending so many hours in such a dump, Errant was both wishing that she could and very grateful that was incapable of having a drink.

It was clear from the second she walked in to the Moist Hole that she was the only one with that caveat; even the bouncer, a big, burly man with random wires and metal snapped to his right arm, looked drunk. He didn’t even question the obvious robot with her hood up and veil covering her puppet face of why she would ever subjugate her metal ass to such a damp, disgusting place. Errant heard something go squish beneath her boots and overrode her desire to look down. She made her way to the bar, ordered a drink from the overweight and underdressed woman with a shaved head who gave her the side-eye, and found a place in the corner to stand. She dared not take the booth next to her or lean against the wall, fearful of what material she’d have to scrape off of herself later.

She watched the small crowd from that corner and hoped that she gave off the appearance of a fuck-ugly, sad human. The entire place was full of organics get drunk and talking shit over the noise from the speakers that must’ve sounded like music to them. Errant was sure that if she approached any single individual in the bar she could find them guilty of something, but she didn’t want to be pegged before getting a lead on Vargas-IV. So she watched, and pretended to drink, and swayed from place to place and she eavesdropped on conversations. All awful in their own right, but none about Synthony.

Errant was about to call it quits when a robot walked in. It was a servant model, judging by its chrome metal, lack of clothes, and androgynous form. A metal mannequin, sentient but programmed to obey, generally used by the rich as butlers but also serving a basic workers. There had been one like it tending bar at the last place. She watched as it approached the bartender, put its hand on the counter, and spoke quietly to her. The bartender leaned against the counter, seemingly to hear it better, and then backed away and shook her head. The robot quickly left after that. It was a strange interaction, but Errant had noticed something—the bartender left a tiny stick on the counter, and the robot had palmed it.

She set her drink down and followed off after the robot. Errant made sure to keep a safe distance from the servant model as it walked through the sparsely populated streets of the Gutters, artificial light reflect off of its chrome. It cut into an alleyway between two blacked-out, shanty buildings. Errant turned into it seconds later and found herself caught off-guard when a pipe cracked against her face. Her sensors scrambled for a tic and she stumbled back as the robot dropped the pipe and took off past her. She lunged at it while still stumbling and set herself off-balance, but not before she could wrap an arm around its waist. The two crashed to the ground and Errant crawled on top of it as it rolled over. Heads turned and stared as Errant finally pinned its flailing arms her legs and smashed the shrieking robot in the face twice.

“Howdy,” she said, her voice a crackle. “You’re gonna hate this.”

She gripped the robot’s forehead. Instantly, the screaming stopped as her markings glowed purple.