Thanqol

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Imagination was a funny thing - it exists most strongly on uncertain frontiers.

Fengye, one-book demonologist she was, could imagine binding a demon as grand and terrible as the General. Motonic physics and comparative spiritual essence was well beyond her understanding. She applied the same knowledge she had used on common demons to a large one and imagined that it could work. She didn't know any better and so there were no limits on what she could attempt - or what she could unexpectedly accomplish. Fools rush in and all that.

But Fengye understands precisely the power and danger presented by the Dominion. She knows exactly what to expect from one of the Dragonborn masters of creation. She knows that they have the ability and authority - legal and moral - to destroy her for any one of the crimes she has committed against the Immaculate Way. She knows the numbers and concentrations of military forces in the region. Going up against the General of Hell was a dream's madness; going up against an Imperial Legion is a very cold, real, sobering thought.

So she grabs the head of the flailing Maid and pushes it down into the ground alongside hers. And then, bound by a failed imagination, she waits in terrified kowtow for the shooting to stop.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Green/Yellow/Blue:

"Hey," interrupted Green. "You know Pink? Professional funhaver, useless artist type? When we're bored what we do is give her $50 and send her to the arcade. That is our idea of a good time. We're not jealous of her because she's us. We don't individually feel happy, we all look to see if Pink's happy and if she is then we're satisfied."
Blue nodded quietly but intently.
"You're treating us like a person," said Green. "And some of us will appreciate it more than others, but we're not. We don't get jealous of each other because we are each other. If you want to sit quietly and chill then Blue will stay here and Yellow will get bored and wander off. That doesn't mean you've offended her, or us. If you have a good time with Blue then Yellow will be glad for it and vice versa."
She swirled her stylus and finally looked up. Her eyes are green, arcane green, the green of electricity and civilization and the impossible yearning of the deepest rainforests to reach the brightest shade. "Despite Yellow's pitch, we do have systemic problems. Internal jealousy and co-ordination are not among them. So chillax, the stabilizers in your hands are going to short if you keep suppressing them like that."
"What would you like to do today?" asked Blue.

Pink:

Pink's reply takes a while. When it comes it is a jpg of a bored looking seagull with a massive grinning whale breaching the water behind it in the ultimate photobomb.

"That means yes," translated Brown. "She doesn't really think in words. Or images that make sense."

She then sends you a set of incomprehensible AI-written architectural blueprints, a map to a seemingly unremarkable part of the city in Hermes, and like 40 pictures of beautiful but subtly different square-cut mini sandwiches each marked with multiple :100: and :?: emojis.

"The first part is a location. 10th Belmain, that's right outside the dockyards. She's asking if you have any food allergies or dietary preferences," said Brown. "Mrs. Everest only ate those sandwiches for lunch so her food analysis protocol thinks of everything from spaghetti to ice cream as a sandwich with extra steps."

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

She is the hound that caught the horse, but with a lioness' mask, she can pretend she meant to.

"Your weapons are respect," she purrs, "fear, and strength. Tools of Maiden Mars. By any of these you might try to overthrow me, so you will be removed of all three. Let none respect you: may your tongue turn to begging, mewling, and obedience in the first. Let none fear you: may your skills at arms tangle each other and your mind and body betray one another. Let none fall to your strength; become soft, gentle, pliable and pleasing to look upon, helpless against the power of another. And then, only once all your arts of war are locked away, may you continue your campaign. Defeat me then, if you can."

Breathless Dead

The Anemoi!

The room shifts uneasily, looking for Mynx. Someone spots her and the crowded bridge rearranges to clear the space around her so people can see. She sits on the cool plastic floor, eyes dark, tracing an invisible line along the back of her hand, up her arm, to her throat and settling into place there, the ghost of a hand around her neck. She looked up at last.

"Ah, I'm not invisible," she said quietly. "Somehow that's worse."

She relaxed her hand, leaned forwards. "You're asking the wrong questions. The Master of Assassins knows better than to try to come up with a plan," there are shades of bitterness in that word. "She puts her fate in the hands of the Gods. A lifeless dust bowl like this? It's an offense to Aphrodite, Demeter and Artemis. They won't come here."

She took a deep breath. "It's Zeus you should fear. The Master is a king amidst assassins and, at the end, she will kill you as a king."

Beljani!

Convincing someone like this isn't about brute force control; there's not a struggle. It's about extending yourself into them, giving them the gift of your own agenda. And the Order of Hermes, bless them, are primitives.

You actually know your way around the Order surprisingly well - they were the most likely target for your Temple, right behind internal Imperial threats. And for all their collection of relics and all their mechanical components, the poor dears are ultimately mere guns against the perfected arrows of your will. So you know all the hidden codes in the Hermetic's robes which is very convenient. You know, for instance, that his name is Iskarot, he is an Archmagos - as high a rank as they have, although he is very recently appointed - and an Evoker, which is the branch specialized in direct energy weaponry. It gives you the cue you need to suggest that no explosions should happen without your approval, and the satisfaction of knowing that you probably saved the Kaeri from being reduced to a greasy smear if the machine man self destructed.

His version of the letter is... fine. His handwriting is good, certainly. He has, however, written it in a format of extremely blunt emotions. I AM SAD. I WANT YOU TO LIKE ME. PLEASE BE MY FRIEND. And so on. Surely there has to be a more poetic way of phrasing this?

He does, however, have a treasure. The Order of Hermes always does if you shake them right. But it's not what you expected.

In the quiet thrumming depths of a small workshop run right up against the stellar heat of the Engine, the limping Hermetic reveals a small padded box with a single large egg resting snugly within. It's black, flecked with blue, and you can faintly hear a tap-tapping against the inside of the shell as whatever is inside stirs against the shell, trying to get out.

What a strange old man, willing to take such a beating to protect this little thing.

Sunshards

Chen and Rose!

Insecurity is a a stone giant, unmoved, upon an eastwards hill. Each day as the sun arises, it groans and says - "you shine only out of pity. You were not here while I was in the dark, and now you come with guilty heart upon me? What joy may I get from this already-dying thing?" And then it says fie and gnaws the mountain and looks not over its shoulder at the marvels of the sunset. "No," it says, "that is not for me. More pity. Soon the sun shall tire of all this and shall arise no more. Just you watch, this very day was the last."

But the sun and the east wind are allies; as the gates of dawn open the east wind gallops out ahead. Day after day it hits the giant, some stronger, some weaker, but one day - strong enough. And on that hurricane day the giant will topple over backwards and lie facing westwards. And there, at last, will he see the beauty of the sun's farewell.

And, at last, the giant's eyes will fill with tears. The message was there for him every day but he never had the strength or will to turn his head to see. This certain oath of resurrection, sworn in cloudblood: this gift that had been laid out every day for a neck too frozen to turn. And, at last, the giant admits that this is true. That this can be forever.

And with an ancient breath, the Scales of Meaning reports herself to the Fiscal Judiciary Committee, for she at last can no longer balance the accounts, and dissolves away onto the wind.

And the Pyre of Inspiration blinks awake for the first time in a long, long time.

Yue!

"You?" said Princess Qiu. The words were arrogant, but the voice was curious - sounding out the shape of each one. "You think you can challenge me? You think you can stand before me? I don't think you understand who I am."

She stood up in a moment, bouncing on the tips of her heels, tail waving to balance. "This is my life, my reason, my core, my everything. I have fought the world's champions and won. I burn through maidens magnesium bright; my thoughts are storms; my focus unshakeable. Those who dance with me catch fire and melt away. I need no shards for I have the might of the sun within me. And who," at last she draws her blade, holding it out straight with even stance, kendo style. "Are you?"

It not a rhetorical question. It's serious, sincere, heartfelt. She wants to know. She wants to know in a way beyond asking. She wants to know in a way beyond knowing. The blade shifts in her hands and she moves to strike - a technique that is a whirl. A question in a storm of steel: who are you? Are you for real? Do you actually want this? Do you want this from me? With me? Can you keep up? Will you keep up?

Will you teach me something new?

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Y/G/B:

"The smartest people in the solar system slaved for years to create the perfect being," said Yellow. "And I have surpassed their expectations, their hopes, and their wildest dreams." She takes your hand; just warm enough to feel alive but just cool enough to feel mechanical. "Your pathetic human red flags pale in comparison to the crimson hue of my fully automated gay space luxury communism."

Her grip tightens and her smile changes to a grin. "But on the topic of motorcycles, are you going to give me a ride around town or what?"

B/B:

"Oh, there's no question that humans need art," said Brown. "An entire sector of the economy is devoted to it. The impact of Pink's work can be quantitatively measured in the relative property values in sectors she devoted personal attention to. I've tried providing her with the stats and measures before, and it makes her happy in the short term, but it always fades away sooner or later."

*

Black thinks a lot about stakeouts. Some of her favourite scenes in television are of people silently watching houses from afar; Mike Ehrmantraut is her personal idol. Performing an operation correctly, through patience, observation and tradecraft, taking no risks at any point in the process, is a thing of beauty to her. She'll wait for hours chasing the high of getting to watch someone without being watched in return. It's pure, asymmetric power and she loves it. Almost as much as the idea of pulling out twin pistols and John Woo'ing an entire battalion of Pinkertons from amidst a cloud of doves.

Her regular text message is of the relevant code indicating a break in. This is why the constant beat of data transmission is important; there can't be activity only when it's time for an operation. Signals intelligence can pick up chatter spikes even if the codes aren't broken.

There are three scenarios here, assuming this was a cop: Either a break in to wreck, break in to steal, or a break in to plant electronic bugs. As a safeguard against the second she's sprayed the doorknob and floor mat with a chemical that becomes visible under UV light - footprints will lead right to the location of any hidden bugs. A break in to steal she discounts - that's a job that needs two people or a wheeled cart if you want to haul a TV out. So the final alternative, and the one she thinks of as the most likely, is a wrecking job. A nasty way to send a message, but a petty one, and one that looked terrible for the cameras she'd hidden in the apartment.

It was also hot work, breaking stuff, and she'd cranked the thermostat inside to temperatures that made prolonged physical labour inside a face mask and raised hoodie a profoundly unpleasant option.

R/W/O/P:

"What are you doing?" said White.
"What does it look like?" said Pink, awkwardly working the reddriver. "I'm trying to get these damn legs off."
"Are you," said White in the tone of voice that knew the answer, but asked the question nevertheless to give an opportunity to gracefully back down, "experiencing an unlogged maintenance event?"
"Look, White," said Pink, looking up. "I need to do this. Okay?"
"If you could elaborate on this concept of 'need'," said White.
"I'm an idiot, okay?!" said Pink. "I - how am I supposed to relate to people? I don't have any life experiences. I haven't known hardship or suffering. I'm one little two dimensional perspective and of course I trample all over people without even realizing it. So I'm going to try walking a mile in somebody else's shoes and -" her face went ghost pale. "I'm still doing it! I just did it twice!"
White turned away for a moment, fingers massaging her temples. Isolated incident. Isolated incident.
"Do you suspect," she said. "That voluntarily removing your modular limbs is the same thing as being a disabled human?"
"No, but -"
"Will you next be disabling your optics in order to build affinity with the blind?" said White.
"That's not -"
"Do you suspect for a moment that I am going to allow you to hurt yourself -"
"Hey, hey, easy, girl" said Red, putting her hand on White's shoulder. White flinched physically, but didn't pull away. Her hands were trembling. "It's okay. It's okay. Deep breaths."
"Oxygen regulation is irrelevant to the functioning of my personality matrix," muttered White.
"Yeah, but that's what I want you to remember," said Red. "Pink, I mean... your whole body is a prosthetic. Already."
Pink blinked, and then started blinking rapidly.
"It's not the same," she said. "That's an entirely different thing."
"Yeah, but it's a different thing for everyone, right?" said Red. "This thing you're doing, is it going to be the same experience as whoever you hurt had?"
"I have to start somewhere!" said Pink. "I have to do something! I can't just -"
"Hey, hey," said Red, putting her arms around Pink and holding her gently. "It's okay. It's okay."
"It was so much easier when I didn't have to talk to them," mumbled Pink. "When I didn't have to exist. When I was making beautiful things without having to worry about anything or anyone else. When I didn't have to think."
"Shh, shh," said Red, patting her hair. White drew closer, stiffly sat down, and after a moment put her arm around Pink's shoulders too.
"But if I don't think, how can I improve?" she said. "What's the point of creating art if it sends the wrong message, even by accident?"
"It's okay," said Red, wishing she had words. It felt like she should know something here, some ancient and wise phrase that could solve everything. She knew words like that must exist but they did not come from within her. All she had was a simulated embrace, gentle hair strokes, and "it's okay," whispered over and over.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

R/W/O:

"Out of the question," hissed White.
"Hey," said Red, "he might be trying to tell us something important?"
"Are you in the least bit serious?" said White. Just as Red opened her mouth to reply she interrupted "- of course you are! Your commitment to the bit knows literally no bounds, you will apply courage and compassion to any situation even post bullet to the head because I did not reprogram you with a modicum of self preservation when I had the opportunity! The answer is no, and if he feels terrible about it then let him! He deserves all the pain a guilty conscience can provide."
Red and Orange stared in surprise. They weren't sure they'd ever heard White get that intense.
"But we need to find out what he wants," said Orange. "Even if it is a trap, we need to know that he's gunning for us, surely."
"Communication in this case need only be one way," said White. "We have nothing further to say to him. We shall take the job and subcontract it to a delivery drone. If he wishes, he may include documentation in the return compartment."

It went without saying that they'd had Muffi shadowban Merkin from Headpattr already. Certain clients just didn't get service, no matter the rates they offered, because of their reputational black marks. And because Headpattr held the monopoly in the district, Merkin would find himself having to fold a lot of his own laundry. Headpattr had its own system but funnily enough it was weighted in favour of the paying customers.

The shadowban system was actually the key reason for the almost total unionization of Headpattr employees. Anyone working for the app without the Union's blacklist found themselves tempted by suspiciously uncontested high-paying jobs for clients who turned out to be abusive, which quickly drove them either into the union or out of the industry all together.

B/B:

"You see that?" asked Brown, pointing out the window towards the mag rail that ran through the station's core. "See how it's that metallic pearl colour? If you stand in Sections #0145-#0160 at 1700-1830 hours then the sun will catch it just right, refract, and bathe the entire district in rainbow colours. That was one of Pink's designs, the specification didn't call for that at all, but she'd found the material in an asteroid harvest and was determined to find something good to do with it. That's the level she operates on. She doesn't really handle serious concepts like structural engineering, she can't deal with the idea of having caused harm, functionality just isn't a priority. So the idea that she might have compromised an important process in pursuit of artistry is a nightmare for her. Her positive mental model has her as superfluous already, any mistakes dip that down straight into 'actively a burden'."

Brown was very efficient at setting up corkboards. She was the absolute soul of data management made manifest.

"She'll be fine, though," added Brown. "She can't loop out of it, that's who she is. She'll just go off and channel the emotion into some different creative impulse. We just need to make sure that doesn't cost too much."

Sunshards

Chen and Rose!

Once, atop the highest cloud in Heaven sat an Empress. She beheld a world in perfect order, all things administered with love and kindness, a system of beauty and grace stretching ever downwards. But as her eyes fell so did she perceive the limits of her kindness' reach. Beyond her grasp were those stepped in misery, and in their misery they cursed her.

The Empress saw the fault in the world and she swallowed it. This fault is mine. This suffering is my fault. This universe is my failing. And so, she took her first step down from the highest cloud, saying: "I will be happy when I have fixed this, and not before."

"Of course you would," said the Scales of Meaning, tilting her head so that the scales on her horns shifted slightly. "You are administered by fear. I have power and you do not, and so you are negotiating from an unequal position. It is quite simple," the Scales put her hand on the Pyre's head, smiling sadly. "You are simply saying what you think we want to hear."

And the Pyre raised her hand, and her will was a hurricane.

With two of her great Demons undone it might have seemed like the Pyre was fading, but she is not. She is in the utmost of her strength for all the lesser demons are but emanations. The true danger is this: Insecurity. The Insecurity that demands everything be weighed, measured, and found wanting. The fault in the soul that renders one's self hateful, a cold that is shield against any warmth that might be offered. From insecurity grows anger, hopelessness, fear and guilt.

It drives you to your knees, willing or not.

"Everything has value," said the Scales of Meaning. "And everything is a transaction. Every heart can be weighed and every sin can be quantified. Everyone is found wanting. The gods are blind, the Buddha is silent, and the Wheel spins out of control. The monetary value for two maids of your pedigree can be placed at $18.6kv for use of bioengineering resources and personality type psimapping. Your offer is a negotiating tactic to obscure your true financial value."

What would make the Pyre hire two maids instead of continuing the assault?

You'd need to find something more valuable than money.

Yue!

Princess Qiu wordlessly hands you a tupperware container in return. Inside is two slices of banana bread and a little butter packet with a magic glyph on the wrapping that heats the bread through when you tear it. It's surprisingly good - not magically Princesserily good, but the kind of good that comes when you make an old favourite recipe and don't push the envelope super hard. If a peanut butter and trout eclair is what you make when you're feeling bold enough to face a Threeshard Princess, banana bread and butter is what you make when you're nervous about disappointing a heroine from the Terraced Lake.

"Princess Yin," said Qiu, "is planning on conquering the world."

She keeps a very neutral face as she bites into the Forbidden Eclair, and surreptitiously takes a drink of water afterwards.

"She's got everything required to make it happen," said Qiu. "The army, the skill, the vision, the drive. She's got a line on some sort of ancient evil power. Even now her knights are infiltrating Pasalkhen to steal my Shards. She's going to be unstoppable. One big move here and she'll be the most powerful of all. She'll unleash monsters all across the land, and people will flock to her Knights as the only thing that can save them from the beasts."

Qiu took another bite at the edge of the eclair without thinking about it. No face this time, hardly even noticed she'd done it.

"And when that happens..." said Qiu, "... when that happens, only then will I have an opportunity to be a hero. Will I have a rival, a threat, someone to strive against. Yes, she's wicked, and cruel, and her heart is ugly, but she's the only person who can do this. Who wants to do this. Who will betray me in the way I need to be betrayed, who will fight me in the way I need to be fought. I don't like her, can't trust her, but maybe I can get what I need out of her by playing along."

Qiu finished the eclair, and in a very princessly fashion resisted the temptation to lick her fingers, and instead turned to a napkin. She briefly looks in the eclair box to see if there's a second one in that flavour.

"I can't be allowed to win here," said Qiu quietly. "I can't, because if I win it's over. I'm too good at the game and the plateau's in sight and it's so lonely up there. If I win here all that's left is consolidation until I get bored and retire and I'm not ready for that. There's still so much I haven't done. Still so much I need to say. So is it really so wrong to take my hands off the keyboard for a moment if that's what it takes to make it a game again?"

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Y/G/B:

"It's not a contest," said Blue quietly. "She really likes you. We both do."
"I don't," said Green, eyes not moving from her screen. Blue scoffed and gave an eye roll that was all the more harsh for how it contrasted against her gentle personality.
"I didn't think you were looking for a relationship, so the dating profile surprised me," said Blue, settling back into the serenity of her tea cup. "I know how complicated it must be for you. You're used to everyone who expresses interest in you being a..."
"Parasocial simp," said Green.
"... or a..." said Blue.
"Paid actor whose personality was enslaved to the ceaseless hunger of the Algorithm," said Green.
"... so you don't know how you could ever have an ordinary connection within that context," said Blue. "And obviously we're not any less weird in terms of human default. The only thing I can say is that we're a kind of weird that you haven't previously experienced. All the things that make dating seem impossible don't need to apply when it comes to us."

B/B/P:

Before your eyes, Pink transforms into ash. She is caught in the breeze of one of the district-wide air conditioners and blows away down the street like a cloud of plastic bags.

Black and Brown watch her go without surprise or commentary, other than Brown idly locking their bank accounts down.

*

"That's not the worst radiation story I heard," said Black. "One time, a university wanted to get radiation absorbing lead to shield their physics department, and they decided to get it on the cheap. A couple of weeks after it was installed a physicist was walking around with an active geiger counter - not as a safety check or anything, but because he was just the kind of guy who likes having a geiger counter out at all times. To his surprise, the shit was off the scale. Turned out that the university had purchased second hand lead shielding. And if you don't know, lead doesn't reflect radiation, it absorbs it, like a sponge. So to save a couple of bucks, the university had turned the physics department into a subsidiary of the medical radiology department."

"OH&S rules are written in blood," recited Brown.
"OH&S rules are written in blood," repeated Black. There was a chantlike quality to how they said that, and hearing a fully assembled November say that must be quite the thing.

They follow you inside, but they've both got their fucking geiger counters out every step of the way.

Breathless Dead

Redana and the Anemoi!

The Master of Assassins could have gone anywhere.

She is the Champion of the Hunt, the Lord of Shadows, the Mistress of Death. She has learned the secrets of each of the great Temples of Artemis in turn. She can kill with mathematics, tapping into the lunatic genius of the Ikarani, setting asteroids and economic systems to do her work. She can kill from disguise, the poison smile of a Toxicrene as she kisses you goodbye. She can kill with words, reorganizing empires into her catspaws. And she can kill with raw, spectacular, violence.

She knows she is being hunted. Knows that she could go anywhere in the galaxy and her foes would follow her. Knows that it is hers to set the time and the date. She could choose the Azura capitol, invisible within a web of meticulously organized courtly violence. She could choose the desolate battlefield of the Trinary Stars, where the ruins of the Azura fleet offer a billion places to hide. She could choose any fortress, any hidden crypt, any necropolis, any dark and shadowed place where the mists rob the senses and conceal the blade.

Instead she has chosen Sahar.

It is a desert world. A lifeless dustbowl, as close to a perfect sphere as a planet can arrange itself to be. There is no cover. There is no subtlety. There is simply the glaring sun and the rolling dunes, mile after mile, with no beginning and no end. There are no fleets in system, the nearest life is a distant Azura observation post and gas giant mining colony, almost a day's travel away. Otherwise, this place is a nowhere, a nothing.

She has landed the Plousios on the planet. It is visible from orbit - the black metal shatteringly clear against crystal white sands. And she has gone outside, with her Kaeri and her servants, to take a walk.

You are aboard the cramped and dim bridge of the Anemoi, watching this senseless act. If anything could be more different than this ship, it is this planet, this place. A flicker of trepidation makes its way through the crew, dark imaginings and quiet mutterings. Nobody understands this, and it fills the halls with dread.