Str4t3gy

Troll Noize was blasting through the speakers of the van. At the wheel Load peered at the HUD overlay on the windshield that held the layout of the Horizon Tower, a triple A rated monolith of corporate power smack bang in the heart of Berlin’s corporate megaplex. The cesspool of corporate drek that withered the once free state. Pebbles had one leg up on the dashboard, flicking through the holographic model of the same building while chewing on the stump of her cigar.

“10th level garage? That’s deep.” Her voice rumbling over the comms with the appropriate amount of static.

“Yeah.” Load worried the cut on the inside of her lip with her tongue. Glancing to Pebbles, then back to the road.

“Whats this?”

- “Maintenance elevator”

“Goes to the 5th?”

- “Yep”

“Can you control it?”

- “Until shit hits the fan and the ICE comes flying.”

“That’ll do.”

Pebbles was a planner, strategist. She looked for things that others often diddn’t. There was no question who was in charge of this operation. It was refreshing to be in one of these operations again. An actual run, and damn the pay was rewarding.

A black bike pulled up along the van, dimmed lights. On it a black leather clad figure with only a hint of red accents on the suit. The black helmet peered inside.

“Salaam boss” Abydos’ voice crackled over the comms.

“You’re late.” Pebbles growled.

“Had to bandage up the ribs boss.”

In the back of the van Witz let out a loud boisterous utterly out of place laugh at that. Which prompted a soft snicker from Load and no small amount of eyerolling from Pebbles.

“Alright drekheads listen up.” Comms went silent, people focussed stares on whatever they were working on, the road, the layout, or a doberman drone.

“We’re going to go in front gate. As soon as we breach we’re hot. Our mark will be at the dropoff 1:30 sharp. We will be there as well. Load, take the van through the gate, into the elvator here.” She gestured at a place on the map. “Take the elevator, with the van, all five floors down to the 5th and set up here. It’s defendable. Witz..”

“Witz!” Witz replied, breaking the comm silence. “You eject here, cover Load, nothing comes through to her understood.” Horns scraping across the roof of the van meant nodding of the bulky troll. “Good.”

“Abs and I will make our way down to 10th level, retrieve the mark, meet you here and then we fight our way out. Luckily the mark is capable.” A flicker of light as Load lit her cigarette. “More than capable.” she added.

“Load you’re on security as per usual. Don’t frag this up.” The bike peeled out before them, heading into the corporate sector where the tower made it’s home.

“Time?” Pebbles glanced to Load, sizing the decker up conceding to herself that she looked appropriately furious and ready for the job.

“10 minutes til impact, buckle up.” She revved the van’s souped up little engine, following Abs down into the sector, turning around the boulevard to line herself up with Horizon’s parking garage entrance.

Ashes fell from her cigarette. She took a deep breath. Pebbles was watching her, she didn’t register the knobbly dwarven hand on her mechanical shoulder save for the pressure sensors telling her ocular implant what was up. Another deep breath, the radio flipped to the next song, a split second of silence, Witz tinkering, Abs on her left, Pebbles on her right.

“Let’s go get Dandy.”

N0 J0k3

Berlin, city of millions. Beyond the wall a corporate megaplex, on this side of the wall still the rumbling remnants of the flux state. Hundreds upon thousands of milling souls running through their lives. Coming to and fro. Yet there she was, alone, desperate, at the side of the road after having left Briarwood in a spray of muddy rain from the tires as she peeled out.

Where to?

Load bashed her head so hard against the steering wheel her optics twitched. The bright red HUD overlay on the real world flickered. For a moment images appeared in her mind. Residual trips, leftovers in her brain from the BTLs she had done combined with other mind altering substances that had passed through her body in various ways before. She saw the scene again. Brighter this time, different.

“Oh you dumb slothead.” She cursed herself thrice before taking the wires from her deck and slotting them into her datajack. The loving tingling sensation never failed to calm her down.

//ACCESSING SIMSENSE MODULE

+++please insert hotsim module to start simulation+++

//sbin/reboot -f

+++Please inser…skkeszch..tossheee..smu…tio..++
// bypassmount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /null/vid/sim

+++Please innnssssss…
//mount null/vid/sim -t ramfs /HOTSIM

+++Hotsim module accepted+++

The joys of having a hotsim module meant that in combination with a simrig you could sometimes sell your own experiences recorded as a BTL. Glorious, and a nice way to make money or amateur porn, potentially both.

A smart decker doesn’t record everything. But when your mind is fried thinking your friends are about to be eaten by a 9 meter tall pink dragon you forget something. And rightly so in the depths of her memory banks was part of the recording of that faithful night where she drekked everything up. She saw exactly what happened, faces, she could feel her own excitement through the hotsim module.

The fear on their faces, the look of betrayal as she felt herself stumbling out of the van, spraying bullets, her foot hurt. Seeing this all in hindsight without the mind altering experiences, drek, she fragged up. Poor Dandy…

The lights in the van had gone out, the only light the little burning ember at the front of her cigarette. Her hand was shaking, resting on the steering wheel. She knew just what had to happen and between the mess in her head she just dug up and her worries for her friend she was gathering up courage for what needed to be done next. People she had to meet.

//Call: Pebbles
//CALL DENIED

Frag

//Call: Pebbles
//CALL DENIED

Oh for drek’s sake, bloody stubborn dwarf! The van lit up again, engine purring, wheels running along the wet tarmac over to the bridge that Pebbbles and her pack had been living under the last couple of weeks.

—–

“Ya DARE show up HERE! YOU OF ALL PEOPLE!”

- “Pebs, please.”

The dwarf had been right up in her face the moment she stepped through the old industrial rubber door flap that served as a seal between the outside and the inner structure of the bridge, the hollow support columns in which Pebbles had set up shop. Together with Abydos, the street sam and his glowing red eyes had reached for his knives as soon as he saw her.

“Don’t ya Pebs me! Frakkin’ little slothead, get yer beetlebrain outta here!”

- “PEBS! Let me speak for a minute! Damnit!

"You have no right to speak here” The knife was pointed in her direction, causing her to reach for the empty SMG at her side, which in turn resulted in a puch to the face from the dog shaman.

From the other room two big horns peeked around the corner, a frown on the gentle mutton chopped face at the violence ensuing. “No Witz!” the troll tried to interject, but without much effect.

“FRAG DAMNIT PEBS! IT’S NOT FOR ME! IT’S NO..t..”

Another punch, and instinctively her knee connected with Pebbles’ gut, rolling along the floor in a good old fashioned brawl. She managed to get her scrawny ass on top, about to drive her prosthetic fist headlong into the shaman’s face if it hadn’t been for Abydos grabbing her arm and pulling her up, placing a knife on her throat. “Don’t you dare junkie..” he hissed.

“No witzwitz!”

Pebbles followed up with a fist to Load’s gut, and another one to the ribs that would have made her keel over if the tall Egyptian looking orc wasn’t keeping her upright. “Tha’s fer  messin’ up tha’ job! And tha’s fer..-”

“NO WITZ!” In a flash Load dropped to the floor, and before anyone good and well knew what was going on there was a sickening crunch of breaking concrete caused by the sudden impact of chromed out street sam crashing back first into the wall. Originator of this new escalation in violence was a 2.5 meter high troll, still holding on to Abydos’ ankle, throwing the orc towards the other side of the room before spraying both Pebbles and Load with saliva and halitosis while shouting “ENOUGH FIGHTING!”

Both shaman and decker exchanged glances, in a corner the orc gave a disgruntled nod, trying to gather himself up to his feet. A helping hand was all that was needed to allow Load to lean on the sturdy dwarf. Witz, now getting bumped in the ankle by a small drone followed the little thing back to the other room. Potentially to sulk, but most probably going back to playing with his drones.

“So, ehm, ya wer sayin?”  Pebbles started. Load rubbed her cheek, spat out a glob of blood. “It’s not about me, it’s about Dandy… I need an extraction team.”

The voice from the corner of the room was shaky yet determined, sounding much like angry broken bones and internal bleeding.

“Consider us hired.”

R3v3ng3

Sure, she contemplated switching off the cameras. She still wasn’t sure if she enjoyed seeing what she saw. If she enjoyed living Dandy’s life through the cameras while she sat there. Neither of them were strangers to it. And Dandy had on more than one occasion walked in on Load doing unsavoury things.

Sex, we’re talking about sex. Good sex because Briarwood had made Dandy make those little squeaking sounds she also made when having good soycream, or seeing Abs undress. And the sleazebag had been able to make Dandy do all that and more. And it was starting to piss Load off. Not because she was sleeping with him. Not at all. For all she cared Dandy could have orgies with a hundred orks. As long as they were honest orks, and this sleazebag, knowing about the drugs planted in the apartment. She was going to take him down.

Watching her felt dirty, actual grime like dirty. It reminded her of the fact that she should probably shower. which hadn’t happened in the last… week? Maybe longer. How long had she been tracking Dandy? How long had this drek been going on. And when was she going to intervene.

The camera didn’t have sound. Dandy’s commlink had however. A way to listen in to their sleepy mumbling from a distance. “Help you with what drekbag?” she hissed through her teeth at no one but Sebastian, who whirred, then bonked it’s round self against the corner where he had been stuck for a while now, she should probably help him first before even thinking of helping Briarwood.

A blue light flashed to her virtual right. A screen blinked labelled “PROJECT ECHO”. Aside from stalking Dandy she had been rooting through Horizon archives of the facility where Dandy worked. And Project Echo had come up several times. It was magic mumbo jumbo that Load knew nothing about. But numbers never lied.

+++++++++++++++++++

Project Echo - Beta 2
Ing. Drs. Dr. M. Pragandishiv

Test pool 3 - Results

Subject: Delores Farmer
Status: Awakened - Hermetic
Result: Deceased
Subject suffered cardiac arrest in the third stage of testing. Neural loop routed through biofeedback filters tripled bloodpressure in subject.

Subject: Ian Kim
Status: Awakened - Shamanic
Result: Deceased
Second stage of testing increased heartrate and blood flow towards brains. Internal hemmoraging of frontal lobe resulting in collapse of brain functions.

Subject: Claudia Valdez
Status: Awakened - Heremetic
Status: Vegetative
Tests succesfully concluded and link established. Subject shown spike in mental activity before all brain function ceased.

Subject….

+++++++++++++++++++

The list kept going for a bit, several test subjects either dead or showing significant plant like qualities. What if this was what they had planned for Dandy all along?

The shower spat out globs of rust for the first couple of seconds before the warm water started running. She stared at herself in the remains of the mirror. The faded mohawk on her head. The circles under her eyes. She snarled again, smashing the remains of the mirror under her cybered fist. Now where were those hairclippers.

Shaved head, leather jacket, SMG, cyberdeck, smokes.

Time to go meet with Pebbles

St4lk3r

The apathetic youth on the couch had forfeited all use of meatspace save for the most basic of hygiene functions. She lay prone, cables from the datajack in the side of her head running down towards a deck upon which her fingers tapped listelessly. Screens flashed before her in the dark cold room illuminating the prone decker.

The Matrix was a form of escape, escape from the nausea brought on by the withdrawal. An escape from the unoccupied room at the other side of the hall. An escape from the raised voices that haunted her, the piercing flecked hazel eyes staring accusingly at her.

The memory hurt just as much as the events four days ago.

“What is this drek!” Dandy’s voice was raised. Her eyes wide. Load’s cybereye could register the trembling hands, the tiny tremmors in her ears. The quivering eyelids. For a moment she hesitated in a smartass remark. “That is about three grams of novacoke in a small bag.” she’d have said. But she couldn’t, words failed.

“It’s not mine” Her voice was a broken croak.

“Bulldrek Load! And you know it! Who else has been here? Who’s drugs is it huh?”

This had never happened, not like this. After two days of cold turkey she was trembling in the kitchen, glancing down at the small bag of drugs. Droplets of sweat were forming on her brow. Her hand trembled and the only word she could whisper was “Sorry”

“This is it Load! I’m out!”

And she stormed off, just like that the deed was done. Dandy had marched to her room, packed what she could in the weekender bag that they had had so many adventures with. It had helf shotguns, magical items, beach clothes, troll fetishes, and fetish trolls. She wasn’t quite sure when she had sat down on the ground or how the kitchen table became a scrap of wood under her prosthetic arm.

All she remembered was Dandy staring down at her.

“I left a folder for Horizon rehab on the coffee table, if you feel like being serious about this.”

And with that the door had closed, four days ago.

The kitchen table was still a mess. The horizon rehab folder buried under a t-shirt and her boots that were resting on the table.

At first the smg became an option. With the suppressor in her mouth she had stared into the bathroom mirror before punching it to shards. It to lay still where she had left it. No, suicide was not an option. To easy.

Instead the trace was put out on Dandy’s comm link, the one that Horizon creep gave her. And along with that a trace on the creep’s comm link as well to make sure she knew where she went.

Dandy was predictable that way, her Horizon logins, her messages. Lunch meetings, eating a special sort of salad with actual cheese, talking about a pet dog, a new car, what manicure to have. She effectively became Dandy, living the life of the wage mage through virtual means. Security cams around the office showing her move in, move out, even try smoking because the others did it during a lunch break. Menthol cigarettes of course.

But there was one thing her new friends didn’t do. They didn’t eat chocolate chip mint icecream.

And what the frag is Project Echo? Why was Dandy on the candidate list? And why was she not informed of this?

H0m3 4L0n3

I frag everything up.

“You’ll be okay right?” It’s not often that I get to worry about Dandy, but I do. Drek I care about that crazy sparker you know. She bailed me out plenty of times. Her and Pebbles going on a run, I have my doubts. All this magic mumbo jumbo is way over my head. Which is good, my head is crammed full with other stuff at the moment.

Jittery, a twitching finger. A cold run of sweat running down my back as I watched her leave. It’s been to long.

The equipment is clean, almost sterile. A bottle of water, a bottle of rum. Blankets, pillows, clean sheets. That one poster with the guy’s exploding head on it on the wall covered up for now.

A comfortable chair. The wires in the datajack. An icon, a program, pure bliss.

“Just, don’t go off slotting or anything okay? I might need your help to bail me out if things get drekked”

“Hey, null sheen, you know me Dandy.”

“That’s why I am telling you not to slot up.”

“Oh c'mon, I can do both.”

“Load…”

“Shush, you sparker, it’ll be okay.”

The clenching feeling of guilt, the tingling in the pit of your stomach. I made sure not to eat before the slotting, just in case. It’s washed away by bright flashing projected in the mind. A sense of falling, the bliss of losing your body.

I am Load no longer.

“FRAG DAMNIT LOAD ANSWER! WE NEED EVAC GET THE VAN!”

The words cut through the simulation like ice. Searing pain followed quickly in their wake. Safety measures in place in case Dandy needed me. I know, at this point I fragged shit up.

Out of my chair, the bottle of water goes sprawling over the floor and me along with it. The cable yanks out of my datajack, near instantly making me puke. The searing flashes don’t stop, shoelaces don’t cooperate, one arm trailing limp behind me. Dandy needs me.

SMG

Carkeys

Shirt, I need a shirt…

GPS to Dandy’s location is nauseating, everything spins. The creatures flying towards me aren’t real or are they. I can not discern the difference anymore. The left mirror is gone all the sudden. Not all the sudden, logic dictates I must have hit something on my way there.

The sound of gunfire may or may not be real. At this point I am not sure of anything anymore. I see Dandy, I see Pebbles, and the ripping sound of an SMG makes short work of the Lone Star goons behind them.

They are on the floor? Did they get hit, did I hit them? I taste bile in my mouth and blood. Am I bleeding? Pebbles is looming over me, her hand clenched in a fist. Dandy is shouting and yelling.

Frag, frag, frag, frag, frag, I think I stepped in glass.

The flashing lights are nothing like the ones I slotted. Where am I, there is the car, the van. Why is the mirror broken and the wind shield cracked. Raised voices in the back of the van. All I see is lights swishing on by. The Kreuzbasar, we’re home. Did I go on a run?

“YOU SLOTTED!?”

It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation. Dandy was livid, I can’t recall ever seeing her like this before. Words were spilling out of her mouth. Sparks flying from her fingers. Everything made me cringe, my head was throbbing with a migraine from hell.

“You can choose Load, you quite that drek like I told you to. Or I’m gone! Nothing like this again, you hear me? NOTHING!”

The door slams shut, before any reply can be given. Gentle touches on the woodwork of the old apartment. Fingers playing with the paint chips.

My foot still hurts, and why is there blood all over the apartment? The floor the only support, slumped against the doorway only to hear Dandy curse on the other side of the door.

She sobs.

Th3 R34s0n f0r th3 S34s0n.

December 25 2074.

The cold had long since settled in and all of Berlin is covered in a thick sludge that passes for snow muting the vibrant neon clad landscape. Ever since the rogue spirit accident down in the basement the heating in the apartment block had been shot to bits. Which was probably for the best, people prefer not getting sprayed with superheated steam when trying to pick up their laundry, or check their mail.

Jack frost had left ice flowers even on the inside of their windows. Crisp clear patterns on glasses and bottles alike. Sebastian Dickbag hovered quietly, contemplating it’s Christmas decorations. The colourful lights, and a party hat with a star taped to the top. With one malfunctioning eye sensor it watched a door open to the side open and from it shuffle a sleepy decker wrapped in an overly large blanket portraying an epic scene of battle between fighting robots.

In the other room pointed ears peeked out from under the covers, flicked once or twice then shivered in the cold air. Just as they were about to be tucked under the lush thick blanket when they were startled by a familiar voice screaming out the name of the one the ears belonged to. Stomping footsteps heralded a door swinging open and an overly enthused decker in mid flight could only mean one thing.

-OOF-

“Dandy! Dandy! Dandy! Dandy! Dandy!” The child like enthusiasm with which she was prodded and poked, the warm protection of the blanket pulled down. One big bright amber eye and one bright red augmentation peered down to the ragged hair and half lidded eyes of her favourite mage.

“Dandy! Dandy! Dandydandydandy!”

“W..Load… What the hell?”

“He’s been here! He’s actually been here! Come and see! Come and see!”

“What -are you talking about!”

“Come and seeeeeeee”

With the comfortable blanket in hand the decker ran back out the door, after falling clumsily to the floor in her eagerness to scoot out back into the main living room of their apartment. Leaving the mage behind to make a serious of whimpering complaining sounds at the cold, only to quickly chase after her decker, and thus her blanket.

“Frak sake Load, what’s gotten into you?”

“Will you just look already! you dull sparker!”

Bouncing up and down next to the hovering decorated drone she was pointing at a few horribly wrapped gifts under their “Christmas Drone”.

“Santa was here!”

“Load…”

“Look Dandy! Just look!”

“Load…”

“Yes? Yes?”

“We got those gifts ourselves, we put them there two days ago.”

A deflated sigh was followed by a mock pout. Big sad droopy eyes and slouched shoulders. “You know, you could just be excited with me…”

Glances were exchanged. Dandy looking from her own blanket to the the one Load had dragged along. She glanced to the bedroom with her own lush warm bed in it, and back to Load and the pile of gifts.

Load’s eyes in turn glanced at the gifts, at Dandy, peering the the kitchen for a moment before a smile crept back on her lips.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” The words almost bubbled up out of the decker.

“Blanket fort?” Dandy chimed “I’ll get the gifts!”

“And I’ll make hot soy-choc!”

Their living room was quickly transformed in a blanket fort. Blankets pulled over the couch, pillows tucked away inside to stave off the cold. The TV was on showing cartoons. Inside Dandy sat wrapped in another blanket, in front of a small pile of gifts. Load followed quickly with two large steaming mugs of soy-chocolate drink of which she shoved one at Dandy.

“‘Ey Dandy?”
“Yes?”
“Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas Load.”

Part 5 Process of elimination.

The shadowlands are a deep and dark place that no meatspacer tends to visit of their own free will. Whomever ends up there by sheer chance or any particular skill must have their protections up and their wits about them, or fall prey to many of those lurking about in the darkness, waiting for the ill of the herd to fall behind.

Load was no stranger on the BBS when it was still up and running. And with Jackpoint created in many ways it was like coming home. A place where who you are literally did not matter. It was what you did that spoke for you. It’s where anyone who is anything came to discuss everything with no one in particular. And through that aesthetic it attracted a certain crowd.

Some of the old crowd was still there, combined with the newer generation. It held the middle ground between trench warfare and utopian society where everything was free.

To Dandy Jackpoint was what magic was to Load. Magical and uncompromisable. Even if the decker had allowed her feed to run on the several screens before her, text flicking back and forth, multiple feeds at once being served, and surfed.

The mohawked decker lounging, one leg over the armrest of the couch, wires coming from and going to the ports in the side of her head. Which was resting calmly in the mage’s lap, while behind the screens a trid was also playing. Not by far the most ideal working situation, but with all things considered the safest, should the dump be needed Dandy had but to reach over and pull the plug, quite literally.

Fingers flew over the keys resting in Load’s lap. Without she reached over, took up her bottle of beer and brought it to her mouth for a swig, eyes open and blinking, moving back and forth in thought. Disturbing but not unfamiliar to either of them.

It was late, running up on 3 in the morning with the sun far buried behind Berlin’s littered horizon. The screens suddenly went dark, one popped up, the auction was starting with 5 people invited into the room.

MANTIS - Connected
W0lfb0ne- Connected
Knocks With Doors - Connected
D@rgo - Connected
The Gamekeeper - Connected

The Gamekeeper, renowned for his neutral position. The best broker, the ultimate third party anyone could buy to hock anything without getting their own name known.

Dandy flicked off the trid, focusing instead on the screen before her. The decker’s fingers never leaving the keys, flying back and forth as little scripts started showing up in the corners of other screens, oldschool green text hovering over a dark background. Load had explained it some time ago, and it looked the same as it did back then. Tracers, checking routes, finding destinations. Little search and destroy bots to nibble on the cables, interrupt the connections, flood it with data, time it out. Lingo that was as alien to Dandy as the idea of implants.

The purpose of the entire auction was to let the persona of MANTIS win, the persona created by the ancients to take place in the bidding, a hollow persona with very little knowledge, but enough pull to get in without questions asked.

50¥, opening bid by D@rgo. Lowballing as usual.
100¥, followed up by W0lfb0ne.

The idea was not to win by outbidding, no the idea was to make sure no one else was left.

The cool breeze that entered the room helped the decker to concentrate. The feeling of legs under her head, the person next to her. The knowledge of safety made uninterrupted data flow possible. No second guessing, pure instinct. The matrix was her home and this was her game.

Small cheers from the other person on the couch. Dandy getting excited about seeing things on the screen, seeing Load’s handywork in first person.

One by one the participants started dropping from the auction, their connections flooded by thousands upon thousands of tiny requests. Until the final verdict.

MANTIS - Connected
W0lfb0ne- Disconnected
Knocks With Doors - Disconnected
D@rgo - Disconnected

<MANTIS> 101¥.
<The Gamekeeper> Going once.
<The Gamekeeper> Going twice.
<The Gamekeeper> Auction 3789927 sold for 101¥ to MANTIS

Part one of the job done, too fragging easy indeed.

Jumbo Mumbo.

Living with a sparker means you get subjected to some weird shit. Which is alright. There is something comfortable in the knowledge that when your power gets shut off you still have a light to navigate the room with. And you don’t really need a heating all that much. And of course there is the fact that that fragging slothead behind the overturned steel table taking pot shots at you is a piece of slag three seconds later while the hairs on your neck stand on end from the static electricity.

Granted it comes with some cons as well. Every once in a while you wake up and if your bestie has had a nightmare there is a scorchmark on the wall and you’re all in all pretty happy that the place didn’t burn down. But the pros generally outweigh the cons.

Especially if the mage is Dandy and she loves mint chocolate chip soycream just as much as you do.

So when you can’t blame the sweltering heat for your nightmares because there is actually an honest to gods breeze in your house. Nor the phantom pains in your arm because they have all but subsided and you have gotten used to your new cyberlimb the only possible reason for writing on the wall must be magic.

Load rubbed her eyes a couple of times. Groggily pulling herself out of bed and fumbling on the floor for a top to wear. Late august it was still warm and stuffy in Berlin but the worst of the summer was behind them, hopefully.

Coming from a neon haze dream there was nothing that indicated something out of the ordinary. In face at first she mistook the writing on the wall for something she might have done and forgotten about. But the writing on the bare plaster was glowing, and she was pretty sure she did not own any sort of paint or marker that would glow in daylight, not pastel blue anyways that was a shit colour for graffiti.

It took another few moments of stretching much like a lazy cat in a ray of sunlight and scratching in various places to come to the full realisation that there was something amiss about the whole thing, and that was that it was written in sperethiel, and she had no idea what it actually said. Well damn.

Padding barefoot through the appartment, shoving aside a few empty bottles on her way to Dandy’s room, and promptly entering without knocking.

“Hey babe?”

Underneath a veil of blankets the black haired form stirred, datapad sliding from the top of the covers until one half lidded eye peered at Load, answering in the gutteral grunting voice of her people. “Hnnnwhat?”

“Bad night?”
“Nah, why?” The form of Dandy answered, now with both eyes open and sitting up in bed.

“You wrote some shit on my wall.”
“Huh?”
“Come and see.”

With a defeated sigh Dandy pulled herself out of bed, stumbling after Load still partially drunk with sleep.