Auld Lunar Syne

[Kadoratra (Kadora Trà)]

2112-01-29 21:19:56
2 hours, 41 minutes, 4 seconds to Year of the Water Monkey

Rain.

A common, natural part of human life for millions of years. Human life on Earth–not the Moon. While children in the dreary urban centers of Earth sing songs to wish away the same life-giving waters held sacred by ancient cultures, the Moon finds itself unblessed by such abundance as water falling from its caged skies.

Except, once a year, to celebrate the founding of Celeste 7 and to usher in a new year of prosperity, the Central Directorate authorized the upper districts to tap into their water reserves and release it into artificial clouds under hab-domes for a magnificent display. The phrase “Raining on your parade” finds much the opposite meaning in Celeste 7 than would be found on Earth, as thousands gather to experience the novel sensation while looking upon holographic parade floats shimmering gracefully in the water droplets.

Corporate security forces of all types washed through the city like a flood, cordoning off streets, patrolling high valued property, guarding their corporation’s VIPs, and watching the crowd as much as the spectacle. Today especially, however, CelSec was on high alert more so than in previous years. An anonymous tip provided credible evidence of a potential disruption to the celebration, a potential breach on a high-profile dome and sabotaged atmospheric control units threatening a rapid decompression event.

---

The Cat.

Kadora Trà was thankful to be assigned to Selene Collar; at least she didn’t have to get wet. She tried the rain once, and couldn’t get fully dry for days. Sonic showers were better anyway. The clean was strong enough to be felt in the bones and instantly nourished a shiny coat. More tunes to wash to would make it perfect, though, she was tiring of the same corporate jingles in the barracks…

The celebration she was taking charge of in the lava tubes would take place along the main ring road of Selene Collar, a largely circumferential lava tube that wends around the central transit hub. It’s a few blocks from the hub entrance, and immediately one could spot the signs of celebration by the decorative borders around the standard ad placements and their festive themes. Physical decorations adorned the signs and buildings as well, colored tinsel in black and gold of the ‘season’ (never mind the moon’s lack of such), made of the discarded fibers from metalworking the moon’s aluminum, iron, and titanium resources. The usual footpath light LEDs were set to a dim pulsing glow, some of them decorated as lunar mascots for the festival and others as the traditional lanterns of Earth. Screens and projections on the walls of various buildings featured the same giant holographic animals of the topside parade, rabbits and cats with lunar moths and dragons flying above, the displays undulating between reflective walls with brief intermissions lost to the shadows between.

“You there, stop unloading immediately. You’re blocking the parade path! Let me see that permit…” One of Kadora’s sergeants intercepted an overzealous candy cart, and she privately wondered if he would “sample” the wares as part of investigating the authenticity of the merchant’s permit. The main road was sufficient for daily traffic but not so wide for the festivals, cramming vendors and crowds into a tight funnel that spilled into adjacent alleys and side streets. Visitors took their food on a poly-carbonate stick, or wrapped in handheld plastics, eating on the go or seeking the quieter corners off to the side of the crowd. Some vendors took that to heart, putting calmer crafts in the alleys, where faces or cyberware get painted in bright patterns and people add their private wishes to scattered screens, where each joined a virtual well scheduled to erupt in a holographic display at the end of the night.

A couple of lieutenants and sergeants patrolled ahead of Kadora as she kept an eye out for interesting figures. She didn’t have enough patrol strength in this sector, and some locals could be amenable to favorable event rate Mohs.

“Kyle, get me that one.” Kadora pointed towards an interesting looking cyborg, thinking they would make a good enough deputy to aid their event security while the real officers investigated threat vectors to the parade.

---

A Ragged Breath

Partying in Celeste 7 was an all day affair, and on account of the “day” on the moon lasting a whole month… it never really stopped. Sound waves vibrated from speakers to a crowd of flesh and steel, passing past bone and polymer, through lungs and hearts, and reverberating off nearby buildings back into the streets. Digital noise punctuated by rhythm occupied the minds of the masses in the courtyard outside the central warehouse, as the DJ mixed music and directed a light show from its roof.

At the street level, however, figure in robes accompanied by a handful of small humanoid machines pushed a strange looking pillar hovering ominously a foot off the ground, navigating through the throngs of people enjoying the libations of the city’s most important holiday. The robed figures’ face is clearly the construction of cybernetic refinement, neon lights demonstrated his pale blue thoughts–calm, disinterest, forget–the people parted unconsciously as the man made his way to the front of the warehouse entrance with his mysterious device.

Elsewhere in the city, a program engaged that halted the oxygen-recyclers in Selene Collar, meaning the residents would have about an hour of clearheaded-ness before the effects of carbon-monoxide poisoning would start to build to dangerous levels…

[Angel (Adelaide Camilla Pérez-Moore)]

Location: parade route street
Objective : make easy money
tag : @Daiya

Wearing

Ada walked along the street with her hoodie zipped and her hands inside the pockets. She had earplugs in but the intense music was shaking her bones to the core, it seemed to have been going on forever and she would be glad when the new year would be here and things could go back to normal. At least some of it had been fun.

As she walked across a closed side street she felt watched, she didnt know why. She often carried a gun, this was Celeste 7 after all, but tonight she was carrying it with intent and for some reason she felt like everyone around her knew it. Could they read her mind? The woman glanced around nervously as if she was looking for some secret psychic. Ridiculous.

She was meeting @Daiya before she went and did.. it. It would be good to see her for a bit. She hadnt told the blonde everything but her friend knew she had a job somewhere that she hadnt really wanted to go into. It wasnt that Daiya was squeemish and that she didnt trust her, Ada just felt a little shame about this one. It wasnt about acitvism, it wasnt about changing the world, it was a hit. A dead man she knew almost nothing about in exchange for enough Mohs to keep Tsubaki off her back for a good while. That was the theory anyway, but who knew what this crappy body of hers.

Ahead of her she saw the signature blonde and pink of her friend sat on a bar stool by some concession stand. Daiya’s back was too her but other patrons walking away were carrying large popsicles so she would guess that is what she was having too.

“Hey, Chica! How you doing?” she said as she slid onto the chair next to her, hitching her ripped pants up to get confortable.

[Daiya]

She breathed in deeply of Selene Collar. The air smelled of home, as it hadn’t been for a while. The Pink Widow was no stranger to this lava tube, though others might find it strange to spot her here. If they bothered to look. She found herself plenty distracted as well, the black and gold streamers waving in the gentle breeze of the air circulation were inviting enough to wave back at. The laughter of small children grazed her ears, drawing a childish smile across the teen’s face. Some days, her own childhood felt as distant as history itself, but today she could walk in both the past and present.

Daiya took the festival at a casual pace. Her nimble dancer’s feet sidestepped those inattentive oncomers, with eyes anywhere but on their destination. There was really no destination for her either, the moment of the new year was still hours away and she didn’t have a single place to be. Other than here, basking in the animal-shaped glow of the lantern-covers of the streetlights, letting the shapes of the holo-projections catch in the corners of her eyes. The smells were starting to get to her, too, prompting her own belly to warble and complain about not getting a taste.

Her eyes weren’t paying as much attention to her stomach as they were to the colorful projections on the buildings above, mirroring the real holographic parade floats the Corpos got above.

A small nudge jostled Daiya from her uplifting reverie, as a youngster squeezed past her with one of the sweet, sticky candy pops that came on a stick. She glanced up to see the vendor looking at her, and the teen knew exactly what she wanted. Something bright and colorful to fill her stomach along with her eyes, “I’ll have one of those, too.”

Daiya pointed at the bear-shaped treat, holding up her mobile for payment until the vendor mentioned the price. Her eyes grew wide and she pulled back her hand. “A hundred and forty?” The dismissive sound blew across her lips, and it nearly turned her around right there. Others were waiting behind her, somehow still willing to pay after hearing that price. It must mean the treat was worth the Mohs, or the metal-armed confectioner had the right kind of hustle going. “Like hell they are, you’ll take half that from a kid after school tomorrow without blinking twice.”

Once upon a time, that kid was her, shelling out her parent’s Mohs for something sweet after school. Back when she still cared enough. Back when she had someone else’s money weighing down her pockets, too. That pining in her stomach had sunk some more, wallowing in a pit of its own making. No, the young shadowrunner thought again, it was the one the vendor was steel-arming everyone into believing, like they were in the wrong for not parting with more Mohs just for the occasion.

“Senta, signora // Listen, lady,” he said with a shrug, his native Italian translated automatically by her neuroport, “Sto solo cercando di tirare avanti. Allora, compra o no? // I’m just trying to make ends meet. So, are you gonna buy it or not?”

Her eyes focused, a pinpoint stare at the center of his forehead. Or as best she could reach from below his broad shoulders. Daiya wasn’t confused now, or even shocked. “Did you just call me lady?!”

Her belly was on fire now, and the vendor could only wish that was still hunger. A year ago, the young shadowrunner might have reached for her weapon, or the nearest CelSec goon. Those kinds of blunt instruments would have made a tacit point, just not the one she was aiming for right now. Today was founding day, the start of a new year. The thought of kicking it off with needless bloodshed sent her stomach twisting into even tighter knots. All the rumors in the world couldn’t make her Corpo enough to just off someone for existing sleazily.

“A discount? Really?!” Daiya’s jaw hung long, opened wide enough to make her voice carry in the thick press of the crowd. She quickly snatched at one of the small plush things clipped to the side of the cart and held it up. “And one of these with every two I buy?!”

Pink-tipped hair whipped around as the teen spun, showing off her prop to the line behind her. Now that she had a moment to glance at the critter in her hand, the eerie visage of the bear-shaped plushie had an uncanny resemblance to the candy version being sold. Right down to the spiky mane and the toothy grin. She mirrored the grin on her face as she turned back, giving a little more edge to the words she added in a lower voice. “Trust me, you’ll sell out in an hour. No need to thank me.”

He took her mobile this time, and it was still an outrageous sum to charge for two candy pops. Daiya notched her teeth together, locking them in gaps much bigger than the Mohs in her account right now. Her stomach still gave a lurch when she stepped aside to let the next, newly-eager, customer make their choice. An easy one, she figured, now that the vendor had sweetened the deal. She wore the grin all the way over to a familiar face, and beckoned the steel-armed woman from her chair.

“Here, have something to spoil your appetite,” Daiya offered one stick to Ada with a laugh. There was still enough color and festivity in the atmosphere to put a smile on anyone’s face. The teen brushed a lock of half-pinked hair that stuck to her own, and took a lick of her candy. Cloying. “Cheap sweets at surface-high prices. Happy fucking new year, huh?”

---

@Angel

[Angel (Adelaide Camilla Pérez-Moore)]

Daiya was a funny person, perhaps she should have gone into marketing as she had created quite a buzz around this stall. Ada wondered if the vendor actually appreciated it though. The brunette looked at him with a look that was part sympathy and part “you shouldnt have messed with her”.

She took the confectionary and looked at it. “Thanks chica. I don’t know if I have much of an appetite. I’ve got that thing I need to do and I dont want to be to full.” she smiled as she made her pointless lie. She then ran her tongue along the length of the sweet anyway before laughing. “Alright, this is pretty nice. Do you have the same flavour?”

There was a gunshot noise nearby and Ada flinched. It mihht have been anything, and Ada wasn’t normally nervous of gunfire but her job had her on edge. She tried not to let Daiya know what was on her mind and turned around to watch the carnival. She gestured up towards a large flagged float. “Any idea what flag that is?”. It was the national flag of one of the founding nations but Ada didnt recognise it to look at it.

@Daiya

[aidanwoldt]

“Hey, you! Yeah, you! Come here. The Captain wants to see you.”

Aidan Woldt was no stranger to being hassled by law enforcement. Sometimes it was because he was a person of interest in a local crime - either because he’d done it or, more commonly, because he was a drifter, an easy person to pin it on. Sometimes it was because the local authorities were bored, looking for entertainment, and knew he was the kind of person who had no one to appeal to if they messed with him. Sometimes a bribe would make them go away. Other times they wanted to kick him around.

He’d been through the whole rigamarole enough times that, when the Seccer’s shout broke through the general tumult of the parade and reached Aidan’s ears, he kept his cool. It was stupid to bolt, or to look guilty or panicked, even if those were perfectly natural reactions; it would only make things worse in the long run. He didn’t need to start off his tenure on Celeste 7 by becoming a person of interest to the local authorities over nothing. He turned around calmly, a bland smile on his face.

His thoughts were… less placid.

I literally just got here. How the fuck am I already in trouble?

He hadn’t meant to get caught up in this celebration at all; he was fresh off the boat, so to speak, and had just been trying to get the lay of the land. No one at the arrival terminal had bothered to mention that there would be parades that day, probably because they were bored, bitter clerks and laborers who - as essential personnel for managing arriving cargo - had not been given time off for Lunar New Year. He’d stumbled into the one in Selene Collar accidentally, trying to navigate from the spaceport down to the transit hub.

He was still carrying his soft-sided duffel - the only permissible type of personal item on a steerage flight from Earth - over one shoulder, containing all his worldly possessions. Clothes and documents, mostly; he hadn’t risked trying to bring a gun, though the lax “customs” he’d encountered for steerage arrivals made him think he probably could’ve gotten away with it. Still, better not to have anything suspicious on him if he was already getting noticed by security. It must be his implants that had marked him out.

“Sure thing, officer,” he said, turning to follow Kyle through the teeming crowd. Everything smelled good, especially after over a week crammed into a steerage module, where he’d mostly smelled the backed-up shitter and the acrid tang that radiated from people who’d thrown up in their pressure suits during the awful, bone-jarring fifteen minutes of passage through the atmosphere. His stomach grumbled as he glanced at the food and candy carts. He hadn’t eaten anything but algae-protein paste since Earth.

He kept an eye open for escape routes - places where the crowds would interrupt clean lines of fire for the security forces, maintenance passages he could duck into, carts he could hide behind - as he approached the little knot of Seccer officers patrolling along the parade route. When they stopped, he was grateful his eyes were cybernetic, or they might have bulged. This… couldn’t be the captain, could it? She was some kind of exotic bioware recipient, covered in fur. She also looked to be about half his age.

Well, maybe they did things real differently on the moon.

“You… wanted to see me, uh, Captain?”

@Kadoratra

[Botiza (Botiza Po Tulan)]

OPEN

Festivities were in full swing, the floats moved down the street and the first of them were beginning to pass her church. Pearl held her hand up to silence the rooftop congregation, hundreds of people gathered together to celebrate the birthday of the lunar colony. The was all sorts here, from the lowest street urchins, through hardened criminals all the way to corporate executives who had decided that what they all shared here was greater than some gaudy booth somewhere watching a sterilised version of the proceedings.

What they shared was faith. Faith in their humanity and faith in the society they shared, for all its myriad flaws.

“My gathered friends, sons and daughters of mother Luna, please be silent for out national flag.” she spoke on a clipped malaysian accent as the people obeyed and hushed for her. “We remember the first people who sacrificed so much that we may live. They came the moon and and carved everything you see before. Today we say thank you and a blessed New Year to your spirits.” there was a murmered amen throughout the crowd as Pearl opened a page on her holy book, banging her staff on the ground before reading a passage associated with new years just as flares burst over her head and entertainment drones put on a light show.

She knew this passage by heart but her finger traced the words on the page nonetheless. Her eyes moved around the closest of the crowd locking eyes on any that met her warm gaze.

[Kadoratra (Kadora Trà)]

The Cat.

She smelled them before the distinctive shape of the advertisement caught her eye. It was unlikely to be real pork, but the nose could be fooled if the mind wanted it enough, and the square leafy packaging stood out distinctively from the roundness of most delights catering to the “moon” aesthetic. Passing through the streets, a special deal on Bánh chưng was posted outside of a Vietnamese restaurant trying to lure customers past the intrusive vendors for a taste of traditional Tết food offerings, at the Cơm & Khói–Rice & Smoke. Her stomach rumbled in protest even as her face scrunched into a scowl, suppressing an uncomfortable memory.

The table was set just a little too high for her too-short legs. Forbidden to eat until Mỹ Lin had broken her rice cake first. Red envelopes passed around the table for the family, two placed in Mỹ Lin’s hands while she watched.

@aidanwoldt

“You… wanted to see me, uh, Captain?”

The pupils of her eyes narrowed quickly to the cyborg’s voice, broken from her nostalgia feigned as focus on the crowd. She did not smile, but she was pleased, her assessment at a distance seemed to match with what she saw now. A soft-sided duffel over his shoulder, the glint of too-perfect eyes, something mechanical on the forearm, and composure under scrutiny. Clearly un-anchored, fit for keen observation, and potentially more equipped than he lets on.

“Celeste Security is understaffed in this area,” Straight to business, and sure to leave no acronym misunderstood, CelSec might be the colloquial noun, but she had no time to explain who she was representing more than once. “At a glance, you seem capable, and perhaps needing orientation. We have a deputy fund for the parade you may be interested in, all I need to make it official for you is to see some identification.”

Without breaking her gaze, she waved a clawed hand for a datapad.

@aidanwoldt

[aidanwoldt]

Aidan blinked. The security captain might look like a teenager, but she was all business, her words rapid, her tone clipped and professional. He wondered what circumstances had put her in this role… and whether she was older, or perhaps even younger, than she looked. In the era of bioware replacements and rejuvenant treatments and vat-grown clones and designer babies, age was a difficult thing to pin down. Well, difficult to pin down if you were rich or corp-connected, anyway.

The poor all just ended up looking old before their time.

“Just like that, huh?” Aidan said, letting it slip out before he could stop himself. The captain’s offer told him a lot about the situation up here. Back down on Earth, there had been a sharp divide between the Corpo facilities and the sprawling, largely decaying urban areas beyond them. Within the walls of the East Bank Super Launch Zone, officers of Aurelian Security & Compliance Services had been watchful and omnipresent. Outside, the understaffed and underfunded civil police were barely visible.

It seemed like the moon wouldn’t be too much different. Aidan was sure that individual corporate facilities would be well-protected, but CelSec - he understood the abbreviation now - was clearly struggling to cover all of its patrol zones in the lunar megacity, enough so that they were willing to deputize civilians to help. It didn’t really surprise him that the corps who made up the Central Directorate that ran the place were only contributing so much to the public good. They wanted to protect their own assets first.

“Well, sure. Never been a lawman before, but it’s a day for trying new things.”

Aidan set down his duffel and rummaged in a side pocket, producing his scandocs. They identified him as a recent arrival - fresh off the figurative boat - from the US Midwest. His record contained a long history of minor gig work for various Earth corps. It left out all of the criminal activity he’d done between those low-paid jobs, simply because he’d never been sloppy enough to get caught. Someone reading between the lines could tell that he could never have afforded a ticket up here with just the legit work, though.

Though he kept his face carefully neutral, internally Aidan grinned. Being a corporate enforcer was not his ideal line of work, but he could do it for a day if the money was good. More importantly, his first impression of Celeste 7 was that it really did live up to the hype he’d assumed was too good to be true - less than two hours since he’d touched down here, someone was already offering him a gig. Maybe this really was the megacity of opportunity. He was tempted to run a scan of the street’s material composition.

Maybe it really was paved with gold up here.

@Kadoratra

[Daiya]

The more licks that Daiya gave to the sweet, the more she was starting to come around to it. The flavor, that was. It wormed its way beneath her taste buds, infusing them with some secret magic. She wouldn’t put it past the Corpos to have concocted such a devious chemical, designed to create addiction out of just one lick. The cloying texture lingering on her tongue seemed only there to remind the teen that she wasn’t a child any longer, who could see —or taste— only the sweetness of the world.

When it migrated up to her head, becoming a pulsing ache in her frontal lobe, Daiya couldn’t find it very sweet at all.

“Must be, same tint of see-through green,” Daiya pointed out, making sure to address the comparison first, as if that was of the utmost importance. With her head fighting off the impending menace, the inevitable throbbing that would send her reeling somewhere quieter, as if that’d be possible today. Daiya didn’t have much thought to devote to someone else’s problems. Ada’s misgivings about the festival didn’t mean she had to turn the whole afternoon into a gig instead. “Guess how many licks it’ll take…”

Daiya flirted with the answer in full view of her friend. Her tongue ran up the side of the candy, and she could pretend to enjoy it much more than she did. Especially if it made Ada some kind of uncomfortable. All the young shadowrunner needed to see was enough of a shudder running up that metallic spine to knock the cyborg back on her organic butt, convincing the lunar transplant that there could be time enough to take a break, relax, and lick a stick of candy for an afternoon. She laughed as the thought tickled her own brain, enough to distract it from its ache for another moment. “A hundred? Two? If I bite it now, think I’d chip a tooth?”

They were some distance away from the vendor by now, enough that the crowd had thinned some more to a slow night at the club. Silkscreen was probably packed well enough tonight, they were running a special on drinks at times deemed ‘lucky’ by numerology or some other voodoo methods. Daiya had chosen right to be in the public crowds instead, breathing in the energy of the crowd at this moment gave a surge to her system. Like it didn’t even matter that it cost an arm and a leg to do anything fun on this moon.

“What is this, a school night? Oh my stars! Did you that tremor in your hand fixed? It’s holding up super well now.” Daiya reached up to grab the mechanical arm gesturing in the air. The flag caught in her vision for a moment, but she was looking closer at Ada’s hand. Pulling it down between them, Daiya held up her own flesh and blood arm alongside, one without a single wire or metal component running through it. She kept her hand as flat and steady as its cyborg counterpart, willing it to stay as still as the unfeeling metal that felt almost chilly where it touched her skin. “Not even a flutter, a-mazing!”

@Angel

[Angel (Adelaide Camilla Pérez-Moore)]

Ada watched almost mesmerised by the attention that Daiya was giving to the candy stick, running her tongue up and around it with well practiced ease. That was until she realised exactly what her friend was doing. Her eyes widened and an uncharacteristic blush found her face. “Damn, Chica.” she said, turning away and trying to look nonchalantly into the crowd wondering how she was going to eat hers now. “I can see how you found a husband so quickly.” she laughed and shook her head before placing her own stick onto her mouth and just gently enjoying the flavour without any fanfare. It was very hard and very likely to chip a tooth if she was to bite, and Ada couldnt afford the dental work today. “Always trying to get to the filling too quickly, must like the taste.” she winked, having regained enough composure to meet Daiya on her level.

She nodded when Daiya asked about the tremor. Her arms had their warranty voided long ago —as if any corpo would ever honour one of those anyway— so there was a constant chase to keep ahead of any natural glitches that would usually be ironed out during routine maintenance. Daiya’s arm was slender and long next to hers, dancers arms with grace that hid wiry strength, and her practiced poise showed as she held them as static as her own servos.

Ada let out a bit if a sigh. “I guess, its always a school night. Unfortunately for you, my school was one of those inner city ones where noone gives a shit if you turn up packing.” she briefly grabbed the crotch of her shorts with her other hand to emphasise her point before laughing and rocking into Daiya with her shoulder. “I know its meant to just be a party, but the pay is too good to pass up ese. It wont take long.” she wished she didnt have to do it tonight and just enjoy the evening with her friend. She didnt even need to drink around Daiya, sure they probably would, but Daiya was one of the people who she could deal with sober and still have a good time.

@Daiya

[Kadoratra (Kadora Trà)]

The Cat.

@aidanwoldt

“Just like that, huh?”

“Just like that,” Kadora Trà produced a tight smile that acknowledged, but betrayed no amusement or disfavor. Her sharp feline eyes observed with a scrutiny that felt lazy; identifying the subject thoroughly, but without much thought into the subject itself. Her ears, however, flicked in different directions, each independently on their own axes. While nominally focused on Aidan, her sense of the surrounding movement of the crowd never left her peripheral awareness, such that if someone were to be victim of a pickpocket right now, she’d likely hear the swift fingers through fabric before seeing them. Assuming of course, she cared about such things happening to anyone but herself and her officers.

@aidanwoldt

“Well, sure. Never been a lawman before, but it’s a day for trying new things.”

Aidan set down his duffel and rummaged in a side pocket, producing his scandocs.

She accepted the scandocs in her open claw and finally relented her gaze. A welcome reprieve, certainly, not all baselines appreciated her too-long eye contact. Despite her truncated and accelerated education (and age), Kadora’s mental acuity enabled a skill of rapid information absorption… perhaps due to a natural plasticity in her brain as a consequence of her genetic refactoring. Read at such a blistering pace, others found to be rude (but could not fault her retention of information), she handed off the scandocs to another officer beside her, a dark-skinned woman wearing a helmet with obvious hearing protection.

“Lt Lonnie, process a disposition form for Deputy Woldt to payroll, and furnish a temporary barracks assignment or commercial lodging. Have them process a scrip ledger until he’s established a local bank account.” Kadora’s ears twitched again, but in a way distinct from her earlier listening, she placed a clawed finger to the side of her head just below the lobe. She nodded once, as though acknowledging something in a conversation Woldt couldn’t hear.

“Report received Sergeant Rogelio, we’re on patrol towards you now. Please prepare an extra sidearm, I have another Deputy onboard.” The hand at her ear fell down to her hip, where a collapsed telescoping baton rested, and remained there comfortably as she began moving with the patrol again as the rear detachment drew closer.

“Deputy Woldt, do you have any experience with sonics?” She asked, referring to the favored less-than-lethal of the moon, knowing the probable answer but open to surprise.

@aidanwoldt

[aidanwoldt]

Over the past ten tumultuous years he’d been out on his own, Aidan had found himself in a lot of fast-moving situations. He’d been jumped by rival scavengers while lugging a full sack of scrap through the plastic deserts, his breath fogging his cracked goggles, making it hard to see where the bullets were flying from. He’d found himself flushing stolen military combat stimulants while corporate security banged on the bathroom door, quickly cracking each vial and pouring it down the sink before tossing the glass vials out into the smog beyond the narrow window.

That kind of situation - rapid disorder that required him to think quickly on his feet - was all too familiar to Aidan. But the rapid order he’d experienced here on Celeste 7 so far, the shockingly swift turning of the wheels of bureaucracy, was much less so. Getting his pass approved to make it up here had been the work of months, and getting the money for it the work of years. Each place he’d drifted had been its own maze of regulations and restrictions; work permits, residency allowances, travel stamps.

Aidan was accustomed to red tape so thick it was like a spider’s web, hopelessly tangling any poor schmuck who needed to reach the other side of it. But here? Here everything seemed to move like lightning. With no more than a quick once-over of his scandocs, the young captain was assigning him payroll, lodging, and a sidearm. “Deputy Woldt,” Aidan said, chuckling to himself. “How about that.” He’d had more difficult job interviews for warehouse labor positions. Maybe the hype wasn’t overblown, and this really was the sky-city of ultimate opportunity.

He decided he’d better check that the streets weren’t paved with gold after all.

When the captain finally tore her eyes away from him and his docs, Aidan gave her another look - a more carefully appraising one. The way she’d hired him meant either that she was either very self-assured, the kind of young officer who had total confidence in her ability to carry out her duties and to know exactly how to address any issues that arose on her shift, or that she was lazy and corrupt, with little care for procedures and eyes only for what would make her shift easier. Looking at her bearing and attitude, Aidan couldn’t see it being the latter.

A true Corpo believer, or just a consumnate professional? Too early to say.

If asking about Aidan’s proficiency with sonics was the first test, he failed it… but if that was a dealbreaker, the captain probably would’ve asked before she got him put on payroll. "Can’t say that I do, he replied, falling into step with the group. “Planetside, most everyone still shoots projectile slugs. But I’m a quick learner.” He looked around, seeing mostly cheering crowds and occasional traffic violations. It didn’t look all that dangerous, but he knew all too well that appearances could be deceiving, and the mood of a mob could shift on a decimal point.

“Expecting to need to use 'em, Captain?”

@Kadoratra

[Daiya]

If Daiya had ever wondered whether Ada’s eyes could grow any wider, the question was answered with the demonstration right there in front of her. What she hadn’t expected was for the tough-talking cyborg to blush, and that sent another bout of giggles to tickle right down her spine. “There’s enough human in you, yet!” The teen didn’t like to think about what future awaited Ada, she had plenty of issues with the future to add another to her pile. As if it could be summoned on a cue, something inside her forehead sent a flutter through her head. Daiya’s eyes narrowed, offering a contrast to her observant friend but only for a moment. “Oh, and believe me, I used my tongue in all kinds of ways to get Alistair’s attention.”

Maybe that was a pun in poor taste, though it wasn’t Daiya who had dragged her late husband’s name through the dirt first. And on the moon, the dirt was especially sharp, sticking to all the little cuts it made in the skin, just like the rumors the Corpos loved to bandy around about her. The Pink Widow came with as much pride as revulsion to hear it spit on the tongues of those lunar elites. They never could let her think she’d been one of them when she was, and now the wall between them was three little words that no one would ever forget. Daiya, for her own part, liked her pink too much to bleach it out of her hair, much less her life, to forget herself among the crowd of Discretes like those coming to celebrate the new year today.

“You’re gonna leave me all alone with these cholos while you’re making Mohs?” Daiya used a Spanish term for them as she gave the cyborg a mournful look, her eyes as wide as they could go. They couldn’t hold a candle to Ada’s, but no one had candles on the moon anyway. She figured their absence gave her not-so-silent pleading a chance, even if it was a slim one with the notoriously moh-strapped woman. The young shadowrunner tossed her blonde locks, the pink tips scattering to the stilted air of the lava tube. She could make her own breeze when it suited her, and it suited her plenty to look irresistible enough to steal someone’s breath away.

It was a skill that sometimes came in handy.

“Let me come and distract all the guards for you.” If Ada wasn’t going to stick around for the celebration, the least Daiya could do for her friend was bring the party with her. She might not be much of a DJ, but a few taps of her mobile brought up a playlist curated from Silkscreen’s best hits. The teen flashed a grin to the side as she leaned over into the stubborn cyborg’s field of vision, scrolling through the holographic list with a flick of her thumb in the air. “Check out what Beat Boi made, I can just have a little dance party in front. You slip in and get the job done, and we’re rollin’ back to the party in no time!”

@Angel

[Brie]

Brie audibly sucked up a noodle from the bowl of warm, and perfectly decent chicken noodle soup she were enjyoing at one of the lava tubes small vendors. One of those hole-in-the-wall joints where you sat outside on the street and that looked just the right amount of trashy, until you tried the food. She wiped some broth from her chin with the arm of her two sizes too big leather jacket, and took a sip from the shotglass of sake - her second glass - that had been served to her under the false impression that the owner looked upon a twentytwo year old woman. Brie still carried that false ID she had been given, or rather proven herself worthy of when joining Darkwire.

The clear, strong liquid strangely broke off the heat of the noodle soup which she had actually asked to be extra spicy. The strongness of the high alcoholpercentage hit different than the exotic spices in the soup. Fight fire with fire, they said.

Her attention were cut off from the people and partygoers passing on the street behind her, as she listened to loud, earthly rock music through the headphones that she wore. She swiveled back and forth on the poorly padded metal stool, and swiped through a social media app on her phone which laid in front of her on the counter, beside the bowl with tonights meal.

Tonight was the birthday of the big rock they all lived on. Until she had seen an add for the nights happenings, you could say she had let that knowledge from school be forgotten in favour for more usefull facts and skills. Like… how to create yourself an alibi, or how to lose your pursuers in the most shady of alleys, or how many shots it generally took to get annoying, clingy fuckers pissed before you robbed them. Useful stuff!

What her addiction for tonight would be, had yet to be decided. Spicy hot noodles and sake in abundance, well at least for as long she had Mohs, was a damn good start though!

[Kadoratra (Kadora Trà)]

The Cat

@aidanwoldt

“Expecting to need to use 'em, Captain?”

“Better prepared than wanting,” Kadora knew all too well about being found wanting, such that she resolved never to find herself in that state again. Naturally, there would be situations completely out of her control, but most who found themselves in such scenarios experienced failure not due to circumstance, rather, by the reaction or consequent inaction in dealing with their new reality. It was her attitude which defined success, and her ability to remove hesitation in making a judgement call, even if it was the wrong one. A wrong move was justifiable in the logic formed to make it, an inability to pick an action which might be wrong, inexcusable.

Within that personality complex, however, Kadora kept to herself that she legitimately did not anticipate using sonics tonight. All reports pointed towards the incident most likely to occur at the surface, hence the severe under-staffing in the Selene Collar and other tube communities. If Deputy Woldt’s perception was sharp enough, he might notice her gaze lingering on the various screens displaying the opulent excesses of the celebration on the surface. As they continued towards their rendezvous, Kadora had a sudden bout of curiosity break through.

“How much does it cost for rain, on Earth?”

---

Rain

Droplets fell on the faces of happy children in clean white clothes, the splash of water descended down into Selene Collar as little more than flashes of light on dozens of screens. Out of frame to the curated prosperity, hard faces held their breaths in bated anticipation, not for the controlled explosions outlawed anywhere else on the moon, but for a detonation so far below them it would escape notice entirely.

A false alarm to anyone who mattered, but a very real one to everyone else who didn’t.

---

A Ragged Breath

A woman in the crowd passes out shouting too hard in response to the dance beats. A man sits down, feeling drunker than he thought he was. A child in the street coughs, and complains about how tired they are. Cold, analytical eyes scan through the celebrants… and an inhuman smile slowly creeps upward across the porcelain face of the stranger in robes. The neon lights on the top of his head shift from blue to orange, as he approaches the “drunk” man. The pillar floats close behind, and its many robotic attendants pushing it along.

“Excuse me sir–”

“Shit! Scared the crap out of me, haha. I dig the party lights,” The man nearly jumps to the other side of the bench where he was left by his friends to recover. He taps his head, in imitation of the cyborg’s modification.

“I couldn’t help but notice, you could use a bit of a pick me up. I have something you could sample for free, and get back into the game.” The machine-man points a robed arm out towards the crowd, calculating where to lead his gaze to the most optimal motivation–a man, possibly someone close to the subject. His eye dilation and blood pressure give the game away, under the scrutiny of the cyborg’s gaze.

“Hey listen, thanks for the offer bud, but I don’t take drugs from strangers…” He rubs his arm, and coughs into his elbow, “Unless it’s really fun–?”

“I am the Lance of Dreams, I could never produce something less than fun.” The cyborg–Lance of Dreams–closes his eyes in a smile, as he beckons the pillar, which now splits at its seams into three segments. A field of energy seems to connect each of the pillars, and thin mechanical arms extrude from each. With his hand outstretched, the pillar puts a thick oblong “pill” into Lance of Dreams’ palm.

“Swallow this, and take a big breath inside my recovery pyramid,” He puts the inconspicuous device into the participants hand, and tries to aid him in standing on his own two feet, such that he could walk into his device of his own accord.

“Dios mio, this thing’s huge! Well, I’ve swallowed bigger, heh.” The man jokes around, trying to walk straight despite the dizziness getting to him. The butterfly tattoo across his Adam’s apple subtly shifts its wings as the pill passes through into the esophagus. He pounds his chest a few times, feeling as though the object was still lodged in his throat, but resumes breathing after a moment, despite the discomfort. Following instructions, he takes in a deep breath within the perimeter of the “Recovery Pyramid,” and instantly begins to feel relief of his symptoms in the oxygen rich field.

“Wow, I thought you were bullshitting here but this feels gre–” Small punctures push out from the inside in perforated lines across his throat, as the mechanical arms from the pillars set to work.

“No talking until the operation is complete, interruptions are… messy, to insure.” Lance of Dreams clasps his hands together, as the butterfly finds itself suspended in a vat of preservative fluids…

[aidanwoldt]

Just being careful, then; Aidan felt somewhat vindicated in his appraisal of the crowd, which looked to him to be raucous and chaotic but not particularly violent. He had seen violent crowds before, and crowds on the precipice of turning violent: union agitators watching scabs try to walk through their picket lines, rival scav clans facing off over the same hulk, neighborhoods restless after a heavy-handed arrest. This didn’t seem like those times. A few drunken poor decisions were more likely than real riots here.

Despite the seeming unlikelihood of a serious and widespread situation breaking out, though, the young captain seemed determined to be prepared for one. Aidan could understand that. In his experience, there were two types of people: those who had lived securely long enough to think that security was the norm, and would probably last forever, versus those who had seen that security disrupted frequently, brutally, or unexpectedly enough to constantly doubt the appearance of stability.

Perhaps he and the captain had a few things in common. Aidan never fully relaxed anymore either. Not in bed. Not in the shower. Not at parties. People had tried to mug or kill him in all those places. He was a light sleeper who kept some kind of weapon in arm’s reach at literally all times; the shuttle ride up here had been his longest stretch without touching a way to kill someone since he’d been a child. He never let his guard down, never let go of the tension in his muscles, never fully trusted anyone.

He didn’t expect trouble, and she didn’t expect trouble, but they were alert anyway.

They weren’t the kind of people who could turn that off.

“True,” he agreed, suddenly eager for the Sonic.

He said no more for the moment, busying himself with observing. It was his habit to identify lanes of egress from any and all situations he entered, to find points of cover that would shield him from fire that came in from any direction, to watch for sudden moves from everyone around him. He’d never been a soldier, so it wasn’t a trained, drilled response; it was more animal cunning, born from rough experience, than it was a practiced skill. But it had served him well for years.

Aidan watched what the captain was watching, too. He followed her gaze to the monitors, which displayed a party that put the one around him to shame. What was she thinking as she stared at those monitors, he wondered? Was she wishing she was up there, rather than surrounded by the duller, poorer entertainments of this poorer quarter… or was she glad to be away from the gaudy amusements of the hyper-wealthy above? Or did she expect trouble outside her own jurisdiction?

Her question caught him off guard.

“Hm?” he said, bringing some of his focus - never all of it - away from the crowd and back to their terse conversation. Now he knew what she’d been looking at: the artificial weather. “Depends what you mean by cost, I suppose,” he finally went on, choosing his words carefully. “Nobody has to pay to make rain fall down there. It just does, when and where it wants. But plenty of folks would pay to have it fall somewhere else, if they could. And with all the acid and pollutants in it, well…”

He sighed. “There’s often a cleanup cost to be paid. Metal rusts. Wood rots. Concrete erodes. It’s hell on the skin and lungs. They say it still pours down clean and cold some places, but… nowhere I’ve ever been.” Aidan paused, acutely aware they had gone a little beyond brusque business and might be having something approaching a personal conversation. “I imagine simulating it costs a hell of a lot up here… but at least it’s pure and pretty. Might be worth the expense.”

He hesitated, unsure how far to push this sudden carmaraderie.

“You ever felt it? The rain? Or do they always assign you down here?”

@Kadoratra

[Angel (Adelaide Camilla Pérez-Moore)]

@Daiya

Ada shook her head and smirked at Daiya’s wonderfully direct nature. The brunette doubted she could pull off the kind of romantic entrapment that Daiya had. She just didnt have the time or patience for that kind of thing. She respected her friend’s use of the tools at her disposal as much as she used the tools at hers, thinking about the gun currently tucked inside her trousers.

@Daiya

“You’re gonna leave me all alone with these cholos while you’re making Mohs?”

Ada puckered her lips and scowled playfully at the beaten puppy in front of her. “Don’t do that, thats mean.” bloody woman knew exactly what she was doing. She was right, Ada was being selfish and spoiling an otherwise fun evening for the two of them.

She knocked her head back and shut her eyes. “Fiiiinne. We can stay here for a bit longer. The guy isnt meant to leaving the thing for a couple of hours anyway, what do you wanna do?” she looked around she was still nervous about the whole situaton but Daiya had a wicked way of putting someone at ease. She even offered to come and dance as a distraction.

“Thats sweet, chica, but you dancing outside is gonna look totally suspiscious. You can dance for me though… up there.” she pointed with one of her off white finger to a hovering platform some ten metres off the ground that moved slowly with the procession. There was no obvious way up there but there was already people on it dancing, maybe they had gotten on it before it went to its elevated altitude. “I dare you.”

[Brie]

Brie slurped up another hot noodle before she begun tapping a message to her absent and missed boyfriend.

<‘‘So, what kind of boyfriend leaves his girl out on her own for New Years Eve?? You realise that you owe me big time for this one, right?? I expect something grand when I get home! Btw, you are definitely missing out on some delicious hot noodles and sake here! xxx’’> she wrote on the screen of her phone, taking a selfie with the third or forth glass of sake raised in front of her, before hitting send, reaching @Cassus in just a second.

Brie downed the shot of sake before finishing the bowl of just perfectly decent hot chicken noodles. Cass had announced that he had something to do himself this night, which she thought was fair, but on New Years Eve? Brie shaked her head, silently hoping that her boyfriend would finish whatever he had taken onto himself and show up eventually, before heading into her and Daiya’s chat.

<‘‘You promised me fun and games, D! My stomach is full and so is my taste for sake, where are you guys??’’> she wrote to her friend, knowing she was around somewhere this night. Brie were certainly ready for some fun ang games, and then some.

Brie beckoned to mr. Miyagi to come over and silently bargained to purchase a bottle of whiskey from him, which sneaked away with in her jacket and out in the street again. She hoped to get an answer soon, both from her dull, hard-working boyfriend tonight and her crazy friend @Daiya.

[Cassus]

Cassus had only a passing knowledge of the Lunarian faith, or faith at all, for that matter. He was not one to take things for granted that there was some ebb and flow to the universe which bestowed meaning upon every day happenstance, or every day tragedies. To assign a meaning, or a lesson, upon the loss of his leg, or the brutal murder of his mother, he felt… Cassus did not have a word to describe it, but knew no one had a place to speak on it. As such, he tended to despise the “proselytizing” types, who had too much time on their hands in a world where time was distilled into currency. To him, they were in the same class as his mother’s killers, just a step below in his private priorities.

“Come here to repent, brother?” One of @Botiza’s congregants nudged his arm as they sat next to each other, glancing at Cassus’s striking red leg. The congregant’s face–missing an eye socket–appeared scarred in a peculiar way that he couldn’t quite place.

“Not exactly,” Cassus confided, his voice obfuscated by his masks modulator, the focus of his gaze scanning the crowd as the sermon finished, waiting to confirm the signature by long exposure observation. The congregant nodded at his response.

“I wasn’t here for the sermon either, the first time. My eye used to peer through the crowd like you’re doing now,” Cassus adjusted his focus slightly, his head turning towards him in quiet alarm. “However, once I gave it up, I’ve seen things I couldn’t before. It will be difficult to walk without at first, I’m sure, but once you learn to let it go, you will find yourself on a higher path.”

Around him, Cassus observed that the faithful were not the pristine baselines the surface media liked to parade. Steel fingers folded in prayer. Polymer joints locked stiff against cold stone. A man with chrome along his jaw mouthed amen beside a woman whose respirator wheezed softly between verses. For a dogma that preached transcendence from augmentation, it had become a quiet refuge for those who had learned exactly what steel cost. Which meant vultures like him naturally circled their flock from time to time.

A page flipped from Botiza’s book, when a message came through–Brie.

“It’s a nice thought,” was about all he could dignify politely. He took a private moment to pause monitoring the scan, as he opened the message, seeing the face of the one he looked over every night.

@Brie

<‘‘So, what kind of boyfriend leaves his girl out on her own for New Years Eve?? You realise that you owe me big time for this one, right?? I expect something grand when I get home! Btw, you are definitely missing out on some delicious hot noodles and sake here! xxx’’> she wrote on the screen of her phone, taking a selfie with the third or forth glass of sake raised in front of her, before hitting send, reaching @Cassus in just a second.

He sighed, feeling his heart ache. It wasn’t his idea to be here on a day that should have been celebrated with loved ones, but debts defaulted annually, some by fiscal, others by calendar. Which meant even a festival like this wasn’t safe from “open season,” the most lucrative of Tsubaki Collateral contracts. The one he was chasing now was going to be particularly difficult, but if acquired, highly satisfying… and more than purely monetarily. Lightly tapping his fingers on an augmented reality keyboard overlaid on his thigh (looking to an outside observer as a nervous tick), he allowed himself to be distracted a moment to avoid leaving @Brie on read…

<“Holiday is busy season, you know this. You look good! I’ll bring something better than noodles home. Don’t get too drunk without me.>”

The reply sent just as an older gentleman coughed and stood up, when the signature analysis finally finishes–Tsubaki Myōjin Series Myocardial Resonance Implant. Cassus’ blood boiled as he skimmed the rap-sheet of the elder gangster again, who now complained of a headache as he dismissed himself from the crowd. Cassus stood up with him, but offered a parting phrase to his bench-mate conversationalist:

“I don’t think I have the heart for the high road.” Cassus smiled darkly under his mask at the cruel irony of his joke, leaving the well-intentioned de-augmented man to his thoughts and prayers. His eager movements possibly betraying his predatory objective here…

[Daiya]

Daiya giggled, and the sound didn’t travel very far in the noise of the celebration around them. Just enough to tickle her own amusement and let her friend in on the joke. It was so easy to get under Ada’s skin sometimes, but so long as it kept her around, Daiya wasn’t about to feel bad. She lifted her slender shoulders as a partial answer to one question, and let them drop. “Why do we need to be doing anything, Ada? We’re here, let’s just enjoy the moment.”

She drew in a breath as proof of freeing powers of the moment, taking in the atmosphere of the street party, the parade of lights, the milling crowds of people, the whiff of candy still waiting in her hand. She gave it another lick, and let it sit in her mouth for a while. This was where they belonged, right in the middle of everything good happening today. Which is how she couldn’t help the sinister grin that spread behind the candy pop in her mouth. Ada’s daring proposal must mean her friend was getting in the mood at last, and it pulled her gaze up to the sky.

Not to the sky, exactly, as her lips settled lower on her face at the thought. There wasn’t one down here. Just the upturned rocky trough that formed the ceiling of the lava tube, pitted with vents and sensors for all the equipment that made human life possible down here. Daiya couldn’t feel the cool breeze of the ventilation system here like she could in her home tube now, where Silkscreen drew in more than its share of air and life on its block. She’d never measured if Selene Collar was any deeper than the others, but another shrug measured how far that mattered. The lack of air and the crowds raised the temperature around them, and there was only one more ingredient they’d need to resemble the inside of a club now. Hot floors and hot people went together as well as hot beats. Raising her mobile again, Daiya pressed a button that sent a small, thrumming sound to pulse out of its speakers, the first number on the playlist that was just loud enough for two to dance by.

“Only if you’re giving me a lift!” Daiya’s words came out thick behind the candy syrup now liquid coating her tongue and throat. She gave a little cough at the confusion in her mouth, freeing it of the candy for now. Her eyes were too focused on the platforms above to have enough care for much else at the moment. The dancers had all the best views, and the best place to show themselves off. Her heart leapt toward it, thinking it could be possible to catch up to the platform from one of the building roofs, leaping across with skills she usually kept in reserve these days. The candy pop went back in her mouth, pushed aside for the moment just to tell Ada, “We deffo gotta figure out how to get on one of those for next year, it’d be a-mazing!”

A sound drew her attention down to the mobile, one that pinged out of place in the middle of her dance number. Daiya echoed it with a sound from her own thrat, alerted to the message that had just popped up. Her lips twisted the candy out of the way enough to mention, “Oh, it’s @Brie!” Thumbing the start of a reply, the teen looked up at her closest companion of the hour, her brow drawn together. “She wants to know where we are. Hey, is the air getting kinda stale for you, too?” The thought of jumping out to the platform shot up again from her legs, but it was far ahead of them now. Not too far if she wanted any kind of challenge, the kind of footrace the Nighthawks used to challenge her to beat. Daiya could make her own breeze that way, a wind to catch her pink hair as she dashed ahead of the others. She shook it to herself, her thumbs resuming as the teen decided what kind of challenge she wanted tonight. “Mmkay, I’ll tell her to meet us at the plaza, it’s only a few blocks.”

<Heading to Lovell Plaza, with all the chimes.>

Daiya started them out surefooted, wending her way through crowds with practiced ease. The plaza had been a favorite as a child, with vents near the ground that blew into kites and toys that whirled with color and speed. She had to slow down her excited pace a few times for her companion, though the cybernetic woman could probably spot her from a kilometer away with those eyes of hers. Spinning on her heels at one of those pauses, the young shadowrunner walked backwards with all the same deft movements, and without any aid of eyes or sonar behind her. The sugar of the candy kept her alert and grinning, stepping wide to avoid debris and prone bodies of revelers already passed out from the celebrations. “Buncha lightweights,” she laughed, and spun back around to a stop.

The crowd in the plaza was only half standing, with all the wind chimes and toys stilled in the air. The same stale, stagnant, air she was breathing in, pulling in precious oxygen molecule by molecule to leave only waste and heat in its place. She swallowed, coughing once on the syrup, and then again on lungs only half-filled with life-giving air. Daiya’s eyes widened, almost as large as Ada’s, full of thought of malfunctions and sabotage that could have caused the massive failure of the ventilation. And it couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Selene Collar lava tube.

“Shit, did you spot any emergency stations on the way? I wasn’t looking.” Those would have a way to alert the tube’s security, if they didn’t already know. More importantly to the young shadowrunner, each was equipped with a supply of emergency air in case of just this calamity. In the heat of the celebration, with everyone packed in, those were going to go fast. Daiya cast her eyes over the crowd in the plaza, those still on their feet struggling to breathe, with those on the ground in serious question. She did not want to end up like either. “What the fuck even, we were supposed to be having fun today!”