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- Feb 5, 2013
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Wind swept ash across the streets as Fara moved swiftly toward the destroyed diner. Corpses littered the ground, but none belonged to Clara. This was a bittersweet victory as death might have been merciful compared to being dragged back to the psychopathic Carver. Not losing hope, the investigator moved among the bodies, most were simply drifters with IDs and no weapons, innocents caught in the crossfire she created. It pained Fara to know she caused this suffering, but she could not stop to wonder what might have been, the detective simply had to accept her responsibility.
One body stood apart from the others. Not only did it have no identification it was also completely unidentifiable. Warped and changed this 'waitress' appeared now to be some kind of man. Nothing around them seemed to show signs of outward disfigurement leading to a swift conclusion,
"Changeling,"
Fara had had multiple encounters with changelings in her investigations. A particular murder case had taken her half a year to solve as the killer was not only a changeling, but also had a twin. Having this confusing subset of species confront her now when time was of the essence was beyond frustrating. There were no signs, no outward clues, what remained of the face was broken by some stray shot which told her exactly nothing about what happened here. As it was Fara heard the distant sirens of approaching police which meant local investigation, which meant questions that she didn't have time for.
Rushing down a nearby alley Fara recalled the laughter and that word, Charros. Looking it up on her datapad, the investigator found the system listed with only one inhabitable planet. It was lucky there was only one such planet, but even then it was an untenable situation. Looking for more information Fara found there were multiple spaceports on the world, but with a bit of search engine trickery she worked her was into the deepweb to find only one registered shadowport. Taking down the coordinates she swiftly began talking to her other contacts on the world. Within the hour she was on a transport speeding toward the shadowport fingers nervously tapping across her knee, a single thought weighing on her mind. Am I too late?
"MOM where are we?!"
Slowly activating her speaking cortex and upping the strength of her patience gyros the Monitoring Oracular Matrix prepared for the slow process of dealing with her 'daughter'. Looking through their logs and using a simple hexadecimal algorithm she replied within .0004 seconds,
"We are 18 parsecs from our last jump out of hyperspace having traveled within 47 million clicks from the Charros star proper placing us an hour away from Charros IV."
"Nuh uh"
Miss Hellfire's obstinate reply was to be expected, but as always it was the direction of her attack and not the attack itself that always threw the virtual intelligence. Left pondering the accuracy of her data or even if she had misinterpreted the question, MOM was left disappointed as always as Mercy said,
"We're in space dummy."
MOM calculated how long this petulant troglodyte would last without life support systems, but unfortunately that would cause the deaths of two creatures she actually cared about. One was Bidook the cuddly wuddly cutie wootie snuggly bear and the other was the peculiar creature hanging by electrified chains in the cargo hold. MOM knew their cargo was nefarious as she had been instructed to lead the ship to a known shadowport location, but even the cold machine had difficulty calculating the moral value of Mercy who now showed she was complicit in such dark trafficking.
Seeing the young woman stir the virtual intelligence summoned a holographic representation of herself and spoke sweetly,
"Good morning Miss, I am the Monitoring Oracular Matrix aboard this vessel. You can call me MOM if you'd like. I understand you're probably extremely uncomfortable in your current state. I'd ask you not to move too much as that will activate a nasty shock. I'm not allowed to adjust your chains, but have been otherwise authorized to give you other creature comforts."
MOM was about to go on, but Mercy was demanding nachos for Bidook as he had never had them. Heading off to prepare those MOM slowly dissipated saying,
"Be right back sweetie. Don't go anywhere."
One body stood apart from the others. Not only did it have no identification it was also completely unidentifiable. Warped and changed this 'waitress' appeared now to be some kind of man. Nothing around them seemed to show signs of outward disfigurement leading to a swift conclusion,
"Changeling,"
Fara had had multiple encounters with changelings in her investigations. A particular murder case had taken her half a year to solve as the killer was not only a changeling, but also had a twin. Having this confusing subset of species confront her now when time was of the essence was beyond frustrating. There were no signs, no outward clues, what remained of the face was broken by some stray shot which told her exactly nothing about what happened here. As it was Fara heard the distant sirens of approaching police which meant local investigation, which meant questions that she didn't have time for.
Rushing down a nearby alley Fara recalled the laughter and that word, Charros. Looking it up on her datapad, the investigator found the system listed with only one inhabitable planet. It was lucky there was only one such planet, but even then it was an untenable situation. Looking for more information Fara found there were multiple spaceports on the world, but with a bit of search engine trickery she worked her was into the deepweb to find only one registered shadowport. Taking down the coordinates she swiftly began talking to her other contacts on the world. Within the hour she was on a transport speeding toward the shadowport fingers nervously tapping across her knee, a single thought weighing on her mind. Am I too late?
SOMEWHERE ABOVE CHARROS
Coming out of hyperspace with a sudden stop sent Mercy Hellfire bumbling forward with a laugh. Getting up slowly she cried out,
"MOM where are we?!"
Slowly activating her speaking cortex and upping the strength of her patience gyros the Monitoring Oracular Matrix prepared for the slow process of dealing with her 'daughter'. Looking through their logs and using a simple hexadecimal algorithm she replied within .0004 seconds,
"We are 18 parsecs from our last jump out of hyperspace having traveled within 47 million clicks from the Charros star proper placing us an hour away from Charros IV."
"Nuh uh"
Miss Hellfire's obstinate reply was to be expected, but as always it was the direction of her attack and not the attack itself that always threw the virtual intelligence. Left pondering the accuracy of her data or even if she had misinterpreted the question, MOM was left disappointed as always as Mercy said,
"We're in space dummy."
MOM calculated how long this petulant troglodyte would last without life support systems, but unfortunately that would cause the deaths of two creatures she actually cared about. One was Bidook the cuddly wuddly cutie wootie snuggly bear and the other was the peculiar creature hanging by electrified chains in the cargo hold. MOM knew their cargo was nefarious as she had been instructed to lead the ship to a known shadowport location, but even the cold machine had difficulty calculating the moral value of Mercy who now showed she was complicit in such dark trafficking.
Seeing the young woman stir the virtual intelligence summoned a holographic representation of herself and spoke sweetly,
"Good morning Miss, I am the Monitoring Oracular Matrix aboard this vessel. You can call me MOM if you'd like. I understand you're probably extremely uncomfortable in your current state. I'd ask you not to move too much as that will activate a nasty shock. I'm not allowed to adjust your chains, but have been otherwise authorized to give you other creature comforts."
MOM was about to go on, but Mercy was demanding nachos for Bidook as he had never had them. Heading off to prepare those MOM slowly dissipated saying,
"Be right back sweetie. Don't go anywhere."
