Rise in Revolution (Chapter Nine)
Apr. 1st, 2016 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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saladloveAnd no April Fool's stuff this year either. ^^
Chapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
World map: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Kaldri
Chapter Nine
Mesh of Concerns
Kyir’s house, Sector IAL. January 11, 2272. Time instance 842N.
Kyir’s head whipped around and a growl rumbled from his throat as the door to his workshop opened.
“Kyir, it’s been two days and everyone’s wondering what the plan is. You’re the only one who knows but you won’t tell anyone.” Jimmy frowned at him.
“I’m busy. Come back later.” He flicked his fingers at her, creating a small spark of electricity, more of a threat than anything.
“Tanadin says it's important.”
“I’m saying this is important.” Kyir motioned at the shotgun on the table in front of him.
“Kyir, please.”
He sighed, throwing a screw at her. “Fine, fine! I’m just about finished here anyway.” He set down what he was holding, some kind of small piece of metal, before stepping over to her. “I was making it prettier.”
“Prettier?”
“I was putting spikes on it.” Kyir pushed past her and down into the Black Market, the Doravian not far behind.
Jimmy smiled at Gali as she shut the door behind them and followed them down, nudging the masked girl gently as they walked.
“Was Kyir too much trouble?”
“Not really. He was almost done. He said he was making it prettier.”
“Prettier? That doesn’t sound like Kyir.”
Jimmy giggled. “He was putting spikes on it.”
Gali grinned. “That sounds like Kyir.”
Kyir ignored the chorus of questions as he walked through the Market, approaching Tanadin and sitting down across the table from her. Jimmy and Gali sat down nearby as everyone crowded around.
“Okay. Look. You said you had a plan, and it's been two days. What’s the plan, Kyir?” Tanadin crossed her arms.
Kyir sighed. “Okay, look. The kartzal messes with the cyborg’s danger detection systems- clearly it makes each rock appear far more dangerous than it actually is. The shotgun is designed to fire lots of those rocks at once at high velocity, which should hopefully make him freak out so much that he can’t find a path and ends up sitting there twitching for at least a few seconds. We have to trap him, and once he can’t escape we kill him.”
“Why can’t we just kill him?” Zahnra protested. “Wouldn’t that be far easier than going to great lengths to trap and then kill him?”
Kyir sighed. “An outright attack might jolt him into action and make him ignore the kartzal entirely. Besides, I’d like to have an intact cyborg to study.”
Zahnra grunted. “Fine. How are we going to trap him?”
Kyir frowned. “We trap him.” He seemed to realize the flaw in his plan.
“How?” Zahnra sounded annoyed.
“Well, um...I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Well, what do you think? A cage, a rope? A police tape line?” Hawk huffed. “We need a plan.”
“Cage, cage...cage!” Kyir snapped his fingers. “That’s it! He’s connected to the Mainframe by some kind of wireless connection. A faraday cage…”
“A what now?” Tanadin asked, frowning.
“It’s a type of cage that fucks up wireless connections. Presumably that’ll make him shut down or at least stand there staring blankly ahead and that’ll let me get into his control panel- I’m certain he has some kind of access port into his main wiring system, and if not I’ll have to cut my way in- and shut him down from there. It would be useful to have an intact cyborg to study… However, we need to find a place to drop it…”
Jimmy glanced at Gali, who was apparently already losing interest in the conversation as people began to argue over how and where they would drop the cage on the cyborg. She kept giggling and whispering quietly until neither of them were paying attention, making a long series of more and more elaborate egg puns.
“Jimmy, Gali.” Both jerked and looked over at Tanadin, guilt written on their faces as they realized that they’d stopped paying attention to an important meeting.
“Any ideas as to where to drop the cage from? Gali, I know you hang out a lot in abandoned warehouses and stuff.”
“Um, well, there’s this one over on street twenty-two that I used to hang out in a lot. It has nice, thick rafters. I stopped going there because the metal beams get cold in the winter.”
“Gali,” Tanadin said slowly, “is the floor metal?”
“Um, I think so.”
“THAT’S WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR!” Kyir roared. “We’ve discussing locations for half a fucking hour and you knew the perfect location the whole time!” He was exaggerating a bit, but not by much.
“Sorry, I wasn’t...I wasn’t…” Gali shrunk back.
“Leave her alone!” Jimmy snapped, glaring at Kyir. Kyir shook his head and got to his feet.
“Take us there.” He motioned at Gali to get up. “Show us this warehouse. Then I have a faraday cage to work on.”
Jimmy stood up as well and took Gali’s hand momentarily, smiling at her, before letting go but following behind her as she led Kyir and Tanadin out.
Tac watched them go before sighing, sinking further into her seat. She glanced longingly at Mars’ stand but knew that she shouldn’t get even more in debt that she already was.
She was tempted, though.
She sighed, burying her face in her hands but refusing to shut her eyes. The inside of her eyelids betrayed her when she did, showing her flashes of blood, of fear, of things she didn’t want to remember.
She drank to forget, and other times, she drank to remember. She curled tighter when she felt someone approach, felt the temperature drop a couple of degrees. How can anyone feel that cold? She thought it was M, or maybe Sadie, but she was surprised when it was a warm, human hand that was placed on her shoulder, and the cold air immediately warmed once more.
“Tac?” Shawn’s voice.
Tac lifted her head and forced a slight smile. “Hi, Shawn.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired.” Tac felt bad lying to him, but it was normal to her now. It was normal to lie to everyone.
She hated it.
“Tac…”
“I’m fine.” She insisted, crossing her arms to try and look more normal. “I’m okay.”
Shawn sighed and pulled up a seat beside her. “If you say so.”
Tac didn’t look at him.
She didn’t deserve to.
~~~
“This is perfect.” Kyir growled in approval, looking around the mostly-empty warehouse. “Gali, this is absolutely perfect. We can lead him in here, shoot at him, then drop the cage on him easily from those rafters. It’ll hit the metal floor, completing the trap and hopefully shut him down.”
Gali grinned. “That’s great! I’m glad to help.”
“Mm. Next time, help before Fan calls me a cow-faced baboon that can’t tell a rock from a chunk of metal.” Tanadin grinned in amusement.
“A cow-faced baboon?” Jimmy questioned. “What does…”
“I don’t know. She sounded drunk.”
“We really need to get Scott back. At least she didn’t bug people when she was high.” Kyir grumbled. “But first, mister nuts and bolts needs to go. Oh, I’m looking forward to going through his systems and figuring out what makes him work. Between the kartzal and what I’ll learn from that, we should be able to take down these cyborgs a lot easier.” He started mumbling measurements to himself as he walked around the building, making vague gestures with his hands as his mind shifted into work mode.
Tanadin shrugged helplessly as she watched him go. “I guess we just wait for him to work his magic.”
“He’s good, if a bit odd.” Gali mumbled. “And rude.”
“He shouldn’t have snapped at you.” Jimmy’s voice was low.
“No, but it’s okay. It’s Kyir. He gets mad at everyone.” Gali smiled reassuringly. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah!” Her smile widened. “You don’t think Kyir Buttface Lu’ann can get me down, do you?”
“I heard that!” Kyir shouted, making the three girls giggle hysterically.
“Ears like stone and like a bat, all at the same time.” Tanadin snorted. “He can’t hear anything if you’re telling him something he doesn’t want to hear, but he always knows when you’re insulting him.”
“Hm. You- wait one minute! Tanadin, aren’t you supposed to be resting in your elemental form?! You’re still hurt!” Jimmy demanded.
“Well, er, you see…”
“Go to bed!”
Tanadin mumbled and crossed her arms. “It hurts, though.”
“It’ll hurt more if you don’t and then try to do something important with a big hole in your chest.” Gali reasoned.
“Fine. I’ll head back to base and lie down for awhile, complaining loudly.”
“That’s the Tanadin we know.” Jimmy danced backwards as Tanadin jokingly took a swing at her, and the three laughed as they left.
~~~
Sub skipped a stone across the surface of the lake.
She came out here often to skip stones, occasionally practicing her grasp over magic by using it to make them go further. She usually didn’t, though, as using magic was cheating unless you were in a competition against Gali, then all bets were off. She smiled slightly to herself as she got one to bounce several times before disappearing beneath the surface of the water.
She was reaching for another flat stone when the sound of someone’s voice reached her ears. She looked to her right and saw Cap, walking slowly away from her along the edge of the lake and talking quietly to herself, pausing occasionally as if listening to someone else before answering.
Sub watched her curiously for about a minute before shrugging to herself and turning back to the lake, tossing the stone.
Cap was here relatively often as well, and almost always talked to herself. Who was Sub to judge what people did on their own at the lakeside?
But just for fun…
She turned back to Cap and pointed a finger at her, closing her eyes and focusing, trying to imagine what Cap could possibly be talking about.
“I’ve got it!” Sub’s eyes popped open. “She’s talking about...demons! She knows about the end of the world and is talking to herself, trying to plan how to stop the demon invasion.” She nodded swiftly to herself, satisfied, and went back to skipping stones.
She wasn’t quite right, but she wasn’t too far off, either.
~~~
Fan looked up as Cap entered the Black Market and walked right up to her, sitting down in the chair adjacent to the drunk girl.
“You need to stop this...nonsense with Sadie.”
“What?” Fan blinked. “You mean me trying to shoot her?”
“Yes.”
“She’s a demon, Imma demon hunter. Wha...what’s a...what am I s’posed to do?”
“An ex-demon hunter.” Cap reminded her. “An ex-demon hunter apprentice.”
“Whatever. I was trained to kill her kind.”
“I don’t see you pointing anything sharp you get your hands on at Geek.”
Fan frowned at her. “That...now, that...that’s too demon for me.”
Cap rolled her eyes. “Just...stop threatening Sadie with everything you get your hands on, okay?”
“Atar-”
“-wouldn’t want you fighting with one of the few people in the only group of friends you’ve got.” Cap’s voice was quiet. “Don’t try to use him against me. I knew him just as well as you did.” Something in her eyes, to a sober person, would suggest that she knew even more, but in her drunken state, Fan didn’t notice.
Fan just nodded slowly. “M’kay, Cap…”
Cap sighed, getting to her feet and leaving the Black Market once again.
Fan wouldn’t listen, she knew. But she had to try. That’s what friends are for, right?
Behind her, Atar sighed quietly, hating to see Fan in such a condition.
Cap silently hoped that he didn’t blame himself, but she knew that he did. It wasn’t his fault, though. That thought pounded over and over in her head as she stepped outside and walked down the street, shoving her hands into her pockets.
It was hers.
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Date: 2016-04-02 01:41 am (UTC)Also I'm curious about Tac's angsty backstory. And Shawn's whole making-the-room-colder thing.
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Date: 2016-04-02 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-02 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-03 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-03 02:02 pm (UTC)Kyir can suck it.
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Date: 2016-04-03 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-05 01:47 am (UTC)he doesn't give a fuck XD
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Date: 2016-04-02 02:05 am (UTC)This is Cap
Date: 2016-04-02 01:44 am (UTC)Re: This is Cap
Date: 2016-04-02 01:52 am (UTC)Re: This is Cap
Date: 2016-04-02 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-02 01:50 am (UTC)The end is nye.
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Date: 2016-04-02 01:53 am (UTC)NYE?
BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY?!
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Date: 2016-04-02 02:15 am (UTC)Bill Nye the Science Guy!
Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!
Bill Nye the Science Guy!
(Science Rules)
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Date: 2016-04-02 05:55 am (UTC)-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: 2016-04-02 09:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-02 05:59 pm (UTC)Kyyyirnic
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Date: 2016-04-02 06:10 pm (UTC)Someone else is, and they were never intended to suffer as much as they will.
They know who they are, as well...
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Date: 2016-04-02 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-02 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-02 11:49 pm (UTC)Also had to edit this as my cat nudged my phone screen after I typed one word... >_<
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Date: 2016-04-03 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-03 02:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-03 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-03 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-03 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-04 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-04 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-05 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-05 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-19 05:05 pm (UTC)There's a ton of it in the chapter too.
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Date: 2016-04-04 06:27 am (UTC)-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: 2016-04-05 01:48 am (UTC)sadie here
Date: 2016-04-04 12:31 pm (UTC)Re: sadie here
Date: 2016-04-05 01:48 am (UTC)