[Fiction][RFC] The Inevitable Five Nights At Freddy's Crossover

[JakeGrey]

(Set some time post-Boskone War, featuring the same characters from HARD FEN Making HARD DECISIONS. Also happens to be my first attempt at a female 1st person narrator.)

    "You know, theoretically we're supposed to be on annual leave," Tom grumbled, dumping two ballistic vests and a duffel bag containing the pick of our extensive weapon collection in the trunk of a rental Ford Taurus. "And I'm not wild about you going in there on your own either."
    "Me neither," I admitted, shifting uncomfortably in the too-tight uniform shirt. "But if Schmidt's right, those 'bots are sentient and pretty smart. If they see another person in the box they'll know something's up. Now, is my gun showing?" I gave Tom a short twirl, giving him ample opportunity to appreciate the way these dress pants hugged my ass and letting my tail wrap round his knee.
    "Well, I was suitably distracted," he replied with that cute lopsided smile of his.
    
    We've only been officially dating for about six months now, after a long period of practically sitcom-esque tension and build-up and outside circumstances getting in the way. I needed to ease into living as my actual gender, he needed to get over some hangups about dating a catgirl, there was the fact he was technically my boss... Hell, we even did the cliched thing and finally hooked up after nearly dying in a desperate battle.
    People ask me if living a romcom plot is as much fun in real life. I say it's actually better.
    
    But now, instead of taking our first vacation as a couple, I'm playing rentacop in a (purportedly) haunted Chuck E. Cheese ripoff.
    
    Being an Operation Great Justice troubleshooter isn't particularly glamorous or exciting for the most part, especially not when you're on a semi-permanent posting to good old Mundane Earth, but the workload is one of never-ending variety. Two weeks ago we airlifted a failed bioroid clone of Adolf Hitler to protective custody, the month before that we helped track down the wiseguy who broke into Hunstanton Sea Life Centre and created tsundere sharks, and now we're investigating reports of possessed animatronics at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.
    
    We don't know much about them other than the fact they're definitely wavetech, likely a homebrew effort by the owners, whose identity is hidden behind several layers of shell companies. The only contact the current manager has with higher authority is a phone number for a Mr Kepler, exact job title unspecified, who suddenly stopped taking calls after learning the IRS wanted to talk to him...
    
    Anyway. During the daytime they alternated between standing on stage miming to bad covers of Top 40 songs and wandering around the floor area spouting canned phrases and giving kids hugs... until one of them bit some sleazebag's arm almost in half when he decided to play grab-ass with a twelve year-old girl. That was what you might call an undocumented feature.
    This didn't play too well at City Hall, even when the 'victim' turned out to have outstanding warrants for possession of child porn, and the OSHA weren't too impressed either. That was the end of free-roam mode, but custom dropped severely, and it only got worse when someone remembered there'd been five minors vanish into thin air several years earlier after being lured backstage by a still-unidentified individual wearing a Freddy Fazbear costume. A few weeks ago, the place went up for sale.
    That was some two days before the mysterious Mr Kepler dropped out of contact, and when the IRS did some digging they found out that his number belonged to a pre-pay SIM card bundled with the cheapest handset the store had, bought for cash in a batch of twenty in Chicago. Draw your own conclusions.
    
    But where we come into all this is the bizarre and downright frightening reports about the behaviour of the animatronics.
    
    The owners left instructions to put them in free-roam mode overnight so "their servos don't freeze up" (which sounds like pure horse-puckey to me, but let's just roll with it), and hired an overnight security guard to monitor the CCTV setup to stop kids breaking in to meet the "killer puppets". Those guards started reporting some seriously freaky shit going down with those puppets. They'd wander into places they weren't supposed to be able to get into like the kitchens, or even try and get into the security office. They'd been seen moving way faster than they should be capable of, lights and cameras started getting mysteriously disabled, and a couple of the rentacops swore up and down they'd heard them talking to each other.
    The last straw came when one of them bust into the office, got right up in the guard's face and screamed like something out of the deepest pit of hell, at which point he jumped up and initiated Evasive Pattern Run The Fuck Away. When he called the next morning and threatened to quit if he wasn't allowed to bring his shotgun to work with him, the manager decided enough was enough and called the Convention embassy.
    After some back-and-forth with the state governor's office, Tom and I were called in as 'civilian consultants', a legal fiction we perpetuated thanks to my 100% valid and legitimate Private Investigator's license. (The only thing more unnerving than how easy it is to get one of these in a lot of states is the number of states where you don't need one, but I digress.)
    
    The local police were suspiciously pleased to see us, falling over themselves to extend us every possible courtesy in the name of making this clusterfuck someone else's problem... except actually providing a couple of officers as backup in case something went wrong in there, although Tom was sufficiently vocal in his displeasure with this (bless his old-fashioned protective heart) that they signed off on all the necessary paperwork enabling him to bring some Title II hardware into the US as well as a temporary CCW for me.
    
    And why am I the one going in undercover instead of him, you might well ask? Well, one of the longer-serving night guards theorised that something's screwy with their self-repair and maintenance code, and they've mistaken anyone less fuzzy than they are for an animatronic missing its outer covering, so a catgirl might throw them off. It's a long-shot, but it's the only card we have to play short of calling in a squad of Starfleet Marines.
    
    * * *
    
    Freddy Fazbear's Pizza was at one end of a strip mall in a bad neighbourhood. At ten minutes to midnight it was pretty much deserted; the only other car in the lot belonged to the manager, who gave me a brief wave as she attempted to break the record for the 100-yard Nonchalant Walk.
    
    Figures.
    
    If the animatronics were still acting according to the pattern, we had 'til the stroke of midnight to get ready. I headed into the office to get settled in while Tom busied himself girding his loins.
    "Radio check," he said tinnily through the conductive speaker secured to my left temple.
    "Loud and clear. Camera test underway." I flipped through each one on the battered first-gen iPad provided for the purpose. "No visual feed in the kitchens, just like the last guy said. Think I should check it out?"
    "Nah, leave it for now. The only place they can go from there is back into the dining area or out the fire exit."
    "Okay. Coming up on five minutes." I opened the gym bag I brought with me and laid out my own weapons.
    
    I was already wearing my pistol in a holster in the small of my back, an old Browning High-Power I'd been carrying since Tom took me on as copilot. It was loaded with steel-cored FMJ rounds that can punch through the faceplate of a pressure-suit; not ideal for fighting killer robots but hopefully good enough for something not built for combat. Four spare magazines went into the pockets of my uniform jacket.
    
    For hand-to-hand, I had an old tonfa-style police baton that I stuck in a belt-loop. Probably useless as an offensive weapon, but it could parry blows and potentially buy me time to get my sidearm out, or use my claws. Unlike some catgirls, mine are fully retractable, so I get to keep 'em sharp.
    
    And just for extra insurance, not to mention the intimidation factor, I placed a double-barrelled coach gun on the desk in front of me.
    Now, as a serious combat weapon against well-armed and organised resistance it's got its drawbacks, but this thing is an amazing gun for de-escalating a conflict. It just looks plain scary; on a subconscious level you feel like two-barrels = twice as much buckshot = twice as big a hole in you. I've only tried actually firing both barrels simultaneously the once and missed the target spectacularly while damn near dislocating my shoulder, but your average low-rent thug doesn't know that and even people who ought to know better don't often remember when the barrels are looking them in the eye. I had twenty rounds of modern armour-piercing slug ammunition for it, which went into the pockets not occupied by the pistol magazines.
    
    "Are you ready for Freddy?" I said to myself, quoting a half-remembered tagline for one of the Nightmare On Elm Street movies. "You're damn right I am."
    
    Midnight rolled around, and nothing hapened for the first few minutes. I slowly cycled through the cameras, getting used to the awkward controls. Half of them were nearly useless thanks to the poor lighting, and there were two major blind-spots right outside the doors to my office. That could be a problem...
    
    Then, when I switched to the camera overlooking the stage, all three animatronics had turned their heads to face it and were looking directly at the camera. I suppressed a stab of nervousness. "I think they're aware of the cameras," I murmured into my throat-mic. "The three on stage are staring right at me."
    "They're trying to rattle you," Tom replied. "Play it cool, let 'em think you didn't notice."
    "Alright." I resumed flipping through each camera feed in succession. If they could tell which camera I had up in the main window, it should hopefully look like I'd decided I couldn't possibly have really seen that.
    
    When I next looked back at the camera in the dining area, everything was normal. Freddy the bear, Bonnie the rabbit and Chica the... bird of some kind (either a chicken or a duck; the design made it hard to tell) were soon strolling around the dining area in their 'idle' mode, whistling the odd snatch of song and generally behaving like they were waiting for the first guest to arrive. It was at once mildly creepy and at the same time kind of sad, because they'd never get to greet those customers ever again.
    
    Was it possible, I thought whimsically, that they were acting out because they were lonely?
    
    The fourth animatronic, a fox imaginatively named Cap'n Foxy, was behind a curtain in an area called the Pirate Cove with an out-of-order sign in front of it. He was the one who did the biting, if memory served, and the mysterious owners never got around to putting him back into service.
    "I used to think pirates were awesome 'til the first time I had to fight some off," I remarked idly.
    "Yeah. They didn't sanitise 'em so much when I was a kid. I've got a Valiant Comics Book of Pirates somewhere from the end of the Sixties that went into quite a bit of detail about the armed robbery and the murder and so on. Glossed over the sodomy though."
    "That was the Sixties for you... Hello, what's Freddy headed backstage for?"
    
    The backstage area was little more than a closet, with spare animatronic parts and a whole but apparently non-functioning endoskeleton on a bench. Freddy stood in the doorway, and looked right into the camera again. Somehow, despite the puppets not having much control of their facial expressions, I got the feeling he was annoyed at the intrusion. I hastily flipped back to the main stage.
    "Well, that was interesting."
    Back in the dining area, Bonnie and Chica were now mysteriously absent, and the camera in the men's bathroom was non-functional. "Well, they're not having a quickie," Tom quipped. "I saw in there when we recce'd the place on Friday, I think it gets cleaned once a year."
    "Nice. Well, least I know where they are- Whoa! Foxy, the busted one, he just poked his head out the curtain." I zoomed the camera in for a closer look... and he drew backwards like he was startled, then yanked his head back. "He noticed. He saw me, Tom! There's definitely an AI in there!"
    "Good to know. Now we just have to find out what kind of AI." I heard the muffled but still-recognisable click of a bolt being worked. "I'm coming in- Shit!"
    There was a loud bang behind me and to the left, then another to the right. I flipped over to the entranceway camera to see the heavy steel shutters inside the doors had been slammed closed and bolted. "Damn it!"
    "Stay at your post!" Tom barked. "They're probably trying to lure you out of the office. I'll go round the long way." That was a pre-arranged codeword; we didn't expect that they'd be able to monitor our comms, but if they did then they'd hopefully expect Tom to go around and jimmy the fire exit instead of taking a plasma cutter to the shutters.
    "Understood," I replied, sounding more confident than I felt-
    
    And then the fox was standing in the doorway. I stumbled out of my chair and fell backwards, landing on top of my gun, but I grabbed for the baton and snapped it open. If I could parry the first strike-
    
    The fox just stared at me. Then it spoke.
    
    "Oh, no..."
    
    It didn't sound like the voice clips. It didn't sound like a robot. It sounded like a very frightened little boy.
    
    And before I could even form the rest of the thought, it turned around and ran like hell.

[Dartz]

It sounded like a very frightened little boy.

Intriguing.... which would also explain the biting.

I haven't seen the source material however, but it is interesting. I look forward to the next installment. Especially since everyone is believeably competent at what they do...
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[M Fnord]

Yeah, okay, I'm intrigued and want more.

Also I did an image search for tsundere sharks. I hate everything.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[JakeGrey]

Second installment, coming up! With apologies for the instance of Babelfish-grade Spanish...

"Tom, did you get any of that?"
"I think so. He was damaged pretty badly when the staff forced him off that kiddy fiddler, wasn't he?"
"Yeah. And now there's a new animatronic... Damn it. I'm going after him."
"Barbara, we don't know if these things are hostile-"
"We know they're sapient and at least one of them is scared shitless! The longer I wait to establish contact the more time he has to do something stupid!"
"Alright. I'll be inside in a few minutes. And be careful!"
"I'm always careful, hun."

I drew my sidearm and stepped into the left-hand hallway. All clear. Cautiously, I moved towards the dining hall until I got to a door on my left. It yielded to a single kick, revealing a closet full of cleaning supplies. All clear. I moved on into the dining area, sweeping the muzzle of my gun across the empty stage.

No sign of Foxy. No sign of the other three either, although I could hear pots and pans being knocked around inside the kitchen so at least one of them was in there. That left the bathrooms and the backstage area. I thought about the fifth endoskeleton, considering it in a whole new light now; busting in might be a bad idea.
"Sitrep, Tom."
"These shutters are bloody wavesteel or something! I'm going round the back!"
"Copy. There's at least one animatronic in there so watch your-"

A terrifying distorted howl echoed through the entire building, coming from the office, then rather abruptly trailed off. "Hey, where'd he go?" a slightly petulant-sounding child's voice added.

I pulled the slide of my pistol back a tiny fraction of an inch, triple-checking there was a round in the chamber while inwardly cursing myself for leaving the shotgun behind. If the damn security doors were Handwavium-enhanced then those animatronics would sure as hell be toughened up too. Was a handgun going to do much more than annoy them?

I shoved it back in its holster, reminding myself of what I came in here to do, and knocked on the door to the backstage area. There was a soft gasp, barely audible even with my hearing.
"Hey, Foxy? I know what you're thinking, but I'm not here as your replacement, I promise. My name's Barbara, and I'm... Well, kind of a cop, I guess; it's hard to explain. But I'm not here to hurt you, or any of your friends, I promise. Now, how 'bout you tell me a little about yourself, huh?"
No response.
"C'mon, Foxy. Work with me a little here, please? At least tell me if you can hear me."

All the lights went out. "Damn. Tom, the faster the better!"
"I'm trying! This place is sealed up tighter than a nun's clunge, I swear... Wait a second. Aha! Daft bastards forgot about the doorframe! I'll be with you in five minutes!"
"Copy." I tried to work out how to overturn a table without making any noise, but gave it up as pointless.
Now, I knew where Foxy was, and one of the others was in the kitchen and a third was probably...

In the doorway.

"Somebody's not playing by the ru~ules," Bonnie giggled, mechanical voice sounding weirdly distorted. "Security personnel must remain at their posts at all times, on pain of termination!" He broke into a fit of insane laughter.
"Well guess which other policy I'm breaking, wiseguy!" I called out, grabbing for my gun as I spun to face him.
"I know!" he said gleefully, holding up the coach gun. "I found it!"

Trying to out-draw an AI is suicidal. He'd have that thing up and ready to blow a hole in me before I could even finish forming the thought...

If I was stupid enough to leave a loaded firearm unattended, which I'm not. If Bonnie'd had the necessary facial articulation, I'm sure his expression would have been a picture as the gun clicked dry. He screamed again, a horrible noise that sounded like a child in pain through some kind of voice distorter toy, and lunged towards me insanely fast. I fired twice but he was ducking low for a tackle and what should have been a headshot took the tip of one ear off. It still did the trick, though; he hollered in pain, stumbled and faceplanted on the tile hard enough to shake the whole building. His momentum sent him sliding right into a stack of chairs, which promptly collapsed on top of him. In other circumstances, his stream of anguished swearing would've been funny.

"Any time now, sweetie," I muttered, frantically trying to monitor every doorway at once and keep track of the wounded but still active and probably very pissed-off rabbit. "I really don't wanna hurt any of you people but I will if I have to!" I called out, trying to act more confident than I felt.
A tinkly music-box tune started playing off to my left, all the more frightening for how incongruous it was. I whipped around, gun raised in both hands, and saw Freddy slowly approaching. "That's far enough!" I barked. "No sudden moves and keep your hands visible or I'll blow your fucking head off!"
He laughed, a hollow and bitter sound. "Lady," he said wryly, with a strong Brooklyn accent, "you ain't got no idea how little that scares me-"

And then the whole world exploded.

When Tom and some of his buddies from the Army were training volunteers for Operation Great Justice during the Boskone War, a demolitions expert told a class of eager young fen that explosive entry is like cooking bacon: It's safer to overdo it than underdo it. Evidently Tom had taken this advice to heart.

Once I could hear again and had recovered from the choking cloud of dust and smoke that had filled the room, I discovered that there were now two doors to the kitchen. The original was hanging from one hinge, while a heavy metal door marked 'Fire Exit' was wedged into a ragged hole in the drywall a few feet to he right. It was noticeably dented in the centre.

A very frazzled-looking Chica staggered out of the doorway, missing a number of feathers. "¿Alguien vio a matrícula de esa bola de demolición?" she said to nobody in particular, and then fell facedown across a table, which broke.
"Oh my sweet Lord they sicced Harry Dresden on us," whimpered Bonnie. "Hey, I surrender dude! If I could move I'd totally have my hands up right now!"
Freddy just sighed. "Ain't I been sayin' this'd come back to bite us in the ass sooner or later?" he growled at Bonnie. "We ain't goin' down without a fight, assholes! You wanna dismantle us for study, yer gonna hafta do it tha' hard way!"

There was a long, awkward silence. "You really don't have very good night vision, do you?" Tom said at last, leaning around the doorframe. He hit the lightswitch.

Freddy blinked a couple of times, then took a long look at me. "What," he said, eloquently.

[M Fnord]

"Oh my sweet Lord they sicced Harry Dresden on us," whimpered Bonnie.

I approve.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Dartz]

And an apropros image. Maybe
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Terrace]

Methinks Freddy and the gang have some extensive catching up to do on events outside the Pizzaria...

[JakeGrey]

Methinks Freddy and the gang have some extensive catching up to do on events outside the Pizzaria...

Indeed. That's going to factor into why they've been acting the way they are.

[Terrace]

Wow, I just found out the plot of the second game, and it turned out to be

Spoiler

a prequel where the murders and the Bite happen while you're off you shift

. Are you going to implement FNaF2 and the

Spoiler

scrapped animatronics

?

[JakeGrey]

I haven't made a firm decision on that yet, largely because it's a bit up in the air whether FNF2 is a prequel.

[JakeGrey]

Okay, here's part 3:

    "We work for an organisation called Great Justice. It's the closest thing the Convention has to a real standing military, but we Troubleshooters function as something like a cross between Interpol and the US Marshals. And one of the jobs we do here on Earth is collect unlicensed 'wavetech for disposal." Rumours that StellviaCorp were trying to get into this business as paid contractors until Haruhi offered the use of OGJ resources more or less gratis, at least partly out of spite, are rigorously denied and probably true.
    "Disposal meaning what, exactly?" Freddy said suspiciously.
    "In your case, it means we give you political asylum and refer you to the ACLU if you want to add your names to the class-action lawsuit they filed last year about AI personhood."
    "Huh," he replied thoughtfully. "Yeah, about that..."
    
    "Oh, you want to go there, huh?" Tom snapped behind me. I turned around to see him pull out his smartphone, flip through a couple of screens and brandish it at one of the state troopers who'd turned up to investigate the explosion. The man went a remarkable shade of red and began stammering apologies.
    I raised my eyes heavenwards. Tom's one of those people who gets mistaken for any of a dozen or more different ethnicities, but mainly either Latino or Arabic. And that statie had evidently mistaken him for Arabic and made a questionably-PC joke about him being in possession of an automatic weapon and lots of explosives. This is never a good thing to do to a decorated Afghanistan veteran.
    
    "Anyway, Mr Fazbear... Can I call you Freddy?" I continued.
    "That ain't my name," he replied, rather testily. "It's the name hung on me by the son of a bitch who turned me into a goddamn kiddy ride!"
    I blinked. "Wait, what?"
    "We're not AIs," Chica elaborated. "We're the missing kids."
    
    Oh.
    
    Oh, shit.
    
    "I was in town for my cousin's birthday," explained 'Freddy', real name Adam Bernstein. "Mike's mom had ta work late, so I volunteered. No big deal, right? I sit here fer a couple hours with my Kindle, join in when they all sing 'Happy Birthday' an' step in if anyone gets too rowdy. Easiest twenty bucks I ever earned."
    "There were only four of us," added Bonnie, aka Frankie Benson. "Mikey's autistic, not that great at making friends. Sweet kid when you get to know him though."
    "So anyway," Adam continued. "I was coming outta the men's room when I saw Mikey and some guy in a company uniform going into the backstage area together. I figured he'd asked to see how the animatronics worked or something, he always did love robots, but somethin' weren't quite right about it so I went ta check it out. They didn't answer when I knocked, so I walked in... an' the motherfucker nailed me with a pipe."
    Chica, real name Cataleya Vasquez, took up the thread of the story. "Frankie, Paul and I were getting soda refills, but when we came back Mike was gone, and so was Adam. I was getting scared, but the man came up to us and said he was looking at something backstage and would we like to come see too? I should've figured something was up, but I said okay and the other two came with me. The last thing I remember is seeing Adam on the ground, but then I guess he must have stuck us with a sedative."
    "When we came to, we were... different," Frankie concluded. "We were... robots or something."
    
    Tom and I shared a look. "Catgirling machine," he said. "Or something like it."
    
    "The guy said we had a new job," Adam said coldly. "That he could see we were having so much fun that we got to stay here and be part of the fun forever. Paul, that stupid brave SOB, he took a swing for him and got smashed up for his trouble. And that was that."
    "Paul being the fifth endoskeleton backstage, I take it?" said Tom.
    "Yeah. He's messed up pretty bad, but we think he can see and hear alright. We talk to him as much as we can, read to him when we can grab a book or magazine... It's not much, but it's all we can do."
    "And you've been here for what, seven years?" I asked.
    "Somethin' like that. Sure feels longer though."
    "It wasn't so bad at first," Cataleya added. "I mean, we'd been turned into robots to be used for slave labour, but we were slave labour for making little kids happy. There's worse fates, right? But when Mike jumped that man who was molesting the little girl, and free roam got disabled..."
    "That's when we started screwing with the security guy," said Frankie. "Partly because we were pissed at getting punished for doing his damn job for him, but mostly 'cause there wasn't a whole lot else to do."
    "The man who did this," I said with a calm I didn't feel. "Did you get a name?"
    "No, but if you give me a sketchpad and a pencil you can have a picture," Cataleya replied. "I'm kinda rusty, but I used to be a really good artist, and no way am I gonna forget that asshole's face."
    
    Tom turned to the staties, who were standing there open-mouthed. "You get all that?"
    "Yeah. We... Hell, I dunno if we need Missing Persons or Homicide."
    
    While they tried to explain this clusterfuck to Dispatch, Cataleya and I returned to the backstage area. "Mikey? Mikey, sweetheart, it's all okay. The cat-lady's a cop. She wants to take us home. You're safe, promise," she called through the door.
    "Huh. Are you two an item?"
    "I guess. We kinda gave up on the kissing part a while back." She gestured to her beak.
    "There's specialists in Fenspace who can probably help you with that."
    "Are there now?" She giggled. "You hear that, Mikey? We could make out again!"
    "Alright," he said quietly. "Door's unlocked."
    Cautiously, I pushed it open. Mike was standing between myself and Paul, clutching a heavy fire extinguisher.
    I spread my hands to let him see they were empty. "It's okay, Mike. I'm sorry I scared you earlier."
    "Is Frankie alright?"
    "Fae'll live," Cataleya replied. 'Fae'? That was one of the pronouns genderqueer or agender people used for themselves. And these kids were eighth-graders? Damn, things have sure changed since I was a kid. "And it's faer own fault for doing the horror-movie thing on a girl with a gun."
    Mike slowly lowered the fire extinguisher. "Okay. You said something about specialists?"
    "We have robotics experts who can give you a body that can pass for human. Fully functional, too; you can eat, drink and... ahem, chase the wenches."
    "I could finally give you your birthday present!" Cataleya piped up.
    Mike looked downwards, obviously embarrassed. "That'd be cool. But I'm really asking about Paul..."
    I nodded. "Lemme call Tom in here. He's better with the mechanical stuff than me."
    
    We carried Paul out into the dining area, where the light was better, and laid him on a table. "These joints are smashed to hell and gone," Tom declared, wincing. "Nothing I can do about that here, in fact I'd rather leave it to an expert. But this speaker down here I can fix alright, the wire's just been pulled out. And I think these little actuators... Yeah, I can do this." He pulled out his Leatherman. "If you can hear me, this might feel a bit weird." Very carefully, he tightened some screws and spliced some wires together. "Okay, all done."
    Tentatively, with a painful squeal of dry bearings, Paul turned his head. "Thank you," he said in a small voice. "Guys... I heard everything. I knew you were there..."
    They piled on in a massive group hug.

[M Fnord]

Dawww.

Meanwhile, Haruhi Suzumiya reads the initial report & declares open season on Purple Guy...
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[HRogge]

Meanwhile, Haruhi Suzumiya reads the initial report & declares open season on Purple Guy...

Someone has to make sure to teach people to building something that forcefully convert people into wave-whatever will be really BAD for the one who owns/controls the machine... right?

[Rajvik]

(Evil grin) This is where I get to go hunting. Be very very quiet, we're hunting boskones.
 

[robkelk]

Meanwhile, Haruhi Suzumiya reads the initial report & declares open season on Purple Guy...

Someone has to make sure to teach people to building something that forcefully convert people into wave-whatever will be really BAD for the one who owns/controls the machine... right?

But, just like the Catgirling Machine, there are bound to be a few people who'll volunteer to go through this process...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

But, just like the Catgirling Machine, there are bound to be a few people who'll volunteer to go through this process...

As soon as its voluntary it could be considered as a reliable way to get a specific biomod...

[JakeGrey]

Another part, which I'm not really happy with yet but I'm posting anyway because otherwise I'll sit on it for months:

The good mood lasted until the Homicide detectives arrived. "Folks," the senior man said regretfully, "I'm real sorry to tell you this, but there's no way in hell the DA's office is going to run with anything we dig up. Not when the only witnesses aren't recognised as people under federal law."
"Can't you at least run that sketch through the mugshot database?" Tom protested. "You don't have to be specific about where you got it. If anyone asks, tell them he's a terrorist."
"Sorry, pal. It'd never fly."
"Fucking typical that is," he growled. "Someone tries to exploit teenage catgirls, Illinois invades Canada over it. Someone tries to exploit teenage bioroids, nobody gives two shits. Am I the only one who sees a bit of a disconnect here?"
"Tell it to Congress, dude."
"I'll be telling it to the State Governor when his office gets my report. So, d'you want to take some witness statements, or are those worthless too?"
"Tom, cool it," I said wearily. "It's not his fault. Let's just get these kids outta here so we can get the ball rolling on an APB to Space Patrol."
Tom nodded. "That bastard shows his face anywhere off-Earth, he'll wish the state police nailed him," he told the kids. "Forced biomodding's worth twenty-one to life in the really liberal factions. In most of them the penalty's death."

Tom was in a much better mood when we got to the little grass-strip airfield where we'd parked. "Holy cow! A real spaceship!" Cataleya exclaimed. "Awesome!"
"That's a Cobra! I've seen those in Elite: Dangerous!" Mikey piped up.
Tom beamed proudly. "Can we keep him? Yeah, she's based on the Cobra Mark 3 from the original Elite from way back in the 80s. I used to play it on my dad's BBC Micro 'til he got me a Speccy; that's a ZX Spectrum. Before your time, I guess."

Boys and their toys, huh?

"... I built her with my own two hands," Tom said proudly as we boarded the ship. "Uncle Greg -my godfather- had all the pieces in his barn, with an oil drum full of 'wavium, but he died before he could get to use them. Dad and I scattered his ashes on Mars together a while back. He'd have loved Fenspace...
"Anyway, want to see the cockpit? It's kind of cramped so you'll have to go one at a time."
I left him to showing Mike around and made for the galley to grab a much-needed coffee.
"I'd ask you two if you were plannin' on havin' kids, but I think yer boyfriend's found some," Adam joked.
I snorted. "Perceptive for a guy, aren't you."
"My dad's a preacher, ya pick it up. An' they could do worse. Goes fer you too, lady; ya know how many people got that many words outta Mikey the first time they met? Not many, I tell ya."
"This is a small boat, and the job comes with long hours and lots of travelling..." Not all that much,though,, a small traitorous part of me reflected, and not for longer than a week at a time.
"I can hear a 'but' comin', lady."
"Oh, hush you! Okay, okay, I'm not completely opposed to the idea. But they've already got parents, don't they?"
Adam looked away. "I dunno anymore," he said quietly. "My pa... he ain't gonna take this well. Frankie's folks'll be okay; heck, they coped with their kid teachin' 'em a whole new pronoun to use on faer, this ain't nothin'. Paul's a foster kid, lived with Mikey's mom... Ah, Jesus, what the fuck am I gonna tell her? An' Cataleya's folks? They weren't too wild 'bout her goin' steady with an Anglo, can't goddamn wait to tell 'em she got press-ganged into the fuckin' furry fandom." He sighed. "Can your robotics people fix it so a... what did ya call it... a bioroid can get drunk? Because I am not dealing with that shit-show sober."
"Hey, cheer up," I replied, patting his arm. "People can surprise you. My folks sure did."
He snorted. "Yeah, but you're cute."
"And trans. In rural Iowa, twenty years ago. Mom coped, and so did my aunt and my cousins. Dad didn't, but he's a jerk anyway." I took out my cellphone. "D'you wanna try calling him?"
"Maybe later," he replied, but he did look thoughtful.

"... never gave her a name. That's a Navy tradition, and I was in the RAF. The closest she has is a callsign, and that's 'Doorknocker'."
"How come?" Mikey wondered.
"It was suggested by a fen who used to be a cop, because it's what his team used to call those great big battering rams of theirs. It came about after we raided our first Boskone outpost in a hollowed-out asteroid; I used the main gun on their primary cargo airlock and it went through both hatches and two bulkheads on the other side. Made a terrible mess and simplified our job quite a bit."
Mikey whistled appreciatively. "That's one hella big gun," he declared.
"The barrel used to be the deck gun of a British destroyer." Tom looked a bit uncomfortable. "It's not really something I brag about, though. War sounds exciting when you're fifteen, I know, but it really isn't much fun for real."
"Oh, sorry."
"It's alright. I was young once too."

I couldn't hide a smile as I handed Tom a mug of tea. "We ought to take off soon," I told him.
"Yeah, guess so. There's only one jump-seat, so you guys will have to draw lots for who sits in it."
"Frankie gets air-sick, Paul can't and Adam's too grown-up and uptight to admit he wants to," Cataleya piped up. "So that leaves me and Mikey. And I can still fit in his lap!"
"Now, Chica, what would your mom say," Frankie retorted mock-sternly.
My high-school Spanish is pretty rusty, but I got the gist of a detailed and graphic description of where Cataleya thought her mother could go and what she could do when she got there. "And quit calling me that," she added. "Only Mikey gets to call me that."
"Hah. Well, I guess your full name is to pronounce when you've got your hands on his-"
"Don't make me tell the nice Great Justice troubleshooters your biological gender, pal!"
"Alright, alright! Sheesh, that firey Latina temper's getting the better of you today."
"Asshole," Chica retorted amiably.
"On some level, it bothers me that they bicker like an old married couple while she's actually dating me," Mikey remarked, "but the rest of me doesn't care because they're just too funny to watch."

"Fuel pumps to ON."
Tom flicked the appropriate switches. "Fuel pumps to ON."
"Battery isolator switch to OFF."
Another switch. "Battery isolator switch to OFF."
I couldn't quite hide a sigh. "Airwolf theme to PLAY."
Tom raised his eyes heavenwards and tapped 'play' on the MP3 player in a dock on the console. "Airwolf theme to PLAY." It had been a small joke the first time he took the ship out on a test flight, but now the engines wouldn't start if we didn't do it every single time and the novelty had worn off long ago.
"Main engine start."
Tom flipped one final switch and then throttled up. "Main engine start. Tower, this is Golf Echo Lima Tango Echo. Request clearance to take off, over."
"Good evening, Golf Echo Lima Tango Echo. Be advised, we have an inbound flight on final approach, proceed to runway and hold short, over."
Tom snorted. "Tower, we don't actually need a runway, over."
"Uh... Copy that, Golf Echo Lima Tango Echo. Proceed to two thousand feet and make your heading zero four zero, then contact New York Centre on frequency one-three, over."
"Understood tower, have a good evening." Tom throttled up, pressing on the rudder to turn us to the assigned heading even as we ascended, then gently pushed forward on the collective. "Our top speed," he told our observers, "is a bit over eight hundred miles an hour in atmosphere. I won't be pushing her anywhere near that hard while we're over land, of course; sonic booms tend to frighten and annoy people on the ground. Now, then... New York Centre, this is Golf Echo Lima Tango Echo. We are an experimental light aircraft currently proceeding on heading zero four zero at two thousand feet, our intention is to proceed out over the sea for a high-altitude test flight. Request further instructions, over."
"Good evening, Golf Echo Lima Tango Echo. Continue on present heading and come to ten thousand feet. Is your aircraft equipped with collision warning systems, over?"
"Affirmative, we have primary air-search radar in addition to standard anti-collision transponders, over."
"Understood. Remain at ten thousand feet on your present heading until you cross the coast, then contact us for further instructions, over."
"Copy that, New York Centre. At our present airspeed you should hear from us again in a little under two hours. Over and out. Contrary to what some people would have you believe," Tom remarked, "real fen do communicate with air traffic control and otherwise play by the rules."
"It's not such a big deal way out in the Midwest or the desert," I added. "Heck, some places out there don't even have any ATC coverage. But this close to JFK it's a different story; New York City traffic doesn't get any better with altitude. Damn pretty at this time of night, though."
Mike and Cataleya looked out over the carpet of thousands of lights, and I took their awestruck silence as agreement.

[JakeGrey]

"Grover's Corners, Grover's Corners, this is Golf Echo Lima Tango Echo. Do you have a docking bay free at this time, over?"
"Golf Lima Tango... whatever, this is Grover's Corners. We can have one cleared for you if it's urgent, over."
I scowled briefly. "I've got five fenkinder onboard who haven't had a chance to run around on the grass since before the Boskone War, Kat. If that's not urgent I don't know what is. I'll tell you about it when we land, over."
Shocking Katherine "Kat" Avins takes some serious doing, but I guess we managed it this time. "Oh Goddess! Make for the east garage, we'll have it cleared in five, over."

We moved most of our staff out to Arisia Station once it finally became fully operational a couple of years ago, but we keep a small presence in our old "temporary supreme headquarters" because Grover's Corners is much better suited to receiving fen -especially fenkinder- who've been through the wringer Earthside than a military installation like Arisia. (Haruhi also likes to make Noah Scott come here whenever they need a face-to-face meeting, to remind him that after getting kicked out of her fancy office on Stellvia she ran Great Justice out of four beat-up Portakabins, a marquee tent and Bob and Peggy's garage and ran it very well. Is 'platonic tsundere' a thing? Because if it is, it perfectly describes Haruhi's attitude to Noah now they're back on speaking terms. But don't tell her I said that!) Space Patrol moved into some of the offices we freed up and stationed a Youth Welfare team there for the same reason.
They were the ones I was preparing to get on the horn with next, just as Tom was returning from addressing our ship's other quirk; if at least one mug of English Breakfast Tea isn't made at least once every four hours, engine performance drops by a quarter. (We didn't notice that one 'til the first time I took her out unaccompanied.) "The kids are doing okay," he told me. "Barbara..."
"Tom, we haven't set foot in your house in a month. Hell, you only even keep the place because the property tax on that old wreck is cheaper than a PO Box."
"Then I'll put it on the market and find somewhere better. It's too small for all five of them anyway, even if we let Mike and Cataleya double up. Why not Serenity Valley? I could buy us a mansion there for what Uncle Greg's old place is worth on the British house market."
"And how much time would we get to spend there?"
"Every weekend, most evenings if we don't mind paying the fuel costs to use the afterburners."
"They'd be latchkey foster-kids, Tom. What good would that be?"
"Better than a motel room and a welfare cheque, which is all they're getting if we don't do this. You know how bad it's been since the war, Tanith was almost in tears over the phone last week. They've got nowhere else to go, and nobody else but each other and us."

"... ya know how many people got that many words outta Mikey the first time they met? Not many, I tell ya..."

I sighed. "Alright. If Youth Welfare can't find a better placement for them, and their parents can't or won't come Up, you can offer. If they say no, they say no; no asking Tanith or Haruhi or anyone to pull strings. And I have one other condition."
"Yeah?"
"If neither of us fucks this up after six months, we try for a baby."
"Deal!"

"Holy shit this place is awesome!" Frankie enthused. "It's like a Yes album cover only real!"
"Given that most of the owners are neo-Pagans of some sort, I doubt that's a coincidence," Tom replied.
"Okay, that settles it, I'm buying a house here!"
"Residential property is not available to Outsiders without the consent of all existing residents," another voice cut in. "Including me."
"Yes, thank you Gaia." Kat shot us an apologetic look. "So, would you kids like me to show you around? Tom, Barbara, I forgot tell you over the radio but your boss is at your offices. She'll probably want to see you straight away."

Haruhi peered at us stonily over the rims of a severe-looking pair of steel-rimmed spectacles that I'm almost certain she wears just for the intimidation factor. "The owners of the strip mall inform me that you destroyed a load-bearing wall, and the repair costs will likely run to a quarter-million US dollars," she said tonelessly. "The state police are also claiming that you, Tom, were verbally aggresive and unprofessional in your attitude towards their officers." Then she cracked a genuine smile. "See, I knew you two were real Troubleshooters!"
"Verbally aggressive and...? Oh, that's charming. That cop made a Taliban joke!" Tom grumbled. "And I'm sorry about the property damage, for what that's worth; I really thought those kids were serious about hurting Barbara."
"Kids?"
"I think we'd better start at the beginning..."

By turns, we told her everything we knew and everything we suspected. When we finished, Haruhi sat back in her chair, her expression so neutral you'd think we'd been talking about another tedious budget review... until you looked at her eyes. "I see," she said calmly.

For all Haruhi's infamous snappy and abrasive tendencies, it's all just surface noise; I guarantee she'll have forgotten about whatever she's yelling about in half an hour. When she gets really, genuinely angry she does it in a very cold, quiet and methodical sort of way. I'd heard about it, but never seen it before until now. And I finally began to understand why most of the OGJ top brass are not-so-secretly scared of her.

"You have the picture the girl said she could provide?"
"Not yet, ma'am."
"Get it, and bring it straight to me. I want a name to go with that face, and I want it on wanted posters from here to Pluto ten minutes ago. And clear your schedules for the next few weeks, because we are going to hunt this son of a bitch down if I have to personally kick in every airlock in Fenspace. Dismissed."
"Yes, ma'am!" we chorused.

Space Patrol came back with good news and bad news. "We got a name to go with that face, folks," said Officer Friendly, his digital avatar's eyes uncharacteristically hard. He was also in Space Patrol uniform, I noted with mild interest; he'd been deputised at some point in the war, and apparently it'd stuck. "Willard Peterson, also known as 'Willie Pete'. Age forty-seven, occasional dabbling Klansman and unofficial record holder for more meth labs blown up through his own hamfisted incompetence than any other lowlife in the state of New Jersey, hence the nickname. Last heard of on Earth some five years ago after receiving a suspended sentence for conspiracy to supply and second-degree burns over forty percent of his body when lab number twenty-three went kablooey, not in that order."
"Handwavium seems to have suited him better," Tom remarked.
"And then some. We don't know exactly when he went Up, but he's a known associate of Asmodeus Grey and believed to have played a role in developing the Catgirling Machine before they went their separate ways; why and on what terms we don't know, nor why he drifted back to Earth to open a pizza parlour of all things. Although it clearly wasn't a desire to go straight. He had an apartment in 1186 Turnera, but he wasn't there when your folks served a warrant on them."
"Maybe he was too much of a creep even for them and they tossed him out an airlock?" I suggested hopefully.
"If they didn't, his current neighbours sure will when this story hits the papers," Friendly replied. "And that's if they're in a good mood. Almost pity the son of a bitch."

I didn't.

A pick-up soccer game was starting up in one of the big grassy areas on the edge of "town". Cataleya was dragging a reluctant Mike and Frankie into the fray while Paul shouted encouragement from the wheelchair someone had found for him.
"Nobody's scared," Adam said as if to himself, watching from the sidelines. "We're the ghosts of murdered teenagers haunting animatronic bodies from a bad imitation of Showbiz Pizza, and nobody's scared. Fuckin' Fenspace, man."
"You feel especially dead?"
"I feel like an atrocity against God and Man with delusions of being Larry Bernstein's dead son," he said glumly. "That's a direct quote from my dad, by the way. Guess I shoulda left the webcam off at first."

"... I dunno who the fuck you are, but you sure ain't my son, kittycat. And I don't got a daughter, whatever that delusional fag tells his analyst..."

"Know the feeling," I replied. "And in my professional opinion as moderator-cum-den mother to the QueerFen BBS, your father is full of shit. You're still you, Adam. Your soul, your consciousness, your fundamental being; whatever you wanna call it, it's still there, and don't let anyone tell you different. Have the others called home yet?"
"Nope. Let 'em finish their game first, huh?"

[robkelk]

... (Haruhi also likes to make Noah Scott come here whenever they need a face-to-face meeting, to remind him that after getting kicked out of her fancy office on Stellvia she ran Great Justice out of four beat-up Portakabins, a marquee tent and Bob and Peggy's garage and ran it very well. Is 'platonic tsundere' a thing? Because if it is, it perfectly describes Haruhi's attitude to Noah now they're back on speaking terms. But don't tell her I said that!) ...

Noah takes these opportunities to catch up with his "daughter" Yomiko (Readman, who's teaching at the one-room schoolhouse on GC) and re-stock his supply of Grover's Corners Cream Ale, so it's win-win.

... A pick-up soccer game was starting up in one of the big grassy areas on the edge of "town". Cataleya was dragging a reluctant Mike and Frankie into the fray while Paul shouted encouragement from the wheelchair someone had found for him. ...

About an hour after Noah or Yayoi hear about this, somebody from the Nikaido Foundation will be in touch, offering to help with Paul's reconstruction ... No, they won't say who's footing the bill.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

Haruhi also likes to make Noah Scott come here whenever they need a face-to-face meeting, to remind him that after getting kicked out of her fancy office on Stellvia she ran Great Justice out of four beat-up Portakabins, a marquee tent and Bob and Peggy's garage and ran it very well.

Heh. I can just see her in the first couple days, with her feet up on the sewing machine/table that's temporarily serving as a desk. Nice touch. I'm also amused that Kat seems to get the most "airtime" of all of us... I'm amused because without folks actually knowing her, you're getting her, dead on.
Great job, Jake.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[robkelk]

Haruhi also likes to make Noah Scott come here whenever they need a face-to-face meeting, to remind him that after getting kicked out of her fancy office on Stellvia she ran Great Justice out of four beat-up Portakabins, a marquee tent and Bob and Peggy's garage and ran it very well.

Heh. I can just see her in the first couple days, with her feet up on the sewing machine/table that's temporarily serving as a desk. Nice touch. I'm also amused that Kat seems to get the most "airtime" of all of us... I'm amused because without folks actually knowing her, you're getting her, dead on.

Great job, Jake.

Hey, I gave Attila a mention...

Of course, if you want folks to know more about the GC crew, you could write a shortfic or two. Just saying.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bob Schroeck]

Yeah, if I could get my act together. I have the beginnings of half a dozen, including one that was supposed to be a birthday gift for Nina three years ago. I've so far failed to finish them.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[JakeGrey]

Getting close to the end now. And thanks to Mal for suggesting Deidre Greist as the consulting mad scientist who got the ball rolling on repairing the damage.

"Hello?"
"Mrs Caroline Bernstein? My name's Barbara White, and I work for the Fenspace Convention security service." I've learned not to tell non-Fen that 'I work for Great Justice', because they tend to get the giggles. "I have some good news about your son."
A shocked gasp. "Mikey?"
"We found him. He's okay, and he wants to talk to you. I'm gonna put him on now, okay?" I passed the handset to Mike, who looked downright terrified. "Mom?" he whispered.

I slipped out of the empty office we were using to give them some privacy, just in time to hear a torrent of angry Spanish coming from the one across the hall where Tom had been talking to Cataleya's folks. The girl herself came running out of the room a moment later, still ranting, and dashed off in Mikey's general direction.
"Jesus Christ, lady," Tom complained, "what did you say to her?"

Yeah, this was going just great.

Caroline wasn't really taking the news much better. Oh, she was being quieter about it, but I could see it in her eyes on the screen, hear it in her voice as she made the occasional monosyllabic response to Mikey's nervous/excited rambling. Eventually she stammered out that she had to go and cut the connection.
"Nice to see you too, Mom!" Mikey snarled, and punched the screen hard enough to crack it. "Not only does she think I'm a freak, she thinks I'm a stupid freak!" Cataleya pulled him into a hug as he started to cry.
"Maybe she just needs time to get over the shock?" I suggested, knowing it sounded stupid even as I said it.
"Some chance," Mikey grumbled. "As long as I can remember, Mom's wanted me to be normal. Never mind that 'normal' where I went to school is dropping out in seventh grade and becoming a gangbanger. Never mind I got a B-average and the school record for fewest detentions three years running. Heck, I'm dating the hottest girl in the cheerleading squad! What more does she goddamn want?"
"Coulda been worse," Cataleya pointed out. "My mom thinks this is divine retribution for planning to celebrate my quinceañera by trading V-cards with an Episcopalian. Besides, this is Fenspace! You are normal now."
"Hey, yeah." He smiled, as much as his current body permitted. Then he gave her a look. "Were you really gonna go all the way for your quinceañera?"
She giggled. "Maaaaaybe..."
"Speaking of things to do with your bodies," Haruhi interjected, poking her head around the door, "I just got off the phone with Deidre Griest. She's en-route with a bunch of diagnostic gear. We can expect someone from the Nikaido Foundation as well, but AC Peters is otherwise occupied; she didn't say what with and I didn't ask."

Working with Deidre Griest is... Well, kind of an experience. We'd gotten to know her quite well after one of Tom's old war buddies promised to get her doctoral thesis in front of the right people at Cambridge in return for a really big favour. (There was an accident with a nuclear missile submarine, some handwavium the engineering watch-stander swore up and down he didn't put in his duffel bag and a complete CD boxset of The Navy Lark. But that's a story for another time.) She's not what quite you'd expect someone who holds the title of the First Minister of Science of the Sozvezdie Soviet to be like, but almost everything you'd expect of someone who holds the title of Chief Mad Scientist of the Order of St Grimace, except when it's more advantageous and/or amusing to play up the upper-crust Providence accent and mannerisms she's never quite shaken off.

She arrived in a 'waved white van with the VVS logo on it, accompanied by a small horde of miniature anime-girl robots who might or might not be related to the extra special AI whose existence the Soviets are trying -not entirely successfully- to keep on the down-low. Cataleya declared them "the cutest things [ever!" and grabbed one at random to hug it.
"Knew that was gonna happen," Deidre snorted, tugging off a Red Stars baseball cap. This month's hair colour turned out to be white-blonde with pink highlights. "Hi there Babs, Tom. These our patients?"
"Yes ma'am," Adam replied.
"Great. Lemme get my wrench."
"Uh..."
"Relax, kid. If Peterson had half a brain you won't be capable of feeling pain from this."
"I'm open to persuadin' that he didn't," Adam muttered.
"Might as well start with me," Paul suggested. "Ain't got nothin' below my neck 'cept memories anyway."
"Less plastic crap in the way of the interesting parts, too," she agreed, sounding way too cheerful about getting her hands on a new kind of android to take apart. "Let's see..."
"Uh, do you mind if we do this without an audience?" Paul suggested.
"You need to work on that bedside manner now you're finally getting to call yourself a Doctor, you know that?" I sighed.
"Wrong kinda doctor for that, Barbie!"
"You keep calling me that and I'll start calling you Dee," I warned.
"Try it!"
"Why don't we let Deidre get on with her job, hmmm?" Tom suggested. "Frankie just got through to... their dad's secretary, apparently their parents are on Stellvia for a holiday."
"And you need me along for the ride because you're going to spend the trip hiding in the cockpit hoping Leda won't come tear you a new asshole," I replied dryly.
"She's just pissed off that I did more to get Noah and Aki talking again in one afternoon than she has in several years."
"By calling him a shitty father, starting a barfight in Meg's, getting stupid drunk after deciding you were best of friends now," and how the fuck does that work? Honestly, I spent the first twenty-five years of my life living as a man and I still don't understand 'em... "and going on a bar-crawl from L5 to Helium before getting tossed in the drunk-tank."
"Don't knock it, it worked."

You know the really aggravating part? It kinda did.

In the event, we didn't have to go further than the docking bay. Frankie's parents were waiting for us, accompanied by Noah himself. "Haruhi called," he said by way of explanation. "Mr and Mrs Benson, this is Troubleshooters White and Rutley. They were the ones who found your child."

They were older than I'd expected, closer to Tom's age than mine, and had enough taste not to try to blend in by dressing like an upper middle-class Earthsider's idea of a typical Fen. (As if there even is such a thing!) Mr Benson was ISO-standard wealthy white suburbanite on his day off; button-down shirt, sweater and designer jeans. His wife looked vaguely South Asian, and a lot more bohemian in a long denim skirt and floatly green silk blouse. I guessed they had one hell of a "how we met" story.
Social dynamics aside, they reacted like parents everywhere. "Is Frankie alright?" Mrs Benson demanded, sounding scared. "Can we go see faer?"
"And have you got a lead on the bastard who did this?" her husband added.
"Frankie's alive, safe and in pretty good spirits considering all fae's been through," I replied. "Faer condition... Well, it could be a lot better, but we'll talk about that on the way. And the perpetrator's name and picture has been sent to every law-enforcement agency in the system. If he's alive, we'll find him. Now, would you two like to step onboard? We'll take you straight there."

"Frankie wanted to hold the party at ours," Mr Benson told me, staring into his coffee cup. "We've got a pool house bigger than Caroline's whole apartment, could have invited their entire homeroom class. But Michael wouldn't have it, said he just wanted his real friends around him. So they went out for a pizza just like normal kids, and then they were gonna come back to ours and we'd have a huge birthday dinner, with Caroline and Cataleya's parents. But they never came home..."
"It wasn't your fault, Mr Benson. It wasn't anybody's fault except that creep Peterson's. They had a responsible adult with them the whole time, and he did everything he reasonably could."
"I wanted to loan him my taser," Benson muttered. "Sara wouldn't let me, said Adam was too young to be carrying that kind of thing."
"Wouldn't have helped. I saw the backroom where it went down, it wasn't much bigger than a walk-in closet; Adam would've been better off with a quarter-roll, even if Peterson didn't get the drop on him."
"I know, I know," he sighed. "But..."
"What's done is done," I replied. "And what matters is that Frankie is alive, and safe, and no more messed up in the head than I'd expect a genderfluid kid who goes to public school to be."
"Agender," said Benson, with a hint of a smile. "Not genderfluid, agender. And not genderqueer either. Fae gets tetchy if you get your terminology wrong, and never mind the fact you can ask ten GSM people the difference and get fifteen different answers."
"Oh, I know how that goes," I laughed, glancing over at Tom in the cockpit as he carried on an animated conversation with Benson's wife in Hindi. Bringing my resolutely straight cismale boyfriend along as a plus one for a post-Pride march meetup with the rest of my old trans support group wasn't quite the most surreal experience of my life to date, but it's definitely in the top ten.

[M Fnord]

Chief Mad Scientist of the Order of St Grimace

And you sir just won a free pass and a million brownie points. Don't spend them all in one place.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[robkelk]

"And you need me along for the ride because you're going to spend the trip hiding in the cockpit hoping Leda won't come tear you a new asshole," I replied dryly.
"She's just pissed off that I did more to get Noah and Aki talking again in one afternoon than she has in several years."
"By calling him a shitty father, starting a barfight in Meg's, getting stupid drunk after deciding you were best of friends now," and how the fuck does that work? Honestly, I spent the first twenty-five years of my life living as a man and I still don't understand 'em... "and going on a bar-crawl from L5 to Helium before getting tossed in the drunk-tank."
"Don't knock it, it worked."

"Keep on confusing correlation and causation, kids!"
"That isn't nice, Noah."
"Maybe not, but it's true. Nothing I did got the Inspector to start talking to us again."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012