--5 —
“Instrumentality Committee Meeting”
That was how it always appeared in her dayplanner. She preferred the reference to what it was actually called. It matched how she felt about it, even if it lacked the truly ‘scure cachet the real name had.
The worst part of her job, Jet thought, were the group calls and conferences. At least the meetings on Frigga could be held in person - but calls to Mars, to other members of parliament, to the mundanes - all had to be done by remote. By hologram, by video, or by ominous sound-only monolith.
She hated how nobody ever managed to get their damned mic levels right. Someone was too loud. Someone was too quiet. Someone spoke in jitters and starts, fractions of a syllable being lost to cosmic rays and encoding errors. Someone lagged by long seconds, perpetually speaking out of sync and killing the flow of conversation.
Jet gave thanks that the camera on her monitor had long broken - it gave her the freedom to walk around a little. Moving helped her think. It sparked the mind. It earthed the restless energy in her bones.
Eddie had the characteristics of the still to be built reactors finalised. They existed in their complete form in his mind, running already for years. He had a roadmap for the life of the reactors, from first fuelling, through to their eventual decommissioning. He had the characteristics for the reactor’s plutonium confirmed.
Jet kept her usual misgivings about his simulations to herself. She’d be the odd one out in the group - especially with A.C. having decided to join in. Jet suspected Eddie had begun to hate her.
Oh ye of little faith. Jet wondered where they got theirs, or where hers had gone.
Kohran had begun designing weapons, based on that characteristic.
“It’d be as powerful as a truck bomb” she said, “But a truck bomb with some stolen nuclear waste would be a lot easier to build, a lot easier to hide and wouldn’t have to worry about it meltin’ itself to destruction.”
“Problem solved then” Jet’s muse added her reply to the conversation, correctly guessing what she would’ve felt.
“There is still the benefit to producing such a weapon - the radiation pulse of fission,” Eddie remarked. “It would be extremely radiotoxic.”
“Well yeah. You can’t make it impossible. So you just make it like doing a tooth extraction on an angry badger - from the wrong end.” A few people smirked in response to that. “And it can’t trigger a secondary.”
“There are easier options, to do far more damage.” A.C added.
“Best we can do I guess,” Benjamin Rhodes added with an almost incongruous cheerfulness. “No more city-killers.”
The buck passed to Jet, responsible for the practicalities of getting things done. Her mouth regurgitated the details of the funding plans.
“I’ve got deals with some former Belt Alliance mines.” she said. “They’ve been hammered lately but since we’re subsidised by Venus to supply Bristol, we can sell them ore well below their cost of production - they can compete with the Rockhounds and line their pockets with the difference.”
If they had an attack of conscience, they had to worry about whatever evidence might’ve potentially been gathered on their own specific activities as part of the Belt Alliance protection racket.
A.C’s expression flattened, her lips pursing as it sat a little ill with her.
“I know we’re breaking the Parliament’s agreement with RDA” Jet continued, feeling a little bit giddy inside at getting one over the powerful. “ Some of it’s going to the station fund to pay for everyone’s pet projects and quality of life things here on Frigga, but I’ve had to cut a few MP’s in so they’ve an interest in keeping quiet. The Project gets less than half of it.”
“I might like to know who they are when this is done,” A.C mused
“There;ll be hell to pay if this gets out. The Rockhounds have political influence,” said Kohran. “They’ll go to legal war.”
“We can always buy a coupla shipments,” said Ben. “Send a regular ship over that comes back empty. Take it into stock on paper and then lose it to production issues. It never actually exists. I think everyone can do that.”
“That’ll help.” Jet said, with a quick smile. “We’re doing some production efficiency things to increase output aswell, but there’re limits. The more we sell, the more the cost of doing business goes up.”
“You might approach the RDA under the table” A.C. suggested. “If the sale price is lower than their production costs, they may be interested, and that flips the scandal from Frigga breaking an agreement her Majesty’s government made, to Frigga being forced to look elsewhere.”
Jet felt her stomach drop, appalled at the idea for reasons she couldn’t explain.
“It’d embarrass them, rather than give them more ammunition,” A.C added.
Of course, the idea drew a few nods of agreement from the rest of those present. It made perfect sense. It sat wrong with Jet’s soul in a way she couldn’t place - as if it violated the basic tenant of her being - an anathema to her existence.
The faces on the call waited for an answer.
“Yeah, I can do that,” she said, with all the enthusiasm of a child for their homework.
Jet had long learned the art of separating how she felt about doing a thing, from the necessity of actually doing it. These tasks were essential, no matter how wrong they felt.
Her mind still clutched at straws, looking for anything to justify her instincts.
“But the power dynamic changes,” she said.“The Rockhounds have no incentive for keeping the arrangement secret. I can’t push them harder either.”
The corrupt could be relied upon to do what was necessary to keep their face in the trough. The RDA had no such incentive - they could make demands. They could take control.
“I’ll have to make the introduction, of course,” said A.C., not seeming particularly enthused about it. “Marsden may need some convincing.”
Of course, Jet thought. Her presence changed the dynamic. The orbit of the conspiracy shifted.
The sense of powerlessness simmered inside Jet - of having no choice, no matter what, of being swept along in the narrative, no matter how she thought things should be. Dealing with Big Name Fans always came with a cost. But they all brought their own strengths to the table.
Ben contributed the bulk of the engine technology, the nuclear fuels and, on the surface, a lot of the overt funding. Kohran contributed the weapons knowledge with Eddie as a backstop. Eddie himself brought the biggest technical mind in Fenspace, even if it strained against the mundane limits of Frigga’s own engineers.. A.C. had been the unwitting participant, not even knowing about her involvement, until it had to be explained to her. She now had enough influence to maybe keep things smooth - that tendency to shape the narrative and help it flow. Of all things, it made success more likely.
Jet contributed a space station with a lot of space and a history of successfully containing a reactor explosion, along with the willingness to go so far out on a limb, she couldn’t even see the tree - and the ability to figure out how to land when the limb finally snapped.
Jet Jaguar could be seen to be that bit reckless. It fit how the narrative of Fenspace saw her.
It’s how everybody believed she’d snapped when she chased down Asmodeus Grey. It’s why nobody believed she’d been the lead on the mission - after one attempt to cover for her backfired.
Jet’s eyes had fallen to her reflection in the monitor.
The woman who stared at the wall behind her, looked tired beyond belief, like an echo of who she’d been over a decade before, when a random photographer had caught a picture of what’d been left after Jusenkyou had been finished.
She looked like she felt - like the dregs of a drink sitting in last night’s glass. Little left to give, and what was left had long gone stale. Little left to look forward to.
“There’s another fly in the ointment,” she said. “Anika knows what we’re doing out here - Anika Springfield.”
That moment’s silence, invited her to speak more. Of course, she’d have to drop a friend in it.
“I told her,” Ben announced, saving Jet the trouble of dropping him. “She asked me questions, and I couldn’t lie to her, so I told her it was our project - “ he smiled again “To hide the real truth.”
The worst part of it being, he’d thought he’d been doing the right thing.
"Ben, talking to Anika will have consequences you know."
Consequences that could range from a calm chiding, to having to bring the chocolate cheesecake the next time the ‘committee’ met, to time, costs or influence as needs be. A.C. spoke in a tone that didn’t
"I was trying to-"
"You DIDN'T. CONSULT. That's caused further issues to deal with. And it doesn't look good for you."
"Wha-?" Benjamin’s avatar blinked on screen
"If that's what you do to a supposed friend, what else?"
“Anika’s my friend too.” Ben had his hackles up. “She asked me if I knew anything. I couldn’t lie to her.”
“Yeh still coulda sent me a bleedin’ message before she knocked on me door,”
That moment of silence warned her that her frustration had bubbled up - the mask had slipped. Eddies little avatar seemed to inflate a little with barely contained smugness, as if to say ‘See what I’ve been dealing with.
“This won’t get us further,” A.C. warned in a plain tone. “The next step is, of course, either to try and convince her that it’s best if this remains a secret, or to try get ahead of it.”
The discussion began - what, how and who. What did the narrative expect. They each offered the solutions expected of them.
Her mind drifted away. A few people on Frigga offered their problems, hoping Baron Frigga would solve them with the personal touch. Sign off on a project. Put a word in with the council. Ask a question of a minister. Figure out which node had gone corrupt. Simple things - stupid things - but solving them made people happy and say thanks. Local politics never changed - she may be a loon who’ll kill us all, but sure she fixed the roads and got the jobs in, and didn’t she get those two steam locomotives approved for the Sparks?
Even that didn’t seem to matter. Part of her mind still lingered in that room on Jusenkyou, terrified at being discovered, and still hoping nobody ever learned of her side-trip.
The only way she could win, was get off the path the narrative expected of her.
What’s the last thing you do in a conspiracy?
“We go public,” Jet said. It wasn’t a proposal. ”Everything except the bomb. We go with Ben’s explanation.”
The silence that followed, politely requested an explanation. She figured out the reason why, after coming up with the action.
"When it all comes out, they'll all be happy that we got caught, and they'll be happy that they know and they're smarter than us and we didn't get away with it. And maybe they'll understand why we kept it all secret, without really knowing. " Jet felt a savage smirk draw across her face. “So long as they’re happy with the story, they’ll stop looking and nothing ever needs to be hidden again.”
The ordinary fan could be glad about being smarter than the Big Names. They could be happy with the narrative - so long as it fit what was expected of the participants. The narrative would become truth. The reality would be forgotten.
Ben made a face like someone had stepped on his grave. “Yikes!”
A moment’s silence followed. Kohran glanced at Eddie’s Avatar.
“Marsden might not want to support a competitor, in the case,” A.C. remarked. “But that might also be a matter of discussion,”
Of course, she’d also understand, on some level. They both worked as Troubleshooters. A good hang out could hide a great many things, especially when that hangout confirmed people’s biases.
In the back of her mind, Jet’s muse made notes on an angle that could be played. Play into Marsden’s impression of Frigga, the Millenium and Government enterprise.
“Well, there’re other things that can be done with a nuclear reactor, too,” said Jet, “I’m sure we can find something of value we can do for the Rockhounds.”
Kohran glanced offscreen momentarily. “Yeah, that’ll be easy an’ I know they use some isotopes for densimeters.”
“We use them too,” added Ben. “For deep penetration inspection and in the infirmary.”
A.C’s avatar paused a moment. “I’ve requested a meeting with Marsden.”
Jets eyes glanced at all the window. “Speaking of meetings, I’ve to get to Venus in an hour.”
“Good luck,” Ben Chuckled.
She gave a shrug of her shoulders. “I can be late. It’ll be nice to be fashionable for once.” Jet took a breath. “By the next meeting, I think we’ll have a press release ready, our engineers will have the construction plans done.”
Another message pinged off inside her mind - one requesting Sylia attend an urgent meeting. Keeping that deception going be telepresence wouldn’t last much longer, but it had to. Jet thought she could take it while flying.
“The Prototype bird with the new engines will be ready by then,” and Ben seemed positively proud of that. “We’re getting a little more kick out of the engines too”
“I might wanna try one of those,” said Kohran.
“I’ll get you one of the first batch,” Ben promised, showing the first
“Just a test is fine.”
“I will have the blast shields ready,” said Eddie. And he would be so pleased to do it. “Along with the final stability calculations in a format which is human interpretable - and for public consumption.”
Through it all, it seemed like they were still on track. She realised she’d stopped pacing around the room.
The participants logged off in turn, each with their own traditional goodbyes. Jet watched them go, one by one, until only A.C. herself remained, her green eyes not able to see Jet, but somehow still watching.
She sat back in her seat, and Jet found herself wondering what was left to discuss.
“Are you alright, Jet?”
She hadn’t expected that. Her breath caught in her throat. She felt like a child who’d been caught with her hand in the biscuit tin.
“It’s not hard to tell that you haven’t had time to sleep for at least a month.” A.C. gave a gentle smile, not threatening. “Which means you’re probably neglecting your maintenance.” The chiding was gentle - non-threatening. Just a warning that it’d been spotted. “No matter how much we want to think otherwise, we’re only human,:
Jet could tell she was being deliberately careful, like she was offering a hand.
“I’ve too much to do right now.”
Back off on any of it, and it all fell apart.
“Other people can carry the torch, if you let them.”
Other people would probably fuck it up. Jet bit her lip a moment, getting the sense she was being led into a minefield.
“I’ve a meeting with an advocate about the reactor inquiry in an hour,” she said, as a deflection. “I need to get to that. I’d rather a barrister in that room than me.”
A.C. simple nodded again.
“I’m asking you as a friend,” she said. “Before I have to step in as your Doctor. Please look after yourself.”
The call cut, leaving Jet alone in the room, shaking inside her armour. She screamed at the blank screen, before launching it across the floor at an inhuman speed. It burst into a shower of electric sparks.
Rage. Betrayal. Fear, she couldn’t explain what it was, even to herself. How the fuck was she supposed to take a break anyway?
Stingray begged for more attention from an owner who never existed, and who had kess to give. If that collapsed, she’d be the person who let an entire company and those who it employed collapse into the ground - for no good reason at all..
Frigga and the War on Kipple raged on. A flamewar needed to be headed off after someone accidentally modded themself into some artist’s closed species. Something always broke, and it was always something she had to fix.
Followed by the duties expected of Baron Frigga to Her Majesty’s parliament, which seemed to actively reject her presence but still demanded she attend to them.
Asagiri needed work to stay relevant and in people’s minds. Someone wanted to buy a spacecraft and it needed to be tweaked for a test-flight. The last remaining racing team since Daryl pulled out pushed for more and more technical support to stay ahead. Let that fall, and the one thing that might’ve been interesting would wither and be forgotten as it fell out of the collective mindshare of enthusiasts everywhere.
And then, The Reactors, which ate hours between local planning and negotiations with suppliers and keeping an eye on the Boskone to make sure they hadn’t figured it out. Leave it alone, and risk the end of the world.
The one thing A.C. didn’t understand - a controlled shutdown of all four machines couldn’t be possible. And trying to stop them would have her taking the blame as the person who ruined it for everyone who relied on it. Nobody would care.
Even if she succeeded, nobody would know and she’d have to put up with everyone thinking she was a loon.
Worse than that…
…given a few quiet moments she really wasn’t sure what she could do to take a break. Nothing in life was fun anymore. Most were just a slow march towards an inevitable disappointment.
Jet worked in what had once been the Station Chief Engineer’s office, surrounded by dozens of half-finished projects that’d been abandoned as whatever spark that’d momentarily inspired them guttered and died. Mackie’s hacked-open skull still stared from a shelf where it’d been put.
She couldn’t bring herself to do anything else with it.
Her meeting on Venus still insisted she attend.
Within minutes she was hurtling through open space aboard XR, pushing up against Magnificent Midnight’s speed records. She cut it close inside the orbit of Mercury - close enough for the paint to blister, panels to pop and the sunshades to start to fizzle.
She plunged the black, dagger-like aircraft towards the planet, crashing it into a high parking orbit, annoying some tool of a pilot who an alert from his TCAS and acted like it was the worst thing in the world
Rather than bother with spending a half hour in the swarm of traffic control to get down into the cities, Jet left he spacecraft in orbit on autopilot, set the transponder to broadcast the ‘crew resting’ signal, popped the canopy and snuck herself down through the traffic with her private transponder off.
XR remained in orbit, pilotlessly cruising through traffic.
—-
“Hey?-----How ya doin? It’s been a while?”
“It has” —-- “I’m on the right side of the ground.”
“That’s always a start,”
“What’ve you been doing?”
“Well yeah I got the Cat running and I got the permits from the city at last - so it seems my Aunt’s family name still carries some weight with the mayor’s office.” —--- “Actually kind of surprised I didn’t hear from you before now.”
“I couldn’t think of anything to say,”
“We were going out for ten years. I would’ve thought…”
“I wanted to be friends, but I didn’t want to be the friend who only called up when had the world to unload. It’s been tough.”
“I read about the accident” —--- “And Mackie. I’m sorry - by the time I got the news, everything had moved on and I didn’t want to re-open a wound like that.”
“There’s more to it, that you don’t know about” —--- “And that I can’t talk about right now, but I appreciate it.”
“I don’t think you wanted to catch up thought….”
“I just needed to talk to someone - I guess. Someone who had a different perspective - who was outside the flow of things. Everyone else is caught up in it all. And you’ve been on the ground for a year.”
“Alright. What’s the problem?”
“I’m stuck into something that’s forcing me to go one way, with an end that I don’t want to go to, but is going to happen anyway. Like being in quicksand - where every choice I make, will just make everything worse in a way I can’t deal with. There’s no good ending, just different shades of bad and I can’t see a way out of it.”
“You’re not thinking of hurting yourself, are you?” —------------------“Jet?” —----------- “Or harming yourself?”
“I didn’t realise it, until you said it”------------------- “If I burn out, or have a bad accident, it stops. I’m out, it all stops before everything goes bad.”
“I’m glad you spoke to someone, at least” —---- “I wish it wasn’t me this early in the morning but goddamn I wanted to hear from you. And I still want to hear from you”
“I still have to figure out how to stop all this.”
“You stop, and figure it out afterwards.”-------- “And this from the person who’se known for figuring out how to land, after she jumps”
“I suppose you're right. You always had a better head for this sort of stuff.”
“I guess I grew up with feelings.” —------------”I need you to tell me you’re not going to hurt yourself”
“I’m alright right now.”
“Promise me you’re not going to hurt yourself.”
“I promise I won’t hurt myself.”
“Thanks.”
“Maybe if you’re up in the near future, you could stop by for coffee. There’s a lot of cool stuff we’ve started.”
“It’d be nice to talk again. About better things.”
“I’d like that.”
“Later Jet.”
“Later….”
------------------
“Instrumentality Committee Meeting”
That was how it always appeared in her dayplanner. She preferred the reference to what it was actually called. It matched how she felt about it, even if it lacked the truly ‘scure cachet the real name had.
The worst part of her job, Jet thought, were the group calls and conferences. At least the meetings on Frigga could be held in person - but calls to Mars, to other members of parliament, to the mundanes - all had to be done by remote. By hologram, by video, or by ominous sound-only monolith.
She hated how nobody ever managed to get their damned mic levels right. Someone was too loud. Someone was too quiet. Someone spoke in jitters and starts, fractions of a syllable being lost to cosmic rays and encoding errors. Someone lagged by long seconds, perpetually speaking out of sync and killing the flow of conversation.
Jet gave thanks that the camera on her monitor had long broken - it gave her the freedom to walk around a little. Moving helped her think. It sparked the mind. It earthed the restless energy in her bones.
Eddie had the characteristics of the still to be built reactors finalised. They existed in their complete form in his mind, running already for years. He had a roadmap for the life of the reactors, from first fuelling, through to their eventual decommissioning. He had the characteristics for the reactor’s plutonium confirmed.
Jet kept her usual misgivings about his simulations to herself. She’d be the odd one out in the group - especially with A.C. having decided to join in. Jet suspected Eddie had begun to hate her.
Oh ye of little faith. Jet wondered where they got theirs, or where hers had gone.
Kohran had begun designing weapons, based on that characteristic.
“It’d be as powerful as a truck bomb” she said, “But a truck bomb with some stolen nuclear waste would be a lot easier to build, a lot easier to hide and wouldn’t have to worry about it meltin’ itself to destruction.”
“Problem solved then” Jet’s muse added her reply to the conversation, correctly guessing what she would’ve felt.
“There is still the benefit to producing such a weapon - the radiation pulse of fission,” Eddie remarked. “It would be extremely radiotoxic.”
“Well yeah. You can’t make it impossible. So you just make it like doing a tooth extraction on an angry badger - from the wrong end.” A few people smirked in response to that. “And it can’t trigger a secondary.”
“There are easier options, to do far more damage.” A.C added.
“Best we can do I guess,” Benjamin Rhodes added with an almost incongruous cheerfulness. “No more city-killers.”
The buck passed to Jet, responsible for the practicalities of getting things done. Her mouth regurgitated the details of the funding plans.
“I’ve got deals with some former Belt Alliance mines.” she said. “They’ve been hammered lately but since we’re subsidised by Venus to supply Bristol, we can sell them ore well below their cost of production - they can compete with the Rockhounds and line their pockets with the difference.”
If they had an attack of conscience, they had to worry about whatever evidence might’ve potentially been gathered on their own specific activities as part of the Belt Alliance protection racket.
A.C’s expression flattened, her lips pursing as it sat a little ill with her.
“I know we’re breaking the Parliament’s agreement with RDA” Jet continued, feeling a little bit giddy inside at getting one over the powerful. “ Some of it’s going to the station fund to pay for everyone’s pet projects and quality of life things here on Frigga, but I’ve had to cut a few MP’s in so they’ve an interest in keeping quiet. The Project gets less than half of it.”
“I might like to know who they are when this is done,” A.C mused
“There;ll be hell to pay if this gets out. The Rockhounds have political influence,” said Kohran. “They’ll go to legal war.”
“We can always buy a coupla shipments,” said Ben. “Send a regular ship over that comes back empty. Take it into stock on paper and then lose it to production issues. It never actually exists. I think everyone can do that.”
“That’ll help.” Jet said, with a quick smile. “We’re doing some production efficiency things to increase output aswell, but there’re limits. The more we sell, the more the cost of doing business goes up.”
“You might approach the RDA under the table” A.C. suggested. “If the sale price is lower than their production costs, they may be interested, and that flips the scandal from Frigga breaking an agreement her Majesty’s government made, to Frigga being forced to look elsewhere.”
Jet felt her stomach drop, appalled at the idea for reasons she couldn’t explain.
“It’d embarrass them, rather than give them more ammunition,” A.C added.
Of course, the idea drew a few nods of agreement from the rest of those present. It made perfect sense. It sat wrong with Jet’s soul in a way she couldn’t place - as if it violated the basic tenant of her being - an anathema to her existence.
The faces on the call waited for an answer.
“Yeah, I can do that,” she said, with all the enthusiasm of a child for their homework.
Jet had long learned the art of separating how she felt about doing a thing, from the necessity of actually doing it. These tasks were essential, no matter how wrong they felt.
Her mind still clutched at straws, looking for anything to justify her instincts.
“But the power dynamic changes,” she said.“The Rockhounds have no incentive for keeping the arrangement secret. I can’t push them harder either.”
The corrupt could be relied upon to do what was necessary to keep their face in the trough. The RDA had no such incentive - they could make demands. They could take control.
“I’ll have to make the introduction, of course,” said A.C., not seeming particularly enthused about it. “Marsden may need some convincing.”
Of course, Jet thought. Her presence changed the dynamic. The orbit of the conspiracy shifted.
The sense of powerlessness simmered inside Jet - of having no choice, no matter what, of being swept along in the narrative, no matter how she thought things should be. Dealing with Big Name Fans always came with a cost. But they all brought their own strengths to the table.
Ben contributed the bulk of the engine technology, the nuclear fuels and, on the surface, a lot of the overt funding. Kohran contributed the weapons knowledge with Eddie as a backstop. Eddie himself brought the biggest technical mind in Fenspace, even if it strained against the mundane limits of Frigga’s own engineers.. A.C. had been the unwitting participant, not even knowing about her involvement, until it had to be explained to her. She now had enough influence to maybe keep things smooth - that tendency to shape the narrative and help it flow. Of all things, it made success more likely.
Jet contributed a space station with a lot of space and a history of successfully containing a reactor explosion, along with the willingness to go so far out on a limb, she couldn’t even see the tree - and the ability to figure out how to land when the limb finally snapped.
Jet Jaguar could be seen to be that bit reckless. It fit how the narrative of Fenspace saw her.
It’s how everybody believed she’d snapped when she chased down Asmodeus Grey. It’s why nobody believed she’d been the lead on the mission - after one attempt to cover for her backfired.
Jet’s eyes had fallen to her reflection in the monitor.
The woman who stared at the wall behind her, looked tired beyond belief, like an echo of who she’d been over a decade before, when a random photographer had caught a picture of what’d been left after Jusenkyou had been finished.
She looked like she felt - like the dregs of a drink sitting in last night’s glass. Little left to give, and what was left had long gone stale. Little left to look forward to.
“There’s another fly in the ointment,” she said. “Anika knows what we’re doing out here - Anika Springfield.”
That moment’s silence, invited her to speak more. Of course, she’d have to drop a friend in it.
“I told her,” Ben announced, saving Jet the trouble of dropping him. “She asked me questions, and I couldn’t lie to her, so I told her it was our project - “ he smiled again “To hide the real truth.”
The worst part of it being, he’d thought he’d been doing the right thing.
"Ben, talking to Anika will have consequences you know."
Consequences that could range from a calm chiding, to having to bring the chocolate cheesecake the next time the ‘committee’ met, to time, costs or influence as needs be. A.C. spoke in a tone that didn’t
"I was trying to-"
"You DIDN'T. CONSULT. That's caused further issues to deal with. And it doesn't look good for you."
"Wha-?" Benjamin’s avatar blinked on screen
"If that's what you do to a supposed friend, what else?"
“Anika’s my friend too.” Ben had his hackles up. “She asked me if I knew anything. I couldn’t lie to her.”
“Yeh still coulda sent me a bleedin’ message before she knocked on me door,”
That moment of silence warned her that her frustration had bubbled up - the mask had slipped. Eddies little avatar seemed to inflate a little with barely contained smugness, as if to say ‘See what I’ve been dealing with.
“This won’t get us further,” A.C. warned in a plain tone. “The next step is, of course, either to try and convince her that it’s best if this remains a secret, or to try get ahead of it.”
The discussion began - what, how and who. What did the narrative expect. They each offered the solutions expected of them.
Her mind drifted away. A few people on Frigga offered their problems, hoping Baron Frigga would solve them with the personal touch. Sign off on a project. Put a word in with the council. Ask a question of a minister. Figure out which node had gone corrupt. Simple things - stupid things - but solving them made people happy and say thanks. Local politics never changed - she may be a loon who’ll kill us all, but sure she fixed the roads and got the jobs in, and didn’t she get those two steam locomotives approved for the Sparks?
Even that didn’t seem to matter. Part of her mind still lingered in that room on Jusenkyou, terrified at being discovered, and still hoping nobody ever learned of her side-trip.
The only way she could win, was get off the path the narrative expected of her.
What’s the last thing you do in a conspiracy?
“We go public,” Jet said. It wasn’t a proposal. ”Everything except the bomb. We go with Ben’s explanation.”
The silence that followed, politely requested an explanation. She figured out the reason why, after coming up with the action.
"When it all comes out, they'll all be happy that we got caught, and they'll be happy that they know and they're smarter than us and we didn't get away with it. And maybe they'll understand why we kept it all secret, without really knowing. " Jet felt a savage smirk draw across her face. “So long as they’re happy with the story, they’ll stop looking and nothing ever needs to be hidden again.”
The ordinary fan could be glad about being smarter than the Big Names. They could be happy with the narrative - so long as it fit what was expected of the participants. The narrative would become truth. The reality would be forgotten.
Ben made a face like someone had stepped on his grave. “Yikes!”
A moment’s silence followed. Kohran glanced at Eddie’s Avatar.
“Marsden might not want to support a competitor, in the case,” A.C. remarked. “But that might also be a matter of discussion,”
Of course, she’d also understand, on some level. They both worked as Troubleshooters. A good hang out could hide a great many things, especially when that hangout confirmed people’s biases.
In the back of her mind, Jet’s muse made notes on an angle that could be played. Play into Marsden’s impression of Frigga, the Millenium and Government enterprise.
“Well, there’re other things that can be done with a nuclear reactor, too,” said Jet, “I’m sure we can find something of value we can do for the Rockhounds.”
Kohran glanced offscreen momentarily. “Yeah, that’ll be easy an’ I know they use some isotopes for densimeters.”
“We use them too,” added Ben. “For deep penetration inspection and in the infirmary.”
A.C’s avatar paused a moment. “I’ve requested a meeting with Marsden.”
Jets eyes glanced at all the window. “Speaking of meetings, I’ve to get to Venus in an hour.”
“Good luck,” Ben Chuckled.
She gave a shrug of her shoulders. “I can be late. It’ll be nice to be fashionable for once.” Jet took a breath. “By the next meeting, I think we’ll have a press release ready, our engineers will have the construction plans done.”
Another message pinged off inside her mind - one requesting Sylia attend an urgent meeting. Keeping that deception going be telepresence wouldn’t last much longer, but it had to. Jet thought she could take it while flying.
“The Prototype bird with the new engines will be ready by then,” and Ben seemed positively proud of that. “We’re getting a little more kick out of the engines too”
“I might wanna try one of those,” said Kohran.
“I’ll get you one of the first batch,” Ben promised, showing the first
“Just a test is fine.”
“I will have the blast shields ready,” said Eddie. And he would be so pleased to do it. “Along with the final stability calculations in a format which is human interpretable - and for public consumption.”
Through it all, it seemed like they were still on track. She realised she’d stopped pacing around the room.
The participants logged off in turn, each with their own traditional goodbyes. Jet watched them go, one by one, until only A.C. herself remained, her green eyes not able to see Jet, but somehow still watching.
She sat back in her seat, and Jet found herself wondering what was left to discuss.
“Are you alright, Jet?”
She hadn’t expected that. Her breath caught in her throat. She felt like a child who’d been caught with her hand in the biscuit tin.
“It’s not hard to tell that you haven’t had time to sleep for at least a month.” A.C. gave a gentle smile, not threatening. “Which means you’re probably neglecting your maintenance.” The chiding was gentle - non-threatening. Just a warning that it’d been spotted. “No matter how much we want to think otherwise, we’re only human,:
Jet could tell she was being deliberately careful, like she was offering a hand.
“I’ve too much to do right now.”
Back off on any of it, and it all fell apart.
“Other people can carry the torch, if you let them.”
Other people would probably fuck it up. Jet bit her lip a moment, getting the sense she was being led into a minefield.
“I’ve a meeting with an advocate about the reactor inquiry in an hour,” she said, as a deflection. “I need to get to that. I’d rather a barrister in that room than me.”
A.C. simple nodded again.
“I’m asking you as a friend,” she said. “Before I have to step in as your Doctor. Please look after yourself.”
The call cut, leaving Jet alone in the room, shaking inside her armour. She screamed at the blank screen, before launching it across the floor at an inhuman speed. It burst into a shower of electric sparks.
Rage. Betrayal. Fear, she couldn’t explain what it was, even to herself. How the fuck was she supposed to take a break anyway?
Stingray begged for more attention from an owner who never existed, and who had kess to give. If that collapsed, she’d be the person who let an entire company and those who it employed collapse into the ground - for no good reason at all..
Frigga and the War on Kipple raged on. A flamewar needed to be headed off after someone accidentally modded themself into some artist’s closed species. Something always broke, and it was always something she had to fix.
Followed by the duties expected of Baron Frigga to Her Majesty’s parliament, which seemed to actively reject her presence but still demanded she attend to them.
Asagiri needed work to stay relevant and in people’s minds. Someone wanted to buy a spacecraft and it needed to be tweaked for a test-flight. The last remaining racing team since Daryl pulled out pushed for more and more technical support to stay ahead. Let that fall, and the one thing that might’ve been interesting would wither and be forgotten as it fell out of the collective mindshare of enthusiasts everywhere.
And then, The Reactors, which ate hours between local planning and negotiations with suppliers and keeping an eye on the Boskone to make sure they hadn’t figured it out. Leave it alone, and risk the end of the world.
The one thing A.C. didn’t understand - a controlled shutdown of all four machines couldn’t be possible. And trying to stop them would have her taking the blame as the person who ruined it for everyone who relied on it. Nobody would care.
Even if she succeeded, nobody would know and she’d have to put up with everyone thinking she was a loon.
Worse than that…
…given a few quiet moments she really wasn’t sure what she could do to take a break. Nothing in life was fun anymore. Most were just a slow march towards an inevitable disappointment.
Jet worked in what had once been the Station Chief Engineer’s office, surrounded by dozens of half-finished projects that’d been abandoned as whatever spark that’d momentarily inspired them guttered and died. Mackie’s hacked-open skull still stared from a shelf where it’d been put.
She couldn’t bring herself to do anything else with it.
Her meeting on Venus still insisted she attend.
Within minutes she was hurtling through open space aboard XR, pushing up against Magnificent Midnight’s speed records. She cut it close inside the orbit of Mercury - close enough for the paint to blister, panels to pop and the sunshades to start to fizzle.
She plunged the black, dagger-like aircraft towards the planet, crashing it into a high parking orbit, annoying some tool of a pilot who an alert from his TCAS and acted like it was the worst thing in the world
Rather than bother with spending a half hour in the swarm of traffic control to get down into the cities, Jet left he spacecraft in orbit on autopilot, set the transponder to broadcast the ‘crew resting’ signal, popped the canopy and snuck herself down through the traffic with her private transponder off.
XR remained in orbit, pilotlessly cruising through traffic.
—-
“Hey?-----How ya doin? It’s been a while?”
“It has” —-- “I’m on the right side of the ground.”
“That’s always a start,”
“What’ve you been doing?”
“Well yeah I got the Cat running and I got the permits from the city at last - so it seems my Aunt’s family name still carries some weight with the mayor’s office.” —--- “Actually kind of surprised I didn’t hear from you before now.”
“I couldn’t think of anything to say,”
“We were going out for ten years. I would’ve thought…”
“I wanted to be friends, but I didn’t want to be the friend who only called up when had the world to unload. It’s been tough.”
“I read about the accident” —--- “And Mackie. I’m sorry - by the time I got the news, everything had moved on and I didn’t want to re-open a wound like that.”
“There’s more to it, that you don’t know about” —--- “And that I can’t talk about right now, but I appreciate it.”
“I don’t think you wanted to catch up thought….”
“I just needed to talk to someone - I guess. Someone who had a different perspective - who was outside the flow of things. Everyone else is caught up in it all. And you’ve been on the ground for a year.”
“Alright. What’s the problem?”
“I’m stuck into something that’s forcing me to go one way, with an end that I don’t want to go to, but is going to happen anyway. Like being in quicksand - where every choice I make, will just make everything worse in a way I can’t deal with. There’s no good ending, just different shades of bad and I can’t see a way out of it.”
“You’re not thinking of hurting yourself, are you?” —------------------“Jet?” —----------- “Or harming yourself?”
“I didn’t realise it, until you said it”------------------- “If I burn out, or have a bad accident, it stops. I’m out, it all stops before everything goes bad.”
“I’m glad you spoke to someone, at least” —---- “I wish it wasn’t me this early in the morning but goddamn I wanted to hear from you. And I still want to hear from you”
“I still have to figure out how to stop all this.”
“You stop, and figure it out afterwards.”-------- “And this from the person who’se known for figuring out how to land, after she jumps”
“I suppose you're right. You always had a better head for this sort of stuff.”
“I guess I grew up with feelings.” —------------”I need you to tell me you’re not going to hurt yourself”
“I’m alright right now.”
“Promise me you’re not going to hurt yourself.”
“I promise I won’t hurt myself.”
“Thanks.”
“Maybe if you’re up in the near future, you could stop by for coffee. There’s a lot of cool stuff we’ve started.”
“It’d be nice to talk again. About better things.”
“I’d like that.”
“Later Jet.”
“Later….”
------------------
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SpoilerI love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.