The Melancholy of Mackie-Chan

[Star Ranger4]

... I think I missed something here, Dartz? No offense, son of Eire (and I know the fathers side of my family came from there long before I met you) but I am, at the moment, very confused about how the fallout of a certain nuclear Oops ties into Gaige/Mackies story. I hope you choose to tie these threads together in the next installment because I am feeling very 'Vinny Barbarino (AKA "I'M SO CONFUSED!!!") at the moment

[Dartz]

The idea was that both events were happening simultaneously, ramping up the stress. It could probably be edited out at this stage, but it's too late now.


EDIT: I was also trying to give a sense of how Frigga runs - earlier in the story Anika has been sending false data about their reactors which showed Unit 04 still operating - not out of any malice but because the data recording system broke down years ago and it was easier to just radio in the logs rather than fix it. Someone is seen running from a moving train cab to set some points, before running back to the still running training. People duel with actual live sabers.

And the mural very much shows that "We blew a nuclear reactor up and solved it!" level of heroism.

Frigga is probably being dangerously managed - partly because they feel under pressure to achieve results to show up parliament, and partly because any malfunctions or failures they're afraid would be used as a political stick

[Dartz]

A short piece. About three months work.

------


“Thirty-six microsieverts,” said Shinji. The Patrol watch on Shinji’s wrist chimed a warning, screen flickering a cautious yellow

“What’s going on here?”

They both stood on the ramp of their Bolitho, watching life on Frigga carry on with its usual rhythms. A kilometre away, a diesel locomotive idled, being attended to by its crew. Behind it waited a train of empty ore wagons, low-loaders loaded with machinery and a single passenger coach

An oversized fighter aircraft sat halfway between them and the locomotive, surrounded by tools and equipment. Somebody’d been working on it. A dozen or more assorted shuttlecraft sat parked haphazardly, ignoring the painted markings on the steel deck.

“Nothing, apparently,” said Shinji. He looked around, checking “But there’s always something going on.”

“You’re not chief of security out here, Shinji.”

“But there’s danger,” said Shinji. His eyes narrowed, focusing on a scaffold at the far end of the landing bay. A section of concrete wall had been shored up with foot-thick steel beams capable of supporting a skyscraper.

For a moment Miyuri found herself if maybe he’d been getting too far into the role of security chief. She pondered a moment, before adjusting her glasses. A change in polarisation shone up the cracks in the wall, iridescent ribbons of stress flowing across the concrete

“I’m worried too.” She felt a shiver roll through her body. “I’ve sent a message to Koran about it.”

Shinji looked at her for a moment, then back at the wall. “I wonder if someone’s driving the bus today.”

Miyuri raised an eyebrow “Today?”

Shinji offered her a wan smile. “It stops at the railway tracks.” He took a breath. “Maybe we should’ve landed closer.”

The landing bay stretched for nearly a kilometre in front of them. There was nothing for it but to walk, watching the life of the station churn on. The oily scent of diesel exhaust clung slick-like to the air they breathed, mixed with a parch of dry concrete dust.

Her patrol watch alarmed once more - in a more insistent tone. It begged her to exacuate.

One hundred and five microsieverts per hour.

Higher than.interplanetary background. Around her, people went about their ordinary days. She watched a man work under a disassembled landmate, lying on thick mat laid out on the steel deck. Miyuri watched people walk, work and talk in a radiation field high enough to burn a Stellviacorp employee out for life inside a month.

For a moment, Miyuri felt like she was watching someone lie in nettles. The sensation crawled across her skin, mingling with the unsettling idea that someone had allowed them to work there.

There wasn’t much either of them could do about it.

For a few minutes, she wondered if nobody’d told them - if they’d kept the consequences as big a secret as the cause. When she saw that everyone had some sort of dosimeter with them, she realised they knew.

Miyuri didn’t know if that made it worse or not.

It took her far longer than she expected to reach the end of the landing bay. Shinji beside her quietly logged the radiation readings. She found herself wondering on Anika - whether she knew, or whether it’d affected her in some way.

Even androids could be harmed by enough of a dose of radiation. Sensitive electronics could be damaged as surely sensitive biology.

At the end of the bay waited what amounted to the ceremonial entrance to the settlement proper. A large gateway, wide enough to drive a Space Shuttle through led to a darkened tunnel. A pair of rail-tracks struck two shining white lines ahead into the darkness, curving upwards in the distance.

Beside the gate stood A single blue comet-star, four-pointed with one of the beams trailing, holding the settlement’s name in white capitalised letters.

ELEANOR CITY

At the centre of the starbust, the settlement’s founding year: 2024

Leaning on the sign was a dark-skinned woman in orange overalls, tied half-around her waist. Sweat on her skin shone in the overhead lights. A cool-blue glow from the tablet illuminated the sharp features of her face.

“Excuse me, miss?” Miyuri started. For a moment, the woman seemed to ignore her, before slowly raising her face. Wide brown eyes seemed

“Ah..” Miyuri’s voice caught form “Do you know if the bus is running?”

“Oh.” the woman blinked. “ Yeah, I do,”

She walked off, mind clearly on other things, face buried in the tablet, leaving Miyuri standing bewildered.

--

The sound of a twig snapping, followed by a whisp of blue smoke marked the death of a black microcontroller at the centre of a silver-flecked PCB. The scent of burning electricity tinged the air.

The only light in the crawlspace came from a small torch jammed up between a pair of interface cards. Hard white light shone off silver circuit traces. Cables hung from the shadows above her.

Anika lay on her back, hammed in by circuitry on two sides. She kicked herself forward, deeper into the computer system. Cooling fans howled around her, drawing cold air across her body.

Anika took a breath, waiting for the probe in her hand to recharge.

A light on the grip flashed green.

At the other end of the grip was a pair of silver metal probes. Anika offered them up to a pair of solder bumps on another innocent PCB.

Her thumb pressed a button on the grip. More blue smoke liberated itself from its gallium prison.

An alarm sounded from the tangle of cables, warning of data corruption in the system. She dragged herself out with her heels, scrambling feet-first out through an access hatch into the station’s control room.

She lay on the cold floor for a second, looking up the trouser leg of the man working the console above her. Sweat sparked across his face, beads trickling in rivers.

“That get it?”

He looked down at her and smiled with relief.

“Bank 23-50 crashed - it’d dumping corrupt data to the backups at 40-70 and 80-72.”

She sat herself up, exhaling the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding

“Good.” said Anika. She glanced over her shoulder at the monitors high above her. A dozen indicators flashed red amongst a hundred green. “Now it’ll look like the power surge did it.” She took another breath.

“We didn’t notice because we were too busy with the reactor,” Keisuke finished.

The hardest part about nuking the data, was making it look like it hadn’t been nuked on purpose. She pushed herself to her feet, taking a moment to steady herself.

The reactor panel still showed a circular representation of the reactor and its four tangental neutral beam injectors, along with constellation of indicators flashing red, orange and yellow for sensors which no longer existed. A hundred selsyn gauges indicated the final positions of the fuel throttle valves and diverter plates. The unit control panel panels showed one of the surviving seperator assemblies at vacuum pressure, one of the circulating pumps offline and everything else to do with moving water through the core with no signal. Every flowmeter and gauge remained jammed at their final values.

On the Turbine and Generator console, cup of coffee left over from the accident had turned to sludge. The turbine and generator showed as shutdown - as if nothing more dramatic had happened - with no oil or hydrogen pressure and all valves closed. The power systems were still active, tied in to Unit 03’s busbars to activate the reactor control systems one final time.

Radiation warning lamps shone a dangerous orange, monitor gauges throughout the reactor chamber pegged in the overload position.

On the back wall off the control room, two whiteboards still wore a tangle of semi-permanent marker sketches of the reactor, surrounded by fragments of calculations and a scrawled table of radiation readings.

Reactor Chamber. 175KR/hr

A shiver of unease rolled through her body. It had to happen - she assured herself. She watched Keisuke drum his fingers on the keyboard as the corruption moved like a plague through the system, spreading from cluster to cluster.

He’d done that constantly while the reactor burned. He had the same intense stare in his eyes watching each poisoned cluster flash from green to red

She slipped the probe into a pouch on her hip, before adjusting her skirt and jacket.

“Anika!”

She recognised the voice. A guilty thrill ran up her body, like she’d been caught with her hand in the cake tine

“Miyuri?” she said, not really believing for the heartbeat it took her to turn on her heel. Her body went rigid as she recognised the silhouette in the doorway. A nervous trill ran up her throat. “When’d you get here?”

“An hour ago,” she answered with a bright smile. For a moment, Anika thought Miyuri hadn’t noticed. “Shinji used his personal access key.” There was a pause. “Is everything OK?”

“Ah…” Anika struggled to find the words.

Around her, the annunciators on the panels continued to flash their warnings. She heard Keisuke step in behind her, putting himself between Miyuri and the data screen. He couldn’t hide the whiteboards.

For a single pulse of her heart, Anika thought she might get away with it it. Miyuri wouldn’t notice. Everything would be normal.

“Oh Anika no,”

It was the could disappointment dripping from her voice that stung the most. Anika felt it bite deep inside her, she felt her chest wrench, guilt sparking in every circuit tracing through her body.

“You have to understand. We’d never hear the end of it.”

“There’s radiation in the landing bays!” Miyuri showed her the max reading on her watch. “And you’re covering it up.”

“Nobody was hurt Miyuri, and, you know what people are like.” It sounded to her own ears like she was pleading

“This is a crime Anika.”

“It’s necessary,” said Anika, finding herself on the back foot.

The sense of betrayal crawled up her spin.

Of course Miyuri wouldn’t understand - nobody from Stellvia would understand, they lived in the perfect world where everything worked and things didn’t break down and spare parts didn’t come late because they were Stellvia

“How’s it necessary?”

Miyuri pleaded. It sounded like a plea - that her friend hadn’t gone off the deep end. Anika felt it deep in her core - she felt all the colour drain from her face, pins and needles prickling through every wire and circuit in her body, for a moment reminding of of the instant she’d seen the reactor itself burn. Her mouth outran her mind

“The control system malfunctioned. But nobody’d care about that. They’d use it to destroy us.They’d do it to gloat over us because everything’s perfect in the Crystal Cities and we’re just some outsiders who shouldn’t have been allowed to join and they hate us.”

Those final two words hung in the air, rattling the walls. She could feel tears trickling down her cheeks

Miyuri blinked, her mouth half opening as if she’d planned to say something before the words died in her mouth. She held her hands up, almost like she’d expected an attack

“But….you know the cost of lies?”

Anika stepped forward, her body shaking. He eyes went to her friend, he stood somewhere be shock and anger, then too the floor.

“I’m afraid of the price of truth Miyuri,” she said. “The Parliament will blame us. The company who built the reactor will blame us. Everyone has an interest in it being us and not the reactor and they’re all more powerful than we are.”

“Anika…” Miyuri began after a moment.

“What’s the point in telling the truth when nobody will listen?”

Miyuri took a breath, letting Anika’s words sit for a second.

“Maybe we should talk in private,” she said, after a moment, taking an obvious effort to sound calm.

-----

[Dartz]

And now, for a year. Wikes.


----

---

The woman in front of him stood well over a hundred and eighty centimetres, tall enough that Shinji’s natural eye level ended up nearly dead centre on the valley between her breasts. His eyes dropped from there.

Her clean, white loetard seemed to be moulded to her chest and clung tight enough to her that some of her muscles to highlight themselves as she breathed. It was cut high on the hips to lengthen her already statuesque legs, pulled taught by the high heels on her thigh-high boots.

“Mackie?” he asked. His breath shook

“Gaige,” she answered.

“That’s……” Shinji’s mouth hinged open. His eyes fixed at the tight spot between her legs, before moving rapidly back up to her chest. “I can’t believe you’re wearing that.”

“Everything else tears,” she said. He couldn’t see the expression on her face, but heard the shame in her voice.

“It looks tight,” he managed to say. He could feel his own clothes tightening in response.

“It is.” said Gaige. “But it’s - it’s Sammiwear so it’s designed to be comfortable. Even if you’re not.”

Shinji finally forced himself to look her in the eye. He couldn’t tell if it was the blush on her cheeks or the pout of her lips, but something about her face seemed that bit more childish than her body - immature when compared to the overmature body that still tugged at his gaze. Part of his mind long for her chest to finally burst free.

The same part of his mind that still refused to believe he was looking at Mackie.

She gazed down at him with glacier blue eyes. He looked up.

“People still draw pictures of me as a girl…” he managed to say. “They always make me feel weird.”

Not as weird as the Nadia drawings, but not far off. Hey Shinji, do you know your basic character design was based off a female character without breasts? Hey Shinji, you know your basic internal chassis was female?

For a heartbeat, he hated everyone who thought they were the first to remind him of that fact.

Looming over him, Mackie glared down with a sour look on her face, her lips pursed up like the sucker on an octopus tentacle.

“Do you want to trade?” she said. Her arms folded on top of her chest for a moment, before she moved them to a more comfortable position beneath the pair.

Her arms pushed them up, deepening the valley between them.

“No…” Shinji shook his head, feeling a hot flush of shame. “Have you been able to order a replacement yet?”

“Ah - no. I’m stuck,” she answered, her body stiffening.

For a moment, Shinji sensed something further beneath that.

“Why?”

She forced herself to give a rueful smile.

“Sis damaged the power regulator on my memory chips so she tied it into a power supply inside the body’s interlink circuit. It can’t be disconnected without erasing my memory.”

She tapped a gloved finger on the side of her temple.

“Sorry,” said Shinji - before realising it sounded far too much like a Shinji he didn’t want to be. “I’m sorry that happened.” he said.

“Thanks.” Mackie breathed. “It’s weird. But it’s better than being in a spaceship. At least I can be independent.”

To prove it, she took a step to the side, then back before placing her hands on her hips.

“Mackie….” Shinji began.

“Gaige,” she smiled. “I go by Gaige Kisaragi now.”

“Gaige,” Shinji repeated.

Gaige didn’t smile again.

They both stood in the doorway to Gaige’s apartment, neither sure what step to take next. Gaige shifted on her heels. Shinji looked at her feet - then again at the point where her leotard tucked into the gap between her thighs - then forced himself to look up at her eyes.

Shinji could see the skin scrawling across her face.

“Maybe we could play a game for a few minutes,” Gaige suggested her arms folded under her chest, tension winding and coiling through her muscles.

“I’d like that,” said Shinj - before realising just how it sounded.

A pink blush heated his cheeks as he followed her across the floor of her apartment, Shinji keenly aware of the quality of A.C. Peter’s handiwork. A small part of his mind struggled to remind his body that he was, in fact, looking at Mackie Jaguar. A large part of his body did its best to ignore it.

She settled into her own couch. Shinji nestled himself into an armchair. Gaige queued up the game while Shinji got his hands comfortable on a cool metal controller.

Streets of Rage. The original version.

For a while, it almost seemed like fun.

Gaige just sat there, one booted leg crossed over the other - an Amazonian beauty with her sculpted body. She leant backward with a controller in her hand, manicured fingers working the buttons in a blur.

Shinji hunched forward, leaning toward the screen. Something still sat wrong in his mind, even as they both tore through the game with contemptuous ease.

After an hour, the words finally came to his mouth. “This feels weird.”

The look on her face told him he wasn’t the only one having the idea.

“It doesn’t feel right,” she said.

Neither of them had said more than those few words for an hour But more than that, Shinji realised, he didn’t feel like he was playing a game with Mackie.

“Maybe we should find the others.”

------

Anika stirred the custard with a spoon

“The reactor blew itself up,” she said.

Miyuri felt her self blink. Anika seemed dead certain. “It blew itself up?” she asked, invited more explanation.

Anika glanced around. The Midoriyah cafe hummed with activity, given life by the dayshift dropping in for lunch and the nightshift having breakfast. Every table was full - a dozen conversations creating enough noise that she could be certain nobody would overhear.

She stirred her custard again, winding it into a tight whorl.

“We were running a test. The reactor overheated. One of the liner panels broke off the core, part of the lithium blanket fast-fissioned and blew a hole in the cooling system.”

Miyuri looked at her, trying to read, trying to allow herself to consider if her friend has actually trying to lie to her.

Her face seemed sincere.

There was no lie in Anika's golden eyes, only a real fear that’d kept her from doing more than picking at the cheesecake on her plate. Normally she would’ve finished the third by now.

“You need to tell the truth about this, Anika,” she said. “If you speak first, you will be heard first.”

Anika dug a fork into the cream of her cake, stirring it up and mingling it with the biscuit, but not making any attempt to eat any of it.

“I… yeah but…” Anika paused, before looking right at her. But you know what fandom’s really like?”

You understand. She hoped Miyuri understood.

“People will understand.”

Anika gave her a look, like she was being asked to jump into a fire.

“We saved everyone on the station. We did amazing things. They’ll still turn us into the villains, Miyuri.”

Her voice had a real pain in it, like something had bitten into her soul.

Miyuri knew she could help.

“Going first, lets you control that narrative - it lets you set the stage. The first version of the story is always the one that lasts.”

Anika’s body screwed up tight as the thing latched to her soul bit deeper.

“.....I’m scared.” she said, her voice retreating back into her throat.

“I’m your friend, Anika, trust me.”

Miyuri placed her hand on Anika’s, letting the heat of Anika’s body soak into hers. Slowly the edges of her lips turned up. Light began glimmer in the back of her eyes - the first flicker of the Anika who Miyuri remembered.

Miyuri pulled her hand back

“...maybe…”Anika said, after a moment. She poked again at her cheesecake with her fork, still not looking too interested in taking a bite. She looked at it like it might poison her. “Everyone has an interest in it being us. The builders, the politicians - even people - the truth won’t matter to them, only a story that gives them a nice cosy villain to blame.” She took a breath. “Fenspace runs on stories, after all, and that’s the most convenient story for the most respectable people.”

“That sounds very cynical.”

It sounded like the sort of self-justification that usually emerged from the darker parts of the system.

“Maybe,” Anika said again. “I covered the explosion up,” she admitted. “I also went into the reactor, to find out what happened to it,”

Miyuri, for a moment, couldn’t find the words. The sense of betrayal lingered in the back of her mind - that Anika hadn’t been the person she’d known, mingling with a building disbelief that Anika had stood in front of a burning fusion reactor.

Nobody could’ve survived that. Even infolife could be crippled by intense radiation. But there she sat, apparently unharmed.

“It’s never too late to do the right thing.” she said, hiding her true feelings.

“We don’t have a choice now.” She finally took a bite from her cheesecake.

Miyuri felt herself smile gently, hiding her true feelings. She found herself wondering just how a tribunal would even begin to approach something like this. Anika took another bite of cake, obviously swallowing her words along with it.

Miyuri wondered at what had clouded over her friend’s mind.

“We’re back,” said Shinji’s voice.

The woman beside him seemed to stand twice his height. Miyuri’s eyes were level with her stomach, her leotard clinging tight to toned muscle in a way that it really shouldn’t have done. The thought occurred to Miyuri, that A.C. could do some stunning work, for those who desired it.

Almost too good.

“You’re wearing that?”, she managed to say, before feeling herself flush.

“Body quirk,” Gaige answered, her lips pursing into an annoyed pout.

Of course, Miyuri realised, considering the maker and the original intent of the first owner of the body. Even if Miyuri remembered Jet wearing things that were far more modest - evidently she hadn’t passed on the trick.

“I know something,” said Anika. “We have hot springs.”

“Hot springs?”Shinji blinked. “You have hot springs?”

Miyuri looked at him for a moment, aghast that he could be so easily distracted when something serious was happening. When Anika had just finished admitting to covering up a nuclear accident

“How do you make hot springs in space?” Shinji asked.

“The rock is heated by the reactor condensers, and we run water through the rock.” Anika explained, visibly grateful for the distraction. “They’re as close to the real thing as you can get.”

Miyuri saw a boyish light go on behind Shinji’s eyes. His one weakness was a good, hot bath. Her eyes gave Anika a dark look, letting her know that she hadn’t entirely gotten away with avoiding the hard questions.

“It has been a long journey, maybe a bath would be nice

After all, if it had managed to crack Shinji’s veneer of cynicism, even if only for a moment. And letting Anika relax for a few moments might tease out the truth

Gaige body went rigid, looking for a moment like a cuckoo that’d realised it didn’t belong in this nest.

“Is that okay?” she asked. “With me?”

Anika caught on immediately.

“If you want to take that body into the men’s side, you’re more than welcome.”

A momentary look of determination passed across the taller woman’s face - before the realisation finally hit her.

---

[Proginoskes]

I'm not sure I'd say this was pleasant to read (due to second-hand discomfort), but it was good to see and read, if that makes sense.

[InsaneTD]

It conveyed the emotions of the characters really well.

[Dartz]

This only took 2 years. Some of what Miyuri says is based on a PM Robkelk sent way back in the days of Yuku long gone.

It's been chopped and changed so many times, I'm not sure how it reads


---

The Crystal Millenium offered a lot of leeway when it came to such things, accounting for identities, personal comforts and not being a dickhead. Gaige came to the rapid conclusion that the women’s bath would the least worst option.

Gaige steeled herself while Anika opened what looked to be an ordinary isolation door. Beyond it waited another universe,

An attendant handed her a plush, fresh towel, bathing supplies, a holo-bracelet and a leaflet on how to properly use a true Onsen bath. Gaige waited for the others to move on, before following them through a curtain with the character for ‘Onna’ printed on it.

Beyond was a room clad in varnished timber, taken from an actual resort that’d fallen on hard times. The scent of warm cedar mingled with a dozen different strains of perfume and body soap, and a twinge of sulphur and steel from the minerals added to the bathwater.

Baskets sat on shelves, waiting for her clothes. A few had been used by people already in the bath. Gaige watched as Miyuri and Anika clasped their holo-bracelets around their wrists, and started to undress.

The bracelets flickered to life. Holographic steam saved most blushes.

Gaige clasped hers to her wrist and let it activate, then began to slide her boots off her feet.

Anika didn’t stop explaining to Miyuri how the baths worked, and who’s idea they’d been, and how the mineral balance this week had been carefully chosen to mimic that of a hot-spring fed by the Owakudani system, and that it could be tailored to match any resort.

Even as her body kept begging for her own attention, Gaige sensed Miyuri wasn’t really paying attention.

She washed herself, taking special care with where she placed her hands, carefully and deliberately giving herself a mental warning before pressing her hands against anything sensitive.

Gaige then wrapped her waist in her towel. A deep breath reminded her that she had more to cover up top. Gaige shifted the towelcloth up over her chest, drawing flairs of sensation that dragged her mind away from everything else.

The moment she came aware of them, they became impossible to ignore. No matter how hard she tried to focus on something else - they begged for her attention. She forced herself to walk anyway, putting one foot in front of the other to take herself towards the baths.

She slid open a light frame timber door that separated the washroom from the bath area proper. Artificial night air chilled her skin, running like a thousand fingers along her arms and across her neck.

She became aware of two voices, calmly discussing how the bath helped get the ‘speckles’ out of the body after working in the reactor.

The discussion died the instant the door closed behind her.

The dread sense that she’d been caught thrilled up her spine.

Gaige felt them both stare at her. She found herself unable to avoid staring back at them. One with a distinctly Japanese complexion, the other dark-skinned and African. She recognised them from one of the reactor maintenance teams. Noriko, and Anna

“I thought you told me you weren’t interested in women since you changed,” Anna whispered through her teeth.

“Shut. Up.” Noriko hissed, a pale pink flush warming her face.

“Sorry,” said Anna, offering an embarrassed smile. “The water’s fine. Join us. Don’t mind Nori’ - she only switched sides two months ago,”

Gaige felt herself smile despite herself, her body tensing beneath the towel.

“Me too,” she said. “More recently.”

Noriko relaxed into the water.

“My guide was Sakura Watanabe in Crystal Paris, hence…..” she pointed a finger at her face. “Who was yours?”

A flush of shame deepened in Gaige’s body.

“I had an accident.”

“Oh.” Noriko’s face fell into an expression of genuine compassion. “I’m sorry. I know this must be hard for you.”

“The water will help.” Anna reassured. “It takes the weight off.”

Gaige offered a soft smile, looked at the water, then at Anna, then gripped the towel around her body tight wondering how the sequence of events had to unfold to retain her modesty.

After a few moments, she resigned herself to the inevitable, allowing her towel to drop from her body, before quickly stepping into the water and lowering herself in.

Thankfully, nobody had dared to reassure her it was ‘All girls here’. That would've been presumptuous.

Heat soaked through to her bones and her body dissolved into the water, replaced with nothing more than the most perfect sense of comfort. A smile crossed her lips, and she allowed herself to sink lower into the water.

The thought occurred to her, that the few moments of true comfort she’d found since the crash involved hot water and things that smelled nice.

“So, how’s the water?”

Her eyes snapped open. Anika and Miyuri had finally caught up. Gaige could only smile.

“That good?” Miyuri giggled.

“Better than I thought,”

“The heat really helps my mind relax.” said Anika., “It forces me to cut threads.”

Gaige averted her eyes as they both slipped into the water, one either side of her. Anika’s calf brushed hers - artificial skin impossibly smooth against hers. Gaige took a breath, feeling nothing more in her body than the presence of another beside her. She surmised that maybe her attraction had somehow, finally, overloaded.

Or maybe the bathwater had dissolved it, too, along with every other little stress or strain. Gaige decided she preferred not to have anything spoiling the mood.

“Enjoying it so far?” asked Anika.

Gaige felt herself glance at everyone else in the bath, in turn. Everyon sitting in a ring around the rim of the bath, with their feet towards the centre. “I thought I’d be the one staring at everyone.” her eyes fell to her own own reflection. “It’s the other way around,”

“Well, A.C. does work in a certain, up-front, style,” said Miyuri, her eyes indicating exactly what she was referring to.

“Lady Mars?” Noriko piped up. Anna grabbed her arm, hissing in her ear to shut up.

“I didn’t actually get to meet her,” Gaige cut the line of questioning off. Noriko’s eyes still begged her for more information, like she’d suddenly morphed into some form of minor celebrity. Her reflection gave her two obvious ways to change the subject.

“Are these things supposed to be so annoying?” she pointed right at them.

“Stop bragging,” said Anna.

“I’m still getting used to having the real thing.” Noriko placed her hands on hers and smiled. “I thought I was addicted to KoFen. Then I realised it was the female avatar I was using.”

She shifted a little in the water, settling in her skin.

“My brother and I both swapped accounts, and it was harder for him that it was for me,” Anna added. “I think he just complained about it more just be sure nobody thought otherwise.”

“Hmm,” said Miyuri.

“The last time I did that, I had to turn the feedback right down, and even then seeing Faye Valentine looking back at me from a window was the weirdest sensation,” Gaige added.

It had the convenience of being the truth.

“It’s different when you have years to get used to them,” said Anna “But they can still be so annoying sometimes.”

“They’re different from the avatars on KoFen.” Noriko added. “Even the small ones move more.”

“Mine are used as radiators,” said Anika with a smile. “I need a larger area, because my mind-core produces a lot of heat.”

“We were based on fictional characters.” Miyuri said. “But Noah always tried to keep us looking like real people. It’s not really fair otherwise.” An idea lit up on her face. “You should speak to my sister Prim, Gaige. If they’re that annoying, she’ll be able to tell you where she gets her underwear made, at least.”

“Thanks,” said Gaige

She felt herself settle into the flow of conversation, finding her own space in the group, with her own particular viewpoints. Anika and Miyuri had been built, Anna had been born, Noriko had become, while Gaige had just sort of been….. bound.

Trapped.

The weight of it settled on her shoulders, her gaze settling down on her toes, twitching beneath the water’s surface, sending small ripples out into the water. Of course, they were attached to the body and did exactly what they had been told.

Another ripple washed over her, larger than the previous.

“Our time’s up.”

Anna had stood up - already wearing her cloud of holographic steam. Noriko, gave an annoyed pout a moment, obviously content to stew in the bath. A dark look from Anna convinced her it was time to move on.

Noriko pushed herself to her feet, standing up right beside Gaige. Gaige heart stopped and her mouth went dry, a sudden frission of desire rolling across the surface of her skin.

Two thoughts flashed through Gaige’ mind in the one instant.

Wow, Noriko really worked out.

And she forgot to turn her privacy hologram on.

Gaige saw everything.

“If you need help, or want to talk, I’m off shift after 10,” Noriko said, with a smile.

Gaige swallowed, terrified she’d been caught staring. “Thanks,” she said.

Noriko kept smiling, up until the moment Anna made a show of clearing her throat. She giggled, then left the bath with confident strides. The other women in their bath, fixed the eyes on a bewildered Gaige, who sat there wondering exactly what she’d missed.

What’d she done?

“What?” she said.

A moment stretched out to the infinite.

“Nothing,” Anika giggled.

“It was definitely something.”

Had she been caught looking?

“You’re stirring up the bath water,” Miyuri made a clear attempt to change the subject

Gaige settled down again, folding her arms beneath her breasts. She curled her toes under the water, making more little ripples.

“So what’s that body like, anyway?” asked Miyuri after a few moments. Gaige gave her a look, pursing her lips into a pout at the idea of having to stand up and demonstrate. “I meant, technically. I’m based on some of Peter’s work - but we’re not really her personal designs.”

Gaige’s eyes settled on her reflection in the water.

“How does it compare, technically?” Miyuri clarified.

“The balance is better. Better senses.”Gaige answered, quickly “Better touch sensitivity. More accurate movement - there’s no clumsiness,” she tried to keep her voice as dry as possible. “I don’t drop bolts as much, it’s easier to get things into place first time, and i can do things by touch where I can’t see them - and I’ve more reach and better kinesthetic mapping…” which she demonstrated by curling every finger on her right hand individually, one at a time. “My own body was made by VF and it was more naturally human, this is supposed to be….”

Gaige’s mind searched for the right word

“Idealised?” Miyuri suggested

“Exaggerated,” said Gaige. “Kind of, beyond the normal for humans.”.

“I can see why your sister bought it then,” said Miyuri, after a moment. “It must’ve been humanising for her.”

Gaige forced a smile.

“Jet used to look a lot like this,” she pointed a finger at her cleavage. “Her hair was a different colour and she didn’t have the heels, but this was her body.”

Anika and Miyuri shared a glance for a moment.

“But it’s not yours, is it?” asked Miyuri. “It’s a beautiful body, a wonderful body, a technically amazing body, but it’s not really yours, is it?”

Gaige felt her insides squirm, like she’d been attacked. Miyuri sat opposite, eyes watching, waiting for an answer.

“Sis made a mistake,” she said, swallowing her true words. “I can’t be transferred out of this body. My motor interface was damaged, so she tied me in through the external data bus instead and …. “ her mind scrambled to catch up. “I can’t be transplanted anymore. I’m stuck.”

She bit her lip to keep from screaming, to keep whatever had started to well up inside down. She hoped Miyuri wouldn’t push her to explain anymore.

A hand clasped hers under water.

“I’m sorry,” said Miyuri. “That must be difficult.”

Miyuri’s face seemed earnest. Gaige felt her insides twist. Anika watched with a puzzled expression, looking for a moment like she wanted to say something, but hadn’t quite figured out what that something would be.

“At least I’m independent,” Gaige said, taking a breath. “I can go places, do things, build things. I mean, I feel - completely separate from this skin and…..” she stopped, noticing the concerned change in Miyuri’s expression.

“...Can enjoy the hot springs for a start.” Anika finished.

“You didn’t have to change your entire identity though,”Miyuri said. “Most people don’t. And I know how open the Millenium is with such things.”

You may be stuck in a body that came off the pages of an issue of Intron Depot, but that’s not who you are. Nobody would bat an eyelid if you said something. Why are you doing this?

Anika watched again, her eyes fixed on Miyuri

“Maybe….” Anika began.

“It’s fine,” Gaige cut her off. She forced herself to smile as she placed both hands on her chest. “Do you really think people would accept it when I was wearing a body like this?”

“There’re many in the Crystal Millenium who’d disagree with that,” said Miyuri.

“Maybe we should just enjoy the bath.” Anika suggested, a nervous giggle rising from her throat before she could strangle it.

Miyuri gave Anika a look, looking like she had something to say, but thought better of it in the moment. She looked away, then she looked at Gaige, causing a shiver of unease to crawl up Gaige’s spine.

“I just wanted to be sure you weren’t being hurt,” Miyuri finally said

“I’m fine,” Gaige lied, settling herself lower into the water. “Really”

Truthfully, Gaige couldn’t quantify exactly how she felt, even to herself. Comfortable in the water. Alienated from the reflection. Safe with friends. Attacked in a way she didn’t fully understand. She stretched her legs out in the bath, letting her toes peek through the surface.

The seemed so much further away than they should’ve been. She waggled her toes, just to confirm they were indeed attached to her body.

“I’m so much taller,” she said, after a few moments.

“Bragger,” said Anika. “Looking down on all of us like that.”

Gaige settled herself lower in the water. “I can’t help how I’m built.”

At least, she thought, the water was comfortable. In the back of her mind she knew, the longer she sat there, the longer it’d take to finish the Rebecca Brown, which meant longer wearing the puppet.

Eventually she’d have to get back to work.

Another fifteen minutes in a hot-spring bath seemed like a fair trade.

—

[Matrix Dragon]

Yup. Trauma continues.

[robkelk]

This only took 2 years. Some of what Miyuri says is based on a PM Robkelk sent way back in the days of Yuku long gone.

Which explains why I don't remember the PM. I can see my influence in the scene, but I can't identify anything that's specifically my idea... which is a good thing.

It's been chopped and changed so many times, I'm not sure how it reads

It reads like a real-world conversation. No worries there.

[Dartz]

There is a surprising amount of this ---- although most of it's dialogue shrapnel. Including what Jet actually did to 'fix' Mackie

------
“Your sister delidded your main core chip and welded cables for a power supply direct to the traces to maintain your core system memory while she cut it out. She took a daughterboard from the unawakened core of the Knightwing which she thought would be a complete tabula rasa and removed one of the four chiplets. She replaced it with yours, because they’re pin compatible.”

“Then she cut the databus to the absolute minimum needed to link with the Knightwing’s original Avatar interface, paired that with the puppet, and remounted the entire assembly inside her puppet body.”

“What your sister did was - it wasn’t the equivalent of just swapping you into a new body - it was like she salvaged what she could of a damaged brain, combined it with the healthy parts of a new, healthy brain, and then refitted the entire assembly into another body.”

“It’s uncomfortably close to an old Boskone technique for subverting an innocent Mind. It’s not something I would’ve thought of doing. And it's not something I can undo - that's working beyond the ghost line. Those chiplets are a part of your mind - disconnecting them would be no different from performing a lobotomy, with the same unpredictable results."

---------

[Dartz]

Crawling forward on all fours


---

A Toyota Crown taxi dropped Miyuri to Shinji’s apartment. The reflection of neon light flowed like liquid across the glass-polished black paint. It still wore the pristine markings of the Hiroshima company that had owned it for a decade. Behind her, one of the station’s AMP patrol cars sat grumbling at idle, it’s gleaming silver supercharger whistling through the mouth of its air intake.

An old Ford coupe - a sort of Muscle Car, but not a Mustang. It had the steering wheel on the right hand side for a start. The officer sat inside, bathed in the holographic light of her notebook, tapping out a message on the wireframe display.

The tang of burned fuels mingled with parched concrete, rose perfume and fried spice and fresh bread brought up from the station’s concourse on a draft from the ventilation

The blocky form of an exocomp robot hoved along the passageway, making its way with a purposeful lack of urgency to its next task. Following it, two of the station's rose-duellists in their militaresque uniforms, gleaming silver rapiers hung from their waists. Neon lights overhead had been twisted into pink roses and green leaves, hung within wrought-steel arches

Miyuri saw Frigga as a kaleidoscope of grimy gearhead cyperpunk, and gleaming crystal romanesque as if those aboard couldn’t decide what they wanted to be, so just whisked everything together, like oil and water spun in a churn and never given a chance to settle.

The inherent tension in the mix tingled up her spine like static electricity - leaving her with a sense that she stood on top of a bubble threatening to burst.

She took a breath. It made sense considering who the settlement founder was. She glanced down at the door controls. The apartment owner’s name shone in a bright orange nixie light.

Ikari. S.

They didn’t include the R.- prefix. A subtle hint that she’d left her usual orbit of fandom. She pressed her wristband against the nameplate. An electronic chime answered. The name turned green. The door opened with a whine of a servo, drawing back into a slot in the wall.

The doors on Odyssey would normally be silent, so as not to disturb the guests.

She stepped inside, overcome by the sense that it’d been formed in a dark mirror of his quarters on Ultima. The room definitely belonged to Evil Shinji, she thought. It had the same sense of ordered neatness to it - the same meticulously placed furniture. His clothes had been carefully laid out, folded over the back of a chrome and leather kitchen stool. Pots, pans and the ingredients for that evening’s dinner had been careful set out, mis-en-place.

Instead of having couches, the floor dropped to form a conversation pit around an empty television stand.

A window looked out onto the station’s concourse below, neon lights through rainbow shades across a tiled ceiling. The apartment had a weapons locker, and an emergency kit locker. A Japanese Peace Lily sat within an automatic watering and pruning device. The daylighter above it had turned off.

It even had a landline phone hung from the wall.

“Why are the phone lines marked with a snail?”

“Den Den Mushi.” Came the answer from behind her. A thrill of shock ran up her back. Shinji, in a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts. “It was Mackie’s idea. From One Piece. Since the entire system control software was pirated anyway.”

Two things went through her mind on simultaneous threads. Whomever built him had a definite eye for how an athletic male body should be assembled. Whomever bought him that t-shirt had an odd sense of humour.

“I Immanentized the Eschaton and all I got was this lousy t-shirt?”

“Yuu picked it up last time she was in Korolev.” A thin smile crawled across his face, as if he expected any God seeing him amused at the End of the World would strike him down for his insolence. “The men's bath was crowded and I thought you’d stay a little longer, so I took a shower.”

“Our time ran out,” said Miyuri. “And Mackie wasn’t very comfortable.”

Shinji gave her a side look.

“I think she prefers Gaige?”

Unless he hadn’t been privy to some different information.

“I’m not sure this is what Mackie wants,” Miyuri said.“He really sounded like he was trying to convince me it was.”

Shinji gave her a look for a moment, “She told me Jet damaged the power regulators on her memory chips. She’d be wiped if she tried to swap her body,” he explained. “I guess she’s trying to make the best of things.”

If Miyuri had blood, it would’ve gone cold.

Shinji noticed the change in Miyuri’s expression. “What?”

“She told me something else,” Miyuri said in a small voice.

“Maybe she’s just doesn’t want us asking the question,” Shinji suggested. “It’s still relatively soon.”

“Maybe….”

She found herself looking out around the apartment - more a holiday home than anywhere lived in. Yuu had added some pictures to the wall - some neon-lit cty-scapes, a bustling market, Lun’s avatar swimming. One of Jet herself sweeping through Panzer Kunst form. A big diesel locomotive blazing with light and smoke in a black tunnel. Beautiful in their own way

Shinji began to cook. Even though neither of them technically needed to eat.

“I played games with her earlier.” Shinji said, chopping onions.“ I know people who resleeved, or biomodded themselves and they have the same aura when you meet them - even if they look completely different. Gaige feels different from Mackie.”

Miyuri sat herself down on one of the cushions surrounding the conversation. . A label identified it as fireproof Naugahyde. The foam supported her additional weight well enough that it could almost be comfortable.

She took a breath, finding her centre at the moment

“Maybe I am just being a little paranoid,” she admitted.“But with Anika erasing logs of their reactor accident. Maybe I’m just seeing the worst in everything…”

“They just don’t want to be the people who blew up a fusion reactor.” Shinji kept chopping as he spoke. “They’re just a little embarrassed about it. They worry a lot about what other people think here”

He stopped chopping.

“It was something Ford told me shortly after I woke up. The wave gives you what’s expected. What you expect, and what people expect from you.”

A moment passed, where Miyuri expected there’d been more to it

“Nobody here expected to be called a hero for stopping the reactor accident. They expected to be the villains for causing it in the first place.”

“You spoke to Anika?”

“I’m Shinji,” he said, as if that was an explanation. “I cook things and know people.”

Miyuri gave him a blank look

“I’m the Third Child. It took me a while to understand what people expected from a Third Child too. Not just Shinji.”

Miyuri had sometimes wondered how a fry-cook quickly found their way to the position of security chief. All her sisters had their own little talents, she supposed.

Shinji returned to his chopping. A pot of vegetable stock began to bubble, filling the air with a comforting, home-like smell.

Some of Nana’s toys sat in the corner, waiting for her to come back. The books on the shelf had been clearly read.

Definitely a holiday home, rather than just a vacation residence.

“I didn’t think you’d like it here, Shinji. You like your cleanliness and order.”

Shinji continued to stir.

“My spaces are clean and tidy because that’s who I am,” he said “But a place lived in by people will always be just a bit messy, dirty and disordered. Only an empty world stays clean and - I chose to be around people. Messiness and all.”

“Hmm…”

“Yuu likes it here.” Shinji continued.“All the colours and contrasts between light and dark are good for her art. And Nana needs to meet people too. Ultima’s fairly isolated. “

“I see,” said Miyuri, musing to herself that Shinji Ikari had become a loving, compassionate father, with a good sense for people’s motivations and a desire to connect with and be with people.

He had a wisdom far beyond his teenage face.

----



Minor Note:
That's supposed to be a Ford Falcon XB, GT. Because, why not?
And Shinji is .... both being a bit of a Kaji and maybe a little bit of another Third Child.