#antigravity noodles

[cardboard-va]

tried out ice cube to varying results

first, we visited nifty in her containment. the physics of ice cube are immediately apparent

next, to the antigrav room with nakpin and air pod! air pod cannot go five seconds without flipping, so they unfortunately took the background.

I set up napkin and ice cube for a 1-on-1 playdate though, they seem to be having fun.

next, i paired the smallest dogs i had now: ice cube and noodle.

noodle came out and immediately started screaming while ice cube did a dance. clown to clown communication

they love to bounce!

the beast vibed with the new friend, but didn’t have anything interesting to do besides hobble away and get dragged backwards by the weight of their own wings.

for fun, i tossed in son of nifty, wambus!

this guy jumped for joy after laying down, trapped with the weight of his head, and then picked ice cube up and got dragged around the pen by his physics. here’s a more peaceful pic:

[thematchmakeramethyst]

Frisk Hart Clips #61

[At Sparkle Meadow, the Rainbow Kids were a park table. Frisk is typing on a laptop, the Six is watching everything, and Chara keeps a lookout.]

Purple: Amazingly, you still have a connection to a place where’s no wifi or internet.

Frisk: Alphys has her perks.

Purple: Do you think she can get me one for my birthday?

Green: So, why did we come to Sparkle Meadow after school?

Frisk: Because Alphys sent us a new mission on email. It mentioned she discovered a strong Integrity Magic Source in the most exclusive and expensive neighborhood in Ebottburg, Sapphire Brook.

Blue: No way! My neighborhood is close by it.

Yellow: So, why do we need to get this Integrity Magic Source, Frisk?

Frisk: Because its priorities are starting to get unstable, and if we don’t get out of Sapphire Brook, who knows what it will do to the neighborhood.

Cyan: (worried) And since Blue has Integrity Magic, there might be antigravity actions or illusion incidents. Or worse!

Green: (concerned) What can be worse than that?!

Cyan: Meteor Impact.

Orange: (after everyone gasped in horror) OMG! We got to do something! Frisk, do you have the location of the source?!

Frisk: Yes, and it’s at-

Chara: (shouted) Guys! Henry Twins and cronies at 3 o’clock!

[The Rainbow Kids quickly turned around to see the Henry Twins and their four friends coming over to them. Frisk then closed her laptop once they got closer.]

Jenny Henry: (blushed and smiled warmly while waving) Hi, Leo.

[Orange went from disgust to surprise when Cyan got in front of him to defend. This made Jenny envious as she and Cyan did a glare stare-off.]

Purple: (annoyed) Anyway, what do you want?

Billy Hansen: Well, we aren’t here to talk to you.

Green: (crossing his arms) Are you here to hang out in Sparkle Meadow?

Bobby Hanson: And be a bunch of dorky hippies? As if.

Jessie Hill: Unfortunately, Jenny heard that Leo is here, and we have no choice but to follow her.

Blue: (shocks her and the rest of her friends) She’s stalking Orange?!

Julie Hall: You should see what her bed looks like now.

Yellow: (disgusted with the rest of her friends) Well, don’t tell us!!

Jenny: I want you to know that it’s mine and Benny’s birthday is Sunday, and we’ll be having a big birthday ball tomorrow at noon. I want you to be my VIP, Leo. (annoyed) You can bring your friends. (mumbled in jealousy) Even Clara-Lynn.

Rainbow Kids: (so shocked) WHAT?!

The B-Boys, Jessie, and Julie: (horrified) NO WAY!

Benny: (yelled) You’ve lost your noodle this time, Sis. We can never let their dorky peasant feet onto the floors of the Cosmos Country Club!!!

Frisk: (ears perked up) I’m sorry, what country club did you say?

Benny: The Cosmos Country Club is the best place for the fun fancies for our neighbors and us, who live in the neighborhood too.

Frisk: (looks at laptop before turning back) Sure. We’ll come over to the party.

Chara and the Six: (yelled) EH?!

Jenny: (blushed happily as her brothers and friends fainted in shock) REALLY?!

Frisk: Sure thing.

Chara: (grabs Frisk by the neck collar of her shirt) Excuse for a second. (The Rainbow Kids huddle up) Francesca Rihanna Isabella Skyla Kayla Hueman Hart, are you crazy?! This is a new height, even for you!!!

Frisk: Wow, you remembered my full name correctly. I’m impressed.

Chara: (blushed) Quit the flattery! What are you thinking?! Orange: Yeah, I’d rather kiss a warthog than go to that birthday party! Besides, the Henry Twins were born on 9/11, after the carnage.

Purple: Indeed, but it explains why they’re always chaotic.

Frisk: Look, Rainbow Kids. I don’t want to, but the Cosmos Country Club is where the Integrity Magic Source is located.

The Six: What?!

Chara: You’re kidding us, are you? Then it also means the Henry Twins and their friends live in Sapphire Brook.

Green: That explains why they’re super loaded.

Frisk: Well, I’m not kidding. Take a look. (shows her friends the laptop makes them shocked)

Blue: She’s not lying. There it is in fine print and font.

Orange: (so upset) Ah, but i don’t want to go!

Cyan: (whines) Me neither! It’s a death trap filled with horror!

Yellow: Well, it’s either encounter the party or say goodbye to Ebottburg in a meteor shower.

Cyan and Orange: (groan in an upset) Fine!

The Rainbow Kids: (turns back at their school rivals) We’ll come.

Jenny: (happily hands an invention to each of the Rainbow Kids) Great, I can’t wait! (hands Cyan a letter that has a few scratches on it)

Cyan: (annoyed) Why am I not surprised she handed me this one?

Jenny: (takes out a golden invention and hands it to Orange) I’ll be waiting for you, Leo.

[After her brother and her friends woke up and stood back on their feet, she pulled them away to leave.]

Orange: (getting chills) Oh, I can already detect bad vibes from this.

Cyan: Aren’t we all?

#tswfby #frisk #chara #cyan #orange #blue #purple #green #yellow

[spaxson]

DTM: CALIFORNIA

Smorgasburg, LA

- Bolo (@eatbolo) had this amazing chicken sandwich with one of the best buttery buns I’ve ever bit into.

- Out of all the fun & funky flavors at Wanderlust Creamery, I chose the Sticky Rice & Mango ice cream.

- The Base is the place for hippie dippie juice drinks in cute reusable mason jars. The Blackberry Charcoal was the perfect refresher.

Anaheim Packing District

- Fanfare waffle is a game changer to the hotdog scene. Went with 1 savory and 1 sweet order. 

- Anti-gravity noodles from 206 BCE are all for the insta. I don’t get the appeal though the food is good!

- Bagel with lox from a coffeeshop Jordan & Fiori enjoy :)

#california #los angeles #eat bolo #bolo #smorgasburg #smorgasburg la #the base #wanderlust creamery #anaheim packing district #anaheim #fanfare waffle #antigravity noodles #travel #down to munch #dtm

[starsfic]

Spider-Webbed, 2/3

Summary: Red gathers evidence.

-_-

The next few days were spent gathering evidence.

Just because Red's tablet was broken and he valued his self-esteem a bit too much to ask his angry mother if he could grab one of his spares didn't mean he didn't have resources. The Bull Clones were his creation and most of them liked Xiaojiao and Xiaotian enough to make sure that they were safe. So one of them was always following the former on her dates with Spin and record everything.

And the dates were...as expected. Most of them were at the arcade. One time, the two had done a sick together dance on one of those dancing games. (On Xiaotian’s request, Red had sent him the video because honestly, it was really cool.) Other times, they went to one of the city’s many antigrav clubs. Their favorite, however, was grabbing cheese teas (gross) and fixing up their bikes together.

Three weeks after Spin had shown up out of nowhere, Red had seen enough.

He marched into the shop, slamming the door open. “Where’s Dragon?” he asked, gripping his spy tablet.

Xiaotian pointed at the stairs that led to his apartment. “She’s getting ready for her date.” Red raised a brow in confusion and his boyfriend shrugged. “We both have clothes at each other’s place. Mostly because we share them.”

“Good to know, thank you.” He marched upstairs, throwing the door open.

Xiaojiao was humming some song as she brushed out her hair. “Hey Red.”

“We gotta talk about Spin.”

She dropped her brush to whirl around with a gasp. “Isn’t she the best! Check out this giant smooch mark she gave me!” Xiaojiao turned her cheek, revealing a large mark on her cheek. Red yelped and she burst into laughter. “Gullible. It was an accident.” Her smile faded. “But, seriously, if my parents’ gardener asks, I have no idea where the leaf blower was. Because I’m not sure how well I hid it here…”

“Never mind that. What I’m trying to tell you is that Spin isn’t what she seems.” He pulled out the tablet. He held out a hand when her brow raised. “Hear me out. The Spider Queen was expecting a new minion the day of that race Spin crashed, but the minion was late because they were at the motorcycle race!”

Xiaojiao scoffed. “Seriously? That doesn’t prove anything.”

Red stared. “It does! I mean, think about it! It all adds up!” He started to pace, counting off things. “She likes motorcycles, has the same color scheme as the rest of the clan…” He whirled around with a realization. “She never blinks! Have you noticed that?!”

“Maybe she’s blinking when you’re blinking.” Xiaojiao turned back to the mirror. “Anyway, I have to get ready.”

It was a clear dismissal. It was one Red refused to take because he cared. “Xiaojiao, she’s going to EAT YOU.”

Xiaojiao whirled around, green electricity crackling in her eyes. “Red, trust me. She’s not a spider demon.”

“Yes, she is!”

Their voices grew louder and louder as the argument continued. Neither of them noticed Xiaotian poke his head in, a look of worry creasing his features. Finally, it came.

“WHY CAN’T YOU TRUST ME?!”

“BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE DOING!”

-_-

“Maybe telling an angry Xiaojiao that she has no idea what she’s doing isn’t a good way to end a conversation.” Xiaotian and Red sat together in the kitchen. The former was tending to the latter’s cheek, where a massive red handprint had formed. His boyfriend didn’t answer, glaring into space. He only responded with a hiss as he applied the ice pack. “I’m just saying that her date is suspicious. We have no idea where she came from. I’m just looking out for her!”

“And it’s very sweet.” Xiaotian soothed, a smile forming at the clear care. “But so far she hasn’t done anything. Xiaojiao can handle herself.” He couldn’t resist the urge to press a gentle kiss to the corner of Red’s mouth. “And I love you for it.”

Red stiffened at the words before turning his head. The kiss this time was much stronger and Xiaotian almost whimpered at the passion in it. Before it could go further, there was a knock at the back door. The two parted in time for Xiaojiao to enter with an excited “She’s here! Don’t wait up!”

The door opened, revealing Spin. Red glared but the two girls ignored him. “Hey!”

“Hey, good lookin’!” 

The door slammed shut behind them. Red let a growl leak out. Xiaotian raised a brow. “Uh, Red-”

“We’re following them.” He dragged him out of his chair and out the door. The motorcycle hadn’t left yet, because the girls were putting on their helmets. “Can we-” Red came to a stop in his scramble for the noodle cart, facepalming.

“What?”

“I could’ve had you use the Sight of Truth.”

Xiaotian nodded. “That would’ve been easier.” Red nodded, watching as his eyes turned gold as the motorcycle started. He turned to the girls. He turned pale, giving Red his answer. “Xiaojiao, WAIT-”

It was too late. The motorcycle was already peeling away, leaving the boys in the dust.

“Get in the cart.” Xiaotian ordered. Red almost didn’t hear him, frozen to the spot as I was right circled through his head. He snapped back to life when his boyfriend yelled “NOW!” They scrambled for the cart.

The engine rumbled and they took off after them.

#Spider-Webbed #Spicynoodleshipping #Zoisiteshipping #Lego Monkie Kid #Monkie Kid #Red Son #Long Xiaojiao #Mei #Qi Xiaotian #MK #Spindrax

[solarbird]

And just like that, she was down, Chapter 6: the blind eye

[AO3 link]

[Incheon, Republic of Korea]

"Cor blimey," Lena said. "I wish she'd picked a more touristy part of town. We're too bloody conspicuous down here."

"You think you're conspicuous," her wife replied, "try being tall. At least I can check the layout."

The two of them - in carefully-chosen "hello, I am a confused European tourist" civilian clothes, with only Lena's bulky, accelerator-concealing jacket standing out in the July heat - made their way towards the front of a small restaurant in a busy commercial district not far from the industrial port.

Emily moved forward first, and looked sideways through the glass front window, spotting a small woman in very familiar colours and facepaint out of the corner of her eye, sitting in a booth near the back, facing away from the street. "I see her. She's... in her kit? Weird. But she's alone."

As Lena caught up to her, she heard a familiar voice quietly pipe up from behind. "N00bs," said the MEKA pilot, behind her, in perfectly ordinary business clothes. "That's my decoy. You gotta get good or you're in trouble. C'mon. This way. Right now, or it's off."

"Hana?" said the teleporter. "No. What's going on?"

"Come on," she repeated. "We're just going up the street. Things have changed. Follow me, or leave town, it's up to you."

Emily looked to Lena, uncertain, and her wife gave her a small shrug. "Like working for bloody MI6..." she whispered, following the woman they hoped was still their friend.

They followed her three blocks mostly east and two more blocks mostly north, settling into a booth in a nearly-identical business-worker restaurant, with nearly-identical booths. This one had a karaoke section, in back, but neither woman felt much like singing.

"What was that about, then?" asked Emily, as she and Lena slid into their side of the booth. Hana ordered a big pot of barley tea and naeng myun for everyone, and the waitress scooted off.

"Okay," said Hana, looking carefully at both of them. "We've got half an hour before the old school show up at the other restaurant. They don't want to grab you, but they want you to hand over the spider if you still have her. Do that, all's forgiven, you can come home."

"...you told them?" Lena said in a hiss, leaning forward.

"Bloody hell," breathed Emily. "It was a trap."

"You're here, not there, aren't you? And it's not a trap, they just wanna make an offer. I'm on your side, I want you to know what's coming."

"An 'offer,'" said Emily, "while unarmed, surrounded, and outnumbered. That's not how you have friends over for chat." She covered her face with her hands, looking down. "They're making all the same bloody mistakes they made last time, aren't they? Of course they are. What next, bringing back Blackwatch?"

"Well, then," said Lena, as the tea arrived. "An offer. What's the sweetener supposed to be?"

"They'll hand la blue girl over to MI6, DGSE, or CIA as-is. Nooooooo hacks required."

Lena glared at the gamer. "That a joke, luv? MI6 and the French will shoot her on sight. CIA... probably the same. Why not the Hague? Why not the ICC?"

"We tried. The Hague and the ICC won't even touch her. You picked a really unpopular spider to save."

"...yeh," conceded the teleporter, sipping at the unfamiliar tea. "I can see that."

"And the stick?" asked Emily, dreading the answer.

"No stick."

"No stick?"

"No stick. I don't like what they're doing, I really don't like what Ziegler was doing... none of the younger crowd do, we won't stand for it. We've put our... foots? down? Feets down? Whatever."

"Right," said Lena. "Thanks, for that. You've worked out some kind of entente, then - that include what Ziegler's doing?"

"We're still working on it. It's a fight and I don't know who's winning, but everybody will be in the game."

Tracer shuddered. "Well... I hope you win."

The gamer sipped at her tea. "So if you won't hand spiderbitch over..."

"Not happening."

"Then the fallback is, we can still be friends, but there's rules."

"Go on," said the teleporter, as the waitress returned with their bowls of noodles.

"Noooooooo working for her old bosses. None. You work with them, at all, you're all with them. We shoot on sight."

Emily snorted a laugh, but Lena frowned, angry. "I'm... gobsmacked. I can't believe they'd... after all we've done, they think we'd do that? The whole point of this was getting her away from..."

"C'mon! You and your wife ripped the walls off medbay to free Talon's deadliest assassin. They don't think they can make assumptions anymore."

"Bloody wonderful," Tracer snapped, not wanting to admit they kind of had a point. "They know why we..." She stopped, and shook her head - rearguing wouldn't change anything. "Fine. What else?"

"You're not Overwatch. No Overwatch logos, no Overwatch gear, don't raid Overwatch supply points, don't use Overwatch safehouses."

"Whatevs," Lena shrugged, dismissively.

"Not so whatevs," Emily said, overriding her wife. "Most of it, fair enough. But Overwatch is using my antigrav tech, free of charge. We can let that go on - if we can use empty safehouses when we need to."

"I can ask."

"It's one or the other. I don't want to get shot at by Overwatch agents in an Overwatch safehouse. If that's on the menu, I'm not eating."

"I can ask."

"Fine," interjected Tracer. "What else?"

"No team-ups with the spider when we're around. You're both out of Overwatch, but nbd, rite? Officially, you dropped out, nobody has to say why, you're fine, we're fine. We'll team up with you, we might even hire you - but not with her. Work with her where we can see it, that makes you accomplices to a world-number-one terrorist, bang. We treat you like her."

Tracer grimaced. "Oh, that's funny coming from Morrison - sorry, 'Soldier: 76.' How's that supposed to be any different? He's a wanted criminal himself, and labelled a terrorist."

"That's not fair," Song replied. "She actually is one."

"Was," interjected Kestrel.

"Is," insisted the gamer, "'til we know better."

"This is... PETRAS hasn't been repealed. Overwatch is just as illegal as everything else."

"Yeah," acknowledged the gamer, "but we get a pass. To a point. You don't. It's not fair, but that's the game."

"Unlike Overwatch, I am a security contractor, operating legally on six continents..."

"Not if they know you've got the spider," Hana said in a little sing-song.

Lena sighed, frustrated. And that, she thought, is the stick. "Fine," she said, tiredly. "What else?"

"That's it."

"You lot gonna be spyin' on us? Lookin' for a chance?"

"Nope. Blind eye. If we don't have to know, we won't know."

Lena nodded, and poked at the noodles. They didn't taste like much, but she couldn't tell whether that was the food, or the reality of the situation setting in. Even an amicable divorce was still a divorce, with all that implied - and this wasn't even all that amicable.

"There really wasn't a trap, was there?" Emily said, suddenly. "Or... was there? Is this the trap?" Kestrel looked around the restaurant. "Where's Ziegler?"

Tracer looked up at her wife. "Sweet?"

"Listen," said the flying agent.

Lena listened, and heard a soft, familiar ringing hum. "...oh. Fuck. I hear it too."

"What?" asked the gamer, already knowing the jig was up.

"Dammit, Hana - stop!"

Song put down her chopsticks. "I had to make sure you weren't under anybody's control!"

"When the bloody hell did we go missing for months?!" Kestrel demanded.

"You didn't, but I didn't know! Not for sure! I told Lena in chat - I had to know! For sure!"

"We gonna get darts in the neck now?" Tracer's gaze darted around, looking for Ana Amari, not finding her.

"What's in this tea?" asked the ginger, glaring at her cup.

"Nothing! It's just barley tea! It's good! And no! It's... I brought Mercy in. She brought a big scanner. That's it."

"You trust Dr. Ziegler to tell you the truth here?"

"I... I think she's wrong. But she's not a liar and I couldn't get anyone else qualified. Not who'd keep a secret."

"Hana's telling the truth," said Angela, closing a padded door behind her, and walking up to their booth. "I was going to appear at the other restaurant, if you chose to negotiate, but - this saves the walk. Here I am."

"Doctor," said Emily, stiffly. "Who else is with us today?"

Hana scooted over, making room, and the medic sat next to the young MEKA pilot, ignoring the question. "Hana brought me in on this meeting yesterday. So that you know, I came here early to scan you for the sorts of things I... missed... with Amélie. I did not find them."

"Why the double-bluff?" asked Lena. "Why move us down here?"

"Karaoke booths," said the doctor.

"...soundproofing," Kestrel realised.

"Apparently, inadequate."

"I have very good hearing," said the hawk.

"Amari and Morrison?" asked the teleporter.

"Ana and Jack are in Prague, at the moment, responding to rumours of a Talon action. They send their regards."

Emily let out a little heh at that. "No 'thanks' for removing Talon's best sniper from their arsenal?"

"Is she removed?"

"Yes."

"But alive."

"'Course." She did not say, "luv."

"I will relay both of those."

Lena Oxton gave the doctor a sharply pointed look. "What if you'd decided we had been... compromised?"

"Plug suit fits under regular clothes juuuuuuust fine." Hana pulled at her collar. "Hot, tho'."

The doctor smiled. "And you'll note - I haven't said anything about Fareeha's location."

"That's not what I meant, mate," said the teleporter, grimly.

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "It would... depend."

"Would it, now?" asked Emily.

"Can you honestly say you would not want me to undo the effects of Talon brainwashing upon you? Truly? "

"Not if it meant just applying another round of brainwashing," Lena snapped. "It's one thing to get somebody detoxed, sure, that's fine. Therapy, that's great - I know from PTSD. But throwing your own stamp on their brain - that's not 'undoing' a bloody thing, that's just changing the hands on the leash."

The doctor rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Lena, Emily, please, all of this has been ... far too much cloak and dagger. I apologise for that, but we did have to know. Can we stop this? Please? I am here to negotiate with you, not fight you."

"Sure, doc," said the flying agent. "Stop trying to turn people into other people, stop delivering ultimatums, stop repeating Overwatch's old mistakes, and we can all be besties again. Just tell me one thing."

"What?"

"Why'd you lie to us about your 'sedatives?'"

"I most certainly didn't!"

"'Sedative' doesn't imply 'made suggestible.' You'd already started your work, and you hid that from us."

"Oh," said the doctor, surprised, "you figured that out? I am... honestly, I am impressed. But I did not lie," she said emphatically. "I had not started my work."

"Then why that drug?" demanded the flying agent.

"Because you are both fools and I was giving you the best chance I could!" The field medic stood in the booth, hands on the tabletop, jarring the dishes. "Do you know how many of her bullets I have pulled out of our people? How many I have declared dead by her hand? I did not want you cut down, these... mistakes... or not, and if you did something truly reckless, I wanted to make sure you had a chance of surviving the night." She looked back and forth between the two former Overwatch agents. "She is not a person, she is a mechanism. A complex one, but a mechanism nonetheless. Give the correct set of orders, she kills, and you are on her kill list. But..." she said, slower, more thoughtfully, gesturing with her left hand, "I thought if she could be impressed upon you..."

"Dammit, doc," Lena interrupted, quietly, "You were wrong."

"I am not wrong, I..."

"She'd broken it herself. That's why she's never really tried to kill me, or Em. That's why Talon tried to kill her," Lena interrupted, again, rubbing her face with her hands. "That's how we know you're wrong."

The doctor blinked. "...what?"

"She wasn't supposed to get captured in Egypt," said Kestrel, picking up where Tracer left off, "she was supposed to die there. She was subverting her own reconditioning, and they'd figured it out."

"That is impossible. I have recreated some of what they did, in simulators, to learn how to undo it. It cannot just be..."

"Oh for the love of... it was. She'd done it, and Talon's termination order proves it. We were right. I was right. You were wrong," said Emily. "None of this would've had to happen if you'd just listened to me." She waved her hands around in the air by her head, wanting something to throw. "When you captured her, she was set to defect in a week. To us. In Prague, in fact. Today."

"Then the suggestibility ... did it...?"

"Make everything much harder? Yes. Thanks for that. Naught for two on those calls, Angie. Try not to go naught for three?"

Angela Ziegler sat back down, slowly. She looked at the tabletop, and at the teapot, and the noodles, and poured herself a little bit of the barley, sipping at it tentatively, in silence, for several moments. She bit her lip, put the small cup back down, and, eventually, said, "If it means anything to you... my 'three' is that neither of you show any sign of foreign neurochemical or neuromechanical influence on your brains. And I will report that back to Overwatch."

"Kinda figured that," replied Emily, slowly, "from the lack of shooting. That's one for three, then. Well done there."

"Hana," asked Lena, "how much of the rest was a lie?"

"None of it! 76 is pretty mad, Ana is real mad, we're all kinda fruck out, but some of us are more sympathetic than others. Particularly Lúcio. Particularly me."

"So," Tracer said, sadly, "a velvet divorce. That's the real offer, then?"

"The rest of us want to stay friends, but from a team standpoint... pretty much."

"Balls," said Emily.

"What?"

"Balls! I'll take the deal, but it's shite, Hana, and you have the sense to know that. Angie, I don't think you do, you were this close to wiping away a person to replace her with your version of somebody else and it's pretty clear you haven't even budged on the ethics of that..."

"'Widowmaker' was dead, either way," Zigler interjected, angrily. "She almost certainly still will be soon, you might well join her, and you have just as certainly taken my only chance of returning Amélie to her own mind. If you want to argue ethics, soldier, I am more than ready to defend my position."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then a longer one, and then, "I can't believe Winston is going along with this..." said Lena, shaking her head.

"He's... still of the opinion that Widowmaker should be convinced to go along with it," Angela disclaimed, acknowledging the difference.

"Good. It's not... it's not good enough. It's just not." said Lena. "But... good. And... we'll take your terms - it's not much different than we'd do anyway."

"I do not imagine the safehouse usage will be difficult to sell to the rest of the team. Particularly," said the doctor, sipping at her tea, "if you continue to forward useful information."

"Did you raid those caches?"

"No. But we will, now."

"Probably too late, we'd hoped you'd cover our tracks, but - thanks anyway, I guess. Hana, will you tell Winston - please, please, please, just talk to me? "

"I will." She leaned forward, regret plain in her face. "I'm sorry. I had to know."

"Thanks, luv. I ... yeh. I guess I can see why." She took a deep breath, and let it out. "But if we're all done now," she said, standing, Emily just a moment behind, "we're going. Don't follow."

"We won't." Dr. Ziegler reached into her bag, and pulled out her commset. "Pharah, Mercy - Kestrel and Tracer are about to leave. We have an agreement. When they're out of range, come inside and... join us, for lunch. It's quite good. I'll give you the details in here."

As the two women walked by the table, Hana stood, saying, "Lena, please - talk to me on my chat again. Please! Okay? Please!" Then she watched as the two women left the restaurant without answering, her stomach now uninterested in the previously-delicious noodles.

«We did this wrong», she thought, sitting back down in the booth. «This wasn't how this should've gone.» She stole a glance as Fareeha walked up to Angela, helmet off, exchanging a brief kiss, and frowned. «Now I just gotta figure out how to fix it.»

-----

Widowmaker watched Tracer and Kestrel depart the restaurant, and, seeing Pharah take no offensive action, lowered her rifle away from the kill shot. She moved to discreetly track her partners along street level, to their rented vehicle.

Her comm unit clicked on. "Widowmaker, Tracer here. We're out, and en route to rendezvous."

"Tracer, Widowmaker, acknowledged. I sighted Pharah, tracking you across the venue change. I told you we should've kept in full contact."

"You didn't engage, did you?"

"Of course not. But I was ready, if needed."

"Widowmaker, Kestrel here. Thanks, love. Glad you weren't needed out there. You heard everything?"

The sniper felt a little cold, thinking of the doctor's words. "I did. I... regret it did not go better."

"No one is happy, so it's probably as fair as we were gonna get. See you back at the ship."

"Acknowledged. Widowmaker out." She hummed, thoughtfully, as she engaged her chain, heading towards the meeting point. It probably will not last, she thought, but it is good enough, for now. If I can just convince our... friends... to join us, then we will have a real chance. She smiled, for herself, and there was much more than just a breath of truth in it. I will save us, she swore. I will save us all.

[This concludes the first movement]

#widowtracer #widowtracerly #tremily #gingerspider #tracermaker #tracemaker #widowmaker #emily kestrel oxton #tracer #overwatch #overwatch au #d.va #pharah #ethically questionable mercy #what the hell happened to my nice little short story #it was all nice and contained and lovely and now this #actions have consequences #even when they shouldn't #also on ao3

[cameronscurrie]

I’ve been noodling a story about a Kardishev Type III civilization for a while now. It’s still in the earliest planning stages. Here’s one of my musings about a military robot from such a civilization. It’s a little scary, just to warn you. 

The robot is vaguely spherical: no legs, head, or arms. But the shape would not be what one would notice first looking at the thing. The first thing one would notice was the utterly black colouration of the device’s neutronium casing.

It is difficult to tell what colour neutronium actually is, in that it bends light about itself so viciously that any light in its general vicinity is absorbed instead of reflected; even the areas within a centimetre or two of the robot’s casing were also black, sucking the light out of the air around it.

The vaguely spherical blur is held together by a massively powerful anti-gravity field, which effectively nullifies a moon’s worth of the killer robot’s mass, allowing the metre-wide blur to hover more or less wherever it likes. If it has nothing to destroy, it normally likes to stay still. While it is powered by an annihilation reactor at its core, the antigravity and motion drain unimaginable amounts of energy, and even that supply is technically finite. Its energy reserves, while immeasurably vast, cannot be replenished; nothing can be passed through its casing.

It needs no tools or weapons, usually destroying its targets by manipulating its antigravity field. The neutronium construction itself tends to kill the robot’s targets just by being close by, in that the horrifying gravity it generates would rip most objects apart, and those objects which survive invariably are scorched by radiation not unlike that hurled out of a smallish black hole. It can restrict the radiation, if it desires, focusing it into the reactor, but this, too, reduces the robot’s lifespan. Usually, it allows the radiation to flow freely at anything that it isn’t assigned to protect.

The robot is capable of flight, indeed even spaceflight, but this requires an enormous expenditure of energy to travel any appreciable distance. So, the robot is carried where it needs to go by a carrier ship, a long, dart-like structure, along with five of its brothers.

Any one of these robots can offhandedly destroy any target less massive than a brown dwarf star. Larger targets, it can handle those, too, but it takes effort; a star collapsing around it can trap or even damage such a machine, so it must be mildly careful. The robot has been built at considerable expense.  

The Task Force that just entered the star system is comprised of seventy-one carrier ships, still mostly full, with a cargo of three hundred and ten robots. The lead ship, used as a scout due to its robot bays being the emptiest, skids to a halt in front of the unremarkable rocky planet, bristling with the lights of eight billion people. It scans every particle of radiation leaving the planet, and examines each such particle with surgical precision, its hyper-dense computer brain logging each digit of information away with the same clinical doggedness. The scan takes one seventy-fifth part of a second, and the scout ship concludes one robot should be enough to wipe out all possible opposition on this planet.

There are ten planets, approximately one hundred moons, and an asteroid belt in this system. The scout ship dispatches one carrier ship to each remaining planet, and one robot to each moon, before the entire task force has fully emerged from hyperspace. Each robot dives into a planet, wrenching it apart before even contacting the surface.

The attack takes four point four seconds.

When it is over, the yellow, main-sequence star at the centre of the system is sputtering in defiance as it collapses in on itself; a slightly damaged robot flies out of the stellar wreckage once the collapse is assured. Each of the planets and moons has been reduced to irradiated powder, and as an afterthought, the ships scan the asteroids, comets, and other detritus in case anything has been missed. Finding one possible automated asteroid mining operation, they scan and pulverize that as well, which takes a further zero point two seconds.

The Task Force re-enters hyperspace by the beginning of the sixth second, on course for the next enemy star system.

#sciencefiction #author

[faithandindustry]

Champagne Dub Drops Cat# FAI016 Format: 12” Vinyl / Digital Release: 23rd November 2018

Drops by Champagne Dub

Champagne Dub is a collective of selected artists who come together to practice psychedelic dub rituals. The project was conceived by drummer and producer Betamax (the comet is coming, Soccer96) who makes a nod to a range of influences through Free-Improv, Psychedelic Post Punk, English Folk, Performance Art and 70s Dub. However the band also draws on the teachings of Zen Buddhist philosophy, to create sound without intention, to capture and dub the natural shape of subconscious intuitions. After several explosive live shows, the group headed into the studio where they found themselves deep in the presence of a 1/4” tape machine. The results of which were soaked in biochemically enhanced mix of reverb and analogue effects. This was then distilled into a potent psychoacoustic blend of syncopated hallucinations. Once the vision was truly realised and tested on some animals, it was deemed safe for public consumption and was thus thoroughly impressed onto 12” vinyl. Champagne Dub will be released into the sonic environment with the spiritual guidance of ‘Faith and Industry’ records. Bass player Ruth Goller (melt yourself down/acoustic ladyland) applies her distinctive sonic boom to the low end of the group. After effortlessly lording through London’s many musical pockets, she has discovered a genuinely original approach to the instrument, whilst mastering her technical ability. Punk as fuck and funkier than a pimp truck, Goller pummels pure tones through the dirt with all the rhythmic precision of a washing cycle set to ‘silk with rinse’. Ed Briggs is a sound artist from brighton who plays homemade synths incorporating mechanical parts from a Herdie Gurdy. He also Programs using MaxMSP where he can perform mind melting sound granulation in real time. Currently well known as the first person to invent ‘Laser bagpipes’, his creations include a solar flare detector and an antigravity camera. Briggs is a full time DIY inventor and home-science experimenter with a family background in English folk. Mr Noodles, the anonymous performance artist/vocalist cuts a dark figure on stage. Noodles uses many voices, shamanic percussion and unpredictable movement, haunting the band with a plethora of dreamy mantras. Once described by an audience member as ‘my reoccurring nightmare’, Noodles is both vulnerable and dangerous. Mexican artist Nahum Mantra's day job normally sees him working for the European space Agency where he works as an artist/magician. Once Nahum had mastered the art of Hypnotism at a young age, his career gravitated towards the link between science and art. His latest technological sculpture was launched into space in early 2018 and is currently orbiting the planet. Also known as member of ‘Orchestra Elastique’- Champagne Dub also sees him feature on his natural instrument the Theremin. Betamax (the comet is coming/Soccer96/Superbest friends club/Hot head show) has been playing drums for ages. However after taking mushrooms he realised that there was a deeper layer of rhythm that remained trapped by his ego. An expression so honest, naked and uncultured that it had been withheld by the subconscious. It was a rhythm that couldn’t be understood - that always shifted, but always spoke the truth. Sometimes still, other times explosive- Champagne Dub is what is now. Now who are you? Credits: Betamax – Drums & Percussion Ruth Goller - Bass Mr Noodles - vocals Ed Briggs - Analogue Synths, Electronics & MaxMSP Nahum Mantra - Theremin Produced, mixed by Betamax Additional mixing by Capitol K