Rain

Three gunshots went off, and Aiko Kurusu opened her eyes.

Sleep cleared from her mind. It hadn't been gunshots. She was in bed in her apartment, and someone was pounding on her door. She could hear a muffled voice, and the drum of rain on the window. It wasn't real - condensation from the heat of Olynpia's engines.

"Babe?" Somebody shifted next to her, and Aiko felt skin on skin. "What's going on?"

"Don't worry about it," she whispered. The digital clock read 3:20 AM in angry scarlet. "Go back to sleep."

She reached over. In the bedside drawer were the cockroach bodies of two burner phones, and a pistol. She grabbed it and clicked the safety as she slipped out of the warmth. The hallway chilled her. She spied herself in the tiny circular mirror on the wall. Her black hair was wild and her eyes were tired.

"Aiko! It's me! Open up!" The voice was clear now. Aiko turned to the door, pressed an eye to the peephole. She saw a lanky young man, features made crazy by shadows from the one streetlight still working outside.

"Who is it," she called.

"It's me, it's Jared! Open the door, man!"

She recognised the name, and the logo on his t-shirt. Slow Weather Jamz. He was such a kid.

It was stained red.

"Jesus," she muttered. Her thin fingers fumbled the chain lock and the two bolts loose, and she wrenched open the door. She stared up at his too-young face. He'd been crying.

"Jesus, Aik," he stammered, "you're naked."

"You're covered in blood," she snapped back. "Get the fuck inside."

He ambled in, the red on his clothes and hands turning black in the light. Aiko peered out behind him, but saw nothing in the street to worry her. She shut the door and bolted everything.

"The fuck happened?" She turned back to him. Rain mixed with his tears and made Slow Weather Jamz cling to his torso.

"T-they hit up Ron," he gasped. "We were at the arcade, and -"

"Who did it?"

"Marco."

Things got... Hazy from there. She knew Marco. Marco acted tough but he didn't own shit. His most famous accomplishment was being apprehended by a Bioroid for hitting someone. How had he got the balls to do something like this?

"Let the bullets breath, Jared, dude." She saw brass casings slip into magazines. "Uzis jam a lot."

"Sorry."

Why was she good at killing? Would she find out why if they scanned the barcode on her neck? They'd find out how much she was worth, probably. Too much? Too little? It gave her away, and she'd spent too much failing to scrub the devilsd mark off.

She put the gas mask on. She could pretend to be someone else now.

"Transport?"

"Got a Cherokee outside." Jared was watching her. "I told Davey and No-Face but they didn't want any of it. Don't want no trouble."

Of course not. Cowards.

The drive was a blur. All the same. Packed houses. Dripping rain built by the engines of the city. Neon. Cleaning drones, the odd Bioroid, hookers and drunks and homeless. The people the upper city liked to pretend didn't exist. No transport. No services. No jobs unless you turned to crime.

She didn't know who to be angry at the most.

All of them.

He was there, suddenly, and she wondered why she even had a gun. What was the point? He was standing in the rain. He was talking to himself. Was he? Marco wasn't crazy, right? But Jared was behind her and he couldn't see her not be tough.

"Hey, motherfucker!"

He turned.

Oh, fuck.

Her finger hesitated. There was a song like this, wasn't there? East Coast rapper. She couldn't think. But he was holding her in his arms and she couldn't be even a year old, what was this shit? What if she'd pulled the trigger without shouting?

She could see his face, pale, scared. Marco was always a pretender.

The baby made a noise she hated.

Something in her head told her to pull the trigger anyway. But Nyalarhotep said something else. Everything was looking at her. So she did the one thing she could do to stop it. She thumbed the red blinking app on her smartphone.

"Mementos."

CANDIDATE FOUND

And then she was gone, into the swirl of red and train tracks and cogs and decay. She didn't have to pull a trigger. She didn't have to think about the fact that she had gone out to kill someone. She could ignore what Jared's reaction would be.

She needed a drink, but the human subconscious lacked bars.

But she knew one place that did good booze.

Atlas

It was a muggy Spring morning on the day the Weyland Consortium arrived on Earth, and Ryuji Sakamoto was in an apartment in Yongen-Jaya, discovering the joys of plastic models.

"Watch the knife, dummy!" This wasn't his voice, but the voice of the girl hovering over his shoulder. Ryuji jerked, the modelling knife in his hand hewing away from the desk he sat at.

"I wasn't gonna cut myself, Futaba!"

Futaba rolled her eyes behind her wide glasses. "Sure, idiot. Look, cut down towards the mat, okay? I don't want to have to explain to Haru why you lost a finger." The small girl headed back to her ridiculous rig of computer monitors, the torrent of information tinting her long orange hair in soda-fake colours.

Ryuji looked from the neon spiderweb of plastic in his other hand to the box. He'd been persuaded by the colourful art of one of his favourite mecha on the front, but the contents had been lies. Lies made of plastic and sticker sheets. Who built their own action figure? It was madness. Futaba needed to get a physical hobby so he didn't have to get dragged into this crap.

She had, however, just invoked Haru. Ryuji didn't know how to feel about that, or about Haru in general.

"Fine," he sighed, and raised the knife again. Then he felt a vibration, rumbling through his seat and the desk.

"Uh, Futaba?"

"That wasn't me!" Futaba glared at him. "Was it you?"

"I'm not that gassy."

Futaba snorted and turned back to her screens. Ryuji moved to cut the plastic again and felt the vibration again, rattling the plastic in front of him.

"Okay, I'm not going crazy. What was that? Earthquake?"

Futaba gasped. Ryuji span in his chair. The computer screens were a whirl of text strings and news clips, dancing too fast for Ryuji to parse.

"Ryuji! Something's here! Something big!" Futaba's fingers were blurs across the keyboard. "There's dropships, all over Japan, all over the Pacific, they're all -"

"Woah, woah, what?" Ryuji blinked in incomprehension. "Slow down! What's -"

"LOOK OUT THE WINDOW!"

Ryuji barely had time to hurl open the window of Futaba's apartment and stick his head out before the heat of the Atlas Dropship's engines washed over him.

---

"Looking good, Akira."

The dark-haired young man gently let the weights down from his bench press. He pushed his glasses back up his nose and smiled. "Don't I always?"

Ann, standing over him with her blonde hair haloed by the gym's cheap lighting, smirked and flicked her towel at him. "Jerk. C'mon, it's my turn. And I need a spotter, anyway."

Akira wondered if she was flirting. He'd made missteps before - ones that had hurt them both. Instead, he just breathed "sure" and stood up from the bench. The tremor came as he bent over to pick up his water bottle, and he stumbled, nearly face-planting into Ann's stomach. Only a reflexive foot stepping forward saved him.

"Smooth," came Ann's voice. She sounded as shocked as he felt.

"Earthquake?" was his response.

"No, it'd be way more sustained. What was - "

Akira's phone buzzed. Ann pulled hers out at the same time, both flicking to their messages.

YaBoiRyuji: HOLY FUCK LOOK OUTSIDE

---

Makoto Nijima didn't respond to the buzzing of her phone straight away. College assignments, especially for courses related to policing, didn't write themselves. She went to the end of the thought she was trying to express, brushed a lock of brown hair out of her face, and picked up her phone.

AkiraAkira: you gotta be kidding me
Medjed: dude it's everywhere, dropships all over the place like something outta starship troopers
YaBoiRyuji: they're all going to the pacific ocean, apparently
Blondeshell: what? why? (◕⌓◕;)
Medjed: all the news outlets say there's going to be a press release shortly, don't know anything else apart from that. can't scrape anything from my usual spots either. its all just wild guesses.

Makoto pursed her lips. Her friends weren't usually this active, not since real life had split them up somewhat. Usually it was just Ryuji and Futaba posting memes, or Ryuji and Haru posting cat pictures. Or just... Ryuji.

Her thumbs tapped out a message.

Justice Fist: I assume this might have something to do with the superheroes who reside out there?
YaBoiRyuji: hey makoto bb it's been a while! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
AkiraAkira: nice to see you again queen
Medjed: MAKOTO!!!! ╰( ･ ᗜ ･ )╯

Makoto smirked. She hadn't been called her code name in a while.

Blondshell: what makes you think that, makoto?
Medjed: strange things always happen around them, it's true
Justice Fist: I wasn't there for the first gathering, but I take it from your stories that they are a magnet for trouble.
YaBoiRyuji: yeah i cant believe we own a boat now
Justice Fist: I still don't believe that you do.
YaBioRyuji: you're gonna eat your words when we go on our kickass pirate cruise (ಠ ∩ಠ)
Saiyuri: Can we get back to the point?

---

Yusuke sighed and pocketed his phone down for a moment. The park's tranquility had been interrupted, and the birds he had been trying to sketch had taken off at the first wash of engine heat. Now the lake was duckless.

He'd been struggling for a while. After his visit to Kuwahawi with his friends, he'd come back and created what he'd thought were, at the time, some of his greatest works. Splashes of effervescent color, calm blues, feelings of complex tranquility. But then he'd shown them to his teacher.

"Something's missing here, Yusuke," he'd said.

Yusuke blinked. Criticism was still a little tough to take. "What is that?"

"You're a smart boy, Yusuke." There had been a twinkle in his teacher's eye. "You tell me."

Yusuke had studied his pictures for a long minute.

"People," he finished, at last. "Not... that there's no people, that would be facile. It's more that I didn't interact with many people, native or not. There's a human element missing."

That had been the solution. Yusuke had been looking forward to their next trip - a chance to correct this issue. To meet new people, gain their expiernces, and -

The phone buzzed. Yusuke sighed and pulled out his phone again. Tranquility and technology didn't often mix.

Medjed: okay holy shit news is coming through
Medjed: do not adjust your sets ladies and gents
FluffnStuff: What's going on? (⊙△⊙✿)
YaBoiRyuji: oh hi haru!
Medjed: lol ryuji
FluffnStuff: There's ships of some kind flying all over Tokyo!!
Saiyuri: Futaba is supposed to be telling us more as it comes, once she stops making fun of Ryuji.
Medjed: fuck off yiff boy I'll fight you
Blondeshell: everyone shut up!
AkiraAkira: did he just say Weyland?

---

Haru looked out of the window at the black dots soaring over Tokyo towards the bay, then back to the boardroom television. There was a man in a fir-green suit, with impossibly neat hair. He was saying a lot of words Haru had heard her father say in the boardroom, and not any words she liked. One hand went to a curl in her hair, circling the lock around a finger.

She was scared and she didn't know why.

YaBoiRyuji: can anyone decipher his fucking business speak?
Justice Fist: Language, Ryuji.
Medjed: i think the jist is that they're here to build something
AkiraAkira: Futaba, can you get any information on this beanstalk he keeps talking about
Medjed: no promises
Saiyuri: As in the western fairy tale?
Blondeshell: oh shit yusuke might be onto something
FluffnStuff: that doesn't make sense, you can't build something that tall
AkiraAkira: maybe we can't
Medjed: oh crap
Medjed: uh, when are we leaving for kuwahawi?
AkiraAkira: tomorrow, why?
Medjed: I don't think it's going to be much of a holiday :<
Justice Fist: Does this mean we need Morgana?
YaBoiRyuji: oh man srsly?!

Haru sighed and put the phone down.

"Oh dear," she whispered to the empty room.

---

They were on the plane. Akira, in the middle of the row of seats, squeezed Ann's hand on his right. She offered him a nervous smile. Ryuji snored in the seat on his left. Behind him, Makoto asked Yusuke if he could pass the biscuits, please. Haru was across the aisle from Ryuji, looking pensive.

There was one extra person, and they were in the cargo hold. They were probably going to hate this flight.

Akira should be looking forward to the holiday. It was going to be sun, sand and sea again. He could submit his college papers remotely. It wouldn't be difficult. He could manage all of this. He'd done it before.

"Keep telling yourself that," he muttered.

People would notice they were gone. How long could they be away before it started to look bad? What would happen? Futaba would know where they were, but she couldn't be there physically. She had school to go to. Sojiro knew, although he'd not approved in the slightest. "Don't come back dead, kid." Those had been his words, growled out over a cup of coffee.

Akira was going to ruin his friend's lives, if they were lucky.

Rahmhotep (Collab with RubyChao)

Allegio’s first words when they step off the boat were “Don't touch anything.”

The Astral Knight’s metallic white armour pops against the muted browns and greens of the huge space he stands in, and his form towers over the dock workers that bustle around him. His blank visor swept across the crowds that jostled under the high-vaulted ceilings. Behind them, long golden boats float in a pool of crystal blue water. The air is thick with noise and heat and shouting in many different languages.

“Don't touch anything,” Allegio repeats. “Don't speak to anyone you don’t have to, watch your money and don't get under my feet.”

“Awww, but-” The complainer was the younger of the pair, apprentice reporter Cirral Lampyridae. While her voice sounded annoyed, her expression made it clear she was still highly fascinated by the visit they’d been given. But even a complaint in jest was too much, if the gaze of her mentor Kennedy Wilson was anything to go by. A simple look was enough to get Cirral to cut her sentence off.

“Right. We’ll take notes and watch, and that’s it.” Kennedy replied. Next to him, Cirral straightens up. “Yeah, I understand! This’ll be enough for ten articles even without anything extra!”

“Good. I won't have to babysit you again.” Allegio's wings clinm against his armour as he moves towards the exit of the docks. People make way for him - colliding with a ten foot tall suit of armour tends to ruin one’s day. “Come on, then.”

As the trio leave the port building, they see the following in rapid succession. 

The crowds of people, even more intense than inside, pushing and shouting in the heat. Beyond them, the river, enormously wide with fat sailboats cruising on its waters in a strange mirror of the land traffic. Beyond even that, a shock of greenery, with white towers and monuments stabbing towards the cloudless sky. And in the far, far, horizon…

“You get used to it.” Allegio nods his head at the colossal figurehead, facing away from them and made translucent by distance. “A reminder that Rahmhotep is a holmwessel. A World boat, if you're taking notes already.”

Both of the reporters have been taking plenty of notes, alternating between scribbling down various shorthands, sketches for reference in Cirral’s case, and simply looking at the surroundings. This, though, is enough to give them both pause. After a minute to simply take in the appearance of the enormous vessel, Kennedy resumes writing about the worldboat, but Cirral spends a minute longer looking at it.

“It’s called a worldboat, and it’s that large… Is it self-sufficient? How much does it interact with the other vessels? Who does the figurehead represent?” Questions are already written on her notepad, just waiting for more answers.

“That's far too many questions at once. One moment.” A small haggle of people have gathered near them, watching them like hawks. Allegio stabs an ivory finger at one.

“Ikit um Hussel?”

His target, an olive-skinned man who appeared to resemble a dehydrated date, nods. “Hussel, ish! Di munet minin! Knight hushi, ish?”

“Ish.” Allegio turns. “I have secured transportation. I will answer your questions as we go. The answer to the first one is no, by the way.”

“Huh.” It’s very clear that the answer just raised more questions in Cirral’s mind, but she simply confines herself to waiting for the remaining answers. One at a time appears to be the order of the day, and she marks down a quick “no.” Kennedy writes a few lines about the man’s appearance, before catching Allegio’s attention. “If you could, please pass on our thanks for the transportation.”

“Thank me in gold, kopani!” comez the man's enthusiastic shout before Allegio could respond. He leads them down to an open-topped carriage that looks as if it been through, if not a war, then at least a small border skirmish. “I speak many languages very badly! Sometimes I think my Rham is getting worse every day, ish?”

Allegio steps into the back of the carriage with a squeak of axle. It is harnessed to something that looks like cross between a cow and a lizard, in dark green. It grunts as they set off.

Kennedy smiled a bit to himself - while it was quite the surprise that the driver understood him, it might make asking a few other questions easier. One at a time, of course. Cirral was too busy pressing her face to the side of the carriage, looking out on the city itself as they head towards their destination. Allegio could notice she did some more sketching, including a couple reproductions of the buildings they’ve seen that caught her eye most of all.

Kennedy, however, took only the occasional glance outside the carriage, more focused on the transport itself and the unfamiliar beast - but when one has been reporting on the Kobbers for months, the strange creatures of elsewhere become an interesting two paragraphs in a future article, rather than a show-stopping end to the day. After making a few preliminary notes on it, he leaned forward and coughed to get the driver’s attention. “If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been in the business?”

“Fifty-three years of our God-Queen’s reign, bless her soul!” The driver smiles as he coaxes the carriage through the streets. People part around it, not giving the passengers a second glance. “My son, he’s also a driver, and my grandson, he wants to be a priest. I tell him no, no, priests don’t get paid like we do, but he has a big head full of ambition! Wants to move up in the world!”

As they rattle on, the streets narrow and the buildings grow taller, wildly jutting like broken teeth. The noises of ships being docked and the stink of fish is surpassed by the thick stink of spices and the rattling of cookware.

“Mmmm…” Cirral sits back, simply taking in the smell of the market - much more pleasant now, certainly. She looks around, trying to make out who’s selling what, and pondering if they can perhaps try some on the way back. Exotic foods are part of the tour, right? 

Kennedy, meanwhile, listens to the driver, one particular line catching his interest. “Fifty-three years… quite the reign. Could you tell me a little more about the God-Queen? I’ve heard of her, of course, but I don’t know much myself.” He looks over to Allegio, checking to see if the Knight is going to cut him off or let him pry into this topic.

“Ah, the Queen, she lives in all of us, yes?” The driver jabs a thumb at the prow of the Worldship, still visible over the rooftops. “She built this boat, she sails it through the stars, she provides for us… nothing she can’t do! You find yourself a children's history book, it tells you everything a Rahm knows.”

Allegio doesn't have a face, but he manages to give Kennedy a Look anyway.

“You’re foreigners, ish?” The driver smiles. “Stay a while! This is a good place to visit. Old Pakat - that’s me - knows where all the good places are. Stay out of the tourist traps! Ramhotehp is a good place. It’s cheap to live here, don’t need to struggle!”

The Look is enough to give Kennedy the signal, and he silently decides asking the driver more about the Queen would not be the best option. Instead, he simply nods. “Foreigners, yes. Franzika is truly fascinating when you see it for the first time.” “Heyyy, you know where the good places are, right?” Cirral asks. “Does that include places to eat? Because I’m ready for lunch!” The junior reporter certainly looks interested in the conversation, even as she keeps stealing glances at the worldship. Its size alone would be imposing, but the implications of its culture, even from afar, are more than enough to keep someone curious wondering as they get closer.

“Hey, no problem, kopani!” Pakat pulls the wagon to a halt outside of a stall, and delivers a rapid sentence of Rahm to the woman working there. She nods and vanishes behind a series of  steaming pans for a minute, then re-emerges with two sets of skewers bedecked in meat and multicolored vegetables, wrapped in paper. Money changes hands, and two greasy parcels of warmth are passed to the reporters.

“There you go! Finest ikama, very spicy! Traditional here if you’re a driver like me! Also, you owe me double, hahaha!”

Allegio makes a noise like a door creaking shut.

“...I’ll cover it.” Cirral comments sheepishly, before starting in on her lunch. Finding it spicy, yet not too much, and with a good mix of meat and vegetables, she eagerly begins to scarf it down - at least it’s worth the money! The flavors mix well, and she’s pretty quickly devoured the entire thing. She’s definitely not going to ask for more. 

Kennedy, meanwhile, works on making his lunch last, taking the occasional bite as he watches the city go by. Deciding to avoid any sensitive topics for now, he writes a bit about the ikama, watching Pakat’s skill with the carriage and the continued progress throughout the city. A carriage’s-eye view is definitely a better way to get a look than walking, considering how much more room they have to take notes and simply observe. “It’s worth the money. You have good taste, Pakat. Is this a more traditional meal?”

“Yes! Easy food to make, you know? Made by soldiers out on long desert trips when they took whatever they could from the land. Best way to make the food go far!”

The carriage turns a corner. Here, the jagged line of the buildings breaks - a pile of rubble punctuates the row on the right, with logs sticking out like broken bones. A crowd hovers nervously as forms move amongst the rubble, clad in white with golden bangles draped over their necks and arms.

“Hey hey hey, this is no good…” Pakat pulls the carriage to a stop, eyes squinting as he spies someone in the crowd. “Illah! What happened?”

A woman, head wrapped in a thin scarf and clad in a bright purple robe, turns to Pakat. Her face is prematurely aged by worry. “Oh, it’s terrible, Pakat! Bulah, he owed money and he couldn’t pay! Now the priests have evicted him!”

Pakat tuts, shaking his head. “Ahh, should not have taken up gambling. The Franzikan games, they are demon’s work. Where is he staying?”

As their driver continues his conversation, one of the white figures stands up fully, and Cirral and Kennedy realise he is dead. Half of a skull peers out from between the linen wrap.

They say it’s rude to stare, even if you’re a reporter. That’s why Kennedy spent years working on how to stare at someone without making it obvious. Now’s the perfect time for it, as he keeps unobtrusively watching the dead figure and its actions, talking to Pakat at the same time. “I’ll steer well clear of them while I’m here. I’m curious, though - is it normal to demolish the building?”

Cirral, on the other hand, knows she can’t make it look as natural as Kennedy yet. She also knows that if she asks someone too openly, she might step in a pothole - with how natural everyone’s treating them, it could come off as anywhere from rude to disrespectful. So instead, she slides closer to Allegio and asks him quietly. “That guy’s dead. Is he supposed to be? It looks like it, but it still feels odd.”

“Normal if you cannot pay rent, or if your house catch fire.” Pakat’s eyes are still fixed on the building. “Easier to knock it down and rebuild here, especially if the priests want a new shrine there instead. Not much you can do about it. Just keep head down and pay.”

Allegio, in response to Cirral’s whispering, inclines his head. “Necromancy is common here.”

Keep your head down… well, it’s clear to Kennedy that the priests are very important here, and very much not to be trifled with. He makes a note to be careful if they run into any. Deciding not to question the system for now, he nods. “Unfortunate for his business, then. I suppose- hmm?”

The crowds part.

Atop them, like the crest of a wave, is a golden platform. On that platform is a bed of red silk, and on top of that is an impossibly beautiful young woman draped in thin purple veils. Her eyes transfix straight ahead of her. She is motionless, but around her bustle white forms like overworked ghosts. These ones are in clean wrappings. Golden masks grant them peaceful blank expressions as they delicately peel fruit to push past the woman's lips. More white surrounds the platform itself - mummies in golden armor, hefting the palanquin with a mechanical stamp of feet.

Pakat, muttering under his breath, backs the carriage up and out of the way. Allegio leans back until his upper torso is in the shade of the building next to them.

The two reporters, meanwhile, are not prepared in the slightest. Before either Kennedy or Cirral is really aware of it, they’re staring at the woman sitting on the platform, pens and pads forgotten as neither one makes a move to act, simply taking the scene in as the procession continues on its way. Kennedy registers somewhere that the mummies here are clearly far more important than the ones from earlier, but for now he’s mostly content to keep gazing at the otherworldly figure. As far as Allegio and Pakat can tell, the two of them are happy to just keep standing there until she finishes passing through. 

There's a shout. A thick man, face ruddy and a bottle in one hand, staggers in the way of the procession. He raises the bottle, and the reporters catch a glimpse of fire at the mouth of it. Someone shouts a name - Bulah. The recently homeless man.

A mummy steps forth, sweeps a long curved sword. The man drops and is lost amongst the tide of stamping wrapped legs. When they pass over, the body is gone. The beautiful woman on top has not moved an inch, staring into oblivion.

Pakat winces.

“Ai, Bulah,” he mutters. “Bad way to go.”

Watching the man be felled by the mummies is more than enough to knock both of the reporters back into reality. Cirral now looks a little queasy at the sight, but she’s already beginning to take notes on the mummies and their importance… although she steers clear of taking notes on the woman herself. A small voice at the back of her head tells her that might not be the best idea. Kennedy, on the other hand, shakes his head. It’s not the first time he’s seen a death in the field. Stepping back, he asks Allegio one simple question, still looking at the woman but no longer transfixed by her.

“Is that the Queen?”

“No.” Allegio's voice is a low rumble. “Though somewhere in that empty head might think so.”

Pakat grumbles and goads the carriage forwards. “Apologies, my friends. I chose a bad route today. I'll take you by the river, yes? Less rich people there. More fun! You can see the crocodiles.”

“...Yes. Yes, I think that’d be a good idea.” Kennedy replies. “Come on, Cirral.”

“You’re right!” Cirral responds, but her voice is still a little shaky. Now’s just not the time to mention why, is all. 

The carriage sets off. Allegio leans back in his chair and thinks, blank helmet staring ahead as the noise of the city washes over him.

Richard

CONTENT WARNING - BLOOD, VIOLENCE

"Hi, it's Stacy! I think I have got your delivery by mistake. I'm home in a few hours, can you drop by then? It's on the corner of 5th and Wesson. And, uh, don't make much noise - the neighbours will be asleep. Thanks! Bye!"

Titanomachy

"So what do we do?"

The question hung amongst the smoke of the dim boardroom. It had come from someone Mark Yale didn't know. Nobody knew everyone on the board, after all.

"Well, we can't do anything." Mark Yale didn't know this man either, but hated him instantly. "Two ventures in, two disasters out. Sure, we picked them up for cheap afterwards, but its not like we can do anything with them."

"We have to do something." This was Elizabeth Mills, VP of Urban Development. She was technically not on the board, but she was sitting in the seat of someone who was. They couldn't be here on account of a fall from the top of a skyscraper. She'd been happy to accept the promotion.

"We can't sit idle." Her voice was sharp. Yale couldn't see her, but could imagine the tight set of her jaw. "There are too many opportunities. We have room for -"

"We don't, that's the problem. Those damn freaks are in the way, thinking they own everything and that they make the rules. Nobody can go there whilst those people are alive."

Yale began to tune out. Nobody was saying anything new. Nobody had a solution. It irritated him beyond all belief.

It was, as always, a question of a Second Beanstalk. Yale didn't know where or when it had started, but it had become the gospel of the Consortium. The first beanstalk, the perfectly good space elevator they had in New Angeles, was not enough. They needed a Second Beanstalk. The Sub-Saharan League were building a Second Beanstalk. When was the Second Beanstalk?

It was a terrible name and he hated it. He wanted this all over and done with. He wanted to go home and drink his whiskey and think of advertising slogans and new ways to make stupid people give him their money. He didn't want to hear the words "Second Beanstalk" or "Kobber" or "we have to do something" ever again. But here he was.

"Any ideas, Yale?"

They hated him because he'd funded Jenkins on her own wild goose chase. But he'd only given her the money. She'd been the one to spend it like an idiot. And where was she now? Nobody knew. Well, he didn't.

They were looking at him. He thought frantically.

"...We have four corporations that can't go into the other world," he said. An idea was dancing towards him. "They're all using technology from the same benefactor. That means we've done the same thing twice. The feds don't know we're doing any of this. But the man on the street doesn't know either, right?"

"Only what Runners might leak out, and not even then sometimes."

Mark didn't know that voice either, but he didn't care. He had the idea. "That means, to them, we can say anything. We don't have to tell them anything about the Kobbers or the past attempts. If they know nothing, and none of us can apparently do anything, then whatever we do makes us the first. It doesn't matter that there have been two failed attempts. We can do whatever we like."

"Like what?"

Yale turned to look at Elizabeth. "Miss Mills, you visited that place once. What's it like?"

Elizabeth blinked. "Uhm, it's tropical. The air's unfiltered, it's like the simulations but more real - "

Mark Yale snapped his fingers, pointed at her and grinned.

---

Mister Stone lit a cigarette. under the cover of the awning. Old habits died hard. Around him, people and androids bustled. He could smell kebabs and oil. He looked up at the scant few real ads left in this part of New Angeles - most people had moved on to the eye implants now, implants he couldn't risk having. He missed billboards.

One of them caught his eye. It was a tropical beach. A man and woman had taken off their rebreather masks and were smiling in the sun. The colors were impossible. The advert said:

"KUWAHAWI
It's More Real"

Mister Stone sighed. The things they tried to sell you, nowadays.

Cleaner

"Frank."

Frank opened his eyes. His pupils adjusted to the dim light with a faint whirr. He looked down and saw a short, rotund man lying face-down on the floor of the dingy apartment. The First Directive activated and he knelt down to inspect the body, pressing two cold fingers to the neck.

"He's dead," Frank said. His First Directive twinged.

"I know. You need to move the body."

Frank knelt further and scooped the crumpled form up in his arms, then hefted it over a broad shoulder. A card dropped out of the body's jacket pocket, and Frank's glass retinas scanned a name - Ken Wilson - before it hit the ground.

"I'll take care of that."

Frank nodded and went out of the back door of the apartment onto the tiny balcony. It was raining in New Angeles. Most people were asleep now, or at their night shifts. Nobody was watching in the tower complex opposite, and nobody was on the street below. An automated street sweeper gnawed through the layer of trash that covered the sidewalk below him, leaving the damp slabs exposed to the acid-yellow lighting above him. Frank waited until the street sweeper had passed and its cameras were out of range before hefting the body over the balcony railing. It landed on its head. A pair of plus-sized underwear dislodged themselves from a makeshift clothes line behind him and spiraled down after the dead man.

Frank went back inside. Boss was reloading his guns. Frank didn't see the card on the ground. Behind Boss, on the filthy kitchen worktop, was a console, weakly flashing in red and green numbers Frank couldn't decipher.

"What next, boss?" Frank's Second Directive wanted orders. Boss holstered one of his guns and kept the other loose in one hand.

"Clean."

Frank looked around. There was a lot to do. He saw a half-eaten cup of instant ramen next to the console. He gingerly picked it up and put it in the trash. He did the same for a cup of cold coffee. He rolled up the bloodstained rug and managed, with some difficulty, to feed it into the incinerator chute. He cleaned the spray of blood from the cabinets. He saw the console's lights turn off and closed the lid on the old laptop device.

He was done. He looked around.

"What now, boss?" Frank already knew the answer.

Boss nodded.

"Thank you for your service. Sleep mode."

As Frank powered down, he thought, not for the first time, that Mr Stone was the best owner a bioroid could hope to have.

---

Smoke logged into chat
PunkRokka: eyy baby girl you heard the news?
Smoke: Should I?
G13ST: Whizzard bit the dust, his console went dark fifteen hours ago
Smoke: I don't know who that is.
PunkRokka: yo show some respect, whizz was old skool
G13ST: Cops found his body outside, said he'd topped himself. Obvious horseshit.
PunkRokka: yeah whizz was fucked up but he wasn't suicidal
G13ST: What was that about respect?
PunkRokka: look he was into weird shit is all I'm saying
Smoke: So who did it?
PunkRokka: big w duh
Smoke: Oh boy, what did he do?
PunkRokka: oh man bbgurl sit ur ass down for this one
G13ST: He went on a run last week. Full immsim out into Gagarin remote servers. Came back with a file saying he was tagged and he couldn't figure out what he'd found
G13ST: Guess he didn't manage to shake the cleaners this time
Smoke: NBN scrambler? Did he have a misdirection module?
PunkRokka: Lol nobody uses big brother tech since they downsized, nobody trusts their baby bitch ice anymore
G13ST: He says he didn't know what tagged him but for a moment his connection was hijacked and he couldn't jack out, might be something new W's trying
G13ST: Anyway he said the files were in code or something, something about dimensional travel or some shit.
PunkRokka: yeah he figured it was a reference to some nerd show he liked
Smoke: Hmm.
Smoke: You still have the file?
G13ST: Well I couldn't sell it on, it seems pretty worthless and if it's a hot potato I don't want more clean ups on my hands
Smoke: Bounce it to me. I can take care of it.
G13ST: Hey, your loss
PunkRokka: oh shit bb what u gonna do?
Smoke: I know a girl who knows a girl.
Smoke: Sit tight, fellas.
Smoke logged out of chat

Christmas Episode

“Oh, wow, it’s the Kobbers!”

The four men turned around. They didn’t resemble the heroes of the planet - tall men in black clothing tended not to feature amongst the group. But if you took one of them and melted them in the microwave, the cheap plastic masks over the group’s faces were close enough.

Leaning against the wall of the bank and peering through the goggles of his Rider suit, Vince took a moment to plan his next quip. They’d ripped open an ATM in the foyer - probably not brave or smart enough to try the vault. He’d seen them rattling around through the glass windows and gone to investigate, as was his duty or something. He noted the flowing metal around the hole where the ATM had been.

His entrance was kind of ruined by the fact his Rider suit was neon pink and sported spikey plastic hair, but hey. The classics worked.

“Carol? What are you doing around here?” He pointed a gloved finger at a man wearing a loose approximation of the redhead’s face. “I thought you were on vacation?”

Not Carol pointed a shotgun at him. Whoops. Vince dived, his Driver blaring a cartoon jump sound as he fell to his right. He felt the boom of the gun more than he heard it. He rolled back to his feet behind a desk and grabbed a potted plant on it before hurling it at Not Carol. It smashed satisfyingly on his target’s head.

The other three were moving. One, pretending to be a very sad-looking Airman, was charging across the foyer of the bank at him. Vince vaulted over the desk and lashed a sneaker-clad foot out, hitting the man in the temple and leaving him motionless on the tile. One down.

He raised a foot to move forwards, and left his stomach lurch as he kept rising. A third guy, wearing a face of some janitor guy he’d only read about in the comics, was holding a device that resembled a metal cylinder with blue lines scribbled over it. The business end was pointed at Vince. He flailed in the air.

“Dawn’s gonna sue you for using that,” he gasped, and scrabbled at his belt for another cartridge. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Carol Man pulling the gun up to him. He managed to grab a cart and slam it into his belt.

“LEVEL UP!”

Vince twisted his upper body to the left as the belt spat a flat, shimmering screen into reality in front of him. The boom of the shotgun was dulled as its payload fizzled against the impromptu barrier. It crashed into the shotgun dude and hurled him backwards. Two down - probably.

“PAC-PAC-PAC-MAN!”

Oh, good. Vince let the screen wash back over him, cladding him in yellow and red. He was still suspended in the air though, and he couldn’t see the fourth guy. Who probably also had a gun.

Shit. He was never any good at Pac-Man.

“C’mon, guys,” he yelled at nobody in particular, and felt himself yanked downwards to hit the tile. They wouldn’t breach his Rider armor, but his breath left his lungs anyway.

“Where’s your -” Slam.

“Christmas -” Slam.

“Oh, forget it,” Vince wheezed, and yanked the Pac-Man cart from his belt. He shoved it into the holster on his hip.

“PAC-CRITICAL STRIKE!”

Vince promptly turned into a neon yellow ball. Pac-Man had one rule - you had to keep moving, like a pizza-shaped shark. As the ball rocketed upwards, chomping at the air, the man holding him yelled. Vince could feel his foe’s weight being dragged with him as he headed for the roof -

And burst right through. The man holding onto him screamed.

“Oh shit.” Inside the yellow sphere, Vince yanked the cart from the holster. Turning back into his usual neon pink self, he fell, willing game physics to accelerate him, and caught the flailing robber. Both of them burst through the rubble and smoke of their recent exit, Vince just managing to land on his feet.

Then he rabbit-punched the robber in the head and dropped him on the floor. Three down. Why hadn’t this doofus just let go of the -

“Freeze!”

That was a big gun. Judging by the orange glow, they’d used it to crack open the ATM. The fourth man, in the cruelest of ironies, had a Kamen Rider Hime mask on. He was back by the front door of the bank - too much distance for Vince to cross without becoming fried Rider.

“Uh, sure.” Vince raised his hands. Man, Lady Luck was mean some days. He watched the man reach for a duffel bag half-filled with dollar bills, the gun still trained on him -

His driver whirred. A brown block of bricks, three feet each side, materialised into the air between him and Not Hime.

“Thank you, Jesus,” Vince yelped, and dived forward and down. He felt the red hot lance spear over his back, smashing the block into pixels. He felt the magnetic pull of something being drawn to him.

“CHRISTMAS!”

When Vince stood back up, he had a Santa hat and beard on over his helmet. The final robber stared at him.

“Ho ho ho,” Vince deadpanned, and headbutted the man.

Four down. No more movement. Probably a silent alarm, though. He’d have to stick around, make sure he hadn’t killed anyone accidentally (a feat he hadn’t accomplished yet), and then let the police handle the rest. And pay for damages. How much did replacing a roof cost?

Vince glanced down at his belt.

“I didn’t know you had a holiday setting,” he said. The belt, being a hunk of neon green plastic that warped reality, didn’t respond. Vince sighed.

He could think about other things now.

“I wonder what Koakuma got me,” he muttered aloud, and went to check Not Airman’s pulse.