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Language:
English
Series:
Part 1 of The Analog Starlight
Stats:
Published:
2020-05-02
Completed:
2020-07-17
Words:
136,672
Chapters:
67/67
Comments:
38
Kudos:
44
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10
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1,539

Plasticine Soul

Summary:

 

Plasticine-Soul-Cover-AO3

Aranea Serket and Meenah Peixes once led a motley collection of rejects and outcasts - disgraces to their blood castes and outlawed from Alternian Society. But if you wanted something messy done without anyone looking too closely, they could help you out - for the right price. That all ended one day and none of them much like to talk about it.

When Aranea and Meenah are approached by a mysterious benefactor with deep pockets and vague requests, they're suspicious. But then they're given an offer they can't pass up: A chance for their past lives to be wiped clean. A chance to have their inner-most needs and desires fulfilled in ways they never thought possible. And all they need to do is a single job - a simple heist for the mystery client.

By the time they realize what's really happening, it's too late to back out. They must discover the truth behind their enigmatic patron and unravel the truth of what happened to them a half a sweep ago - before their very world is destroyed.

Notes:

Trigger/content warning: As general warning, this fic contains general violence (use of guns, fighting, etc.), language (both explicit swearing and implied language that may be disturbing or unsettling), and themes of trauma/mental health/distress/anxiety/depression. If you find any of these to be general triggers, please read with caution.

Some chapters may have specific trigger/content warnings which will be presented at the beginning of the relevant chapters.

This fic uses a date system consisting of 24 perigees per sweep, with each sweep being just over 2 Earth years.

 

Check out the character theme playlist!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: A Ways Down the Road

Chapter Text

12th Perigee’s Eve, 475th Sweep of the Reign of Her Imperious Condescension
Rust District, North Alternian Capitol

MC > W3 D1D 3V3RY7H1NG Y0U 45K3D!
MC > W3'R3 0N 0UR W4Y N0W…
MC > 83773R H0LD UP Y0UR 3ND 0F 7H3 FUCK1NG D34L!
? < I assure you that I am nothing if not
? < Trustworthy
MC > W3'LL FUCK1NG 533
MC > 4R4N34 PU7 4 L07 0F 5H17 0N 7H3 L1N3 F0R 7H15
? < Aranea isn’t my concern
? < Not anymore.
? < Just do your jobs and everything goes away.
? < The Legiscorpus won’t even know you exist!
MC > 7H47 W47HN'7 7H3 0NLY 7H1NG!
MC > 4ND Y0U FUCK1NG KN0W 17!
? < How does one present an exasperated sigh over a terminal?
? < I promise you this
? < I will not deviate one iota from the terms of our arrangement!
MC > FUCK
MC > F1N3
MC > W3 D0N'7 H4V3 4 CH01C3
? < A most astute observation, my friend.
MC > D0N'7 FUCK1NG C4LL M3 7H47

Mituna Captor pulled the wetware headset off and set it into his lap. He pressed his hands against his temples and rubbed small circles where the deep ache was starting to set in. Too much time in the wetware lately – too many hours spent burning silicon on the edge of the wire, poking into places in the Felt he wasn’t supposed to be. Too much time spent hurting late at night.

Mituna closed his eyes – focused. He wasn’t in the Felt anymore – he was in a van. A short, blocky pile of junk that still used an outdated compression drive that could barely keep it moving fast enough. The extra layers of armor lining the sides didn’t help on that account, even if they did make Mituna feel at least a little bit safer about what they were doing.

A soft squeeze on the top of his leg – he blinked heavily and opened his eyes, turning to see Latula Pyrope smiling at him from her seat next to him in the cramped quarters of the van. She had on a jumpsuit in a pattern of teal digital camouflage – useless for concealment, but stylish. At least she was wearing body armor. That made Mituna feel a little bit better.

“You good?” She mouthed – the van’s improperly tuned engine was too noisy to make quiet conversation even a remote possibility.

Mituna nodded. It wasn’t strictly true but it was… true enough. You didn’t spend as much time as he had in the Felt without little bits and pieces of your mind breaking off from time to time. Occupational hazard.

Across from Mituna, Damara Megido rolled her eyes and leaned forward – close enough that Mituna could hear her when she spoke in a loud stage whisper.

“Fuckin’ get this shit done and we all get to go home and eat the Perigee grubsauce, you know what I mean?” She winked and Mituna blushed – he was fairly sure he knew what she meant. She grinned, leaning back in her seat.

“Four minutes!” Meulin Leijon called from the seat next to Latula. At least she had on an outfit that wouldn’t likely be visible from space. “Ready up!”

A shuffle of activity in the van as the rest of them got ready, checking weapons and shifting in place to get ready to jump out. Mituna couldn’t see him on account of the solid firewall blocking off the front of the van, but he knew that Kurloz Makara would be nervously shifting the driver’s seat as they approached their destination.

Latula raised up the rifle she had in her lap, pulling back the bolt to check the chamber. A black carbine with a collapsible stock – Mituna wasn’t familiar enough with the low-tech hardware to know what it was called. Didn’t matter – it spit bullets at what you pointed it at and Latula knew how to use it.

With a heavy sigh, Mituna hefted the wetware headset again and slipped it over his head. Immediately, he felt the intrusive sensation of something picking at his brain as the connection was made. The spot in his temples throbbed and his vision blurred, then resolved into the dim green glow of the Felt.

MC > Y0U 7H3R3?
MC > 7HR33 M1NU735 0U7 H3R3
AS < Yes I'm here
AS < 8e ready to take down security
AS < Once I open the doors
MC > 17'5 4 FUCK1NG 84NK
MC > 7H15 15 G0NN4 5UCK
AS < It's not a 8ank
AS < Legiscorpus doesn't care a8out it

Mituna frowned to himself as the words hung suspended, unwavering, in front of his eyes. He wasn’t sure that whether or not their target was technically a bank mattered all that much.

MC > 7H3R3'5 G0NN4 83 GU4RD5!
AS < We've 8een over this a dozen times
AS < It's Perigee Eve
AS < It'll 8e light - str8 shot!
MC > 5H3'5 G01NG 1N 0N 7H15 0N3
MC > 1 5W34R 70 G0G 1F 5H3 G375 HUR7

“Two minutes!” Meulin shouted over the rattling noise of the compression engine. Mituna felt another squeeze on his leg.

“Rock and fuckin’ roll! ” Damara called out, ending with a laugh that blended into the background noise.

MC > Y0U 7H3R3 Y0U WH173 N0153 GRU8FUCK3R?
? < Vulgarity doesn’t become you Mr. Captor.
? < That was a joke of course
? < It’s basically all you have these days, right?
MC > 7H3Y GR48 7H3 D15K 4ND 7H3N WH47?
? < You bring it to me.
? < Everyone’s various debts go away…
? < Permanently.
MC > P0RR1M?
? < You let me worry about that particular Ms. Maryam.

The van lurched and Mituna struggled to stay seated as they banked around a corner, then rolled back in the other direction. They were slowing down now – rolling over rough ground. Mituna thought he remembered the approach ran over some kind of cobblestones or something like that. Right up the back door.

Mituna concentrated, letting his thoughts move inside of the Felt. The wetware headset interpreted everything with a kind of delayed analog fuzziness that most people found disorienting. Mituna enjoyed the sensation – the feelings of letting go and riding along the currents of aether inside of the Felt. The greentext that ran right into your brain until everything was a haze of blurred sensation and motion and feelings.

Reaching out, Mituna looked for the systems that were hanging outside in the Felt. Unsecured pathways that led to channels that led, eventually, to doors. Doors that gave him access to all the secret places that no one wanted anyone to see.

Vaguely, he was aware that the van had stopped. He heard Meulin shouting at the others – a stumbling rush as they piled out of the van and a loud slam that almost jarred Mituna out of the Felt-stupor he was falling into. He was alone.

But not really alone.

AS < They're out.
AS < Can you jack local surveillance?
MC > FUCK, Y0U W4NN4 8UY M3 D1NN3R F1R57?
MC > 1'V3 G07 FULL 5P3C7RUM F33D G01NG 1N
| LIST -I -L
CAMERAARRAY1 6.3.12.3 (UNSECURED)
CAMERAARRAY2 6.3.12.4 (UNSECURED)
CAMERAARRAY3 6.3.12.6 (UNSECURED)
AUDIOMONITOR 6.3.13.1 (SECURED)
MC > 4L1V3 4ND 4MPLF13D 848Y!
AS < Shut up and mirror the feed
| LOOPBACK -A -T 30 -B
FEEDBACK LOOP ENGAGED
LOOPING LAST 30 MINUTES WITH BLENDOVER
| FEEDBACK -A SERVERPLAYER
MIRRORING ALL OUTPUT TO SERVERPLAYERS

Mituna sensed the world around him expand and suddenly his senses were bombarded with an array of sights and sounds. You never really got used to the feeling of expanding in the Felt – of suddenly receiving and coalescing sensory input from dozens of sources. It was just another wave that you had to learn to ride on.

All at once, he was aware of his friends – all them, all at once. He could see Meulin, Latula, and Damara running along the side of the alley in a crouch, holding carbines and decked out in hard-shell body armor that could stop a rifle round. He could see the van parked in the alley – could even see the vague shape of Kurloz Makara hunched behind the wheel, muttering to himself nervously.

| PT -R ALLTEAM
COMMS PATCHTHROUGH ENABLED FOR ALLTEAM

Mituna: Are you there?

The sensation was a strange one – a speaking, but not a speaking – reaching out consciously with his mind to touch the others. Except they would hear him through their radio headsets, and he would be able to hear them.

His headache grew – this was a lot to ask of his brain, even with the wetware headset handling a lot of the load. The words in front of him blurred a little as he focused.

Mituna: Are you there?!
Meulin: Yeah, we hear you
Meulin: We’re about to hit the back door.

Through the blend of sensation coming in through the camera and audio feed, Mituna saw the three women move to the back door of the building they had parked behind. From the outside – from all possible indications – it looked like a nondescript office building in the middle of a run-down section of town. But their research had shown that there was so much more there.

Mituna: Wait for me to kill the inside security.

| LIST -S -L
THERMALSENSOR 6.3.14.2 (SECURED)
MOVEMENTTRACKER 6.3.14.3 (SECURED)
SENTRYGUNARRAY 6.3.14.4 (SECURED)
DOORMONITOR 6.3.14.1 (UNSECURED)

Mituna smiled to himself, because they made the same mistake everyone made. After all, who cared if you properly secured your doorbell?

| RR -DOORMONITOR 6.3.14.1
ROOT ACCESS GRANTED TO DOORMONITOR
| ESCALATE 6.3.14.1 ADMIN
ADMIN RIGHTS GRANTED TO DOORMONITOR
| PERMISSIONS 6.3.14.0 -SELF -FULLADMIN
AUTHENTICATE VIA NETWORK
FULLADMIN PERMISSIONS GRANTED TO NETWORK

He laughed.

MC > 53CUR17Y 15 0FFL1N3
AS < Good! Tell them to move their fucking asses!

Mituna: Aranea says to move your fucking asses!
Damara: She wants a look at my ass, all she needs to do is say the word.
Meulin: Shut up and get ready to breach.

One of the cameras faced the doorway, and the images came flooding into Mituna’s mind – Latula putting something on the doorway. It wasn’t clear from the camera, but Mituna knew from experience that it was a small shaped charge designed to blow the latch clean off the door.

The sound came in through one of the audio monitors – a muffled poom that barely even registered. The camera feed showed the door blast open and the three women were through the door.

Mituna shifted his mind – reaching out instinctively to the next camera – seeking a feed with a view of the inside. The interior of the building was dull and gray and just as indistinct as the outside. Somewhere within, Mituna knew that there was a vault. The next step in the security. With one side of his mind, he watched his friends swiftly move through the hallways of the building with their weapons at the ready.

With the other side, he reached into the Felt and looked for the next door.

MC > 480U7 7H3 K3Y Y0U PR0M153D?
? < I didn’t forget my end of the bargain, Mr. Captor.
FILE RECEIVED: ACCESS.PK
? < Use it in good health, of course.
MC > G0D Y0U'R3 50 FUCK1NG W31RD.
| RUNKEY -ACCESS.PK
ACCESS KEY RECOGNIZED…
VERIFYING…
KEY VERIFIED
DEVICE VAULTSECURITYARRAY 6.7.1 (SECURED) LOCATED

Mituna: I’ve got the vault – get to the far end of the building and it should be right there, down one flight of stairs.
Meulin: You got it.

Mituna let himself relax for just a second, trying to fight back the pain that was boring in through his temples. If this went off as planned, he was going with Latula to somewhere dark and isolated. Somewhere they could just be alone together for a while and not have to worry about anything.

There was a sudden, twisting sensation and for a second Mituna thought that Kurloz had started the van up again – but the camera showed they were still parked in the alley. Mituna reached out with his mind and poked around – looked through the feeds to try to identify what had changed.

NEW SUBNET LOCATED: 7.X.X (HISEC)
NEW DEVICES FOUND:
UNKNOWNDEVICE 7.X.X (HISEC)
UNKNOWNDEVICE 7.X.X (HISEC)
UNKNOWNDEVICE 7.X.X (HISEC)
UNKNOWNDEVICE 7.X.X (HISEC)
UNKNOWNDEVICE 7.X.X (HISEC)
UNKNOWNDEVICE 7.X.X (HISEC)

Mituna could feel the breath in his chest stop in place and his heart began to race. This was a military-grade security network!

Maybe the Alernian Army had a post nearby and he was picking up their noise through the Felt. It wouldn’t be the first time – usually the devices would at least show their ID codes if they were on a local network. Mituna relaxed a little – it wasn’t the end of the world.

He moved along the edges of the network – looking through all the points of entry he had. Reaching…

Something wasn’t right.

Mituna: Com check!
Latula: We’re here – what’s wrong?

They weren’t on the camera feeds. Which wasn’t right, because the camera feeds were still working. Everything was still working. The van in the alley was still visible – Kurloz still sitting behind the wheel and talking to himself, exactly like before– 

Mituna’s blood went all ice-water all at once.

Mituna: You need to get out now!
Meulin: Shut the hell up, we’re about to breach the vault!
Meulin: Get ready to pop that thing open!
Mituna: You need to get out now!
Latula: What the fuck–

MC > WH47 D1D Y0U D0?!
? < My apologies, this was necessary.
? < You’ll see in good time.
? < Or not, I suppose – that’s up to your friends now.
NEW DEVICE ID RECOGNIZED:
THERMALSENSORARRAY 7.X.X (HISEC)
CAMERAARRAY 7.X.X (HISEC)
AUDIOARRAY 7.X.X (HISEC)
COMMARRAY 7.X.X (HISEC)
FELTDEFENSE 7.X.X (HISEC)
SENTRYGUNARRAY 7.X.X (HISEC)

Mituna’s hands flew to his face, his mind still blurring from exposure to the Felt. Faintly he could hear the sounds of gunfire in the distance – it sounded as if he were underwater.

The ache in his temples was worse now – growing – becoming a white-hot blast of searing pain that threatened to bore into his skull.

Mituna screamed – he screamed and clawed for the wetware headset – tried desperately to muster enough energy to pull it off.

Everything was going black – he could feel the ice-pick claw inside of his mind now but he still had enough of his conscious self left to know what this was.

Military-grade Felt defense.

His screaming turned to a high-pitched whimper of pain as the wetware continued to blast into his head and he didn’t even have the energy to raise his voice anymore. He’d heard about this – had learned about it in training, even. But the experience of it… nothing could prepare you for that.

Another thirty seconds and he’d be gone. Not dead, but close enough that it wouldn’t matter.

Something was ripping upward like his skull was being torn open and his mind was suddenly free and the sound of the outside world came in a deafening roar.

Kurloz yelling at him.

The screams of gunfire.

Echoes reverberating off every surface.

Unfiltered, blistering chaos all around him.

The heavy wall of void-black hit him... and Mituna simply wasn't.