Location: NT-13 “Lamprey” Dyson Sphere Station (Incomplete), Edge of Terran Protectorate ​ Shift Timestamp: 01:58 February, 30, 2560 ​ ‘The amazing part is,’ a voice in my head spoke up as I slipped through yet another set ​ ​ of maintenance shafts and corridors that looked exactly the same as the last ones I’d just ducked out of, ‘the whole power grid is still working.’ ​ ​ I nodded at that, and got back to work slapping wall mounted Security flashers onto the walls, outright using some Clown’s SUPER Glue to get the job done in as short a time as I could. It didn’t stop the robots from using the damn places, but at least it kept the more biological threats from trying their hands at rooting me out personally. Waking up in this life had been not good. … Azure ‘starlight’ seeps like syrup though cracks in the glass ceiling, through which a massive sapphire blue ‘star’ could easily be observed from the viens the station that were the maintenance halls. The floor shudders in time with the churning of machinery somewhere far beneath my feet. The air, if I were to pull off my hermetically sealed helmet off for a moment, has the strange tang of unknown chemicals and over-processed air that speaks of any space station, but the undertones of copper and something wholly unpleasant, something like rot and excrement and worse, are unique to this place. I stopped as a door opened in the distance and without even thinking I unholstered the gun from my chest sling. To say that this place was utterly crammed with things that made nightmares have nightmares was a gross understatement. I’d seen such horrors in these halls over the last month that the only thing helping to keep me sane were a personal AI downloaded into my discount Omnitool and a voice that only I could hear. ‘I can’t sense any Thaumantic fluctuations so it’s not a Cult member.’ A different voice in ​ ​ my head noted, this one masucline and strong while the first had been feminine and soft. ‘They’re likely another one of Azimuth’s borgs.’ ​ ​ I nodded slightly in agreement to that. The entire station's maintenance sections were crawling with all kinds of cybernetic creations that the Station AI used to ‘cleanse’ the station of ‘organic weakness’ and the AI could actually find me fairly reliably by the erratic Bluespace frequency that I constantly emitted. If that wasn’t enough there was a Nanovirus running around making people into cyborgs, and thus subject to the Station AI, named Azimuth. An AI that was a biophage, or some other word for an inorganic creature that wishes to turn all organic life into the ‘purity’ of the machine. “Don’t ssshoot.” I blinked at the sound of a voice that wasn’t synthesized cutting through some of my trepidation. “I tracked you,” I tensed a bit and readied myself, “via your uplink, ugh sssshit. I like yorkshire tea.” At that odd phrase I glanced down at my wrist mounted PDA which just vibrated without reason. ‘Syndicate Uplink Detected. Today’s Syndicate Code: Yorkshire Tea, Space-Coke, Chaplin. ​ Today’s Syndicate Responses: Teal Galaxy, the Blue Place, Shitcurity.’ I nearly let the gun drop ​ to the floor but I kept it up even as a colorfully clothed Tiziran, a lizard person by Terran reckoning, moved over. I flicked my off-hand to stop them and even as they did so I noted the Clown mask, an essential part of any Clown suit but more than that the Clown and Mime gear were hardened against atmospheric warfare. ‘Eh, I like the teas this one teahouse had, you know the Blue Place?’ I smoothly went ​ ​ through the Spess Sign and after a long moment the Tiziran nodded and we both relaxed. “Where’d you get the Detective’s revolver and coat from?” The lizard person wondered as she, I finally got a lock on the feminine undertones of her voice because Clown clothes were about as unisex as clothing got, cautiously took another step forward. I also noted her Tiziran hissing lit was much less pronounced now that she was relaxed. I gently pushed the hammer back into its ‘safe’ placement and slid the gun back into the holster within the depths of the trenchcoat I was wearing over my other gear. I shook my head before tapping near my ear. “Yeah, it’s listening, but then again it’s always listening.” ‘She’d have a point if you hadn’t prepared for this, but that just means that no one has ​ found your little bolt holes, well not her at least.’ The voice in my head noted and I barely ​ stopped myself from nodding at that. Instead I just waved the Tiziran to follow after me. ‘You ​ going to tell her about me?’ ​ I glanced down at myself. I was, to put it lightly, a mess. The Detective’s trench had been thrown on over the explorer’s webbing and Engineering RIG suit I’d managed to pick up from some old Mining vendor, granted I’d gotten quite a bit from that vendor thanks to the Miner Vouchers that I’d found in the lockers so most of my kit was kit-bashed from primarily those vendors. The matte black mechanized boots made me quite a bit faster than I had any right to be. The RIG was tough enough on it’s own to have pulled me through quite a few close calls over the last month, and the webbing held most of the tools I’d needed so far without slowing me down. Over that I wore the faded armorplas Detective’s coat that the Tiziran had noted. On my back was the Miner Conscription Dufflebag that I’d gotten out of the vendor, now full to bulging with all kinds of odds and ends and with many non-traditional bands on it that were difficult to make out more detail on in the dark of the maintenance tunnels. My face was behind the RIG’s mask with the atmospheric hood up. I was basically coated in minor armor from head to toe. After a while we came to what seemed to be a normal endpoint to the Maintenance corridors. I waited a moment and then the ‘door’ slid open in a smooth motion revealing the wall had been a false wall, but in truth a section of the Station wall that had been cut out, and then with a few Bluespace Emergency Shelter Capsules used acted a supply cache for some Pirates at least it had at some point. Thankfully, the bastards hadn’t torn apart the vendors they’d dragged here from Silence knows where, because while I was pretty good at the old wrench and screwdriver, putting together programmed matter fabricators without the matter fabricators in question was straight up impossible. ‘We can speak openly here.’ I noted as the clown gawked at the ‘safety’ that seemed ​ ​ almost within reach. “Why’re you still using Spess Sign?” She wondered even as I lowered the hazard hood and pulled my gas mask off to show my face. “Honkmother above, I’ve been saved by a Mime.” “I am, and thankfully you’re a Clown so you know what it means when I speak to you.” I said and suddenly the muted sounds came crashing back into ‘proper place. I couldn’t hold off the grimace, just as she couldn’t hold off the giggle that came from seeing me endure coming out of the Silence. Her people did a lot to make mine scream, laugh, or whatever to draw us out of the Silence. The Great Silence was a blessing only given over to those who could enter the quiet meditation of a Mime and it allowed one to wield the powers of Silentintium, however to exit the Silence was not traumatic, just very disorienting and it took at least ten minutes of quiet … to restore the Silence afterwards, meditation which was in short supply during the Clown-Mime War. “So, what the hell? I’ve literally seen so much shit here, what gives?” She wondered before I could even answer her first question and just as I went to answer she asked another question. “Also, who the hell are you?” “My name is Sauteur, and I am like you in a few ways.” I replied with a grin even as I moved over to one of the drink machines and with a click the machine’s Bluespace matter fabricator started producing Nuka-Cola for the portable generators that kept these little caches alive. I doubted that the device was able to keep doing it forever, but thankfully Nuka-Cola had enough uranium in it that it worked as a fuel source for the various hidden S.U.P.E.R. P.A.C.M.A.N. generators that the pirates had used to power these little caches. I set my heavy duffle down on a small metal fold-out table, and as I went through it the clown got a good look at the absolute abomination it’d become over the last two months. A tool belt, a medical belt, a security belt, and a janibelt had been collectively sown into the sides of the bag in an effort to keep more stuff conveniently on hand during my adventures. Not something I would have been able to do in game, but a reasonable thing given the circumstances. I had to wear a lot of hats to make it this far.