Outsider, Part 2

I start off my weekend by spending a painstaking two hours trying to get my brain's wifi drivers working. You'd think that two hundred billion people with computers for minds would have some sort of nice tool for making their shit work with alien internet. That's not to say there isn't a tool for it. There is, it's just not a nice one, because the only people trying to get alien wifi signals at the moment are people like me, and there's not a lot of us out here. Hell, as far as I know there aren't any other uploads on Opus at all. The folks on the liner with me already had transfers to a departing ship, so I think it might just be me.

Unioners like to present being an upload as sleek and easy, and it almost always is. Almost. That almost does more heavy lifting in that sentence than a bodybuilder. Almost all the time, every piece of the entire monstrous upload tech stack just works, a seamless interface built by centuries of dedication and effort. The link, near-perfect emotional and sensory communication with any other upload? It just works, don't worry about how it translates those things into bits and bytes. Shapeshifting? It just works, don't worry about how your consciousness is picked up and moved to an entirely new brain in the process. Counter-control, mind assurance, fault detection? It just works, don't worry about how the impenetrable cryptographic fortress of your assurance processor works. But the tiny fraction of the time it doesn't just work... well, now you're using a command line to install wifi drivers in the same computer that keeps you alive.

Of course, I can't truly fuck it up. The parts of my spinglass that do brain stuff are physically separate from the parts that do normal computer stuff, and the standards for quality on things that actually go into your own spinglass are pretty robust, at least by the standards I was previously used to. Memories of bricking my laptop while trying to pirate a video game at age 16 persist, even if upload architecture is wildly different. I'll admit to being a bit of a computer nerd, and not entirely by choice, since "nerd shit" is sort of the only option left when your physical body is stuck ignoring the instructions your brain gives it. It's a skill that's atrophied in the decades since I uploaded, and I'm regretting the fact that I let it atrophy just a teensy little bit.

Eventually, I get online. Could I have gone to a store and bought a computer and typed on it with my claws? Yes. That's not the point. The point is that now I can rip through cyberspace with my mind. Which is admittedly not that exciting, it's just using a web browser with my head instead of a mouse and keyboard. But hey, the specs of the cube of funky glass in my head blow every silicon-based computer on the planet out of the water, so at least I can have as many tabs as I want.

The first thing I do is check local news, hoping that I'm not in the headlines for yesterday's stunt. Reporters trying to get to the bottom of my origins would be... uncomfortable, especially since they're a lie. Posthumanity itself is sort of a secret in the Council: the average citizen knows that the Interstellar Union is a friendly nation made up of shapeshifters with a penchant for self-modification. Only the Council itself and some naval officers are aware of the fact that most of us are uploads, because while the Confeds don't care about shapeshifters, they really care about machine intelligence, and we don't need Sol getting a surprise visit from a Confed fleet. It's a secret that can't exist forever, but Council and Confed space is far away from ours, and our contact with them is almost entirely military aid. Everyone seems satisfied that the lie will last for long enough for the strategic picture to change.

In the midst of all that, playing myself off as a recently-contacted species when no such contact has actually happened is a little risky. My little book of lies has the official line, though I'm not sure how believable it is:

Following establishment of communication protocols, the Askan Republic requested that the Orion Council not publicly announce their first contact, nor disclose Aska's exact location. While Aska is understood to be generally safe for visitation by most species, widespread historical use of biological warfare means that exploration of the planet by non-Askaians could unearth weaponized plagues capable of jumping the species barrier (see Askan Biowarfare § 5-7). While Askaians themselves are designed to be immune to practically any biowarfare agents, unsupervised extraterrestrial visitors poking around in the permafrost could be disastrous for their new friends.

I got a military-grade immune system before I left too, so if anyone takes a peek inside me they'll find enough biological evidence to back up the fact that "we" aren't carriers for anything nasty. I feel like I owe whoever wrote all this lore a drink or something. Apparently Fleet Intel took the adage of "a good lie requires more commitment than truth" to heart.

My next stop on the internet is the one constant among intelligent life: social media. Everyone loves posting. Unlike New Earth with its single monolithic platform of NetPlay, or the Union with its millions of interlocking U-net instances, Opus appears to enjoy old fashioned forum-style stuff. I poke around for a few hours, hop in a few chats, and find myself a little annoyed that nothing's really all that different out here. Sure, it's in an alien language and I don't know all the slang, and it's a different format than I'm used to. But when someone posts a wall of text with a single spelling error, and there are twenty one-word replies consisting of that same error? Same as it ever was.

It's an enjoyable enough way to spend a day off. Eventually, though, I come upon a picture of me, in a "recent ongoings" thread. It's a good one, of me leaning up against my favorite pillar at the club, looking out over the crowd, highlighted on one side by the purple light of the dance floor.

large_eel: Someone new I ran into at Delirium on 4th the other night. [attachment:IMG] Seems she's the club's new hired muscle. Never seen the species before, anyone know what an Askaian is?

shipwatcher70: Wow, whoever hired her must have been getting a discount to pay by the pound. And, 'she'? Did you talk?

0xFish: Yeah, no kidding. That's the largest sophont I've ever seen. And the sharpest.

yulth56: Nah, the Unioners have bigger ones, but they aren't common outside of their space. Dragons, they're called, but I haven't seen those in person either.

plant_liker: is that thing carnivorous that must be four hundred kilos of muscle

devious_history: Did we forget that Nossuans exist? They're even bigger.

yulth56: There's like twelve of them, they barely count.

large_eel: shipwatcher70: A bit, just to ask her species, I don't think she wanted to chat with everyone in the club. But she used [single pseudobinary feminine] first-person pronouns.

partysophont: That's Artemis! I talked to her two days ago, actually. Managed to acquire some fun facts just from being there that night. 1) She uses some sort of speaker implant to talk, that thing on her neck. 2) I saw her actually bounce a guy, some buzzed-up Vikoan. He went after her with a broken bottle and it just slid right off her scales. 3) Her species is at least omnivorous, I saw her drinking a fruit smoothie. I'm not sure how, because those were definitely carnivore teeth.

I'm sorely tempted to post a selfie and join in the thread, before I realize that I don't actually have a camera. I mean, I have eyeballs and I can record any of my senses, but I can't just post an image of myself looking in a mirror. The sort of augmentations that could do that are rare. Actually, this may prove to be a bit of a problem. I could go get a camera, but then how do I get data from my camera to my spinglass? My head doesn't have a slot for a memory card, it's all wireless. And I don't think I have the emotional energy to try and get another wireless protocol working today, especially when I plan on moving on in a few weeks.

...and I'm stupid, because I have every photo I've taken in my life saved here on my spinglass. I've got at a few selfies in here somewhere.

sharptraveller (new user!): That's a damn good picture of me. Here's another: [attachment:IMG] I'm new in town, anyone got suggestions for what to do on my days off?

The thread explodes into questions, which I conveniently ignore. It's much more fun being mysterious, and probably a lot less risky. The suggestions are fun: beach party, hike in the mountains, an orgy, rock climbing, fight night, drone racing, picket line, clubbing— wait. A picket line?

son_of_opus: You could come visit the picket line! The dockworkers are on strike, we're bringing them some hot food and we'll probably hang out for a few hours.

Uh oh. Did I cross a picket line when I came in? I suppose I didn't have a choice either way. While I have feelings about labor rights (in favor, obviously), it might not be the best idea to get involved on my fifth day on this rock. The beach party, on the other hand, sounds nice. Maybe they'll have the alien equivalent of hot dogs. There's enough posts that I don't feel too bad about not responding to all of them, but I send a private message before I head out for the day.

sharptraveller: Hey. I know there's a lot of... less-than-upstanding activity around here. If anyone gives those folks serious trouble, give me a call, I'll show up.

son_of_opus: Seriously? Thank you, I'll remember that, but I'm not sure how much good you'd do if they send in strikebreakers in riot gear. Or some local gang with guns. I'm sure nobody would turn you down, but you know it's not safe, right?

sharptraveller: My people had that struggle once, too. Given the way folks around here look at me, I think it might help scare off some breakers.

son_of_opus: Thanks. Hopefully it doesn't get to that point.

I neglect to mention that the struggle my people had was more or less completely won long before I was born, and that I just lucked into being born in the one place where it wasn't and probably won't ever be. Instead of sinking down that pit of mild despair, I go shopping. I need some food beyond just fruit juice. Not that I'm ungrateful for Osuong letting me drain his cheap drinks— I'm kitted out to survive on just about any calories I can get down my throat, alien smoothies included —but I'd like some protein and fats to add to the sugars. Perhaps some carbs, if I'm feeling adventurous. In fact... one of the suggestions is a local market.

The morning comes and goes, spent by sampling every alien foodstuff I can afford. Some are vile, some are excellent, and most of them are tolerable. I chitchat with various vendors, all of whom seem quite impressed at my culinary curiosity. I've never been a picky eater, but it seems that trying food outside of your species is a bit abnormal here.

Of course, it does help that I got my digestive tract redesigned before I left Basao. I had a guy for that: Dr. Jonas Kanehiro. Is it strange to have a digestive tracts guy? Probably, but combat biology on my level has some pretty intense nutrient requirements, so I needed a digestive tracts guy. Back then, I was designed for intake speed. Calories into ATP, nutrients into cell growth, as fast as possible before the next fight. Food was liquid, and if I wanted something that was enjoyable to eat, I ate in a sim. It was a sacrifice I was happy to make for efficiency, but when I decided to retire and head out into the galaxy, I wanted some changes. Jonas was thrilled to design a "survival kit" system instead of another highly-streamlined one. Almost every part of me was designed like this, really. It's normal for razorclub forms, and I take a not-insignificant amount of pride in being a living canvas.

A familiar voice disturbs my thoughts.

"Morning, Artemis." A big-ass Mahknan with a bag strolls by my bench. I can't really recognize alien faces yet, but Tosk's voice is familiar by now, as is the sheer size of him.

"Tosk! What brings you this way?"

"Doing my morning workout before my shift. Wanna join?"

"Sure, as long as you don't mind me knowing how to do any of your exercises." Besides the size, Mahknan are uncannily similar to humans. Same plantigrade legs and very similar shoulder joints, so much so that they almost look like a human dressed up as an alien. Almost, anyway. Their heads are far too different, they've got the soft-spines covering their skin, they have four-fingered hands with two thumbs, and they don't quite move human.

"Exercises? What do you mean?" he asks as I hop up from my bench to walk with him.

"Like, lifting weights? I know our shoulders are pretty similar, but..."

"Oh. No, we don't work out for that. Do you?"

No, but humans do. Or did, anyway. Transhuman physique is calibrated by genetic markers rather than exercise, but I was baseline once, I remember having to do physical therapy every week so I didn't atrophy into nothingness.

"Nope, my musculature self-maintains. I know most species do, though... wait, if you self-maintain too, why work out?"

"Ah. Didn't read the brochure on Mahknan, then?"

"They were fresh out when I got off the ship."

Tosk laughs, a little exhalation of breath not too unlike a human one. "We have to work out for psychological reasons, at least once or twice a week. Back before we were really sapient, we had a lot of violent competitions for mates, in both of our sexes. Probably why we're so strong and tough. A lot of the wiring for that stuck around, so if we don't have a good scrap once or twice a week, we'll start going crazy."

Huh. "Like... what do you mean by crazy?"

"Differs a lot depending on the person, but our neurotransmitters go wild. Usually one of aggression, anxiety, or depression."

"So if you didn't go fight for, I don't know, three weeks, you'd...?"

"Personally? Suicidal ideation by week two."

"That's fucked."

He makes a noncommittal grunt. "Evolution was kind to us in other ways."

"So. Joining you for a workout means fighting you, then?"

"Indeed. Still on board?"

"Yeah, but I'm more worried about you. I'm designed, Tosk, not evolved, you know that. I have covers for my sharp bits, but you know how much stronger than you I am, right?"

"There's some cultural context you're missing, I think. Getting your hide whipped by someone you know is stronger than you? We say, 'Good. You were brave enough to try.' And I don't need to win to keep my brain from trying to kill me." It initially strikes me as strange that a meathead like Tosk would be so self-aware about his culture's own quirks, but then I realize that of course he would be. He's living on a deeply multicultural planet, the most populous species here are Vikoans, and even then they're only around fifteen percent of the populace. Anyone living here for long enough would be pretty aware of how their customs differ from each other.

"Strange to me, but I can respect it. Lead on, then."

Tosk helps me get ready once we're at the gym, wrapping my claw and blade covers with a layer of boxing-glove-like padding and taping it in place. It's solid enough that I could probably still seriously hurt him with it if I tried, but it'll at least stop me from shredding him. When he's done fixing me up, he motions over towards one of a few dozen mats. There's a few other pairs of Mahknan going at it, with a style that seems pretty similar to human boxing, minus the gloves.

"Right. Any rules?"

"Try to stay on the mat, and try not to do anything that'll need regen. It's fine if you break something minor by accident, the gym membership gets me some free fixups, but I don't have time for a hospital trip before my shift if you break something major. And try to stay away from the head. First to tap out loses. Anything on you I should avoid hitting?"

"For my safety? No, go for whatever you want. Eyes, even, I can heal. For your safety, though... tap out if I'm going to cause serious damage, okay? I've never actually fought a Mahknan before." The most I've done is whacked a dummy a few times in sim. Admittedly, those are very realistically modeled, but I never prepared for fighting with foam on my claws.

"Then I hope to provide a proper introduction." He takes off his tunic, leaving just the pants and giving me my first look at his musculature. I've seen images and sims, of course, but not a live Mahknan ready to fight me. His muscles are thick, lump-like instead of the more wiry, vascular muscles a human would have, so he looks a little more chubby than muscular to my eyes, but I know he's stronger than he looks.

"Ready?"

I nod. "Go." I sink down into a low crouch, almost on all fours as I let my tail curl out to the side. Against a human opponent, I would be occupying an utterly oppressive amount of their field of view. Tosk just has two of his eyes track my tail, and the rest split up between each of my limbs. It's a little freaky the way they all independently track things, sort of like a chameleon.

There's less of a tell in the way he shifts when he moves towards me than a human would have, too. I move to anticipate his punch, my foam-covered tail darting in towards his side, but he bats it away, punching right where the ceramic joins with flesh. Ow. I slash upwards at the same time with a claw, and he darts back out of the way before it connects.

Damn, he moves fast. Maybe not faster than a really good human boxer, and definitely not faster than me normally, but maybe faster than I am with booties on my claws. I'm used to having all the traction I could possibly want by just digging my claws in, which is a little hard to do with safety foam on them, and rude to do on someone else's gym mat. Instead, I settle for rising to a bipedal stance and delivering a series of rapid slashes. They won't knock him out or even wind him if they connect, the dangerous part has been blunted, but I pick up on the fact that he's playing by a mental rule of not getting cut up.

And then Tosk socks me on the jaw, because I'm too focused on offense and pressure, but I can tell it's not as hard as he can actually hit. Even so, if I had an organic brain, I'd be seeing stars, and if I was still human my jaw would be broken or dislocated. I think that's what he expects, too, and I use it to my advantage, spinning to sweep his legs with my tail and then closing in for the "kill" with a hindclaw hovering over his neck.

"Again, please." He's barely out of breath.

"Sure." I offer my arm as leverage to get back up, which he accepts. "Can I ask a favor?"

"Sure."

"Don't hold back this time." He fixes me with all six eyes, as if to ask if I'm sure.

"I mean it, I can take hits way harder than that safely." He inclines his head slightly, then takes a deep breath before rushing at me again, and I grin. This time he doesn't hold back. I dodge some hits and block others with my forearms, letting my armor plates and dermal layer absorb the worst of the hits. Tosk hits like a truck, and I think he'd be breaking my armor if he had brass knuckles on. I let him get one punch in on my side before retaliating with coiling tail and a knee to the gut. The cycle repeats: he punches, I block, dodge, or just take the hits until he gives me an opening, then I swarm him and bludgeon him to the ground, then he gets back up and we start over again. I intentionally avoid going for grapples, since I can't convincingly let him escape those, but smacking him with blunted claws and tail is perfectly effective. Any human opponent would find this humiliating or pointless: slugging the equivalent of a brick wall until you make a mistake is not enjoyable. But Tosk is true to his word, and seems to be earnestly enjoying it.

After fifteen minutes or so of the cycle, a panting Tosk sheds his gloves and waves me off when I go to help him up. I notice we've garnered a few observers in the process, but nobody who's being too nosy.

"Stars above, lady. Don't you ever get tired?"

"Eventually, yeah. My muscles are actually a lot less efficient than yours, I can just store way more energy. When I run out, I'll crash real hard." A little benefit of shapeshifting. My muscles are designed to rely on the fact that I'm an amalgam shifter, able to blend individual bits and pieces of myself as I wish. As parts of me get tired or injured, I just swap them with fresh ones, and I've got eight sets to choose from. As a result, my body doesn't have to compromise between power and endurance.

"Damn. Good fight, though." He finally takes my proffered arm and stands.

"Hopefully a good workout too, then?"

He snorts. "Yeah, one of these days I'll have to get you to give me a scar. Look, I gotta get cleaned up for work, but if you want some more rounds, I think anyone in here would happily go for it."

"Sure, my afternoon's free. I'll see you, Tosk, don't be a stranger."

I turn to face the onlookers. "So, who wants next?"

A few hours later, I wonder if I should try to be less active as I pour a quadruple-XL-sized fruit smoothie into my mouth. If I do this every day I have off, it's going to triple my food expenses. As it is, I've spent nearly a hundred hepts just to break even on calories today. I could also eat something a bit cheaper than smoothies, but I like smoothies, because my mouth is designed for violence more than it is for chewing. Maybe I'll do soups tomorrow.

I decide to get a dose of digital narcissism while I'm slurping on dinner. Being the center of attention is pretty nice, after all.

tok_kro_4: Ran into that Artemis character when I was at the gym today. She was sparring some friend of hers, I think. Crazy fight, I'm not sure how you follow any of that if you don't have at least four eyes. [attachment:VID]

large_eel: I managed to learn some more about her, too. Got all this from someone who was chatting with her at the gym she was at today. It's a bit to take in, but here goes: her species, Askaians, are a recent contact with the council, somewhere out here on the border. They're an artificial species, built entirely from scratch a thousand or so years ago, and designed as weapons. Their creators managed to kill themselves with a weaponized plague shortly after creating them. Apparently they're peaceful, though they asked the Council not to announce the contact or their homeworld's location.

qi'itak_krel: Insane. I actually buy some of that, but not the "artificial" part. They're probably just some uplifted and modified species. That's a bit more in the realm of possibility.

tok_kro_4: If it's a lie, why? And why hide?

qi'itak_krel: Not a lie, I think they just might not know. large_eel, do you know if they had FTL before contact? And tok_kro, they're probably hiding their homeworld because their biology is apparently insane. Remember what happened to the Nossuans?

large_eel: Qi'itak, I don't think so, but our visitor is obviously not in shock about interstellar society. I'm not sure how long they've been in contact for, probably at least a few years. Maybe decades? The border is big. (Also, hi Artemis, please feel free to step in and correct us at any time.)

large_eel: Oh, and remember they coexisted with their creators for at least a little bit. Unless they were intentionally lied to, they'd probably know what they were. And I'm not sure how it makes a difference?

tok_kro_4: Alright, fair, hiding makes sense if they're worried about a Nossuan situation again. Regardless, her species' creators were obviously extremely skilled. Those white bits on her aren't bone or keratin or anything, they're ceramic armor. Same thing for those little scales she has everywhere else. Making a living organism that can grow ceramic is crazy.

qi'itak_krel: ...okay, maybe they actually were made from scratch.

yulth56: Wait, seriously? Do you know what ceramic?

tok_kro_4: No, I haven't talked to her. Whatever it is, it's real hard. Some sort of self-repair ability, too, but I think that's magic and not pure biology. One of the people she was fighting cracked a plate, and afterwards she just made it knit back together like one of those fancy self-healing ballistic plates.

yulth56: Maybe exactly like one of those, actually. If you were designing a soldier, you'd give them ballistic armor, right? I bet Askaians aren't designed for melee, anyone with that level of biotech would have guns. The claws and blades are just secondary to being bulletproof.

qi'itak_krel: There's no way it's thick enough to stop a gun. Shotcannons and sandblasters go through ceramic armor.

large_eel: Her species' creators might not have had those weapons at the time. Or the armor might just be meant to mitigate damage, not stop it. Or they might not have had better armor technology, hard to say. And I suspect that making something that grows nanolayer polylaminate is a lot harder than making something that grows a ballistic ceramic.

0xFish: There's no way they had sandguns a thousand years before FTL. Or modern shotcannon ammo. The only reason those things work is the shaped-charge pellets, without that I bet they wouldn't get through an Askaian's armor.

yulth56: It's definitely enough to stop most chem-prop guns. And I know that because Askaians aren't the first species to invent grown ceramic armor. Check out these fellas [LINK].

I follow the link with a worried feeling. On the other end is an article about old Earth military dragons, presented as nothing more than a curiosity from a culture far, far away. But there's danger, there. My head is visibly similar to a dragon's. I have armored ridges instead of horns, but if they put it together...

large_eel: Huh. I didn't realize the Unioners bioengineered so hard. I mean, I've barely seen them out here, but I don't think I've seen any with grown armor. Most I've seen is keratin scales, like P'tassks or I have.

qi'itak_krel: You didn't? That's kind of their whole thing. As far as I know, that's half the reason they even went so far way from home to make contact with the Council, they wanted to see more alien biology.

plant_liker: yeah and im sure youve seen them take their helmets off in the power armor right definitely nothing suspicious there

large_eel: Stars above, you bring up Unioners once and off they go.

0xFish: I mean, can you blame them? I've seen videos of their ships, they're fucking scary. [attachment:VID]

yulth56: It's all intimidation, they're way more fragile than Council or Confed ships.

qi'itak_krel: Wait. Do their heads look similar to anyone else?

large_eel: ...no, they're not here sampling the biology, they're out here because they hate the Confeds. They're pretty vocal about that. Anyway, no, this seems like a good example of convergence. Both of those beings are built to have a lot of bite force, right? There's similarities to dozens of animals and sophonts in there, there's only so many ways to make a lever.

qi'itak_krel: Sorry, I choose to believe in the conspiracy theory of "Unioners are an Askaian psyop" that I've just invented.

large_eel: Don't say that, you'll get plant going again.

plant_liker: ITS ALL CONNECTED

anonymous2239 (new user!): I have encountered some security camera footage of today's subject matter. [attachment:VID] Hopefully it speaks for itself.

moderator: anonymous2239 has been warned for posting gore without warning. I'm leaving the post up, since it seems to be in the public interest.

Oh boy. I can guess what that video has on it. But how exactly did it get out? I'm sure Kolot or the Thorns wouldn't have any reason to cause me trouble, given that I solved their problem for them. Some friend of the crew I sent to the hospital, then? But I don't know how someone would have gotten their hands on the footage without at least having access to the Thorns digital stuff... And it's been up for half an hour, so I'm not going to be getting out in front of whatever takes people have.

I take a peek at the video. Decent angle, really, it gets most of the fight... but just the fight. In fact, it starts after they shot me the first time. An intentional cut to make me the aggressor, I guess?

large_eel: Oh, gods below.

qi'itak_krel: Well, that's snuff.

plant_liker: okay i dont want to click on this what happens

qi'itak_krel: It's the Askaian. She kills five people in about ten seconds, and it only took her that long because she took her time with the last one.

plant_liker: carnivores at it again

yulth56: Fuck off, plant. Is there any context for this? I assume ex anonymous2239 is an extremely trustworthy poster who has deprived us of the rest of the tape for good reason.

The thread devolves from there, with various expressions of shock at my capacity for physical violence, accusations of murder, the works. But I am saved from endless speculation by the most recent post in the thread:

partysophont: Hey, I know that guy, the shorter Mahknan. Tangentially, anyway. He's not dead, I saw him out and about literally ten minutes ago. If this is real, he's gotten regen since then.

Time to participate, I suppose.

sharptraveller (new user!): The video's real, but it's not the whole picture. That recording starts shortly after they threatened to rob and kill my boss, and then shot me when I didn't get out of the way. I made sure that they lived, and that they learned not to do that. And, to be clear, we didn't go in spoiling for a fight. They started all of it.

0xFish: I take the authorities cleared you, then?

qi'itak_krel: What authorities, are you new here? Investigators don't show up if there aren't bodies, and as far as I know they haven't put a public safety bounty on her.

large_eel: Murder accusations have a way of getting people to talk, I see.

sharptraveller (new user!): I was aiming for "scary and mysterious" in hopes of not having random people try to mug me. Which seems to have worked poorly. I'd like to affirm that I'm not being deceitful, just private.

yulth56: And you've already got haters, I see. I assume you're bulletproof, then?

qi'itak_krel: Bullet resistant, not proof. At least one penetrates in that video, you can see the blood. And I think that pistol's just a chem-prop.

sharptraveller (new user!): Resistant is correct. Askaians have fairly powerful regenerative capabilities and very redundant organs, which works together with our natural armor to protect us from most ranged weapons.

plant_liker: aim for the head then

large_eel: Don't mind plant, they're just like that around non-herbivores. I honestly have no idea how they live a normal life. Or if they know what punctuation is.

plant_liker: how do you live a normal life with people who eat LIVING BEINGS

moderator: User was banned for this post. This was going to be their ninth warning and I figured I'd just resolve the issue entirely.

tok_kro_4: Behold, she speaks and plant gets banned! A miracle! Does this mean you'll be chatting more?

sharptraveller (new user!): Perhaps. I'm on a bit of a sightseeing tour, I don't plan on staying more than a few months. Though if you'd like to get to know me, I generally prefer to do that physically. I'll be at the same gym tomorrow, if anyone wants to spar. I'm charging one smoothie per opponent this time, though, I burn through calories something fierce while active.

large_eel: Out of curiosity, would you be willing to spar an opponent in armor? I don't think anyone has real power armor on hand, but I do have a bipedal walker that I'm quite familiar with.

sharptraveller (new user!): Those sort of mech suits I've seen Luouong in? As long as you don't mind it getting banged up, sure.

I chit-chat on and off for the rest of the day, before I remember to go get a bedroll to sleep on. It's not like I mind sleeping on concrete, my thermal insulation keeps me warm and I can simply override the feeling of hard surfaces before it hits my mind, but I think if anyone looks inside here they'll probably have to put a bounty on my head for living like this. Fortunately, most shops here are open all day and night, since nobody has the same circadian rhythm (and a few don't even sleep at all). Blessedly, the journey is uneventful, and as I lay down to sleep I realize that I've spent the whole day chatting with aliens. Sure, I knew they were aliens then, and it's not the first time I've met people that aren't Sol-origin, but I suppose I expected them to be... less personable? The fact that they're all just chatting and talking despite the insane biological and cultural differences on display is... nice, I suppose.

Another nice bit of being an upload is that it's not hard to wake up in the mornings, if you don't want it to be. A little program called wakeup.inpm wipes the drowsiness from my mind in half a second with a perfect, tiny dose of simulated adrenaline. The process sounds unpleasant, of course. Who wants to wake up to a flight or fight response? But it's not that, not if you get the dosage right, and if there's anything we're good at these days it's knowing how our own brains work. So instead, I wake up, and then the grogginess is simply brushed away.

I'm hunting for my morning meal (probably a smoothie, because breakfast soup sounds odd) when I get a call from Osuong.

"Hey, Artemis," his voice hisses, "hopefully I didn't wake you." It might be a minor complaint, but I've gotten so used to the perfect clarity of link comms that the middling audio quality of a phone call is grating.

"I'm just getting some breakfast. You planning on getting mugged today or something?"

He laughs in a way that's only recognizable as such because I've gotten the Luouong socialization primer, a combination of clicking and hissing. "No, nothing so extravagant. Kolot called. He wants to hire you."

"Kolot? The Thorns guy?"

"That's the one, yes."

"Yeah, that's gonna be a no from me."

"He named a pretty fucking big number as payment. You're sure?"

Yeah, I'm sure. "My understanding is that the Thorns do more than just smuggling, and I'm not a killer for hire. I'm happy to contract for my services on my own terms, if I know what the job is and I get a choice. I don't know or trust ex Kolot."

"Oh, the living weapon's got some brains in there after all! Good. I may have told him I didn't expect you to be interested, but I'll let him know your answer. With additional tact."

Something I wanted to ask about pops back into my mind. "Hey, before you hang up, one more thing."

"Go ahead." I'm starting to think that Osuong is doing a little more than humoring a strange alien. He might actually be enjoying himself.

"Why doesn't Kolot have a bounty on him? Isn't he some sort of mid-level functionary for a... I dunno, interstellar criminal syndicate?"

"The only people who get bounties on them here are the ones without too many friends, or who cause too many problems. Not sure how it works on your homeworld, but out in the borderlands there's not much legality, just norms. Ex Kolot doesn't cause anyone an unreasonable amount of trouble. Now, somewhere closer to civilization, like Mayday on the Council side of the border or Sandelekon on the Confed one... there you could get some money for him. But, I need to ask a teensy little personal favor from you."

"Yeah?"

"Don't fucking turn the guy who supplies my party drugs over to the authorities!"

"Right. I wasn't gonna." I was definitely considering it.

"You're learning. My advice, Artemis? If you're desperate for cash, go after the locals. They won't retaliate in a way you can't handle, but the Thorns? They've got actual ordnance and they don't fuck around. Trying to nail someone with friends in high places is a good way to put yourself into an early grave. You might be dangerous, but I don't think you could do much about a big enough gun to your head."

He does have a point there. "Thanks, boss. I'll see you tomorrow, then."

Osuong hangs up without saying goodbye, some sort of cultural thing with his species, and I continue my journey to the smoothie place. The smoothie place has a name, just not one in a language that I know, so it remains "the smoothie place" in my memory. I am eternally grateful that it's only two blocks away from my apartment, and that their sizes go well into the XXXL range.

Is it efficient to spend fifteen hepts on breakfast every day instead of getting cooking supplies? Probably not. Is it nice? Yeah. It won't delay my departure very much anyway. I put my order in, and this time the place is empty enough that the cashier gives making conversation a shot after I put my order in.

"Third day in a row, huh?" They're that insectoid species, the same as the EMT from the night I fucked up those goons. Ta'sitak, I think? It's honestly a little fucked that I can't remember half the species in the Council, but there's a hundred and seven of them. Most of those aren't very populous (by number, most Orions are Vikoan, Luouong, or P'tassk) but there's a lot more in that big multicultural mishmash nonetheless.

"I guess so. Smoothies are good, what can I say?"

"Well, yeah, but I wouldn't have guessed your species is herbivorous." They speak Standard with a sort of clicking and buzzing accent, like it's coming through a kazoo. And I know they're they, because Orion has the wonderful and obnoxious property of gendered first-person pronouns, so their use of "I" tells me what they identify as. It's a neat trick, really. Rather than degender their entire language the way the African Federation tried way back on Earth, they just add new genders to the language as needed. There's a hundred and seven species that speak Orion Standard, and twenty-seven different genders that you can pick from every time you need a pronoun.

"I'm not." I show my teeth, an interlocking nest of razors. "I just don't like having to chew before noon. Kind of tricky when you don't have molars."

They don't turn to look as they finish the smoothie, presumably because their compound eyes can see me just fine. "I can relate." They click their mandibles by way of a demonstration. Something like a wasp's, so presumably a carnivore? Hard to tell. "Enjoy your smoothie, ex."

I poke through some messages while I slurp my blended mess of unnamed fruits. I'm a popular girl, apparently. Most are not worth my time responding to, as much as it would be fun. But a notification for one that I do care about breaks through the noise.

son_of_opus: Hey, Artemis. Sorry to call in your offer so soon, but we've heard rumors that they'll be trying to break the strike today and we're trying to get everyone we can. Would you be willing to come down?

I guess not getting involved is going out the window, then. As are my plans to go spar again this afternoon.

sharptraveller: Yep. When and where? And who is "they"?

son_of_opus: The spaceport cargo terminal, as soon as you can get here. They are TulCo, local transport conglomerate. They're big enough to cause us trouble, but small enough that we can cause some trouble back.

sharptraveller: Understood. On my way.

It's funny, I think, as I approach the spaceport. I've never actually seen labor conflict in person. New Earth doesn't have any, not really. Not that my place of birth is particularly kind to the working class, but more that the working class is free to go elsewhere if they wish. The ever present threat of the Interstellar Union enforcing freedom of movement means that if the corporations get a little too exploitative, people will go leave to live in the Union, transhumanism be damned. And the labor conflicts of Earth, the real one, those ended back in the 1800s, four hundred years ago.

As I get closer, I can see the striking workers. There's a lot of them, almost shockingly so, at least a thousand, and more continue to trickle in. I definitely get some eyes as I approach, and one of them, a squat P'tassk, waves me over.

"You came!"

"Opus's favorite son, I presume?"

"You're even bigger in person! I'm so glad you could make it!" I do tower over him. P'tassks top out at maybe a meter and a half tall, and he's on the shorter end.

"Nice to meet you in the flesh." P'tassks strike the balance perfectly for a "proper" alien, I feel. Wide, short bipedal reptilians (well, sort of, reptile is a Sol classification) with a mouth almost as big as their neck, they're alien in a comforting way, like one of the old pre-contact scifi shows. They're even alligator-green.

"Right! I'm Ka'aska. I'm sort of an organizer, I guess, though I wouldn't say I'm in charge! It's so cool to meet you! Everyone's been talking about you on the forums and I'm maybe a bit of a fan and—" They're also big fans of glottal stops, which is fun because this guy is talking a mile a minute.

"I'm Artemis." The crowd is big enough that I don't really know how much good I'll be doing here, but I can probably take a baton a lot better than anyone else present. "You want me up in the front if the breakers come out?"

"Yup. Uh, don't start anything, don't kill anyone, please? They're not likely to do much besides tear gas and getting rough. How loud can you yell?"

"Actual words? Not very, this speaker in my neck is powered from a turbine in an artery. Roaring is a different matter, though, that uses my actual vocal cords."

"Right, okay, don't tire yourself out chanting. Have fun!" And with that, he's gone, waddling through the crowd with all the grace in the world. The energy is contagious, even if the crowd itself is fairly relaxed. There's not much of an audience out here at the moment, but I understand how a strike like this works. You picket to put a stop to the work and to cost the company money, it's not exactly the same as a protest.

Ka'aska's prediction comes true soon enough, and we are granted an audience in the form of a few vans full of goons. Shades of New Earth, once again. Cops in riot gear, plastic visors and metal sticks. Or perhaps these aren't cops, but company thugs, hired muscle, gangers on contract, or any number of other things. It doesn't matter much in the end. The crowd bristles immediately, a single organism recognizing a threat and raising its hackles in response. I bristle with them, adding my voice to the roar of boos as the strikebreakers disembark. Some of the people next to me jolt in surprise, at my volume or at my teeth, then join back in, louder than before.

Their loudspeaker voices its opinion, "YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON COMPANY PROPERTY. DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY."

And we answer with our own, a soundless roar of fury. The breakers are saying something through the megaphone, and it doesn't matter, because the energy of the crowd is a nuclear chain reaction carefully moderated by release of pure volume towards the enemy, and—

<Oh dear, I was hoping you wouldn't show up. Should have known better.>

What. That's upload comms. There's location data appended, standard practice for any upload, so that we can tell where someone's talking to us from...

There, in the group of strikebreakers, setting up to square off with us.

<The fuck?> I wish I was a little more eloquent, but, just, what?

<So my guess was correct, then. You are an upload, not that crap about some newly-contacted species.>

I manage to get a little bit of my bearings. <Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here? Why are you breaking a fucking strike!?>

<The name's Shane. I solve problems. Right now, this cargo port being closed is costing a lot of important people a lot of money, and that's a problem. So I'm solving it. We don't need to be enemies here.>

I have a good idea of which one in particular he is. A Vikoan in the back, locking eyes with me. None of the breakers are wearing actual uniforms beyond their riot gear, but it looks like he's in charge of the whole ordeal.

<I wonder what Fleet Intel would think if I told them that there was an upload willfully bootlicking out here.>

<Excuse you, I'm in it for me. I don't give a shit about this little fight, I care about getting some real fucking power. Which, last time I checked, I have. SCFI can send their goons all they want, I'll just leave.>

I cannot even begin to explain the depths of stupidity this guy is operating from. How do you convince someone that their entire worldview is five centuries out of date in a few sentences?

<That's it? Just money and power?>

<The only two things you can't get in the Union. Is that not why you're here in a bioengineered monstrosity?>

<What— no, this is— actually, nah, fuck that, fuck you. Back yourself up now, asshole, I'm done talking.> My previous experience with nerd shit comes in handy, because as soon as I finish speaking, I flip on two pieces of software, the first of which is one of the few pieces of illegal software that even exists in the Union: a delta jammer. Deltas, updates to a stored mindstate, have pretty robust error-checking requirements for transmission. Spinglass radio kits are good at evading jamming, but it means that it'll be forced to retransmit a bunch. The other program I start up is a direction-finder. All those retransmissions and error-checks will, hopefully, get me a location on wherever he's keeping his backup.

His reply comes a little slowly. <I see. I did anticipate your presence, Artemis. [IMG]> Shane includes an image of a hotel window. It only takes me a second to puzzle out the fact that I can see it from here, peeking over a hill by the passenger terminal. Rather than the closed window in his picture, this one has a rifle poking out of it. Presumably, aimed at my head.

...or, not even intended for me. Fuck. Is he going to try offing organizers? In a public place? I mean, without clear evidence of who did it... shit. He might get away with it. I don't bother quipping back, instead choosing to push my way through the crowd towards Ka'aska. Actually— is Shane not even trying to sync a backup? Either he doesn't have anywhere to put it, or he knows I'll try to pull a location off of it when he does.

"Ka'aska!" My maximum speaking volume is actually lower than a human's. I can't project my voice, not with the simple speaker setup I have. I end up having to grab his shoulder to get his attention over the thrum of the crowd.

"What?"

I point. "Sniper, hotel over the hill."

"What!?"

"There's a sniper in that building! Fifth floor, second window from the left!"

"How— you can see that?! Shit, it doesn't matter." Right. Most species don't have visual acuity like dragons do, and my eyes are an improvement on those. "I don't have a favor I can call in for this, and I'm not going to get folks killed."

I read the implication there, and nod. "I'll go."

Ka'aska looks into my cross-shaped pupils with those big round eyes of his. "Thank you, Artemis."

And then I push my way through the crowd until I have enough space, and I'm gone. My talons dig into the pavement, and I get to actually push myself for the first time in eight years. I'm designed for three main things: agility, lethality, survivability. Raw sustained speed isn't really one of them, razorclub arenas are never big enough for that to be relevant, but it doesn't mean I'm slow. I'm faster than any naturally-evolved species I know of over the ground, and I can juke and weave enough to make landing a headshot close to impossible. I hope.

I see the shooter tense up, then relax, a little bit of tension ebbing out of them right before the shot goes out. The round punches through my arm like my armor isn't even there, taking a chunk of bone and muscle with it. I shift it fixed instinctively. The second shot is better. Whoever that is, they have damn good aim for flesh. It smacks into my chest, one of my heavier chest plates shattering. Ironically, my armor makes the shot more destructive, not less. Cracking my ceramic and bone plating makes the round shatter, a quartet of fragments spiraling through my flesh before punching out the back in a shower of crimson blood.

That, too, is fixed in a fraction of a second. Single shots from a rifle (probably a railgun, given the way it's punching straight through me) don't threaten me. They just don't destroy my flesh fast enough. Fully severing a body part? That's a a problem. But a hole? I can fix holes. The cavitation effect from a supersonic round punching through me doesn't do enough to destroy my organs, either, the benefit of non-newtonian interstitial fluid. The third shot misses. I'm closing in, only a few hundred meters to the hotel. I see the shooter tense up again, ready for a shot, and I juke left—

And my vision goes black when the round punches through my face and ricochets downwards off of the centimeter of sloped battlesteel that surrounds my spinglass. Fragments burrow through my spine before bouncing off of the armor on my back, a trail of ruined bone and nerves in their wake. More importantly, the shot severs both my primary and secondary spinal columns, and I flop bonelessly to the ground, faceplanting into a bush at sixty kilometers an hour. The damage is banished in a blink again, ruined eyes and bones flowing like syrup as I shift new ones in place, but I can feel it adding up, especially when the sniper puts another two rounds into my head while I try and stand up.

I need to move. Speed is life, here. I roll sideways using my tail to push myself, and a shot goes wide, giving me just enough time to get back up and accelerate forwards again. Two more shots later and I'm scrabbling up the exterior of the hotel, and the sniper is trying to make a run for it. I don't think they anticipate exactly how fast I can climb a building, because I'm at the fifth floor window in less than fifteen seconds.

I cram myself in through the window and dash after the shooter, my claws shredding the carpet with each step. They're barely down the hall before I'm on them— a Vikoan, I realize, now that I can see more than a vague figure in a beige poncho. I pin them to the ground, wrapping my tail around them and ripping off their hood as I press my blade against the bottom of their jaw. At this point, my blood is singing just like it did in the razorclubs, and I have to restrain myself from digging my tail into their neck to decapitate them.

Rather than speak, I hiss, the one sound I can make with my vocal cords that isn't a roar. I imagine I'm a fearsome sight; three meters of blood-soaked monster tends to do that.

"Shit, shit, don't kill me—" I silence him with a squeeze. I could crush his bones, whatever sort of rib-adjacent setup he has, trivially. And the desire to be cruel is certainly present in my mind... but he hasn't hurt me in a way that matters, and I don't feel pain in the same way that most people do. Getting most of my head smashed in by a bullet hurts, sure, but in a sort of stubbed toe way, not an imminent death way. I'm not sure he even really had a shot at killing me.

"Let's go have a chat." I carry him back to the hotel room he's so kindly paid for, tossing him on the bed as I grab the rifle. He has a handgun on him, but I don't bother disarming him. It's a show of dominance, one that I hope he realizes that I'm doing on purpose. I take a peek at the rifle as he tries his best not to cower. Interestingly, it's not a railgun, but some sort of high-velocity combustion gun. I'm not sure if that's because of personal preference or availability, but I hope it's the latter. Real-deal military railguns will punch through the starship-grade armor that protects my mind without blinking, and if that goes... well, I'm taking a fifteen-year timeout until someone spins me up from backup.

"Talk," I order.

"I don't know anything, it's all anonymous! They just paid me to shoot a few guys!"

"I want you to know that I have delicate enough senses to tell when you're lying." I don't, but he doesn't know that.

He stares at me and doesn't talk. That won't do. "I don't plan on killing you, if that helps you feel talkative. I'm much more concerned about whoever wants me dead than I am with people who fail to do it."

He stares a little more before he speaks, "Look, I don't know a name, for real. The client doesn't have one, but the hepts spend, so I didn't ask too many questions. Came to me through the Thorns, some third-party they've worked with before and vouched for."

"And what was the job, specifically?"

"Shoot a few of the corporate types, shoot a few organizers in the chaos. The client sent me a message a few minutes ago to add you to the list."

"You ever meet this client?"

"No, not how it's done."

"Cool. Name?"

He hesitates again. "I can still just kill you, you know," I remind him.

"...Vanko. Vanko Mikran," he says, as if the name is supposed to mean something to me. Actually, on second thought, that name does mean something to me, and a quick check on the bounty list confirms it.

"Nice bounty on you. 12,000 hepts, that's a lot of walking-around money."

"I'm sure we can come to an arrangement of—"

"Yeah, you pay me substantially more than twelve grand and I'll let you walk, that's the arrangement. Got, I dunno, fifteen grand on you?"

"No, but I can get it."

"Sorry, I don't do payment plans, you'll have to bribe the judge or something."

"...okay, fine, I have it now, then. Got a transfer chit?"

"Yup." I hold out my hand with the embedded RF chip in it. Vanko shares his bank info, and a few moments later I am 15,000 hepts richer.

"I'd say it was a pleasure doing business," he says, "but it wasn't."

"Indeed it was not," a new voice says from the door, one that I recognize despite never having heard it aloud before. Shane enters the room, a handgun drawn, and before I can react, he puts three shots into my prisoner.

"You!" I've had enough of this fucking dude. I flick my tail at his face, only for it to bounce off iridescent armored scales as he shifts, a militarized dragon replacing the Vikoan body he had at the picket line. I don't quite recognize the species, but it's an armored quadruped with wings.

"So what's the plan, Artemis? You kill me and then my friends hunt you down?" he thrums.

"Somehow I doubt you have friends I'm scared of." And while a combat dragon would be terrifying to most sapients here... it's not to me. I close the distance instantly, even as he spits a blue-purple bolt of fire at my chest. I've seen what that does to soft targets, but I'm not a soft target, and it detonates against my armor. The blast pulps a good number of blood vessels, but I'm as immune to the heat as any true dragon is, and the damage to my flesh just melts away. And then I'm on his back, one arm wrapped around his neck and the other ripping off armored scales.

He panics. Of course he panics, there's six hundred kilos of engineered predator on top of him. But he's too slow, not built to weave in and out of arm's reach like me, and certainly not built to grapple. And then I have an opening. My tail snaps around, driving fifty centimeters of razor-sharp bioceramic into his neck where I've torn away his scales, severing his spine in an instant.

He goes limp, and I can tell he's trying to shift again, but it's over. He's not an amalgam, he can't shift when I have my tailblade buried inside his body. A few punches shatters his skull, and I rip the spinglass cube of his brain out of his ruined flesh in a shower of gore.

<You fucking bitch, put me down!> He might be blind and senseless and imprisoned in my grip, but he's not dead. Not yet.

<Very poor choice of words.> There's a burst of radio comms as he finally triggers a backup, and I wait just long enough for a location to populate in my direction-finder before I squeeze. Spinglass fractures in my grip, gleaming atomic computer turned into so many inert glittery chunks in a fraction of a second. He'll live, of course, but with none of the memories since his last backup.

As I disentangle myself from Shane's body, I realize that I've made quite the mess. Shit.

Not sure how I'm gonna be able to explain this one.