Content Warning:
Implied Violence, Actual Violence, Guns, Death, Emotional Trauma, Synthetic Gore, Fighting, Broken Bones, Cursing
23 - May - 2022
"Is there ever a time you don't have me queueing music in your skull? There have been no studies into the long term effects of music conducted through cartilage." A beat. "High-Tide?" Another beat. "High-Tide!?" ... "Minerva Knox-Trudeau you Useless Lesbian!""Huh? What is it Thala?" The shark still spoke to Rose out loud, even though she was implanted in her skull these days. The shark that lived only in High-Tide's skull rolled her eyes. "You wont respond to your code name, or just me speaking, but your name and Useless Lesbian?"
Out loud might be an exaggeration, the words were sub vocalised, but there were still the subtle movements of jaw, the slide of tongue about her maw. Why High-Tide insisted upon it, well, the intricacies of her damaged mind were privy to her and Thala alone.
"Yo... weak. I mean, totes true but... just... look?" The Korps Agent was waiting for the go signal for this particular mission. The season was late spring, warmth was starting to set in over the world. The attire most folks wore was adjusting appropriately.
"As I said High-Tide. Useless Lesbian." There was a beat before Thala replied once more. "I'm in your head, and even I'm not sure what you mean by looking respectfully. You are a dork." The AI sighed. "We have to get this mission underway. Once again, you're the distraction."
"As such, we're going to smash open the front doors of the Cop Shop and make a lot of Hell. Other assets will be pulling the heist a mile down the road. Nanotech Polymers are high value targets, so you need to keep the whole cop shop busy." Min sipped her lemonade. "Can do."
The Lemonade cup was set on the ledge of the parking garage she was sitting on. "Thala, play Deadbeat Holiday yo." She activated her Exo-Skeleton, took up her powered hammer, and activated the gravity wells on her boots. She jumped into a sea of blue, it was time to stain it red.
23 - May - 2022
The mission had gone pineapple shaped. Spiky, acidic, and intensely uncomfortable when shoved someplace it shouldn't go. The shark wearing the powered exo-suit was careening down Ocean Avenue towards the wash into 19th on a skateboard at dangerous speeds in San Francisco traffic.Was she in fact smashing in the hoods of black and whites with her powered sledge as she used the gravity wells from her boots to increase her speed to catch up and overtake those pursuit vehicles? Fuck yes she was. Did she care that the cop cars were crashing in her wake?
No. Not right now at least.
To her frame of reference, they had it coming. Triply so for having the indecency to ignore her magnificent distraction and go after the snatch team that had been hijacking those nano materials they'd been sent to bag. She hunkered down to lower her centre of mass.
The wash into 19th was coming up, and this time of day there was traffic. She reached out with her hammer to snag the pole of the traffic signal, using physics to haul her around in a far too sharp turn at speed. Increasing the density of the wells from her boots to assist.
Unfortunately for her, the snatch team had already gotten into a huge accident, and they had bailed. The problem being, the wreck was still right there, as well as that mess of nano materials from the broken carrying caskets. The shark wound up entering them head first.
High-Tide would never be the same again. She was presumed deceased, again, by the authorities. After all there was no real sign of her, or her suit, or her hammer. Nor were her boots there. Neither were the spilled nano materials. Cops always assume. And that's a fatal mistake.
26 - May - 2022
There was a clock ticking on the wall. She knew this wasn't a psychiatrist's office, yet it had the same sort of a vibe. The rich mahogany, the smell of old books, the ticking of the mechanical clock with metronome precision.The shark felt ever so small. She always did around Recruiter 17. The possum, despite her size, with her apparent aged yet ageless affect, emanated with the aura of a stern aunt. The avowed spinster who loved you, but just was quite brusque about the whole affair.
"I guess I won't need Empire Enhancements to de-age-ify me again." High-Tide's voice was a small thing at that moment. Santa Cruz still hadn't shaken out of her tone, even with so much time in KDS. The shark took her hand from the tea mug and rubbed it over her left bicep.
"No." exhaled the possum with that clove smoke that was in her lungs. The kretek in her fingers was waved gently with a dismissive motion. "You put that need to bed neatly last week in San Francisco. You were supposed to help retrieve the nano-materials High-Tide, not bathe in them."
The clock continued ticking in the bit of silence that followed that particular statement. "You would think the police would stop assuming that you're dead every time you should be." This of course was not the sharks first stint with being nominally deceased. It was the third.
"Am I... still me yo?" The possum set that kretek down on the ashtray and rose to her feet, walking over to the shark, she hugged her ferociously. Every recruit she brought in was one of hers. Her family. And this somewhat clumsy, goofy, stoned out accidental recruit was one.
"Minerva Knox-Trudeau. Just because you don't have a meat suit does not make you any less you. Your mind, your ROSE, they are all still within you." The possum brought her hands to the Shark's cheeks. "Samekh. The endless spiral of life. Ever dancing, ever changing."
"This is just another change, Minerva. You are still you. You can be the same as you were before, you can grow into something new. Your change may not have been expected or voluntary, but you are still you. Your heart, your crown, it is all still you." The possum stood back up.
"Trust, Strength, Miracle, Darkness to Dawn." Recruiter 17 allowed a smile as she stood up. "You have constantly surprised me since the day you were laid up broken in my care. I did not think you would wind up a synth but here we are. Samekh, like High-Tide, the name suits you."
1 - Jun - 2022
High-Tide gazed out over the bay. High places had always held a certain enchantment for her. The feeling of the wind whipping through your hair. Uncontrolled, free from the obstructions of the ground. Nothing to hold it restrained. Whether it was a cruel August easterly wind.Or the kinder westerly wind bringing in the marine layer from the Pacific. From this height, the wind was unfettered and toyed with her hair. Her eyes glanced below. Was it her hair? Despite Tzadi's reassurances- she still had doubts. She looked almost the same in the mirror.
Almost. If she looked hard enough, she swore she could see differences in the minutiae of her eyes, her cheeks, her teeth. None of that mattered right now. Tzadi had told her to push her limits. She'd been vague on the how exactly. It was time to put her body to the test.
High-Tide, Samekh, rose to her feet and stepped to the edge of the Crown Jewel, the glass structure at the top of the Trans-America pyramid. A feral grin curled over her lips as she eyed the Salesforce Tower. If this worked out, that building was next on her list.
Her feet shifted beneath her, a gentle little micro-adjustment before she unslung her hammer and activated those gravity boots. She then stepped over the edge and began to surf down the steep angled corner of the pyramid on no more than her gravity boots.
It was eight hundred and fifty three feet to the bottom. She could feel the cement of the building's side scaling away under the force of the gravity boots. The friction heat was growing under her feet, and yet she didn't feel pain from it. It was simply a present reality.
Her limbs weren't giving out from under her in any ungainly manner, dimly she was aware of each of those nano machines that comprised her body calculating everything. All 35 Trillion or so of them working in concert to keep her balanced, to operate in this manner and not fail.
Thala herself was having to relearn, and recalculate. Her hardware had been implanted into High-Tide's skull. The nanomaterial think-meat that comprised Min's brain had integrated the ROSE unit. This whole situation was unique.
Unfortunately for High-Tide, stunts such as the one she was pulling attracted attention. "We have incoming High-Tide. Fast Aerial approach. BASB Hero, it's Shrike." Shrike was one half of a pair of Super Sisters. Shrike and Kestrel. Neither one was actually Avian by birth.
They were Pacific Martens. Both had manifested wings at a young age. The vision of a predatory bird, and nails like talons. Their advantage was being able to fly and strike from the air. Take away that advantage and the fight would be over. Thala could feel High-Tide's notion.
And that notion made the ROSE implementation actually giggle. "Your nano machine frame should be able to handle it now. Do It." The Nanomaterial colony leapt off the side of the building and wrapped her arms, hammer she was holding, and legs, all right around the startled hero.
Shrike hadn't expected to even be seen this early on in her approach. She had expected to take the shark wandering in her domain by complete surprise. "What the shit High-Tide?!" The shark could only grin in that same feral manner as before, with utter and complete confidence.
"Hi Shrike! Bye Shrike." And all three gravity generators on High-Tide's person activated. The ones in her boots, and the one in her hammer. She and shrike began accelerating rapidly towards the ground, much to the Mustelid's terror. "Let go you idiot we're going to die!"
The shark only grinned. Thala counting down the rapidly decreasing distance to impact in her mind. Given the difference in relative mass produced by those gravity wells, High-Tide was on the bottom of this equation, but she certainly was in control.
The force of the gravity well projected around the shark caused the asphalt of the street below to bow downward and ripple the impact out before the bodies actually connected. The force shattered the glass of the buildings near them on either side of the street.
High-Tide had taken much of that impact force herself, and there were plenty of warnings from her nanomaterials about needing to recharge before attempting such a thing again. Shrike would not be flying again soon herself. The Super Hero's wings were as broken as her body.
High-Tide rolled the barely conscious marten from atop her. "Emergency Services will be here for you soon yo. Stop being a fucking fascist." Shrike struggled to move her limbs. She couldn't tell what was broken and what wasn't. High-Tide just turned, and walked away.
The crowd of civilians parted for her as she did.
Stress Test One Complete.
4 - Jun - 2022
“Oi Gracie, fin’ me a tune would ye, luv?” The Fox was lying prone in the dry swaying grass on the side of a hill in the Coastal Range, near the La Honda open space. The amber anti-reflective coating on her rifle’s scope was mostly hidden from sight. She had the advantage. The sun was behind her, the lovely swaying grass helped obscure her. She had a nice appropriate ghillie she was wearing. Her rifle was nicely propped on a bipod. She’d swapped out the barrel for the nice fluted heavy weight one. The suppressor on the muzzle wouldn’t silence everything, but it would help hide the flash.Softly, the fox let a whistle pass her lips as she got fully into position. It was time, and she’d just spied the approaching shark through the spotting scope. Quietly singing as she took aim. The music actually helped to lessen her thick brogue. “My isolation~ now there’s a soberin’ thought. A minute alone, a lifetime tae long. See the face in this mirror, so pale it could crack. Desperately wantin’ the colour it lacks…” Her breath was then drawn in, Minerva’s head was located in the scope, the tick mark for the range settled square on her forehead.
Marae’s breath was released with a resounding crack that split the peaceful morning air of the wilderness.
Minerva had only the moment to register shock as the heavy round tore through the aesthetic RCGs she wore as part of her battle rattle for the field. She didn't have the time to bring up the gravity well to deflect that bullet from her person. Marae the Ragefox had her clean and dead to rights. Her head exploded in a fountaining spray of nano-materials. Shiny grey goo of now inactive and critically damaged nanomachines pooled behind her. It is however, very hard to keep a good nanomaterial colony down, and High-Tide reformed right back together, albeit her kit, and her person all were proportionally smaller. The five foot ten bruiser was now shorter by about a foot.
“MacNamara! I’m gonna get you for that yo!” she bellowed out into the wilderness. The shark began charging towards the hill she’d been approaching. Her approach was anything but subtle or clever. It didn’t allow the shark a moment of careful observation either.
Marae continued that soft hum under her breath. With the approach the shark was taking, even at the bruiser's brutal clip, there wasn’t a chance she’d be able to hear her, and with the lack of awareness being paid to her surroundings, the fox was absolutely certain the shark wouldn’t notice her displacing away from where she’d been. Though, just to be a complete bitch, Marae did leave a Reese’s wrapper right where she’d been. She did want to see if the shark had learned anything over the years.
Not that she was going very far at all. Her muzzle parted in a slow, delighted grin. She settled in to track the Shark’s approach through her scope. Softly continuing to sing along with the song playing through the chip in her skull. “So ye drank with the lost souls, for too many years. Tied to their ankles, now crippled with fear. Ne'er been righteous, though seldom were wrong, life’s only life with ye in this song…” Her thumb coursed right down to the safety catch and released it once more.
“Now there’s an ocean between where I am an’ where I want to be, so you prayers in doubt, doubt not fer me~” her breath was drawn in, her finger slid along the metal of her G3SG1’s receiver, and into the trigger guard. Her thumb then swiftly worked the safety back into place.
High-Tide hunkered down as she noticed the fresh wrapper for the peanut butter cups. Taking it up in her fingers with a puzzled expression. Confusion scrawled across her face. Marae stood right up behind her and levelled the rifle at the back of her head. “Bang Bang.”
“Shit.” the shark replied.
Stress Test Two Complete