Caffeinated Otter

Mech Pilot who packs the paper schematics

The thin man in the uniform of the Collaborative Administration (a Collaborator officer — who says our new cyclopean space overlords don't have a sense of humour?) sits down on the other side of the table in the interrogation room, having allowed a certain time for the arrestee to reflect.

"So," he says, drumming his fingers on a paper file, which is pure theatre; one of the signup benefits of the Administration is an alien infosphere hookup spliced into your retinal nerve. "Ariadne Patricia Jellicoe, yes? Disappointing company you keep, for someone from a good family."

"Have I been arrested for the company I keep?" Ariadne says lightly.

"You were picked up in the company of two individuals known to the Administration, in mech vehicles, outside the security exclusion zone surrounding the Primary Administrative Storage Facility—"

"So you already admit I wasn't in breach of a security zone."

"In mech vehicles—"

"Are those illegal?"

He looks at her with lizardish eyes.

"My good family retains good lawyers," Ariadne remarks, holding her hand up to the interrogation room's glaring light and inspecting her manicure.

"Your friends have already had much to say, Benson," the thin man gloats. "You're familiar with the Prisoner's Dilemma, yes?"

"Never had much edumacation, squire," Benson says agreeably, thumbs hooked in the waistband of her oilstained jeans. "But Umbra's a talker, all right, ain't she? And her classy friend, well, I dunno. Guess if you let her get started, maybe, but I'd say there are better uses for that pretty pink mouth."

"You're not a stupid woman, Benson. Do you want to go down alone for this?"

"Can't say I've ever had the flexibility to do that by myself," Benson says. "That sweet little classy friend of Poppy's, though, you know what I'm saying? Whoo!"

"You are saying Ariadne Jellicoe was knowingly involved in your activities?"

"Well, gosh, squire, I might not be an angel, but I know what consent means. I'd call her enthusiastic, is what I'd call her. Positively talented. Not her first time going down, you know?"

"But you do confirm her awareness of criminal untertakings?"

"I dunno that I'd call her mouth a crime." Benson tilts her chair back a little, face dreamily thoughtful. "A sin, definitely—"

"Your mech vehicle has a large block of encrypted data in its storage, Umbra Valk," the thin man says, elbows on the table, fingers steepled. "Really. You are out of prison for only eight months, and you plot a heist on the Primary Administrative Storage Facility? Foolishness."

"Heist?" Umbra says throatily, and looks theatrically around. "I don't see any heist happening."

"And you never will," the thin man hisses, cheeks stretched with the smug width of his mouth.

"So if there's no crime, what am I being charged with?"

"You — and your old criminal associate Benson, and your new recruit, the poor young girl — will be charged with conspiracy to criminally infiltrate and ransack the Primary Administrative Storage Facility. Attempted theft. Sedition. Our computing facilities are cracking the data as we speak; your possession of blueprints is the only evidence necessary—"

There is a knock at the door. A younger aide enters, bends to murmur to the thin man, hands him a printout, hastily exits.

"I hold the executive summary of the decrypted data," the thin man says, and holds it up to theatrically read aloud from it.

There's a pause.

"Yes?" Umbra says, gesturing for him to continue. "What data, exactly, was in my possession for my...picnic?"

"The complete canon of seventy-two old media television series. Seven thousand music tracks. Twelve playable sequential curations of said music, each entitled a numbered variation on 'Hot Fucc Playlist'." The thin man's hand is trembling, his face slowly contorting. "One point two million short texts comprising fanwork exegesis of inter-character relationships of the fictional figures within the televisual shows, mostly pornographic in nature. Initial statistical analysis for steganographic data hiding is substantially below the evidentiary threshold for further investigation—"

He slams the printout down on the table.

"We had a mood going," Umbra says. "Rich girls like a little atmosphere."

"I WILL SEE YOU PUBLICLY EXCRUCIATED," the thin man says, shaking with fury.

"That was easy," Benson says cheerily, after the impound flatbed has unsmilingly winched their mechs to the ground and driven away.

"Nobody knows how to do police work any more," Umbra says. "Thank god architects still know their business," she adds, as her mech's left kneecap whines open to reveal the long, thin hidden compartment in the machine's shin, packed full of document tubes; "talk us through the blueprints again, Ariadne?"

"I cannot get that," Oksana says sepulchrally, when whoever's at the door knocks again, louder. "I am accurséd creature of the night. Phoebus' radiance will not suffer me to show my face."

"That's a lie, Oksana," Kim mutters, peeling her face out of the pillow. "I've seen you answer the door at summer noon when you think it's a parcel for you." She slides her feet into her slippers, grimacing as she lightly touches the deep-bruised marks on her neck, and then nearly falls when she tries to stand. "Fffffuuuuuuhhhh— I'm fine."

"Lie back down," Oksana says. "I get it," and before Kim can try, more carefully, to stand again, she's sailed out of the room.

"I'm fine," Kim tells the ceiling, which is not spinning but might, if she's honest, be wavering a little.

Oksana is gone a long time, and Kim is woozily skimming the edge of sleep when the vampire glides back into the room with a tray.

"Lunch," Oksana announces firmly.

"What's this?"

"Steak, sautéed spinach, grilled potatoes. Orange juice."

"You know," Kim tells the ceiling, "the spinach-iron thing is a myth stemming from a misplaced decimal point."

"Anaemic bitch who falls over does not get to sass the cook," Oksana says. "Also, if you don't eat and stop having complexion of snowman, I have to cut you off sex until you recover."

Kim scoffs, because whose fault is it that Oksana can't keep her teeth out of her, exactly, and sits up against the pillows to take the tray. "Thank you," she says, as ungratefully as possible. "Who was at the door?"

"Jehova's Witnesses," Oksana says, in a tone that suggests Kim shouldn't ask any more questions.

Hey everyone.

So I got blindsided last week by an unexpected car repair. Which means this month, which was going to be smooth sailing, now once again has me bordering on overdraft within the next few days - and I had to get the car fixed, because it's my primary source of income right now. If tips go perfectly the next few days I'll maybe be able to squeak by with minimal risk of overdraft - but then I get slapped with overdraft upon overdraft week after next

If you can give anything, it would do wonders for getting me through this month and not need to panic drive daily, and from here I should be fine so long as nothing else expensive happens before January please universe give me a breather.

Information, and thank you in advance:
Venmo: @Alex-Raizman
PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/Hydrael

The pilot was hanging out in the café outside the customs office, three hours before opening time, wearing a bomber jacket so old it's disintegrating and a cat-ears headband. She downs cup after horrifying sludgey cup of Caffeinated Rainbow Go!!™, its edible-glitter-laden layers of food-coloured goop slowly leached into each other and turning godawful brown.

Caz wouldn't be out this early, but she's avoiding her roommate, and there's only so much early-morning jogging she wants to do on the gym machines before her shift. The café isn't so bad; she can sit and read the day's headlines on her work tablet, do a crossword, nurse a cup of coffee until they start serving breakfast.

"Oh hey," the pilot says, when they drift to the counter together as the bored kid on the counter sets out the laminated cardboard Now Serving Breakfast!! sign. "Buy you a meat-patty-and-fried-egg bun, cutie?" and follows up with a wink, and Caz sputters a laugh.

"Sorry," she says. "Public official. You know how it is; the Mayor can embezzle fifty mil and gets a disapproving frown with his golden handshake, but I take one too many pencils from the cupboard and it's jail time. Accepting gifts is more than my job's worth. But if you know a six-letter word for spacebird, second letter maybe an A—"

"Aw geez, no, that's a real shame." The pilot nudges Caz with her hip, grinning. "Terrible at word puzzles, too; whatever are we gonna talk about?"

"How your caffeine intake is gonna kill you?"

"Thoughtful, caring, and paying attention to me!" the pilot crows, and orders a double-size Rainbow Go!! alongside the breakfast meal that Caz has heard the counter staff call through to the kitchen as a Heart Attack in a Bag.

Caz gets the oatmeal with freeze-dried fruit, and juice. There's coffee in the office, and she doesn't want to look like a hypocrite after chiding this perfect stranger like some kind of health nag.

"You are actually literally too good for this fallen world," the pilot says solemnly, looking over her tray, follows her to her table, and makes herself comfortable unasked.

She is terrible at word puzzles, though Caz doesn't know how much of it she's faking for laughs. And Caz does laugh, more than she remembers doing in months.

Naturally, when it's nearly office time and Caz goes to open up, the pilot saunters across with her and queues outside, then gasps and says, "Fancy meeting you here!" when Caz flips the Open sign and unlocks the door.

"Yeah, yeah," Caz says, but she's grinning back a bit. "You think I'm a stranger to freight-runners buttering me up, like it'll get them through port any quicker?"

"Oh, it's like that, is it? You a player? Got a pilot for every crossword?" She saunters after Caz, into the interview room, leans her hip on the desk, conspicuously crosses her legs. "Ooh. Is this where the sexy roleplay happens? On your knees under the desk, smuggler scum, if you want this paperwork stamped?"

And Caz, cursed with too many years of doing this job, looks at the slight nervous bounce of her foot, the way she bites the inside of her cheek, hears the not-quite-right tone of her voice, and stills instead of joking back.

"Oh," the pilot says, under her stare. "...Shit."

"Oh, god," Caz says helplessly. "Were you actually trying to bribe me with breakfast."

"No!" The pilot crosses her arms, quick, defensive.

"Oh god, I thought you were just — unserious clumsy-puppy flirting—" and the pilot's eyes go impossibly wide.

"I'm gonna go to jail with a class-five red mark on my license," she says in wobbly little way, "and the whole time I gotta hear you saying—" and she mouths unserious clumsy puppy.

"Class five?"

"What. What, I didn't say. Anything—"

"Class five is real specific," Caz says, and glances at the tablet on her desk for confirmation that she doesn't actually need about what ships are in the clearance queue, and where they're going. "Class five isn't hey how about I go down on you and you wave me through muling a crate of designer party pills. Five is biosecurity. You're the Pride of Io, right?"

"Oh, just call the fucking cops," the pilot says morosely, stuffing her hands in her pockets and shrinking into her jacket, and Caz stares at her for long, long seconds.

"The colony at Barghest has been trying to get a biosec permit for about a decade now," she says. "To export some kind of fruit trees, I think? From Janiston. And I don't know the ins and outs, but I heard that Barghest is a religious settlement, some kind of progressive branch of whatever religion that Janiston is, like, hardline orthodox of, and that's why they keep getting shot down. Pride of Io's registered out of Barghest, right?"

The pilot raises her chin and turns her head to stare determinedly at a ship displacement category poster on the office wall.

"If I call down for a ship inspection," Caz says, "tell me what I'd turn up."

For a long pause, it looks like the pilot might hold out. "Bay C's listed as empty," she mutters eventually. "It's full of, you know, hydroponic fucking sapling root balls."

Caz exhales heavily, and taps her fingers on the desk. "You know we get, like, fifty drug-runners through here a week that I can't ever pin a damn thing on," she says. "You are the worst smuggler."

The pilot mutters something not quite audible, but it sounds like it's got clumsy puppy in it.

"Next time you come through here, you're getting a 'random' inspection," Caz says. "And you had better be clean as a whistle." She taps the tablet a couple of times, stamps the paperwork, releases the ship. "Go on, get out of here."

The pilot starts at her phone getting the notification, looks at Caz, fishes her phone out to look at it, clutches it to her chest. Looks back at Caz. Her eyes flick, rapidly, to the space under the desk and back.

"It would be a horrific abuse of position and circumstance for me to say a word about making clumsy puppies bark for me," Caz says, picks up her tablet, and theatrically starts scrolling through the morning's workload. She gestures to the door with it. "Go on."

The pilot trails out, makes to close the door, and sticks her head back in.

"Maybe next time, if I'm a very good dog—" she says, light tone nearly recovered, and Caz has to cover her face, because she's worried she might smile.

"Out," she says.