Status Updates From The Scavenger Door (The Fin...

WHAT THE FUCK. He did all that to save people and minimize harm because he cares and out of the goodness of his heart and dedication to completing his promises and he gets yoinked away from every home he’s ever known and all his friends and the family he just discovered and rediscovered??????? At least he has his cat. But what😭😭 Messed up. Amazing.

😦😦😦😦😦😦😦

A 20 meter long cyborg stick insect comes up to you sniffs you and pokes at your stomach where freak aliens put electrical bee powers inside of you what do you do in this situation

😮😮😮

He was half-out of his workalls and struggled to free at least one leg as the van returned, belatedly, to its normal horizontal orientation with a crash. “Whiro, please try to keep all four wheels on the road,” he said. “Would you rather drive?” Whiro answered. “No.” “Then please be quiet. This technology is limited and requires my concentration.

“Can you take the wheel, Whiro?” “Happily,” Whiro said. Fergus straightened up and was climbing into the back of the van when it suddenly swerved, and he crashed shoulder-first into one of the seats. “Apologies,” Whiro said. “I forgot there is no up. Recalculating.”

One by one he picked up the real fragments and dropped them into the modified soda cans he had under the tray in the toolbox, capping and sealing them, but not before each one sang to him of doorways, and something else whispered and rustled and whined, a sound somewhere between the chatter of tiny insects and the click of ravenous machines, in a chorus of billions through that connection from the other side.

More the latter, he thought, which maybe meant it was time to get out of this business. He chuckled; unless he got those pieces, he WAS getting out of this business. All business, along with everyone and everything else.

‘Oh, hell, no, you just didn’t,’ he thought, and slapped his hand down on top of the napkin. It sang at him, full operatic electrical noise that felt like it had plucked his spinal cord like a bass string.

Sitting at the counter of the Deli Gute Esn on Kelly Station, Fergus knew when Francesco’s courier had arrived without needing to be informed. The core fragment entered his consciousness like someone slowly inserting a dart through his skull into the back of his brain.

concerns about that,” he said. “In the interests of expediency on the larger urgent matter, I suggest you leave them for later,” Whiro said. If the solar system got destroyed, he supposed it didn’t matter if a group of ships had figured out a way to justify being dishonest with their crew. ‘And hell, maybe a certain amount of dishonesty is a fundamental right of all beings,’ he thought.

“There are rules to the disclosure of party activity,” Whiro said. “The role of a character in-game allows for certain discreet actions, as long as no harm is involved or accidentally incurred, that do not need to be subject to the normal operating parameters of a player.” Fergus stared up at the ceiling? Which is how he pictured Whiro’s presence, since the ship’s voice came from up there. “I have

The power of LARPing and friendship transcends all operating guidelines and factions, and together in our shared roleplaying game we will unite and save the solar system

“And this is why you’ll never make a good cultist, Ferguson. No dedication.”

“I’m sorry,” Fergus said. “You going to be okay?”
“I hope not,” Peter said. “Let down of an apocalypse, if I was:”

This time, he was tired enough that he slept easily, and without too much insidious noise from the haters in his own skull.

wasn’t a selfish jerk with no real survival instinct and a halo of death and destruction around him everywhere he went.

Once Fergus had eaten and then napped, he found that however much attention he tried to apply toward research and planning for his eventual but inevitable need to take the remaining core fragments away from the Alliance, Digital Midendian, and the cult, his mind only wanted to replay Isla in the mini-sub, holding up her bloodied hand, and relitigate everything he did wrong, did sloppily, could have avoided if he

“Revenge was a bad, bad choice in his business, but whatever little voice in his head was responsible for talking him out of stupid decisions was silent for once.”

Newborn spaceship and LARPer is pulling so much weight to be the supportive parent Fergus never had

😱

“he felt uncomfortably like one point in a triangle of electrical noise.”😮

The elderly Kalaallit woman who rented them a boat showed him how to turn it on, pointed him toward the smart console, and switched it over from Danish to English, then patted a deeply reluctant Isla gently on the back as if fondly sending her out to sea to a swift and ignominious death.

“Complaints about inconveniencing global shipping didn’t much outlast the unsustainable consumer culture of North America, especially once the former United States fell apart.”😬