#cohost

Ilia sat on a stool in a far corner of the workshop, unbothered by the clanging of metal as she read her book. Occasionally, she glanced up to admire Violet at work across the room, then returned her gaze to the book with a smile.

“Hey there Ilia, long time no see!” came a voice from the doorway behind her.

Ilia gently closed the book and turned around in her seat. “Oh, Orchid! It really has been a while, hasn’t it. What brings you here?”

“Okay, the Hot Wheels Maneuver still needs more workshopping, but we’ll get it perfect next time.” Green stepped into the hideout through a warp in space, Red in tow. She brushed at a soot stain on the smoldering remains of her uniform, frowning as it refused to wipe off. “I think if you wait another half-second for my ring to stabilize before you launch the fireball into it, we oughta be able to – oh, hey Yellow. How’s it going?”

Six re-emerges through the hatch onto the cramped bridge, swearing in several languages.

“How bad is it?” Anya asks, tossing over a ration pouch.

Six catches it and takes a long swig before answering. “Fucked, is how bad. That missile the Blowjob Brothers hit us with had a bio payload, one of those engineered slime molds the fucking Accordance use for sabotage ops. Kill to know how the hell the bastards got their hands on that shit… Anyway, it ate half the engine before I could vent it, plus I think some of it might’ve gotten into the fuel lines, so I’m gonna have to empty the tanks, decontaminate the fuel, flush the whole system before I can even start on repairs…” She does some quick mental math. “Five days.”

REDACTED REDACTED Lovely REDACTED faced down the approaching REDACTED REDACTED, REDACTED of REDACTED held at the ready. REDACTED needed to act quickly, before it could REDACTED any more REDACTED; REDACTED’d only have one shot. REDACTED raised the REDACTED, arm outstretched toward the REDACTED-tinged sky. “REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED!” REDACTED REDACTED enveloped REDACTED as REDACTED REDACTED began to REDACTED, REDACTED REDACTED of REDACTED REDACTED dancing through the air.

To:
Suffer Wayte-Archer IV
Aesyl Hall, Room 13γ
Aletheia University, College of Medical Magick

Kiddo,

Thanks for your letter! Your friends sound like great fun, and your lava pit immolation notes were a fascinating read. I only wish the Tigerfang Band were half as willing to help further the progress of medical science.

The Band have certainly been giving me plenty of work, although most of it is fairly boring stuff – spiked pits, decapitations, the occasional rolling boulder trap. Honestly, they’d save a fortune on trap-related deaths if they were willing to get over their paranoid prejudices and recruit a rogue. I can’t exactly complain, though, seeing as they’re footing your tuition and then some.

~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~

~~~~~
click

“Seraph.”

“Uh, hello, I – listen, Seraph, do you have a secure line we could use?”

“This is a secure line.”

“No, I mean like, a scrambled one? I have a box, I just need –”

“No.”

“… You don’t – then how are we supposed to – listen, this is sensitive, Orca always uses a scrambled line for –”

“And Orca is now unavailable, which is why you are contacting me. How long have you been operating in Sanctfell?”

Sundial stared out at the Arctos skyline through the large window of Silk’s new 18th-story office, and wondered, not for the first time, what she was doing with her life. She was great at dealing with the sorts of problems she could infiltrate, exfiltrate, and purloin her way out of, but that didn’t seem to be a useful approach here. If a girl buys you tickets on an intercontinental flight and has you move in together, does that mean she likes you? Or were they just fleeing the country as friends?

Silk stared down at the wooden case on her desk, and at the object inside, whirring to itself and glowing softly. She stared back up at the thief, Sundial, sitting across from her, face nervous and expectant. She stared back down at the case.

She’d seen plenty of well-constructed fakes over the years, but this … no, there was no mistaking it. The longer she looked, the more the whirring seemed to resolve into whispered words on the edge of hearing, and the harder the clearly-unnatural sense of joyful wonder tried to shove its way in from the back of her mind. She lowered the lid of the case, closing it slowly with a fearful caution stronger than her sense of urgency.

Professor Tarkovsky stared down at his desk, head in hands, and sighed. “So, let me make sure I have this right,” he said wearily, looking up at the two students seated across from him. “The two of you met in Miss Surn’s dormitory room for a study session.”

“Yeah,” said Susan.

Lilias nodded.

“At half past midnight?”

“Yup.”

“Exams soon.”

“Okay, 1, please knock next time. 2, this is not the reason I’m in Temporal, it’s just, like, a perk? And 3, this isn’t –”

“Look, it’s fine, Dev, you do y…yyour own thing, I’ll absolutely remember to knock –”

“No, listen, this isn’t some sort of smug intellectual nobody-else-is-my-equal whatever garbage. Look, I know sometimes I can get a little up my ow— sometimes I can get a little stuck up about grades and projects and stuff, but I’m trying to be better about that, and that’s not what this is about! Like, I spent 5 years thinking I was just asexual, and honestly, not sure this doesn’t still count? I’ve never felt sexually attracted to anyone else, but a few months ago I was hanging out by myself, felt like experimenting a little, and I ended up really liking it. So it just became something I do now and then, but like, it’s not an ego trip thing, okay?”