@Profgast___________
The cold wind hits you like a freight train as you step out of the van, the wind attacking in short bursts and whipping the surface of the shin-deep snow at your exposed sections of skin.
Pulling your jacket tightly against you and you immediately felt better for making the winter clothing purchases yesterday. The silence when the wind dropped was almost deafening, you'd never heard anything quite like it, especially not when you lived in the Old Smoke, the sirens, generators, traffic and all the other shit meant you were used to a constant hum of activity. This felt alien, like the shots you saw from the mars base or the moon base on the trids.
The water was good, but it only diluted the stale taste and you weren't particularly looking forward to the chemical tasting stuff the purification unit chucked out either.
Pushing on through the snow, you climbed over the section of knackered and rusting railing that separated the old road from what would have been pasture land or agricultural land, now a whited over sheet of perfect virgin snow, spoiled only by scrubby leaf-less trees and bushes, themselves wearing a white cover on their boughs.
The snow was much deeper on the field, it being partly sheltered by the raised roadway, wading through it took a lot of effort and time.
You could see the smoke trails rising from the village you saw on night-view way off in the distance, a cluster of maybe 20-30 houses and barns with their roofs glistening in the pale morning sun.
You started to dig around in the snow, cursing not bringing a spade or tools to help shift the snow, taking a minute to really look and assess the drifts around the area of interest. Something caught your ear as you did, a distant howl piercing the silence.
A general feeling of unease filled you and you redoubled your efforts, the gloves soon sodden from the melting snow as you shovelled it away with your hands. Eventually, you dug it out, the tell-tale tingly feeling in your spine giving away the presence electronic components nearby.
The battery had gone almost completely dead and it wouldn't boot out of emergency standby for more than a second before returning to hibernation.
@Saithor___________
The heavy with the revolver slowly lowered the gun and dropped it to the floor with a heavy thud. The awakened guy shot him a look of bloody murder, clearly unhappy with the move but not enough to intervene further.
We expect a deal, peace today. We ready to celebrate, then pub hit with molotovs, others killed, beaten. Letter was arranged through 3rd party, not usual way for Vory to do business, normally do things face to face, like real man. I want to know, who was 3rd party?
Callie's shoulders slumped, reluctantly accepting that she was firmly in the shit. Giving up the details of the deal was not how the fixer's world worked. Blood would be spilled and the trail would lead inevitably back to her leak. A trickle of blood ran from behind the gag, from the side of her mouth and she'd wake up with a beautiful black eye or two in the morning.
She looked at you, scanning you for an indication of what you thought was best. She was clearly scared shitless, realising the consequences of staying quiet and giving the details both involved a lot of risk, and a lot of pain
@Lumen______________
The sailors co-operated, your lads patting them down and removing a menagerie of small utility blades and light tools, nothing meaty. The security feed scrolled through the cameras in the hold, engine room, the mess and a couple of the walkways. It flicked onto the engine room and you could see two sailors frantically working on something, as if trying to get it up and running against the clock. Before you could get a better view, it flicked to the next camera, the hold. Your lads had reached the bottom and were in the middle of a fracas with a couple of heavies, and seemed to be winning. It flicked again, the mess this time. Empty. Walkways scrolled through the feed, also empty. Back to the engine room; the two sailors were still frantically working at the machine, silently mouthing suggestions and commands to one another as they rifled through toolboxes and connected up cables to their datajacks and electronic boxes.
@Zwei________
Your mum rested peacefully, the latest dose of painkillers resting her back into blissful sleep and respite from what was the beginning of a long and arduous journey to recovery.
You kissed her on the head and retired to the visitors room, a solitary lamp on the bedside unit the only physical item adorning the stark room other than a charity shop style printed art piece from decades ago.
Plonking down on the stiffly starched sheets and uncomfortable plastic-coated mattress, you kick off your shoes and flick the lock on the door before passing out into the warmth of VR.
The hubub and buzz of the matrix activity around you warmed you to the core, hitting you like a high.
The host coalesced around you as you requested entry using the credentials bex provided, it's stark white walls expanding off into limitless space.
{sysAdmin-User; BeX-101 joined host}
The stunningly beautiful avatar bex used walked gracefully over to you after appearing some 50 yards away to your right, slinking with a cat-walk ready elegance, a thigh cut skirt adorning the lower half of what was an expensive revealing digital dress, probably a custom render at an eye-watering price no doubt.
//Sorry about today. Its been a shit week. How's your mum holding up?//
Both winston and victoria report that they're fine, asking if you need them to assist with anything
