21:14 <banana> https://limits.thomascastiglione.com/media/free-bus.jpg 21:14 <banana> It would be a long walk out to Eccles from Sourjack's safehouse, but they have this free bus system in the urban area. It's literally called "free bus". 21:15 <tom> What the devil? 21:15 <tom> This is legal? 21:16 <banana> Memorising all the routes would be.. ideally up to someone else, but it's not too hard to go in the general direction of West and hoof the rest of the way to Empanading-upon-Bentcliffe. 21:17 <tom> Bob was raised from childhood to understand that the bus is where poor white people and worse go to threaten the occasional upstanding member of society who misfortune has placed in their path. He's done his best to abandon his assumptions, but he's still a little nervous getting onto any kind of public transit. 21:18 <banana> The whole thing is kind of awkward - a third of the passengers are still wearing masks and glaring at the people who aren't. Bob's takeaway bag doesn't quite fit on the seat and he has to hold it out in the aisle. But he gets home in about fifteen minutes all up, and apparently without cutting down any trees in the Amazon. 21:18 <tom> Oh fuck, he has a mask right? 21:18 <banana> That's up to Bob. they haven't been required since before he arrived in England... 21:19 <tom> Up until this point Bob has been adequately social distanced, if only because he was walking basically empty streets and sitting across a table- well it doesn't matter now. It takes him a few moments of rummaging through his pockets, pulling out the same wadded latex glove out at least twice before he manages it. 21:20 <banana> Now a different group of people are glaring at him. 21:20 <banana> None of them says anything, of course. 21:21 <tom> That's the England difference, baby. 21:21 <banana> Everyone's just sort of pretending very, very hard that they aren't crammed into close quarters with each other. Politely ignoring other human existences. It's an unfriendliness which feels, from Bob's point of view, at odds with the pleasant and convenient bus service itself. Land of contradictions. 21:22 <banana> Back at the shop, the smell would usually tempt him to grab something before going down the outside stairs, but he's already got food. Mari's one in-person class should be over for today, so he's expecting her home. 21:22 <tom> Satisfied that whatever glares he's drawing aren't likely to escalate beyond angry letters to the editor, Bob rides the bus until he recognizes the local neighborhood. 21:28 <tom> The flat's in the basement, but the large windows that face out into the building's back patio illuminate just fine until the sun dips behind the larger blocks further down the row. Bob comes in through the back, unlocking the heavy iron gate perched between the red brick edifices that in America would tell you that either the building was designed in the colonial period or that the architect 21:28 <tom> had a real hard-on for plantations. 21:29 <tom> He passes the shed on the way in. A heavy chain lies across the door, undisturbed from where Bob left it. 21:29 <banana> Here, it means they're imitating an American building. The shop above advertises 'tex-mex' without giving much thought to where either of those places is. 21:31 <tom> Bob shuffles into the flat with the bags of food balanced in each arm. The drone is collapsed onto its frame on a loop on his back. He sets it on the floor and shoves it into the closet with his foot, next to the rest of Mari's things, neatly boxed-up and still waiting to be unpacked. 21:32 <tom> The food goes on the coffee table, where the smell of chicken spreads invitingly. 21:33 <tom> He collapses onto the couch and grimaces. How's he going to pitch this? 21:33 <banana> There's a loud mumble from the next room. "That smells different. Nice." 21:33 <tom> He starts- just Mari. "Oh hey, back early." 21:35 <tom> He's tense, but he tries to keep it from creeping into his voice. "Come get it while it lasts. By sundown there won't be any survivors." 21:35 <tom> Not the best choice of words, admittedly. 21:36 <tom> He doesn't let the silence last long enough for Mari to get suspicious. No point, anyway, considering what he says next: "So, you know that thing I talked about.." 21:37 <banana> Mari's not on Zoom - she hasn't got the little scarf up that they hang on the ceiling fan - but she seems to have remained in basically Zoom-posture in the kitchen, paper notes spread out all over the table. She looks happy for an excuse to get up, removing her glasses and just leaving them there with the laptop. 21:37 <tom> His tone of voice suggests this is a conversation that should be happening face-to-face, but he's too chickenshit to say so. 21:38 <tom> He crosses his arms and exhales. "You remember asking me about my glasses? With the interface you couldn't figure out?" 21:39 <banana> "I mean, which.. let me just grab a knife and fork, bibi." 21:40 <tom> He nods along. 21:41 <banana> Mari does this. She's eager to try the wings, but they do look.. messy. You end up squashed onto the same sofa, with Mari giving Bob an expectant look. She doesn't seem worried. 21:43 <tom> "It's a five millimeter chip." Bob presses his fore and middle fingers into his shoulder, just where the joint meets the collarbone. "Can just barely feel it- a little bump, right where the ligaments connect. "All of us are fitted with one so no one else can use our stuff. I mean, can you imagine what would happen if the black market got a Mjo- well, that's off-topic." 21:44 <tom> "They flip it off remotely if you blood out. Don't know how they do that- but I do know I can turn it back on. Simple job with a soldering iron." 21:44 <tom> But... "I really shouldn't be doing surgery on myself." 21:44 <banana> Mari reaches out to touch the same spot, carefully. Good thing her hands are clean. "They made you into a.. cyborg?" Odd note to her voice now, but it'd be odd to NOT sound odd. 21:45 <tom> "Wh- oh, come on. It's barely different from what they do to dogs." 21:46 <banana> "No, I mean.. well it's good that this isn't very intrusive. It's still some shite to do that after shanghaiing you in the first place." 21:48 <tom> "I don't blame them. The only reason I didn't end up in Clemens was because they wanted what I was working on. Whole thing was a bust anyway. Thank God for the war on terror or they wouldn't have been so desperate." 21:49 <tom> "Just remember if some asshole tells you he has a sun bomb, that shit does not work." 21:50 <tom> "Good news though, the only reason I need to flip the chip back on is because soon we're going to be rich." 21:50 <banana> "The vampires here leave us alone, so- huh. Umm, I don't want to be all suspicious of the good news bibi, could you tell me the whole thing so I can digest it?" 21:51 <banana> And digest these wings, presumably. 21:51 <tom> For the first time, Bob is going to actively resist this. "...You know I wouldn't tell you something just because it's like.." 21:51 <tom> "Rrrrreally important?" 21:52 <tom> Bob already got his fill of wings at the safehouse, so his hands are free to wring impotently. 21:53 <tom> He squints. Shit, he's still wearing his sunglasses. He takes them off. 21:53 <banana> Mari: "I know not everything goes to hell. It's just, whatever this is already comes with elective surgery, which is freaking me out in ways that we're going to have to talk about, and I could do it, but.. why are we going to be rich?" 21:54 <tom> "It's a seller's market for kicking asses right now, apparently." 21:55 <tom> "But even better news, the job comes with protection. Apparently there's deals being worked on for some sort of.. what would you call it?" Cross-sectarian militia? No.. 21:55 <tom> "The point is that we'll be operating with some kind of official sanction from.. the big guys." 21:58 <banana> Mari blinks. She's not resistant about this, just confused. "The government? The Church? Davos?" 21:58 <tom> "I heard the name 'Damani' at the party." 21:59 <tom> Bob is squinting at her for a reaction. He's still learning what makes her tick. 22:00 <tom> "I mean the people who really run the city, you know." 22:00 <tom> He shakes it off. It doesn't seem right to play games like that. 22:01 <banana> "Oh. Sydney Damani's a vampire, and they probably run.. a lot more of it than they should. I think he's their.. Alderman? Or Constable?" 22:01 <tom> "That sounds about like what I expected." 22:02 <banana> Mari: "Okay, let me put the pieces together. I'm sorry to be so pedantic Bob, I just need clarity sometimes." 22:02 <tom> "Well in theory.. at least.. from what I've put together, it should mean I'm working under their umbrella." 22:02 <tom> He falls silent and lets her do her thing. 22:02 <banana> "You've got a job offer, doing the heroic stuff you used to do, but this time sanctioned by the Night Mayor instead of the American government?" 22:03 <tom> Bob is too credulous to say anything otherwise: "Yes, ma'am." 22:04 <banana> "I like being ma'am. .. ..so they want you doing this stuff, and you need your gear back, and it's activated by a chip. But." 22:04 <banana> "If we can turn the chip back on, will you be... hunted?" 22:04 <tom> "No more so than before." 22:05 <tom> "I'm the only one left and I skipped the debrief on the way out the door. They already will have Questions." 22:05 <banana> Mari leans back and rubs her suddenly-overfull stomach. Her hair spills over the shitty cushions, and there's a wondering expression on her face. "These parallels keep popping up." 22:05 <banana> "Sometimes I wonder if I'm dreaming, if I'm back in America or Arcadia. Whether they're the same thing." 22:06 <tom> "Buddy, I wish I could tell you." 22:06 <banana> "'Buddy' is a no-go." 22:06 <tom> "Yes'm." 22:07 <banana> "It's just.. you got taken in, changed, escaped with special capabilities. They're looking for you, if not the most actively." 22:07 <banana> "I like you very much Bob. It's just odd how easy it is to relate." 22:07 <tom> "Is that what the Cheiron Group did? To you?" He does not manage the pronounciation well. 22:09 <banana> Mari sits back up. "No, they just gassed me and the whole class on a school trip to Boston. It was practically.. ironic. I had to fight the administration for weeks to even be on that junket." 22:10 <banana> "Cheiron didn't leave me with anything... except you." 22:10 <banana> "Those guys are nothing. Don't get me wrong, I support your goal. Any time you want to bomb a Cheiron facility I will hold the match." 22:10 <banana> "But they're not really any different from like.. Royal Dutch Shell." 22:11 <tom> "I don't think you've introduced me to them yet." 22:11 <banana> Mari: "The oil company." 22:11 <tom> "Oh shit right. Back on-target." 22:12 <banana> "Where is the chip? Your shoulder? I'm confident I can get it out safely but we'd need an anaesthetist." 22:12 <tom> "I mean.. I mean aren't those companies actually destroying the whole planet? That's not nothing." 22:12 <tom> "Yeah. I don't.. you know I'm not a medic. It's between this bone and that bone-" He gestures. 22:13 <banana> "Climate change is just a metaphor, Bob." 22:14 <tom> "Well that's a relief, I sure hope that heat that destroyed Idaho was metaphoric-" If Mari wants to surprise him with a ninja jab to the arm right now would be a good time. 22:15 <banana> "Idaho.. is probably a metaphor." Mari looks less certain of this. 22:15 <banana> "What I mean is like... you still dream, right? 22:15 <tom> "Never really got much out of it. Mostly just waking up with a certain feeling, you know." 22:15 <tom> "I got small-brain dreams. Bug dreams." 22:15 <banana> Mari: "Uh-huh. I've noticed the feeling." 22:17 <banana> "Um, what I MEAN is:" 22:18 <banana> "To some extent the whole world is a dream, basically, or some of the most important stuff.. it goes in both directions. But you can't just, like, destroy the world, not through human action. That's actually as much of a fiction as christian zealots say it is!" 22:18 <banana> "To have a real shot at destroying the world, you've got to operate on another level. Even the vampires wouldn't be able to do it. They're part of the world and play by the rules, just as an underside.. bugs again, the kind when you lift a rock." Her nose wrinkles. Vampires: not appealing. 22:19 <tom> Bob is still peering wearily at her from a slouched position. "There's always the bomb." 22:19 <tom> "Hey babe I don't really wanna focus on the apocalypse.." 22:20 <banana> Mari's worldview: "If the world is warming.. carbon and greed are just mechanisms for that. They're expressions of a distortion in the Wyrd or some faraway crisis in Cosmos. There are other kinds of things out there that I don't know much about but they visit.. realms which are on the edge of this one and shape it as they are shaped." 22:20 <banana> "It'll happen whether or not we focus on it." She snorts sadly. 22:20 <tom> "Oh, it's like.. I guess it is like a metaphor then." 22:21 <tom> "So is it our side or theirs that's out of balance?" 22:22 <banana> "How should I know?" 22:34 <tom> "You're worried about putting me under the knife." 22:35 <banana> Mari: "Yeah, of course. There's risk in any surgery, no matter how minor." 22:37 <tom> Bob squeezes her knee again. "I looked up some charts after I got it put in the first time. It's nowhere near any arteries- they kind of hug the ribcage and," Bob gestures up with his finger. "Zwip up into the bottom of the arm. The chip's hugging the collarbone." 22:37 <tom> "As for the anaesthetic- I've had worse done." 22:38 <banana> Mari: "Sternoclavicular joint? That's a good place for it. Little pouch of skin you can basically sew a chip in, those things are modern miracles... um, not that I think the government SHOULD be putting these things in people, but they didn't do it a dumb way." 22:41 <tom> "So it isn't just like.. Keebler Elf stuff. Even shit you promise to other people is like.." 22:41 <banana> "The thing is, I promised first to do no harm. Not.. a statistically improbable rate of harm.." 22:42 <tom> "The way I'm looking at it, the harm's pretty minimal compared to what would happen if I can't turn on my Huginn visor when some room-temp with glowing eyes tells me to stick my fist up my ass." 22:45 <banana> Mari: "Setting aside whatever that visor is. Sounds mythological. But I get that we should reactivate it.. I know you'll be able to handle yourself out there when you've got your gear, but is this a starts-Monday thing? What makes it so important to keep everyone out of it but me?" 22:45 <banana> "I won't say it doesn't feel nice. Us against the world. But you said yourself that having people, plural, is important." 22:47 <tom> "Sure, but what reason do any of these fine, incredible people, have to have faith in me if I'm just a normie with a chip on- well. You get it." 22:48 <banana> Mari: "'They don't know you like I do'. Very romantic. Like actually it is, I guess." 22:49 <banana> "Aye, look, you might be right about this. The balance of risks and rewards. It's just, there is something I haven't made glass-clear." 22:50 <tom> Bob cups her hand in his. 22:50 <banana> "You know some of what I am, right? And the others. But not the details." 22:50 <banana> "You know we're bound to Faerie.. bound from Faerie but never all the way out." 22:50 <tom> "I know what ADAMSKI told us, and I now know most of that was utter shit." 22:51 <tom> Bob, who does not understand: "Sure, I understand." 22:52 <tom> "I mean..." 22:52 <tom> "You got out, though." 22:52 <banana> Mari: "Someone got out." 22:52 <banana> "I'm not totally human anymore. 'A Man more or less', it says in Domesday, and we're not sure which is less or more. That means I'm part of that world.. there are benefits, actually, but I have to follow the rules." 22:53 <tom> "I'm not sure if being a man is all it's cracked up to be." 22:53 <banana> "I've made... promises. To things, places, goblins. The night sky. In exchange for trading things to the sky I have my freedom, and there are special things I can do." Mari wouldn't want to be a man either, but this was old English and it's a generic pronoun. 22:54 <tom> Oh, Bob got it. 22:54 <tom> Somtimes being a spider sounds nice. Less complicated. 22:54 <banana> "If I break a promise.. there are consequences. The dream for which this world is a metaphor will take note. And one of my promises is to Hippocrates, a man who lived 2500 years ago in classical Greece." 22:55 <tom> Bob starts. "Wait. Are you saying it would-" 22:55 <banana> "I think in this case you're right and the Oath is is wrong. But if I don't play by the letter of the rules.. something might happen. I don't actually know what?" 22:55 <tom> "You want to rules lawyer this bitch?" 22:57 <tom> He stops himself. "Sorry, I mean, okay- okay. Do you remember the exact wording of the oath?" 22:57 <tom> "Is that how that works?" 22:57 <banana> Mari: "It actually is." 22:57 <banana> "Bearing in mind that the other side has really good lawyers." 22:57 <tom> "Incredible." 22:58 <banana> "Okay, so... the circumstances are weird. I actually took the oath twice, and it was different the second time." 22:59 <tom> Bob leans forward on the couch, perching his elbows on his knees. 22:59 <banana> Mari's chatty now, spilling a bunch of things she hadn't told Bob before. "When I first enrolled in med school I wasn't.. I hadn't been taken. Then I came back, and officially she was failing, had actually filed the paperwork to drop out.. I spent most of three months in this battle with the uni administration and eventually got my degree sort of reset, which is good because I'd missed the actual coursework.." 23:00 <tom> "She?" 23:00 <banana> Mari: "She'd been, like, social, so people knew me and knew I wasn't a good student, even though I am; the compromise, I got help from the hill, was that I'm basically six years into a four year degree now. And I've only been here for two of them." 23:01 <tom> "God damn. That's one hell of an accelerated start program." 23:01 <banana> "It was weird, but could've been worse." 23:01 <tom> "They give you one of those timey-wimblies from Hogwarts, Hermoine?" 23:02 <tom> Last time Bob checked Harry Potter references were still in among the reasonable professional class. Maybe that's changed. Bob doesn't keep up. 23:02 <banana> "So the first time round I took smook" ??? "but it didn't count. After re-enrolling.. re-initialising my enrolment or whatever it was a different practice board and I took the actual classic Hippocratic Oath, summarised-english version. It was a list of principles." 23:03 <banana> "I will have to stop there and check with you what a timey-wimbly is. Doctor Who?" 23:03 <tom> "No, some guy with a dumb name made the rounds with some fan-fiction where Harry destroys the plot with time-tu- you know what, yeah." 23:04 <banana> "..do you read fanfiction??" Mari is hornswoggled, or whatever the british equivalent of hornswoggling is. 23:04 <tom> "Only for irony purposes. It was years ago." 23:05 <banana> "Wow. Same I guess, when I was literally 13." 23:05 <tom> Bob feels old. 23:05 <banana> "It wasn't ironic, I was just a teen girl." 23:06 <tom> He blushes and looks away. "Where were you going, again?" 23:06 <banana> Mari: "I can remember the oath we took the second time around word-for-word, because this one was a real oath to the Wyrd." 23:07 <banana> "'As a medical professional, I make this solemn promise:' 23:07 <banana> 'I will stand in solidarity with teachers and other medical professionals.' 23:07 <banana> 'I will act only to do good to my patients and avoid harm to my patients.' 23:07 <banana> 'I will not assist in suicide or in performing abortions without the consent of the mother.' 23:08 <banana> 'I will not perform surgery without training in the surgical field.' 23:08 <tom> Better not linger too long on what counts as assisting a suicide in this case. 23:08 <banana> 'I will keep my patients' confidence and never gossip about their health.'" 23:09 <banana> "...and I actually do have surgical training, but just one year. Admittedly this is really trivial surgery." 23:10 <banana> "I haven't started a residency. No license to practice at all." 23:10 <tom> "Well, I'll admit it sounds like opening up my shoulder to get at a chip probably counts as harm. But it's been there for years, and they never told me if it'd need to be replaced eventually, or need maintenance.." 23:10 <tom> "Maybe a light biopsy to check the tissue around it would be in my best interest?" 23:11 <banana> Mari: "Did they realise you were more important than the gear you were carrying?" 23:12 <tom> "I don't think they even thought as far as wondering what I'd do if a werewolf slashed my shoulder and all my guns turned off." 23:12 <tom> "It's not about me, it's about their stuff." 23:18 <banana> Mari: "And I guess their stuff is useful enough that we're actually considering this." 23:19 <tom> "Honestly, throw out the rest of the arsenal. These sick shades? Mindfoil, baby." 23:19 <tom> "I'd like to see you try to mind control me with these bad-boys on." 23:19 <tom> "Well, not right now-" He's suddenly anxious. "Bricked." 23:22 <tom> "...But I knew a lot of guys who never went out without these suckers. They're that good." 23:23 <tom> "It's the kind of thing you need when you're throwing hands with bloodsuckers." 23:23 <tom> "I think a little incision is worth that?" 23:24 <banana> Mari: "I was thinking of this as elective surgery, but it's more like an immunisation." 23:24 <banana> "No procedure's without risk. But it's up to me to minimise that harm, even though it will really fucking hurt. You trust me?" 23:25 <banana> "That is, do you trust me and over-the-counter codeine phosphate hemihydrate?" 23:26 <tom> "Way better than chewed-up branch and whiskey." 23:27 <banana> Mari: "I refuse to believe that Missouri was the set of a Clint Eastwood film." 23:27 <tom> As for trust: "I'm sure it'd be pretty big brain for you to let me sleep next to you for two months and then go for my jugular now." 23:27 <banana> "Oh, absolutely glowing." 23:28 <tom> Bob shows her his neck. "Take your shot, kid."