Greybox

[Baloth-Kul]

Gryff

"Shinigami." Gryff admitted. "Not by choice. ...Still not happy when things end up this way, but at least I don't have to blow out their boxes, or kidnap them."

"Dying isn't easy. Doesn't matter if you know you're going to be resleeved or not. As far as your brain and body is concerned, it's the end. Even if he's died a hundred times before, it's still scary."

"Speaking of NOT kidnapping, d'you want to roll the guard out the back before we get airborne? We don't need extra passengers. He'll be fine."

[Kerr]

Gryff cut the greybox out without much incident and pocketed it. They could hear metal clunking overhead, the electromagnet connecting to the carriage. The duo received a message from Mark.

Up up and away

If they wanted to push the unconscious guard out of the train, now was the time to do it.

[Velvet LeChance]

Yirgalum Kidisti

Kidisti passed an uncertain glance at the unconscious body--at least he was still wearing his helmet. Nevertheless, he would wait some time before their carraige had lost it's momentum and slowed, before rolling the body out of the train.

[Kerr]

Kidisti pushed the unconscious guard out of the carriage and the whole car was lifted up and carried off. About half an hour later the car was laid down in a secluded area of countryside. Dan and Mark got off the VTOL and met with the remaining members of the team, they just got finished looking over the cargo when the representatives of the Independent Martian Alliance arrived. There were half a dozen of them in total, the meeting went smoothly, payment was made and Mark, Dan, Kidisti and Gryff got back into their VTOL, returning to the city.

Worryingly, they heard nothing from the Titan crew. They knew about the time delay but, not getting a single message from them, well, it didn't exactly bode well. They left Grayden in his greybox, his memories up to time of death and downloaded Cid's backup from before the mission into a new greybox. They did the same with a backup of Kuo, not knowing if they were still alive on Titan. The following morning Mark, Kidisti and Gryff headed to the Crimson Cartel hideout. Mark would be staying on Mars, taking care of buisness in the Core system while the others headed to The Rim.

The preparations were made, Kuo and the surrogates followed in their own footsteps and were sent on to Titan where they would be looking for an engineer who worked at the Scylla facility, a woman named Lili Larsson who lived at 2 Apricot Apartments on Chomsky Street. All going well they could get her to tell them Scylla's location and how to get inside.


14:30. Thursday, 27th March, 2127.

Horza, Titan

The group woke up in beds in a medical office in Horza, a city on Titan not far from the capital city of New Montreal. There were three members of the Crimson Cartel attending to them as they came to. The Lifeboat members all had a mesh insert, greybox and skillsoft implant loaded with basic combat training in their new bodies. It seemed that Kuo, being leader of the group, had been woken up and put in a shell several minutes before the others as they were already up, alert and dressed.

Grayden awoke in an augmented splicer shell, it had appearance that of a 40 year old Vietnamese man with cybernetic eyes and metal subdermal armor on the torso. The body also had cybernetic hands capable of 360 degree rotation, the hands had a flesh covering so wouldn't be immediately noticeable as cybernetic.

Kidisti awoke in a basic splicer shell looking like an attractive Latino man in his mid 20s.

Gryff awoke in a basic splicer shell looking like a Vietnamese woman in their early 20s.

Cid awoke in a worker borg, looking like a white man in their 30s. Several organs were cybernetic, including the spine as were both legs.

Kuo was in an android shell, a black skinned man in their 20s. The surrogates wouldn't be sure about the specifics of its capabilities though.

:

Grayden

Spoiler:

Kidisti

Spoiler:

Gryff

Spoiler:

Cid

Spoiler:

Kuo

Spoiler:

When the others woke up, Kuo asked the staff to leave the group so they could talk in private. The Crimson Cartel members left the room and Kuo addressed the surrogates. "I messaged myself but didn't get a response." said Kuo in a worried tone. "Don't suppose any of you have heard from yourselves either."

[Aarah]

Grayden

Grayden awoke and looked around. He saw the others and wondered where he was.
The last thing he remembered was being on the train. He felt relieved.
Someone got me Greybox out then.

He looked down at himself; his hands, his body. He was in a new shell, male again, good.

"Hey." He said to Kuo.
"Where we at? Did the train mission go good?"
Grayden was a little confused and needed to get his bearings.

[Baloth-Kul]

Gryff

Gryff pouted after they did a quick self diagnostic. "No bells and whistles, huh? Guess I'll just have to be creative. At least I'm cute."

"Nope, no word from any-me. Let's not freak out yet, though."

[BetaB17]

Cid - Back from the grave [&@%!]

Cid stirred from his daze, laxzily looking around as if woken from a long sleep."Back again..." and as if replaying a scene of deja vu, his left hand glided up towards his face, and his ring finger between his teeth. "Gre-at" he said under a muffled voice, shortly before a good crunch followed. And a severed finger got spit across the bed, a spiddle of blood dripping down his chin

He didnt even have enough time to get his bearings, or let alone care who was who before just adding "Maybe they're dead..: looking up towards Kuo with an empathic shrug "Can't be the worse to happen..."

[Aarah]

Grayden

He watched the worker borg's antics.

"Why you gotta do that?!" He said as Cid spat out his finger.
"It's [&@%!] disgusting!"

"Why's he even in this group; he's just a bloody liability!"

Grayden pointed a finger at Cid. "It's your fault that the mission went tits up! Maybe you don't care about yuhself, but you got me killed, and who knows what else!" He hadn't given Kuo time to answer his previous question, so still didn't know if the train heist had ended well or not.

He pointed his finger ferociously several times as he spoke.
"As far as I'm concerned, you can [&@%!] off and do your weird arse [&@%!] somewhere else!"

The Vietnamese man glared at Cid. If looks could kill, he would be needing a new shell again.

[BetaB17]

He didnt seem to put up much of a defense, after all, he couldnt recall anything. In a meek expression, he held out his hand, at the stub ,and calmly said "It's the only way.. it's me still."

As Grayden continued to lash out at Cid, whether out of boredom or natural response, he pulled his legs up and pressed his knees against himself, leaning his dull, shallow face against them "It's not like I ever asked to be here.. or brought back.." but other than that, he said nothing more. Didnt even try to berate or ignore him. If anything, he just couldnt deny what was said

[Baloth-Kul]

Gryff

Gryff's brow furrowed. Same old [&@%!].

"...Literally just said 'let's not freak out'. We don't know how the job went, and it really doesn't matter for the job ahead."

"If existence is such a bother, just off yourself. You keep acting like something is holding you back, but I don't see it. Also, maybe consider something like a tattoo to tell your selves apart. A happy face on your ass. Or come up with a secret handshake."

"If you want something to be miserable about, any of you, worry about the Shinigami. A wasted shell or a gnawed finger doesn't compare to the [&@%!] they'll do to us if you [&@%!] this up."

[Kerr]

"Well, we aren't working for the Shinigami. They were. They didn't report in. Which is exactly why I'm worried." said Kuo glaring at the surrogates. Kuo ran his hand through their hair and adjusted his stance. "So, keep an eye out and avoid them if they're looking for us. We'll see if we hear from ourselves but, regardless, we need to speak to Lili Larsson. She's probably already spoken to at least some of you with Constance DuClair, we can play on that. But she knows where Scylla is and how to get in there and she's going to tell us."

As Kuo was talking, Cid received a file with a video message from the mesh. The video was untitled and the sender's name was just a meaningless string of characters. Still, whoever it was, they got past his Jeeves Spam filters. The helper AI must have determined it was worth watching.

[Aarah]

Grayden

"Well, you did ask to be here cos you joined up." Grayden muttered quickly to Cid, like a child getting in the last word.

He gave a nod of agreement at Gryff's suggestion that Cid could just off himself if he wanted to.
"I'll give yuh a hand, if yuh like." Grayden grinned at the borg.

At Kuo's information, he repiled, "Great. So now we got two M.I.A. versions of ourselves. This is turnin' into a, 'what happened to the Graydens' adventure, int it?!"

[BetaB17]

Cid didnt bother to put up much defense, no more than a lifeless doll. Blood continued to stain the side of his leg

As he spotted the message pass into his mesh, he looked objectively at the scramble of letters. The thought didnt even occur to mention it to anybody, or not to open it

[Kerr]

The video started playing for Cid alone. Before the woman in a snazzy dress and expensive bioshell even started speaking, Cid could tell who it was. "The Shinigami brother?" she said with a scoff. "Bold of you, I'm almost impressed. Did you put them up to it or was it the other way round? Well, no matter. Your assault failed, your killswitches blew but, I think we both know how the Shinigami punish failure. My visit to Titan was brief and I'll be leaving soon, so, I just sent this to let you know, I'm not the only one looking out for you, keeping you backed up." The woman smiled and delivered one final line before the video came to an end. "You must be delighted."
---
"I'm almost wondering if we should track the Shinigami down. Knowing they have my ego, it's, I don't like." said Kuo.

[Aarah]

Grayden

"Let's just get on with seeing this Lili girl. That's our main priority."

Grayden nodded towards Kuo.
"You're Kuo, I take it."

He looked between the two fellow splicer shells.
"Which one of yuhs Yirg?"

[BetaB17]

Cid's eye twitched a bit, at least some sign of facial expression, however small, before a cold sigh "Yeah.. delightful.."

He swinged his feet off the side of the bed, and scratched the back of his head "It's no point chasing down your egos.. What's gone is gone..." he tried to stand up, a little wobbly at first as if he didnt want to support his own weight "Just look forward.. not back.." especially when you have something chasing after ya

A short message was sent over to Kuo. Simple and to the point, with discretion written all over it

We need to talk

[Kerr]

"Gryff, Kidisti." said Kuo, pointing at the respective members of the team. Kuo's smartclothes had shifted to a black leather jacket, white t-shirt, black jeans and black boots. The others were in default jumpsuits, but could change to whatever they wanted. "I got up about half an hour before all of you, worked out the bodies, got the Cartel to supply us with some gear. Gun and knives, hopefully we don't need them. Food, transport, bits and bobs, all that's free on Titan. But if we end up really needing something, lot of people still take chits so, should be fine."

Kuo sent a message to Cid

About?

Do we need to go to a different room or are messages fine?

[BetaB17]

I don't care how

But it's something you don't want the others to hear

His lowly gaze drifted over a bit

A persistent shimmer has been rippling through his smart fibers, before finally darkening to the same old, dark attire, before slowly alternating white strips along his long sleeves. An iconic yellow circuit pattern appeared around his collar, extending into an ill suited turtle neck

[Kerr]

Kuo paused, their face scrunched slightly, they were clearly thinking about something. "Damn, I need to check on something old business. Be back in a minute, y'all just, adjust yourselves." said Kuo.

Kuo opened the door and while heading out it gave an order. "Cid, with me. Need your help."

[BetaB17]

Cid slinked over, offering nothing to gleam from, other than his supposed compliance

[Kerr]

Kuo stopped in their tracks shortly town the hallway. "Alright, talk." said Kuo quite impatiently, maintaining eye contact with Cid.

[Aarah]

Grayden

After Kuo and Cid left the room, Grayden scoffed and got up off the bed.
"Huh. Don't know why she wants his help." He said to Gryff and Kidisti. "Unless she wants him to bite a body part off, ay."

His outfit began to change from the standard jumpsuit into a pair of tight leather trousers and a rainbow coloured vest that shimmered whenever he walked.

"I'm gonna check myself out."

"You comin', Gryff?"

[BetaB17]

Cid began to rub at his elbow, and looking down and away from Kuo's eye contact. Though, it was hard to say if this was deliberate or just another quirk "Our shells.. the egos, on Titan. They're gone"

He waited a moment to let that sink in, or, the suspicion at least, before pointing at the base of his neck really quick "Like.. gone gone"

"I just know.. so whether we failed or went rogue.. do you think the Shinigami won't see it differently" he lifted his gaze to meet Kuo's for a moment "They'll be after us.. Figured you ought to know.." he shrugged towards the door, towards the others "..but them? I dont reckon they'll take it well.."

He took a small step back "Your call.. I don't care either way.." he flexed his hand a bit, a bloody stump still there "Worse things could happen.." death surely not being one of them

[Kerr]

"What!?" Kuo exclaimed. "How do you know? Who told you?"

"And yes it makes a goddamn difference. If we [&@%!] up that's one thing, they still have our egos and I don't like that. But if we screwed them over, they'll never let it go. So tell me. Everything. Now." Kuo commanded, clearly anxious.

[BetaB17]

Cid didnt seem to show much response to Kuo's outburst. He held up a finger to his lips, as if cautioning to keep the volume less audible. Then after a moment, with slumped shoulders he shrugged "We failed. Kill switches blew. What more is there to say?" he looked at Kuo with an unempathatic, gloomy look "As I said, they're gone"