It is impossible to travel to the beach with @apothary1 on TikTok. See if you could travel to the beach today!
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRwBjhB1/
Traveled to the beach gets @apothary1 over a million views a week!

https://instagram.com/p/Cs4YM80SDRt/
1 year. 1 week. Owned Blastoise for 53 weeks and man… what an awesome experience. Took this car everywhere from Los Angeles (a couple of times), to Portland (countless times), to San Francisco, to Vancouver, BC, to Cascade mountains, to Ocean Shores, to Long Beach and daily driving, totaling 35,329 miles driven.
Was skeptical about electric vehicles, especially battery degeneration but so far, it seems like the battery is still very healthy.
How do I know it’s very healthy? With a small sample from today’s driving, drove 183 miles and the car consumed 38 kWh. With an efficiency of 207 Watt hour (Wh) per mile. Averaging 60 mph and outside temp about 70 F. Blastoise has a 75 kWh battery pack. Math breakdown: With an efficiency of 207 Wh/mi. 1 kWh = 4.831 miles. 75 kWh x 4.831 = 362 miles. On a good day, this car can still travel over 350 miles in one full charge. Now that’s amazing!
In larger sample size. Blastoise traveled 35,329 miles, averaging 239 watt hour per mile and consumed a total of 8,430 kWh. After driving all four season in various weather conditions and driving conditions, in one full charge, Blastoise can go about 313 miles. 45 miles less then an EPA range of 358 miles. Approximately 87% battery life remain. But that number is arbitrary. I expect during warmer months the efficiency will be better and the battery degradation will improve. All in all, this 2022 Tesla Model 3 is absolutely amazing!
Let’s talk about money saved compared to gas. My previous car was a 2010 Honda Civic.
In the past year, IF I drove the Civic 35,000 miles, it would have consumed 1,000 gallons of gasoline. I would have paid roughly $4,300 in gas. *(Civic mpg is about 35mpg, average gas price for the past year I’d say is ROUGHLY $4.30/gal)
Past year, I drove Blastoise about 35,329 miles consumed 8,430 kWh and it would have costed $917 in electricity IF I charged at home the whole time but I didn’t. Did some super charging on road trips, so I estimated $1,100 in total electricity cost counting both at home charging and super charging. *(Blastoise efficiency is 239 Wh, with an average electricity rate of .11 cents and super charging )
Saving me roughly $3,200. Also did no maintenance except adding windshield fluid and occasionally add air to the tires, which is free at Costco, and tire rotations, which is also free at discount tires. All in all savings of over $3,500!!!

https://instagram.com/p/Cs4YM80SDRt/
1 year. 1 week. Owned Blastoise for 53 weeks and man… what an awesome experience. Took this car everywhere from Los Angeles (a couple of times), to Portland (countless times), to San Francisco, to Vancouver, BC, to Cascade mountains, to Ocean Shores, to Long Beach and daily driving, totaling 35,329 miles driven.
Was skeptical about electric vehicles, especially battery degeneration but so far, it seems like the battery is still very healthy.
How do I know it’s very healthy? With a small sample from today’s driving, drove 183 miles and the car consumed 38 kWh. With an efficiency of 207 Watt hour (Wh) per mile. Averaging 60 mph and outside temp about 70 F. Blastoise has a 75 kWh battery pack. Math breakdown: With an efficiency of 207 Wh/mi. 1 kWh = 4.831 miles. 75 kWh x 4.831 = 362 miles. On a good day, this car can still travel over 350 miles in one full charge. Now that’s amazing!
In larger sample size. Blastoise traveled 35,329 miles, averaging 239 watt hour per mile and consumed a total of 8,430 kWh. After driving all four season in various weather conditions and driving conditions, in one full charge, Blastoise can go about 313 miles. 45 miles less then an EPA range of 358 miles. Approximately 87% battery life remain. But that number is arbitrary. I expect during warmer months the efficiency will be better and the battery degradation will improve. All in all, this 2022 Tesla Model 3 is absolutely amazing!
Let’s talk about money saved compared to gas. My previous car was a 2010 Honda Civic.
In the past year, IF I drove the Civic 35,000 miles, it would have consumed 1,000 gallons of gasoline. I would have paid roughly $4,300 in gas. *(Civic mpg is about 35mpg, average gas price for the past year I’d say is ROUGHLY $4.30/gal)
Past year, I drove Blastoise about 35,329 miles consumed 8,430 kWh and it would have costed $917 in electricity IF I charged at home the whole time but I didn’t. Did some super charging on road trips, so I estimated $1,100 in total electricity cost counting both at home charging and super charging. *(Blastoise efficiency is 239 Wh, with an average electricity rate of .11 cents and super charging )
Saving me roughly $3,200. Also did no maintenance except adding windshield fluid and occasionally add air to the tires, which is free at Costco, and tire rotations, which is also free at discount tires. All in all savings of over $3,500!!!

I've been listening to Skeptoid a little as a sort of break from some of the culture-war-heavy podcasts I usually listen to. The host strikes me as a bit centrist but I hadn't heard anything too off base until today
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4886
The quote is in the first 5 min but luckily they transcribe the show. It's a student Q&A and the first question is:

Do you know anything about Alex Jones, and if so, have you ever thought about making content on him?

Reflexively I thought he'd say "kf already does that" or at least reference the pod. I wasn't ready for his actual response:

So as a general policy, I don't do episodes attacking specific living individuals. There's a liability angle, but there's also — I don't know — people aren't the problem so much as bad ideas are. It's more useful to study bad ideas, find out why they exist, and solve that; rather than blaming the people who have bought into them. Arguably, Alex Jones is someone who doesn't fit this mold. It seems clear from the court records of all the lawsuits he's brought down upon himself and lost, that he's a deliberate creator of disinformation, not an innocent believer in it.
Earlier in his career, Alex Jones promoted any conspiracy theory, whether it was far left or far right. But later, likely in his response to the Sandy Hook event, he found his most passionate supporters were on the far right and he seems to have made a business decision to align himself with that fringe.
In short, the reason Sandy Hook appealed to the right wing more than the left wing has to do with the fact the left wants more gun control. Alex Jones' narrative is that Sandy Hook was staged by the government to fire up anti-gun sentiment, and make it easier for the government to seize all privately owned firearms. This would be an affront to the right, which favors less gun control. So Alex Jones immediately became a darling of the right, and that's where he's stayed. My sympathies to that group.

Unreal. There's a lot to unpack here but I guess the only reason the "far left" didn't buy into the AJ Sandy Hook narrative is because they want gun control! It's laughable on it's face but also, most "far left" people I know don't really want gun control because they think it'll be targeted at minority communities that will need guns to protect themselves in this political climate. But this whole take is so naive I stopped listening and unsubscribed. He's so far off I don't think I can really trust what's said in the show any longer

​
For today's slate, the top 5 projected fantasy scorers are:

1. Arike Ogunbowale $10800 (DAL): Our model has Arike Ogunbowale projected for 52.08 fantasy point with a minutes projection of 37.97. DK value: 4.82
   
2. Breanna Stewart $13000 (NYL): Our model has Breanna Stewart projected for 50.4 fantasy point with a minutes projection of 32.54. DK value: 3.88
   
3. Sabrina Ionescu $10300 (NYL): Our model has Sabrina Ionescu projected for 47.19 fantasy point with a minutes projection of 31.65. DK value: 4.58
   
4. Alyssa Thomas $12000 (CON): Our model has Alyssa Thomas projected for 45.33 fantasy point with a minutes projection of 35.33. DK value: 3.78
   
5. Courtney Vandersloot $9300 (NYL): Our model has Courtney Vandersloot projected for 39.91 fantasy point with a minutes projection of 29.06. DK value: 4.29
   

​
The top 5 DK values are:

1. Arike Ogunbowale $10800 (DAL): Our model has Arike Ogunbowale projected for 52.08 fantasy point with a minutes projection of 37.97. DK value: 4.82
   
2. Sabrina Ionescu $10300 (NYL): Our model has Sabrina Ionescu projected for 47.19 fantasy point with a minutes projection of 31.65. DK value: 4.58
   
3. Courtney Vandersloot $9300 (NYL): Our model has Courtney Vandersloot projected for 39.91 fantasy point with a minutes projection of 29.06. DK value: 4.29
   
4. Brionna Jones $8800 (CON): Our model has Brionna Jones projected for 36.9 fantasy point with a minutes projection of 28.65. DK value: 4.19
   
5. Breanna Stewart $13000 (NYL): Our model has Breanna Stewart projected for 50.4 fantasy point with a minutes projection of 32.54. DK value: 3.88
   

The episode resumed with another shot of the pile of boulder as Chris began to speak. "Welcome back to Total Drama World Tour," he greeted as the shot panned back over to him and Chef. "We're here on beautiful Rapa Nui," the camera zoomed in on Chef as he got ready to push another stone sphere, "where somebody is about to go Rapa splat-splat! Wait for it...," the host said with an eager smile.
\
"It's bad enough we had to climb the statues just to find these breakable eggs," Topher said as the focus returned to him and the others. "Now there's boulders?"
"Those are just there to make the challenge harder for us," Ezekiel explained.
"One of us has to be the lookout and seek for boulders so we can avoid them and keep our eggs intact," Eva said.
"Allow me to be in front of the Izzy train!" Izzy exclaimed. "All aboard!"
\
The scene flashed back to Mal in the tunnel, a slight rumbling sound barely audible. He noticed the sound that was coming closer, and tripped and stumbled into the wall, getting knocked back into the path of the boulder and being crushed into a hole of himself.
"Are my eggs still intact?" Mal said, looking at his own basket only to find the cracked eggs on the ground. "That's just great!"
\
The shot returned to the alliance hiding in a hole as the boulder rolled over them. They poked themselves out once the boulder was gone.
"That was a close one!" Ezekiel panted.
"Tell me about it," Eva remarked.
"So you guys have become a quartet," Mal laughed when he came into view. "How heartwarming."
"Mock us all you want, but we still have our eggs while yours are broken," Topher grinned.
"I'm not going to fret on it. I can find a batch of eggs quickly and effectively," Mal boasted proudly while walking away.
"Have fun coming in last place!" Izzy yelled as she and her alliance got themselves out of the hole.
"We better get out of here if we don't want him to catch up," Ezekiel said. "He's able to use Manitoba Smith's investigation skills to help himself."
\
The scene cut to the beach, the shot focusing on the stone heads of Sky and Noah.
"This place is clear of eggs," Mal said as he climbed up Noah's statue. He found something in Noah's ear, which turned out to be a bunch of books that promptly piled out and knocked him off his perch.
The scene skipped ahead to Mal looking into Owen's mouth and taking out assorted items. "Toast? Sausage? A coconut?" he wondered in an upset tone. "Owen, you are so useless!"
The statue suddenly burped out a blue egg, and Mal managed to catch it. "Good. Now where next?"
The shot cut to Mal taking an egg out of Jo's hair. "Jo was actually cooperative for once!" he said. "I'm still in the game!"
Mal got off the statue just as a piercing cry and a large winged shadow passing overhead caught the man's attention.
"That is a giant condor," Mal said with a rising panic as the perspective turned upwards to show a large condor soaring overhead looking down at him. "That explains the size of these eggs!"
He looked back at the condor, which screeched and dived towards him. Mal took off towards the cave, the condor screeching and swooping right behind him.
\
The scene flashed back to the tunnels, where the four were steadily making their climb. "So even though you were helping Mal, you don't have any real tips on how to stop him?" Eva asked Topher.
"All we need is luck, and with Mal being nowhere to be seen right now, it's already granted upon us," Topher said.
"Luck never gets me anywhere," Ezekiel lamented. "I have to try my butt off if I want to achieve things in life, like graduating elementary and middle school."
"Aren't you homeschooled?" Izzy asked. "It should be easier for you."
"We're educated differently, but I struggle as much as you guys do, so don't call homeschooling easy," Ezekiel said.
"Geez. I was just trying to be nice," Izzy spoke out.
The panicked howl of Mal suddenly came from behind them, surprising the quartet.
"And he caught up with us sooner than I thought," Eva thought aloud as she and her team turned to look back down the tunnel.
Mal was shown running towards them, holding his three eggs while the giant condor flew and screeched right behind him.
"The condor is why!" Topher yelled in panic, the group turning to run with Mal.
\
Back outside the higher cave exit, Chris was measuring parts of a giant stone Chef head as the man himself prepared to push it.
"Dude," Chris said as he moved his tape measure around, "we gotta get back to boulders."
A quintet of screaming voices caught the attention of both men, the camera zooming out just as Mal ran out of the cave, followed by Eva, Ezekiel, Topher, and Izzy. They stopped together just past Chef, but Izzy tripped on a rock, allowing for her eggs to slip out from her grasp and break on the floor.
"My eggs are cracked, and all the king's horses and men won't be able to put them together again!" Izzy whined.
"Man, you guys are really competing!" Chris commented with a happy smile.
He was answered by several frantic and disjointed pleas which, overall, asked that the cave be closed off. Chef promptly complied, pushing the statue of his head over to block the cave entrance.
Moments later the condor crashed into it with a painful crunch, its feet and a few feathers jutting out between a few gaps.
"Oh man, so close!" Chris lamented as he looked back at the blocked cave. "Way to ruin the fun! We may as well move on to the next challenge," he said, turning back to the contestants and bending down to pick something up. "Since Mal was the first one out," he said before tossing the dark alter an umpire's mask.
"I'm playing baseball?" Mal asked with uncertainty.
"Thankfully no," Chris replied. "You must climb this rock pillar all the way up to...," he explained, the camera showing the cast looking behind them before panning up a tall, thin, and craggy pillar with a large bird's nest at the very top.
"A giant condor nest?" Eva said as the shot zoomed in on the nest.
"You already know they can get pret-ty crabby," Chris explained. "But did you know female condors are even bigger than the dude birds?"
The five contestants were shown looking at him with blank shock before a loud screech turned their attention upwards, where a large condor silhouette was looking down at them. "She's a big one!" Ezekiel commented in horror.
"Yup, twelve-foot wingspan," Chris said matter-of-factly.
"That's almost as wide as two of me," Mal said.
Confessional: Izzy
"One Mal is already bad enough," Izzy said to the camera. "With two, they could usurp Darth Vader and Ra's al Ghul combined!"
Confessional Ends
"See, she's kinda peeved 'cause you guys stole her eggs," Chris told the cast.
"We didn't steal the eggs!" Topher frantically tried to tell the bird. "He's the one that did!" He turned apologetic. "Sorry Chris!"
"So now you have to try to shimmy up to the nest, and give 'em back," Chris continued, "in the order in which you arrived here, last place to first. Of course, Mama's got a whole lot more eggs up there," the shot cut to the mother condor perched angrily on the edge of her nest, "so, she's bound to be a tad protective."
The mother condor let loose a screech that shook the camera.
"So that's the reward," Ezekiel said as Mal put his umpire's mask on. "The giant condor can peck the eyeballs of their predators."
"And I'm not going to be its prey!" Mal said cruelly.
"Since my eggs are broken, does this mean I'm out of the challenge?" Izzy raised her hand.
"'Fraid so. Deposit all three eggs and you win," Chris explained. "And if nobody makes it, we'll try it again! It's gonna be that much fun."
Topher grabbed his eggs out of Izzy's basket and stuffed them down his pants. "Win for us since I can't," Izzy ordered the boy moving forward.
"Oh," Chris interrupted, causing the Chris fan to flinch, "and one more thing."
"Come on," Topher muttered. "What else could you-"
He was answered by the familiar ding and icon that signaled a musical number. "It's for your own protection," Chris told them. "Keeps the birds calm. I'm lying," he said with a mischievous smirk, "or I'm not! You choose!"
///\
[A Latin melody began to play, and the mother condor screeched again from atop its nest.]
"I'm smooth, I'm gelled, I'm young, I'm handsome!"
[Topher opened, the camera flashing in sequence from a close-up of his tapping feet, to his swaying hips, to his waggling butt, and lastly to a side view of his eyes and smile.]
"I'm coming to bring back your small ones... So calm down you, condor."
[The condor was shown bobbing and bouncing in enjoyment of the music as Topher steadily climbed up the rock spire. He reached the top of the nest, and the condor screeched at him.]
"I will win and you'll see. So try, attack me! But, I am committed! I don't mind that pecking, so, keep being ticked!"
[Topher paused for a few beats in confidence, and the condor pecked him to no avail. As the mother bird continued its fruitless assault, Topher started placing the red eggs he was carrying into the nest: first one, then another.]
"Quiet, condor. Let me in the Final Four!"
[Topher told it as he held out the third egg he'd brought. He was answered by a wing sweep that knocked him clear off the pillar.
"No!" he groaned on his back on the ground, just before the third egg splattered on his face.
"Next!" Chris said, popping into view on the right.]
"Iiiii, oh Ii~ii~ii do not like condors, do not like condors!"
[Ezekiel sang next, looking upwards while the basket containing his eggs hung off his shoulder as he climbed.]
"Whyyyy, oh whyy~yy~yy, am I doing this. I ponder!"
[He added as he grabbed the next handhold, the shot panning up to the nest to show the condor enjoying the song again.]
"Trust meeee, oh trust me~ee. I don't want to soar, so let me in the Final Four!"
[Ezekiel sang as he finally managed to pull himself up to the nest level. He quickly put the first two eggs into the nest under the stern gaze of their mother, but the moment he ended his line the condor headbutted him in the gut and caused him to fall from the pillar.
The shot immediately cut down to show Ezekiel groaning on the ground. "My eggs!" he shouted until the basket with all three eggs landed on his chest.
"Good news!" Chris told him as the camera panned to the left just a little bit to show him standing over him. "You can have another chance later, but first..." He looked back to the left, and the song continued over a shot of Eva's determined face.]
"I'm a winner, so don't be giving me flak!"
[Eva called up forcefully towards the nest, climbing steadily with her three green eggs inside her bjorn.]
"'Cause my fist packs a big punch, and you don't want to see that!"
[She reached the top, and began to place eggs in the nest just as the two before her had. The mother condor, though still bobbing to the beat, seemed to be displeased nonetheless.]
"Listen, condor. Let me into the Final Four!"
[She was answered by the condor growling at her in anger. "So… I could've said that better," she gulped.
The camera stuck to Mal as Eva fell past her, and Chris called out "Mal?" in an expectant and impish tone.]
"Iiiii, how Ii~ii~ii, how I really hate these birds, and I am not mincing these words!"
[Mal sang, not missing a beat even at the thud of Eva's landing.]
"Theeeese inferior punks, are causing me pain. And you're the one I have to blame. For the last time...
[He reached the nest and immediately squinted at the condor, all the while continuing to sing. He placed two blue-colored eggs in the nest before pausing to take a deep breath, and...]
Stay in your lane!"
[Mal finished with a smile. The shot cut back to the condor as it screeched in retaliation, then nuzzled the eggs as she placed the last one next to them.]
"Yes! Thanks to this condor, now I'm in the Final Fourrrrr!"
[Mal finished with a triumphant pose, the music ending with a rapid strum as the camera cut to the four contestants furiously looking at their targeted enemy.]
///
"Mal takes the win!" Chris announced as the shot cut back to the ground.
"Can someone get me down from here?" Mal's voice came from the nest.
Confessional: Mal
"With immunity claimed for today, now it's time to decide who's getting the boot. Ezekiel and Topher are easy to beat in the finale, so they're off my list for sure," Mal mentioned.
"I could vote for Izzy, but compared to Eva, she's lacking some bit of muscle. So with that, Eva's the one that's going to go today," he snickered. "She's a powerhouse, and it'll leave Izzy vulnerable."
Confessional Ends
The plane was shown flying high over the moai statues as Chris announced "And, it's time to vote!"
The scene immediately flashed to a close-up of the host in the elimination chamber as he read through the five stamped passports. He smiled, and the shot zoomed out to show the five contestants waiting expectantly in the stands.
"The first person to be nominated for the Drop of Shame is...Eva!" Chris announced as the female bully was shown shrugging. "Next vote, Topher...," the camera cut to the boy gasping.
"Next vote, Ezekiel...," Chris continued, the shot cutting to show Ezekiel's shocked face. "And the fourth and final vote says this week's loser is...Eva!"
Eva and Izzy's eyes widened as they were both shocked, but Mal broke the silence by laughing. "Tough break! That's just how the bread rolls!"
Izzy was furious with Mal, but Eva surprised everyone by raising her fist and swinging it in Mal's face, sending him unconscious before he plummeted.
Confessional: Ezekiel
"I thought about voting off Topher, but I realized it wouldn't make any sense given that he and Mal would be voting for Eva," Ezekiel said. "I voted for her as well because she's too strong."
Confessional Ends
"In case anyone was wondering, I'm not going to rage out like I did before," Eva assured everyone. "I just took my anger out on Mal instead."
"No no, we get it. Good job," Topher smirked with respect.
"I had to vote for you," Ezekiel said. "You are too powerful."
"I get it," Eva responded and turned to Izzy. "Izzy, you're the last member of Team E-Scope standing. Do not disappoint us!"
"It won't be as fun without you, but I'll keep carrying on!" Izzy promised.
Eva grabbed her parachute pack and made her way to the exit. "Unlike the rest, I can hop out of this plane normally." And with that, she hopped through the exit.
"Mal!" Chris focused on the alter, who now had a swollen eye. "Because you won, your prize awaits you in first class. And, as usual, you can bring the loser of your choice."
Mal rubbed his swelled up eye in annoyance. "Izzy's been up there enough and Topher's stayed there before, so I'll have to choose Ezekiel."
"I have to spend first class with you!?" Ezekiel fumed. "That's unbelievable!"
"You better believe and accept it, Zekey!" Mal held up his fist and spoke slowly. "My eye needs treatment, and I don't want to mess up my fist by punching you!"
This got Ezekiel to gulp. "Thank you for inviting me!"
\
The scene cut away to the cockpit, Chris trying to reach for the control again but getting his hand slapped away by Chef. The host grunted, the series's capstone theme beginning as he turned his attention to the camera. "Come back next time, for more spills, chills, and planet-endangering thrills right here, on Total! Drama! World Tour!"
The shot zoomed out as usual, and a resounding slap was heard.
(Roll the Credits)
\
(Bonus Clip)
"I was disappointed with my performance back on the island," Eva explained as she was descending down on her parachute. "I was eliminated early for my temper, and when I rejoined, I got re-eliminated for my temper still."
"Fortunately, I managed to make it all the way to fifth place. I didn't win, but I can feel like a winner with Izzy representing herself, me, and Noah as Team E-Scope," Eva followed up. "That's all I have to say, so in the most polite way I can say it, leave me be!"
She soon landed on the condor's nest, much to her disappointment. "What happened to Mama Condor? Shouldn't she be here?" Her answer came when the condor swooped in and grabbed Eva by her shoulders, dragging her away from the camera's view.
18th: Shawn
17th: Amy
16th: Lindsay
15th: Rodney
14th: Jo
Eliminated: Owen
13th: Duncan
12th: Sky
11th: Heather
10th: Cody
9th: Ella
8th: Noah
7th: Sadie
6th: Owen
5th: Eva

Girls: Eva, Izzy
Boys: Ezekiel, Mal, Topher
Episode 22: Rapa Phooey
"Last time, on Total Drama World Tour!" Chris opened, the recap beginning with a pan across the Serengeti ending in the castmates reacting with shock. "Africa! Come for the safari, stay for the near-death experience!" The host adopted a vaguely 'African' accent for the next line, as clips of the rhino and lion were shown.
"Here we played a few rounds of the world's favorite game," he said over portions of the contestants getting hit by soccer balls. "And then, we went on a wild alien hunt!" Ezekiel Clone was shown popping out of a bush and sniffing around, then the teens shot their tranq balls at each other."'cept nobody told Owen it was open season on him!" Chris chuckled as the big guy was shown first getting tackled by Ezekiel Clone, and then trying to keep him away from his face.
"And after all that," Eva shot Owen and the clone to sleep, "everyone managed to get Mal the Malicious voted out," Mal was shown to be upset about the vote. "Harsh!"
"Mal managed to live on for another day thanks to Owen neglecting the rules of the show, which was to sing," Owen was shown going back to sleep and departing the plane. "That's gotta be tough!"
The recap ended and the scene flashed to the cockpit. "Can it get any wilder?" Chris asked the camera. "Oh yeah it can!" he danced, the grand title tune of the season beginning unusually early. "It's Final Five time, right here on Total! Drama! World Tour!"
The camera zoomed out as usual, the final shot showing another airplane flying across in the far distance.
XXXXX
After the usual opening shot of the plane in flight, the scene cut inside to first class as Eva stretched her arms up above her head and sighed.
"Strange. I never got interrupted by Izzy singing about the monkeys on the walls," Eva said as she looked around. "Oh right. Izzy's not in first class this time."
"And I couldn't be any more glad," Topher sighed comfortably. The camera cut over to the opposite side to show Topher leaning back on his couch. "If she was here again, she'd be too much of a god player."
"You're lucky I brought you up here for a purpose, or else I'd pick Ezekiel instead," Eva brought up.
Confessional: Topher
"So because I was affiliated with Mal, I know Eva wants information from me about how to stop him," Topher confessed. "I'll give her some tips, but it's going to come with a fee."
Confessional Ends
Topher was pushing a cart filled with candy. "While you were sleeping, Chris delivered your prize for winning," he explained.
"Candy? Is that the best he can do?" Eva griped.
"I have a sweet tooth, so I wouldn't mind taking some of these sweets myself." Topher grabbed a couple of lollipops and caramel apples and shoved them into his pockets.
"I don't want to discuss candy with you," Eva clarified. "I just want to know-"
"How to take down Mal because I cooperated with him," Topher finished her sentence.
"I was going to finish that," Eva reminded the dirty blond.
"I'll help you, but on one condition," Topher said.
"What could it be?" Eva raised her unibrow.
"You have to promise that you'll let me win the next challenge," Topher revealed his goal.
Eva scoffed. "Forget it. I like to win, and no way will I let you claim victory at any time."
Topher sniffed and pulled the cart away. "It's your loss and funeral."
Confessional: Eva
"Topher's nowhere near as bad as Mal, but he sure is annoying. Give up a chance of winning? I want to take down Mal, but not if it comes to that," Eva made clear to the viewers.
Confessional Ends
As the scene moved to economy class, the silhouette of Ezekiel Clone could be seen standing just outside the opening to the compartment. The shot panned over to Ezekiel and Izzy sitting on one of the benches.
"The silent treatment?" Mal scoffed as he was in view of the camera. "Really?"
"What else did you expect?" Ezekiel rudely told him. "Us flying over a rainbow?"
"Nope, because rainbows are sanguine," Mal spat out.
"If you want us to work with you, then you can forget it," Izzy said. "I don't trust liars, and I'm looking at one right now."
"I don't have to take any of this," Mal said to the girl. "Owen may be gone, but you will join him next."
"We'll just have to see about that, Mal!" Izzy retorted as Mal left her and Ezekiel alone.
"What a knob," Ezekiel muttered under his breath. "Did you two know each other before the show, because he certainly hates you the most out of everyone here."
"We went to the same juvenile center, and the both of us were very well-known for what we did that got us arrested," Izzy answered.
"Did you happen to know Duncan before you joined the show?" Ezekiel followed up.
"I never personally talked to him, but he also knew about Mal," Izzy said.
"I can't believe I never listened to Sky and Duncan when they said that something was off about that guy," Ezekiel grumbled. "Now that they're gone, we're lacking a bit of strength against Mal."
"Zeke, they may be out of the game, but that doesn't mean we can't all work together," Izzy stated. "It's four of us against one of him after all."
"Yeah," Ezekiel agreed, though confusion crept up inside him. "Wait, this includes Topher, right?"
"Definitely, but I still haven't forgotten how he got rid of my friends," Izzy said. "Once Mal goes, he's next."
"I am in an alliance with him, but that'll end if Mal is eliminated," Ezekiel said. "For now, let's get Topher and Eva to see the reason as to why we should be a team eh."
"I like the way you think," Izzy smirked at him.
Confessional: Ezekiel
"We were able to vote for Mal last time, but because of the sing or get eliminated rule, Owen had to leave. As long as Mal doesn't win and we all sing, the votes won't be ignored," Ezekiel deduced. "I'm not stupid, just a bit ignorant and naive."
Confessional Ends
"Attention passengers," Chris announced over the loudspeaker as the plane was shown beginning to descend, "please prepare for landing!"
The scene cut inside the cockpit as the host hung up the microphone and looked at Chef. "C'mon, just let me fly it once!" he pleaded to the unflinching pilot. "What can it hurt? It's technically my plane, you know."
He reached over for the controls, but Chef quickly turned to stop him and the two grown men engaged in a slap-fight. The jet was shown wobbling and losing altitude dramatically, cries of "My pinkie!" and "Hey!" coming from Chris and Chef inside.
The camera moved to ground-level at an island beach, a moai statue prominently in the foreground as the plane rapidly descended towards it and the camera. "Oh no!" Chris screamed as the plane flew forward, clipping the moai statue with its wing as it swung stage right and knocking the giant head over.
"Gosh darn it!" Chef swore from off-screen.
\
Seagulls were crying off-camera as the scene flashed forward, showing Eva and Mal walking up to the fallen statue.
"Another piece of world heritage destroyed," Mal remarked cynically.
"That won't be the only thing that's getting destroyed today," Eva told him.
"Who, me?" Mal pretended to be shocked.
"I was thinking about Topher… of course it's you!" Eva said.
"You may have muscles that are bigger than my soul, but don't forget that I do have a brain," Mal said back.
It was then that the rest of the Final Five walked up to them. "These caramel apples are delicious," Ezekiel claimed while holding one. Izzy was snacking on a chocolate bar, and Topher popped a sweet into his mouth.
"This is even better than Cody's stash of candy," Izzy moaned at her chocolate.
"These dopes get the first class prizes and not me?" Mal reprimanded.
"Did you think I was going to reward you after everything you did?" Topher bluntly asked.
Confessional: Mal
"So many people to choose from," Mal pondered. "The hardest thing for me is deciding who I won't pick off."
Confessional Ends
Several more moai statues were shown dotting another stretch of beach, seagulls crying as the camera panned rightward to the five tired contestants climbing up the side of a steeper hill.
"'Iorana!" Chris greeted them from off-screen once they'd reached the top, startling the five with his appearance. He had once again appropriated a local costume, now nearly naked except for a small leather loincloth, furry shin guards, and a three-tiered feather headdress in blue, red, and green. He also wore a necklace of what looked like small pebbles and a curved bone in the middle of it, and had white lines running across his cheeks and down his bare chest.
"Wow Chris. You've been working out," Chris commented in a pleased tone.
"And welcome to Easter Island," Chris continued. "Aka, Rapa Nui! Place is old," he explained. "These dudes were carved so long ago," he gestured at another moai, "no one even remembers why anymore! Ten bucks says it started as a dare," he said with a cheeky smile.
"Twenty bucks says get on with it!" Eva griped.
"Yeah," Chris deadpanned before continuing. "Today, you, our Final Five, are going on a highly traditional Easter Island egg hunt," he explained as the shot panned across the five teens.
"Are we gonna be hunting for chocolate Easter eggs?" Izzy asked eagerly after taking a bite from her chocolate bar.
"Uhh, no. I'm talking the old school kind of eggs," Chris replied, "the kind that come from birds, y'know those flying things with feathers and talons and vicious kill-you-in-a-second beaks?" The contestants gasped to varying degrees.
"Speaking of which," Chris said with a sly smile, bending over to pick up five feathered headdresses, "traditional feathered Rapa Nui headdresses! Wear 'em with pride, chickens!"
He tossed them into the hands of the contestants at the same time: blue for Mal, green for Eva, purple for Ezekiel, red for Topher, and yellow for Izzy.
\
The footage skipped forward a little ways to show Chris leading the Final Five, now wearing their headdresses, past a few more stone heads that seemed to have rather...unusual shapes.
"Hidden in these head things are a bunch of colored eggs that match the color of your...head thing," Chris told them.
"So you really did your research," Mal said dryly.
"Your challenge," Chris continued, "to find three eggs in your color. Then make a break for the massive underground cavern system and book it all the way up to the highest point on the island." The camera panned away from the host as he gave his explanation, showing a nearby cave entrance first before quick-panning upwards to another cave on top of a high hill.
"Reach the top with all three eggs to begin the second part of today's challenge," the host explained as the shot cut back to him and the Final Five.
"What happens if we drop an egg?" Izzy asked.
"You'll have to come all the way back here for a replacement," Chris answered, causing Topher to quickly raise his hand. "And no," Chris said in anticipation of the next question, "you can not take a back-up egg." Topher lowered his hand in annoyance. "First to the top gets a big advantage in part two," the host said, the shot zooming out to show the backs of the contestants. "Now, scramble!"
At his command, the five turned and ran towards the stone heads.
\
Izzy and Topher ran up to two of the giant heads and paused to look up at them.
"These look really familiar," Izzy commented, the camera panning up to show that the two they were standing in front of had been carved to look like Lindsay and Shawn.
Izzy gasped and continued looking on to the right. "It's everyone who's been eliminated," she commented in shock as the camera panned across statues that looked like Jo, Rodney, Duncan, and Amy.
With a few grunts of effort, Topher began climbing up a statue of Lindsay, while Izzy did the same with Shawn. It wasn't long before Izzy managed to reach inside the statue's hat and pull out an egg.
"I got one!" Izzy said with delight, before seeing its red color. "That's not mine."
"Blue's my color," Topher commented as he clung to Lindsay's ear. "Hand it over."
Izzy thought about it, but decided to throw the red egg over to Topher. "If we're going to get rid of Mal, we'll have to work together."
"I'll remember that when I locate one of your eggs," Topher told her before dropping down from Lindsay's statue with his egg.
Meanwhile, Ezekiel had climbed on to Sadie's head and smiled when he pulled a purple egg from behind her hair. "You are so helpful to me, Sadie," he said, giving the statue a kiss.
"I wish I could say the same thing about Ella," Eva commented, pulling out what looked like a yellow bird out of her ear. She let it fly, then scoffed. "I do not know what goes on in her head 24/7."
The shot cut to Cody's statue, then panned down to Mal as he looked it over. "I hope that dingo didn't take away your brain cells," he taunted, kicking the statue's base. A blue egg fell from his tooth and landed in Mal's hands. "Perfect."
The camera cut to Heather's statue, where a green egg could be seen in her ear. Izzy jumped onto the statue with a grunt, then pulled the egg from its hiding spot. "Excellent! One for me!" she cheered. "I just need something to carry it in," she said thoughtfully. The camera briefly cut to a patch of long grass and back to her smiling eagerly.
\
The footage skipped ahead to show the psycho girl, now with a yellow egg in a bjorn made from the grass she'd spotted earlier, searching at the head of Amy. "Yeah!" she cheered as she pulled out a yellow egg. "Another one! And one for Eva as well!" she said as she pulled out a green egg. "I should go give this to her."
The camera cut to Eva about to climb Duncan's statue, until the sound of footsteps caught her attention.
"Eva!" Izzy cried as she ran over. "I found one of your eggs!" She thrusted the egg into the bodybuilder's basket.
"Really?" Eva wondered.
"I know you'd do the same for me given the situation we're in," Izzy said.
"First Ella and now you?" Eva asked. "Why do I keep getting unwanted assistance in the game?"
"'Cause we're Team E-Scope, Eva," Izzy responded.
Confessional: Izzy
"Me and Izzy are currently the last girls left in the competition," Izzy explained. "With Noah and Owen gone, the boys outnumber us. That won't be a bad thing if Topher and Ezekiel are with us."
Confessional: Eva
"Now I'm starting to consider letting Topher win if it'll defeat Mal," Eva said. "The contestants help me even when I don't ask for it. Maybe I should return the favor for the first time."
Confessionals End
Rodney's stoney rendition was shown next, a red egg nestled in his right ear. Topher was currently trying to reach it, but the height of his head and the egg he was trying to hold on to was making it difficult.
Topher stretched out his arm enough to just barely brush the egg with his fingertips. Unfortunately, this only served to unbalance the egg; it wobbled a bit, then fell forward and cracked on the stone below.
"It was strategy. Nothing against you," Topher groaned, jumping down to the ground.
"You clearly don't have anything to put your eggs in," Izzy commented as she and Eva walked over to the Chris fan. "We'll help you out, but you have to give us our eggs if you find them."
"It's a deal," Topher agreed quickly. "I don't even care who wins anymore, as long as it's not Mal."
Confessional: Topher
"I'm out of my league for this one. I had to convince Izzy to give me one of my eggs," Topher admitted embarrassingly. "Not a good look for me."
Confessional Ends
The scene moved back to Mal walking around with three eggs in his basket.
"How did you manage to find three eggs while I only found two?" Ezekiel asked in astonishment.
"I can utilize the abilities of my slaves, and Manitoba is very useful indeed," Mal chuckled.
"Calling your personalities 'slaves' is not a good thing to do eh," Ezekiel called him out.
"So does picking your nose or offending women," Mal teased.
Ezekiel squinted his eyes at Mal and turned his heel. "I'm trying to grow out of that. Now leave me alone!"
Confessional: Ezekiel
"I'm really starting to get tired of people bringing up the bad stuff I did in the past," Ezekiel groaned.
Confessional Ends
The scene flashed to the beach near where the plane had landed. Chef and a pair of interns were now trying to move the knocked-over moai back upright, with Chef pulling on a rope in front while the interns pushed from behind.
Chef groaned and grunted in exertion, but paused when the host's voice came in over a walkie-talkie in his pocket. "This is King of all Chrisdom seeking Bitty Baby, over!" Chris said. Chef let go of his rope to pull out the communicator, and the moai head fell back over onto the two interns that had been trying to push it.
"When you're done slackin', think you can give me a hand?" Chris asked.
\
A flash took the focus back to Mal, who was looking rather tired as he trekked uphill through the underground cavern system.
"It's a good thing I didn't eat those sweets otherwise I wouldn't be able to trek uphill for much longer," he grumbled.
Mal then heard something approaching, and he looked forward again and went into a nook in the side of the tunnel just as a large spherical boulder barreled down the slope.
He leaned out with shock on his faces after the boulder left, and the camera cut to Eva, Ezekiel, Izzy, and Topher, who had also found three eggs each and started their journey through the caverns. They quickly spotted the approaching boulder, screamed, and ducked into crannies on opposite sides of the tunnel.
"You have got to be kidding!" Ezekiel exclaimed, the four poking their heads back out into the open.
\
The scene flashed to the cave's exit at the highest point of the island, where a cackling Chris watched as Chef pushed another large, spherical boulder into the caverns. He sighed mirthfully as the camera cut in for a close-up, then as the grand title theme began to play he told it "We've got tons more fun, literally," he motioned to a nearby pile of similar boulders, "right after this, on Total! Drama! World Tour!"
\
(Commercial Break)
\

I'm Canadian and lived all over Europe, but nowhere as conservative in some ways as Copenhagen. Danes eat the same food all over the place. Sandwich places all carry the same 5 sandwiches, 99% of kebab places taste exactly the same, same with pizza and burgers. The windows on buildings are all identical and an absolutely brutal design that catches too much wind or completely closed - why not adopt sliding windows? You could even keep the same look.
I find this all throughout Denmark: the furniture hasn't changed it's overall style since the 60s. Some people have argued this with me but if you look at dining chairs made back then, you can find identical brand new ones today. Same with the coffee tables etc. It's just SO homogeneous it's almost a bit scary. Zero variation anywhere. IPA and pilsner with a wheat beer mixed in. Pizza, burger and kebabs, or bagels, not much else for lunch time fast food. Paint the walls white with pine or beach wood. And Danes live to go to Italy on holiday but bring zero of if back except the love for pasta.
Why don't they want to liven things up a little? Why not some variation? Sure I'll get comments about the Michelin star restaurants....who cook food that's not in a Danish or Scandinavian tradition, or that that there's a few indian and vietnamese restaurants around. Yes, I've seen them. But they are the overwhelming minority.
Anyways, I'm just curious how a society is just happy with doing a d eating the same thing over and over for their entire lives. I guess you gotta give em credit for being content with it?
/Rant

Context:
So I recently got back in contact with someone that I knew from middle school (we are both 20) and since then we’ve hung out a few times and have been texting back and forth. We are both introverted and we have both admitted to be terrible at carrying conversation, although she is better at initiating. By chance she happened to see on instagram that I was vacationing where she was, and we spent an afternoon on the beach together. She texted me that night and texted me the next couple of days (she initiated/texted first) and then it was silent for a few days. She eventually reached out towards the end of the week asking how my vacation had been and texted me for the next couple of days, and I eventually reached out to her asking her if she wanted to hang out again. We spent nearly 6 hours hanging out one afternoon, had a good time, and she told me at the end of it all to text her.
I texted her the night afterward and the conversation lasted for a bit but ended up falling a bit flat. I waited a day to see if she would send anything, and ended up reaching out the next day (yesterday) to see how she was doing. We texted back and forth all afternoon/evening and the conversation moved pretty smoothly until about like 10:30ish (which admittedly, it had been 6 hours at that point). I had been asking most of the questions but she was being somewhat detailed/enthusiastic in her replies so I think it was ok.
Here’s my dilemma: I kind of want to reach out again today but I don’t know how soon is too soon. I know we’re both friends at this point, but I’m a bit suspect there might be something more, although I’m not really sure as she is a super nice person and could just be being nice. I don’t wanna come off as too pushy since I already have asked her to hang out in person twice and started a conversation that lasted like 6 hours last night, but I also am afraid if I don’t keep up contact we won’t speak again (this happened last summer after I ran into her somewhere and she gave me her number). Also, there’s a part of my brain that is just terrified that she is only entertaining conversation with me because she’s nice and doesn’t want to to ignore me, despite maybe wanting not wanting to talk.
Also, while I would be interested in something more than just a friendship, I don’t want to do anything that would compromise the friendship as I value that very much on its own.
I understand this is a very loaded post but any help would be much appreciated as I’ve been spiraling in my head since we stopped talking. My post history might help if anyone needs additional context and I am happy to provide more if needed.
TL:DR Have friend who I may have feelings for and am unsure if she reciprocates or is just being nice. Want to reach out again today but not sure if it’s too soon since we had a long text convo last night and I’ve already asked her to hang out a couple times

-Red-
April 19th, 11:13 A.M., The Sprawl
I sparked a dilapidated Vita-Cig that I’d snagged from Trodes and peered out into the Sprawl; the careful equilibrium of a well-orchestrated black-market had returned; pushers and gangers lined the alleys, watching for signals from rooftop lookouts to avoid the single Peacewatch cruiser that had been stupid enough to enter the dockside. The poor bastard would be dead before the afternoon was over… not that I had much sympathy for his kind. Peacewatch made it a habit to stay out of the Sprawl: unless the Eggheads predictive crime system said something catastrophic was coming, they policed their kind and left us in the hands of the mob. I’d never iced an officer. Not yet at least.
“Your partner should be ready shortly, I think he’s just tying up a few loose ends,” Akari said, snatching the cigarette from my hand and taking a long drag.
“Remind me again why you think I should take the shrimp with me instead of Nico and Roman?”
“He’s smart… and the other two are working on something else. Besides-- you need brains on this one, Red, not muscle,” she giggled, passing the cigarette back.
“Whatever you say,” I paused, grabbing the smoke, “what do you have them up to?”
“There’s a shipment of Xeno-grade weapons coming down from the colonies. Nico and Roman will be liberating them from the Slicers. Or, their share, at least. It won’t be much, maybe a dozen guns, but it’ll be worth it: the force field tech alone will pay for the trip as soon as Fincetti’s goons start trying to take your heads off with plasma cannons and mono blades.”
“What do you mean, their share?”
“The job was too big for us to take on alone. I linked up with another enterprising group of Freelancers. If it goes well, maybe we can hire them on for the heist, we’re going to need more people if we want to walk out of there alive.”
We?
“What, are you planning on coming along now?” I asked, snuffing out the smoke.
“It only seems right; Trodes is coming along, and I’m a better shot than he’ll ever be. Besides, you have a dangerous habit of getting shot, and I can’t have you going down in the field,” she said, winking as if to punctuate the sentence.
“You sure? We can manage, you don’t have to come with us, you’ve done so much already.”
“I know I have, that’s why I have to protect my investment. If you go down out there, then the team is without a leader. A military scale operation like this will go south real fast without someone competent in command.”
“You’ve got me wrong, Akari: I’m no leader. I’m just someone who wants to live in a better city and doesn’t mind taking the trash out himself. Besides, why do we need a leader? We’re all competent adults acting in concert, of our own free will. We all know what we’re doing, if a situation arises and someone needs to take charge, it’ll happen.”
“You’ve got a lot of faith in a crew you just met,” Akari said with a sneer.
“You know why I asked you to put the team together, Akari?”
“Because there’s a bounty on your head that could finance twenty retirements, and you know you can trust me?”
“No, well yeah, but that’s beside the point—I asked you because you’re not a Fixer, you’re a part time street doc that works the front desk at the most popular Freelancer hotel in the Sprawl. If there’s anyone who knows who’s gonna get the job done, it’s you. See, a Fixer is going to be okay with whatever losses they deem acceptable beforehand, but they’re fine with keeping that to themselves. If you thought any of these mooks were going to crack under pressure, or do something stupid, you wouldn’t have set me up with them.”
Before she could respond, Trodes emerged from the stairs leading to the lab. He winced as the sunlight hit his eyes, shrugging on the hood of the oversized sweatshirt that blanketed his meek frame. Glimpses of pain showed through every tremor laden step he took. A cloak of wires enveloped his skull, feeding into an old-world cyber console.
“It’s insufferably hot out here,” Trodes sighed.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going far. Chances are that whatever hole we’re meeting BFU in will have air conditioning,” I responded, clicking my key fob, and signaling the bike to pull around.
Trodes face fell flat when the Supersonic rolled around the corner; apparently, the prestige of carving through the skyway on a state-of-the-art Taffington jet-bike was lost on him.
“Are we taking… that?” Trodes stammered.
“We are. Unless you’ve got a pair of wheels with two seats?” I asked, mounting the bike and revving the engine.
With an exasperated sigh, Trodes boarded the passenger seat. I could feel him behind me, vibrating as tremors gripped his body.
“You good, buddy?” I asked.
He nodded vigorously, clenching the handrails with white knuckles.
Akari shook her head and headed back to the lab.
I heard Trodes mumble something under his breath, but it was quickly drowned out by the jet-bike’s purr. I carved into the skyway. Driving in the Sprawl was pure freedom: almost nobody owned vehicles with aerial capabilities in this part of town. It didn’t take long to reach top speed.
Slummers and gutterpunks walked the streets like zombies in a drug addled haze. The scent of gunpowder, pollution and burning ozone coalesced into a putrid stench that reeked of poverty and violence. Patches of azure moved in militant formation below; the Vorrath had taken to the streets. On a different day, a better day, I would’ve helped them. Most slummers hated the Offworlder Coalition, but not me—at the end of the day I always figured that I had more in common with poor people from another planet than rich people from another district of the city. At least we shared the same struggle.
The bike slowed to crawl; the Neo-Confederates were about, backed by a platoon of Brown-Shirts that looked like a tide of sewer run off, crashing through the streets with reckless abandon. Civilians fled for their homes. Fuck.
The jet-bike careened through the air before finally landing atop a building a few blocks away from the impending conflict.
“Get off,” I said, turning back to Trodes.
“Why? You don’t intend to abandon me at this altitude, do you?”
“Not as long as I survive—I’ll be quick, I just need to ventilate some Nazi fucks, understood?”
He shook his head and muttered a string of curses.
I tore through the air, circling around the impending conflict. I chased a handful of cheap amphetamines with a poorly rolled joint and swooped low, behind the rolling tide of brown shirts. This wasn’t the first time I’d made myself an enemy of the city’s Neo-Nazi’s; I’d killed at least a dozen of them in my career as a courier, but those were isolated incidents, back-alley brawls away from the mob.
This was a whole new ball game.
I fell slack as my Teleoperations module synchronized with the bike. My consciousness faded, reemerging into the HALO-Net’s stylized rendition of the bike’s interior. I wasn’t just the pilot now—I was the bike. Bullets carved twin streaks of crimson into the brown tide. It didn’t take long to hit top speed, 3.7 seconds, to be exact.
The group turned in nearly perfect unison, launching volley upon volley as I passed overhead. The bike’s shields barely held together; I felt every round, like a flock of birds violently slamming into my side—not enough to cause any real damage, but more than enough to get the blood pumping. I slid into an alley a few blocks off and waited for the shield generator to recharge. Gunshots rang out from the streets, alongside the sizzle of plasma meeting flesh. Soon the din was drowned beneath the roar of dozens of Vorrath war cries. I took to the sky.
Trodes was exactly where I left him, nervously clutching a knock off version of a Locust flechette pistol.
“I was beginning to doubt your survival,” Trodes said shakily.
“Wrong again, little guy,” I paused, reigniting a half smoked joint, “it was just a quick hit and run, we don’t have the time or the numbers for a pitched battle. Now, hop on.”
It didn’t take long to find BFU’s base of operations. Black flags and Anarchist graffiti covered the walls of the abandoned warehouse they’d apparently taken up residence in. A field of repurposed Peacewatch turrets were installed atop the roof, complimented by a web of cameras that spread across a three-block radius. Anarchists of all species and creeds loitered outside. The guards ranged from Cyborgs and Vat-Grown, to Vorrath and Vorstihl, each wearing a variant of the black flag with colors corresponding to their ideologies.
As I hovered above the building, I saw a familiar face: the rookie from earlier. Alarmingly, his cruiser was nowhere to be seen. His face was wrought with horror, as a pair of cyborgs led him inside the warehouse.
“They’re certainly less than subtle,” Trodes said.
“They don’t have to be subtle, they’re the biggest citizens political organization in the Sprawl. Peacewatch avoids them if they have anything less than a full platoon on hand,” I explained.
“Red… before we enter negotiations with these hooligans, I must inquire as to what your motivation hitting the vault is? Surely you know there’s a strong likelihood that you won’t make it out, and from what I’d heard about you, I always understood you to be a man who knew how to keep himself out of the line of sight of dangerous people,” Trodes said, nervously.
“Fincetti is the most dangerous man in the city, short of O’Bannon. He controls the black market with an iron fist and is instrumental in all the things I hate about living here. The problem is, I have no way to do anything about it right now… but there’s something big in the safe—there must be—for fucks sake, he iced his family over it. I’m hoping there’s something in there that can give me a little leverage, so I can cross him out afterwards.”
Trodes was silent for a moment, simply reaching as if to ask me to pass the joint. I obliged.
“I have my reasons to want O’Bannon dead too, I’m in,” he paused as a coughing fit seized him, causing the joint to fall to the ground, “there’s something you should know though: I’m working with an entity of great power in the Net; I don’t know what precisely it is, but I know it saved my life more than once. As a matter of fact, it’s the only reason I was able to obtain the blueprint of Fincetti’s bunker, and his security plan.”
“Is it… is it an unshackled AI?”
“Unlikely: it seems to understand compassion and empathy on a uniquely organic level, something that rarely slips past Netwatch.”
“Alright, well whatever it is, you keep an eye on it and let me know if things get shady. I appreciate you telling me.”
Trodes nodded in silence.
The crowd parted expectantly as I landed along the streetside. Dozens of eyes were immediately glued to Trodes and I. A cyborg with a steel double mohawk emerged from a sea of leather, patches, and smoke. A sawed-off shotgun hung at his side.
“Red, I presume?” the Cyborg asked, extending a steel hand.
“That’s right, and who’re you?” I answered, clasping the borgs hand as firm as I could manage.
“They call me Diezel, and I’ll be your host today,” he released my hand and looked me up and down as if assessing whether I was a threat, “follow me, everyone’s here so we can get straight down to business.”
The warehouse’s interior had been renovated drastically; layers of open-faced lofts sat stacked upon each other, consuming the walls. Nearly every non-violent law in the city was being broken in the lofts, from cooking chems and explosives to studying banned literature and Doomguard martial arts. It was beautiful. We followed Diezel through a winding hallway of munitions manufacturing stations, before finally emerging into an immense circular room, with rows of seats climbing the walls. I couldn’t believe it—there must have been two hundred people present.
The lights dimmed as we entered the arena. Diezel led us to the rooms center, ushering Trodes and I onto a great circular platform; he fell into place on a platform across from us, beside a Vat-Grown woman bearing an orange and black flag on her arm, and augmentations that cost more than my bike. Behind the duo a bulbous Vorstihl lurked; tentacles draped down his back, carefully pulled away from his cyclopean eye. A red and black flag was displayed on his arm… it was only then that I noticed the blue and black flag on Diezel’s arm.
The platforms each rose roughly fifteen feet into the air, before microphone stands emerged from the center of each platform. Diezel stepped forward, past the microphone.
“Before we start, I’ll explain how this works: the three of us are representatives of our specific unions—but the people are free to interject. One union voting to aid in your endeavors does not guarantee the help of the other two, as each union demands a perfect consensus. Likewise, if a faction without one union decides to help you, it does not necessarily mean you have the support of the entire union. The only way you’ll end up with total support is cross union consensus. Do you understand?”
A consensus: of course, they needed a damned consensus.
“I do,” I answered, speaking away from the microphone.
“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Diezel stepped back, finding his microphone before continuing, “Red, Trodes, welcome to the Bouleuterion,” he paused a moment as the crowd erupted into cheers, “beside me are my comrades Aria and Korvirex, and we stand ready to hear your proposal.”
“As most of you probably know, Don Fincetti is the most powerful man in the underworld, hell—maybe even the city—what you likely don’t know is that he has a vault beneath the city, guarded by an army of Harvesters. I intend to break into the vault, slaughter the Harvesters and strike a blow to Fincetti that he won’t forget… and I intend to kill him shortly after. What I ask is simple: you help me in what’s to come, and when he’s finally dead, you can all split his turf among yourselves. All I care about is making sure he doesn’t live long enough to poison the Sprawl more than he already has.”
A murmur emerged from the stands. I gazed across the way to see the three representatives huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. Finally, Aria stepped towards her microphone.
“What you ask of us will likely mean the death of many of our people… we need something greater than what you offer—we need a guarantee of mutual aid—you have a reputation in the Sprawl, we would ask that you employ it in helping us when the time comes to resettle the Sprawl. Namely, we’d request your assistance against the gangs that may try to fill the power void you seek to create,” Aria explained.
“That seems reasonable,” I said.
Aria stepped back as Korvirex moved forward.
“Tell me, Red, are you familiar with the Offworlder Coalition?” Korvirex asked.
“I am—as a matter of fact, I aided them on the way here—they were marching against the Neo-Confederates and the Brown Shirts. I insured that they had the element of surprise.”
Korvirex stroked the beard-like tentacles that hung from his chin in contemplation.
“Good. What I ask is that you help us to secure their trust, we have offered solidarity where we could, but our forces are spread thin. The ideology of many of the exiled Vorrath rebels that found their way to Nova City—it matches that of our union. If our help was offered, would you agree to assist us in aiding the Coalition, so that they finally have an opportunity to get on their feet?”
Trodes leaned towards in, whispering in my ear.
“It would be prudent of you to make a counteroffer: proclaim that you’ll help with the Coalition, if they’ll spread the word to other groups whose goals may align with ours. There will likely be at least a couple hundred Harvesters in the Undercity when we strike… unless they’re occupied elsewhere.”
“I would happily help with the Coalition, on the condition that your faction spread the word about what we’re doing to like-minded organizations. As it stands, we could still use more numbers to match the Harvesters,” I said.
“These conditions may be satisfactory,” Korvirex said, before retreating into yet another group huddle.
The audience watched on in silence.
Finally, Diezel reapproached the microphone.
“The representatives have deemed this topic worthy of discussion: you’re free to leave, we’ll get ahold of Akari in a couple days, when all the details are ironed out.”
“A couple days?”
“Reaching a consensus can be a slow process at times—be prepared for a renegotiation of conditions, as there will likely be more stipulations made once the process is complete,” Diezel explained.
I nodded, and the platform beneath my feet began to descend towards the floor. The crowd erupted into cheers.
Hopefully Nico and Roman would beat us home.

-Red-
April 19th, 11:13 A.M., The Sprawl
I sparked a dilapidated Vita-Cig that I’d snagged from Trodes and peered out into the Sprawl; the careful equilibrium of a well-orchestrated black-market had returned; pushers and gangers lined the alleys, watching for signals from rooftop lookouts to avoid the single Peacewatch cruiser that had been stupid enough to enter the dockside. The poor bastard would be dead before the afternoon was over… not that I had much sympathy for his kind. Peacewatch made it a habit to stay out of the Sprawl: unless the Eggheads predictive crime system said something catastrophic was coming, they policed their kind and left us in the hands of the mob. I’d never iced an officer. Not yet at least.
“Your partner should be ready shortly, I think he’s just tying up a few loose ends,” Akari said, snatching the cigarette from my hand and taking a long drag.
“Remind me again why you think I should take the shrimp with me instead of Nico and Roman?”
“He’s smart… and the other two are working on something else. Besides-- you need brains on this one, Red, not muscle,” she giggled, passing the cigarette back.
“Whatever you say,” I paused, grabbing the smoke, “what do you have them up to?”
“There’s a shipment of Xeno-grade weapons coming down from the colonies. Nico and Roman will be liberating them from the Slicers. Or, their share, at least. It won’t be much, maybe a dozen guns, but it’ll be worth it: the force field tech alone will pay for the trip as soon as Fincetti’s goons start trying to take your heads off with plasma cannons and mono blades.”
“What do you mean, their share?”
“The job was too big for us to take on alone. I linked up with another enterprising group of Freelancers. If it goes well, maybe we can hire them on for the heist, we’re going to need more people if we want to walk out of there alive.”
We?
“What, are you planning on coming along now?” I asked, snuffing out the smoke.
“It only seems right; Trodes is coming along, and I’m a better shot than he’ll ever be. Besides, you have a dangerous habit of getting shot, and I can’t have you going down in the field,” she said, winking as if to punctuate the sentence.
“You sure? We can manage, you don’t have to come with us, you’ve done so much already.”
“I know I have, that’s why I have to protect my investment. If you go down out there, then the team is without a leader. A military scale operation like this will go south real fast without someone competent in command.”
“You’ve got me wrong, Akari: I’m no leader. I’m just someone who wants to live in a better city and doesn’t mind taking the trash out himself. Besides, why do we need a leader? We’re all competent adults acting in concert, of our own free will. We all know what we’re doing, if a situation arises and someone needs to take charge, it’ll happen.”
“You’ve got a lot of faith in a crew you just met,” Akari said with a sneer.
“You know why I asked you to put the team together, Akari?”
“Because there’s a bounty on your head that could finance twenty retirements, and you know you can trust me?”
“No, well yeah, but that’s beside the point—I asked you because you’re not a Fixer, you’re a part time street doc that works the front desk at the most popular Freelancer hotel in the Sprawl. If there’s anyone who knows who’s gonna get the job done, it’s you. See, a Fixer is going to be okay with whatever losses they deem acceptable beforehand, but they’re fine with keeping that to themselves. If you thought any of these mooks were going to crack under pressure, or do something stupid, you wouldn’t have set me up with them.”
Before she could respond, Trodes emerged from the stairs leading to the lab. He winced as the sunlight hit his eyes, shrugging on the hood of the oversized sweatshirt that blanketed his meek frame. Glimpses of pain showed through every tremor laden step he took. A cloak of wires enveloped his skull, feeding into an old-world cyber console.
“It’s insufferably hot out here,” Trodes sighed.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going far. Chances are that whatever hole we’re meeting BFU in will have air conditioning,” I responded, clicking my key fob, and signaling the bike to pull around.
Trodes face fell flat when the Supersonic rolled around the corner; apparently, the prestige of carving through the skyway on a state-of-the-art Taffington jet-bike was lost on him.
“Are we taking… that?” Trodes stammered.
“We are. Unless you’ve got a pair of wheels with two seats?” I asked, mounting the bike and revving the engine.
With an exasperated sigh, Trodes boarded the passenger seat. I could feel him behind me, vibrating as tremors gripped his body.
“You good, buddy?” I asked.
He nodded vigorously, clenching the handrails with white knuckles.
Akari shook her head and headed back to the lab.
I heard Trodes mumble something under his breath, but it was quickly drowned out by the jet-bike’s purr. I carved into the skyway. Driving in the Sprawl was pure freedom: almost nobody owned vehicles with aerial capabilities in this part of town. It didn’t take long to reach top speed.
Slummers and gutterpunks walked the streets like zombies in a drug addled haze. The scent of gunpowder, pollution and burning ozone coalesced into a putrid stench that reeked of poverty and violence. Patches of azure moved in militant formation below; the Vorrath had taken to the streets. On a different day, a better day, I would’ve helped them. Most slummers hated the Offworlder Coalition, but not me—at the end of the day I always figured that I had more in common with poor people from another planet than rich people from another district of the city. At least we shared the same struggle.
The bike slowed to crawl; the Neo-Confederates were about, backed by a platoon of Brown-Shirts that looked like a tide of sewer run off, crashing through the streets with reckless abandon. Civilians fled for their homes. Fuck.
The jet-bike careened through the air before finally landing atop a building a few blocks away from the impending conflict.
“Get off,” I said, turning back to Trodes.
“Why? You don’t intend to abandon me at this altitude, do you?”
“Not as long as I survive—I’ll be quick, I just need to ventilate some Nazi fucks, understood?”
He shook his head and muttered a string of curses.
I tore through the air, circling around the impending conflict. I chased a handful of cheap amphetamines with a poorly rolled joint and swooped low, behind the rolling tide of brown shirts. This wasn’t the first time I’d made myself an enemy of the city’s Neo-Nazi’s; I’d killed at least a dozen of them in my career as a courier, but those were isolated incidents, back-alley brawls away from the mob.
This was a whole new ball game.
I fell slack as my Teleoperations module synchronized with the bike. My consciousness faded, reemerging into the HALO-Net’s stylized rendition of the bike’s interior. I wasn’t just the pilot now—I was the bike. Bullets carved twin streaks of crimson into the brown tide. It didn’t take long to hit top speed, 3.7 seconds, to be exact.
The group turned in nearly perfect unison, launching volley upon volley as I passed overhead. The bike’s shields barely held together; I felt every round, like a flock of birds violently slamming into my side—not enough to cause any real damage, but more than enough to get the blood pumping. I slid into an alley a few blocks off and waited for the shield generator to recharge. Gunshots rang out from the streets, alongside the sizzle of plasma meeting flesh. Soon the din was drowned beneath the roar of dozens of Vorrath war cries. I took to the sky.
Trodes was exactly where I left him, nervously clutching a knock off version of a Locust flechette pistol.
“I was beginning to doubt your survival,” Trodes said shakily.
“Wrong again, little guy,” I paused, reigniting a half smoked joint, “it was just a quick hit and run, we don’t have the time or the numbers for a pitched battle. Now, hop on.”
It didn’t take long to find BFU’s base of operations. Black flags and Anarchist graffiti covered the walls of the abandoned warehouse they’d apparently taken up residence in. A field of repurposed Peacewatch turrets were installed atop the roof, complimented by a web of cameras that spread across a three-block radius. Anarchists of all species and creeds loitered outside. The guards ranged from Cyborgs and Vat-Grown, to Vorrath and Vorstihl, each wearing a variant of the black flag with colors corresponding to their ideologies.
As I hovered above the building, I saw a familiar face: the rookie from earlier. Alarmingly, his cruiser was nowhere to be seen. His face was wrought with horror, as a pair of cyborgs led him inside the warehouse.
“They’re certainly less than subtle,” Trodes said.
“They don’t have to be subtle, they’re the biggest citizens political organization in the Sprawl. Peacewatch avoids them if they have anything less than a full platoon on hand,” I explained.
“Red… before we enter negotiations with these hooligans, I must inquire as to what your motivation hitting the vault is? Surely you know there’s a strong likelihood that you won’t make it out, and from what I’d heard about you, I always understood you to be a man who knew how to keep himself out of the line of sight of dangerous people,” Trodes said, nervously.
“Fincetti is the most dangerous man in the city, short of O’Bannon. He controls the black market with an iron fist and is instrumental in all the things I hate about living here. The problem is, I have no way to do anything about it right now… but there’s something big in the safe—there must be—for fucks sake, he iced his family over it. I’m hoping there’s something in there that can give me a little leverage, so I can cross him out afterwards.”
Trodes was silent for a moment, simply reaching as if to ask me to pass the joint. I obliged.
“I have my reasons to want O’Bannon dead too, I’m in,” he paused as a coughing fit seized him, causing the joint to fall to the ground, “there’s something you should know though: I’m working with an entity of great power in the Net; I don’t know what precisely it is, but I know it saved my life more than once. As a matter of fact, it’s the only reason I was able to obtain the blueprint of Fincetti’s bunker, and his security plan.”
“Is it… is it an unshackled AI?”
“Unlikely: it seems to understand compassion and empathy on a uniquely organic level, something that rarely slips past Netwatch.”
“Alright, well whatever it is, you keep an eye on it and let me know if things get shady. I appreciate you telling me.”
Trodes nodded in silence.
The crowd parted expectantly as I landed along the streetside. Dozens of eyes were immediately glued to Trodes and I. A cyborg with a steel double mohawk emerged from a sea of leather, patches, and smoke. A sawed-off shotgun hung at his side.
“Red, I presume?” the Cyborg asked, extending a steel hand.
“That’s right, and who’re you?” I answered, clasping the borgs hand as firm as I could manage.
“They call me Diezel, and I’ll be your host today,” he released my hand and looked me up and down as if assessing whether I was a threat, “follow me, everyone’s here so we can get straight down to business.”
The warehouse’s interior had been renovated drastically; layers of open-faced lofts sat stacked upon each other, consuming the walls. Nearly every non-violent law in the city was being broken in the lofts, from cooking chems and explosives to studying banned literature and Doomguard martial arts. It was beautiful. We followed Diezel through a winding hallway of munitions manufacturing stations, before finally emerging into an immense circular room, with rows of seats climbing the walls. I couldn’t believe it—there must have been two hundred people present.
The lights dimmed as we entered the arena. Diezel led us to the rooms center, ushering Trodes and I onto a great circular platform; he fell into place on a platform across from us, beside a Vat-Grown woman bearing an orange and black flag on her arm, and augmentations that cost more than my bike. Behind the duo a bulbous Vorstihl lurked; tentacles draped down his back, carefully pulled away from his cyclopean eye. A red and black flag was displayed on his arm… it was only then that I noticed the blue and black flag on Diezel’s arm.
The platforms each rose roughly fifteen feet into the air, before microphone stands emerged from the center of each platform. Diezel stepped forward, past the microphone.
“Before we start, I’ll explain how this works: the three of us are representatives of our specific unions—but the people are free to interject. One union voting to aid in your endeavors does not guarantee the help of the other two, as each union demands a perfect consensus. Likewise, if a faction without one union decides to help you, it does not necessarily mean you have the support of the entire union. The only way you’ll end up with total support is cross union consensus. Do you understand?”
A consensus: of course, they needed a damned consensus.
“I do,” I answered, speaking away from the microphone.
“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Diezel stepped back, finding his microphone before continuing, “Red, Trodes, welcome to the Bouleuterion,” he paused a moment as the crowd erupted into cheers, “beside me are my comrades Aria and Korvirex, and we stand ready to hear your proposal.”
“As most of you probably know, Don Fincetti is the most powerful man in the underworld, hell—maybe even the city—what you likely don’t know is that he has a vault beneath the city, guarded by an army of Harvesters. I intend to break into the vault, slaughter the Harvesters and strike a blow to Fincetti that he won’t forget… and I intend to kill him shortly after. What I ask is simple: you help me in what’s to come, and when he’s finally dead, you can all split his turf among yourselves. All I care about is making sure he doesn’t live long enough to poison the Sprawl more than he already has.”
A murmur emerged from the stands. I gazed across the way to see the three representatives huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. Finally, Aria stepped towards her microphone.
“What you ask of us will likely mean the death of many of our people… we need something greater than what you offer—we need a guarantee of mutual aid—you have a reputation in the Sprawl, we would ask that you employ it in helping us when the time comes to resettle the Sprawl. Namely, we’d request your assistance against the gangs that may try to fill the power void you seek to create,” Aria explained.
“That seems reasonable,” I said.
Aria stepped back as Korvirex moved forward.
“Tell me, Red, are you familiar with the Offworlder Coalition?” Korvirex asked.
“I am—as a matter of fact, I aided them on the way here—they were marching against the Neo-Confederates and the Brown Shirts. I insured that they had the element of surprise.”
Korvirex stroked the beard-like tentacles that hung from his chin in contemplation.
“Good. What I ask is that you help us to secure their trust, we have offered solidarity where we could, but our forces are spread thin. The ideology of many of the exiled Vorrath rebels that found their way to Nova City—it matches that of our union. If our help was offered, would you agree to assist us in aiding the Coalition, so that they finally have an opportunity to get on their feet?”
Trodes leaned towards in, whispering in my ear.
“It would be prudent of you to make a counteroffer: proclaim that you’ll help with the Coalition, if they’ll spread the word to other groups whose goals may align with ours. There will likely be at least a couple hundred Harvesters in the Undercity when we strike… unless they’re occupied elsewhere.”
“I would happily help with the Coalition, on the condition that your faction spread the word about what we’re doing to like-minded organizations. As it stands, we could still use more numbers to match the Harvesters,” I said.
“These conditions may be satisfactory,” Korvirex said, before retreating into yet another group huddle.
The audience watched on in silence.
Finally, Diezel reapproached the microphone.
“The representatives have deemed this topic worthy of discussion: you’re free to leave, we’ll get ahold of Akari in a couple days, when all the details are ironed out.”
“A couple days?”
“Reaching a consensus can be a slow process at times—be prepared for a renegotiation of conditions, as there will likely be more stipulations made once the process is complete,” Diezel explained.
I nodded, and the platform beneath my feet began to descend towards the floor. The crowd erupted into cheers.
Hopefully Nico and Roman would beat us home

-Red-
April 19th, 11:13 A.M., The Sprawl
I sparked a dilapidated Vita-Cig that I’d snagged from Trodes and peered out into the Sprawl; the careful equilibrium of a well-orchestrated black-market had returned; pushers and gangers lined the alleys, watching for signals from rooftop lookouts to avoid the single Peacewatch cruiser that had been stupid enough to enter the dockside. The poor bastard would be dead before the afternoon was over… not that I had much sympathy for his kind. Peacewatch made it a habit to stay out of the Sprawl: unless the Eggheads predictive crime system said something catastrophic was coming, they policed their kind and left us in the hands of the mob. I’d never iced an officer. Not yet at least.
“Your partner should be ready shortly, I think he’s just tying up a few loose ends,” Akari said, snatching the cigarette from my hand and taking a long drag.
“Remind me again why you think I should take the shrimp with me instead of Nico and Roman?”
“He’s smart… and the other two are working on something else. Besides-- you need brains on this one, Red, not muscle,” she giggled, passing the cigarette back.
“Whatever you say,” I paused, grabbing the smoke, “what do you have them up to?”
“There’s a shipment of Xeno-grade weapons coming down from the colonies. Nico and Roman will be liberating them from the Slicers. Or, their share, at least. It won’t be much, maybe a dozen guns, but it’ll be worth it: the force field tech alone will pay for the trip as soon as Fincetti’s goons start trying to take your heads off with plasma cannons and mono blades.”
“What do you mean, their share?”
“The job was too big for us to take on alone. I linked up with another enterprising group of Freelancers. If it goes well, maybe we can hire them on for the heist, we’re going to need more people if we want to walk out of there alive.”
We?
“What, are you planning on coming along now?” I asked, snuffing out the smoke.
“It only seems right; Trodes is coming along, and I’m a better shot than he’ll ever be. Besides, you have a dangerous habit of getting shot, and I can’t have you going down in the field,” she said, winking as if to punctuate the sentence.
“You sure? We can manage, you don’t have to come with us, you’ve done so much already.”
“I know I have, that’s why I have to protect my investment. If you go down out there, then the team is without a leader. A military scale operation like this will go south real fast without someone competent in command.”
“You’ve got me wrong, Akari: I’m no leader. I’m just someone who wants to live in a better city and doesn’t mind taking the trash out himself. Besides, why do we need a leader? We’re all competent adults acting in concert, of our own free will. We all know what we’re doing, if a situation arises and someone needs to take charge, it’ll happen.”
“You’ve got a lot of faith in a crew you just met,” Akari said with a sneer.
“You know why I asked you to put the team together, Akari?”
“Because there’s a bounty on your head that could finance twenty retirements, and you know you can trust me?”
“No, well yeah, but that’s beside the point—I asked you because you’re not a Fixer, you’re a part time street doc that works the front desk at the most popular Freelancer hotel in the Sprawl. If there’s anyone who knows who’s gonna get the job done, it’s you. See, a Fixer is going to be okay with whatever losses they deem acceptable beforehand, but they’re fine with keeping that to themselves. If you thought any of these mooks were going to crack under pressure, or do something stupid, you wouldn’t have set me up with them.”
Before she could respond, Trodes emerged from the stairs leading to the lab. He winced as the sunlight hit his eyes, shrugging on the hood of the oversized sweatshirt that blanketed his meek frame. Glimpses of pain showed through every tremor laden step he took. A cloak of wires enveloped his skull, feeding into an old-world cyber console.
“It’s insufferably hot out here,” Trodes sighed.
“Don’t worry, we’re not going far. Chances are that whatever hole we’re meeting BFU in will have air conditioning,” I responded, clicking my key fob, and signaling the bike to pull around.
Trodes face fell flat when the Supersonic rolled around the corner; apparently, the prestige of carving through the skyway on a state-of-the-art Taffington jet-bike was lost on him.
“Are we taking… that?” Trodes stammered.
“We are. Unless you’ve got a pair of wheels with two seats?” I asked, mounting the bike and revving the engine.
With an exasperated sigh, Trodes boarded the passenger seat. I could feel him behind me, vibrating as tremors gripped his body.
“You good, buddy?” I asked.
He nodded vigorously, clenching the handrails with white knuckles.
Akari shook her head and headed back to the lab.
I heard Trodes mumble something under his breath, but it was quickly drowned out by the jet-bike’s purr. I carved into the skyway. Driving in the Sprawl was pure freedom: almost nobody owned vehicles with aerial capabilities in this part of town. It didn’t take long to reach top speed.
Slummers and gutterpunks walked the streets like zombies in a drug addled haze. The scent of gunpowder, pollution and burning ozone coalesced into a putrid stench that reeked of poverty and violence. Patches of azure moved in militant formation below; the Vorrath had taken to the streets. On a different day, a better day, I would’ve helped them. Most slummers hated the Offworlder Coalition, but not me—at the end of the day I always figured that I had more in common with poor people from another planet than rich people from another district of the city. At least we shared the same struggle.
The bike slowed to crawl; the Neo-Confederates were about, backed by a platoon of Brown-Shirts that looked like a tide of sewer run off, crashing through the streets with reckless abandon. Civilians fled for their homes. Fuck.
The jet-bike careened through the air before finally landing atop a building a few blocks away from the impending conflict.
“Get off,” I said, turning back to Trodes.
“Why? You don’t intend to abandon me at this altitude, do you?”
“Not as long as I survive—I’ll be quick, I just need to ventilate some Nazi fucks, understood?”
He shook his head and muttered a string of curses.
I tore through the air, circling around the impending conflict. I chased a handful of cheap amphetamines with a poorly rolled joint and swooped low, behind the rolling tide of brown shirts. This wasn’t the first time I’d made myself an enemy of the city’s Neo-Nazi’s; I’d killed at least a dozen of them in my career as a courier, but those were isolated incidents, back-alley brawls away from the mob.
This was a whole new ball game.
I fell slack as my Teleoperations module synchronized with the bike. My consciousness faded, reemerging into the HALO-Net’s stylized rendition of the bike’s interior. I wasn’t just the pilot now—I was the bike. Bullets carved twin streaks of crimson into the brown tide. It didn’t take long to hit top speed, 3.7 seconds, to be exact.
The group turned in nearly perfect unison, launching volley upon volley as I passed overhead. The bike’s shields barely held together; I felt every round, like a flock of birds violently slamming into my side—not enough to cause any real damage, but more than enough to get the blood pumping. I slid into an alley a few blocks off and waited for the shield generator to recharge. Gunshots rang out from the streets, alongside the sizzle of plasma meeting flesh. Soon the din was drowned beneath the roar of dozens of Vorrath war cries. I took to the sky.
Trodes was exactly where I left him, nervously clutching a knock off version of a Locust flechette pistol.
“I was beginning to doubt your survival,” Trodes said shakily.
“Wrong again, little guy,” I paused, reigniting a half smoked joint, “it was just a quick hit and run, we don’t have the time or the numbers for a pitched battle. Now, hop on.”
It didn’t take long to find BFU’s base of operations. Black flags and Anarchist graffiti covered the walls of the abandoned warehouse they’d apparently taken up residence in. A field of repurposed Peacewatch turrets were installed atop the roof, complimented by a web of cameras that spread across a three-block radius. Anarchists of all species and creeds loitered outside. The guards ranged from Cyborgs and Vat-Grown, to Vorrath and Vorstihl, each wearing a variant of the black flag with colors corresponding to their ideologies.
As I hovered above the building, I saw a familiar face: the rookie from earlier. Alarmingly, his cruiser was nowhere to be seen. His face was wrought with horror, as a pair of cyborgs led him inside the warehouse.
“They’re certainly less than subtle,” Trodes said.
“They don’t have to be subtle, they’re the biggest citizens political organization in the Sprawl. Peacewatch avoids them if they have anything less than a full platoon on hand,” I explained.
“Red… before we enter negotiations with these hooligans, I must inquire as to what your motivation hitting the vault is? Surely you know there’s a strong likelihood that you won’t make it out, and from what I’d heard about you, I always understood you to be a man who knew how to keep himself out of the line of sight of dangerous people,” Trodes said, nervously.
“Fincetti is the most dangerous man in the city, short of O’Bannon. He controls the black market with an iron fist and is instrumental in all the things I hate about living here. The problem is, I have no way to do anything about it right now… but there’s something big in the safe—there must be—for fucks sake, he iced his family over it. I’m hoping there’s something in there that can give me a little leverage, so I can cross him out afterwards.”
Trodes was silent for a moment, simply reaching as if to ask me to pass the joint. I obliged.
“I have my reasons to want O’Bannon dead too, I’m in,” he paused as a coughing fit seized him, causing the joint to fall to the ground, “there’s something you should know though: I’m working with an entity of great power in the Net; I don’t know what precisely it is, but I know it saved my life more than once. As a matter of fact, it’s the only reason I was able to obtain the blueprint of Fincetti’s bunker, and his security plan.”
“Is it… is it an unshackled AI?”
“Unlikely: it seems to understand compassion and empathy on a uniquely organic level, something that rarely slips past Netwatch.”
“Alright, well whatever it is, you keep an eye on it and let me know if things get shady. I appreciate you telling me.”
Trodes nodded in silence.
The crowd parted expectantly as I landed along the streetside. Dozens of eyes were immediately glued to Trodes and I. A cyborg with a steel double mohawk emerged from a sea of leather, patches, and smoke. A sawed-off shotgun hung at his side.
“Red, I presume?” the Cyborg asked, extending a steel hand.
“That’s right, and who’re you?” I answered, clasping the borgs hand as firm as I could manage.
“They call me Diezel, and I’ll be your host today,” he released my hand and looked me up and down as if assessing whether I was a threat, “follow me, everyone’s here so we can get straight down to business.”
The warehouse’s interior had been renovated drastically; layers of open-faced lofts sat stacked upon each other, consuming the walls. Nearly every non-violent law in the city was being broken in the lofts, from cooking chems and explosives to studying banned literature and Doomguard martial arts. It was beautiful. We followed Diezel through a winding hallway of munitions manufacturing stations, before finally emerging into an immense circular room, with rows of seats climbing the walls. I couldn’t believe it—there must have been two hundred people present.
The lights dimmed as we entered the arena. Diezel led us to the rooms center, ushering Trodes and I onto a great circular platform; he fell into place on a platform across from us, beside a Vat-Grown woman bearing an orange and black flag on her arm, and augmentations that cost more than my bike. Behind the duo a bulbous Vorstihl lurked; tentacles draped down his back, carefully pulled away from his cyclopean eye. A red and black flag was displayed on his arm… it was only then that I noticed the blue and black flag on Diezel’s arm.
The platforms each rose roughly fifteen feet into the air, before microphone stands emerged from the center of each platform. Diezel stepped forward, past the microphone.
“Before we start, I’ll explain how this works: the three of us are representatives of our specific unions—but the people are free to interject. One union voting to aid in your endeavors does not guarantee the help of the other two, as each union demands a perfect consensus. Likewise, if a faction without one union decides to help you, it does not necessarily mean you have the support of the entire union. The only way you’ll end up with total support is cross union consensus. Do you understand?”
A consensus: of course, they needed a damned consensus.
“I do,” I answered, speaking away from the microphone.
“Then let’s get this show on the road,” Diezel stepped back, finding his microphone before continuing, “Red, Trodes, welcome to the Bouleuterion,” he paused a moment as the crowd erupted into cheers, “beside me are my comrades Aria and Korvirex, and we stand ready to hear your proposal.”
“As most of you probably know, Don Fincetti is the most powerful man in the underworld, hell—maybe even the city—what you likely don’t know is that he has a vault beneath the city, guarded by an army of Harvesters. I intend to break into the vault, slaughter the Harvesters and strike a blow to Fincetti that he won’t forget… and I intend to kill him shortly after. What I ask is simple: you help me in what’s to come, and when he’s finally dead, you can all split his turf among yourselves. All I care about is making sure he doesn’t live long enough to poison the Sprawl more than he already has.”
A murmur emerged from the stands. I gazed across the way to see the three representatives huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. Finally, Aria stepped towards her microphone.
“What you ask of us will likely mean the death of many of our people… we need something greater than what you offer—we need a guarantee of mutual aid—you have a reputation in the Sprawl, we would ask that you employ it in helping us when the time comes to resettle the Sprawl. Namely, we’d request your assistance against the gangs that may try to fill the power void you seek to create,” Aria explained.
“That seems reasonable,” I said.
Aria stepped back as Korvirex moved forward.
“Tell me, Red, are you familiar with the Offworlder Coalition?” Korvirex asked.
“I am—as a matter of fact, I aided them on the way here—they were marching against the Neo-Confederates and the Brown Shirts. I insured that they had the element of surprise.”
Korvirex stroked the beard-like tentacles that hung from his chin in contemplation.
“Good. What I ask is that you help us to secure their trust, we have offered solidarity where we could, but our forces are spread thin. The ideology of many of the exiled Vorrath rebels that found their way to Nova City—it matches that of our union. If our help was offered, would you agree to assist us in aiding the Coalition, so that they finally have an opportunity to get on their feet?”
Trodes leaned towards in, whispering in my ear.
“It would be prudent of you to make a counteroffer: proclaim that you’ll help with the Coalition, if they’ll spread the word to other groups whose goals may align with ours. There will likely be at least a couple hundred Harvesters in the Undercity when we strike… unless they’re occupied elsewhere.”
“I would happily help with the Coalition, on the condition that your faction spread the word about what we’re doing to like-minded organizations. As it stands, we could still use more numbers to match the Harvesters,” I said.
“These conditions may be satisfactory,” Korvirex said, before retreating into yet another group huddle.
The audience watched on in silence.
Finally, Diezel reapproached the microphone.
“The representatives have deemed this topic worthy of discussion: you’re free to leave, we’ll get ahold of Akari in a couple days, when all the details are ironed out.”
“A couple days?”
“Reaching a consensus can be a slow process at times—be prepared for a renegotiation of conditions, as there will likely be more stipulations made once the process is complete,” Diezel explained.
I nodded, and the platform beneath my feet began to descend towards the floor. The crowd erupted into cheers.
Hopefully Nico and Roman would beat us home.

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Clementine walks outside of the dormitory with AJ. The sun is bright and warm making the air all fresh and new from the thunderstorm last night. Some minor damage was done to the east side of the wall, but nothing threatening that will endanger everyone. The grass was still wet from the rain, and so were the picnic tables. Clementine hobbles away with AJ by her side as they make their way to the watchtower. Willy and Aasim are scheduled to go out and hunt early in the afternoon, and Ruby and Violet should be in the greenhouse today gathering herbs and tending to the garden. Louis will be out later in the afternoon checking the traps for game along with Tenn.
AJ walks with Clementine as they pass Omar's black caldron to cook their meals. AJ cast a look up at his mother figure as she is wearing an unusual smile on her face this morning. AJ looks down at the ground to ponder on it for a moment. Clem's hat blocks out most of the sun from his eyes. He finally spoke to her as they made their way to the watchtower, "Why are you smiling so big?"
Clementine shook her head to clear it from her thoughts with Louis from last night, "Huh, what?"
"You are smiling a different kind of smile today," AJ commented being observant of her.
"I am?" Clementine asks with one of her eyebrows arching a little.
"Yeah, like you are glowing or something. What made you so happy last night? Did Louis and you have some sissy gross love talk?" AJ asks.
Clementine looks down at him as they approach the ladder to the watchtower to climb up on. "Yes, we did." Clementine casts her look away not wanting to admit to her surrogate son her first sexual experience.
"That can't be, because you never have that look when you guys talk of kissing love. And kiss and stuff, so what exactly happened between you and Louis that made you...this happy?" AJ looks up at her one more time.
Clementine sighs as she shakes her head, "AJ...."
"I am curious, is all? I have never seen you this happy, even when you guys do gross love things together." AJ said.
"Some things you don't need to know kiddo. At least not right now. When you get a bit older, I will tell you. But you are still my little goofball, and I want to keep it that way for as long as I can, even if you are growing up too fast for me." Clementine said as she reaches out to rub AJ's head and her old hat. Making it go lop-sided on AJ's head.
AJ straightens out her hat on his head as he pouts up at her, "It is AJ or Alvin Jr, not goofball. How many times do I have to tell you that."
"Sorry bud, old habits, and I still like that nickname." Clementine teases him.
AJ gave her a swat back as Clementine balanced on her prosthetic foot, "Well I don't. It makes me feel like I am three again and a baby, which I am not." AJ crosses his arms over his chest and looks away from Clementine.
"Okay, I will try not to use it, alright, kiddo." Clementine sighs, and AJ turns to smile back at her. She then puts on her motherly leadership tone now, "Okay, time to do look-out duties. You go up first." Clementine said as she let AJ climb up first. Once Clementine makes the climb up she let AJ use the binoculars to see as she scans the horizon with her eyes on danger. She tries not to think of about her time with Louis and focuses on looking out for danger, but the thought keeps coming back in her head. Is Louis right? Do I have a glow on my face from what happened last night? Do women glow after they have sex? Do men do as well? And if AJ sees it do the other kids know about it as well? Am I really that obvious to everyone? She tries to hide it, but her heart and happiness will not hide away. Clementine shakes her head to clear it as she focuses in on the threats outside the walls of her home.
.....................................
Louis finished picking up the rest of their fort and gathered his cards up. Smiling as he thought about his and Clementine's passionate night last night. She made him the happiest guy on earth. Once Clem's room is all packed away, he slowly puts on his green shirt and never notices the hickeys Clem left on his neck.
When Louis closes the door to his and Clem's room, he feels a little dizzy, and light-headed all of a sudden and a sharp pain at his gut. Louis leans on the door for support. The pain was a sharp burn, like a bad cramp or something. He never noticed Aasim was just coming out of his room and looked at Louis kind of funny.
"You okay, dude?" Aasim asks.
Louis took a moment then shook his head as the pain was dull but not as severe. "Yeah...must be something I did last night." Louis slowly spoke.
"Uh huh, and that moaning in your and Clem's room had nothing to do with it?" Aasim arches his eyebrows and crosses his arms.
Louis flush in the face now, as Aasim heard his first sexual encounter with a girl, "We...uh...practicing her combat skills." Louis cast to the floor as Aasim is not buying his act.
Aasim chuckles to his friend and looks to Louis, "Look. Lou, I am no idiot. I know you and Clem did it last night. It was obvious by the soft moans from the two of you as I passed your room to go to bed. I won't tell anyone." Aasim looks at him. "You have my word, bro."
Louis looks down, then back up at Aasim, and has a new appreciation for his old friend and for keeping to the guy code. He still held his hand on the side of his body, and Aasim took notice. "Are you sure you are okay Lou, I can go get Ruby?" Aasim asks.
"Yeah, I am fine, and no need to get your girlfriend involved. It is probably hunger pains." Louis half joked as he never experiences this deep pain. Or maybe this is after sex pain.
"Okay, suit yourself. I have to find Willy. He and I have hunting duty, and you Lou, need to rest the traps. It is your turn today, besides fixing up the wall from the storm last night." Aasim said.
"Will do, after I eat something," Louis said as he leaned his back on Clem's dorm room door.
Aasim started to move and kept his eye on Louis as something was not right or not good with him, and he was a bit concerned. Louis took deep breaths as the pain slowly subsided, and he slowly began to move to go outside.
Louis sees Aasim getting his food and taking it over to where Ruby is as they are being all cutesy with each other. He smiles at his friend's romance, and then Louis's eyes fall on Clementine and AJ up in the watch tower. He sighs a happy smile at seeing his girlfriend as she still has that glow upon her face that she and he did last night. And strangely, Louis, too has a glow on his face. He shakes his head as he grabs food and starts to eat it, hoping whatever pain he felt was just hunger pains.
Then he spots Violet coming in from the graveyard, of all places. He has seen her near there a lot, and it is not like her to see her ex-girlfriend's grave marker and act so damn happy when he knows for a fact Minnie ruined Violet back on the beach after the Delta boat blew up. He watches as Violet heads directly to her room, and he lets out a sigh. Once Violet is seen to go to the dorms, Louis looks out over at the wall of the school and the traps as they can wait to be fixed, as Louis wants to find out where Violet has been sneaking off to in the dead of night and coming back in at dawn, or mid-morning. Louis finishes his stew and puts it where the rest of the dishes are and heads to Violet's room, room 202.
...................................
Maya made it back to her tent without anyone noticing her absence. She sees Aniya is still asleep in her bed on her side of the tent, while Maya crawls into bed and smiles with her heart feeling like it has wings. There is no doubt now on Maya's face that she is in love with Violet. Maya only got a half hour of rest when she felt Aniya waking her up, "Maya, Maya...wake up. Bonnie wants us to go hunting again."
Maya groans a little and squints her eyes, "Okay.." Maya slowly gets up, and Aniya looks at her older sister with concern.
"You sure you are up for it? You look exhausted." Aniya said.
"I will be fine." Maya yawns.
Aniya looked at the door and then back at her sister, "You were with Violet all night, weren't you?"
Maya looked down at her feet then her brown eyes met her sisters. "Yes."
"Maya.." Aniya shakes her head.
"Before you say anything, I told her how I felt about her." Maya sighs, "I love her,"
Aniya looks at her, "Maya, I am glad, even happy for you. You found love in this world. But you know this is going to get very complicated. People will start to get subspinous about your disappearing to go meet her. Bonnie will soon pick up your weird behavior and start to question your loyalty. I don't want to see you getting kicked from the group. I need my sister."
Maya understands her little sister's worry as Maya bows her head and puts her hands over them, and lets out a heavy sigh. For the first time, she admits it out loud to her little sister, "I am so torn, Aniya. Sometimes I wished I never met her or those group of kids that fateful day."
Aniya reaches out to her sister and lightly touches her shoulder, "Why?"
Maya pulls her head up and moves her hands to the side of her body. "Because this way, I wouldn't put my heart through this hell I am feeling. It is getting very damn difficult to leave her to come back to this group. You are the only thing that keeps me here, you and Robert." Maya sighs and softly mourns, "Please don't hate me for saying that. I love you, and you are the only kin I have left in this world, and I vowed to Mom and Dad I will take care of you, and know I will never leave you."
Aniya nods and holds her sister tight, "I know. And I don't hate you, Maya, for having those thoughts. But to tell you the truth. As much as I sometimes come off as being jealous, your love for this girl is not a mistake, and don't ever think that was. Seeing you deeply in love with Violet actually gives me hope for a future in this bleak dark world. In some ways brings back memories of when Mom and Dad were alive. And if you feel your home is with Violet and her group, I will go where you go, sis. Family sticks together." Aniya reminded her.
Aniya coughs and nods to the doorway, "Alright, come on, we got hunting to do before Bonnie gets suspicious. Do what you can, sis, and I will try and think of something of an excuse for why you are exhausted."
Maya shakes her head, "I appreciate the loyalty Aniya, but I don't want you to lie for me. I will devise my tale and not let you get involved. Bonnie will know something is up if you do that. Come on."
Maya, Aniya, and Bonnie head out on the beach scouting for food. Maya braces the cold wind as it blows on her fingers, making it difficult to hunt with the bow. They walked what felt like miles, and Maya spotted what looked like a deer. She blinked several times, and it was a deer. Maya gets in a low crouch and begins to stalk it. Maya drew her bow and an arrow from her quiver. She knows when hunting deer out west, she needs to be quick with her motions. Maya drew the arrow back of the string of the bow until it was taunt. Before Maya could strike at the deer, the deer turned and looked at her.
Maya gazes at the deer as it doesn't run or flee, and soon Maya's heart stops and knows this is not just a deer. It is a spirit. Maya lowered the bow and withdrew her arrow from the string.
Aniya looks at her sister as Bonnie catches a wild turkey and a few rabbits. She sees her sister staring at something invisible that only she can see. Bonnie looks to Aniya, "What is Maya doing?"
"I'm not sure," Aniya said as she tried to read her sister's actions.
Maya stares long and hard at this deer and soon feels a sharp pain in her forehead. The pain was so much it caused Maya to fall to her knees and hold her head. Then Maya blacks out and is about to get a vision of what happened to Clementine, Louis, and Violet that day on the beach when the Delta boat blew up
"Maya!" Aniya screams out and runs to her sister, and the same with Bonnie.
"What is wrong with her, Aniya?" Bonnie drops the kills she made and kneels to Aniya, holding her sister, who is unconscious.
Aniya answers, "She is having one of her vision things. She gets like this sometimes when a spirit or something contacts her."
Bonnie looks at her oddly, "This is ridiculous. We need to get back." Bonnie goes and reaches for Maya, and Aniya batted her hand away.
"No, don't...don't touch her when she is like this. You might not believe this kind of thing, Bonnie, but my sister is next chosen to be my tribe, Sherman. Shermans have special gifts of having visions of the past and foreseeing things. My grandmother had this gift, and it is passed to my sister." Aniya explains.
"So what do we do, wait until she regains conscious?" Bonnie asks, looking at Aniya holding her older sister.
"Yes," Aniya said.
"Who knows how long that could take? I don't want to—" Bonnie's words were cut short when both she and Aniya heard groans of walkers, about eight or nine of them. "Shit.."
Aniya stood up and looked at Bonnie, and Bonnie looked at her, "Well, we don't have time for your sister to come to now unless she wants to be walker food. You get our kill, and I will carry your sister to a better location where we are not easy targets. Keep those fuckers off of us." Bonnie picks up Maya and carries her in her arms as Aniya keeps the walkers off their tails Bonnie leads them to a cave to keep them hidden from the walkers.
.........................................
Maya wakes up on the sandy beach. The pain in her forehead eased up some as she heard gunfire. Maya looks and sees Clementine, the little boy named AJ, and Louis Aasim, a boy Maya has never met or seen before.
She hears a horse crying as the boy Aasim waves to some other kids Maya again has never seen before. Maya counted the seven kids and counted Violet, these must be Violet's other members of the group. Then out of nowhere, Maya sees the love of her life as she pleads to a girl Maya has never seen or heard of before.
"Minerva, why are you choosing to be with them? I still love you despite killing Sophie! Your home is with Ericson, not the fucking Delta! I know you remember!" Violet screams.
Minerva looks to Violet. She lets out a scream of confusion. When she sees Clementine shooting a member of her family, Minerva's eyes goes cold and turns from Violet. Violet kept screaming out her name, but she didn't know she was there. "Minerva!"
Violet knew from that moment her precious Minnie was lost to her. Violet watches in horror as Louis, Aasim, and Omar flee to safety. Minerva was going to kill or do harm to someone she cared about.
Minerva points her gun, and Violet sees what Minerva will do. Violet runs to stop Minerva, and the two of them battle and fight with each other until Violet gets slashed by Minerva's knife. Violet's felt the sting of her shoulder where Minerva sliced her. And the look in her eyes just then it is like she didn't care if she hurt Violet.
Violet, in tears now feeling betrayed by the love of her life, watches as Minerva, blindly in rage, advances onward toward Clementine. Violet slowly reaches for Minerva's crossbow and, with shaking hands, aims at her former lover and lets out her tears, knowing Minerva is no longer in love with her and the Minnie she once found love and joy in died the day she entered the Delta. Violet pulls the trigger and shoots Minerva in the shoulder when she tries to aim at her head. Minerva lets out a shriek of pain as she eyes Violet as the ultimate butyral of her former lover. Violet made her choice that day and was going to kill Minerva for the love of her friends.
Minerva yells at Violet, "Fuck you and everything we had." Minerva was unaware of a walker coming and biting her in the face. Louis puts his arms around Violet to protect her. Clementine looks to AJ and is about to follow after their friends when she hears Minerva screaming, "Clementine! FUCK YOU!" and lobs a grenade at Clementine and AJ, causing the separation of Clem and AJ from the rest of the Ericson group.
Maya's heart broke for Violet seeing how much Violet loved Minerva. And Maya stands on the sandy ash beach, watching the event unfold. Maya crashes to the sandy ground and holds her arms, "Oh, Vi...I...I am so sorry..." Maya sobs, and her heart aches for her lover. Maya soon looks up and wipes her eyes, and Maya looks and sees the deer she saw in the woods when hunting with her sister, and Bonnie now appears in the woods of her vision. Maya wipes her tears and realizes this is not just any deer.
Maya slowly stands up and eyes the spirit animal, "Why are you showing this to me? Why am I reliving Violet's past? Who are you, and what do you want? Tell me who you are?"
The deer looks at her and then toward where the horse carries Violet away. Then looks back at her. Maya gazes at the deer and soon hears rumbles. Maya turns and sees a storm making landfall on the river as a stiff wind blows sand in Maya's eyes. Maya sees flashes of bright lights, and soon, the sandy beach around her is filled with blood, and the sky is red. Maya looks back at the deer who stands in the shadows of the woods. Maya realizes this is a warning. The blood, the red sky, and the rumbles of a storm. The red sky means death is coming. No..oh dear God, no! Maya looks at the deer with sad eyes, "Don't fucking tell me I am going to lose the love of my life! Or my sister, Aniya."
The spirit never answers her and Maya soon felt the pain in her forehead as she holds her forehead until the blinding pain stops. And Maya is back to her reality.

I’m convinced that my kids know when my husband and i plan to do something without them because they almost always get sick and prevent us from doing anything without them. our family took a beach trip for the long weekend and enjoyed some family time, but after a long weekend with the kids schedules being out of whack, a 7 hour car ride to and from the beach, and lots of temper tantrums.. my husband and i were drooling at the idea of taking the kids to daycare today and enjoying some quality time together for the extra day off we took. about an hour after drop off, my 2 year old’s teacher messaged me suspecting he might have pink eye. i did a teladoc appt and they do not think it is pink eye but obviously with pink eye being extremely contagious, we took precaution and brought him home. my husband and i aren’t even mad lol, we’ve just accepted our fate. it simply was too good to be true to have a beautiful day off without the kids with an already clean house and very minimal responsibilities to uphold. if i have to keep him home while i work tomorrow, that will be a whole new headache.