02 - Mirrorheart
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30 – Discontent
Curt stared at the inbox, then slid his chair a little to the right, and went back to picking at his breakfast. He’d never had an ordinary work life – after school and after graduation, he’d worked for his dad’s stores, hauling cartons of fruit and veg for a pay cheque inflated by nepotism. There’d never really been anything to work out there – there was always some experienced manager ready to yell instructions about what truck to pack or unpack. Even learning the register had taken all of five minutes to understand. Then there’d been his time with the Solstice – both the closest and furthest from normal that…
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29 – Corner Pieces
Stef opened her eyes. Like so many times before, she was lying, curled on the smooth ground, back at what she was thinking of as her “spawn point”. As she sat up, she looked for the mirror and the conspiracy board – both of which were still in place. This was good, it meant that some permanent changes were possible. That progress wouldn’t be lost every time she slept. ‘ROYGBIV.’ She looked down, half-expecting the word to have manifested in front of her, or to have dropped to the ground, made of wooden blocks. She’d said it, and for a reason, but now she had to- The colour of the…
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28 – Everything Changes
Some agents felt very attached to a certain time frame. Often, but not always, it was the time associated with breaking past that unofficial “newborn” phase, of the moments when they truly became themselves. It was, in its way, very human. Others simply became invested in hobbies to the point where they became a defining part of that agent’s personality, and they would quietly gripe as their treasured pastime fell out of favour, and would crow in victory once they once again cycled back into the public zeitgeist. Ryan had never found himself experiencing nostalgia for any particular slice of time. The possibilities of tomorrow, of what could come, of…
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27 – I Don’t Think, Therefore-
Sometimes, it was like a hundred thousand years passed in an instant. That she could see the rise, change and fall of some species so minor no fossil had ever been found. Other times, a single second seemed to encompass eternity. Whatever this was, it was like a dream. You were only aware of time when you thought about it. The rest of the time-not-time-maybe-time, it just did whatever it wanted – people making faces when your back was turned. Peers creeping up during a game of statues. Background processes you didn’t know about. And sometimes, she felt like the background process. Ever since there had been the breakthrough that…
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26 – The Greater Good
She wasn’t sure she’d ever expected to be a mother. Andrea slowly sipped her coffee, pecked at a couple of keys, starting the next round of scans, then dutifully began to sort through the latest crop of crayon drawings. Agents who became parents tended to be a lot older than she was, for a start – early 30s was a perfectly normal age for a human to have a family. However, for agents, it was still very much on the “Newborn” side of life. There were exceptions, of course – some agents came to their emotional maturity – or at least their emotional selves – fairly early in life, flipping…
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25 – Pretence
Magnolia pressed her security card against the sim room’s operations screen. It was rarely a good sign when a meeting with an agent was to take place in a sim. In what amounted to a holographic chamber capable of recreating anything from your weirdest sexy fantasy to the tiniest detail of all your underlings dying on a failed mission, there was always the chance that the tech would be used to chew your ass out – and not in the fun way. Jane was there to audit them – something that was far overdue from an outside perspective and something that could destroy her Agency and her life. So much…
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24 – Ground State
As strange as the thought was, he felt like he was going unarmed to an execution. Not bringing a knife to a gun fight, not bringing words to a brawl, but…going naked to a place where it was almost certain someone meant him harm. Curt looked down at himself – the choice of dress was deliberate: uniform pants, shirt and tie. Enough to show that he was still toeing the line, without being stifled by the entire uniform. And if another fight broke out – well, it was easier to fight like this without stopping to shrug off a coat, or worry that Ryan would be able to get a…
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23 – Trespasser
It wasn’t trespassing, but it felt like it. The dead didn’t have personal space, not really, but it still felt wrong to be standing there. Curt stared at the apartment door, at the worn wood, and stuffed his right hand into his pocket to stop himself from knocking on the door. It was something…someone had once told him, maybe his dad, maybe his grandmother, that it was bad luck to knock on the door of an empty house. As if maybe knocking would arouse an angry spirit. Like a knock could make an unoccupied house into an occupied one. Feeling stupid with every inch of movement, he pulled his hand…
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22 – The Beginning, The Future
[Join me in the lab, Newborn, if you please.] Ryan stared at the text message – text was an unusual format for Jane to use for such a short message. Longer emails were common enough, but otherwise, she tended towards voice. He took a moment to finish the form he was working on. As much as he hated to admit it, if Jane did appoint Curt as his aide – even in an interim capacity – it would streamline things. He signed the form, touched it, and submitted it when the prompt appeared in his HUD. The lab, which Jones had near-anonymously designated eight-alpha, sat at the top of his…
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21 – I Want
Sometimes, it went away. It would have been nice to think that if “nothing” went away, then it would be replaced with “something”, but that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t like that, it was like…being lost in a crowd. She couldn’t hear voices, she couldn’t hear anything. Whatever this was, there were no real senses. No sight, no sound, nothing but her muddled thoughts – and worryingly, not even those all the time. It wasn’t just not thinking, not…drifting like before sleep, time – or whatever passed for time in this place – went by and she knew she wasn’t present for all of it. Maybe she was circling the…
