2259-3-1181 116:22 Aze > target?

2259-3-1181 116:31 Rozenn > Dactyl Neuroscience Research Institute

2259-3-1181 116:36 Aze > interesting. details I need to know?

2259-3-1181 116:47 Rozenn > 6 Months ago contact was lost with the station. investors hired...

Nothing good happens in daylight, they say. The depths of A-town is the nicest shithole on asteroid Ida, an honest trashy place for dishonest trashy folk. The mid-levels are a ghost town--population never keeps pace with excavation. The highest levels...

Back on the elevator, Aze finally adjusts its vision back to normal. Rozenn’s eyes glow a bright pink. “Finally, sweet darkness,” Aze says.

“You live like this?” Rozenn says.

Aze sends the elevator a command through its terminal, not bothering with the...

The weak pull of gravity and the warmth of the RTG can no longer reach them, down in the æther. In the untouchable, uncountable distance, the glow shapes itself into a pattern, the pathways of the server microcircuitry, or at least some hallucinatory...

High above the floating island on the back of a dragonfly, Aze sees a clearer image of the state of the world. Thousands of islands like this float above the æthereal indigo depths, some larger, some tiny fragments, some thriving with plantlife, some...

Aze feels the texture of a leaf. By touching this object with its avatar, its full-body neural interface sends impulses through its natural nervous system, indistinguishable from feeling a real plant. It takes in the smoothness of one leaf and the...

Aze and Rozenn emerge in the altar chamber, beneath the roots of the great tree, entwined with gems of light. A swarm descends and circles them, grey moths the size of their faces, red crystal eyes casting a red glow on the intruders.

“Agh, slight...

Aze gasps for breath. Real air rushes in. It opens its eyes and slowly its senses come back online to the sight of its own ceiling. It sits up. The pain lingers, rippling through its nervous system. With numb fingers it claws at the collar around...

Deeper in the depths, Rozenn follows Aze as they glide down a corridor. Piles of old electronic and mechanical components take up more and more space as they go, until they barely have room to walk. They reach a door of translucent glass. A screen...

Standing at the threshold of the hatch, Rozenn stares down the dark shaft. Vee’s green electronic eye casts a bright white beam and that shines on the walls of bare rock. It’s a perfectly circular vertical tunnel, the type dug by a prospecting drill,...

On the surface of Ida, Aze leads Rozenn through a trench under its glass ceiling and into a massive hangar of the spaceport, a place of loud clashing and grinding of metal. Aze lowers its auditory input volume, and reduces the brightness of its vision...

Little Dactyl is the much larger world in the sky now. Entering an orbit around this tiny body in a binary system is basically impossible, easier to enter a nearly parallel orbit around Ida and station-keep with the moon for a while. Their target...

The hatch opens, and air rushes out. Pressurized. Aze and Rozenn climb inside and shut the door before the pressure can drop too much. The overlay on Aze’s helmet visor indicates oxygen levels are safe. They look around, hands on their guns. Rozenn...