#Sana/Campbell/Red Gregor

[iffeelscouldkill]

say what we wanna do, make it all come true (chapter 2)

A/N: In my original notes for this fic I had written that Chapter 3 might be rolled into Chapter 2 depending on length because I thought that Chapter 2 was going to be super short. *laughs wildly in 7.1k-long chapter* But this is my favourite chapter of the fic, so it's nice that we get to spend extra time with it!

No particular content warnings for this; everything’s pretty chill. Enjoy! <3

Link to Chapter One | Read on AO3

“That, dear listeners, was ‘Landers Never Stand Down’, the hit single – or should that be anthem? – by beloved indie band Rumor, from their debut album, ‘Ghost Squid’. If you’re just joining us, I’m Piper Tanaka, and this is Radio Indie, Folk and Techno. With us in the studio are Rumor frontwoman Sana Tripathi-”

“Hello again.”

“-and bassist Arkady Patel. We’ve just been hearing the stunning true story of how the band added a new member to its line-up, drummer Violet Liu, after she was discovered trying to obtain confidential files in order to blow the whistle on her employer, the notorious IGR Corp, and its development of an unethical surveillance device.”

“Isn’t that, really, the only logical way to join a band?” Kestrel quipped.

“It sure worked out well for the Rumor crew!” said Piper. “On a more musical note, though – and yes, that pun was intended – that was a great track we just heard. I’m curious about the name you picked for your debut album; is there a story there?”

Sana glanced at Arkady, amused. “Call it an in joke,” she said. “We were originally going to go with ‘In the Deep’, since there’s kind of a loose space theme to the first album, and then… after rehearsal one day, we were just riffing on what kind of creatures might live out in the depths of outer space-” They had also been pretty drunk at the time, but she didn’t need to mention that live on air. “-and Arkady suggested that maybe there’d be giant squid, like in the depths of the ocean.”

“Space squid!” Piper enthused. “Now there’s a concept I can get behind.”

“Right, but Violet, who is our resident science expert – she has a Masters in Molecular Biology–”

“Fancy. Love a woman of science.”

“-pointed out that a squid could never propel itself in a vacuum. Unless it was, you know, a ghost squid.”

“How much had you guys been drinking?” Kestrel asked shrewdly. Arkady coughed.

“It was a dumb joke, but we thought it would make a pretty unique name for a first album,” she finished.

“You were right there!” said Piper brightly. “Then, of course, there’s your upcoming second album, which we’ve heard will be titled ‘More Than a Rumor’.”

“That’s right,” Sana confirmed. “We’ve been working on some really cool material for this one, and we’re excited to bring it to you all.”

“We’ve been hearing some interesting talk about what exactly that material might be,” said Piper. “The discussion boards online are buzzing about one track, ‘The Saga of the House of Zravshen’, which is said to be a thirteen-minute-long “epic space opera ballad” written by Brian Jeeter.”

Arkady made a derisive noise. “It’ll be a thirteen-minute-long something, all right.”

“Arkady, maybe you could tell us about ‘Nanoswarm’,” said Kestrel slyly. “I’ve heard that you and Violet Liu collaborated closely on that track.”

“I – we didn’t – what I mean is, uh, it really wasn’t a formal – collaboration–”

Arkady’s transformation from self-assured to completely flustered was delightful to behold, even though Sana felt like she should maybe step in and save her best friend from herself.

“It was more of a, uh, sort of a side project – we just worked on it and it sounded pretty cool, so it, uh – went onto the album.”

“What I think is really great about ‘More Than a Rumor’,” Sana intervened smoothly, and Arkady let out a breath, sitting back in her chair, “is that there are various tracks where different band members get a chance to shine. Building on ‘Ghost Squid’, which was the introduction to the band as a whole, we really delve into different members’ specialisms in our second album, which has made the material really varied as a result. But at the same time, we’ve worked hard to give it a cohesive flow…”

---

Not everything about adding a new member to the band had been as seamless as that first set. They’d improvised together well over the course of a performance, sure, but there was a different quality to rehearsals now that there were five of them instead of four; they were still figuring out how to navigate each other, adapting routines and in-jokes to accommodate a new person.

A lot of their original material sounded different now with the addition of a keytar and a new drummer; Liu was more technically capable than Jeeter had been, and she also wasn’t content with just falling into a role that had been laid down for her. She had ideas, things she wanted to change, and they weren’t bad ideas, but they still bugged Arkady anyway. She was just attached to a lot of their old songs, that was all.

And okay, maybe she’d pushed back on a few suggestions during rehearsals in a way that had Sana raising an amused eyebrow at her and Krejjh pretending to duck and cover. To her credit, Liu didn’t just roll over and give up on her ideas at the first sign of resistance, sticking to her guns in a way that Arkady respected even if it was also annoying. Things never deteriorated too far, mainly because Sana was quick to play peacemaker, but there always seemed to be some kind of friction between the two of them. It was like an itch under Arkady’s skin whenever she was around Liu, quick to flare up.

Then there was the time that Liu had made an offhanded comment that, “Everyone here went to an underground concert or two in college, right?” in the context of discussing the kinds of set-ups that they’d performed with in the past. Arkady had said nothing, but could feel her teeth grinding as she played an overly loud riff on her bass. It was an innocuous enough comment on its own, but the easy presumptions behind it – the idea that everyone had had access to the same educational opportunities that Liu had had – were what pissed Arkady off.

But contradicting her would have meant talking about something that was personal to Arkady, something that cut way too close to the bone, and she didn’t want to do that. Liu hadn’t earned that from her. Instead, Jeeter made a joke about having been way too immersed in books to find time for concerts, and Sana tactfully steered the conversation out of dangerous waters.

After the rehearsal, she’d pulled Arkady aside. “If you want me to talk to her about—”

Arkady shook her head. “It’s not a big deal. Really,” she added at Sana’s unconvinced look. “It was a stupid assumption, but I can let it go. I’d rather just… let it go.”

They were in a band together, but that didn’t mean they had to be best friends. Arkady could maintain a civil working relationship. It didn’t matter what she’d… thought when she first met Liu, or what Liu might have been about to say to her in the bar. All of that was in the past, so there was no point dwelling on it. All Arkady needed to do was work with Liu within the context of the band; she could do that.

Until one afternoon when Arkady arrived early for rehearsal without really meaning to, and found that the only other person in the warehouse was Liu, who was setting up her drumkit. Before Arkady could turn around and pretend she’d never been there, Liu looked up and spotted her.

“Oh… hey. I was just planning to run through a few drum lines before the rehearsal… try some stuff out,” she said.

“Right,” Arkady said, casting about for an excuse that would get her out of the warehouse until the others arrived. “Uh, I’m gonna go get some coffee from the-”

“Arkady, listen, can we, uh… Can we clear the air between us?” Liu asked, the last few words coming out all in a rush.

Arkady froze. “Clear… what air?” she asked, hoping to god that Liu would say something innocuous about why she thought the drum line on Fear for the Storm needed work.

No such luck. “Look, I get that you’re not… thrilled with having me in the band,” Liu said, quietly, though her voice still carried in the echoey space. “I’ve been in a lot of workplace environments where I’m not welcome, so I… know how to spot the signs. And maybe I’m being hypersensitive, or looking for things to worry about, but something still feels off between us, so whatever it is, can we just talk about it and deal with it? Please?”

Arkady’s chest clenched at Liu’s mention of not being welcome in ‘workplace environments’. Damn it, she didn’t want to make Liu feel the same way she’d felt in whatever white dudebro-filled tech companies she’d worked for. But she also didn’t want to go into the reasons why she wasn’t always a ray of sunshine when they interacted. There was no way that that conversation was going to make anything better.

“I don’t have a problem with you being in the band. Really,” she said instead. “If it comes off that way, it’s just because… Sana and I worked on a lot of those early songs together, and I’m… attached to how they sound. That’s all.”

“So… this is really just a musical disagreement?” said Liu, sounding unconvinced. “Because it feels like there’s… something else. I know you’re not the biggest fan of my former employer – and I mean, me neither – but I figure if it bothered you that much, you wouldn’t have come to help me when Seiders was threatening me-”

“I wasn’t going to just let you die,” Arkady said, nettled. “And no, I’m not in the habit of judging people for where they work. I’ve worked my fair share of jobs for shitty employers just to get by.” She shrugged. Then, almost without meaning to, she added, “Of course, I didn’t have the choice that you probably had…”

Liu frowned, but more like she was confused than like she was annoyed by Arkady’s comment. “What do you mean?”

Arkady sighed. “Not everyone went to college, Liu,” she said. “I’m a high school dropout. So no, I didn’t go to any underground concerts. Or any kind of gigs in college.”

Liu’s eyes widened as her comment from earlier came back to her. “Oh my god,” she groaned, putting her hand to her head. “I am so sorry, Arkady – I should know better than to make assumptions like that. I was just – I’d been talking to Brian about his studies and how he met Krejjh doing fieldwork, and I guess I assumed you guys had all met in college-”

Arkady barked out a laugh, too startled to even really be annoyed. “What, you thought that I could’ve been studying alongside Jeeter? You know he went to Brightwell, right? That elite college that’s supposed to be harder than Harvard to get into?”

Liu shrugged like the idea was actually plausible and not something that sounded like part of a bizarre alternate reality. “Yeah, I don’t see why not.” Then, quickly, as if she was afraid that this might have offended Arkady even more, she added, “But like I said – I really shouldn’t have assumed, and I’m sorry – I know better than that. I was only able to go to the college I did because I won a scholarship.”

Keen to move away from the topic of Arkady possibly having gone to Brightwell – because really, what – Arkady said, “You went to uh, that all-girls college, right? Harmony?” She vaguely remembered overhearing a conversation between Liu and Jeeter where Liu had talked about there being a Latin motto. “It sounded… interesting.”

Liu pulled a face. “Yeah, that’s one word for it.” She went on almost shyly, like she was confessing to a deeply-held secret, “I would have liked to study something more artistic – music, maybe – or at least do more extra-curriculars, but… I got that scholarship, and I was under a lot of pressure from my parents to do something ‘worthwhile’. Plus, I really wanted to show the kids who said I only got that scholarship because I was ‘a minority’.” There was an anger and a bitterness and a tiredness underlying those last two words that Arkady knew far too well.

“They what,” she spat out. God, was she glad she’d never been to college. Then again, she’d worked at places where she’d come up against the exact same attitude.

“Yeah,” Liu said wearily, fiddling with the drumsticks she was holding. “It wasn’t all bad, though. Being away at college was the first time I was really able to be myself – play the drums, be out. I got this haircut in my freshman year that was just – wild, it was awful.” She laughed, though Arkady barely heard her, her heartbeat suddenly pounding in her ears at the word ‘out’. God, Patel, get a grip. “My parents never liked the drums, they thought they were too – un-feminine,” she pulled a face again. “I play the flute, too, but I’m bad at it.”

“We should add that into the line-up,” said Arkady, to distract herself from thinking about Violet’s – Liu’s – flushed cheeks and her smile as she talked about her old haircut. “Sana can write a flute part.”

“Oh god, no,” Liu said, laughing again. “I don’t even have my flute any more, I sold it in grad school.”

“So… if you went to grad school… you can’t have hated it that much, right?” Arkady asked. “Uh – the biology, not the – flute playing.”

“Oh, no, I love biology,” Liu enthused. “It’s the study of living things – what’s not to love? Grad school itself, though, was…” She pulled a face. “I came close to quitting, a few times.”

“What happened?” Arkady asked. They were pretty far off their original subject by now, and Arkady was willing to admit to herself (and only herself) that maybe she was enjoying the conversation. It was all in the name of building better inter-band relationships, of course. Sana would be thrilled that they were bonding like this.

Liu sighed. “Let’s just say there were a few people on my course who were determined to let me know I didn’t belong. We had a lab work module where we were supposed to carry out an experiment as a group, and… I got put in charge of our group of six. My teammates would do things like pretend not to understand my instructions, or move things I needed to shelves I couldn’t reach… make comments they knew I could overhear… Growing up with an anxiety disorder, everyone’s always telling you not to worry – you learn to doubt your own thoughts. And my advisor just dismissed my concerns as ‘over-sensitivity’, so…” Arkady’s eyes narrowed further with every word that Liu spoke. “It was too late for me to transfer to another module. In the end I wound up carrying the whole project basically by myself.”

Liu gave Arkady a weak smile. “So, y’know, you didn’t miss out on much. I interned for a pharmaceutical company for a couple of years after college, did some work as a research assistant. When I got the job offer from IGR Corp, I felt like I’d finally made it – and look how that turned out.”

“Hey, it’s not your fault that IGR Corp turned out to be a special brand of greedy, soul-sucking and unethical,” said Arkady bluntly – even though she’d previously thought that maybe Liu could have had less awful taste in employers. “That’s on them. Look… I know a thing or two about soul-sucking workplaces myself.”

Arkady hadn’t intended this to turn into Personal Story Hour, but at the same time she felt like she should at least offer something after Liu had opened up about her time in college. She hadn’t needed to justify herself; she could just have apologised and left it at that. Instead, she’d shared something that Arkady suspected she didn’t talk about to a lot of people.

“The last job I worked before Sana and I started Rumor was for Telemachus Enterprises,” Arkady said, and Liu’s eyes widened in recognition.

“The global consulting firm? That’s very… well…”

“Capitalist? Soullessly corporate?” Arkady finished for her.

“I was going to say stable,” Liu said diplomatically.

“Sure, as long as you also like ladder-climbing, backstabbing and toxic work environments,” said Arkady. “I was an assistant, doing all the crap work like photocopying, fetching coffee, making calls, scheduling appointments and dealing with angry clients. It was the kind of job you get to get a ‘foothold’ in the world of business, and all of the other assistants were recent college grads who were way younger than me. I hated it.”

Liu nodded, listening intently, not offering any kind of commentary or judgement.

“Playing the bass was kind of the only thing that kept me sane, so… I used to go down to these shitty clubs at night and play, sometimes straight from work because the overtime was ridiculous. I’d join up with a couple of other musicians and do jam sessions, or sometimes play solo stuff. I’d sing, sometimes, too,” she added, a little self-consciously, even though she sang backing vocals on most of Rumor’s songs, and everyone in the band had heard her sing.

“I moved around a lot, never performed at the same place two nights in a row, so that no-one got to know me too well. I used to use different stage names – my favourite was Duchess Calpurnia Higginsworth-Cobb.”

Liu burst out laughing. “You didn’t really tell people that was your name?”

“Drunk people will believe anything,” Arkady told her. “I’m still known as ‘Duchess’ in a few places. It was a precaution, in case anything got back to my work, but in the end… the person who recognised me was someone I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Sana.”

Liu’s eyes widened. “You guys go back that far?”

“Kind of,” Arkady said. “It’s a long story–” delving into the tale of The Landing and her and Sana’s shared history definitely felt like it would be going a step too far – “but uh, I used to do work at a tattoo parlour that Sana came to a few times. I didn’t think she’d really noticed me at the time, but she remembered me well enough that when I played at a club near her workplace, she recognised me. She managed to catch a few more of my performances, figure out where I’d be, and one night she showed up with her guitar, and… we played together.”

Arkady smiled a little, remembering that night, the spark she’d felt as soon as they started to play. The drummer had been awful, some white asshole named Ricky who thought he was God’s gift to music – and wasn’t – but they’d sounded like magic anyway.

“Somehow she managed to figure out where I worked, showed up one day, invited me to get lunch, and after she found out how much I hated it there, she told me I should quit so that we could start a band,” Arkady said.

“And you did?” Liu asked, sounding half impressed, half scandalised.

“I really hated that job,” Arkady said. “Besides, the Capt- Sana can be really persuasive. We joke about her motivational speeches, but she’s…” Arkady hated to admit this, because it sounded so goddamn cheesy, but there wasn’t another word to describe it. “…inspirational.”

Liu smiled. “Yeah, I can tell. She seems like that kind of person.”

“We wrote a lot of our early songs together during that time,” Arkady said. “‘Landers Never Stand Down’, ‘Fear for the Storm’… they kind of – ugh, this is going to sound so corny, but they were about our hope for something better. So… that’s why I’m weird about changing them.”

Liu’s expression softened. “I completely get it. Look, I know that all of this has been pretty sudden – me joining the band, us trying to put together an album – and I’d understand if you wanted me to… back off a little. I was throwing out ideas for things that I thought would sound good with our new line-up, but I should have appreciated that these aren’t just songs to you and Sana.”

“No, it’s – you’re – okay,” Arkady said awkwardly. “You’re fine. They’re… they’re uh, really…” God, Arkady, just spit it out. People pay each other compliments all the time – it doesn’t have to mean anything. (Even if you might want it to mean something). “They’re really good. Ideas, I mean. And the others seem to like them! So… don’t stop on my account.”

Arkady’s urge to just leave the building after finally stumbling through that awkward admission was pretty strong, but she managed to resist. Which turned out to be worth it to see the small, pleased smile unfolding on Liu’s face. It was a different kind of smile to the one that she wore when the Captain paid her a compliment, though Arkady couldn’t have said exactly how. It just felt… personal to her.

“Well, in that case,” said Liu. “I had this idea I really wanted to try out on ‘Landers’, and… I’d love to get your thoughts? On how it sounds?”

Which was how, when Sana showed up for the start of the rehearsal fifteen minutes later, Arkady and Violet came to be mid-debate about the merits of speeding up the tempo of the drum line in the first half of the second verse, Arkady singing Sana’s part of the vocals to illustrate her point.

“Am I late?” Sana joked, throwing Arkady an amused glance. “Sorry, I didn’t realise practice was starting early.”

“The cool kids show up to practice a half hour early to go over new drum lines,” Arkady deadpanned, and Liu laughed. Sana smiled as she brought out her guitar.

“What you were playing just then sounded really good – can you go over it again?”

The conversation with Liu didn’t magically fix everything between them, but the tension eased up significantly after that, and it became easier for Arkady and Liu to come to a compromise whenever they disagreed. The album started to come together much more quickly, and when Red Gregor stopped by (which he did a lot more than he strictly needed to as the head of their record label, and Arkady suspected he was mostly there to see Sana), he was full of praise for the new arrangements.

It also somehow became a habit for Arkady to start showing up early to rehearsal. She told herself it was because the line in the coffee shop was easier to deal with at that time, and it was true that at some point she’d bought enough coffee for both her and Violet to have Violet’s regular order memorised; but it also had something to do with the fact that more often than not, Violet would arrive while she was setting up, or vice versa, and they’d run through the parts that had been bugging them, each lending the other an honest and unjudgemental ear. Sometimes they’d play around with something new, or improvise, trying on new techniques and styles for size.

Arkady honestly hadn’t had this much fun experimenting with music since those first early, heady days with Sana, when they started to lay down exactly what kind of performers they wanted to be. It was different with Violet – they had a different relationship, a different vibe – but there was still something about their sessions that felt similar, like they were breaking new ground.

One day, Arkady had been messing around with a bass line that she couldn’t get out of her head – she’d been thinking of adding it to ‘The Carmen Gambit’, one of the band’s originals that Jeeter had helped write, but it didn’t really fit. She liked how it sounded on its own, though. Liu had been listening, head tilted to one side, which Arkady didn’t really think anything of until quietly, underneath the bass line, Violet started to add a drum part.

Arkady was startled, mostly by how well the two fit together; after a slight fumble, she carried on playing, improvising and adding a couple of variations to the bass line when she ran out of material. Liu smoothly changed up the rhythm of the drum line to match just a second later, and Arkady realised that they had something that almost sounded like… a real piece of music. Something organic, something that flowed and moved and changed with-

Crap. Arkady came to a stop at the end of a section as she realised she didn’t have any idea what to play next. “Uh…” She threw an apologetic glance in Violet’s direction. “I haven’t really figured out what comes after that.”

Violet nodded, not seeming put out by this. “What about…” She hummed the end section of the melody that Arkady had been playing, and then another phrase that almost mirrored it. “Actually, that part could come before the-”

“Right, right-” Arkady understood Violet’s meaning, and quickly picked up the tune on her bass.

The song (well, technically it was an instrumental) they were writing didn’t have a name for the first few days. Arkady and Violet would pick up where they left off each time they came to rehearsal, and would throw around ideas for additions and changes, discussing the overall sound and vibe, but it didn’t feel like there was a need to put a name to it.

Then in the middle of one of these discussions, Violet started scribbling something in a notebook, and Arkady realised she was writing down their song. She peered curiously at the letters and notes, and Violet grimaced self-consciously.

“I’m not sure if I’ve got all of the bass chords right,” she admitted, tilting the notebook so Arkady could see it better. “Feel free to correct any bits that are wrong, I was mostly trying to get the drum part down for my own benefit. My memory’s not as good as yours is.”

Arkady hesitated. She was tempted to lie and say the notation was fine; Violet would accept it, and it probably wouldn’t come up again. There was a time when she would have done it without a second’s thought. But Violet already knew that Arkady had dropped out of high school; knew bits and pieces of her background, if not the whole story; and Arkady had to admit that she’d been enjoying being herself more around Violet. She didn’t want to backtrack on that.

“I never really learned to read sheet music,” she admitted. “I can recognise a few chords, but… I mostly learned how to play from YouTube videos, so it always seemed easier to just watch someone else play the chords, and learn which ones went with which songs, and… for performances I always had to memorise stuff anyway, so, um.” Arkady was rambling, and Violet was staring at her, which was possibly not good. “There didn’t seem much point in having it written down.”

“So… you never had a bass teacher?” Violet said slowly. “All of your playing, your singing – it’s all self-taught?”

“Uh,” Arkady cringed. “Yes?”

“Wow,” Violet said, and Arkady suddenly realised that she was dumbfounded because she was impressed, not because she’d just realised she was playing with an amateur. “That’s… really impressive.”

Arkady fidgeted, uncomfortable with the pure admiration in Violet’s gaze. “It’s not really – I mean sure, I put in a lot of hours, but so does every musician,” she hedged. “It wasn’t anything special, I just – couldn’t afford to pay for classes.”

She braced herself for an awkward silence to follow, but instead Violet nodded. “No, you’re right, everyone has to put in the work if they want to improve,” she agreed. “But I imagine that it would be harder to motivate yourself when it’s just you and the instrument.”

Arkady shrugged her shoulder slightly. “It wasn’t so bad. It helped that I enjoyed it, I guess.” After the disaster that was her high school education, it had been a relief to find something she’d felt like she was good at – and wasn’t being assessed on.

Violet smiled, and mercifully changed the topic by looking down at the notation she’d scribbled and saying lightly, “Well, now that it’s been written down, it feels like we should give it a name.”

Arkady thought about it. “Anything that’s shorter than whatever the hell it is Jeeter and Krejjh are working on,” she said, because Jeeter had been waxing lyrical about the ‘epic space opera ballad’ that he’d been composing with his fiancé. Apparently it was about a race of fictional aliens, and some of the lyrics were in a made-up alien language that Jeeter had invented. Arkady had no idea why Jeeter had such a dedicated following among their fans for the weird shit that he came up with, but there you were.

Violet grinned, tapping her pen against the space above the lines and notations. “So, one word, then. It’s got a pretty futuristic sound… What about ‘Cyberpunk’?”

Arkady couldn’t help grimacing a little bit. “Yeah, too clichéd,” Violet agreed. “Maybe something themed around space… ‘Supernova’?”

They tossed around a few other ideas, but none of them quite seemed to fit the mood of the song. Violet frowned down at the music she’d written, and Arkady was about to suggest they come back to it later when she said, “This might sound like a weird association for a piece of music, but I was reading a paper the other day on nanotechnology, you know, technology used at the atomic and molecular level?”

“Sounds kind of dry for bedtime reading, but I’m with you,” Arkady said.

Violet laughed, blushing a little. “Yeah, a friend from my Masters sent it to me; I still like to keep up with new developments in the field, and there are fascinating implications for biology. But I’m thinking, what if none of the space names fit because they’re too big, too grand? What if instead we went really small, like… ‘Nanobot’?”

“Nanobot…” Arkady turned the name over in her mind, thinking about the quick, intricate rhythms of the song they were creating together. It was a surprisingly good fit, but something about it felt off. Something about the ‘bot’ part was too… lonely. “What about ‘Nanoswarm’?”

Violet’s eyes widened slightly and a smile spread across her face. “Nanoswarm,” she said, and wrote the song title in blocky capitals above their music. “I like it.”

Both Red Gregor and Campbell came to rehearsal that night, which Arkady took as a sign that they were there to discuss something Important. Their album, ‘Ghost Squid’, was selling more copies than any of them had expected, and had actually got them some interview requests from indie music blogs and magazines. This seemed to be partly down to Red Gregor, who apparently had enough of a reputation as a business investor that his decision to start up a record label had attracted a lot of interest, and consequently a lot of interest in the first band he’d signed to it. But they’d also had some great reviews, including from Radio, Indie, Folk and Techno (also known as RIFT), the go-to station for all things indie music, who had covered it on their ‘Rave Review Hour’.

There’d also been a noticeably bigger audience at most of their gigs. They’d had a modest but dedicated following before Violet had joined the band, and were regulars at a couple of underground venues where they pulled decent crowds, plus one bar where Arkady had managed not to piss off the owner (the other four were… long stories); a bunch of people also streamed their music from various parts of the world. But since Ghost Squid came out, they’d started playing at (and filling) much bigger venues across a much wider area. It was fun, but also a little surreal.

“What’s the good word, Campbell?” Krejjh asked, leaning on their keyboard. “Are you here to tell us how much the people love us?”

Campbell’s lips twitched in amusement. “They love you a whole lot,” he said. “More every day.”

Krejjh fist-pumped, and Arkady asked, “So, what are you guys here for? Is this about ‘Ghost Squid 2: Electric Boogaloo’?”

They’d had a discussion with Red Gregor about beginning work on a second album; this one would take longer, since they’d had plenty of existing songs to draw on for ‘Ghost Squid’, and hadn’t needed to put together any new material. But, as Gregor had pointed out, it was better to start thinking about that sooner rather than later, and they’d been working on a few new songs anyway. So far, the second album was still nameless, but they’d taken to calling it by a range of joke nicknames.

Red Gregor grinned. “Sort of, in the sense that it’ll be good promo,” he said. Spreading his hands out to either side like a showman introducing his next act, he said grandly, “I’ve landed you a gig at the CUI Stadium.”

Jeeter’s mouth dropped open, Krejjh flailed and exclaimed, “Holy moley!”, and Violet repeated, “Stadium?!” in an almost horrified tone. Even Sana seemed surprised by the news.

“You actually got it?” she asked Red Gregor, who nodded.

Arkady’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, what’s the catch?” she asked. “They don’t let just anyone play the CUI Stadium.”

“No catch,” Campbell promised them. “Red has some contacts who tipped him off that the CUI is looking for some new, lesser-known talent to put on its billing. Once upon a time, the CUI had a reputation for scouting the best undiscovered bands and giving them a bigger stage – literally – and they feel they’ve been losing their touch.”

Put like that, it did make a kind of sense. “Cool, so who are we supporting?” Jeeter asked. “Oooh, maybe it’s Hremreh.”

Hremreh was a weird electronic band that Jeeter and Krejjh were completely obsessed with. Arkady rolled her eyes. “I hope the CUI has more taste than that.”

“Excuse you, Hremreh is an underrated gem of a band,” Krejjh retorted.

“The Destroyer?” Violet suggested jokingly. “They’re local.”

Arkady knew from having spent time with Violet that The Destroyer was one of her favourite bands from college, whose gigs she’d religiously attended during her freshman year. Everyone else looked interested but bemused, and Violet hurriedly added, “Uh, that was a bit of a niche joke. I used to go to their gigs a lot in college.”

“All great guesses,” Red Gregor said, “but you’re all missing one important piece of information. You’ll be the headline act.”

“What?” said Arkady.

“Heck yeah!” Krejjh exclaimed, and high-fived Jeeter.

“So, someone will be supporting us?” Violet said a little faintly.

“Red, exactly how many strings did you pull?” Sana asked, sounding halfway between amused and disapproving. Red Gregor held up his hands.

“I just talked to my contacts, I promise,” he said. “It gave me a chance to put your name forward, but that was all I needed to do. You guys have a great sound; they’re excited to have you on.”

Everything dissolved into a flurry of noise and celebration. Jeeter played a celebratory tune on his keytar that Arkady was fairly sure was from some video game, Krejjh whooped and slid their hands up the keys of their keyboard, and Campbell picked up Sana and spun her around, both of them and Red Gregor laughing. Violet caught Arkady’s eye, grinned, and did a little roll on one of her cymbals. Arkady huffed and rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t fight the smile that was trying to emerge.

“So, when is the gig?” Sana asked, flushed and catching her breath, after Campbell had put her down.

“A month from today,” Red told them. Sana straightened up.

“Wow, okay, we need to get rehearsing! Everyone—”

They quickly got into position, picking up instruments and drumsticks and plugging in amplifiers. Sana beamed around at the assembled band members.

“I just want to say how proud I am of all of you for what we’ve accomplished so far, and everything that lies ahead of us. I-”

“Not to head you off at the pass,” Arkady interrupted, sensing a long Sana Monologue was coming, “but didn’t you say we needed to get rehearsing? Maybe save the speech for after?”

Most people would have taken offence at being interrupted, but Sana, being Sana, smiled at Arkady. “Thank you for the reminder, Arkady. I am proud of you all, but I’ll tell you exactly how proud once we’re done.”

Rehearsal went well, everyone energetic and buoyed up from the good news. As they were packing down afterwards, under the noise of Sana, Krejjh, Jeeter, Campbell and Gregor eagerly discussing where they could go out for drinks to celebrate, Violet said to Arkady,

“I forgot to tell you earlier, but I heard back from the journalist. Emily Craddock.”

Arkady fumbled the wire that she was looping around itself. “Yeah? What did she say?”

“She said that she thinks we have enough for a story. Even with the missing data,” Violet said.

She looked happy, but something in Arkady’s chest still clenched. It had been nearly four weeks since the fateful gig at IGR Corp, and so far, everything had been quiet. The band had been on high alert at all of their performances at first, not spending any more time than was necessary setting up or lingering on the stage, but there’d been no attempts at sabotage, no suspicious ‘fans’ trying to approach them after a set. (There had been a few real fans whom Arkady had cross-examined a bit too aggressively when they tried to get close to the band, but people seemed to actually find it funny and no-one got offended).

They figured that IGR Corp must not know about the files that Violet had managed to copy across; Seiders had been unconscious, after all, and it was possible that they hadn’t realised that Violet had made off with anything, or had downplayed the severity of the incident to the higher-ups. Arkady had, in spite of her misgivings, broken the encryption on the files for Violet, but she’d been secretly hoping that the data wouldn’t turn out to be useful, or that there wouldn’t be enough of it to do anything with.

She’d hoped that even after Violet told her that she’d found a tech journalist who was interested in taking a look at the files and potentially investigate the story. Of course Arkady was a fan of doing whatever they could to stick it to the corporates; she just wished there was a way to do it that wouldn’t involve Violet painting a huge target on her back.

“That’s… good,” Arkady managed, and even she could hear how unconvincing it sounded. Violet looked at her questioningly. “It’s just…” She tried to find a way to word things that wasn’t, ‘I’m afraid that you won’t be safe’. “Once the information is out there, IGR Corp is going to know who leaked it. What happens if they come after you?”

“By that point, they should have bigger things to worry about, if the evidence that Emily Craddock has found is as damning as she says it is,” Violet pointed out. “She’s been looking into that engineer that Seiders mentioned, Alvy Connors. It’s not really clear whether something… happened to him, or whether he just made a run for it, but he definitely disappeared. And it wasn’t that long after he started work on Project ADVANCE.”

As they talked, the other band members had been clearing equipment away and loading it into the van, until Violet and Arkady were the only ones left in the warehouse.

“I know there’s risk involved,” Violet said. “But I can’t just forget everything I’ve learned. And this is bigger than me – I have to do it for Alvy, too, and his family and friends, and everyone else who could be affected by Project ADVANCE. What IGR Corp is doing-”

“I know, I know,” Arkady said. “Don’t get me wrong, I think they deserve to have the cover blown right off their shitty, awful surveillance plan.”

“I’m going to talk to the Captain before I do anything,” Violet assured her. “I know this could affect the band, too. I just wanted to tell you first.”

Why? Arkady wanted to ask, but that would have taken the conversation down a road that Arkady was not prepared to go down. Either Violet would say something like, ‘Because we’re friends’, or ‘Because you’re my bandmate’, and Arkady would feel like a moron for having hoped for anything different. Or she wouldn’t, and that would be worse, because Arkady had no idea how to respond to Violet saying… Well, it didn’t matter, because it would never happen, anyway.

“Sana will tell you to go for it,” she said. “If it’s what you think is right, she’ll be behind you all the way.”

“And… you?” Violet asked quietly.

“I…”

Why was it so hard for Arkady to just say that she approved? Violet was a grown woman who could make her own decisions; she didn’t need Arkady second-guessing her. Violet didn’t even need Arkady to agree with what she was doing – she could just go and do it anyway. But the fact that she’d asked Arkady meant that she cared what Arkady thought… and that made Arkady want to be honest with her.

And honesty was terrifying.

The moment stretched out; Arkady composed and drafted half a dozen different versions of what she wanted to say in her head. ‘I just need you to be careful’ – ugh, that sounded like something Sana would say. Also, of course Violet was going to be careful; that didn’t mean there was no risk involved. ‘I trust you to make the right choice’ – vague, and it also made Arkady feel weird. ‘If they hurt you, they’ll wish they’d never been born’ – alarming, and probably too honest.

Arkady took a breath in, gathering her nerve – and then both of them jumped as the van horn beeped loudly from outside.

“Paging bandmates Liu and Patel!” Krejjh shouted. “Bandmates Liu and Patel to the Rumormobile, please!”

Violet laughed a little, as Arkady huffed, inwardly cursing her own goddamn indecision. She’d spent so long trying to figure out what to say that she’d lost the chance to say anything.

“I guess we shouldn’t keep them waiting,” Violet said, slanting a small smile in Arkady’s direction.

“I trust you,” Arkady found herself saying, almost without meaning to. Violet looked puzzled, and Arkady scrambled to clarify. “Uh, that is – if you think this is the right thing to do. Then, you should… do it. Just…”

She still couldn’t say it, but Violet’s smile widened, her eyes softening like she knew what Arkady was trying (and failing) to tell her. “I’ll be careful,” she promised.

[iriscasefiles]

The Strange Case of Starship Iris: AUDITIONS pt 2: INFO & ROLES

All actors must be at least 18, as per Procyon Podcast Network guidelines. Beyond that, you are not required to be the exact same age as the characters, as long as you can credibly sound like you are.

You are more than welcome to record a couple of different takes, with different interpretations!  You are more than welcome to try out for multiple roles!

Send an mp3 file of your audition(s?) to iriscasefiles at gmail.com, along with the following:

1.       Your name (a pseudonym or online handle is fine) ETA: and the role(s?) you are trying out for

2.       Are you potentially okay with being cast in a role besides the one you auditioned for?

3.       Are you potentially okay with being cast as a morally ambiguous person, and/or villain?

Auditions go from January 23 to February 2. Callbacks are February 3 through 6. My goal is to have all the roles listed here cast by the end of February 6.

There will be another round of auditions for a few more roles in April.

For now, available roles are below!

MAIN CAST

 Brian Jeeter

He/him pronouns. A trans man (seeking trans actors only, please!)

Note, because this is something I’ve been asked: I don’t have set headcanons about where Brian is with regards to transitioning; if you wanna try out and you’re not on testosterone, you should still totally try out!

Any race

Sounds to be in his mid-twenties to early thirties

A laidback, friendly affect, to the point of maybe coming off like a slacker. You’d probably need to talk to him a few times to realize that he is deeply loyal, and intensely passionate when it comes to his areas of expertise (xenolinguistics, making pizza bagels).

To audition, perform this section:

(Laughs) I dunno, though. Wasn’t all bad. I made some cool friends. That’s how I met Krejjh, actually. I’d been doing fieldwork out in Neuzo, and— (realizes the word and the place are both going to require explaining) Sorry, the Neutral Zone. It was a cluster of planets and stations, kinda out by Telemachus, founded by this very weird Libertarian billionaire. Technically outside any government, so it was one of the few places humans and Dwarnians could trade, talk, whatever.

Shady place. We’re talking arms dealing, gambling, drugs you’ve never heard of. Like, name a vice, you know? Crawling with spies, too. People used to say that’s why both sides kept it standing; they had, like, intelligence assets or something.

But it wasn’t violent. Not like you’d think. Not at first. There were these rival mafias, and they kept the peace? Kinda. I mean, everyone’s fortune was built on keeping Neuzo out of the war, keeping the war out of Neuzo, so there weren’t, like, laws, but nobody was allowed to kill anyone. At first.

Sana Tripathi

I wrote the character with she/her pronouns but I’m flexible on this if a nonbinary and/or genderqueer person wants to audition

Any actor trying out for this role should be of Indian ancestry (Indian-American or Indian-British, etc, is totally fine) ETA: Changing this more generally to “should be of South Asian ancestry.” (ETA2: Elsewhere in a different post, I mistakenly said “Southeast Asian” but I meant more generally South Asian: India, Nepal, Pakistan, etc. The moral of this story is I need to actually look at a map before I type words. I’m so sorry.)

Sounds to be mid-thirties

Warm, decisive, and extremely competent. Comfortable being in charge, but prefers to work via consensus when possible, if only for ideological reasons. A certain daredevil streak surfaces every now and then. The sweetest person you’ll ever meet, until push comes to shove and you see the core of steel that’s been there all along.

To audition, please perform this section:

You’re right, Brian, I’m not your mom. I’m your captain, and I’m your crewmate. And that means I am depending on you to take care of yourself so you can do your part to keep us safe.

(Weighty) Look, you know how tenuous it can get in the deep. You know how much more life is worth out here. That includes yours. We need a translator, Brian. We need a translator and we need a guy who has our back. We do not need a martyr. (A beat, and then, lighter) Also, I’m the boss, and you have to do what I say.

Krejjh

Seeking a genderqueer and/or nonbinary actor of any race

Note: the character is part of an extremely humanoid race of space aliens whose culture finds the whole notion of a gender binary confusing and goofy. Obviously, this is not a perfect analogue to being a nonbinary human; I mean, we are talking about a purple space alien. But the character definitely doesn’t identify as cisgender, and after a lot of discussion and soul-searching, this seemed like the most respectful option.

Sounds to be mid-twenties to early thirties

Concept: Dashing, silly, and generally in love with life. Fun at parties. Has more than a little classic fighter pilot swagger. A sucker for compliments. Adrenaline junkie. 

Note: in a later episode, you are gonna have to speak in a made-up alien language, but I’ll try to write it out phonetically. No big deal.

To audition, please perform this section:

(making an announcement over the ship’s PA system) Folks, I wanna apologize for the turbulence. We are currently flying at—downright unsafe speeds through a debris field that is—taking some damn impressive stunts on my end. Gonna advise that you all make your way to the nearest secure spot and—WOO!!! Yeah! (triumphant laughter)

If conditions persist, you might wanna take a sec and pray. Deity of your choice; I figure, cover as much ground as we can. And if conditions get much worse, I’m gonna need Crewman Jeeter up here, pronto, for a little good luck kiss. Can’t hurt, right?

In the meantime, I advise you to remember that the closer we are to danger, the more clearly we can hear the elemental thrum of our own vitality! In this moment we are living!

…Kids, you are gonna want to hold onto something.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS

Alvy

He/him pronouns

Any race

Sounds to be mid-twenties to early thirties

A chill and fun dude.

To audition for this part, please perform the following section:

Jeeter, my man, my pal! What is up? No doubt this message will be unexpected. Get in line! Surprise assignment. A short vacation from the lab. Safe to say I’m living large. Of course, the mission’s secret but: exotic locales? Limited work? Seems almost designed for me.

Eejjhgreb

Seeking a genderqueer and/or nonbinary actor of any race

Note: the character is part of an extremely humanoid race of space aliens whose culture finds the whole notion of a gender binary confusing and goofy. Obviously, this is not a perfect analogue to being a nonbinary human; I mean, we are talking about a purple space alien. But the character definitely doesn’t identify as cisgender, and after a lot of discussion and soul-searching, this seemed like the most respectful option.

Ideally, sounds to be about forty or older. I am willing to be a little flexible on this point, though.

Concept: A diplomat. Stately, commanding, traditional. Not unfeeling, but emotionally repressed like it’s a period piece.

To audition for this part, please perform the following section (that is not in the podcast because most of Eejjhgreb’s actual lines contain spoilers)

There’s not much more to be done about it. The agreements were reached, the papers were signed. Do I wish it had gone differently? Perhaps, but it’s a matter of obligation. It’s a matter of loyalty. I know you don’t think so right now, but it is possible you’ll understand someday. Assuming you don’t get yourself killed in the meantime.

Campbell

Any actor trying out for this role should be of African ancestry (African American, African British, etc, is totally fine)

I wrote this character with he/him pronouns but I’m flexible on this if a nonbinary and/or genderqueer person wants to audition

Sounds to be between late twenties and mid thirties

Concept: A brilliantly talented forger and counterfeiter. Easygoing, charming—that rare person who seems to be friends with everyone. Definitely friends with the crew. Good in a crisis. Hard to really shock.

To audition for this part, please perform the following section:

Tell you what, send me your info. I’ll work on it remotely and pass it over to my contact in Elion for printing and pickup. How many IDs do you need? Four? We can have them done in two hours.

Yeah, I know that’s probably longer than you want to wait, but uh. It’s getting scary out there. You don’t wanna cut corners on this.

Don’t worry about payment, we’ll handle it later. I’m guessing you’re too nervous right now to really try that hard at haggling anyway, takes all the fun out of it. Sending you my guy’s coordinates for when you land. Ask for Red Gregor.

Guard

Any race

Any gender

Any European, Australian, or distinctly regional American accent

Just trying to do their job out in space, far from home

To audition for this part, please perform the following section:

Attention! We’re conducting a sweep of all interstellar vessels. I’m going to need you to comply with the following instructions. (Pause) Attention, attention! Rumor, do you copy?

Ricky

I wrote this character with he/him pronouns but I’m flexible on that if a genderqueer and/or nonbinary person wants to audition

Any race

Sounds to be late twenties to mid-thirties

Persuasive, self-centered, one of those people who considers themselves to be extremely rational and reasonable.

To audition for this part, please perform the following section:

Listen, that’s the nature of the beast. You don’t always win. It’s not my fault if you drew a weaker hand. You’ve got the option of not blaming me for it, you know? Take it or not, but you’ve got that option.

Junior Agent

Seeking a genderqueer and/or nonbinary actor 

Any race

Sounds to be early twenties

Unlike Agent Park, hasn’t yet reached burnout in the job. Might get there pretty soon, though.

To audition for this part, please perform the following section:

I’ve taken the liberty of trimming about an hour of audio from this portion of the transmission, all available in the archive in the, uh, in the honestly pretty unlikely event it is needed? Resuming in the cockpit, forty-four minutes after the Rumor touched down on Elion. On-ship time estimated to be seventeen hundred hours. 

[iffeelscouldkill]

say what we wanna do, make it all come true (chapter 1)

A/N: It is! My fic for the Fiction Podcast Big Bang @podcastbigbang! I am a bit terrified to be posting this after working on it for so long! Also this is in the running for the Longest TSCOSI Fic I’ve Written So Far (not sure if it’s the longest because I don’t remember where my wordcount is up to for Adjusting, but like... it’s long, guys). This is Chapter 1 of 3, and the remaining chapters will be posted weekly!

You can read this on AO3 where the formatting is honestly much better, but here it is on Tumblr anyway. Also, please check out the FANTASTIC artwork made for this fic by the wonderful @bluereadingdolphin and @demonic-kitkats, who are my artists for this fic and their artwork is so good, you guys, I’m in love and they did such a phenomenal job with the honestly pretty vague info they got from me 😂 

bluereadingdolphin’s piece

demonic-kitkat’s piece (from Chapter 2!)

Please give them all the love!

Content warnings: There is a relatively brief physical altercation described in this chapter, but it isn’t graphic or bloody.

Also, I play a little fast and loose with POV in this; the first section is told from Sana’s perspective, the rest from Arkady’s.

---

“Hello and welcome back to Radio Indie, Folk and Techno, also known as RIFT, where we play all the bands that matter outside of the mainstream! I’m Piper Tanaka, and I’m your co-host for this programme! I’m joined as usual by the lovely Kestrel Colvin, with Reina Sakamachi in the booth! Now – where were we?”

“You were introducing our guests for this next section,” Kestrel replied in a slightly despairing tone.

“Right! Indie fans, I am joined today by two members of the fabulous up-and-coming indie band Rumor! With me in the studio are frontwoman and lead guitarist Sana Tripathi—”

“Hey! It’s a pleasure to be here.”

“—and bad girl bassist Arkady Patel.”

“Bad girl?” Arkady repeated, sounding halfway between taken aback and annoyed. Kestrel just shook her head.

“Ignore her. She’s got a thing for a certain… aesthetic.”

Next to Arkady, Sana was doing an incredibly poor job of hiding her laughter. “It’s the combat boots,” she whispered to Arkady.

“These are practical,” Arkady told her in a tone that suggested they’d had this conversation a few times. Sana said nothing, but straightened back up with a smirk.

“Sana — or should I call you ‘Captain’?” Piper began playfully. Sana grimaced.

“In hindsight, it was a poor choice to share that nickname in an interview.”

“You know, I think it suits you,” said Piper. “There’s something commanding about your aura. Sana, you and the band — which I understand you and Arkady originally started as a duo a few years ago—”

“That’s right,” Sana confirmed.

“You’ve always had a dedicated and loyal following, even from your early days — and we’re proud to have been playing your music here on this station for almost as long — but I think it’s fair to say the past few months have seen that rocket to a whole new level,” Piper said. “You got signed to a record label belonging to the mysterious but notoriously discerning Red Gregor, are working on your second album, and played a major gig at the CUI stadium just a few weeks ago. And we are definitely going to talk later about what went down at that gig, which is already the stuff of online legend — but first I want to backtrack a little, because I think the moment that everything started happening for you was when you added a new member to your band. In the middle of a gig, if the rumours are true. Can you tell us how that happened?”

Sana and Arkady exchanged a sidelong glance, and Arkady gave Sana a tiny nod. Sana took a deep breath, and began to tell the story.

---

“Jeeter, for the last time, put the keytar away,” Arkady said irritably as she and Sana entered the draughty, abandoned warehouse that the band was using as their current rehearsal space. The acoustics were pretty weird, probably due to all the broken windows, but it was otherwise hard to beat a free place to rehearse — especially a free place with no asshole neighbours who would yell at them to turn it down and threaten to call the cops.

Admittedly, it was in kind of a rough area, but Arkady had only needed to knock someone unconscious with her bass once.

In retaliation, Brian played another bright riff on his beloved instrument, accompanied by some jazzy keyboard chords from Krejjh. The two had been jamming together before Arkady and Sana arrived. “Dude, c’mon, can’t you hear how good this sounds?” Brian wheedled. “How many other indie bands do you know that have a keytar?”

“None. For good reason,” Arkady said, unzipping her case and slinging her bass around her neck. Sana, unpacking the sound equipment, smiled in fond amusement at their well-worn argument.

“It would give us such a great edge! Totally unique. And Krejjh and I have so many ideas that would sound great with both instruments—”

“Okay, Jeeter,” Arkady interrupted him, twiddling one of her tuning pegs. “You can play the keytar. Just as soon as you find us someone else who can play the drums.” She stooped to plug her bass into the portable amplifier that Sana had just unpacked. “Or are you planning to grow an extra pair of hands so you can play both at once?”

“Oooh! No, I should have an extra pair of hands!” Krejjh immediately (and predictably) enthused. “Then I’d sound four times as awesome! Four hands, all rockin’ out!”

“I think you mean ‘twice as awesome’,” Sana told them, as Brian reluctantly put away his keytar and picked up his neglected drumsticks.

“With me, twice the hands equals four times the awesome,” Krejjh replied with irrefutable logic. Brian laughed and held up a hand.

“Dude, high five.”

Sana waited for the two of them to finish their congratulatory high-five before she called the band to order. “Okay, guys — remember that we’re only a few days out from our gig at the IGR Corp function, so we need to have our crowd-pleasers up to standard.”

Arkady immediately wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, corporates. Why are we taking money from them again?”

“Because we need to pay for rent and food,” Sana said, bluntly. “And they’re giving us a lot for it. I know none of us love playing corporate gigs—”

“Understatement.”

“—but we are living a hand to mouth existence at this point, and if I can guarantee our survival as a band by relieving some corporates of their excess funds, then I’m going to do just that,” Sana continued. She waited a beat, and then added, “Also, we’re gonna let them get really drunk and then start playing our best anti-capitalist anthems, and see how long it takes for them to notice.”

Arkady broke into a shit-eating grin. “That’s more like it.” Krejjh cheered, and Brian did a little run-down on his drumkit, hitting each of the drums in turn.

“All right, let’s start with ‘Fear for the Storm’? One, two, three, four…” Sana started strumming the intro on her guitar, joined after a few beats by Krejjh’s melody on the keyboard.

“So long, can’t dodge the dawn, red light shines on and on and on and on and on…”

---

Arkady had been on edge ever since the band set foot in the agonisingly hipster office complex — excuse me, ‘headquarters’ — belonging to IGR Corp.

It wasn’t just the fact that these guys were extremely corporate corporates, or that the whole place radiated an almost aggressively minimalist aesthetic, or that the walls were covered in bullshit, chipper slogans that were all fancy ways of saying, ‘Work should be your existence – if isn’t, you’re dead to us’ — although those things sure as hell didn’t help, reminding her of the absolute worst parts of every soul-sucking corporate job she’d worked before Sana mercifully re-entered her life and suggested they form a band.

No, there was just this weird vibe, like everyone was super on edge and trying to hide it — the higher-ups were stone-faced, muttering into earpieces or barking orders at underlings, who scurried, terrified, to carry out their wishes. And everyone else, from the tech types in plain white T-shirts and jeans to the smartly-dressed sales reps in suits, looked like they were there on pain of death. Wasn’t this supposed to be a party?

The atmosphere didn’t go unnoticed by the other band members. “Kind of a weird feel to this place,” Jeeter remarked as he unpacked his drumkit on the raised platform at the front of the ‘rec center’ where they would be performing. Normally, setting up was a noisy, clumsy affair, with the band elbowing each other, tripping over wires, and getting in each other’s way in the tiny space they were afforded in bars and nightclubs. Here, the platform that would be their makeshift stage was huge and extremely visible — but everyone was completely ignoring them. There was also very little background noise for a room packed with people, and the band found themselves speaking in hushed murmurs, almost tiptoeing around. “You’d think there would be a bit more… chatter?”

“Maybe the alcohol just isn’t flowing yet,” Sana speculated, but she sounded uneasy as she looked out over the tense crowd. Even Krejjh, with their signature hot pink, heart-shaped sunglasses perched on top of their dyed-lavender hair, dressed in a clashing, flamboyant jumble of clothes and accessories, seemed subdued.

Arkady plugged in her bass with a burst of static, and deliberately played a loud riff. Brian startled and dropped his drumstick, but not a single member of the sea of blandly-dressed IGR Corp employees flinched.

Weird.

The sound equipment was all set up, sound check performed and instruments tuned by half past, but the set wasn’t due to start until o’clock. Normally, Arkady would be making a beeline for the bar, but she didn’t really feel like rubbing shoulders with any of these weird drones. She found herself reflexively checking the exits, mentally charting their fastest route out of there in case something really fucked up started going down. Sana half-jokingly called it paranoia; Arkady called it long, hard experience.

It was on one of her scans of the room that she noticed the woman with the septum piercing. Arkady chalked it up to professional interest — as a kid, she’d picked up some extra money working as an assistant in a tattoo and piercing shop, The Landing. She’d first met Sana there when the other woman came in on several occasions to have work done on an amazingly intricate floral sleeve tattoo — her own design. Later, Sana had led a campaign to save The Landing from being shut down over a bunch of bullshit health code violations so that the billionaire Cresswin family — who owned the property — could sell it off to a shitty corporation.

The campaign hadn’t worked, and there was now a high rise office block where Arkady’s home from home had once stood. But Arkady had never forgotten Sana.

Anyway, it was definitely the woman’s piercing and not anything else about her appearance that caught Arkady’s attention first. But then she noticed that there was something off about her body language and the way she was moving — something that Arkady recognised. She wasn’t scurrying about in a panic or affecting bored disinterest; her eyes were flickering around the room, carefully monitoring the comings and goings of the other employees while seeming not to do so. There were little devices studded around the room that Arkady had clocked as security cameras the moment they entered (it was the kind of thing she made a habit of noticing), and she saw the woman glancing up at them.

She was dressed like an employee – white blouse, dark rinse blue jeans – so why was she acting like she was casing the joint? Of course, Arkady reasoned, the outfit could easily have been chosen to blend in. It didn’t necessarily mean she worked there.

“Seen something interesting, ‘Kady?” Sana asked playfully. Arkady didn’t startle, but it was a near thing; she’d been so focused on watching this woman.

Unfortunately, Sana saw where she’d been looking. “You know, we’ve still got close to half an hour before we start our first set,” she said. “You can go and mingle.”

“I’m not here to socialise,” Arkady said witheringly. “Least of all with corporate drones.” She tore her eyes away from the woman to meet Sana’s amused look.

“I’m just saying, you seemed pretty absorbed there…” Sana said, and Arkady rolled her eyes, determined not to respond to her best friend’s teasing. She glanced back at the spot where the woman had been standing and found it empty.

A second later, Arkady had found her again, weaving through the crowd with her head ducked down. She was taking an odd route across the room that Arkady realised must have been calculated to avoid the security cameras. Occasionally she disappeared, behind people or objects (like a huge, obviously fake ficus plant), but it wasn’t hard for Arkady to spot her again. Clearly there was some kind of purpose to what she was doing, but the woman wasn’t a professional.

There was an elevator against the far wall, and as Arkady watched, the doors opened and a small group of people in suits – latecomers to the party – walked out of it. The woman mingled with them briefly, and then disappeared inside the elevator. The doors closed.

Well, that had been a way to kill five minutes, but now Arkady was stuck with nothing to do again. Krejjh and Jeeter had pulled out a pack of cards, and were playing one of their weird games on top of Krejjh’s keyboard. Arkady turned to Sana, about to make another comment about how much this place creeped her out, when she caught sight of the other person moving across the room.

Judging by the expensive suit, they were a higher-up, and were taking none of the precautions the woman had when making their way across the room, which suggested that they were confident about being allowed to do whatever it was they were doing. And to Arkady, it looked an awful lot like they were following the woman she’d seen. Based on the way the suit jacket fell, she’d also bet even money that they were armed.

Sure enough, the suit called the elevator, and disappeared into it a second later. Arkady swore under her breath.

It was none of her goddamn business whether a person she didn’t even know might be in danger, Arkady told herself. She was here to play music, not to get in the middle of whatever might be going down at this godawful corporation. Which again, was none of her business anyway.

Her resolve lasted all of ten seconds.

“I’m going to get a drink,” she told Sana, and placed her bass onto its stand.

“Oooh! Bring me a cocktail – no, a mocktail!” Krejjh said. Sana just looked at her quizzically.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Arkady nodded briefly. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and jumped down off the platform.

She wasn’t under any illusions that Sana wouldn’t notice where she was going, and just hoped that her best friend would trust her to be back in time for the set. She slipped through the crowd, following the same path that the woman had taken to avoid the watchful eyes of the security cameras.

This worked right up until she entered the elevator, where sure enough, a security camera was embedded into the top corner. How had this woman planned to avoid getting caught?

Arkady pulled out her smartphone, and began to quickly and expertly worm her way into the closed network that IGR Corp was using for its security systems. After just a few moments, she’d managed to identify the IP address that the lift camera was using, and wow, whoever had set up this system was either incredibly lazy or was trying to lay out a welcome mat for hackers. They hadn’t bothered to change the default access password.

Arkady wound back the last few minutes of recorded video, and watched as the woman with the septum piercing pressed the button for the top floor. Arkady did the same, and as the elevator moved upwards, she introduced a glitch that would cause the security camera to loop footage of an empty elevator instead of showing who was actually inside. Then she worked to edit out the archive footage of the woman riding up in the elevator, and of herself getting in.

If it turned out that there was nothing weird going on here after all, well, she’d had some fun exploiting the corporates’ shitty security system.

But Arkady was pretty sure there was something weird going on.

The elevator came to a silent stop, and Arkady silently thanked the deities she didn’t really believe in for the fact that this place was too hipster to have an elevator that made a noise when it arrived at the right floor. The doors slid open, and Arkady immediately spotted another security camera on exiting the elevator. God, these corporates were paranoid. But apparently not paranoid enough to pay their security person to do their job properly.

Annoyingly, the security cameras for this floor seemed to be on a separate network, and Arkady started another hack as she crept down the corridor, straining her ears for the sounds of a confrontation. Further down, she saw an office door swinging open, as if someone had gone through it in a hurry. Arkady approached it, being careful to stay out of sight of the doorway. Closer to, she could hear a voice coming from inside – the suit’s, if she had to guess.

“…sure CEO Golding-Frederick will be very interested to hear just what you’re doing in her office, Ms. Liu.”

“Seiders, I can explain,” the woman – Liu – replied, her voice high with tension. “Project ADVANCE – it’s not what we’ve been told. The company is using it to-”

“What the company may or may not be doing with Project ADVANCE is not your concern,” Seiders said smoothly, over her, “and is a long way above your pay grade. But I’d be very interested to learn where you got your information from.”

“Do you know what’s going on at this company?” Liu demanded, outraged. “And that’s – you have no problems with what they’re doing?”

The closed network for the top floor of the building was much less of a pushover than the elevator, and Arkady kept half of her attention on the conversation inside the room as she worked to find a flaw in the system. Finally, she made it in, and began trying different password combinations for the camera in the hallway.

“It’s not my job to ask questions, Ms. Liu,” Seiders had been saying. “Neither is it yours. And if you value your job – not to mention the safety and security of your loved ones – you’ll step away from that computer, and go back downstairs to the party.”

“Are you threatening me? Are you threatening my family?” Liu demanded. “No, I’m not going to stay silent about this. Someone has to take a stand against what this company is doing. And if anything happens to me, that’ll only raise more questions.”

“We’re very good at making those questions go away,” said Seiders, and Arkady heard Liu suck in a breath. She moved so that she could see inside the room and shit, that was a gun. Arkady rapidly began calculating her angle of attack. “Didn’t you ever wonder what happened to Connors from Engineering?”

“That’s not – you can’t just make a person disappear,” Liu said, desperately. “I – I have insurance! Documents that I’ve sent to a friend of mine. If I don’t check in with them in two hours, they’re going to send them to a journalist contact, and it’ll be all over the press in the morning.”

Arkady could hear the lie in her voice so clearly, and she knew Seiders could, too. “If you had enough evidence to be worth a damn, you wouldn’t have broken into this office,” they replied. “I’m going to ask you one last time. Step away from the-”

Arkady slammed into the room, deliberately making as much noise as she could to draw Seiders’ attention. She took two, three steps towards them and grabbed their gun hand, forcing it down and towards the floor. She managed to hook one arm around their throat, pulling back and applying pressure. Seiders choked, struggling and jerking against Arkady’s grip. With the hand that was holding their gun hand, Arkady twisted and pulled their fingers open, causing the weapon to drop to the floor.

“Liu, grab the gun!” Arkady ordered. She saw the other woman yank something out of the computer that looked like a flash drive, stowing it inside her blouse. She dove for the gun at the same time that Seiders managed to thrust an elbow back, driving it into Arkady’s midsection.

All the air left Arkady’s lungs and as she struggled to draw a breath in, Seiders took advantage of her loosened grip to twist free. They grappled with Liu for the gun, but Liu succeeded in kicking it away, where it spun underneath a nearby cabinet. Then Arkady was on Seiders again, jumping onto their back and choking them.

She heard the sound of running footsteps, and someone else burst into the room. Arkady didn’t get a chance to see who it was before Seiders slammed their head back, knocking into Arkady’s and making bright white lights explode across her vision. She dropped to the floor and staggered, trying to clear her head.

She heard an oof and a thud, and blinked rapidly, sure that she would open her eyes to see Seiders bearing down on Liu – or worse, standing over her unconscious body.

Instead, she was greeted with the sight of Seiders crumpling like a sack of potatoes as Sana flexed her fist, having delivered a powerful uppercut that knocked them out cold.

Silence reigned for a few seconds, broken only by Liu’s sharp, panicked breaths. Rubbing her head, Arkady said, “Hey, Sana.”

“The next time you decide to go off on a rescue mission,” Sana said, wryly, “you could at least tell me where you’re going.” She frowned as she took in Arkady’s dishevelled state. “Is your head all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Arkady. She was more concerned with Liu, who looked like she might be on the verge of a panic attack. “Hey, uh, it’s okay. We took care of them.”

“Who-” Liu managed, taking deep breaths in and out, clearly trying to steady her breathing. “Who are you?”

Sana smiled at her, warm and reassuring. “My name is Sana Tripathi, and this is Arkady Patel. We’re-”

There was a noise that sounded not unlike a herd of elephants storming down the corridor, and Arkady closed her eyes. She had a bad feeling she knew what was about to happen. Sure enough, in the next second Krejjh and Jeeter clattered through the door in all their clashing multicoloured glory: Jeeter in his signature loud paid shirt and those stupid khakis, and Krejjh with their… everything. Most of the clattering was coming from Krejjh’s many bangles.

“Cap’n Tripathi!” Krejjh said. “We’re here to assist you with – oh my god, are they dead?” They stared at the unconscious form of Seiders on the floor.

“They’re not dead, they’re just unconscious,” Arkady said, irritated. “Did you two really take off without anyone to watch the equipment?”

Sana turned back to Liu like nothing had happened. “We’re the band,” she finished succinctly. “I’m the guitarist and lead singer, Arkady here plays the bass, and Krejjh and Brian are our keyboardist and drummer.” She indicated each of them in turn. Jeeter waved, and Krejjh saluted for some reason. “And who are you?”

Liu blinked at her. “You… you just saved my life, and you don’t even know who I am?” she said. “Why would you do that?”

“For one thing, because you’d probably be dead if we hadn’t,” Arkady said. “You’re welcome for that, by the way.” She pulled out the phone to finish the hack on the security cameras that she’d started before she entered the room.

“I – no, I know that. I’m not ungrateful,” Liu said, sounding a little stung. “I’m just a little… in shock. My name is Violet Liu,” she added to Sana. “I, uh, work in IGR Corp’s neuroresearch division.”

“Good to meet you, Violet Liu,” Sana said, sounding like they were old friends catching up at the bar instead of total strangers talking to each other over an unconscious body. “’Kady, are you erasing the security footage?”

Arkady nodded.

“Good; Brian and I will carry our friend here,” Sana indicated Seiders with her foot, “into the hallway. I think I noticed a closet there we can hide them in.”

“Uh… are you guys really the band?” Liu asked, as Sana and Jeeter – who was much stronger than he looked – bent down to pick up Seiders. “You seem very…” She struggled to find the right words. “…good at this.”

“We have some unorthodox skillsets,” Sana said, beaming and dimpling at her. “We don’t normally make a habit of rescuing people in the middle of a gig, but Arkady has a soft spot for damsels in distress.”

Arkady fumbled her phone, and nearly dropped it. “Sana,” she hissed, mortified. Sana, who was already partway out of the door, winked and disappeared into the hallway.

After a moment, Arkady realised that she and Liu were the only ones in the room, Krejjh evidently having decided to go along and supervise, or something. She refocused her attention on the hack she was carrying out; she’d managed to hack the hallway security camera, and was erasing the footage from that, but she still needed to do the one in the office.

“Uh…” Liu awkwardly broke the silence. “Is there anything that you need me to…”

“Is anyone likely to be monitoring the security cameras in real-time?” Arkady asked her. The question came out sounding a little harsher than she’d intended, but it was hard to be diplomatic when she was focused on trying to break into a security system. Also, it was a little annoying that Liu apparently hadn’t thought about security cameras beyond the ones on the ground floor.

“N-no, the system is all automated,” Liu replied. Well, that was something, at least. “I, uh, I do have a virus that I was planning to use on the security system that would corrupt the footage. I just needed to find an access point.”

Fine, so there had been a plan of sorts. “This is quicker,” Arkady told her. “And the way I’m doing it, it won’t be so obvious that someone has tampered with the footage.”

“Thank you for that,” Liu said, quietly. “And thank you for – I mean, you don’t even know me, but you came up here to help me. Why?”

Arkady shrugged, keeping her shoulders hunched and avoiding Liu’s gaze. “You looked like you were in trouble,” she said shortly. And that was the office camera done. Arkady resisted the urge to change the password to something rude, and withdrew from the network. “And I don’t like corporations. What were you trying to do, blow the whistle on them or something?”

“Um, I-”

Before she could explain, Sana poked her head back into the room. “Arkady, are you done? Because I don’t think we should be hanging around up here.”

“I’m done,” Arkady said with a nod, pocketing her phone. The two of them joined Sana, Krejjh and Jeeter in the hallway.

“We need a plan to get Violet back downstairs and out of the building without her being seen,” Sana said quickly. “’Kady, do you think you two can make it out in fifteen minutes?”

Arkady huffed. “I can hack the security cams, but I can’t actually make us invisible,” she pointed out. “People are gonna notice us. If we waited until you guys started the set, then we might have a better chance, while everyone’s attention is on the band.”

“Listen – it’s not that I don’t really appreciate the help,” Liu cut in. Her face was set, like she was preparing to go to the gallows. “But none of this needs to be your problem. It’s my mess, and I can get myself out of it. You guys should go and start your set.”

“Oh, pshaw!” said Krejjh. “We’re not just gonna leave you to the bears!”

Jeeter smiled. “To the wolves,” he corrected Krejjh.

“Are y’sure? Because bears can be pretty terrifying.”

“We’re not about to abandon you now,” Sana said to Liu, gently. “Between the five of us, I’m sure we can figure out a pretty good plan.”

“Can’t we just pretend to be loading something into the truck?” Jeeter suggested. “And Violet can help us? We could give her a band jacket – make her look like she’s with us-”

“It’s too bad you don’t play!” Krejjh said to Violet. “We could add you into the set. The ultimate entourage!”

“Uh…” Violet said (at the same time as Arkady said, “Camouflage.”) “I mean, I do play something? But you guys already have a drummer.”

“Wait, you’re a drummer?” Jeeter said delightedly, as Krejjh straightened up so fast that Arkady thought they’d pull a muscle. Even Sana looked interested. “Are you good?”

“Have you ever played with a band before?” added Sana.

Liu smiled and shrugged awkwardly. “Well, drums aren’t really a solo instrument, so yeah. I used to jam with some friends in high school, and played some underground rock concerts in college. I was never really with a band – we just sort of used to form collectives based on who was around and wanted to play. It was fun, though.”

She’d avoided answering the question about how good she was, Arkady noticed, which probably meant she was good and was being modest about it. Goddamn it.

“So if, hypothetically speaking,” Sana said, “you joined a set without having rehearsed any of the music beforehand, would you be able to figure out a drum part?”

“Okay, hold on,” said Arkady, before Violet could respond. “Don’t you think IGR Corp is going to notice that one of their employees has just… joined the band?”

“We’ll swear up and down that it isn’t her,” Jeeter said. “And even if someone figures it out, what are they gonna do about it in front of everyone?”

“But wait, what about you?” Liu asked Jeeter. “Wouldn’t I be putting you out of a role in the band?”

“Nah,” Jeeter said happily. “I brought my keytar!”

“Oh my god,” Arkady groaned. She could tell when she was fighting a losing battle, but it didn’t stop her from making one last, token protest. “This is going to sound really goddamn weird.”

Sana grinned at her. “Well, you wanted to annoy some corporates,” she pointed out. “What better way to do it?”

---

The problem was, the new line-up didn’t sound weird at all.

It sounded good.

Liu, hastily disguised with an old band jacket and a spare pare of Krejjh’s sunglasses, fitted in with their set like she’d been rehearsing with them for weeks – months even. They did a quick sound check, Jeeter looking far too delighted as he amped up his keytar. Sana gave her usual cheerful introduction into the microphone, introducing the band as Renegade, the name they adopted for corporate gigs (Arkady was even more glad of it now, since it would make them harder to track down later). After a lukewarm reception from the assembled employees (none of whom seemed to notice, or care, that the band had grown an extra member), they launched into their first number, a reimagined cover of ‘What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor’.

It started off with Sana singing alone, before Krejjh joined in, their voices singing in close harmony, and then Arkady and finally Jeeter, the harmonies becoming increasingly layered as they went. The addition of the keytar made the song sound futuristic, almost the kind of thing you could imagine crews of space explorers singing together as they made their way into the unknown.

Liu picked up the beat easily, and as the song unfolded Arkady suddenly realised she could hear a fifth strand to the harmony, weaving in and out of the other voices, soft but distinctive: Liu was singing.

They moved on from the conventional crowd-pleasing openers to a more eclectic mix of songs, including some punk and anarchist numbers. Each time, Arkady was sure that the choice was going to throw Liu off, but she adapted smoothly to each one, altering her style to fit the vibe of the song. In one of the louder, heavier songs she even threw in an impromptu drum solo that had Krejjh whooping at the keyboard and Sana laughing as she riffed on her guitar.

Sana threw Arkady a look as the song ended, and there was a light in her eyes that Arkady knew far, far too well. It was the same light that Arkady had seen when Sana tracked her down at her latest deadbeat job and persuaded her to quit and start playing music with her; the same light that she’d had when they met Brian and Krejjh a year later and Sana had decided to turn their duo into a band.

Sana wanted Liu to join Rumor. And Arkady couldn’t even think of a good argument against it, apart from the fact that they barely knew anything about the woman other than that she could play the drums. And that she was a corporate, which Arkady thought was important not to lose sight of, even if Liu wasn’t on the greatest terms with her employer any more.

Speaking of which. Arkady was on high alert throughout the whole set, constantly scanning the crowd for signs of trouble, anyone who might be looking too closely at Liu or showed signs of moving towards the elevator. As they’d been setting up, Liu had told them that Seiders was middle management: someone who outranked her, but not someone who held a position of particular influence within the company or had the ear of the CEO. Someone who had ambitions above their station. It didn’t mean no-one would notice them missing, of course; but it meant that they might be someone who, for instance, would go after a rogue employee without notifying their superior, hoping to reap all of the credit.

The band moved into their final number, ‘Landers Never Stand Down’ – one of Sana and Arkady’s early compositions, whose lyrics Sana had written as a tribute to The Landing, and her and Arkady’s shared history. Normally, Arkady would object to wasting it on a corporate audience, but tonight, it felt like the right kind of ��fuck you’.

“Landers never stand down,

Landers never bow,

Landers never stand down,

We don’t know how…”

They wound up the song in their usual fashion, repeating the chorus and getting fiercer and more defiant with each repetition, before ending in a final blaze of guitar chords.

“Thank you, everyone, you’ve been a wonder to perform for!” Sana said into the microphone as the chords faded away. She said the same thing at the end of every gig, but it had never felt more like a colossal understatement. “We’ve been Renegade, and we hope you have a great night!”

There was a small scattering of applause. Sana beamed out into the audience again, and then turned away from the microphone, sliding the power to ‘off’. “Well, that was-”

“Attention, all IGR Corp employees,” came a voice over the loudspeaker system. Sana froze, and Liu, who’d been leaning over to say something to Krejjh, paled visibly. “Please stay where you are. We will be carrying out a routine attendance check. Please do not exit the building.”

“Attendance check?” Arkady repeated.

“It’s a standard employee procedure,” Liu explained. “To make sure everyone’s… accounted for at corporate functions. Supposedly they’re optional, but it looks really bad if you’re not there and you don’t have a reason.”

“Do we think there’s a chance this is linked to…” Sana gestured towards the elevator. Liu shrugged helplessly.

“It could be, but even if it’s not, they’re gonna discover that Seiders is missing pretty quickly. And that I’m… unaccounted for.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jeeter, reassuringly. “We’ll figure out a way to get you out before that happens.”

“Dashing escapes are our speciality!” Krejjh contributed. This was true; the band hadn’t always played at the most above-the-board venues, and there’d been more than a few times they’d needed to get the hell out of Dodge before things got ugly. Well, uglier.

Sana nodded. “For now, just keep packing down, like nothing’s wrong,” she said.

As Krejjh packed down their keyboard and Jeeter helped Liu to disassemble the drumkit, Arkady said to Sana, “I’ll go with Liu, and we can sneak out a back entrance-”

Sana shook her head. “It’ll be more suspicious if we’re not seen leaving as a group.”

“We’ll just say we’re going to the bathroom,” Arkady said. “We’re allowed to do that, aren’t we?”

Sana started to reply, but then stopped, squinting at something on the other side of the room. Arkady tried to follow her gaze, but couldn’t see what she was looking at. “What is it?”

“I thought I saw…” Sana shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s try the front way first, and if they won’t let us leave, we’ll get creative.”

Unsurprisingly, when they carried the first load of equipment over to the rec room entrance, two stoic-looking IGR employees blocked their path, bouncer-style. Arkady eyed one of them, pretty sure she could take her in a one-to-one fight.

“Sorry, we can’t let you leave while an attendance check is ongoing,” said the employee, with a bland detachment. “Company policy.”

“It should only take about an hour,” the other added. “You can enjoy the free refreshments while you wait.”

An hour? Even if they hadn’t had a very pressing reason to get the hell out of there, Arkady would have been looking for the nearest fire escape to break out of. They were just supposed to cool their heels at IGR headquarters for an hour?

“Can we not at least load our equipment into the van in the meantime?” Sana asked reasonably. “This is a very heavy amplifier…” She made a show of struggling with the amp she’d been lifting with ease a few seconds ago, and Arkady suppressed a snort.

One of the corporates had opened their mouth, looking like they were about to object, when a friendly voice spoke from behind them. “Is there a problem here?”

They all turned to look at the person who’d spoken, and Arkady carefully masked her surprise: the tall, dark-skinned man dressed in an expensive-looking suit jacket, T-shirt and jeans combination was none other than Red Gregor, a close friend of Campbell’s. They’d met him once or twice, but what was he doing here?

“Who are you?” asked Corporate One, audibly unimpressed.

“Theodore Gregor; I’m the band’s executive producer,” Gregor introduced himself smoothly, handing Corporate Two a business card. Their eyes widened at whatever was written on it. “My clients have another engagement to get to tonight, so you can understand why it’s very important they be allowed to leave promptly. Additionally, their contract stipulates that they’re only obliged to perform for your company until-” he made a show of checking a gold watch, “-nine-thirty P.M., after which time we’ll need to bill you for every additional half-hour. Will your supervisors be signing off on the additional expenses?”

Corporates One and Two were visibly thrown by the torrent of information. Krejjh made a noise that was hastily stifled, while Arkady did her best to look bored and important.

“I… no, let me just contact my superior to get you the all-clear,” said Corporate One, reluctantly. “Johnson will help you to load your equipment into your…” She eyed the band’s battered van, visibly out of place in the parking lot full of sleek cars. “…vehicle.”

“Great!” Sana said brightly, handing the amplifier to Corporate Two, who took it and staggered slightly. As Corporate One spoke into a walkie-talkie, Sana and Red Gregor strode quickly ahead, the rest of the band trailing behind. Arkady lengthened her steps to catch up with them so that she could hear their quiet exchange.

“…doing here? Did Campbell send you?” Sana was asking Red Gregor.

“In a manner of speaking,” Red Gregor said. “He talks about you so much, I wanted to come and hear what all the fuss was about. Love the new line-up – you guys sound completely different to when I last heard you play.”

“It’s kind of a new thing,” Sana admitted. “New as of… today. I can fill you in, it’s just a long story.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” Red Gregor said, and Arkady remembered that she’d liked him, the couple of times that they’d met. She could see why he and Campbell were good friends. “But let’s focus on getting you out of here. I’m guessing you need an exit?”

“And fast,” Sana agreed.

“Well, fast’s your speciality,” Red Gregor said with a grin. Sana smiled back at him, and Arkady wondered if Red was basing this off stories from Campbell, or if he and Sana knew each other better than Arkady had realised. It was a strange thought to have in the middle of everything.

Sana unlocked the van and slid open the back door. While Krejjh, Jeeter and Liu loaded their items into the trunk, overseen by Corporate Two, Red Gregor pretended to help Arkady and Sana with their instruments.

“So what now?” Arkady asked Sana. “I think I can probably take Johnson.”

“Arkady, you’ve already been in one fight today,” Sana said, disapproving.

“What’s your point?”

“I have a more bloodless suggestion,” Red Gregor said. “You’ve got a few pieces of equipment left in the venue, right? I’ll go back inside with Johnson to ‘collect’ them, say we’re going to check their supervisor has given you the go-ahead, and you guys make a break for it. I’ll bring the equipment in my car and meet you at the dive bar, half a mile down the road.”

“Are you sure you’ll be able to get away? What happens when they realise we’re gone?” Sana asked.

“I’ll come up with something,” Red Gregor assured her. “Just focus on getting yourselves out of here.”

He walked over to Johnson, who was slightly bemusedly watching Jeeter and Liu (who were clearly stalling for time) rearrange pieces of the drumkit in the trunk, and took him by the arm, steering him back towards the building and talking rapidly all the while.

“As soon as they’re out of sight, everyone needs to get in the van quickly,” Sana instructed. “And hang onto something. Okay? Now!”

Krejjh slammed the trunk of the van shut and everyone piled into the back without a word of protest. Arkady jumped into the front as Sana slid into the driver’s seat, reversing out of the parking space like a shot and executing an alarming hairpin turn to get them onto the road. Liu cried out in alarm, not used to Sana’s driving, and Arkady hung grimly onto the handle on the inside of her door.

“Everyone okay back there?” Sana asked, peering into the rearview mirror.

Arkady looked back to see Jeeter and Krejjh scrambling to put on their seatbelts, each of them having thrown an arm over Liu to keep her in place. “Oops, sorry, I forgot we don’t have a seatbelt for the middle!” Sana said cheerfully as they thudded over a speedbump. Liu closed her eyes. “There’s normally only four of us.”

“It’s not far to where we’re going, right, Captain?” asked Jeeter.

“Just a half mile down the road,” said Sana. “Red Gregor’s going to meet us there with the rest of the equipment, as soon as he can get away.”

“What was he doing at the gig? Did Campbell tell him where we were?”

“I think so. He said that he wanted to come and hear us play,” Arkady said, watching buildings blur past on either side of them. “I guess it was lucky he did.”

“We would’ve figured something out,” Krejjh said confidently.

“Uh, who’s Campbell?” Liu asked, cautiously opening her eyes again.

“He’s our… manager? Kinda?” Krejjh replied. “He doesn’t tell us what to do or anything, but he has a lot of contacts, so he gets us most of our gigs.”

“Contacts in the music industry? Or contacts in like… events venues, bars and clubs?”

“Yes,” Krejjh said helpfully.

“He just has a lot of contacts,” Jeeter said with a smile. Arkady smirked at Liu’s look of consternation.

“Tonight’s gig did not come through Campbell,” said Sana, spotting the dive bar Red Gregor had specified and indicating to turn off the road. “We got it through an agency, Fowleys. I guess that’ll teach us not to go outside Campbell’s network.”

“Hey, it worked out!” Krejjh said. “We got a new drummer out of the deal.”

“Well, for tonight, at least,” Sana said, now reversing into a parking space. “I gotta say, Violet, the way you fitted in with our sound? That was amazing. Our set sounded better than I could’ve imagined.”

Liu blushed. “They were great songs,” she demurred, as the van came to a stop.

“Too bad it was wasted on IGR Corp,” Arkady remarked, undoing her seat belt as they all climbed out of the van.

They got a table in the corner of the dive bar, which was pretty full and made it easy to blend in. As Sana went to get them all drinks, Krejjh and Jeeter started up some kind of nonsensical word game. Arkady and Liu glanced at each other occasionally, but otherwise sat in awkward silence.

Finally, Arkady asked something that had been on her mind since she intervened in the confrontation between Liu and Seiders, though it had taken a back seat to more pressing concerns. “What was it you were trying to get from that computer, anyway?”

“Sorry?” Liu asked, looking away from Krejjh and Jeeter, where she’d been listening in on the game with a slightly baffled expression.

“In the CEO’s office,” Arkady clarified. “I saw you take a flash drive out of the computer. What were you trying to get?”

“Oh,” Liu said, drawing out the little drive from inside her blouse. “Yeah, I was… trying to copy some files onto it. I’m not sure how much I got, though – I had to pull it out before the transfer was complete, and I think they’re encrypted.”

“What kind of files are they?” Arkady asked, thinking that she could probably break the encryption in an afternoon. Maybe less.

Liu hesitated, and Arkady narrowed her eyes. “You’re not still trying to protect your company, are you? In case you don’t remember-”

“No, no,” Liu said quickly. “I just – I’m not sure if it would be safe to tell you. Safe for you,” she added. “Right now, you have plausible deniability if anyone questions you. You genuinely don’t know what’s on this flash drive. So maybe it would be better to keep it that way.”

Arkady was a little bit pacified by that, but still – “Considering I’ve already aided and abetted you, I think that ship has sailed,” she pointed out. “No-one is going to believe I did it without having any idea what you were up to. Which I’m fine with,” she added, as a guilt-stricken look crossed Liu’s face. “I made a choice to help you, and so did the others. But I may as well know what the stakes are.”

“Yeah, that’s… fair,” admitted Liu. Next to her, Krejjh was doing a fairly poor job of pretending not to listen in. “They’re blueprints. My company – the company – has been developing… do you know what IGR Corp does? What kind of a company it is?”

“Some kind of a tech company?” Arkady said. She vaguely remembered Sana saying something about that when they got the gig. She hadn’t really been paying attention to the details.

Liu nodded. “Smart technology – specifically, smart home technology. We produce – I mean, they produce things like smart security systems, smart doorbells, systems that can detect when someone has a medical emergency. Systems that are designed to help keep people safe.”

Arkady had to work to keep from grimacing. She wasn’t sure that being monitored by a computer 24/7 fitted everyone’s definition of ‘safety’, but maybe Liu had never had cause to doubt that the people with power had her best interests at heart. Lucky her.

“But then,” Liu went on, her voice bitter, “I found out that the latest product we were developing – the one that was supposed to make everyone’s lives so much easier, so much better – is being created as a surveillance device. To eavesdrop on people and send their data back to the company. And I know that a lot of smart devices have audio capabilities, but – this was hardwired in. Impossible to disable. And this weird, secretive new division of the company has been set up to process the data.”

“What are they gonna do with it?” Arkady asked.

“Who knows,” Liu said. “They could be collecting it for the government, but – I think it’s more likely they’re just planning to sell it on to the highest bidder.”

Arkady’s eyes narrowed, and she wished that Sana had brought the drinks already so that she’d have something to down.

“You know,” Liu said, her voice suddenly much softer. “I, uh. I still haven’t thanked you properly for, uh, well-”

“O-kay!” came Sana’s voice, loudly, as she finally arrived at their table carrying a small tray laden with glasses. “Sorry for the delay, guys, there was a heck of a crowd up at the bar. Also, the bartender was really interested in talking to me while he pulled these drinks.” She made a wry expression, her dimple deepening in one cheek. “Cheer up, ‘Kady, I’ve got your favourite-” She slid a pint glass of raspberry ale in front of Arkady.

“Thanks,” Arkady mumbled, not looking at Liu.

Red Gregor arrived not long after, having apparently evaded IGR Corp by pretending that he was going outside to look for the band, and then driving off with the equipment before anyone realised what was happening. Sana passed him a drink from the tray; no-one asked how she already knew his preferred drink order.

“So look,” said Arkady, after they’d done some small talk and toasted to a successful getaway (Sana’s idea, of course). “Not that we didn’t appreciate the save earlier – you had pretty good timing – but why’d you go to all the trouble of coming to an IGR Corp function just to hear us play? How did you even get in?”

“I know a lot of people,” Red Gregor said mysteriously, with a fluid shrug. “As for why I came – you probably don’t know this, but I’ve been getting into the music biz lately.”

Arkady tried to remember what ‘biz’ Red Gregor had been in before, and couldn’t. He was one of those people who seemed to do a bit of everything.

“That’s awesome!” said Krejjh, looking delighted. “Are you going to start a band? Or manage one?”

Red Gregor smiled. “Actually, neither. I’m starting a record label,” he said. “And I want to sign you guys to it.”

Liu choked on her drink; Jeeter said, “Wow, really?” and even Sana looked taken aback. Clearly this hadn’t been the answer she was expecting.

“Us?” she said, as if Gregor could have meant anyone else. “As in…” She gestured around the table, including Liu.

Red Gregor nodded. “Look, your new sound is like nothing I’ve ever heard from a band before,” he said. “Campbell has always spoken highly of you guys, and I really liked your originals the last time I heard you perform. But with this new line-up? I think you could become really big. If that’s something that you want, of course.”

Sana sat back in her chair, looking thoughtful, while Krejjh looked practically ready to vibrate out of theirs with excitement. “That would be a pretty big step for us,” she said. “Not that we wouldn’t love – more exposure, better opportunities-”

“Gigs in legal venues?” put in Jeeter.

“More above-the-board performances,” agreed Sana. “But we’ve only played once with this new line-up. We don’t know for sure if we can replicate that – and I mean, we’d be asking Violet to just drop everything and join us full-time-”

Red Gregor held up his hands. “Like I said, it’s completely up to you,” he said. “I’m not here to pressure you into something you’re not ready for. But don’t underestimate yourselves. I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t have faith in you guys.”

Sana looked around the table, taking in the mixture of expressions, ranging from Krejjh’s eagerness to Liu’s uncertainty to Arkady’s… Arkady didn’t know what her face was doing. “We’ll have to put it to a vote,” she said, predictably. “And if any of you need more time to think this over-”

“I’m in!” Krejjh said instantly. “We rocked tonight! I want to keep on rocking that hard. And we should totally record an album.”

Jeeter smiled fondly. “I’m on board with anything that will let me keep playing the keytar,” he admitted. “And I thought we sounded pretty awesome, as well.”

Sana looked at Liu. “Violet, you’re the one who this would be the biggest change for,” she said. “The rest of us are already playing in a band full-time. Well, with the odd side gig,” she added, because yeah, they did not yet make enough money from performing to cover the bills. “You barely know us, and you’re not under any obligation to stick around – or to switch careers.”

Liu gave a slightly broken laugh. “Well, I don’t really think I can go back to my old one,” she said. “That option evaporated as soon as one of my colleagues pulled a gun on me. Not… sure I’ve really had time to process that yet.”

Sana nodded. “If it’s too soon-”

“But no amount of processing is going to make my situation any different,” Liu went on. “I could try to get another job in my field, but… IGR Corp is a pretty well-known company. Word’s going to get around that I’m untrustworthy, especially if they put it about that I tried to steal corporate secrets.”

“They can’t do that,” Sana said immediately. “I used to do some union work; whistleblowing is a protected activity, and it’s against the law for them to blacklist you – to make it more difficult for you to obtain future employment.”

Liu smiled slightly. “I don’t think IGR Corp are too concerned with breaking the law,” she pointed out. “I appreciate it, but… this isn’t my first experience with a hostile work environment.”

Okay, so maybe Arkady should take back her earlier thought about Liu never having had cause to distrust the people in power.

“Besides, I haven’t even blown the whistle on them yet – I’m not sure if the information I have is worth anything,” Liu said, a little grimly. “And anyway… I think it’s time for a clean slate. So, if you’ll have me… I’m in.”

Which just left Arkady. She could see how pleased Sana was that Liu was willing to join the band full-time, even though she was trying to hide it. Krejjh and Jeeter, too, were excited – and not just at the prospect of getting better gigs and earning more money (though that was a very appealing prospect).

The fact was, Red Gregor was right – they’d sounded like a completely new band during their performance. Arkady had always liked their stuff (of course she did; she’d even co-written some of it) but the new sound gave it a flair she hadn’t even realised it had been missing. As much as she couldn’t help thinking of the dozens of ways this could go wrong, she wanted them to keep sounding like that. She wanted to see what else they could do.

“‘Kady?” asked Sana.

Arkady took a deep breath. “Sure. Let’s do this.”

[iffeelscouldkill]

Strong Coffee and Sourdough

Or: “It’s not ‘too late’ for a Valentine’s Day fic if it’s still February”

A/N: I was in no way planning to write a Valentine’s Day fic this year, because I have enough ongoing fic projects as it is! But then a couple of days before the 14th my brain was like “but Sana and Campbell???” and I was like god damn it you’re right. And then I thought of the scenario at the end of Episode 3 where Sana and Arkady both wake up in Campbell’s guest room, but make it a contemporary/present-day AU, and this fic idea was born!

It’s teeechnically also a College AU, but not in the traditional sense of the characters being students - instead, most of them are staff/faculty, minus Sana who’s a mechanic and Krejjh who’s a *mumble mumble something to do with poetry*. Also, I’m not American and although I attempted to write a US-ish college style setting in deference to TSCOSI being US-ish (I mean, the space colleges are vaguely based on US ones according to Jess’s notes), it’s probably not that accurate? It was meant to be a quickie Valentine’s Day ficlet (emphasis on “meant to be”, lolsob), so I didn’t want to go through the whole production of getting it checked over by someone more knowledgeable. Please forgive any glaring issues!

Warnings: Mentions of forcible eviction (past, not taking place during the fic) and er, air rifle-related violence and injury? But don’t worry, it’s no-one that we like :D

Cross-posted to AO3

It’s been a while since Sana has had the experience of waking up in a strange bed with a throbbing hangover.

She comes to slowly, and then all at once, groaning as she opens her eyes to bright light streaming through a gap in the curtains. As she brings one arm up defensively to shield her eyes, her elbow brushes up against something warm. Another person. Sana freezes.

Very slowly, she turns her head – and lets out a huge breath of relief as she recognises the sleeping profile of her best friend. “Arkady,” she says, fondly, even though she knows from experience that the other woman will be completely dead to the world. Arkady is a light sleeper normally, but after a night of drinking (and the strength of Sana’s hangover tells her there was plenty of drinking) it’s as if her body takes the opportunity to make up for the lost rest.

Arkady’s hand is resting on the pillow next to her, and Sana frowns as she takes in some bruising on Arkady’s knuckles, visible even in the gloom. What the hell happened last night? Very little is managing to penetrate the thick pounding in Sana’s head – she remembers that they were at a house party, hosted by someone she vaguely knows who works in the university administration. Gregory…? No, Gregor. Red Gregor. Brian had found out about the invite from Park, and they’d all decided to go along – except for Violet, who’d been helping with some monitoring in the labs overnight – because it had been a while since they’d all had the chance to get together and relax.

Sana is being vividly reminded of all the reasons they’d stopped doing this once they hit their late 20s and early 30s. She hasn’t been this hung over in what – four years, maybe five?

She pushes the mystery of Arkady’s bruised knuckles to the back of her mind, something to ask about when her friend is finally conscious. For now, she can smell coffee, and everything else has abruptly taken a back seat to discovering its source.

She gets out of bed, noticing that she’s still wearing her outfit from the night before, the sky blue blouse and dark trousers a little crooked and creased. At least she has the sense to take off her jewellery, which is laid neatly a side table on top of a folded dark sweater that she doesn’t recognise. Sana moves her earrings and pile of bangles and unfolds the sweater, which has the university logo on it and smells faintly of aftershave.

Someone must have given it to her to wear before she went to sleep – presumably the same someone who owns the guest bedroom that she and Arkady are both crashing in. Sana pulls the sweater over her head (it’s worn, soft and hangs loosely around her, evidently worn by someone with much wider shoulders) and goes to look for their mysterious benefactor.

It’s a smallish apartment, the kind that Sana imagines would belong to someone working a teaching or admin job at the university, maybe someone who recently moved to the city. She spots a bathroom, the door cracked open, and makes a beeline for it to use the toilet, wash up a bit and rinse her mouth out. A glance in the mirror confirms that Sana looks as wrecked as she feels; she runs her fingers through her tangled hair and uses some wet tissue paper to clean off the last of her smudged makeup.

The bathroom is clean and neat but doesn’t have many other distinguishing features – except for, curiously, a row of brightly-coloured rubber ducks lined up behind the sink, and what looks like a plastic baby bathtub leaning against one wall – does the owner of this house have kids? Sana tries to think if she’s ever met anyone with young children in her friends’ circles, but she’s drawing a blank. Maybe the person who lives here is a caretaker or has relatives that they babysit.

The scent of coffee is even stronger now, and Sana thinks she can hear humming. She makes her way down the corridor to what can only be the kitchen, and slowly pushes the door open. “Uh, good morning.”

“Hey!” The man at the kitchen counter half-turns, favouring Sana with a bright smile. She instantly feels more at ease, though she isn’t sure what she did, between getting so drunk at a party that she needed to crash at a stranger’s house and appearing the next morning looking like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards, to earn that kind of expression. “You’re awake. Come sit down – I made coffee. Strong coffee.”

His voice is wonderful, melodious and full of humour. Sana catches herself thinking this and wonders if it’s appropriate to be thinking it about someone she’s just met (though, did they just meet? Surely there must have been some kind of conversation that led to her and Arkady winding up here? Sana can’t remember anything), and decides to chalk it up to her hangover. That, and the word ‘coffee’.

“Thank you so much. I guess it must be pretty obvious how much I need it,” Sana says ruefully as she sits down at the kitchen table, which is a plain light wood. One or two coasters sit on top of it: they’re made of colourful clay, and slightly wonky and misshapen, like they were handmade in a child’s art class.

“I think anyone would, after last night,” the man says lightly, no judgement in his voice. “Is your friend awake yet?”

“Not yet. I think she’ll emerge in a half hour so. Maybe sooner if the coffee filters through to her senses,” Sana jokes, and the man laughs. He turns, holding a mug of coffee that looks reassuringly pitch black.

“Do you take milk or cream? Sugar?”

“Just black is fine, thanks,” Sana says, trying not to look like she’s on the verge of making grabbing motions at the coffee. The man smiles like he’s noticed this, and brings the mug over, setting it on one of the misshapen coasters.

“One of my nephews’ art projects,” he says, nodding at it. “Pretty impressive for a six-year-old, right?  Kid’s good with his hands – it runs in the family, I guess.” He grins, and the pride is clear in his expression.

Nephews. So, that explains the rubber ducks and the bathtub. Sana means to ask how many nephews he has, but what comes out instead is, “Do you work with your hands a lot?” She feels herself flush brightly and covers it up by taking a drink of coffee. God, the coffee tastes incredible.

Her host shrugs easily. “Well, culinary arts teacher, you know how it is. Speaking of which – are you hungry? Because I made a fresh batch of sourdough the other day, and I don’t like to brag, but it came out pretty well. I can warm some up for you.”

“Oh my god, marry me,” Sana blurts out, and then claps a hand over her mouth. What is wrong with her this morning?? Okay, so the guy is warm and funny and generous, a doting uncle, and he can cook – but there’s no reason to come on quite so strong. “I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name and here I am proposing marriage. Yes to the sourdough, please. If it’s not a bother.”

An odd expression comes over the man’s face, but it passes before Sana’s sluggish brain can parse it. “Ignatius Campbell, but you can call me Campbell,” he says. “And coming right up.” He opens a bread bin on the counter and takes out a paper-wrapped loaf of bread and a knife.

Sana searches for something to fill the slightly awkward silence that’s suddenly opened up. “So, uh, how do you know Red Gregor?”

“Oh, Red and I go way back,” Campbell says, expertly slicing off some of the sourdough. Even his bread-slicing technique is perfect – Sana has never managed to hand-slice bread without a shower of crumbs and a very awkwardly wedge-shaped result. “I’ve been best man at both his weddings. We met at college, kept in touch after – I moved around a lot, turned my hand to different things. Eventually he told me about an opening at the university where he worked for a culinary arts teacher, and it had the added bonus of being nearer to my sister and the kids, so here I am.” He slides two pieces of bread into the toaster.

“That sounds pretty eventful,” Sana comments. “I bet you’ve got a few stories to tell.”

Campbell smiles at her, bringing down another mug from a cupboard and pouring some more coffee for himself. “Well, no more than the usual. But what about yourself? I know you don’t work at the university. Red has a habit of drawing people into his orbit, though, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that you were at the party.”

Sana laughs a little. “Well, no, I’m not faculty – I actually run a repairs shop just off campus. I can fix pretty much anything, but somehow I find myself spending most of my time changing the oil for students who never learned to take care of their own cars.” She shouldn’t complain, since the repairs keep her in business, but it pains her to see so many kids who didn’t know how to do basic maintenance.

“So, good with your hands, then?” Campbell asks slyly, and Sana laughs at the way he’s turned her own comment back on her.

“I have my moments,” she says, blushing again and taking yet another sip of coffee to cover it up. “Uh, so the invite to Red Gregor’s party actually came through Brian. He’s a professor in the linguistics department.”

“Wait, as in Brian Jeeter?” Sana nods, and Campbell leans back against the counter as if absorbing this revelation. The sourdough pops up, and Campbell takes down a plate and piles the slices of bread onto it. “I could have sworn he was a TA. He can’t be older than mid-twenties.”

“Twenty-six, and he’s a bit of a prodigy,” Sana tells him. “Youngest professor at the university. God, this smells amazing, thank you,” she adds as Campbell slides the plate of sourdough over to her, along with some butter and a knife. Campbell looks pleased at the compliment.

“Arkady also works at the university, doing IT support and systems security,” Sana adds, inclining her head towards the kitchen door to indicate who she means. “Her partner, Violet, is in the biology department.” Confusingly, there is also a Violet Liu in the computing department who is an infosec specialist. She and Arkady don’t get along, exactly, but they have a grudging mutual respect for each other, and the other Violet enjoys challenging her infosec students to find vulnerabilities in the university’s notoriously impenetrable firewalls. She’s tried persuading Arkady to teach a class, without any luck so far. Arkady’s self-conscious about her self-taught status, and disdainful about higher education in general. Sana thinks Violet might be the only reason she still puts up with working at a university at all.

“Then there’s Park and McCabe – I think Park and Red Gregor know each other from back when Park was in the admin department, but he helps oversee the sports centre now. And McCabe runs the shooting range.” Sana concludes her recital and takes a bite of the sourdough she’s been buttering. Her eyes flutter closed involuntarily, and she doesn’t make a noise, but it’s a close run thing. God, Campbell’s not just a cook, he’s an incredible cook. She feels less weird about the pseudo-proposal now. Sourdough this good is worth marrying someone for.

“Wow, it sounds like you guys are quite the family,” Campbell says, and he sounds a little wistful.

There’s always room for one more, Sana wants to say, but manages to hold herself back this time.

“And yeah, I know Park – vaguely, anyway. Eyepatch guy, right?”

Sana nods.

“What about…” Campbell looks hesitant, suddenly, the first time he’s seemed less than sure of himself. “You and Arkady seemed to have a connection with someone who was at the party last night. Ricky someone?”

“Oh my god,” Sana says, dropping the half-slice of sourdough she’s holding onto. “Ricky Q was there?” But even as she says it, she remembers – flashes, anyway: Ricky, disdainful and sneering, his nose bleeding from Arkady’s punch. Sana pulling Arkady off him – not because he didn’t deserve every bit of it, but because she could be fired for attacking the son of the university’s biggest donor. Red Gregor, intervening, telling Ricky to leave. She can’t remember exactly what happened after that, but she can guess.

“You offered us a place to stay,” she says, looking at Campbell for confirmation. He shrugs awkwardly.

“I had a place that was nearby, and you both seemed to want to get out of there as quickly as possible,” he says. “Red Gregor said your truck would be safe at his place, and you could swing by to pick it up anytime.”

“Thank you, Campbell,” Sana says, touched. She’s still surprised that someone who barely knew either of them would offer up his home – especially after watching them get into a fight – but maybe that’s just the kind of guy that Campbell is. She wonders what had happened to Brian, Krejjh and Park – maybe they’d left the party earlier. Oh god, she hasn’t even checked her phone yet. She’s going to have so many messages.

“I know it’s none of my business what happened,” Campbell says, and Sana remembers that he’d asked about how they knew Ricky Q. “But that guy seems like bad news, and I like to avoid people who are bad news.”

Sana scoffs a little, picking at the last of the sourdough on her plate. “That’s one way of putting it.” She hesitates over what to say. It’s not really her story to tell, and she normally wouldn’t have any qualms about telling anyone who asked to drop the subject. But Campbell had offered his home to them purely because they needed somewhere to go, and Sana has this feeling that he’ll understand better than some people would.

“Short version is that Ricky Q’s family – the Cresswin family – are wealthy real estate owners,” she says, quietly. “When Arkady was a teenager, they bought up the apartment complex that her family lived in – not a great place to grow up, but people did the best they could. But instead of improving things for everyone who lived there, they wanted to evict them all. Renovate the complex, turn into a luxury apartment block to be rented out to billionaires and the like.” Sana knows her bitterness and frustration are audible. “Most of them didn’t have any place to go – so they tried to organise, withhold rent in protest. Ricky Q showed up, saying he didn’t agree with what his family was doing, and offered to help.

“The tenants were wary, but he seemed sincere, he helped them co-ordinate, so they trusted him. He was going to go public about his involvement – go against his family, get them some media coverage and give their story real publicity. But then, at the last second, he went behind their backs – and the story that the media wound up running was a very different one to what they’d expected.” Campbell’s face darkens at that. “Ricky claimed that he wasn’t his fault the media ran with the story they did, but – you can imagine how that went over. A local housing organisation offered some support, but it wasn’t enough to keep the residents from being evicted – just to help them deal with it.”

“Jesus,” Campbell says. “After hearing that, I’m surprised all she did was punch him.”

“She might’ve done worse, if I hadn’t pulled her off,” Sana admits. “It wasn’t for his sake – his family is unfortunately one of the biggest donors to the university. Arkady could lose her job if he makes a complaint to the wrong person.”

Campbell draws a hand over his face. “I’m no stranger to bullshit systems, but that doesn’t mean they don’t make me angry,” he says. “I’ve no idea why he showed up at Red Gregor’s, though. I’ve never heard of him before, and he’s not the type of person that Red would associate with if he could help it. Trust me on that.”

Sana shrugs tiredly. “Ricky has a tendency of showing up where he’s not wanted,” she says. She drains the last of her coffee, and Campbell wordlessly offers her the pot. Sana smiles gratefully and holds her mug out for a refill.

“If there’s anything I can do to help…” Campbell says. He sounds completely sincere, and it does something strange to Sana’s heart. She knows she has a tendency to trust people too easily; but it feels like it means something, that Campbell listened to her tell this story – a woman he’s known for all of a night, though it feels like longer than that – and even though there’s nothing in it for him, he genuinely wants to help.

“You’ve honestly helped us a lot already,” Sana says. “And I really can’t thank you enough for that. We’ll figure something out – it’s not the first time we’ve been in a bind.”

“Well, in the meantime…” Campbell turns back to the countertop and pulls the cutting board towards him. “More sourdough?”

---

Arkady tiredly shuffles into the kitchen about ten minutes later, as Campbell is in the middle of brewing another pot of coffee. They’ve moved on to talking about anything and everything; Sana has discovered how many nephews Campbell has (three: the eldest is six, the second is four and the youngest is a year old) and that, in a weird coincidence, the two of them grew up not that far from each other. Campbell is in the middle of telling some of the stranger and funnier stories from his Culinary Arts classes when Arkady enters the room.

“So I told the kid to turn out his pockets,” Campbell is saying, as Sana laughs, “and they were just full of tomatoes! He must’ve had at least eight of them in there! Maybe more. I told him, if he was going to be stealing my tomatoes, I would at least teach him how to make ratatouille with them.” Sana laughs harder at that.

“Morning,” Arkady says from the doorway, and both of them look over. “This looks cosy.”

“Hey, g’morning,” Campbell says easily. “Hope you’re not feeling too rough? There’s coffee.”

“Coffee would be good,” admits Arkady, making her way over to the kitchen table. “You’re Campbell, right?”

“That’s me.”

Sana is wondering how Arkady apparently knows who Campbell is when she didn’t – did she have that much to drink last night? – when Arkady says, “Red Gregor talks about you a lot.”

“Only good things, I hope,” Campbell jokes. Arkady smirks.

“It’s a variety.” She pulls out her phone from her pocket, its screen dark and unresponsive. “You wouldn’t happen to have a charger, would you?”

“Sure,” Campbell says, holding out his hand for Arkady’s phone. As he retrieves a charger and plugs Arkady’s phone in at the wall, Sana says to Arkady in an undertone,

“Did you sleep okay?”

Arkady shrugs. “Sure, for all it’s helping with my hangover. You seem to be having a good time in here, though. Did I interrupt something?”

Sana splutters. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Arkady raises her eyebrows slightly. “I just mean, if I’m gonna be a third wheel…”

“Third- okay, if we want to talk third wheels, how about every time that you and Violet-”

“Uh, Arkady?” Campbell’s voice cuts in before Sana can finish. “Your phone’s ringing.”

He tilts the phone screen so that she can see it; the screen reads, ‘Violet Liu calling’ with a picture of Violet that looks like it was taken from a joint selfie. She’s smiling, her arm around someone out of shot, and flashing a peace sign at the camera.

“Shit,” Arkady swears under her breath as Sana smirks.

“I think you’d better pick up.”

Arkady doesn’t move, staring at the phone as if it will magically stop ringing and solve her problems for her.

“C’mon, she’s not going to be mad at you,” Sana says.

“No, she won’t be mad, she’ll be worried,” Arkady says. “Really worried.”

“Hey,” Sana says, reassuring now, because she knows that even after two years Arkady still frets about her relationship with Violet. “Violet trusts you. If she didn’t know what was going on and couldn’t get a hold of you, she would’ve called Brian or Krejjh.” Or me, she mentally adds, thinking guilty of her own phone, lying neglected at the bottom of her bag. “Just explain what happened, and let her know you’re okay.”

Arkady nods grimly, and goes over to take the phone from Campbell. Sana and Campbell both do their best not to eavesdrop, Campbell clattering around and pouring more coffee and cutting Sana another slice of sourdough. She’s already so full, but it’s hard to say no.

Eventually, Arkady says, “Yeah. Talk soon. Okay. Be safe,” and hangs up the phone. She exhales, and Sana looks at her enquiringly.

“She talked to Brian and Krejjh, who heard from Red Gregor where we were,” Arkady summarises. “But she also heard about – what happened, and she was worried about that more than anything.” Sana winces and nods.

“Here,” Campbell says, handing Arkady a mug of coffee. “I didn’t know how you take it, but-”

“Anything’s fine,” Arkady says. “Thanks.”

“Listen,” Sana says to her. “We’ll figure out what to do about-”

“Yeah, I know,” Arkady interrupts tiredly. “I’ll suck it up or lay low or – whatever, can we just… not talk about this yet?”

“Okay,” Sana says, willing to give Arkady some space, particularly after she’s just woken up. “But seriously, Violet will be okay. And if she’s not,” Sana’s tone turns sly. “You can always make it up to her on Friday.”

Arkady goes still for a couple of seconds, until the significance of ‘Friday’ comes back to her. “Oh god,” she says, raising her coffee mug like she’d be happy to drown herself in it.

At Campbell’s quizzical look, Sana explains, “Valentine’s Day.”

“Ah,” Campbell says, sympathetic. “Not sure what to do yet?”

“I don’t really do… romantic gestures,” Arkady says, then looks like she isn’t even sure why she’s talking about this. “I think the whole day is full of crap, but… Violet likes it.”

“You don’t have to go overboard,” Sana tells her, like she has done every other time they’ve had this conversation. “Just do something nice together.”

“Yeah, but what does that mean?”

“I’ve always found you can’t go wrong with a good picnic,” Campbell offers. When Arkady squints up at him, he shrugs. “It’s a classic, but you can personalise it too.”

“Hey, yeah – you guys both like to go for walks in the woods,” Sana says, warming to the idea. “You can do that, but make it romantic.”

“Sure, except I have no idea how to make a picnic,” Arkady says. “We didn’t really… do that when I was a kid.”

“I can recommend a few things,” Campbell offers. “If you want advice.”

Arkady hesitates, clearly torn between her dislike of opening up – about romance most of all – as well as her aversion to taking advice from anyone, and her need to find something – anything­ – to do for Valentine’s Day. She glances at Sana, who holds up her hands.

“You’d be better off taking advice from Campbell than me,” she says. “You know I can’t cook. Of course, if you’d rather ask Brian…”

Arkady instantly makes up her mind. “Sure. Let’s hear it.”

---

Sana spends the next few days waiting for the other shoe to drop on the Ricky Q Situation. She doesn’t think that Ricky will lodge a complaint against Arkady right away – it seems much more his style to use the leverage that it would give him to his advantage. Even so, Red Gregor promises her, through Park, that he’ll keep an eye out for anything that comes via the Administrations office. (Sana would have liked her contact with Red Gregor to be through Campbell, but she didn’t manage to work up the courage to ask for his number before she and Arkady left that day. She was kind of hoping that Campbell would ask for hers, but he hadn’t).

She and Arkady have a brief conversation about it, during which Arkady states that they may as well “deal with the shit when it hits the fan”, and that it’s “not worth wasting any more time or energy” on Ricky Q until then, both of which seem like fair sentiments. Strangely, though, nothing happens.

Sana drops by the university one day to meet Arkady for lunch; she’s running early, so she stops by Brian’s office first to say hi.

“Hey dude, come in,” Brian says when she knocks on the door. “You here to meet Arkady for lunch?”

Brian’s office is in cheerful disarray, stacks of papers and books piled around in a way that looks disorganised, though Sana knows that he could instantly locate the right volume or piece of research if he needed it. He looks like he’s in the middle of doing some grading, which is probably why he’s happy for the distraction. Sana shifts a textbook off the chair on the other side of the desk and perches on it.

“Yeah, we’re going to grab a sandwich from that new place that opened up across the campus,” Sana says. “Also, I think Arkady wanted some last-minute help with organising her surprise for Violet tomorrow.” When Brian looks puzzled, she adds, “Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh! Right, I almost forgot it was tomorrow. Man, is Arkady really doing something for Valentine’s this year?” Brian asks, entertained. “Never thought I’d see that day.”

Sana smiles. “A little under duress, but I think she’s secretly looking forward to it. What are you and Krejjh doing for tomorrow? Got any plans?”

“Yup! We’re planning an all-night soap opera marathon,” Brian says proudly. “Eight hours of the best and cheesiest dramas the internet has to offer. We’re making movie-style snacks and drinks – it’s gonna be awesome.”

Sana laughs. “That sounds like you two.” She can’t help feeling a little wistful. Sana doesn’t normally feel left out on Valentine’s Day – she’s happy for her friends, and she sees it as an opportunity to spend some quality time on her own, doing some of the things she likes best. A few years back, she and Arkady would have spent it together, getting cheerfully drunk and watching terrible, trashy horror movies as an antidote to the general sappiness of the occasion – but Sana would much rather have Arkady be happy with Violet, who is definitely one of the more positive things to have happened in Arkady’s life over the last few years, than have their old tradition back. It’s just one day in the year, after all.

Brian’s phone chimes, and he briefly checks the screen, and then starts snorting with laughter. “Oh, man.”

“What?” asks Sana.

“Uh, so… That Ricky Q guy that showed up to Red Gregor’s party, the one you stopped Arkady from whaling on?” says Brian. Sana nods, wondering where this could possibly be going. “Well, Red and Park managed to pull some strings via their contacts in the admin office, and persuaded the Cresswin family that it would be a good idea for their youngest son to do some publicity. Y’know, earn some goodwill. Their reputation isn’t the greatest at the moment, and Ricky’s been kind of in the doghouse lately – that start-up he funded is being scrutinised for some shady dealings – so he doesn’t really have a choice but to play nice.”

“So… what is he being made to do?” Sana asks.

“Well, someone might have suggested that he chaperone a group of kids who’ve come to tour the university, and Park and McCabe volunteered to give a demonstration on the shooting range,” Brian says cheerfully. “But, y’know, Park’s aim isn’t what it used to be, what with the eyepatch and all. A few bullets might have gone astray during the demonstration – non-lethal, obviously, they’re just air rifles, but they hurt like hell. Which is unfortunate, because Ricky Q also wasn’t wearing safety equipment. Apparently he thought that he was ‘above it’.”

Sana stares at him. “Brian, are you saying that Park shot Ricky Q during a shooting range demonstration?”

“I mean, I’m not not saying that,” Brian replies. “But y’know, just hypothetically, there might have been some bruises. Kind of looks similar to being punched in the face – which, of course, none of us would know anything about, either. But hypothetically, if Ricky Q tried to complain about a certain recent incident at a party – which no-one who was there witnessed – Park and McCabe are willing to testify to the bruises having come from Ricky’s recent shooting range accident. The kids, too.”

“Oh my god,” Sana says. Part of her – a very small part of her – wants to be disapproving at the way her friends have gone about exacting revenge on Ricky Q. If she’d known about the plan, she probably would have felt duty-bound to dissuade them from it, which is probably exactly why none of them told her.

A much bigger part is delighted, amused, and impressed at the level of meticulous planning that went into it. “Does Arkady know about all of this?”

“She didn’t know about the plan before it happened,” Brian replies. “Plausible deniability, you know. But uh, Park might have sent her some pictures.”

Sana gives in and laughs helplessly. “Oh my god. You guys…” She shakes her head. “You know I don’t condone shooting people in the face with air rifles. Even Ricky Q.”

“Of course,” Brian says, nodding. “But ya know, accidents happen. I’m sure Park feels really bad about it.”

“I’ll have to thank him,” says Sana. “For handling the situation so professionally, that is.”

“I’m sure he’d like that,” Brian says.

They chat aimlessly about other things for a few minutes, including the latest volume of poetry that Krejjh has been working on, when Brian says, “So, you and that Campbell guy looked like you were hitting it off at Red Gregor’s party. And Arkady said he let you guys crash at your place after? That was cool of him. Are you gonna see him again?”

“Wait, what do you mean, we ‘looked like we were hitting it off’?” Sana asks him, confused. Brian frowns.

“Uh, you guys were talking for half the night. It just seemed like you were really getting along…” Brian takes in the stunned expression on Sana’s face. “Do you not… remember?”

“I…” Sana thinks back to the party. Her own lack of memory about that night, and how exactly they came to be staying at Campbell’s. Campbell’s expression when she’d said that she didn’t know his name. “Shit.”

She checks the time on her phone and jumps to her feet. “Sorry, Brian, I’ve gotta run, Arkady’ll be waiting for me, but – thanks. For telling me that.”

“Sure, no problem,” Brian says, a little bemused but as always, willing to roll with it. “See ya later.”

---

Sana feels surprisingly nervous as she waits outside the culinary arts lab the next day. It’s just before lunch break, and she’s expecting a small crowd of students to pour into the corridor any minute now, which will be her cue to go in and find Campbell in the hopes that they can talk.

She’d been tempted to seek him out as soon as she’d finished her lunch with Arkady the day before, but she was already late getting back to work as it was, so she settled for stopping by the Administration office and confirming with Red Gregor that Campbell would be teaching the next day. He’d given her a strange look, but she had a feeling he knew why she was asking.

 The door to the lab opens, and Sana steps back as students dressed in white kitchen uniforms – many of them splattered with various food stains – pile out in ones and twos, chattering and laughing. None of them gives her a second glance. After what seems to be the last student has left the lab, Sana waits for a few moments, and then cautiously pokes her head around the door in case any of them hung back to talk to Campbell one-on-one.

Campbell is alone inside, and Sana realises with delight that he’s wearing a chef’s hat with his own kitchen uniform. He’s frowning at a stain on the floor between the preparation tables.

“Campbell, hey,” Sana says to draw attention to herself, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu from when she walked into Campbell’s kitchen on Sunday morning, after the party. Campbell looks up in surprise.

“Sana,” he says, a smile breaking across his face. “What brings you to my lab?”

“I was in the neighbourhood,” Sana says lightly. “Thought I might stop by and see where you work! Everything’s very – chrome,” she adds, gesturing to the gleaming equipment and preparation tables.

Campbell snorts. “Yeah, only thanks to our cleaning staff. If it was left up to the students…” He shakes his head. “Some of them are gonna get a rude awakening when they enter the workplace. As it is, I feel like I have to buy our cleaners a box of chocolates every year as thanks for their sacrifice.” Sana laughs, and Campbell grins. “So – what can I do for you?”

“Um…” Sana tucks her hair behind one ear, a nervous gesture she’s never been able to get rid of. “Well. I met up with Brian yesterday, and he mentioned something about Saturday night… It seems that I forgot a lot more than I realised,” she finishes, apologetically.

Campbell grimaces. “Yeah, I figured. Not gonna lie, I was hoping that I made more of an impression than that.”

Sana cringes. “Campbell, I’m so sorry, I – it’s been a long time since I’d been to any kind of party, and I guess my limits aren’t what they used to be,” she confesses. “Trust me, forgetting a night spent with you? Not something that I would have wanted to do under any circumstances.”

Campbell purses his lips together, like he’s trying not to smile and failing, and his eyes are dancing with humour. “At least the sourdough was more memorable, I hope?”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” Sana says. “Your coffee was also surprisingly good.”

Campbell takes a couple of steps and closes the distance between them, and Sana finds herself holding her breath. “It’s Valentine’s Day,” he says, quietly. Sana realises that it is, and that she’d completely forgotten. “Do you have any plans later?”

“I was sort of planning to spend it binge-watching old comedy movies, and trying to forget what day it was,” Sana admits. “But I’m open to a better offer.”

Campbell pretends to draw back a little. “Well, hey, that sounds like a great idea – don’t let me stop you from-”

“Oh, come here,” Sana says in mock exasperation, and pulls Campbell back in, tilting her head up just a fraction to bring their lips together. Campbell is smiling into the kiss.

After they break apart, Campbell says, “Come over later? I’ll even bake some more sourdough.”

“It’s a date,” Sana tells him.

Campbell gives her a look that’s so fond, Sana almost can’t handle it, and she pulls him down again for another kiss.

A/N: Just in case it's not clear - the administration department in this fic is not designed to be a stand-in for the IGR. The IGR doesn't exist in this universe; I just had Red Gregor work in the admin department because it seemed fitting (he prints IDs!) and it seemed like an apt former job for Park as well.

[iffeelscouldkill]

it only means there is no room for you to fall [Epilogue]

A/N: This is a follow-up to it only means there is no room for you to fall, my alternate post-episode-5/episode 6 Sana/Arkady/Violet fic that I wrote uh... last September, wow. It won’t make much sense if you haven’t read that, so go read that fic first!

Those of you who follow me on AO3, or who followed the fic on AO3, will know that I already wrote and posted an epilogue to this fic about a week and a half after it was written. But I never posted it to Tumblr. I liked it, but I also wasn’t that happy with it - there was too much “plot”, and not enough of the fluff and indulgence that I’d so enjoyed when writing the first fic. And I liked how the first fic ended, so I sort of wanted that to be a stand-alone on Tumblr, until I was happier with the epilogue.

I never intended to rewrite it - I was originally planning to write a follow-up fic or two in the same ‘verse, and figured that once those were written, I would post the epilogue to Tumblr first so that it made sense. However, I lost a bit of steam with the next fic in the series, so that didn’t quite happen.

Fast-forward to now, and... well, I’m sure I don’t need to spell out why I needed a dose of fluffiness and self-indulgence in my fic-writing life. So, I decided a couple of days ago to have another go with writing this epilogue, and see if I couldn’t write a version that I was happier with. Turns out I could! Here it is :D

---

The first thing that Sana is aware of when she wakes is that she’s very, very warm.

The second is that someone is playing with her hair, carding their fingers through the strands that have escaped from the loose plait she wears it in. It feels nice. Sana closes her eyes again.

A vague memory filters through the sleepy haze in her brain. Arkady and Violet hugging her. Arkady leading her into her room, pulling her down onto her bunk, wrapping her arms around her. Violet at her back. She realises that she can hear voices talking softly.

“...might wake up and decide that she can handle it without our help.” Violet’s voice. “She is the Captain, after all.”

A snort from Arkady on her other side. “You underestimate my willingness to flat-out pin her to this bunk until she admits that she can’t handle everything by herself.”

Sana cracks one eye open. “I’d like to see you try.”

She feels Violet jump behind her, but Arkady just smirks, unrepentant. She looks slightly softer-edged in the morning (well, Sana realises that she doesn’t really know for sure that it’s morning, it’s hard to tell on the ship), her normally carefully tamed hair in unruly tangles around her face. It’s a look Sana has only rarely had the privilege of seeing.

“How did you sleep?” asks Violet, and Sana turns to smile at her.

“Like a log. I hope I didn’t snore.”

Violet laughs. “I don’t think so. I would know if you did - I’m a pretty light sleeper. It comes from being a medic,” she adds by way of explanation.

Sana is about to say something else - ask what the time is, maybe - when a key part of the previous night suddenly comes back to her: Ricky Q’s smug voice on the other end of the line. His threats against her crew, and the rendezvous on Hafizah. Sana groans as her head starts to throb slightly.

“Sana?” Violet looks worried, reaching forward to brush strands of hair gently from her face. Sana realises that Violet had been the one playing with her hair when she woke up, and she takes a moment to delight in this tiny gesture of affection from the other woman, who had always seemed quite reserved in her interactions until now. They would brush past each other, sometimes, in the narrow kitchen, and Sana was often guilty of wanting to read too much into the touch of fingers as moonshine cups were passed around, or Violet’s gentle ministrations as she checked an injury. She’d always told herself she was wishing for the impossible. She’s now starting to realise that might not have been true.

“What is it, Sana?” Arkady asks her, tense, like she’s readying herself for a fight. Sana weighs her options. She knows that telling Arkady about Ricky Q and his blackmail will only make her angry, and she doesn’t want to puncture the little cocoon of warmth and calm that they’ve created for themselves. But she also knows that putting her best friend off won’t be well-received. Arkady will probably make good on her promise to pin Sana to the bunk until she opens up about what’s going on (Sana carefully doesn’t think about all the ways that image appeals to her).

Even as she hesitates, Arkady says, “Look, you know all that touchy-feely crap you pull the moment one of us freaking blinks wrong? You know that goes both ways, right? You can’t just... It isn’t right for you to always have our backs, and not let us have yours, too.”

There’s frustration in Arkady’s voice, but there’s an underlying hurt, too, and a hesitancy. Arkady isn’t used to voicing her innermost feelings, Sana knows, and she’s always quick to retreat defensively afterwards, like she’s afraid of being mocked for it. But Sana thinks that Arkady is more afraid that Sana might not trust her with this. That she doesn’t see their friendship (more than friendship? a part of Sana’s mind wonders) as a partnership of equals. Sana lets out a soft breath, fighting down the urge to pull Arkady to her in a crushing hug, which might not be well-received.

“Before I tell you both what’s been going on,” she begins, “Kady, I need you to promise me that you won’t... fly off the handle.”

Arkady eyes her suspiciously. “That depends on what it is you’re about to tell us, because I already really don’t like the sound of this.”

Sana sighs. “Just, promise to hear me out first? I need you to do that for me.” She levels Arkady with her best Captain’s stare, a mixture of sternness and warmth. It works on the whole crew, but particularly Arkady, who will often back down only when Sana levels it at her.

Sure enough, Arkady grumbles but subsides, her cheeks going pink. “All right. Whatever it is, I’ll wait until after you’re done telling it before I blow a gasket.”

Smiling slightly, Sana looks at Violet, whose expression is intent and serious, before she begins.

“Last night, not long after I got done fixing the temperature reg, I had a call from Campbell...”

She outlines the tense exchange with Campbell, his assurances about Red Gregor, and then her accusation, the argument and Campbell’s parting words. True to her word, Arkady doesn’t interrupt, though she frowns indignantly on Sana’s behalf a couple of times. As expected, however, when Sana gets to the second caller and reveals his identity, she explodes.

“What?! What do you mean, Ricky Q? How did that rat bastard even get your number?”

Sana gives her an amused look, but it’s tired. “I told you you’d be angry.”

“Did he hack us? No, he can’t have done,” Arkady says. “Goddamn it, I should have known he’d crawl back up out of the gutter somewhere-”

“Arkady,” Violet says quietly but firmly. She reaches across Sana and takes Arkady’s hand. “Remember what you promised. Let Sana tell it.”

Sana bites back a smile as Arkady goes pink, looking down at their entwined hands as if she can’t quite parse what she’s seeing. “I- fine, whatever,” Arkady stutters.

Violet looks serenely back at Sana. “Carry on, Captain.”

Sana presses her lips together with amusement, and files away the way that Violet says ‘Captain’ to turn over in her brain later, because right now she can’t give it the attention it deserves.

“He talked to the Fowleys, that’s how,” Sana says in reply to Arkady’s question. Arkady’s expression darkens, and darkens further as Sana recaps the conversation and Ricky’s threats.

“That bastard,” she hisses, and this time neither Sana nor Violet stops her.

Violet looks upset. “He said that someone on this ship has been informing to a middleman... but we haven’t had contact with anyone...”

“He’s lying,” Arkady says instantly. “He’s making it up to bait you. Sana, you can’t meet him, you don’t know what he’s gonna do.”

“He knew about Violet,” Sana points out, her voice quiet. “He knew things he never could have found out unless he had some kind of… source. I don’t know what it is,” she goes on, before Arkady can say anything else. “And I don’t believe it’s any of you. But I have to know how he got the intel.”

There’s silence for a few moments as they all contemplate the situation. Sana hates that they’re in this bind, that they have to bow to the whims of someone like Ricky Q because they can’t risk the alternative. And she resents the loss of what could have been a quiet, peaceful morning with her two favourite people if not for this whole mess. (Oh, who is she kidding - the Rumor has never even met “quiet” and “peaceful”).

“I don’t think you should go in without backup,” Violet says quietly. Sana looks at her in surprise, and Arkady does a double-take.

“Hey, that's my line!” she exclaims, mock indignant, but she’s looking at Violet with warm admiration. A tingling sensation spreads through Sana’s gut, and she takes a moment to appreciate the way these shared looks between Violet and Arkady no longer make her feel a stab of jealousy and loneliness; instead, she feels overwhelming affection for both of them.

Still, she shakes her head. “I said I would meet Ricky alone, and I will. I can handle him.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to,” Arkady points out, practically vibrating with frustration. “You can’t seriously believe he’s going to play fair with his one. You don’t know what shit he’s planning to pull. He could be waiting at the rendezvous with an army of IGR agents!”

Sana shakes her head again. “No. However much of a scumbag Ricky Q might be, he has more to fear from the IGR than we do. He won’t have tipped them off. Listen,” she goes on quickly, “I’m going into this to get information out of Ricky, so I need him to have his guard down. He won’t, if you’re there. And no offence, but I don’t think you could restrain yourself from stabbing him in the gut if you saw him again.”

Arkady shrugs. “Not really sure I see the downside there.” Violet gives a little snort of amusement. Sana smirks slightly, but then becomes serious again.

“I know you’re worried,” Sana says gently. “But I’m still the Captain, and if Ricky is making threats against all of you, I can’t let that lie. It’s my job to make sure you’re all safe. And to make life a living, breathing hell for whoever dares to cross us.”

Arkady smirks and stretches languidly. “I love it when you talk scary,” she jokes, though there’s a spark of heat in her eyes that makes Sana think she’s not entirely joking.

Sana smiles and reaches for Arkady’s hand, lying on the bunk next to her, and twines their fingers together. She does the same with Violet’s hand on her other side. For all that the situation with Ricky Q is a mess, and it could go sideways on them in the worst way possible, she feels calmer than she has done in a while. And her headache has miraculously faded.

“So...” she says. “Is this the part where we talk about... this?”

She feels Arkady go tense, as she’s prone to doing whenever feelings enter the conversation, but to her credit, she doesn’t pull away. Violet is nodding.

“I think... maybe we should? Arkady and I... well, we kind of talked about how we wanted to uh...” Violet blushes bright pink, but forges on, “take care of you, because you always do it for us, and both of us... care a lot about you, and we wanted to show it. That’s why we came to your room, last night. Well, this morning, I guess. I’m not even sure what time it is.”

“I was wondering that, too,” Sana admits. “And speaking of which, I haven’t even thanked you both for-”

Arkady groans and buries her face in the bunk’s one pillow, which she has somehow managed to steal. “Oh my god, can we please skip the speech? You really don’t need to thank us for that. At all.”

Sana knows from years of experience that Arkady’s protesting is her way of saying ‘you’re welcome’, so she isn’t affronted. She shoves Arkady lightly on the shoulder. “It wasn’t going to be a speech. I just wanted to say thank you. That’s all.”

Arkady makes an inarticulate noise of disbelief, and Violet grins.

“And, so that we’re all on the same page about this...” Sana begins, feeling like the ball is in her court now. She’s suddenly unaccountably nervous. They spent the night in the same bed, and Violet has just said that she and Arkady “care a lot” about Sana and wanted to show it, which is pretty hard to misinterpret. But Sana also hasn’t felt about anyone the way she feels about Arkady and Violet. And living as they do in such close quarters, she can’t afford to get this wrong.

“Sana?” Arkady prompts her, and the note of nervousness in her voice is enough to spur Sana on.

“I care a lot about both of you too, and have done for some time,” she says, feeling her face warm with a blush. “As more than just friends,” she adds, to be absolutely clear. “I don’t really know how… dating… will work on the ship, especially not with everything else that’s happening right now - but if you’re willing to give it a try, then so am I.”

Violet nods vigorously. “Yes. I would really like that,” she says, with a heart-melting soft smile. “And, well, Brian and Krejjh seem to manage somehow, so we can probably make it work, too.”

She says it with a grin in her voice, and Sana knows she’s saying it at least partly for the inevitable reaction it will provoke from Arkady when she emphatically declares that their relationship is in no way going to be like Jeeter and Krejjh. There’s a pause as both she and Violet wait for that reaction, but weirdly, it doesn’t come. Sana looks round at Arkady, who is red-faced and fidgeting with the pillow cover.

“So, uh, Krejjh might... know about the three of us already. At least, they know that I have feelings for both of you.”

“Really? How?” Sana asks, and from the surprise on Violet’s face, she can tell this is news to her, too.

“They sorta... gave me a pep talk. Last night. Just before I ran into you in the kitchen,” Arkady adds to Violet.

Violet’s eyes widen. “I wondered what that announcement over the comms was about.”

Sana senses she might have missed quite a bit while she was dealing with the double crisis of Campbell and Ricky Q. She makes a mental note to ask for the full story later. “So, let me get this straight,” she says slowly, because she is absolutely not passing up the opportunity to rib Arkady about this. A lot.

“You took romantic advice from Krejjh? The same Krejjh who kept inviting us to dinner with Brian when he was trying to ask them out? That Krejjh?”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Arkady shoots back, still red in the face. “Anyway, it wasn’t really advice, it was more like... encouragement. They suggested that you guys might be open to the possibility of a relationship involving... all three of us. And something about Dwarnian relationship norms. Apparently polyamorous relationships are pretty normal for them.”

“Huh,” says Violet, contemplatively. “So I guess it’s Krejjh we should be thanking, then.”

Sana smirks at Arkady. “You realise that Krejjh is going to be insufferable about this as soon as they realise we’re together.”

Arkady groans again and faceplants back into the pillow. “Don’t remind me.”

(Sure enough, when the three of them enter the kitchen in search of breakfast - well, lunch technically - about half an hour later, Krejjh’s squeal nearly ruptures their eardrums. “Crewman Jeeter, come look! They’re holding hands!”

“We can hear you,” Arkady complains, half-heartedly.) 

[iffeelscouldkill]

Any day breathing

“Captain Tripathi. You’re alive!”

He presents it as a joke, to mask the very real fear that lies underneath those words. The fear that someday, she won’t come back to him safe and whole.

–

A/N: I wrote another thing :3

To the folks in the Starship Iris Discord: I finished it! This started out as a little ficlet idea that I had a while back: a Sana/Campbell concept based on Campbell’s stock greeting of “Captain Tripathi. You’re alive!” I wrote half of it down (I got sidetracked partway through) and then let it sit in my Starship Iris ideas notes file (god, you do not want to see the length of that thing) for ages.

Then, a conversation in the TSCOSI Discord about Campbell, pining, and Campbell’s probable reaction to the Rumor reports being uploaded to the public net (which I had totally forgotten about asfdfgsgsdgsg) inspired me to pick it back up.

It was meant to be a short, whimsical, feels-filled ficlet about Sana and Campbell’s conversations through the years. It turned into something… much longer than that.

Enjoyyyyy~

–

“Captain Tripathi. You’re alive.”

The first time he says it, the surprise is genuine. It’s hard not to be surprised to hear from this woman again – someone whose name had been only a rumour to him until very recently. He’d heard about her from contacts of contacts, mentioned here and there, always with a reverent tone. She had some kind of revolutionary past, he’d heard: was jailed as a dissenter, or had taken part in an uprising. One version of that story said that she’d led an entire planet in an uprising. He also heard that she’d hijacked a high-level Regime starship – possibly in mid-flight.

Whatever he was expecting when they finally met face-to-face, the slender, wiry woman in the brightly-coloured shalwar kameez with a streak of engine grease near her hairline and elaborate floral tattoos adorning muscular arms is not it. Sana Tripathi walks straight into his base of operations – a network of winding corridors and tucked-away cubbyholes in what’s meant to be a confidential location – flanked by a younger woman with a murderous expression and more visible weapons than he can take in with one glance, and demands two full sets of new identification, impeccable and untraceable, to get the IGR off their tail.

“I heard you were the best,” she tells him, a challenge.

Campbell holds out for a full fifteen minutes, but by the end of it he’s agreed to everything she asks for and feels distinctly like he’s gone ten rounds in the sparring ring they used to blow off steam back in the military, verbally speaking. She agrees to pay half up-front, with the promise of the rest once they safely reach their destination.

It’s an hour-long job, and he doesn’t know where the two of them go to lie low while he’s working, but exactly an hour later the glowering, heavily-armed woman is back to pick up their documentation. He’s a little disappointed that it’s not the Captain who came to collect.

The other woman – who tells him shortly that her name is Patel; the name on the papers he’s made for her is Kay Grisham – pays and leaves. He later hears that the IGR is conducting randomised searches at every checkpoint, detaining anyone whose background doesn’t quite check out neatly enough, or whose personal or ship ID papers look a little too new.

Campbell is completely confident in the quality of his work, but he’s not sure that Tripathi could pass a visual check, if she’s been on an IGR watchlist – and that friend of hers didn’t really seem like the subtle type. After thirty-six hours with no word, he figures the rest of the money is lost, but chalks it up as an interesting story to tell.

Two hours later, he gets a call from an unknown number. After running the standard traces on it (the IGR aren’t as good at disguising themselves as they like to think), he accepts the call.

“Is this Ignatius Campbell?” asks the voice on the other end – brisk, but with the hint of warmth and humour lurking underneath.

“Captain Tripathi,” he says in surprise. “You’re alive.”

“Of course,” the Captain replies blithely. “We delayed our departure slightly in order to catch the shift changeover for the randomised checks. The outgoing agents are always tired and less likely to bother with a full database check, and the incoming agents have never been briefed properly. Then we had to make sure that we weren’t being tailed.”

“Of course,” Campbell echoes. This woman is no amateur, and he realises that he’d managed to underestimate her even after everything that she’d managed by tracking him down, coming to him and persuading him to work with her. He makes a mental note not to do that again.

“So, I assume this call is about payment,” he adds, when Captain Tripathi doesn’t volunteer anything further.

“How very astute of you,” the Captain replies, too good-humoured to be mocking, and then proceeds to brazenly haggle him down a further twenty-five percent.

Campbell doesn’t believe in love at first sight, and he never will. But he does believe that there are people whom, when you meet them, the universe demands you sit up and pay attention to.

–

“Captain Tripathi – you’re alive.”

Even after resolving not to underestimate Sana Tripathi, Campbell is still surprised when he hears from her again. It’s been eight months, and during that time, his best-placed informants hadn’t picked up a single trace of Captain Tripathi or her companion. Not under the names he’d created for them, and not under the names they’d given him when they met.

It’s unheard of for him to be unable to track an alias he’s created (he wouldn’t be able to stay ahead of any potential threats unless he had that advantage), but he knows that the Regime has ways of making people vanish completely. It’s a cold, unpleasant realisation, and he experiences an unusually strong pang of regret considering that he barely knows this woman. But he’s sure that somehow, they must have slipped up and got caught.

So when Captain Tripathi contacts him again like nothing has happened, he realises he might just have to get used to unexpected developments.

He’s somehow not even surprised to hear that since they last spoke, she’s picked up a Dwarnian and some kind of renegade translator who has a history with the mafia. “He’s an academic, so he won’t be seeing any action, but he needs to have papers that will hold up if the ship is inspected while we’re docked,” the Captain explains casually.

“…Naturally,” says Campbell. “And speaking of your ship – I suppose you have a full work-up of papers for that, too? You know they’ve tightened the regs on those a lot recently.”

He tells himself he’s only saying it so that he can squeeze an extra job out of a contact he’s fairly confident will be good for the money. Not because he’s concerned.

“Are you suggesting that my ship’s paperwork is less than completely impeccable?” Captain Tripathi asks him with mock indignation.

Campbell suppresses a smile as he replies, “Given that it was made by someone other than myself, I’m surprised it’s held up this long.”

Their conversation concludes with him agreeing to redo the ship’s paperwork – somehow at a much lower price than he would usually charge for a second-time client.

–

“Captain Tripathi. You’re alive!”

It’s already become a joke between them by this point, the fact that Campbell answers Sana’s calls this way, and he waits in anticipation of the sarcastic response that he knows will follow. They’ve been in relatively regular contact since Campbell started playing middleman for some of their cargo, using his network of contacts to move it on and taking a cut. He’s stopped bothering to deny to himself how much he looks forward to their conversations.

But this time, the voice that comes down the line is not Sana Tripathi’s, but Arkady Patel’s. “It’s First Mate Patel, actually,” she says brusquely, and Campbell sits up slowly. “I know you guys traditionally open with like, twenty minutes of banter, but we don’t have time for that right now. We’re in a bind.”

Campbell has a cast-iron policy of not offering any favours, offering help to contacts, or otherwise sticking his neck out any further than he needs to. He keeps his relationships strictly about business and nothing more. Much like his ability to track an alias, it’s what’s kept him off the IGR’s radar for so long.

There are one or two folks whom he goes way back with – like Theodore “Red” Gregor, who was in his unit and a fellow dishonourable discharge. Campbell helped him set up his business on Elion. There aren’t many who could manage to stay in business while avoiding both the mob and the Regime, but if anyone could, it was Red.

But they’re rare exceptions to a very strict rule. Anyone else is on their own, or had better be prepared to owe him for a long, long time.

Campbell thinks about all this before he says, “What do you need?”

–

Campbell is ashamed of how long it takes him to realise that Sana is a fellow Telemachian. He’s usually good at identifying fellow homeworlders, even ones who have lived elsewhere. Telemachians have this spark, this spirit, a distinctive culture that even the Regime couldn’t stamp out of them.

They’re diverse, sure, and numerous, but you can always spot a fellow Telemachian if you know what to look for. They’re the unruly planet on the edge of a solar system, a little too far away from any established IGR base to monitor closely; a little too big to be brought to heel. There’s a reason that most protest songs originate from Telemachus – and that there’s been periodic unrest every few years since the coup.

They’re making small talk at the end of a call (something Campbell indulges in far more than he should), and Campbell is talking about evading the IGR’s latest clampdown and how hard it’s becoming to operate underground. “It’s enough to make me want to give it all up and become a vegetable farmer somewhere.”

“Wouldn’t you get bored?” Sana asks, playfully but with a hint of curiosity lurking underneath.

“Yeah. Probably.” Campbell’s not sure. Maybe if he had the company of the right person, it wouldn’t be so bad. “Just, all this running in place… it feels so futile.” It comes out sounding more tired than he means it to.

“Well, you know what they say,” says Sana, seriously. “When their foot is on your throat-”

“-any day breathing is a victory,” Campbell finishes. “I didn’t know you were a homeworlder.”

There’s a pause, and he thinks that Sana is weighing up what to say next. She hadn’t meant to give so much away, he realises – for all that he’s got to know a fair bit about the smuggling business that she runs, and the odd detail about life on board the Rumor, Sana is very cautious about revealing anything about her own past, or that of her crew, beyond what is strictly required to do business. Campbell has never minded that – he can respect a person’s boundaries. He doesn’t need to pry into Sana’s past to be sure that she won’t screw him over.

“I’ve moved around a bit,” she says, finally. “I spent a few years off-planet in the late 70s. Since then I’ve been… transient. Well, you knew that.”

Campbell inclines his head, though he knows that Sana can’t see it. He’s still considering what to say when she carries on,

“I don’t go back to the homeworld much these days. Actually, when we first approached you to work with us-” Campbell gives a wry smile at how much of an understatement that is, “-it was the first time that I’d been back to Telemachus in years.”

“It’s still home, though, isn’t it?” he says, thinking of the time that he’d spent in deployment; the years that he was on the run, unable to get word to his sister or his nephews. “After everything.”

“Yeah, it is.”

–

Campbell doesn’t really think twice the first time he invites the crew of the Rumor to have dinner with him.

It’s late in the evening, and the crew has just touched down on Telemachus a full twelve hours later than they’d originally planned. First there’d been some unprecedented solar flare activity en route, forcing them to take a detour, and then they’d been boarded by Regime agents in a “random” check on entry to Telemachus. Krejjh had been quickly hidden away in one of the ship’s many nooks and crannies, and the paperwork had all checked out (of course), but the agents had been both suspicious and thorough. All in all, the crew is obviously exhausted and a little fractious by the time Campbell meets them to pick up the cargo. Sana is doing her best to keep things businesslike, but she wilts visibly and rubs her hand over her eyes when she thinks he isn’t looking.

“Hey. Listen, we can go over all this tomorrow,” Campbell says, as gently as he can. “You guys’ve had a rough journey – what d’you say we grab a bite to eat instead?”

Arkady’s frown deepens, of course – it’s her job to be suspicious, and Campbell doesn’t take it personally. More to the point, he knows that it’s just her way of trying to look out for the crew. Arkady Patel is a lot more caring than she tries to let on. She might show it with jibes in the background of calls, or with threats and occasional bodily harm in the direction of anyone who threatens her friends’ safety, but she shows it.

For her part, Sana looks extremely relieved at the idea of being able to put business off until the morning.

“That’s really kind of you, Campbell,” she says. “It’d be great to take a bit of a breather, but we don’t want to impose…”

“It’s no imposition,” says Campbell, shrugging. “I was planning to go out to eat tonight anyway – I’ve been cooped up indoors too much lately. There’s a great hole-in-the-wall two blocks away from here – it doesn’t look like much, but the food is something else. Krejjh can come, too – they get all kinds in there.”

Sana tells him they’ll consult Brian and Krejjh before coming to a decision, but Campbell has a feeling that the answer will be yes, despite Arkady’s clear misgivings. Sure enough, Sana is back minutes later with a mild-mannered translator and an excitable Dwarnian (disguised with a large pair of novelty sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat) in tow.

Over the months – almost a year, now – that Campbell has been doing business with the Rumor crew, he has a sense of how they work together as a group: Krejjh piloting the ship and executing daring last-minute escapes; Brian joking and mediating and cooking slightly disastrous food; Arkady watching Sana’s back and intimidating obstacles into submission; and Sana alternately leading and mothering, driving ruthless bargains for the benefit of her crew.

But it doesn’t compare to the experience of eating at the same table, drinking the Rumor’s lethal home-brewed moonshine, listening to outrageous tales and laughing until his sides hurt.

The next day, Campbell is unsurprised when he doesn’t hear a word from the Rumor crew until nearly two o’clock in the afternoon. He himself only crawled out of bed at noon, and has since been avoiding light sources and slowly regaining his humanity over strong black coffee.

“Incoming call from Sana Tripathi.”

“Captain Tripathi,” Campbell says as he answers his comm. “You’re alive?”

“The jury’s definitely still out on that one,” Sana replies, her voice low and rough. Campbell chuckles, and then hopes the sound wasn’t too loud. “We’re at various stages of recuperation, but at a minimum, Arkady and I will be able to meet you with the cargo at our rendezvous point by three.”

“Make it four,” Campbell says, in deference to how utterly wrung-out she sounds. To cover this up, he adds, “I only joined the land of the living about half an hour ago myself. I’m going to need at least three more cups of coffee before I’m functional.”

“Four it is,” says Sana, businesslike, but with a clear undertone of relief. “We’ll see you there.”

“See you both soon. And, Sana –”

Campbell stops, wondering if he’s overstepping. Last night had been so easy, so fun – by the end of it, the Rumor crew felt like old friends. But it’s harder to recapture that feeling in the light of day, sober. What can he say – ‘Thanks for a great night’? ‘We should do this again sometime’?

(‘You have a beautiful laugh’?)

He clears his throat. “Don’t let Brian forget about that drink he owes me. And uh, you and the rest of the crew are always welcome to make a stop. To refuel, or…” He clears his throat again. “Or for whatever reason.”

“Thanks, Campbell,” says Sana, warm and genuine. “We’ll see you soon.”

–

Things start to get a lot tougher over the months that follow – on Telemachus and on every other planet that Campbell has contacts. Forgers and traders he’s worked with for years go silent, or are rarely heard from; he gets wind of abrupt crackdowns, the Regime imprisoning people who show the slightest bit of dissent, petty criminals being sent down with lengthy sentences.

Telemachus starts to stir. He hears murmurs on the streets. A leaflet is shoved into his hand by a hooded young person who is gone before he can blink. Campbell skims enough of it to know that he would probably be arrested if he were found with it on his person. He burns it, but he knows it’s only a matter of time before the protests start.

On his next call with the Captain to arrange a routine cargo drop-off, he can’t stop himself from urging her to be careful. Sounding amused, she promises him that she will.

“Are we still on for drinks at that bar you promised to take us to?”

“I don’t know what their house policy is on home-brewed moonshine,” Campbell warns her. “But of course we are.”

“Great. We’ll see you in a week, Campbell. Sana Tripathi out.”

He’s not expecting to get another call from her just three days later. Campbell is tense as he accepts the call, sure that something must be wrong.

“Captain Tripathi.” He hesitates over the second half of the greeting, and Sana speaks before he can say anything else.

“Campbell, hi.” She sounds well, but Campbell doesn’t relax, sensing bad news in her tone. “Listen, there’s no good way to say this, but… we’re going to have to miss our drop-off.”

“Oh.” Of all the things that Campbell might have thought were coming next, that wasn’t one of them. He knows he should be angry over being left in the lurch by a business partner, about how badly this will put him out, but instead he’s just… disappointed. And concerned. “What’s happening?”

“It’s – hard to go into too much detail right now, but… we’ve got to make an unexpected stop. Something’s come up, and… there’s no way we’re going to be in range of Telemachus for a while. I’m sorry.”

So, not just missing a drop-off, but possibly not making any stops for some time. Campbell is silent for a few moments, absorbing this.

“I know this will put you out in a major way, and I promise that we’ll make it up to you,” Sana says. “You’re our best customer, and we would never bail on you unless it was urgent.”

That’s what concerns me, Campbell thinks. “I… understand,” he says finally. “I’m not going to pretend I like it, but sometimes, that’s just how things are. I can find another supplier for the Scotch. They won’t be you, but…”

“Sorry, again, Campbell. We were… really looking forward to seeing you. Listen, we’ll give you half price on your next shipment. As an apology.”

Somehow, bartering isn’t as fun when Sana is just offering him a lower price – and when she’s doing it as an apology. “We’ll work something out,” he says. “I know you’ve got to keep Krejjh in hot sauce and Arkady in those elaborate hair products she denies using.”

Sana laughs. “Yeah, we might have to ration the hot sauce for a bit, but we’ll survive.” There’s a pause, and then she adds, “I’ll call as soon as I’m able. Let you know when we might be in the area again.”

“Do that. Good luck with… whatever it is that you have to do.”

“Thanks.” For a moment, Sana seems like she’s about to say something else, but then she closes with, “Speak to you soon. Sana Tripathi out.”

–

Campbell doesn’t hear from the Rumor crew for another three weeks after Sana’s call. All told, it’s been nearly four months since they last stopped by on Telemachus. Once upon a time, he would go much longer without seeing or hearing from the crew and not even think about it. But he’s got used to more regular contact – drop-offs every couple of months, and regular calls, sometimes not even about business. He enjoys finding out what the group has been up to, listening to the way that they joke together, the way Sana alternately cajoles and corrals them. How fond she sounds when talking to her crew, her found family.

He’s sure, sometimes, that he hears the same fondness in her voice directed at him. She’s never hesitated to match his banter, and he looks forward to the calls where they haggle over prices, exchanging insults that sound more affectionate than anything. Campbell would hate to cross a line too soon – he doesn’t want to ruin what is also a great business relationship and friendship. But on his calls with Sana, his catch-ups with the crew, their now-regular drinking escapades with ill-advised amounts of moonshine and ridiculous stories… he’s sure that there’s something more there.

He finds himself thinking about Sana at odd moments during the day: dwelling on her voice, her laugh; picturing her smile, her arms, her tattoos. He hopes that she’s safe, that whatever mystery errand took her away from Telemachus wasn’t dangerous. More than once, he’s tempted to put a call through and make sure she’s okay, but he stops himself. Sana said she would call as soon as she was able, and she’s always been a woman of her word.

He brightens when, in the middle of a slow evening, his terminal lights up and his computer intones, “Incoming call from… Sana Tripathi. Incoming call from…”

“Captain Tripathi,” he greets her cheerfully. “You’re alive!”

–

Then, Elion. A body turns up by the landfill. Sana’s accusation.

“In what universe would I turn on you for them?!”

Then they don’t speak for some time.

–

There’s a massive protest happening in the centre of Nestor, the district of Telemachus where Campbell is based. It’s loud enough and vehement enough that Campbell can hear it, just faintly, from where he sits in his cramped office, distractedly going through some accounts.

Normally, the Regime would have deployed riot police by now, violently suppressing the protest and arresting the instigators. But in contrast to how jumpy the IGR had been before, the machinery of the Regime has been oddly absent in recent weeks. As if all its resources are being focused elsewhere. This is the third protest in about ten days – and the largest. He also heard that there’s been some kind of major incident at a Regime lab in New Jupiter – a fire or an explosion or something. He’s willing to bet that it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Something big is going down.

Giving the accounts up as a bad job for now, Campbell dismisses the holographic screen with a wave of his hand and stands up. He needs some air.

Once he’s out of the house, it’s almost impossible to avoid the protest – it seems to be everywhere. Out of sheer morbid curiosity, Campbell walks towards the crowds, his coat collar turned up to obscure the bottom half of his face. Soon he’s close enough to hear some of what they’re shouting.

“THE RUMOR CREW DID NOTHING WRONG!” yells a man nearby, and Campbell’s heart almost stops. “JUSTICE FOR THASIA!” 

“JUSTICE FOR EMILY CRADDOCK!” another voice yells back.

Someone stuffs a leaflet into Campbell’s hand. He looks down at it. It’s a cheap, quickly-printed thing, just black text on off-white paper, and it reads:

WE THE PEOPLE DEMAND A FULL AND TRANSPARENT STATEMENT FROM THE INTERGALACTIC REPUBLIC ABOUT THE DISCLOSURES IN THE RUMOR RECORDINGS OF THE WIDESPREAD USE OF SPY TECHNOLOGY IN PEACETIME ASSASSINATION, ABDUCTION, AND THE INSTIGATION OF AN INTER-SPECIES WAR THE RUMOR CREW DID NOTHING WRONG!

Campbell roughly grabs the shoulder of the man who was shouting nearby. “What are these Rumor recordings?” he demands, brandishing the leaflet.

The man looks alarmed, and Campbell forces his posture to become a bit less “military”. “I’m not one of them,” he says, quickly. “I just want to know what’s happening.”

“They’re all over the public net, man,” says the protestor. The ‘where the hell have you been?’ is strongly implied.

“You should start by listening to Report 1: Violet Liu,” another protestor supplies helpfully.

“Thank you,” says Campbell, and lets go of the man’s shoulder. The man shrugs and rejoins the crowd, chanting,

“JUSTICE FOR ALVY CONNORS! JUSTICE FOR THE CREW OF THE STARSHIP IRIS! YOU CAN’T MAKE A PERSON DISAPPEAR!”

Back at home, Campbell discovers the man was right: the files are all over the net. The IGR is clearly penalising anyone who shares them, and trying to shut down the websites hosting them – his search turns up a lot of dead links and mysteriously deactivated accounts. But there are far too many sources to eradicate them all, short of completely shutting down the public net. Before too long, Campbell has a complete set of the recordings, Reports 1 to 9.

He starts to listen.

The report starts, after the introduction from someone who is clearly an IGR drone, with the panicked voice of a woman who sounds vaguely familiar. Campbell has a good memory for both faces and voices, and he’s sure this woman is the new recruit he’d heard briefly on the call with Sana before the Rumor landed on Elion. It might explain her link to the Rumor crew.

Sure enough, a few minutes later he hears Arkady, using the Kay Grisham alias that he’d made for her, years ago. He recognises the con she’s pulling, a trick that Brian Jeeter grandly refers to as “the Carmen Gambit”. He wonders what was so important about this woman that the Rumor crew went so far out of their way to rescue her. He looks for a timestamp on the recording, but it only shows when the file was uploaded to the public net, which was a few days ago. But Campbell has a feeling this was the reason that the Rumor crew skipped their drop-off in Telemachus.

He wishes that Sana had told him what they were doing. God knows he wouldn’t have been angry about them going to save a person’s life. He wasn’t really angry about it to begin with.

Campbell keeps listening, and learns the real reason for the Rumor crew’s detour: a cryptic message from a friend he thinks Brian might have mentioned once – Alvy Connors, a gifted coder moonlighting as a bartender. Campbell’s sorry to learn about his death. He realises that the protesters had been chanting Alvy’s name – but why would they care so much about this man’s death? Where did these recordings come from?

Two more reports in, and Campbell is starting to put the pieces together to form a horrible picture: how the Regime had known that the Rumor was headed towards Elion. How the crew’s IDs had become compromised. They were listening to every word, he realises. But how?

Sana and Arkady discuss trading with the Fowleys – a particularly low breed of scum that Campbell avoids dealing with if at all possible, but he knows the Rumor crew can’t afford to be that picky – on Elion, and Campbell realises that he must be about to make an appearance in the recordings.

Sure enough, as the group realises that they need new IDs, Sana makes the call. It’s surreal to hear his own voice coming from the computer, and Campbell realises he needs to be very careful from now on. Whatever event caused all these files to be leaked onto the public net, he’s now clearly implicated in it, too. At least the Regime don’t have a visual description, but they have his voice and his location, as well as some details about his contacts. He’ll need to warn Red Gregor.

The exchange between Arkady and Sana in the elevator on Elion makes him cringe. “Did it seem like he was hitting on you?” Ridiculously, he finds himself hoping that Sana will give some indication of how she might feel about that, but instead she expertly turns the conversation around on Arkady. “If we wanna open that door, can I just say that you and—”

“No, that door is shut and locked.”

Campbell thinks about how Arkady talks to Violet Liu, her upbeat mood in response to the other woman’s admiration, and smiles.

Things go downhill quickly after that. Campbell is tense as he listens to the exchange with the guard, the Carmen Gambit once again coming into play. It almost works – until the fatal announcement over the comms that blows the crew’s cover. Campbell reflects that the Regime’s ridiculous, stifling bureaucracy was probably the only thing that kept them from getting caught sooner.

He cringes again as he hears his own call come through, and Sana immediately decline it. He’d been a bit over-eager, calling as soon as he’d got Red Gregor’s message to say that the job had gone off without a hitch – he was really just looking for an excuse to talk to Sana. Clearly, Campbell needs to get a grip.

The recording ends, and Campbell looks at his holo-screen, thinking about what the next recording will surely contain.

“Computer, outside call. Ignatius Campbell to Sana Tripathi.”

“Attempting connection…” the computer intones. “Attempting connection… Attempting connection… Attempting connection… Connection not available.”

He guesses he can’t blame Sana for declining his calls, after everything that he’d said to her before.

Reluctantly, he plays the next recording.

He listens to Violet’s attempts to speak to Arkady, Brian’s theories about the robot nanoswarm, and then Violet and Arkady’s conversation in the kitchen and Arkady’s gift of her mint plant. Campbell feels slightly indignant about the fact that Arkady never let on she was a fellow gardener. They could have exchanged tips!

Finally, he hears Sana accept his call in her room, and the friendly conversation quickly devolve into a tense exchange. He’s replayed that conversation endless times in his head, but it somehow sounds even worse than he remembers. Campbell wasn’t angry at Sana – he wishes he could have explained that somehow. But with everything that had happened, she was in no position to give him the benefit of the doubt. He wishes he could go back in time and…

He doesn’t know.

Then, something unexpected. Another call comes through to Sana’s comm, and she accepts it without waiting to hear the name – but Campbell knows that wasn’t him.

“Campbell, I agree it’s a bad idea for us to talk right now, but I just wanna say that if it was only me, I would probably risk it. The thing is, I can’t, I have to think about my crew, and you—”

Campbell’s heart stutters in his chest. “Computer, outside call,” he says, not bothering to pause the recording. “Ignatius Campbell to Sana Tripathi.”

“Attempting connection… Attempting connection… Attempting connection… Attempting connection… Connection not available.”

Campbell sighs and runs a hand over his face. He’s finally starting to get the picture, and he’s desperate to talk to Sana, to tell her that he understands now. He thinks about the way she’d spoken to ‘him’, the vulnerability in her voice. Damn it, he needs to talk to her. He has to make this right.

A man is speaking on the recording now, and Sana responds to him with anger. Campbell realises that he still has three reports left to go. He’s still far from understanding what has happened and where these recordings came from. The least that he can do is take the time to listen to them and understand what Sana has been going through.

He’s afraid of what the other reports might contain. But he would have known if Sana was hurt or worse – wouldn’t he? Surely Sana would still have come to him for help if she really needed it?

Nothing could have prepared him for the contents of the last three reports: the stunning revelations about Thasia, about why the war began; about the Regime’s use of a sentient swarm of nanobots to spy on dozens of its own people, indiscriminately, in every waking moment. His fists clench, hard enough that his nails dig into the palms of his hands, as he listens to Major General Frederick’s cold declaration that future strains of the nanoswarm will include a ‘kill-switch’. He listens to the sad story of Thasia and their doomed childhood friend, Emily Craddock. He understands now why the crowd had been chanting their names.

The crew’s hours of drunken singalongs and fake ‘confessions’ make him smile, but the smile is quickly wiped from his face as he hears the passage of time at the end of the report. “Two weeks have passed since our last update. As Major General Frederick said, we expect diminishing returns via this swarm of strain H.”

Then, the last few seconds. “Agent McCabe, look out the window!”

“Holy shit—”

Campbell can’t believe the recordings end there. He goes back to the site where he’d downloaded the files, to make sure he hadn’t missed one – but the website has already been taken offline. He scours discussion boards for any scrap of information. All of the commentators agree that there are only nine reports, but they have theories about what might have happened next – linked to the explosion (it definitely was an explosion) on New Jupiter. Odds are, it was the Rumor’s destination. But what happened?

He thinks about the words of the other Violet Liu. “If Plan B fails, not all of you will live long enough for Plan C.” He thinks about Violet coughing, Krejjh coughing, an inexorably deadly swarm of nanobots in the air. The Rumor crew taking one last, defiant, heroic stand because none of them could stand the alternative: to save their own lives at the expense of so many others.

“We have a saying on Telemachus, that when their foot is on your throat, any day breathing is a victory. So, I vote we push our luck.”

Campbell’s breathing is unsteady, and his throat feels tight and painful. He tries to fight down the rising panic in his chest, the voice in his head that fears the worst. Sana is alive. She has to be. He rubs at one eye with the heel of his hand, and it comes away wet.

“Computer,” he chokes out. “Outside call. Ignatius Campbell – to – Sana Tripathi.”

“Attempting connection… Attempting connection… Attempting connection… Attempting connection…”

“Campbell?”

Campbell is so stunned that for several long moments he stares at his computer, at the holo-screen displaying a successful connection, counting up the seconds on their call. “Campbell?” Sana says again. “Is that you?”

“Captain Tripathi,” he manages finally. “You’re…”

“Alive,” finishes Sana, with a smile in her voice.