>> A Carnival Of Crime

## [Omega Team: Zero] battleLink [reconnected] by the [Great Foresight] of Our Glorious Leaders.

## Glory to The Leaders! Glory to the Revolution!

A blast of triumphal, trumpeting, music splits the air with a 'Da-da-da-DA! Da-da-da-DAAAH!!' Rising. Rising. Along with a screaming roar of tiny engines, and I smile for real. “ZIP!” I yell as a tiny fleet of custom-built combat drones blast around the corner. Sharp, jetfighter, profiles. Wingtips waggling. Edges blazing with neon streaks of light.

“Mate! Yeah, like, I broke through the jammer! AND the Pirates!” He crows in my ear - sudden, loud, and aggressively clear.

“You got em all?” I shout back.

“Hah, yeah! Like, ten kills for Zip - and the Pirate scum get Zip!”

“Good work! They backing off?”

“YEAH MATE! Can’t argue with tiny missiles! Y’know? Right?" He coughs. "But I gotta watch out right now! I’ve only got the one gigantic magical extendo-cock, so if they break it-”

“You…. What?” I say as Tuft blinks and Kami makes a 'wut' face. “Only the one what? Say again?”

And, oh boy, I can hear the bugger smirking. “One gigantic magical extendo-cock, mate! It’s a bit bent, like - but it does the job!”

“A bit….”

“Yeah! Helps it get round corners! And, you know, into cramped spaces? Right? It’s very flexibl-”

“Zipper…..” I groan, rubbing my face.

“And, y’know, I can even tie it in knots if I want! Right? And it shoots lasers out the end-”

“Zip. Are you talking about a bloody drone here, or did you get an implant I really don’t want to know about?”

“Heh. Just a drone, mate! Came with the ship! Box calls it, uh……" Scrabbling noises. "The ‘Patriotic Bonds Of The People Which Crush The Tyranny Of Foolish Capitalist Interference’.”

“Ah yeah. One of those.” I state, wryly. “What’s that in plain Lingo?”

“Uh, like, signal blocker…. unblocker?" He explains. "It's like a bunch of drones? Yeah? All hooked together?”

I rub my face. “And why, oh why, do ya call it-”

“My gigantic magical extendo-cock?” Zip snickers, and I can practically feel the bright blue eyebrows waggling. “Oh, like, that’s easy mate. Cause they start off all small and scrunched up in a little package, then, like-”

“Zipper…..” I groan in instant regret, as Demon pats Badger’s baffled head.

“-I gotta just whip it out-”

“Zipper!”

“-of its bag, like. Then-”

“Zipper this better not be another bloody-”

“-and it just sort of extends? Y’know?”

“Zipper!!” I choke as he cackles like The Dark Lord of Knob Jokes. “Are you yanking my bloody chain again!?”

“He’s 'yanking' something alright.” Kami giggles, and I groan into my claws. Tufty spinning away - plastering his ears down.

“Zip….. Just….. What is it really?”

He sighs. “Mate. You are, like, no fun. Seriously.” A blip - and he sends me a video. It's just a buncha tiny, flat, vaugely hexagonal flying-saucer drones stacked up like…. a pillar. Definitely a pillar. Which resembles absolutely nothing else, no matter what Zip says. It activates, with a blip, and the 'plates' lift off each other. Making the pillar..... 'taller'.

And then - as one - they tilt rotors to buzz away into the stormy night, as if tied together on a rubber rope. Forming a - admittedly very long, but very rattly - trail of hovering objects.

"Ooohh!! How does it work!? What's it for!?" Chirps a loud voice bobbing round about my shoulder as Badger jumps to see my vScreen. Pestering him with endless, oddball, questions - faster than breath.

“Heh, alright, lil mate - so, basically you know how you can't get a signal through a blocker? Right? It's, like.... artificial interference jamming up the airwaves?" He mimes a finger jabbing a wall.

"Yeah! The signal all goes-" Badger throws up his arms, and wobbles about.

"Right." Zip snorts. "Well, Corp would use quantum stuff to get round it. Super high tek. Totally hard to block. But, like, we're really cheap-" He coughs.

"Old-school." I snark.

"Yeah! So instead we just make, uh, like..... a big conga-line of drones? And bounce laser-signals between them?"

"OOH! Deadly lasers!?"

"Ah, no mate. Just like, pulsing laser signals? Y’know? Only, it's a bit awkward to do cause I've gotta have line of sight, Because, y'know, lasers don’t go through walls-"

"Mine do!" Badger cheers, then slaps a hand over his own mouth. "If I had any!"

"Ignoring that." I groan.

"Yeah, so, anyway - I kinda gotta thread them over buildings? And round walls? So, basically, I have to leave parts of-"

“-your giant magical extendo-cock-” Kami titters.

“-at every corner. Like. Heh. So it can bounce the laser? You get me? And if there’s a big bend in the street, it takes - like - two or three?” Zip’s cocky smirk reappears - followed by the rest of him. “So yeah, my extendo cock can get pretty gigant-”

“Fine. Zip. I get it. Just…." Sweet mother of- ".....keep up….. best you can.” I shake my head. “God damn…. Alright. C’mon, losers - let’s go get some bloody pizza things…. Finally.”

“Alright! YEAH!" Badger cheers.

"Got it mate! You're nearly clear of the blockers, anyway! So here we go, like! Mapping a safe route!” Spindle-jets scream as his mini aircraft spit off down the street, tailing tiny streaks of blue flame. Badger whooping and punching the air as our drone-tek shoots off directions, like it’s a party game. “Yeah! Left! Right! Left! Then left! No! Wait! Like, right! But then you gotta…” I calm him down, and we get marching - me ahead, the rest tailing off. Guns out under cloaks as Zip’s drones race in circuits above.

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But for all the festival air, we’re all of us on edge.

Every car is wrecked. Every shop a blackened hole. No life. No people. Just cracked pavement, rotted shutters, and a rolling shadow of unease. As if.... something.... happened here. Something we should know about.... but never will. Something that broods in the alleys. In the rusty depths beneath the cars - where things scuttle, just outside the light. In the fungal fronds that drift, as if on the wind...... or the weird symbol sprayed across a dozen broken buildings. A bright crimson eye, in a bleeding-red triangle....

We shiver.

"Gang war, right?" I ask as Badger and Tuft huddle round Demon. Former copying latter, since Badge is basically impervious and.... well... I think Tufty got all his 'pervious' somehow.

"Mate, who knows right? Could be? Or..... maybe from The Before?"

"Yeah. Maybe...." I mutter. Not asking what 'Before' he means. There's too many. Way too many. Before the Pirates came? Before The World Council fell? Before a thousand other things - some myth, some not.....? Could be any of em, really. But the gangs have made their mark, either way. The walls all painted with stuff like ‘dis Bork turf’ and 'run why u can?'. Or, my personal favourite: ‘Borc croo 2 gud 4 u’.

“Think there’s two guys called Bork? Or one Borc who can’t spell?” Kami wonders.

“Eh. Dunno. Hope we don’t meet either of em.” I chuckle as we clamber over a massive barricade built of dead cars and slip our way into a tunnel built of salvaged wrecks. Little more than shadowy shapes - scuttering under and over, and around. Fleeing our tiny but literal airforce.

But wherever Borc (and his hypothetical twin, Bork) are, it ain’t here - and soon we curve back onto track. Passing from dark and strange into the friendly twinkle of bright shops, working cars, unbent lamps, and colourful locals - who try to rob us.

“Pirate tower. What can ya do?” I snort as the latest batch of little tossers flee our wall of guns - trailing bent pipes, and mockery.

“Nuclear ordinance.” Kami notes, grimly. But there there’s a heck of lot to like, I think, as dark streets break open into a neon bazaar of delights. The maze of buildings erupting into the heavens as we hit the hollow core of the megaTower. A vast, central section of the tower simply missing - leaving us staring up into an explosion of neon light. A bajillion cyberTek surgeons, street-artists, noodle bars, gadget shops, and-

“Holy shit, like - is that a Ferris wheel!? Like, hanging off the side!?” Zip says, reappearing in a flash of neon blue cubes as all his drones tilt toward it.

“It bloody well is! And it’s bloody huge!" I whisper in awe. And it really is - jutting from the edge of a massive walkway, like some fairytale thing. Spinning with whimsical reds and yellows. And, knowing Karrak, held on by sticky tape and wishful thinking. But there’s so much more. So much. That entire floor is a casino, bigger than any cathedral. Begging all to come, come.... bet your life. Bet your soul. And, strung up above it, like an accident waiting to happen, a massive laboratory built of glowing pipes that seems nailed to the belly of the megaFloor above. All filled with masses of living slime that slithers and twitches against the glass.

And that’s just first blink.

It just goes up, and up, and up…..

Layers upon layers.

Impossibility upon improbability.

Chemicals bubbling in a drugstore window. Biolabs promising me an extra long life. Or extra long legs. Or fur. Or scales. Or fangs and claws - just like your GMO friends. Or nanoTek to make you invisible, and invincible. Ships that can outfight anything.....

Whatever you dream….

…at the sketchiest price…..

And that's just what we see. Zippers drones beam us a dozen views of the great pit, from above. Revealing Karrak's biggest Black Market - strung from fat cables and grav-drives, right over the maw itself. In all its chaos and glory. And I do mean an actual market. All hacking tools and robot arms gleaming in custom rows - behind inch-thick glass. Cyber-surgeons with grafted arms in armoured operating booths. Or just plain tables and mats - crammed full of, cough, ‘legally acquired goods.

But I focus on the hungry gap beneath that swaying platform, and shiver. Flipping the vScreens away.

But what do I need with screens? Karrak has everything.

A thousand delights to make the devil wince. A billion laws broken, in some country with laws. Refugees, dictators, anarchists, and mercs. Madmen, and freaks. Freethinkers and geeks. Plus, escapees like us. You’ll find em all here, somewhere - gGambling the night away with the tourists, tinkers, and terrorists for hire.

“Smell that?” I sniff. Dragging in a great sizzling wiff of grease and sensual simMeat. Or monster ribs, blinking full of unexplainable eyeballs - if ya swing that way. Plus the real stuff too - but don’t ask where that came from.

We waft on past the hotdog vendors - some with two heads or a tentacle arm. The sweet-sellers with their candied cocaine. Taco places and Asian bars. Ice cream, and honeyed pastries. All hawking to kids and passers-by. Demon keeps a firm grip on Badger and Tufty as we pass.

And good thing too.

There’s just…. so much. So many sounds. So many sensations, smells, colours, and whatsits to poke. With textured tile-paths beneath us, and warm brick from the elder days. With skyWays, and steps, and statues with no name - covered in funky graffiti. Artefacts lost, and plaques torn away.

Echoes and symbols of a bygone age.....

“Right! We’re on track! Next street over, and bam! Yeah!” Zip cheers as his tiny jets loop overhead. Others streaking in from above. Spying through upstairs windows. Looping in and out of the constant battle and/or thoroughfare glittering above. Dive-bombing an excited Badger, and a skittering - scaredy-cat - Tufty. Whooshing back up into the dark above, to damn-near cartwheel across the inside of the tower.

“Damnit! How the fu-” Kami flips a glances down at Badger’s big, impressionable, eyes. “-the heck does he control them all??”

“What?” I grunt, trying to un-cling Tufty from my leg. “Hey. Can I borrow ya pliers, real quick?”

“That is definitely not the LMG’s shitty drone AI!” She continues with annoyance, swatting a pixel-faced fighter hovering right at her elbow. “Rrrgh! That thing can barely- Barely stay upright! So how is he doing it?”

“Science, mate!” Zip’s avatar smirks, offering zero elaboration.

“Science nothing!” Our sceptical [Sniper] scoffs. “That’s got to be forty drones up there! And Spook nearly had an aneurism controlling... a... a couple of turrets! And that was with help. So what program is he using?” She turns to the massive thing made of triangles and eyeballs stuttering, on the edge of existence, beside me. “Hey. Come on, right? It’s you, isn’t it? You’re helping? Or you made him an AI bot controller or something?”

“Zipper does not allow me to tamper with his drones.”

“That’s a lot of crap, and you kno-” She stumbles again, as Zip makes another whizzing pass - all gloating LED faces, and speed. “Tell me! Come on!”

“Pfff, I dunno? Why you askin’?” I shake out my leg in a whirl of green and googly eyeball. “Dang, he’s really on there- No!” I add, as a truly gleeful Badger leaps on the other leg. “Oi, gerroff ya little-!! How's it you're the dang copycat!? He's the cat!”

“Mew!” Badger chirps.

“Look. All I’m saying is-” Kami grinds teeth at my lack of attention, knocking on the back of my armour. “Hey! Hey! Spook? Look. You grew up with him, right, and I didn’t. So what's his dumb trick-?”

“Oh, he’s always been like this.” I swing my legs harder - my armoured joint-servos whining pitifully.

“Weeeee!!! Mew!” Badger cackles.

“What?” Kami glares at me. “Oh, come on! Now I know you’re all messing with me.” She pivots to Demon, who shrugs. “Seriously?”

"Kah. I do not know?"

“I’m just awesome, mate! Deal with iiiiit!”

I rub my face. “Yeah. Showy asshole used to play bleedin' games vs himself. Two controllers at once.”

“Two!?”

“My best is four, mate!” Zip yells as he zips past.

“Fff-!? FOUR!? How does that even work!?”

“Better than ya’d think.” I mutter. “But waaaaay worse than he does.”

“Hey! C'mon! Like, I’ll thrash you all at once! Like, four different games!! Controllers only!”

“Uh huh?” Kami laughs at his now-snarling drone, waggling her head at it. “Come on then, drone boy! I can take you!”

“Oh, like, that's it! Gloves off, mate! Gloves off! I’m gonna beat you all!”

“Yeah, yeah! Blue-boy! Go on! Go 'wrangle' your 'gigantic magical exten-'!!”

"WWOOOOO!!! WE'RE HERE! WE'RE HERE!!!" Badger erupts, nevertheless maintaining his grip as I stagger the last few metrics to the huge pizza icon floating in mid air. I flick a hand through it, and our Augmented Reality takes over. Reviews and stickers exploding from it in a stream to ring around the entrance.

"Right then.... Here goes nothin'." I say, checking I still got the little bandoleer of glowing vials that pass as currency round here. Each one shimmering with the tiny silver chips they call 'coin'. Only a few Mils left. But enough, maybe, for one big blow-out meal before we gotta get 'creative'....

"Hey, trust me mate." Zip's avatar grins. "It's gonna be awesome!"

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