In the two cycles and change he's spent off-Grid, Rinzler's learned a number of important lessons. About users. About bodies. About space and systems, monsters and robots and nothing is stable, things can always get worse. About how to fix starships. About what a gun does.
...That last one, he's blaming for the current set of corpses.
User. Human. Three, all wearing the same unfamiliar attire—and the same weapons, though only one still has it in hand. Rinzler eyes the body as it floats past, blobs of fluid still leaking sluggishly from the disk wound carving its front open. The unlit weapon in his grip has more or less burned off its share of blood, but the fluid is still everywhere: adhering to his hands, to the corpses, to the walls and doors and tied-down crates that shape the contours of the room. There's a mess of splatter still hovering near the vents at the room's corners—too small to make an exit, but easily enough to suck out all the chamber's air.
Stupid of them, if not especially surprising. Their first mistake had been leveling their guns his way. The second one was firing. By the time the users at the rear had scrambled out and sealed the room closed, values like air or gravity (or the current lack thereof) were barely a concern. Not to the empty bodies bouncing through the room, and certainly not to him.
Still, the larger error was still cycling through queue, fault waiting for assignment. Who'd brought him here? And how? Rinzler's last log was waiting at the center of the Midway Hub, lingering outside the (pointless) user celebrations. He hadn't powered down, but he'd awoken here: in a strange room with strange, stupid users, and an airlock at each end. Another system glitch? If so, where were the others? He didn't feel tampered with, but that didn't mean nothing had happened.
Only one way to find out. Noise stays damped, circuits darkened as the enforcer coils in the shadows of the ceiling above the door. The threats had exited that way, and sooner or later, someone would come back. They'd answer his questions.
Universe-hoppy murdernanigans, get~
...That last one, he's blaming for the current set of corpses.
User. Human. Three, all wearing the same unfamiliar attire—and the same weapons, though only one still has it in hand. Rinzler eyes the body as it floats past, blobs of fluid still leaking sluggishly from the disk wound carving its front open. The unlit weapon in his grip has more or less burned off its share of blood, but the fluid is still everywhere: adhering to his hands, to the corpses, to the walls and doors and tied-down crates that shape the contours of the room. There's a mess of splatter still hovering near the vents at the room's corners—too small to make an exit, but easily enough to suck out all the chamber's air.
Stupid of them, if not especially surprising. Their first mistake had been leveling their guns his way. The second one was firing. By the time the users at the rear had scrambled out and sealed the room closed, values like air or gravity (or the current lack thereof) were barely a concern. Not to the empty bodies bouncing through the room, and certainly not to him.
Still, the larger error was still cycling through queue, fault waiting for assignment. Who'd brought him here? And how? Rinzler's last log was waiting at the center of the Midway Hub, lingering outside the (pointless) user celebrations. He hadn't powered down, but he'd awoken here: in a strange room with strange, stupid users, and an airlock at each end. Another system glitch? If so, where were the others? He didn't feel tampered with, but that didn't mean nothing had happened.
Only one way to find out. Noise stays damped, circuits darkened as the enforcer coils in the shadows of the ceiling above the door. The threats had exited that way, and sooner or later, someone would come back. They'd answer his questions.
Or he'd get out, and find someone who could.