Endless Horizons: Flatline - Space Oreos

Endless Horizons: Flatline - Space Oreos

A desk of components, a still smoldering soldering iron, circuits and wires everywhere. He closed his eyes and code flew past the holo-projections along the walls, he opened them and knew which parts of the telemetry were messed up. Sensors adorned the workstation at various heights, scanning perpetually for changes in temperature, electrical charge and chemical imbalances, impossibly quickly they routed directly into his mind to tell him what and where needed more attention.

There was a soft knock at his cabin door.

Flatline - Spacebiscuits

Flatline - Spacebiscuits

A desk of components, a still smoldering soldering iron, circuits and wires everywhere. He closed his eyes and code flew past the holo-projections along the walls, he opened them and knew which parts of the telemetry were messed up. Sensors adorned the workstation at various heights, scanning perpetually for changes in temperature, electrical charge and chemical imbalances, impossibly quickly they routed directly into his mind to tell him what and where needed more attention.

There was a soft knock at his cabin door.

Endless Horizons - Flatline: Childhood

Endless Horizons - Flatline: Childhood


“Give it back…”

“Make me!” It was like a scene out of those old movies. Some kind of after-school special. It would have been comical were it not him.

Tso faced off against Chet Thomlin and his five cronies. Chet was a full head taller than him, more muscular and with an angular, chiseled jawline that was uncharacteristic for 15. Chet was also holding onto his new Leonard-Gamlin Neurocomm.

“I’m not playing games, just give it back.” Tso sighed.

Endless Horizons: Flatline - Texting

Endless Horizons: Flatline - Texting

The rack spun up in the dark. Mechanical processor started whirring, lights clipped on and the temperature rose by a degree. Flatline was sleeping, face down in the synth-cotton sheets. RAM spun and binary drifted. GUIN worked in the nanosecond spaces between nowhere and nothing.

The young hacker stirred, his eyes half open. Oculars and the synth jacks didn’t kick in yet, awaiting a mental command he never sent. Instead he lay awake, between awareness and not, half listening to the sound of electronics.

The myriad of terminals were sending a twist of digital code as they folded in on themselves again and again. On one console though there was the slow play of text unfolding, into a plain-char document that sat on a scratch-tunnel drive waiting to be uploaded to his wafer.

GUIN was writing something there, writing and erasing and writing again. Paragraphs appeared in an instant, the indicator dancing like wildfire down the page, before erasing it back again into missing digital particulate.

Over and over it happened, as he watched mesmerized.

The minutes ran into an hour, another.

Until the pulse of twisting text became just a single, simple sentence.

“Who am I?”

He closed his eyes.

Endless Horizons - Flatline: Upgrades

Endless Horizons - Flatline: Upgrades

Kangiol was not a planet that Tso liked very much. It wasn’t like his home at all, and you couldn’t ignore the press of the UV lights, the overpowering heat and crush of too-many people, or the ever-present smell of Neo Taco-Bell.  The grunge of gangs and criminals were everywhere, more than a few people, at least when they caught sight of him, eyed his technological finery and gear with ill intention. But a quick flash of the pair of Autopistols on his chest holsters deterred most problems.

And whatever wasn’t deterred by a pair of pistols on a teched out spy-bandit was probably a little intimidated by him being shadowed by the leather-cloaked, shotgun wielding crazy bitch. Or hopefully really intimidated.  It paid to keep her in good spirits. Literally.

Endless Horizons - Flatline: Tech

Endless Horizons - Flatline: Tech

Tso didn’t exactly luxuriate. But he did relax.  Hernando had given him a state room a little further away from the rest, telling others that it was because he didn't want anyone bothered by all the computers, fans and blinking lights.

That was partially true. One wall of the room was racks of cobbled together electronics. Wires dangled from the removed ceiling panels where he’d installed cooling vents that pushed warm air out into the bulkheads.  Sets of tables adorned the rest of the room, it was like some kind of mad scientist’s lab. Equipment was strewn everywhere, wires and welds, tools lay out everywhere and in rolling racks. It seemed like the bed was a complete afterthought.

Endless Horizons - Flatline: Contingency

Endless Horizons - Flatline: Contingency

“Sir, you have incoming.” Intoned Guin suddenly.

“Onscreen, Guin” said Flatline distractedly.

“No sir. You have actual incoming.” At that Flatline looked up. A map display of the building snapped into holo-view above his cobbled rack from where he’d been working. The three-dimensional model showed four blips moving through the abandoned under-floors of the building, obviously moving with purpose. He was sixteen floors up, a half-constructed apartment complex that had been abandoned for one reason or another. Squatters occupied the bottom 5, but up here the wind was too strong against the open concrete for people to actually stay. No running water either, but there was electricity, and a hook into the SolarNet that functioned just fine.

“Shit. Eta?”

The Endless Horizons - Encrypted Messages

The Endless Horizons - Encrypted Messages

Tso leaned back, fingers unconsciously stretching beneath his tipless gloves.  Digital lines of the Solarnet peeled away from his vision finally as he de-jacked.  The Solarnet here was not encrypted particularly well, and he’d found what he’d needed with relative ease.  Listings of work, job offers and ticket numbers danced across the console.  He’d done a little bit of background work on a few, but the pile was largely untouched.