AN: My posting schedule will probably slow down for the next few weeks, ~9 days per chapter.


Miles
April, 17th, 2011
T+10 minutes

While it wasn't Miles' specialty, he knew enough about data acquisition through osmosis with Rose that he could handle it in a pinch. Considering that he was connected to the neural rig, his mind directed the OS to latch onto and copy every bit of information it could find. No matter how obscure, anything that was pointed at the sky and connected to the internet had its data copied to their system.

It ranged from amateur telescopes to military radar, pictures posted on PHO, and watchdog reports. The aggregate of information piled up faster than the system could deal with on its own, hence his hand, manually sorting data points around and freeing up valuable processing.

One special piece that had the majority of his attention focused on it was an amateur video taken from a telescope in Iceland. They caught a blur of the first impactor, but the telescope didn't survive the flash. It wasn't much, yet Miles could roughly estimate the size based on the covering of the stars behind that weren't washed out by the moon. He had to admit that most of it were guesswork, but the object was perfectly ovoid, pitch black, and five kilometers long. The speed it was moving at as well as the density, was utterly unknown, and they had no way of figuring out either.

After the first impact, every telescope dialed in on the moon was burned out by the flash, and hundreds of people were blinded by it. It was the second impact that he only had a few low-resolution videos of. The total time between impacts: five seconds.

In the ten minutes that passed, he had been putting together a rough model built from the copied data. It was bleak. Miles could feel the welling pool of stress building up. It was always one thing after another, when he should be relaxing. For two long years, he got used to a month between fights. Time to relax and calmly build up while messing around with Rose. They went from a battle of a lifetime, against millions of orks, to the bank, dealing with Danny, rescuing him, fucking over Coil, and now this, all in three days. And he was hungry, dammit!

While exceedingly rough, taking more than a fair share of estimates with limited data, it was enough to get an outlook for the future. Five to fifteen percent of the moon's mass wouldn't reform into a satellite. Some quintillion tonnes of rock would end up around earth, some of it in wild orbits that would hit the earth at some point. Yet for all the OS and advanced computational power built in, there was no way to predict how much of it would end up impacting the earth or flung out into the solar system by the now highly elliptical orbit of the fractured moon.

If he didn't know better, this looked even more suspect, considering that the debris from the moon would be spread out throughout the solar system almost evenly. A pro for now, but a danger for thousands of years to come.

How it impacted spinward made the chunks of the moon have the potential of dipping into the earth's atmosphere at minimal velocities. Yet, that was only for the larger chunks. Even now, he was building up reports of streaks hitting the atmosphere and exploding high up. While the explosions were small enough to not cause any damage, they still rattled windows hundreds of kilometers away. Already, there have been two confirmed deaths from small bullet-sized fragments. Those pictures weren't pretty.

Any more concrete information had to wait until they constructed a sensor array powerful enough with an attached computer able to predict their movements. That was at the top of their list, just like a shield generator and point defense grasers. How they would make them or supply enough power was for the future for him to figure out. All he knew was that it wasn't going to be simple or quick.

Rose finally crossed the distance barrier, letting them intimately connect with no reservation. The two became one, and everything blurred together as Miles filled the close connection Rose was sharing with Taylor for later. He was both connected to the computer system and driving Danny's truck beyond its mechanical limit. Rose used her spark to push components beyond design. The terror radiating off Taylor from their drive was obvious, and it even eclipsed the moon being destroyed. Such naivety. He, they gave her a mental caress to calm her down and also initiated a minor sedative injection from the rib implant.

Miles flicked the bay door opener with his mind as Rose blew through sideways, the truck skidding just meters away from him with her halfway out of the door before it even stopped. He disconnected himself from the neural rig as she slid in and took his spot, deep-diving.

After Rose abused it, steam billowed out from under the truck hood, a distinct clank rocking it as it struggled to idle. It would never be the same. Poor Danny just lost his truck.

Miles turned it off, the engine almost sighing with relief with one last puff of smoke. He met Taylor's wide eyes, fingers clawing, gripping the door and seat belt for dear life. Her already pale face had turned deathly.

As one, Rose and Miles reached out with his body and patted her thin shoulder, drawing her attention back to the present. She gazed at him with swirling eyes, her head swaying back and forth.

She'd be fine.

Taylor opened the truck door and took two steps before puking all over the floor and falling over.

Close enough.

Already Rose's control specialization was showing its benefits, as junk data was thrown away and obscure connections were formed. A clearer picture emerged as estimated impactors and their destinations were projected, as well as estimated size. Their estimates were then compared to every other data set they could find, ranging from the PRT, to assorted militaries, and astronomers. The world had just received the wake-up alarm of the millennium, and people were scrambling.

A flashing warning in Rose's mind had him jog through the open door, looking up into the streak-filled sky. They both watched the tracking data and what he saw simultaneously. A chunk between six and ten meters across was projected to hit the Atlantic Ocean. It wouldn't even be that special of an impact if it weren't for the speed it was moving at. Every seven years, or something along those lines.

This one, only picked up at this speed because of how much energy it was radiating, was moving at around 97 km/s. That increased the detonation energy to a magnitude higher. He gazed up into the night sky, lining his eyes with its projected path. It was hard to see at first, only a faint blue glow, but it rapidly turned into a great white and yellow plasma ball a split second later.

Then it exploded.

The brief flash didn't bother his eyes as the singular ball turned into a hundred. Many winked out long before hitting the ground, but three dipped below the horizon. From start to finish, the show lasted seven seconds.

Miles turned away, watching hundreds of flares light up the night sky. Almost all of them burned up long before they hit the ground, but a few still managed. Yet the longer he stood there, the more meteors filled the sky. So while he half observed the sky to give accurate real-time data to solidify models, they combined their mental might to draw up a rough plan for the coming days.

It was a constant balance of increasing their industrial might and protection. Autonomous drones were high up, to gather scrap metal from the abandoned ship wrecks filling the bay and bring them back. But before they could, they had to reach a level that allowed them to start cranking out mini-fusion reactors to power them. That or a battery system to be charged at home base.

But that came after a sustainable full-sized reactor and a fuel system. And that came after even a rudimentary defensive system. He turned back to the hangar, eyes locking onto the discarded coil sniper rifle from the mech they cannibalized. It was small, pitiful, and lacking in ways that hurt them to look at, but with a little work, it would become a step in the right direction. However, physical ammunition was a major drawback.

Taylor's mech was also not long for the world. It would be nice to stick her in there and shield her from the raining rocks that would kill, but they desperately needed everything it could provide resource-wise.

Miles felt himself dip into the madness palace, the world fading away with an idea of his creation etched into his brain. Rose tugged it this way as the most interesting bits faded away, keeping him on track while she perfected algorithms and predictive software.

Then, from the mech arose an improved coil gun, one that he would've wished for at the beginning. Then a tower was formed from armor panels, reaching twenty meters, with another five to anchor. Next, the custom plasma emitter turned into a temporary welder and cutting tool. Then there was the feeding system, energy delivery, and most importantly of all, the fire control. Finally, the Factsphere, another piece of tech snagged from the mech, worked well enough when combined with worldwide telemetric data.

Arms turned into a rotating base with a tenth of a millimeter of precision. Assorted sensors measured everything on the coil gun, from the temperature of each coil to the magnetic field of the earth. All in pursuit of extreme accuracy, to hit targets up to seventy kilometers above their heads. The finished weapon weighed in at two tonnes, including a recoil system.

Then the process of mounting the tower on thick concrete slabs fell to him, as Rose finalized the final targeting algorithm. He took a moment to watch the slowly ramping up flares filling the sky, and if he paid close attention, each successive wave dipped lower in the atmosphere before exploding.

In the end, setting the tower took more effort than building the weapon, with the distinct lack of concrete or other bonding material that would harden in moments. Something he solved with good old precision drilling and an equal measure of force- ground tremoring amounts of force that dipped into bending reality, merging the titanium alloy with concrete.

A flickering strobe of light snapped Miles' attention off the turret, hanging twenty meters up off the side. Above, a ball of plasma neither moved away nor angled to show its tail, only growing larger. He watched while being fed data on the approaching bomb, and dropped to the ground with a bang, before bracing himself.

At twelve meters wide on an estimate and moving at over 80 km/s, that was a nuclear bomb's worth of energy heading directly towards them. The only bright side was that it was moving far too fast to hit the ground.

It exploded into a silent ball twenty kilometers up, the explosion expanding to the size of a basketball. Rose and Miles linked up, both reaching out with their telekinetic might, reacting on targeting data and pure reflexes. The first fragment slammed into the bay, kicking a fountain of water high into the air. Most slammed down, hitting the countryside, the ocean, and on rare occasions the city. Each one blasted a wave of pressure over Brockton Bay, car alarms screaming out.

They reached up, straining their minds as they redirected a small chunk slightly. Miles wrapped his hand around the tower just installed and closed his eyes as the meteor drilled into the street a hundred meters away. His feet momentarily left the ground as the blast wave washed over him, as tonnes of dirt, concrete, and pavement exploded outward. Bits of rock pinged off his resistant skin, unable to truly affect him, but the nearby warehouses looked like a shotgun blasted them. Once it passed, he inspected the coil gun for damage, knowing the true blast wave was only a minute away. The hangar also survived with minimal damage thanks to the fact that it lacked any windows in the first place, and the perk used the outside wall as a facade for a sturdier inside.

Miles didn't even bother climbing up with the coil gun, content to wait. Then a wall of air slammed into him, followed by a roar that he felt in his bones and then nothing. Without a doubt, every window in thirty kilometers was shattered by that explosion, and it was a comparatively tiny one.

He wiped the blood from his nose and grabbed the coil gun with his mind before climbing up the turret. It settled into place, lining up with the anchor points perfectly as he bolted down. This would be perfect if that was all he had to do, but this was the best they could do on such short notice. It was still better than a railgun that required constant changing of the rails as each projectile stripped material from them. But far worse than any energy weapon.

The coilgun could launch a half kilo 20 mm darts at 7 k/s, firing ten times a second, with each shot taking 15 MJ of power. It was only with his REMODELing power and spark that drove the efficacy that high, but it still couldn't break the laws of thermodynamics. The problem came up when comparing the speed of the slug to any incoming meteor. They wouldn't be shooting the meteor, more like placing a bit of metal in its way, and because of that, the further away the trajectory of the meteor, the exponentially harder it was to hit it.

With the one that just exploded, it had a diameter of twelve meters, and once at maximum range, the 20 mm dart would be traveling at 3 km/s. At fifteen degrees, what Rose and Miles calculated to be the most extreme angle of attack to achieve accuracy, the intercession would last .015 of a second and that included glancing blows. It was more like a hundredth of a second for any significant damage to be inflicted. The smaller the meteor, the worse the chance of them hitting it with anything worsening the odds, including pockets of warm air, turbulence, or even a gust of wind.

When it came down to it, the coilgun would only provide a measure of defense to an area 18 kilometers away from where it stood, missing the outer reaches of Brockton Bay to the south. Yet it still drew 540 gigajoules an hour when firing constantly. That was beyond sustainable and would either drain their sakuradite reactor to nothing, or melt the components, whichever came first. That didn't include the 18 tonnes of steel being fired.

Miles slammed to the ground after jumping off the top and went right to work on an automated system that would crank out steel darts from scrap metal. This was far easier than the coilgun, only using induction to melt the metal before it was pressed into shape and a heat pump flash cooled it. It was bulky, steampunk in aesthetic, and weighed a metric fuckload, but it was quick to put together.

Not twenty minutes later, Miles chucked in a hundred-kilo chunk of a boat into the system as teeth ground it up into dust, then the dust was melted and compressed under tens of thousands of psi before being cooled. The dart dropped into a storage bin before a feeding system snagged it and loaded it into a transport system that brought it up to the coilgun twenty meters above. It was then loaded into an internal magazine while the coilgun rested in a neutral position.

Miles watched closely as thirty darts were loaded up, and Rose initiated the system. The whole assembly rotated until it was almost vertical before an electric whine filled the air and it fired.

Bzst-Th-Th-Th-Th-Thump

A blast wave of sound hammered into him as five shots zipped out in half a second before the coilgun returned to its standby position.

He watched where they flew, leaving streaks of vaporized metal towards five distinct points, waiting for any signs of impact. The meteor flared into existence, blasting through the sky unimpeded while intersecting those five points before detonating far too close to the surface for the coilgun to have hit it.

That was a shame, as he felt Rose's annoyance at missing the test fire before she went back to messing around with the targeting. At least in a week, the meteors would be easier to hit due to their slower speed, but more likely than not, too large for the coil gun to break up. They'd also be harder to track since they'd not be glowing with heat from the impact against the moon. The time was enough for them to cool off, even in the vacuum of space.

Once again, the coilgun wound up, pointing skyward. Miles held his breath as five more darts blasted out and began their journey. The meteor bypassed the first, then the second, before exploding on the third. From Rose, he knew it exploded at fifty-four kilometers up, almost twice the height it would've by itself. And that meant any debris would most likely burn up long before hitting the ground, unlike that chunk that almost blew a hole into their hangar.

Miles smiled at seeing his creation at work and how it succeeded. It was just the first step of many.

The system wound up and fired a couple more times as Miles strolled over to the crater. So far, the coilgun only hit 10-15% of the time, with the descending meteorites being a tad chaotic. It was still an amazing ratio, but it might not be enough going forward.

He peered down into the three-meter deep hole, seven across. A part of him hoped to find a chunk of the moon for sentimental reasons and to examine its chemical composition just in case it held clues to what hit the moon. But the majority of the moon being silica didn't necessitate a high chance of anything surviving intact. After poking around a little, he found nothing, everything having been vaporized on impact. He turned around and went back into the hangar, Rose feeding him the next steps the whole way.

As Miles passed through the living area, he came to an amusing scene. Danny, Taylor, and Dinah all sat around the table, each with a tablet in hand and watching the news, or what was left broadcasting after substantial impacts. Even funnier was that everyone had a beer, which had him chuckling. They all glanced up, Danny and Taylor throwing back their beers in sync. Dinah gave him a smug look.

"Don't go outside on the shoreside of the hangar. I'm not sure how you'll handle the over-pressure of the coilgun firing." He warned them, though he was sure that each of them was smart enough to avoid the extremely loud gun.

Danny raised an eyebrow, putting his empty beer back into the pack and pulling out two more, putting one in front of Taylor, who cracked it open. "Are we safer here than at the endbringer shelters?"

"Yeah, I bet they're full to the brim with people anyway. If one hits, that's big enough, the shelter won't matter, and even if you do live, it'd just be a slow death while buried alive. Don't you feel safer with me around to put you back together?"

Taylor and Danny shared a look, tapping their beer bottles together and taking a swig without responding. Miles felt a little hurt by that, no trust.

He glanced at Taylor's tablet as the host warned people to stay indoors and wait out the immediate meteor shower. That was followed by a warning that martial law had been declared and a strict warning to all tinkers to not deploy unapproved defensive weapons. Miles snorted, like he would follow that order. They couldn't tell them what to do, and they sure couldn't enforce it for them either, because that little old coilgun would be beyond deadly if used for anything else. There was a reason he gave it the ability to negatively depress, and little could stop a 500g slug moving at 7 km/s.

"Hey, Taylor, keep a lookout. Would you? I don't want anyone messing with the coilgun." Taylor nodded. "Danny, how drunk are you?" He made a so-so gesture with his hand. "Good enough, round up any dockworkers you can, a safe haven for resources." Close to tribute and pressing enough that it didn't bother their sensibilities.

Danny frowned, placed his beer back down, and Taylor snatched it up. Miles would've been worried before his implants were installed, but those ribs would stop any permanent damage and filter out the alcohol anyway.

"What are you looking for, and what can I offer others or what can they offer us? Families?"

"Electronics are number one, followed by rare earth materials and metals. Take a tablet; Rose will listen in and keep track. If you have a question, she'll answer it."

"Dad, do-do you have to go?" Taylor whined, swaying back and forth in her seat. Even with those ribs helping, Miles leaned to the side; six beers were more than Taylor could handle. But as heartwarming as it was to see a father and daughter bond over drinking away problems for the first time, surviving was a bit more pressing.

"Sorry, kiddo, but you heard him. They're the ticket to living. 'Gotta help however we can." He pushed himself up out of his chair before turning to Miles. "Have you seen my truck?"

Taylor turned green before darting out of the room, bouncing off the door frame on her mad dash to the bathroom. Danny scratched his balding head while watching his daughter.

Miles snorted, "Rose borrowed it. I don't think it's quite in working order, but give me a few moments, and I'll fix it up."

"What do you mean, Rose borrowed it, and why does it need fixing up? What did she do to my truck?" He turned to the hallway that Taylor ran down. "Taylor! You're never driving my truck!" The sound of Taylor puking picked up.

"I don't think you have to worry about that," Miles said while shaking his head before explaining Rose's made dash across Brockton Bay.

He gestured for Danny to follow him while doing so as he mentally tuned to Sam, pointing further into Brockton Bay. Too far away from them to communicate, but he knew she wasn't hurt or in danger. She and Queenie left almost a day ago to do something, and with the end of the world approaching, they must still be occupied doing whatever it was. It's not like they could help too much anyway.

Before Miles left the room, he gave Dinah a look and said, "Stay out of trouble and try to get your power focused on predicting the meteors."

"I know!" Dinah snapped at him, stomping her foot. "What do you think I've been doing? It's useless because people keep reacting to things I can't see! Gah! Stupid powers!" She hit her head against the table she was sitting at.

Miles shook his head and left Dinah to throw her fit. If her powers worked right, they'd be indispensable to predicting large impacts, but he knew from interacting with it that the limit was the edge of the atmosphere, and that only gave moments of warning.

They walked into the hangar, and he gave a light peck on Rose's lips on his way by, her mind still fully submerged into the computer network. Before he worked on Danny's truck, he wanted a good read on how long their kludged together reactor would last. He tapped twice on the crude display as glowing pink light escaped the seams in improbable ways.

"Ah, is that going to give me cancer?" Danny asked.

Miles furled his eyebrows and placed his hand directly on one such glowing line. "No." He said after waiting a moment to judge the effects.

"That's good."

Not that it would've taken Miles much work to fix cancer, paltry compared to other problems. But what was a problem was that the fuel levels were already down to 95%. Rose OS was a lifesaver, as it already predicted the expected lifespan using both the plan that Rose came up with and the projected density of impacts. At a minimum, they had five days left, eight max.

Miles rubbed his forehead, knowing that the fusion reactor and filtration system had just jumped up the list some more. What a pain in the ass all around.

However, the Rose OS felt a little too predictive and adaptive, and if he had to guess, it would turn into a full-blown AI at some point. He shrugged. What happens, happens.

"Alright, let's go fix your truck."


Rose
April, 17th, 2011
T+2 hours

The world was nothing more than data to Rose, her mind immersed deeper than she had ever before. The kiss that Miles gave her felt distant, on nerve-damaged lips. She shook her head at his thought about 'Rose OS,' scoffing at the name he gave it.

There was a good reason that it felt more like an AI now, and that was all because of her. Her mind was melded with the core operating system, and much of the decision-making process was bootstrapped by her mind. Then, by the very nature of the OS that she made, it adapted to how she thought and worked it into the programming. She would never admit it, but that chain of events was entirely out of her control. As if by luck, at least that perk would keep it from running out of control, primarily when her mind was focused on the more pressing matters at hand.

Miles would've noticed by now if the opposite wasn't also happening. Part of her mind was running and calculating on hardware that wasn't her brain, and by doing so, it moved far faster than even their enhanced brains could keep up with. As a result, Miles' thoughts filtered in slowly, while any that she sent him had to be slowed down. Nothing that wasn't urgent made it out, and a seed of an AI based off of her and Miles, like a digital child, wasn't one such thing.

She laughed in her head, imagining the day when she sprung upon him that they had made an AI baby. Just a little payback for those years. But there was a little issue that was springing up beyond the moon detonating. Miles was going to blow a gasket at some point. She was long used to the stress of weeks of nonstop fighting, and the last two years, while annoying, were predictable and sort of relaxing after a time. It wasn't for Miles, coming from a completely different background. Add to that the lack of sex, his spark specialty not being worked, and everything else. It just amped it up for him. At the soonest opportunity, she'd have to do something about it.

Rose pushed it out of her mind, instead going back to refining predictions of the days to come based on the limited data that she had. The factsphere on the coilgun provided a perfect viewpoint for a good portion of the eastern seaboard, but she had to rely on much lesser forms elsewhere.

That came to a pause as another meteor was set to fall within their envelope of protection. Yet another one that wouldn't do significant damage but would provide useful targeting data. It wasn't much of a surprise when the factsphere provided the majority of data for targeting, with outside radar only helping pinpoint it via triangulation. This one was a paltry eight meters wide, hitting at 72 km/s. In most instances, it wouldn't cause any damage even if they didn't do anything, but ways to predict meteors as they broke up were still beyond her system, and only the sturdiest stayed on a straight, predictable course.

The coilgun received its commands, and she watched it carry them out in slow motion, each shot taking a subjective minute for her. Most of the information she received from each activation was minimal at best, and a good deal of the time, worthless. Until they had a decent network of sensors spread around, she'd never received actionable information and had to rely on guesswork. Rose watched the meteor pass by the first four shots and glanced off the fifth as it ripped apart into a cloud of streaking rocks instead of exploding. A decent result.

Rose then smacked Miles as he was about to rip out the truck's engine and start building some flesh monstrosity to fit in its place. That happened far more often than she cared to admit, and he didn't even notice she was doing so. Maybe in the future, they could combine flesh and computer, but for now, they would be uncontrollable by her, and she didn't trust the intelligence he would build into them.

Her own sparkness touched everything she built, but so far it aligned with their constructs. Yet, she also couldn't build autonomous machines. Everything had to be connected and controlled by her or her OS. That sounded fine, until you couldn't disconnect the components without them turning into deprogrammed hardware. The tablets she made would turn into electronic bricks without function; the coilgun wouldn't fire, much less aim. They'd still 'function' but someone else would have to program them, and the hardware they made was not kind in that regard. Each component was connected to another, and so on. There was no motherboard. It could be worked out with enough effort on her part, but that would lose most of the reality-bending her spark allowed. Plus, why would she ever let her tech be outside of her CONTROL‽

Ahem, that was unsightly of her.

Still, it was theirs, and no one could change that. Well, Miles could make something for other people, but a biological brain controller was just asking for issues. Not that she didn't trust anything she couldn't command… but she really couldn't.

Rose shifted her focus away from her deficiencies and towards Danny, having driven to his office and started to make calls. Windows may be shattered, but the power was still mostly on, at least for now. Another thing that Miles and her could supplement for… a price. As long as they donated a certain level of raw material, the power kept flowing.

She stepped in and pushed Miles away from making an organic filter from assorted crustaceans and back on track. It wasn't that she had a problem with organic technology on principle, it was more of what could come out of such monstrosities. If he had a lab to construct them from scratch, fine, but using his spark to 'weld' together animals was a no-go. She didn't care how good clams were at filtering water; it wasn't happening.

However, Rose had to give it to Miles about how flexible he was with his spark. He might not consciously be aware of how much he tried to use it, but it was a lot more mellow about being sidetracked by her spark. She didn't want to think about what she'd do if he tried to force her to use biological components, but it wouldn't be pretty.

At least Danny was having some good success. The people of the Bay were quite receptive to the Sparks after they mounted a defense, no matter how effective. He already had a dozen families signed up, bringing every bit of electronics, scrap metal, and other useful supplies they had or could afford. She might not be okay with him calling the Barnes, but they did have plenty of capital to spend. Rose dropped a message to make them tribute four times as much as everyone else for petty reasons, but a small part of her also wanted to put the fear of God into Emma just for laughs.

It might be a shock to Taylor, but she could use it as an opportunity to put it all behind her. She was in an enviable position of power, being linked with Rose and Miles, which put her far above Emma in every way. A place where Taylor couldn't be put down or disbarred without threatening to have Emma's family thrown out. That little part of Rose was cackling with glee. Maybe she wasn't as past it as she thought. Or was it a part of Taylor's subconscious mixing with Rose?

Rose pushed it out of her mind again. Being out of touch with the normal flow of time gave her far too much time to herself without Miles' regulatory behavior. That's a great argument for not letting him do what she did for any period of time, lest the world wanted to experience a worse Nilbog.

She shifted over to reviewing data coming out of the ENE PRT headquarters. While she couldn't break in without alerting them, anything sent, even encrypted, was easily intercepted and examined. The way the PRT reacted by banning unapproved tinker tech was about what she expected from a government department.

From what she read, they didn't plan on approving anything unless they joined the PRT. It was wholly ridiculous and self-serving but someone saw a chance for more power and took it, regardless of how much damage it might cause. Worse, because Director Piggot was down again, the stress got the better of her as she still hadn't recovered from their little visit and now Armsmaster was in charge. But not in the eyes of the upper office, with support for ENE depending on their following orders. He was already arguing against paying the Sparks a visit instead of slapping together his own defensive system. The coilgun was quite visible, with any energy weapons being leagues worse.

A final email acknowledged the PRT orders, with Armsmaster putting the time down for tomorrow afternoon. Enough time that the immediate meteor shower would be over. At least he was on their side. Smart man. If only he acted that way last time around.

Sometime later, Rose felt Miles throw down his tools; the fusion reactor and filtration plant were half finished. She took that moment to pull herself out of the digital world, stretching even if she couldn't get stiff. He snagged her up, giving her a brief kiss before placing her back on the floor.

"I'm going out," Miles said, frowning.

Rose pulled him down and gave him a much more intimate kiss before pushing him towards the door. "Come back soon. We have work to do, and grab Sam and Queenie while you're out."

He nodded, "Sure love, could you get me an address for any stores that sell seeds?"

Before Rose could answer, a terminal near them pinged, displaying a full list of addresses and the best locations for a wide variety. She turned to the computer and nodded. That was her masterpiece at work, and her soon-to-be digital child, which was definitely going to be a girl. Miles rolled his eyes at her, leaving her to finish up his work.


AN: I'd love to know what you think so far, good and bad.