Greg Veder

I frowned at the Private message, All Seeing Eye was, well a dick, a giant phallus that waved in front of your face and then screamed to all that you were inadaquate. He reminded me of myself before life slapped me in the face. I'm an idiot but before this mess I didn't know I was an idiot, therefore I was able to rise and fly on my golden wings of pure stupidity. The problem with this is that you inevitably crash into the glass windows of reality. Now I'm still a goddamned idiot, but I know that I'm an idiot and can thus work hard to hide what a retard I am.

Mostly by keeping my mouth shut, All Seeing Eye didn't have this kind of divine revelation and has more or less managed to be an annoying shit. I looked at my PM list, I could ignore it, I mean that was the smart move. Don't feed the trolls, after all it's a perfectly good way to lose an arm, and I don't want to have those regrown again.

I decided to put it off and look at my other Private messages, ah a message from G-string girl. Those were... complicated feelings, really complicated. She was a former case 53, and currently worked making and maintaining space stuff for various companies who worked the Belt, and would continue doing so until she had paid off her debt to the PRT. This was as close as I got to a real actual friend. A girl who was quite literally from mars, or at least worked there.

I opened it up and... yeah... ok that was um nice... my mouth felt dry. I thought about saving the image to my hard drive then decided not too

"The new suit."

The spacesuit was pink and white, and she had a mischievous look on her face. When a case 53 had a chance to talk to the doc they were given the option to choose their new body. G-string went for that. I imagined a life up there on Mars when this whole nightmare was over. Maybe she would be willing to overlook things... and maybe pigs would fly, but hey whats a gigantic lie between two friends who don't live on the same planet?

I opened up the next message.

"Thanks for your support, thanks to you I now have a new boyfriend."

...

I turned off my computer and laid down on the ground. I just kind of stared at the ceiling for awhile, on the one hand this was reasonable. We lived on different worlds, literally different worlds. She was an actual cape, I was a fake... I took in deep breaths and tried to reign in my emotions. I went back to the computer.

"That's great, I'm really happy for you, I hope everything works out."

I tasted salt, lots of salt, but I couldn't let my issues fuck this up for G-string, my fantasies were just that, fantasies. I turned to the message from All Seeing Eye.

"I have a job for you."

I thought about it, hmm...

"No."

Yeah, nothing good came from strangers on the internet offering free candy, or jobs. I then turned my attention to the ABB posters who were arguing with some Empire kids, they were probably going to get a ban soon. The ABB had a Tinker, a real one, but no one would be stupid enough to talk about gang business on PHO. That could backfire horribly, it would be retarded it...

Then I thought about it, there was totally someone who was that fucking stupid. I looked up the name of someone who was obviously ABB. Then I tried out passwords. Tofu, no, Chopsticks, no, dragon, no, Lung, no. Hmm, Kaiser is a fag, and I'm in. I looked through his private messages... yeah I know that place. Bakuda apparently had some old prototypes she wasn't using anymore, and some of her bombs were going to be spread out. I knew the area they were talking about, it was risky but that fire power could save my ass.

I looked at my new message from the Eye. "wish you luck." Bastard. I ignored the message and waited for nightfall. I put on my costume and slapped in some new batteries. I had 6 hours worth of juice. I needed to make this work, use my power sparingly. I looked at the bus schedule, I ran in the darkness, keeping to the rooftops of the suburban homes. I was pretty silent, I had a lot of practice. Then I waited for the bus that would take the night shift to downtown. When the bus came I jumped on, I took out a cheap electromagnet and turned on the power and laid down flat. Hopefully no one would notice me, and hopefully I wouldn't be knocked off. That would suck.

I powered off my rig to conserve energy, my heart beat like a jack hammer as my fingers clutched the magnet for dear life, because I was. Every now and then I would look up, hoping that I would get to the ABB section of town quickly. When the bus stopped at 1 in the morning downtown I turned on my rig and jumped off. I stuck the landing on a light post and jumped to the second story of one of the older down town buildings.

I looked for the garage, and found it. I tried to remember the stuff I read in the Anarchist's Cookbook. There were two people guarding the front door. I looked for windows, I didn't have infrared, but I did learn how to make something that functioned like a really crappy version of it. I jumped closer, and prayed I didn't make any noise, I didn't make it to the roof, I felt myself slip and my hands gripped the windowsill. There was a slight creeking sound and I cringed.

The guards looked around and then shrugged going back to their conversation. I lifted myself up and looked at the window. It... thank god it's unlocked. I brought out a tiny garden shovel and gently and slowly pried the window open. Every noise seemed to be amplified, echoing throughout the yard, but I didn't stop. Eventually the window was open, it was big enough and I snuck in. My personal gravity was less when I wore the rig, but the heat was getting to me. Sometimes, when the insulation wasn't good enough, the waste heat would burn me. I had burn marks all over my chest from my last fuck up.

I ignored it and opened the door.

"Hear something?"

The room was claustrophobic, I lept to the roof and spread out my arms and legs. I did my best not to breath or make noise as some ABB gang members looked around.

"Fucking hell someone left the window open again."

"Well shut it then."

"Fuck that shit, it's fucking hot in this place, let the next shift deal with it."

The wires were starting to burn into my flesh, that meant that the insulation needed to be replaced again, fuck.

"Smell something?"

"Yeah, Ho's probally cooking pork again."

"Fucking fat bastard never shares."

They laughed and I crept forward as they walked in another direction, I carefully make my way down stares to the basement. Then I looked at the door, I went into my pocket and took out a wrapped key. This baby saved lives, being able to open doors in an Endbringer fight was often necesssary. So I had a few bump keys. The door didn't have a dead bolt, that was good. I carefully slammed it in, trying to hit the right little bits, and turned.

The door made too much noise as I opened it, but I smiled.

Drugs, guns, other stuff this, was a large ABB stash. I ignored the money and instead trained my eyes on something. I went closer, it wasn't true tinkertech, it was basic mechanics, it was a very primitive grenade launcher. I opened up my back pack and noticed it wouldn't fit. So I brought out some duct tape and tapped it to my pack. Then I looked for the tinkertech grenades, where would...

Yeah of course it's going to be in the trunk with the dragons on it. I looked at it, a six digit mechanical code. What would the ABB use, what would some hardened...

"6,6,6."

I smiled as it opened, thank you unknown edgelord, your bravery is appreciated. I stuffed every grenade I could and... huh a hand written note. Swipe. I put it all in my pack and carefully made my way out. I locked the trunk. Locked the basement door, and snuck out the same way I came in. Then I waited for the bus home and once again hung on for dear life. When I got home I took to the roof tops and went back into my basement. I hid the grenade launcher and the bombs and looked at the letter.

"Fuck I can't read any of this."