A/N: This was the result of an unexpectedand unplanned collaboration with blackberryavar. It sort of just happenedwhen he showed me some of the writing that he did when he was procrastinating on writing his story. Of course I just had to add my two bits worth.

This story is posted with black's permission and blessing. It containsMASSIVE spoilers for his story, second catastrophe. If you don't want to be confused, I suggest you go read it first. If you don't mind being confused, i still say you should go check it out, its a great story.

To those of you who may be familiar with our writing, perhaps you can leave a comment. Were you able to pick out where blacks writing ended and mine began? Or are we too good at blending the styles together?

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"Your laptop isn't working?" asked Byrd. "Even after you downloaded all the software updates?"

"I tried," said Monarda, "but you can't download updates when your computer is bricked."

She closed the black Heliconia-Pincer computer, then watched as its status light blinked from blue to off on the coffee table.

"At least the charging light is on," said Chervil. "So the charger is probably working. It's not sure. You could try singing a song to it."

"None of that," said Byrd. "Does anyone know how to fix this thing before the holidays?"

"Kind of hard to celebrate when you've been cut from the cast," said a voice.

Byrd spun around.

"I'm supposed to say something climactic like 'Thrush!' but we're off-camera, so, how's work going?"

"Good, good. My death surprised the people. Some reviewer said it was amusing and incredibly unfortunate."

"… weird. Any fan mail yet?"

"No. I want a repeal saying I'm actually not dead; it doesn't do to be the guy who dies in every TV series."

"You're not dead in RotD yet," said Chervil.

"I haven't even been introduced to the show!"

Thrush sidled over to the coffee table and opened the laptop, pressing the F9 button after a few seconds. The screen lit up, but no text appeared; the computer had decided it was going to be nonfunctional, and nothing short of a BIOS update would persuade it otherwise.

"Looks like you have a problem."

Monarda sighed. "I was going to take this home over the holidays… would've been great for the kids."

Chervil flinched.

"OK, I know enough to figure out when I'm out of my depth," said Thrush. He took a deep breath. "It's time to call tech support."

A moment passed while Thrush fidgeted in his pockets. "Of course I don't have my cell in the acting pouch, why would I? …"

"Cause we don't want screen light on the show," said Wells.

"When did you get here?" asked Chervil.

Wells shrugged. "Since you weren't looking. Guerrilla skills are useful for something it seems. Thanks for ad-libbing some help for us on the show."

Thrush flicked him a Skywing thumbs-up. "It's cool. Now does anyone have a landline?"

"Eagle does," said Wells.

"Makes sense. He's been holed up in his office since episode 7," said Chervil.

"Clearing out the stage area, more like," said Eagle.

"We have help to do that."

"Just get the landline."

The cavalcade of protagonists scooted into Eagle's office, where he was already on a phone behind his wide, uncomfortable metal desk with red Skywing shrouds behind it, signifying his important position. He held up a talon, signifying that he'd take their questions in a second. Finally the call ended and he put the receiver back in its holder.

"Sup general," said Chervil. "I know, I'm supposed to be in the OPFOR part of the studio, but we're having a bit of a technical problem at the moment."

Grand Marshal Eagle groaned. "Did the suspension of disbelief machine break again?"

"No."

"Okay, what is it?"

"Monarda's laptop broke and we'd like to call tech support from your landline."

The marshal leaned back, then rapped his talons on the desk for a few minutes while his eyebrows knitted and unknitted, and smoke escaped his nostrils. "Boss might be able to help."

"I thought he was busy writing the plot," said Thrush.

"I thought he was giving me a paycut," said Chervil.

"It doesn't matter what he's doing, as long as he can get Ruby back on the team in time for the episode 18 shoot," said Marshweed (nobody asked how he'd gotten there).

"She's taking an extra week off after Thanksgiving," said Byrd. "Something about telling her son not to join the cast because boss wants to murder him for 'shock value'."

"Just take the landline," said Eagle. "I can write up another general order while you're at it."

"Thanks," said Chervil. "Should I make the call?"

Thrush brushed past him and picked up the receiver, dialed the boss's number, 162-2174, then waited for it to pick up. "Where's the button to put it on speaker?"

"The red one," said Eagle.

"Thanks sir. Wait, why the red one?"

"It's the 'broadcast your breakup to the world' button."

Thrush nodded and pressed it, allowing the rest of the cast to listen to his conversation. "Thank you, sir."

Brrr, brrr, brrr – "Hello?"

"Hey, we're having a computer problem and we need it fixed before Thanksgiving, could you come over here and take a look?"

"Just as soon as I can open a deus ex machina. These things always take a little work. Got any coffee over there?"

Thrush looked at Eagle, who shook his head. "No, sorry. Eagle had to kick his coffee habit to do his scene back in episode 5 and he's decided he can do better without it."

"Shame. Okay, I'll be right on over."

An indescribable black portal opened in the office, which the narrator will now seek to describe, mostly by saying that it was swirling and not at all ominous. A light tan Sandwing stepped out, stumbled, then picked himself up, wiry and about average in height.

"Whoa, trans-dimensional travel is always a bit of a non-starter."

"Wasp likes it," Eagle said.

"There's a I reason why I picked her as the villain," said the Sandwing. "Good to see you again boys."

Monarda glared but was not noticed.

"Your name is Blackberry," said Eagle. "We have discussed this before; you should've picked a Skywing or a Rainwing, not a Sandwing."

"What can I say? Favorite tribe," said Blackberry, shaking out his tan hands. "You said you had a tech problem?"

"Just this way," said Chervil.

He went outside and took a left down the corridor, Blackberry following, and the rest of the cast not far behind, save for Eagle, who wasn't that interested in what his boss was doing, and had goals to accomplish anyway.

I wish, narrator, that you would make the story more about me, and less about Eagle when he's not even in the shot.

Blackberry was a very self-centered person, who long ago had gotten used to the existence of a narrator talking about what he did, and disliked it when it focused on other things. Our brave cast were more important to the story at hand, however, so it was they who were being concentrated on at the author's expense. By this time, however, the protagonists had made it to the break room, and Blackberry busied himself examining the dissident machine.

"OK, whaddowehavehere?" he said, more to himself than anyone else. "Looks like an HP, basically standard, not very good processor."

He opened it up, noted the unresponsive keyboard and screen. "So, the problem is no reaction from the display, correct?"

Monarda nodded.

"Did you do anything special with the computer that might have brought this on?"

"Not much… the battery is the only thing that's new. I had to get a replacement because the old one was low on capacity."

Blackberry scratched his head. "Okay, good to know."

He turned off the computer, flipped it over, and extracted the current battery, one with a sticker on it. Thrush set it aside. Then the Sandwing made sure the charger was in, put it right-side up, opened it, and pressed the power button.

"Hopefully – yes!" It booted to the login screen of Windows 10. "Uh, password?"

Monarda mumbled it under her breath.

"Gotcha. I think this is just a software problem."

"Why would it work when the old battery was in, not work when the new battery is in, but function when there's no battery in?" asked Thrush. "That doesn't make sense."

"Don't ask me," said Blackberry. "I just fix people's stuff."

"But not plotholes," said Chervil.

Blackberry was too busy tapping on the keyboard to notice. "Browser… support assistant, download, install… this is taking really long."

He opened the task manager and checked the CPU percentage; 25%. "This looks suspiciously similar to a four-cored processor using one of its cores to the max while the other three do nothing."

"Maybe it's an over-achiever," said Chervil.

"Ah, installed. Okay, now, check for updates… this should take a while. So, what have you guys been up to between episodes?"

"Pretending to be a corpse," said Thrush.

"Helping the generals with legalese," said Byrd. "They think I'm a born secretary. If all there is to the army is paperwork, what am I fighting for?"

"A question you've been wrestling with for the last twelve episodes," said Chervil. "C'mon dude, you gotta let him stop flip-flopping eventually."

"Ah, it finished… no updates discovered," said Blackberry. "Let's try it again."

"You really can't take criticism."

"Take whatnow?"

"Yep."

Monarda crossed her talons. "Can you fix it?"

"Probably," said Blackberry. "Computers can be weird."

"You're the repair guy, you should know how they work."

"I know just enough to know how much I don't know," said Blackberry. "You don't get to working on this stuff without wondering what makes them tick. Nothing this time… I swear, Support Assistant is the worst in the industry."

"No," said Chervil. "It doesn't actively mess up your computer."

"Oh yeah, that's windows update."

"You're a linux snob."

Blackberry snorted.

"And you're a power-shellhead. Alright guys, I think I'll have to get a BIOS fix straight from the website."

This took a couple minutes, during which Blackberry opened and closed a multitude of technical windows to make himself look smarter. "OK, this should work."

Windows restarted, and then he had to shut it down from powershell ("because of course it doesn't shut down when you hit the power button like any common-sense operating system") he griped.

"Do what when you doohickey from the whatnow?" asked Wells.

"I forgot," said Byrd. "The marines aren't computerized yet."

"Lance corporals don't need computers," said Wells, "much less sergeants."

"They're handy for playing browser games," said Chervil.

"Really?" asked Thrush. "I heard they're ending flash support."

"…"

Thrush broke the silence with a Skywing snort, replete with a puff of acrid smoke that made Blackberry sneeze.

"I will face the four horsemen of the apocalypse ,"

"I didn't know he read the scriptures," said Blackberry.

"I will climb to the summit of Mount Doom -"

"Or the lord of the rings," said Marshweed.

"When did you have time to read Tolkien?"

" - bring down the basilisk -"

The Mudwing shrugged. "The same time he read about the wizarding world I guess. Harry up and wait."

" - stare the abyss into submission -"

"Moons, someone let him have a copy of Nietzsche -"

"But I will never, ever exist without my flash games."

Blackberry chose this moment to stick his head up. "OK, so… it says it has 100% capacity, but there's 0 kw/h in the battery, and the moment I pull the plug it's probably going to do this."

He removed the charger and the copy of Linux Mint the machine was running sputtered, then died, the screen's fade to black accompanied by the whir of the fan as it wound down.

"Yep."

"That's retarded… am I allowed to say retarded?" said Thrush.

"Shh, you wanna be on the bloopers reel?" said Chervil.

"I think we're already on the bloopers of the bloopers."

Monarda sighed again. "Guys, you gave the game away."

"I don't mind being recorded," said Blackberry, "except when I do. Evidently Monarda's computer has a bad battery controller, which was probably responsible for the low capacity reading on the old battery in the first place. To compound this, she then received a bad BIOS or windows update that made the computer fail when it was restarted, but didn't restart the computer (because Win10 doesn't turn off when you hit the power button) for a long time until she noticed it. To put it simply, it's stupid."

A long silence reigned in the room as the occupants came to grips with how retarded 'smart' computers could be.

"Well," said Monarda, "is there a solution?"

"Yes, if you want it fixed," said Blackberry. "I'll do it for half off since you bought it from me, but the thing is, it might not be worth it to keep a laptop with a known problem like this. I can't get the part here before the holidays, since I don't have it at home."

"Great," said Chervil. "And this blooper was supposed to be funny. We had pranks set up for you and everything."

"No," said Blackberry. "I played a blooper on you. This computer problem is a manifestation of a computer problem on the machine I'm working on in real life, which is frustrating me and causing me to have less time for writing."

"You have enough time to write out this blooper," said Thrush. "so you're procrastinating."

"… nuts."

Monarda sighed, and picked up the laptop.

"Well, that's just great," she said, "It broke and now it'll cost even more money to get it fixed."

"It shouldn't be that expensive," said Blackberry, "The biggest cost is my time."

Monarda picked up her charging cord and stuffed it and the laptop into her black leather computer bag.
"I know a local guy, I'll see if he can do anything on the time crunch."

"You should hustle, business hours end at six," said Thrush.

"I know."

"That means you're taking the rest of the day off," said Blackberry.

"Is that a problem?" she asked, glancing at the clock on the wall. Black shook his head.

"Nah, your scenes are covered. Let me know if you run into any problems."
She nodded, and left.

"Hey, boss?" asked Thrush, drawing Black's attention to him and the others, "While you were here, I was wondering something."

"Yeah? Like what? If you're wondering when the next episode will be ready, I'd say I don't really know either."

Chervil snickered.

"Well that's a problem boss, you're the author."

"Hey, I have a schedule," said Black, "And believe it or not, there is a method to my madness."

"Right, sure." said Thrush, "But that's not what I was wondering."

"Yes?"

"My death," said Thrush, "I died on screen. Again. Is there a particular reason why I die in every show?"

"Well, you haven't died in Rapture of the Deep yet," said Blackberry.

"That's because. I haven't been introduced to the show."

The tan Sandwing paused, scratched his chin, and checked his notepad. "Really? Did I really forget?"

"Yes."

Our author shrugged.

"Can't fall off the bed if you sleep on the floor."

"That doesn't necessarily help my outlook on the future, boss."

Blackberry smirked.

"It doesn't matter. Don't worry about the future yet, we've got things to cover in the present."

"But is there a reason why I die?" asked Thrush, "It seems that the character named Thrush always dies. And it's not just me, there's another story out there with a character named Thrush. I don't think he's gonna make it either."

"What's it called?"

"It's in the drafting stage, they didn't figure a name yet," said Thrush. "The point is, I think that that Thrush is going to die too."

Black shook his head and put an arm around Thrush's shoulder.
"It's nothing personal," he said, "It's all for the story. I don't kill off characters unless I think it will benefit the plot. And it takes a special kind of character to make a good death scene."

"Oh yeah? So what are you saying?"

"He's saying that you die really well," said Chervil.

Ouch.

"Pretty much," said Black, "Do you realize how many characters want to have a death scene where they choke out some last words of inspiration to the others? Or have some overly dramatic scene with too much heart wrenching dialogue?"

"So you'd rather have me choking on my own blood while the others threaten to kill one of their own?"

Black nodded.

"Bingo. And you pulled it off so well, you were perfect."

"Well, we did have to re-shoot that scene."

"It doesn't matter." said Blackberry, "It was perfect. It was unexpected, and gritty, a tragedy. The audience was shocked, they were sad to see you suffer such a fate."

"Well, I dunno," said Thrush, "There was one guy who thought it was pretty funny."

"There's one in every crowd." said Blackberry, "but he doesn't count. Aside from all the Ted Bundy's out there, the audience was moved by your death. And so was the rest of the cast on screen. You really set the mood for them to carry the rest of the episode. That takes talent, you should feel honored."

"It's true, that kind of acting is really hard." said Byrd, "But, when you pull it off, it really makes a difference. I remember when Bolt died, it really helped to set the mood. The pose, the injuries, completely unresponsive to everything around him? I could have sworn that he had actually died."

"Yeah, I noticed that too," said Chervil, "I never would have guessed that somebody so new to all of this would be able to perform so well."

"Well, I think we can thank boss for that." said Byrd, "I saw him working with Bolt right before the shoot. I think bolt was making him mad because he couldn't get it right, but evidently he pulled it off. Right boss?"

Blackberry grimaced, then nodded.

"Uh, yeah."

"Hey, speaking of which, has anybody seen Bolt recently?" asked Byrd, "He hasn't been around since that last appearance."

"The last I saw of him, he was being drug off stage." said Chervil, "He hasn't called me or anything either."

"Yeah, I noticed that too." said Thrush, "Where's he been, boss?"

Blackberry suddenly appeared very nervous.

"Well, uh, I don't know, actually-"

"What do you mean?" interrupted Thrush, "You're the boss, right? He would have had to ask you for time off."

"Well, yeah, um, actually yeah, that's it. He's on vacation, I gave him time off."

There was a moment of silence. Blackberry nervously fidgeted, as if looking for an escape from the situation.

"Wait, that was over two months ago." said Chervil, doing the math in his head, "Since when can you get two month vacations?"

"What's going on, boss?" asked Byrd, suddenly looking unsure. Blackberry began to back away from them.

"Uh, going on? I'm not sure what you mean, nothings going on. Bolts fine, I swear, he's just on vacation for …"
He trailed off.

"Uh, boss? Somethings wrong, what is it?"

"Nothing's wrong." said Black.

Byrd started to leave.
"I think I'm going to give him a call, just to make sure-"

"No! You can't!"

Everyone looked at blackberry, who suddenly looked like he wanted to punch himself for that outburst. "Er, I mean, you won't be able to reach him. He went, ah, camping, and doesn't have any service. But don't worry, I'm sure he will be back soon."

Now everybody was standing back, regarding Blackberry with suspicion. He nervously scanned their faces. They knew something was wrong. What was their author hiding?

"Boss…?" asked Thrush, "You … look pretty nervous. What's going on?"

"Nothing's wrong, nothing at all."

They all stared, and before anyone could respond, Black looked at his wrist and shouted unexpectedly, "Oh good grief, would you look at the time? I have to get back to work on the next episode, so bye!"

Another portal suddenly appeared, and the tan sandwing leapt into it. The portal disappeared a second later, and Blackberry was gone.

"What's he hiding?" asked Chervil. "You don't … you don't possibly think …?"

"Well, Bolt did look very convincing." said Byrd, a look of realization crossing his face, "But, boss didn't … he wouldn't actually… would he?"

Marshweed spoke up.

"Guys, he didn't actually have a watch."

BREAKING NEWS
Yesterday a federal judge signed a search warrant for the shadowy figure known only as 'Blackberry Avar' on suspicion of the murder of B-list actor Bolt Stutzman during the filming of the military-themed show Second Catastrophe. Witnesses say that Bolt 'really looked dead' during the shoot, after Blackberry had a word with him and 'after that episode we never saw him again'. Efforts have been made to contact Mr. Stutzman, but none have been successful; his suspected murderer is an unknown quantity, as it seems few knew him in his personal life. Suggestions for his personal appearance include short and tall, brown hair or golden hair, strong arms or weak arms, etc, etc. What is known is his tolerance of cold, as well as an undying hatred for dogs. Keep an eye out on the highways this year.

ENTERTAINMENT -
New Second Catastrophe director Thrush Lawkelly says the show must go on... but not with him in it. More details after the ads.

Thank you for reading. For the few who may wonder why I'm posting stuff like this and not more chapters of 'the scales we live in', I'd just like to say that yes, I'm aware its been a long time, and yes, i do intend to finish it. Unfortunately, earning a living is making that a little difficult. But it will be done