5 Things Meme—of the Ficlet Variety

[scribblemyname]

This entry is part 44 of 51 in the series 365 Challenge

Gacked from penknife:

You post a topic, list, category, whatever, in comments. (examples: "Five SG-1 Mission Reports That Were Less Than Entirely Truthful", or "Five Times Bruce Banner Lost His Toothbrush," or "Five Ways Nikola Tesla Failed to Take Over the World"). I'll answer with a list of five things.

Ideally fandoms that I know something about, unless you want me to guess, which could be entertaining but probably not the way you want. Or (and preferably) original fiction. All storyworlds on the table, i.e. Seven Days, Kingdoms and Thorn, the Alliance, Vardin, etc.

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Completed Ficlets & Scenes

Kingdoms and Thorn:

• Rachelle + Justus – Without a Reason
• Shift + Justus + Red Wolf – It's Own Absolution
• Rachelle + Justus – It Came Up
• Rachelle/Justus – Simply Because
• Rachelle + Justus – Defining Love
• Rachelle + Shift + Meld – Playing with Knives
• Killinger + Special Unit ensemble – Technicalities
• Killinger + Special Unit ensemble – Call Me If You Need Me
• Killinger + Special Unit ensemble – Element of Uncertainty
• Marc + Cate – A Simple Question
• Marc + Cate – The Nameless Below
• Killinger + Special Unit ensemble – Tracing Trouble

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Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

Re: Kingdoms and Thorn Ficlet: Tracing Trouble [2/?]

[scribblemyname]

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Cate was not a tracer. Computers hated her so she bought the simplest of interfaces, a breed just shy of childproof. She wasn’t stupid, though for years she had thought that was the problem. Her telepathic fields interfered with electronics and under prolonged exposure could make them go haywire. That limited her options to those their own cyberpath, Jarod, wouldn’t use.

It left her the kingdoms.

Kishet was a kingdoms city—two hundred and fifty square miles of human architecture clashing with human change. Once the sprawling, haphazard metropolis of the Thorn Republic, grown over the top of three old townships, now it was the crown of the kingdoms: a wealth of districts and burros, counties and neighborhoods—nations.

She stretched out her mind, skimming the top of an ocean of thought, the dull roar of an endless crowd. Second nature to her, she sought out the tangles, knots of computer-like thinking—“Rachelle,” she politely greeted—then isolated them on her mindscape of Kishet. Fifteen. Kick Rachelle off her list, the former team operative who often consulted for the Special Unit and had tracer expertise herself. That left fourteen cyberpaths.

Hovering at the edge of power, tension blossoming at the boundaries of her mental reach, Cate knew she had choices. She could fall back into herself, plot out her suspects on a map, and deliver it to Ilsa. She could maintain this harsh edge of tension like an ever-moving guidance system and walk the map herself.

“The things I do for family,” she murmured to herself and began to walk.

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Late at night in the dark office of the Special Unit and Ilsa Killinger was still hitting the books at the conference table. She shouldn't have been, of course. She should have been at home in bed with her head on her husband Hasheni's shoulder, but try telling that to the unstoppable force that was Killinger. Cate didn't bother as she stepped into the dim light of Jarod's desklamp that Killinger had relocated to beside her.

"Hey," the younger woman said. She tossed a manila file folder with a slap onto the table and pulled up a chair to plunk both elbows on the table and lean her chin on folded hands. She ignored the mild pain from a handful of bruises she had gotten while on her tour.

Neither spoke for long minutes, though Ilsa did finally reach out with a weary sigh and draw the folder toward her to flip it open. Reading brought another frown to Killinger 's face. Cate waited quietly.

It was comfortable between them, this silence. Killinger was enough of a mentor to Cate with enough of genuine affection for their relationship to become almost familial. It was why Cate was willing to come bearing gifts in the middle of the night and wait patiently to try and smooth that worried frown from Killinger’s face.

"What do you think of this?" Killinger asked quietly.

Cate shrugged. She hadn’t formed an opinion yet of the thin sheet of information she had nearly paid her life and limb to retrieve. It was enough to wrangle her way into a vigilante kingdom and locate some kind of evidence of a cyberpath tampering with city systems.

Medical wards were tied together by their own computer system. Law enforcement systems within the city mostly talked to each other due to treaty law, though not all. Transportation was locked down by the Thoroughfares but also talked to medical systems and law enforcement tracking. It would take a tracer to start pulling the hijinks that had begun to turn up, but what Cate had found were a cyberpath maintaining that work and an energist maintaining the cyberpath in a basement in the Silent Kingdom. Little surprise on location. Silent Kingdom was the one kingdom within the city where vigilantism was permitted but traditional law enforcement bodies were not.

But Killinger was patient. She waited until Cate was willing to venture, “The tracer’s probably not a cyberpath.”