record_id: 2c0f8b3e-f83d-8113-be43-f995157e1213
created_time: 2025-12-05T18:30:00.000Z
title: 12-04 Interview: Technical Tile/Coping Specs, Legislative Oversight of Walz Appointees, Phobos Operations Ethics, and Historical Warfare Insights
source_url: /

[TRANSCRIPTION]
Speaker 1 00:03:59
No.
Speaker 1 00:05:30
Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:08:12
Corey sent a long message.
Speaker 2 00:09:11
Yes, comma, that is correct.
Speaker 2 00:10:20
Face of tile and fittings will be 3 quarter inch back from the coping will overhang the.
Speaker 1 00:12:18
Corey liked your message.
Speaker 3 00:14:14
And I would say he's a very knowledgeable guy. I would rely on his estimation of what's going on here. So is there anyone in the state legislature who has raised a question about Governor Walz's appointees who are supposed to be supervising this program? That's certainly been the case among several Republican legislators. And Governor Walz is up for it. He's running for a third term in office next year.
Speaker 3 00:14:45
He's announced that he's going to seek a Rooseveltian third term because he's just that great. And a number of the Republican legislators are House Speaker Lisa Damon and House Chairman of a new broad committee that Speaker Damon set up. Kristen Robbins have been hammering this broad issue for a while. Just about everything Governor Walz said about it.
Speaker 3 00:15:15
Because the Rufo Thorpe column kind of highlighted, I think, somewhat misleadingly a terrorism element. These aren't terrorism cases, they're really theft, fraud cases, in my view.
Speaker 1 00:15:28
Hola, soy Ana. Bienvenido al equipo.
Speaker 4 00:16:17
Hola, Ana. Yo soy Carlos. Estoy feliz de trabajar aquí.
Speaker 5 00:17:10
Hola, Carlos. Bienvenido al equipo. Espero que te guste trabajar aquí.
Speaker 6 00:18:36
Hola, soy Ana. Bienvenida al equipo. Es un placer conocerte.
Speaker 4 00:19:39
Hola, Ana. Soy Juan, tu nuevo compañero. Mucho gusto.
Speaker 5 00:20:05
Hola, Juan. Soy Ana. Encantada de conocerte.
Speaker 4 00:20:38
Hola Ana, mucho gusto. Bienvenido a la oficina. Soy Carlos.
Speaker 7 00:21:48
Hola, mucho gusto en conocerte. Soy el nuevo miembro del equipo.
Speaker 1 00:22:48
Hola mi nombre es Brayden. Mucho gusto Brayden. Yo me llamo Juan. Mucho gusto Juan. Bienvenido al equipo. Muchas gracias Brayden. Estoy muy contento de estar aquí.
Speaker 1 00:23:52
¿Cómo estás. 
Speaker 7 00:24:01
Estoy bien, gracias. Y bienvenido tú también al equipo. Si necesitas algo, no dudes en preguntar. Ya casi me voy a casa, pero nos vemos mañana.
Speaker 1 00:25:10
Janna loved your message.
Speaker 4 00:27:02
Hola Ana, necesito ayuda con este reporte. ¿Puedes ayudarme por favor. 
Speaker 6 00:27:33
Claro Ana, no hay problema. Muchas gracias por preguntar.
Speaker 5 00:28:03
I have a problem. Can you help me with this, please. 
Speaker 1 00:30:24
Hit you. 
Speaker 8 00:32:40
One by one, they unlatch from the bed, wring her legs, her arms. You're dumber than you look, she says. Mend your spine, give you your legs back if you want. I know she's not. I know she's more than that. But I also know better than anyone that wounds aren't healed in a day. I'm barely stitched together myself, and I have my entire family here. If that is what you want, that is what I owe you. In three days, the carver who made me into a gull will be here. He'll make us what we were. We'll mend your spine, give you your legs back if you want. She squints at me. And you trust me? After what trust has cost you? I take the magnetic key, given to me by the sun's outside, and press it to the inside of her cuffs.
Speaker 8 00:33:11
One by one, they unlatch from the bed, wring her legs, her arms. You're dumber than you look, she says. You might not believe in our rebellion, but I saw Tactus change before his future was robbed from me. I've seen Ragnar forget his bonds and reach for what he wants in this world. I've seen Severo become a man. I've seen myself change. I truly do believe we choose who we want to be in this life. It isn't preordained. You taught me loyalty, more than Mustang, more than Rogue. And because of that, I believe in you, Victor. As much as I've ever believed in anyone, I hold out my hand. be my family and i will never forsake you i will never lie to you i will be your brother as long as you live startled by the emotion in my voice.
Speaker 8 00:33:43
the cold woman stares up at me those defenses she erected forgotten now, in another life we might have been a pair i had that fire i feel for mustang but not in this life victor does not soften does not crumble to tears, there's still rage inside still raw hate and so much betrayal and frustration and loss coiled around her icy heart in this moment she is free of it all in this moment she reaches suddenly up to grasp my hand and i feel the hope flickering me welcome to the sons of aries, part two rage escalates several albach chapter 13 howlers it's.
Speaker 8 00:34:19
gory down frustrating in captain the dark victor mutters she helps me rack the weights on the bench press the sound echoes through the stone gymnasium it's bare bones in here metal weights rubber tires ropes and months of my sweat, don't they know who you are i say sitting up oh shut up didn't you found the howlers don't you have any say over how they treat us. to grip the barbell. I take a few weights off, but she glares at me, and I put them back on as she fixes her grip. Technically, no, I say. Oh, but seriously, what's a girl got to do to get a wolf cloak? Her powerful arms thrust the bar up off from its rack, moving it up and down as she talks. Nearly 300 kilos. I shot a legate in the head two missions ago. A legate! I've seen your howlers.
Speaker 8 00:34:54
Aside from Ragnar, they're tiny. They need more heavies if they want to, take on Aegis's bone riders or the Sovereign's Victorians. She grits her teeth as she finishes her last repetition, racking the bar without my help, and standing to point to herself in the mirror. Hers is a powerful mechonic form, shoulders broad and swaying with a haughty walk. I'm a perfect physical specimen, on and off my feet, not using me as an indictment on server's intelligence. I roll my eyes. It's probably your lack of self-confidence he's worried about. She throws a towel at me. You're as annoying as he is. Swear to Jove, if he says one more thing about my nascent poverty, I'm going to cut his head off with a gory damn spoon. I watch her for a moment, trying not to laugh. What, you have something to say as.
Speaker 8 00:35:26
well? Not a thing, my good lady, I say, holding up my hands. Her eyes linger on them instinctively. So what's next? our second home since Mickey carved us. It was weeks of recovery in this ward, as our nerves remembered how to walk, and both of us tried to put on weight again under the supervision of Dr. Verony. A gaggle of reds and a green watch us from the corner of the gym. Even after two months, the novelty hasn't worn off seeing how much two chemically and genetically enhanced pillars scarred can lift. Ragnar came in to embarrass us a couple weeks back. Ruth didn't even say a word, just started piling weights onto a barbell till no more would fit, power cleaned it, and then gestured for us to do the same. Nature couldn't even get the weight off the ground. I got as far as my knees. Then we had to listen to the hundred idiots who flocked after him,
Speaker 8 00:35:58
chant his name for an hour. Found out afterward Uncle Merrill had been overseeing bets on how much more Ragnar could lift than I. Even my own uncle bet against me. But it's a good sign, even if the others don't think of it this way. Gold can't win everything. It was with Mickey and Dr. Verony's help that Victor and I regained control of our bodies. But regaining our sense in the field has taken just as long. We started with baby steps. Our first mission out together was a supply run with Holiday and a dozen bodyguards, not for the supply run itself, but for me. We didn't do it with the handlers. Gotta work your way up to the A squad, Reek. Make sure you can keep up, Cedro said, patting my face. And Julia has to prove herself. She slapped his hand when he tried to, Ten supply runs, two sabotage missions, and three assassinations later,
Speaker 8 00:36:30
Isadora was finally convinced that Holiday, Victor, and I were ready to run with the B-Squad. The pit fibers, led by my own Uncle Nero, who's become a bit of a cult hero to the Reds here. Ragnar's a godlike creature, but my uncle is just a rough old man who drinks too much, smokes too much, and is uncommonly good at war. His pit fibers are a monthly collection of hard-asses specializing in sabotage and theory. About half are ex-Helldivers, the rest are a spattering of other useful low-colors. We've completed three missions with them, destroying a barracks and several Legion communications installations. I can't shake the feeling we're a snake eating our own tail. Every bombing is twisted by the society media. Every pinprick of damage we do seems only to bring more Legions from Egea to the mines, or the smaller cities of Mars. I feel hunted. Worse, I feel like a terrorist.
Speaker 8 00:37:03
I've only ever felt this way once before, and that was with a bomb on my chest, walking into the gallows. Dancer and Theodora have been pressing Severo to reach out to more allies, trying to bridge the gap between the Suns and other factions. Reluctantly, Severo agreed. So, earlier this week, the pit fibers and I were dispatched from the tunnels to the northern continent of Arabia Terra, where the Red Legion had carved themselves a stronghold in the port city of Ismenya. It was Dancer's hope I could bring them into the fold, in a way Severa hadn't been able to. Maybe pull them away from Harmony's influence. But instead of finding allies, we found a mass grave. A grey, bombed-out city shelled from orbit. I can still see that pale-blooded mass of bodies riding on the coastline. Crabs skipping over the corpses, making meals of the dead.
Speaker 8 00:37:34
There's a lone ribbon of smoke twirled and twirled up to the stars. The old, soundless echo of war. I'm haunted by the sight. But Victra seems to have moved past it as she plows through her workout. She's pushed it to that vast vault in the back of her mind where she compresses and locks away all the evil she's seen, all the pain she's felt. I wish I were more like her. I wish I felt less, and was less afraid. But as I recall that ribbon of smoke, all I can think is that it presages something worse. As if the universe is showing us a glimpse of the end we're rushing toward. It's late night, and the mirrors are fogged with condensation when we're done with our workout. We wash up in the showers, talking over the plastic dividers.
Speaker 8 00:38:05
Take it as a sign of progress, I say. Are these two speaking to you? No. Your mother hates me. She always hated me. Not a damn thing I can do about it. Well, you could try being more polite. I'm perfectly polite. Victra says an offence, turning off her shower and exiting the store. Eyes closed against the water, I finish shampooing my hair, expecting her to say more. She doesn't. So I finish rinsing the shampoo out and exit the store when I'm done. Before I see Victor naked on the floor, Hansen's legs hog-tied behind her back, a hood over her head. Something moves behind me. I whirl around, just in time to see a half-dozen ghost globes slipping through the steam. Then someone, inhumanly strong, slams into me from behind, wrapping her arms around mine, pinning them to my sides. I feel their breath on my neck.
Speaker 8 00:38:36
Terror screams through me. The Jackals found us. He snuck in. How? Golds! I shout. Golds! I am slick from the shower. The floor is slippery. I use it to my advantage, wriggling against my attacker's arms like an eel and lashing back with my head in his face. There's a grunt. I twist again. Feet slip. I fall, smacking my knee on the concrete floor. Scramble to my feet. Feel two attackers rushing me from the left. Cloaked. I duck under one, putting my shoulder into his knees. He catapults over my head and smashes through the plastic barriers that divide the shower behind me. I grab the other by the throat, blocking a punch and throw him into the ceiling. Another slams into me from the side, prying at my leg with his hands to take my balance. I go with it, jumping in the air, twisting my body in a cravat move that steals his sense of gravity and puts us both on the ground, his head between my thighs.
Speaker 8 00:39:07
All I need to do is twist and his neck breaks. But two more sets of hands are on me, thumping me in the face. More are on my legs. Ghost cloaks rippling in vapor. I'm screaming and thrashing and spitting, but there are too many. I'm the nasty, punching the tendons behind my knees so I can't kick, and the nerves in my shoulders so my arms feel heavy as lead. They shove a hood over my head and bind my hands behind my back. I lay there, motionless, terrified, panting. I'm the nasty, punching the tendons behind my knees so I can't kick, and the nerves in, Get them on their knees! An electronic voice growls. On their bloody damn knees! Bloody damn? Ah, shit! As I realize who it is, I let them lift me up to my knees. Foot is removed. The lights are out. Several dozen candles have been set on the shower floor, throwing shadows about the room.
Speaker 8 00:39:38
Pictures to my left. Eyes furious. Blood coming from her now crooked nose. Holiday has appeared to my right, fully clothed, but similarly bound. She is carried in by two black-clad figures and forced down on her knees. A big grin splits her face. Standing around this inner bathroom steam are ten demons with black painted faces, staring out from beneath the mouths of the wolf pelts that hang from their heads to their mid-thighs. Two lean against the wall, in pain from my rabid defense. Beneath the pelt of a bear, Ragnar towers beside several. The howlers have come for new recruits, and they look bloody terrifying. Greetings, you ugly little bastards! Several growls, removing the voice synthesizer. He stalks forward through the shadows to stand before it. It has come to my attention that you are abnormally devious, savage, and.
Speaker 8 00:40:11
generally malicious creatures gifted in the arts of murder, mayhem, and chaos. If I am mistaken, do say so now. Severo, you scared the shit out of us, Victor says. The hell is your problem? Do not profane this moment, Ragnar says menacingly. Victor spits. You broke my nose, you oaf! Technically I did, Severo says. He jerks his head to a lean howler with red sigils on his hands. Sleepy helped. You little dwarf! You were squirming, love, Pell says from somewhere among the howlers. Can't tell which she is, voice resounding off the walls. And if you keep talking, we'll just gag you and tickle you, Clown says, sinisterly. So, shh, Victor shakes her head but keeps her mouth shut.
Speaker 8 00:40:44
I'm trying not to laugh at the solemnity of the moment. Severo continues, pacing back and forth before us. You have been watched, and now you are wanted. If you accept our invitation to join our brotherhood, you must take an oath to be always faithful to your brothers and sisters. Never lie, never betray those under the cloak. All your sins, all your scars, all your enemies now belong to us. Our burden to share. Your loves, your family will become your second loves, your second family. We are your first. If you cannot abide this, if you cannot conscience this bond, say so now and you may leave. He waits, not even Victor says a word.
Speaker 8 00:41:14
Good. Now, as per the rules set forth in our sacred text, behold of a little black book with dog-eared pages and a white howling wolf-head on the front. You must be purged of your former oaths, and prove your worth before you can take our vows. He holds up his hands. So let the purge begin. The howlers pitch back their heads and howl like maniacs. What comes next is a blur of kaleidoscopic oddities. Music thumps from somewhere. We are kept on our knees, hands tied. The howlers rush forward. Bottles are brought to our lips, and we chug as they chant around some weird looping melody that several leads with bawdy aplomb. Ragnar roars with satisfaction when I finish the bottle they bring me. I almost puke then and there. The liquor burns, scouring my esophagus and belly.
Speaker 8 00:41:44
Victor's coughing behind me. Holiday just chugs on, and the howlers cheer as she finishes her bottle. We waver there as they surround Victor, chanting as she gasps and tries to finish the liquor. It splashes over her face. She coughs. Is that your best daughter of the sun? Ragnar bellows. Drink! Ragnar roars with delight when she finally finishes the swill, coughing and muttering curses. Ring forth the snakes and the cockroaches! He shouts. They chant like priests as Peddle wobbles forward with a bucket. They push us together so we surround the bucket, and, in the wavering light, can see the bottom of it wriggling with life. Thick, shiny cockroaches with hairy legs and wings crawl around a thick fibre. I reel back, terrified and drunk, as our buns are cut.
Speaker 8 00:42:15
Holiday's already reached inside and grabs the snake. She slams it on the floor till it dies. Dictor just stares at the grey. What the? Finish your bucket or get the box, Zebra says. What does that even mean? Finish the bucket or get the box, finish the bucket or get the box, they chant. Holiday takes a bite of the dead snake, tearing into it with her teeth. Yes, Ragnar bellows. She has the soul of a howler, yes. I'm so drunk I can barely see. I reach into the bucket, shivering as I feel the cockroaches crawl over my hand. I snatch one up and jam it into my mouth. It's still moving. I force my jaw to chew. I'm almost crying. Dictor is gagging at the sight of me. I swallow it down and grab her hand and force it into the bucket.
Speaker 8 00:42:47
She makes a sudden lurching movement and I'm too slow to realize what it means. Her vomit splashes onto my shoulder. I've got the smell of I can't hold my own in. Holiday chews on. Ragnar shouts her praises. By the time we finish the bucket, we're a huddled, pathetic mass of drunk, bugged and guts-covered filth. Zebra is saying something in front of us, keeps swaying back and forth. Maybe that's me. Is he talking? Someone shakes my shoulder from behind. It's Leslie. This is our sacred text, my little friend is saying. You will study this sacred text. Soon you will know this sacred text inside and out. But today, you need know only howler rule one. Never bow, Ragnar says.
Speaker 8 00:43:17
Never bow. The rest echo, and Clown steps forward with three wolf clubs. Like the fur of the wolves at the Institute, these pelts modulate to their environment and take on a dark hue in the candlelit room. He holds one out for Victor. They free her bonds, and she tries to stand, but can't. Evel reaches to help her up, but Victor ignores her hand, tries again, and tilts down to me. Then, Severo kneels beside her and extends a hand. Looking at it through sweat-soaked hair, Victor snorts out a laugh as she realizes what this is about. She takes his hand, and only with his help can she walk steadily enough to take her coat. Severo takes it from Clown and drapes it around her bare shoulders. Their eyes meet and linger for a moment before they move to the side,
Speaker 8 00:43:47
so holiday can be helped up by Pebble to gain her hope. Ragnar helps me, draping mine over my shoulders. Welcome, brother and sisters, to the howlers. Together the howlers pitch back their heads and let loose a mighty howl. I join them and find to my surprise that Victor does as well, hurling her head back in the darkness without reservations. Then suddenly the lights flare on. The howlers die as we look around in confusion. Dancer trudges into the shadows of Uncle Nero. Don't bloody enhance this, Nero asks, tying the cockroaches and the remains of the snake into the pot. The howlers look at the ludicrousness of one another awkwardly. We're performing a secret occult ritual, Severo said, and you are interrupting the subordinate. Right, Nero says. Nothing. A little disturbed.
Speaker 8 00:44:19
Sorry, sir. One of our pinks stole a datapad from a barn rider in the G.O. Dancer says, Severo, not amused by the display. We found out who he is. No shit, Severo says. Was I right? Oh, I asked wrongly. Who the hell are you talking about? The jackal's silent partner, Dancer says. Severo says, it's Quicksilver. You're right, Severo. Our agents say he's at his corporate headquarters in Phobos. They won't be for long. He's bound for Luna in two days. We won't be able to touch him there. So, Operation Black Market is a go, Severo says. It's a go. Dancer admits reluctantly. Severo pumps his fist in the air. Hell yeah! You heard the man howlers. Get scrubbed, get sober, get fed. We've got a silver to kidnap and an economy to crash.
Speaker 8 00:44:50
He looks at me with a wild grin on his face. It's gonna be a hell of a day. A hell of a day. Chapter 14. The Vampire Moon. Phobos means fear. In myth, he was the offspring of Aphrodite of Ares, a child of Loa. It's a fitting name for the larger of Mars' moons. Formed long before the age of man, when a meteorite struck Father Mars and flung debris into orbit, the oblong moon floated like a cast-off corpse, dead and abandoned for a billion years. Now it is the hive teeming with the parasitic life that pumps blood into the veins of the gold empire. Swarms of tiny, fat-bodied cargo ships rise from Mars' surface to funnel into the two huge, gray docks that encircle the moon. There, they transfer the bounty of Mars to the kilometer-long cosmos haulers that will bear the treasure along the great Julii Argos trade routes to the rim, or, more likely, to the core, where hungry Luna waits to be fed.
Speaker 8 00:45:28
The barren rock of Phobos has been carved hollow by man and wreathed with metal, with a radius of only 12 kilometers at its widest. The moon is ringed by two huge dockyards which run perpendicular to each other. They are dark metal and white glyphs and blinking red lights for docking ships. They slither with the movement of magnetic trams and cargo vessels. Beneath the dockyards, and at times rising around them in the form of spiked towers, is the hive, a jigsaw city, formed not by neoclassical gold ideals, but by raw economics without the confines of gravity. Six centuries' worth of buildings perforate Phobos. It is the largest pincushion man has ever built. the disparity of wealth between the inhabitants of the needles the tips of the buildings and the hollow inside the moon's rock orders on hilarious looks larger when you're not on the bridge of a.
Speaker 8 00:46:03
torch ship victor draws from behind me being disenfranchised is so damn tedious i feel her pain, the last time i saw phobos was before the lines ring then i had an armada at my back mustang and the jackal at my side and thousands of pillars scarred my command enough firepower to make a planet tremble now i'm smoking in the shadows and a rickety cargo hauler so old it doesn't even have an artificial gravity generator accompanied only by vitro a crew of three suns gas dollars and a time i'm taking orders not giving my tongue plays over the suicide tooth including my back right motor after the howler initiation all the howlers happen now better than being taken alive several seconds i have to agree with him still it feels strange in the aftermath of my escape the jackal.
Speaker 8 00:46:36
initiated an immediate moratorium on all flights leaving mars for orbit he suspected the suns would make a desperate bid to get me off planet fortunately several isn't a fool if he had been i'd like to be in the jackal's hands ultimately not even the arch governor of mars could ground all commerce for long and so his moratorium was short-lived but the shock waves that sent through the market were staggering billions of credits lost every minute the helium-3 did not flow, several found it rather inspiring, How much of it does Quicksilver own? I ask. Victor pulls herself beside me from the null gravity. Her jagged hair floats around her head like a white crown. It's been bleached and her eyes have been blackened with contacts. Easier for obsidians to move about the rougher ends of the moon than it would be without the disguise.
Speaker 8 00:47:07
And being one of the largest howlers, she hardly could pass for any other colour. Hard to guess, she says. Silver ownership is a tricky thing, in the end. The man has so many dummy corporations and off-grid bank accounts, I doubt even the sovereign knows how large his portfolio is. Or who is in it? If the rumour of him owning gold is true, they are. Victor shrugs. Rich tips her backward. He's got his fingers everywhere. One of the only men too rich to kill, according to Mother. Is he richer than she was? Then, you are. Were, she corrects, shakes her head. He knew better than that. There's a pause. But maybe. My eyes seek the silver winged heel icon that is stamped on the greatest of Phobos's towers.
Speaker 8 00:47:37
A three-kilometre-long double helix of steel and glass, tipped with a silver crescent. How many gold eyes look on it with jealousy? How many more must he own or bribe to protect him from, all the rest? Perhaps just one. Crucial to the Jackal's rise was his silent partner, a man who helped him secretly gain control of the media and telecommunications industries. For the longest time, I thought that partner was Dytra, or her mother, and he closed the loop in the garden. But it seems the Jackal's greatest ally is alive and prospering, for now. 30 million people, I whisper. Incredible. I can feel her eyes on me. You don't agree with Severo's plan, do you? My thumb picks at a wad of pink gum stuck to the rusted bulkhead.
Speaker 8 00:48:10
Kidnapping Quicksilver will get us intel and access to vast weapons factories, but Severo's play against the economy is more concerning. Severo kept the sons alive. I didn't, so I'll follow his lead. She eyes me skeptically. I wonder when you started believing Grits and Vision were the same thing. Oi, shitheads! Severo squawks over the commu in my ear. If you're done sightseeing or humping or whatever the hell you're doing, it's time to tuck in! Half an hour later, Dytra and I huddle together with the Howlers in one of the helium-3 containers stacked in the back of our transport. We can feel the ship reverberate beyond the container, as it links its magnetic coupling to the docks' ringed surface. Beyond the ship's hull, Oranges will be floating in mechanized suits, waiting to steer the weightless cargo containers on the magnetic trams.
Speaker 8 00:48:40
that will, in turn, take them onto the Cosmos Haulers, awaiting the journey to Jupiter. There, they will resupply Rogue's fleet in its war effort against Mustang and Moon Lords. But before the containers are transported, copper and gray inspectors will come to examine them. They'll be bribed by our blues into counting 49 containers instead of 50. Then an orange, bribed by our contact, will lose the container we're in. A common practice for the smuggling of illegal drugs or untaxed goods. You'll deposit it in a lower-level berth for machine parts, whereupon our son's contact will meet us and escort us to our safe house. At least that's the plan. But for now, we wait. Eventually gravity returns, signaling we're in the hangar. Our container settles on the floor with a thud. We steady ourselves against helium-free drums.
Speaker 8 00:49:11
Voices drift beyond the metal walls of the container. The hauler beeps as it decouples from us and returns out to the pulse fields to space. Then silence. I don't like it. My hands twist around the leather grip of my razor inside my jacket sleeve. I take a step forward toward the door. Nature follows. Several grabs my shoulder. We wait for the contact. We don't even know the man, I say. Dancer bows for him. He snaps his fingers at me to return to my place. We wait. I notice the others listening, so I nod and shut my mouth. It's ten minutes later that we hear a solitary pair of feet click against the deck outside. The lock thuds back on the container doors. The dim light seeps in as they part to reveal a clean-cut, goateed red with a toothpick in his mouth.
Speaker 8 00:49:44
Half a head shorter than Severo, he clicks his eyes over each of us in turn, one eyebrow climbing upward when he sees Ragnar, the other follows when he looks down the muzzle of Severo's scorcher. Somehow he doesn't step back. Man's got a spine in him. What can never die? Severo growls in his best obsidian accent. The fungus under Ares' sack. The man smiles and glances over his shoulder. Mine's lower than the nasty. We gotta move now. Borrow the stock from the syndicate. Except we don't really know about it, so unless you want to tangle with some professional uglies, we gotta box the jabber and odd luck. He clasps his hands. Now means now. Our contact goes by the name of.
Speaker 8 00:50:14
Rollo. Stringy and dry, with sparkling bright eyes, and an easy way with the women, even though he brings up his wife, the most beautiful woman who has apparently ever walked the surface of Mars, at least twice a minute. He also hasn't seen her in eight years. He spent that time on the hive, as a welder, on the space towers. Not technically a slave like the Reds in the mines, he and his are contract labor. Wage slaves who work 14 hour days, six days a week, suspended between the megalithic towers that puncture the hive, welding metal, and plainly never suffer a workplace injury. Get an injury? You can't earn. Can't earn? You don't eat. My foot for itself. I overhear Severus saying under his breath to Victor in the middle of the pack, as Rollo leads on. I rather like his goatee, Victor says.
Speaker 8 00:50:45
The blues call this place the Hive, Rollo's saying, as we head toward a graffiti-smeared tram in a derelict maintenance level. Smells like grease, rust, and old piss. Homeless vagrants festoon the floors of the shadowy metal halls. Twitching bundles of blankets and rags that Rollo sidesteps without looking, though his hand never leaves the warm plastic hilt of his scorcher. Might be to them. They got schools, homes here, little airhead communes, sects, to be technical, where they learn to fly and sync up with the computers. But let me learn you what this place really is. Just a grinder. Men come in, towers go whoop, he nods his head at the ground, meat goes out. The only signs of life from the vagrants on the floor are little gouts of breath that plume up from their lumpy rags, like steam from the cracks in a lava field.
Speaker 8 00:51:19
I shiver beneath my grey jacket and adjust the bag of gear over my shoulder. It's freezing on this level. Old insulation, probably. Petal blows a cloud of steam through her nostrils as she pushes one of our gear carts, looking sadly left and right at the vagrants. Less empathetic, Victor guides the cart from the front, nudging a vagrant out of the way with her boot. The man hisses and looks up at her, and up, and up, till he sees all 2.1 meters of annoyed killer. He skitters to the side, breathing through his teeth. Neither Ragnar nor Rollo seem to notice the cold. Sons of Ares wait for us on the run-down tram platform, and inside the tram itself. Most are red, but there's a good amount of oranges, and a green and blue in the mix.
Speaker 8 00:51:49
They cradle a markedly collection of old scorches, and strafe the other hallways that lead to the platform, with edgy eyes that can't help but jump our direction, and wonder just who the hell we are. I'm thankful more than ever for the obsidian contacts and prosthetics. Expecting trouble? Severo asks, eyeing the weapons in the sons' hands. Grey's been sweeping down here last couple months. Not hollow-ass tin-pots from the local precinct, but naughty bastards. Leadin' ears. Even some 13th mixed in with 10th and 5th. He lowers his voice. We had a nasty month. Where they shred us up real bloody damn bad. Took our headquarters in the hollows. Stook Syndicate, tough sons too. Haze to hunt their own. Most of us had to go to ground. Voiding in secondary safe houses. Main body of sons have been helping the red rebels on the station, obviously, but our.
Speaker 8 00:52:20
special ops hasn't flexed a muscle till today. We didn't want to take chances, you know? Ares said you lot got important business. Ares is wise, Severo says dismissively. And a drama queen, Victor has. At the door to the tram, Ragnar hesitates, eyes lingering on an anti-terrorism poster pasted onto a concrete support column in the tram's waiting area. See something, say something, it reads, showing a pale red with evil crimson eyes, and the stereotypical tattered dress of a miner sculpting near a door that says, Restricted Access. Can't see the rest, it's covered in rebel graffiti. But then I realize Ragnar's not looking at the poster. What an unman, I didn't even notice, was crumpled on the ground beneath it. His hood's up, left leg is an ancient mech replacement.
Speaker 8 00:52:52
A crusted brown bandage covers half his face. There's a puff, the release of pressurized gas, and the man leans back from us, shivering and smiling with perfectly black teeth. A plastic stim cartridge clatters to the floor. Tardust. Why do you not help these people? Ragnar asks. Help them with what? Rollo asks. He sees the empty on Ragnar's face and doesn't really know how to answer. Brother, we barely got enough for flesh and kin. No good sharing with that lot, you know. But that one is red. They are your family. Rollo frowns at the bare truth. Take the pity, Ragnar, Victor says. That syndicate cranky's puffing. Most of them would slit your throat for an afternoon high. They're empty flesh.
Speaker 8 00:53:23
Empty? What? I say, turning back to him. She's caught off guard by the sharpness of my tongue, but she's loath to back off, so she doubles down instinctively. Empty flesh, darling, she repeats. Part of being human is having dignity. They don't. They carved it out themselves. That was their choice, not girls. Even if it's easy to blame them for everything. So why should they deserve my pity? Because not everyone is you, or had your birth. She doesn't reply. Rollo clears his throat, skeptical now about our disguises. Ladies, write about the slitcher throw part. Most of them were imported laborers, like me. Not counting the wife, I've got plus three in New Thebes that I send money back to. But I can't go home till my contract's up. For four years left, these slags have given up on trying to get back.
Speaker 8 00:53:55
Four years? Four days, Victor asks, dubiously. You said you were already here eight. Gotta pay for my transit. She stares at him, quizzically. Company doesn't cover it. Should've read the fine print. Sure, it was my choice to come here. He nods to the vagrants. It was theirs, too. But when the only other choice is starving? He shrugs, as if we all know the answer. These slags just got unlucky on the job. Lost legs, arms. Company doesn't cover prosthetics, at least not decent ones. What about carvers? I ask. He scoffs. And who the hell do you know that can afford flesh work? I didn't even think of the cost. for. Here's a red, one of my own, more or less, but I don't even know what type of food is popular.
Speaker 8 00:54:27
in this culture. What company do you work for? Vitra asks. Why, Julio Industries, of course. I watch the metal jungle pass outside the dirty duraglass window as the tram pulls away from the station. Vitra sits down next to me, a troubled look on her face. But I'm a world away from her, my friends, lost in memory. I've been to the Hive before with Arch-Governor Augustus and Mustang. They brought the Lancers to meet with society economic ministers to discuss modernizing the moon's infrastructure. After the meetings, she and I snuck away to the moon's famous aquarium. I rented it out at absurd cost and arranged a meal and wine to be served to us in front of the orchid tank. Mustang always likes natural creatures more than carved ones. I've traded.
Speaker 8 00:54:57
50-year-old wines and pink valets for a grimmer world with rusting bones and rebel thugs. This is the real world, not the dream the gold's living. Today I feel the silent screams of a civilization that has been stepped on for hundreds of years. Our path skirts around the edges of the hollows, the center of the moon, where the latticework of caged slum apartments festers without gravity. To go there would risk falling into the middle of the Syndicate street war against the Sons of Ares. And to go any higher, into the mid-color levels, would be to risk society marines, and their security infrastructure, of cameras and holo-scanners. Instead, we pass through the hinterlands of maintenance levels between the holos and the needles, where reds and oranges keep the moon running. Our tram, driven by a Sons sympathizer, speeds through its stops.
Speaker 8 00:55:29
The faces of waiting workers blur together as we pass. The pastiche of eyes, which faces all gray. Not the color of metal, but the color of old ash in a campfire. Ash faces. Ash clothes. Ash lives. But as the tunnel swallows our tram, color erupts around us. Graffiti and years of rage bleeding out from the ribbed and cracking walls of its once gray throat. Profanity in fifteen dialects. Golds ripped open in a dozen dark ways. And to the right of a crude sketch of a reaper's scythe decapitating Octavia Aulun, is an image of Eo, hanging from the gallows, in digital paint. Air aflame. Break the chains written diagonally. It's a single glowing flower among the weeds of hate.
Speaker 8 00:56:02
A knot forms in my throat. Half an hour after we set out, our tram grinds to a halt outside a deserted low-color industrial home. The thousands of workers should diverge from their early morning commutes from the stacks to attend their functions. But now, it still has a cemetery. trash litters the metal floors hollow cans still flash with the society's news programs, a cop sits on a table in a cafe steam still rising off the top of the beverage, the suns have cleared the way only a few minutes before shows the extent of their influence here, when we leave life will return to the place but after we plant the bombs we've brought with us after we destroy the manufacturing what all the men and women we intend to help be just as unemployed as those poor creatures in the translation if work is their reason for being.
Speaker 8 00:56:34
what happens when we take it away might voice my concerns to several but he's a driven arrow as dogmatic as i once was and to question him aloud seems a betrayal of our friendship, he's always trusted me bluntly so am i the worst friend for having doubts in him we pass through several crab lifts into a garage for garbage disposal haulers also owned by julia industries i catch victor wiping dirt off the family crest on one of the doors the spirit sun is worn and faded a few dozen red and orange workers of the facility pretends not to notice our group as we file into one of the holder base inside at the base of two huge holders we find a small army of sons of aries, more than 600 they're not soldiers not like us most are men but there's a scattering of women.
Speaker 8 00:57:07
mostly younger reds and oranges forced to migrate here for work to feed mars side families, The weapons are shoddy. Some stand, others are seated, turning from conversations, to see our pack of obsidian killers stalking across the metal deck, carrying bags of gear and pushing two mysterious cards. A small sadness grows in me. Whatever they do, wherever they go, their lives will be stained by this day. If it were my duty to address them, I'd warn them of the burden they're taking on. The evil they'll be letting into their lives. I'd say it's nicer to hear about glorious victories in the war than to witness them. Than to feel the weird unreality of lying in bed every morning, knowing you've killed a man. Knowing a friend is gone. But I say nothing. My place now is beside Ragnar and Victor. Behind Severo, as he spits out his gum and stalks forward, giving me a wink and an elbow on the side, to stand in front of the small.
Speaker 8 00:57:43
army. His army. He's tiny for an obsidian male, but still scarred and tattooed and terrifying to this company of small-handed garbagemen and hunched tower welders. He tilts his head forward, eyes smoldering behind his black contacts. Wolf tattoos looking evil against his pale skin and the industrial light. Greetings, grease monkeys. His voice rumbles, low and predatory. You might be wondering why Ares has sent a pack of hardcore nasties like us to this tin shithole. The sons look to one another nervously. We aren't here to cuddle. We aren't here to inspire you or give long-ass speeches like the bloody damn Sovereign. He snaps his fingers. Peverland's clowns wheel the carts forward and unlatch the tops. The hinges squeal open to reveal mining explosives.
Speaker 8 00:58:15
We're here to blow shit up! He throws open his arms and cackles. Any questions? Chapter 15, The Hunt I float in the back of the trash collector with the howlers. It's dark. The night vision of my optics shows the garbage that orbits us in shadowy green. Banana peels, toy packaging, coffee grounds. It reneges a gagging sound over the calm as toilet paper sticks to a face. Her mask is a demon helm. Like mine, it's pupil-black and shaped subtly like a screaming demon face. Fitchner managed to steal them from Luna's armory for the Sons more than a year back. With them, we can see most spectrums, amplify sound, hear sounds. We can track one another's coordinates, access maps, and communicate silently. My friends around me are in all black.
Speaker 8 00:58:47
We wear no mechanized armor, only thin scarab skin over our bodies that will stop knives and occasional projectiles. We have no grav boots or pulse armor, nothing that will slow us, cause noise, or trip sensors. We wear oxygen tanks with air enough for 40 minutes. I finish adjusting Ragnar's harness and look to my datapad. The two reds crewing the old trash collector are giving us a countdown. When it reaches one, Sero says, Tap your sacks and pop your cloaks. The hunt is over. I activate my ghost cloak, and the world warps, distorted by the cloak. It's like looking through refracted, dirty water. And I already feel the battery pack heating up against my tailbone. The cloak's good for short bursts, but it burns up small batteries like the ones we pack, and needs time to cool and recharge. I grope for Severo and Victor's hands, managing to grasp them in time.
Speaker 8 00:59:19
The rest partner up as well. I don't remember feeling so frightened before the iron rain. Was I braver then? Maybe just more naive. All tight! We're in for some chop! Severo says. Popping top in three, two... I tighten my grip on his hand. One! The collector's door retracts silently, aiding us in the amber light of a holo-display screen on a nearby skyscraper. There's a burst of air, and my world spins as the trash collector injects its load of garbage from the back of its hold. We're like seeds, chap, thrown into the city. Spinning with debris through a kaleidoscope world of towers and advertisements. Hundreds of ships funneling along avenues. All a flashing, liquid blur. We continue to spin, head over heel, to mask our signatures.
Speaker 8 00:59:49
Over the calm, I hear the grassing of a blue traffic controller, annoyed at the spilled trash. Soon, there's a company copper on the line, threatening to fire the incompetent drivers. But it's what I don't hear that makes me smile. The police channels drone on their usual slant, reporting a syndicate airjacking the hive. A grisly murder in the ancient art museum near the park plaza. A data sensor robbery in the banking cluster. They haven't seen us amidst the debris. We slow our spin gradually, using small thrusters in our helmets. Bursts of air bring us to a steady drift, silent in the vacuum. We're on target. Along with the rest of the trash, we're about to impact on the side of the steel tower. Has to be a clean landing. Victor curses as we drift closer. Closer. My fingers tremble. Don't bounce.
Speaker 8 01:00:21
Release! The several orders. I pull my hands from his and Victor's, and the three of us impact jarringly against the steel. The trash around us bounds off the metal, cartwheeling backward at odd angles. The several and Victor's stick. Compliments of the magnets in their gloves, but a piece of debris impacting in front of me bounces off the steel and hits me in the thigh, altering my trajectory. Tipping me sideways, hands windmilling for a grip, which causes me to spin. My feet hit first and I bounce backward towards space, cursing. Several! A shout. Victor, get him! A hand grabs my foot, jerking me to a halt. I look down and see a warped invisible form grasping my leg. Victor. Carefully, she pulls my weightless body back to the wall so I can clamp my own magnets onto the steel. Spots race across my vision. The city is all around us.
Speaker 8 01:00:52
It's dreadful in its silence, in its colors, in its inhuman metal landscape. It feels more like an ancient alien artifact than a place for humans. Slow it down, Vitra's voice crackles in my helmet. Taro, you're hyperventilating. Breathe with me. In. Out. In. I force my lungs to breathe and sink with her. The spots soon fade. I open my eyes. Face inches from the steel. You shit your suit or something? Sabra asks. I'm good, I say. A little rusty. Ugh. Pun intended, I'm sure. Ragnar and the rest of the howlers land 30 meters beneath us on the wall. Pebble waves up to me. Got 300 meters to go. Let's climb, you pixies.
Speaker 8 01:01:24
Lights glow behind the glass of Quicksilver's double helix towers. Connecting the double helixes are nearly 200 levels of offices. I can make out shapes moving inside of computer terminals. I zoom in with my optics to watch the stock traders sitting in their offices, their assistants moving to and fro, analysts signaling furiously on holographic trading boards that communicate with the markets on Luna. Silvers, all. They remind me of industrious bees. Nicely missed the boys, Vitra says. Takes me a moment to realize she's not talking about the silvers. The last time she and I tried this tactic, Tactus and Roke were with us. We infiltrated Connors' flagship from vacuum as he refueled at an asteroid base during the Academy's mock war. We cut through his hull with aims of kidnapping him to eliminate his team. But it was a trap, and I narrowly escaped with the help of my friends.
Speaker 8 01:01:55
A broken arm might only reward for the gambit. it takes us five minutes to climb from our landing place to the peak of the tower where it becomes a large crescent we don't go hand over hand so climbing isn't the true time the magnets in our gloves are fluctuating positive and negative currents that allow us to roll up the side of the tower but we have wheels in our palms the toughest part of the ascent or descent or whatever you call it in the null graph is the crescent slope of the extreme height or end of the tower we have to cling to a narrow metal support beam that extends out among a ceiling of glass much like the stem of a leaf beneath our bellies and through the glass lies quicksilver's famous museum and above us just over the peak of quicksilver's tower hangs mars my planet seems larger than space larger than anything ever could be a world of billions of souls of designer oceans.
Speaker 8 01:02:28
mountains and more irritable acres of dry land than earth ever had it's nights on this side of the world and you could never know that millions of kilometers of tunnels wind through the bones of the planet that even as its surface glows with the lights of the thousand cities of mars there is a pulse unseen a tide that is rising but now it looks peaceful war a distant impossible thing i wonder what a poet would say in this moment what broke with something about the calm before the storm or a heartbeat among the deep but then there's a flash it startles me the spasm of light that clears white then erodes into devilish neon as a mushroom grows in the planet's blackness, Do you see that?
Speaker 8 01:02:58
I ask over the comms. Blinking away, the cigar burn, the distant detonation made in my vision. Our comms crackle with curses as the others turn to see. Shit! Severo murmurs. You thieves? No! Pebble answers. Farther north. That's the Aventine Peninsula. So it's probably Cyprian. Last intel said the Red Legion was moving toward the city. Then comes another flash. And the seven others hunker motionless on the crest of the building, watching as a second nuclear bomb detonates a thong's distance away from the first. Bloody damn! Is it also them? I ask. Severo! I don't know! Severo says impatiently. You don't know? Victor asks. How could he not know? I want to shout, but I grasp the answer because Dancer's words now haunt me. Severo's not running this war, he told me, weeks ago after another failed HALO mission.
Speaker 8 01:03:32
He's just a man pouring gas on the fire. Maybe I didn't understand how far gone this war is, how far-reaching the chaos has become. Could I have been wrong to trust him so blindly? I watch his expressionless mask. The skin of his armor drinks in the colors of the city around, reflecting nothing. An abyss for life. He turns slowly from the explosion and begins to climb again, already moving on. All our news has it, Pebble says. Fast! They say Red Legion used nukes against gold forces near Cyprian. At least that's the story. Bloody damn liars! Clown snaps. Another bait and switch. Where would Red Legion get nukes? Victor asks. How many would use them, if she had any? But I wager it was Gold using the bombs on Red Legion instead.
Speaker 8 01:04:03
Doesn't mean shit to us now. Lock it up, Severo says. Still got to do what we came to do. Get your asses in gear. Normally, we obey. When we reach our entry zone on the crescent of the Double Helix Tower, rehearsed routine takes over. I pull a small acid flask from the pack on Victor's back. Severo releases a nanocam, no larger than my fingernail, into the air, where it hovers above the glass, scanning for life inside the museum. There is none. Not a surprise at O300. He pulls out a pulse generator and waits for Pebble to finish her work on the dark pad. What's what, Pebble? He asks impatiently. Code's worked. I'm in the system, she says. Just have to find the right zone. There it is. Laser grid is... down. Thermal cams are... frozen.
Speaker 8 01:04:33
Heartbeat sensors are... off. Congratulations, everyone. We're officially ghosts. So long as no one manually pulls an alarm. Severo activates the pulse generator, and a faint iridescent bubble blooms around us, creating a seal, so that the vacuum of space doesn't invade the building with us. Would be a quick way to be discovered. I put a small suction cup on the center of the glass, then open the acid container and apply the foam to the window in a two-meter-by-two-meter box around the suction cup. The acid bubbles as it eats through the glass, creating an opening. With a small rush of air from the building into our pulse field, the glass pane pops up where Victor grabs it to keep it from flying into space. Rags first, Severo says. It's a hundred meters to the museum floor below. Ragnar clamps a repelling wind to the edge of the glass and clips his harness to the magnetic wire.
Speaker 8 01:05:05
Holding his razor out, he reactivates his ghost cloak and pushes through the hole. It's disturbing to the senses, seeing his near-invisible form accelerate down to the floor, gripped by the skyhook's artificial gravity, while I'm still floating. He looks at Demon, made of the heat that shimmers above the desert on a summer day. Clear. Severo follows. Break an arm, Victor says, pushing me into the hole after him. I float forward and feel myself gripped by gravity as I cross the boundary into the room. I slide down the wire, picking up speed. My stomach lurches at the sudden influx of weight, food sloshing around. I land hard on the ground, almost twisting my ankle as I pull up my silenced scorcher and search for contacts. The rest of the house stand behind me. We crouch back-to-back in the ground hall.
Speaker 8 01:05:35
The floor is grey marble. The length of the hall is impossible to gauge because it curves according to the crescent, bowing upward and out of sight, playing with gravity and giving me a sense of vertigo. Metal relics tower around us, old rockets from man's pioneer age. The coat of arms of the Lunar Company marks the hull of a grey probe near Ragnar. It looks decidedly like Octavia Arlunum's house crest. So this is what it's like to feel fat, Severo says with a grunt, as he takes a small jump in the heady gravity. Disgusting! Quicksilver's from Earth, Victor says, jacks it up even higher when he's negotiating with anyone from low-graph birthplaces. It's three times what I'm used to on Mars, eight times what they prefer on Iowa or Europa, but in rebuilding my body, Mickey jacked the simulators up to twice Earth's gravity.
Speaker 8 01:06:07
It's an unpleasant sensation, weighing nearly 800 pounds, but it works the muscle something horrible. We strip our oxygen tanks and stow them in the engine rim of an old space shuttle painted with the flag of pre-Empire America. So we're left with our small packs, scarab skin, demon helms and weapons. Severo pulls up Victor's crude maps of the tower's interior and asks Pebble if she's The cameras are off in the top two levels. Same with biometric readers. Can't pinpoint them like we planned. Off, I ask. Maybe he's having an orgy, a wanking orphan doesn't want his security to see. Severo grunts with a shrug. By the way, he's hiding something, so that's where we're headed. I cue Severo's personal lines so the others can't hear us. We can't wander around looking for him. If we're caught in the halls without leverage, we won't wander.
Speaker 8 01:06:39
He cuts me off before addressing the howlers. Cloaks on, ladies. Razors and silenced scorches. Pulse fists only if shit gets dirty. He ripples, transparent. Howlers on me. we swing from the museum into a maze of otherworldly hallways following several seed floors of black marble walls of glass 10 meter high ceilings made from pulse fields which look into aquariums where vibrant weeps of coral stretch like fungal tentacles reptilian mermaids one foot long with humanoid faces gray skin and skulls shaped like crowns swim through a kingdom of scalding blue and violent orange hateful little crow eyes glare down at us as they pass the walls are mooned glass and pulse with subtle alternating colors now heartbeats.
Speaker 8 01:07:10
of magenta soon ripping currents of cobalt silver it's dreamlike amidst the maze are little alcoves miniature art galleries showcasing works of contemporary dot holographs and 21st century pd ostentatious instead of the reserved neoclassical romanism so in vogue with fearless card be charging our battery packs to our ghost crooks we duck into a gallery where lurks a gaudy purple metallic dog shaped like a balloon animal victor sighs gory hell man's got the taste of a tabloid socialite ragnar cocks his head at the dog what is it art mitchell says supposedly the turn of condescension victor strikes intrigues me as does the building it pulses with part of it the.
Speaker 8 01:07:41
art the walls the mermaids also on the nose of what the carlos guard would expect of a newly moneyed, Quicksilver must know gold psychology intimately in order to have been allowed to grow so wealthy, so I wonder, is this extravagance, or something far more clever? A mask, so obvious and easy to accept that no one would ever think to look beneath it. Quicksilver, for all his reputation, has never been called stupid. So perhaps this tawdry dreamscape isn't for him. It's for his guests. Which makes me think something here is amiss, as we reach an unlit atrium with unpolished sandstone floors perforated by pink jasmine trees, and slink across the floor in a V-formation towards the set of double doors that leads to Quicksilver's bedroom suite.
Speaker 8 01:08:11
Cloaks deactivated so we can see better. Razors rigid and held out, metal drifting centimetres above the sandstone. This isn't a home, it's a stage, made to manipulate, sinister in the cold calculation with which it was constructed. I don't like it. A Quicksilver's frequency again. Something's wrong here. Where are the servants? The guards? Maybe he likes his privacy. I think it's a trap. A trap? Your head or your gut talking? My gut. He's quiet for a breath, and I wonder if he's speaking to someone else on the other line. Maybe he's speaking to all of them. What's your rec? Pull back. Assess the situation to see. Pull back! He snubs the question out. For all we know, they just dropped nukes on our people. We need this! I try to interrupt, but he steamrolls me.
Speaker 8 01:08:42
Shit! I've run thirteen ops just to get intel on this silvery arsehole. We leave now, that's all slack. They'll know we were here. We won't have this chance again. Here's the key to getting the jackal. You gotta trust me, Reap. Do you? I bite back a curse and cut the signal short. Not sure if I'm angry with him or with myself. Or because I know the jackal removed the spark that made me feel different. Every opinion I have, feeble and malleable to others. Because I know, deep down, beneath the intimidating scarab skin, beneath the demon mask, there's a callow little boy who cried because he was scared of being alone in the dark. Purple light suddenly floods the room as a luxury vessel cruises past the wall of windows at our backs. We hastily line up to either side of the door to put a silver suite, preparing to breach.
Speaker 8 01:09:12
I watch the vessel drift along through my black optics. Lights pulse on one of its decks, and several hundred pixies writhe to some metrurian club beat that's all the rage on far-off Luna, as if a war didn't wage on the planet beneath this moon, as if we didn't move to rupture their way of life. They'll drink champagne from Earth in clothes made on Venus, in ships fueled by Mars, and they'll laugh and consume and screw and face no consequences. So many little locusts. I feel sorry for them. Several's righteous wrath burning. SUFFERING ISN'T REAL TO THEM. WAR ISN'T REAL. IT'S JUST A THREE-LETTER WORD FOR OTHER PEOPLE THAT THEY SEE IN THE DIGITAL NEWSFEEDS. JUST A STREAM OF UNCOMFORTABLE IMAGES THEY SKIP PAST. A WHOLE BUSINESS OF WEAPONS AND ARMS AND SHIPS AND HIERARCHIES THEY DON'T EVEN NOTICE. ALL TO SHIELD THESE FOOLS FROM THE TRUE AGONY OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN. SOON, THEY'LL KNOW. AND ON THEIR DEATH BEDS, THEY'LL REMEMBER TONIGHT. WHO THEY WERE WITH. WHAT THEY WERE DOING WHEN THAT THREE-LETTER WORD GRIPPED THEM AND NEVER LET GO. THIS PLEASURE CRUISE. THIS IDIOTIC DECADENCE IS THE LAST GASP OF THE GOLDEN A.
Speaker 8 01:10:26
MIND IS ALIGNED WITH MINE. WHEN I WAS WITH HER, I DID NOT FEEL SO ALONE. SHE PROBABLY CHASTISED US FOR FOCUSING ON BREAKING A LOT OF THAT GOLD. I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU. I'M NOT GOING TO, Why do I feel this way now? I'm surrounded by friends, striking at gold as I have always wished, yet something itches in the back of my brain, like eyes watching me. Whatever Severo says, something is wrong here. Not just in this building, but with his plan. Is this how I would have done it? How Fitchner would have done it? If it succeeds, what do we usher in after the dust has settled and the hedon no longer flows? A dark age. Severo is a force unto himself. His rage, a thing to move mountains. I was once like that, and look what that got me.
Speaker 8 01:10:58
Get his guards, scum the pinks, smash, grab, and go. Severo is sent to his house. My hands tighten on my blade. He gives the signal, and Ragnar and Victra slip through the doors. The rest of us follow. Into the dark. Chapter 16. Paramore. The lights are off. It's tomb silent. The front room empty. An electric green jellyfish floats in a tank on a table, casting weird shadows. We move through to the bedroom, smashing through the gold-filled agreed doors. I guard the door with pebble, crouching on a knee, silenced railgun cradled in my hands, sheathing my razor on my arm. Behind us, a man sleeps in a four-poster bed. Ragnar grabs him by the foot and jerks him out.
Speaker 8 01:11:28
Clad in expensive seatwear, he sprawls onto the floor, waking midair and screaming silently into Ragnar's hand. Shit, it's not him! Mitra says behind me. It's a pink! I glance back. Ragnar kneels over the pink, blocking him from my view. Severo hits the bedpost, cracking it. It's three in the morning! Where the hell is he? It is four p.m. market time on Luna, Mitra says. Maybe he's in his office. Ask the slave. Where is your master? Severo's mask makes his voice warble like a steel cable struck by an iron rod. I keep my eyes trained on the living room until the pink swimwear makes me look back. Severo's got his knee in the man's groin. Pretty pyjama, spoiler! Knowing the tone all too well, hearing it from the jackal as he tortured me in Atigan.
Speaker 8 01:11:60
Where is your master? Severo twists his knee. The pink wails in pain but still refuses to answer. The howlers watch the torture in silence, bent, faceless stains in the dark room. There's no discussion. No moral question at play. I know they've done this before. I feel dirty in the realization, in hearing the pink sobbing on the ground. This is more a part of war than trumpets or starships. Quiet, unremembered moments of cruelty. I don't know! He says. I don't know! The voice. I remember that voice from my past. I don't know! I rush from my post at the door and join Severo, pulling him off the pink, because I know the man and his gentle features. His long angular nose, rose quartz eyes, and dark honey skin.
Speaker 8 01:12:33
He is as responsible for making me what I am as Mickey ever was. It's Mateo, beautiful and fragile, now gasping on the ground, arm broken, bleeding from his mouth, holding his groin where Severo blew it. The hell's your damage? Severo snarls at me. I know him, I say. What? Taking advantage of my distraction and seeing nothing but the black demon visages of our helms, Mateo lunges for a datapad sitting on the bedstamp. Severo's faster, with a meaty thud, the hardest bone density in the species of man meets the softest. Severo's fist shatters Mateo's fragile jaw. He gags and falls convulsing to the floor, eyes rolling back into his head. I watch in a haze, the violence seeming unreal and yet so cold and primitive and easy. Just muscle and bone, moving the way it shouldn't.
Speaker 8 01:13:05
I find myself reaching for Mateo, falling over his twitching body, shoving Severo back. Don't touch him! Mateo's been knocked unconscious, mercifully. I can't tell if he has spinal damage or brain trauma. I touch the gentle curls of his now dusky hair. It has a blue sheen to it. His hands clutched tight like a child's, a slender silver band on his ring finger. Where has he been this whole time? Why is he here? I know him, I whisper. Ragnar's bending beside him, protectively, though there's nothing we can do here for Mateo. Clown tosses the dad about to Severo. Panic switch. What do you mean you know him? Severo asks. He's the son of Ares, I say in a daze. Or he was. He was one of my teachers before the Institute.
Speaker 8 01:13:37
He taught me oriot culture. Gory hell! Trueface mutters. Victor toes his wrist to where little flowers embellish his pink sigils. He's the rose of the garden, like Theodora. She glances to Ragnar. He cost as much as you, stained. You're sure it's the same man? Severo asks me. Course I'm bloody damn sure. His name is Mateo. Then why is he here? Ragnar asks. Doesn't look like a captive, Victor says. Those are expensive pyjamas. He's probably a paramour. Quicksilver's not known for celibacy, after all. He must have turnt, Severo says harshly. Or he was on assignment for your father, I say. Then why didn't he contact us? He's defected, and his Quicksilver has infiltrated the sons.
Speaker 8 01:14:07
Severo spins to look at Theodora. Shit! He could know about Tinos. He could know about this bloody damn raid. My mind races. Did Ares send Mateo here, or did Mateo leave the sinking ship? Maybe Mateo told them about me before Harmony did. It's a knife in the gut thinking that. I didn't know him long, but I cared for him. He was a kind person. There were a few of those left. Now look what we've done to him. We should get the hell out of here, Clown's saying. Not without Quicksilver, Severo replies. We don't know where Quicksilver is, I say. There's more to this. We have to wait for Mateo to wake up. Someone have a stim shot? Deus would kill him, Victor says. Pink circulatory system can't handle military crank. We don't have time for talking, Severo barks. Can't risk being pinned in here.
Speaker 8 01:14:37
We move now. I try to speak, but he rolls on, looking to Clown, who is using Mateo's datapad. Clown, what have you got? I've got a food request on the internal service kitchen subsection. Looks like someone has ordered a whole host of mutton and jam sandwiches and coffee to room C-19. Reaper, what do you think? Ragnar asks. It could be a trap, I say. We need to adjust. Victor laughs scornfully, cutting me off. Even if it is a trap, look who we're packing. We'll punch through that shit. Bloody damn right, Julii. Severo moves toward the door. Screwface, bring the pink and stone. Bangs out. Ragnar, Victor in front. Blood's coming.
Speaker 8 01:15:07
One level down, we meet our first security team. Alpha doesn't lurch us, standing in front of a large glass door that ripples like the surface of a pond. They wear black suits instead of military armor. Implants in the shape of silver heels stick out from the skin behind their left ears. There's more patrolling this level, but no servants. several grays in similar suits took a coffee cart into the room a few minutes earlier strange that they wouldn't use pinks or browns for delivering coffee security is tight so whoever is in quick service office must be important or at least very paranoid we're flying quick several sets leaning back around the hallway corner where we wait 30 meters from the group of grays neutralize those shitheads and reach fast like we don't know who's in there clown says there's only one way to find out several bucks go ragnar and victor go first around the corner those clothes pending the light.
Speaker 8 01:15:41
the rest of us follow at a dead sprint one of the grays squints down the hall at us the implanted thermal optics and his irises throb red as they activate and see the heat radiating from our battery packs ghost cloaks he shouts six sets of practiced hands flow to scorches far too late, ragnar and victor tear into them ragnar swings his razor cutting off one's arm and severing the jugular of another blood sprays over the glass walls victor fires her silenced scorcher magnetically hurled slugs slam into two heads i slide forward between falling bodies stick my razor through a man's ribcage feeling the pop and give of his heart i retract my blade into hip form to free it let it stiffen again back to my sling blade before the man drops, The greys haven't managed to fire a single shot, but one has pressed a button on his.
Speaker 8 01:16:13
data pad, and the deep throbbing sound of the tower's alarm echoes down the hall. The walls pulse red, signaling an emergency. Severo cuts the last man down. Reach the room! Now! He shouts. Something's wrong. I feel it in my gut that Vitra and Severo are propelling this forward, and Ragnar's kicking the door. Ever a slave to momentum, I plunge in after him. Quicksilver's conference room is less flamboyant than the rooms above. Its ceiling is ten meters high. Its walls are of digital glass that swells subtly with silver smoke. Two rows of marble pillars run parallel on either side of a giant onyx conference table, with a dead white tree rising from its center. At the far end of the room, a huge viewing window looks out at the industry up high.
Speaker 8 01:16:44
Regulus, Ag's son, hailed from Mercury to Pluto as Quicksilver, richest man under the sun, stands before the window, mooring a glass of red wine with a fleshy hand. He's four! Four-head wrinkled as a washboard.
Speaker 2 01:17:10
bathroom. How are you? I'm pretty good how are you so? I can't complain. It's good. It's good. Good. You always like my temperature so. Yeah? Good. Have a good one. Dude, I think you need to like. I have to hold on to this part.
Speaker 9 01:17:53
When you, when someone's going, when you hear someone in the bathroom go and you're outside the door of the bathroom, you're opening up the door to it and you're like yeah, no, walks right, walks right, turns around, goes back to the bathroom. so how do your day go well what was your day you have to steal a ball from a first grader so i stole the ball from him so can you watch a video today give me a little buffalo uh.
Speaker 1 01:18:35
what about my buffalo your low is recess.
Speaker 9 01:19:13
my fist fight so they put truth or truth and discovered and they truth or truth yes but you have to pick truth it's like truth or dare they asked what do you wear zero zero boy two boys, which honestly it might have i might have if i if i got asked it i might have said that because.
Speaker 9 01:19:51
honestly because she kept on taking aiden's hat which is you know him but you might but you might not keep on taking aiden's hat and throwing stuff into it into his face like dead leaves and dead. into his face, and keeps on taking his head off, I know that he's just been doing that to be annoying, and she got mad at him, then this girl, then this girl, they got mad at us, they got mad at us for going to see what's happening, but you live your life, this girl got mad at us for going to, for Aiden doing that, but you live your life, now you know not to mess with someone, not to mess with her,
Speaker 9 01:21:03
and if it does, if it hurts you that bad, well, you're going to have to deal with it, you hurt someone, you treat other people, How do you want it. 
Speaker 1 01:21:21
Makes sense, doesn't it? Can we watch a video. 
Speaker 9 01:21:35
I heard something dumb.
Speaker 2 01:21:37
It's just got a... It's just got some random stuff. Uh, you forgot your buffalo. Random thing. Random thing that happened.
Speaker 9 01:22:01
Oh. I sniked. I sniked Wesley.
Speaker 2 01:22:07
Wesley, with what. 
Speaker 9 01:22:42
Kicked a bouncy ball at him, almost hitting him in the head, but he's one of the people that I fan. So he ducked.
Speaker 1 01:23:00
The new iPhone 17 Pro? And she said she'd have been loyal, getting him Timothy's 15, huh. 
Speaker 5 01:23:06
Good call.
Speaker 3 01:23:07
We're going to get the iPhone.
Speaker 8 01:23:08
Get the all-new iPhone 17 Pro on us, the most powerful iPhone yet, most expensive plan not required.
Speaker 9 01:23:16
Tired of investing in influencers. 
Speaker 6 01:23:19
Sign up for Robinhood today.
Speaker 10 01:23:22
It's June 4th, 1942, at 6.16 in the morning, and high above the Pacific, 72 Japanese bombers and their fighter escorts mercilessly blast through the defending American aircraft and barrel on towards their target. It's an idyllic atoll, home to an important American air raid. Its defenders look up to see Japanese fighters and bombers swarming from above. Bursts of flak blossom.
Speaker 10 01:23:54
overhead, multiplying with each minute as the Americans rush to their stations and anti-aircraft guns open fire. Both sides know that the outcome of this battle will have far-reaching consequences. today the japanese attack midway bombs and bullets rain down on the island airbase tracers zip skywards and targets are decimated one by one the power plant the oil storage facility the seaplane hangar and then the hospital alongside warehouses and the marines command.
Speaker 10 01:24:29
post but the americans put up a fierce resistance bringing down at least five japanese aircraft and damaging many more despite causing great destruction the japanese failed to neutralize u.s air power with the american runways remaining intact from the cockpit of his spd dauntless dive bomber lieutenant richard housey best looks out across the blue expanse of the pacific ocean he's commanding a squadron of 15 dauntless bombers in another plane earl gallagher commands another.
Speaker 10 01:25:02
15 aircraft you, Both squadrons are part of a flight of 33 bombers led by Lieutenant Commander McCluskey. Thanks in part to the cracking of Japanese naval codes, American commanders are aware of some of the Japanese operation to attack Midway. The only way to stop the Japanese is to find and destroy their most powerful assets, the aircraft carriers known as the Kido Butai. The Japanese aim is to use these carriers to neutralize and capture Midway and then to use the island as a trap,
Speaker 10 01:25:38
luring in the last of the severely weakened American Pacific naval forces that have survived Pearl Harbor into a decisive battle. McCluskey leads the flight over the area he estimates Kido Butai to be, only to find an empty square of ocean. But that's not his only problem. He looks down at his controls to see his fuel levels are dangerously low. He presses on, determined that this flight will not be for nothing. He turns the formation to fly west, then to fly northwest, intending to conduct a standard box search.
Speaker 10 01:26:11
McCluskey grits his teeth, praying for a change in fortune. He spots a white streak in the ocean, the trail of a Japanese destroyer making at great speed. Its white wake paints an arrow in the blanket of the blue sea.
Speaker 1 01:26:25
I see them, boys. I finally see them.
Speaker 10 01:26:29
The ship is clearly trying to catch up to the Kilo Butai. Best, McCluskey, and Gallagher feel a surge of optimism, and McCluskey leads the flight north. As they draw closer, and the dark shapes fade to the clear outlines of Japanese aircraft carriers, they know they've found the Kilo Butai. But Best notices the impressive formation appears to be in some disarray. Far below its sea level, there are American planes already attacking the fleet. It's Len Massey's torpedo squadron from the Yorktown.
Speaker 10 01:27:00
Best then realizes it's a conclusion. The Kilo Butai's torpedo squadron from the Yorktown. disaster. The slow and vulnerable TBD devastators are no match for the defending Japanese Zeros and countless anti-aircraft guns. The TBDs are cut down mercilessly and what's left of them flies in disarray with every man for himself. High above McCluskey observes the four Japanese carriers. The southernmost and nearest is the giant Kaga. Two miles ahead of it and five to.
Speaker 10 01:27:32
seven miles to the right is the Akagi, flagship of the Kido Butai's commander, Admiral Nagumo. 14 miles beyond them is the Hiryu. Another six miles beyond her is the Soryu. Although the Japanese defense is impressive, the box formation of the Kido Butai has completely disintegrated. Each ship is several miles away from the next having maneuvered to avoid the American torpedo attack, crammed with planes still being rearmed and unable to take off.
Speaker 10 01:28:03
McCluskey's American dive bombers have the crucial element of surprise. Not only that, but unknown to any in McCluskey's group, another dive bomber squadron from Yorktown has arrived on scene at the same time by pure chance. Both squadrons are unaware of each other's presence, and if they did attack the same ship, it could be mid-air collisions.
Speaker 1 01:28:24
Earl, you and I take the carrier on the left. Beth, you take the carrier on the right.
Speaker 10 01:28:30
As luck would have it, McCluskey heads for the Kaga and Akagi, while the other squadron head for the distant Soryu. Although the Japanese are yet to spot the dive bombers, another problem threatens to throw away the advantage of surprise.
Speaker 3 01:28:45
Wade, I'm taking the left hand. Let's show them what we've got.
Speaker 10 01:28:49
Best doesn't hear McCluskey's command. Neither party hears each other. Both Best and McCluskey now prepare to dive on CAGA. Best prepares his squadron. They form an echelon, and the pilots prepare to dive by shifting to low blower and low cropped pitch, opening their canopies in case they need to bail out. Best has no idea that right above him, McCluskey and Gallagher are doing exactly the same thing. Danger mounts as the two squadrons are now on a path for collision.
Speaker 10 01:29:19
Best eases forward entering a dive, just as McCluskey and Gallagher's swarm of Dauntless barrel down in front of him, missing a catastrophic collision with him and his squadron by mere yards. Best reels backwards, stunned by the pure luck of his survival, but there's no time for him to truly digest what's just happened. He assumes McCuskey and Gallagher have decided to jump his target. Thinking quickly, he closes his flaps and waggles his ailerons to try and signal to the rest of his squadron to abort.
Speaker 10 01:29:50
He's too late. Ten of his pilots join the cascade of dive bombers. Only Best's two wingmen, Ed Kroger and Ensign Frederick Weber, are close enough to see his frantic signals and hold up. McCuskey, Earl Gallagher and 25 other Dauntlesses hurtle towards the Kaga. Lacking radar, the only warning the Japanese aboard the ship have is the thundering of planes as they turn their eyes skywards. The first three bombers miss, but the Kaga is plunged into chaos.
Speaker 10 01:30:27
as orders are screamed across the deck for the men to crank every gun skyward. Earl Gallagher grips his scythe, trained on the immense aircraft carrier. This has to be a hit! The ship's outline fills up his scythes as he gets closer and closer. He clenches his jaw and releases. The 500-pound, armor-piercing bomb hurtles towards the ship and flams squarely in the middle of the flight deck. Bomb after bomb find their marks in succession.
Speaker 10 01:30:58
The next comes for the Kagaz Bridge. It's obliterated by a direct hit, full of planes being rearmed and refueled. A chain reaction of catastrophic explosions rocks the ship. One carrier is down. From 12,000 feet above, Best watches the drama unfold. Single dive bombers from the American carrier Yorktown dive for another Japanese carrier, the Soryu.
Speaker 10 01:31:35
Hit after hit tears the Soryu apart, unleashing internal explosions that tear through the men and planes alike. The first two carriers are being pummeled at 4 or 5 second intervals, smoke pouring into the sky. Amidst the chaos, Best carefully plans his next move. With only two pilots having remained at his side, he leads the three-plane formation bank right, climbing back up to 14,000 feet, Best and his wingmen prepare to make an attack run on the Akagi, Admiral Nagumo's flagship.
Speaker 10 01:32:07
The Japanese are focused on the conflict at sea level, yet despite holding the advantage of surprise, Best is unsure of what he can do with just three planes. He can't divide them to attack at different angles with such a small number, and the dire fuel situation means he can't maneuver for a bow-on attack. Best and his wingmen must hit the ship across its relatively narrow 100 foot width rather than its 850 foot length. Even a small miscalculation could leave the bombs missing the hull. Memories.
Speaker 10 01:32:40
of Pearl Harbor are fresh in his mind. Best is determined to give the Japanese a taste of their own medicine. He makes a decision. Let's get them boys. On his signal the planes open their flaps and ease into a long dive. The calm and placid morning related thinking that it just felt like regular individual battle practice strength. As they near the ship Best puts his bombsight into the middle of the academy's flight deck. He watches one zero fighter taxi and take off.
Speaker 10 01:33:12
from the ship. He's determined to make it to last. Bombs soar towards the aircraft carrier, As one bomb hits the bow, the other near the stern, at 15,000 feet, Best wrenches the release lever and his bomb lands square, in the middle of the flight deck. As the plane levels, he can't resist to look back. A chain of explosions rocks the ship, igniting a flood of aviation fuel from carts and wrecked.
Speaker 10 01:33:45
planes. Under most circumstances, a big carrier like this could be expected to absorb all five bomb hits and still function, but Best's one bomb has just hit in the right place, at the right moment. The Akagi has been obliterated. Having descended to low altitude, Best and his two wingmen, through the carnage of zero fighters, who continue to target the hapless Devastator torpedo bombers. Best resists the urge to dogfight. His job is to bomb the aircraft carriers.
Speaker 10 01:34:18
As Best turns for home, leaving the devastated Kilo Batai behind him, he spots a black shape looming on the horizon. His heart races, and he speeds for home as fast as he can. Touching down on the Enterprise, Best sprints to the flag bridge to find Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, commander of the American task force. On his way, he comes face to face with McCluskey, who's just landed. Best notices that blood is running down McCluskey's arm, and stepping onto the deck. McCluskey has parts of five bullets in his arm and shoulder,
Speaker 10 01:34:50
and before he can hear Best's news, he's rushed off to the sickbay. Best makes it to the bridge, and quickly makes his case to Admiral Spruance. The best has to wait several hours before he can take off again. At 2.45 p.m., a report comes in. Admiral, we have their position. One carrier, two battleships, three heavy cruisers,
Speaker 10 01:35:21
four destroyers, course north, speed 20 knots. The enemy ships bear 278 degrees from task force 16. The Americans immediately scramble what they have. The force is a shadow of its former south. Just 27 SPDs are available, with McCluskey staying behind due to his injuries. Gallagher is now in charge, leading six SPDs, with Best leading four, and Lieutenant Dave Shumway in charge of 14 from Yorktown. Now it's 5 o'clock in the evening, they spot what remains of the Kibibutai on the darkening horizon.
Speaker 10 01:35:54
Gallagher orders Shumway leaving him and Vets 10 aircraft to take out the Hiryu, the last of the carriers. Although the Japanese have Zeros patrolling at altitude, it's only as Gallagher eases forward and plunges into a dive that they discover the Americans. For a second time today, the Japanese caught by surprise, yet the Hiryu's guns are in impressive resistance. Gallagher watches the fire from the anti-aircraft's muzzles light up both sides of the carrier as he fixes his bombsight,
Speaker 10 01:36:30
but just as he commits to his dive angle, the Hiryu turns sharply. She's surprisingly agile for a big ship and catches Gallagher off guard. He's already committed to the dive. He attempts to compensate by pulling up as he releases a bomb. The bomb misses. It's dark. and Gallagher wrenches his back, pulling out the hard jeeps. After witnessing the next two bombs also miss the ship, Shunwei decides to forget about the battleships and leads his squadron against the carrier of precision.
Speaker 10 01:37:04
But it throws the pilots into confusion, as Shunwei's group and Best's four-plane section both dive on the Hiryu at the same time. Once again, Best finds himself having to maneuver at the last moment while he's preparing to die. Turning to come in at a different angle gives the enemy Zero Fighters a second chance to attack and Best and his planes hold their turn. He looks to his side and sees bullets rake his wingman, Fred Weaver's aircraft. Best watches his friend hurtle towards the ocean.
Speaker 10 01:37:35
A wave of rage racing through him. He points his plane straight for the starboard bow. For the second time that day, Dick Best's bomb, Flams into a ship, striking her forward elevator and blowing part of it into Hiryu's small. Three more bombs strike in succession, all in the same area, creating a single massive crater in her flight deck. From high above, it looks as if a giant's hand has reached down and scooped out the Hiryu's bow section, leaving a gaping cavern in its wake.
Speaker 10 01:38:10
Like her sister ships, she's been wrecked beyond recovery. Dick Best prepares to return to the Enterprise in a bittersweet victory, mourning the loss of Weber and glancing down to survey the devastation in just a day.
Speaker 3 01:38:26
You've been injured in a car accident.
Speaker 10 01:38:29
Insurance company offer you eight grand for a rear-end crash. That ain't an offer, partner. That's a damn... It's the morning of the 7th of November, 1944, and 12 P-38 Lightnings soar high over Yugoslavia. Leading the flight is Colonel Clarence Theodore Edwinson. He spots a cloud of steam rising below. It's a German steam train, not the main target, but it's too juicy to pass up.
Speaker 3 01:38:54
Let's go get it, boys.
Speaker 10 01:38:55
Edwinson turns over and dies to the attack, his men following close behind. They pick up speed and lock the locomotive square in their sights. It's mid-1966 in Vietnam. Marine Corps snipers Carlos Hathcock and John Burke lay in wait in ambush in the jungle, covered head-to-toe in camouflage, all except for Carlos' signature, a signature which earned him a name that would go down in history. In Vietnamese, they called him Long Chang, the White. Bye-bye.
Speaker 10 01:39:26
before them to the left is their home base and to the right is a dense wall of vegetation they're on the hunt for a particular individual an nva sniper who has terrorized the base for days snatching the lives of marines right at the doorstep of their own bunks they call him you son of a what's the matter the cia thought you're pushing too many pencils get to the chuck phantom of the forest.
Speaker 10 01:40:06
claims another soul but they see where the shot came from set off on the hunt. they'll make this the cobra's last victim or they'll die trying, We need your help to keep the channel producing at this quality. So if you enjoy our films, please help by becoming a member, where you'll get VIP access to exclusive perks and me on the Discord. But if this summer you want to impress the kittens and stand out from the crowd,
Speaker 10 01:40:36
you need a stylish polo shirt. All are hot off this week. Over an hour later, Hathcock and Burke maneuver their way around torn trees and shattered branches. The entire forest had been shocked to hell with a tidal wave of lead crashing down every time an NVA sniper fired at the base. Amidst it all, a particular position catches Hathcock's attention. It doesn't look like much, but his experience can identify a firing position when he sees it. The grass and leaves are ever so slightly squashed by the weight of the man who once laid there.
Speaker 10 01:41:10
The view into the base was perfect, but most importantly, the position is right along a small ditch, carved by a stream of water that snakes down the hillside during the jungle's heavy rains. It's the perfect place to take cover from dozens of furious marines firing machine guns. He follows the ditch with his eyes. Along its length, he can see some mud left along the foliage, too high to be natural. Left behind by someone's dirty clothing, and small grooves of a man crawling along the jungle floor dot the ground.
Speaker 10 01:41:43
Turns to Burke and tells him, There's a trail going up. Let's go. They move carefully but deliberately, crouching, and silent like ghosts. The stream brings them deeper into the jungle, half-completing. They follow the trail for hours until dark forces them to button up for the night. The hunt enters its second day, the jungle is soaked after significant rain during the night, but nothing the two marines haven't tackled before. They have themselves a quick MRE and carry on.
Speaker 10 01:42:14
They push on for half the morning, but Anise starts gripping the white feather. This is supposed to be the NVA's brightest, they wouldn't leave a trail like this. He stops and eyes his surroundings with suspicion. He's here somewhere, waiting for them, waiting for him specifically. He turns to Burke and whispers his thoughts. They agree. No more crouching. From here on, they'll crawl. As the morning turns into afternoon, Hathcock peeks above the undergrowth, looking for the. 
Speaker 3 01:42:58
If you can't quit the P word, I'll let you know the scriptures tells us.
Speaker 10 01:43:31
Just be on the burrow.
Speaker 2 01:43:38
Hello. Eric and Ben, please. Thank you.
Speaker 10 01:43:44
What? A depression on the landscape. The cobra is bound to be on the other side. Crosshairs square on the track before them. He turns to burn. Let's go around. They leave the trail behind and sneak around the draw. They emerge at its end over an hour of careful crawling later, looking right down its length. They set up behind a rock with a ridge behind their backs. A fake burrow to the left.
Speaker 10 01:44:15
Cobra's hideout is somewhere to the right. Hathcock immediately notices an abnormally large amount of birds are gathering on the jungle floor, feasting on something. Hathcock lifts his binoculars and takes a closer look. Rice. The cobra had laid it down so that the sudden flight of birds would warn him of incoming danger. Clever. Seeing a chance to use his own tricks against him, Hathcock takes a stick from the dead tree besides him and throws it at the bird.
Speaker 10 01:44:46
The birds erupt, in fluttering and chirping, and then there's deathly silence. The entire jungle feels as if it stood still, not even the insects daring to make a noise. Hathcock waits, patiently, ready to fire, waiting for the cobra to come and check on his birds. But then Hathcock starts to notice a supremely faint wheezing, barely noticeable.
Speaker 11 01:45:17
He's going around because he doesn't want me to go.
Speaker 2 01:45:26
Well, let's not do this, okay? This is not how we act. How's your day. 
Speaker 11 01:45:44
It was good, but my hand is sore.
Speaker 1 01:45:54
Man.
Speaker 11 01:46:06
It was very boring today. There was nothing that we liked. It was very routine today. I've been really tired.
Speaker 2 01:46:45
So what happened to serving each other for dinner. 
Speaker 9 01:46:59
We just went gone.
Speaker 2 01:47:03
So why did I do that? huh how did i remember about it i think you guys are worse now, based on the last couple days so we're gonna reinstitute that and i want you guys to make.
Speaker 2 01:48:00
sure like if mommy starts doing something to serve you guys i want you guys to make sure that, she knows that you guys want to serve each other so i've got a thought in my head right now of. what should the punishment be for not obeying me in the serving each other thing and i'm.
Speaker 2 01:48:32
i'm giving grace because we had big bear so my thoughts are is that we probably don't want to. allow for mom to serve you guys which means you guys are gonna have to think a little bit about, oh look at that somebody's making dinner.
Speaker 2 01:49:09
Hey mom, do you mind letting me know when dinner's almost done? You know, whatever. There's not going to be any... I want you guys to be proactively engaged in it. Not, oh, you know, I didn't notice because I was sidetracked or because I forgot.
Speaker 2 01:49:40
You've got practice at 6.15. You're at 7, 7.30. So, I'm going to take you to leave at 6. I'll come back and I'll grab both of you and we'll leave at probably 6.50. We'll pick up Julio, we'll drop you guys off at Aldo, and then head down to Eric's Marriott, okay?
Speaker 2 01:50:19
Any questions? Other than Matty? No? Matty wants to see us do a sniper.
Speaker 10 01:50:38
Jungle. He looks to his right and realizes he's breathing. Concern grips him. He must have caught a cold during their sleep in the rain. If he sneezes or coughs, they're dead men. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, the cobra has crawled all the way around and behind them, hidden by the ridgeline. He can smell the Americans that close, but his clothes on a twig. The Marines' hearts skip a beat as they stare at each other.
Speaker 10 01:51:09
Behind us, in a rush, they run out of their position, fleeing downhill and crashing through all the vegetation. They run all the way down the slope and disappear into the thick undergrowth. On the other side of the ridge, the Cobra curses his wretched luck before carefully crawling over the peak and taking over the American's recently abandoned spot. He prepares his rifle, scanning the jungle floor, but there's nothing. Covered in the undergrowth, the two Marines gather themselves.
Speaker 10 01:51:40
They don't even bother peeking. They know where he is. Slowly, they start crawling uphill, hidden under the bushes and weeds, in search of a place to shoot from. Back on the ridge, the Cobra scans the area with his scope. When he sees the faintest bit of root piercing through the weeds, a small white speck. He smiles. He has some air. He relaxes his breath. Hathcock and Burke sneak over a log.
Speaker 10 01:52:12
Hathcock hears a rustle in the undergrowth. Is it birds or something else? His mind is on alert, and the white feather makes an uncharacteristic mistake. Usually supremely careful with every footfall, he's stepped on an old tree, which sinks slightly into the ground. The cobra makes his shot exactly at this moment, and the bullet flies right past Hathcock's head. The mistake saving his life. He checks himself. He's uninjured. He looks over to Burke, who has gone pale.
Speaker 10 01:52:44
Looking down, he sees he's gripping his canteen on his thigh. It's been blown out, and its water is soaking Burke's leg. But miraculously, there's no blood. Atop the ridge, the cobra hastily flees his firing spot. He escapes over the ridge and runs down the slope, disappearing into the bushes. Mark and Burke hear the Cobra make his escape and set off in pursuit. They climb up the slope and set up atop the ridge, looking down onto the other side. The White Feather searches the area with his rifle, while Burke helps in with the binoculars.
Speaker 10 01:53:22
Meanwhile, between the weeds, the Cobra spots the Marines from below and raises his rifle. Atop the ridge, the White Feather is scanning the area with his scope, when suddenly a flash shines from the undergrowth. A gunshot washes through the jungle.
Speaker 5 01:53:41
Yeah, no, actually I have four kids. Damn! Shut it down! My husband used to ejaculate prematurely until this. My hubby is ejaculating so fast and he gets so anxious. And the Cobra falls, lifeless.
Speaker 10 01:54:02
Later, while examining the body, Carlos Hathcock takes a closer look at Cobra's rifle and finds the glass of the scope destroyed, but not just at one end. Both lenses, front and the back, are shot out. The shot had been right down the length of the scope. You shot him through the scope. You saw the glint shut him right through. He was aiming straight at you. I just pulled the trigger first. The pair would separate and continue to fight across Vietnam.
Speaker 10 01:54:32
Corporal John Roland Burke would be killed in action in June the following year. Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Norman Hathcock would be brought back to the U.S. after his personnel carrier hit a landmine. He and other Marines who were riding on top of the vehicle were sprayed with flaming gasoline caused by the explosion. He pulled seven men to safety, making sure that no Marines were left behind. But he was burned severely in the process. He returned home with 93 confirmed kills to his name.
Speaker 1 01:55:07
So, get to work boys.

[AI_SUMMARY]
The document discusses various topics including technical specifications for tile and coping, political oversight regarding Governor Walz's appointees, and workplace introductions in Spanish. It highlights the importance of loyalty and identity within the context of rebellion on Phobos, detailing the initiation rituals of the Howlers and the moral complexities of their operations. Additionally, it covers historical warfare narratives, specifically the Battle of Midway and a Vietnam sniper encounter, illustrating the impact of individual decisions in warfare. The document concludes with reflections on the consequences of insurgent actions and the ethical dilemmas faced by the characters involved.