record_id: 2eef8b3e-f83d-8125-b485-e96086690ed6
created_time: 2026-01-20T14:40:00.000Z
title: 01-16 Briefing: Holiday Worksite Logistics, Equipment Maintenance, and Mixed Political/Media Segments
source_url: /

[TRANSCRIPTION]
Speaker 1 00:25:36
Thanks for watching!
Speaker 1 00:29:21
Rrrrr.
Speaker 2 00:30:06
Do you think you'll be able to get to the, Alex, do you think you'll be able to get to the dump today. 
Speaker 3 00:30:11
Yeah, um, yeah, so we're probably gonna start loading up the truck right now over there, and then after, I should have an attempt to go around and check the ground, and um, probably also the BC Pro. There. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:30:34
Do you need more points? Oh, I have one in my truck. I got one. I bought two when I gave you one. Because I knew that he'd need one soon. So, because he's like that. Since you're going that way, do you mind...
Speaker 3 00:31:54
Oh yeah, I know that. I'm not sure if it's the other one, but Brandon's just saying one thing. It's the wheels? Oh no, no, I think it's the other one.
Speaker 2 00:32:07
Fine, but it's, something's wrong with the, let me give you this, Brandon. No, it looks like it just needs to be greased or something. Looks like it might be rubbing here.
Speaker 3 00:32:34
Yeah, I see it. Yeah, the thing that the wheels are sitting on looks bent. It's so sore.
Speaker 2 00:32:46
Oh, from that roll thing? I did it again, so I took Wednesday off and did it again yesterday. It's a good sore, but it's just like, man, I haven't been sore like this. It's a live sore, you know, when I was working out all the time. Well, so here's my problem. I think a lot of it's the ADHD. Like, my brain will go much...
Speaker 2 00:33:24
So I get, like, the point where everybody's ready to give up, my brain goes, go. Yeah, go. So I'm always the one that somebody complains about. It's like, here we are, just going, and frickin' Braden starts running up the mountains, you know? But because... Dude, seriously, like you get, you'd be like 40 and everything's just like, oh, I hurt myself this, I hurt myself just looking at some chick, you know, like, but no, it's just, it's just, if you don't maintain that lifestyle, it's so difficult, you don't use it, you lose it, right, and then, so now I have to like underdo it, so I hate working out because it's like, I can't keep myself from making a mistake and going, you know, and I hate like,
Speaker 2 00:34:34
and I hate going slow, it's like, no, get it, you know, I didn't come here to just like go half speed. All right.
Speaker 1 00:34:49
yeah it'll stay here um what's that so um oh that's what i forgot it's um.
Speaker 2 00:35:29
if it's a suction and it's next to the cover, you're only going to suck whatever that depth is right but if you take them back you've got.
Speaker 2 00:36:60
Don't cut it. No, no, no. You cut the cover, right? The cover? The top? No, not that one yet. Because when they cut it, right. 
Speaker 3 00:37:28
Do you want me to cut it. 
Speaker 2 00:37:32
Not the... I don't cut it yet. The oil, right. 
Speaker 3 00:37:36
Yes, I need to put the laser. Okay. Put the laser in the center, like the cover, and then I'll mark the center.
Speaker 1 00:37:50
Let's see if I can do it.
Speaker 3 00:37:56
I'm going to cut these here. He hasn't marked that one, Pancho.
Speaker 1 00:39:47
Thank you.
Speaker 2 01:02:51
Okay, I went to the company of the pressure washer machine. So, send me a message, please, with what you need to do on Monday.
Speaker 3 01:03:33
Here I think, do you also want me to cut it. 
Speaker 1 01:03:40
Yes. Okay. I'm gonna head out. Do you think one more load? Or maybe one in my truck. 
Speaker 3 01:04:20
Yeah, one in your truck for sure. Just cause like the back of my truck's already packed. I'm gonna go figure out how to put, well, I'm gonna put these in. I'll just put some heavy bags on them. But yeah, for sure one more and then like if you were to take some of it, for sure.
Speaker 2 01:04:35
Okay. Now Monday's Martin Luther King. I don't think the dump will be open. Probably should have had you load up my truck.
Speaker 3 01:04:56
I'll go through there, try to get all the lighter bags, and then get a few heavy ones. I'll try to pack it up as much as I can.
Speaker 2 01:05:05
Don't go crazy on it. I mean, you know, so we'll dump open. It's like 8, right. 
Speaker 3 01:05:12
Like in the morning, it's like 7. Well, the one right there where I'm at, it opens at 7.
Speaker 2 01:05:18
Maybe what we can do is load it up before you leave on Monday and dump it first thing in the morning.
Speaker 3 01:05:27
Yeah, I could do that. Yeah, so.
Speaker 2 01:05:41
We can't work at 8th Street on Monday. Anywhere, really. Yeah, because of the holiday. Except for here because it's commercial, if you will. So, we'll be here on Monday.
Speaker 1 01:06:10
I'm gonna head out and go get our pressure washer fixed at large the Europeans screamed they protested and we were.
Speaker 4 01:06:52
Treated to endless news cycles about it's Donald Trump going to destroy NATO, Donald Trump against our allies. What was the net result? They're paying they're paying the five percent and it was a, you know it was a difficult process it was a contested process but at the end of the day nato was stronger for the donald trump's intervention than it was before i wouldn't be surprised that if the end of donald trump's second term nato is committed to defense there's.
Speaker 4 01:07:24
a much larger american presence here america has a greater role in greenland's economy and it has a secure foothold in it geopolitically and that will be the result despite all of the battling, and negotiations and crying just like we saw in the first term over defense spending overall now.
Speaker 5 01:07:43
by the time we talk again mac i know we'll be past the uh one year anniversary of donald trump's, second term so he's got first year done next tuesday uh who's the best communicator after the president and the vice president and secretary rubio they're one two and three in whatever order you want to go who communicates well on behalf of this administration.
Speaker 4 01:08:05
Well, I think Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt is a fantastic press secretary and an excellent communicator. I think you're looking at other cabinet members, Hugh. I think Secretary Duffy at Transportation has been very good, very effective. I mean, Secretary Hegseth has definitely achieved the goal that Donald Trump gave him at the outset of his second term, which is reinvigorate America's military. And so we see that because of Hegseth's personality and his dynamism, among other factors,
Speaker 4 01:08:37
recruitment has shot back up and the services are fulfilling their goals. And there's a real emphasis on war-making rather than identity politics and environmentalism at the Pentagon, like you've seen in Democratic administrations. So I think there's a wealth of talent in this cabinet. And let's not forget that Secretary Kennedy has an entire constituency all of his own. And the way in which they've introduced some of these diacritics, major reforms, I think has been well-received. in all quarters so there's definitely a lot of communicators uh in this administration but some.
Speaker 5 01:09:11
of them have been sent to the witness protection program peter navarro comes to mind yeah yes he's been disappeared and uh he puts out a column every now and then and i've known peter for 40 years so i i can see him i'm aware of him are there others who ought to go into the witness protection program who don't do health uh don't do good by the administration's messaging now on the cabinet.
Speaker 4 01:09:34
side i mean in addition to uh uh the the individual you mentioned of course uh the dni tulsi gabbard seems to be oh you're right many crucial decisions and i heard the joke in washington that dni now stands for do not invite so that might that might reflect the president's view of that of that personality uh within the cabinet well i think i think the biggest challenge facing the administration as it goes into its second term.
Speaker 4 01:10:04
is focus. Donald Trump called himself the upgrader in his interview with the New York Times. And I think it's a great way to think about what he's trying to do in his second term. He's trying to upgrade America. And that is not going to be easy. But when you ask American voters what they're most concerned about, it's the economy. And they really need to get to the point where their wages, not only outpacing inflation, which they've been doing under Trump this past year, those wage gains need to make up for all the ground we've lost during Biden.
Speaker 4 01:10:36
No, not there yet.
Speaker 5 01:10:37
Some controversies are self-selected. Not one of those is Senator Kelly and Secretary Hegseth. If I have, I know I had 20 minutes with the president, he didn't ask for my advice, but if he ever did ask for my advice, I'd say, take everything off the table except the economy and when you smash somebody up like you're on. Don't talk about Senator Kelly, don't talk about Democrats, and get the job done with ICE without talking about it. What would your advice be. 
Speaker 4 01:11:04
i think that's i think that's right i think that the government can really only accomplish one thing at a time but donald trump at his personality is everywhere all the time he doesn't stop i mean he's renovating the east he's rebuilding the east wing he's thinking of renovating the west wing he's repainted the trump kennedy center he's rebabing the department of defense to the department of war he closed the southern border he's ended the iranian nuclear.
Speaker 4 01:11:34
program which the iranian foreign minister admitted to our friend brett berry this week i'm sure you noticed that as well he is the very embodiment of an activist just like teddy roosevelt they need to focus on the economy that's just not in donald trump's pnx yeah if.
Speaker 5 01:11:50
we just get everyone else to focus on the economy and let the president set his own agenda that would be helpful for republicans i think matt connolly thank you stay tuned america.
Speaker 6 01:12:13
Newsmax, you like Newsmax, I like it too.
Speaker 7 01:12:16
Newsmax has been terrific. President Trump is right. Millions like you are tuning into Newsmax. You're watching Newsmax on cable. You're going to our streaming channel, Newsmax 2. And you're downloading our free Newsmax app on your smartphones and TVs. Reuters Institute says we're now one of the top news brands in the nation. Every night, watch great shows with Rob Schmidt, Carl Higby, Rob Finnerty, and more as they expose the big media lies. The Washington Swamp. And they're never afraid to talk about faith, freedom, and the values that made us great.
Speaker 7 01:12:50
Find out why Newsmax is great. The fastest-growing news channel in America. Make the switch today and join our news revolution. Get Newsmax on cable, on streaming, and download the free app today. It takes just seconds to start. Let President Trump know you stand with Newsmax. It's for real news, for real people. Make the switch today.
Speaker 8 01:13:12
Hey, guys, Jen Horne here. You know, President Trump tweets and the market falls, and that affects your retirement. But don't worry. Learn how central banks and governments protect their wealth with real gold. And why you should, too, by listening to the Allegiance Gold Show with host Alex Epkarian, Sundays at 3 p.m. You've heard Alex on my Monday morning gold report.
Speaker 2 01:13:34
LOL, comma. I almost sent you $2 for today's issue, comma, but didn't want to set a precedent.
Speaker 8 01:14:21
That said, comma, at the farmhouse wineries in Tuscany, immersing ourselves in sense.
Speaker 2 01:14:41
I'm not afraid of future side bets.
Speaker 8 01:14:58
Reserve your place now. Call conservative tours at 888-733-9494, 888-733-9494, or visit conservative tours. I'll see you at the Leaning Tower.
Speaker 6 01:15:12
AM 870. The answer. It's time to stop the decision. Come together. Welcome back, American.
Speaker 5 01:15:25
I did not do it because I had to get my hair cut because I'm on special report tonight. I always hear from people when my hair is disorderly, and so it was in danger of being arrested for disorderly conduct. That's how men, I think, generally get their hair cut, is that they actually notice it themselves, and so I notice it, and I go, that's awful. But I will be wearing the University of Sewing IU tie tonight on special report. Sent to me by Margaret, Old English spelling Margaret, from the University of Sewing, and I've lost her.
Speaker 5 01:15:59
Dwayne must have gotten her. Oh, here she is. I want to thank you again, Margaret. She is the UniversityofSewing.com lady. She sent me the IU tie. I'm going to wear it tonight, and I hope I don't jinx the Hoosiers because my friend Scott Phillips is out there, and I know this is the first time he's ever had a playoff in anything, actually, so I'm hoping for them. Bernina, made to create. Bernina Sewing Machines Accessory and Service. I'm not obliged to say that. I was not paid to say that, but I'm going to wear the tie that she sent me as a gift, and I hope they don't ask to see the IU emblem because it's bad.
Speaker 5 01:16:36
But I do take my relief factor because I am doing the long trundle tomorrow morning, and I want to make sure I have the relief factor in me. I carry in curcumin with virginal omega. Very easy to take. There are the four pills. done as it goes 1-800 the number four in the word relief 1-800-4-relief i'm in the relief factor studio i take it every day and if i can get the miles i want to do in tomorrow i'll tell you about it on monday and i'll tell you if i feel great which i expect i will because i took my relief factor uh you can too by calling 1-800 the number four in the word relief ask for the.
Speaker 5 01:17:08
starter pack 1995 three weeks less than a dollar a day or go to relieffactor.com relieffactor.com.
Speaker 2 01:17:14
the other sponsor today is consumer at what temperature does a pvc pipe begin to warp pvc.
Speaker 8 01:17:25
pipes will begin to warp at temperatures above 140 degrees fahrenheit this is from wikipedia.
Speaker 5 01:17:33
411-4454. It takes about 20 minutes to switch. It's not hard. It's a one-button touch, and you're talking to an American-based service center, a real live human being. Or you can go to ConsumerCellular.com slash you. By the way, whether you call or whether you go online, 1-800-411-4454 or ConsumerCellular.com slash you. Use my name, Hugh, H-U-G-H, that way. Wait, if you make the switch, whatever plan you pick, you'll get the second month for free.
Speaker 5 01:18:04
But I do want to tell you, if you're over 50, you definitely want to call because almost certainly you're paying too much for data, especially if you have an unlimited data plan. They will beat it, almost certainly. The unlimited data plan that they offer, two lines if you're over 50, two lines, unlimited data, $60 a month. Get your phone bill out, and you're going to say, really? Because you're going to find you're paying considerably more if you... .
Speaker 1 01:18:31
i'm going to need to place a bet with them first trust discord is not what we are moving for.
Speaker 9 01:19:14
Folks, you've heard me singing the praises of Dr. Simon about a successful treatment for snoring and sleep apnea. One of Dr. Simon's patients, Fred, suffered from snoring and waking up his wife during the night.
Speaker 10 01:19:25
What caught my attention was the waking up multiple times in the middle of the night and also the snoring. And since my wife says that I snore and I keep her up, then I decided to come in and met with the doctor. So what did my good friend Dr. Simon do for you? He gave me these two mouthpieces that I wear, one during the day and then one at night when I go to sleep. How long did it take for you and your wife to see improvement? After I started using it, within the first week, it really worked out great. My wife told me that it was already a big difference, and as time has progressed, it's just gotten better.
Speaker 9 01:19:56
As always, we say, happy wife, happy life. I urge you to call Dr. Simon. He has a non-surgical solution for snoring and sleep apnea. Call 892-SMILE. That's 892-SMILE. 892-SMILE. TMJExpert.com.
Speaker 8 01:20:14
Portions of the following are pre-recorded.
Speaker 6 01:20:18
AM 870, The Answer. Find us at am870theanswer.com. Download our apps and stream us 24-7 or watch us on snc.tv.
Speaker 11 01:20:34
As for news, I'm behind you in Washington. Venezuela's opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, has vowed she will lead the country when the time comes. She spoke today at the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 8 01:20:45
The only thing I want to assure the Venezuelan people is that Venezuela is going to be free.
Speaker 4 01:20:53
And that's going to be achieved with the support of the people of the United States and the President.
Speaker 11 01:20:60
And she spoke today at the Heritage Foundation just a day after she gave President Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal, calling it a recognition of his commitment to Venezuela's freedom. Breaking with the United States, Canada has reached a tariff reduction deal of its own with China. During a visit to Beijing, Canada's Prime Minister Carney announced that his country has agreed to cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products.
Speaker 11 01:21:30
This is SRN News.
Speaker 6 01:21:32
The Morning Answer with Jennifer Horn.
Speaker 8 01:21:35
You know, this is your show, so we want to do what you want to hear. So if there are topics that you want us to cover, maybe stories you want us to dig into, there's someone you want us to talk to, you just write us that little note. Okay? It just goes to TheMorningAnswer at SalemLA.com. TheMorningAnswerAtSalemLA.com. And then, of course, you can always get the link at AM870.infoAM5.
Speaker 6 01:21:57
The Morning Answer with Jennifer Horn. Weekdays starting at 6 a.m.
Speaker 12 01:22:04
Do you suffer from chronic back, neck, or joint pain? Larry Elder here. I know that pain. I tried to treat it many years ago with back surgery, which didn't work. I wish I had known about the high-tech treatment offered by Spynatomy Spine and Disc Centers. Folks, you have an advantage I didn't. A free Spynatomy seminar on back, neck, and joint pain treatment without surgery, dangerous meds, or frequent injections. You'll learn about the latest regenerative medicine and high-tech treatments from Dr. Bridget Rosenberg, the director of Spynatomy.
Speaker 12 01:22:35
The seminar is on Saturday, February 7th at their Van Nuys Clinic at 10 a.m. You will get expert insight from doctors.
Speaker 1 01:23:15
The person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone. When you have finished, please hang up or press the pound key for more options.
Speaker 2 01:23:29
Hi, darling. This is Brayden McLeish, birth date 7-11-80. I had scheduled a colonoscopy with you for the 22nd with Dr. Yoon. My wife told me that I did not do a good job in picking days and asked me if it was possible to change it to a Monday or a Friday for this. Would you mind calling me back at 714-794-9223 to let me know if this is possible?
Speaker 2 01:23:60
I'm not looking to push this thing out super far, so if we need to do it, then that's fine. But I told him I'd ask, and so I'm asking. Thank you.
Speaker 13 01:24:11
Neil Ascarati, host of Real Estate Radio L.A. every Saturday at 2 o'clock. Join me this Saturday when I'm going to be talking about the new laws affecting rent increases. And like always, how you can get a free weekly list of assumable loans. Can't wait till Saturday. Call me right now. 818-632-8006. That's 818-632-8006.
Speaker 6 01:24:33
Listen to Real Estate Radio L.A.
Speaker 14 01:24:36
Saturdays at 2 p.m. Oh, Volga says. Huh? A shiver as frigid winds sweeps down from the north and cuts through my... Where are we? Volga asks. The sun sets behind mountains to the west. An expanse of fjords stretches to the east and north out to sea. I don't know, I say. Maybe the Douglas Mountains? Or, I search the mountains to the west and see the triple peaks of the Hydra's Neck. I laugh in dismay. We're in the Sumerian Highlands, far north. These must be the Pyrrhian Fjords. I look south. A forest stretches across a misty land riddled with more fjords and jagged mounds of rock. Thousands of kilometers from here, the highlands take the way to endless plains and jungle belts.
Speaker 14 01:25:07
Samaria, you are a hoppy land riddled with mokadrasnik, pure, twilight sky. There's flashes in orbit that I see between the gaps. Where are we? Volga asks. The sun sets behind mountains to the west. An expanse of fjords stretches to the east and north like the sea. I don't know, I say. Maybe the Daedalus Mountains? Or, I search the mountains to the west and see the triple peaks of the hydrasnik. I laugh in dismay. We're in the Samarian highlands, far north. These must be the Pyrrhean fjords. I look south. A forest stretches across a misty land riddled with more fjords and jagged mounds of rock. Thousands of kilometers from here, the highlands taper away into endless plains and jungle belts.
Speaker 14 01:25:39
Samaria, you are home, Volga says. Home? A shiver as frigid wind sweeps down from the north and cuts through my thin jacket, easy as a knife. It is my planet. Yes, I've never even seen snow before, and not a single person I love breathes its air. They are scattered across the system, buried beneath its dirt. It is a lonely feeling, whilst there's nothing at all. You need something to wear, Baldi says, taking a step toward our ship. Her foot dislodges a rock, which rolls and clicks against another, which rolls against the ship's hull. There's a sigh of metal, and the ship tilts forward, losing its battle against gravity. With a groan, it slips over the edge of the fjord. Balgett and I watch it crash into the water far below.
Speaker 14 01:26:10
Scary, she mutters, and points toward the hillside where the back third of the ship lies in ruins. We would go over there. There may be supplies and people. Chapter 50. Lyria. Parasite. The Pandora is a hive of corridor fighting. A mass exodus flows through the ship. It isn't just Juliite soldiers on the Pandora. It is her entire household from Luna, which she was moving back to Mars. A miniature civilization of cooks, academics, researchers, accountants, and horse trainers floods to the escape pod levels. A watching wonder, as a dozen of the beasts are herded through the corridor by old obsidian women. Big's detour took us to her statement, where she grabbed a backpack and a more peculiar item, a glossy black load that contorts over the back of her neck to attach somewhat like a tick or a parasite. I've no idea what it is, but it makes her look like a hunchback. Volga stares at it in awe. Obviously, she's given up the pretense of Fig being our captive, if she had to have that.
Speaker 14 01:26:49
Can I have my pistol back now? Fig asks, as we go upward toward the bridge through a maintenance corridor. No, Volga says, it is ours, for damages. Take us keepers, Fig says, giving the pistol a longing glance. The closer we get to the bridge, the more sounds we hear. Twice, Fig saves us from running straight into one of the roving Ascomani, or whatever they are. We wait in the shadows of an armory amongst dead graves as a pack passes. When we hear them call to each other in joy, we know they've found their next victim. Fig motions us into the hall. It is empty. The gravity reverses as we run, growing lighter and lighter, until we reach a security door marked with radioactive symbols. Fig reaches for something on her belt, and pulls out a thin plastic container. Inside is a small gelatin disc. She inserts it into her eye. It expands, and turns her irises gold. A scanner appears in the door. Blue light flickers over her eye. The door opens.
Speaker 14 01:27:29
Red in a forger, Volga mutters. This is Julia's personal escape craft. Does it matter whose it is? Woman's got a plot with a baby yesterday and she's off fighting. Amelia. Volga takes hold of her collar and pushes her through the opening door. It dead-ends in a maintenance closet filled with cleaning robots. Welcome, Madam Barker, a nasty manly voice says, as Severo Albarka's face appears in a hologram. A reinforced door shields above us. Weapons appear on the walls. Expensive weapons. The Julia is personal stash. Volga looks like she's going to faint from joy. I don't want an escape craft, she says. Ha! I told you you'd need one. Now scurry home and we'll hunt whomever you pissed off together. He waves and disappears. The panel on the far side of the room slides back to reveal a dark tube.
Speaker 14 01:28:02
I shove Vulgar to make her stop drooling after the guns. No, no, no, Vulgar sets his big heads to the tube. I go first. What if the ship is already gone, and this leads out into space, I say. Let her go first. Or she could get in and shut us out, Vulgar says, thinking. Slag it. I dive into the tube. Its gravity seizes me immediately, hurling me up the chute. It toils a dozen times. My breath seizes in my chest. Metal whips past. My head grows heavy, then gravity slows. My stomach whirls at the new sensations. The chute's circular door opens, and I fall into a plush leather chair, safe and sound. That was one hell of a slide. I give a little whoop. I find myself in a lounge, and it is already occupied. More than a dozen heavily armed soul guards and several bloodied ghouls carrying heavy rifles turn to stare at me.
Speaker 14 01:28:35
And sitting directly across from me in a leather chair, in green metal armor with a weeping sun on the swollen abdomen, is Victra Albarca. She tilts her beautiful head at me in amusement, and then punches me in the face. reality returns in stuttering frames not again not again the cabin is spinning my stomach lurches sunlight rushes through a hole in the hull victor stands there holding on to the wall firing out the ship with a huge gun something punches 200 miniature holes in the hull people around me disappear in a red mist two tubes shoot out of my chair and jam into my nostrils vulgar whales somewhere behind me wind and light a great huge roar victor is gone whipped out the hole in the hull trees through the windows and a hiss as my chair swallows me up in a cocoon of darkness.
Speaker 15 01:29:08
all right hey hey braden um we're all done with the membrane seat we're gonna be here right now.
Speaker 2 01:29:22
okay so i don't know i don't know if you have any uh anything else in mind um can you take a couple photos for me gotcha i'll take a few right now cool thank you all right all right thanks bye.
Speaker 14 01:29:45
We hit the ground. Rolling, rolling, rolling. A metal spear pierces through the dark cocoon. It stops and I lash away from puncturing my eyeball. Silence. Oxygen comes through the tubes into my nose. Mulga, I'm Emma. Mulga! My arms are pinned to my body by the cocoon. My legs won't budge. I feel some sort of knob by my right hand. I jiggle it to see what it does. A great farting sound releases the liquid from the crash pod, and the darkness around me sags. Light pours in, and I forget to breathe. I'm dangling over the edge of a Martian fjord. The front of the ship is completely gone. In the day's last light, shards of it glint in the water hundreds of meters beneath. The rest of the ship is suspended above me at a straight vertical.
Speaker 14 01:30:16
It sways with the wind. Bits of body parts and fine china sprinkle down. Bloody damn! A cocoon that saved me, or some sort of black gel insulation from the chair itself. The outside of the cocoon looks like a pincushion. It is studded with three shards of metal the size of my legs, one mist piercing my heart by only a centimeter of insulation. A crash harness secures me to the seat and keeps me from falling into the fjord. I can't imagine Julia putting it on me. I reach over the crash pod and grip the armrest before unbuckling the harness. I lurch downward, but manage to pull myself up over the seat. The ship sighs on its rocky perch. The movement upsets a half-pulverized corpse, and it slides from the back of the ship toward me. I duck. It clips my shoulder and nearly takes me down with it.
Speaker 14 01:30:48
I wince from the pain in my mangled hands and move as carefully as I can. Remains of what were once humans litter the compartment. Volga? Volga? I feel like I'm looking for my sister amongst the corpses again. Looking for those blue shoes. Most of the crash pods are eviscerated by metal. Strangers fill them. I'm relieved to not find Victra's other daughters here. Were they on the Pandora? Is their mother now just a wreck of bones on the ground? I've no love for the Julii, but I grow nauseous all the same. I flinch, and another crash pod deflates with a hiss. This rigid gel becomes elastic, like a stick of black butter melting, and my friend's face emerges from it. Her eyes widened and terrified as she sees the fuel beneath.
Speaker 14 01:31:20
She ducks sideways, causing the ship to rock. Volga, don't move! We both freeze until the ship grows still again. Carefully, I pull my way over to her, and help her with the crash harness. It takes us nearly five minutes to climb up out of the cabin toward the hold on the end of the ship. Once we reach daylight, we're able to slide down a broken wing to the rocky ground below. Volga falls to her knees and kisses the frosted earth. No more ships, she stands. No more ships! Agreed. I mutter. The top of the fjord is littered with ship parts, and not just ours. The remains of several ripwings burn amongst coarse grass and frozen ponds. A fighter's cockpit has part of an armoured man hanging out. How did he get there? On a hill, at the edge of a forest, another section of our ship smoulders.
Speaker 14 01:31:52
Huge clouds consume most of the twilight sky. There's flashes in orbit that I see between the gaps. Where are we? Volga asks. The sun sets behind mountains to the west. An expanse of fjord stretches to the east and north out to sea. I don't know, I say. Maybe the Daedalus Mountains? Or... I search the mountains to the west, and see the triple peaks of the Hydra's Neck. I laugh in dismay. We're in the Cimmerian Highlands, far north. These must be the Pyrrhean Fjords. I look south. A forest stretches across a misty land riddled with more fjords, and jagged mounds of rock. Thousands of kilometres from here, the highlands taper away into endless plains and jungle belts. Samaria! You are home, Volga says.
Speaker 14 01:32:23
Home? A shiver as frigid winds sweeps down from the north and cuts through my thin jacket easy as a knife. It is my planet. Yes, I've never even seen snow before, and not a single person I love breathes its air. They are scattered across the system or buried beneath its dirt. It is a lonely feeling. Mars does not feel like home. You need something to wear, Volga says, taking a step toward our ship. Her foot dislodges a rock, which rolls and clicks against another, which rolls against the ship's hull. There's a sigh of metal, and the ship tilts forward, losing its battle against gravity. With a groan, it slips over the edge of the fjord. Volga and I watch it crash into the water far below. Scary, she mutters, and points toward the hillside where the back third of the ship.
Speaker 14 01:32:55
lies in ruins. We would go over there. There may be supplies and people who can help. I find, but only because I don't have a better idea. By the time we make it to the second crash site, night has come in full, and my July given shoes slosh with freezing water. I can see better in the gloom than Volga, so I lead. The inside of the ship is a slaughterhouse. Dozens of crash pods were skewered with hunks of bent metal. Blood leaks from them to form a soup on the floor that thickens as it cools. There's about squat all chance anyone lived through this. Still, seems the human thing to look for survivors. I check the back, as Volga checks the front of the ship. Each pod I open reveals a new scene to fill my nightmares. By the sixth corpse, I'm right numb, and starting to wonder how the hell civilization.
Speaker 14 01:33:26
plods on with all this going on behind the scenes. Is this what war is? It's so bloody, jarring. I always thought, by watching the hollows and the parades, that it was more sophisticated, organized. But it's just so blunt. Clumsy, even. Is this what my brothers see every day? Even if they come back, is this what's behind their eyes? I keep looking despite the dread, and find a treasure trove of emergency supplies. Medkits, thermals, water packs, survival boxes with a thermal stove and protein cubes. I stack these outside the ship after giving up on finding anyone alive. Then, toward the back of the wreckage, something moves. At first I think it's a rat. Then I see fingers, and realise they belong to someone in a half-deflated crash pod.
Speaker 14 01:33:57
I pull it open. The woman's face is pale. She is unwounded, except for the shard of metal that has nearly sliced her body in two. Big. Her eyes flutter open. The tracework of her white tattoos is clearly bright in the darkness. She doesn't recognise me. Big. I say quietly. I touch her hand. It's cold. Oi! Freelancer! Freelancer? She says. Thought I had more time. It's not fair. I had more to do. Big. Can you hear me? My hater. But hard to hold on to hate for someone who's in two pieces. Big. It's Lyria. The red. Her eyes come into focus. She's set in disappointment.
Speaker 14 01:34:28
You. Of course, I don't get a better air. She snorts. It should have been someone with some skill. A freelancer. Her eyes close. Yet the obsidian. Blur. Bubbles on her lips. Get the crow! Prowling, I call for Volga. She doesn't answer. I feel it unsinking. Moisture wicking off the tendril root. That's what she said. She's babbling. Fina before we give it up. I've been sad. Talking in the third person now. Bloody crow. She can use it. With that blue blood, she'll carve an empire. Just hang on. Help's coming. Idiot, I escaped. I was going to be the greatest freelancer who ever lived. Still, I have a bit of bone right at her mouth.
Speaker 14 01:34:58
Her mouth contorts. Eyes go all crazy. She screams into my face. I rear back, but her hands dig into my wrists with insane strength. She makes a hacking, vomiting sound like an old engine dying. Strain from her head. Renee said to the group, I uploaded the pictures on the app under waterproofing membrane. The body starts to seize and her mouth froths. A lump moves along her face, like a snail trapped beneath the surface. It goes from the top of her nose, swells her nostril, and then it bursts forth. It looks like a tiny metal squid with hundreds of hair-like arms tipped with little fibers. I scream as it springs at my face, but her hands won't let go.
Speaker 14 01:35:30
I thrash as the squid thing crawls over my eyes. Intense pressure in my nostril. It's clamming its way into my nasal passage. I struggle to breathe. Then there's pain unlike anything I've ever felt. A hundred needles between my brain and my nostril. A cascade of fire on every nerve ending. Raw pain down my spine. Spasms of light explode. Fig becomes a pulsing red thermal monster. Then she goes shock-white. I see her bones, her organs, her blood moving through the network of vessels like the map of Hyperion's tramlines. Even the food in her belly. A pulse thunders in my brain. Still Fig has not let me go. The pain comes again like a huge tidal wave and then it rolls back, leaving my brain leeched of sense. When it subsides, I shake in stupid horror.
Speaker 14 01:36:02
Fig's eyes roll back into her head. A voice comes from her mouth that belongs to no human. Oh, my mountain hyacinth, but shepherds trod upon you with clumsy, rustic foot. Now you are a broken seal, a scarlet stain upon the earth. Figmentum es, figmentum es. Baphomet's sister, you have killed Figment. You are Figment. Do not report for duty. A soft female voice says within my head, My wrath be thine. Then it is quiet, and Fig is dead. Chapter 51.
Speaker 14 01:36:32
Lyria, Jade Witch, Vulgar crutches over a man in the gloom, pumping at his chest. She gives up, sits back on her heels and looks at me in weariness. Lyria, what is it? I don't know. I shake my head, unable to find the words. Did it really happen? I'd think myself mad if my nostril wasn't all cut up and bloody. Is this squid-fee my brain? What does it mean that I'm the figment? What duty am I not to report for? How do I explain that a little monster just exploded out of Fig into my nostril? It's inside me. Whatever it is, it spoke to me. It's silent now. There's no pain. Just the sound of wind and the creaking of metal and huge trees all around us.
Speaker 14 01:37:03
The world itself feels evil. Fig's dead, I finally say. Impossible. I take her to Fig. Volga hunches over her body, feeling for the woman's pulse. She puts her ear to her heart, flicks her nose, pulls up her eyelids, slaps her. She is dead. Yeah, good thing you checked. Nothing is obvious with Fig. Before I can say anything, Volga takes a knife she must have found in the wreckage and sticks it into Fig's eye. What are you doing? Stop that, I say, shoving at her. Volga looks offended. Quicksilver put a huge bounty on Fig, she says, going back to her grisly work. She stole something from him, but the contract is her money. It requires ocular proof. She digs out the eyeball and sets to work on the other.
Speaker 14 01:37:34
Have you seen the aura she had, or the bag? I shake my head. Her piston? I don't reply. Sickened, I leave the ship and stand outside, touching the small gash Fig's metal squid thing opened under my nostril when it went into my nose. Quicksilver was hunting Fig. Why? Is it in the bag, the case? Or inside me? Would Volga cut it out of me if she knew I had it? Does she even know it exists? A dangerous customer, that's what Fig called Volga. She wasn't lying. Just because Volga helped me escape doesn't mean she's a friend. All those letters were just a way for her to pass the time. She's a right savage when there's money laying on the ground, or in someone's eye sockets. Volga soon joins me with Fig's bag over her shoulder, carrying Fig's black orb. It is just business, she says, not understanding my mood. She was already dead. I don't say anything, she tries to open the case.
Speaker 14 01:38:10
Finding the effort futile, she finds a pistol on one of the bodies and shoots the orb. The metal is left without a scratch. Volga frowns, but an unusual ringing fills the air, morphing over time until it seems the orb whispers to me. What's in there? I ask. I do not know. Maybe what she stole. It might be very valuable. Dozens are dead around us, and she's after something valuable.
Speaker 1 01:38:46
Hello? Hey.
Speaker 2 01:38:50
Yeah, I just looked at them. Did we end up sanding down the the cleaning off the stainless pipes? So how did we sand the PVC pipes for the M1?
Speaker 2 01:39:38
Gotcha. Okay. Are you already in your car. 
Speaker 15 01:39:44
Yeah, I'm in my car right now. Because I asked Brandon what else to do, what else is up to do. He's like, no, that's it. That's just going to be a day. So.
Speaker 2 01:39:53
Okay. Did you guys load everything up. 
Speaker 15 01:39:56
Everything's in the car. Except for the memory seat. We left the memory seat there for the part that I messed up.
Speaker 2 01:40:05
Okay. What'd you learn on that one. 
Speaker 15 01:40:07
Don't put the heat gun really close for a long time.
Speaker 2 01:40:10
Yeah. So at 140 degrees, I looked it up afterwards, 140 degrees. So it's actually not that much, right? So for instance, you know, you could stick your hand in 130 degrees and not burn. Or, you know what I mean? So, I mean, it's hot, right? Real hot. You couldn't stay in there long. But my point is, and it probably got up to be a little bit higher. So I'm going to have to figure out something to keep us from being able to do that.
Speaker 2 01:40:41
But at the same time. Would say never pointed directly at the pipe always like let the let it get indirect heat, you know So that the heat that's bouncing, Off of the concrete and going out is what we should let again. Right no, and that's where I was like, yeah.
Speaker 2 01:41:17
Yeah, but that the you know, all right I'm not I was I was more frustrated earlier. I'm not now, But I would also say when you're doing that just keep it moving too, right? So, Don't keep it on one spot and just keep it moving that way The heat doesn't build up, you know, yeah so all right man um i found out um so i forgot monday's martin luther king.
Speaker 2 01:41:56
okay so we can't do any we can't do any commercial stuff um meaning working for any gc so, um you know i'm gonna have that i'm gonna have um i think manny and alex show up to uh to rocky point um just because cory wants me to you know i was like dude we'll just work tuesday through saturday if the guys want saturday you know and he's he's like no i want rocky point off the books it's like well you know so what i'm but we might be able to use saturday if you guys.
Speaker 2 01:42:34
want to get your fifth day in we might be able to use saturday on on the back end yeah i'm good, So, so we'll keep on talking about that. But, um, I guess the plan right now is that, and we can't go to, and we can't go to, um, back to, back to Malibu on Monday. Cause the plumbers are going to be there installing those plates. So what we'll do is we'll go back on Monday, on Tuesday and, um, fill in those, those, uh, those pipes, um, those areas and whatnot. So we can detail those, we can fill them in so they can put the plates over that.
Speaker 2 01:43:16
So let's plan to be back in Malibu on Tuesday. Okay. So for Monday, for Monday, nada. Nada. Yeah. I mean, if I come up with something, um, Manny's going to give me like a, you know, a little checklist at the end of the day of what's left. but my guess is nada so it's not something i want i don't like you i don't ever like it.
Speaker 15 01:43:45
having you guys stay at home but um i think i'll let you know later on tomorrow if what.
Speaker 2 01:44:03
no do it do it look for something and um let me know thumbs up or whatever and then i won't i'll stop looking but because i'm 80 90 sure i got nothing on monday okay only because of the.
Speaker 15 01:44:21
holiday not because i don't have work yeah right yeah i'm okay okay yeah that's fine.
Speaker 2 01:44:35
and if i if something hits me you know i'll let you know as soon as i know too okay yeah there we.
Speaker 15 01:44:42
go cool sounds like a plan all right man thank you have a good weekend all right you too take it easy.
Speaker 14 01:44:47
all right i have to get away from this crash from these people i have to get back to leo there's a high-pitched humming sound in my head that i can't shake not the whispering of the orb something else, at first i thought it was hearing damage i did a finger in my ear to clear it if anything the humming grows louder it's not coming from my head it's coming from the forest you hear that i ask, shakes her head you're supposed to have predator ears you don't hear that at all she planted a.
Speaker 2 01:45:12
case with a knife maybe you hit your head i wonder i know he was trying to work something out. Period. Let me see if he has a permanent place now.
Speaker 14 01:46:24
the other side of the tree, Victra lies on her back, pushing at the tree trunk with both hands, it's trapped both her legs, the humming dies, took it, I find a fallen tree trunk, dove, there's vulgar calls after me, and dogs to keep up, it's all, she cried, it's not coming from my head, it's coming from the forest, you hit, at first I thought it was hearing damage, I dig a fit, people, I have to get back to Liam, there's valuable, dozens of dead around us, and she's after something valuable, to get away from her, I have to get away from this crash, from these people, I have to get back to Liam, there's a high pitched humming sound in my head that I can't shake, not the whispering of the oar, something.
Speaker 14 01:46:55
I dig a finger in my ear to clear it, if anything the humming grows louder, it's not coming from my head, it's coming from the forest, you hear that, vulgar shakes her head, you're supposed to have a predator, you don't hear that at all, she cries at the case with a knife, maybe you hit your head, the sound is coming from the forest, vulgar calls after me, and dogs to keep up as I start to follow it. The humming grows louder the deeper I go, and I can see a fake ripwing in the air, sort of like hot air above a stove. There's broken branches now, trees shattered high above our heads. A ripwing must have crashed here. Entering a shadowy thicket, where the trees have exploded from impact. I find a fallen tree trunk with a pair of green metal feet sticking out from under it.
Speaker 14 01:47:27
The humming is so loud I have to plug my ears. Thick! a woman calls. The humming dies. Took you long enough. Been calling for half a gory hour. On the other side of the tree, Victra lies on her back, pushing at the tree trunk with both hands. It's trapped both her legs under it. Had it fallen just a quarter meter higher, it would have crushed the baby in her belly. The trapped gold blares up at us from under a mess of short golden hair. Her eyes flash with anger. I jump back in fright so hard I smash into Volga and fall to the ground. When I scramble up, Victra is laughing. Just my gory luck. Severo's right. Cockroaches will inherit the worlds. Julii! Volga exclaims. It's Barker! God, can no one get it right? It makes him so sensitive! Where's Finn? Where are my men?
Speaker 14 01:47:58
I grab a tree branch from the ground, as if I'm going to hit her on the head with it. Then I see Victra's pulse fist a ways off in the snow. I rush to it, and insert my hand into the huge metal glove. Boom! It powers on, and I'm pointed at her head. The energy it holds shakes my arm. God, it's heavy. Go on, little girl. Vox, Syndicate, Atalantia, those freaks, everyone wants a piece of me. Take a bite. See if you don't choke. Lyria, don't. All this is stepping in my path. You can't shoot her. Move. This is not you. How the hell would you know? Because of a few letters. Lyria, I know. You do not want to shoot her. My arm is aching from holding the heavy pulse fist. She tortured you and me. Put us in a dungeon, right? Let's make sure.
Speaker 14 01:48:29
Victor laughs from the ground. Dungeon? You mean Elektra's playroom? We're just under one millimeter tall to her. I gave those rooms to Elektra when she turned four. She said our sophists were boring, and my mother did it to me. Look how I turned out. She makes a small face. Oh, there was Antonia. She wasn't there. Let me sort it out. Her smile is one part satisfaction, another part pride. Elektra solved the puzzle in thirteen days. No, me, of course. Far faster than her father. And a little secret between us girls. Part of me thinks she liked that a bit. The little pup. Amy, if I were really torturing you, you'd go mad. Just ask my husband. No fixed display makes sense. My fear about one millimeter tall.
Speaker 14 01:49:00
You saw what he did to us, Vox says. She yawns as steam from the melted snow clouds around her. God, you reds are dramatic. Volga takes the weapon from me. She is pregnant. I will not be evil. Evil, I snap. You just plucked out Fig's eyeballs. She was already dead. She did not need them. Figment's dead, Victra says. Shit. Well, there's 30 million credits wasted. I'll miss her sparkling personality.
Speaker 14 01:49:31
A thought comes to her. Who was with her when she died? Volga nods to me. Victra's eyes fixate. Does she know about the parasite? Thanks, Mr. Volga. You were, though. Why would you tell her anything? Not to be rude, but would you two mind bickering some other time and help me get this colossal tree off my legs? My men will be homing on our signal, but it's hardly dignified to be found lying on my back like a beeched whale, unless I hear the end of it. We're not helping you, I say. Volga looks like she wants to. Where are your other daughters, she asks. Safe. You're not helping her, I say. Volga turns on me, a low growl in her voice. You do not control me. I will do what I think is right.
Speaker 14 01:50:02
You're going to help this bitch. What happens to it not being our battle? Volga says nothing. Darling, don't be such a mule. I understand you are so oppressed, Victra says. Let's not be sent to nobles. You stole my daughter. Both of you. And I was decent enough to arrange a transfer to that brave friend of yours, when he didn't even stipulate you needed to be in one piece. By any measure, I'm positively benevolent. You were both on your way to being obsidian paints until those... things took my ship. Escamani, Volga corrects. Hey, Victra says. It was them, Volga insists. Victra's eyes suggest she agrees. They knew my name. Victra frowns, not completely surprised. What does she know?
Speaker 14 01:50:32
My point is, the least you can do is help me preserve some vestige of reputation by getting this gory damn tree off my gory damn legs, she says. If you want money for it, that's no problem. What's your price? Money can't solve everything, I tell her. What?
Speaker 14 01:51:12
You think she's helpless because she's packing a baby? She's a peerless scourge, you idiot. I'm not an idiot, Foggy says, offended. You really want to get tumbled with them? Is that what Ephraim would want you to do? Ephraim is broken. I could run from that up there. But if I run from this... She shakes her head, then raises it high. My debt will be paid when I return her child to her. And on my shoulder. Who would with me? I look at what was knifed, tucked into her waistband. The blood from Fig's eyes seeps through their hiding place in her shirt. She thinks she'll get rich off this. Fool. Hope she gives you all the money you ever wanted. Unlike you, I'm not for sale. I love her. Soon, I packed half the supplies I found in the wreckage, and donned a set of grey thermal pants from a supply locker.
Speaker 14 01:51:44
With my feet slipping around in the two large boots of some dead grey, I start walking south, away from the crash site. Part of me waits for Volga to catch up with me. She doesn't. The wall that lies before me is stone and icy sludge, a vast landscape that had swallowed me without anyone noticing. This is an own. This is the first time I've felt truly alone since replying to Volga's note. How does that already seem a lifetime ago? I look back at the ship. It's little more than a dot now. I don't have a plan, but I don't want to be saved by Mavitra's men. I don't want to be traded back to Ephraim and owe him for the favour. I'd rather freeze to death trying to go it on my own. Walking along the fjord, I see several ships skimming just over the dark water down below as they head for the crash site.
Speaker 14 01:52:14
They're little more than dots at this distance. That'll be Mavitra's men. It takes me almost a minute to figure out how to turn on the oculars I foraged. When I've got them working, I focus on the weird ship. I roll the magnifier. The ship looks like a Perkin, one of those old transports with those round bodies and slightly curved wings. A bit less stately than I'd expect for a gold rescue party. No Julii or Barker insignia either. I switch to the next one. Another Perkin, older. On its side is painted the face of a pink model drinking a bottle of ambrosia. I look at the ship. It's night's place, just as they did that day when my family was butchered. I turn and run back across the plateau. I'm dizzy from exhaustion by the time I find Volga near the crash site, helping Victra out of her battered armor. Volga smiles at me.
Speaker 14 01:52:45
I knew it would come back. Red Hand! I gasp for air. Red Hand is coming! Volga swings forward a scavenged rifle. Red Hand! Are you certain? It's a day for vultures, Victra mutters. She scans the sky, and I think she finally understands that for some reason, her men aren't coming. They'll kill me, I'm a coldie. She glances at me. Might be worse for you, Gamma. I look at her belly. It's about ready to burst. Can you... She bolts, already ten meters away and moving fast. Volga's on her tail. Shit! I struggle after them in the deep snow. They're incredibly fast. Victra's legs drive her like pistons through the forest, and straight up a huge hill as she cradles her stomach. Volga ambles along behind her, struggling to keep up. Soon, they're out of sight, and I follow only by their tracks.
Speaker 14 01:53:15
But soon, those disappear as well. I search the ground, and something glows on a branch. A fading yellow handprint. There's more on the tree limbs, heading right. Thermal ghosts. My hand drifts to my head. What is inside me? I climb up the tree and shimmy along its branches, hurling myself along them to follow until they drop down and the tracks continue through the snow. A stitch has made its way into my side by the time I catch up to them atop the hill. Volga is lying on her belly, wheezing for air. Victra is squatting behind a rock, peering down at the crash site. Bloody towel, I mutter as I fall into the snow beside them. Told you she'd spot the tracks, Victra says to Volga. Volga looks at me in confusion, then points at Victra's belly. How fast are you without that? It would be rude to pray.
Speaker 14 01:53:46
Still heaving for air, I pull myself up on a rock to look over. The shuttles are just setting down. No thermal readouts come this time. Several dozen shouting reds pour out the bag. I hand Victra my oculus. I pull them up to look through them, but Volga takes them away to use for herself. Muttering, I watch with my naked eyes as the reds search the interior of the crash site. A lone figure stands apart from the rest of them. Damn my eyes, Victra says with narrowing eyes. The chief bitch herself. What in Joe's name is she doing here? Who, I ask. Victra considers, then refuses to answer. Vulgar's gone stiff. I reach to take my oculus back. Vulgar surrenders them reluctantly. Victra snatches them away.
Speaker 14 01:54:16
Doesn't matter, she says. Let her see, Vulgar says. She has a right. See what? Time to go, Victra says. Give me the oculus. I snatch at them, but she pushes me off like a child. Simmering, I glare back over the rock at the lone figure. There's an ache at the base of my skull. Slowly, the blurry figure begins to sharpen. Not magnify exactly, but become substantial. Sensational, recognizable to my brain, even though she is little more than a pinprick. When she turns, I go very still. Her face is as I remember it. Half beauty, half horrible scar. It was stained green by the gunfire that killed my brother when she pulled the trigger. I know that woman, I whisper. Vulgar frowns.
Speaker 14 01:54:47
How can you? Her name is Harmony, Victra says, watching me with curiosity. The bad seed of Ares, and the leader of the Red Hand. I see you remember her. She attacks 121, I murmur. Heat radiates down my spine, deepening until a pinching sensation grips the back of my skull. Pixels flash across my vision. My heart begins to race as my limbs prick with sensation. It's like I can hear everything around me. The gurgling of gastric fluids in Volga's empty stomach. The sound of each flake of snow falling. The purr of a distant ship. Even the movement of Victor's baby in her womb. Then it all whispers again from Volga's side. Victor frowns at me, noting a change. So your file reads.
Speaker 14 01:55:18
Perhaps let her slither away. She killed your brother, Valdemar. Sporos, yes? I told him that. My hearing reverts to normal. I knock my head, torn between confusion and rage. And my father, and my sister, and her children. Why's she here? Her husband and children died in a mine my family owned, Victor says. That woman is why Severo's father ended up in his head in a box. Couldn't stand that Ares was a gold. As for how she knew I was here, I choose her living thought. Do you want me to kill her? Volga asks, shifting her rifle. Victor says. I was not asking you. I stare at Harmony. She's clearer even than before. She's lighting a burner as two men with long metal sniffer moth jobs instead of noses begin sniffing the snow. Could you hit her from here? Probably. Don't mock the poor girl, Petra says. It's 1.2 kilometers. You'd need a drift scope in this wind. With that pulse rifle's muzzle flash, you'll bring those scuttles down on our heads. This does not concern you, Volga tells the gold. That woman has declared a blood war on my family, she says. It concerns me. And when they pick us off from those shuttles because you can delay revenge, it'll concern all of us, including my baby.
Speaker 14 01:56:09
Volga ignores her. Lyria, do you want me to kill her? I see Harmony's head crack like an egg. I see blood smear on the snow. I see her gurgling through a hole in her throat, maybe one in her belly. But one look at Vitra's belly and her knuckles going white as she grips her razor convinces me otherwise. Will Vitra kill us even before Volga finds? No, I say. She's not worth it. ...or Volga's life that I saved her. By the way, there's not the response Vitra expected. Her hand leads the hilt of her razor. Volga breathes in relief and sets her rifle on her knees. I feel a strange comfort knowing what she was ready to do for me despite the risk. They'll find our track soon, Vitra says. There are booms high overhead.
Speaker 14 01:56:40
The night sky spasms with light. Those Ascomani, for lack of better classification, hacked the computer. I didn't think they could. They took control of the guns. They shredded the escape pods when you two were passed out. She grimaces. Had to turn off our beacon so the Pandora couldn't home in an orbital strike. With all that debris, my men aren't coming. Not soon enough, at least. We're on our own. She squints south toward the dark forest. It stretches as far as the eye can see. Her hand drifts to her belly, her only concession to fear. I find myself admiring her coolness, even as a hater. But in the presence of harmony, that hate suddenly feels so very small. We need to find a comrade or get a boat that can take us up across the sun, she says.
Speaker 14 01:57:10
And we need to go now.
Speaker 16 01:57:13
Chapter 52. Ever. Hail Rain. snow no longer falls over olympia the morning is bright as i walk the fluffy white streets i needed to be away from eagle red it's been four hours since i descended the stairs and i still can't walk off the meaty scent of blood and manure from baldia's murder of god eater it doesn't take long for passing machines to ruin snow sounds of industry clatter through the city reds who once languished in assimilation camps work on floating construction skills preparing the city in sefi's bid to restore olympia's land they're doing a healthy job while quicksilver pocketed the money from his helium sefi pours it into scenario their rule is absolute their executions.
Speaker 16 01:57:43
of red-handed terrorists probably completely but they're spreading the wealth around lines of reds and low colors fresh from the countryside snake out from labor registration facilities each is given lodging fair salary and a sense of purpose they've not had in years many mid colors now work for sefi as an inspector others are left alone to make money however they see fit so long as the obsidian the city is coming back to life i don't feel that same options sefi may be good for mars valyria's people or is it not my choice to make markets which were home to vagrants and bonfires when i arrived now bustle with new shops full of produce from southern samaria fish from the thermic textiles exotic wares from the core obsidians walk alongside silvers and browns and coppers and reds.
Speaker 16 01:58:17
It isn't utopia, but it isn't war either. Steffi's dream is coming alive. It's been weeks since the last red-handed bombing. Before his breakdown, Valdir has steadily been chasing them from their strongholds up to the highlands. Some say even across the Sound. It will all break apart when Steffi dies. I can't let her bring Volga into this, but so long as the Juliae still has her, I'd have to play along with Steffi's game. She knows, she has me on a niche. A red boy tries to pickpocket me near a gambling den. I clout him on the ears, and then show him proper technique by stealing the chronometer out of a passing silver. I flip it to the boy, and tell him to make his hands move smooth as a chronometer if he wants to keep them. He stares at me after I tousle his hair. You're Ephraim T. Horne, he says.
Speaker 16 01:58:49
Am I? I look instinctively for syndicate thorns and black when he sticks on my jacket. Hail Reaper, he cries, and tries to punch me. I yell and backpedal, and I see more reds coming to investigate. I lose them by ducking into a prophet. My nose curls up to make a smell, and I fend off the maddenance of the reds so fast. I think it was a bloody lynch. Reapers people are damn mad. Having lost my taste for a walk, I make for the long climb up the bologna stairs back up here. I'm almost trampled by two reds running past. No man's door. I'm back in Hyperion. Then, I notice a change in footpath. Those with datapads or optic implants stand fixated on their internal and external sleeve. Others rush for bars or the all-tribe's new multimedia stations.
Speaker 16 01:59:20
Even a uniformed obsidian watchman and his red partner let a shot lifted loose to drift toward a window. I fall in behind them. Light from a hologram of a space battle splashes through the window. Miss Pandora. She's under attack. I sprint back up to the stairs. The Pandora fell to ships bearing all-tribe colors at 0930 Olympia time. The sky rained bodies not long after. I caught the battle in flashes through the windows as I raced home. I watched the bodies on my datapad after I'd passed evil rest security. The bodies were stripped naked and dumped over a jeer at high altitude. In the sunlight, the pale rain of corpses looked almost elegant, like human-shaped feathers twirling through the air. Their fall would almost be mistaken for flight until they collided with a jeer's skycrawlers,
Speaker 16 01:59:51
the skyscrapers, and farts, and paved boulevards, and white stone plazas, and a roof of light bulbs like a hundred thousand bugs on the roof. The corpses were dropped by four all-tribe group carriers. Two are shot down by the time I make it to the school's training armory. By the time I'm kitted up in scarab skin and skid boots, belted with gear, and laden down with a huge insulated carry box, with a neodymium magnet, new drones have caught footage of an obsidian ray in an all-tribe uniform, being dragged out of the third ship by aerial commandos. They'll think Seffy ordered the attack. But why in Joe's name would Seffy attack Pitcher? It had to be all some far. He's got Seffy's number, setting up a ward. Volga was likely one of those bodies dropped over a gearing.
Speaker 16 02:00:24
Thorpe almost sends me into a downward spiral, but I can't let it distract me. Without Volga, Seffy has no leash on me. He'll freeze my movement. He'll trap me in the sinking ship. Worse, he'll trap the kids. And from what I've seen of Volga so far, he has a plan. But the tensions between the Republic are the art. This will be war if they buy that all-tribe within us. That means the kids will become real hostages. So I carry them out. And my window for exit is equipped with clothing. That kid better be wearing his harness under his clothing. I didn't get him that garage just to tinker with Grubb out there. I take care of the junior-sized paralytics that design his arms, and fit a magazine into my pistol, then throw on my jacket, loop a pack of explosives under my arm, and run to the snowball to attach the whole pack's made in the garage.
Speaker 16 02:00:55
to the back of the landing ramp. Oh, this will be nasty. I pick my gear back up. Grania, the man says from behind, I turn. Goodkin, Brayhill's replacement of Finkia, of the Scoogie, stands in the doorway of the hangar. Two of my cleverest Scoogies, thank you. Grania, he calls without admission. The Queen, come out to your presence. You're to join her in the western bunker. There it is. Steffi's soldiers won't mean me harm, but she'll never let me go out of her sight. I have to act now, while I still. When Goodkin sees my scarab skin, the neodymium carry case, and the bag of explosives, his hand drifts towards his poison-hanged throwing knives. The other two Scoogie frown and turn the safeties off their pulse rifle.
Speaker 16 02:01:26
They're confused. They just wanted to bring me to their Queen. I get the drop off, but damn. In one fluid motion, I grab my pistol in his holster, fall flat on my back to minimize my exposure, and push my toes down on the crash pad. The skip boots release an impulse that shoves me into a ten-meter backward slide. I fire three times with the holster. Goodkin's knives skim centimeters above my nose. The pulse rifle rounds pound into the hangar walls behind me. I stand up. All three Scoogie are rigid as boards from the paralytic slugs embedded in their bodies. They teeter all, drooling, flowing. I strip their comms. As I bound on the skip boots like a grasshopper, I apologize. I know you're just following your Queen's orders, but this boat's going down. As I plant the explosives on the southern landing pad, I watch Mars go mad.
Speaker 16 02:01:59
The Republic news channels froth with anger and racial bittern at the attack on the Pandora. They claim it was Cephe's version of poetic irony. The rain on Mercury claimed one million obsidians. Here is Cephe's rain, on the home of Lionheart and the Reaper, on the capital of the White House. The revenge of the cold weather, the inevitable mess. The world outside churns by the time I make it to an open road, the train in New York. The children aren't at their lessons. I don't have access to their safety protocols for obvious reasons. But if Cephe is in the west bunker, they will be headed there too. The ongoing aerial is dangerous with such targets. So they will have taken the tunnels that emerge in the west of the statue park, just near the bunker. Oh, ages. I'm going to die.
Speaker 16 02:02:29
My mind races as I bound up a marble step and across snowy courtyard. It wasn't the old craft in those ships. It had to have been, as for mine. They're trying to start a war. Volga was in a cell. If they'd warned me, there's almost no chance of escape. I see her falling in that rain over the Gia. Her bones turning to splinters on the concrete walls. This is the word of silence. I thought I'd have more warning when things started going south. Maybe I should have left with the second car showdown. Or when Valdi away preserved. I waited too long. There'll be too many of them. I holster my guns and clutch the neodymium box tight. I have armed an obsidian pistol. the exponential escalation has begun between the public seems the republic is eager to blame the.
Speaker 16 02:02:60
obsidians for the attack i hear it in the rip wing engines lifting off the high mountain hangars in the thunder of metal boots in the drums beating in the army camps west of the city i see it in the throngs of mid and low colors the obsidians heard away from sensitive areas and in the metal glinting in the sky as orbital fleets prepare for a republic don't strike first at them this is what far wants bosun far isn't a barbarian like i initially thought if he organized the attack on the pandora he's trained in regime destabilization his textbook sooner or later some nervous people far play another card dominoes and the news this is how the world ends i'm too late to set up the neodymium magnet i spotted the children in the center of a cluster.
Speaker 16 02:03:35
of falcon making their way across the statue bar toward the western bunker the female warriors each wear 60 kilograms of poltar grass boots and four continents of weapons their helmets are up there goes any chance in battle they could take a whole century of gray legionnaires but this isn't a battle the last thing i wanted my legs burns i close the distance i shifted to ghost and activate the bombs on the southern land they're just big enough to break windows and make huge mushrooms, sirens wail, the tactical response teams on deck in the heights of rift deploy like meteors toward the pad and away from you, I activate the snowball's autopilot, and initiate its flight, back in the hangar, it will rumble over the paralyzed bodies of good kin, the valkyrie pick up speed, chubbing the children between, this box is heavy, the valkyrie's helmet optics will stop me now, despite the ghost cloak, I'm still 40 meters out, there's no trick that will work on them, no clever lie to interrupt their orders, all they'll see is warped motions sprinting toward me, statues explode around me, throwing off the valkyrie's pulse rifles, as the ghost cloak distorts their readout of the debris, two valkyrie, hop airborne, shit, I jump as high as I can on the skip doors, I'm on game,
Speaker 16 02:04:28
10 meters, I hurl the neodymium box at them, they think it's a bomb, they shoot it mid-air, melting the insulation, and freeing the griffin excised magnet, it bowls straight into brother on the ground, or at least I think it's brother in that armor, there's a tug on my belt, but there's a magnet activated, the magnetism increases two airborne obsidians dip their grab boots thrust capability far exceeds the magnet's force but the metal components inside the boot's gravity generators come apart under the shearing forces the women fall king-wheeled out of the sky the undervaltory lose their footing and weapons as they're pulled toward the high-powered magnetic field in a knotty fall of 12 confused collisions tiny explosions crackle around the corner obsidians as gas-powered munitions.
Speaker 16 02:04:59
rupture i land hard on the ground damaging my boots shot and spring one more time the boots come apart mid-air from the magnetism as i land near tanks i scream as something tears loose from inside my car and stretches my scarab there's a second pop in my chest a needle of pain i watch in horror as a small cylinder strains against the inside of my scarab skin like a parasitic alien. a wobbly step, the world is going sideways, Pax runs to me as a magnet loses power, he catches me as I fall, as he's not going according to plan, the obsidians are lurching like gout victims away from the magnets in his own fall, Pax looks at something over my head and shouts at the electron, they tear off their jackets to reveal the harnesses he built for them.
Speaker 16 02:05:31
in the garage, the harnesses are built according to the steps I gave him, simple but sturdy, secured through the legs and around the hips, a spool of fiber wire sticks like a fishing reel to their belly buttons, they link the ends of the fiber wire together and inflate the helium sac at the junction, they rise 50 meters in the air, unspooling the fiber wire as they rush to separate themselves, there's a roar over the head as a snowball rumbles along the programmed course, his catch-all hangs from his belly and snags the joined fiber wire strands, the reels unspool, Pax runs over to me and hugs me like a koala as the fiber wire tightens and all three of us are pulled up our feet and carried after the snowball as it climbs away from evil, it all goes woozy, deja vu as the mountains blur under my feet and the Valkyries set off in pursuit, their boots will never catch the.
Speaker 16 02:06:03
snowball, I'm laughing and wheezing by the time the book retracts the center back of the ship, Pax disappears and Electra peels off my scarlet teeth, Rick wins. Electra grabs a medkit from the wall, and I watch her face as she pulls a metal cutter from the wall, and lowers it with narrow eyes toward my chest. What's she doing? I feel numb vibrations. Did she give me morphone? Is that my sternum she's cracking open? Smoke sizzles up from my chest. She sprays a coagulant. The artificial gravity in the ship increases dramatically, sealing us when the floor is packed with some force. The ship vibrates, as her twin railguns spew at something outside the hull. Time drifts past, as Electra looks over. I stare at a bit of rust on the ceiling of the garage, and have to scrub that out.
Speaker 16 02:06:36
The snowball is far too pretty to ship it off-cross. When I look back down, Electra is gone. It's dark out. How much time has passed? I'm still numb. I rise unsteadily to my feet, and notice the long strip of red flesh going down my stomach. It stretches, and I move two threads, and glue together and force them together. As I stagger through the halls of the snowball to the cockpit, I remember the bodies falling over the jeep. As I pass the small kitchen and dining room, I see Volker and me bickering over Karachi as we sail between Asteroid ports. I see her lying in her bunk, listening to threshold music. I see her ducking under the low doorways, whining about hitting her head. The snowball hums around her.
Speaker 16 02:07:07
The little dream of our life on the land erodes. leaving only a ship with nothing in it, a ghost, I find the two gold children in it, the snowball flies down, all her accidents from top, and she carves through a low spot, only her passive senses throw, the sea beneath is dark and choppy, they look back in shock from steaming cups of tea when I sit in the back row, that was lucky, that's it, terrible, it was fucking terrible, growing on my chest, feels like I've been kicked by a sun-blood stallion, Electra's face gets even uglier when she wrinkles her brow, how are you awake, I gave you enough morphine for an obsidian, I thumbed my chest loosely, you didn't even give, you weren't hyperthermic, you paused, were you awake that whole time, you mean when you gleefully used a metal cutter on my stone,
Speaker 16 02:07:42
yes, fuck me, that's full metal, I moan at the dull ache building in my chest, I might need a real hospital, I say, probing the rest of it, what was, those, were, those, tracker in the car, access, passing by a containment jar with two metal cylinders, I look at my car, it's still bleeding blood, you forgot something, I extend my leg to electra, do you know what comes, I'm not going to nurse me, there's a staple gun in the garage, don't be a pixie about it, Just a lovely person. About this one, I pointed to the small cylinder alongside the truck. That, Timman, was a heart spike on your aorta, I said. So they could turn off your heart with a flick of a finger.
Speaker 16 02:08:13
Talk to me. I think that was a general idea. I can't believe Steffi didn't trust me. I say, genuinely upset. They laughed like I'm joking. Well, forget what I was going to say. The Gia? We're not going back to the Republic, I replied. They'll just make us wait in the city. He looked like a man sitting there in the pocket. Not that he's grown, but he's definitely changed. The surety in his eyes, the set of his jaw. When did it happen? When he stopped letting others choose for him. I admire the change, even as I feel it's a loss to the world if he's no longer a boy. The world has enough men. But maybe he can be a different kind of man. Probably not. But maybe he's enough. Damn it, my chest hurts. There's a tube in my arm. I pull on it, until I see I've been trailing a bloodbath.
Speaker 16 02:08:45
Oh, I reel it in as he continues. If Aunt Victra managed to get to an escape pod, she'll have fallen in the northern hemisphere. Very specific, Electra muttered. Shut up. With all the debris, the telemetry was spewed. Shut up. You almost didn't wear your harness. Pax looked back at me. That's not true. I had to twist her ears to get her to wear hers. Teacher's pet. Trouble night. On the fritz. Hatchet face. Electra's dart. They pouted each other in silence. I chuckled. I knew that was under your skin. Shut up, they say in unison. I just grin. If they're alive, we're going to find them, Pax says after a long silence. Them? Our people. And yours, Tinman. Like it or not, you're with us now.
Speaker 16 02:09:16
And we're done watching everyone else slag everything. It's our turn. Electra gives me the fakest smile I've ever seen, and sneaks me the crux when Pax isn't looking. I close my eyes, feeling a weird warmth in my chest as I sigh. What could go wrong. 
Speaker 17 02:09:29
Chapter 53. Virginia. Pandemonium. After my mother threw herself off the cliffs of our Martian estate, my father came to me. It was one of the few audience with him in which I was not summoned to stand sweaty palm before his desk, next to that bloodstain in the carpet. He found me in the stable sitting in the sawdust. He was a giant to me in those days. He stroked the muzzle of my favorite horse and said, Self-pity is the plebeian's luxury. All that occurs is either endurable or unendurable. If it is endurable, endure it, those days. He stroked them. It was one of the few audience with him. Virginia. Pandemonium. After my mother threw herself off the cliffs of our Martian estate, my father came to me.
Speaker 17 02:09:60
It was one of the few audience with him in which I was not summoned to stand sweaty palm before his desk, next to that bloodstain in the carpet. He found me in the stable sitting in the sawdust. He was a giant to me in those days. He stroked the muzzle of my favorite horse and said, Self-pity is the plebeian's luxury. All that occurs is either endurable or unendurable. If it is endurable, endure it. If it is unendurable, follow your mother. For once, I am thankful for the lesson. Kavax au telemanis.
Speaker 17 02:10:45
It is a linear assault meant to bypass my brain security conditioning. The words are an attempt to stimulate the visual word form area, the faces to stimulate the fusiform face area. This causes neuron activity in the prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes, which Octavius Panamonium Chair then converts to visual and auditory replication. I am no easy victim. As part of the conditioning designed by Daxos Psychotex, every night I digested four lobes with deconditioned curves and a cup. After my mother threw herself off the cliffs of our Martian estate, my father came to me. It was one of the few audience with him in which I was not summoned to stand sweaty calm before his desk, next to that bloodstain in the carpet. He found me in the stable sitting in the sawdust. He was a giant to me in those days.
Speaker 17 02:11:16
He stroked the muzzle of my favorite horse and said, Self-pity is the plebeian's luxury. All that occurs is either endurable or unendurable. If it is endurable, endure it. If it is unendurable, follow your mother. For once, I am thankful for the lesson. Kavax au telemanis. A thousand reveries dance in the air. Memories drawn from the activity of my brain's neurons by means of the pandemonium chair. Free associations for the box to pick apart and glean, and used to hunt down the remnants of my family. The greens on the other side of the shaded glass catch these images of the of my brain's neurons by means. Follow your mother. For once, I am thankful for the lesson. Kavax au telemanis. A thousand reveries dance in the air, memories drawn from the activity of my brain's neurons by means of the pandemonium chair, free associations for the box to pick apart, and glean, and use to hunt down the remnants of my family, the greens on the other side of the shaded glass catch these images in a net, and move along to the next, cataloguing, and sifting, hiding place, secret base, fleet orders, active howlers, location, orders, rendezvous coordinates, rescue routes, several albaca, black cathedral, what is black cathedral, doomsday protocols, skyhorn nuclear launch codes,
Speaker 17 02:12:09
relevant faces and words speed in the air in front of me it is a linear assault meant to bypass my brain security conditioning the words are an attempt to stimulate the visual word form area the faces to stimulate the fusiform face area this causes neural activity in the prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes which octavia's pandemonium chair then converts to visual and auditory replication, i am no easy victim as part of the conditioning designed by daxo psychotex every night i digested false memories which i signified by populating the scenes with private pigeons spanish renaissance paintings off-colored birds certain songs or low frequency hums the smell of the gauche perfume so i can distinguish the false from the real the information they are gathering is a super false positives incorrect data passwords that trigger auto-destruct unlocking mechanisms and general.
Speaker 17 02:12:41
incoherence that would take a thousand psychotex ten years to sort fortunately there are not a thousand psychotex in existence and those my enemies use are no match for me at times they try to use my own technology against me they embed small silver psycho spikes in my forehead in an attempt to force hack their way through this is much more painful time dilates distends slows stops disappears i may be in publius's clutches but it is lilith who did this lilith went after my child lilith butchered daxo lilith toyed with me the lion of mars was shot down over hyperion ten years ago to stop her from fulfilling my brother's last wish for luna to burn but, somehow some way, survived. I don't understand. Lilith isn't clever enough to do all of this. She is a killer, not an.
Speaker 17 02:13:13
architect. Did Atalantia plan it? Atlas? When I am not in the chair, my senses are robbed from me by the psycho spike. I cannot tell where I am imprisoned, if I even ever leave the chair. I float in nothingness. No sight, no smell, no taste, no hearing. I am only consciousness in a void. It is my fear of what the afterlife truly holds for us. In that void, I float alone with my private fears. What my husband will do when he discovers my fate. What devious designs my enemies have for my child. What evil has befallen Severo and our Republic. The despair is total and unyielding. I continue to exist only because with existence there is still hope. Though it feels so very far away. Daxo is dead. Twice they try to link psychotex directly to my brain as I did with.
Speaker 17 02:13:43
the Duke of Hands. My security packet activates. I unleash neurological attacks. The first man dies of a seizure. The second blocks that attack, but suffers a headache, and then kills himself the next day because of the insidious memories of trauma I planted in his head. What does Lilith want? To rule behind Publius? To avenge my dead brother? To atomize Luna, and fulfill his dying wish after all these years? Whatever she wants, I cannot open my mind to her. In time they will break through, and my self-destruct protocol will go into effect, leading to a medulla cataclysm that will deactivate my breathing and turn off my heart. It is only a matter of time. Then one day, I appear out of the void in the center of an empty moonwalk court. I am delighted, but do not know why. I sit in the accursed chair dead center before a plinth upon which adjudicators once heard cases from behind an emblem of the society. The emblem is gone. Instead of the adjudicator's single chair, there are now seven. A rotating moon hangs over my head. Wardens comprise my only company.
Speaker 17 02:14:23
I smile, realizing I am physically unbound, yet I cannot move more than my head. The psychospike has disabled the nerve reflexes of my body beneath my sixth vertebra. Quadriplegic, then. How amusing and clever of Lilith. I never thought to use the spike quite like this. A sudden feeling of amazement fills me. Let's analyze. I try to speak to the wardens who are standing in small groups along the sides of the room, talking amongst themselves. A cow-like moo comes out of my mouth. Hilarious. The psychotechs have hijacked the broccolous area of my brain, disabling my language abilities, even though I maintain the motor skills to form sounds. Lilith, you clever girl. Sorry, lass, say again, a grey warden says, laughing. So my angular gyrus and burnica's area are intact.
Speaker 17 02:14:53
I can understand words and concepts. He was being an arsehole. That warden is really quite handsome. I would kill him if I could, naturally. Yet I still wonder if his manhood is sufficient to please me. Probably not. I have high standards. No, don't be distracted. My supposition was correct. I will sit in silence as they accuse me of heinous crime before billions of confused, frightened citizens, who will be waiting for some clarity on the dreadfully violent massacre. They would have been waiting for days, perhaps weeks, for my account, and I will sit in silence as they accuse me of murdering Dancer. In my silence, my people will prescribe condescension and guilt. If this were a time of peace, there would be a rebellion and anarchy, but in a time of war, they will swallow it just to have a leader, and I will be executed. My son will watch. Atalantia will lift the communication blockade on Mercury and let Darren watch,
Speaker 17 02:15:25
and Lilith will rule through Publius. It's masterful. I'm distracted. That grey warden really does have find. Oh no. I can feel the scores of wounds the crowd gave me during the massacre. But not well. They are dull, distant, and deep beneath the pleasure. They've hided. the dopamine and oxytocin levels of my brain. I'm happy when I should be furious. I can process and understand, but feel nothing but amplified post-coital joy. Lilith, that bitch. A hologram appears before me. It grows from a small blue embryo to consume half the room. The daylight hologram of the funeral procession enters the moon hall courtyard, the one outside the building which I currently sit. It is led by blue-cloaked wardens on white horses. Black chains walk with heavy guns. Skips follow, the same that are used in the washing of high-rise windows, now laden.
Speaker 17 02:15:57
with victims of Publius's purge. Members of my line guard, and my household. Senators, sky hall officers, businessmen, and the politicos of the required hue. And on the front of the skiff, sitting with rigid dignity, is Theodora. The poor woman. I was nothing but hard on her. I should have brought her closer. The distrust created gaps, and now she will die. What a horrible world, I think with a smile. Publius stands with the leaders of the box's radical wing on the steps of the moon hall. They wear their unwashed senatorial robes stained with old blood. Ashes mark his face for mourning. How dramatic. The crowd teams against barricades and soldiers, jeering as the procession draws to a halt before the obelisk of Ares. It floats ten meters above the ground. Commissioned by Victra to commemorate Severus' father, it bears images of the birth of the.
Speaker 17 02:16:29
sons of Ares along its one hundred meter length. Darrow's image, which by tradition always faces north, has been turned south. The hallowed site of his first wife now holds the place of honor. Eo of Lycos sings in stone before the gallows that would claim her life. I always felt jealousy toward the dead girl. She knew Darrow back when all he wanted was to love and be loved. Darrow has loved me, truly loved me in a way that cannot exist outside of wartime. Yet that love reflects a gold love, not the red love that consumes the self, a love I could never feel. My brain has always been too far ahead of my heart, but even then, I cannot help but think that Eo loved him less than he deserved. Will he watch me die from mercury, or the enemy engines of doom stalk ever closer? The procession has come to a stop. How did it work?
Speaker 17 02:16:60
Did Atalantia sponsor Lilith? She must have. the tip of the obelisk's shadow, and lead them along its path, to the base of the obelisk. There is no struggle. Many walk with a determined step. Some few dance in full jig. Theodora lifts her eyes to behold the last rays of the sun, as light glints off the bronze dome of the moon hall, where blindfolded liberty stands with her scales. Pigeons watch from her bronze shoulders. When the victims all have been brought to the base of the obelisk, Publius recites the charges of which Theodora has been found guilty by the new power of the man, the People's Tribunal. Conspiracy to commit murder. Conspiracy to arrest legal authority from the Senate. Conspiracy to commit treason against the Republic. Each charge is met with a jeer from the crowd.
Speaker 17 02:17:30
The transparent partitions are lowered around the base of the obelisk, and Theodora is taken under, and secured to a hook of metal set in the stone. The bots have made their mark.
Speaker 18 02:18:44
Good, you? Okay, great. Thank you. Peter, thank you. Tell me about your pressure washer. It started spurting the water from there. Out of the middle cap? Oh, I'm done. And how's the pressure? Decent? Before or after? How's the pressure now. 
Speaker 2 02:19:10
They said that they could still use it, but water was going in. But it was still enough pressure to get the job done, is what you guys were saying? I don't know. Because I said, can you still use it? And they said, yeah, sure. You know, except for the water. Just to get us through today, and then they didn't use it today. So it's always one of those, like...
Speaker 18 02:19:28
Yeah, we would have tested it. So there's two ways we can do this. One is just to repair the water leak. And the other is if it was low pressure, then I would find out why, and then I would correct that problem. And that's typically involved replacing what's called a packing set that goes inside this pump head. So you've got a section here that makes these little pistons go in and out in this head. And then there's these seals that goes around each of the three little pistons. Ceramic, right? They're typically ceramic pistons or they're highly chromed metal pistons.
Speaker 18 02:19:58
But then the seals, though, are these fiberglass reinforced rubber seals that can withstand 4,000 psi. They're amazing. They're really cool. But it's like a $125 packing set plus labor. So it's like $225, $250 total to rebuild the head versus just repairing a simple water leak.
Speaker 2 02:20:15
So my guess is you did this. You repaired actually both of my pressure washers. The packing set. Packing set. One of them was three months ago, the other one was like six months ago.
Speaker 5 02:20:37
Okay.
Speaker 2 02:20:37
So my guess is that they didn't go bad already unless we did something, right. 
Speaker 18 02:20:41
I'm going to just replace the water seal underneath this cap and then we'll test it, see what it does. And if there's an issue with either the pressure or anything else, I'll call you and let you decide how we're going to handle this. But it might even be under warranty, I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 2 02:20:56
Okay. And then the gun has a leak, I don't know if it's the seal or whatnot, but it's just water's always going through.
Speaker 18 02:21:03
So it's always going through the gun without even squeezing the trigger, you mean? Yeah. Really? Yeah. It might be time to... Just a slight little... So when you squeeze the trigger, there's a little plunger thing, and it's made of brass typically, and they don't last forever. They will wear out, and it has packings of its own, but it's not worth rebuilding. Those you should replace. Okay. And I have those guns available for $100. If it's the seals or O-rings that go on either end, either where the quick disconnect goes.
Speaker 18 02:21:33
or where the little tip, you know, these orange tips go, those little seals are like a dollar or two each. And those tend to leak a little more often because they're constantly buckling. It wouldn't be coming out of here though. That's where it's... It's just like a little... A little P coming out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, a little P coming out when you're not squeezing the trigger. Correct. Yeah, because the valve is definitely jacked up and you've got to replace it. Okay. It's not cost-effective repair.
Speaker 2 02:21:55
Okay. Then should I just get the gun from you when I come back for this. 
Speaker 18 02:22:01
Yeah. Or take it now, whenever you want. I would recommend this. Make sure that when you come in for this, that you also bring in the hose that goes with the machine so we know what kind of coupler goes in the end because sometimes it's a male and sometimes it's female. Got you. Okay. Should I take this off? It's not going anywhere. Okay. Grab half. I'll grab this half. Yeah. And I'll just be checked out probably. Yeah. Thanks, man. I'll wait you out.
Speaker 2 02:22:43
Braden? C-R-A-D-E-N? Yep. And your phone. 
Speaker 18 02:22:49
714-794-9223. Were you named after someone who was some soap opera star or something. 
Speaker 2 02:22:57
Or what's that all about? My mom babysat a guy named Brady. She liked it. Alright. And now it's like one of the top... Throw it up. Nope. Everybody called me Brandon. And now it's like one of the top five most up and coming names.
Speaker 18 02:23:17
Really? I don't like that at all. So we're just going to call this Simpson. So many mouthfuls. This could be a Simpson cat pup. That's cool. Anyways, why don't you give me a call as early as tomorrow or Monday, I'll let you know what the status is, and I will call you, only if it's something weird, that's going to take up a lot of time and money, but it's not going to be important.
Speaker 2 02:23:43
Okay. I'll let you know when I call. Okay, yeah. I'd say if it's, you know, less than $200, don't wait on me.
Speaker 18 02:23:52
If it's just that over it, it's going to be a lot less than that. Right. It's an easy labor, but I appreciate the wiggle room, just in case.
Speaker 2 02:23:58
I know, I mean, you've done so much, I trust you, you know, not that I want to just, like, give blank checks or anything, but, you know, I trust you.
Speaker 18 02:24:06
I appreciate that. Thank you. It means a lot to us. Right on. Braden, I'll see you in a couple of days. Thank you. Take care. You do the same.
Speaker 1 02:27:00
Take care.
Speaker 17 02:28:08
into the stone, for liquid to run into troughs beyond the partitions. Publius completes the reading of the charges. Theodora lifts her chin, and stares straight ahead, a woman of worth, underneath the shadow of ten thousand tons of stone. A woman who was grown in a tank, who was raised with Cupid's kiss, to understand that pain is relieved only by sexual obedience, who was made to learn the art of pleasing the men who would one day rape her body, a woman who survived decades of sexual humiliation to become a glorified maid, and then chose to follow a young man at war with the world, not because she believed he would win, but because he was the first man to fight for her. She fought for him, and as the stone comes down she is flattened by a marble monument, dedicated to the dream she lived for. I close my eye. Did she think of him in her last moments, or some childhood love? The tragedy of death is what I cannot ask, and her secret dies with her.
Speaker 17 02:28:41
Theodora is dead. The obelisk rises, stained red all among bottom. Blood runs through the grooves. People from the crowd rush forward to dip their kerchiefs and banners in the blood troughs. They wave them around as Servilla Al-Arkos, Alexander's mother, watches them with a look of beleaguered contempt. Then the remains are hosed away, and Servilla is secured to the rizzly hook. He shouts something, but the stone comes down again. Does Alexander feel it on Mercury? When all have been executed, the image disappears. I hear voices moments later as the circus comes to the courtroom. A dozen aides swirl around Publius, exultant with their newfound power. What dream these Vox must have? What fools to think it comes for free? Archimperator Zahn, surrounded by her own staff, walks with Publius. Your agents missed their opportunity, Zahn says to Publius. The blue looks.
Speaker 17 02:29:15
at me, makes a small sound of distaste, and glares back at the copper. I advised you to use Dunnel instead of your mercenary. If you weren't so paranoid of Mars, we wouldn't be in this position, Zahn sneers. The Reaper's brother runs two-thirds of Mars, the Obsidian Bitch run the other third, and you say I

[AI_SUMMARY]
The briefing covers operational planning for the Martin Luther King holiday, focusing on dump runs, truck loading, and equipment maintenance. Key points include specific dump opening times, pressure washer repairs, cutting and marking procedures, and worksite restrictions. It also addresses personal fitness insights, political analysis related to NATO and U.S. roles, and promotional segments for various products. Action items emphasize confirming schedules, coordinating tasks, and ensuring safety practices during operations.