What exactly are these ships you keep talking about?

Moscow is not near an ocean so I'm highly and utterly confused.

Roman Mordvinov

It took a little while before little mudak finally got sprung. Spetzel leaned on the right people. And his guys leaned a little harder. Moscow was in turmoil over his Royal Douchbag's little trick out at the square. People were scared shitless, running around with their pants around their ankles and dicks hanging out just hoping not to get fucked.

What was one little prick falling through the cracks in all that? This was on Roman for now. Pops was letting him take point on this. Bout goddamn time. He'd been on the back burner too long. Always having to step back and watch some asshole or other head up some mission while he sat at home holding his junk. Well someone did anyway. A few someones. He laughed to himself. He did have a thing for dark skin and those liquid brown eyes. Fyodor ran a nice place and always had the best girls for him.


So anyway, where was he? Oh yeah. Little proya. Yuri. Who seemed to be TAKING HIS TIME getting dressed in his new digs. Fucking primadonna. He went to the bedroom they had given him and pounded on the door. "Come on, fuck-face!! Or I'm gonna leave and you can stay at home and stare at the pope all by yourself!! Just make sure you washed that prison-shit smell off of you."


He went back to the chair and sat down. Wine and dine. That's what he had to do. Fucking proya seemed cool for all of it. Prolly didn't need much. But if he had the recipe for cooking up the blue, they were golden. Gotta tie him to us. That's all. Make him family.

He glanced over at the cabinet. Inside were some tasty treats for before they headed out on the town. They'd hit up a club or strip joint or whatever. Show they guy what it meant to Mordvinov. Who knew? Maybe even run into a Kolomov. He missed stomping with Bas. The fucker usually went off. He raised his glass of rum, ice clinking the sides, and poured out a few for his fallen brother, other hand a first pounding his chest in salute. Arkady was too much of a pussy to go out with, him and that cock-sucker Karl. Only the memory of Bas left Arkady a place with them....as a goon, pretty much.

Not the brightest tool in the parking lot.

He checked his black onyx watch again and waited. At least he had a drink, though.

Dr. Roswell Jenkins
PPC


Roswell studied the creature curiously. Its bonds were more than double what was needed. But he had always been careful. They all were. They had to be. Had to have been, he amended to himself.

Time was such an odd thing. But finally, they were on the cusp. The last 100 years had seen an explosion of knowledge and technology. He could look back on the records of experiments over the centuries- the inter-species breeding programs; exposure to various chemicals and gases; training and conditioning. Lamarckism as an idea had ruled for centuries and produced little in the way of progress.

Now, though, they had access to the code, to the chemical algorithms of life. Genome mapping capabilities had finally given them access to the source of life and they were on their way.

Already, the Dreyken in front of him had given them much, though, not of its own free will, of course. Their long-lived coding DNA had been prised apart and studied and the relevant genes tentatively identified. Already, their incorporation into mice and rabbits had revealed they were on the right track. Telomere degradation was a quarter of what was normal, effectively multiplying their lifespan by four.

Integration into primates had already begun. And while the indications were that they too would be affected in a similar way, something curious was going on. They had become aggressive. Brutal. Some even displayed tendencies toward the causing of pain, of enjoying the suffering. They had only inserted a small section of the Dreyken's DNA and yet there was a definite personality shift.

In and of itself, that was not necessarily a bad thing. Not yet anyway. But they needed control. A colleague had done something similar with rakshasas and the results were nothing short of astounding. Fully compliant creatures at their control. Pets...if they could be called that. Very useful indeed.

Could the same be done with Dreyken? That was the question. Its head was bound, parts of its skull removed and various electrodes inserted. The process had been painless, if uncomfortable. Not that he was averse to letting the thing suffer a bit. Dreyken were known for their cruelty, after all.

He looked at it after making some adjustments to the current. "You will tell me your name."
The command itself was meaningless. He didn't need to know names. This was a test of compliance. Dreyken lived together, their public personas manufactured. It was a curious thing. Unlike Rougarous or Chupacabras, Dreyken were social and even maintained their own culture, from what they had gathered. Breaking them was hard. It was a good measure of the effectiveness of his procedures.

The Dreyken's eyes glittered with hate and despite the perspiration that beaded its forehead, it appeared calm and in control. It bared a cold smile at him. If Roswell had not done this many times before, he would have been nervous. As it was, he ignored it.

"You will know pain,", it whispered. "I shall enjoy you for a long time. You will beg for death. You will plead for it. But it will not come."

He sighed and made the adjustments. Still more work to be done. His wallet chimed and he pulled it out. In moments, he had the video playing, Nicholas Trano's address. There, in the background sat Holden. From the angle it looked as if he had been preening, enjoying his position. It irritated Roswell. The man irritated him.

He twisted the hourglass embossed ring on his finger as he watched. The man was Di Inferi, supposedly dedicated to the same goals as him. A quest embarked upon long ago when they broke away from the benighted Atharim and their foolishness. Memento Mori. The reminder that all men die. Times did too. And purposes. But they didn't have to. Not if they succeeded.

But Holden....he was unpredictable. His own power was equally important. The man wanted to be president. That much was plain. But once there, what would he do? He knew far too much about them. If his goals and Di Inferi's shifted away from each other...Well, it was telling that the very idea bothered him.

Di Inferi had always ruled from behind. They shared that much with their elder siblings the Atharim. Better to be the power and influence behind the throne, with the leverage and strings, publicly beholden to no one. They had the freedom to be on all sides and none.

The greatest danger, though, was what Holden suffered from. Personal ambition. That would become the goal instead of their goals.

Indeed, when Evelyn Avalon took the stage the look on Holden's face said it all and Roswell smiled maliciously. It blanked in moments, but it was there. No. Holden did not need to be president. Trano would be a good choice, though. They had strings tied to him, people and companies that he was connected to.

The best tool was one who thought he was free. Not one who saw the strings and knew the players.

Nox took the wallet Sage had bought for Cain and pulled the contact app from it and installed it on his wallet. He was letting a hacker behind his protection - he understood the implication. But he needed to talk to Sage. Sage had answers. He might have everything. Nox sent Sage a quick message on the app he had installed and hoped the hacker got it and understood. "Need to talk to you."

Nox gave Cain back the wallet and didn't follow anyone into the dinning room, instead he looked for Pavlo who was busy preparing their rooms. Nox found him and asked "Which one? I'm sure it's perfectly acceptable."


Pavlo lead Nox to a room. "Master Cruz is next door, and Master Cain across from you. Miss Rachel was staying across from Cruz." That begged a whole lot of questions which Nox left alone as he closed the room designated to him.

It wasn't a hotel, but it sure felt like one to Nox. Staying in someone else's home even for one night felt like he was just visiting. But this wasn't a house call. Dorian wanted Nox to stay until he was able to make it home. Nox couldn't imagine the things that Dorian was having to do. But to Nox it was clear that Cruz's father had chosen a path in defiance of the Atharim. Nox wondered if his own parents would have done the same, or would they have tried to kill him. Nox thought the latter was probably the case - Bryan Durante was not a soft man, he was born and breed to be Atharim. He was their tool - their product. His mother might have tried to stop him from hurting her babies, but Nox could see his father doing the deed anyway. Nox got lost in memories.

They permeated his mind with sorrow and loss. His world had shattered that day - the day his mother died. Everything he'd every dreamt of was gone in one horrible moment. The vision of his mother's death was seared into the back of his eyes. The blood gushing everywhere from wounds so deep he could see the bone beneath.

So mired in his thoughts Nox barely heard his wallet come to life. It flickered at first. Then the holoscreen switched on without any interaction at all. The visage of some 1980's pop culture reference flicked before him before it resolved into the 1's and 0's of a boy who had grown into a man. The avatar's mouth moved with each word, "You wanted to talk to me?"


Nox rubbed his eyes and sat up as he pulled the wallet closer. "You've grown up. Not the same dorky kid I remember."


The digital version of Sage laughed, "And you aren't so annoying."
But the laughter died quickly as Sage looked at Nox, his expression changed. "You look like shit."


Nox sighed as he rubbed his eyes again. "Lost in thought."


"Not good thoughts?"
Sage asked. "Are you thinking about Aurora?"
Sage's voice sounded almost angry to Nox.

Nox didn't let it bother him. "Among other things."


"Do you even miss her?"
Sage was clearly angry now.

Nox looked at the boy who'd taken Aurora's virginity from her. Nox wondered if he even knew what that had meant to his sister. But he didn't voice it. He wasn't angry with Sage - Aurora was a big girl she could protect her self. She was a fucking reborn god. What little good that had done her with Deigo De La Cruz. Nox only nodded and sighed fighting back the tears that were about to fall. "I miss her everyday."


Nox stood up and walked over to the window and drew the filmy curtains away and stared out. The view into Dorian's back yard was exquisite. The only thing missing was a bunch of half naked bodies sitting pool side then the image of billionaire playboy would be real. It was Moscow, but the backyard was anything but what he'd have expected of a Moscow villa - palm trees that probably cost thousands to maintain in this cold weather. "Can you show me the last time you saw her, Sage?"


Nox didn't even know a date, or time or anything else that could possibly help his sister's friend find the last image of his sister living. It was quiet in the room as Nox stared out into the backyard watching the wind blow across the top of the crystal blue water of the in ground pool.

"You don't want to know, not really, do you?"
Sage asked in the silence of the room and Nox nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of the other man's voice. It felt like he was right there in the room with him instead of across many miles of land and water.

"Show me, Sage."
Nox turned around and the image of Sage's 1's and 0's faded into a security camera footage. It took Nox a few moments to see what was happening. To understand exactly what he'd asked for. There was a camera outside the house looking into the lake and over the drive way, but it was the small figures leaving the house that was the focal point of the scene - a man - he barely recognized in his tiny digital presence on his holoscreen carrying a limp body.

Nox drew his fingers across the screen and enlarged and zoomed into the area. He watched as a half life size Diego carried his sister's lifeless form to the edge of the forest before he vanished into the thick greenery. Nox replayed the short snippet of footage again. Nox fell to his knees and could feel the tears falling down his cheeks. He'd failed her.

The screen flickered and Nox collapsed back onto the floor against the wall. The visage of Sage came over the holoscreen again. "I can show you more."
His voice was tinged with it's own sadness and sense of loss.

Nox nodded. "Show me all of it. Everything you have."
The next words came out barely a whisper, "Watch with me, please."


(( Cain modded with permission ))


Edited by Nox, Sep 1 2016, 12:25 PM.

Gwendolyn was getting irritated enough to let it show. “Can we please get the sound right before we go live?”
she sent sweetly toward the sound technician along with a steely-eyed gaze that was anything but. The young man swallowed and hunched over the portable sound dampener system. Perhaps a little bitchy, but it wouldn't do to have footsteps and echoes come through from the other side. Nor would it do for any of her guest interviewees to sound like shit on a national stage on a day like this.

And even in this corner of the Capitol rotunda there were footsteps aplenty. CNN Instant News had claimed a section to set up a live sound stage. A few chairs were splayed out, sandwiched between statues of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, with the signing of the Declaration of Independence as a backdrop, completely isolated with a white curtain, it made for the perfect cozy set on which to report today's Joint Session of Congress. With one of the curtains still pulled back, Gwen watched people hurry past her on their way to the House chamber.

There went by a tall gray suit with an unmistakable high and tight military cut, flanked by two men in black suits and wraparound Land Warriors. Col. Track Palin. Military hero, former President and current Vice President of the United States. It had been a shock to the nation when President Dawson's running mate died of a sudden heart attack one month after taking office, and an even greater shock when he'd appointed the former President and his longtime campaign to the position. No one was even sure that it was even Constitutional since Palin had already been elected to two terms in office. Dawson said he'd done it (much to the chargrin of his own Party) to ensure someone didn't become President without going through an election, and that come 2048 he'd pick a new VP as his running mate. No doubt the Democrats didn't bother to challenge the appointment because they controlled the House and figured they'd just challenge it if Dawson died, and throw the Presidency to the Speaker of the House. Right now that was Oliver Holden.

Gwen motioned to her assistant, a pretty if slightly pudgy girl with a black pantsuit to match her dark locks. “Stacy – be a sweetheart get the VP over here!”
The girl snapped a nod and ran off.

Her earpiece buzzed. “Gwen – live promo in fifteen seconds.”

Gwen gave a purposeful wink to her right eye. That triggered her Lens Warrior, which projected a transparent, scrolling screen she could track with her eye movement. It began to display her prompt. She sat down and turned to the cameraman, took one breath, let it out and smiled.

“Go.”

“We're back, live at the Capitol with our coverage of history in the Making. They're calling him Magic Nick.” Because we're telling you to call him that. “ Mr. Wizard himself, Secretary Nicholas Trano of the newly founded Department of Powers will be addressing a Joint Session of Congress, in just Moments. You can't tune out now! Stay with me, Gwendolyn Petersen, here on CNN Instant News, where we Make News Happen.”


“And we're out.”

Gwen clicked off her Lens Warrior. “So which nickname is polling better? I'm not sure which one I like best yet.”


The producer paused. “We don't know yet. Mr. Wizard is polling better on 60 and older, but Magic Nick is going over better with the younger ladies. We're probably going to have a copyright issue with either of them.” Not that it would be an issue for Gwendolyn Petersen. Within a day half the country would be using one of the nicknames and no one would remember where it came from.


Gwen's assistant came scampering back. “Palin says he'll give you an interview after the speech.”

Ugh. She had probably six or seven minutes of dead space to fill before the speech began. “Speaker Holden?”
Her assistant shook her head. Fuck it. “All right, get our panel of experts online. We'll do it live.”
As such experts as there were. She turned back to the camera.

“And we're back at the Capitol, and I'm Gwendolyn Petersen as always. Joining us today is Rodger Kimpbell from the Centers for Disease Control, and...”
Her lens warrior spat out new information. Crap, her other panelist didn’t show. Smile. “Rodger, how are you today?”


“I'm excellent, Gwen,”
he replied.

That's a stretch, buddy. “Now, Rodger, based on your experience with these abilities and the research done down in Atlanta, what can you tell me about what running the Department of Powers will entail.”


The man blinked. Clearly he was an amateur on the national stage. “Well, obviously first and foremost they'd be responsible for making sure people with the Sickness which is a reaction to these powers coming to existence in an individual, these people are helped. But essentially he'd be expected have umbrella oversight over all the agencies that are involved with these abilities. Currently the Defense Department is overseeing all of these activities --”


Gwen gave a calculated raise of her eyebrow to the camera. “So you're saying there are military applications here, like we're going to be seeing people being used as weapons?”


The man tugged at his shirt collar. “Now Gwen, I'm not saying that at all, just that the Defense Department--”


Gwen cut him off. “Let's play this video...”
a video, projected digitally into the news feed, began playing behind her. “Here we see Secretary Trano apparently putting out a fire. Isn't that nice. But can't this power be used in a more destructive way? How is this new department going to strike the appropriate balance between liberty and security?”


The man's mouth hung open for a second and he blinked. “Uh. Well, Gwen we're just going to have to see what Secretary Trano says and hope he addresses this.”


Gwen flashed her pearly whites at him. She hadn't gotten anywhere near any really salacious material out of him, but she'd abused him enough for one morning. “All right, well we appreciate it.”


“My pleasure, Gwen.”


She smiled again. Of course it is.
Behind her the screen changed to the now-packed House chamber. “Any moment now, Secretary Trano will begin his address. As we just showed, earlier this week Magic Nick made headlines for putting out a fire with his use of the powers and made a passionate speech where he derided the Adcendancy Nikolai Brandon's claim to be a god, of course the longtime owner of Vulpesnet has been vehemently anti-CCD. There have been other reports of violence both committed by and committed against magic users, and as you all know there was an incident involving the Native Americans in Albuquerque...Any moment now he will begin speaking and hopefully shed some light on what we as a nation are facing.”
She hoped so. This was rapidly turning into some very bad and boring TV.

The morning of the heist, Jaxen called Ori to have her meet him at his apartment. He had all of his gear prepared, although to look at him, the clothing wouldn't stand out as too unusual. He wore a button down shirt tucked into slacks and an open suit jacket. Very plain, very boring. Even the shoes were typical. The look he was going for was forgettable, professional but forgettable. His hair wasn't its usual wild self, but it was combed down and tame. The twinkle in his eye remained, though. He was drinking a cup of coffee when Oriena arrived.

[[Continued from Somnium]]

Thalia showered after she'd spoken with Calvin, and if it didn't improve her mood it at least left her feeling less groggy. She scribbled a note for Aylin -- Meeting a friend at Filevsky, back soon, T -- and then forced herself out the door before she changed her mind, heading for the metro-station. She played music the whole journey, sat looking down at her lap, avoiding eye-contact and conversation. Her apartment was near Filevsky -- at Bazhenov Square, to be precise -- so the journey didn't require that she pay attention. Instead she studied her nails, stripped of paint for the first time in forever. Like someone else's hands.

At the park, she wandered for a while before finally picking a spot by the curling river. She could hear the shouts and laughter of kids nearby, but couldn't see them. Trees lined the bank on the opposite edge of the wide river, bright with Spring growth. A few sunbathers dotted the distance, but there was no one close. For a while the isolation almost numbed her.

She stared at blankly across the water.

Her hair was still damp, pulled up and wound into a knot on her head. Loose tendrils frizzed about her sombre face, stirring like a dandelion in the wind. She had nothing of her own at Aylin's, so had borrowed clothes; cropped jeans and a loose, flowery blouse. A pair of sandals, too, though they pinched; they lay in the grass beside her, her bare toes digging into the grass. It was cool and dewy against the soles of her feet.

The sun was cold but bright, sparkling bright off the river. The comparison only amplified her sense of the light within. It was there all the time now, hovering. Almost beautiful, if she didn't fear it so. Bottling up the emotions, she rested her forehead on her knees, and waited. She'd messaged Calvin where she was; the wallet lay in the pile with her shoes.

[[Continued from Somnium]]

Thalia showered after she'd spoken with Calvin, and if it didn't improve her mood it at least left her feeling less groggy. She scribbled a note for Aylin -- Meeting a friend at Filevsky, back soon, T -- and then forced herself out the door before she changed her mind, heading for the metro-station. She played music the whole journey, sat looking down at her lap, avoiding eye-contact and conversation. Her apartment was near Filevsky -- at Bazhenov Square, to be precise -- so the journey didn't require that she pay attention. Instead she studied her nails, stripped of paint for the first time in forever. Like someone else's hands.

At the park, she wandered for a while before finally picking a spot by the curling river. She could hear the shouts and laughter of kids nearby, but couldn't see them. Trees lined the bank on the opposite edge of the wide river, bright with Spring growth. A few sunbathers dotted the distance, but there was no one close. For a while the isolation almost numbed her.

She stared at blankly across the water.

Her hair was still damp, pulled up and wound into a knot on her head. Loose tendrils frizzed about her sombre face, stirring like a dandelion in the wind. She had nothing of her own at Aylin's, so had borrowed clothes; cropped jeans and a loose, flowery blouse. A pair of sandals, too, though they pinched; they lay in the grass beside her, her bare toes digging into the grass. It was cool and dewy against the soles of her feet.

The sun was cold but bright, sparkling bright off the river. The comparison only amplified her sense of the light within. It was there all the time now, hovering. Almost beautiful, if she didn't fear it so. Bottling up the emotions, she rested her forehead on her knees, and waited. She'd messaged Calvin where she was; the wallet lay in the pile with her shoes.

Name: Danika Zayed

Age: 29

Origin: Chicago, IL

Current: Moscow

Occupation: Theoretical astrophysicist

Appearance: brunette with big brown eyes and a wide smile. Average height and healthy build and weight. Danika has an average sense of style and wears classic, tasteful pieces.

Goddess reborn: Sumerian goddess of knowledge, wisdom, writing, and the heavens, Nisaba

Biography:

Danika Zayed is an American physicist from Chicago, IL who studies string theory, dark theory, and quantum mechanics. She describes herself as a proud Chicago public schools alumna. She completed her undergraduate studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her graduate work at the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science in Munich and is a new faculty member in the department of theoretical physics at Moscow State University. She is best known for her contribution to the Illustris project.

Danika was born in 2017 and raised by her parents from a wealthy suburb outside Chicago, IL. In 2023, she enrolled in the Edison Regional Gifted Center and graduated high school from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in 2034, the last remaining public school for the gifted in the state.

Before she focused on energy theory, Danika did fellowship research every summer of high school at the labs of the Evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (eLISA) located in Hanover, Germany at the Albert Einstein Institute, the home of the first gravitational wave observatory in space. She was 14 years old during her first summer fellowship there, but was forced to leave three days early due to illness. When she returned the next summer, her research exploded with new findings. Her mentors were baffled by her innovative inquiries into particle physics, especially investigating dark matter, dark energy, dark particles, and a term coined by her, dark flows. She had a standing invitation to return to the Institute for a doctoral program upon completing her undergraduate studies back in the United States, an invitation she eventually accepted. Her dissertation research focused on an original concept where she postulated a new force of nature and how this fifth force, made up of dark waves, was studied using similar principles to studying gravitational waves, a body of work called the Illustris project.

As a toddler she developed at an average pace, although she had an affable and warm personality, including a big sense of humor.

Her parents had Danika's name on a wait list for the private Gifted School before she was even born. There, her intellect blossomed. Creativity was encouraged through a style more closely resembling play and self paced study than anything from the traditional academic classroom settings. She fell in love with astronomy and earth science, and spent many nights up past dark to look at the stars through her telescope. She even had a white cat named Milky Way. By the 2020's, the American space exploration programs were all pretty much defunded; no NASA space camp anymore. So Danika's parents looked abroad. Programs in the CCD were more plentiful and stable, but highly competitive-especially for foreigners. Danika was wait-listed the summer she was 8 years old. It was fortunate she was able to go, because the experience was integral to her acceptance to a fellowship program later in high school.

Despite her academic aptitude for math and science, Danika maintained a cheerful, outgoing personality. She was well-liked, and rarely involved in typical schoolgirl drama. She was was never ill, either, or missed any classes because of infection. Even when measles went through the school, she didn't catch it, and she had to have been exposed. The only time she was sick was during the summers in Munich, but even those episodes passed.

Her easy going nature persisted through college. Even in graduate school, she wasn't a complete stranger to the Munich club scene. A girl had to have her down time after all.

Despite her friendly personality, Danika has little experience with serious relationships. She had a few dates and went to prom, but a steady boyfriend was absent. Men probably found her intellect and charm to be intimidating, or she was too naive to know when she was being flirted with.

As a result, most of her social life takes place is shallow in the club scene or restricted to professional relationships at work. She's been in Moscow for a year now. In the last few months, the Illustri project was finally published, reviewed, and accepted in the field as evidence for a new fundamental force of nature.

*****

Illustris project

Dark energy is thought to be very homogeneous, not very dense and is not known to interact through any of the fundamental forces other than gravity.

Dark energy can have such a profound effect on the universe, making up 68% of universal density, only because it uniformly fills otherwise empty space. The two leading models are a cosmological constant and quintessence. Both models include the common characteristic that dark energy must have negative pressure.

The simplest explanation for dark energy is that it is simply the "cost of having space": that is, a volume of space has some intrinsic, fundamental energy. This is the cosmological constant, sometimes called Lambda (hence Lambda-CDM model) after the Greek letter Λ, the symbol used to represent this quantity mathematically (and usually multiplied by gamma Γ. Since energy and mass are related by E = mc2, Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that this energy will have a gravitational effect. It is sometimes called a vacuum energy because it is the energy density of empty vacuum. In fact, most theories of particle physics predict vacuum fluctuationsthat would give the vacuum this sort of energy.

A major outstanding problem is that most quantum field theories predict a huge cosmological constant from the energy of the quantum vacuum, more than 100 orders of magnitude too large. This would need to be cancelled almost, but not exactly, by an equally large term of the opposite sign. Mathematically, this opposite constant is represented by the Greek letter iota ι multiplied by Nu, Ν.

Although dark energy lacks mass, it is not transient, and interacts with dark matter through wave-like streams called dark flows.

When the two black holes collided in deep space, scientists celebrated the successful discovery of gravitational waves. It was recently postulated by Danika that the black hole binary was the signature of dark matter. What followed in the publication were five pages of annotated mathematical equations showing how she considered the mass of the two objects as a point of departure, suggesting that these objects could be part of the mysterious substance known to make up about 85 percent of the mass of the universe.

As a result, she has suggested that dark matter might not be made of extremely high-mass heavy fermions, but low-mass light bosons instead, on the order of one tenth of a billion of one-billionth of one billionth the mass of an electron.

The difference between fermions and bosons is that a fermion cannot occupy the same state at the same time as another fermion. As an analogy, a state is like a seat, and two or more fermions cannot sit in the same seat simultaneously. In contrast, two or more bosons can occupy the same state at the same time, and can therefore clump into so-called Bose-Einstein condensates that act like single blobs. She found that these condensates full of dark matter are composed of waves.

*****

Carmen had been quiet all evening. In the dusky glow of the club's lights, he caught the pensive edge of her frown a dozen times between the lull in patrons. She wasn't the only one. The wake of Ascendancy's demonstration in the Red Square left little bubbles of disquiet in the city; a pause of shock and awe as the reality of it slowly began to sink in. The hulking mass of the new arch dominated every newsfeed. It sucked in enough coverage to steal the light from the sun.

It was still early; enough that business had yet to really pick up, and even the bar show would not begin for another hour. Servers adorned like jewels threaded through the sparse clusters of customers in the plush booths, mostly regulars. A tease of music soared from hidden speakers, curling amongst the clink of glass and ice, accentuating the hum of talk and laughter. Raffe lounged on the bar, back-dropped by the twinkle of ornate and vintage bottles. Chandeliers glittered above.

He watched Carmen as she meandered, greeting people with a sultry smirk, topping glasses from diamond studded bottles, sharing a few familiar words. But still that grimace of concern when she moved on.

It wasn't like her to be ruffled. He frowned.

Abandoning the bar, he followed her when she slipped backstage and into a cloud of sequins and feathers, glitter and steel. Dewy skin flashed in the large ornate mirrors, and someone chucked something small and lacy at his chest amongst a low murmur of giggling; he wasn't supposed to wander back here. A small grin tugged at his lips, but he ignored the distractions as he spied out Carmen tightening one of the girl's corset stays.

He caught her by the hip, pulled her gently around to face him.

"Talk to me, Carmen. What's up?"


Victory rolls framed her porcelain face, a wave of blood-red curls nestling on her pale shoulders. Colourful tattoos draped her arms, which she presently folded. Her lips pursed. For a moment he anticipated a scold for his familiarity - she was his boss, after all, and she'd never quite melted to his charms the way the others did. But the flash of ire in her expression softened. Though she did at least pull him away from the dressing rooms and into the shadows beyond, where a staircase led to the offices above.

The darkness clung to her face. Away from the customers her masks dropped, deepening the severity of her frown. "It's Ori."
She said the name like a curse, pursing her lips. "I'm worried she's going to do something fucking stupid."


He'd been working shifts here the last two years, and the venue had always had an air of unusual; something that made Kallisti among Raffe's favourite jobs. He cast a casual glance to the darkness above, ears pricked for any indication of movement in the floors above, but the thump of music drowned out anything he might hear. The girls sometimes complained of noises. Carmen had confided once that Oriena kept someone - or something - up there, but Raffe had held his hands up. If it didn't interfere with the job, it wasn't his business.

"Like what?"


"I don't know. Call it intuition. It's just the announcement, and now the Arch. She keeps unsavoury company, and I do not want this place caught in the crossfire."
She paused. "Just keep an eye on the customers. At least until things settle back down."
She barely waited for his nod before she thrust a hand on her hip, gaze narrowing. "Now get your ass back out there, Raffe."


He laughed, snuck a fond kiss on her forehead as she shoved him gently on his way back out to the club.