well that sure went tits up

dumbest question in the world but I've gotta ask it: want a lift, kid?

It takes him a second to trace the connection enough to send something back.

who are you

do you mean jacking the pod

because yes

Skip's on her way. half an hour, give or take. you have a name you like? I go by Diff.

Z

any special reason you feel like shoplifting today

Z, got it.

been planning this heist for a while now, actually. had like 70 on your background, woulda been another couple months probably. mighta been already if it wasn't for that chicken gig, I knew we should have prioritized you.

we'll get ya, though, just hold tight.

what happens once you get me?

right now, you stay with me 'n Skip 'n Silver. long term - depends what you want, depends how bad everybody flips about that 70. probably you get to pick, though, that's the script.

looks like they're flipping pretty bad, though, first pass. might be stuck here for a bit.

70 is what?

is this a theft or a rescue

seventy percent. of the background check checklist.

it's a rescue; worst case I think is you lose a chunk of memories. probably not even that, I can blow a lot of whuffie on this one. just going to take a while for it to settle out. put six anarchists in a room and you get ten opinions, and all that.

wow i don't know enough offnet slang do i

what's whuffie

it's like pull, or reputation. if you pull a flounce and have enough whuffie you get what you want.

pulling a flounce is threatening to leave if you don't get something.

huh

i'm learning so much

what makes me worth spending your rep on

it's not /your/ fault I only got to 70.

and you're a sweetheart, and I like robots. and it's always good to have more rescue cases around, if you decide to stay.

i'm not a /robot/

what do you mean i'm a sweetheart

you do right by people. you care about that.

I saw that thing with the fuzz last month. you could have gotten in a lot of trouble, but you did it anyway.

somebody had to

lotta people think somebody doesn't mean them.

Skip caught some luck; ten minutes.

lotta people are assholes

or just scared

yep, Sturgeon got it right. you aren't, though.

not an asshole or not scared?

i can do both

you aren't, though. an asshole. scared, yeah, anybody'd be.

yeah. i guess

who are you with anyway

anarchist group. can't tell you names or anything. we keep an eye on things, try to step in when things get too bad. since the cops are shit and the corps are corps.

like that chicken gig - nobody's going to care about some asshole keeping a couple hundred birds in little cages in a warehouse someplace, if they're quiet about it. but we care - enough of us, anyway, birds aren't my gig but that's what the collective is for - so we do something about it.

so...you save birds and sexbots?

you don’t sound so bad

and stuff, yeah. lot of it's daemon work, the big-ticket heists don't come up that often, but the little stuff adds up too. it's nice, I like it.