Faridah Malik - Tumblr Posts
WIP Wednesday
For anyone who thought the Deus Ex prequels needed more realism, more Pritchard and Malik, more interrogation of the experience of being turned into a bladed death machine, and more FINISHING THE PLOT AND CONNECTING IT TO THE ORIGINAL GAMES (Embracer are private-equity vultures and I hate them), allow me to present Gods of Blood and Iron! Following Reconstruction, about Jensen's recovery from his original augmentation, and Et Resurrexit, covering the events of DX:HR with very slight canon divergence, we have now come to Custos Custodium, which approximately covers Black Light and DX:MD with rather more canon divergence. Below is a snippet from the most recent chapter:
“I’m letting him in,” Jensen whispered. “Maybe he’ll overbalance.” She nodded, and he opened the door. A fist like a piledriver hissed through the air and he cut down on it with all his might, right where he had gouged the wrist before. He got another half-inch of depth. Vande put a round in Hermann’s chest, then another, and a third, her augmented hand holding the boxy little Walther rock-steady.
“Bah—unglaublich! I thought we had a gentleman’s agreement, Herr Jensen: single combat! Apparently I was wrong!” Hermann shouted as his sword slid from his arm. He struck at Jensen’s face, his left arm still outside the locomotive. Jensen blocked it and cut at the underside of the big Aug’s right wrist as the only meaningful target. Hermann grunted and bore down with his sword, forcing Jensen’s arm lower. He skipped back, disengaged, and brought his left blade over and down again at the same point. It sank in and caught. The shield blurred through the doorway and smashed him from his feet. He felt his clavicle snap. With a thump, he landed heavily on his ass beside Vande. Hermann loomed triumphantly in the doorway. Jensen saw victory in his eyes and wished he could disagree.
Then he looked at the train controls, seized by a mad idea. It was terrible, idiotic, but it might just offer a way out. And what did he have to lose? He sure as hell wasn’t letting the Illuminati take him alive to do mad science on him. As Hermann navigated his bulk through the doorway, Jensen rammed the manual throttle forward and snapped it off at the end of its range. Then he scanned the instrument panel and drove a blade through the governor module that read track characteristics ahead. It failed with a shower of sparks and the reek of burning insulation.
The big man froze. “What is this?” he growled.
“Zero-win, Hermann. This train is jumping the tracks on the first downhill curve, in about… forty-five seconds, if I remember the pass correctly. No augs for anyone. You can stay here and die, or live to fight another day. It’ll take you longer than that to drag me out of here alive. Forty.”
Over his infolink, he abandoned any pretense of cool and shouted subvocally, “Vega! Need a pickup at that first hairpin! Train’s coming off the tracks, and I’m coming with it, with one injured and about half an Icarus!”
Hermann stared at him. He swallowed. “Thirty-five.”
The shield whisked in on itself and away. The sword rose in salute, perhaps ironic, before it too withdrew. Hermann stepped casually off the side of the train, a flicker of golden lightning following him down the cliff face.
“Uh, I dunno about that vector, Jensen.” Vega’s voice shook. “Two of you and half an Icarus are gonna come out pretty damn steep. I’ll be there, but…”
“All I can ask.” He grunted as he hauled himself upright and took Vande’s hand in his left. The right might not bear weight with the clavicle destroyed as it was—he’d need repairs to the titanium sheathing. “This is gonna hurt,” he warned her. She nodded, expression closed, braced against the pain to come. He knelt and hauled her across his shoulders so her limbs dangled down in front of his chest. Holding her wrists and ankles, he lurched to his feet. Vande screamed through lips pressed tight and spasmed against his shoulders. What was the count? Twenty? Less?
He staggered onto the platform at the back of the locomotive. They were headed downhill and gathering speed. He saw the turn ahead, saw the hovering VTOL. She was right. It was a shitty goddamn angle. They weren’t going to make the jump.
Then another voice sounded in his link. “Whoever you are, get outta my airspace—I’ve got this,” and a dove-and-rust VTOL swooped up the ravine.
Jensen stared in disbelief. “Malik?”
“What? Who says? This is my op!” Vega snapped back.
“I said, get clear!” The other VTOL skidded inside Vega’s, closer to the train, and the cabin door fought its way open against the slipstream as the interloper matched velocity with the hurtling locomotive. It was definitely the Bumblebee.
Vega’s bird swerved away. Jensen heard a couple of Spanish obscenities before she dropped out of the channel.
“I got you,” Malik said, calm but focused, like she was talking to the tower. “Wait for it. Jump on my mark. Three… two… one… mark!”
He jumped. The Icarus struggled valiantly against the weight of two tall, muscular humans and the metal bolted to their skeletons, but all it did was flatten their arc a hair. The Bumblebee rolled all the way up on one wing and sideslipped, slower than they fell, and they tumbled through the door and slid across the steeply tilted floor and slammed into the overstuffed couches.
And they were in. The VTOL leveled out and fought for altitude. A wingtip screamed across the cliff face, and then they looped up and away, the train plunging to its doom as he watched through the closing cabin door.
This is a conversation I can imagine Faridah Malik having at Adam and/or Frank after two to three beers.
Hey, fun fact! You know the Boeing EA-18G Growler?
huh?
You know, the EA/18G, the dedicated electronic warfare version of the Boeing F/A-18 naval combat aircraft.
wha?
Okay, you know how the United States has a really big military? Well, it's so big that we have three separate fixed wing combat aviation forces: the United States Air Force, the United States Navy, and the United States Marines. Most countries have only one, because they're stinking un-airconditioned europoors, but we have three, because we're the best country in the world.
(The Marines? Yes! If they were their own country the Marines would have the fifth largest air force in the world. They have their own F-35 variant, the F-35B, which they operate off their own mini-carriers. And, again, the United States has more of those helicopter carriers than the rest of the world, combined.)
okay
Seriously, Italians don't even put ice in their water. And that's not the worst thing--
you were talking about airplanes
Oh yeah. Well, every air force has electronic warfare aircraft, planes that jam radar and communications signals. Remember the opening salvo of the Gulf War, where the US flew airstrikes against Bagdad, the most heavily defended city in the world, but effortlessly evaded Saddam's hopelessly outdated Soviet anti-air batteries using the F-117's stealth abilities? That flight of F-117s were accompanied by three EF-111A electronic warfare aircraft! Entirely conventional 70s-era airframes, but they waltzed through radar just as well as cutting-edge stealth. Nobody knows about this!
And I think this is by design. Electronic warfare is a peculiarly ephemeral form of combat. Radar jamming only works if you know the frequencies and periods of enemy equipment. It is beneficial to the United States to announce an insurmountable lead in stealth, an intrinsic, material property of an aircraft structure, and downplay EW, which can be defeated with a turn of the dial. Maintaining effective EW capabilities requires constant surveillance of of enemy radar systems and intimate knowledge of their internal workings. I think it is no coincidence that fully half of the satellites that the NRO launches aren't visible-light telescopes at all, but ELINT signals interception birds!
thats crazy
If you think that's crazy, just wait! You see those things hanging off the wings up there?
uh huh
That's the AN/ALQ-99 EW pod. The Growler itself has some electronics, but most of the transmit power come from the the 99's. It originally entered service in 1972 with the EA-6B, a late sixties design. Early combat aircraft didn't exactly have a lot of spare electrical power, and each 99 can radiate up to 10.8 kilowatts of radio. Where does the power come from?
The propeller at the front. It's a ram air turbine.
what the fuck
The Growler can carry up to five of them at once! Wikipedia notes it "reduc[es] the Growler's top speed." Yeah, no shit! You're shoving a damn windmill through the sky!
WIP "Wednesday": Custos Custodium
Oops. Anyway.
They say to write what you know, so I decided Malik's roommate has a cat. Also in this episode: Jensen learns how to skydive, and everyone is shitty to Augs. Find the fic at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55686901/chapters/141357007
He met Malik at her apartment—a matchbox indeed, with a galley kitchen occupying most of the shared space and two closet-sized bedrooms holding a lofted twin apiece. One of her absent roommates had filled the living room with potted plants whose vines crawled across the windows and turned the sparse rays of sun that crept between adjacent buildings a brilliant emerald. A tortoiseshell cat followed her out of the back and inspected him. He ran a careful finger down its back, from one ear to the base of the tail, and it purred and shoved its head into his shin.
“Good to see you! You want to pass out on my couch for a minute?” she asked. “Fair’s fair.”
“Slept on the train. Can I drop my bag, though? Hotel doesn’t do check-in until four.”
“Sure.” She made a face. “You know you could’ve crashed here, right? London’s expensive as hell.”
He surveyed the minuscule accommodations deliberately. “You said it was cramped. You share it with three people I don’t know. And this fellow.” The cat twined happily around his ankles, rumbling like an old muscle car.
“They’re friendly! And two of them are gone at any given time. The Duke of Hork doesn’t take up much space, and he only ever throws up on Sarah’s bag.”
He raised an eyebrow at the title. The cat did have an aristocratic portliness to him. “Didn’t want to impose. It’s fine. The Task Force keeps me housed and armed. Prague’s not pricey like London.”
“All right, well, if you’re sure. Hungry?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Tear yourself away from His Grace, and let’s hit a chippy.”
An entire cod and an acre’s worth of insuperable fries later, he sat back on the bench they shared and basked contented in the sun. His black clothing soaked up the sparse rays, and though the weather was chilly still, it lacked bite. “What’s the plan?” he asked. “Not that I wouldn’t happily just bum around and clean out the North Sea of seafood.”
Malik surveyed the smaller chunk of fried fish half-eaten in the paper tray before her and admitted defeat, consigning it to a nearby bin. “Want to jump off the top of the London Eye?”
He snorted, but she continued: “I actually think I can line up another pilot friend of mine for tomorrow if you want to learn how to skydive. You owe it to yourself, with the Icarus.”
“Seriously? Yeah, for sure. Sounds like a blast.”
She nudged his shoulder. “You’re gonna be a natural. You probably won’t even need supplemental oxygen for the altitude.”
“Uh… how high were you planning on going?”
“You ever heard of HALO?”
He pondered. “Like the angels, or like the video game?”
“That’s what I thought. High-altitude, low-open. Ask your coworkers—I bet one of them was a paratrooper or something, the way you guys operate.”
“Mmm, yeah. At least one of the grunts. And I think the E-SEALs train with chutes, so Jarreau back in Chicago’s probably done it. How high is high? And more importantly, how low is low?”
She fought a smile with limited success. “How’s thirty thousand feet sound?”
“High. Cold. I see why you’d need oxygen.”
“And you can pop under two kay, but it’s not advised for beginners. I’ve gone down to two-fifty over water. I know someone who was showing off and pulled at two hundred… but he broke both ankles.”
Jensen looked at her. “Twenty-eight thousand feet of free fall? As in five miles?”
The smile won out. “Hell of a thrill. What do you say?”
“If I break my ankles, you get to pay for the replacement parts. And explain it to Sarif.”
“I’m telling Nils you’re a ‘yes,’ then. Speaking of ankles, when did you get yours repaired? It was in rough shape when I saw you in Singapore, but it seems fine now.”
“Huh. I’d… forgotten about that. Must’ve gotten fixed up while they were reviving me.” He flexed the ankle thoughtfully, then pulled it up over his right knee. It looked fine. “Guess they had Sarif spares.”
“Well, as long as it can take a landing. Not like I’m gonna get you on a dance floor… am I? I assumed pubs over clubs, for tonight.”
He remembered the Hive and winced. “Yep.”
“Too bad. I wanted to see what would happen. Figured you’d panic in under a minute.”
“Remind me why I spent fourteen hours on a train to hang out with you?”
She laughed. “I thought it was so you could drink me under the table in front of all my friends. I didn’t tell anyone you had a Sentinel—didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
“That’s terrible.” Jensen chuckled. “Can’t wait. How many friends are we talking?”
“Just three. My roommate Maggie—she’s more or less on my schedule. She’s a flight attendant, and we’ve gone bouldering a couple times. Nils, who’d be flying us up to the stratosphere tomorrow on his way to Johannesburg. And Laura, another pilot friend. She does helo tours around the British Isles, mostly. That okay with you?”
“Shocked you have three whole friends besides me. I figure I can just about carry four people home after a couple of pubs. Especially if anyone else is a shrimp like you.” “Bold words to your future skydiving instructor, Jensen,” she said, and socked him in the arm. He pretended not to notice her nursing her knuckles as she stood.
WIP Wednesday: Custos Custodium
This scene is mostly just for fun, inspired by hunting around Jensen's apartment for food other than cereal and wondering what kind of takeout he'd get. I make no apologies. Check out the whole thing at https://archiveofourown.org/works/55686901/chapters/141357007
“Wow,” Malik said through a mouthful of cheese, “this is terrible.”
“Yeah.” Jensen chewed, swallowed, and downed half his beer. “You know how they say there’s really no such thing as bad pizza? They’re wrong.”
“Bleh. At least the veggies are edible. What’re you up to tomorrow?”
“Work. Some of us keep regular hours, you know.”
“Sorry I couldn’t make it down on the weekend. But I figured as long as I was in the neighborhood—”
Jensen shook his head. “Glad you’re here. Wish I weren’t tied up.” He eyed his half-eaten slice and picked a dubious circle of cured meat off it.
“Well, I’ve been meaning to look around the city some more. I think I have all the papers I need.”
“This is definitely not real pepperoni. I think it’s got caraway in it. And maybe sage.” He wiped his greasy fingers. “Let me see. Passport, Aug permit, commercial pilot’s license… you have your flight plan?”
“Do I need it?”
“You want to use the CPL instead of a visa, you need a flight plan taking you out of Czechia.”
“Jesus, fine. You got a printer? I don’t want your asshole local cops poking through my phone.”
“I do, yeah, and then you should be good. Anyone tells you to get a permit authentication card, they’re scamming you—let me know.”
Malik rolled her eyes. “Remind me why I flew out here?”
“Figured you wanted to show off your bed head to someone other than Maggie.”
“Yeah, screw you. You realize yours goes flat on the side you sleep on? From the gel or whatever?”
Self-conscious, he brushed his fingers along the side of his head—not that they could feel his hair. “You realize I carry a stun gun? I can make your hair do that whenever I want.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I might.”
She matched his glare for a good five seconds before snickering. “Okay, you might, and I might deserve it sometimes. Although I’d think scooping your metal ass out of midair might get me a little grace.”
“That’s why I’d only do it if you deserved it.” Jensen scowled at his pizza, and caught her doing the same. “Pitch it? It’s pretty damn bad.”
“It is. But do you have literally any other food in this place?”
“Sure. I got, lemme see, Augmentchoos and Frogy Kousnutí.”
“Bless you.”
“The Augmentchoos have a carefully calibrated glycemic index to, uh…” He picked up the box and read off the back. “To ‘provide your augs with the all-day performance you need.’”
“Uh-huh. Sure. What about the froggy things?”
“Well, they look like little frogs. Think there’s Vitamin D in the lily pads.”
Malik sighed and slid her doughy pizza into the trash. “Fine. I’ll try the froggy friends. I have no idea how you don’t get, like, scurvy or something, eating this stuff.”
“Limes in my cocktails.” He poured two bowls of processed grains and green food dye, then fetched the milk. “Say when.”
“Ooh, big health-food guy we got over here. That’s plenty.”
“What do you think?”
“Think I’m getting hopped up on sugar.”
“Hopped up—Christ.” He sighed and grabbed a bottle from the cabinet. “Even it out with some bourbon?”
“Sure, why not? It’ll be like college all over again. Except I don’t have class to cut in the morning.”
Jensen chuckled and raised his glass. “Na zdraví.”
WIP Wednesday: Custos Custodium
In which Malik and the Collective have much less of a plan than they realize, and it falls to Jensen to pull together the front half. See how badly a mission can go at !
“You think you could pull a trigger on someone?”
“Jesus, Jensen. Maybe in self-defense. Do I have to?”
“Just assessing our resources. What about a stun gun?”
“That I could do. Basically laser tag, right?”
“Well, one time in ten thousand, they break their skull going down. Or you find out they had a heart condition. But the modern stuff is pretty damn safe. C’mon.” He led her back to the entryway and handed her the Zap from the thigh holster hanging on a peg. Argento would have to forgive him for not bringing Malik to a real instructor—the plan coalescing in his hindbrain might need two shooters, and he’d think better with his mind on something else anyway. “Finger off the trigger. Crash course time.”
She took it in cautious fingers and almost fumbled it. “Is there a safety?”
He walked her to the TV and stood behind her, obscurely touched to see her so uncertain for a change. “Don’t worry about that yet. Point it down the hall, right over that bedside table—there’s two feet of brick behind it, and stingers don’t penetrate anyway. Good. Okay, now hold it in your right hand only, but keep your trigger finger along the side.”
She shifted her grip, and he nodded approvingly. “See that gap between your fingers on the left side? Wrap your left hand around that, but don’t cross your thumbs. Side-by-side—perfect. Squeeze and push the muzzle toward your target.”
“I don’t have a target.”
“Fair enough.” He walked down the hallway and stood in the bedroom doorway, then patted his chest. “Right here,” he called. “It’s a stun round, and my dermal armor will shed the pulse anyway. You’re basically shooting beanbags at me.”
Malik’s eyebrows climbed to her hairline. “You want me to shoot you?” “Pretend I’m Pritchard. No, wait, pretend you’re Pritchard.”
She gave him a strained smile. “Okay, so I’m pushing the muzzle at you. Great. Fine. This isn’t weird at all.”
“Now you’re ready to shoot, so now you can touch the trigger. Feel the little catch at the front of it? That’s the safety on this gun. Wiggle it with your finger. Don’t move the trigger itself, just the safety.”
“Um… yeah, okay, I feel it. Jeez, this is like learning to hover all over again.”
“I bet. Relax your shoulders.”
“I’m not—oh, I guess I am. Okay. Relaxed.”
“More. Pull ’em down. Good. Now stare at my chest, breathe out, and pull the trigger.”
“Well, one of those is—fine. Okay. Here it comes.” She exhaled. There was a snap, and the stun round took him in the shoulder, crackling in vain against his skin.
Malik yelped. “You okay?”
“Barely felt it. Now leave your right hand on the weapon, but let go with your left. Grab the slide—the top part—and pull it back, then release. Watch your fingers.” He listened for the click-click of oiled metal; the caseless stun ammo had nothing to eject.
“Hand back on the weapon and push it at my chest. Fire again when you’re ready, as you breathe out.” A snap. She stifled the yelp down to a sort of mmp noise. The dart caromed off the doorframe by his right knee.
“Sorry! Wait, should I be apologizing for not shooting you?”
“Yes. Rack the slide and try again. Right in the chest. Center mass.” Snap. “Ow.”
“Sorry sorry sorry!”
“It’s fine. Should’ve protected myself.” He shifted his hands to cross in front of his crotch. “I’ll live. Again.”
Click-click. Snap. “Good. A little high, but it would’ve taken down anyone not wearing armor. Again.”
Click-click. Snap. “You over-corrected a little. Don’t think about compensating—just aim. Hell, pretend I’m Lee Hong.”
Click-click. Snap. “Aha. That did it. Perfect. Now, rack the slide again.” Click-click. “Pull the trigger.” Click. “You will observe nothing happened. Your magazine is dry. Above your left thumb is a button. Push it.” Click. Thump.
He walked back to her and picked up the empty magazine. “This gets reloaded and shoved back in. Then you have to pull back the slide again to put a round in the chamber, ready to fire. Got it?”
“Yeah. I think.”
“Listen. You’ll have a couple of spare magazines. You even using this thing at all is Plan… E, I think. Just don't want you shooting yourself with it accidentally.”
“Plan E?”
“A is no one notices us at all until it’s too late. B through D are variations on me beating people up while you fly us out. Still need to figure out how to power it up once we’re in. You ready to go?”
“Well, I haven’t opened my suitcase.”
“That’s a yes. I want to get to Nice today, check out the lay of the land. We’ll drive, in case we need wheels while we’re there, and it’s a ways.” He reloaded the stun gun magazine and grabbed two more, then took the weapon from her and reconfigured the straps for waist wear. “Belt this on.”
“Suits me. If I never deal with that airport security again, it’ll be too soon,” she grumbled as she belted on the Zap. She was wearing a rust-colored tee-shirt with a picture of a carabiner on it over tight, light-grey jeans—he wondered whether she’d matched the colors of her old Sarif flight suit consciously, for luck—and the holster jutted out from her hip. Without prompting, she dug a canvas jacket out of her suitcase to cover it up. The magazines weighed down the pockets, but it would have to do.
Malik made another cup of tea while he hastily packed toiletries, a few changes of clothes, and his tactical vest. The long guns went in his duffel as well. He covered the Destrier’s shoulder holster with the lightweight gabardine trench he’d blown most of his second paycheck on, instead of the heavy leather. The really expensive part, and the thing that had gotten him curious looks from the tailor, had been adding the magnetized openings at the elbows for his blades. He’d skipped the Typhoon ports—he never planned to use the damn thing again, and if he had to, it would be for something important enough he could sacrifice his sleeves. He was still overdressed for June anywhere near the Mediterranean, but not flagrantly so.
“Hell, Jensen, nice coat,” she said as they headed out the door. “Haven’t seen this one before. It’s charcoal, right, not black? This is personal growth, for you.”
He growled at her.
WIP: Custos Custodium
This week, Jensen helps Malik attempt to steal a fancy custom VTOL from the DeBeers family. Of course, the plan goes off without a hitch.
Dawn followed the graceless bulk of the ship across the water. Malik raised the binoculars again, and he shaded them quickly with his hand to forestall any betraying reflections. A crane ground into motion, deafening in the morning stillness, screeching down rails set in the concrete until it came to rest alongside a section of quay. The thrum of a diesel engine heralded a tug, forging out through the harbor’s calm waters at the end of a ruler-straight wake on a lazy intercept with the ship.
He tapped Malik and crooked a finger. They dashed from the edge of the construction site to crouch behind a bollard, protected by the cloak, and waited in its shadow for the energy converter to recharge. Then they repeated the process, slowly drawing nearer and nearer to the crane. Jensen stopped and waited when they were still a few bollards away, and Malik hunkered down at his shoulder.
Longshore workers yelled and cursed as the tug brought the big ship alongside the quay. Thin ropes flew from ship to shore, followed by wrist-thick monstrosities that were drawn snug around the bollards and made fast. Fenders the size of small cars creaked and groaned as they took the pressure of the ship. The workers backed away, then turned and headed to their ready room or whatever it was, and the crane rumbled to life again. Once it stopped, Jensen beckoned, and they flitted closer.
Trucks began to appear in a long queue, pulling flatbed trailers, hissing and snorting their way between the towering, spindly legs of the crane as one longshore worker waved a pair of glowing batons and cursed unceasingly in French. Most were singles, with a few doubles and one triple that must’ve been a cast-iron bitch to drive through a European city, and the crane dropped container after container onto the auto-locking mechanisms of the trailers like an industrious robotic giraffe. The trucks pulled away again, each in turn, to be replaced by another and yet another.
The queue and the crane both paused, and Jensen nudged Malik. A tractor unit growled up under the crane, heedless of the line, and sat idling while someone inside shouted to the traffic conductor. They chose their moment amid the chaos and darted to the leg of the great machine. Jensen flexed open ports on each forearm and plugged in two biocells, waiting for the right moment to draw on them.
This time, instead of a container, the crane brought over an entire trailer, canvas now visible wrapped underneath the edge of the bed. The trailer was double-width, red flags protruding from its corners. It swung under the crane’s cables, then stabilized and lowered to the ground, revealing the streamlined shape beneath the canvas.
A man in anonymous grey fatigues jumped from the passenger’s side and directed the driver backwards underneath the front of the trailer. The driver, similarly clad, emerged as well, and the two men spent a few minutes ducking underneath the trailer with a flashlight and plugging things into one another. The longshore workers undid the crane’s cables.
“Ready?” Jensen breathed. Malik said nothing, but moved to stand in front of him, her back up against his vest. He rested his hands on her hips. The truck jerked forward, a false start, then rolled gently into motion. It came alongside their hiding place at a languorous pace. “And… go.”
WIP Wednesday: Custos Custodium
In which the heist pays off, and big feelings are had by all. Come for the fancy VTOL, stay for the angst.
Malik set down in an empty parking lot at a scenic overlook to investigate her prize, her enthusiasm only growing as she poked and prodded at its systems. To Jensen’s disgust, the first thing she did was get Pritchard on the line to make sure the computer system couldn’t be remotely hijacked. This entailed physically disabling some of the transmitters, including the one that—according to the logs—had alerted the DeBeers nephew personally when the hatch had opened. Others required only software changes. Soon, Pritchard announced himself confident that no one could get into the craft’s systems from outside, not even him, although he recommended she bring it by for an in-person look as well.
Reassured the VTOL wouldn’t turn on her in midair, Malik dove back into the interface, issuing a running commentary that Jensen tried sporadically to follow. All the flight-essential capabilities mapped to the buttons on the sticks or the console, but the other functions ran through the touch-sensitive wraparound cockpit screen. And there were a lot of functions: HUD readouts, climate controls, radar, comms, and more that he lost track of.
Eventually, she turned to disguise. The craft spoofed a transponder code with ease, but a physical registration number seemed more difficult until Malik sat bolt upright and said, “Hey. Does this interface look like what I think it looks like?”
He roused from his exhausted, brooding slump in the copilot seat and inspected it. “Smart paint? I bet so.”
She fiddled with it for a minute, then dragged him outside to see the results. It gave him a chance for a better look at the chunk of machinery for which he’d almost gotten himself killed. Bigger than the Bumblebee, yet smaller than Chikane’s and the other Task Force’s aircraft, it bore an even sharper and more aggressive profile. The nose hooked down slightly, giving the impression of a raptor’s beak, and the narrow fuselage pinched in and upwards at the rear before fanning out into a pair of absurdly wide tail surfaces angled gently down to the sides. A sleek stub of rudder jutted up between them.
The root of the wings ran most of the length of the fuselage, from which point they tapered gradually before sweeping back to sharp points. A pair of engines, each in its own nacelle, sat at the crook of each wing. The craft looked like it wanted to leap from its perch and stoop upon some unsuspecting prey. As indeed it just had, he supposed. He couldn’t see the cannon, but of course it would retract, for discretion and aerodynamics both.
Chromatically, the aircraft had become unrecognizable, white above and olive below all along the fuselage. The phony registration number appeared in black on the white tailplanes, in white on the olive sides. He walked around to the left flank, following Malik slowly on his wobbly right leg. Gunmetal streaks showed where bullets had smeared across the smart paint, but only a close look betrayed them as anything more suspicious than grime.
Malik stood hipshot, hand on her waist, and jerked a thumb at the transformed VTOL. “This thing is sweet! Man, it’s a vigilante agent’s dream come true. We are gonna get in so much trouble—and get out of it again, more importantly. Speaking of which, how are you holding up?”
“Bled on your upholstery, I’m afraid.”
“DeBeers sprang for the good stuff. It looks stain-resistant—shouldn’t be a problem. You got pretty chewed up, though. Let me see your back.”
“It’s fine.”
“Bullshit.” She grabbed his shoulder and craned her neck to look behind him. “Omigod your neck! What happened? Looks like a… a ring?”
“I bet. After I broke the gun, that exo trooper used the barrel like a cattle prod.”
“Jeez. And your whole back. Ouch. Hmm—uh, yeah, that looks nasty. It’s stopped bleeding, but I bet you could use some protein, huh? Liquids, too. Maybe a beef smoothie.”
He gagged, only partly in jest.