Cosmosis

Interlude-Crossfire

(Starspeak)

Tasser found himself with Dustin, coordinating with station security, combing the lower half, and otherwise trying to keep things orderly.

A few times, someone on the bridge had sent them a handful of chores to tackle. Disabling some computer components here, a little crowd control there, they'd even done a spot of courier work because physically carrying a hard drive was faster than moving its contents through the station's network.

Currently, the two of them were moving through the cargo bays, confirming the only personnel present were those authorized, and having Dustin regularly cascade for any known AI tampering devices.

"So…what's Caleb's deal?" Dustin asked. "You two are pretty tight, aren't you?"

"Shouldn't you know? Haven't you been trading mail with him for years now?" Tasser replied. "I love gossip as much as the next Casti, but I don't spill about family."

"Caleb is family, is he?"

"I have more than nine siblings by blood, and every one of them plus my parents would sell me for a hot meal," Tasser said. "I spent less than thirty-six hours with Caleb before he put his life on the line to fight a trained Vorak killer and save my life."

"So, not big on [blood runs thicker than water]?" Dustin mused. "I get that. My family back home isn't great either."

"Actually, I would say I'm very 'big' on it," Tasser said, "because the original phrase is from early Christianity: [the blood of the covenant runs thicker than the water of the womb]."

"Huh. Didn't know you spoke English."

Tasser snorted.

Every alien in the Flotilla had learned at least a little, if for no other reason than to enjoy more of the Earth books and films some abductees happened to be carrying when they were nabbed.

That said, maybe he was being too harsh on Dustin. Tasser definitely knew more English than any other alien, save maybe Nai.

Tasser cradled his gun idly while he reflected on himself. He was actually being short with him. Not intensely. Not enough to raise any alarms. But the only reason Tasser could think of why was Caleb and Nora.

Dustin worked for Nora, and Tasser was Caleb's best friend. Was that enough?

Maybe, but it certainly wasn't a good reason to get snippy with the human. Not unlike Tasser, Dustin was probably the one who knew Caleb best, at least among Nora's camp.

"…So your family is awful too?" Tasser prompted, looking for some common ground.

"All my siblings are younger," Dustin admitted, "so I sometimes worry that I might be awful to them. But my parents? For sure."

"Really? How bad?"

"[Well the first time I wrapped my head around it was at a soccer game when I was seven,]" Dustin said. "[I fell and twisted my ankle scoring a goal. That was big for me, because my parents had said if I scored a goal, I and my younger sisters would get ice cream. Well I got the goal, and we went to get ice cream. But when we got there, my parents told me that I didn't get any because I'd 'wimped out' and hadn't played the whole game.]"

"[Because you injured your ankle?]" Tasser asked.

"They thought I was faking," Dustin shrugged. "They just kept saying 'they could tell' I wasn't really hurt. It was an early wake-up call that my parents keen magical senses were just their hunches. You?"

"I got in fights," Tasser said simply. "In Casti youth school there's a lot of group pressures. If one kid is being disruptive, often the teacher doesn't have to step in. The other kids will gang up on the one kid. But it leads to a lot of bullying and conformity. I stuck out because I never cared about fitting in too much. They didn't like that. It started out just as intimidation. People crowding around me, saying insults. Eventually it evolved to shoving, and I started hitting back. That got me in enough trouble at home, but it kept going and I eventually did the one thing Casti are never supposed to do."

"What's that?"

"I started hitting first," Tasser said. "Looking back, I'm not so proud of it, but I really do maintain that I was surreptitiously taught to respond that way. Ironically, violence was the only language they understood."

"I got in a few fights," Dustin shared. "Mostly—"

<Nai, Tasser, all crew watch out.>

The psionic announcement interrupted them both. Dustin and Tasser exchanged a glance.

<I repeat, all points: hostile mechanized forces are on site,> Caleb's voice rang out.

"You might be about to get in a few more," Tasser remarked wryly.

He pulled his gun and double checked it for readiness.

"Have you got a link?" Tasser asked Dustin.

"Uh, sure. Give me a second…"

"Never mind," Tasser said. <Just use this one.>

Before Dustin could muddle his way through making a fresh one, Tasser peeled off one his channels and gave Dustin its signal.

Dustin gave an appreciative grunt before materializing a pistol of his own and accepting the psionic link.

<Say…back at the last cargo bay…> Tasser said, slowly recontextualizing information, <did you notice the large container without an outside lever?>

The look on Dustin's face said that 'no', no he had not.

Tasser and Dustin both reversed course immediately and jogged back toward the hangar in question.

Tasser rounded the corner first…

And immediately opened fire.

Eight bots had opened a shipping container from the inside and were beginning to assemble in a loose formation in the hangar.

His first bullets slammed into three bots before they could react, but sharp pings sounding throughout the hangar indicated the shots had merely ricocheted off their armor.

<Back, back!> he warned Dustin.

Dustin, equally aggressive, peeked his head out instead to fire off a few rounds of his own. He at least ducked back behind the wall before the bots returned fire. Dustin was slightly more reckless and undisciplined than Tasser was used to expecting from Humans. So Tasser was adjusting his read on what the best tactical move was.

A familiar rhythm of impacts struck the wall and doorway they were hiding behind. The bots return fire was accurate, staggered, and precise. It was risky peeking out with them firing constantly.

<Multiple contacts,> Tasser reported, <cargo bay level…>

He glanced around for some more specific identifier for their location.

<Cargo bay upper-thirteen,> Dustin said, matching psionic channels with Tasser.

Good awareness.

In tactical situations, psionics were especially valuable for how it let you sort information in real time. Other groups could coordinate with each other on shorter-range comms while leaving a separate channel open for universal call-outs that might affect everyone while leaving yet another channel reserved for strategic information that only really benefitted people making decisions elsewhere in a conflict.

So Tasser could disseminate crucial information to each relevant party with just a thought.

<Heavily armored units,> he reported. <Small arms fire bounced off. Small chassis. 'Pawn' type. Multiple units, eight or ten.>

Dustin erected a shield jutting out into the doorway giving the two of them some cover to fire at the bots trying to close the distance.

<Materialize me some earplugs?> Tasser asked.

Dustin moved to do so, but Tasser waved him off.

<No, I mean in place. In my ear canal.>

<I'm not going to make you go deaf?> Dustin asked.

<Well if you do, I'll still heal,> he said, leaning his head closer.

Dustin's cascade work was quick and precise at least, and the deafening gunshots muffled to manageable pops as material sprang into being within his ears.

Tasser noticed that Dustin took the moment to give himself similar earplugs.

<Bot contact,> Nai reported, simultaneously with another.

<Sub-residential maintenance level one,> one of the new kids reported—Holly, it sounded like. <Same type. Heavy armor, a dozen small units. No specialized troops. Yet.>

Nai waited a beat to make sure no one else was reporting anything else more pressing.

<I've just trashed a dozen—no, sixteen in the access corridors behind the commercial level. Same makeup. Heavy armor. All small units.>

Tasser switched to a more informal channel where combatants might have extra, less immediately pertinent information, or if they just needed to swear and yell in the heat of combat.

<Paint job,> Holly noted. <They're decorated like a bad rave.>

<So are ours,> Tasser reported. <Pink and green and—>

A pair of Tasser's rounds caught a bot in vulnerable sections: under the shoulder and right in the optical socket. The first strike gutted the machine, and the second blinded it.

But instead of dropping, the robot gave a micro-shudder before flailing madly with all four limbs. It ejected a pair of small boxes low on its back and scrambled forward—dumping its ammo because it knew it wasn't going to use it.

<Get back!> Tasser shouted, breaking from their cover and grabbing Dustin's collar. The human recognized the threat almost as quickly as Tasser did, but he was still a fraction of a second slow enough to be at risk.

Tasser hauled Dustin so hard he lost his footing, and they both fell around the corner while the manic bot scrambled against their shield. The only other warning its self-destruction gave was a shrill whine the heartbeat before it exploded, spraying shrapnel and gobs of molten metal in all directions.

<Be alert! At least some bots are equipped with suicide bombs,> Tasser added.

<Can confirm,> Nai shared on a lower priority channel. <The ones I crushed didn't go off, but half of 'em were packed to blow.>

Multiple teams from across the station sent acknowledgements of the warning, including the local security teams.

Tasser and Dustin moved to try keeping the bots in this cargo bay contained. Every security rak on the station was going to be mobilized whether they were on shift or not. But it still might not be enough.

If enemy forces got to move through the station with impunity, there was no telling what kind of damage they might do.

<Dustin, Tasser, you guys are on the upper cargo level?> a voice suddenly cut in—Caleb's.

<Yeah.>

<Go up one—down—[fuck], moonward. Get to air and water treatment,> he said. <Station security there has no Adept support.

<Priority?> Tasser asked.

They shouldn't just abandon this cargo bay, surely?

<High,> Caleb said, <the team there said the bots are preserving the consoles and infrastructure; I think they want something with the water or air systems.>

<How far away are we from getting thrusters back?> Dustin asked.

<Could be a minute, could be thirty,> Caleb said. <Any way this splits, I think we're going to be cutting it close.>

<Got it,> Tasser said.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He went to the main hallway connecting the cargo bay to the station's corridors, and he found the console for sealing the hangar in case of emergency. It might not hold them for long…

Unless it didn't need to.

<Bridge, can you seal and vent upper cargo bay thirteen?> Tasser sent.

<Yes, but it'll take a few—>

<No, I mean override safeties,> Tasser said. <I mean vent it explosively.>

He pulled the pin on one of candled psionic radars and confirmed the cargo bay was, in fact, empty of life.

<Venting one bay won't send the station into a spin,> Dustin grinned. <[Oh, this is a classic.]>

Tasser and Dustin held the cargo bay exit long enough for the emergency door to shut, blaring an alarm and demanding they back away.

Ten seconds after the metal door sealed itself, there was a startlingly quiet whoosh. The air barrier inside that cargo bay had been retracted. Without the barrier to keep pressure, every molecule of air inside the cargo bay tried to tear its way into the empty void of space.

Tasser paused.

Were the bots smart enough to recognize that happening and react to it in time?

Dustin, he realized, didn't need to wonder. His cascade was large enough, it could push through the hangar wall and inspect if any bots had managed to cling to the floor or something strapped down.

<It's clear,> Dustin said. <If they can find their way back inside after that? They deserve to.>

Tasser cracked a smile at that, and the two of them rushed toward the nearest-vertical access point.

<I need some heavier firepower,> Tasser said. <My rounds were bouncing right off their shells.>

<I've got something,> Dustin said, offering Tasser a replacement pistol.

The gun he'd materialized was slightly bulkier than even his own, which was made to fit massive Casti with their oversized palms. It held fewer rounds too, but each one was the size of a shotgun shell.

<Thermite slugs,> Dustin said. <Shatter ceramic armor and slag anything underneath.>

<You sure that's a good idea?> Tasser asked. <They're rigged.>

Dustin paused to think without stopping his run.

Tasser was of a split mind. Dustin's haphazardness seemed a crucial weakness, but he reacted quickly to his own mistakes. He was quick to make adjustments, like Caleb. Like Madeline. Like most of the Flotilla-trained Humans.

<I can't hold onto many high-quality blueprints long,> Dustin said. <Just weak in that skill. And we weren't expecting this to turn into a fight, so I didn't load up on the good stuff. I don't suppose you carry around Adept blueprints in your head?>

<No,> Tasser said. <…But someone else does.>

Tasser cast his mind upward, only to immediately remind himself that the majority of the station was actually oriented below their feet.

<Nai!> he called out. <Are you still holding on to the weapon candles you were training the new kids on?>

<Yes?>

<Do you have a moment?>

<I'm swapping with Vez and Louis,> Nai said. <If bots take the bridge, we lose, no questions asked. So I'm guarding it exclusively.>

<Well, if you can spare a few seconds, toss me some of the finer designs in our arsenal,> Tasser asked.

<Sure,> Nai said. <You with an Adept who needs some teeth?>

<That's it exactly,> Tasser smiled.

<They're all candled,> she warned. <So don't waste them.>

<You bet.>

Actually sharing the psionics was a bit of a gamble. According to the transmission specs, Nai was just shy of a thousand meters away, and beaming dense psionics over those distances was best done slowly.

If not, there was a significant risk of what the Flotilla Humans had taken to calling 'packet loss'. Tasser didn't understand the metaphor, but it was apparently quite apt.

Nai flung a dozen candled-psionic patterns toward Tasser, and he was quite happy with himself to catch nine of them.

Vorak had been trying to standardize a style of Adeptry for decades with only middling success; most found it much more effective to form an idiosyncratic style that avoided individual shortcomings and instead appealed to their specific talents.

Psionics was a game changer on that front.

Like tracing a sketch projected on a window, the right construct would let an Adept materialize significantly past their normal consistency and speed. A well-made blueprint could even give an Adept a handle forging materials beyond their normal palette.

But that level of psionic standardization was something any Adept could do.

The Flotilla's unique edge came from the one original piece of psionics Nai cared to take credit for: candles.

Instead of making a blueprint to be reusable and permanent, Nai and the Flotilla made single-use psionic constructs that could be consumed, burnt, to give an Adept even more guidance than blueprints' typical benefits.

The nine constructs Tasser had received from Nai were, in his estimation, a good spread.

Four of the newest model of kinetic-stave, three arquebuses, and two heavy riot shields.

<You good with Spellbook?> Tasser asked.

<Yeah?> Dustin said.

<Hold onto these. Don't waste them. Each one is single-use,> he warned.

Dustin broke into a wide grin as he inspected each one.

"<Arquebuster?>" he laughed out loud before remembering he was at a dead sprint and breath came at a premium. <Who named these, a kid?>

<Yes,> Tasser said plainly.

<What kind of kid knows what an [arquebus] is?> Dustin muttered.

<Apparently the kind that gets abducted by aliens,> Tasser chuckled. <Now get materializing.>

<One shield for each of us?>

<No, both for you,> Tasser said. <Give me a staff and one of the guns. Use the rest yourself.>

<Really? You can get by with just that?>

<Yes.>

Dustin did just that and materialized first the kinetic-stave. It taxed him, and Tasser saw it. Asymmetric materials were energy intensive. All but the simplest of them were gated behind the Realization, but luckily for Dustin, the kinetic-stave was the simplest kind of asymmetry.

It was little more than a club, but the metal could hold a kind of 'charge'. It wasn't electricity though. It was impact.

The original inspiration had apparently been something from Earth fiction: trying to absorb some energy from every hit the stave inflicted, saving it up to be unleashed later.

It hadn't been feasible, but a time-based system had proven much more within reach.

Roughly every twenty seconds the stave could accumulate enough of a charge to put a serious dent in an inch of steel on its next impact.

Of course, the material itself could only withstand such an impact four or five times before completely collapsing. But still, in combat?

They were effective melee weapons.

'Arquebusters' were similar. Conventional firearms required loading bullets and the abductees en masse had been raving about creating firearms that simply fired…phantom energy? Tasser had always been unclear on exactly what the principle at play was supposed to be.

But it was hard to argue with the arquebuster. One rifle could fire off between thirty and forty shots before it lost its charge. Unfortunately, the arquebuster already taxed the complexity of both the physical material and the psionics used to guide their creation. So it couldn't recharge just on time like the stave could.

Dustin and Tasser armed themselves from the arsenal Nai had beamed their way, and they closed on in the station's air & water processing.

Each corner they cleared, the risk of finding bots around the next corner rose.

<Wait.>

Dustin's warning stopped Tasser dead. The Human cocked his head slightly, as if listening, but Tasser knew hearing wasn't the sense he was focusing on.

<At least two, around the corner,> he reported. <They're trying to break into the door.>

<You've got the shield,> Tasser said. <You go first, stay low. I'll come behind, guns blazing.>

<In three, two, one…> Dustin counted down, and the two of them rounded the corner.

The arquebusters didn't bark like ordinary gunshots. They flashed and crackled, and an almost invisible beam flashed out from the muzzle. Like a hot day's haze, tightened to a single line.

Nai and Ben had worked for months to engineer the perfect set of conditions and behaviors for the weapons to be functional while still keeping them simple enough to distill into a psionic blueprint so virtually anyone could create them.

Each beam carried a payload of exotic micro-particulate, carefully engineered to selectively interact only with solid materials of high electrical conductivity. The beam's particles would pass through common rigid armors made of ceramic or plastics, and make the circuits underneath explode.

The real advantage was the topologic motion the particulate took when it encountered a current. The particulate spread through the magnetic field all electrical currents made, spreading the beam's effect through the machine in a chain reaction. Even a glancing blow would still blast apart the machine from the inside.

Simply put? They were robot-killers.

Tasser's first shot took the robot in the head, and it simply burst. No fire or heat, but like a metal and ceramic balloon.

The second bot didn't take Dustin's gun any better than the first. Nor the second. Nor the third.

Tasser and Dustin were firing down a narrow hallway tightly packed with hostiles. Ideal conditions for even an average shooter.

Eight bots found themselves in crumpled remains by the time Tasser and Dustin stopped firing. Not a single one had the chance to explode.

Excellent.

Tasser took the lead, posting up next to the door.

<Anyone inside?> Tasser asked. "<We're friendly!>"

The rak inside had the wherewithal to realize that robots couldn't be responsible for a psionic message. The security shutters slid up on the door labeled 'Air', and a pair of Vorak ushered the two aliens inside.

"You're bleeding," Dustin noticed about one of the rak.

"A ricochet," the rak said in a heavy accent. "Or shrapnel. The machines…"

They pointed at the far end of the room, trailing off.

"Some burst in shooting," the other Vorak said. "Some of them went inside, and we hit lockdown. But the others split off to come at us. Goris, they…they…"

Like their friend, they trailed off, and Tasser's eyes found what was left of Goris on the other end of the room next to large air purifying machines.

Goris had been shot at least a dozen times, and a pool of almost-black blood pooled beneath both them and the four scrapped robots surrounding their body.

They might have died, but they somehow took four robots with them.

Wow, one of the robots was even cleaved in twain.

"Adept?" Tasser asked. Trying to indicate the dead rak without being to disrespectful.

The wounded survivor grunted and nodded.

Dustin wanted to keep tending to the wounded, Tasser could see it. But with more bots further inside, there was still a higher priority threat.

Tasser approached the door leading to the connecting room labeled 'Water', and Dustin joined him.

The unwounded worker released the security lockdown, and the two of them dove inside.

Tasser and the rest of the Flotilla had scuffled with SPARK more than a dozen times over the course of almost three years now. They hadn't always known it was SPARK, but there were patterns to the AI's madness.

One of them was that he liked to group bots by eights.

So when Tasser had seen eight bots in the hall—now destroyed—and four more destroyed bots in the 'Air' section…the obvious conclusion was that there were four more bots that had penetrated to the 'Water' section, for a total of two squads.

There were not four bots.

There were twelve.

Three squads total.

The layout of the room was especially punishing too. They had to walk more than a dozen paces just to catch sight of the bots standing guard in the room. But by the time they were that far from the door, it was too dangerous to duck and run back.

The bots would round the corner first and spray every bullet they had before they could reach the door, especially before they could reseal it.

Twelve bots was just a risky number to tackle with just the two of them, but with no viable retreat?

Forward was the only way.

Tasser broke from Dustin, trusting the human to leverage his shield correctly.

Too many of the bots took a bead on Tasser as he dove further into the room for cover, and he felt rounds slam into his poncho.

He fell over, hacking and wheezing from the air being knocked out of him, but he did so after successfully throwing himself behind one of the house-sized tanks of water.

<Low caliber weapons!> he called out.

<Can you still shoot?> Dustin asked, carefully hunkering behind his shield.

It could hold off gunfire from six bots trying to preserve their ammunition. But eight? All twelve? The situation was only seconds away from getting even worse.

<I can still fight,> Tasser insisted, righting himself. <My poncho caught the rounds. Bulletproof.>

To prove his point, Tasser readied himself for when the first bot came round the water tank to finish him off. His arquebuster was ready to blast its head off the millisecond it showed its face, and he swung the kinetic-stave at the bot immediately behind it.

Having accumulated its full charge, the stave let out a low electric thrum simultaneous to the crack of the impact on the bot's torso. The swing that should have only sent the robot stumbling back, instead bent its torso and slammed it hard enough into the wall to leave a dent.

Maybe that had killed it, but Tasser pointed his arquebuster at its head and pulled the trigger. Just for good measure.

For a moment, every bot but one looked at Tasser's section of the room. And none of them were focusing on the hallway to the door, where Dustin took advantage perfectly.

Instead of just hunkering down and taking some opportunistic shots, he charged forward, dropping his gun in favor of materializing a kinetic-stave of his own.

They didn't come pre-charged when you materialized them, but Dustin must have gleaned exactly that from the design. He kept himself well protected behind the shield, only minimally exposing himself as he pushed forward.

He smacked one bot's gun out of its hands as it tried to circle around his shield for a shot. Dustin even kept that bot between his body and another.

The bots that had been focused on Tasser suddenly had to threaten Dustin, or else he was going to get close enough to simply reach out and touch them.

And even an Adept of middling skill could kill any robot they could cascade.

Larger specialized units? The AIs had learned to invest in those and rig them with protections against Adepts materializing acid, magma, or other goodies inside their body's nooks and crannies.

But the smaller mass-produced pawns?

It was an inescapable vulnerability.

Dustin's stave reached full charge, and he lashed out. He brought it down on the closest bot's head, and it crumpled into the floor. Then was Tasser's turn to take advantage, jumping out and gunning down two more bots.

His gun gave whine as its charge depleted though, and he was forced to pull back into cover. Dustin halted his advance too as the bots began backing away from him instead of approaching.

There was a lull, and Tasser realized the machines were trying to buy time.

He peeked out for just a second and saw the one bot completely ignoring everyone. It was hunched over the main computer console, pecking at the controls all too slowly.

The bots were not smart.

They could fight, but not well.

They were like animals. Capable, sure. Teachable enough to handle firearms, yes. But intelligence? No.

They couldn't operate other machines without special programming of their own, and that meant special hardware.

<Target the one at the console,> Tasser warned. <That one's why they're here!>

Dustin could see how badly Tasser needed a ranged weapon, but he didn't materialize the last arquebuster.

Because like with the stave, Dustin had actually read the manual.

Tasser took the drained arquebuster and flipped it up. At the butt of the stock, there was a port shaped to fit the head of the kinetic-stave.

This was the real genius of the standardized weaponry that the Flotilla had cooked up; each piece could support the others.

Kinetic-staves were weapons, technically, but they were basically just a reshaped battery that accumulated a charge of energy. Because the arquebusters couldn't recharge on their own. That would have required too much skill from the Adept creating them.

But dividing up the functions into different creations?

That design was much more within any Adepts' skill level.

Tasser's stave had enough time to fully charge again, and he jammed it into the arquebuster's stock. Both weapons gave a shudder before the gun gave a small beep.

One nod with Dustin, and the two of them leapt up from their respective places.

Both of them picked targets besides the one at the console first, but Tasser didn't miss the fact that Dustin's shot downed the robot that was blocking Tasser's window to the console.

His second shot found the center of the robot's back before he moved on to the other six.

Their programming failed them at this point. For perhaps half-a-second, the bots were simultaneously presented two priority targets, and they took too long deciding which one to shoot.

In that half second, Dustin and Tasser got off the necessary shots to destroy five of the bots. The final machine squeezed off a burst of rounds at Dustin, but he reacted to the arm-raising motion quickly enough to raise his shield.

Rather cleverly, he actually struck the shield with his charged-again stave, and the slab of metal blasted forward into the robot like a battering ram.

Proving that he wasn't just as good as the toys, Dustin materialized a ground spike up through the bot when it toppled prone to the floor.

Tasser scanned the room, finding it satisfyingly empty.

Moving to the console, he looked at the specialized bot.

All the others in this room, the other, the hallway, and back at the hangar? They'd been decorated wildly, in SPARK's style.

Lots of secondary Human colors, bright greens, obnoxious pinks. All tied together by splatterings of black paint, like oil. Or blood.

The bot at the console had a chassis painted pitch black, with armor seemingly like the rest. The same colors, but streaked differently. Fewer splotches of color. Rounder lines. Shorter highlights.

It was designed to not catch your eye amongst all the rest of the eye-catching robots.

But on its back was a heavy machine-pack, like the earliest portable radio units.

<Caleb,> Tasser called directly. The information was too high priority.

<Go,> his friend responded, all business.

<Confirm, this is SPARK,> Tasser said. <We've got coordinator units. As soon as this on went down, the rest lost function. Especially executive.>

<Rip the brain if you can,> Caleb said. <Air and water is clear?>

<Yeah, for now,> Tasser said. <It got a little hairy, but your penpal Dustin and I cleared it out.>

<Can you tell why they were targeting air and water?> Caleb asked. <I mean, they're robots.>

<I can't be totally sure,> Tasser said, kicking the coordinator bot and inspecting the console screen, <but I think…>

He trailed off, looking at several screens, and confirming the contents with Dustin.

<…they were making a bomb.>