Sing'n in Binary: 44

The world sharpens to perfect focus, every input collapsing into razor clarity or falling away to nothing as its assessed for relevance in this life or death situation.

But even as a custom cocktail of stimulants flood from her biomon Jinx doesnt allow even a single muscle to twitch as she holds completely still, the coolant lines under light tension in her grip as she’s frozen halfway through the disconnect.

Though the scotoma blurred and spotted edges of her vision she can see the vague shape of someone whose neuralware still isn't returning her increasingly intricate pings. Their arm is extended and she can make out the vague shape and bright colors of a Slaught-o-Matic, a gun too dumb to have any electronics either.

In all, the exact kind of person she’d have the most trouble dealing with.

Now is the most dangerous part of this interaction, after the new paradigm is established she can work inside it, but until then anything can happen and she has no idea how disposable this intruder considers her.

The intruder steps the rest of the way inside and closes the door before gesturing at her with the gun.

“Disconnect, slowly, and put those arms up.” They say deliberately, pausing for Jinx to comply.

She does, using the opportunity to turn slightly and get a better look at the intruder. Without the benefit of a UserID she’s incapable of identifying them, but slowly picking her way across the things she can make sense of allows her to build a few base assumptions.

The unknown enemy’s neck is wrapped in messy bandages and seem to be lugging a goddam brick of a computer around their wrist, its extended link cable dragging along on the floor. 

Taking in every piece of information her mind is capable of retaining, combined with their genuinely shabby clothes, the cheap gun, and the fact they managed to breach her door security narrows down the profile significantly.

Completing her slow motion surrender, Jinx keeps her eyes from flicking down to the gun as she holds firm on the intruder’s optics.

“Alright. You’ve got me.” She says, noticing a red ring spinning along the rim of their iris, meaning they’re also disconnected from the net. “What can I do for you?”

The intruder doesn't lower their gun, instead raising their other arm and pressing one of the wrist mounted computer’s buttons with the butt of their pistol, causing the link cable to retract with a zip.

“Don't. I’ll do the talking. You will answer yes or no, then do exactly what I say. Nod if you understand.”

Jinx complies, scanning for more information as she follows the standard robbery procedure with half an ear.

With her conversation suite online she’s figured out the voice is male but not much else. Facial recognition doesn't give any solid returns either unfortunately, so forming inferences from already gathered data seems to be a more valuable use of her mental bandwidth.

The fact he’s using the wrist mounted computer instead of the bandaged neuralware likely means it’s completely offline. But the fact he has the specialist equipment means the shutdown is intentional. Most likely the intruder knows who Jinx is and didn't like his chances in a straight up fight.

It also means he’s probably acting alone.

Silver linings.

The intruder takes a shaky breath.

“Where is it? Use your left elbow to point, slowly.”

Jinx almost blinks in her growing confusion, as the longer this goes on the less sense it makes.

If he was here because someone reported the AI the response would be more professional, but if he’s just some drugged up opportunist looking to steal anything valuable he wouldn't be able to breach her door. 

With the process of elimination he has to be here for something related to the AI, but the –extremely important– context to why and how is still lost to her. 

Unfortunately he’s far too unhinged to ask clarifying questions, so she makes an educated guess.

He’s not surviving this anyway.

Opening her mouth to respond she notes how his gun twitches then hastily snaps it shut and corrects herself, instead slowly pointing her left elbow to the nearly repaired PC. 

But when his eyes lock onto the PC Jinx almost finches as her neuralware pings a rapid sentiment shift, then finds herself baffled as the aggression index flutters down.

The intruder almost lowers his gun as he stares at the offending slab of aluminum and, instead of crossing the room, launches into a muttered conversation with himself.

It takes a second for Jinx to concentrate on the mumbled mash of syllables and for the solo conversation to get a little louder before she can catch snatches of the rant.

“...Sol couldn't have been telling the truth. That would be too easy… Unless it’s a double bluff? I know I’m not objective, but hiding her hard drive in plain sight is just a bad idea if it’s possible to just hide…”

Dropping off to inaudibility again, Jinx has to force her breathing to remain even as her mind starts piercing together the new data.

The intruder knows about Aria.

Apparently because of Solei, but that would only make sense if…

Jinx has to stop herself from snorting as the unhinged gonk continues to tie his mind into knots.

With the fixer of this little heist revealed, the remaining pieces fall into place quickly. 

Honestly, looking at the plan with the complete picture, Jinx can only be impressed with its ingenuity.

Making her drop her guard with that gonk Davis putting on the meathead act? All so their disconnected anom has an easier time trailing behind? Inspired.

They’d even manufactured their own perfect window of opportunity, with the components delivered today and mounintg pressure to deliver results, they knew Jinx had to have grabbed any components she might have hidden outside of the apartment.

She’d underestimated the joytoy.

She couldn't have planned a better heist if she’d tried.

If only the front man –AK she assumes– hasn't lost his nerve then the plan would have been perfect.

Assessment of the situation concluded, Jinx pings every piece of electronics in the apartment and filters for the few she needs.

It still wouldn't have worked, but the idea is sound.

Unaware of Jinx unraveling the scheme, the intruder seems to have resolved whatever had gotten him looping, and his focus settles on the computer, gun still trained on an unmoving Jinx.

But, because his neuralware is offline, he can't see her throwing together a simple action group while simultaneously ensuring there’s nobody waiting to surprise her in the hall. 

Seeing no one, she waits, vision growing brighter and choppier as she manually turns up the exposure setting in her eyes. 

She watches for the intruder's posture for a telltale shift in weight, indicating he’s about to make a step. 

Soon his left leg starts to lift, the world seems to slow. 

His aim wavers half an inch to the right.

And the room goes black.

Ducking down and to the left, Jinx grunts as the sound of a gunshot stings like it’s physically striking her eardrums, its flash illuminating her opponent's startled face.

Juking the other direction, she sprints along a shallow ark toward the side of him not holding the gun. Halfway across the distance the room flashes again, illuminating her opponent firing in the wrong direction, having assumed she’d keep moving the way he’d last seen her.

There’s just enough time for him to turn his head to look at her, before his startled yell is choked off and a third gunshot sparks harmlessly against the concrete ceiling by a punch to the throat and death grip on his wrist respectively.

With control of the gun contested, the fight slows to a crawl as Jinx is reminded how painfully out of shape she is, straining her body as she struggles to drag the intruder to the floor.

Thankfully her opponent is similarly disadvantaged, but he’d managed to keep hold of the gun and is already struggling to get free. 

Ducking a wild swing from his remaining free arm and pushing forward as he steps back to keep control over the gun, Jinx finds her grip on the gun wavering dangerously close to her head.

A knee to the groin as her other arm grips him by the hair and yanks him toward the floor solves the issue.

Collapsing to the ground with a whining yell and a thud, it’s increasingly clear her opponent hasn't been in that many fights as his legs flail directionless and his remaining arm scrabbles at her grip at the gun.

The weapon goes off again, this time right next to her head, making her flinch back. Using the moment of weakness he grips the weapon with both hands and tries to pull it to get a line on her head, and his leverage means he’s slowly succeeding. 

Jinx adjusts her grip slightly, stands up a bit more, then uses her left leg to kick and stomp on his shoulder and armpit. 

Thankfully the pain forces his grip to loosen and she finally wrenches the weapon from his grasp.

With control over the gun lost, her opponent reaches out desperately while the other arm reaches behind to push himself up.

“No! She–!” He starts, Jinx interrupts him as shoves him to the floor and brings the butt of the stolen gun down on his hairline.

He reaches up to guard his face on instinct.

“I– Y-You cant–”

She hits him again, this time hitting the hand trying to guard his eyes.

He tries to say something else, but a final strike to the temple makes him stop moving.

Straddling the intruder, pistol held high and panting for breath, Jinx stares down at the unconscious body of her opponent before sending a ping that has the lights turn back on.

With the illumination she can better see the gushing blood of a fresh cut on his forehead quickly saturating his hair among other scuffs and injuries, but he’s breathing.

For now.

Frisking the offlined intruder and finding nothing other than an Express-Mart membership card, Jinx stands and glances down at the lump of plastic in her hand. 

She’s lucky the thing didn't explode when he shot it next to her head.

Ejecting the chambered round, she pulls back on the slide hard enough the weapon breaks into two halves with a crackle of PLA.

Weapon destroyed, Jinx drops the two parts to the floor and picks up her own iron from the desk across the room, rolling her shoulders with a wince as the adrenaline wears off enough for her to feel the aches and pains of the fight.

It’s… unlikely the plan was supposed to end with her dead, but they certainly hadn’t planned for her to be in any position to call anyone for a few more hours, giving them enough time to transport the PC.

The gun is familiar in her hand, cold and solid.

Plenty of time.

Jinx turns off the safety, chambers a round, and points it at the soon corpse.

Then holds like that, adjusting her aim slightly from the center of mass to the head, then back down.

But doesnt fire.

Instead, she stares across the distance impassively, and waits.

She knows what she should do.

At the edges of her vision, Jinx can see Aria’s PC.

He knew the risks. What she would have to do if he’d failed.

The gun remains in the air, steady.

…

But…

She can almost hear what her friend would have to say about this entire situation.

Her mouth twitches into a frown as Jinx catches herself.

Or rather… what the –possibly genuine– construction of personality traits the AI chose to present to her… would…

…

…..

Jasmine snorts.

“Fuck it.”

Clicking the safety on with a thumb, she lowers her gun.

Aria would not be happy if her choom got zeroed.

Opening up her phone and sitting down in her desk chair, Jinx rolls the seat to the center of the room and places the gun in her lap, then glances down at the weapon consideringly.

After another moment she flicks the safety back off.

Better safe than sorry.

As expected, Solei picks up her call quick and Jinx is talking as soon as it connects, gesturing with her gun as she keeps an unblinking stare on the unconscious intruder.

“Guess who's not dead you joytoy wannabe fixer bitch? Clever trick with the hard disconnect, how much the ripper charge for that? Your little anom BnE taxman isn't dead, yet. You’ve got ten seconds to convince me not to flatline him. Go.”

Let's see how she likes it!

There’s three long seconds of silence as Solei makes a single half sound and falls silent. But Jinx’s satisfaction at finally shutting up the spammer is cut short as she responds with a deadly serious monotone.

“What?”

---

A/N: I wrote this a day or so ago and I very much like this one on reread. Hope you enjoy

Ta-ta All.