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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/jpitha on 2024-10-28 17:47:04+00:00.

Nick made his way up the stairs, out of the transit station, trying to look inconspicuous. Just another commuter going to work right? Nothing strange about that. He tried to ignore his headache. It wasn't working.

Out in public, the scars on the back of his neck, hidden under his collar itched. All of his implants were colored to look like skin, and the blending was admirable, but he still felt exposed walking around. He seemed to have lost Houndstooth forces for now, but who knows how long before he'd be noticed again. For the fifth time he checked his camera hacks. It looked like the code Queenie copied for him worke; when he peered in on the camera lines, he didn't see himself. He couldn't be invisible, that would have been too obvious. Instead he had replaced himself with a composite based off of a bunch of media he had downloaded two nights ago. He looked generically male shaped, generically handsome and generically dressed.

The very illegal submachine gun strapped to his back under his coat, and the very very illegal crystal memory cube in his belt pack weighed heavily and reminded him that he was not very generic at all.

He went to a coffee cart and got a flat white. He wasn't really thirsty, but a coffee would give his hands something to do while he walked, so he didn't fidget. Cradling the hot coffee in both hands to warm them - Hyacinth was a controlled environment, but it was also old enough that they adjusted the temperature for Earth based seasons. It was 'winter' and while nobody would die of exposure on Hyacinth, it was still colder than Nick preferred. It never got this cold on Parvati.

As Nick walked around Congregation Square trying to look inconspicuous and hide from Houndstooth, he sat down on a bench - leaning forward a little so the gun didn't hit the back of the bench - across from a merchant. They sold beverages of all different kinds, human, k'laxi, Sef, and others. People were walking in and out carrying small paper bags. Maybe he'd gotten away with it. Maybe he'd actually lost them.

Far in the distance a siren started. It had a piercing, long wail. It was mechanical, or made to sound mechanical. As soon as it started, others joined in, making a massive minor chord wall of sound. It was loud, it was worrying. It was meant to be. Nick wasn't the only one who didn't know what it meant, but he was probably one of the only people in Congregation who could query a KB real-time and ask what it was.

Spin Alarm, was what came back. Details, he thought.

The KB began to rattle off a canned explanation. When Hyacinth was so old that it was built before gravity manipulation. To get around that small detail, originally the Orbital spun, so that centripetal force made ersatz gravity. It wasn't gravity, and didn't feel like it, but it was better than nothing. There was a link to a raft of very old welcome articles that explained how to deal with centripetal force and what to do about nausea and how most people got over it within the first week of arrival. As soon as humans learned how to manipulate gravity, Hyacinth was spun down and remained stationary.

That didn't mean the spin engines were removed however.

They could pivot and move in nearly every direction. On the rare occasions that Hyacinth needed to change position or orbit, they could be repurposed. Plus, it was expensive to remove them, and Houndstooth wouldn't spend that kind of money unless they had a good reason.

Just as they were designed to do nearly a thousand years ago, the spin engines on High Mars Hyacinth fired. Being a cylinder sixty miles by twenty meant that - at first - other than a low rumble and a jolt, there was no change. After a minute or two though, Nick looked up and saw the stars start to move. The ever present crescent of Mars below started to move out of the current glass panel and into the next.

Human balance is sensitive. K'laxi is more, but he wasn't around any at the time. As soon as the spin started, Nick felt weird. It was like that carnival ride he rode when he visited that fair on Parvati with his parents when he was small. His inner ear began to argue with his eyes about where 'up' was. He looked down at his coffee, and the liquid in the cup began to slosh oddly, and very slightly start to lean to one side. If it was happening this fast, then the spin engines were thrusting hard. As hard as a Starjumper maybe. Nick queried the KB again and it helpfully mentioned that they could thrust at up to ten gees on when set to Emergency Stop. Nick didn't think there was an Emergency Start, but who knows. The KB wasn't sure either.

In the time it took Nick to query the KB, things got worse. People started to stagger, and some fell to their knees. A K'laxi wearing an embassy uniform fell to their knees and vomited. After, they began a keening wail that Nick had never come out of a K'laxi's mouth before. They were clearly in distress. Nick stood to try and help them, but was overcome with waves of dizziness and his own nausea. He sat down hard on the ground and laid on his back. That made it better.

"Nick! Nick!" His comm chirruped. "Nick, answer dammit." It was Eastern.

"Eastern? Where are you? I thought Jameson had you."

"He did. I talked my way out."

Even this uncomfortable, Nick felt incredulous. Jameson was Hyacinth's most notorious gang leader. You didn't 'talk your way out' of his clutches. "Tell me later. Someone is spinning Hyacinth up, are you safe?"

"Safe? Sure I'm safe. I'm in the Basement."

The illegal moving bazaar in the underground maintenance tunnels? "How are you able to reach me on comm? The Basement usually has a comm block."

"Well for one, I'm using your implant line instead of your comm line." She said "And for two, I have root, so I was able to go around the block."

Root? How did she... No, another thing for later. "Well, can you tell who turned on the spin engines? Everyone down here in Congregation is doing poorly. Most everyone is laying on the ground, waiting for the world to stop moving." Nick also didn't mention that they were all starting to feel heavier too. The spin engines were designed to spin Hyacinth up to one gee equivalent, but the gravity generators had already had everything up to a gee. If the engines continued, everyone would feel two gees, and while that's survivable by k'laxi, it won't be without injury if they fall wrong. For the humans it will be mightily unpleasant.

"Millisec, I'll see." A pause. "Nick, it looks like the command was sent from the Houndstooth Command Center. They turned it on themselves!"

What? It was their station, of course they had access to "Why?" Nick said aloud.

"The orders don't say, but I'll give you two guesses."

As soon as Eastern had finished transmitting, Nick heard a rhythmic clanking. He turned his head, and fighting waves of nausea he saw three Houndstooth 'customer protection technicians' in powered armor clomp around the square. They had blackened visors, and their rifles were in their hands. As they walked they looked over everyone as a mini drone hovered behind. Nick could feel it scanning, but it hadn't reached him yet. They turned on the spin to make everyone stop moving, so they could find someone! Talk about overkill. The gun on Nick's back itched. If they scanned and caught it, he was dead - and that was one of the more positive outcomes. Nick had to be somewhere else, now. If he got to his feet though, he'd give himself away to the CPTs. "Eastern! I've got CPTs nearby. They have a drone and it's scanning people." he thought over the comm.

"Already? Fuck. Nick, they must have knew where you were and were just trying to hold you. Talk about overkill though."

"Later, Eastern! What do I do?"

"You have your sub right? You could shoot your way out." She could feel Nick's expression over the comm and quickly said "kidding, kidding. Hold please." While Nick waited, he dared not look at the CPTs clomping around, but he could hear the whine of their servos and the thump of their boots as they moved and stopped, and moved and stopped. It seemed like they were checking everyone. If they knew he was here, why didn't they just come towards him?

Because his hack had worked, he realized. He'll have to thank Queenie later - if he survives. He heard more of that odd keening wail from k'laxi further away from him, and that caught the attention of the CPTs. They walked over to check them out. Nick couldn't believe they were checking out of concern, but that did mean he was right to not make his image on the cameras to be k'laxi.

There was a commotion from the k'laxi, and a odd shout, and then the CPTs yelled and started chattering among themselves. Before Nick could figure out what was going on, there was a deep thump, and he felt a shockwave. Had one of the k'laxi thrown a grenade? Nick knew that their civil war was ongoing, and that there were reports on the news of it being very brutal, but he had no idea that the war had come to Hyacinth. By the alarmed sounds of the CPTs, they hadn't realized it either. One of them had triggered their assistance siren, and the other's suit was yelling 'medic! medic! medic!' over and over again.

"psst!" Nick turned his head, pushed down the wave of dizziness that accompanied it, and saw a gardening robot peer out from underneath a large potted tree. "Get over here!" It was speaking in Eastern's voice.

Without checking to see if the CPTs were busy, Nick half rolled, half undulated towards...

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