A Chip by her Shoulder

[Carmelita]

Carmelita had taken a few days to recover from the wounds she’d endured dealing with a Liberation Front cell in the Town With No Name, and she’d spent most of that on guard duty up on the palisade, getting familiar with Roland’s more regular deputies. The water towers were being refilled quickly now that the pumps were no longer sabotaged, and it looked like the Town was another step away from anarchy, not that it gave Roland a chance to rest. He’d ridden out with five truck drivers the day after it had all been settled, returning with all of the hijacked water tankers within hours. There were a few prisoners, but less than Carmelita had hoped for: she had no doubt the rest were either dead from high-speed impact or the more deadly form of justice.

It wasn’t something she could live with easily. Carmelita had never taken a life deliberately, with the possible exception of Clockwerk’s hate chip, and knowing that necessity or moral disregard for life resulted in so many dead throughout the Omniverse was a burden on her mind that she happily latched onto. The alternative was thinking about Sly’s death.

Even so, after two days she was just about ready to drive out looking for problems to fix to avoid going mad from inactivity. She didn’t have her usual luxuries to hand, nor would she have enjoyed them if she had, so when she got word that Chip wanted to talk to her meeting the young three-eyed girl she’d rescued from the raiders seemed like a god-send. Wandering the streets, she found the adobe and concrete domes that made up the seedy Moss-eye’s Lay Cantina and found herself pointed to one of the more secluded booths. She gave a brief glimpse up at the burn mark on the wall before sliding in opposite the purple-furred teenager.

Carmelita smiled at Chip as she sat down.

“Hello Chip, how are you finding the Town?”

There was silence for a moment, Chip staring down at her hands for a moment before replying in a strained tone.

“It’s… great. Yeah. Lot’s of… stuff.”

Carmelita raised an eyebrow, but before she could ask Chip pulled out a brown package and thrust it across the table.

“Here. I wanted to thank you for rescuing me from the raiders. I noticed you didn’t have much with you aside from your shock pistol, so I scraped together some ionic resonating circuits and bought some durasteel to make you a prototype. I know primes can replicate things once you’ve memorised them so I thought it would make a good thank you gift.”

Curious, Carmelita peeled off the duct tape holding the package together and carefully unwrapped it. Inside lay what looked like a custom set of handcuffs, thick, sturdy and connected with thick chain links. Lights embedded in the red polished chrome  finish glowed softly, and the same Interpol and Cooper Clan symbols that adorned her stun gun were present as well. She lifted the arcs almost reverentially, feeling the heft with her arms and twirling them for good measure. Pressing a button, one of the arc extended its half semicircle with a rapid whir and click, sparks flying from the chunky blue electrodes that pressed inwards.

Carmelita looked at the cuffs in awe. The feeling of omnilium sliding out from her caressed the prototype, memorising the structure instinctively so that she could replicate it in the future. She looked back at Chip, mouth open and struggling to find words to say.

“Chip, this is… this is too much. You must have spent hours working on this.”

Chip gave an embarrassed laugh, scratching the back of her head as her three eyes looked in every direction but the vixen opposite her.

“Yeah, well, I kind of did? I mean, not like there’s going to magically be a job opening in a town as cramped as this one in two days and I had to make use of my time somehow. I wanted to make you something bigger, like a proper transport or something, but I don’t have enough materials or cash on me to do that sort of thing.”

Carmelita stared, mental gears turning in her mind. The girl was obviously in need of somewhere to go, something to do, and with the sort of talent she’d displayed she had likely grown up around machinery. She’d also been comfortable driving the water tanker, managing to shake several of the pursuing vehicles without breaking down literally or emotionally… there was a question about where Chip had obtained these skills, but from first impressions she seemed like a good kid. If Carmelita wanted to pull together a shining example of true policing for the Omniverse, then a good tech-base would be essential, and here was a budding mechanic who desperately needed a job and direction.

“Chip, I’d like to offer you a choice. Either we head out into town, find the best mechanic and I show them these… Fisti-Cuffs you made, which I can guarantee are of such high quality work that they’ll hire you on the spot, or I take you on myself and put your talents to work protecting the citizens of the Omniverse.”

Three eyes boggling at once was an experience Carmelita was unlikely to forget anytime soon.

“Wait, what? What would you want me for?”

“I used to know a group whose success was often assured by their mechanic. If I want to establish an organisation, an Interdimensional Policing Agency, capable of making a difference and changing things for the better, I’ll need someone who knows how to build things.”

Chip narrowed her eyes at Carmelita for a few moments, silent. She leant back and tapped her fingers on the table.

“What would I need to do and what would the pay be like?”

“To start with, you’ll just be on call for consultation. I don’t have a suitable location for establishing a workshop yet, so until then I’d call you if I needed something built. After we find a workshop, you’ll be in charge of building and maintaining vehicles and equipment for the force. I’d also like it if you were to join any future recruits in training in self-defence in case we’re attacked. As for pay, I’d start with paying for food, board and living expenses, then half again for personal expenses. I have credits, but I can make things from scratch if you’d prefer that.”

Carmelita saw an expression flash behind Chip’s eyes, but before she could work out what it was it had already been hidden. Chip looked down at her hands for a moment, thinking, before she looked back at Carmelita. Her eyes bore into Carmelita’s, sincerity in their intensity.

“I’ll join you, provisionally. If you don’t seem to be what I hope you are, I reserve the right to back out of this arrangement, no consequences.”

Carmelita nodded and reached out her hand. Chip took it, and they shook. In the back of a shady cantina, an organisation had been seeded.

[Carmelita]

Over the next few days, Carmelita got Chip situated in terms of housing and a small workshop. An inn had an abandoned blacksmith’s available for use, and the same building Carmelita had been staying in was perfectly happy to accept a paying resident in addition to the one sequestered there by Roland’s request. The two of them talked shop for designs and plans for everything from manufacturing shock batons to salvaging old Imperial walkers to turn into riot control mechs. The first physical items to be constructed, though, were communicators. Carmelita had mentioned the lack of a phone network and the uselessness of radios between dimensions, and Chip had been quick to reveal another facet of Omniphysics that the vixen had yet to grasp. The two quickly went to town reconfiguring some of Carmelita’s old sting operations communicator gear into proper communicators.

“...and now we add some holographic tech and the glasses will also function as a heads-up display for future features we add.”

“Okay, you want some more copper for that then?”

“Yes please, and another one of those micro-projectors I showed you. Oh, and a socket while we’re at it, so we can use them in conjunction with Dataverse access.”

“Would it not be better to combine them into a single device?”

“Not if we want redundancy. All sorts of nasty things can be transmitted through the Dataverse, and routing all that through a separate, replaceable unit avoids risk of contamination of the communication hardware. I’d need a proper software engineer to handle proper anti-virus code, and you’d be trusting them with a potential backdoor to your communications.”

“Right…” Carmelita nodded, not quite understanding Chip’s words but taking what she did as fact. The girl had a natural instinct when it came to constructing the items, her three eyes giving her unparalleled perception of the configuration of the space she was working in, and her hands were nimble and steady.

Taking a soldering iron, Chip made the additions and smoothed it over, reassembling the smooth plastic covering and checking it over once more. She smiled and handed it to Carmelita, who quickly adapted her omnilium and produced another from a rainbow bubble. The two aligned their comms, and Carmelita spoke into the small black mike that sat by her muzzle.

“Testing, testing, Chip is a genius.”

Chip blushed red through her purple fur, giving a thumbs up. Carmelita smiled and looked at the next set of schematics, summoning the pieces needed for Chip to construct the Dataverse connection. The girl got to work, putting together a small black cuboid with an extendable socket lead. Carmelita slotted the device onto her belt, trailing the wire up beneath her jacket and slotting it into the socket in the head piece.

The next few hours were spent testing the two devices. The nondescript black box easily connected to the headset, two small, adjustable earpieces that were connected to an orange eyepiece apiece.The eyepieces were usually folded away behind the ears, but when a digit was pressed to a button the two orange lenses descended in front of the eyes and connected firmly, holographic tech allowing for overlays and a virtual keyboard.

Chip gave a small grin as the two packed up that evening, ready to go get something to drink.

“What’s next?” she asked as they strolled from the workshop down to one of the saloons. “I assume you’ve been giving it thought?”

Carmelita nodded.

“If I were to try recruiting right now, there’s not much to offer in terms of support. I was thinking we could go out and find one of the abandoned facilities left out in the Dunes, one suited for turning into a base of operations in this verse. It’d need to have the stuff you need, some defensibility and plenty of space, but I’m sure we can find something.”

Chip frowned momentarily, before nodding her assent.

[Carmelita]

The two of them sat in the police car as it sped through the dunes.

Carmelita had summoned the vehicle the night before they set off, drawing on the vehicles she’d seen in Coruscant and the familiar patrol car of the Parisian gendarmerie. It couldn’t fly, but it did hover off the ground like the hoverbikes she’d seen occasionally ridden in the Town.

Carmelita was at the wheel, Chip carrying the map in the passenger seat. She glanced over to see Chip looking ahead with a conflicted expression.

“Chip, you okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yes, everything’s fine…”

Frowning, Carmelita turned back to the desert. Ahead of them, looming from the desert sands, a small metal shack came into view. She pulled up and stepped out of the air-conditioned vehicle into the scorching heat.

The pair looked at each other before surveying their surroundings. There were a few wooden fences, partially buried in the sand, and the door to the shack was jammed shut with sand. Carmelita summoned a shovel and started digging out the rusted entrance.

After a short while, the heat bearing down on the both of them, she’d cleared the door of debris. Opening the door with a scrape, the two of them peered inside.

Carmelita’s eyes were slow to adjust to the dark. It took her a moment to realise she was still wearing sunglasses, and after removing them she could see more easily. The interior was filled, not with the insides of a desert shack, but with a large quantity of heavy machinery and a lift in the corner, white and blue plastic and paint all around. Despite the boiling temperatures, the air inside was somehow cool, and Carmelita stepped cautiously inside with Chip behind her.

She took out her shock pistol and clicked on the flashlight. Chip’s hand rested on her shoulder, the girl staying close as the two of them examined what they could find.

There was a layer of dust that lay over everything. Carmelita extended a hand and wiped the coarse particles from a sign, revealing a logo. The words had long been eroded, but the cracked blue paint still made a symbol of a circular shutter, half open. The heavy machinery was indecipherable to Carmelita, and she handed Chip her shock pistol to allow her to look more closely.

As Chip began examining the machinery, Carmelita looked back at the door. The desert outside was blindingly bright, the contrast between outside and inside incredibly obvious. She stifled a sneeze.

“Anything useful?” she asked.

“No,” came the terse reply.

There was a period of silence.

“... Chip, are you-”

“Yes, I’m fine!”

Carmelita stayed quiet after that.

---

An hour later, Chip had final deemed the amount of salvage obtainable without exploring whatever lay underground was negligible. Carmelita, not eager to put effort into a location unsuitable for their needs, decided they should keep moving.

As she started up the patrol car, she turned up the air conditioning to full blast. The short walk through the desert air had already made her fur curl, and she panted hard for a few moments, basking in the colder air.

The vehicle lurched into the air slightly, sand blowing away as the hoverpads activated. She pulled away, heading for the next point on their search path.

As they drove, Carmelita pondered the girl besides her. Whatever was causing her grief was clearly making her terse and tense, but Carmelita didn’t know what that might be. When she thought about it, she knew practically nothing about Chip other than she’d been captured by raiders and had an incredible mechanical aptitude.

“Where are you from, Chip?” she asked, trying to start a conversation.

“Where am I from?!” came the explosive reply. “Where am I from?! Now you ask! It’s been five, six days and you think you don’t know enough about me. Newsflash, Inspector, I know even less about you. Hell, you haven’t even mentioned the fact you’re married!”

Carmelita gasped, clenching her hand and feeling her wedding ring, images of Sly flashing through her mind.

“Surprised? I’m not an idiot. Anyway, tomorrow we can head back to the Town. I’ll get out of your hair.”

Carmelita couldn’t reply, only continuing to drive.

---

That night they holed up in an abandoned gas station that had avoided being subsumed by sand. Carmelita headed out into the cold.

Once she was far enough away, she sat down and began crying. For the first time since Sly had fallen from her life, she let herself cry.

[Carmelita]

After a few hours, Carmelita lay on her back, staring up at the stars. Her fur was still matted with tears, but her eyes were dry.

“I’m sorry Sly.”

“We knew it could happen. I just… I didn’t want to believe it possible.”

She smiled weakly, imagining his reply.

“Yeah, well, I’ll keep going. To be honest, not sure what I’m doing, but I’ll keep doing it.”

“There’s a kid. Purple fur, three eyes, goes by Chip. No, she’s not like Neyla. More like Penny, maybe, or perhaps Bentley. I don’t know much about her, might have burnt those bridges already. I’ll try, though.”

Carmelita stayed silent for a moment.

“Heh, she’s probably wondering where I am. It was good to chat.”

She got to her feet, brushing the sand from her back and tracing her footsteps back. Ahead, she could see Chip by a fire, huddled uncomfortably. The girl had dragged a metal bench over, and found a blanket from somewhere. Carmelita took a seat next to her and followed her gaze to the flames.

“His name was Sly Cooper.”

Her voice was slightly hoarse, but it felt good to talk about him.

“He was an absolute gentleman at all times. It was maddening at first, since we butted heads in our lines of work, but then over time I began to see that it wasn’t a mask, that was actually who he was.”

“Of course, we kept meeting each other. He liked to call himself a ‘master thief’, I was one of Interpol’s best agents, and I began obsessing over him. Everywhere he went, I’d be hot on his raccoon-ringed tail, catching crook after crook.”

“Then, after a long set of events involving a large mechanical owl, he turned himself in to let his friends get away. That was the sort of person he was, and now I wasn’t worried about chasing him, I got to know him properly. It was amazing how much we clicked, there. The Cooper family had a tradition of stealing only from other thieves, usually those of the more malign variety, and all those crooks I’d caught chasing after him he’d softened up first, taunting them into making mistakes and revealing their hands in time for me to slap cuffs round their wrists.”

“It was the first time I allowed myself to let myself like him. Then he escaped after two hours in a helicopter, but it was the principle of the thing.”

“The next time we really got to talk, he faked amnesia after saving me from a death ray. There was a lot I could have done there, but… after some thought, I lied to him. Told him he was an Interpol agent, shuffled all the paperwork away so it seemed official, and then over the next year or so we had a lot of success. And we grew close. Very close.”

“It all came to an end when he had to go time travelling, and reveal he had been lying to me as much as I had been lying to him. That debacle didn’t finish, but we patched up our relationship by the end of it. Enough that after a few years of working together, from both sides of the law, we got married. I became his wife, and the technically legal private investigator for their operations. I’d become fed up with force corruption by that point, so it made sense.”

“Then after two long years of happy marriage… Sly died.”

“It was a mad scientist, obsessed with explosives. He had it out for Sly, and in order to save us my ringtail slammed a metal safe shut with himself and a bomb inside. We tracked the mad scientist and his cronies down, but after that I closed in on myself.”

Chip’s voice interrupted Carmelita’s pause.

“I’m sorry.”

Carmelita smiled and turned to see Chip’s three eyes staring at her.

“No, you were right. Tomorrow, let’s have a proper conversation. Tonight's had enough drama, I think.”

A shaky smile was exchanged between the two, and they headed inside to sleep.

[Carmelita]

The next day the two of them sat in the patrol car, staring at the sun as it began to rise above the horizon.

“Shall we give yesterday another shot?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them began chatting as Carmelita drove on. Chip had grown up in Coruscant, unsurprisingly, and liked pop and electronic music. Carmelita pulled a CD of some of Dimitri’s better dance music from her omnilium and talked about her own tastes, classical and stringed instruments. Chip pulled up some tracks from the Dataverse of a Camelot orchestra that was popular enough to have their pieces magically recorded.

They were in the middle of a conversation about food, debating the difference between spaghetti and instant noodles, when Chip’s excellent vision caught sight of a compound in the distance. Carmelita span the wheel and they sped towards it.

From on top of a dusty hill, they could see down onto the flat valley that held the compound. Several laser scorched coyote corpses lay scattered around the electric fence, the only sign of life from the depot the slow, jerky movement of the remote lasers at the towers.

“What do you think?” Carmelita asked, passing Chip her Interpol binoculars.

“Looks like an old vehicle depot. Imperial, obviously. Don’t know what’s in those buildings, but there are a lot of them. It looks like there’s an underground bit as well. I’d hazard a guess that this will be the best find we could have made… if we can get inside. Those laser towers are why it hasn’t been used by raiders at all, no doubt they’re automated. Any ideas?”

Carmelita thought carefully. This wasn’t anywhere near the difficulty level the Cooper Gang was used to dealing with, but she’d never been truly involved in the planning stages.

“Can you tell me how the towers are powered? I reckon I could get inside with my cloak, so if you can tell me where to go I could shut them off from the inside. Then you can drive in, I’ll turn them back on and we can go from there.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

With that, they got back in the patrol car, driving down until they could see burn marks in the ground ten metres ahead of them.

“Okay, you’ve got the wheel kid. Stay in contact with the headpieces.”

“Will do. I’ll return to the hill so I can coordinate your movements from there.”

The patrol car flew off behind her, and Carmelita pressed a digit to her collar. The stealth field activated and she strode forward, crossing her fingers that it would fool the laser grid.

---

The gate was shut, but not locked. Bracing herself, Carmelita pushed against the rusted handles and the gate slid open with a cacophonous screeching. It stuck halfway open, but since it was designed for two directional traffic there was easily enough space for the patrol car to pass through later.

Carmelita passed the electric fence and looked around. There was a good thirty metres of open ground between the fence and the first buildings, and with the compound consisting of thirty nine buildings of a few different sizes there was a lot of ground to cover.

She made her way to the corner of the first building before raising a finger to her earpiece. She pressed and the eyepieces came down in front of her eyes.

“Chip, you there?”

++Just a moment, I’m turning on the camera.++

A small image of the compound as seen from Chip’s vantage point appeared in the bottom left of Carmelita’s vision.

++I think these buildings will be the most likely to have a way to turn off the defences long enough for me to get in there.++

Chip’s hand came into view, pointing out a small two-story building near the centre of the compound and a large flat building covered in sand encrusted solar panels.

++You got that?++

“Yes, I’m on my way.”

Carmelita padded through the empty complex, listening out for any unusual noises. After the first three buildings, she reached the solar plant and found the door padlocked shut.

“Chip, what do you think?”

++What do I think of what?++

“Oh, hang on. Ccamera, camera, camera… there.”

++Probably not worth breaking anything, try the control hub first.++

“Will do.”

Carmelita set off deeper into the compound.

“Do you think there’ll be anything worth salvaging in the buildings?”

++Aside from the compound itself? Anything too big or broken to be easily taken away. Standard practice with the Empire is that if it isn’t cost effective, just get rid of it. I’m hoping there might be some military hardware, maybe a hover tank or a walker, but I’d settle for a couple of trucks and a working nutrient synthesiser and moisture condenser.++

“So I read a few historical articles on the Dunes, but how responsible exactly were the Empire for the environmental damage.”

++My parents were geographers, summoned that way. Originally they were tasked with looking for trilithium deposits in the Endless Dunes… though back then it was the Endless Savannah. My parents were old when they had me, but still, the change happened over living memory.++

“So was it the companies or the government?” Carmelita paused and took a brief breather in a cool shadow.

++Both. They were silenced when I was three for compiling a report on exact impacts of various decisions.++

“Prison?”

++Death. They got put up on trumped up charges and sentenced to the firing squad. Someone really didn’t want their name on those documents.++

Carmelita winced at the acerbic note of the last sentence, but her reply was cut off when she found the central office. She climbed the exterior staircase and tried the door. When it was locked, she pulled a lockpick out of her omnilium and began picking away.

++Why do you know how to pick locks?++

“Aside from my husband getting bored one afternoon? Actually, I learned in the academy. Escapology is a must if you might be taken prisoner without backup. That made for one mess of a hostage simulation when it was my turn to be the dummy, let me tell you.”

++Huh.++

The latch clicked and Carmelita opened the door to a room filled with computers and with the corner to corner windows completely covered with blinds. She pulled a string and the desert light flooded in.

“Well?”

++Oh my… I’d knew that they had started implementing slaved AIs, but to leave them behind?++

“Hardware to chunky to take out the door?”

++More likely it got on the supervisor’s nerves. Poor thing must have gone half mad stuck here. Anyway, there should be some circuit breakers in the box on your right. If you flick them all, it’ll cut the defence matrix while I drive in. Wait until I say, the AI will wake up and I’d like to be there when it starts asking questions.++

“Okay, mi amiga.”

There was the sound of the patrol car in the background of the audio feed. Carmelita waited five minutes, staring out at the rooftops.

++Now.++

She flicked the circuit breakers. Behind her there was the sound of a fan suddenly whirring as long dormant computer systems started whirring to life. The sound of the patrol car coming to a stop outside and Chip running up the steps came to Carmelita’s ears and she turned off her cloak and the earpieces.

The three-eyed girl burst through the door and jumped into a swivel chair, spinning over to the monitors that lay covered in dust. She wiped a furry arm across the screens, staring at the numbers and images that were flickering past.

“Oh. It’s going to take about a day for the poor thing to reboot.”

Carmelita looked at the screen, then at the equipment around the office.

“I’ll take your word for it. Should I turn the circuit breakers back on?”

“Yes, just keep away from the fence.”

Carmelita nodded and, after returning power to the dense grid, headed out to explore the compound more.

[Carmelita]

After a few hours of exploration, Carmelita returned to the office. Chip had called her to say she had found a working nutrient synthesiser and moisture condenser, and having found a lot of dusty, empty hangars Carmelita was all too happy to call it a day.

The two of them sat around a coffee table, staring out at the setting sun. Chip was browsing the Dataverse while Carmelita made a face at the taste of the paste from the synthesiser.

A sudden gasp from her companion brought her head up, looking at Chip’s shocked expression.

“What’s the matter?”

“No no no no no…”

“Chip?”

“No no no no…”

“Chip! What’s wrong?”

“No no no…”

Carmelita got up from her seat and shook Chip’s shoulder. The girl’s eyes snapped up to Carmelita, moisture welling up in all three.

“My brother. He’s… he’s in trouble.”

“Your brother?”

Chip nodded

“Yeah. He looked after me after our parents were killed. We… we joined a rebel group. One of the protesting cells, printing underground newsletters and so on. Two months ago there was a surprise raid and we had to run for it. We got split up, I got to a teleporter to the Dunes before it was destroyed. I thought he was safe but…”

Wordlessly, she forwarded the message to Carmelita’s eyepiece. She ran her eye down it, picking out the details.

‘Hey Chip

I don’t know if you’ll get this, but I hope you’re alive. This’ll probably be the last message I send to you, I got caught in some crossfire on Tier 6. I’m holed up in a small slum with some bacta, but I can barely move my legs and Sullivan’s on my tail.

I love you.

Nimo’

Carmelita looked up at Chip, who was now crying properly. The girl stared at Carmelita.

“Please…”

“I’ll save him. I’ll need to take the patrol cruiser, you okay to stay here?”

“I’ll be fine. Save him. Please.”

---

Carmelita sped through the night, sand blocking out the stars in the rear view mirror. She brought up her Dataverse connection and began typing away, one hand on the wheel.

[Carmelita]

Dawn was breaking when Carmelita spotted the dust trails of vehicles moving to intercept ahead. A quick adjustment of her course and she headed towards the end of the dust trail, bypassing whoever was trying to waylay her.

A quick check in her mirror showed that whoever it had been had missed the chance, and she smiled to herself as the scrub of Carrefour’s surroundings slowly made itself evident.

She was tired, but she needed to get into Coruscant before resting. That meant doing everything legally, and that meant putting on her game face. She sped past the outskirts of the town, making a beeline for the portal. Upon approaching, she reduced her speed and joined the queue of traffic making its way to the portal.

A stormtrooper came over and she wound down the window.

“Hello, ma’am, please state your name, condition, baggage and reason for passage.”

Carmelita grabbed her Interpol badge and flashed it in the soldier's direction. She spoke with a warm strength in her voice, a carefully practiced air of authority masking any nervousness that she might be recognised.

“Inspector Fox-Cooper, prime, none, business trip. I’d appreciate it if my waiting time and paperwork was expedited, my client stands to lose a family member if my investigation is delayed.”

The stormtrooper physically reeled backwards before regaining their composure.

“You may want to use the pedestrian route, Inspector, there’s little to no foot traffic today and the paperwork is significantly reduced.”

Carmelita nodded, pulling her patrol car over to a parking lot in response and locking it behind her. The stormtrooper she had been talking to had hurried over to the desk, clearly taking her requests to his immediate superior. She strode over.

“Please tell me what the minimum amount of work I need to do to gain access to the city is, a life is on the line.”

“We could call ahead to the EPD-”

“No offence, but communicating the intricacies of the case I’m following, which includes a lot of details from other realms, would take far too long. I would be happy to talk to a representative at a later date, but my physical presence should be all that is needed to prevent a tragedy.”

“Very well, please fill out these forms and submit yourself to our scans.”

Carmelita made her way to the scanners. She focused hard on her belt, the notice-me-not charm a comforting warmth against her fur, before stepping out the other side. She rapidly filled out the paperwork with the barest of details, only giving the barest of outlines of what she was capable of and carefully neglecting to mention her belt or collar. One brief demonstration of her sidearm later (and an amusing conversation about the pointlessness of confiscation) and Carmelita stepped through the portal, returning to the many layered city.

[Carmelita]

Carmelita had sat back down in her patrol car after returning from Coruscant when a reminder popped up in her eyepieces. After having signed up as a Prime to proceed properly through the gate, she had received a mysterious invite from a Karl Jak, and she proceeded to read it in the gathering twilight.

To Carmelita Fox-Cooper

Good morning, Sunshine!

My name is Karl Jak, and I’m here to cordially invite you to my home, the Danteverse.  You’ve received this letter, because I’m in need of some help.  The Danteverse is a large place, but it seems that some things have happened out there in the Dante Ocean that I don’t recollect.  Strange islands and bizarre weather patterns…

I found an island I don’t recall designing.  Even worse, all this weather crap makes it impossible to survey the place from the air or through other means (don’t even get me started on the scrying crystal nonsense).  I even sent some of my favorite cabana boys out to investigate, and their ‘whirlybird’ stopped responding.

So I’m inviting you to join me, Mr. Karl Jak, on an expedition into the unknown.  Help save my poor lost boys and solve this mystery of the Danteverse.

We’ll be opening our doors in about ten days.  We’ll have gates open in the Endless Dunes and the Pale Moors.  Doors will also be open to vendors, diplomats, and anyone else who would like to use the Danteverse as a secure space for a few days.  

I hope to see you there.

Smooches,

Karl Jak

It was the work of a moment to check the Dataverse, and in an instant she had a flood of information about the Danteverse. She forwarded a message to Chip, saying she was checking it out, and received a reply that Chip was fine where she was. Apparently the girl was looking after the AI who was still rather groggy from a forced sleep state, and there was a certain hint of mischief when the girl said she had a surprise waiting on Carmelita’s return.

Shaking her head with a smile, Carmelita revved the engine and set off across the dry grass, making her way to the Town with No Name.