[ChicletPrime]

in further news, the stuff that Caleb sometimes says in the café is a little creepy. i love that for both of us.

Chapter 2: Funeral

• Zayne also suspects something is askew. the medical records are too clean and there's nobody who actually saw the death.
  
• maybe she's not actually dead? just disappeared into a medical lab somewhere? 
  
• Zayne's interest in this begins and ends with me, it seems.
  
• so they found the very deceased parents on Joseph's.. ship? truth or plant? 
  
• aaand Kevi has been adopted to a new family. 
  
• yeah girlfriend, that was super smooth and clean. sister and parents dead, now placed with no doubt a different, more loyal Fleet family, the protocore fragment confiscated but they have the kid under lock and key now that could use it. 
  
• okay? Kevi's at the funeral with no trace of the crystals on his face anymore. that's very... something. and his face shows no grief.  oh, this is not on. what is going on here?
  
• oh fucking HELL. The Professor is the kid's new adoptive parent. i should have guessed.
  
• yes, i am pretty sure its our fault Kevi got caught, and apparently has now had his synapses rearranged into a new and pleasing configuration for his new masters.
  
• oh fucking hell. is it the brain chip thing that Joseph was wailing about? wouldn't explain the sudden reversal of the disease but that's a separate question.
  
• hello Colonel Xia. care to explain your involvement in this spectacular set of events? 
  
• "How's Kevi doing?"  your concern is noted, thank you, if a little too late and a little flat.
  
• (oooh, i'm mad. girlfriend, you still trust that face? although, honestly? if its somebody else's sister on the firing line, I don't think Caleb would hesitate more than a heartbeat, and only that much because of the similarities. his concern also probably begins and ends with me.)
  
• (also, i am so sorry, but this uniform is just doing it for me. maybe because of the code switch in his voice and demeanour. maybe because he just looks so good in black.)
  
• yes, please suspect the man! at the very least, he could find out more for you, that you have no access to even as his adjunct.  not that he would, but you don't know that exactly yet.
  
• i want to rip that collar off him.
  
• another incoming tranmission, just as he wants to take me away from this. so conveeeenient.
  
• "No matter what happens, I can always trust you, right?" 
  
• loaded question. let's see the volley.
  
• "Of course."  stare into his pretty flower eyes and tell me what you see.
  
• (utter devotion, the adamant belief that he knows more and best, the crazed panic of trying to keep the loose cannon that is you away from the firing squad...)
  
•  with the amount of touching he does to her, i think everybody in the Fleet knows exactly what the Colonel's new adjunct is there for.
  
• 1) if the Farspace Fleet caused the explosion, why? 2) how much does Caleb know? 3) what is the story about how he became part of the Fleet? 
  
• A) to arrange things before the Philos conjunction is my guess, likely to do with Spatium 2) only as much as he needs to be told to keep him in line 3) you were there. it was an explosion and a missing brother disappeared for a long, grief stricken year
  
• oh. oh crap. hell, even. Caleb's got a chip too, doesn't he? did his new masters threaten to give me one too? 
  
• /headdesk.  do i have a chip too? maybe that's why i lie so horribly.
  
• "Unless the kid has something more valuable."  bloody hell, Viper! 
  
• i have got to stop talking to myself out loud about things i should not be talking out loud about.
  
• "cracks and blotches decorate his face."  NICE.  i might have terrible suspicions about my brother from another mother, but he's MY brother from another mother and he can fuck up more shit than you can imagine, faster than you can imagine it so back OFF, snake boy.
  
• THERE WE GO. "Lots of people want an aether core but only a select few can handle its power without being devoured. finding individuals like that is incredibly rare." 
  
• SYLUS I CAN HEAR YOU LAUGHING ALL THE WAY IN SKYHAVEN. we are alike, my right eye indeed.
  
• so aether cores are hard enough to find as it is, but plugging them into the right socket is also a project i take it.
  
• uh. so. the hit is out on me now? 
  
• okay, i'll bite. if he's not Ever's assassion or somebody just after an aether core, then which correct answer am i not seeing here? 
  
• "I'm Caleb's friend. You can call me Viper.... I'm here to lend a hand." 
  
• at this point, maybe... maybe not the worst idea to take him up on it? i mean, he's going to lead you straight down the dragon's throat, but maybe you can steal some treasure along the way. 
  
• BINGO! "Don't you want to know what the Fleet and Caleb are really up to?"  this is me, grip on gun but nodding.
  
• oh no. is this little metal disc what i think it is? "go and see for yourself" and then he tosses me a Wanderer summoning device? and a time and an address.
  

The plot is starting to tighten up with straps.