COUNTER/Weight 16: The Rear Left Engine

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Episode description

This week, we bring our attention back to The Chime who have been hired to take a mysterious artifact from a familiar group... The Iron Choir. Dealing with them was easy enough last time so there will be no problems for our heroes this time around, right? AuDy debates who to confide in, Mako calls an old friend, Aria supports a small business and Cassander learns the value of good antivirus software.

This week on COUNTER/Weight: "The Rear Left Engine"

Got no teeth to lie through...?

Opening

An excerpt from the journal of Addax Dawn, former Candidate of Peace, and current agent of the Rapid Evening.

Rust asked me, when it was over, if it was hard for me to keep my distance. It was. But not for the reasons she may have thought. Not because the boy from September moved a familiar power that he couldn’t control, as I once did. Not because the volunteer found faith at a cost, as I found the Evening. Not even because the idol moved like Jace did, the first time I saw him; all fire, no fuel… Desperate to play the part, but knowing none of the lines.

No, it was the prince that made me want to reveal myself. So rarely do we have a chance to apologize to those we hurt most. And I wonder now, in retrospect, how the Golden Branch might be different if I’d shown myself then. If we’d shaken hands, and put the past behind us, before he learned how I hurt him.

Plot

Mako, Aria and AuDy follow an anonymous request to meet at a park in Monument Square. They notice new Angels of Counterweight videos running there, now promoting the Weightless. At the park a man shows the Chime a video of a strange, explosive golden orb, and asks them to recover it from the Iron Choir. He is Tendency Porter, the V.P. of Rare Materials Acquisitions in the DDMR.

AuDy has not told the Chime that Sister Rust owes them a favor, and as they admit to Cass, they in fact lied about receiving a bounty payment and using it to fix the ship's left engine. Cass and AuDy go to the crashed ship A Collection of Inconsistencies, trailed by various robots. The person at the crash site, Tungsten, agrees to take AuDy to Seabed City to speak with Sister Rust (after they pay him three credits to buy food). AuDy tells the Chime what they're going to do and shuts themself off, refusing to explain.

Mako calls Orth, who is not happy with the Chime, but tells him that OriCon currently has a blockade on the Iron Choir, who reside out in the seabed near the abandoned dome. Aria talks to Caleb, an Apostolosian who runs a pawn shop, and pays them in exchange for intel that the orb is from Ziishe. A longer video shows the orb not exploding, but rolling along a hill into a stream. Cass searches on the Apostolosian net, and learns a bit about the Rapid Evening. In the process, they accidentally download "LDA Track V3.2," Liberty and Discovery Automaticorps tracking malware.

Cass decides that they will go with AuDy, Mako will get the orb with his Ring of Saturn deck, and Aria will follow in the Brilliance, ready to draw OriCon in. Tungsten brings his supplies on board with some J-M units, and the Kingdom Come prepares to launch.

Cast

Other Characters