We getting on that ship or what?

[LLLLLLLLET'S GET READY TO RRRRRRRRUMBLE! If you haven't created a bio yet, no problems - just create one and jump in! Don't feel like you have to write anything this long, this is just because I also wanted to create the basic setting for everyone!]

Mirra leaned against the plexi-metal wall near the hangar control centre, her face buried in the greasy wrapping of a nearby insta-food joint. No one looked twice at a plumpish girl stuffing her face, or if they did they tended to hurry right past. Which meant they couldn't see a panel of the wall was prised out, her head jacked into the circuitry behind. They also never noticed her fingers tapping away on the wrapping, typing into a screen generated by her bionic eye - or her second brain, she liked to call it.

She took another bite of the vat-grown meat burger as one of her hundreds of windows flashed with a new message. Feyre, one of her closest friends. She'd known them for over ten years, even though she'd never met them in person. Even so, she'd trust them with her life. The message said, Try this one, it has a more efficient attack vector I refined from your original program.

Yes! She knew he'd come through. The luxury cruiser of asteroid mining magnate Geena Velasco had its own private hanger, as was standard for most billionaire jerk-offs with more money than compassion or basic human decency or common sense, really. The hangar was on the other side of the docking bay, guarded by three or four goons checking everyone's invitations for her swanky ball tonight celebrating the launch of her largest and most luxurious ship yet.

Not that Mirra cared what the rich did, but digging into as many rich-person private servers as she had was rather eye-opening. It was also quite fruitful, as she'd come across whispers that Velasco was currently developing - or had already developed? - the universe's most powerful supercomputer. Rumours unearthed on the darknet included the ability to hack into just about any system in existence, including the Department of Intergalactic Justice. And once she faked her death and wiped all records of her identity from the system, she'd be home free.

For now, she'd have to make do with Feyre's program and her excellent-but-not-super-computer in her left 'eyeball'. They wouldn't get her into the control systems for the hangars, but she didn't need anything so refined. All she had to do was destroy, and she was very good at destroying things. A digital explosion wasn't as good as a physical one, but it would do for now. If it worked.

She ran the code, and all around her, hangar doors started sparking, sliding open and shut randomly, locking in place... all kinds of random behaviour that no one would be able to repair in the next few hours. Her patented firewall made sure of that.

Mirra discreetly reached behind and unplugged herself from the circuit. Only when the cable was out of sight did she crumple up the wrapping and throw it in the nearest recycle bin, wiping greasy fingers on her newly acquired bay technician coveralls. As she walked, she pulled up a family picture taken three years ago, from the last time she'd seen her parents.

It'll be easy, she told the images of her parents. Slip on to the ship, use the supercomputer, get out. Those meatheads chasing me will think I've been wiped by someone else, my ashes floating in space. And then I'll come home.

Then out loud, "Time to crash a party."

The party was superficial and superfluous, but achingly, it felt like home. Will squeezed his eyes shut at the sudden surge of home sickness, unsure what part of him triggered it, unsure of why now, out of all times he was feeling homesick. He had a job to do and that was to locate this so called super computer for a particular bounty. What he needed was its exact location, some facts about the captain that he could feed to his current boss, and the best way to blackmail anyone who could give them access to this device.

Will walked past people with gold stained mouths from bubbly drinks, dressed up in the galaxy's best clothes spun from silk made in a dying star. At least, that had been what everyone had told him when he asked them about it. To everyone who he had approached in idle conversation, he was the strange foreigner, with an accent that they couldn't quite put a place to. It had been something he had practised over the years, where he flitted between crowds, leaning into certain accents over others. His scalp was scrubbed raw from trying to properly fix up his dye, trying to keep his current identity, William Petrovski, afloat.

"You said that you wanted to talk to the captain of the Mariner," the lady that Will had talked to before appeared at his side again. Her lips were bright red, and her cheeks even redder from the drinks. She smiled back at him, a smile that he knew meant that he needed to back out quick from this conversation. She pointed, with a long slender finger, over his shoulder. "He's right there."

Shrugging back the personality, he pushed his glasses back against his face. "Such an old name, for a ship. Why not try something modern?"  

"Perhaps," she answered. "But the captain is a romantic."

"I'm going to try to talk to him," he said, smile fixed on his face. "I'll see if I can catch you later."

Soon, the moment he was no longer talking to anyone, he shrunk in on himself. This part of the business was the worst part, trying to be sociable when you were anything but. If he needed to pick apart a case, find out reasoning behind a political play, he could do that from the confinements of his own room. But here, he needed to be in the heart of it all, because it made it easier. Walls could whisper whenever you were close.

As Will headed towards the captain, he saw another figure enter from his side. He stopped a bit, brain whirring as he classified her into a box. Bionic eye and other features made her stand out in the crowd. Body modification wasn't something that he'd get into but he had learned over time the signs to pick one out. They had definitely caused him a lot of trouble in the past.

He quickly veered towards her, grabbing a drink from a server that danced past him. As he stopped in front of her, he gave her his best, smooth, honey-sweet grin.

"You have a couple of wires showing at the back of your head," he said, half joking, half not. Half an assumption came from his view on biomodders, and he was almost certain that if one of them was here, then, there was going to be trouble. Who this trouble was pointed at, Will was unsure.

"You're not here for the party, are you?" He held out a hand. "I'm William, what's your name?"

A hush fell over the sparkling guests who stood closest to the VIP airlock as it opened, and a grey-eyed woman in a three-piece tweed light space suit strode into the room. A broad grin spread across her face as she took in the melee of dancers, gossipers, and those who were vying for places next to the most influential people there. She tilted her cap towards a pretty server who blushed, and then smiled.

Ah, thought Hazel Stone. [/i]Just like the old days.[/i]

Well, almost. Back in the day, when she was travelling under her own name, crowds always parted when she arrived, eager to hear about her latest adventures. Now, she was out in general society again for the first time in almost fifteen years. She knew she held a certain mystique still, but it was a little different than it had once been.

As she walked confidently through the crowd, nodding to people she recognised, she registered a low undercurrent of whispers. What did they all make of her retirement? Of her self-imposed exile with her wife and children?

And surely, none of them knew that that peaceful exile had just been shattered to pieces. She certainly hoped they didn't; it would seriously endanger her plan if they did.

Smile, she told herself. Hobnob, shake hands, joke about getting soft, then get in, use the computer, and get out. If she didn't find the computer, she'd never stand a chance of figuring out how to complete the impossible tasks her even more impossible father-in-law had set her. And then... well, that didn't bear thinking about.

So get in, get out, and do the bare minimum necessary to convince everyone there that she was simply there for a party.

Shouldn't be hard. Though was it bad that she was kind of enjoying the flustered introductions, and warm greetings she was getting from the other guests? Was it possible she had missed being the toast of society?

No. That was not what she was here for. She had to focus. Scan the room, look for threats and look for clues. The old skills were all coming back to her.

And so it was that she noticed possibly the only two people in the room who hadn't turned to look at her: a youngish man with glasses, and a heavily modded woman around the same age. Hazel was known for her intense gaze, and more often than not, when she found herself looking at someone for too long, they would sense it, and turn to look at her. Embarrassing sometimes, really.

But today, neither of them looked at her, clearly too caught up in their own affairs. Hazel decided to keep walking the room, getting the lay of the land. But these two were people she would have to keep an eye on.

Mirra's hand twitched toward her head when the man mentioned wires showing, even though she KNEW all she had there was her jack. She never kept cables plugged in as that was asking to be hacked. And yet, the urge to check was strong.

That smile of his was way too friendly to mean anything good. But she could still make this work. There was always a way. She shifted her fingers in what would seem to onlookers to be an innocent gesture, but would snap his picture and search all databases on the intergalactic web for matches. Now to delay him.

"You're right, I'm not here for the party," she replied, shuffling her feet as she gestured at her coveralls. "I'm one of the technicians Ms. Velasco hired to do the final checks on the ship before the shakedown cruise tomorrow, but it seems I got turned around in this damned maze. Don't suppose you know how I get back to the service corridors, do you?"

She glanced around as she said this, as though disoriented. As she did, she caught a glimpse of a familiar face. One she'd watered all over her walls as a child dreaming of adventure. There'd been no news on the net of Hazel Stone coming out of retirement, yet here she was. On a ship that contained a valuable treasure.

This couldn't be good.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” Will pressed forward, hoping that at least his form of friendliness would give him some leverage in this situation. The woman looked nervous, beneath her coveralls, and unassuming. But there were certain tells, certain things that he could gather, that she was not telling the entire truth. Which made this all the more interesting.

It might be fun, he thought, to continue with her.

“Service corridors,” he said, drumming his fingers, as if he was thinking about where they were. In all honesty, he had no idea. He looked around and eyed a very familiar woman across the room. Most people knew who she was.

“We should ask her,” Will said, pointing at Hazel Stone. He stalked through the crowd and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Ms. Stone.”

Quickly, he shifted, bashfully smiling again at her, pretending to look extremely embarrassed.

“I’m so sorry to catch you out at a time like this, I’m sure you want to enjoy the party.” He gestured vaguely around them. “We’re —” He glanced back at the technician. “Well, I’m sure you’ve already surveyed the area, knowing you.” He gave a light chuckle. “Do you know anyone of interest who could tell us where the service corridors would be? I’m not that familiar with the layout of this —” he glanced around. “— place.”

He had memorized the map, albeit, very vaguely. He was mostly here to gain intel, find information he could sell, and he had a hunch that he might be able to find something by sticking around with these people.

Just a hunch, though.

Well that was something Hazel didn't miss from the good ol' days. Complete strangers acting a little too familiar with her, as though they knew all the ins and outs of how she did things.

Granted, most of them probably did know a fair bit about her. One of the things she'd struggled most to adjust to, where her fame was concerned. Still, she really wished people wouldn't just come up and touch her.

On the other hand... Once she'd shaken off her discomfort, she realised that the people who had just come up to her were the same people she'd been eyeing up from across the room.

Interesting.

"You're not wrong," she said, slipping with ease into her warm, confident, people-charming voice. "I think I could point you to a service corridor or two. But tell me, what do esteemed guests such as yourselves need with service corridors?" She leaned in, and with a conspiratorial grin, murmured, "Is there a plot afoot?"

Damn it, that William man was meant to either point her to the service corridors or leave her alone. He seemed to be a hard person to trace, as her image search was still running, and she had nothing she could use against him till it was done. So Mirra now found herself standing behind him as he approached Hazel Stone, of all people.

Hazel. Frikin. Stone.

And Hazel was talking to them. Like equals. Asking if there was a plot afoot, in that way she had on all the vids she'd seen as a kid, like she was your friend and...

She should say something. Play it cool, greet her, insinuate a plot and send her in the wrong direction, and if she was lucky, that William guy too.

Instead all that came out of her stupid, tongue-tied mouth was, "Guh."

Will was surprised to see Hazel lean in to talk, almost conspiratorially. But he kept his expression steady.

"I certainly don't need to go to the service corridors, but I'm bored of this party," he said, with an air of breezy nonchalance. He looked over his shoulder and feigned a yawn. "And this lady here seems to be able to provide me with the entertainment I'm looking for."

As he let the tech talk, he heard this strange gurgling sound escape the her lips. Perplexed, but slightly amused, he put together the dots. The poor woman was starstruck. Doing a quick analysis, Will decided to take a gamble.

Placing a hand on the technician's shoulder, he said, "I assume that there's a quantum computer out the back that needed servicing, except I'm not entirely sure who we should ask to try to locate it. Plus, I've always wanted to see what type of system it takes to power an entire area like this."

There were a couple of curious gazes sent their way, and Will knew that they were looking at Hazel. He moved his body to block their line of sight just to toy with them and gave a boyish grin at Hazel. "Anyway, Ms. Stone, it would be really amazing to see you in action. I heard you can make jumps you can't explain. We'll need that in our small..."

Will leaned forward with a stage whisper, "... plot that's afoot."

He shifted on his feet, uncomfortable with this persona. He wanted to disappear again, but he needed information, and sometimes, that meant doing things he wasn't comfortable doing.

This man certainly wasn't discreet, Hazel figured, and was more likely than not to be a liability. But having the technician along would make their skulking about look much more legitimate. Much less like skulking.

Of course Hazel knew where the service corridors were. She'd cased those more or less immediately when she'd first arrived. What she really wanted to know were where the service corridors' service corridors were. A ship like this was bound to have all its best secrets entangled somewhere deep in its bowels, accessible only by corridors that hadn't made it onto any maps at all.

The only thing that worried her was trying to figure out exactly how much the young man knew about the layout of a ship like this, especially as he had expressed an interest in the quantum computer.

The computer she needed.

No matter. It would simply be a matter of tagging along until she saw a likely route, then making her excuses, and slipping away. With any luck, she could navigate her way to the computer before these two bumbling characters managed it. And if anyone caught her on her own, she'd say she'd been helping out a technician, tried to get back to the party, and then got lost.

Getting lost was not something Hazel Stone did, but if challenged, she'd just blame it on retirement having made her soft.

It wasn't much of a plan, but it would have to do.

"How could I say no?" she said to the man.

She led them around the room, and slipped behind one of the potted Vintage Earth Topiaries (this one in the shape of something she was pretty sure was called a Stop Light). She held the door open for the other two, and they ducked into a narrow corridor that lit up dimly as they walked down it.

"Now, my bold companions," Hazel said. "It's about time I knew your names." She contemplated asking what they were really doing here, but that would invite them to ask her the same. And she'd rather keep that closer to her chest for the moment.