C08 · Six Minutes of Fame

Fennec lineage, 26, orphanware, the planner. Her legal name is a batch designation. The market bred foxes to listen, and then sold the recordings. Caseline folded in 2053; she bought herself out at nineteen, in 2059.

Wolf lineage, 24, ex-Kavast, the driver. Kavast holds packs together with love; pack-bond conditioning means deserting means leaving your litter. Danka is the one who did, because she watched command spend that love like ammunition.

Bear lineage, 34, Eastern Compact, the anchor. Callsign earned in Compact service, meaning endurance; the kids think it's a hospital joke. His first splice, Longhaul, died waiting for an extraction that was never coming.

Baseline human, 19, Barricadia, the mouth. No augments; in this crew, the loudest statement anyone's making. A mother above a print shop who thinks he does logistics for a security firm.

Raven lineage, 22, ex-Protectorate, they/them, the documenter. Protectorate flights are networked sensory arrays; Theo spent their whole life inside Vantage Nine, a nine-operator flight running as one sensorium, and never had a private thought until defecting at twenty.