

"Here comes the flesh harvesting committee"



"The sky delivers us presents! IT'S RAINING GIFTS!"



"TIZ BUT A SKY ADVERT! BOXING DAY MUST BE UPON US AND PER ANCIENT TRADITION WE MUST SHOP TILL WE DROP!"



"NEIN! DON'T BE SUCH A SOUR RAISIN, SNIPPY! BLACK FRIDAY IS COMING!"



"A GOOD SHOPPING THERAPY WILL CURE WHAT AILS YOU!"



"Does it cure chest-swords?"



"BUT OF COURSE! YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY PARTAKE IN ALL YE MERREY SHOPPING SPREES AND HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES, LEST YOU MISS OUT ON ALL THE DECAPITATORY SAVINGS!"



"Right... getting decapitated by one of those cubes would certainly suck."



"YOUR EYEBROWS ARE TWITCHIN', MONSIEUR!"

"DON'T THINK TOO HARD ABOUT IT, LEST YOU BLOW A GASKET. TAKE A SAMPLE FROM PILOT'S POSITIVE ATTITUDE!"



"WE NEED ONLY FIND ENGIE TO COMPLETE OUR CONVIVIAL QUARTET OF CAROLERS!"

Sunshine! Actual sunshine!The city never looked so bright, so vibrant, so full of colorful ruin and rough textures of decay.Spring had after all arrived, as promised by Captain, at least in this pocket of sunshine.In the sky a Leviathan Mother-ship Server Cube was coming apart, seeding smaller yet still massive cubes, bigger than the city's skyscrapers.These broke off into smaller and smaller cubes, which smoothly floated across the sky like a school of fish would in water, converging, flocking, swarming.I grumbled.Pilot proclaimed happily.Captain boomed."Was Captain ever an ANNET user?" I thought to myself.Seeing sky adverts was only logical for such. Could sudden disconnection even begin to explain Captain's madness? Captain was certainly stuck in an imaginary world.Captain flapped on, groping me and interrupting my train of thought.I inquired, sarcastically.I agreed.I noted that none of the swarms floated directly toward us. Perhaps they didn't see us? Perhaps we were safe from them as long as we didn't draw their attention? Or were they simply following some kind of pattern that I could not understand?How much danger were we in actually in, I wondered.Would the cube drones hunt us down and try to laser us into tiny pieces or did my current state of temporal-un-death keep me out of their scanners?I guess having no heartbeat has its privileges.I looked at jubilant Captain and wondered whether the cubes would try to dissect h.... hi... he... What?Annoyingly enough, even being dead and out of synch with the universe didn't allow me to mentally focus on Captain's gender. There is definitely something wrong with Captain. Perhaps it is something awful that is not meant to be discovered? Or...? Damn it!The harder I tried to ponder on what exactly the Captain was, the more my mind burned with confusion.I felt a presence of unnatural apathy settling over me. I mentally fought against it and discovered a great sense of DOOM flooding into my head, telling me not to inquire further, lest the Universe fold in on itself.If I believed in Pilot's nonsense about space wizard magic I'd think Captain had a "comprehend me not" charm on, full blast.Well, Captain is probably safe from the cubes, whoever the Captain is... as long as Captain's state of "perplexity" affects their targeting systems.Captain examined my face.What of Pilot?Will the cubes target one of their own, one who is human at heart? Perhaps, a broken Dex is no threat to the Network.Captain declared rapturously.The fourth? But of course!The last human on the surface of the city?Engie? Have you survived the fire and flood?Where are you... Doctor Gromov?