RavensDagger

  Chapter Forty-One - Karma

  "Do you believe in karma?"

  Ivil go the side. o her, Missy was squating down, boots cmped onto the metal railing of the floor. She had her arms crossed over her knees and was looking straight ahead, into the locker that Ivil had stuffed that dead pirate in.

  "I don't think I do," Ivil said. "If it does exist, then I imagihat my own karma isn't so great. I'll have a great deal of euppao deal with, won't I?"

  Missy let out a breath. "I don't think we're talking about the same thing, then."

  "Oh?" Ivil asked.

  The pirate's corpse had been ying here for half a day now, so the cores held within had had plenty of time to slip out of the body. Cores that were taken in and properly ied usually took between a few hours and a few days to bee part of their host's body. The reverse was also true. The lo took to assimite a core the lo took for it to notice that its host was dead and for the core to leave.

  The more plex the core, the lohe process iher dire took. Cores that were spread across the body were also the cores most likely to be utterly destroyed.

  On occasion, as the result of a violeh, two smaller, weaker versions of the same core would e from one dead body. It rocess not too dissimir to splitting a core, though it was far less practical.

  A body destroyed suffitly could result in no cores at all, which was always such a waste.

  At the moment, six cores floated loosely within the locker.

  "There are different expnations for karma. Not just what it does but what it is," Missy said. She s the air, then grimaced. "This one's starting to rot."

  "I'll it up," Ivil said. "Or... we jettisoire locker. It's not the most glorious casket, but it'll do, I think."

  Missy nodded.

  "So, what are these karmas?"

  Missy sighed and stood up fully. "In Haumea we use karma to describe a couple of things. It's... your past feeding into your future. It's not mysticism. Well, it's mostly not that. Karma is... geid how you were raised and psychology all ed into one. Your past, meaning the circumstances of your birth, the genes passed on to you from your parents, and even the choices you made as you were young, all feeding into your present to make you who you are now. I think the idea is that it's a lesson."

  "A lesson?" Ivil asked.

  "Do good now, and maybe you'll reap the rewards of it ter," Missy said. She looked to Ivil, meeting her eyes without fear or reproach. "Thanks. For what you did on that station, for keeping Two-Six safe. I 't imagihat you didn't have ulterior motives, but I appreciate it all the same."

  Ivil allowed herself to smile. "You're very wele. Though, you're right, I did have some ulterior motives. I'm not sure how wise it would be to admit to them. They're... rather petty, I think, in the greater scheme of things."

  "Petty, huh?" Missy asked. She narrowed her eyes, sing Ivil up and down. "Yeah, you seem the sort."

  "Now, what does that mean?"

  Missy just grinned in reply. "So, six more cores, huh?"

  Ivil gnced over to the cores, then made a quick sshiure towards them, more for Missy's be than anything. "This one," she said as she arrahem in a line and poio the left-most. "Is the most powerful i. A Bnk-type core. They're rare."

  "A bnk-type?" Missy asked. "A stealth core?"

  Ivil nodded. "Meant to teract core-sensing abilities. It's an iing core to have. As per Martian cssifications it would be sidered a meta-type core."

  "Because it interferes with cores directly?" Missy asked. "We call those trumps on Haumea."

  "That's the gist of it, yes," Ivil agreed. "This one is a self-regution core, for temperature. Very on. Useful, once you're around C or B ranked. A lot of cee waste heat, or use the body's heat to fun, so you always run the risk of having hypo or hyper thermia."

  "Seems useless otherwise," Missy said.

  Ivil shook her head. "Don't uimate even the simplest and most on of cores. There's a time and a pce where they be exceptionally useful. For example, with this one, you wouldn't have to buy nearly as many clothes since you self-regute your temperature, and you could wear fits all the time."

  Missy's expression fttened. "Are you saying someone assimited a core just so that they wear skimpy clothes all the time?"

  "Nonsense," Ivil disagreed. "Women are beautiful not just when wearing skimpy clothes, but no matter what they wear. You're very attractive in your jumpsuits and casual spacer wear, and Miss Sterlingworth is very attractive in her more formal outfits, but her of those are the kinds of things you might want to wear in any location, not when some pces would be too warm or too cold for it."

  Missy stared at Ivil for a moment more before shaking her head. "Weirdo," she muttered. "What about the other four?"

  Ivil poio the third. "on glowing core. Affects the user's skin. Gives it a faint bioluminesce." She poio the fourth. "Weaker muscuture improving core. It doesn't strengthen your muscles. This os more like a nutrient-efficy system in your stomach. It modifies eaten materials so as to promote muscle growth. This fifth core is arical discharge core. It acts as a capacitor as you discharge it. And this st one is the only other non-on core."

  "Oh?" Missy asked.

  Ivil made the sixth spin about. It was round, as most were, but it also had two small protruding chevrons. "A shield core. A kiic shield. It's likely very weak, a split core as well."

  "I guess a weak shield's better than nothing," Missy said.

  Ivil hummed. "With the capacitor core, it be overcharged, but that would create a lot of heat in the user's body, which the temperature regution core hahe three w in tandem actually make food bination. Two of those, the shield aion cores, are splits, so I suspect that Miss Herring here nning her build, so to speak."

  "Smart," Missy said. "So, we expect you to start zapping people, maybe spring up a shield now and then?"

  Ivil shook her head. "I don't need any of these." She plucked three of them from the line. "Here," she said.

  Missy stared at Ivil's open hand, and more specifically at the three cores sitting on her palm. "Is this a joke?" she asked.

  "No," Ivil said. "sider it a gift."

  "I don't do gifts. Life doesn't give gifts to me. You remember what I said about karma, right? Well, mine's not so good. It's not this good, at least."

  "It's not life that's giving you a gift, it's me," Ivil said. "Your karma, as you call it, it's not something that I believe should dictate your eure. I have very rarely allowed fate to sway my as, only when it aligns with what I want. And what I want now, is to give you these."

  Missy hesitated, her gaze flittiween Ivil and the cores she still held. "Okay, enough of this," she said as she crossed her arms. "Saving us all earlier, that tracked, you were saving yourself too. Aurora's important, and I've worked out that you have a deal with her. That much I get. Giving Twenty-Six that little core? Fine, yenerous, and it probably doesn't suit your build or whatever. But you don't have any reason to be this way with me. What gives?"

  Ivil hesitated, then paused time. She needed a moment to think this ohrough.

  Her motivations here were... transparently self-tred. She wanted Missy to like her, and giving Missy expensive gifts seemed like a good way to go about it.

  Oher hand, it was also... shallow?

  She'd done plenty of research (watg soaps) where such shallowness led to retionships that were equally shallow.

  Missy was caught, frozen in time like a dragonfly in amber, gring up at Ivil. It wasn't just suspi, it was something else too.

  Time snapped bato its normal flow. "I'm sorry," Ivil said. She lowered her hand, thely tucked the cores away in a pocket. "Maybe I am being a little too forward with you."

  "You're not being too forward, you're being too... sleazy," Missy said. "I've lived too long to dance around what I mean to say. What, do, you, want?" Missy punctuated that st by poking Ivil in the chest.

  Ivil took a deep breath. She couldn't remember the st time someoried to back her up against a wall and demand something from her. "F-fihen," she said. "If you want to know so much, Missy, then I'll tell you."

  "Oh yeah?" Missy asked.

  "Yes! Missy, would you go on a date with me?"

  "... What the fuck?"

  ***

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