The Edge

Arian: Part Two

He didn't realize they were leaving until he felt the ship take off.

Objectively, the lack of communication was his fault, too. He'd spent a good few hours playing hide and seek, only coming out once for snacks when he was sure he couldn't be seen before slinking back to his protest isolation. Arian was really good at not being seen when he wanted to be, and he really hadn't wanted to talk to anyone. All of that definitely kept the others from informing him that they were leaving.

That didn't stop him from being really offended that no one had even tried. Like, thanks, now he would be going into this situation without any possible intel. That was always important, but it was more important than every after the last two shit shows they'd been through. Sure. He could leave the room and ask, but he didn't want to be the one to break the silence.

Still...

Arian sat on his bed, twirling a pen around his fingers and grappling with his habitual need to plan versus his stubborn need to stay quiet. Eventually, the habitual need to plan won out...kinda. He still wasn't going to leave his room or ask with his mouth, but he had other options. Arian grabbed his phone and opened up a chat thread with Luca.

Msg. sent: hey where r we goin

Luca was the one who was least likely to be bitchy to him and most likely to reply. Even if he conferred with the others first, Arian didn't care. As long as he got the answer he was looking for and not someone banging on his door.

Msg. received: Luca: It's some kind of moon base. Jupiter-7.

Msg. sent: cool thnx

Arian quickly put his phone on Do Not Disturb, ignoring the indicator at the bottom that Luca was typing, and grabbed his tablet.

The thing was, as irresponsible as people claimed he was, he did like to stay on top of things like this. Back in his baby pickpocket days, he'd been the one who kept tract of the shifting gang loyalties around the city. Knowledge was power, and even the little he'd been able to yield had done a lot to keep him safe. He still kept notes on every new planet he visited or anywhere he was going to, keeping tracks of who could help, who could hurt, who was somewhere in the middle and what factors might sway them one way or another. All important shit to know.

Double-checking his notes, unfortunately, revealed that he'd never been there, and that no one he'd encountered or worked with had talked about the place. Hmm. Don't like that. Lack of information didn't necessarily mean there was nothing to be worried about. It just meant he wouldn't know about anything he should be worried about.

Time to fix that.

First step: the usual quick searches. There wasn't too much to read: Jupiter-7 was basically the moon base equivalent of those office buildings with a bunch of smaller companies inside. There was government-sponsored science crews, shipping companies (not Solo, thank God), independently-funded science crews...and that was mostly it, in terms of big and noteworthy organizations. There was nothing that jumped out and screamed shady, but everything there could've served as a cover for something shady. Really don't like that.

They did have an interplanetary broadcast station, that was confirmed, but no station list. Arian had a feeling that Helen wouldn't drag them out there for nothing, so maybe she knew about a station list he didn't. Still...

And for real, what does a radio station have to do with any of this?

Arian set aside his tablet and rubbed his temples. Honestly, he was just as thrown by the whole situation as everyone else. He thought he knew Cassandra pretty well; bare minimum, he understood better than anyone else why she'd left the ship initially. It was a lot of the same reasons he'd left: not wanting to be tethered to the same place for the rest of his life, the weird gaps Mom and Dad had left behind, and the fact that Helen had gotten honestly kind of insufferable after they died (Arian kinda got why, he did, but that didn't make her any less difficult to deal with). All of that made sense.