Control

Another late night, another lonely hotel room
Cass swivelled in her chair and rocked back into its plushly upholstered confines, tiredly rubbing her face with her hands as she scrutinised the television on the opposite wall. Her eyes narrowed as she absorbed the information it displayed
Everything was under control
What she had done was little different to the way she had subjugated the Dwarf’s systems, only here, it had been simpler by many orders of magnitude; the casinos surveillance and communication networks having fallen to her as easily as the banks had – 2013's most sophisticated counter intrusion technology turning out to be, at best, merely ineffective against her skill and the arsenal of AI-based weaponry at her disposal
Satisfied with what the schematics were telling her, she let her hands fall and pushed herself up, out of the chair to stretch and crick her back before turning to scoop her terminal up from the desk. Raising the device, she tapped away at the screen to tweak the overlay mapping and configure a few monitoring parameters while, on a whim, padding across the room to gaze out of the huge floor to ceiling window.
After the month she had spent, stranded in England’s pastoral eighteenth century, Old Las Vegas at night was, even to her jaded eyes, something of a sight to behold; and looking out across the vibrant and vaguely surreal, neon wonderland, it seemed strange to think that within fifty years, everything out there would be obliterated in a series of devastating nuclear blasts
Cass slowly shook her head as she wistfully stared out at the twinkling lights
All those people...
Her growling stomach abruptly interrupted her thoughts and reminded her that she hadn't eaten for the best part of a day; and so with more pressing matters to consider, she turned away from the window, wondering where she could get something to eat.
The conveniently placed room service menu by the side of the bed caught her eye, and for a moment, the insular part of her nature was tempted with a night in on her own, but after consideration, she reluctantly dismissed the idea – She had gone to the effort of buying some new clothes earlier on, and as this was her first night in an even remotely civilised era in months, she really ought to make the effort and go out
Besides, she realised, they were meant to be trying to be high profile and doing their best to get noticed; so as enticing as the idea was, hiding away in her room by herself would do nothing to help matters

Having previously eschewed the bizarre shorts and leather jacket combo that the shop assistant had assured her was hot off the catwalks, Cass dressed herself in a black figure hugging vest top and a voluminous long black skirt, before turning to regard herself in the mirror while the nanosuit oozed and slid over her skin, reconfiguring to conceal itself beneath what she was wearing
She was going to miss the ‘suit when she got back to the Dwarf and had to sacrifice it for its medical nanites to sort Jaxx out; but such, she conceded, was the price of her complicity in engineering the species that had created the virus
Of course there was always the chance she would find another source of nanites; but she wasn’t about to hold her breath on that score, so if the suit was the price for assuaging her guilt over two dead crewmates, then so be it
Shaking her head, Cass turned away from the mirror with a curl of her lip, quietly wondering when and why she started giving a shit about anyone other than herself, and feeling weak because of it
Maybe, she wondered, she should just revert to type?
It wasn’t as though anyone would expect any different of her, or even notice that she had lost a few more of her rough edges, so why bother?
Fucks sake
Hitching her skirt up, she clicked her pistols onto their housings on her nanosuit and slipped her terminal and a few extra clips into her new handbag
A little eyeliner and mascara, a slash of dark red lipstick, and the look, as far as she was concerned, was complete

Her terminal chimed as she was about to leave the room - By the sound of it, one of the search agents had found something
Fumbling the device out of her bag, Cass frowned as she absorbed the information displayed on its screen before, with a sigh, she turned away from the door and grumpily tossed her bag onto the bed – If the data was telling her what she thought it was, this was going to be a long night


Breakfast
<snip>
[Cass] passed her handheld to Jay ,Katrina leaned in as he glanced at it.
“That’s a still from CCTV footage from a camera in the main office. That was being placed in a safe…it’s a …”
“It’s a type 6 pulse rifle…” Jay said
“From about 300 years from now…” Katrina added.
“If that got into the wrong hands…if it got mass produced…” Jay said
“Then everything will go to smeg” Cass finished.
“So…” Jade asked “What do we do?”
</snip>
<snip>
Skutter Jaxx looked at Cass and said, "You want us to either steal the gun or destroy it?" Cass thought for a second before saying, "Pretty much, but we are going to have to break into small groups in order to focus on finding Jacky and the rifle."
Skutter Jaxx looked at Chuck and Evelina as he said, "If its cool with you too I totally feel bad for loosing Goggle dude and I kinda like to remember what happen to us last night." Evelina and Chuck agreed with Skutter Jaxx. Cass then said, "Well Jaxx and Evelina are gonna look for Jacky so if anyone wants to join them feel free to say so now. The rest of us will need to focus on retrieving the rifle.
</snip>

Picking a slice of apple up off her breakfast plate, Cass bit into it and chewed thoughtfully as she watched the other Dwarfer’s scamper off, out of the dining room, trailing optimism and alcohol fumes
“You know,” she said around her mouthful of apple “That’s not going to end well, is it?”
“You’re telling me,” Jay sighed “Why’d you send them off like that? As soon as we resolve this paradox, we’re jumped out of here; we should focus on that instead”
“I figured they’d do fine as a diversion for the renegades,” Cass shrugged “Any suggestions about how we crack an old fashioned safe?”
“You mean you can’t open it?” Jade asked
“Nope” Cass shook her head and picked up another slice of fruit as she settled back in her chair “It’s analogue”
“There are ways and means” Jay paused to frown down at Cassandra’s terminal as it chimed softly “Oh for pity’s sake...” he groaned
“What’s up?” Phil asked
“Ee?”
“We’ve got trouble” Jay pushed the terminal out into the middle of the table for everyone to see “East entrance: Williams and Khan”

<tag/>
<ooc>apologies for being a little quiet of late - had a very busy week or so</ooc>