Move 16 Recap

This section describes the team's activity on the Wasp and Moongray Station around 04:00-05:00 on Monday.

Iawa, Sulen, Virmad; messages from Sasha

Iawa learns that Imsayed (Istradez) is hurt from Virmad, and plans to head to the station to provide medical assistance or at least support. Sulen offers to accompany Iawa, in large part because they are concerned about Avrayen (Mikodez)'s actions. Sasha messages Iawa to apologize for not taking Iawa's earlier inquiries about Mikodez' whereabouts seriously. After Iawa and Sulen have left for the station, she sends Sulen an update on her activities.

Alaric and Sasha

Sasha checks station surveillance photos and discovers that Mikodez left the visitors' quarters shortly before the medical team arrived and found Istradez. She asks Alaric to go to the station to retrieve Mikodez, and tells him not to let Mikodez slip away. Alaric asks whether to use force if necessary. Sasha replies, "His file says it's imperative he not be killed. I don't know why he's special, but he is. So. Talk him down if you can, pick him up and carry him if you have to." Alaric asks whether there's anything in the medical bay he could use to drug Mikodez. Sasha gives him a red sleeping pill she got from Iawa, and a green pill to create an apparent allergy attack that Ashari suggested taking in order to avoid unwanted meetings. She passes on Iawa's warning that combining the sleeping pill with alcohol will induce sleep paralysis. Alaric observes, "Sleep paralysis seems like a perfectly useful side-effect for an abduction anyway."

Fluffy, Mikodez, the mothling, and Vana; messages from Sasha and Virmad

Mikodez finds a gene scanner and confirms that Istradez is indeed his brother. He then heads to Remi's favorite bubble tea shop, bringing Fluffy in her carrier and the mothling in his backpack, under some black Andan fabric. At the tea shop, he meets Remi's assistant Vana, and offers to tell his shipmates that she is looking for Remi. She notices the squirming backpack but is appeased by Mikodez' explanation that the Andan are involved, and gives him her business card.

Mikodez moves to a boring corridor. He messages Sulen and tells them that Vana is looking for a man who more or less fits Remi's description. He then messages Sasha with the text "got what you asked for, gotta find more food" together with a number of garbled emoji, the jeng-zai symbols for page of gears minus nine of gears, and the string "8888888888". The jeng-zai symbols are intended to imply, on the surface, "'a reliable friend' diminished by his intent to get food to recover from the arduous journey" of recovering Fluffy, and to describe for an omniscient observer "a garble of void fronds, named for the signifier associated with the Deuce of Gears". The 8s are either a cheery goodby or a reference to Sasha's use of Naxorian profanity describing eight hells. After sending the message, he checks his surveillance of the visitors' quarters, and finds that his brother has been moved to Medical.