Previously:
The stationer flicked the collar of her jacket, trying to shake out a crease that only she seemed to notice. Mannar styling, cut in local fabricators: iridescent weave, too warm for the dry chill of X-Sense Concourse B. Her press badge pulsed faint amber, the logo at centre was different—The Mannar Born Tribune, scrolling in tasteful violet.
Her camradrone hovered at shoulder height, casing scuffed from too many shuttle transfers and one memorable customs inspection in Orvolle. The technician walking beside it—a wiry Intaki with synthoil under his fingernails and a calibration slate tucked to his chest—kept feeding it subtle commands, fingers tracing arcs on an invisible HUD. The drone’s primary lens occasionally jittered, then refocused, little correction spirals woozily adjusting in attitude.
“Olide X-Sense,” the reporter muttered, more to herself than anyone. “They said ‘regional hub’—I expected more Quafe and less lab. ”
The camradrone gave an almost-human chirp of agreement, then made a low warble and pointedly framed a corner of the concourse: a slow-moving figure threading through the crowd with the unconsciously parted sea of capsuleer deference.
The technician squinted at the feed. “Uh. That’s… Tem. That’s Snowflake Tem, I think.”
The reporter stopped walking. The crowd did not. It flowed around her, a living river of workers, traders, splicers, and capsuleers—all under the gridded lighting that made the polished floor look like thin ice over black water.
“Snowflake Tem?” she echoed, the words already rearranging themselves into headline fragments in her mind.
“She’s a SKINR fashionista, or wants to be ,” the technician said, then immediately realised he’d said more than he should have. “I mean, that’s what the feeds say.”
The camradrone’s lens dilated sharply, almost like a pupil. For a moment, its HUD flashed internal overlays no one else could see: Paragon station handshake; capsuleer registry cross-ref; IRIS subroutines sampling gait and biometric approximations. Then, just as quickly, it smoothed out, presenting only a clean framed shot of Snowflake Tem moving across the concourse, coat flaring as she walked, expression occupied but not hurried.
“Stay on her,” the reporter whispered, and the drone dipped fractionally, its stabilisers humming.
She started walking again, angling toward Snowflake’s path. Snowflake moved with that particular capsuleer rhythm: someone who resultantly navigates gravity wells and tactical overlays from inside a pod, now wore station boots like a disguise.
“Excuse me, Snowflake Tem?” The reporter let her voice carry just enough to cut through the murmur. “Mannar Born Tribune. Do you have a moment?”
Snowflake Tem glanced sideways, the motion quick but measured. For a heartbeat, her eyes flicked past the reporter and landed on the hovering camradrone instead, as if weighing it, counting its seams and antennae arrays. Then she looked to the reporter.
“You’re blocking my path,” Snowflake said. The tone was dry, but not hostile. “That’s almost a ‘moment.’”
The reporter stepped sideways to match Snowflake’s pace, falling into stride. The technician shuffled to keep the drone parallel, his fingers working silent corrections as the camera fought between tracking Snowflake’s face and the scrolling of station signage overhead.
“Your Fléchevenin skins,” the reporter began, feeling the cadence kick in, the familiar on-the-hoof interview rhythm. “They’re some of the most unusual hull projections IRIS has pushed live. Are they satire, subversion, or just… eccentric branding.” A small smile. “Do you consider them a success?”
Tem’s mouth curved, just slightly. “Attention is not the same thing as volume.”
“Paragon is EverMore, Garoun, IRIS—” the reporter ticked off the associations like beads on a string. “Soft AI, nanoholographic projections, capsuleer loyalty programs. Surely you’re benefiting.”
Snowflake’s eyes shifted again toward the drone, that same brief, measuring flick. The camradrone’s HUD jittered—Paragon telemetry spike, error-correct attempt, another IRIS handshake subroutine quietly throttled back. The drone’s casing vibrated with a barely audible hum the technician registered more as a feeling in his teeth than a sound.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Snowflake said. “Who benefits.”
They passed under a concourse arch where the lighting shifted from bright white to warm amber, an architectural trick designed to make capsuleer lounges seem more inviting. Holographic adverts hovered overhead: Paragon’s sleek IRIS avatar talking about ‘personalisation,’ Garoun banks promising ‘stability across empires.’
“You don’t think Paragon’s personalisation is benign?” The reporter’s voice sharpened, a Mannar lilt bracing it with curiosity instead of accusation. “IRIS’ soft AI is… unprecedented. First of its kind governing a corporation.”
“IRIS is a mask,” Snowflake said, almost absent-mindedly, as if repeating something she’d known for years. “Soft AI is an acceptable face. That’s the point.”
“For whom?” the reporter asked.
“For the families that don’t want their names in the share registry,” Snowflake replied. “For the royals who never technically had crowns, so they never technically abdicated. For the banks that never technically ruled, so they never technically lost wars.”
The technician made a small, involuntary noise—as if he’d just swallowed a thought he wasn’t ready to have. The camradrone bobbed, lens momentarily drifting to a nearby holo of a smiling Garoun portfolio manager. A barely perceptible correction yanked it back to Snowflake’s profile.
“You’re referring,” the reporter said, choosing her words carefully, “to Garoun’s historical ties to Gallente nobility?”
Snowflake’s answer was slow, deliberate. “Garoun didn’t just tie itself to nobility,” she said. “It bred with it. Bloodlines cross-chained into equity holdings. Husbands and wives, ‘companion contracts’ and ‘heritage vehicles.’ They called it a Shin — a secret compact. You won’t find it in any onboarding materials.”
The reporter felt her pulse quicken. “A compact,” she repeated. “Between Garoun banks and Gallente royal lines. To do what, exactly?”
“To never lose influence,” Snowflake said. “To never let public will interrupt private compounding.”
The crowd thickened as they approached another junction, traffic funnelling into a corridor that split between ‘Public’ and ‘Capsuleer Authorised.’ Station signage pulsed soft blue arrows; a CONCORD emblem glowed passively near the security checkpoint, as if reminding everyone who really wrote the rules.
“And Paragon?” the reporter pressed. “Where does it fit in that picture?”
Snowflake tilted her head and, for the first time, fully faced the reporter as they walked. The camradrone caught the angle perfectly: capsuleer composure, half-lit by a passing holo reflection. In the drone’s internal feed, a silent subsystem tagged the frame, then sent a tiny packet to an off-station relay. IRIS, somewhere, noted the gesture.
“Paragon is a lateral extension,” Snowflake said. “It’s how the compact moved into capsuleer space without calling it a monarchy. Skins and needles instead of crowns and crests. You think you’re choosing aesthetics; you’re agreeing to be indexed.”
“So why keep working with them?” The reporter’s question came out faster than she’d intended. “If you see the compact, why keep feeding IRIS designs? Why keep selling skins into what you clearly consider a deeper mechanism?”
Snowflake smiled then—a thin, precise smile that looked more like a line drawn with a stylus than anything natural.
“I’m not interested in selling,” she said. “I’m interested in contracting.”
“With whom?”
“Anyone who isn’t bonded.” Snowflake’s gaze flicked briefly toward the ceiling, to where the station structures hid the routing of power and data. “Independent cartels. Matari freeholds. Quiet Caldari anomalies that never made it back onto the megacorp org charts. Even certain Mannar outfits that prefer words to weapons.”
The reporter felt the mention land. “Outside the Paragon market,” she said, almost tasting the headline. “You’ have designs… off-grid. Away from Garoun, away from royal-banking structures.”
Snowflake gave a tiny shrug. “Off ledger,” she corrected. “Grid is just how they spell ‘ledger’ this century.”
The technician cleared his throat. “You’re talking about… black-market hull projections,” he ventured. “Unsanctioned contracts.”
“Unindexed contracts,” Snowflake replied. “There’s a difference.”
They were close now to the capsuleer-only zone. The corridor narrowed, and the signage shifted from soft blue to an uncompromising, sharp white. A line on the floor separated ‘everyone’ from ‘everyone who wakes up in a pod.’ A pair of security drones hovered nearby, their scanners gently humming.
“Are you saying,” the reporter pushed, feeling the window closing, “that Paragon’s whole market—the skins, the variety, IRIS’ charm—is just an elaborate front for maintaining a hidden royal-banking influence compact? A Gallente shadow control system?”
Snowflake’s expression didn’t change. “I’m saying it’s an elegant way to keep capsuleer minds occupied while their ships are categorised,” she said. “Who owns which hull. Who prefers which aesthetic. Who can be nudged and who resists. Behavioral telemetry in nanoholographic drag.”
“And you’re… resisting?” The reporter’s voice lowered, almost conspiratorial now. “By contracting outside, you’re trying to break free?”
Snowflake stopped at the threshold line. On the floor, a small holo flared to life as her boots crossed it: capsuleer clearance confirmed, pod authorisation present. The security drones adjusted position by a few centimetres, a greeting that looked like intimidation to anyone lacking a clone.
“Break?” Snowflake echoed. “No. Compacts aren’t broken. They’re outgrown.”
The camradrone leaned in, lens widening to catch micro-expressions, tiny shifts at the corners of Snowflake’s eyes. Somewhere behind the scenes, its glitched telemetry braided with something else—Paragon’s IRIS routines listening not only as a brand representative but as an evaluator. The technician frowned at an unexpected spike on his slate, then watched as the drone’s readings smoothed out on their own.
“And you think capsuleers can outgrow this?” the reporter asked. “This Garoun–royal compact? You think they’re going to step off the ledger?”
“Not at all,” Snowflake said. “You can’t avoid what you can not see.”
She stepped fully across the line.
Immediately, the station recognised the boundary-crossing. The reporter felt it more as a social pressure than a physical one: the sudden coolness of official disinterest, the way security drones did not, quite, turn to follow her, but would if she pushed. She’d done embedded capsuleer pieces before. She knew where her access ended.
“Ms. Tem,” she called, staying just on the civilians’ side of the threshold. “What do you want me to do which this information?”
Snowflake paused, just long enough to be polite. The station lighting painted a line across her cheek, a thin, bright cut of white.
“You’re Mannar,” Snowflake observed. “Are some accidents intentional?”
“That’s not an answer,” the reporter said.
Snowflake’s smile reappeared, this time with the faintest hint of warmth. “Most worthwhile answers aren’t,” she replied.
She turned, boots carrying her deeper into the capsuleer-authorised sector, where the signage changed, and the floating adverts faded into more discreet service prompts. Within a dozen steps, her figure was another silhouette among other capsuleers, another pod pilot heading toward private hangars and personal wars.
The camradrone hung at the boundary like an unsure pet. Its lens tracked Snowflake until the station architecture swallowed her from direct view. Internally, a flagged sequence ran: IRIS-mandated analysis; pattern comparison; compact-friendly heuristics. Then, a single, strangely uncorrelated pulse—almost like a quiet refusal—glitched the routine, and the packet routed somewhere else, some undefined Paragon process that didn’t quite match its documentation.
The technician tapped his slate, trying to coax the drone back into standard tracking behavior. It rotated, lens now focused on the reporter again. She stood at the threshold, eyes narrowed, thoughts stitching the conversation into something publishable that would still pass corporate legal.
“Flechettes and compacts,” she murmured. “Royal blood in bank ledgers. Capsuleers off ledger.” She looked straight into the camradrone’s jittering lens. It’ll never get published publicly.
The drone’s lens fluttered, briefly overlaying her face with silent metadata: Mannar origin, press credentials, history of critical stories about Gallente corporate culture. IRIS’ signature tried to settle on the frame—classification, categorization, gentle guidance. Another glitch nudged it sideways.
From the outside, to anyone watching, the camradrone just seemed… a little dumb. A little slow to respond. Its movements were half a beat behind the technician’s gestures and more than a beat behind the reporter’s instincts.
“Come on,” the technician said, patting its casing. “It is what its is. Should we get this feed to Tribune editing or let it get overwritten?.”
The reporter turned away from the capsuleer threshold and back into the flow of the concourse. Around her, Olide X-Sense resumed its anonymous bustle: workers on shifts, traders on margins, capsuleers passing through like ghosts that occasionally left burn marks on real lives.
She walked toward the editorial suite she’d rented for the cycle’s end, questions darting through her mind: compact, Garoun, royals; Paragon and IRIS; Snowflake Tem contracting outside the ledger. Whether the meeting had been chance or design, she couldn’t quite say.