Part One:

  Earth

  Chapter One:

  The Engineer

  "The engineer has been, and is, a maker of history." - James Kip Finch

  Jax Flores tinkered atop a crowded but simple handmade rosewood desk. A watercolored butterfly of painted shards made burning with current; the faux stained-glass bulb washed the corners of a darkened room in a muted transmutation of various contrasting shades.

  It’s a holder, a thin armed muti-jointed lamp; clamped to the side. Within reaching distance, but not it the way.

  The desk Jax made sat against the wall under a hardwood pegboard that was cut half an inch longer than the desk on either side. The pegboard was lined with hanging instruments, junk cluttered on small hooks or in 3D printed bins. It was a mess that sometimes came together in moments of unity, where all of one collection would match in color or shape. All the soldering equipment sat well used in a father’s chair of worn assigned spots. Only easing down to rest after a hard days work.

  A small plume of semi-translucent smoke hugged the sides of deft tattooed hands. The ghost crawled down a similarly inked, tan, and muscled forearm, brushed with dark hair, and the occasional freckle before dissipating. Crackling filled the air bringing the sweet smell of acrid rosin, like sweet pine wood sap.

  Jax wiped the flux residue from that last solder joint connecting the GPS module's VCC and ground pins to the ESP32's 3.3V rail with a nice even flow leaving a IPC inspectors wet dream, Jax thought, being IPC certified themselves with the space addendum, humble brag. This meant they could inspect soldered boards to space standard, as in outer space. They had been doing inspection work for years as a contractor for the DOW (Department of War) which was really just a fancy way of saying they worked for a weapons manufacturer contracted by the US to make, well, weapons. Jax worked in a space (a cube and not outer) where the weapons that came to them looked more like boxes of wires and soldered boards made to fit together into a bigger box (chassis) than they did the missiles that would actually be fired, and kill targets.

  They didn’t really think about that though, the potential for death. They just worked on the soldered boards put in front of them. Mostly guidance systems or black boxes, sometimes other interesting and classified items. Just shelves of classified boxes of cards and wires fitting into other boxes and cards. A factory of Russian nesting dolls for dead Russian soldiers, or Chinese, or Canadian.

  Jax pushed away the urge to doom scroll, pushed out thoughts of old work while they did new work. Concentrated on the art of it, the tools, the metal paint connecting circuits and creating magic. Cleaning the soldering iron on a wet sponge before placing it in it’s holder, Jax then grabbed the unwashed glass beaker bong from nearby and went for a fat rip. The last crescent moon of green went up like a forest fire filling the tube with dirty yellow delicious smoke that disappeared into their lungs like music. They relaxed both back and shoulders as thc fueled blood ran through their veins in calming waves. Breath fell like water from full brown lips framed by a thin John Water’s ‘stash. They let their jaw fall relaxed, a knowing both mentally and physically in the release of strained stress that they kept in constantly clenching their teeth.

  Jax set a playlist named Not My Problem, after the first song added by Noga Erez, to shuffle and Blood by Starbenders came on. They took up the bong and cashed the last of it, the rest of the ash being sucked through into the browning water. Jax swirled the bong, thought of emptying and cleaning it. Then instead went to refill the bowl. They took an old prescription pill bottle off the desk and opened it to find only a green film reside left on the sides from where they had put ground buds. They checked their grinder and found it empty, same with their bag from the dispensary, even more alarming was their less than zero bank account. At -$57.

  They briefly wondered if it was possible to use any of that classified information in a monetary beneficial way, since they had been laid off anyways, fascist bastards. But Jax was happy, or not happy, but not as bad as they had been. Jobs weren’t really their thing. Working four 10s, Monday thru Thursday, staring at other people’s manufactured line driven murder machinery through a microscope for 10 hours, fixing mistakes mindlessly while listening to true crime podcasts or an audio-book, and still somehow living paycheck to paycheck. You need money to live in this capitalist hellscape.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Jax had been working food delivery on the app FoodRun, and had applied for a few jobs on a whim or as a last resort. The last of Jax’s family inheritance had been spent and they no longer had any living relatives to be a support system. That and after a few quick online, most likely predatory loans, with the always thriving systems of rent, electricity, and car insurance tightening its grip around her financially illiterate neck. Jax was spiraling. Their phone had a daily missed call number of over thirty from collectors besides the one or two recruiters, begging Jax to come back into the world of manufacturing.

  When they had been laid off it had seemed like a god send. The reason they gave was ‘not fitting the corporate idea of a DoW contractor’ i.e. Jax had let their gender dysphoria slip out during a required mental exam for secret security clearance. To be fair it wasn’t so much of a slip-up as it was a series of loaded questions dealing with the way they liked to present. Which was a mix of Jack from Mass Effect and a casting call for Mexican mechanic. Jax’s brown skin and flavor thanks to her Father Jesús, mixed with her Mother’s white anxiety-ridden mid-west charms. Both dead, their ghost like personality quirks still haunting them. Their mother’s clenching and fart sounds, their father’s curiosity and laugh.

  A style of their own, Jax’s closet was full of their signature coveralls that were wore more often than not, each a different shade of colorful pastel and with its own patches and story. Today they wore a powder blue, with a D20 patch that their DM had gifted them, a dripping “The Bloodies” Patch from one of their favorite local punk bands, and a pin on the lapel with the trans flag, which when questioned they would say it’s the bisexual flag, not that any fascist who called them out would know the difference or bother with compartmentalizing their hate into colors on a flag. Usually they’d just get dirty looks either way, but at least this was still a liberal city though less so by the hour it seemed to Jax.

  They thought back even five years ago when though things were just starting to heat up, back when they could still walk around the city and see houses and businesses proudly displaying their lack of hate through rainbow flags and stickers declaring “All are Welcome” things were less welcoming now, and by law. The Left queers and radicals are dangerous. Don’t belong in an American home or a McDonald’s, Target, none of them worried about having those pride week sales since the US government had told them it wasn’t in the interest of the American people to indoctrinate their children or propagandize sexuality or identity by acknowledging it. It was all Christmas and the American Flag, Christian White Jesus in our schools and in our homes. Watching.

  Jax set the bong down. Pulled their phone out from the front pocket of their coveralls. They put out a post on AmazonWork offering simple electronic and car repairs to anyone local for a fair price, then checked FoodRun. Jax saw a few far distance offers and decided to finish their work before venturing out into capital.

  Sitting atop the mat on Jax’s desk, the GPS module which was a NEO-6M, sat flush against the custom PCB, its ceramic patch antenna fingering out, hungry for connection. Jax carefully threaded the ribbon cable of the TFT display through the slot of a 3D-printed enclosure face plate. They aligned the 40-pin connector with the ESP32's header. One firm press and it clicked satisfyingly into place. They flipped the board over and connected the battery lead to the charging circuit after double-checking polarity, didn’t want to fry everything. The LiPo battery slid into its compartment inside the case.

  Jax plugged the ESP32 into their laptop and began to flash the firmware. They opened the Arduino IDE, selected the COM port, and hit upload. The serial monitor came alive with scrolling text, WiFi radio initialization, GPS handshake protocols. The ESP32-S3's dual-core processor was coming online, loading the Marauder's code into memory. A minute later the upload was complete.

  Jax unplugged the USB cable and snapped the Game-boy purple translucent lid onto the enclosure. They held the finished device in their palm, it wasn’t larger than a deck of cards with it’s antenna now pointing skyward and with teeth. Jax connected the 2000mAh LiPo battery's JST connector to the power rail, and the 2.8-inch TFT screen blinked to life with the Marauder's menu interface. They scrolled with the touchscreen to "Deauth" and selected their neighbor's router from the scanned network list. The asshole who'd complained to the landlord about Jax's “lifestyle choices.” One tap and the device began pumping out deauthentication packets, spoofing the router's MAC address and forcibly disconnecting every device on the network. Jax imagined his Smart TV dropping mid-stream, his Ring doorbell going dark, his Alexa shutting up mid-sentence.

  Thirty seconds, just a test and that was enough for now. They killed it and switched to "Sniff" which was a quieter passive mode. The packet counter climbed as the device silently captured probe requests from every phone and laptop within range. MAC addresses scrolled past. SSIDs with names like “Mom's iPhone”, “HifiMYwifi”, “Starbucks WiFi”, “Bill Wi the science FI”, and a bunch of apartment numbers came in. Jax's thumb froze over the screen.

  A new SSID appeared: “DARPA-CCAF.”

  Their heart rate kicked up. That wasn't just a neighbor. That had to be government. Active surveillance. Jax's old DOW clearance had been revoked six months ago, but their metrics were still in the system. If someone was running signal intelligence in the area, the Marauder's active deauth attack had just lit them up like a flare. Stupid. So fucking stupid.

  They grabbed their phone to check if anyone else could see it. When they opened their WiFi settings, there it was among the usual apartment networks: DARPA-CCAF. Strong signal. Close.

  Their mind raced through possibilities. Random coincidence? Maybe some defense contractor lived in the building. Or maybe, this made their stomach drop. Maybe someone had been watching since the clearance review. The mental health questions. The gender dysphoria. The “lifestyle incompatible with security requirements” bullshit. Maybe they'd never really let Jax go, maybe they were just waiting. Jax had seen the TikTok rumors that the National Guard were on route to Minnesota to start building their camps where people like them went to be disappeared.

  Another network appeared: "PEGASUS-MOBILE-69."

  Jax's blood felt cold and for the first time in a long time they thought about running, but to where, and with what money.

  They yanked the battery connector out of the Marauder and watched the screen die. No more transmitting. No more beacon. But the log file was already written with GPS coordinates, timestamps, MAC addresses. If someone pulled that data, they'd know exactly where Jax was and what they'd been doing.

  Jax shoved the Marauder into their favorite record store tote bag along with some clothes and the essentials in eye sight before killing the lights. They pulled back black-out curtains and watched the street. They saw a couple walking and a flash of a pink car pass out of sight.

  Their phone buzzed. FoodRun notification. New order had been accepted and the timer was ticking. Jax didn't remember accepting an order, but damn was that a big tip.