TIMESTAMP 22:00, THIRD SHIFT SECURITY ROTATION
A distorted, fisheye video feed of a long IR-lit hallway. There's no audio, and flickering framestamps in the lower corner mark it as spime footage from the Ecstatic Metamorphasis' starboard storage level. Emerging from off camera, a man in a rumpled vacsuit hustles down the hallway. He halts, glancing down an intersection nervously, then over his shoulder before proceeding. The frame freezes briefly, a heavy rectangle flickering around his face. He's ID'd as {{L. NESSMAN, APPRENTICE BONDSMAN, EXCORP}}. The video resumes and he kicks off awkwardly, drifts down the hall, then grabs a handhold outside a storage room. He fiddles at the hatch and ducks in quickly.
A beat passes. A black-haired woman enters the frame, momentarily filling the center of the fisheye shot before following the man down the hall. She walks comfortably in magboots and a baggy flight suit, passing the same intersection without hesitation but stopping at the storage room door. Reaches into a pouch at her side and produces a stubby-stocked SMG. Glances left and right… and the freeze frame snaps a square around her face, too. {{M. KLEO, INTERNAL AFFAIRS, EXCORP}}.
The video resumes. She knocks on the door twice, pauses, then there's a stuttering flicker as things move too quickly for the shit camera to capture between frames. A jerk as she ducks away from the door, a flash from inside the storage room (probably an agonizer), and a smooth, blurry twist as she swings herself inside the room before a second shot can come.
The video accelerates, skimming through 5-10 minutes with no movement before snapping back to normal speed.
KLEO re-emerges in a black dress suit, sliding the SMG into a messenger bag. Kicks off down down the hallway, tucking stray hair into her collar.
{{ SECURITY LOG: ONE BODY, L NESSMAN, FOUND DECEASED. }}
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TIMESTAMP 02:18, FOUR HOURS LATER
Grainy, shuddering video of a zero-G bar, packed with patrons. The video is a patchwork,, stitched together from multiple low-res spime cameras, and it jumps from perspective to perspective in an attempt to keep one table in view. Four patrons sit drinking, while two are identified by yellow callout boxes as LOUIS and HP. There's no audio, but scrolling subtitles suggest automated lipreading software.
LOUIS: …just glad you've been having such a good run of it! That kind of gig always pays well.
PATRON 1: Yah straight. Xu's got the click-clack awwright. Gonna be set up for months once she cashes us out.
PATRON 2: Yah, buyer's s'pposed to make the pickup at her ship in juss'an hour now, then we'll be loaded!
PATRON 1: [Smacking PATRON 2's head sharply] Chrissakes! Not supposed to say that!
{{ LOUIS and HP share a meaningful look. }}
LOUIS: Don't worry, friends, secret's safe with us.
The video jerks to a new perspective as a group of bonobos at a nearby table grows rowdier. Yellow boxes attempt to track and identify individual BONOBOS but fail, settling on marking the entire group as {{"SHITSTORM SEVEN" ALL-MAMMAL X-SPORT LEAGUE}}. A chair is thrown, and PATRON 1 and PATRON 2 stand, alarmed. LOUIS and HP stand with them, but head for the bar's exit as a brawl quickly takes shape.
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TIMESTAMP 10:29, SIX HOURS LATER
Ecstatic Metamorphasis Third Shift Security Report: STATUS INDIGO.
At roughly 06:45, an altercation aboard the privately owned transport craft Anorra Arabella was followed by the detonation of a low-yield antimatter charge fired from an orbital defense platform unaffiliated with the Ecstatic Metamorphasis. Casualties on the Ecstatic Metamorphasis were serious but reduced by the unscheduled launch of the Anorra Arabella: at the time of detonation it was roughly .72 klicks from the barge and emergency magnetic shielding reduced radiation exposure for most Ecstatic Metamorphasis residents.