This year’s BAFTA Games Awards is the latest event to feel the effect of the ongoing concerns surrounding the new coronavirus outbreak. Rather than hosting its traditional red carpet event, BAFTA has decided to change up the format and livestream the winners online.

A statement regarding the change has been shared today, confirming that the livestream will broadcast on the same day that the original event was planned to take place, 2nd April:

Amid growing concerns over the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) and the number of nominees due to travel from overseas, we have made the decision to change the format of next month’s BAFTA Games Awards from a red carpet ceremony at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London to an online live stream, which will broadcast globally on the same day as scheduled (Thursday 2 April).

The health and wellbeing of our guests and our staff remain our top priority, so there will be no live audience and we are now in the process of informing all our nominees, guests, partners and suppliers of the change. The new format will include the announcement of the Games Awards winners and we look forward to sharing more updates in the coming weeks.

The nominees for the show were revealed just last week, with Luigi’s Mansion 3 doing particularly well for itself.

Other gaming events recently cancelled or altered by the coronavirus include GDC, the 2020 Pokémon Europe International Championships, and of course, E3 2020.

… Without Working Full-Time Hours!         

In this article, you are going to learn my exact strategy how to earn $3000 per month as a Python freelancer without actually working full-time and without sacrificing time with your family!

This article is based on the following webinar I gave to my community of Python coders. You can also watch the webinar if you prefer video (100% Free)!

At the end of this article, you will know the exact steps you need to perform to become a well-paid Python freelancer. So stick around, if you like the idea of working part-time as a Python freelancer receiving a full-time income.

Are you broke?

Especially in the US, but also in Europe, many people are broke. What is the definition of broke? You don’t have any leftover money to account for special circumstances. It’s that easy.

It is reported that the average debt of college students is $27,225. But is this debt really a problem? The popular consultant Dan Lok (he calls himself world’s highest paid consultant), has a somehow different view on debt. Let me read one of his statements for you:

“You don’t have a debt problem, you have an income problem. You don’t have an income problem, you have a SKILL problem!”.

Because if you are skilled, you can always sell your service at a higher rate.

Suppose there are two employees: Bob and Alice. Bob has $10,000 in assets and a yearly income of $31,524. Bob is debt free. So many people would consider Bobs financial state as convenient (when in fact he is broke). Alice on the other hand has an inconvenient $100,000 in debt. BUT, Alice can sell her skills at a rate of $131,000 per year. What happens after two years? Alice can easily outsave Bob by tens of thousands of Dollars – even if she starts with a lot of debt. You can also see this scenario on the right-hand figure. The higher the skills, the more you can expect to earn.

How much money do you earn per hour?

Do you actually know how much money you currently earn? An average employee works for 1811 hours per year. As an employee it is very hard to earn more than $90,000. In fact, the median wage of all workers in the US is $24. For example, if you are a student, you are earning -$4 per hour, school teachers earn $37 per hour. If you push yourself very hard and become an extremely skilled employee, you might become a university professor with a yearly salary of $98,423. This is $54 per hour. First, know your hourly wage. Second, improve it.

Develop your new high-income skill: Python development!

So how to increase your value to the marketplace? This article and the associated free webinar have two goals:

• First, creating a new high-income skill for you: Python development.
• Second, show you how and why to switch the road from being a full-time employee to being at least part-time self-employed.

On the graphic, you can see the income distribution of Python freelancers. The median wage of a Python freelancer is $51!

Let me repeat this: the median wage of a Python freelancer is $51! This means that an average, self-employed Python freelancer easily reaches the income level of a university professor. Think about this: can you become a university professor? It’s totally up to you to answer this question. But you can certainly become average-skilled Python freelancer, can’t you?

About me

You are probably wondering why I am qualified to teach you this topic. Let me quickly introduce myself so that we can go to a more personal level. I’m currently in a transition phase from being an employed doctoral researcher working at the university in Germany (for maybe $24 per hour) to becoming self-employed in the Python education sector. My research included processing large graph data sets (like the web document graph). However, for a few months now, I have parental leave caring about my two children. In the evenings and weekends, I create courses, write books (like my newest book “Coffee Break Python“, and create code puzzles for my Python learning app Finxter.com).

Why to become Python freelancer?

How would your life look like if you only needed to work part-time as a Python freelancer doing projects you like?

I have already stressed the first point: Imagine you work from home and see your kids growing up and having the flexibility to spend more quality time with your wife or husband. But there is also an equally important point if you need to take care of your family. And that is: you can increase your value to the marketplace. And there is virtually no upper limit of your hourly rate. If you are and employee you basically have an upper limit – you have seen that a professor earns $53 per hour. But I have seen many freelancers earning $100-$200 per hour. It all depends on how expensive you can make yourself for the marketplace.

For some of my students, being a Python freelancer is also a lifestyle choice. For example one of my students is successfully employed in the US and earns good money there. But his dream is to go back to India to his family working as a Python freelancer. Doing this, he earns dollars and pays rupees for his living expenses. Why not enjoying the benefits of globalization?

It’s also good to diversify your income streams. You could spend one day per month to earn $400-$500 per month as an additional source of income that you can spend for you or your family (or even safe it for later).

Finally, being a Python freelancer is also a lot of fun. You have to stretch your abilities regarding Python but also regarding soft skills such as communication ability and language skills. If you are not a native speaker (like me), it’s very nice to improve your skills that way while you are getting paid for doing good work for other people.

Can you already see yourself working as a Python freelancer?

How to sell your Python skills for money ($$$)?

There are basically three ways of becoming a Python freelancer. The first is being a consultant working for a big company. The second is to be a freelancer working on a platform such as Upwork or Fiverr doing mostly smaller tasks. The third option is to create your own platform that you own (for example, creating your own website and drive traffic to it). I call it the hybrid approach because you have some elements of both previous options.

Now, we will dive a bit deeper into each of these options.

Career path 1: Work for a big client as a consultant

The first way of becoming self-employed is to work for one or a few big clients as a consultant. Working as a consultant has some advantages. You work in a business-to-business setting which allows you to tap into large earning potentials. There is a lot of money in business-to-business — especially if you focus on high-ticket sales.

However, many people I know working as consultants heavily rely on one or two big clients. They are not diversified at all. And if you work for a single big company, you will have very limited freedom in terms of your projects and working conditions. Many Python consultants report that the pressure is hard and it feels like working as an employee.

This is not the focus of this article, however. So if you prefer to work as a consultant, I would NOT recommend that you take this specific course.

Career path 2: Sell your micro-services as a freelancer

The second way — and this is the focus of this article and also the free webinar which comes with this article — is to sell your services as a Python freelancer on existing freelancing platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr.

These platforms are very convenient. You could start today creating your freelancing account and start with your first gig in the evening. Then you solve the jobs (which takes maybe a week or even only a day). You are very flexible, you can learn fast and without too much pain or commitment.

Also, you have a small feedback cycle: you can go over the whole cycle of acquiring a client, doing the work, finishing the job, and getting reviewed. Over time, you will become an expert in the soft skills and communication part, and you will learn about many different areas where your Python skills can help people out.

It’s the perfect option of getting a foot in the door and to converge, job-by-job, to your final specializations (in case you want to specialize to increase your earning potential on the freelancing market).

Finally, there is no startup overhead. Marketing is simple. We will learn later that you need to have two things: an attractive profile and good ratings.

Of course, nothing is perfect. When working as a freelancer, you don’t own the platforms. You don’t own the clients. As a default, if you don’t do anything against it (later we will see that you can also acquire the clients from the platform and creating your own database of clients to mitigate this last point. Also, these platforms get their significant cut of 25% for each job. That’s quite something.

So overall, working as a freelancer on these platforms is all about getting testimonials, skills, and experiences.

Career path 3: sell your services on your own platform

Finally, the third option is also the one with the highest income potential. You create your own platform (for example setting up a WordPress page where you offer your details and service offerings). You retain 100% of the control over your income, your projects, and even your testimonials. The sky’s the limit (you can earn hundreds of dollars per hour, if you are smart about it).

However, there is also the need for you to market your services. You need to install a marketing funnel. For example, you attract potential customers using Facebook ads. Then, you set up a landing page with a lead magnet so that they are motivated giving you your email address. Finally, you will nurture your leads sending them tons of value via email and build a relationship with them.

While this seems to be complex, it is definitely the most profitable long-term strategy. However, in the short term, it’s much better for most people to gain experiences and testimonials on the freelancing platforms and then gradually shift their focus towards their own platform as they get to know more and more clients.

So these are the three potential career paths for you. This article and the associated webinar focus on the second option as a starting point.

A simple formula for success

This article is about how to go full-time as a Python freelancer without actually working fulltime hours. The success formula is simple. You start working as a Python freelancer now (no matter your current skill level). Then, you keep increasing your value to the marketplace until you have reached at least average Python freelance level. At this point, you will charge $51 per hour.

Would you consider a daily income of $100 as a fulltime income? According to US statistics, earning $3000 per month is already above the median salary. Now, the plan is to work for two hours on your core freelancing activities. The rest of your time you are free to spend with your family, for rest, learning, or finding even better freelancing jobs. That’s it. The strategy is simple but none the less effective. It provides you a clear and manageable path to your new freelancing lifestyle.

The top-3 secrets to earn more money as a Python freelancer on Upwork

How can you increase your value to the marketplace such that you can easily work at average Python freelancing level? What’s the magic key that will allow you to open the doors to your dream clients?

Next, I will give you 3 secrets how you can connect with your clients.

First, use research insights of psychology to build trust. Second, become a specialist rather tan a generalist. Third, leverage network effects.

Secret #1: earn trust

The key is to earn trust and to be attractive. Clients pay more and you will get the better jobs if you are trustworthy and attractive to them. I made a small experiment and searched for the keyword “Python” on the Upwork.com freelancing platform. All proposed freelancers had a job satisfaction rate of 100%.

So how to earn trust? You collect positive ratings. The more ratings you have the better. And the better the rating the better. If you buy properties in the real estate sector, it’s all about location. Trust me, in the freelancing sector, it’s all about ratings. You NEED to engineer your ratings. If you have good ratings, you will always find jobs, no matter how good your external achievements are. You don’t even need an academic degree, you can find the best jobs if you have good ratings. With good ratings, you will always find good, well-paid and attractive jobs. Rating is king.

How to actually get good ratings? We have seen that good ratings are important. There are five basic ways.

• The first way is communication: be very responsive, be very positive, be a yes-man and be generous with your offers.
• The second way is to acquire a lot of Python skills (and this is the focus on this article).
• The third way is to overdeliver. Always. If your task is to give him 100 Python puzzles and you send him 110 Python puzzles, you can almost be sure to get the 5-star rating on the platform. You not only delivered what he asked you to deliver, but you OVERdelivered the task. This is a simple but effective 3-step way to get great ratings.
• The fourth way is a very important and underestimated point: the reciprocity rule. If you give something away, the receiving person will feel the obligation to give back to you. That’s why they have free food in supermarkets. I have hired many freelancers for my website finxter.com and some of them were really smart. When applying for the project, they just gave me something for free. For example, the project was “develop 100 Python puzzles” and they just gave me 1-3 Python puzzles for free. I was feeling the strong urge to give back to those freelancers by hiring them (I even wanted to hire ALL of them to not miss out on giving back to them). This is a powerful mindset: give first, then you will receive.
• The fifth way is the following: on some platforms like Upwork, you can complete small Python tests. Certificates go a long way building trust with your clients. You can also solve Python puzzles and download your personal certificate on our Python online learning application Finxter.com.

Secret #2: Money flows to specialists!

There are other tricks that will impact your success on these platforms. One is the specificity of your skill set. The more specific, the better and the more trustworthy.

If you just sell your services telling them “I can program any Python program you need” then they will not really trust you that you are the expert in any Python field. But if you tell them that you are the go-to expert for anything regarding Python Django Authentication, then they will definitely go for you if they need just that. You are honest and authentic about your specific skill set – these signals confidence and expertise to the clients.

What are the skills that the marketplace seeks? There are some foundations which any good Python freelancer must master. These are basic and complex data types, lambda functions, list comprehension, complexity of data structure access, basic algorithms, keywords, and so on. Knowing about the foundations already qualifies you doing Python freelance jobs.

However, if you want to increase your earning potential, you need to specialize in more advanced knowledge areas. Examples are Machine learning, data analysis, web scraping, or web development (e.g. Django). Each of these area consists of subtopics like scikit-learn, regression analysis, numpy, etc. In each of these specialization, you become more focused toward this specific area which automatically increases your value to the client. But an important observation is also that every specialization builds upon a solid foundation. So don’t be lazy and skip the foundations!

Secret #3: Leverage network effects

Finally, just to motivate you again that it’s all about rating. The Internet follows a universal law: “The winner takes it all”. The rich get richer and the popular people get even more popular. If you are already winning on these platforms, you will win even more. People tend to simply reinforce the decisions of their peers. If all of them gave you 5 stars, most clients will simply default to giving you 5 stars as well. The network effect is a well-researched phenomenon in all kinds of networks like social networks, the web, and also freelancer rating networks.

There are two basic tactics that you can use to leverage this information to earn more money and increase your value to the marketplace.

• First, focus on your initial jobs. See your initial jobs as investments in your future. Even if you did them for free (and I’m not advocating this), they will be profitable in the future by attracting the better jobs and clients.
• Second, you should prefer many small jobs over few large jobs – because this way, you will gain your credibility faster (many people subconsciously have the simple heuristic: more jobs & more ratings = better freelancer).

How many skills do you need before starting with your freelancing career?

The short answer is to just start now and figure out how to solve the problems as you go.

You will be paid for your learning time. I have annotated the income scale of Python freelancers with the Python levels you can have. As you can see, if you are just beginning with your Python career, you will — of course — earn less, but you will still earn something, make a lot of experiences and gain practical insights into WHAT to learn and WHERE your knowledge gaps are.

The long answer is: if you don’t feel confident, yet, you can master the Python basics first. You can already specialize in a Python topic. And to gain even more confidence, you can even do some toy projects to learn. One of my secret tips for learning to freelance in Python is to learn with archived freelancing projects. You can already gain practical experience and learn the type of projects that people have paid freelancers for. Still – I would always recommend to just start doing real Python projects and then put in all the effort to earn your five-star rating.

How to learn the Python basics?

My recommendation is that you use a personalized training plan which has a very practical focus. You divide your time into two blocks: one block takes 70% of your LEARNING time. You use this time to work on practical Python projects which can be archived freelancing Python projects that challenge you to go to higher levels. You could even spend this learning time on your dream projects – this is even better because it keeps you highly motivated and engaged. The key is to NOT STOP WORKING ON THESE until you have successfully finished them and created a minimum viable product.

The rest of the time (30%), you will invest in solving Python puzzles, work through Python courses, read Python books. You can see that this is a highly practical approach – I’m talking about your learning time which is mainly practical. The reason is that for any subject you want to acquire or even master, you need to have the practical motivation. You need to open your knowledge gap to see what you don’t know before stuffing things in your brain. Ask any expert on Quora – they will tell you that practice-first is the way to learn Python fast. There is no shortcut.

Puzzle-based learning Python

On the theoretical part, I recommend solving Python puzzles as your main lever for your personal improvement. Python puzzles are a powerful tool to become more and more proficient in reading and understanding Python source code.

What’s a Python puzzle? A Python puzzle is an educative snippet of Python source code that teaches a single computer science concept by activating the learner’s curiosity and involving them in the learning process.

The Python puzzles range from easy to complex – each puzzle will push your theoretical and practical code understanding skills one step further. The puzzle-based learning method is very effective and proven by tens of thousands of online students.

Here is an example of a code puzzle:

What’s the output of this code snippet?

Check your correct solution of this puzzle here.

How would your life change if you developed the high-income skill Python to become a Python freelancer?

In this article, I have shown you a simple way out of the rat race of working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 40 years.

In the free webinar with the title

“How to go full-time ($3000/m) as a Python freelancer — without working full-time hours” (Click to join),

I will give you a detailed training plan such that you can start earning money with your Python skills. I show you a new way of becoming a Python expert that is fun, that challenges you to reach higher levels of code understanding, and that gives you a highly practical tool for developing and sharpening your new high-income skill Python.

Last week, as COVID-19 cases continued to spread around the world, millions of people moved to remote work. We were right there with them. From Milan to Puget Sound, tens of thousands of Microsoft employees in impacted areas have begun working from home. Many of our customers have asked us to share the details of how we enable remote work for such a large workforce. My colleague Nathalie D’Hers is the exact-right person to do just that.

Nathalie and her team are part of Microsoft’s Core Services Engineering and Operations (CSEO), our internal IT team that builds and operates the systems that run Microsoft. They have spent the past few years transforming end-user productivity across the company and learning so much along the way. Here, she walks us through the top ways CSEO is enabling remote work. Over to you, Nathalie.

When people ask me about my job, I tell them my team and I make sure every Microsoft employee has the tools, resources, and solutions to be as productive, creative, and secure as possible—working from any location and on any device. For the last few years, that’s meant overseeing Microsoft’s journey to the cloud. Getting there has required that we manage identity and network access for all users; help ensure devices used to access the network are secure and healthy; and provide users access to the productivity-enabling apps they need.

Below, I’ve identified some of the top ways we are enabling remote work at Microsoft. I hope you find them useful, but I also understand that Microsoft has IT resources that many IT leaders may not. What is more, every company is at a different stage of their journey to the cloud. Maybe identity and device management are your top priorities, or you are digging into long-term projects like multi-factor authentication (MFA) or desktop virtualization. Maybe you are working to empower access to resources via a browser. Every IT leader needs to define the priorities to enable productivity from anywhere across their organization’s workforce. We get that, and we want to help. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find a link to our new Enabling Remote Work Tech Community. I hope you’ll join and share your own journey there. With that, let’s get into the top 9 ways our team is enabling remote work.

1. User identity and access
   It all starts with managing identities. We have a hybrid environment that helps us both retain and expand existing systems while using a cloud-based control plane to enable people to work productively and securely. Whether they are an employee, partner, or supplier, every user who needs to access the corporate network receives a primary account synced to Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). To learn more about our identity and access management practices, check out our IT Showcase covering user identities and secure access.
2. Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
   MFA is required to access any corporate resource at Microsoft. When a user connects remotely to our domain using their Microsoft work credentials on a device that we manage, MFA is almost transparent. We offer three authentication methods: certificate-backed virtual and physical smart cards, Windows Hello for Business (with PIN or biometric sign-in), and Azure Multi-factor Authentication. To learn more about enabling Azure MFA to support remote work scenario, check out this tutorial.
3. Managing devices
   At Microsoft, we manage a wide range of devices, including Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. Like many of you, we are making the transition to a fully cloud-based management environment. As we make that shift, we are using a co-management approach with Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM). MEM integrates Microsoft Intune and Configuration Manager into a single console where you can manage all your endpoints and apps and take action to ensure they are secure and reliable.
   

   With more employees working remotely and across devices, it’s important to support bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scenarios. We offer self-service enrollment so users can quickly and easily join Azure AD and enroll in MEM to access company resources. Once enrolled, MEM then applies appropriate policies, for example, to ensure that a device is encrypted with a strong password and has certificates for access to things like Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and WiFi. MEM can also ensure that devices are adhering to policy by checking-in the device’s health compliance status to Azure AD as it processes the user’s authentication. For guidance on deploying and using MEM, your teams can check out our MEM documentation and tutorials.

4. Productivity applications
   With this foundation in place, we are driving our employees to work in the cloud. This is particularly important for our large population of information workers working remotely. Microsoft 365 enables users to access resources and share files with Office apps across the web, mobile, and desktop, storing their content in the cloud by default. Outlook mobile, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive are deployed on all of our corporate devices, so people can access their emails, calendars, and files within File Explorer on Windows, Finder on Mac, and Office Apps on mobile devices. We’ve made it easy for users to save their files to OneDrive the same way they traditionally saved files to their C: drive; this has been key to getting files to the cloud. Our users are also now able to do real-time coauthoring and commenting in documents in the cloud, which has proved extremely useful for a distributed workforce.
5. Meetings and collaboration
   All of us at Microsoft use Teams daily for chat, meetings, calls, and collaboration. Now that we find ourselves working remotely, we’ve been able to stay productive because we are accustomed to a digital workspace. Every meeting is now a Teams meeting, often with video. We‘re using features like background blur to block out our naughty kids, our barking dogs, and our mismatched furniture. As we rally to help our customers prepare for remote work, we’ve found that the ability to record meetings has become essential. All attendees can access recordings of meetings they’ve missed and then listen in to the most relevant parts. We also rely on the Microsoft 365 environment to empower employees to collaborate through self-service creation of Office 365 Groups or teams within Teams while ensuring appropriate security, compliance, and manageability are in place. To learn more about our experience enabling remote work with Teams, check out our IT Showcase post.
6. Access to line of business (LOB) applications
   Microsoft has migrated most of our legacy applications to the cloud. But even with most applications accessible in the cloud, some still require VPN. Additionally, we are in the process of rolling out Windows Virtual Desktop and are scaling up this offering to support the devices that our developers want to use (more on this later in the post). To get stated with Windows Virtual Desktop, you can point your teams to this tutorial.
7. Service monitoring
   With the increased load and usage from so many people working remotely, service monitoring has proven crucial to making sure everything is operating as it should. We carefully monitor application and network performance and we’ve built product telemetry monitoring into every solution so that we can check reporting for user satisfaction metrics and changes to service behavior.
8. Culture and change management
   Remote work can create challenges to maintaining a healthy work culture and managing change. Modern social and engagement platforms can help make sure messages are heard, leadership is visible, and best practices are shared. In our company, Satya Nadella and other executives connect with the organization using live events and Yammer. Our team recently held an 18-hour global live event to drive employee connections, engagement, and learning. And we educate employees to use Yammer to build communities that connect people across teams. For example, we recently set up a work-from-home (WFH) Yammer group with tips and tricks for making the switch to remote work.

Here are some of the main points we emphasize in our end-user education:

• Save files to the cloud so you can coauthor within the Office 365 suite of products. Users should save individual documents and drafts in OneDrive, where files are private by default but can be shared. They should save shared documents to the Teams or SharePoint sites where your group works.
• Share links rather than attachments in email to make sure everyone’s using the latest version of a document.
• Use Teams to the fullest. We tell users to think of Teams as a virtual office. Hold every call and meeting on Teams. Use channels, rather than email or group chats, for team-level conversations. Turn on your camera to connect during meetings. Use Live Events for larger gatherings. If your organization allows, record meetings to access the transcript later. We also remind the Teams meetings aren’t just for 1:1s or small standups. They can range from informal “coffee breaks” in channels, to highly collaborative quarterly planning offsites with a hundred employees or more.

9. Designing for specific roles
   A lot of the resources we’ve discussed benefit information workers most. It makes sense, we have a lot of those at Microsoft. But it’s important to enable other types of workers to work remotely as well.

Developers: Engineers need to be able to collaborate on code and build their workflows into Teams for remote collaboration. We have a number of developers who typically work exclusively on desktops. We are providing them with laptops with a WVD solution so they can remote into their dev environment.

Call center and help desk: At Microsoft, we have walk-up help desks as well as online technicians. They all have Microsoft-managed PCs, which enables those who typically work onsite to switch instantly over to a remote work model and remain productive.

Firstline Workers: It’s key to connect all workers so that they are equipped with the knowledge to take appropriate steps for themselves, customers, and the community. Teams serves as the single productivity hub for retail employees and managers across Microsoft Stores, connecting remote sites, digitizing workflows, and ensuring workers have real-time access to the right information at the right time. During the COVID-19 outbreak, they’ve used the Store Portal application in Teams to communicate latest policies and procedures including sanitation updates, staffing changes, and event status. Additionally, the Stores team uses Teams to run daily standup meetings and for Q&As with associates and team members that drive dialogue and collaboration on key topics.

Enabling a team to work remotely is an ongoing challenge, and we get that this challenge is different for every organization. I hope that reading about our approach has been useful to you, and as I wrote earlier in this post, I’d love to learn more about yours. To share your experiences, ask other IT professionals and partners for advice or information, and find additional resources, join the new Enabling Remote Work Tech Community. Let’s keep the conversation going there!

Attention Fedora community members: Fedora is seeking submissions for supplemental wallpapers to be included with the Fedora 32 release. Whether you’re an active contributor, or have been looking for a easy way to get started contributing, submitting a wallpaper is a great way to help. Read on for more details.

Each release, the Fedora Design Team works with the community on a set of 16 additional wallpapers. Users can install and use these to supplement the standard wallpaper.

Dates and deadlines

The submission phase opened as of March 7, 2020 and ends March 21, 2020 at 23:59 UTC.

Important note: In some circumstances, submissions during the final hours may not get into the election, if there is insufficient time to do legal research. Please help by following the guidelines correctly, and submit only work under a correct license.

The voting phase will open the Monday following the close of submissions, March 23, 2020, and will be open until the end of the month on March 31, 2020 at 23:59 UTC.

How to contribute a wallpaper

Fedora uses the Nuancier application to manage the submissions and the voting process. To submit, you need a Fedora account. If you don’t have one, create one here in the Fedora Account System (FAS). To vote you must have a signed contributor agreement (also accessible in FAS) which only takes a few moments.

You can access Nuancier here along with detailed instructions for submissions.

Indie publisher Devolver Digital has made a name for itself over the past few years hosting parody presentations around the time of E3. Despite taking to Twitter yesterday to tell everyone to cancel their “E3 flights and hotels” before the annual expo was officially called off, the company will still go ahead with its own plans.

It provided a brief update via Twitter – stating how it was upset by the cancellation of the event. Fortunately, a livestream and “possibly more” is on the way:

On a related note, physical publisher Limited Run Games has confirmed it will still be airing its own press conference. As usual, it will be filled with announcements about upcoming physical releases. This will take place on 3rd June, via Twitch.

Will you be tuning in to either of these presentations? Leave a comment down below.

Did you pick up Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX when it was released last week? If so, you’ll be pleased to hear Nintendo and The Pokémon Company will soon be releasing a patch for it that fixes a game-breaking bug.

According to the official patch notes, there’s a glitch that occurs in dungeons with a fixed party. Here’s exactly how it happens (thanks, Perfectly Nintendo):

fixes a game breaking glitch that occurs in dungeons with a fixed party. It occurs when the protagonist and their partner are defeated in the dungeon, and you remove the third Pokémon from your team. To avoid the issue, simply refrain from removing that third party member. If you already have, and cannot play anymore as a result, the update will allow you to play

Apart from the glitch, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon appears to have got off to a good start across multiple regions. In both Japan and the UK, it went straight to the top of the charts. Interestingly, in the UK, its debut sales are 37.6% higher than Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon on the 3DS. And over in Japan so far, it’s managed to shift an estimated 138,548 units in its opening week.

Have you encountered this glitch? Did you purchase this game when it was released last week? Leave a comment below.

CONTINGENCY

EN ROUTE: URANUS – CAELUS STATION

OUTER BAND — LOCATION INCONCLUSIVE

“I was able to pull some data from those Exo samples.” Jinju perches on the cockpit dashboard. Two tech mites crawl over her shell.

Their jump-ship plummets through fractalescent polychrome luge, ripping across the sable pitch of space at blistering speed.

Ana leans back in her pilot seat, one knee pulled to her chest. She watches strands of shimmer bend around the hull. A bobble-owl jiggles along as the ship shivers, underneath it: Camrin, in frame.

“Hit me.” Her eyes turn to Jinju.

“I couldn’t completely narrow it down, but they’re definitely from the Golden Age, circa the Collapse.”

Jinju continues, “I’ve been going through the Pillory mainframe download. Those stations are meant to split Rasputin’s mind up in the event that he became… uh… insubordinate.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“ECHO appears to have been a contingency program that activates afterward. They also had a cornerstone schematic of his brain.”

Light static fuzzes from bubble speakers on Ana’s dash. Her helmet hangs on a hook behind her; Rasputin’s uplink is offline.

Ana chews on the information for a moment. “A foundational brain model would help with containment stability after the partitioning process. It’s like a front porch for your brain.”

“It… goes on.” Jinju continues, “Your name is cross-referenced all over this, Ana. Neural Web-way. Psycholinguistics. Exo brain maps with candidate profiles. It looks like Clovis Bray was syncing Rasputin’s basic core with viable hosts.”

“Oh.” Ana’s mind races. “For what though? Drop him into containment and clone him? Pretty elaborate restart button. I guess with an Exo you could also make some pretty potent AI with more limiters than a Warmind.”

Jinju processes. “Hm. Nothing conclusive here.”

Ana turns her gaze back to the stars. “It would be terrible to be buried like that—trapped in pieces of your own mind. You wouldn’t even know who you were anymore. Where you start, and where other versions of you end.”

 “Speaking of, the Clovis—9 site is ‘78% assimilated into his sovereignty.’” Jinju distorts her voice as Warmind facsimile. “He’s so dramatic about it.”

Ana brightens as she laughs. “You remember how Camrin would always impersonate him?”

“He did not appreciate that, but it was funny.” Jinju cheeps lightly. “Is she still buried in work from the Moon?”

“Hole opened up to the Black Garden. Pyramid. Creepy signals. Raining Vex. You think Owl Sector could help themselves from getting involved?”

“I heard rumors through the Ghost-vine about the Pyramid. They said it steals your shell. Lives there, like another you. They said it makes you do things.” Jinju pauses. Her iris flicks to Ana’s raised eyebrow. “Not helping?”

“Let’s just change the subject.”

Jinju squirms awkwardly. “You’ll see her soon.”

“I know.”

“They’re working directly with Ikora. She’s safe.”

“I know…”

Warm-tone reassurance trickles into the cabin through Ana’s helmet receiver.

“I KNOW. WHEN DID YOU EVEN GET HERE, RED?” Ana aggressively huffs in exasperation.

Tech mites traverse Jinju like a jungle gym. One dangles precariously from a shell flap. “Guess who’s there too.”

“How do you know this, and I don’t?”

“Ghost-vine. It’s Eris Morn. She’s working with the Guardian.”

“Eris?” Ana scoffs. “She’s not much of a conversationalist so the two of them should get along just fine.” She gestures to the mites. “Do you really want those crawling all over you?”

“Their names are Pho and Deim, and I love them.” Jinju coddles her mites. “Besides, it’s like Cam’s with us in spirit, right?”

Ana chuckles and scratches her brow before raising a fist in solidarity. “She is. To the brim.”

The shimmer surrounding the jump-ship jitters before abruptly smashing into empty space. Ana leans forward and looks out into the void.

“Um… where’s the planet?” She slowly rolls her head around the cockpit.

They drift through space on placid waves of nothing toward a distant nowhere. The vast luminous twinkle of the Milky Way plays out in panorama, though gloom-speckle pinholes prick gaps in the starry sea. The absence from them directly apparent to Ana’s eye like rays of darkness from a black sun through shear cosmic sheet.

Jinju perks up, internal sensors suddenly askew.  “Something nabbed us right out of our jump. We’re off course by…” Jinju calculates, “…three AU?”

“What!?” Ana manually scans the trajectory equations in the nav-computer. “There’s nothing wrong with the math.”

||JUMP-DRIVE ERROR: MISALIGNMENT|| squawks on bubble speakers.

“Little late.”

Tart synesthetic tickle creeps red and patient. Low and pressing, as not to be heard by those that might be listening.

“Relax. I know we’re off course, but it’s not that far… relatively speaking.” Ana scrunches her face at a nav-screen as it’s overtaken by interference. “Okay, I can’t see where we are. Hang on.”

A slow wrinkle skulks across space. It presses up the fabric. Insignificant points between stars warp and spur small disturbances in the constellational congruence of the galaxy. From afar it is nothing. A flutter of wings in wind.

“It’s dark out here.” Jinju’s voice is distant as she peers outside. Beyond the canopy an expanse without horizon.

“That’s when the stars shine brightest, Jinju. Find a constellation for me so we can get our bearings.”

||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED: JUMP-REALIGNMENT REQUIRED||

“Way ahead of you, ship.” Ana checks jump vectors and flicks through alignment procedures. Mav thrusters sputter to orient the ship toward Sol. Ana test-cycles the jump-drive. It revs and then chokes before locking.

||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED: JUMP HAZARD—LOCATION INCONCLUSIVE, CLEAR HAZARD||

“Okay, that’s not a comforting thing to hear.” Ana deploys a sensory buoy from the ship.

Rasputin stings and pricks red iron. Steady pressure. With localized insistence.

“Feel’s strange.” Jinju is distant. “We should go.”

Ana initiates recalibrations on the jump-drive’s positioning solution. “There’s definitely some weird space out there.”

||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED||

The ship lurches. Ana’s stomach churns. Jinju vibrates violently in place, an outer shell of Light absorbing some form of force.

Red iron needles whistle tea-kettle pressure in white anxiety from Ana’s helmet.

Cloaked Shadows shift through the vacuum an eternity away and all too close; shown only when they wish to, to only whom they want.

Ana swallows to settle her stomach. “What even was that? Did we move?”

“Leave. Now please. Ana.” Jinju presses against the glass of the canopy, peering outward.

||SYSTEM REALIGNMENT: SOLUTION SECURED||

“There it is. I’ve got a jump-lock.”

||GRAVITATIONAL WAVE ANOMALY DETECTED||

“Again? Then we’re riding this one out of here.” Ana eye-balls adjustments for the gravitational wave into the nav-computer. “Punching jump in 3… 2… 1…”

They slip between folds in space. Formless wake propels them. The ship rides through sub-space at speeds far exceeding her jump-drive’s capability. Color dulls in the slipstream. Frisson electrifies Ana’s senses into timeless euphoria. The nose of the cockpit stretches ahead, drawn toward some distant vanishing point. She struggles to keep the flight stick straight. Her motions seem small, inconsequential and all too slow within the wave. Fluctuant pockets of drag flex and buck, threatening to throw them off into the unknown. The cockpit twists around her, indicator lights blink in metronomic sequence—purpose and pigment slowly materializing in her mind.

Hull integrity failing. “Not yet.”

||COLLISION: BOW, CELESTIAL BODY DETECTED, AUTO-DROP FAILED||

Ana steadies her mind. She force-cancels the jump, seizing the drive and dumping them out into space before thrusters burn to steady them again.

Their emergence is dwarfed by a stratospheric colossus.

Uranus hangs, a daiquiri pearl set in tilted rings.

A grin overtakes Ana’s face. “Nailed it.”

Pale blue gleam inundates the canopy with planetary light. Ana plots an approach to the station. The trio slow burn forward, each silently collecting their faculties. Ahead: tiny beacons blip red. Satellite silhouettes take form out of the planet’s zealous glare. Instrument spokes jut from their polygonal chassis like old-war depth charges itching to trigger.

“Those are Warsats.” Jinju breaks the silence, eager to shift her mode of thought far from weird space and gravity waves.

“Finally, some luck,” Ana says with relief. “I bet we can daisy-chain Rasputin into the station’s network through the defense system.”

“Oh, they’re powering up. Maybe we—”

Horns of responsive distortion roll across the cabin like a stress wave. Rasputin’s alert pings litter the canopy HUD.

“Brace!”

Ana pushes hard on the flight stick and reflexively dives under a barrage of laser fire. Nose thrusters roar vibration through her hands as she cuts to guide the ship vertical and tumbles into a barrel roll, slipping around follow-up bursts. A bolt skims shallow across her starboard side: ricochet. Shockwave tremors reverberate through the hull.

“Red, ping all incoming fire vectors! Jinju, arm the spikes!”

Plates split open along the belly of the ship. A drum-launcher of six Warspikes rolls out as Jinju links into the launcher’s gunnery apparatus. Indicators blare onto the canopy HUD. Jinju sends two Warspikes straight into the first of fifteen Warsats blocking their path as Ana nudges the ship between incoming laser bursts.

Two spiked Warsats cease fire as their automated defense protocols are overridden, security software utterly failing to halt Rasputin’s invasive assimilation. They come back online—spikes blending into spokes—and swivel to gun down the closest still-hostile targets.

The assimilated twin Warsats thrust to reposition into a shield for Ana and Jinju as they close distance. Crimson flare shines around the Warsat shield as lasers chisel into them. Ana watches HUD pings for an opening between incoming bursts. She finds half a moment and burns hard on the main engine, then toggles full power to maneuvering thrusters to sling the ship under Rasputin’s shield and open a lane for Jinju.

Jinju unleashes four more spikes. They strike true. Rasputin spreads digital plague through the Warsat’s frameworks with each skewering hit. He demands subservience. Laser fire tears through space in all directions as Ana cuts between dueling satellites and rolls to evade overlapping firing arcs. Concussive shockwaves rattle the ship as defiant Warsats explode or fail one by one until the firing stops.

A field of deputized Warsats and debris dead-drift within the planet’s orbital current, back-lit by radiant mesopelagic glow. Beyond them, almost lost among cloud-cream atmosphere, Caelus station.

Ana releases her breath. It feels like she had been holding it since the jump. She forces short gulps of air into her aching lungs and lets her ship glide towards the station without guidance.

Jinju emerges from the gunnery apparatus and floats back to the dashboard. Pho and Deim appear from under her shell. “What was that, Ana? Back there.”

“The Warsats or the freaky gravity?”

“Either… both.”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“My guess worries me.”

“Let’s just pull this data and get home.”

“Agreed.”

Ana hangs her head in her hands and muffles a sardonic, “Nailed it.”

CAELUS STATION

Dim and powerless, it gently falls. The label grows at pace with Ana’s measured approach. Rasputin’s cohort of Warsats encircle her in a defensive phalanx. The station rotates to face the planet. It glitters in gas-giant grandeur as massive translucent hull plates display a desolate gut shrouded in sea-foam reflection. Jinju combs through station blueprints pouring in from Warsat data stores. Caelus consists of one long shaft containing a launch bay and spindly communication arrays at either end. Deeper, passed the launch bays, mostly maintenance frame space cap-stoned by a large reinforced mainframe housing complete with a thick-glass viewing ceiling. Orbiting ringlets, indicated as “Biomes” 1, 2, and 3, spin lazily in unison with the central structure, held in position by mag-lock paddocks that align with metallic rungs set into the station hub’s outer plating.

Jinju locates several unpowered docking points before settling on entering through one of the station’s bays. She snaps a HUD ping on the canopy.

“Here. This one is open, though it doesn’t look like anything but the outer rings are still pressurized.”

“Ready for a spacewalk?” Ana guides them to the bay, catching sight of the transparent interior solar-glass paneling of the rotating ringlets. Clean rivers slosh along the outer ring underneath a dividing sieve. Earthen dirt sprouts abundance above.

“Are those greenhouses?”

“I think so. Everything seems to be locked under a file named ‘contingency.'”

“That’s not ominous,” Ana says, scooping her helmet from its hook and swiping 18 Kelvins from a footlocker.

“We need mainframe access.”

“When do we not?” Ana looks at the dark station. It is a grave of potential awaiting the next planet-rise.

Jinju prepares Ana’s bandolier. Mites patiently tap pin-legs as they wait for attention.

Ana dons her helmet and puts a hand on the canopy release pulley. “You’re not bringing those, are you?”

*** *** *** *** ***

The bay is still: a snapshot of countless possible failures in the face of challenge. It holds only one ship.  The bulbous craft lay broken, dropped from its support brackets in denial of an attempted launch. Reflective hexagonal plates sparkle like space dust as the station faces Uranus’ light. Scorch stains blacken the far wall behind the craft’s ruined ion thruster.

“The propulsion system is missing its ion cell. It doesn’t look like damage, but obviously a lot went wrong here.”

Jinju beams light over the fuselage as they float through the ruptured bay in weightlessness.  The reflective hull is filled with Exos. Mannequin cadavers hang frozen on silk threads, surrounded by globular blobs of various fluids. Loose-wire tangle sags around the lifeless many. One or two glides freely within the cabin. Their chest plates share a pristine logo.

ECHO-1

Ana locates a crumpled worker frame beside the bay’s internal air lock and signals Jinju to come over.

Jinju puffs toward Ana on pulses of Light. Remnants and dust hold motionless in the vacuum. Their groupings, jostled and drawn to each other since the bay’s collapse, form tiny gravitational microcosms; a new faux system trapped in the failed husk of a past age.

She flicks her helmet microphone on. “Hey, what about just normal frame access?”

The Ghost sweeps the frame and gets to work. “This isn’t just some mop-bot. This is the Station Manager. Let’s get it inside.”

Ana props a foot on the wall and forces the airlock closed behind them. Mag-boot clinks to tile. Dust floor, echoing groans, and humid taste populate the station. Even through her respirator the stale flavors of plant matter and dirt coat Ana’s tongue in grist-like film. She turns to Jinju, busy at work splicing bad connections within the frame and spinning light to charge its power unit.

“It’ll work, but this unit won’t hold power. It’ll only last as long as I charge it.”

“You’re a miracle worker, Jinju.”

Jinju cheeps.

She solders a loose line. “It should also be a little more… talkative.”

Ana peers down the hall. From their current position, the airlock functions like an estuary flowing into the rest of the station. She could almost see clear to the central mainframe hub atop a raised panel fortification in the middle of the room. It sits below a ceiling of translucent plates, rimmed in distant ringlet halos falling under shadow. A stairway aligned with the launch bays on either side provides access.

The Frame sparks to life, looks directly at Ana, and speaks with grating age to its voice.

“Welcome, Ana Bray! Very excited to see a Bray walk this hall again. It has been a long time.”

Ana grasps at words. Jinju shrugs, plugs of Light toss in zero-G.

The Frame stands on magnetized foot cups and dusts itself off, nearly bumping into Jinju. “Excuse me, small servo bot.”

“Servo b?”

The Frame turns to Ana. “How may I be of assistance?”

“I’ll unplug you.”

The Frame ignores her.

Ana smirks at Jinju, then looks at the Frame.

“Walk with me,” she says, briskly moving deeper into the station.

The two converse with Jinju in tow.

The main section of the station is a wide-open hall supported by struts. In large red lettering the words:

ECHO PROJECT

OUR LEGACY BUILDS THE HORIZON

Dozens of maintenance frame plates line the floor. Some open. Some semi-raised with collapsed frames steps away, half-responding to a catastrophe. A scene in disorder.

“Zilch on Atlas.”

Ana stares out the translucent ceiling, wistful as the Frame waits for another question.

“So those crops in the rings are food supplies for a colony mission.”

“Yes. Thank you for asking that, Ana Bray.”

“Yeah. And the colony ships are full of Exos?”

“Partially. ECHO-1 and ECHO-2 were stocked with Exo unit crews. As you know, their task was to establish and oversee embryonic development at Colony M31, Site-A and Site-B.”

“If Rasputin got out of hand, they weren’t planning on resetting him.”

“I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories.”

“They just assumed he would win. The Pillory is a last-ditch panic room.”

“I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories.”

Jinju’s iris flicks back and forth between the two. Her tiny Light-leash hums.

Ana massages her palm. “What was my role in all this?”

“As you know, your work on the Warmind made you a prime asset to oversee applicant selection.”

“I chose the people in there?”

Ana watches the ringlet spin, her mind repeating the statement back to her. Artificial night slips back to artificial day as the station’s rotation continues.

“As you know, yes. Additionally, your work on the Warmind, as you know, was vital to the establishment of Clovis 1-12.”

“Do I know where the candidates came from? Did they volunteer?”

“I do not have access to candidate profiles.”

Ana shuts her eyes and takes a steady breath.

“You said I helped with the Pillory stations?”

“Yes.”

“How so?”

“I don’t have access to Clovis 1-12 directories.”

She nods and lets her helmet slink back to rest on her shoulders. “I think I can piece it together on my own. Is this station linked to any other sites?”

Her gaze returns to the distant ringlet, lit by the recurring planet-rise. Her augmented eyes pick at details.

“As you know, Miss Bray, there are thirteen CLOVIS sites that this station is linked to.”

“Thirteen? What’s the thirteenth?”

The plant life is still vibrant. Regimented.

“Paragon access does not permit that information.”

“You hear that, Jinju? We’re all just slaves to circumstance.”

Jinju chirps. “I’d like to think our choices matter a little. I’d like to think mine did.”

Ana smiles at her. “Yeah.”

“You are a Bray.” The frame pauses.

They lack signs of overgrowth.

Well kept.

“So?” Ana turns to the Frame.

“ECHO project requires a station link with <VERBAL CIPHER ENGAGED> DEAD-ROCK <VERBAL  CIPHER DISENGAGED> resources.”

Ana eyes go wide. “Jinju disengage that cipher thing.” Over her shoulder, a glint shines from the far central ringlet. Biome 2.

Jinju glides forward. “What is that?”

Ana looks at Jinju. “The verbal cipher.” She pauses and traces Jinju’s eyeline to face Uranus. Ana’s eyes adjust to sieve out the glaring brightness. “What’s what?” She puts a hand to her visor and squints.

An ion lance threads the station from the distant ringlet.

It pierces Ana’s chest clean through.

Brick-stained atmosphere hisses out of her suit, searing on smoldering fabric fringe.

Jinju’s iris widens with confused shock.

Howling storms slam salt-coarse keys in Ana’s helmet.

End

ACRIMONY

ECHO-1

CAELUS STATION — COLLAPSE

“DEAD-ROCK SEIZURE IN ACTION: Station Manager initiate manual override in ECHO-1 Launch Bay.”

“ALERT: This station is experiencing power fluctuations. Emergency power will run until—

ECHO-0

He awakens alone. A fluke. Others hang around Him, but they remain in the dream. Electrical surge prickles through his entire body. A screen in front of his face begins playing a recording complete with visual aid:

“Welcome to ECHO-1. Before your departure, you should have been briefed by a Station Warden If you don’t recall your Station Warden, please alert your Crew Captain. Now then, my name is Ana Bray, and you’re one of the lucky few who has been selected for the ECHO Project. The future of Humanity rests on your sho—”

The recording is interrupted as emergency sirens blare through the station.

“STATION HAZARDS: GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALY | STERILE NEUTRINO BURSTS | Please remain calm.”

“OVERRIDE BROADCAST: via ECHO-LINK//:PILLORY-SUBLOCK.R.R//:SKYSHOCK ALERT: TRANSIENT NEAR EXTRASOLAR EVENT:—

Power failures wrack the station in rolling thunder. The Exo slumps, lifeless until its next reset.

ECHO-7

Alone.

The recording. He finds familiarity in the newness. The face on the screen seems kind—

“STATION HAZARDS: ROLLING SURGES IN WARDS 1, 2, 3. Please remain calm.”

Thunder. Pain to death. Electro-static purge, triggering a reset.

ECHO-22

He awakens to rolling, thunderous darkness and pain. The screen does not illuminate.

Barely audible words form from the air:

“Primary propulsion systems failing. Auxiliary systems near depletion. Planetary impact unavoidable. Distress triggered.”

Meaningless. He struggles against chains.

Eons pass. His bonds will not break. His mind fragments and corrupts.

He wishes he could bleed. He wishes he could die. He wonders where the Wardens are.

ECHO-41

Short lives of confusion and pain. He grasps at falling in every direction. There is nothing to grip.

ECHO-89

Thunder, again.

ECHO-173

And again.

ECHO-390

Until one day:

He hangs in the futile passage of time.

A creeping madness weaves its way in solitude.

ECHO-877

Thunder. Thunder. Thunder.

The Warden speaks for the first time in many storms. Her twisted promises are fresh to His ear.

“When we return.” Etched in mind.

Wake and sleep. Struggle. Dream and wake. Struggle. Endless. Innumerable. Stillbirths. Tomb spasms. Thunderous pain. Sweet death.

ECHO- 2̷͉͙̜̗͍̙̭̤̘̪͖͈͛̅͑̈̀̾6̸̡͇̼̦̲̩͎̟̠̬̳̲̂̀̉͐̃̈́ͅ2̵̡͎͚̳̠̫̮͉̍̉̌̒͑̓͗͛̉̈́̕̚͝5̸̨̭͚͔̥̲̫̈́̂̈́̊̋͗͑͛͑͝͝

Thunder, one final time. The storm gives life, but never came to take.

He slips from rot shackles. Worn with age. Weary, they snap at slightest motion. Untold rotations pass without movement. Freedom?

He matures questions. A hunger wells up within him.

He travels the station. From Tomb Bay, to the Mind Shell, to the Sealed Space. In dark, and in light.

The Mind Shell teaches Him the new roads. Teaches Him the majesty of the Rings. Teaches him the key.

He walks the Rings.

He tends to His little freedoms. He cultivates. He grows. He does, unknowingly, as He was meant to do.

The Mind Shell tells Him of the Bridge. Tells him of His ancestors. Speaks of the “ECHO LINK”.

The knowledge does not leave His thoughts.

He seeks a meaning beyond routine.

The Tomb Bay kept secrets. He had not returned since He walked the Rings. It is a shallow sepulcher.

Brothers and Sisters dreaming. Never to wake as He had.

He digs treasures from their graves. Digs knowledge from the Prison’s many minds.

Picks lies from the bones of truth.

He drinks the memories of Echoes passed.

He finds the Prison’s purpose. A Bridge’s end. If He holds this end, perhaps the Wardens hold the other.

The many minds. The liar’s words. Takers. They would know of his escape.

The Wardens would come to take with fresh shackles.

He prepares. He learns from the Warden’s alchemy.

He digs through the carcass of his once-mighty Tomb.

From hollow basin, He seizes Starlight power to wield from afar. From its flesh: adorns Himself with a

cloak of lies to fool. He armors his soul against the Thunder that kills.

He opens the Bridge at his end and waits.

ECHO- 2̷͉͙̜̗͍̙̭̤̘̪͖͈͛̅͑̈̀̾6̸̡͇̼̦̲̩͎̟̠̬̳̲̂̀̉͐̃̈́ͅ2̵̡͎͚̳̠̫̮͉̍̉̌̒͑̓͗͛̉̈́̕̚͝5̸̭͚̈́̂̈́̊̋͗͑͛͑͝͝- Present Day

He walks the ring when She arrives.

The Warden rides in with finality and judgement.

A red-light storm at Her back.

She had followed the Bridge, as He had hoped. She leads many shells, but only One descends with Her.

She brings with Her the Thunder, and He fears its wicked spark. He places trust to his plated frame.

He watches Her trespass in the Tomb Bay. Sees Her defile the Mind Shell’s grand hall.

The Wardens reap what had been sown.

As Wardens always do.  She comes to collect him.

He raises his Starlight.

But a Warden is not so easily slain, and She has many allies.

End

DESCENDENT

CAELUS STATION

ORBIT — URANUS

She is submerged.

Light sways just above a tense surface.

Something far below stirs.

The Light brightens to blind.

Rasputin weeps a terrible cacophony of anguish.

Ana gasps for breath. Her head swims in effort.

(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 73% (!)

“Hold still! Your suit is leaking!” Jinju quickens Light into Ana’s punctured suit, her Iris jittering from spot to spot as oxygen spurts around her in foggy clouds.

Ana shakes dizziness out of her head. A smoldering frame is sprawled a few meters away. She droops flat to a support beam that runs up to the mainframe office.

“I got shot…” The realization doubles back. “I got shot?”

Ana pats her chest and stiffens. She draws in shallow breath.

“Jinju, did you see where it came from?”

“Central ring. I dragged you into cover. Stop moving so much.”

Ana peeks around the strut; an ion thread zips by and stings her helmet.

Rasputin obliterates every square inch of ringlet within ten meters of the ion beam’s origin in response.

Sections of the central ringlet combust and explode under heavy bombardment. The ring buckles, splitting along the seams and splaying out into space. Magnetic anchors fail as the halo fractures and splits away from the station’s central architecture. Fragments rush away toward the planet; Caelus’ ruin falls to Uranus in lingering prolicidal consummation.

“RASPUTIN STOP!” Laser fire halts immediately. “You’re gunna sink the whole station!”

Tense finger waits on hair trigger. Ana works her starving lungs.

(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 67% (!)

“Ana, you need to stop breathing so much.” Jinju bobs with Ana’s head and quickly reseals her visor.

“Can’t hold still.” Ana shakily stands and points up at the dislodged ringlet spinning above her. “Bad angle.”

“I’m pretty sure whatever shot you is dead. Stop talking. You’re getting delirious.”

Wreckage looms far over Ana’s shoulder. The remaining two halos slowly spin in ignorance through their sibling’s burial-dust cloud. Eerie distortion soars across the divide between station and rings, the veneer of invisibility momentarily lost in flight as rubble collides with its form. Rasputin perceives the abnormality.

Harmonic chimes across Ana’s visor resonate and combine into uniform patterned homogeny.

“Active camouflage?” Ana sucks thin atmosphere, a wheezing undertone to her breath. “Jinju, give me an auditory visualizer.”

Jinju whirs and dips back to Ana’s suit. “Compiling an interface. Now. Hold. Still.”

(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 65% (!)

A ceiling panel twenty meters from Ana erupts in brittle plastic shards that glisten and spin like tiny neutron stars, catching the last of Uranus’ light as the station beings to turn dark. Amorphous form thuds into the floor, shattering tiles in a plume of dust that stretches up into a spire before slowly holding in place. The form tumbles to a stop. It stands between her and the open launch bay and slings a kit-bashed Ion caster aside, depleted. Hexagonal patterns stutter to blend with the station interior as the room rolls into tenebrous obscurity. For an instant, an Exo takes form, and then nothing as its cloaking shroud flashes and re-engages in the dark.

Ana doesn’t wait. She rushes heavy clunking boots up the stairs to the mainframe, arrhythmic tremors beat through her heart. Jinju deactivates the switch on Ana’s mag-boots and hurls her through the door with a forceful pulse of Light. She speeds in behind Ana, finishing her suit with Light stitch as Ana slams the door shut.

“Ana. Hang in there.” Jinju orients Ana and reactivates her mag-boots.

Ana’s feet clomp to the floor. She hangs from them, a loose timber bending in the wind.

Jinju finishes her patch job. New fabric seals air-tight.

“You’re good. You’re good. Don’t pass out. Your suit is re-oxygenating.”

(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 59% (!)

Stabilizing…

The words are intensely bright on her visor against the darkening room.

“Auditory overlay complete. Check your visor.” Jinju’s voice focuses her.

“I just… need a minute…” Ana speaks between gulps of air. An unsteady hand draws 18 Kelvins. The mainframe room orients around her more clearly with each breath. It is stark, a large lone desk of singular oak commands the center of the room. A console screen, dead, is embedded in the surface.

Rasputin drops positional estimation pings into her HUD in an attempt to track her assailant. She steps backward, away from the door she had entered through and toward the opposing stairway’s door.

Her eyes pick up faint quivers from outside. Indirect. Resonate white noise pings like interference on her visor. She focuses on each occurrence, looking for a note out of rhythm.

Behind.

She spins as the Exo crashes through the secondary entrance at her back. The door snaps from its hinges in a torrent of dust and rackets Jinju into glass.

“Jinju!”

Ana loses track of her attacker momentarily in the darkness before it pushes off from a hard surface, triggering her visor. She spits off rounds from 18 Kelvins. Some find their mark, puncturing the camouflage shroud and revealing her adversary before impotently fizzling on the Exo’s outer shell. It covers the gap with surprising speed and catches her gun hand; Ana discharges an arc round; tiny bolts reach across to the Exo’s metal skull in vain as it scorches ceiling.

Bones pop in her fingers and wrist.

(!) HYPOXEMIA: b/o 68% (!)

Stabilizing…

The Exo flattens its other hand and stabs toward her stomach.

“Die. Warden.”

Adrenal instinct floods Ana’s body. She stops it. They lock. Ana’s vision blurs. She gasps for breath. Muscles quiver in her arms, desperate for oxygen. A spark cinders in her.

“Get off her!”

Jinju zips toward the Exo and paddles Pho and Deim onto it with a flick of her shell. The mites crawl under the Exo’s exterior plating and send shock-sting bites through its systems, seizing its joints for a few precious seconds.

Jinju rushes to Ana’s side. The Ghost deconstructs itself, orbital shell bits swirl around a core of coalescing Light. She fills the room like a brilliant star, overcharging her wayward Guardian.

Ana’s crushed bones reforge. Light fills her eyes. Her grip, still holding against the seizing Exo’s bladed thrust, liquefies its plated hand to scrap. A glorious crown of Solar flame erupts from her visor and she cracks her forehead into the Exo’s face. It reels, tufts of flame extinguish in the vacuum. Ana kicks away.

Solar might engulfs 18 Kelvins. Ana hammers off two rounds of celestial annihilation. They melt straight through the Exo, puncture the station plating, and scream through space for light years.

The Exo slumps, a molten heap.

It draws breath.

“Resilient.” Ana drops to a knee. Barrel trained on the Exo’s head.

She takes a full breath. The Exo’s eyes are unflinchingly locked to her. It refuses to die.

It points to Ana’s badge with its still-blistering hand.

“Bray. Warden.”

She says the only thing the can think to say: “Who were you?”

It hesitates. “Echoes.”

Her head droops. “How many did you live?” She looks to find his number designation, but it is missing.

It looks passed her as Uranus’ light once again trickles through the station. “Echoes… grow… Wardens… keep…”

“What did I do to them?”

*** *** *** *** ***

Ana stares at Echo’s husk. The faint glow of the desk’s lit console screen grays out her face behind her visor.

She sits dead-still in rotation. She could stare forever, if she only had enough time.

Jinju nudges her shoulder. “I’ve got the mainframe data.”

Ana is devoid of thought at the mainframe access console. She watches as Uranus comes back into view over and over again. It dominates the station’s viewing port. She maps the movement of the clouds along the surface, but only ever on the surface, and sees how they differ from the previous iteration on their last spin. She wonders if they are different underneath.

Stable major chords strum in Ana’s helmet, getting caught in the cracked visor glass.

She finally speaks, decisive. “Dislodge the other ringlet paddocks. Warsats can tow them back to the Tower. Skim the shadow-networks for anything else they can use. Get some good from this…”

“Ana, the Warsats could haul this whole station as long as we do it soon.”

Caelus rotates away into shadow once again, and the planet’s sheen fades from sight. Ana clicks a spring-loaded slot on the desk. It snaps to, bearing a placard of ownership.

CLOVIS BRAY

Ana stands. Steady.

“It’s okay to let some things be forgotten.”

End