A stolen ferry sits at a private pier belonging to a house sitting higher up on the rocky shore, wooden steps winding their way up towards it. The rich owners are, well, probably cybernetic landshark chow by now. A thick cable throng winds it's way from the house down to the pier and onto the boat where lights are flashing amidst banging and buzzing noises. And through the clamor the sound of music playing through tinny speakers and a girl's voice sing-songing along.
"I'm sinking deep, I'm going under. That sugar coated... Iceberg tastes so sweet until you tumble..."
Inside the lower passenger cabin Conduit is dancing around between various piles of technology sitting on benches, cables are strung haphazardly to and fro, forcing even the diminuitive technopath to duck underneath them at times. There's parts of the boat's engine that look like they exploded and got glued back together inside a tornado. Parts of much more high-tech looking pieces are welded to it, vaguely recognizable as pieces of power suppression collars. Computer monitors are hooked up to a string of hard-drives that dangle like garlands. Conduit passes underneath them, plucking two of them down, doing a little spin and reaching up to plug in different ones from her stuffed pockets full of tools and electronic brickabrack. Lines of data run over the screens in a rhythm that follows her singing while others show images of pulsing geometric shapes.
But the center-piece of the whole setup is a metal support pillar that has been repurposed into some kind of antenna with prongs that seem to jitter in and out of existence, occasionally giving off arcs of energy that spark and fizzle. Around the antenna is a wide circle of what at first just looks like a random assortment of stuff. A block of wood. A water bottle. A stack of gossip magazines. A little pile of computer chips. A severed human hand. A landscape painting that seems straight from a cheap motel. A mini-fridge. A sandwich. A Shrek 2 DvD. An empty can of beans that's been filled with oil and set on fire as an impromptu lamp of sorts. A shark tooth. A phone. A folded tourist map of Scotland. A jar of bugs. There's no real rhyme or reason to any of them beyond just stuff Conduit had available.
But when the antenna sparks it's the circle of stuff that has her full attention, eyes darting around to see what the energy is arcing towards, pointing a little hand-held scanner thingie at it with pursed lips, then holding up a loose pile of papers, awkwardly flipping through them with one finger while still holding on to her scanner. Print-outs and drawings of weird shapes with esoteric names scribbled next to them in Cailleach's less-than-stellar handwriting.