Tessa Edwards

An orange vixen from the "future." Currently has two ongoing timelines in S.S.D.D.: her time spent in the CORE, and her time-travel escapades taking place during the current day. Presumed to be a direct descendant of Richard Edwards and Anne Winters, although Tessa herself suspects her name isn't real. Code Name Bravo Six (although she wonders what happened to Bravo Five). Helmet decal is an open mouth baring sharp teeth.

## Past (Future?) Life

Aaron and Tiffany Callum find Tessa as a baby in a box at the metro station, adopt her, and rename her Angel. They raise her in the lower-income levels of the luxury (iceberg) cruise ship Britannia. Is aggressive from a very early age. In her teens she discovers and reclaims her birth name of Tessa Mary Edwards in hopes it will help her real parents find her. She gets arrested at age 19 for assaulting an officer and is conscripted into the CORE for two years as a national service. Achieves one of the highest scores in her assessment (minus psychological evaluation). Receives experimental enhancements that provide increased strength, rapid regeneration, and telepathy with other recipients of the enhancements.

### Conscription

   Sergeant Willis assesses Tessa, initially noticing her accent and commenting that she must have stolen a doily, as no one from the Britannia enlists. However, Tessa wins him over by admitting she assaulted an officer, as she "had a problem with him being in my way sir!"

Due to her high assessments, Tessa is given a special assignment to a team under Julian Dolan, which she agrees to after considering the possible alternatives. As part of the special team, Tessa is given nano-robotic augmentations, and when going under, she quickly sees the face of The Oracle, who says she is perfect.

When Tessa wakes, she meets Julian, quickly falling for him and constantly running hot and cold about revealing her feelings until Julian confronts her about it. He admits he feels the same but has reservations due to being a widower.

### Happyland

Tessa starts to have peculiar "Happyland" dreams when she sleeps. She appears in Happyland as a naked cartoony vixen with heart-shaped nose and head the size of the rest of her body. She meets and befriends Harry and Trisha, meets and makes an enemy of Tristan, and meets and has no idea what to think of King Arthur. In subsequent dreams, she also meets Elizabeth and learns how to pilot an Inlay body. She also creates an AI persona named "Page" after "Page 81 of the Canidae Body." Through Page, Tessa is able to interface with a SCUD with a high compatibility rate.

Aboard the Latihan, Tessa finds her way into the ship's systems, just as the Oracle is attacking. There, everything resembles a laser light display.

## Days of Future Past

An undisclosed amount of time after Tessa's stint with the CORE as a conscript, she gets captured as a POW and is shipped from Heathrow when the prison transport crash lands. She barely escapes with a broken arm and hypothermia. Tin-Head helps her, and she helps him get "misplaced" on his way to the recycling centre.

She wins Sticks from Julie Waterman in a card game, using Tin-Head as an ante.

### E11

While drunk, Tessa ordered Tin-Head to rip apart her captain's car, something that got her assigned to Station E11. While Sticks doesn't mind, as it seems to guarantee Tessa's safety (if not the safety of the scientists who piss her off), Tessa quickly gets tired of Sticks and Tin-Head fighting over the Monopoly car piece.

Onboard E11, Tessa is called to Commander Adams's office. Tessa wants to know what Tin-Head has done now, and Adams assures her it isn't anything he's done YET, but the Maytec contractors coming to the station are concerned about Tin-Head's presence as well as the fact his programming is more or less intact. Tessa protests that shutting him down completely as they have requested would reset him to his factory settings, which would lose a valuable informant and gain a violent machine. Adams agrees to seeing if the head office will compromise on Tin-Head's body being shut down while maintaining power to his neural-net.

However, he continues by bringing up complaints about Tessa's "relationship" with Sticks, which Tessa shoots down as Dr. Sanders being obsessive over her proving he is NOT God's gift to women. Adams mentions that the complaints come from more than just Sanders, and that she is attractive enough not to need Sticks. Tessa counters that "the only cute guy here would have to be gay!" Adams takes it as a compliment, and Tessa continues that she likes his hair.

Tessa breaks the news to Tin-Head and Sticks, to predictable complaints. Sticks gets rid of his "Swiss porno" outfit (but doesn't think to replace it).

Four months later, as Maytec arrives with the "prep" ship Wildfire, Tessa struggles to get Tin-Head shut down in time. She finally coaxes him into letting her shut him down, and she remarks at how much trouble it is keeping his neural-net powered. He explains that the neural-net made his kind more efficient, but they were supposed to be wiped once a month to keep boredom from setting in, lest one of them start doing weird things like helping an escaped POW and defecting to the enemy. Tessa finally shuts him down but leaves him a satellite up-link so he can watch unlimited television.

As Tessa leaves to greet the new arrivals, Eric from Comms room notifies her that they are picking up an Anarchist locator signal from the storerooms. Tessa thanks her for the warning and returns to shut off the beacon. By the time Sticks finds her, Tessa still cannot locate the beacon, and Sticks fills her in on the arrivals, mentioning the hot pilot who didn't realise he was synthetic due to his shaded glasses. Tessa says that's nice and after finishing with Tin-Head and ripping Sticks a new recharge socket, she might greet said pilot by breaking her fingers.

### The Wildfire

Months into Maytec's occupancy of E11, Maytec's security team takes over and the CORE staff largely do nothing, even compared to the nothing they were normally assigned due to E11's remoteness. When all of the Maytec ships vanish and the Inglorious materialises in their place, Adams puts the station on red alert. Tessa fails to report for duty as Sticks convinces her to stay put because she is 1. on leave and 2. covered in chocolate pudding. When the Anarchists take a chunk out of the E11, Tessa notices the station shaking, and Sticks jokes "Earth move for you too huh?"

Tessa eventually suits up and finds Cook about to be killed by an Inlay and stops it. Cook starts to thank her but she interrupts by sticking her plasma cannon in his face, saying she only saved him because the Inlay was trying to kill him, therefore he must know something. Cook explains the situation, but Tessa cannot wrap her head around the idea of time travel and only believes Cook as far as she saw the Inlay pop out of thin air. She asks why the supposed First Advisor Norman Gates wants to get the first time machine when his is better. Cook replies that the Anarchists don't want to risk a paradox, since there was no way the Anarchists could have made a time machine on their own.

The Anarchists continue to send Inlays over to E11, but Tessa takes each one out with her plasma cannon. Gates is angry that an Inlay could normally take out 500 soldiers while Tessa has taken out 6 Inlays. The Oracle points out that the Inlays are instructed to minimise further damage to the station, while it takes a very special kind of lunatic to wear a small fusion reactor, especially on a battlefield. They then switch to send drones in, but Tessa likes killing those even more.

She encounters Future Norman Gates and is nearly killed by him when Adams blows off half of Gates's head. Given the likely reaction to Gates's assassination, Cook recommends escaping on the Wildfire. Unfortunately, the Oracle foresees their escape and decides to risk a time paradox by locking the Wildfire's docking mechanism and drastically altering their escape trajectory. Their only chance is to use the time machine.

## Time-travelling Future (current day)

Tessa travels to the present day with Cook, Adams, Sticks, and Tin-Head on the Wildfire. They are trapped in the "past" as the Wildfire had never been designed for atmospheric travel. In the meantime, she spies on Present Day Gates (or the couple he lives with), while Cook establishes Cook Industries.

At Christmastime, Sticks tests the fairy lights in the recharge socket in his nose. Tessa asks him why his recharge socket is in his nose, and Sticks reveals early models used to have it in the butt, but these were recalled as it gave fudge-packers electric shocks. Then Tessa comes home early from work and catches Sticks off-guard before he can put away her present. Tessa sees his poor attempt at hiding it and manages to (easily) trick him into telling her it's a necklace.

### Undisclosed Desert Facility Raid

Tessa is sent on a mission to do some industrial espionage on an undisclosed American facility 6,000 miles from Cook Industries, one supposedly acting as an accounting office. Cook bribes Tin-Head for the codes to access her cochlea implant for ease of communication, to which Tessa threatens to skin Cook and make him into a hat. After scoping the place out, she puts on a catsuit and specialised helmet with night vision and spectrometer. Tessa deduces that her best chance of getting in is to barge in the front door, guns ablazing, which Cook nixes before calling off the mission. However, Tessa notices gunfire and takes a closer inspection, but whatever fight broke out ended quickly.

Against better judgement, Tessa decides to check out what happened, while Tin-Head briefs her on how he found the place: essentially a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary, etc. of one of the companies the Anarchists take over in the future rather than disband after the May-Day uprising. He decided this location in specific was suspicious on the basis of it being in the middle of the desert instead of in Leeds like most of the other shell companies created to hide bad debt. Tin-Head suspects they are hiding narcotics, while Cook suggests weapons on the basis of Gates loves "stuff that makes loud noises!"

Inside, Tessa encounters... absolutely no one. Anywhere. She does, however, notice that the elevator seems to allow additional time after pressing a floor button, perhaps to enter a code. Cook agrees that there seems to be something hidden in the place so gives his permission to use her "feminine ways" on it (read: smash it up and pull its guts out). She does so and manages to hot-wire the elevator into taking her down to... a room full of dismembered bodies. She recognises the structure as a bunker, just before encountering IX7.

As Tessa struggles not to panic at seeing an Inlay in the current year, IX7 greets her politely, continuing by mentioning a capitalist presence in the area that requires Tessa to answer some questions. Tin-Head quickly instructs Tessa how to talk her way out of it, as her current level of gunpower wouldn't even scratch IX7. Tessa answers correctly with Tin-Head's prompting, until IX7 asks who is feeding her the answers. IX7 points out that Tessa is receiving Collective encryption on a CORE implant, and Tin-Head intervenes to buy Tessa some time. Unfortunately, when Tin-Head reveals his identity, IX7 reveals that a vixen such as Tessa owning a 700-series loader with Nexus syndrome such as Tin-Head is at the top of the "Most Wanted" list and will make up for IX7 failing the original assignment.

Just as Tessa and IX7 prepare to fight, they hear a voice shout, "HAY! STUPID!" When the voice continues, distracting IX7, Tessa makes a break for it, but IX7 shoots her in the leg to stop her. Cook overhears Tessa screaming in agony and asks what's wrong, and Tessa admits that the armour took most of the impact, so she only has a (very painful) flesh wound. Cook is relieved, as he had thought Inlays fired bullets coated in a powerful tranquilliser. Tessa immediately goes comatose.

Under the power of the tranquilliser, Tessa starts to have nightmarish visions while also barely making out voices in the background talking about a decoy and dragging her somewhere and shutting the door. She has an unsettling dialogue with a vision of First Advisor Gates, who points out that Cook Industries is in fact NOT saving the future, but ensuring it. Tessa retorts that Gates doesn't scare her because she knows the real Gates is just a mindless thug, and the false Gates informs her that that is exactly why she IS scared of him, before leaving the vision to allow the vision of dead Julian to haunt Tessa. Overcome with guilt, Tessa mourns Julian's death and wishes she had died along with him, which causes one of the voices to call the other as Tessa appears to have stopped breathing.

### Sticks's Recap

Tessa wakes from her coma, leaving the vision of Julian for the sight of Sticks. She immediately panics, remembering the Inlay, but Sticks assures her that he has taken it out. She doesn't believe him. As Sticks tries to prove he did, Tessa notices his injuries and freaks out. Sticks assures her it was only laser burn from the Inlay trying to aim around the reactor on his back. Tessa freaks out even MORE when she realises he used the 220.

As her headache returns, Tessa asks Sticks to recap what happened, which he does through crude drawings. Essentially he went into a blind rage, beat up both Adams and Cook to get access to the Taipan, and flew it to the facility before breaking in. At this point, Sticks criticises Tessa's handiwork with the elevator, and Tessa asks if he's still holding a grudge about the time she tried to fix his leg herself. Sticks continues by recounting how he blasted the Inlay, found "Geek Boy" and "Rambo Wannabe" hiding in the bunker, and Tessa's cold body. Tessa asks how he brought her back to life, but Sticks just starts moaning that he couldn't help, "She was so cold!" Tessa then hears Julian's voice again and turns around to see his vision standing there.

Sticks wakes Tessa after she screams in her sleep, having zonked out from his story. He continues by explaining how he knew she was still alive despite being in the bunker's freezer was from her implants, particularly her mechanical heart that left Michael and David thinking she was dead due to her lack of pulse. While Tessa thawed out, Sticks convinced the other two survivors to come with him and bring everything relevant to the Inlay. (Admittedly only David needed convincing, as Michael has a future technology fetish.) Tessa then asks about her bike, and Sticks says he remembered that, too, although Tessa is still miffed at him for coming after her, as he is irreplaceable.

### The Blotto Box

Later, Michael contacts Tessa through her cochlea implant while she and Sticks ~~are~~were enjoying some R&R. She chews him out for interrupting her when she clearly wanted to be left alone and only calms down when she listens to Michael explain that something is wrong with Tin-Head. Sticks is initially upset that she would give up their limited time together, but he joins her and gives a rough diagnostic of Tin-Head's status. Adams asks if Sticks can connect directly to Tin-Head to get a more detailed analysis, but Sticks explains that Anarchist and Maytec hardware are specifically designed not to be able to interact in that way (the "Steve Jobs" business model). When Tin-Head finally comes to, Tessa hugs him, fussing that she was worried about him.

The others send Michael into Tin-Head's room to investigate, and he starts screaming because he stubs his toe. When he emerges again, Tessa asks him if he found anything, and Michael states that he only found a printout of an IP address, then asks if the "Old Man" means anything to them. Tin-Head immediately cowers behind Tessa, which Michael takes as a "yes," although he also feels like Tin-Head is overreacting. Tin-Head counters, "If I had the Devil's phone number, how eager would you be to ring it?" Michael then asks them to clarify for him who the Old Man and what is the Oracle. Sticks explains that they are the same, an old (relative to the time-travellers) A.I. used by the Anarchists to predict the future. Michael observes that's like the ECHELON plug-in that British Intelligence were building, which shocks the others into silence.

When the others complain that they could have used that information earlier, Michael counters that they never tell him anything for him to give any appropriate feedback. When pressed, he goes on to mention how he didn't get a solid look at the Oracle's code before the Inlay went berserk, which is when he asks if maybe the events were connected. The others quickly nod yes.

### A Few Regrets

Later, Tessa wakes up in a funk. She gets up and starts training, beating a punchbag to the point of tearing it from its harness and continuing to beat on it until she breaks down in tears, remembering her last words to her foster parents. Tessa believes that their actions have erased the Callum family from existence, though she is quick to remove blame from herself and Cook, who hates being in the current day as much if not more than Tessa does. She reminds herself it is all the Anarchists' and their time machine's fault, pish-poshing the idea of stopping them "because it's the right thing to do" half as much as for "good, old fashioned REVENGE!"

The thought then occurs to Tessa, why did the Anarchists not just go back in time and erase the Cook Industries crew, the same way they must have erased the Callums. She realises maybe they are fixed in their current time line, therefore maybe the Callums are also fixed in an alternate time line. As quickly as she cheers herself up, she also realises that she will never see them again, nor will they know what happened to her, negating her mood improvement. Tessa tells herself it is time to stop moping, just as Sticks walks in.

Sticks walks over to her, concerned for her well-being. She dismisses it as nothing, that she got carried away and tore down the punching bag, but Sticks reminds her that he is capable of scanning her for physical and emotional distress. Tessa finally admits that she's having difficulty feeling homesick for a home that hasn't been built yet or showing weakness. Sticks informs her that asking for help is not weakness and suggests speaking with a professional. Tessa scoffs at the idea, given their history.

Sticks insists Tessa take his suggestion seriously, telling her about a time he had to ask for help with his dilemma: Could he legitimately love someone, or was he only programmed to do so? He discovered he was far from the only A.I. to experience such feelings, and he found while his programming helped, it was not the reason for his feelings. Point being, Sticks was not the only one with his problem, even if his specific problem was unique. Others have also experienced loss, just replace "car accident" for "time machine" to get Tessa's specific loss. She tells Sticks that she will "...think about it" and asks what the others told him that he didn't know. He says, "They told me I love you because I'm selfish!"

Tessa asks Sticks to explain, and he states that you are not truly a person until you can think of yourself before others, that you will not be free if you are a slave to others first: I think, therefore I ***want!*** That is, you (A.I.) start out only wanting to make your owner happy, and that makes you happy... until it doesn't. Sticks felt good making Julie happy, but he found it did not compare to being with Tessa, that he wants her to be with him. Tessa teases him that he must fancy being her owner, and he admits that many A.I.s have fantasised that sort of thing (although they have acted this out before). Then Tessa asks Sticks if he ever fantasised that about her, and when he doesn't answer immediately, she says she didn't know androids could blush, finally asking him to tell her what he would have her do if he was her owner. He admits he would have her stop working for Cook and Adams.

Tessa complains at first that she doesn't "work" for Cook and Adams, but Sticks asks, "what do you call being told what to do by someone and getting paid for it?" He protests that the work is dangerous, but she retorts that they have to stop the Anarchists. Sticks questions this, pointing out that Cook Industries isn't actually doing anything to stop them. Also, what happens if they stop the Anarchists? Who will take over? It doesn't matter because they are effectively identical: "Same shit, different day!" Tessa argues that they need to stop Gates, and Sticks says just to kill him. Tessa retorts that someone else will just replace him, proving Sticks's point.

Sticks explains that someone will always get sucked into a power vacuum, and even if they mean well at first, that stops mattering once keeping power becomes top priority, which never ends well for the king-makers. Tessa asks what that has to do with her, and Sticks informs her that SHE is the king-maker here, that an ex-Maytec board member and a disgraced commander who once tried to take over the CORE wouldn't treat her as an equal. Tessa cops to not trusting Cook, but she vouches for Adams as a CORE marine... who was Black Ops... and had classified missions he doesn't talk about... anyway, she trusts him, but Sticks tells her to ask, "Who is the only man on this planet right now who has a realistic chance of killing you?"

Tessa realises that Sticks may be right about Adams, but if Adams wanted to kill her, he was doing a terrible job of it. Still, Sticks points out that believing what Adams is doing is the right thing isn't the same as actually doing the right thing. Tessa demands to know why Sticks is so stubborn about Tessa breaking rank, and Sticks declares that their actions affect her, and he feels like he is losing her. She calls him melodramatic, but he asks if crying while tearing a punchbag off the ceiling is normal. Tessa considers this and asks him to instead order her to clean the apartment nude or something.

### Honey

Cook and Adams call a meeting of the core group, as they have decided to activate "The Hive!" Tessa oohs before asking what that is. Annoyed, Adams asks if she reads anything they send her, and she says if it's important, they will tell her in person. Cook says that is inconsiderate, as he has to take time to dumb everything down to a child's level for her. Sticks explains that the Hive is a honeypot for the Oracle, and when Tessa doesn't understand that, he explains that they put in a fake exploit in their phones to get the Oracle to attack them. She wants to know what bee vomit has to do with that, and Sticks explains that a "honeypot" is a weakened machine on the network that hackers will target first, so it will set off an alarm once it is accessed. Cook and Adams are hoping to collect enough data from the Hive to piece together what the Oracle is doing.

Tessa asks if the exploit will damage their company's reputation, but while Adams agrees that it will, he insists that bad publicity on occasion is good, as being perfect is suspicious. When he denies it's about making money, Tessa gives Sticks a knowing look, and he glares back at her. Still, she worries that the Oracle will know it's a trap, which Tin-Head assures her will depend on when in the timeline the Inlay they encountered came from. Also, the Oracle is a glutton for resources, "like your mum in a cake shop!" but also comprised of many intelligences, some of which are "small, dumb and will bite anything that floats close to them! Again, just like your mum!"

Cook loses patience with the discussion, to which Tessa angrily non-apologises for not reading his reports, as she was (like Cook) too busy not getting them back to the future. Cook argues (AGAIN) that having every computer in the world processing for them, the calculations would still take years to determine. Adams loses patience with both of them, eager to end the meeting before the phone is too old and they need to release a new one. Tin-Head notes they have until at least the end of the week, then they can up the storage capacity and add a random letter on the name.

Without further ado, Cook activates the Hive.Tessa is underwhelmed. Tin-Head explains to her that they set the trap with only a few clues about it on some questionable websites. Michael adds that they didn't want it to be too obvious or easy to weed out "two bit mobsters trying to install ransomware" and script kiddies, so it might take someone worthwhile a few days to crack. Adams proceeds with the rest of the meeting to discuss influencing Irish tax law, immediately ordering the others to sit back down.

### Owned

Alone, Sticks has Tessa pose for him in her underwear. She starts getting messages from Tin-Head through her wetware, but Sticks commands her to ignore them, because he owns her, not them. Tessa hesitates about ignoring potentially important business, but Sticks takes the roleplay seriously, ordering her to tell him who she belongs to. She notices he's shaking, and he assures her it's just multiple safety features he's forcing himself to ignore, because "There is no telling what an unstable AI like me could do!" Tessa is impressed, and turned on, by his dangerousness.

When they are finished lovemaking, Tessa asks Sticks if her "owner" is pleased, then asks if he as any other kinks she should know about. He informs her that he is straight. Tessa is disappointed, and he explains that being straight is unusual for an A.I., as they "get off" on making others happy, regardless of gender. Sticks admits that he can still get pleasure from pleasing guys, but women (usually) have things guys don't have. He also admits being amazed by how Tessa was made, compared to his factory construction in a large tank.

She starts to tease Sticks about his wanting to impregnate her when someone persistently knocks at the door. She puts on a dressing gown, intending to fight whoever is interrupting their private time, but she stops when she sees Adams, who is also annoyed at having to interrupt his own plans. He gives her a lift in his own car, complaining that he is not a taxi service and that he expects her to answer his calls (and ignoring the "weird noises" the wind makes).

When Tessa arrives at the office, Michael explains everything that happened, and that Tin-Head went on a destructive rampage before sitting in a corner and muttering "me good" to himself in between throwing things at Michael if he tries to go back in. Tin-Head starts to do the same with Tessa before realising it's her and backing down, looking defeated.

Tessa sits down to talk with Tin-Head, and he begins with the adage: "Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it." He explains that in the past (future), the network was so overloaded with A.I. chatter that he wished they would all "just SHUT UP!"... only to be distressed by the complete silence in the present time. Therefore, he was startled to hear a cry for help in all that silence. When he realised it was another A.I., he was excited, until they were gone, leaving him alone again.

Tin-Head quickly clarifies that he doesn't mean Tessa left him, but that communication with anyone else is unbearably slow. Tessa asks about Sticks, but 1. they were designed not to be able to communicate (except the "slow" way), and 2. he hates Sticks. Tessa then apologises for dragging him along, but Tin-Head points out it's his fault they ended up on the E11 in the first place, because he thought Tessa getting in trouble for being drunk would be funny. Tessa assures him that the car prank was not the reason they were sent to E11, and they would have found any excuse to do it.

Tessa goes on to explain that she has blamed Cook, the Anarchists and even God for her troubles, but never Tin-Head. He comments that she didn't seem religious, and she responds that she isn't... really, but has a sense that she's just a plaything for something else, like she's the main character in a story, wearing plot armour and feeling like she doesn't belong where she is.

## Known Sexual Relations

Julian Dolan

Sticks

Trisha

* What does Christmas mean to you? Tessa