==Characters Introduced in Order of Appearance; Character Status==
Bryan Benson,
A police(?) detective and our leading man, a gigasaurus who loves sports and evading responsibility, possibly taxation too.
Chao Feng,
The First Officer (of what?), and a douchedrinker according to Benson. Inherited stolen artwork from his criminal dad.
Lau,
The captain of Patrick's favorite Chinese sports team.
Edmond Laraby,
The missing geneticist whom the plot revolved around, found dead and dumped in space.
Avelina Pereira da Silva,
Science Director; Head of Environmental Research & Development. Got her full name in Chapter 3. Is probably the mastermind of the conspiracy.
Vasquez,
Not to be confused with Vasquez from Aliens; a player in Patrick's favorite sports game.
Lindqvist,
A sports player not even worthy of description by Patrick. Must be a PCJ caricature.
Ther
esa Alexopolous,
A lieutenant, and a Duty Officer (of what?), sidekick to the Chad Bryan Benson.
Vikram Bahadur,
Chief Constable of the Chinatown District, on par with Bryan Benson. Definitely not a Sikh.
Nibiru,
Not a character, but a black hole on the edge of a solar system. Probably the best character, though, if it's anything like Black Hole Sun.
Devorah Feynman,
Curator of the Museum, wants to preserve humanity's culture by locating and securing authentic works of art. Possibly a facsimile of Patrick's mother.
Constable Pavel Korolev,
Ther
esa sent him to back-up Benson; a rookie that's greener than grass. A true comrade.
Chef Takahashi,
Probably Japanese. Probably a chef.
Magistrate Boswell,
Probably king of the douchedrinkers.
Salvador 'Sal' Kite
Old guy with "war stories"; criminal scum who paid the court a fine and/or served his sentence for participating in a massive art heist.
Old Benny
Criminal scum who has violated the law.
Director Hekekia,
Engineering genius or something. Big Samoan guy who speaks better than Benson.
Dr. Jeanine Russell,
Medbay staffer on the Ark. Dreams about touching Benson's athletic body.
Captain Mahama,
Maybe the Captain of the Ark's crew. Strong old African womanboss.
Sahni,
Another nondescript *Zero Finals* player lol. Still noting her just in case they become relevant.
Madison Atwood,
Bryan Benson's PE Teacher; works as a constable in Chinatown. Didn't make an appearance when Chao Feng was arrested for some reason.
Magistrate Jindal,
A judge that appears to have a perverse desire to do his job properly.
Duty Officer Hernandez,
Another constable belonging to Benson's cadre. Raised concerns about Benson being a nepotist.
Celine DiMaggio,
An art thief. Has Alzheimer's in the future where such diseases should have been wiped out.
Lefty, or Huang
A Japanese(?) man living underground and off the radar.
Mei,
One of the vagrant *Unbound*.
Agong, or David Kimura
Elder of the Japanese vagrants living off the radar on the Ark. Name means 'Grandfather' in Mandarin; was thought to have died of a heart attack after joining the Ark's council.
Mao,
Leader of a splinter group of *the Unbound*. The new lead suspect in the murder investigation.
Barta,
An Ensign on the Ark's Crew. Likes getting in people's way. Probably plays SWAT 4 a lot.
Chief Councilman Valmassoi,
Who the fuck knows.
--E1: The Ark has lost main power, and even the
*Plant* Neuralink system is down. Also, Patrick makes the same blunder as from Chapter 2 where he starts off the chapter and doesn't identify the speakers before they speak, forcing the reader to infer that the unmarked line of dialogue is Benson again. This isn't as egregious as that one but it's still bad.
Mahama works on taking control of the situation: the whole ship has indeed lost power.
There's a break here where there shouldn't be. I'm chalking this up to another rush error by Patrick. Anyway, Mahama phones Director Hekekia to get a sitrep: the Ark is flatlined and both reactors are down and have lost magnetic containment. If anyone has anything to offer on Patrick's knowledge of fusion reactors and various scientific elements, do feel free to chime in as I'm one of those public school kids whose middle school science classes were taught more by VHS tapes of Bill Nye.
After the erroneous interlude, Mahama asks how long before the power restarts: Hekekia has no idea. Capacitor charges are at 13 percent, a revelation that blindsides the captain. They're supposed to be near an 80 percent charge at all times but, as Hekekia explains, a short was discovered in the recharging system that they'd been hunting down for some time and they had to be deactivated. Suffice to say, the Ark's in a bit of a pickle.
Mahama asks for ideas and a nameless Ensign suggests reversing the habitat's drive motors, which generate its artificial gravity, to recharge the capacitors. Hekekia says it's doable, but requires an EVA Pod and four hours to make the conversion. It could have taken less time but Benson, the idiot, destroyed his pod a while back. I'm glad Hekekia is shitting on him for this but it also should never have happened in the first place.
--E2: More pissing and moaning but at least there's some information being given and stakes being established. Reversing the gravity is guaranteed to cause a panic as everyone and everything will lift off. Mahama emphasizes that without their shielding, they're soaking up more and more radiation, they don't have thrusters or navigational lasers, and if they suffer an impact the entire ship would likely be lost.
Hekekia informs her that they need at least 20 percent of a capacitor charge to restart a fusion reactor. He's rather pessimistic, worried that the motors and bearings on the habitat modules will burn out, as there's no telling how much charge the plan will generate. Mahama orders him to go through with it, and orders Benson to coordinate with Bahadur to keep the peace when the shit hits the fan.
Constable Korolev is understandably miffed about everything and immediately recognizes this as sabotage: somebody wants everyone dead and they might just get their wish if the Ark's crewmen fail in their plan. Benson calms him down and hands off Mahama's orders to him while he goes off on his own to do something. I highlighted a part in red here because this is an incomplete sentence. "Tell her to deputize the lightbulb jockeys and ... their jetpacks to grab any strays".
I'm convinced Patrick was rushing this now.
--E3: Ok now I am SUPER convinced Patrick was rushing: note the first Red highlight, where I mark an erroneous carriage return. "Mr. Kimura" is disconnected from its paragraph. But yeah, Benson's headed back to the sublevels to warn Kimura and his cohorts of the current crisis.
What we're seeing is the next level of meandering and Benson is jumping straight to the conspiracy theory about this being genocide and sabotage along with Korolev, and I get the feeling he's doing it because the plot demands it of him. I'm sure we'll be reading 'genocide' aplenty going forward. I like how this chapter turned into an excuse to dump exposition and useless theorycrafting on the reader, rather than let the reader imagine anything. Not like we needed any more reasons to poo-poo the quality of this mystery, though.
Nobody's home. David Kimura and his vagrant
*Geisha* have abandoned the place, taking all their belongings with them. Nothing remains, save for one of the bonsai trees from earlier and authentic paper note awaiting our protagonist.
David Kimura already knew what was coming before Benson got here, and his people have gone 'deeper into hiding', whatever that means. However, their arrangement is still in place and they'll nevertheless be in touch soon. Benson has no choice but to hoof it back to the surface empty-handed.
You want some conspiracy theories? Here's mind: Maybe, just maybe, the child abusing, death-faking cult leader living outside society is a suspect now. HOW would he have known all this is happening THIS fast from within his FUCKING FARADAY CAGE? I refuse to believe that this isn't a gigantic red flag. Avelina had both of my eyes on her before, but now she has just one as I cross my vision to shine bright red death lights on them both.
