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[ The pulse rolls through the city and leaves chaos behind. Broken glass, the scream of wheels and impact, distant car alarms whining. Lune is trapped indoors, and on kneejerk instinct, she reaches for her telephone — these magical, eternally useful devices — and instantly tries to check on her loved ones.

There's not that many people outside the Expedition who she feels close enough to reach out to, but Kimiko is the first. ]

Did you hear that? Are you alright?

[ The network has usually been stable within the stronghold. Reliable. But this time, there's a different cryptic icon sitting in the corner of her screen, and she stares at it through a long frustrating pause, a furious impatience, waiting for a reply. Until the telephone makes another noise and she seizes it to read Kimiko's response— ]

MESSAGE UNDELIVERABLE

[ Her heart falls in her chest. Palms starting to go slippery with nerves. She tries again, stubbornly hammering out an identical message and jabbing SEND. It has to work. She's taken it for granted that this technology works.

(It doesn't work.)

Once she gets out of the building and out onto the streets again, with a clearer access to open air and hopefully better reception outside tangled metal and concrete, she tries once more. ]

I'm around the Pavilion; uninjured. Report in, please.

MESSAGE UNDELIVERABLE

[ This might have been what Expedition 64 felt like: their radio frequencies being used against them, the relays being sabotaged and going down, their voices going silent. In the end, Lune has to give up, shoving the useless lump of plastic back into her coat and keeping on the move, her heartbeat pounding a thump-thump of anxiety in her throat. ]

[ It's nearly twelve hours before Kimiko is in a position to start checking on people. Retrieving her phone, charging it — all of this takes time, takes effort, takes resources that flicker in and out of immediate reach. And, as it turns out, a super-strong meat shield is a valuable commodity in the aftermath of a citywide emergency.

Her phone tells her—
ZERO (O) NEW MESSAGE(S)
and
NO SERVICE
Not necessarily in that order.

Kimiko hates this part. Hates being separated from the people who matter; the family she's been slowly building, now not knowing if they're dead or alive. She isn't emotionally equipped for the uncertainty. She trusts them, yes. Trusts their intelligence, their abilities. But the worry in the pit of her stomach grows and grows and calcifies into something hard and ugly and unimpeachable. She tries to focus. Helps out where she can. ]

Checking in. Are you okay?

[ The answer she gets is underwhelming, to say the least.

MESSAGE NOT SENT.
MESSAGE NOT SENT. Resend?
MESSAGE NOT SENT. Resend?
MESSAGE NOT SENT. Resend?

Sending.........

MESSAGE NOT SENT.
Try again in a few minutes.

She keeps trying, of course. But she parcels the attempts around everything else, such as being riddled with bullets and having her vehicle stolen by raiders while she's bleeding on the tarmac. ]

Just checking in. Rough out there. Stay safe, okay?
My apartment still has running water.
Go there if you need to.

[ By some miracle, the last line — and only the last line — gets delivered. ]

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