<div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/thumb/0/0f/Benedictcasual.jpg/400px-Benedictcasual.jpg)</div><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Character name:</strong></td><td>Eric Cavendish</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Location:</strong> </td><td>Standing next to wreckage of several sorts</td></tr><tr><td><strong>With:</strong> </td><td> Zhùhǎo and the rest of the team</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Doing:</strong> </td><td> Watching movies</td></tr></tbody></table><br/><hr/><br/>It was a reasonable feature to have in a cranial implant, at least one intended for civilian use. In the case of extreme duress of the host, the implant would devote considerable resources to securing aid. Once that objective was either met or deemed impossible (as in this case), the implant would fall back into what was colloquially known as "fubar mode", though of course the marketing materials used gentler phrases, often containing the word 'insurance'. The idea was that all possible routes of data collection would be activated, with all sensor imaging stored into hardflash and then broadcast on emergency bands as soon as possible. The procedure would continue until no power was available. Touted as a last-ditch safety measure, the hope was that in the event of a tragedy at least the authorities might have the data that they needed to correct the imperfection in the system, whether it was a faulty vehicle, a bit of spoiled food, or a sudden rip current found during an ocean swim.<br/><br/>Or, as in this case, a vicious bare-handed beating by a semi-psychotic professional killer. As seen through the victim's eyes and heard through her ears, with the sounds of her own gurgling protests overlaid like an amateur horror soundtrack. Nikita Stack's face loomed prominently, evilly through the gaps in Magnessen's ineffectual defense, the attacker's smile both primal and almost sexual. And then, of course, the gunshot. At that point most of the data collection ceased, the implant functions falling off to secondary processors located in safer areas of the skull. As the datafeed went dark Eric overlaid the single word "FIN" in Aristocrat LET Cursive font, size 48.<br/><br/>Eric stood near the roadway with his head cocked to one side, looking at nothing in the real world. He watched the movie seven times from start to finish. It was... illuminating. When he was done, he saved the sensurround experience file in a single package, encrypted to Ms. Stack's private key, and dispatched a copy to her inbox. The original files remained under lockdown in his own datavault. It would require more than his death to free them.<br/><br/>Having missed the substance of the confrontation among his fellow team members, he could only drift toward the pack once he turned his attention back to reality. The mission was delayed, it seemed. There was some sort of tension among several of the crew, but without his personality graft active he could not hope to parse the nuances, and this seemed an unwise time to engage that system. He walked toward Zhùhǎo, who of all of them seemed the least likely to shoot him without an adequate reason. Also, he had earlier noted in his scratchpad space that her attractiveness was well above average.<br/><br/>"The flashbangs didn't go off," he said bluntly, making conversation.