Chapter Text
Sam’s journals turn out to be an absolute gold mine. In the three days following our venture to reroute the Chiralium storage tanks, I spend the majority of my time nosing around more of the Distribution Centre, finding myself little nooks and crannies to spend a couple of hours listening to Sam’s audio logs. I’ve so far managed to avoid Fragile’s concerned looks and suspicious glares from Myra, and thankfully Walker has been too preoccupied being laid up by the medics to try and make too much conversation.
Back to Sam. He recorded so many moments through the first handful of years of his life outside of BRIDGES, raising Lou on his own in their secluded little valley shelter. He made endless speculation about Lou’s growth and development from premature infant into toddler-hood, using what little information he had to gauge where she should be at developmentally speaking.
I’m still kind of pissed that Deadman knew that Sam had been able to revive Lou, but had very much kept it to himself when sending me off on this madcap journey. It seems like Deadman and Lockne-Malingen were the only people that knew the truth; I wonder what kind of punishment they all would have faced, what punishment Sam would have faced, had they revealed the truth and Sam had been tracked down by BRIDGES. Being the nations saviour apparently counted for little when you broke the rules like Sam had; there’s no excusing the defying of direct orders from the President, it would seem.
I never got to meet the President Die-Hardman in person; thankfully Deadman had insisted whilst I was in quarantine that I not have many visitors, but from what I’d seen in his press releases and constant speeches across the Network, it’s not hard to imagine someone like Sam wanting to keep secrets from him. The President always sounded like a real martyr for the whole American reconstructionism thing, but the way Sam speaks of him in the recordings paints a more obsessive and paranoid picture.
His thoughts and reflections on the second expedition bring to light a different version of all the people who came together to stop the Last Stranding to how I know them now. He had initial suspicions and some jealousy of Deadman; an issue with resetting Lou’s alignment had caused a memory wipe, and so Lou forgot Sam and grew attached to Deadman for a while instead. Sam had an air of awkward sympathy towards Malingen; he’d been there for her when she had died, and when her soul had become entangled with that of her twin sister Lockne, binding them back together again. He had an immense dislike of Heartman’s constant physical gestures; and didn’t understand half of what Heartman would rant on about. Despite this, Heartman seemed to have inspired Sam into taking more time for himself recreationally; more than a few times, Sam mentions enjoying old-world media and movies that had been recommended by Heartman. There were only few mentions of Amelie, and they all sounded sad, betrayed.
He was lighter, when he spoke of Lou.
Sam spoke fondly of how, when she was big enough, Lou would run and play outside, without a care in the world until the grass made her legs itchy and grasshoppers would get tangled in her hair. He talked about how their greenhouse overflowed with vegetables, how Timefall would sometimes come in unexpectedly, and how, for Lou’s ‘unofficial’ fifth birthday, they ventured north and crossed the Rift.
It was when I heard Sam speak about the winding road through the mountains that lead into the Cap River Knot outpost that I began to get excited. Hearing him go on about the issues they had with the border security, and how they’d managed a two-day visa pass into the main city of Cap River Knot beyond the suspension bridge, makes me wonder if after whatever happened to make them want to leave their shelter, if Sam headed back into the wilds of the Canadian Republic. He makes multiple comments on how much more free the people in the city itself seem to be, and how much he and Lou both enjoyed themselves despite having to head back so soon.
Something in that section of his recordings catches my attention; I’m sandwiched into a little alcove I’d found in an equipment storage room a floor above the Dispensary when I come across it. Sam describes how he gets a chiral allergy reaction whilst crossing the suspension bridge, and that Lou also gets a reaction as well. He theorises about her having DOOMS, as well as something he calls the ‘Extinction Factor’, and how it could potentially cause them both trouble in the future. I wonder if that’s how I’m able to see Lou, to communicate with her – somehow, because of our both having DOOMS, our Beaches are connected.
I think of the stuffed moose plush in my pack. My strand to the ex-Bridge Baby. I wonder if, when I have to abandon it along with the other totems of my connections, if I’ll lose my connection to her, too. I hope not. If something terrible has happened to either Sam or Lou, I hope there’s something I can to do to help. If I make it there in time.
It’s hard, after that, to listen much further. I’m too caught up thinking about crossing the Rift and what I might find on the other side.
-:-
Oh man. I must have fallen asleep in that little nook in the equipment room, because the next thing I’m aware of is the cold and the smell of the sea and the decay. When I open my eyes, the Beach is in as much disarray as I remember.
I climb to my feet, the very action feeling like my limbs are weighed down with cement. Everything here is in a state of chaos; the carcasses of sea life that have washed up along the shoreline are in various states of rot and the water barely laps at their edges anymore. In fact, the tide itself seems to have been sucked back, revealing more and more shore. The black sand is still wet, as if it’s only just had waves running back and forth over it, but no water reaches it.
Looking out into the distant horizon across the water, I can see what looks like a churning wall of water slowly building. It looks like a giant wave, a tsunami, growing and crashing in on itself to become bigger and bigger. But it’s so far away, and there’s a little voice in the back of my mind that doesn’t want me to care.
There are still great chasms of space across the Beach where that monster has been devouring it. Each pit is ringed by floating rocks and lazily drifting tendrils of glittering Chiralium. They remind me of voidout craters, every one of them emanating with their own anti-gravitational force-field that keeps me from peeking over the edges and seeing what ruin lies within them.
I can’t hear or see anything that would suggest that monster is lurking nearby, but there’s thunder rolling on the distant, hazy hills opposite the water, and the clouds boil a sickly red-purple colour and streak overhead like they’re on the run. As I wander, dragging my feet, I still can’t bring myself to be too concerned with it all. It’s all just feels a little inconsequential. I wonder if Quill’s attempt to protect my Beach have caused some sort of blanketing effect that leaves me feeling this odd sense of quiet.
I’ll have to remember to ask him, if I ever see him again.
A voice drifts to my ears, and after a moment I recognise the sound of singing. Someone’s here, singing? Yodelling, more like. It’s not the most tuneful thing I’ve ever heard, and as I come around a large cluster of rocks and rubble I find its source. Honestly, like everything else here, I’m hardly surprised.
It’s Higgs. The man in the mask. It feels odd, finally having a name to call him by. Knowing the weight of what that name means and who he really is. He’s sprawled out on the sand, the outline of a sand-angel around him where he’s swept his arms and legs back and forth. His eyes are closed, and he’s singing.
He croons off key with a wheezy voice, before breaking off into a coughing fit. I step closer, making my presence known.
“You look like shit,” I say, and he lolls his head in my direction, eyes falling open. There’s something strange about the way he’s lying; his cloak is askew, thrown back to show the military style vest and combat fatigues he’s wearing underneath. There’s a broken-open BB pod strapped to his chest, the top half of the case missing, but the base and trance-link cord still attached to the harness of his suit.
“Funny that,” he snorts. He reaches up and pokes at something on his chest, by his collarbone. I realise I’m looking at a shard of Chiral crystal, jutting up out from a puncture in the vest. Instead of red blood coming from the wound, however, it looks like he’s bleeding black tar. “I feel like shit too.”
“What happened to you?”
“At this point, what hasn’t?” He rolls his eyes and sighs. “Don’t matter. Penance for committin’ to the bit, I suppose.”
“I don’t know what that’s meant to mean,” I say slowly, trying to choose my words carefully. I know there’s an important reason I have to speak to Higgs, even though right in this moment I can’t recall it. “But I need your help.”
Higgs rocks his head in the sand, making an indent. “Been a long, long time since anyone’s asked me for help, girlie. Aside from you, ‘course.”
“Because you were a terrorist.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. Higgs lifts his head and squints up at me.
“I used to be a lot of things,” he replies snidely. “Particle of God. Agent of Extinction. Prepper, Porter, Terrorist, a child – none of it matters anymore. Don’t you see? I’m none of that no more. Whatever you’ve heard missy, whatever you’ve been told, it may be true but it’s meaningless. Nothing means squat here.”
I sit beside him, and pluck the corpse of a crab from where it’s wedged into the sand. I brush the sand from the shell and run my fingers over the carapace, wiggling its legs around. Fragile told me not to trust Higgs. I know that.
“Why does it sound like you’ve given up?” I ask him. “I thought you were still fighting, to protect something. ‘Til the slate is wiped clean’, you told me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he sighs, watching me as I play with the dead crab. One of its legs falls off in my hands. “It was always going to be a solo job. They always were. Even when I had partners, couldn’t keep ’em for long. I don’t know how long it’s been. I don’t care. But I’m tired, okay? And I’m a little bit, y’know, inconvenienced right now. Forgive a guy for taking a breather.”
I wonder what Fragile would say, if she could see him now. Somehow I doubt there’d be any pity in her words.
“What happens if you die here, stranded on the Beach?” I ask, looking around. Out on the horizon, the giant wave is still building. There are shapes emerging from it as it slowly grows larger and nearer.
“Used to think it was just game over; no restarts, no nothing,” Higgs says after a moment. He prods at the large crystal protruding from his chest. “Not so sure anymore. This ain’t exactly the first time I’ve high-fived death on my way out the door and been shunted right back here.”
“So you’re saying that you can’t die?”
“S’pose.”
“But you’re not a repatriate.” At that, he looks over.
“Don’t need to be,” he says. “That’s your department. Besides – repatriate’s die. They don’t exactly belong here nor there. They just, ka-pow, get sling-shotted back to the world of the living. Unless they die here.”
I recall that feeling of being lost somewhere in between life and death, struggling to following that little golden light back to where it was buried in my chest. Even in the silence of the Seam with nothing more than bubbles rushing through my ears, I’d felt the weight of not belonging. I had died and the world of the living threw me into the Seam. The Beach had spat me right back out – it hadn’t wanted me, either. Before I can put any words together, though, Higgs speaks again.
“You asked me, a while ago. To look out for someone,” he mumbles, staring aimlessly at the sky.
“For Amelie,” I nod.
“Uh huh,” Higgs wheezes and coughs to clear his throat. He turns away and spits into the sand, and I spy a little tar-covered crab scuttling away from us. Wiping sticky black spittle from his mouth with the back of his gloved hand, he continues with a deep, resentful sigh. “I told you there weren’t no more blonde ladies out here. I knew she wasn’t here anymore. Knew I couldn’t pass on any message for you, but I still tried. Used to be my whole thing, helping people. Makin’ the world go round, bring a little bit of sunshine to lives by makin’ deliveries and trying to better the world. She...she helped me forget why I did that. Her bein’ an EE, it fuelled something inside me I’d begun to see a long time before I met her. And after everything changed, after I lost my cause and my fight with old Sammy-boy, I forgot what I was doing here, too.”
Another leg breaks from the carcass of the crab in my hands, and I use it to draw aimless little squiggles in the sand between us. Higgs lolls his head over to watch.
“I got left here, by the only person I once called friend,” he says quietly. “Only person I never thought to use to feed that high that brought me a little closer to the void every time. So I killed other people, other partners, top off that little rush of power that the whiff of death gave me. Don’t blame her for smackin’ me upside the head like a misbehaving kid, not one bit. She was always such an idealist, always looking to do the right thing by people. Didn’t deserve what I put her through.”
“That’s big of you to admit,” I say. “I don’t think she’ll ever forgive you.”
“Good,” Higgs snorts, and reaches over to take the crab leg from my hand. He draws a wobbly circle in the sand, along with several lines leading away from it. Each line gets connected by other, intersecting lines, like a poorly drawn spiders web. “Best decision little Miss Damaged Goods will ever make. After she left me here, Amelie came back one last time. Said she was leaving it all down to Sam to choose whether or not to roll the dice. But she told me something right before she disappeared, back then. Something I’d forgotten until you showed up.”
“What was it?”
“I’m tryin’ to remember,” Higgs replies miserably. He sounds frustrated, and scratches out his drawing in the sand. “But it’s got to do with you, and with me, and with that great big rapacious thing out here.”
“Rapacious?” I repeat, and Higgs nods.
“Means greedy.” He says. “I had a word-a-day book, when I was a kid. Used it on my old man, my uncle, once; tryin’ to be smart. He took the book and thrashed me with it.”
“Oh.”
“Funny, the shit you remember when it doesn’t matter. I remember my first pizza delivery. You ever tried pizza?” when I shake my head, he sighs with a smile. “I tried a slice before completing the delivery. Never tasted something so goddamn good. Got a piss-poor review and complaint from the prepper for tampering with his food. Every time he sent me an order after that, I’d hand it in incomplete – always took my slice.”
I can’t help but smile at the dopey grin that spreads over Higgs’ filthy face.
“You’re not building a convincing case for yourself as a good Porter,” I say mildly. “I bet Sam would never have eaten any pizza he delivered.”
“Wrong!” Higgs crows with a laugh that breaks into a cough. “He ate my goddamn pizza, right when I let ‘im into my shelter and everything after I got stuck here.”
“Well you weren’t exactly going to be eating it, were you?”
“Nah,” sighs Higgs. “Guess you’re right. What were we talkin’ about?”
I blink, and focus on the crab carapace in my hands. “Amelie,” I say after a moment. “She came back one last time to tell you something.”
“Yeah...yeah,” Higgs says, pushing himself up on one elbow. “She had some important job for me. Like some kinda divine punishment, one final task, right? Said I had to…had to...”
His muddy, sand-covered brows furrow, and he scratches the tip of the crab leg he’s holding against the rough stubble of his cheek thoughtfully. It looks as though he’s got flakes of Chiralium splattered over his nose and across the front of his cloak where it collects under his chin. The gold flecks stand out against a deep, bloody gash on his face.
“Ah shit. I had it, but it’s gone again,” he grumbles, before peering up at me. “You said you needed help. I remember that.”
I chew on my lip, trying to recall what I was thinking about before I’d fallen asleep in that little nook in the equipment locker. Something about Sam, and about Lou –
“Strands,” I breathe. “I need to know how to break Strands.”
Higgs gives me an incredulous look, leaning back to study me. “Break ‘em? Why?”
“I just need to know.”
“Breakin’ things is what I’m good at,” Higgs drawls slowly. “But Strands? They’re very precious.” He reaches up to idly pat the BB pod still strapped to his chest, his fingers finding nothing but air at first where the upper glass case should have been. He sighs deeply, somewhat sadly, as his hand finds the base of the pod, and he caresses it. “Breaking and abandoning Strands is a risky business. They connect us, whether we use it for better or worse, whether we want them to or not. You really want to be out there, all alone, with no one to watch your back?”
I try to picture everyone I’m Stranded with. Valentine’s gentle features come first, then Echo’s haunted eyes. Quill’s air of alien tranquillity. Fragile and Deadman’s faces. And the others. So many faces and feelings, Walker’s limping form and Heartman’s gloved hands holding mine. Wickerman standing in the ruins of that greenhouse. The handprints from all those BB’s that Lockne-Malingen had sent for me. Corrin giving me that hug goodbye, so long ago, so far away now.
“Tell you what,” Higgs’ voice makes me look up. I wipe away a hot tear that runs down my face, the only thing that seems to leave any trace of warmth here. My throat feels tight thinking of everyone and leaving them all behind. “How about you just…entrust them to someone else for a bit? Like a package, stashed in a postbox for safe keeping?”
The use of Porter lingo makes me smile and roll my eyes.
“I don’t know how many times I’ve had to say this, but I’m not a Porter,” I sigh, but Higgs is pushing himself upright again, wincing as the chiral crystals protruding from his chest crunch and shift.
“You’re Porter enough,” he grins with a cough.
“I can’t hand these tokens of people I’ve Stranded with to just anyone,” I say. “That’d put them in as much danger as me.”
“Not if they’re where no one can get to them,” Higgs says as he waggles his eyebrows. “Not if they’re safe-guarded by someone, someone left with the sole job of – ”
“Of protecting something, until the slate is wiped clean,” I finish the sentence, and Higgs nods eagerly and gives me an enthusiastic thumbs-up. I can almost hear that ping of non-existent Likes. I take a breath. “I – no, Higgs. I don’t exactly know if I should be trusting you.”
He gives me a withering look. “Is it really so hard to believe that I’ve turned a different leaf, or are you gonna let your friends topside influence your every decision? Stay where it’s safe and cushy and protected by them, those frail fragile souls? Let them tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing, when you’re a big kid now, able to make your own choices?”
“I’m not going to let you goad me about this,” I reply, pushing myself to my feet. “I’ve read your file; I know about all the awful things you’ve done to people who’re counting on me to succeed in helping the UCA. I know about the bombs, about the lives you’ve taken. About how you left Sam to bleed to death in Edge Knot City.”
Higgs’ eyes go dull, and he sighs a long, deep sigh. It occurs to me that I’ve only ever read the report on how Sam faced off against the Homo Demens leader in Edge Knot – a long time ago, tucked in the safety of my bed in my East Knot apartment. It had read like a heroic victory, Sam winning and the terrorist fleeing with his tail between his legs. No mention of Sam dying. Where did that come from?
Before I can think on it too much more, I shake myself indignantly. “Besides. How would I even bring physical items to the Beach? I’ve got no idea how to do that.”
“Maybe not, but you do know how to bring the Beach topside,” Higgs replies, the smile returning to his face. “That’s a pretty powerful DOOMS ability you’ve got there, y’know. Rivals what I used to be able to do. With a little practice, it wouldn’t take much.”
“Yeah, no. Goodbye, Higgs,” I call over my shoulder as I start to walk away from him, towards the receding tide line. I can hear his laughter breaking off into a coughing fit behind me, but it rings out all across the Beach, all around me.
“Sleep on it, baby!” He hollers, and when I finally get to the water’s edge I turn back, but Higgs is gone, leaving nothing by the strange sand-angel shape in the sand by the pieces of broken crab.
I don’t really register if I make it into the water, if I manage to wade deep enough to plunge beneath the surface – I’m waking up in an instant, falling out of the nook and tumbling to the floor. The landing winds me and I lie there for a while, staring at the ceiling and contemplating Higg’s offer.
I have no idea what I’m meant to do.
-:-
To my surprise, the very next morning, Walker shows up at my private room’s door and announces our departure to be right after breakfast. His limp is less exaggerated and he waves his hands when I ask him just how he managed to convince Myra to let us leave when she’d previously insisted on a full week of rest, not just four days. Whatever the case, he’s in pretty high spirits when we set out into the ruins.
We take the ruined roads that run closest to the Rift, where there’s no Homo Libertas prowling, and thankfully no Timefall feels like it’s about to roll in as we skirt the buildings close to the power station. Walker had me pack for a days worth of on-foot travel, claiming that we’d reach the Arc Sanctuary by mid afternoon if we kept pace. Barkerman, apparently, wasn’t aware we were coming yet – with the Network down, Myra hadn’t been able to contact him to give him the heads up, but Walker was confident we would be just fine.
It’s kind of cathartic, to be on the move again. The steady trekking and navigating through rocky terrain as we enter a set of foothills north-west of the Cap River Knot Outpost is a good distraction from my whole Strand predicament. The knowledge that once we get to our destination and then back again after Stranding with Barkerman, however, still hangs over my head. After I’ve Stranded with this DOOMS sufferer, I’m going to have to make a decision. Stay in the UCA and fight the good fight with Fragile and the others, or leave it all behind – cross the Rift, and search for Sam on my own.
Neither feels like a more appealing option, really; either way, I’m going to be leaving people in danger.
I keep my head down against the biting wind, and keep plodding, following in Walker’s footsteps. He makes the occasional conversation, and whilst I don’t hear most of it over the wind, his gruff voice is a comfort. He has to stop and rest often, grunting about his injured leg not holding up the way it should, but refuses to rest for longer than a couple minutes at a time. In those moments, he imparts little bits of advice; how to read the terrain, how to recognise animal tracks that will tell us we’re getting closer to the Sanctuary. Sometimes, I can hear his breath becoming laboured, wheezing and huffing, but whenever I suggest we take a break, he waves me off.
A while after midday, we cross a small peak and enter a long, sweeping valley. A chill that has nothing to do with the cold temperatures streaks over my skin, and I stop.
“Walker,” I say, but he doesn’t turn. “Walker.”
“Just keep goin’, kid,” he calls over his shoulder. “Ignore the feeling.”
Goosebumps are breaking out all over my arms and up my neck, and I’m fighting back the shivers that make my teeth chatter as I stumble after him. Minutes later, we pass a cluster of boulders that reveal a Voidout crater at the very basin of the valley, and my breath catches. It’s smaller than many that I’ve seen, but it’s most definitely the result of a Voidout. Debris rises and upward spirals, the rough shape of a tar-filled handprint is imprinted in the bottom of the crater.
“Holy shit.”
“It’s an old crater,” Walker says, finally pausing when he realises I’ve stopped again. “There ain’t nothing down there anymore.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, following as he moves off, heading along a worn path that cross the higher end of the valley. “Do you know who died and triggered the Voidout?”
Walker is silent for a moment. “Yeah, matter of fact I do.”
With that, the conversation seems to be over. He leads me in silence the rest of the way across the valley, and by the time we reach the far side Walker is breathing heavily, and he limps over to a boulder to lean on and rest. The Voidout crater is still in sight, but it’s far enough away that the reaction my body had to it has faded.
I crouch down beside Walker, pulling out my canteen and offering it to him. With a grunt, he takes it and swigs.
“Walker,” I say quietly. “Who died down there?”
His face goes hard, his big bushy eyebrows bunching together and he stands suddenly, shoving the canteen back into my grip.
“I don’t like talking about it,” he replies, and there’s a hard tone in his voice that makes me backpedal.
“I-I’m sorry,” I start, but Walker’s already on the move again, hobbling away down a slope that skids with pebbles under his boots. “Walker, wait, please –”
Suddenly, Walker’s injured leg buckles and slips out from under him, and he falls with a yell, tumbling down the incline and straight into a boulder along the edge of the trail. There’s an audible crack that makes my whole body go horribly cold.
“Walker?!” I go skidding down the slope after him, almost slipping and falling myself as pebbles and small rocks go flying. He’s conscious, but he reaches up to touch the back of his head, his fingers coming away bloody. “Oh shit, oh shit – ”
“Ahmfine,” he grunts, but when he tries to look at me, his eyes won’t focus on mine. I wave a hand in front of his face and he groans and screws his eyes shut. “Just...just hit m’head.”
I gingerly pull him upright so he can lean against the boulder he hit, and encourage him to tip his head forward so I can see the injury. His silver hair is matting quickly with blood, and there’s a big gash on the back of his scalp. My heart sinks to my stomach with guilt, and all I really register is how much I’m babbling and apologising as I dig into my pack for my first aid kit.
Walker mumbles some things as I try to clean and pat some ointment to the wound, but he sounds confused and some of the only words I’m able to make out is that he feels dizzy and like crap. I wrap a bandage as best as I can around his head, and check his leg. Although his initial injury was in his knee, his ankle looks like it’s sticking out at a bad angle, and when I try to put pressure on it with my fingers to his boot, Walker hisses and bats at my hands.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I repeat over and over. “I shouldn’t have asked about the crater, I’m sorry.”
Once I’ve done as much as I can think to do, I look around. It isn’t really like I can just call for help; we’re already hours away from the Outpost, and my little radio whines when I try the dials, unable to pick up any nearby signals. We’re all alone out here, and the one person meant to guide me to Barkerman is now injured and concussed because of me.
The path Walker had started down leads towards another pass between two peaks a long ways off; and after only following this one path for so long with no clear off-shoot paths, I try to believe that this has got to be the one trail Walker has taken, however many times, to the Arc Sanctuary. And if that’s the case, then it’s probable that by following this path, I’ll reach said Sanctuary. Later, undoubtedly, than anticipated.
And without any true buffer against this ‘security system’ of Barkerman’s, now that Walker is pretty much out for the count.
So I prop Walker up as best as I can, sling his arm over my shoulder, and start dragging him along.
-:-
It takes an extra couple of hours to cross the landscape, and by the time we get to the uphill climb of the track that leads to the pass, I’m seriously struggling under the weight of Walker against me, to the point that my boots are slipping on the rocks and every muscle in my body burns with the effort. The sky has started to darken already, and the cold has set in as we’ve travelled slowly northward. Snow has started to fall, coating the uphill slant around us in a dusty white. Thankfully, both our hoods keep us from getting slapped in the face by any wayward flakes.
After what feels like an hour, the pass looms just ahead, and I spot a little crevice in the mountainside, just big enough for a person. It seems pretty sheltered from the weather, and I set Walker down as gently as possible. I make him sip from the canteen, and push a cryptobiote to his mouth, but he shakes his head.
“Go...get Barkerman,” he mumbles; the first thing he’s said that has made any sort of sense. He’s been out of it for the majority of the last few hours, and when I check him over, there’s blood seeping through the bandage at the back of his head. “Get...get help...”
“I have no idea how much further away the Sanctuary is,” I say uselessly. “Without you, I’ve got practically no idea where I’m even going.”
But Walker’s head lolls to the side, and he sighs a deep sigh that turns into a groan of pain. Wincing at the thought of having to leave him and try to make it on my own to get him help, I make sure my canteen, as well as his, are propped up next to him, and I dig all his ration packs out of his pack and put them where he can reach them easily. I prop up his injured leg on a nearby stone and make sure he’s as comfortable as possible. Then I check the lining of his jumpsuit, and find the thermal insulation seems to have kicked in, keeping him warm as the evening grows colder.
“I’ll be back,” I promise him, and his nods vaguely, eyes already falling shut. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, I swear.”
The wind has picked up as I step out of the rocky shelter, more snow coming down in a steady sheet now. My own suits lining contracts as the thermal insulation begins to do it’s thing as I make my way into the pass between the peaks, struggling to see my footing through the darkness and the snow. My face goes quickly numb from the cold. As an afterthought, I pull the golden bandana from the strap of my pack, and wrap it around the lower half of my face – it cuts the bite of the wind, and my breath warms my face a little within the mask, but it’s far from perfect.
When the peaks open back out into a vast, blank uphill nothingness, the trail has completely disappeared, covered by snow. I tromp blindly along, flicking on the headlamp in my hood as the natural light fades with the setting sun. I silently thank whatever greater being there might be in the world – a God, an Extinction Entity, whatever – that the snow is just plain snow, and not laced with the dread of Timefall.
I lose track of time and almost all sense of direction, only vaguely aware that I haven’t somehow turned around purely because I’m still heading in an uphill direction, when the wind seems to die down just a little, and a great dark shape comes looming into view.
Before I can recognise what I’m looking at, it makes a deep, bone-chilling sound that is most definitely not human – but I’ve never heard a Beached Thing make a noise like it, either. I stumbled to a stop, squinting through the darkness beyond my headlamp at the enormous hulking shape of the thing, when I try to crane my neck up to see the full height of it, two huge eyes are suddenly reflected back at me.
I shriek and fall backwards into the snow, and the creature, whatever it is, huffs great clouds of breath into the lamp light before moving closer. I scramble backwards, and all of a sudden there’s a nose that’s the size of me looming into the light, blinking those huge eyes. Monstrous branch-like appendages that reach for me like hands appear on either side of its head.
The image of Lou’s plush toy flits through my mind, and I know what I’m looking at.
A moose.
It takes a step towards me on towering legs, with cloven hooves the size of dinner plates planting into the snow, before bellowing so loudly in my face all other sound goes quiet. I know absolutely nothing about moose, I had no idea mammals so large could live in a world like this with Timefall and BT’s and –
Something spooks the enormous creature, and it spins and stumbles sideways, looking back at something in the darkness. With another big huff of breath, it turns and disappears into the dark, and a second later I feel goosebumps crawling up the back of my neck.
“Oh, shit,” I breathe as chiral tears bead in my eyes, almost instantly freezing on my face. A new sound, something so chilling that not even the lining of my suit can stop the cold that streaks through me. Not the bellow of another moose, but the guttural howl of something else.
Far up the slope, a floodlight lights up the mountainside, and as I squint into the blinding light I can see there’s a small generator at the base of the tall mounted light. Two more further along blink on as well, illuminating what must be the path around the mountain. The whole slope around me is suddenly brought into a strange half-light, half-darkness, and in the swirling snow all around I see the quickly defining shape of something twice the size of the moose prowling through the snow towards me.
It’s a BT, or at least, I assume it has to be, because it moves on four legged limbs trailing a long and winding cord of Chiralium that seems to disappear beyond the edges of the lights, a tether far longer than I’ve ever seen a BT attached to. The jittery, semi-transparent form of the creature throws back its head and howls again, and the terror of it rips right through me. I clap a hand over my mouth, desperate to stifle my panicked breath. The BT towers high above me, its giant paws dwarfing the hoof prints of the moose in the snow. It looks more animal-shaped than it does human. No wonder the moose turned tail and fled.
“Hey!” a voice behind the floodlights calls out over the wind, and the giant hovering BT shifts as if to turn. Hardly daring to move, I squint into the spotlights to see a figure, a person, wading through the snow banks down towards us. “Hey! That’s enough!”
For a moment I think whoever it is, is completely insane, calling the BT’s attention like that. But they just keep coming, yelling and waving their hands. The vague form of the BT wavers and it makes another sound, before scattering from view like the approaching newcomer has simply waved it out of existence.
“Don’t be frightened!” I realise they’re yelling at me, stumbling to a stop in front of me and grabbing at my hands, still clamped tightly over my face. “Don’t be frightened!”
“Shut up! That BT will eat us!” I manage between my chattering teeth. “Shut up!”
The figure shakes his head, and tugs at my wrists again. “No, no it won’t. You’re safe now, you can breathe.”
I look around, trying to catch sight of the BT again, but it, like the moose, seems to have vanished into the darkness beyond the reach of the floodlights uphill. The man is shaking me.
“What are you even doing out here?!” he yells over the wind. “Are you trying to die?”
I manage to shake my head, and wrench my hands free of his grip. He’s much taller than I am, and securely wrapped from head to toe in a Timefall-resistant coat and snow-mask so I can’t tell what he looks like.
“I need help!” I reply. “I’m looking for the Arc Sanctuary, I’m travelling with a Porter named Walker, but he’s injured, I couldn’t carry him uphill on my own – I left him down by the pass to the valley.”
Wordlessly the man steps back, looking me over. Then, he reaches out and pulls at the bandana wrapped around my face. I untie it and show it to him, hoping he’ll know where to find the Sanctuary. In the darkness and in my hurry, I realise that I tied it on inside-out, the dull grey underside facing out. He flips it over, and cocks his head to the side when he sees the golden material and the print of the dog stencil on the other side.
“Take me to him,” he says, pushing the bandana back into my hands and striding passed me before I can even turn around. I hurry back downhill after him, trekking into the darkness beyond the reach of the spotlights.
It feels like the downhill trek is far longer than how long I spent blindly making my way uphill, and I’m jumping at every shadow beyond the light of both our head torches. We don’t speak, just crunch through calf-deep snow until finally, finally, the rocky formations of the pass take form around us.
Walker is right where I’d left him, and the man breaks into a run as we leave the snow banks behind, going straight to Walker to kneel by him, lift the Porters head into his hands.
“Walker!” he’s slapping at Walker’s face. “Open your eyes! Wake up, Walker!”
It takes a few slaps and jostling, but Walker comes to, looking around blearily and blinking in the light of the headlamps. Nothing I’d left at his side seems to have been touched, so I set to repacking it all into both our packs as the man checks Walker over.
“What happened to him? He’s concussed and his ankle is badly twisted,” the man says critically, and I shrug helplessly.
“His leg was injured coming into the Cap River Outpost a few days ago, he insisted he’d be fine to travel but his leg gave out and he slipped, he hit a rock pretty hard,” I reply, gesturing to the back of my own head.
“Idiot,” the man mutters, ripping at the straps on his gloves and pulling them off to expose his bare hands. “Come here. You’ve got DOOMS too, right? What’s your level?”
“Uh – ”
“It doesn’t matter, help me get him standing.” Without waiting, the man rocks back and pulls Walker up, and when he staggers sideways I manage to catch Walker under one arm as the stranger takes his other. Once we’re all vaguely upright, the man speaks again. “Don’t be frightened, but we’re going to need a little extra help.”
He doesn’t wait for me to reply, just lets out a shrill whistle into the darkness. A second later, there’s the throaty howl of a BT, and a clap of thunder overhead. A flash of light like a firework going off just meters away from us, and suddenly it comes leaping from the darkness, slick with tar and trailing liquid Chiralium as it bounds around us in great circles. The BT in its corporeal, anti-matter form. It makes a strange, frantic and strangled barking sound through a void of a mouth that’s crowned by solid gold Chiralium forming massive fanged jaws.
The BT is far smaller in its corporeal form, still standing as tall we do, but the stranger doesn’t cower away. Instead, he digs around in Walker’s pack as I balance the injured Porter, and pulls free what looks like a folded blanket. He shakes it loose, revealing it to be a Timefall-resistant tarp lined with a dark sheen of Chiralium. He waves his hands to the BT, which pads closer, panting heavy, guttural breaths as oily tar drips in constant streams from its jaws.
It settles onto its haunches as the man lays the tarpaulin on the ground and ushers me to bring Walker close, and we settle Walker down onto the tarp. The man goes rifling through Walker’s pack again, before looking around as if he’s lost something. Then, he looks my way, and points.
“Rope,” he says, and from my pack at me feet I fish a coil of rope off the clip on the side. I toss it over, and he unwinds it, setting about binding the tarp around Walker to shield him from the weather. “Got another?” he asks as he ties the rope to secure the tarp at Walker’s ankles.
Still eyeing the Beached Thing as it sits and waits, seeming watching the man as he works, I find another coil of rope on a secondary clip. When I toss it to him, the man ties one end to one corner of the tarp by Walker’s head, before flinging the length of the rope out towards the BT, and tying the other end of the rope to the other side or the tarp. Then he beckons the BT as he picks up the middle section of loose rope, and reaches out his bare hand to touch the BT.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hiss. “We can’t touch that thing, we’ll create a Voidout!”
The man shakes his head, still holding out his bare, exposed hand. “Trust me. I promise, I know what I’m doing.” Then, he turns back to the BT, making a big show of reaching out for it. I stifle a shriek as he places his bare hand on the BT’s head, tar running over his fingers. He runs his hand over the sharply formed fangs of its jaw, and the creature seems to lean into the touch, making a deep, nasally sound. “See? No Voidout, no need to fear. And if we’re going to get Walker the help he needs, you’re going to have to trust me.”
I can’t believe what I’m seeing. He patting the Beached Thing, like it’s just a great big monstrous pet.
“I’m either dreaming or we’re all insane,” I mutter, but the stranger doesn’t reply, too busy guiding the BT to turn around before hooking the length of rope over the Chiralium pieces of fang and carapace that adorn its head. Thick tendrils of Chiralium seep upwards and into the air as the monstrous thing shakes itself like a wet dog. And that’s when it hits me – it looks like a dog.
“Are you coming? I need your help,” the stranger calls, standing at Walker’s feet. “You have to guide us back uphill, just follow the spotlights until you see the treeline, the Arc is just beyond it.”
My whole body feels like it wants to fall over and pass out, but the stranger is already grabbing Walker’s legs and lifting him into the air. The BT stands takes a tentative step forward, and the rope goes taut, lifting the make-shift sling with Walker in it off the ground. Between them, they move slowly out of the shelter towards the pass, one step at a time, and I realise I really don’t have much choice.
I get up in front of the BT, and it makes a deep sound as Chiralium drips from its whole body. We head uphill, the snow rising to meet us.
-:-
There’s a digital clock display across one wall. I’ve lain here staring at it for the past several hours in the dark, the digits dimmed with the main lights in the room, unable to sleep.
It was almost midnight by the time the stranger had lead me to this room; the space was outfitted like my old apartment unit in East Knot, with all basic necessities like a decontamination chamber off to one side, basic bathroom set up and a lounge suite where the lounge opened out into a bed with the press of a button.
After he had demonstrated how to work the buttons and had left me to get some rest, I had closed the bed back into its couch position. It felt a bit weird looking at the bed after spending time back in the bowels of a Distribution Centre, where the cots were little more than flat bunks jutting out from the wall.
Walker is safe in the medical bay. At least, I think it’s a medical bay – the little room the stranger had me help drag Walker into stood off to the side of a large surgical theatre. The place was completely sanitised with a heavy antiseptic smell in the air, rolling trolleys covered in surgical tools and packs of gauze. X-rays of strange skeletons lined the walls.
We had spent an hour tending to Walker, me propping him up so the stranger could tend the injury at the back of Walker’s head, before administering a catheter into the Porter’s arm and setting up an IV stand and drop. The man had fretted over Walker’s leg, too – checking the initial injury as well as the twist to Walker’s ankle, before strapping it with frozen ice packs. Seemingly satisfied that Walker wasn’t about to fall to pieces and, whilst concussed, was relatively comfortable, the stranger had shown me to this room, and had left me to my devices, saying I was welcome to anything in the room.
Stripping out of that snow and Chiralium encrusted jumpsuit never felt better. If I hadn’t had to wear it again come morning, I’d be tempted to bin it. Thankfully, a small dresser stood to one side of the lounge suite, and in it I had found fresh folded clothes. Pants and a shirt, along with thick socks and a wool-lined hoodie that I thankfully pulled over my shoulders. It’s not as good, stepping out of the decontamination station as opposed to getting out of a steaming hot shower, but I’m not going to complain. I hardly feel I have the right to; after all, it was my questions and pestering that got Walker injured all over again.
I think I’ve been staring at the clock on the wall for an absurd amount of time. There’s little chance of me getting any sleep; every so often, I’m hit by a chiral reaction – my skin prickles and my eyes start streaming. The feeling that sweeps over me is less like all out dread and more just…incredible unease. I’d been told by the stranger to not worry, that it was just the hound, and it wouldn’t hurt me, but knowing that it’s prowling around free range is unsettlingly enough to keep me awake.
Last thing I want to do is wake up face to face with a BT, no matter what anyone says.
Almost like it must have been hearing my thoughts, the sensation comes back, washing over me like a bucket of cold water. I sniffle back the tears, willing the goosebumps on my arms to relax, but instead of passing by like before, the feeling stays. Breathing as quietly as I can, I gingerly lever myself up and peek over the back of the couch towards the door.
In the low light, it’s almost impossible to make out, but there’s a shimmer in the air just this side of the door. A deep throaty sound drifts in, following by an audible strangled whine.
She won’t hurt you, the words come back to me again. A casual comment thrown over the man’s shoulder as he’d lead me into this place. She knows better.
I get up and pad over to the door. The sensation grows a little more nauseating, but it’s nowhere near as bad as when I’ve faced BT’s out in the wilderness. There’s no sense of hopelessness.
When I open the door, there’s the great big dog BT. It’s sitting almost as tall as I stand, dripping with Chiralium and surrounded by little drifting tendrils of darkness. Its great golden head plate tilts to one side as it looks at me, before the Chiralium mandibles drop open and it huffs at me. Panting, like dogs I’ve seen in educational videos.
“Uh…hi.” I say lamely. “Y’know, it’s kinda hard to sleep when you’re doing laps passed my room.”
The BT makes a strange gurgling noise as it stands, and pads off down the round-walled hallway. At the bend, it looks over its shoulder at me. I follow it with a sigh, knowing I’m definitely not getting any sleep now.
This dwelling is a strange one; like an old-world Pre-Stranding design made of curves and arches, with enormous windows and great sweeping ceilings. The BT leads me down a short flight of steps into a large living area with a conjoined kitchen and dining area, padding over to a space by a big window looking out onto a snowy mountainside, and flops down to the floor. Outside, it looks like dawn is starting to lighten the world.
I wipe away the pesky chiral tears, and take a look around. The space is beautifully decorated, stone-clad walls with great pillars holding up the ceiling. It looks like wood panelling and beams, but I suspect it’s not actually true wood – even after the second expedition west, Timefall-resistant wood didn’t start taking off in architectural use until some five years ago, and most of it was inner-city stuff. I remember a neighbouring apartment building to mine in East Knot, where a handful of the residents had been crowing over their brand-new outdoor deck laid with the Timefall-resistant wood. They were so proud of how it withstood the rain, yet they themselves could only admire it from inside, behind glass made resistant by a Chiralium coating.
It felt a little pointless to me at the time, why bother having something like that when you couldn’t use it yourself when it’s primary function was at work?
Now, in here, it’s pretty clear the wooden-looking beams that hold up the high ceiling are entirely for decoration. There’s no way in hell any place wouldn’t have been built with solid enough foundations and structure that there’s need for thick beams to hold up the roof.
“They’re real wood, you know,”
I look around, feeling my face flush as I realise I’ve been staring at these great beams reaching from the tiled floor to the ceiling. The stranger is standing with his back to me behind a kitchen island, prepping two cups and tall, sleek silver kettle.
“Huh?”
“The beams,” he repeats. “The place is one of the more unique lay-outs that are available in the BRIDGES database. Remarkably, it’s still classified as a BRIDGES-grade dwelling, with an interior that’s completely customisable. A lot of the trees had to be cleared to set up the Sanctuary, and I couldn’t bear to see them just disposed of. So I had them repurposed. Some became interior customisation’s, others were coated in the earliest of Timefall-resistant weather proofing oils and were used in the base structures for the Arc’s outer enclosures and aviaries.”
The stranger turns around, and I feel a jerk of recognition as I see his face. He’s stripped out of his Timefall-resistant coat and heavy boots, and his snow mask is gone. It’s the young man from the photographs I’d seen in both Valentine and Echo’s shelters.
“You’re Barkerman,” I say a bit stupidly, and he nods. He wears large, thick-framed glasses, and behind them, his left eye is a strange, mottled white, the skin around it badly scarred and rippled. His other eye is a deep brown – it’s impossible for him to not be blind in his left one.
“And you must be the infamous Elle.” He says mildly, bringing the two steaming cups around the kitchen island and heading to the settee and sofa’s that standing around a large, low-burning fireplace. “Is your room not to your liking? You haven’t showered yet; you still reek of Chiralium.”
I swallow self-consciously. “N-no, the room’s fine. I just...I guess I’m worried about Walker.”
It sounds false to my ears. Barkerman is making himself comfortable on the lounge suite, setting the cups down on a central coffee table. The sofa’s are covered in thick fur throws and woollen blankets, and he gestures for me to take a seat as well. I sit tentatively, feeling the presence of the BT hound over by the window. Despite it’s head resting between its long paws, I can feel it watching me.
“It’s clearly not all you’re worried about.” Barkerman says, raising his brow at me. “I can only assume you have a lot of questions.”
“Not really my place to be intrusive, not after I badgered Walker and it got him injured,” I shrug and pick at the hem of the fresh shirt, and Barkerman looks like he’s had a realisation.
“Oh, I see. You asked about the crater.” He slides one of the cups across the coffee table. It has two tea bag strings hanging out of it, and it swirls with a dark, rich colour. I think of Valentine, recalling how lovely her tea had been, brewed from leaves she’d grown herself.
“I didn’t know it would upset him so much,” I say defensively. “I tried to apologise, but then he skidded on the rocks and slid down the hill. I didn’t know he was going to get hurt, I never meant for it to happen.”
Barkerman smirks as he sips from his own cup.
“He’s a bit dramatic, really.” He says with a sad smile, looking into his cup for a long moment. “But so is Myra, I suppose. Everyone got very dramatic very quickly after the incident.”
I’m reminded of how Myra reacted when I had first arrived at the outpost. How she had been wary and unwilling to give me any information about Barkerman at all until Walker had shown up – even afterwards, she had been quick to enforce that I’d only get close to the Sanctuary with Walker’s help.
“Look, I’d rather not know if it’s going to cause trouble,” I say as I stand up, ready to just make a break for it back to my room. “I’m really not here to cause more drama.”
“It’s really not that bad,” Barkerman waves me off, before reaching up and touching at the ruined skin of his face, pointing to his blind eye. “This is the result of what happened in the crater.”
Without realising, I’ve sat back down. He just says it so matter-of-factly. “You were in the crater?”
“I was the cause,” he says. “You’ve got a very impressive level of DOOMS. But have you ever heard of a DOOMS ability that allows matter to synthesize with antimatter?”
I shake my head slowly, and Barkerman sits forward with a strange sort of smile, like he’s going to divulge some sort of great secret. Weirdly, I feel intrigued enough by all the craziness I witnessed back out in the snow storm to lean a little closer too. Barkerman’s smile widens.
“Would you like to?”