Anna WitheldDelink from Tyrin, gather everything usable from the dead, and then after everyone is patched up and the dead are sorted out, get moving.
Time passes in a blur of blood and gunsmoke after you break the link with Tyrin. Exhaustion, even held back by a doubled dose of stimulants, weighs down every thought and every action. You'd heard that the unchained squad that took down Hoke was half unconscious by the end of the fight, but that's a fate for which you can only wish. There's work to be done, and you're the highest ranked officer left standing- the only officer left standing. You have to keep what's left of your group and Feuer's group together, you have to drive the remaining Technocracy forces back, and you have to relay the Presbyters information to highest link left in the chain of command. You can rest when those duties have been discharged, but not before.
Tyrin sees to the treatment of the fallen, both the wounded and the dead. He's a good soldier, despite his youth, and goes to his work with a steady determination that seems unaffected by his own wounds or the fatigue that he must also carry.
You draw Wigs and Hickie together as soon as you can force yourself into action, leaving Tyrin to work on bringing Jeremiah around. Feuer's death has clearly dealt a blow to both men, and James' death -a friend that Wigs had only just been reunited with- only weighs them down more heavily. Victory at such a price is bitter, and they do not even know the whole of what was lost. From them you extract directions to the Major's last known position, and of any nearby forces known to them. Following the gunfire will inevitable lead you into the kind of conflicts you seek, but fixing firefights won't repair the damaged command structure. If you can find the Major, or at least verify her death, you can begin to enact contingency plans. Otherwise... everything is in stasis.
You order Wigs and Hickie to take what they need from the dead, a grisly affair, but an act that you believe all but the technocrat who called himself Smith would have approved up. You claim the shield armor for yourself, but otherwise leave the bodies untouched. Tyrin manages to revive Jeremiah while Wigs and Hickie are stripping armor. The man has a concussion at the least, but it's a survivable injury. Tarran remains unconscious, despite Tyrin's work, and ends up slung between Jeremiah and Hickie as part of the walking wounded.
Your team looks like it would blow over in stiff breeze, but you're still alive.
You head up north, following occasional directions from Wigs as you try to find the last known location of the major. Choking smoke often obscures your path, though you pass the worst of it when you leave James' crashed transport behind. You pass corpses from time to time; the faces of Technocrats, colonists, and friends all blending together in fields of ash and fungal slime. The air smells like blood and fresh death, and the skyless vault of the canopy seeming to compress the carnage of the shattered colony into a very personal hell. You don’t have the energy to care.
No one has the strength or inclination to show awe when you come to the center of that hell, a series of craters broad enough to swallow a building and deep enough to blast down into the stone of Mahdavi. You stand at the lip of the battleground where the Presbyter and the Major tested wills. If he had been capable of this level of destruction when you met, if he'd been fresh for the battle... You doubt you would have lasted long enough to scream defiance. If Caine was the one who fought him... The loser of this fight probably wouldn't fill a thimble. Yet, as you turn to leave, you catch a glimpse of movement and a flash of filthy red hair from the bottom of one of the craters. Morbid curiosity and the need to unite anyone left drives you down into the crater, putting yourself in full view of whoever remains at the bottom.
The man at the bottom of the crater is kneeling awkwardly, trying to carry a shotgun one handed while keeping his body curled protectively over a body covered from head to toe in the crater's ashen filth. Two other corpses lie scattered around him, one a decapitated Unchained in unmarked armor, the other a lightly armored Tech soldier with blades protruded from both arms and a hole through his chest you could stick a leg through. The red haired man looks up at you from the bottom of the pit, reflexively trying to bring the shotgun to bear one-handed.
The gun drops into the muddy ashes when he recognizes your face, though it takes you another second to recognize his. Tuck, a man you'd thought unlikely to ever tear himself away from Technocrat technology, let alone carry a shotgun. His face is covered in grime, a massive bruise runs up from his collar bone to his neck, and his left arm ends in a crude bandage, but he's alive. He mouths words as you approach, but whatever wound bruised his neck seems to have stolen his voice as well. His lack of voice, however, doesn’t prevent him from making it clear that he needs your help.
You stagger to the bottom of the crater, and Tuck points to the body he was protecting. It's a psionic, so covered in muck that she had to have dug out of the side of one of these craters. Your heart speeds up a little, a little bit of hope flaring as you lean down to wipe the ashes from the woman's face- the Major's face. It isn't your strong suit, but you can feel kinetic shields that Tuck is maintaining to try and stop up the holes in the woman's body, but his strength is at its end and the woman needs more than patches. You have no idea if anything you have is capable of saving her, her injuries are masked by the filth covering her, but you’re beyond caring whether the cause is hopeless or not. You order Hickie and Tyrin to see to the officer, then order Wigs and Tuck into defensive positions with you on the lip of the crater. Jeremiah, despite his injuries, is in the best physical shape of your group, and you send him out to find any other unchained he can pick up safely. Not to shoot, not to engage, just rally everyone he can find.
If there was ever a place to make your last stand, this crater is it.
You lose track of the hours that pass as you take your position. You reach a state where there is nothing else but your gun, your will, and the need to hold the crater. More Unchained join you, slowly at first, then in force. The crater, broken as it is, becomes an impromptu command post for anyone left, and the remaining Technocrats are not blind to this detail. The come at you hard, trying to destroy you and the rest of the renegades while you’re gathered in one spot.
You don't know how many bullets you fire, or how many your shield absorbs. You remember running out of rifle ammo and being forced to fall back on your pistol. You remember taking a high velocity round to the shoulder, a good enough shot to get through the shield projector and warp the armor where it hits. You have to switch which hand holds the pistol when that happens, but nothing else changes. Bone weariness and pain surrounds like a second skin, obliterating all thought but the methodical rhythm of picking targets and bringing them down.
The rhythm eventually slows and stops, stirring a bit of curiosity in your focused mind. A dark skinned unchained grabs you by the shoulder, smiling and shouting something at you. The words make no sense, random sounds whose meaning you knew only in a distant life. You focus, watching his lips and trying to echo the meaning.
"It’s over" keeps getting repeated over and over, along with "we won". A faint smile comes to your lips when the strange words suddenly click within your skull. It's over. You can rest.
The thought of rest is the last one in your conscious mind.
((Trait Added))
Indomitable
Effect:Max stamina is increased by 10%. Effects from tiredness and exhaustion occur 15% later. (Tired at 25% stamina, exhausted only at 0% or lower)
---
Tyrin Laveros Anna, despite her recent ordeal, takes charge immediately. Every member who survives has a job and orders scarcely seconds after the Presbyter breathes his last. Your task is to see to the dead and wounded, and you throw yourself into your work with determination. Your through-and-through is a bramble of pain encysted in your side, twisting and growing with every step you take, but grit your teeth and bear it. Good people have died here, and you won't cheapen that death by giving in to your own injuries. You will do what must be done.
You verify the deaths of James and the Marshall, making sure that there is no part of them still hanging on. You have no hope for either case, and inspection of both reveals nothing but the last stages of brain death. Even if you had the skill to miraculously fix their bodies, bringing them back now would render them little more than drooling shells of what they were. You give both bodies what respect you can in the field, and you move on to the patients that you can save. Jeremiah is the first you see to, dosing him as well as you can from your medical kit. The concussion James gave him undoubtedly saved his life, but it's also not something that even a psychic can fix quickly. You get him on his feet, but you can't say if he'll be able to do more than walk in a straight line for a while yet.
You see to Tarran's body after Jeremiah, but his condition is as your initial guesses predicted. He needs better medical care than you can provide. The trauma to his leg is debilitating, mangling nerve, bone, and joint to the point that amputation is a near certainty. Even if you were to find a way to rouse him, the pain would drive him into a senseless stupor almost instantly. You strap the leg, performing damage control more than real medicine. He'll need to move with the rest of the group, and, though you can't fix him, you can ensure that he isn't broken further.
Anna assembles everyone as soon as you're done with Tarran, bringing the walking wounded together and providing a plan. Track down the major. Should she be dead or unable to be found, your team needs to unite as many of the remaining unchained as is possible. It's a simple plan, but you wonder if Anna even realizes how important it is to have, how important it is that she's still leading despite... everything. In the aftermath of the Marshal's death, with so many of you wounded, you don't know what would have happened if someone hadn't stepped up to the plate.
The group heads north, and you take a flanking position that allows you to keep an eye on the wounded. You try to mask your horror at the devastation you come across, but it's almost impossible. Even if the Technocrats, the Unchained, and the blazing fires suddenly vanished, you have no idea how long it would take the settlement to rebuild. The soft rain that passed before the battle mixes with the ashes, and it's hard to see the colonist fields beneath corpses and stinking mud. The rebellion inside the prison was controlled, fought door to door and room to room. There were no civilians in that conflict, no bystanders, just allies and enemies.
This... this is far worse.
You continue because you must, following Anna up to the lip of a massive series of craters and staring down. You can see Anna taking in the situation without the flick of an eyelash, but all the others standing at the rim bow their heads to the destruction. The major's body is in here somewhere, or bits of it are. One of the strongest of your revolution, apart from the matriarch, and she ended here at the hands of the Technocracy. You have no idea how the revolution can survive, not in the face of su-
Anna breaks your line of thought by heading suddenly into the crater network, forcing you to follow as she seeks out some detail that you must have missed. Feet slip on the wet ash and mud, carrying the group down at a slide rather than a walk. When you crest the lip of the next crater, you see what Anna saw, though you're not sure how she knew he was there. A red haired man, so covered in blood and muck that it takes you a minute to realize that you know him, kneels over a body. He's injured; judging by the shape of the bandage around his off hand, the massive bruise across his neck on shoulder, and his apparent inability to speak, you'd make a preliminary guess of a cracked or broken collarbone compounded with a bruised larynx in addition to a high-caliber gunshot wound or crushing blow to the knuckles of the injured hand. He looks exhausted, but you can feel him still maintaining a few heavy kinetic patches on the body he's kneeling over.
Anna goes to kneel beside the red-headed scientist, scraping away muddy ashes from the face of the woman he's been protecting. Your breath catches when she reveals the major's face, grey as the ashes that cover her, but alive. Anna barks orders instantly, but you hardly need to be told what you need to do. Hickie and yourself are going to be the only thing standing between the major and death, and, despite your own pain, despite your own weariness, you can't afford to fail. You relieve the scientist, taking his place beside the Major while Hickie works across from you. Anna assigns everyone else to work on defending the lip of the crater, and you're alone in the mud seconds later, preparing to perform the messiest field surgery in the history of field surgery.
You know the presbyter was badly wounded when he fought you, parts of his body shriveled, broken, or otherwise dead, but you never had a chance to look at the exact extent of his injuries. Caine's, on the other hand, you become intimately familiar with as you cut away her remaining armor. The injuries to the right side of her body are minor, comparatively. Cuts, bruises, minor penetrating wounds, but nothing fatal. Her left side, however... The injuries there only reinforce exactly how different her psionics are from your own. The primary injury appears to have been a glancing blow from something massive and explosive. Extrapolating from the wound, you'd guess the point of impact somewhere on the outside arch of her fifth true rib. The impact and subsequent detonation tore through her body, tearing away flesh and spreading shrapnel in an arc that begins just under the axilla and ends an inch above her pelvis. The arc formed by those points extends almost to her manubrium, shattering most of the ribs on the left side but only cracking the breastbone itself. Bone fragments have been scattered inside the deep tissue, compounding already severe organ damage. The left lung has been destroyed, her spleen is almost entirely mangled, part of her liver is gone, the transverse and sigmoid sections of the colon have been breached along with parts of her stomach and small intestine. Her arm must have been raised when the blast hit, as that seems to be the only part of her left side that seems mostly intact.
You... have no idea how to fix something like this. You can feel the Major's body trying to pull itself together like any other psionic's, but the damage is far too massive. If the scientist hadn't been holding a shield in place, she would have bled out ages ago. You're going to need to experiment, more than any good medical sense tells is reasonable. 'Psychic surgery' has been a con on earth for centuries, but it's the only thing that's going to let you put the Major back together enough for her abilities to take over. You break out your entire field surgery kit, setting it between yourself and Hickie, and you get to work. This will not be an explosive drive of sudden and massive kinetic power, this will be a long haul of tiny energies wielded with more precision than you have ever attempted.
The rest of the universe fades away as you and Hickie work, teasing intestines back together psychically and using the surgery kit to reknit them, removing destroyed tissue, patching bleeding, reestablishing blood supply to tattered muscles, drawing out fragments of bone and shattered armor with psychic hands and fine tools… You're aware of other people around you, but there is never a moment in your work that you have the opportunity to change your focus. Your ears hear gunfire, but you never flinch or consider joining the defense. This is where you are needed, tending a broken temple of flesh and bone, and this is where you will stay until your energy fades or the work is done.
Cheers erupt around you eventually, but you pay them no heed. Even if the battle is won, your fight is not yet done. Except... except you see nothing else that you can do. The wounds are still severe, the injuries fatal in any normal human, but there's nothing left to do but wait until the Major's natural healing fixes her enough to begin again. You look up from your work, your neck protesting the sudden change in position. The psionic healer across from you isn't Hickie, familiar, though you can't quite remember his name right now. Hickie must have fallen at some point during your work. Funny, you can’t remember that happening.
With assistance from an unchained at your side, your stiff legs are able to stand. You're cold, your wounds throb, and you're exhausted, but you may have done the impossible. The major might live through the next twenty-four hours, and that's the best chance you can give her. You're aware, in a peripheral sort of way, that you're being led into a building. You're led into an intact room at the back, where beds are being rapidly assembled by other rebels. You're allowed to lie down only after your armor has been unbuckled and the worst of your clothing has been stripped from you, but, despite sounds of beds still being settled in around you, you retreat into sleep almost as soon as your head touches the mattress. You sleep, and dream of nothing.
((Trait Added))
Psychic Surgeon
Effect:As long as you’re able to use both empathetics and kinetics freely, you gain a +2 to medical rolls. If your stamina is above 50% of max, medical kits can treat injuries as though they were on class better than they actually are. (A FAK behaves like a basic medical kit, a basic like an advanced, and an advanced like a FSK.)
---
Dominique Wakeman"...I'm not sure. They want to. They want to feed. But they're staying back around a corner rather than risk coming into a line of fire... and it feels like their skin has hardened to resist the needle launcher... it almost feels like someone or something is keeping them on a leash, and that leash is too short for them to get us. Unless they let it go." Dom tilted her head to the side. "Unless there's something - in this room or further beyond - that they are scared of, and they don't want to enter its territory. And if that's the case, I really don't like our chances. What do you think, Fennec?"
"Well, it basically comes down to some unknown being wanting us alive, or some unknown being wanting them dead. Granted, the second being might want us dead too, but I find either option more pleasant than immediate death," Fennec says with a shrug, powering down and re-sheathing his blade. He gives a few brief commands to his men and your loaned soldiers, getting the scientists to patch the wounded and ordering the untouched soldiers into good positions to cover the doors.
"Control indicates one of three things," Fennec continues directly to you as soon as his men are seen to.
"The best option is that they've been imprinted with certain commands, most likely administered via UHF bursts, and there's a friendly scientist somewhere who's trying to keep us alive. I noticed the station's internal surveillance reactivate, so that option isn't entirely out of the question. The second option is that these creatures have a social hierarchy, leadership structure, and enough grasp of tactics to not charge us through a bottleneck. Problem is that I haven't seen anything to support that theory, and your 'leash' description doesn't fit peer leadership. Last option, and the one I like least, is that there's another psionic on board Teras station, and they're capable of controlling these freaks. There shouldn't, by my records, be anyone with any kind of psionic implants beside Taiya and yourself on board this station. Unfortunately, that's also the option that correlates best with your description." "Regardless," Fennec says after a long moment of silence passes between you,
"there is no path but forwards. We're close to the military sector, and Olson's chip is still broadcasting from inside. All we need to do is get there, get Olson and any other survivors he has with him, and get back to the ship." Fennec grimaces suddenly, looking at the perfectly intact northward door.
"I would, however, be much happier if our foes weren't driving towards our goal. I don't believe in coincidence, and this reeks of a trap I can't see." One of the scientists signals Fennec, informing the Arbiter that they've done all they can do for the survivors. Fennec nods in reply and turns back to you.
"So, Harlequin, would you prefer the rearguard position and the potential for a rush by the Freaks? Or would you rather take the front and deal with whatever hideous creature is capable of controlling or intimidating said freaks?"Health: 125/128
Stamina: 120/120 (+14)
Carried Weight: 124/210
Attire: Harlequin Uniform, Styx Assault Armor (150/150, 60lbs. Integrated Power cell charged 3/3, Internal Ammunition Supply [Cerico, 14])
Inv:
Dominique's Abassy Heavy pistol -laser sight- [6, 8lbs]
.50 pistol clip (7 0.2lbs) x5
Artemis Railgun (3/3 A, 3/3 E 18lbs)
Size S-3 rail spike pack (3, 0.6lbs) x2
Cerico Shotgun (24/8 A, 16lbs)
12 gauge shells (8, 0.3lbs) x5
Stun club (50/50 11lbs)
Advanced Medical Kit (10/10) (5lbs)
Energy Cell (Full, 0.5lbs) x5
ORS (3) x2
Chitin Nodule
Status: Fine
Snipped to fit character limit. Major changes involve the addition of the Arbiter, his units, an the loss of seven total charges from your Scientist's advanced medical kits.
---
Toomas AmkStep out from the shadows, and observe Wakeman. Does he still look hungry, or has he obtained sustenance somewhere?
"Wakeman. Varic."
Amk looks down.
"Mia."
Do I know what happens when a Cellburner's head gets blown off?
He clears his throat, and considers Wakeman.
"In the interests of peace, we need to stand down. Collectively," he glances at Varic. "Now, Wakeman. You have something to say. What is it?"
Speak. Be ready for trickery.
Wakeman looks surprised at your sudden appearance, but unafraid. He draws a foot back defensively, changing his stance to engage you if necessary, but remains otherwise calm. He's younger than he was last time you saw him, and he has definitely fed recently. Since it reversed his age, and not merely his degeneration, the source of the meal had to have been human. An interesting point for a man who advocated their protection so strongly.
"I honestly just needed him to deliver a message to Murnau, Amk," Wakeman replies, looking you in the eye. "A message that we're moving. Every cellburner who wants off this station, and every human along with us. We're going to try and meet the HazRec team and bargain our way off. It's the only way this will end without undue sacrifice, though we will sacrifice if it becomes necessary." He pauses, considering. "You can still join us. You sided with Murnau, and I don't trust you, but the only thing I've actually seen you do is pick the winning side in an argument. Not really a crime." Wakeman spreads his hands and relaxes slightly, using the motion to turn his body to face you only in profile. "Regardless, you can take the message back to Murnau or let Varic here take care of it. You can join us and leave, or stay with Murnau and attempt to kill us and then leave. It's your choice, and as long as it doesn't get in the way of my right to live and choose, I don't really care."
[Detect Lie Hidden] You're fully aware that Wakeman is positioning himself to defend against you, but it is a defensive posture he's adopting. You don't know if you could tell a truth from a lie coming from his mouth, but... You're inclined to trust him.
Health: 440/590 -[1,6]
Degeneration: Irises have lost color.
Carried Weight: 43/120
Attire: Plain Technician Uniform, White. Annwn CFUS (50/50, 15lbs)
Inventory:
Eldjotnar Shotgun (4/4 A, 12/12 E, 10lbs)
Energy Cell x3 (Fully Charged)
20 gauge gauss canister x12
Mechanical Bypass Kit (10 lbs, 8/10)
Mechanic's Utility Knife (1lb)
Pad (Charged, significant free space, 1lb)
Odei Flechette Pistol (3/5, 6lbs)
Status: Fine
---
Tyrin Laveros You spend a while staring at your boots. They're scuffed, dirty, and don't fit exactly right. They used to belong to a prison guard, and now they're yours. It has been more than thirteen hours since you played doctor on the Major, and you're still trying to wrap your head around reality. Your boots you can understand, but the world outside of them... Jury is out on that one.
You're still in the bed filled cubby where you were lead off to sleep. Most of the beds are occupied, primarily by the sleeping. A few sit upright, either simply as stunned to be alive as you are, or just taking a few minutes to breathe without worrying about what comes next. A worry that will almost certainly engulf you when you step outside this bunk room. It's tempting to keep your boots off for a little longer, to extend your reasons for not getting back out and working, but you grimace and pull the damn things on anyway. You need to check up on the major, you need to check up on Anna, you need to go see what it was that she was so insistent about talking to the major about, you need to learn what the plan is for this unchained cell... Hell, you need a bath and some breakfast while you're at it.
You finish lacing your boots and stand up. The majority of your wounds have healed completely, and the railgun hole in your side has closed to nothing more than a puckered scar. A significant memento by the standards of psionics, but it would have taken a year for a normal person to have healed so well. In short, you're fresh enough to relinquish your temporary bed to another in need. Now you just need to decide where you're going first.
Easier said than done.
---
Anna Witheld [(Stim Overdose) Soak 2] Your eyes flick open suddenly, your brain caught screaming as you momentarily fail to separate the battle you left from the room around you. You sit bolt upright, lurching up in the bed with such violence that your head spins. You need to get to the Major, to relay the Presbyter's last thoughts. You need to... lie back down. Nausea almost overcomes you as you fight to retain a sitting position. You vision swims and your stomach churns, but you manage. With a few deep breaths and a concerted effort to remain very, very still, you're able to stay sitting up without vomiting. Your eyes and mouth are dry and itchy, your head pounds dully, and your skin alternates between being too hot and too cold.
Slowly, and taking care to move your head as little as possible, you look down at your arms, chest, and legs. Your injuries are gone, and, aside from looking a little grey and worn, you're the picture of health. Enough time has passed for you to heal, so why would you still feel so... sick?
The door opening cuts your attempt to reason out what's wrong with you short. Tuck comes in, a clipboard clutched in one good hand. The other hand, the hand you saw bandaged before, is missing every digit except the thumb. He looks up at you, looks back at the clipboard, then immediately looks back at you with an expression of shock. "You- no, bad!" Tuck stammers ineloquently. "You shouldn't be sitting up, you shouldn't even be awake!"
You remain in position and stare at him. Partially out of defiance, and partially because anything else seems like it would take more effort than you're capable of mustering.
"I... You… Let me get you some water," Tuck says eventually, ducking back out of the room for a moment before returning with a plastic water jug and a cup. He brings both to your carefully, as though you're made of glass that might shatter under the weight of a funny look.
Embarrassingly, that doesn't seem to be too far from the truth. He tries to give you the cup, but it slips through your fingers as though greased. Only deft catch on Tuck’s part prevents it from spilling onto your bed. Which is odd, because, of the two of you, you're the only one who has a full set of fingers. You look down at Tuck's hand, perplexed. There are no fingers there, and yet he holds the cup. Telekinesis, though you've never seen it used to fill in for a body part like that. Tuck raises the cup to your mouth again, helping support it as you take it the rest of the way to your lips and drink. It's cold, clear, and seems to sluice away a great deal of whatever is wrong with you. After two small cups, you're able to ask Tuck what's wrong with you. Granted, your voice is a croak and your syntax probably leaves a lot to be desired, but it is understandable.
"Withdrawal," Tuck answers eventually, half filling a third cup and letting you take it unsupported. You manage, if only just. "You took a very high dose of stimulants that your body reacted very strongly with, creating a dependency almost immediately." You drain the cup he gave you easily, and he takes it back smoothly. "It'll wear off, and I gave you a few things to help it wear of faster, but... you weren't supposed to be awake for another couple hours. You're going to feel pretty miserable for little while."
You manage a nonverbal and neutral reply, flexing your hands experimentally. The nausea is fading already, and you think you might be able to actually stand in a few minutes, given a little luck and will. In the meantime, you ask Tuck about the Major.
Tuck smiles and shakes his head. "I knew that would be one of your first questions. She's about twenty feet away, in the room next to this one. Laveros did a good job patching her up, and I think she'll pull through. Caine's being thoroughly unreasonable with herself, attempting to give orders and decide strategy while still completely bound to her bed. She's angry enough about the situation that she could probably to chew nails and spit bullets, but I'd worry about her if she
wasn't angry about the situation."
You nod, bobbing your head for the first time without feeling physically ill. Slowly, and with infinite care, you swing your legs out of bed, transferring your weight and standing before Tuck can stop you. You wobble slightly, and you probably shouldn't try running anywhere, but you can stand.
Tuck makes an inarticulate sound of exasperation and very nearly attempts to force you back down. "This isn't an injury that you can just walk off," he half growls at you, trying to steady you a little with his good hand. "Damnit, Withheld, despite last night's information to the contrary, you aren't invincible. You took a bullet to the shoulder, and that healed in a few hours. This isn't, as far as your body is concerned, damage. It's the tail end of a suppressed dependency, and not a nice one. No bulletproof vests will help with it, and you'd need to know a helluva lot more about medicine than anyone I know to completely wipe out its effects from your system. You are not fine, understand?"
You don't understand. You feel markedly better after having stood up. You think that, with food and more rest, you'll be fighting fit within the day. Which makes Tuck's concern a little disconcerting.
Tuck looks at your bemused expression and scrubs his eyes with heels of his hands. "Aye-yi-yi. Yes, you're feeling better, that does not mean you're better. Chiefly because that was
not just water I had you drink. Your condition is stable, and the dependency is currently well controlled by the cocktail I injected you with a few hours back. You'll return to baseline over the course of the next day, and, with luck, you'll never feel a thing worse than you did when you woke. That doesn't mean you're fixed. If you take stimulants like that again... There's a good chance that the aftermath will result in an exceptionally severe addiction. Got it?"
You nod again, slightly disconcerted. The stimulants hadn't exactly been given to without good reason, but someone should have at least warned you about possible side effects. Granted, this situation had been do or die, and Feuer...
Feuer was dead. The thought stops you cold, forcing you to realize that everything that happened last night was real. Feuer's dead, Amos' friend is dead. Tyrin got shot by a sniper, Amos himself got mutilated by a misfired psionic, Hickie, whose real name you never did catch, got his side cored by the presbyter. The Presbyter, an enemy who trusted you to spread a message more important than either of your lives.
"I... I'm sorry about what happened to the others. You saved my life, and the Major's, if that's consolation enough," Tuck says after a minute, drawing a mostly correct conclusion from a mixture of expressions and empathetic signals. "Funerals have been going in shifts, where a few friends of the dead gather before we incinerate the bodies. The marshal's service, and the one for the other man that died, are scheduled to happen in a few hours." Hickie shakes his head. "I need to check on the other severe cases, and you look like you're intending to ignore whatever the hell I say about getting more rest. I'll send one of the new members to help you get around until you're recovered, she'll probably depress the hell out of you, but she's been through a lot and I don't have anyone else on hand to run errands." He smiles, the expression tight and tired, but still managing to be friendly. "You have any questions specific questions, now that you've progressed beyond the monosyllabic phase of recovery?
---
??? In the darkness of dreamless sleep, you can feel your chest itch. It's not severe, but it is insistent. Moreover, it's annoying.
After all, you're supposed to be dead.
You shift in the void, scattered thoughts flickering across your mind. You feel... tired. You're not awake, which, being dead, makes good sense, but you had expected something more. Perhaps this is the waiting room of the afterlife, and any moment you're going to be judged by the sins you've committed in life. Thought, if it is a waiting room for the hereafter, it's far more boring than you would have imagined it.
You struggle to see something in the void, to peer out of the darkness, and inadvertently drive yourself further to consciousness. You become aware of sensations against your skin, the brisk sensation of nudity combined with the heavy overlay of some kind of rubberized sheeting. You become aware of your breathing, and of the almost freezing temperature of the air inside your lungs and against your skin. You suck in a sudden breath as the realization of the cold hits you, your eyes opening wide beneath the sheet.
[Dexterity 6] Reflexively, you try to get away from the cold rubbery thing that's touching you, clawing at it and rolling sideways. Which would have worked better if you hadn't been on a table of some kind. The escape attempt ends up dropping you couple feet to the metal floor and wrapping you up in the sheet like a cold rubber burrito. It's dark and cold on the floor- definitely not heaven. Which doesn't make sense, because it's not like you've ever done anything really hell-worthy.
"I think he's awake," a familiar male voice says, sounding as though it’s kneeling directly over you. You can feel the sheet move away from your face, and a finger brushes your head. Even with your eyes open and the sheet removed, the room is completely black.
A woman snorts from further back. "About time." Her voice is as familiar as the other, though less refined. "Oh, and he can't see worth a damn. Not that watching him fall off gurneys isn't funny, but you might want to help him with that if we want to get
anything done today."
"Fair point," the male voice concedes, and you immediately feel a ripple in the air. The shapes of objects suddenly become visible, everything is in shades of grey and completely shadowless, but you can see. You turn your eyes to look up at the two speakers, and you find them to be the visual exception. Both individuals are naturally colored, and shadowed as though lit from a point just over their left shoulder. They appear distinctly odd against their monochromatic background.
Iscariot is crouching over you, looking vaguely concerned. He's still your nearly identical, but darker, twin. The lines of his face are sharper than yours, and he wears the same stiff collared Technocrat suit you've always seen him in. He seems well enough, with both arms once more attached firmly.
Blight is sitting on an empty gurney, regarding you with a somewhat impatient expression. Her features are an unusual fusion of Dominique's and your own, pale skinned with a honey blonde ponytail. She's wearing utilitarian clothes for heavy work, thickly padded for carrying loads and strongly resembling body armor.
The room around them, aside from being cold, is mostly filled with gurneys, tables, and anything that could be rigged up to hold a distinctly body shaped object. Most of the tables are empty, but there's at least a dozen still occupied by humanoid shapes covered in rubber sheets. It would appear that you've woken up in the company of numerous cold corpses, where the only two people who seem to be living besides yourself are people you know to exist only inside your head.
"I imagine you have a lot of questions," Iscariot says, watching your eyes carefully, "but I need to know that you're still somewhat sane. How do you feel?" The urge to laugh at the absurdity of the question is strong.
You wonder if there will ever again be a day when you wake up in a situation you actually understand.
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Topic: Deviation-22. The End of All Things. (Read 535652 times)