“What’s your deal anyway?” Carl, previously ‘tattoo guy’, and pilot of the hauler, asked. “First time we’ve ever hauled anyone out of NF. And you said you wanted to be back…”
I wriggled a bit on my seat, staring out the hauler’s tiny window, guessing that the pilots’ augs filled out the space with readings and details. To me, the cabin looked a lot emptier and darker than it did for them. My attention lingered on the dozens of stickers littering the cold metal, some of them so faded that all that remained was the white outline.
“On your last flight of your second shift, yes.” I confirmed, taking a moment to consider. “As to why… I’m mostly trying to learn some survival skills for when I apply for convoy duty.” With a wry chuckle, I gestured at my Bulstra. “I’m not gonna kill any monsters with this thing unless it’s an emergency.”
At the end of the day, I was hiring a smuggler to smuggle me out of the city, it wasn’t like I could just go around telling them “yeah, I plan to kill monsters to more thoroughly test out my abilities”. Better come off as weird. Probably. The little AP bar at the corner of my vision rattled at me, patiently containing its excitement at the prospect of going on a hunt.
“How far away from the rubber wall is the tower?” I added, the transport rattling as it began its take-off.
“Rubber wall’s at the half-way point.” Carl answered, leaning back into his seat. “And that’s where most of the scans happen. Can’t have anyone that’s not a corpo sneaking in monster parts or anything crazy like that. Not when they’re putting so much effort on keeping the sky clear for us.” The shared snort left me wondered what the joke was, but Carl reached out to the back. “Anyway, time to close-up, can’t risk some NFPD throwing a scan our way.”
He closed the special curtain, and I was left on my own. I’d be a lot more worried about the situation if I didn’t have the Bulstra. As much as I hoped they wouldn’t try anything, the curtain dividing their partition with mine was flimsy. No, my concerns were more on what might happen upon landing, and whether or not they’d stick to their word.
Worst case scenario, I’d probably need to spend more time in the wilderness than I’d be comfortable with. But with a literal clock ticking at the corner of my vision, and the two monster-hunting venues strictly under surveillance, this was the best option.
My fight with Bear had made it abundantly clear I was nowhere near what a meguca could do. To say nothing that I needed something that could work better as a trump card, or at least to give me a better edge.
Turning my attention to the system, I tried to poke around but didn’t find anything new. So I just pulled out my tablet and took the chance to study a bit more on the information the assistant had put together. The folders I was going to focus on were aptly titled “the badlands near New Francisco”, and “production towers and their scanning ranges”.
----------------------------------------
The ride was smooth, and much like my first go-around with Moreau, nothing of note happened throughout. Bonus being that, once we landed, there hadn’t been any sort of ambush waiting for me or anything like that. The duo insisted that I “do the thing” to their machines before heading out, though, since “can’t get anything out of a dead guy”.
Fortunately for me, their little operation was a lot of ad-hoc work and very little proprietary controls or software. By the looks of it, they’d cobbled together an incubator out of spare parts from the tower’s own systems. The thing looked like something straight out of one of those old movies where they’d cobble together random trash to give the appearance of something “functional”.
“It’s a miracle that this thing even works.” I muttered while inspecting it.
“Because it doesn’t.” Carl commented dryly, his companion keeping tabs on the AV as it loaded up on its precious cargo. “It’s broken more often than not.”
“Been there, done that,” I muttered under my breath. “Did you make it?”
“No, it… was my father.” The pilot scratched the back of his head, looking away as I tactfully didn’t ask where his father might be right now. Still, a part of me idly wondered what sort of circumstance might have made it possible for the two of them to have worked the same job.
Was that why he’d been embarrassed?
In my time working for Baconado, I’d been put on the spot to ad-hoc a few machines myself. The sort of problems and solutions that wouldn’t be reported to management since it could compromise the productivity ratings. Their machinery and the one I was currently going over worked off of the same principles, even if the designs had taken different approaches.
“You’ve done a good job keeping it running as long as it has.” I complimented idly. “From what I’m seeing from the readings, your main issue is buildup of protein crystallization.” At his blank expression, I gave a wry smile. “It blocks up every few days, right?”
He nodded slowly. “Right.”
“This part here.” I pointed at one of the tubes leading out of the incubation tube. “Get one of those ear-piece speakers, attach it to the tube, and have it play AI-retro-hyperbass-dropout music at a volume you can barely hear from a meter off. You should get a lot less blockage.”
Carl gave me a blank stare. “You’re shitting me.”
“I learned it from the guy who’d been working my shift before I was assigned to it.” I shrugged. “Something about the vibration doesn’t allow the crystals to form.” I tapped the tub. “Also, the tubs we used over at my job shifted their temperature by half a degree every hour, up four times, down four times, repeat. That could help smooth out the process.”
“Could?”
“This is an improvised build copying a proprietary piece of technology neither of us should be tampering with.” I shrugged back at him. “And I’m no scientist. I’ll be coming over here a few times, so we can confirm how the improvements progress.”
“Yeah, fair.” He sighed, shoulders slumping as he nodded. “I’ll try it out.” Cocking his head, he gestured towards the metal stairs leading down the tower. “You sure you want to go out there? Without weather gear?”
My smile stiffened at the realization I definitely should’ve remembered to bring weather protection gear. It was something I made a mental note to buy if only to pretend like I wasn’t being half-suicidal. Most of today I hadn’t seen many people walking around with it, but then again, most people were spending almost all of their time either indoors or inside a vehicle. Carl and his buddy being on the same boat, spending 99% of their time in the cool interior of the hauler. “I’ve got a few tricks. I’ll likely not be going too far from the tower today.”
Carl hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Our second shift ends at half past eleven. We’re not going to wait for you.”
I nodded. The man’s concern was appreciated, and the scent of earnestness was no small comfort. “No worries, and thanks!”
After we finished reviewing the (very cheap) items they’d need to buy to upgrade their machine, I watched them leave before setting up a handful of alarms on my tablet (to make sure I would be back on time), shouldering my food-full backpack, and making my way to the base of the tower.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
The dry heat outside the tower was almost as jarring as the heavy humidity within. I took in a lungful of hot air. Then took another in slight surprise, only now noticing a plethora of scents I hadn’t the first time around.
Dust, dirt, and oil were followed by burnt wood, and the putrid stench of monsters, and only the barest hint of gunpowder, rubber, and blood. Tilting my head up, I inhaled a little more deeply, noting the wind came from the west, carrying with it undertones of many other things, chemicals, fires, smoke, death. It was all so faint and subtle I could only notice it thanks to the lack of anything else.
The air was cleaner than in the city, not pure by any measure, but there was so much less… “noise” to it. As if a layer of static had been removed, making it possible to more clearly pick up on details.
+Senses: 5+
. .∟Smell: 5 [11%] -> [18%]
The system chirped at me, and I blinked at the fact that, this time, it had brought with it sound. An actual literal chirping, not unlike getting a notification from one of those messaging apps.
“Neat.” I poked at the little prompt, sensing the system’s anticipation as it wriggled. “Yes, we’re going to explore a bit.”
But I was not going to transform this close to the tower. According to publicly available records, New Francisco partially subsidized the existence of these ‘production or extraction facilities’ so far away from the city. And the reason for that was because of the sensor-arrays that the towers would be required to maintain, providing a better and more comprehensive picture of monster presence out in the badlands.
This wasn’t just normal exploration, however. I couldn’t just blindly walk around, hoping to encounter a monster. In the city, if a D-class popped up, alarms would start going off everywhere. Here, I’d be entirely unable to see such a monster coming. And that was ignoring the prospect of encountering multiple E’s at once. Also, unlike the last time I fought monsters in the badlands, I didn’t have anyone giving overhead information and support.
Meaning…
“Don’t want monsters sneaking on me.” I muttered to myself.
Since I didn’t carry any electronic device capable of wireless communication, that discarded a whole plethora of possible creatures sensing my presence. Meaning… that if or when a monster detected my presence, it would most likely come from down-wind. So that’s the direction I took, following a rough eastern trajectory towards the mountain as I pushed ahead, a light jog that might have been someone else’s sprint.
It was… odd.
The open space, no buildings, no streets, no signs of civilization other than the tower behind me that was moving ever further away. The rocky terrain was dry, with few bushes and fewer trees, what remained looked dead, smelled dead. Wood had long since dried into tinder waiting for a spark, but too sparse to make any large fires.
What felt stranger was the lack of monsters.
I distinctly remember seeing the hordes marching through the land from overhead, yet in this section of the desert there seemed to be nothing. My eyes lingered on the mountain ahead, dark orange peaks of rust, and I wondered whether the monsters were just moving around the mountain instead.
No matter.
I kept going, removing my shoes when the hot soil had started to melt my soles, and removing my shirt when I snagged a hole into it on a thorny bush. Into the backpack they went, my toes curled and dug into the earth as I continued on.
When I finally lost sight of the tower, I began looking for a reclusive spot to transform in. I was far enough I now truly felt as if I could get lost in this “nowhere”, and my only remaining concern were possible long-range observation drones. So meandering a little, I found a conglomeration of boulders and snuck inside. There were bones there, of some small animal or another, most likely one of the creatures that had lived here before the badlands had become truly inhospitable.
Closing my eyes, I stripped and tucked my clothes away.
The system chirped at me.
AP: 73 / 150
“That’s right.” I nodded, poking it. “Time to start.”
I closed my eyes, crossed my legs, and focused. The last time I’d tried this, I’d become overwhelmed with everything, but now… now, this far off from the city… maybe I could potentially see how far I could really go.
Tracking Mode (1): * -1 AP / Second *
* +5 Senses / Second *
The transformation started softly, a pinprick in my ears, followed by a gradual sharpening of the volume of the wind. The first thing I noticed was the… I couldn’t quite describe it, a granularity to the sound. It took several seconds before I realized I was starting to hear the impact of every grain of sand getting carried around, dragged across the soil, rolling their way in every direction.
Then came the scents, my face cracking and contorting as the distant smell of gunpowder became clearer. Fuel, fire, kerosene, napalm, blood, sweat, adrenaline… so much adrenaline. The air was choked on the stench of thousands, fighting, struggling, mingled and mixed with the putrid rot of monsters.
I flinched when I opened my eyes, light stabbing into my retinas for a split second before I closed my eyelids and… no, that wasn’t right. I’d closed my eyelids yet I could still see, albeit not as blinded, only after a moment did I realize I now had two sets… not exactly the most comfortable feeling in the world. The world around me had turned into a spectrum of rainbows with meaning I couldn’t quite piece together. The soil beyond the shadows of the boulders boiled and simmered with waves of heat and shimmering air trailing up into the blackened sky. The trees creaked and bent with the breeze, every tiny little movement highlighted, almost exaggerated.
The world around me kept expanding, bombarding me with information as focusing on any one thing pushed my brain into an overloaded loop. So I tried to take it all in, feeling my body crack and shift as the transformation came to an end.
My tongue shot out, licking at the air without thought, bringing with it a taste of something else, something I couldn’t quite recognize, but that was sweet, carrying only the faintest trace of fruitiness.
Something near.
Achievement: Reach +200 Adaptative Senses
Unlocked: Aural Sight
See Cores Adaptive Speed at 200! Cap reached!
Head swerving to follow the taste in the air, I saw it.
Saw Her.
A shadow in the shape of a woman sitting atop one of the boulders. It was hard to make out the details, as if her presence was a blur. The more I focused on her, the more my eyes slid off and towards the side, as if my own senses were trying to coerce me into ignoring her.
But I saw it. The tiny black dot at the center of her existence that floated at the very center of her chest. A point so dark and so black all light around it would bend to its will with but a command. A… something. Something that should not exist, that wasn’t really within reality itself.
And I also saw the little container on her lap, the little fork she held as she stabbed a piece of fruit, the crunch as she took a bite.
“Apples,” I said in recognition, words distorted through my now unfamiliar muzzle, tongue uncooperative in communication.
Our eyes met.
The shadow froze.
THE Shadow.
“Uso!” I didn’t recognize the word, but the shock was thick in her voice.
Moving faster than I could track, her body shimmered and twisted in a swirl of shadows, lunging into the darkened space between the boulders. I followed, moving to pursue, but finding that she’d vanished.
Wildly looking around, I immediately came to regret the quick motions, head spinning from overloaded senses trying to catch up. Yet I could find no trace, not so much as a speck of dust out of place.
However, she did leave one thing behind.
A silver fork with three of its four prongs missing.