I missed being plugged in as much as I sometimes missed being unplugged. The two sensations are so different. One makes you feel smaller but bigger and more real, more grounded in the moment. The other, being plugged in, makes you feel bigger, more powerful, but somehow smaller in the ocean of information and the awareness, the closeness, of others in the world. Everyone was just a message away.

I wasn't fully online. Jamming signals prevented connecting to the #extronet, but my tech was working. Most importantly, I could back up my memories with the organic and technical aspects of my brain reconnected.

My spacevision kicked in, and I could see again, but I wished I couldn't. Based on the piles of zombie bodies, you could see that whoever was here had gone the way we were going. The trail of bodies and streaks of blood showed us the way. Whether we wanted to follow or not was another matter, but we didn't have much choice.

Not all of the overtaken here were dead. Some of the zombies were just dismembered. And now that we were here, they started to grasp, crawl, or claw in our direction. The sound itself was sickening, but I wasn't going to waste any bullets on them, as desperately as I wanted to put them out of their misery.

This looked like the work of Thunder Ops. Given my discovery of @photon_binary, I figured there was a good chance @cyberneticflare had been here working his magic with explosives. Fortunately, I didn't spy anything with my sensors that resembled any of our party, other than @photon_binary. Why hadn't he unplugged? I asked myself. But I knew the likely answer. He was probably overwhelmed before he had the chance.

Being plugged in again also meant that I could fire off short-range comms to the rest of the firesquad, even though I was scared to do so, scared to find out what was happening.

I sucked in my fear and blew out my courage. Or the opposite. You know. I gathered my courage and all that.

I connected to our channel. Their datafeed came through in a burst.

----------------------------------------

pixel_princess: "What did @kittyboy mean? Zombies?"

shadowhacker: "Nothing on scans."

pixel_princess: "Power surge!"

shadowhacker: "OMG! 🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️ Picking up hundreds in your area!"

pixel_princess: "Trap! Sensors overloaded! Blind here."

shadowhacker: "No longer picking up @kittyboy on scanners."

cyberneticflare: "Fuck. @pixel, where are you?"

pixel_princess: "Second floor. Five halls down. 20 paces from center."

cyberneticflare: "Heading to you."

astrowave: "We have activity!"

shadowhacker: "@pixel and @astro you have a swarm in all directions. Can't tell how many with the interference."

pixel_princess: "Get out, @all! Rendezvous at the pod."

shadowhacker: "Organizing reinforcements. Five minutes out."

pixel_princess: "We won't make it five minutes. @cyber, RUN!"

shadowhacker: "Ship entering system."

shadowhacker: "Valkyrie! 🚀"

pixel_princess: "Get out of there!"

cyberneticflare: "Zombies! Changing route."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

pixel_princess: "Overwhelmed."

pixel_princess: "Help! @cyberneticflare!"

cyberneticflare: "@photon_binary, where are you? @all, he was just here."

pixel_princess: "Sensors unreliable. @all, unplug! Unplug!"

cyberneticflare: "Found something."

cyberneticflare: "@here, anyone? Cornered in. No sign of @photon_binary."

cyberneticflare: "Anyone?"

cyberneticflare: "Goodbye. Signing out."

......................................................................................................

pixel_princess: "Online. Anyone @here?"

pixel_princess: "@shadowhacker?"

pixel_princess: "@cyberneticflare?"

pixel_princess: "@photon_binary?"

pixel_princess: "@kittyboy?"

pixel_princess: "We're in the dark. Power is out."

pixel_princess: "If anyone is out there, @astrowave and I are secured. Locked in a room. Second floor, far side. Can see the solar west stairwell. But overtaken are still everywhere."

pixel_princess: "@here, anyone out there?"

----------------------------------------

The transmission ended there. I was relieved. I had expected worse. I expected screams and pleas for help. This gave me some small bit of hope. Not much, but I'd take what I could get.

kittyboy: "Testing. @auroraloon, do you have comms in that suit of yours?"

auroraloon: "Yes."

Good. At least the two of us could stay coordinated without speaking aloud. It would help if we needed to use stealth. I really hoped we could use stealth. I had enough bullets left for maybe one more firefight, or at least part of one. Enough at least to make a final run for it, where ideally "it" was an exit out of this place.

I opened up the channel to our firesquad and gulped. Here goes.

kittyboy: "@pixel_princess, I'm here."

I waited, fingers crossed, praying for a response.

kittyboy: "If you are where you were, @pixel_princess, we're not far away. Down a level."

I started a count to five. Her response came in at two.

pixel_princess: "@kittyboy! What's your status?"

Thank @3Beak! They were alive!

kittyboy: "I was overrun in the basement. Found my old body, if you can believe that. Will explain later."

I planned on leaving out some bits, but they should at least know about my body being strung up there.

kittyboy: "And I found a survivor. She knows a way out."

astrowave: "A survivor?"

kittyboy: "Yes. Or I guess she found me."

pixel_princess: "@all, we can discuss later. We've lost contact with Celestial Roamer. It's probably been destroyed. @shadowhacker said there was a valkyrie in the system. Possible they made it out, but we shouldn't count on it."

I suspected the same, sadly. I wasn't a huge fan of @horus but loss of ships and reanimating a crew, even a modest one, was not good for the starmada.

pixel_princess: "This survivor. You say she knows a way out? Do you trust her?"

I looked at @auroraloon as she struggled down the final passageway, along the trail of blood and bodies toward the stairs. She was venturing on ahead of me, with only me carrying a weapon. She hadn't paused with me when I stopped for @photon_binary's memoryshard. She was either reckless or she trusted that I would have her back when and if she needed me.

Sure, she manipulated me and kneed me in the balls when I had asked for an explanation. Could I really argue with her for that?

Hell yes, I could.

She was hiding something, and I knew it. She knew I knew it. Then I felt stupid and sad all of a sudden. I engaged my futurecasting to reflect on the situation. Could I trust @auroraloon? It was more chaotic to me than normal. I seemed less focused around @auroraloon. That would improve my shooting, I chuckled. But the future seemed somehow right. My senses approved. My futurecasting told me it was logical that I would trust @auroraloon, Introvert or not, for better or worse.

I added @auroraloon to the firesquad channel.

... @auroraloon has joined your chat.

kittyboy: "I trust her. @auroraloon, meet the #firesquad."

@auroraloon jumped, startled, when I messaged her from the group chat. She looked back at me, and with my spacevision active, I could see a more hopeful look, a sigh, a smile.

auroraloon: "The solar west stairway has an escape exit and spacecycles. The entrance is halfway between levels. It's a vented panel in the wall. You go down. We go up."

I asked myself how @auroraloon knew this, but I pushed it back in my brain. Another question for later.

pixel_princess: "Overtaken are everywhere around us. What's your situation?"

kittyboy: "Zombies behind. Carnage in front. Beyond that is unknown."

pixel_princess: "Okay. You get there first. Ping us when you are there. We'll need to make a run for it. We'll be overrun if that escape panel isn't open when we get there."

kittyboy: "Copy. We're moving."

pixel_princess: "Be careful. They won't want memories leaving this place."