෴Midnight෴
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
Midnight tore through the missile’s propellent trail in the thin Himalayan air. Gradually increasing speed to keep enough of the trail in sight to see it.
Suddenly the trail vanished.
“Overwatch, do you see where the trail goes? I’ve lost sight of the—oh right.”
He swung wide, looking for the missile trails in the evening air. “Nothing in sight, fuck. If those were launched by something fast, I’ll never find it.
A faint plume of black smoke from the next valley over caught his eye. “Hmm, Maybe a base camp. Probably too much to hope that they saw something, or won't panic when they see me. Lets hope they give me a chance to talk to them. Also, I have got to stop talking to myself. No Norns listening.”
As he cleared the ridge, he spotted the wreckage. A small passenger plane lay at the bottom of the valley where glacial movement had scraped the terrain, leaving behind a relatively smooth and flat area. Seconds later he was next to the plane trying to figure out what happened. The plane was smoking, clearly something had caught fire before or after the emergency landing.
The plane looked surprisingly intact. The landing looked almost perfect except where the gear had failed in one of the many ruts in the ice. Overall, it looked incredibly good for a high mountain emergency landing.
“So where is everyone? No blood, no torn up plane, so it's not those glassholes again. What the hell happened here?” Up close, he noticed some unusual features at the rear of the aircraft.
“Anyone here? Call out if you can hear me. I’m here to help.” He shouted through his onboard amplifier.
The faint sound of a hacking cough drew his attention. Then movement caught his eye. A hand waving from behind some nearby rocks. Midnight floated over to the rocks and found a man in a pilot's jumpsuit and leather aviator’s jacket sitting with his back against a rock, watching the sunset against the edge of the western mountain ridge.
The man let out a low cough. “It’s just me. Stay Back!”
Midnight halted his approach and hovered there a dozen feet away, in front of the man. “It looks like your plane’s more or less ok. Are you hurt?”
“You’re looking at a dead man sitting. But I’m not hurt. Just don’t get too close. It’s all over me.” he coughed again into a red-stained white handkerchief.
“What happened here? Do you need help?” Midnight kept his distance.
The pilot shook his head. “I’m beyond help. The atropine bought me some time, but what’s killing me, doesn’t have a cure.”
“I can get you to a hospital pretty f—Did you say atropine?”
The man tried to reply and coughed again. He nodded.
Midnight moved to the rear of the plane in a fast blur of motion. In a matter of seconds he’d forced the retrofitted doors open to reveal the concealed missile deployment apparatus. As soon as he broke the pressure seal of the fuselage, the same green vapor he’d seen hit the refugee camp came bursting out. The remaining missile in the launch rack matched those he’d failed to stop.
Midnight turned from the damaged aircraft and flew back toward the pilot. He arrived in a hard burst of wind. He grabbed the man by his jacket lapels and lifted him off his feet. “Why! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“Didn’t–know–the target.” The man coughed up a mouthful of blood. And spat it to the side. “Thought military material targets.”
Midnight tightened his grip until the man groaned. “Saying ‘I didn’t know’ and ‘I was just following orders’ is never an excuse!”
The man nodded. “I know. I deserve—” his words were cut off by another coughing fit. Pink froth and something chunky came out with the cough, splattering against Midnight’s armored chest.
“Tell me why!” he insisted, resisting the urge to shake the man.
The man tried to breathe and started to spasm. Midnight set him back down. “Come on, tell me something. You don’t want to die with something like this on your conscience!”
The man nodded in frantic agreement. He started rooting around his jacket. He looked at Midnight and pantomimed writing.
Midnight swore and rushed back to the plane. The green gas seemed to have mostly dissipated. He hurriedly searched the cockpit for something to write on, and with. Finally he found an old flight log book and a pair of pens. In an instant, he was back at the pilot’s side.
The man lay there, his arm outstretched, clearly dead. His outstretched hand covered with dried blood and chunks of drying spongy material.
Midnight swore softly. He circled around to the other side, debating whether to bury him or not. Then he saw it. Scrawled on the rock, a series of numbers. Written in the man’s blood with his fingertip.
Midnight copied them down, then took a picture of the scene, and the writing on the stone. Once he was sure he had the images preserved, he scoured the writing away with a stream of metal particulate from the gritty sand and rocks around him.
He sighed and looked at the scene again. For a moment, he looked very unsure. After a few more minutes of looking around as though lost, he abruptly tore into the cockpit again, searching for anything that might give him a clue. As the night closed in, he split the side of the airplane open, took the blackbox from its hiding place, sealed it into an aluminum box made from the fuselage, and launched upward. In an instant, he had vanished into the dark sky.
A few hundred miles up, he caused the outer skin of his armor to slough away, launching it into a low orbital trajectory. With that, he flew against the rotation of the earth below him until he’d reached his target.
෴Raz෴
෴Hex෴
෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴
Later.
Raz luxuriated in the shower. He’d realized that he wasn’t actually all that dirty, but the feeling of the hot water pounding on his skin was downright therapeutic.
Hmm, I was covered in blood and nasty stuff, and then boom instantly clean. Teleporting would almost be cool if not for all the barfing at the end.
[On that note, I have no concrete information on the Dislocation status, except to note that it was short lived, and the cause of your intense nausea.]
Well, it doesn't sound like I’ll be getting teleported around much, so it's probably no big deal. The gloves thing is curious, though.
[We need to discuss your energy situation.]
Well, we’ve got the time, what's the word?
[You’re trending downward.]
[You’d have already run out, but I shut down enhanced senses when we arrived here.]
That sounds fairly not good. What happens if I run dry?
[Normally, you’d get very sleepy and be all but forced to sleep until you recovered enough.]
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Well, a good night’s rest sounds great to me. I’m beyond beat.
With a thought, Raz brought the conditions and energy display back up.
[Current conditions:]
[Fatigued (physical) level 120 <0> (-84 stamina regen)]
[Overload level 7 <0> (energy costs increased ~70%, energy gain unavailable.)
[Energy: 17/?]
Yeah. That’s not good.
[It’s worse than you think.]
[You’re still trending downward.]
[If we cannot resolve this soon, you’ll die.]
Well, why the hell are you letting me waste time in the shower then?! How soon? What’s the plan?
There was an uncomfortably long pause before Bee answered.
[I’m not the planning side of things, that's you.]
[How soon depends on many factors, will you allow me to power down all facets of your abilities until then?]
So even with my life on the line, you’re playing the “you have to ask the right question’ game with me? Yeah, sure. Low power mode or whatever.
[Not a game.]
[That part of you, that you consider “you” possess far more creative and problem solving aspects of your intellect than the part of you that you see as “me” that accesses and collates datastream information.]
[Simply put, you are much more likely to come up with a solution than I am.]
Awesome. Well, the obvious move is we need to figure out how to get more energy. Then we can work on solving the bigger problem. Did that lotion of hers give us anything?
[A minuscule measure of analysis capacity, a small infusion of energy very slowly absorbed, and nothing more.]
The energy recovery routine is based on a few lessons from a meditation class I took in high school. Maybe we need to consult an expert.
Raz thought back to the fluid teleportation based combat moves Hex had displayed against the shapeshifter.
And I think I know someone who might just be able to point me in the right direction.
After the shower, he went to Sia’s bedroom and laid down next to her. He looked over her hair and body to confirm it was the Sia aspect.
This examination is totally clinical, yep. Hmm, she must have gotten enough energy to make another aspect. I wonder how long it takes her to get recharged. It seemed pretty slow.
He nudged her, “You awake?”
She groaned. “Not by choice. Jeez. Don’t tell me you’re horny again.”
Raz lifted the blanket a bit and peeked at her again. Well, I could sure get there in a hurry. “No, I need to talk to you.”
She mumbled something incoherent before turning over to face away and wriggling herself up against him. “—n muh mornin.”
Great, she presses against me, nestles her ass right up against me, and then wants to sleep.
[You need to focus. Living another day is more important than your libido.]
Yeah, yeah.
“Babe, this can't wait till morning. I need to talk to you now.”
She grunted and turned her face against the pillow before mumbling what sounded like “Go way”.
He gave her shoulder another shake. “Ok, I have to go. Good night, hope I’ll see you in the morning.”
She snapped awake, “You’re leaving? What the fuck? Are you dying or something? What could be so important that you can't at least get a good night’s sleep first!”
He sighed. “Funny you should put it like that. I have a problem and if I can’t solve it soon, then yeah, I think I might die.”
She swore like a sailor for several seconds. “Dammit. I really need some rest. Alright, I know you wouldn't say something like that if you weren't serious. What’s the problem, and how can I help?”
He’d thought about his next words and still wasn’t sure how to start the conversation. “I know this isn’t going to make a lot of sense, but I need to know who taught you to fight.”
She blinked, then blinked again. “And…” she squinted and furrowed her brow. “That somehow relates to ‘you’re dying?’ I can tell you where I train, but I’m not seeing the relevance.”
“Well, it’s a long story, and I don’t have a lot of time, but I think I have enough time to tell you what's up. But you’ll probably have to take some of it on faith.”
She flashed a tight tired smile. “Ok, I’ve got my ‘ready to believe you‘ ears on. Lay it on me.”
“Ok, again, I need you to just try to take this on faith, but I’ve got a problem with my ability.”
[This problem has nothing to do with your abilities, it is purely a problem based on your unwise course of action with your internal energy.]
Not the time.
She looked him over. “I don’t see anything visible. My teleportation usually fixes injuries. Besides, weren’t you saying you can heal a little faster than normal?”
“Yeah, but I need power to do it, and my power system is what's broken, for lack of a better way to put it.”
She sighed, “I’m trying to take this on faith, but I don’t understand what that really means, or how it happens, or how it could kill you.”
She put her hand on his forearm, allowing the blanket to drop to her waist. “Today was bad. I’m sure you’re dealing with a lot. Things got a lot more dangerous than either of us predicted, but you’re ok.”
He shook his head. “I wish that were true.” His mind raced for some way to convey the situation to her.
“Ok, let's look at it this way. If you run completely out of energy, you just about collapse, and fall asleep, right?”
She nodded, “Yeah, I don’t let it happen much, but when I’ve overrun my ability, I pretty much pass out.”
He licked his suddenly dry lips, “And then you wake up when you’ve rested long enough to regain some energy right?”
She thought about it, “Yeah, that's right. That's why I realized you must have actually done something, because when I’ve overrun myself in the past I’m usually out for two or three hours minimum.”
“And when you wake up, you’re able to power your abilities again, right?”
Her gaze flicked back and forth as she considered his question. “Yeah. Not enough to make a new aspect, but enough to move myself a couple times is about right. Usually, I’d hit some of the booster cream right away, though. I can use a lot more of it than most people, because I can use it on each aspect.”
He took both her hands in his, looking her in the eye. “What if you never regained any of that energy? What do you think would happen?”
Her eyes went wide. “I—I don’t know. Nothing good, though! It might be like a coma, or what's that called, the sleeping sickness.”
He gently squeezed her hands. “That is what's going to happen to me if I can’t fix my problems.” He looked up at the ceiling. “As crazy as it sounds, I think someone who teaches martial arts might be a decent first step to finding someone who can help. I suspect that assh—Midnight might be able to help, and right now, I’d welcome that help, if he would actually show up.”
She clenched her jaw and nodded. “I’ll send him a message, but as I said, he supposedly gets them, but he’s never responded. As for my instructor, I can introduce you. It’s late there, and she’s in a diff—actually, level with me. Can this wait till morning?”
Can it?
[Yes, except you’ll be much closer to running out of time.]
“Bee says yes, but I’m on a pretty tight timeline, and that’s a lot of time lost.”
“Who’s Bee?”
Fuck.
“Would you accept, at least for now, that he’s my imaginary friend?”
Her expression became guarded. “Are you hearing voices?”
Well crap. This isn’t going anywhere good.
“No. I don’t hear voices. Oh, man. Where do I even start?”
“The beginning is usually a good place to start. So who is Bee?”
“Well, shit. Is there any chance we can forget I mentioned Bee for now? I promise I’ll tell you all about him later.”
[If there is a later.]
Not fucking helping!
“How much time do you really have?”
[At most, 38 hours. At 35 hours you’ll begin to struggle to stay awake.]
I’m already struggling to stay awake! I’m physically exhausted.
[It’s only going to get worse.]
[All estimates assume you remain in low power mode.]
“I’ve got a little over 24 hours before I start to experience—”
How many hours of sleep would it take to remove that Fatigued status?
[Many factors, 4-6]
Less than I expected.
[Your personal rate of recovery has increased even in ‘low energy mode’.]
Good to know.
She sighed. “Is that what you’re doing when you zone out like that? Talking to your imaginary friend?”
He nodded sheepishly. “Yeah. Normally we can talk faster, but sometimes I get lost in the conversation.”
He held up his hand to forestall her response. “And yes, I think I know just how crazy that sounds.”
She nodded emphatically. “Yeah, it really does. But fine, I’ll call her, and we’ll get this going.”
His smile was nervous. “Uh, about that. I think on the balance, I can rest for 4-5 hours and we can see her in the morning.”
Sia rolled her eyes and glanced at the clock. “Fine. She doesn’t open the dojo until noon anyway, Let’s sleep for a few hours and I’ll call her tonight after 10.”
“Isn't that just later?”
She lay back down. “Sure, for us. She’s twelve hours ahead of us. That will be right when she’s sitting down for morning tea.”
Oh shit. Of course, she doesn’t train locally. Why would she?
“Um, is she’s in, what, China, how’s that going to help me?”
Sia yawned, her jaw popping. “Whatever it is, she’ll know who to call. You’re tired, I’m tired. Let’s get some rest before then.”
Raz reluctantly lay down, sure he wouldn’t actually be able to sleep.
Almost immediately after thinking that, he was out.