“Please move back from the edge.” Rhapsody’s tone crackled out of Trudge’s open door.
Soune yawned and stretched her arms upwards, tension popping from her bones as she did. She’d been driving since first dawn, now about three hours east along the dirt road she’d assailed the convoy on. No sign of any quarry entrance, or anything at all really, it left her wondering where this road even led to or from. She’d stopped at the first thing she could call a landmark along the journey.
“It’s dangerous.” Rhapsody warned again, Soune didn’t move, still sat on the edge of an outcrop hanging slightly over the edge of the chasmic quarry.
“It’s solid rock Rhap, if nothing’s shifted it yet me having lunch isn’t going to knock it down.” She started to unscrew a warm flask, before rapid, alarmed beeping started from the vehicle behind her. “Really?” She groaned over her shoulder. It didn’t stop, Rhapsody pointedly not responding as he continued to trigger the alarm. “Fucken’ fusspot.” Soune whispered to herself. “Fine! I’m moving!” The alarm ceased.
“Thank you.” Rhapsody croaked back.
Soune sighed, leaving her thermos and heating ration pack still on the rock as she walked back to the Lightfoot.
“You left your food there.” Rhapsody noted.
“Yep.”
“...You’re not going to-” The speaker died with a whine as Soune unplugged that connection. She picked up his visual sensor, the camera lens managing to glare at her.
“Rhap, it’s fine, five minutes for lunch, I won’t sit on the edge, okay?”
The lights of the Lightfoot slowly blinked in response, an angry, sullen pace.
“I’m taking that as a yes, now relax.”
She turned and headed back to the rock, finishing her stretches as she did.
“You better not be sulky all day after this!” No response, though the squeaking of window wipers quietly fumed at her.
She stood on the overhang, though true to her word not approaching the edge, and freely smiled. The excursion had reminded her of something she craved, something she loved. Something she had been missing over the last few years.
Freedom.
The breeze caressed past her, billowing her scarf beside her, a friendly embrace from the world itself. She breathed it in, though it bore the ghosts of dust and an arid sting, it was still a beautiful smell. A perfect accoutrement to the world around her.
The quarry below her was an impossibly deep scar in the planet's surface, nearly sheer walled aside from the occasional pockmark of an exposed tunnel. Across it was a sea of ruddy red. A plain of sand rich with oxidised iron gave the entire surface a warm glow, accentuated by the corona of the second sun on the horizon. Beyond that sea, blurred in the haze of distance and heat, the jewel spires of Priloca’s towers basked in the morning sun. The greatest towers among them reached up to graze their tips along the rich cyan sky. It was gorgeous, perfect spires of glass embracing the world around and above it, protected from the misery of the planet outside its great, surrounding walls. A buttress against the wild and untamed, the conflicted and warring.
It reassured her that Ariel’s - and her - goal was a sound one. To live amongst those spires, safe and relaxed, able to enjoy the view of the world from on high and safe. Embraced by the blue sky itself every morning, bidding goodnight to the twins in an orange goodbye every night. A stark difference from her current state, going day by stagnant day, rising dawns and collapsing dusks going by in lazy blinks, counting meals and change just to make sure she could wake up to do it all over again.
Soune sat on the flat rock, making sure to be closer to the safe edge to keep her companion somewhat happy, and poured steaming coffee from her thermos. The ration pack finished its chemical cooking too, the packet opening to reveal a warm stew. Sipping at them both, she imagined the world she knew of.
Spreading out in the other directions was the remains of Priloca’s attempt to expand and meet with the corporations, rich towns and cities cut short of their development by the second scouring. It stood as a reminder now, outside Priloca was not a welcome place for civilisation. No man’s land. A home for scavengers, stragglers and Strangers.
To the west, past her small, rusted home was the poorly defined blob of wasteland King called his own. A stolen and claimed section of the wasteland that kept its infrastructure to some degree during the scouring. So insignificant, so lacking of any real power that no company, corporation or conqueror considered the conflict worthwhile.
Past that, past the wastes of lawlessness, was all just stories to her. Promises from Ariel that they might visit them one day. The great ocean, the perfect superior twin to the salt flats, far to the west with Ark-Marina, the half-submerged city and richest of them all freely swimming in it. Freezing mountains housing a network of cities and towns to the far north, braced by brisk, cool forests at their feet, but threatened by the unstable northern ice fields. She’d been told of others too, lesser and smaller regions, all generally a home to one of the major corporations making their fortune from its bounties. Jungles rich with oil deposits and tropical plantations; great, river-webbed plains of livestock and farmland, temperate islands amongst a defiled ocean, using it to filter and cool the fusion reactors that pumped power to the planet.
She’d never visit them now, they were outside her goals, she was staying in the arid region of high plateaus and low valleys. It was everything she’d ever known; birthplace, family, home, work, pain, pleasure, and Prima Locas stood at the centre of it all. One way or another.
She turned to Priloca with the thought, staring at the north-west side of the citadel, a few hundred kilometres past that to the south was a vast, lifeless salt flat. A dried out and filled ocean, inhospitable to anything and everything. Lower south than that, at the pole of the world, buried under that great and awful salt pit was something horrid and unknowable. The only fact of its existence being the several hundred kilometres of radioactivity. For Priloca, it was just one more defence, its south completely inassailable. The radioactive hell impervious to any ground or air assault. It’s only vulnerability being from directly above.
As if summoned by the thought of it, The Ring drifted into vision, peeking out from what was a beautiful flow of clouds. Soune sighed, averting her eyes from the gargantuan lens of Durendel Station that seemed to stare at her, the lights of the sun diffracting off it like a distant star. She picked at her stew, focusing on the rubbery meat bouncing away from her fork. It should’ve made her more comfortable with the plan. Priloca was the perfect shield, The Ring the perfect weapon. She should’ve admired it, hoped for it’s appearance and beauty like she did Priloca. Instead it sent a shiver down her spine, memories too early to be completely clear surfaced at the sight. Nothing clear, nothing discernible, just noises and visuals. Fire. Explosions. Blood. Screams. Cries. Death.
The Second Scouring*.
She stabbed down into the meat, and pierced through the packet and into the meat of her hand. Soune hissed as she dropped the remnants of the stew, pulling her hand up to suck on the wound. The vehicle started stirring with every part Rhapsody could influence. Soune checked the wound, barely weeping blood from two pin prick wounds.
“I’m fine Rhap, just a scratch.” She called out before putting it back into her mouth. The faint copper taste stained her mouth as she collected up her flask and cutlery, leaving the spilled meal on the outcrop.
Falling back into the driver seat, she leaned over to plug Rhapsody back into the speakers.
“See, just a scratch.” She assured the machine, the small cuts having already stopped bleeding. Though the camera sensor whirred to look at the hand in front of it, he didn’t respond. Soune frowned, double checking the speaker cables, before huffing out a sigh. “You’re really going to be sulky over this, huh?”
No response.
“Fine.” She shifted her focus to the long startup sequence for the vehicle. “I think we’ll head back the other way, see if we missed any exits or anything on the way back, then rinse and repeat for the other direction, thoughts?”
Silence aside from the hacking and coughing of the vehicle parts.
“...If you fell. I would be stuck here. Alone.” Rhapsody finally relented.
“I wasn’t going to fall.” She assured him, exasperated at the AI’s worry.
“But if you did.” He snapped back, uncharacteristically quick, she had to wonder if he prepared this conversation. “I would be alone. Stuck there until I was found. Starting, stopping, restarting. Knowing you were dead.”
Soune paused, shocked at the level of emotion he was showing.
“The prime process. Above all else I must-” He started.
“Protect the Handler, I know…” She leaned back into the seat, thinking of how to respond.
“When you are endangered. It places a great deal of stress on my systems, I must protect the Handler. Including from themselves.” His words were slow and heavy, even through the monotone speakers. “Every process begins to assist the prime, all power possible directed to it.”
“...Right, Sorry Rhap.” Soune relented, finding herself unable to look at the glaring machine. “I just… needed some air, been driving for too long.”
“On the edge of a cliff.” Chiding now, that was new.
Silence again, she didn’t really have a defence, wasn’t sure she really needed one. But her companion clearly needed something.
“Look, humans have a weird quirk to them. We enjoy being in a bit of risk.” She tried to articulate the gentle thrill associated with danger.
“Nonsensical.”
“Yup, that’s humans for you.”
“...You should avoid this behaviour whenever possible.”
“I’ll go mad if I don’t have a bit of fun every now and again, Rhap.”
“You should avoid this behaviour in excess.” He corrected, Soune chuckled and patted him in agreement before leaning over the back to grab a nutrient-block from her supplies.
“Yeah, that’s fair. C’mon, get us moving, I’m finishing my lunch nice and safe in here, happy?”
“Yes.”
----------------------------------------
Soune jolted awake, rocked back and forth by the sudden, hard brake.
“Could you be a bit gentler with that?” She grunted to the machine. She was surprised she’d managed to start nodding off considering the half-empty flask of coffee.
“No. Electronic brake control. On or off.” Rhapsody replied. “Look. To the right.”
Soune wiped the sleep from her eyes, trying and failing to see whatever he did.
“Wanna give me a hint here?”
“The stones on the ground.” At his direction she looked, and noticed the oddity. Barely. Instead of a loose, even coverage of shale there were two very rough lines of broken and packed stones exiting from the packed dirt road.
“...Someones been driving there.” She noted.
“Multiple times.” The machine added. “Investigate?”
“Of course, I’ll take control.” Rhapsody ceased his connection to the vehicle, causing it to shift slightly without his adjustments on the mass-manipulators. Soune cracked her knuckles and swung the vehicle towards the oddity. She went slowly, trying and at times struggling to follow the vague path.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
They continued on the path for ten minutes, it had turned around back towards where they came and continued straight. Judging by the hill beginning to build on their left that was invisible from the main road, they’d gone down in elevation. Soune tapped her fingers along the wheel, excited at the mystery of their exploration. Rhapsody was silent, conserving energy, not wanting to have to recharge and blank out anytime soon.
Another twenty minutes later, Soune stopped.
“What is it?” The speakers piped up. Resting his visual sensors left Rhapsody blind, just reading the electronic language of the vehicle to relay information.
“Nothing good.” Her voice was grim and low. Rhapsody sparked his sensors to life, already finding the array on the dash pointed at the road. Three bodies, maybe four. It was unclear. Further up from them a dark-grey construction shadowed the ground near it. A bunker-like building with a concrete mouth, open and unwelcoming. On the side of it, shadowy slits melded against the grey, the spine-chilling feeling of being watched leaking out from them.
Soune was cautiously opening her door. She slowly backstepped to the rear doors of Trudge, scanning the hills as she did for movement. In a quick move, the back door swung open and Soune crouched behind it. No shots, no snipers firing a panic shot. Her hands patted at the back seats, the feeling around turned panicked, the rifle still left behind in a vice mid-repair hours away. Soune cursed at herself for the mistake.
Rhapsody started speaking, low and quick.
“Get back now.” Not questioning him, Soune rolled back and away from the vehicle, just in time for it to reverse back several metres. She broke into a dash from the roll, and launched herself into the driver's seat.
“What is it?” She hissed, staying low to avoid any assailants she’d missed.
“Scope, look straight ahead.” Soune fished it out from the glovebox, and saw what made Rhapsody panic.
It took her a few moments to find it, in one of those thin, meter-long horizontal slits - one on each side of the ramp entrance - A faint, red glow steadily ebbed side to side. It illuminated the heavy gun barrel near it that was matching its pan.
“Good eye.” She noted, moving her scoped vision to the state of the body pile confirmed her suspicion. The corpses were perforated with large, messy holes. “An automated turret…”
“Two of them. Other side.” True enough, he was right, the opposite side of the ramp entrance had another turret. It didn’t have a sensor like the other, but a much larger barrel was visible in the light.
“Rockets, or grenades probably.” Soune noted, leaning back in her seat. She scrubbed her face in thought, her other hand tapping against the vehicle wheel. Adrenaline and panic faded away into contemplation.
“...What do we do?” Rhapsody asked after a while.
“Not go any closer, that’s for sure…although…I’m gonna do something you’re not going to like.”
“Why is that? What are you going to do?”
Soune turned his sensors towards her, meeting his camera with a smirk.
“Something risky.” Before he could argue, she turned him back towards the road. “I need you to raise hell if you see those turrets change their movements, watch the one with the light, it’ll have more range with that sensor.”
“What happened to avoiding this behaviour?” The speakers increased their volume, only partly because Soune had left the vehicle and slowly walked forward.
“In excess, remember?” She called back. “Less complaining, more watching.” She went slowly, step by step. Waiting a second or two before each step to see if Rhapsody alerted her towards any change in the turrets. When she reached the point they had originally stopped, she crouched to pick up a stone. “No change?” She yelled over her shoulder.
“No!” She blinked and shook her head, not expecting Rhapsody to have maxed the tinny speakers out. Even several metres away it shook her chest and rang her ears. She threw the rock as hard as she could towards the turret. “Still nothing!” Rhapsody confirmed.
“Not movement then…at least not overly sensitive.” She crouched and looked down at the mauled bodies. Scavengers judging by their patchwork equipment that made her loadout high-tech by comparison. Three bodies reduced to a pulp of blood, scrap metal armour. limbs and scratchy robes.
“Saw this and got excited huh? Brave, stupid or desperate?” She commented to the corpses. There was another one further up, the remains of one anyway. A shield made from a vehicle door and thick metal panels had saved them from the bullets. That same shield that was now bent, melted and warped on the ground on top of a long, sharp splash of gore. “Definitely explosive then…”
Soune stood and returned to her vehicle, leaning into Rhapsody’s window.
“I was right, grenades or rockets. High spec stuff.” She informed the machine, tapping the roof in thought.
“WHAT NOW THEN!?” The speakers were still maxed, making Soune backstep with a hiss.
“Asshole!” She barked, clasping her ringing ears.
“...Sorry.” He corrected. “What now then?”
Soune was still recovering, rubbing the inside of her ears. “Fuck, I don’t know.” She shook her head stable, reorienting herself. She found herself looking at the hill crest beside them. “...Think we can get Trudge up there?”
“If I overclock the MMD, perhaps… I do not recommend this.”
“Why’s that? Too dangerous for the big bad bot?” She said while looping back around to her side, fingers running along Trudge’s hull.
“I do not think the vehicle could survive it for long.” Soune paused before getting in her seat, setting her hand flat on the back of the vehicle cab. Feeling the vibrations of the machine's organs.
“What do you think, Trudge?” The vehicle didn’t respond, the hum of its idling parts remaining steady. “You’re a big girl, right? It’s just a little hill.”
Whether by coincidence or machine providence, the vehicle seemed to increase its pitch, the hum turning to an excited whine. “That’s my girl!” Soune patted the vehicle, excitedly returning to the driver's seat and turning them away, headed back towards where the hill incline was shallowest.
“...What did you do?” Rhapsody asked. “The vehicle’s readings… shifted. I cannot tell how.”
“Nothing much, just some tender loving care and supporting words.” Soune responded, still smirking over the vehicle's response.
“Nonsense. Machines do not respond to verbal input.”
Soune did not respond, waiting for him to realise what he said.
“...I am different.”
“You’re jealous is what you are.” She patted his housing as she spun the vehicle around to face the rocky incline. Soune took her hands off the wheel. “All yours Rhap, try to be gentle to her.”
The machine's organs whined, hissed, then roared as Rhapsody pushed them past their limits. The cab of the vehicle shook as the mass-manipulator current fluctuated, lighter, heavier, slowly crawling up the incline. The engine sputtered and hissed, driving as much power into the wheels as it could. All the while Soune whispered words of encouragement to the vehicle, assuring it that it’d be alright and get plenty of fixing up after this. Eventually the right moment of traction, mass and drive happened and the Lightfoot triumphantly lurched on top of the hill.
Soune leaned back and laughed, shock and disbelief manifesting in no other way.
“Oh good girl Trudge! Good girl!” She patted the dashboard which was alight with an array of warnings. “You too Rhap, expertly done.” She turned equal attention to the electronic pile beside her.
“Getting home is going to be… rough.” Rhapsody relayed, knowing the extent of internal damage caused by the act.
“We’ll manage, going downs always easier than going up.” She reassured him. Something caught her attention, a slight disturbance on the edge of her vision that caused her elation to drop. “Good thing it does too. Move us downhill Rhap, on the other side.”
“Why?” The vehicle was already moving to the other side of the crest.
“Because we’re not alone.” She watched the distant cloud of dust in the door mirror. “Get us up to where the hill was highest and hide at the bottom.” Her orders were swift and quick as she pocketed the rifle scope. He obeyed, throttling the engine and MMD in sequence to reduce the kicked up dust and stones.
“...You’re going to do something risky again. Aren’t you?” The speakers sulked.
“Nah, not risky at all.” She grinned
“Liar. What are you going to do?”
“What we came here to do, investigate.”
----------------------------------------
Soune breathed out, settling herself into the nook she found herself in. Rhapsody and her Lightfoot were safely out of sight hidden at the foot of the hill parallel to the path leading to the mysterious construct. She’d climbed to the crest of the hill to watch the events unfold, her position seemed safe enough, there were two large rocks braced against each other she used for cover, peeking around the corner of one with her scope.
The first mystery was solved now she had the height to look down at the protected construction. At the bottom of the ramp was a heavily sealed entrance. An underground entrance, a smirk turned to a smile when she realised what she was looking at.
“There’s our quarry.” She whispered through a silent chuckle before turning her sight elsewhere. Her smile dropped back to a curious lift of the lip.
There was a large industrial Mover coming along the path, the sort used for cross country, mass cargo. The large container trailed behind the main body, kicking up a storm of stone and dust. Her hands trembled in curious excitement as she watched its approach. The long wait for it to turn around and reverse the containers towards the sunken entrance was torturous. The colossal vehicle stopped its reverse before going over the bodies, and Sounes' chest dropped when she focused her scope on the ones leaving the cab.
Two of the stragglers she had seen in King’s office yesterday, the ones so bothered by her being able to walk in and get a job, now scrambled out to drag the corpses away. No, not away, towards the quarry entrance. All without the turrets so much as twitching. They waved to signal it was all clear.
Her dread deepened when it finished parking with a deep hiss, and Scirocco Reyar left the cab next from the driver side. It turned to terror when King slowly lowered himself from the passenger side.
Even from her vantage point she could hear the groaning of something heavy opening on old and unmaintained machinery, it made her grimace. Someone had left the quarry entrance and was walking up the slope, pausing to look at the mangled corpses beside him. His entire appearance was simply pale. Pale blond hair, pale skin, pale robes. Not the pale of fair beauty, but the pale of bad health. Of Death.
He tore himself away from the bodies, striding up to meet with King. He was animated, expressive and angry. King was still, so still. So uncaring as to whatever he was saying, he didn’t seem to give any response, only turning to signal the container to open, the door folding out into a ramp.
A cold shock ran through her when she saw what came out. First was a pair of familiar looking industrial exosuits, the original name and model escaped her, but the common term of Smithy’s came to mind, one’s made and equipped for metal manufacturing. The endearing term was hardly appropriate now, the hardy reliable suits had been bastardised into weapons. The prongs that would’ve once been used to move any and everything were sharpened to blades on one hand and replaced with a large, heavy rifle on the other. The black-glass panels of the roll cage seemed to absorb the light around them.
Behind them a line of people began to walk out. Some shambled forward, accepting their fate, some kept their head held high, not admitting defeat, some spat on the ground of Kings feet, offering the regent their opinions.
“No…” Soune breathed, seeing a flash of familiarity in the crowd of about two dozen. The rich, purple robe, the pride, confidence and knowing in her gait. Marley stepped past King without so much as looking back at him, she raised restrained hands up and into the folds of her robes.
“Don’t.” Soune pleaded, realising what the old bullet broker was doing.
She drew a pistol from somewhere hidden amongst the layered robes, and not an instant after the dark metal was exposed her body jerked back. There was a small crack, followed by several louder, heavier ones that rang through Soune’s chest. She scanned the area in a panic, trying to take in the information.
Scirocco was holding a pistol to the side, the exosuits similarly held out their smoking rifles. The pale man had fallen to his knees over the limp pile of purple, slowly staining darker and darker. He was bellowing at King now. Scirocco stepped over and kicked him over, taking the pistol from Marley’s body. He gestured to the two frozen stragglers to the side to move her body down with the others. The man kept yelling at King from the ground, and without the ringing of the shots in her ears Soune was able to make out what he was saying. Just barely, a whisper in the wind.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt them! You promised I could help them!”
King didn’t respond, didn’t so much as look at the pleading man. Scirocco came over and dragged him kicking and screaming down towards the quarry entrance.
“Liar! You lied to them! To Me!” The screams became fainter and fainter, overwhelmed by the metallic shuddering of heavy doors closing again.
King returned to the cab of the vehicle.
The exosuits climbed back into the container.
Scirocco went back to the driver's side.
Nobody else followed.
No Stragglers.
No Pale Man.
No Marley.
Soune froze.
At the passenger side door, King was paused. He was looking in her direction.
She held her breath, not daring to move. Not the slightest amount, let him think the shadows in the rocks was his mind playing tricks, that the glare from her scope was a reflection from his vehicle, the Ring, Priloca, anything. She wasn’t real, she willed and wished it, that he saw nothing but his own imagination.
He turned, and pulled himself into the vehicle.
It wasn’t until it had fully turned away and back onto the stony path that Soune let herself breath again.
----------------------------------------
* The Second Scouring was enacted by unknown belligerents who had ten years previous seized control of Durendel Station. Though they made constant claims the act would occur if Priloca and the companies continued their expansion outwards into undeveloped areas, it did not halt development. After the first wave of attacks occured, Priloca’s military began an organised campaign to retake the station, doing so in two months.
The estimated losses from these attacks was two-hundred billion Aurum Standard Credits, much of which was from corporation investments as part of a cooperation campaign with Priloca, and the lives of approximately eighty-thousand settlers in the developing region.
The cooperation campaign halted after these attacks. Many companies demanded their investment be reimbursed. To date, Priloca has provided no reparations to either the investors or the survivors of the attacks.