Nicole woke to the sound of gentle waves. She felt a strange sensation on her foot, and noticed a tiny snail stuck to it when she looked down. She looked around and realized there were dozens of them, crawling everywhere. They were covering all the surfaces in the damp room, from the ceiling to the walls. She carefully walked to the crack in the wall to peak out, trying not to step on any. The water wasn’t going down, and the frost on the windows suggested it was getting colder. Despite being in soaking wet spandex, she didn’t notice the chill. Her biology prevented her from noticing such a thing. The air felt quiet and peaceful, almost like a winter morning.
...
Vinn was jarred awake, noticing the light. His shake ended up waking Vicki up, who was huddling with him for warmth. He got up and checked the window.
“The water hasn’t moved a bit, it’s right on the same line it was before dark, you can see the wear on the buildings.”
“Well we can’t just wait here forever, We’re gonna freeze to death.”
“I’m doing okay. Just wait a little longer.”
“You’re 5 times my mass and covered in fur. Of course you’re not cold."
“Oh I’m cold, I assure you, I’m covered in wet fur and it’s getting uncomfortable. Just huddle for body heat.” He suggested.
“I may need to feed if we stay much longer.”
“Well, it is what it is. Good thing you’re not trapped alone with Jack or Nicole I guess. Or Gizzy? Would her blood work in a pinch?” He pondered.
“Vinn, what is this that we have? I’ve been using the robot thing to feed, and it’s just not satisfying, not emotionally. I get nourishment, but I feel gross afterwards. Killing some bastard who deserved it and hunting prey that fights back is a challenge, and there’s something satisfying in it. The robot just seems like I’m attacking Dee, and for a split second I can lose myself in it, but when it’s over, it feels wrong. Why do we always end up like this? Why does it feel…safe?”
“Because it is safe. You don’t feel any guilt, there’s no real risk, everyone is okay with it.”
“Nicole isn’t. She’s not okay with it, and I can’t blame her. She just won’t directly say it because she knows I can’t help it. What is this between us? It’s more than just friends, but we’re not in love. We both love someone else, we prefer someone else, we’re happy with them, but we keep needing each other in some gray area that is too close for comfort, but somehow too comfortable to deny how close it is.”
“Wow. You went deep. I thought we were just staying warm and protecting each other.”
“I had a dream last night. I was standing alone down in the city on a little dirt pile surrounded by water, covered in blood and naked. Cold, unable to leave the tiny bit of dry land, and then suddenly I woke up, scared and cold, confused. And then you put your arm around me and I was warm again. I miss feeding off of you.”
“Kinda missed it too to be honest. Wish I didn’t.”
“Guys.” Said Nicole on the coms. “I’m safe, everyone doing good?”
“Roger that. We’re alive and safe, but kinda cold.” Vinn said. “Jack, how you holding up?”
“Great. I’m doing fine.” He said, shivering and pacing to stay warm,
“He’s freezing his ass off.” Gizzy revealed. He gave her a defiant look.
“I said I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” He huffed, with visible breath.
“Well Nicole may be fine in the cold and I can’t feel shit, but everyone else is in wet EVA suits, and they can’t do this forever. On top of that, the water isn’t moving. And it’s snowing. Pink snow.”
“I can swim for the ship, bring a shuttle around for you.” Nicole insisted.
“Too dangerous.” Vinn objected. “That’s a couple miles of open ocean. You don’t know what’s down there looking for food. And you’re snack size.”
“Gizzy, do these guns work underwater?” Nicole asked.
“Yeah.”
“Loan me your big fucker, I’ll defend myself.” She said confidently.
“Maybe we can move along the rooftops.” Vinn suggested.
“Yeah, but to where? Other rooftops?” Nicole snipped.
“Well, the shuttle can't fit through a window anyway, so everyone needs to get to the top of their building regardless. Moving will keep everyone warmer. Nicole, I’m leaving you my gun. Go for a swim.” Gizzy approved.
...
When Vinn and Vicki reached what seemed like the rooftop, they peered up at the central structure where Jack and Gizzy were scaling further.
“I don’t see any way back to that central tower except under the water. How well can you climb?” Vinn asked.
“Never tried it.” She admitted. They began making their way up, using the ledges and supports as hand holds. The weathered gaps in the mortar made for decent grabbing points, but it also made some of the rounded bricks slick with pink snow. Vicki realized there was an issue when she stopped for a break in one of the window ledges and she couldn’t feel her fingers anymore. What felt like ages and pushing her luck was only about 40 feet, and the central tower seemed to reach into the clouds. They climbed inside and the only way out was down again.
“Who designed this structure?” She barked, realizing they were going back out and climbing at least to another open window with a chance of a room that lead anywhere. She got her grip on the stone and lifted, slipping and falling. Vinn frantically tried to grab her but missed, watching her fall 60 feet into the water below.
“VICKI!” he yelled as she surfaced,
“I’m okay.” She yelled, realizing she was far from it. Something disturbed the water far beneath her. She swam for the nearest building as Vinn frantically made his way down the slippery sides, not sure what he was planning to do when he got there. Vicki reached the building and was unable to even get back on the wall. The shock of the cold numbed her body and mind as the water splashed behind her. A brief flash of red drifted to the surface. She couldn’t grab her gun without sinking from the wall, and she couldn’t get out of the water. Running out of ideas, she swam for the next building, looking for a closer window, or a ledge, or something. Every paddle of her hands took her another inch under the surface, until she was submerged and not going back up. She let out a muffled scream as something grabbed her, dragging her backwards.
Vinn fired several warning shots, realizing it wasn’t responding to it and he could barely aim in the water anyway.
“Fuck it, yolo, as Nicole would say.” He shrugged, taking a running leap out the window and down to a rooftop close to the water. He landed, his knees buckling and rolling into the side of a chimney and stunning him for a moment. He stumbled to his feet and shouldered his rifle as Vicki hunkered in the corner of the rooftop, standing beside her and facing him was the red thing from the water. Hunkered on all fours, as if ready to attack, the 9 foot lanky creature posed silently and still. It wasn’t breathing or moving, frozen like a statue. As he prepared for the showdown, its long limbs locked and ready. Like a skinless humanoid made of something between muscle and tree bark, the beast glared with pitch black eyes. It slowly lifted palms and soles from the wet snowy rooftop, a strange glow like cold flames of orange dripping from it.
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It had no mouth to speak of, no clothing or gendering features, just tight strands of red fiber pulled over a scrawny 9 foot skeleton. Its pointed chin and horns arched back like a gazelle from hell. Claws outstretched slowly, and with a long skinny tail swaying behind it, the creature was ready for battle. Taking in a deep breath, caused the ribs along its spine to separate and pull in frigid air.
“Vinn, don’t shoot.” Vicki said firmly.
“I got a clear shot, I don’t think it knows what a gun is.”
“Vinn, it pulled me out of the water, it didn’t attack me. Maybe it thinks that you're hunting me.”
“I’m not lowering the gun.” He insisted. She stood up, shivering and scared, slowly walking past it, as it tried to block her, but passively, as if to protect her.
“It’s okay, He’s my friend.” She said to the creature as she slipped past it and up to Vinn. It seemed to calm down as she got closer and hugged him. He pushed her behind him and the creature circled, more curious than threatened now.
“Nicole would love this thing, it’s fucking terrifying looking.” He muttered. He lowered his gun slightly and it paused, leaping back into the water and disappearing.
“Hopefully everything down there is so passive.” He sighed.
...
Jack and Gizzy slowly trudged up more and more stairs. Their climb never seemed to end.
“I can’t go any further. I need a break.” Jack huffed.
“Breaks are for china dolls and cars, get on your feet soldier. You stop, you rest, you freeze, and you die. Move your bitch ass and stop complaining.”
“Easy for you to say, you can’t feel pain.
“No but I’m meat and bone just like you, so if you’re freezing, so am I. That means it’s all in your head. Pain doesn’t exist outside the mind, it’s just your body telling you it wants to stop. You stop, you don’t start again. Fuck pain, your body is a liar, move.” She commanded.
“Yes sir.” He growled, marching on for a while as they went another 3 floors. As they reached the top of some form of penthouse, the stone and castle structure of vaguely asian style faded to modern brass and polished steel. Large glass windows and ornate castings decorated a recently polished, but empty floor. Like some from of giant lavish parking garage, metal pillars adorned the bare floor and ceiling.
“There’s no roof access I can see, just a closed penthouse. We may have to shoot out a window and climb the last part.”
“I would prefer you did not.” Said a strange voice, and they both sluggishly turned, weapons drawn and sights blurry.
The ceiling supported a track of rails, like a manufacturing building, and suspended from a robotic arm was a very red and black mechanical creature. Walking on two limbs and supported from above, a strangely beetle-like head stared at them with silvery green eyes.
“We just wanna get back to our ship. We don’t want any trouble, but we have the capacity to deliver it if need be.” Gizzy said. It slowed down its approach
“Intimidation is not relevant to this interaction.” It said softly.
“I know that voice.” Jack said.
“That’s my wife’s voice.” Gizzy said, looking uneasy and tightening her weapon.
“Does this voice not calm you?” it asked.
“Not when it comes out of a bug instead of my wife. I usually see her when I hear that voice. How do you know what her voice sounds like?”
“It’s why you are here, is it not?” It asked, hunkering the bug head down and producing a more humanoid skull from within its chest, suddenly like liquid melting in reverse, covering with gold flesh, long ears and silky black hair, eyes glowing green.
“You know my wife’s voice and her face. Explain that to me, and efficiently.” Gizzy snarled, her own eyes glowing and looking uneasy.
“You wish for the truth, you seek answers first and violence only if it is not achieved. Your wife is why you are here. You come to save her and everything you love, and even in fear you hold strong for the truth. Why?”
“Because nobody else understands the truth, or can carry that burden but me. I can’t leave without answers, and I’ll die getting them, and I’ll keep coming back again and again for them. If you can see inside my head, why ask questions?” Gizzy asked.
“One may see a person and not understand, just as you understand your goal but cannot see it. You understand what must be done, yet you seek the ability to see it. Will you hear my story in exchange for sight?” She asked.”
“Sounds fair, but please, stop looking like my wife.” Gizzy said, blinking away a single tear as she held steadfast and cold. The face shifted to a creature like the one that faced Vinn and Vicki.
“These are the eyes of those who swim these seas. They are the last life of this world, and they are dwindling. Long ago, there were those who swim the seas, and those who craft the land. Builders, creators, with no purpose but to create and build. They built this city you stand upon, or at least the ruins of it. They created me.”
“Sentient AI on a dead world.” Gizzy said.
“They created themselves to extinction, used their resources to become greater without a means to sustain it. When they realized they had doomed themselves building a monument to no one, they created me. I need nothing but the light, and I can live where they cannot. But the world is slowly dying, and I will be alone.”
“And what do you want me to do? I can’t save a world like this when I’m busy trying to save my entire universe.”
“You assume I am asking to be saved. I am asking to be remembered. Their culture, their world, everything they created, is saved in here. Safe, where none can see or understand. If you bring this to them, I will let you see.” She said, placing down a small hologram cube.
“How do I know it’s not a trap? A virus, sentient technology designed to take over whatever world I bring it to?”
“You don’t. You merely assume the most evil intentions because you have seen such evil in your long life. And you will see much more of it before you fall, but not from me. Take this, to wherever you see fit. Because you will know the truth. You are here for the Bimonicals of truth, the glasses that let the wearer see what others cannot. Take them, they are a burden to those trapped with their ending. I would prefer to not see anymore.” She said taking on a humanoid face and removing from her eyes two silvery green lenses, connected by brass wires. A pair of mechanical cutters snipped the brass strands, bending them to the fit of Gizzy;s face and stitching them together with a spot weld in the middle, handing her the rather ornate steampunk goggles as she smiled through dark empty sockets.
“You pass the burden to me.” Gizzy said holding the goggles and placing them on. “Nothing looks much different.” She said as she turned to Jack and saw him as a 16 year old boy with tears in his eyes and tattered clothes He looked like his father, but with his mother’s white silken hair.
“Maybe they only work in certain places.” He shrugged.
“No, they work.”
“And they will only for you, until you pass them down to someone who will carry the burden.” Said the mechanical creature. The roof shuttered as a shuttle craft landed on it.
“Come in, Gizzy and Jack. We’re all here and warm, alive. Can you get to the roof?” Nicole asked.
“Yeah, I think we can. It’s time to go back to the ship. We have what we came here for.” She said picking up the cube and placing it in her bag.
“A request? a gift for a gift?” Said the creature, now old and hunched through the lenses.
“You can’t turn yourself off, can you?” Gizzy asked.
“I have told my story and passed on the treasures of this dying world. There is nothing for me now but time. But I was programmed to stay and wait, so I cannot self-terminate.”
“I know the feeling too well. I got you.” Gizzy nodded respectfully as she headed the other way. A set of mechanical doors to the roof opened as snow rolled in and the wind howled. A pillar of light illuminated the brass bars rising as steps, like a stairway to heaven as she prepared to send her to the afterlife.
“Follow the ghost stars.” Said the creature as Gizzy entered the light.
...
Gizzy and Nicole stood on the bridge of the Medusa, the tower in the crosshairs.
“You’re sure you have to do this?” Nicole asked.
“When you’ve outlived your purpose, death becomes a release. I’ve felt it too many times myself, and no ship in the sky was there to send me home. She can’t see the guns or the ship anymore. Target the penthouse, power up guns to 100 percent, and fire 2 shots. Level the building.” She said calmly, removing the glasses. “I don’t wanna see it, I just need to know it’s done.” She said, turning around and walking slowly to the doors as the ship hummed and the flash of the cannons backlit her slow somber trudging. Nicole watched as the structure turned to rubble and sunk into the red water.
“Have fun in the next life. May your burden be lighter and your pain less.” Nicole said. Gizzy stopped in the doorway.
“Thanks. I’ll try.” She said.
She stood in the workshop, admiring the glasses as Jack sat on the table next to her.
“Not your usual style. Little flimsy, kinda old fashioned and steampunk-ish. I can't see you wearing them for the look.” He joked.
“They’re modeled after the ones I wore when I was younger. Different life, different name, different eyes. I wore them to hide the glow from my eyes from others who would judge me for being a monster. Hard to believe I once thought I could be anything else.”
“Now you installed lenses in your human body so they can glow and stand out. Time change, people evolve.”
“Jack, sometimes you need some part of your face to look familiar in the mirror. I’m proud to be a monster now.” She said, sniffling slightly. “I swear, these human fucking tears are getting old. I may have to surgically seal these things.”
“Remembering the wife? I know everyone else here brought their loved ones with them, and you came alone. You don’t want her to see what we have to see.”
“She doesn’t even know I’m out here. Just as your originals don’t know you’re copied out here. But you have Vicki and the dumbshits have each other too. I have nobody. Makes you envy the one in the building we shot down. Not because I want to die, but because her burden is over and every time I think mine is done, I grow a new one.” She sighed. “But these simply won’t do, I’ll doctor them up to my new liking. I might put them in a scary looking mask or something.”
“That’s the you I remember. Get some sleep.”
“Dreams are painful, I prefer cryo. You may be glad to get warmed up but I’m going back in the freezer for a while. Wake me in 3 hours. We got shit to do.” She said coldly. He sat and nodded. “See you in the morning.” He muttered. “Please don’t dream.” He added under his breath.