Unipsi, lovely entity
chapter 48c: hunt
That evening after dinner, Scilla along side Wiola unpacked the unknown gift from Idra.
“so what did she said it is?” asked Wiola.
“she didn’t told me. All I know is to take it out of the container and shine some light at the bottom”
“so, what you waiting?”
“I… I don’t know. A part of me thinks this is some kind of prank, the other that it’s a real gift. You know she is…”
“strange? Crazy? Completely fucked up in the brain? Our local friendly psycho?”
“watch your language…”
“I’m kidding sis. She is kinda crazy thou, especially cause she is with you. But I like her, she seems to be good, sort of”
“thanks”
While speaking Scilla had put her hands inside the container. The suspension liquid was slightly cold and dense, yet it was moved away with ease. It didn’t stick to the crystal at all, almost as if incompatible. Once freed Scilla started to examine the peculiar object. She could see microchannels all inside the crystal.
“so now some light at the bottom?”
“she said so”
Scilla pulled out her phone and with its torch she lit up the bottom. As soon as she did so, a tridimensional image appeared floating some centimetres above the tip. It was fully coloured and showcased one of their first peaceful evenings. It was Scilla, Idra in her suit, the edge of the rooftop and the blue flower that reacted to electricity. To put it bluntly it was a 3D photo of them.
“oohh, so sweet. When did that happened?” asked Wiola.
“well about a couple of days before your birthday. This things is so fascinating”
“cause you love such memory and she was spot on with this gift?”
“eh? I mean yes, I like it a lot. But at the same time did you understand what this thing is? How complex this crystal is?”
“I study genetics, not light physic or things like that”
“well I did neither but I know a lot about weapons and optical sensors. So this fully fixed and analogic things is capable to absorb white light, convert it into collimated light and then redirect it into crossing paths. This way if put it inside an atmosphere with dust or other particles it can project a static hologram.”
“so science nerd?”
“so it was built with such finesse that our people could only dream about. I wonder how far could they be if they waste such advanced technology on holograms”
“well you saw the documentary about her. They don’t seems that far from us”
“bullshit. She showed us only what she wanted. From that we got nothing. They could have flying cars from what we can know”
“that pure science fiction sis. You are too tired. Now that you know what the crystal is, what are you gonna do?”
“I’ll buy one of those base that have a light sources built in and put in in my room.”
“about your room…”
“yeah you can come and sleep in my bed tonight”
“Yeah! Love you sis”
with that and some more superficial talk, they went to bed. Sharing one was not uncommon especially during birthdays. It was a way to state the importance that the other Lean has in your life.
What was suppose to be a rest night came to an abrupt end when at 4:47 a call bypassed Scilla’s not disturb mode. It was Liin Csuicha, the shit had hit the fan.
“what? It’s not even 5 in the fucking morning” said Scilla in her sleepy voice.
“I know, but it’s a fucking disaster. An Esterian ship dropped a fucking bomb in the form of a video file. We are trying our best but we cannot contain this shit for long...”
understanding that it was not a night prank Scilla activated her brain.
“what is happening exactly”
“we are sending you a VTOL. We can speak while you dress.”
“ok…”
“An intel carrier has dropped a 1 hour long video file about what happened to the Pridians. It was them. We cut down all we could but people will start to wonder why their net is down, why all radios and channels are kaput. We need to find a message to reassure our people and fast.”
“do you know what is in the video?”
“we watched some parts, it’s a direct admission of the millions they have killed and a threat to all those who dare fight back to them. Fuck. We just started to cooperate with Idra and it was working so well…”
“I’m not going to let her go. I care not shit about what others think. She is our key to progress”
“Lis, my friend I know what you are thinking but…”
“there is no fucking buts, we knew what we sign in for. Were the fuck did all the support go? Eh?”
“Lis please…”
“the VTOL is here, I can hear it. We will talk in person and I’ll see what this is all about”
understandably Scilla was not in the best mood.
She was not brought to the Hakavor’s HQ, instead she was carried to a military facility where her Liin was already waiting along side some others counselors and Dhalia Hakavor.
Everybody was in high alert and agitated. Once in the room they didn’t waste a second and the Esterian video was started from the beginning.
Before the screen showed any colour they were welcomed by an emergency siren the beeped 4 times. Immediately after the never revealed Esterian flag was covering the entire monitor. 3 vertical stripes moving from Blue on the left, to white in the middle and green on the right. Centred in the middle a diagram of an ideal feedback. Surely a strange flag, yet it meant a lot to the Esterians.
Following black fade-out into a recoding from a soldier helmet that started playing with its audio reduced to let other words dominate over the original sound. A not so manly agitated voice started.
“You are a fucking monster…”
It was stopped by the sound of a punch. The images were depicting a group of Esterian soldiers under fire. The camera view was from what appeared the be their captain. He was firing back at what surely looked like humans through a light density forest. In the peripheral view of the camera it was clear that he was carrying an injured comrade on his shoulders while firing with his pistol. The new voice that continued the dialogue was cold, heavy, frightening, calm. Like Idra when she is in combat.
“Monster. Ironic. From who denies reality, who falsely defines it. By your logic I refuse. I’m no monster, I’m your god. You must obey. Sound stupid? Arrogant? Unfair? Ill? I’m no god. I’m no monster. I’m human. I failed. My kind mutilated, deformed, weakened by yours. Now it’s your end"
Is that their Founder?
While the man spoke the battle intensified. Bullets struck near the fleeing soldiers. His squad around him along side autonomous walkers fired back at the incoming enemies as the crew was running toward a clearance. The audio was back as normal. They could hear heavy guns behind them. Tanks or maybe enemy walkers.
“30 seconds! Keep your heads down!” yelled someone in the communication channels.
The camera turned to look behind, a muzzled flash from the distance right at him. It was a AIFV cannon. However the bullet didn’t hit the captain. One of the Esterians walker put itself in between tanking the bullet at its own cost.
“Hargan!” screamed the man. A machine with a name, that was surely unusual. The machine replied calmly.
“organic life has priority. Do not come back, I’ll detonate my core”
“10 seconds! Opening fire!”
From the sky an Esterian ship appeared and kept lowering to the grownd. The front already open to pick up the crew. It was firing its railguns into the forest passing half a meter from his friends. As soon as the man get on board the ship took off and he collapsed against a wall. Now it was obvious that he was carrying an injured soldier as he dropped him. His suit was damaged around the spine. Probably by the same AIFV. The rest of the squad, 3 people and 4 walkers run to them to provide medical assistance. The man slowly reached the ground surrounded by his crew calling for him.
“Captain!”—”Captain!”—”Captain Natan your life parameters are critical”
On the top left corner the man status popped up. He reactivated the suit health assistant that immediately started spamming warning. He was too far damaged to survive and he knew it.
“I’m already dead. The suit is keeping me going. Take the kid, we can still save his legs”
The injured “kid” with what was left of his strength spoke back.
“we can…”
“no kiddo. My synthetic blood stock has just run dry. I’ll bleed to death before reaching the medical bay”
“Captain I’m…”
“hey don’t be sorry. I had… had my life… just promise… me. Give my rifle to... Olaf… everything is gonna be fine…”
the man composed a shaky thumbs up in full view of his helmet mere seconds before an automated message popped in the middle of the screen.
//heart failure. Revive attempt 1//
the suit tried to bring him back from the death.
//failure. Condition critical. Requested immediate medical assistance. Insufficient blood//
//synth blood storage empty. Injecting omni-cure//
//revive attempt 2//
//failure. Condition critical. Requested immediate medical assistance. Insufficient blood. Omni-cure ineffective//
//revive attempt 3//
//failure. Condition critical. Requested immediate medical assistance. Brain signal lost. Insufficient blood. Omni-cure ineffective//
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//revive attempt 4//
//failure. All hopes are lost. You will never be forgotten. Our Founder would be proud of you//
Even with all the attempts made by the suit the wounds were to deep to be healed. The man pushed himself to the end to save his companion. From what the suit showed it was a miracle that he was even able to walk so far.
The screen faded to black again. A new helmet view. It was a bit shorter and approaching what looked like a peaceful house, nothing stood out particularly except that the man kept looking down at his hands where he was carrying Natan rifle wrapped in the Esterian flag. He rung the door bell and a woman opened. The face was replaced with a black squared but the sound was left untouched. The instant the woman saw the rifle, she dropped and started wailing loudly. Pain. It didn’t went unnoticed and soon what were surely her children appeared.
The video was cut again. It displayed a voting room with 16 lights, one per spot. All turned green. Then a second voting room. 128 spots. All except 3 turned green. Lastly the supreme council room. Scilla recognise it by the strange display of the seating. Muffled voices below until the notice board lights turned on. Of the 384 people, excluded the Remnants and the spot reserved for Idra, almost all gave a green light. Whatever they voted had just been approved.
The screen went dark again until a robotic voice replied.
//your request to contact Idra 511 Weeping Sky has been received. Wait.//
“yeah, sure I can wait… are you like an ETU-FAI?”
//requested classified information. Access denied. Unit 511 is now connected//
The screen lit and it was now showing Idra’s helmet video feed. The images were slightly distorted and a bit noisy but for the most part they were perfectly defined. Idra was in the middle of a thunderstorm or a tornado. The rain was so intense that anything beyond 10 meters was totally obscured. The storm was deafening and the wind was picking up small stones and tossing them around like bullets. It was a wet yet terrifying flameless hell. Idra’s gun was pointed in the distance. On her Right yellow outlines defined a massive beast, the creature was twice as big as an elephant and covered with unknown plates. It had a vertical opening mouth with sharp teeth and a double spiky tail. Small gaps in the armour were filled with metal rusty spikes. By no means it seemed real, by no means it seems like a peaceful creature. Beyond that what looked to be a big rock and a second outline hiding behind. She was waiting for the second creature to pop out to kill it. The screen was overcrowded with indicators, image predictions, raw data. It was not meant to be read by organic beings.
Is that Weeping Sky? It could be right? Not that I can see much but she told me it was kind of a hell so… maybe.
“if it’s not a good…”
“Speak!” Idra voice was all but friendly, I was calm yet filled with hatred.
“you are intruding my time. Disturbing my hunt. What. do. You. Want?”
“I’m sorry, but the ETU is in need of your assistance”
As those words left what Scilla could identify as Alba Corvi, Idra’s helmed generated a prediction, the creature was about to move and so Idra acted before it. Louder that the storm Idra’s goo extended breaking the sound barrier and stuck into the rook. She pulled herself in and disconnected from the rock to fire the goo again into the creature body. The beast didn’t stand a chance, it didn’t even reacted nor understood what was happening. The same was true for those looking at the screen as it all happened in less than a second. Idra’s hooks delve deeper into the creature flesh and expanded erupting on the surface and carrying with them organs, fragments of armour and blood. It was surely painful yet Idra hadn’t enough. She kept destroying the creature body mutilating it as much as she could to the point that it was unrecognizable.
“so?”
“a scavenging unit as been attacked. Captain Natan Wilk was killed in action…”
“I don’t see why I should interfere”
“by Pridian mercenaries”
Idra stopped her gruesome fury. She froze staring at the deformed beast or what was left of it as it was being carried away by the rain that flooded the area.
“You know what you are asking?”
“I’m sorry…. We voted… this is our solution...”
“don’t be sorry. I just wanted to know if you were sure”
“yes we are”
“So be it. I’ll kill them all. But… there is a catch.”
“we are at your orders”
“I had a plan. This will interfere so you will deliver something for me”
“as you desire”
“excellent. Also I’ll send you some special missiles. Trade route 10-24. Just in case.”
“thanks you.”
So that is why she sent me a gift instead of just carrying it. Well not gonna lie, I… don’t really want to know what the package delivery was traded for. I know it can’t be just a virus made by her. Also is it just me or her suit looks different?
Scilla interrupted the video for a moment.
“just to be sure, we all get that whatever happened on Museniloe-2 is a direct consequence of what we saw and so a consequence of killing one. I repeat in case I was not clear, JUST ONE of them. We all got it right that they traded 46 millions Pridian for 1 Esterian right?.”
The room was silent. They all got to that conclusion but they all preferred to think it wasn’t real.
“are we totally sure that there was no other exchange between them?” concluded Scilla.
“we… don’t know. Communication is slow. By the time our intel ship was back, the diplomatic incident had already evolved into the plague.” said one of the few counselors. They were a mix of mostly ittiri that were locally available and 2 Lineic wardens whose wisdom was not going to be particularly helpful.
“so for what we know they could have sent an ultimatum before attacking right?”
“they could, but we don’t know. Museniloe-2 was basically cut away. And the authorities all over the planet were busy trying to contain the plague in Alsheva. So we got nothing. The intel ship is suppose to arrive tomorrow afternoon, but it will be too late. We must find an answer to this video before dawn” said Liin Csuicha.
“Shit. Well let’s see the rest can’t built a strategy on half the information”
She was going to regret such decision.
They resumed the video and the screen went black with just a phrase in the middle.
//have a good hunt 511//
They were looking from Idra’s suit. The images were crystal clear. The sun was in the middle of the sky and Idra was on the other side of a street that separated the fields behind her from the city outskirts. Strangely nobody seemed to notice her presence.
Idra clicked her tongue and a wave propagate in front of her. Mere seconds later as the screen filled with unintelligible data it all cleared up. A series of strange mechanical and electrical sounds were exchanged from to suit to Idra. In the distance a ping appeared with a distance in kilometres. Idra had found her objective.
She sprinted into the city, the excessive amount of goo on her suit kept grabbing corners, gutters and all possible handholds to push her forward and faster. The video didn’t cut any part of Idra’s journey that was done at an average of 80 Km/h.
The ping brought her to a skyscraper, what she was tracking was at one of the highest floors. She entered from the main automatic door that opened as if it recognised her, even if she was still invisible. Without hurry she proceeded to get to the staircase that had a hole in the middle. Still using the goo she moved herself up to the floor she needed and silently entered the apartment of her target. The house was clean and well decorated. On the entrance walls pictures of a man and a woman. One of them showed the woman pregnant. A few turns and Idra was in the kitchen. At the stove the same pregnant woman that was in the pictures was cooking some kind of stew in a large pot. Beside her all happy and shining there was the man.
New sounds were exchanged as Idra became visible. The man saw her and jumped up to then froze in place. The wife was blocked too. Clearly something was not right. The man wanted to move, yet he couldn’t. His eyes frantically moving around hoping to find a solution.
Idra slowly moved to the stove, turned down the heat to minimum and with insane speed spun on herself and hit the woman upper torso. The hit smashed the woman upper half tossing small bloody fragments of her around. The legs along side the belly hit the ground and started bleeding all over the floor. But it wasn’t enough. Idra lowered herself and tear open what was left of the woman’s belly. The unborn baby was there, exposed and still connected via the umbilical cord. Idra tore it out and broke it into smaller pieces that she added to the stew. She put it back to high heat and stare at the man. Even with his face paralysed his pain was visible.
In all this scene Scilla and Csuicha couldn’t stop watching, but all the others looked away. Some ittiri, who had almost never left a lab, straight out rushed to the bathroom to puke at the horrid scene.
After some minutes Idra pulled out of the stew a piece of the unborn and forcefully fed it to the man. She made him chew all the way through until she lost her patience or maybe time. She immediately took the boiling food and poured all over the man that couldn’t scream from the burning pain. She waited again few seconds before killing him painfully by tearing up his limbs.
As the horrendous spectacle came to an end Idra grabbed a dark cylindrical container from her back and push it into what was left of the man. As she stood she cleared her visor by passing her bloody hand on it, even if it was perfectly clean. While doing so Scilla heard a Whisper. She was the only one apparently as nobody else seemed perturbed by it.
\|/Useless\|/
Wait, did I understood them? How? What do they mean by useless?
Scilla was freaked out, as one should be. Yet any kind of reflection on it had to be postponed.
The video didn’t end there, it went on with 26 more homicides all equally gruesome and brutal. Those involving innocent that were connected to the victim stood out the most as Idra targetted them to inflict pain before killing. They kept watching brutal tortures, one after the other where Idra didn’t spare anything on her path. Plants, domestic animals, family members, sons, daughters. Nobody was left out. From the 30 minutes of footage it seems even more clear that Idra liked to use her enemies as decoration. Several of them were slowly cut apart trying to keep them alive as much as possible while scattering their organs around. By the end of it Scilla, her Liin and her guards were the only one left. The Liin’s guards couldn’t run away so most were giving their back at the screen even if they could hear each cut deepening into the humans flesh and bones breaking.
A tongue click and a new ping in the distance. However this time Idra proceeded more slowly. She took her time in the form of a detour through a park. There she saw her new victim that, based on her HUD, was not a target yet as all humans so far was marked as enemy. Her new victim was a young human, probably a teenager that was sit on a bench and feeding some wild animals. The small creatures looked like lizards with wings. Idra, invisible, approached from behind. She emitted some distorted static sounds that were heard by the lizards that ran away, yet the girl didn’t turn. She started to gesticulate toward the flying reptiles instead. Idra’s suit picked up the sign language and translated it.
“where you going? I have more food”
Interested Idra walked in front of the girl now disconsolate. She emitted more sounds and this time the suit view focused on the ears. The girl was 100% deaf. Something new for Idra.
She turned off her invisibility and it spooked the girl that soon was unable to move. Scilla and Csuicha were already thinking the worst, yet Idra didn’t attack her. Instead she forced the girl to take a pill, made her loose consciousness and waited for a drone of hers to arrive and take the teen away.
As her play time in the park ended Idra went to a church in the middle of the city were the last target was praying. She slowly entered and lock the doors behind her. The church was mostly empty, but there were at least 30 more people, mostly elderly women. As she locked everybody inside she turned off her invisibility and whatever she uses to artificially remove her steps sounds. Almost as if she was a magician all the candles inside the church went off. Scilla heard the Whispers again.
\|/Empty\|/
It was strange. If felt as if the Whispers were not totally on Idra’s side, at least they didn’t appreciated to be used to create spectacle as they didn’t gasp why Idra was doing so. Fear was not clear to them, not yet.
Idra was walking down the main passage. Nobody was able to move. Her steps echoed heavily creating a dreadful scene. The church pipe organ started to play a dark melody as well. It was clearly sending a message. Idra approached the man that was at the start of the church, right in front of the altar. He was kneeling in a praying pose. He must have seen what happened to his friends as Idra made sure that people knew about it. Idra crouched in front of him, fear in his eyes. She spoke, her voice carrier hatred and darkness.
“Are you afraid of god?” asked Idra.
She stared into the man’s eyes before getting up and walking away. She went to the old lady behind him, broke her legs and let her scream. Then she broke her arms and in the end split open her skull. She pulled out the woman spine and started to beat the man with it. Once she had enough Idra wind up the spine around the man’s neck and started pulling. She carried him to the altar and left again. She moved to all the innocents around and made sure that they were all staring at the man and the altar. She then proceed to remove the cross from the hooks that kept it in place above the altar. With the massive cross in hand she pushed it into the man ass and impaled him slowly to make him suffer more. Of course she was not over and proceed to cut open the body to make it into a macabre decoration that she put back up, bleeding on the sacred altar. She left them there and walked to the top of the church bell tower. From her back she pulled out a massive cylindrical container that apparently she had been carrying all the time. It had holes in it from were she took all the smaller cylinders. Scilla immediately recognise the closing system. It was a biological weapon container. Similar to the one she exchange with the Esterian during the war. She was way to familiar with them as she was the only one that could and have used such canisters. It was proof that the massacre was indeed Esterian retaliation against those who opposed their scavenging operations. Even in the face of a massacre Scilla felt relieved. She never told Idra that she was the only one that could have pressed the button that ended all Droxi as the canister was locked on her biometric parameters. Knowing that Idra was not to different from her brought peace to her mind and drove out need to confess the billions she killed even if Droxi.
“Scilla, is it just me or that container…” said Csuicha.
“it’s a bioweapon container. The plague is theirs”
Placed the container in position Idra opened it and locked below at the city bustling with life. Life that was soon going to end. She put her left fist forward in view of the suit camera.
“I kept my promise. WAWC is no more”
Idra opened her hand revealing and empty sealed vial. She had used them to store the WAWC before. It was clearly a message to Scilla.
“God left you. There is no salvation” ended Idra before the last video cut.
“what was that suppose to mean?” said Csuicha.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a fear tactic, like the last homicide.”
“I hope so”
Now Idra was in a forest staring at the ground were the girl she kidnapped was sleeping. She emitted once again some static and distorted sounds that woke the girl up. She of course was surprised, then afraid and then confused. She was looking all around at objects, animals, trees moving in the wind, the sun. Then she moved her hands that were shaking like crazy.
“is this hearing?” gesticulated the girl.
Idra nodded.
The girl face lit up with joy. She was hearing for the first time in all her life. Idra spoke, she asked the girl the same question.
“are you afraid of god?”
the girl replied in sign language again as she couldn’t speak.
“I don’t know. Are you god?”
“I’m angel”
The video ended with that. It solved the plague mystery but opened up way to many questions and issues.