"Hello? Can you hear me?”
Dust billowed in the muggy wind of Abberro Springs, a town that stretched the length of the Crescent Highway south of Zone 17. Travelers journeyed between Citadel Refuge's towering spire and the businesses lining the road.
Most of the soldiers in their powered suits and black uniforms journeyed the 15 miles from the spire on Sundays to Abberro for one thing.
Coffee, church, lunch, eclipse.
The order of Sunday.
The 2PM eclipse always felt like a threatening gesture to the troubled ecologist sitting in the Tangled Spiral.
Every day at the exact same time, it looked as if God took a hole puncher to reality, the hole devoured reality to compensate.
Many spoke of the rapture, and some parts were right. The trumpets of the great ending blew already, each heralding, humanity collectively felt it like a layer of silt on dried skin three times already.
They knew that specific sensation meant that another horrible event had arrived, it wasn’t comparable to any feeling of pain, fear, or dread, it wasn’t the battery acid sting of guilt, nor was it the white-hot forehead burn of rage.
Far too many during the hox plague a mere decade prior prayed to it, doing everything they could to communicate with it.
It responded in tones of watchfulness and silence, no words shared with its hostages on earth. Merely feelings of utter, nameless dread when it touched down, grinding pain on her skin.
Unlike the prior decade, nature itself...
It was wrong.
Something is wrong with nature itself.
That mocking black dot in the sky broke a fundamental part of reality.
None knew what part that was, none knew what they were missing, yet they were aware of it. It became second nature, and like all wounds and scrapes, she learned to ignore the pain.
Gone and buried under years of work and self-manufactured apathy for her safety.
Melissa Hawthorne sighed as she stared out the window of her favorite cafe, her fingers drumming idly against the worn countertop as she sipped a cup of dark roast. This little diner in the heart of Abberro Springs had been her sanctuary for years, a refuge from the burdens of her work as the head of Ravensmantle's Ecological Authority.
She dedicated her life to preserving what remained of the natural world. The very keystone species that held those delicate balances in place were disappearing one by one, as any creature near that horrific black circle ran away from their prime habitats and domains.
A gentle cough drew her attention, Vahlen standing beside her, the older woman's brow creased with concern as the diner door jingled with more soldiers filing in for lunch.
Each bore differing insignia, the similarity between each being a raven head and wings, a circle of feathers, the recruits had one up to the left.
Vahlen’s was the only crimson insignia, six full wings framed a raven’s glare. Her voice had a gentle warmness to it, but just behind it a razor waited floating on its gentle sub bass. The subtle curves and rolls of her speech utterly elegant.
"Melissa. I'm glad I found you here." Vahlen slid onto the stool next to her, ordering a black coffee from the harried waitress before turning to face her fully.
"Second thoughts?” She gestured to a few taking their mannequin-like helmets off and ordering their food.
Melissa shook her head, “Nope.”
Vahlen’s red hair swished as she leaned against the counter.
“I know you’ve been looking over a specific suit model as well, I personally think it’s for the best, you have a neural lace, and now you just need a little something extra to ensure that,” she pointed at her head as her voice took a playful sharpness, “ridiculously expensive, priceless brain of yours stays in one piece.”
“You told me an hour ago…”
“It is rather important to preserve ones nearly perfect memories and knowledge.” A subtly husky voice owned by a thin woman crept behind Vahlen, as her stool slid forth, Melissa could only smile at the gentle crease of her friend’s face.
It always made the single freckle on the left raise, her accent she always adored.
Her vowels were warm and rounded, the 'r's gently rolled, while the 'h's often disappeared, as if they were shy to be heard. She was equally shy when they met, she always felt a kinship with her. Like a long lost sibling, it was comfortable and warm.
“Hey Ripley, I’m... considering it,” Ripley leaned forward, accepting a cup of dark roast from the waitress after waving off any sugar or creamer.
Vahlen smiled at both as Melissa spun her cup once, the remaining coffee swirling much like her thoughts and emotions.
Vahlen nodded, fingers gliding across the electrically charged surface of suspended particles as a message chirped.
“Bloody hell, I do have some duties of my own to attend to, dispatch is expecting me for a report they want to give in person.”
“More anomalies at the border wall? I heard about that convoy getting stuck midair over a road.”
“No, even stranger... from space, she said she sees a box zipping here from the Eridani system.” Before Melissa could ask any more questions Vahlen stood, gesturing at Ripley.
“Ripley, this is your specialty, join me, please.” She nodded as both spoke on their way to a heavy military carrier and its urban black and grey camouflage waiting in the street.
The 35 feet long armored carrier was full of other specialists and passengers, most wearing black uniforms and various gear. The ones outside the border to the west became gravesites, no one escaped a gravity well.
Two towns ran between the spire and Abberro. The quiet, heavily forested brickwork lumber town of Mithrop and its giant sawmill in the east and Wilco Crossings in the middle of the Crescent. Its maglev train lines cut the ancient highway perfectly in half and ran out into the Crescent District holding Ravensmantle’s fields.
Deliveries of fresh goods made daily from the country’s food bowl.
She stared at the massive concrete wall from a few miles away, Zone 17 seemed to call her akin to a moth to a flame. A place of discovery and escape, she departed the Tangled Spiral, saying her goodbyes to the staff.
She swung her head to the local clinic, kicking a rock down the battered asphalt, tumbling down the berm into the fields.
The old hospital had been converted into a bio-lab, experimenting with new food hybrids. Evelyn used to work inside with the old medical crew.
She devoured a pomegranate and tomatillo hybrid developed and grown across the highway from the cafe as the beast rumbled past the interwoven Pomatillo tree arches framing Ravensmantle’s fields.
With each passing vignette of heavily modified crops, part of her always imagined that one day, she would pass by one arch to the next.
And her fields would be on fire, none remembering how it happened.
Her thoughts terminated at seeing the wall to Zone 17 get closer through the swaying treetops, the smells of fresh overgrowth and cut grass on the roadside reminded her of another time when people had and cared about having a lawn.
As she approached one of the reinforced entry checkpoints along Zone 17’s looming concrete walls a few minutes later. She fixed her black hair with a swipe back as she regarded the tall black metal door barring her path to discovery.
And mental escape.
Evelyn’s missing person’s poster and a sign with the message: “No Lone Go Zone after sunset.” posted on the border wall. She didn’t know her terribly well, having had all of one interaction only resulting in a tepid hello as they passed each other.
The neural lace’s perfect recall forced it to the surface, keeping it fresh in her mind.
She shook off her nerves as one of the men inside the little security booth palmed a bio metric reader, the sealed gates slithering open. The flat black metal surface had the crest of Ravensmantle.
A raven’s glare peering straight ahead surrounded by six pointed wings. An identical image of Vahlen’s rank done in simple white.
She double checked her phone to ensure it was off, rampant electromagnetic interference had a small chance of suddenly frying the battery.
While inside the borders of Ravensmantle she couldn’t see the shimmering protective field.
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She felt it like a sticky heat on her skin, May had arrived in the form of heat strokes to some, and sunburns to the workers of Abberro. The stickiness of her own in the windless heat felt choking.
She sigh in relief at the sight of shaded areas and trees choking out roads, overgrowth had consumed the area past the little expanse of cleared field between it and the wall.
It was perfect.
Unmanned, no human contact save for her and a few other scientists.
She craned her head around the high walls choked with snarling vines that strangled old lighting fixtures high up.
The well kempt gardening beds installed to the wall held spiral blooms, she inspected a specimen closely.
The center of the spiral stuck out by a couple of feet, a large bulbous see-through membrane with blooming flowers under it. The thing that struck her every time she looked at it.
The silver skin was the same type found in animals.
The interior of the wall was lined with them on the suspended gardening beds. The REA worked tirelessly to keep them healthy, Omega Floralyzene was an important chemical compound and one of many important products coming from the zone.
The toothpaste sized micro stims developed by the medical spire of the Citadel stitched wounds together quickly and made for one of the most used medical items in the crescent.
For the same reasons, she hunted her quarry. If a creature’s tracks resulted in healthy overgrowth, even from would-be extinct species, it was an important discovery.
She had to know how to manufacture the process, if she did.
She would fix the world, her world.
After scanning the area for a few minutes, taking note of how quickly the brush retook the path she often cleared, she turned down a narrow side street down a treacherous road of overgrown, bushy rubble.
Her machete cleared the way for the third time that month.
Her way point was an ancient urban temple of a building that marked the boundary of the swamp, most of the old, nameless city sunken below by whole stories with it sticking out in the distance like a road flare.
She knew that to the east lay the Masque Theater.
Evelyn was last seen nearest the urban temple weeks ago, she prayed to nothing in particular that she wouldn’t find her.
Or her potential pieces.
Reports of deadly animal attacks in the area had the REA concerned, they were too recent to allow for any stone to go unturned.
The ancient, listing apartment building took up a city block, its facade buckling. Wicked-looking tree roots had dug into the roof, snarling down to meet the leaning telephone poles.
One wooden pole was curled over itself in a spiral, the end a bendy straw twirl.
The old broken panes of glass glinted in the setting sun and she could swear that something moved in one of the broken windows.
She decided against going any closer, the overgrown street her sole barrier from what prickled her spine. A white orb in the dark gloom of the building, she rubbed her eyes.
And yet, as she rubbed, the strange object didn’t move nor did it disappear.
It waved.
A hand with no visible owner shrunk into the gloom, the dusty, decrepit building unsuitable for anyone to reside in, let alone explore alone. She swept her binoculars to each opening, window, and crumbling doorway.
“Hello?” She dared not take a step forward, the hand was still there for a brief moment as she caught site of the owner.
As it gripped the railing of some exposed stairs, the owner of the hand was a little girl. She squinted to get a better look. “What the...” Just as quickly, the little girl disappeared deep into the bowels of that urban temple.
She noticed another white shape outside her periphery, flinching at the sight after lowering and putting the binoculars away. A white rabbit, nibbling at the strange black vines that had a peculiar red tinged sap that bled out into the thirsty asphalt.
Its head trailed to face her, a blood red mouth, much like her recurring nightmares. What she could have sworn was a twitch from the dark vines caught her attention, just as she got closer her heart leapt from its chest.
A sound completely shattered the silence.
Her limbs blurred her to action instantly.
“Hey, that’s just like Monty Python.” Melissa shrieked with her hands up in a defensive stance with a can of bear spray.
Melissa’s nerves ebbed off as she made eye contact with Amanda, both hands up in a placating gesture with her eyes wide at the eye torching nozzle. One of her closest friends, having met once long ago. Often both traded gifts, hers in the form of beautifully cared for plants.
Amanda designed her phone and engineered the hydroponic systems of the crescent, she soon pushed that job to another crew once they got trained, deciding to live in the hangar bay housing block of Citadel Refuge to work on their vehicles and technology development.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya’,” she pointed at the spray, “you mind putting that down?”
Melissa fixed her hair with a swipe, putting the spray back in her pocket. “Scared the shit out of me,” she gave her a quick hug.
"What brings you way out here to my neck of the woods?” The dusty wind finally picked up, making the vines twitch.
“On a brief little expedition, looking for a candidate for a new armoring facility out, just in case.”
“What about my hydroponics facility?” She spat, waving her arms out.
Amanda waved her arms out at her, “eh, don’t worry, don’t worry, that ones going in the crescent soon...”
“I hope so, say...” she gave a massive sniffed and scrunched her nose.
“You don’t smell good.” Amanda could only raise her brows and squint her eyes.
“Well, excuse me?”
“Well, that's just it,” Melissa tried hiding a mischievous grin as Amanda nearly flinched at a can of spray rising in her sun kissed hands.
“Floyd’s Scent Blocker?” Her brows somehow rose higher, she squinted at her expectantly, glancing at the little weasel putting paws to its nose on the shiny surface.
Melissa broke into a brief fit of laughter. “Stop looking at me like that, I’m being serious. I’m hunting something, and you, don’t smell good here.” She pointed at the ground.
“Or too good,” she dropped the act, putting her hands between the pouches and gear on her plate carrier and belt. Melissa rose a brow.
“Uh huh, it's what you smell good to that could be a problem.”
“Well, I smell good to Tom no matter my condition.” She triumphantly cocked her head with a smile.
“Damn right!” Tom called out as he approached from a nearby embankment of dirt and trees.
“What’s up Fe, where you headed anyway?” She smiled at her old nickname as they embraced briefly.
“Nowhere near the Fae, can’t touch me. I’m going to the Masque, Vahlen told me there might be a nest out there, and that nest might have a Gestaltia organism inside, hopefully not Evelyn…”
“If we, can bag one I can figure out how it’s dispersing Cadre resistant seeds.”
She thrust the can at Amanda, “I think you might need to strip out of that body armor of yours.”
“Aw, cmon!” She glanced at the urban temple, having heard what she thought was humming.
“And the belt, gear, clothes...” Tom quipped.
Amanda cocked her head at him with a barely hidden smirk.
“Gonna have to undo those pretty silver buns, too.” Melissa said.
“Ya’ll are just tryna see me naked.”
“If you want to see the Masque, which is where I’m going, lather up, buttercup.” She stabbed with the can. “Gotta be show-ready, right? You too, Damsel.”
“Okay, okay. I’ve always wanted to check out the Masque, gimme.” It plopped into her hand, the trio worked for a few minutes, ensuring neither smelled like a human.
Once Amanda and Tom’s enhanced senses lost the scent, they carried on, tightening the velcro straps on her body armor.
After an hour of traveling through the empty, vine choked streets, they skirted around a deep ravine of crumbled buildings that cascaded into the old collapsed subway system. Amanda chucked a rock, pocking and rolling down to the bottom.
The wall of the apartment block slanted away from the exposed grid, making up a concrete slope dotted with rebar and nasty looking concrete chunks that stuck out like spikes and blades.
Amanda put most of herself over the edge, forcing Melissa to wince as both stared at the dusty grid of rooms. Amanda reached toward her belt, plucking a flashlight from its holster and clicking it on.
Everything coated with dead leaves and overgrowth that crept up the grid-like edges.
Her blinding flashlight beam caught something.
She squinted at it, cocking her head slightly for a better angle as the breeze picked up, blowing dusty leaves into the broken maw. A few landed on the thick board that spanned the gap with quiet ticks.
Just as quickly as she saw the apartment light flicker on, blasting the room below with light and the rest of the ravine in front of it in a dim amber cone, its focal point set within its vine-snarled concrete edges. The light just as quickly shut off.
Up high on her vantage point a story or two above, Melissa took a tentative step away from its edge.
“I didn’t just see that, did I?”
“Uh, you did, let’s go. I’ve seen stuff like this in the movies... and the Outlands.”
“Just gotta’ be faster than you two.” Tom quipped in a sing song voice. Amanda strode away with a hidden smirk. She saw the power line connected to the building, yet she held a thought close.
Something she thought she saw in one of those little apartment rooms.
It was a small thing that looked like a pale bramble of twigs with no leaves.
The only issue she had while watching Melissa hurriedly walk ahead of her lay inside that little apartment, her peripheral told her something alarming.
The bramble, those pale little branches.
She thought they waved.
Melissa turned to meet her concerned eyes as both hurried their steps to get away from the concrete mouth, she didn’t seem to notice the bramble as she pointed the opposite way to her relief.
“Were pretty close.”
Both spared a glance back at the ravine, the hand shaped bramble was gone.
A winding path through a once bustling entertainment district with old arcades took both across the street from the worn away theater was a shopping mall with an aged and weather-beaten board.
Primrose Shopping Center.
Vehicles stuck to the ground on tires stitched into the pavement by creeping root systems in both the parking lot and the neighboring Viola Street.
“Not fond of being outside my armor, gotta’ say.” She jerked with the motion of Amanda‘s hand patting her shoulder, “speaking of, you’re still looking over the Harrier model, right?”
Her eyes flicked side to side.
“Yeah.” She drew out with a smile, it disappeared just as quickly. “Amanda… if I’m being honest… I’m scared.”
“I get that… you’d be less scared as a Ravenguard, and, so far it's worth it for me.”
“I didn’t say I was backing out. Vahlen and I shook hands on it, discussed it at length for months. I've just had cold feet about going through multiple surgeries, the thought of having my mind and body so intimately tied to technology terrifies me. What if I lose myself? What if I become something...other?"
“You will, Melissa,” Tom stated, “every Ravenguard is fundamentally changed, so far,” he observed his hands with a gentle gaze that Amanda smiled at, “so good.”