Excerpt 004: Frontier Trail

[rekindledtitan]

TYPE: Personal log

LOCATION: Orbit, Earth

PARTIES: Three [3]. One [1] Ghost-type, One [1] Guardian-type, designate Blaze-37, Class Titan [rekindledtitan], One [1] Unconfirmed, designate Jesse [notalldead]


ASSOCIATIONS: Multiversal Nexus; Jesse; the Rotten; Earth; Multiversal Phenomena; Blaze-37; Revivification; Demeter Effect


It’s funny, Blaze never expected her ship to be a place for more than herself and her Ghost. A sanctuary of sorts, and a fine sturdy little vessel, but a place for little more than work and storage in the end. And yet now she’s showing it to the fourth friend in just a few months. Not even a Guardian… or at least not the kind she’d expected to befriend.

It’s enough to make her a little conscious of how bare and rough it looks; even the padded pilot’s chair is sort of squashed and worn from bearing the metal weight of an armored Exo several years in a row. Nonetheless, it’s the only comfortable place to sit in the small cabin space, and Blaze steers Jesse that way once he’s defrosted enough to stand.

“So everything’s built into the walls,” she explains, gesturing at one apparently-solid surface after another. “Weapon and armor storage on that side, material supplies over there, workbenches and stuff on the port side. I’ll pull down the wash unit if you want to let your coat dry off.”

Comments

[notalldead]

"Bet it's great. Somethin' just neat about it, y'know? It'd be a little like y'all and Ghost, I think. Not that yer ridin' around on him, though that'd be a hoot to see y'try. I mean just havin' this partnership with another livin' thing. Y'all dependin' on one another, havin' this understandin' between y'all, seein' the world together..." He smiles a little at the thought. "It'd be swell. Real swell."

Jesse straightens up some when he spots the same as Blaze; those incoming ruined towers. "That it? Calgary? Or what's left of it anyhow."

[rekindledtitan]

Blaze grunts in sudden understanding. “Put that way, I see what you mean. A companion like that is a fine thing to have.”

“If these co-ordinates are correct, that must be it. Old Calgary.” The Ghost, too, is watching the viewscreens with fascination. Post-Golden Age the city’s towers are taller and sleeker and much more numerous. On the outskirts, they fly past some sort of ancient aerospace port, a couple of chunky transport ships lying abandoned around the main terminal. The stretches of visible highways are lined with dark blots of rusted-out vehicles.

Blaze doesn’t think to comment on that: it’s what she expects to see around a city, and her attention is on getting them safely in to wherever this city kept its heart. To the old old city, where Jesse might recognize some of the weathered buildings and shifted park outlines and overgrown monuments.

“All right, I’m taking us right in. Give me the heads-up if any landmarks look familiar.”

[notalldead]

Jesse is suddenly attentive again, sitting forward in his seat again, craning his neck to see all he can and looking from one catch of the eye to another.

Seeing this place overgrown and abandoned, destroyed in some spots, is...not sad, but it's something along those lines. Haunting? That might be it. Sobering? Though he does take some comfort in seeing that plant life continues to thrive and is hard at work taking back the land.

Everything that looks like a distinctive building, a landmark, an important street, he stares hard at it. Hoping something like a memory or at least a stirring of one will take place in his head. Even if it's not HIS Calgary, it's still Calgary, right? Maybe even just the lay of the land, a particular route, something, will conjure some kind of recognition.

But the further they go and the longer he goes without anything resembling an epiphany or recollection, the more Jesse starts to realize that's just not how these things work. Because that is what he hoped for, wasn't it? Something would spark inside him and he'd suddenly remember who he was and what he did before he died. In whole, not just the vague patches that feel more like he's remembering facts about another person entirely. But nothing. There's nothing. Just a city as dead as he is.

"What happened here anyhow?" he finally asks, determined not to dwell on his disappointment. It was irrational, what he was hoping for.

[rekindledtitan]

Even a slow cruise means they’re sweeping through the city fast, but Blaze cuts their speed as much as she can. Once in a while she glances back at Jesse, optics searching his expression for any sign of recognition. Instead there’s just the dawning of disappointment; she looks back to the viewscreen with mixed feelings. Regret, for her friend. But perhaps also relief.

“Can’t give you a good answer on that. We don’t know much about what happened during the Collapse. Might have been taken by Fallen armies – I know they tore into Earth hard back then. Maybe people had the chance to evacuate first – try to get offworld if they could.”

It’s not a story with much chance for a happy ending, at least not for any one group. She knows what they’d find in there if they landed. Cracked open a shelter or checked the wrong pit. There’s a milder climate here, and plenty of scavengers, but she’s seen how deep the bones are piled in places with less of either.

[notalldead]

"Who're the Fallen? They got somethin' against humans in particular?" The name makes him think of the zed and he sort of hopes that wasn't the case. He hates to think of other worlds facing the same tides of undead he deals with on a daily basis.

"I'm guessin' there ain't no hope of resettlin' this city or any other like it, huh. Somethin' nasty's moved in or left it in such a state that it's a bad idea."

[rekindledtitan]

“The Fallen are pirates. Killers and thieves.” Since they’re aboard ship, it’s easy for the Ghost to pull up a handy pair of reference pictures of the four-armed Devils in their red cloaks. “They fight with every other species they encounter, but they do seem to be focused on humanity. Time and time again they’ve tried to break the City’s defenses.”

“Tried and failed.” Blaze considers the streets below for a moment before she answers Jesse’s other question. “Fallen are just one reason it’s not safe out here. You’re right – the Darkness touches everything outside our walls. That’s why one of our duties as Guardians is to help any refugees we find back to the City. Some of our orders make that their first priority.

“But one day-” and she dismisses the image of the Fallen, wiping it firmly away and tapping at that view of Old Calgary below, “one day when the Darkness is broken, we’re going to reclaim our world. All our worlds. Might take centuries before we have the population and the resources to spread out so far, but we’ll settle places like this again. Even if we have to rebuild from the foundations up.”

Speech aside- she catches movement on the sensors. There’s a red-marked dropship slipping in on their tail, lean and shark-like against the sky. She banks left and swoops behind another tower. “Seen anything you want to go back for? Don’t mean to rush you, but we’re running short on time. And Ghost, show him how to clip on the security harness.”

[notalldead]

Jesse can appreciate the sentiment of resettlement. Someday going back, cleaning and chasing out what's ruined it in the first place and taking back their homes. He nods along with Blaze's words, but the smile he'd been wearing fades when he realizes they might be in trouble.

"Uh, naw. We can skedaddle iffen things are lookin' to git hairy. Wait, security harness?" Are things about to Get Real in here?

[rekindledtitan]

Something flashes on the lower sensor display just before a trio of cannon rounds hit the nearest apartment block, explosively breaking the silence outside. Birds scatter and surge in flight behind them; lucky that the swift little ship is long out of the way before they crowd the air.

Yep, things are about to get a little too real for comfort.

“We can outrun them,” Blaze assures Jesse, her gaze locked on the displays. They bank around to weave between another pair of broken towers, and she spares a hand from the controls to clamp over Jesse’s shoulder briefly. She remembers how light her friend is. The Ghost hastily dips down t point out where the harness straps can be pulled out from the seat. They’re stiff with disuse, but still clip together solid and securely. Who knows if Jesse really needs them, but – dead man or not – he’s had a rough enough ride already today.

When she spots another couple of skiffs dropping out of warp above them, Blaze snorts. “Times like this I really wish this ship was armed. You secured there, Jesse?”

[notalldead]

He appreciates the moment of being held in place, or else he'd have been knocked all around the cockpit for lack of a seatbelt. When Ghost's bobbing catches his eye, Jesse hastily grabs for it and clicks everything in place. At least he thinks he did. It's all clipped in, but things might be mixed up. But hey, who cares, it's secure!

"Kick the tires and light the fires, Blaze!"

[rekindledtitan]

She shoots a look back at him, optics flaring bright golden for a moment, and just maybe one can imagine the grin that might lie behind them. Then her attention’s all ahead, and there’s a happy chuckle from her vocalizer as she fires the drives and brings their nose up hard.

The buildings ahead of them drop from view, their entire field of vision filling with sky and the two lean dark shapes above them. They’re accelerating against gravity, pushing the cabin’s occupants backward as the compensators lag in keeping up with their maneuver. Almost absent-mindedly the Exo reaches up for a handhold, wedging her feet against the chair’s mounting. The ship is rattling around them, prompting Ghost to hover nervously over the controls at Blaze’s side.

The two skiffs they’re aiming to bolt between are already swinging about. Blaze adjusts their course, keeps a steady optic on the screen. The skiffs cross their forward cannons’ fire as they spin, trying to catch the rising jumpship. Too slow. She knows it. Trusts her ship.

They blow between the sluggish dropships, cracking the sky with supersonic velocity. The hull rocks once, twice under cannon rounds. But the engines burn steady, taking them up and out through the clouds.

[notalldead]

Jesse had been sitting forward, ready to see how this rodeo shakes out, but then ends up thumps back against the chair he's strapped into, pushed into it by gravity and the g-force of their ascent. Eyes wide and teeth gritted in a nervous grimace, the zed claps a hand onto his hat, keeping it in place as the rattling picks up.

But the second they whip between those two other ships, Jesse gives an excited whoop, yanking his hat off to wave it. He stomps a few times for good measure too.

"Good NIGHT, Irene! Rustlers ain't got nothin' on yer ride! Ain't got NOTHIN'!"

[rekindledtitan]

“Damn right!” Blaze laughs heartily. Jesse’s turn of phrase may be unfamiliar, but his enthusiasm is infectious and very much mutual.

“We’ve taken some damage,” Ghost notes. The little bot’s managed to keep his position through all their shaking about, but his voice is distinctly relieved. “Still, it’s not every day we get to pull off a risky aerial maneuver like that.”

“Risky, hah. Wasn’t bad though.” Blaze steadies their ascent. They’re breaking out of the cloud layer, the sky darkening above them as they head for orbit. “Good to see what she can do once in a while. You all right there, Jesse?”

[notalldead]

"I'm great!" He's all smiles, the blanket around his shoulders forgotten again as Jesse leans forward once more, resting his hands on the console to grin at his robotic friend. "That was incredible! I done saw space, I saw buffaloes, I saw Calgary, an' we dodged some kinda space pirate or somethin'! Where'd y'all even learn to drive a spaceship?! That just standard around here? Cuz the most complicated thing I ever drove is a stick shift Tacoma."

[rekindledtitan]

As good as it feels to tweak the Fallen any day, it feels even better to see Jesse so happy about it. Blaze chuckles and reaches over to gently tug the blanket over his shoulders before it slips again. Space doesn’t have to be cold if you’ve come properly equipped.

“Figure it’s just standard programming,” she says, brushing over his question with a shrug. “Lucky our ships haven’t changed much in a long time. Ghost keeps me up to date with changes. A Tacoma’s some sort of ground vehicle? I’ve seen plenty of those, just don’t know much about ‘em.”

[notalldead]

He offhandedly grabs the edge of the blanket with one hand, just after Blaze gives him the reminder that that's a thing he should hold onto. Jesse's still plenty jazzed up just about SPACESHIPS.

"Yeah, uh, Tacoma's just a sorta truck. Toyota. S'a company?" It feels weird having to explain standard Earth car models when you think about it too much. "They're pretty swell for goin' through mud n' the like. Four-wheel drive. Ain't got nothin' on a goldarn SPACESHIP though. Man. What's the furthest y'all ever gone in this thing? Does it even got a limit? What's it fueled by?" So many questions!

[rekindledtitan]

“Oh! Yeah, I’ve seen vehicles like that. Sturdy. Probably hold up well so long as someone’s taking care of them.” Would she know what to do with one? She’s not sure. The ship’s a whole lot easier in some regards. She keeps talking while she settles them back in orbit, angling down across Canada and the west coast, out to the Pacific.

“Furthest we’ve been is the asteroid belt out between Mars and Jupiter. One of these days I want to get out past Jupiter and Saturn, see what’s hiding on all those little moons they have. Fuel isn’t a problem – the NLS drive just needs some hydrogen once in a long while and there’s plenty to spare round the gas giants.”

[notalldead]

"It just runs on hydrogen? Ain't no use fer fossil fuels no more? Well, tarnation. That makes sense, at least. Why stick around on the surface of places, dredgin' up sludge when y'all got the whole solar system to look around in and find somethin' better?"

He looks out at stars stretched out in front of them once more, quiet for a moment as he just observes. Takes in the vastness, the silence. "...Y'think there's stuff hidin' out there? I mean, I guess that makes sense; y'all already dealin' with those fellers back there and who knows what else.

"It's just crazy hearin' it. Just knowin' there's somethin' out there. That was a big question back home before things went south: is there any life out there other'n us? But, man. Y'all look at how big it is and it seems so obvious. Of course there is. How couldn't there be?"

[rekindledtitan]

“And people back in the City wonder what it was like the first time humans saw the Traveler,” Blaze notes. She leans comfortably against the wall, her view taking in both Jesse and the screen. “One of those answers that changes where we fit in the universe. Hard to imagine what it’s like from the other side, to tell the truth. Not knowing for sure.”

She thinks on the idea for a moment, and asks, "Which answer were you hoping for? People on your Earth, I mean. If you do find out."

[notalldead]

"Heh. Think the only people who were hopin' there weren't no one but us were folks whose religion didn't make room for it and folks who were afeared we'd get invaded and blown up like in Independence Day. That's another movie I gotta show y'all. You'd prolly get a kick out of it. Humans makin' a stand against some mean ol' rustlers from the stars lookin' to kick their stuffin' in."

He sits back in the chair, drumming his hands on his thighs. "Me? I like the idea of there bein' others out there. Like I said, lookin' at how big it is, it seems dumb to think otherwise. I mean, it's huge. There's all kindsa odds of there bein' another planet that can support life like ours, right? Or life that ain't like ours! Plant people or...or gas people! Heck, I dunno! But it seems silly to think we're solo out here."

[rekindledtitan]

“Sounds like a good story to me,” Blaze chuckles.

“We’ll just have to pick a time to come by and watch it.” Ghost, at least, is conscious of the fact that the only thing standing between them and their friends is the need to pin Blaze down. Maybe weld her down to a chair for a few hours.

“Yeah.” She’s giving Jesse a pleased look. “Whoever your neighbors are, I hope you get to meet them. Hope they’re friendly. Meantime the Nexus kinda gives you a taste of it. Hah, I should show you this bar I know where it’s mostly non-humans all the time. Good place for people-watching.”

[notalldead]

"Non-human bar? What's the credentials? Gotta check yer race at the door? Though I get why some people ain't keen on bein' around the baseline species no more. Heck, some of my own Rotten already feelin' like that and we used to be human."

You know, that reminds him. "Hey, there was that thing awhile back in the Nexus. Somethin' with people gettin' swapped around and in the wrong bodies. Y'all got caught up in it, right? I remember talkin' to y'all but it was Hughes instead. What'd you think o' that? Gettin' to be a livin' breathin' person?"

[rekindledtitan]

"Nobody's checking. Just don't see too many humans in there when I drop by. Maybe they aren't used to being around aliens either. Seems like a lot of people are from worlds that haven't made first contact yet." She sounds a bit less cheerful as she mulls it over, giving Jesse a thoughtful sort of look. It's sad to think of the distance growing between the Rotten and their kindred, although she has a hunch the uninfected humans don't always help that...

"Huh? Oh." She has very mixed feelings, from the sound of it. She's also no longer looking at Jesse. "Wasn't really a whole lot of fun. Not Hughes's fault - he's a sound guy, kept his head better than I did. Didn't mind getting to know him better, it just... messed up my senses pretty badly. And I had no clue how to handle a human body. It's not as easy as I figured."

Perhaps this is why she sounds so awkward. Downright embarrassed, even.

[notalldead]

He listens to Blaze's explanation, his smile fading slightly as she goes on. By the end of it, Jesse is tilting his hat back with a finger and giving a shrug.

"Prolly super weird fer someone who ain't ever been in a body made o' meat, I'd imagine. Havin' all these fluids an' stuff you gotta do to take care of it. And little things we don't even think about, like breathin' or blinkin'! Oh man, and y'all havin' to deal with sleep an', uh...y'know, bathroom stuff. Man, never mind, it was probably five kindsa crazy for y'all. Wish I'd been closer on hand to help y'all through it, honestly."

Jesse rubs a hand along his jaw, feeling the contour of it thoughtfully. "Harrowheart found me out too when he was switched up. He got to be in the body of some livin' fella for a time. Said it was fun, just gettin' to feel warm and have a heartbeat again and was kinda sad I didn't get to experience it again too. But I feel like it woulda just been more sad than anythin'. Knowin' that someone's stuck with bein' in my dead body suddenly. Knowin' that I'd hafta go back to it sometime. Get used to all the fun and vivid sensations of bein' alive again, and then...pfft. Gone."

[rekindledtitan]

She nods a little at the things he describes, though she looks his way quickly when he mentions sleep. He’s right, of course. Hopefully more than he can imagine. (The Ghost, it must be noted, is both keeping silent and watching intently.)

“Shouldn’t whine about it. It wasn’t so bad. Interesting. Would have been better if I could fight, that’s all.” She feels pretty bad that she has so little good to say about the experience – about spending some time in the shoes of her organic friends. She can’t talk about the parts that bothered her most, though, and Blaze is not good at dealing with that kind of thing.

It feels even worse complaining to Jesse about it though. Realizing how many of the things that unsettled her are the ones he misses. Realizing what upset her most was the brief suspicion that some of them were familiar.

“Harrowheart?” she echoes sharply, switching to a more worthwhile train of thought. “Huh. He seemed pretty happy, all right. Didn’t expect that.” She’s quiet for a moment. “How does it feel? Being dead?”

[notalldead]

"Feels numb, mostly. Real numb. You wouldn't think you'd miss feelin' pain, but you do, kinda. Somethin' weird about having a toe just fall offa ya and you didn't even feel it. Didn't even know it were comin' loose. Feels real still too. No pulse. No breathin' unless you do it on purpose. Can't cry, no matter how sad or happy or mad yer feelin'. Just don't happen and it's one of those things that you don't even think about missin' until you can't do it no more.

"And knowin' that yer not-...Yer never gonna age right. Maybe someday all us Rotten'll break down and fall apart and that'll be the end of it. Or maybe we'll just keep goin' and goin' until less natural causes put us down. Seems okay if yer someone like me, already in the prime of my adulthood. But we got kids like little Julie. She ain't ever gonna stop bein' a 10 year old. She ain't ever gonna grow up into a woman and meet someone and get married or have babies or nothin'."

Jesse shifts in his chair, pulling one long leg up to hug an arm around his shin. "An' just knowin' we're somethin'...unnatural? Cuz that's the way it is, the way it's supposed t'be. Things are born, then they live, then they die. And that's just how it goes. And now here's us Rotten and even the zed, somehow outside o' all that. We're outta place, not just among other people, but nature itself! Sometimes if I didn't keep tellin' my people we're just folks with a disease, I dunno what-..."

As if only now realizing he's kind of rambling about grim things, Jesse shakes his head and tries to smile. "Well, at least I know we can hibernate when we get real cold, right? That's somethin' new too."