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]

"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."

[rekindledtitan]

It’s not easy to listen to, that’s true. Not entirely easy to understand, either… but perhaps she understands more than she would have a couple weeks earlier. Funny how she ran afoul of nearly all the same physical shifts, they just prefer different directions.

“You don’t seem so out of place to me,” Blaze points out. She lifts her hand to Jesse’s shoulder, offering what comfort she can. It’s not her strong point. “Nature’s not always so clear-cut. Just don’t go crazy with that hibernation trick, all right? Could scare a bot with that.”

[notalldead]

"Heh. Maybe not in the Nexus. But how's things here in yer world? Y'all think people in yer city gonna take that well to a dead man up and walkin' around? Just curious. I mean, if they are, maybe I'll have to visit sometime!

"Also, don't plan on doin' that hibernatin' trick anymore than I gotta. Explains why folks back home are bein' so sleepy, though. Good to know we'll all perk back up once spring rolls back in." Jesse pats the metal hand resting on his shoulder with a friendly smile.

[rekindledtitan]

Oh, she definitely hadn't thought of that. Her optics flare for a second, the Exo thinking that over.

"I don't know. About the City," she admits. "Just meant- stuff like not physically aging. Being outside the life cycle. Not having a body that responds so hard to emotion. It's easier for me to understand than having all those." She shrugs, as if to try and downplay the gulf there.

"...I'm glad you're all right. How's the heating in your settlement?"

[notalldead]

His smile broadens, even it's still a little melancholy. "Yeah. That makes a lotta sense! Hope no one ever gives y'all grief fer that. Yer made the way you were meant to be an' ain't no one should be faultin' you that. Bein' made o' flesh ain't the default no more, not so far as yer world or the Nexus goes. Glad I know that now."

Getting onto the subject of his gang, Jesse shrugs. "Not as good as it could be. We're sealed off real good from all the snow and ice, but...I don't, uh. I don't like fires in the camp. Maybe I should reconsider that? I mean, that's just kinda me. I mean, it hurts us all real bad, but I'm just-...Ehh, or maybe I should just do some heavy liftin' in the Nexus and see about scroungin' up some space heaters." He scratches the back of his head a bit peevishly, that smile gone in a concerned frown.

[rekindledtitan]

“They wouldn’t.” She’s never (yet) met anyone bigoted that way. But what’s natural for her perhaps isn’t so natural to him, hard as that is to swallow. She doesn’t care for this idea that her friend is ‘unnatural’ or wrong somehow, but when he’s stuck in this condition unwillingly, trapped in a shape that isn’t right for him… kinda hard to argue otherwise. She’s had a taste of what that’s like, after all.

Practical problems are easier. Practical problems can be solved. “Thermal packs maybe? I’ll ask the human scouts for ideas. Ghost and I can stop by and check the architecture, see if there’s anything we can help you with there.”

[notalldead]

"Aw heck, but you two have already done so much fer me an' mine! Hah, people are gonna start considerin' you the boss rather'n me if I keep lettin' you come up with all the best ideas." He elbows her lightly, obviously kidding.

"Honestly, I think once this winter's let up, we're gonna pull up stakes and move towards the east. Maybe start workin' up into our version of Canada. Somethin' feels right about goin' there, y'know? Ain't much left fer us in Spokane at this point. Ain't no leads on a cure and we're just sittin' around, holdin' turf and not a whole lot else. No one's even botherin' to try and nab one another's ground anymore. Might as well move on and let the Pig Farmers have it."

[rekindledtitan]

"Guess I shouldn't risk it. Light knows I couldn't do your job!" she chuckles.

His plan, though- it makes sense, risky though it is. Perhaps it says something that her first concern is: "You'll still be able to visit the Nexus? You've got the tech, right?"

[notalldead]

"I been thinkin' about that. Gotta be some way to take it with us or somethin', right? Cuz I'd hate to have to leave that behind. Even thought sometimes about just settlin' the Rotten in the Nexus itself! But then we'd never find a cure, or more like us out there who need a gang to look after 'em."

He sits back in the chair, pulling the blanket around one shoulder, pondering. "I mean, maybe there's somethin' someone can make that lets us make another door to the Nexus when we move? There's folks who talk about bein' able to do shit with portals. That ugly guy with the horn and claw bein' one. Maybe I gotta corner that fella and talk shop with him."

[rekindledtitan]

"Some people also use PINpoint devices to travel between the Nexus and their worlds. They seem to be available from different vendors, but I'm... not sure all of them are equally trustworthy. You should be careful, whatever you do." The Ghost spins, and adds quietly, "We'd both be upset if you got lost."

"Wouldn't be the same without you around," Blaze agrees. "As for Naugus, we met him once. If he's as knowledgeable as he thinks he is, he can probably take care of a portal."

[notalldead]

"Huh! I ain't never thought of that. Just havin' a device rather 'n a door. Though that might be a good plan to deal with someone who can shut off the portal we got now. Wonder if the subway entrance would go away with it? Or maybe I should leave it, in case there's some Rotten who'd rather stay behind in Spokane..."

He laughs, rubbing his forehead. "Shoot! I got a lot to think about over this! Glad there's options, though. And hey, for the record, I'd be pretty sore if I never saw you two ever again either. Yer real true blue pals."

Good place to wrap, unless there's anything else you'd like to play out?

[rekindledtitan]

"Heh." Blaze rubs an antenna, glancing back at the ship monitors. "Just trying to help. I know you'll figure something out though. Get your people somewhere safe and warmer."

She nods at the forward display. "Feel like taking another turn around the planet?"

Good place to end, yes!

[notalldead]

He grins, bright and eager. "Heck yeah, one more run around the barn aughta do me."

Man, the other Rotten are never gonna believe this.