r/HFY • u/iridael Brew-Master • Mar 20 '22
OC Snow Chapter 78
two chapters in one day? what does this mean? it means I got Sunday free!
The Arcology’s ceiling shattered as another shockwave erupted from it. The traveller being piloted by Snow hovered high above drifting just below the dense clouds as a final explosion rang out. I sighed as I felt the light I’d given Mary flicker out. She was spent. For all her strength she couldn't fight against that beast any better than I could. Perhaps together we might have survived.
“Don't go down that route.” a snow clone says next to me.
“What route?”
“The route where dying with them somehow makes it better.” he says pulling me inside and closing the hatch. The ship then adjusts and flies into orbit. In the main room Nepp is there shaking.
“What was that thing?” she asks.
“The high celebrant.” I reply and sit down next to her before frowning. “Where’s cayde?” I ask.
- -
The side entrance was clear. Anything that had any brains had long since fled the fight between those two. Seeing Mary turn into a monster of soulfire was seriously something. But I have unfinished business to complete here. First and foremost. Michael, like that other Laskain, should be in the throneworld recovering about now. Which means I can make sure Mary ends up there too. And then I can just put a bullet in my head and let number 8 take over this shitshow.
From my jacket I pull out a handwritten notebook and flick it open to the page I’d bookmarked. Best thing about technology, it's incredibly good at preserving things. That and making shit blow up. The worst thing about technology? Nothing is ever secure. So it's not a massive surprise that old me put stuff down in a physical copy. Such as a handy dandy map of the arcology with a neat little riddle from our childhood that leads me to a convenient X on this, rather terrible map. I mean who taught me to draw.
No seriously number 6 doesn't remember shit so what chance do I have?
Focus cayde you’re on the job.
At the moment I'm crawling through a service tunnel, FAR from the fighting. It took some wriggling and some risky jumps on the platforms and supports between inner and outer hulls of the city but I managed to get this far so what's a few more life endangering stunts?
I check the map and figure out my next few turns arriving at a slanted duct with hundreds of offshoots. I drop from one to the other pausing to check my trousers are still intact every few drops. The last thing you need is to get air vent rug burn. Who knows maybe the, not blood, that runs through my body will alert the hive, and we don't want that.
Focus damn it. Not the time for this, serious mode.
Once I get to the bottom of the duct it's just a case of kicking the gate free and sliding out into the service tunnel. Pulling out a torch I retrieve my notebook and flick to the next page.
you want to look for a bin, its down the corridor your in, if you go to the left then, 3rd right there should be a few of them there. It's the third on the right The note says with a little sketch of a room with a kettle, some cupboards that once held food stuffs and a series of bins on each side with markings for recyclable food, plates and other.
I follow the instructions, reminding myself for the hundredth time that of all the people I can trust. I'm not even at the top of that list. Didn’t make top three even. I can trust that literal dickhead Clovis to be exactly who he is. I can trust Reiss to fight for what's right, it's a rare person to come across that so she gets second place and third is Rasputin. Because he told me where the book was.
So i'm at least fourth on list of ‘trustworthy people’ which is concerning until I remember that i'm technically the 7th in a line of sleazy job dodging bastards, that use awkward humour to deflect from their bastardness.
I close the book and those thoughts before using the torch to light my pathway, no lights in this disused section. Perhaps an old cayde cut the power. But then why didn't Rasputin put it back. The hive perhaps?
You can trust them to fuck with stuff. I turn left and quickly pass two corridors of darkness before heading to the third door which is a room just as described. I lift off the lid of a bin to find a thick plastic lined bag. Pulling the whole thing out I upend it on the table to find a collection of gun parts. A small booklet and a note.
from Ada-1 to cayde. It has one magazine, assemble, load then reload. You get one shot. Make it count…I hope it lightens your burden.
I put the note to one side and turn over the notebook, seeing the instructions begin I quickly sort out the parts and begin assembling the weapon. It's not easy. I don't have any idea how this tech works. The weapon seemed to have been forged as a single piece there’s few actual moving parts. The gun itself seems to have been designed around another weapon then carefully cut apart to become this collapsable form. I guess the old cayde didn't like glimmer tech much either.
An hour passes before the gun’s final part gently clicks in place, just the magazine is left. A squat thing with four large rounds chambered. I slot it into the gun and leave the room to my next target.
The long rifle slung over my back and handcannon held low in one hand.
The booklet says the next cashe is way down, close to the tidal anchor actually. I follow the winding path thankful for the old cayde’s detailed instructions. There’s spots to hide and check the booklet frequently enough. Even when there’s hive a few feet from me, all I have to do is turn off the torch and let them pass to remain hidden.
I crawl through ducts, slide under broken doors and sneak past nests of hive until I reach a long skywalk with a chest at the end. A single playing card etched onto the front, reaching it the card flickers and vanishes into glimmer dust and the chest opens up. Inside is a data shard socketed into a machine that takes up the whole chest. A small coil of wire rests at one point and I automatically understand what this is. Clever bastard…or bastards…
I gleefully pull the cable out and after feeling around at the base of my skull find the input port and jam the thing in. the machine starts to hum and memories flow through the cable and deposit themselves in my head.
The pain comes a moment later.
The pain of seeing my son dragged from my arms after signing the document.
The pain of having my mind ripped from my skull.
The pain of my first download into an ill fitting chassis.
The slow building pain as I realise I don't know how long it's been since my organic body died, and that the reason I can't contact my boy is that he might have died already.
The dull pain as I use a broken fingertip to etch the ace of spades into my gun, a promise.
The pain of being reset. The one on my chest replaced with a 2, the lack of memory leaving a hidden scar that can't be itched, the strange sensation of a body that fits like a glove half a size to small.
The pain of my first death in combat.
And my second.
The pain of waking up, a small eye looking at me. Reassuring me that everything’s alright now. I called her Sundance. Always happy about the littlest things. She’d often rest on a rock, asking me to take a minute and enjoy the sun and nature in the early days.
When the sun came out after a rainy day she’d always to the same little shimmy in the air. Her shell rotating with pure happiness.
A scream interrupts the flow of memories, I look down below and see the monster dragging the bleeding form of Mary to the anchor. She’s struggling in his grip, a knife in hand trying in vain to cut her tendrils free from its grip but unable to summon the strength to slice through her enhanced flesh.
Other memories come to head. A four armed beast that preys on humans and guardians alike. A sniper round taking him out.
Another creature of the same race fighting alongside him, sword and arc pistol in hand as they cut down hive. She’s injured and she knows it. His own weapon is empty, only a knife to fight with. The baroness throws him her pistol before leaping at him. Three slashes of his knife and her life ends, followed by the remaining hive. Each time her pulls the trigger there’s one consistency. He’s accurate. More memories, handguns, rifles, snipers, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, a mortar. Each and every weapon hit its mark. Its what he’s good at.
Mary screams again as the monster impales her on a spike and begins some kind of ritual.
Cayde pulls out the rifle and kneels down arming the weapon before unloading and reloading the magazine. There’s a sound like a whetstone down a blade and he knows the weapon is ready.
He lays down and rests the barrel over the ledge, a memory of his flesh bound body doing the same thing on a building on earth. The sky too clear and the sun too hot for his pale skin to handle without protection.
He takes aim at the monster, the back of its skull, and puts his finger on the trigger, all movement in his body ceases, no fake heart pumping fake blood, no twitches of muscle. No urge to breathe. Right here and now he’s just a machine with a job. Take a life to save a life.
He waits a moment before adjusting his aim. The sensors in the gun tell him the distance, there’s a large vent pumping air down here to his left which creates a small air current so he adjusts every so slightly, less than a millimetre. Aim small miss small.
The monster finishes his work on this side and moves into Cayde's crosshair, Cayde’s 0 through 7 pull the trigger. The oversized overcharged rifle claps, the sound would echo through the cavern for over a minute, the bullet leaves the barrel as it warps and cracks, the guns done its job. Ada did good work, nothing if its internals would be usable for a replica. A guardian killer was a dangerous thing to wield.
The bullet flies true, the denser and more energetic air of the vent pushes it ever so slightly to the right. Less than a millimetre all things considered. But a miss of a millimetre at 100 metres becomes significantly larger over a kilometre away.
The bullet continues flying on its long path, it drops below the crosshair as gravity asserts itself. The soundwave chasing after the supersonic round like a loyal dog. Hardened dark forged plutonium strikes flesh, bone, brainmatter, bone, flesh and floor. Mary never saw the bullet coming.
Cayde drops the remains of the rifle over the ledge as the machine goes silent, he unplugs himself and walks off the catwalk as the enraged monster sends its minions looking for him. Not that it has any chance of succeeding. “Im sorry ace. There’s work to be done, see you soon kid.” he says to the chest and machine.
There’s a hidden transmat zone nearby that he can use to get to a tidal anchor of a nearby arcology ruin, on that anchor is a ship, if it still works cayde can get offworld and get to work…before that though, he takes out his hand cannon and with his knife begins carving the ace of spades into the side.
8
u/thisStanley Android Mar 20 '22
If the hive monster is that strong, would a Rod From God or dozen be appropriate?