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Intercessor (AKA Kemonomimi Yuri Space Fantasy)

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I think the most vital thing for our MC and her foxy redhead savior is to start learning Roombish so they can communicate with the local guide.
 
Kinda surprised no one said it yet (and yeah it doesn't really matter yet), but chapter 2 doesn't seem to be threadmarked.

Amusing story so far though. I hope Roomba stays on as a main character.
 
Two years and 16 chapters later, the poor, beleaguered space Roomba is still following her, flashing a light and trying to get her to come back to the original compound and evacuate the way she's supposed to.
 
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Chapter 3: The Arkology (III)
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    • I'm so sorry this has taken so long. I've been juggling work and other writing commitments. I'm still determined to go on with this, though, so please don't think of this as a dead project. Stay tuned~ >_<

    *****​

    Chapter 3: The Arkology (III)

    "What do you mean," Scarlet blinked with a quizzical tilt of her head to the side, "'why do I have fox ears and a tail'?"

    I wasn't sure how to answer that. On the one hand, she had the kind of tone that sounded like the kind of tone any sane person would take when replying "what do you mean, 'why do I have eyes and ears'". On the one hand, I had no idea how to react to the fact that Scarlet sported pointy, fluffy ears on the top of her head that resembled fox ears - orange in color like those of a red fox - and definitely didn't resemble human ears, the latter of which I could not find on the sides of her head. And it wasn't just the ears; Scarlet had a long, bushy tail that was definitely evocative of a fox, coming out of a slit in the back of her pants. There was a puff of white fur at the very end, but otherwise the appendage matched the color of her hair. And ears, really.

    It wasn't just her either. The women I saw - the corpses that had been lying on the ground when I had first met Scarlet and then later those who had been shooting at us - all sported ears and tails of some description. Everything had been happening so fast, of course, and with bullets and lightning flying through the air, I had not been in a particularly inquisitive mood to either double-check their ears or ask about them. Now, however...

    Now, I would like to amend my previous statement: I had not been transported to Area 51, but a goddamned anime. Not like I'd watched them, but I'd been surrounded by enough white Japanese fanboys in my life to see not-safe-for-work images as their phone wallpaper. That, or the government's genetic research and development program had suddenly gotten very interesting. Either possibility was terrifying.

    Still, I was at least going to try to make sense of anything. With naive hope, I pointed more at her ears and tail, muttering, "Well, you know. Your ears are...different. And you have a tail." Such eloquent observations. The fact that I was pointing this out made me feel simultaneously silly and stupid. "Which is, uh..."

    "Well, yes," shrugged Scarlet. "I'm a vulpis."

    "Gesundheit." I couldn't help it.

    The "vulpis" or whatever blinked. "Pardon?"

    Sighing, a waved a hand at her in defeat. "Never mind. I'm not going to pretend I make sense of that." Not that my curiosity had been sated in any way. It wasn't some kind of hairband with fox ears that she was wearing; the fluffy things were actually making these small, twitching motions. As was her tail, swishing this way and that in a way that reminded me all too much of a real fox.

    Scarlet studied me for a moment before merely nodding. "Exile?" she asked.

    "From where?" I snorted, still staring at what - to me, at least - were extra appendages on Scarlet's body. "Westside? I wish."

    Again, the only person with a gun in the room looked at me blankly for a moment before blandly saying, "Right." It seemed like this was her go-to reaction when she couldn't make sense of things but decided that I was keeping secrets or something. Admittedly, "Westside" wasn't the best of all explanations; maybe I should've told her my city. Or at least state.

    Tragically, I was still too fixated on the fact that Scarlet has fox ears and a fox tail. Because seriously, they looked so real. "Is that even real?" I asked, reaching out for her ears like she was a fox at a petting zoo.

    Except as soon as my hand got close, Scarlet suddenly snapped away, her eyes wide and her posture suddenly cautious. I jerked back my hand as if I had been shocked; Scarlet didn't seem alarmed enough to draw her gun - mostly instead looking like I had just tried to grope her - but the reminder that she had a gun suddenly made me go very cold, compounding the fact that I was suddenly feeling very contrite. I would've felt contrite even if she didn't have a gun, to be honest, but the gun really didn't help matters. What had I been thinking? How would I have liked it if some weirdass stranger had tried to reach out to touch my ears?

    "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I stammered quickly, hunching my shoulders in a bit both in fright and embarrassment. "I'm not sure what I was thinking. I didn't mean to offend."

    Scarlet again looked at me with that blank look, trying to figure me out. Finally, she visibly relaxed a bit; mercifully, not once did she look like she was going to reach for her gun or even motion towards it. So I was still safe. "It's fine." A pause. "You're strange."

    "Yeah," I scowled, trying to look like I had already gotten over my awkward, panicked demeanor at having possibly offended a girl packing heat, "well, imagine waking up two weeks ago and realizing that you've been kidnapped to some Area 51 place and being shot at with a lightning gun. Or plasma array. Whatever." That statement alone was crazy enough that I just buried my face into my palms, coming to terms with the fact that, yes, my life had truly gotten that crazy. "God."

    For her part, Scarlet did look cautiously intrigued, if also a little confused. "Were...people here before?"

    "I don't know. You've been the only person I've seen since I got here. Aside from this stupid Roomb...!" I scowled, pivoting around on one foot as I attempted to deliver a sharp kick to that stupid Roomba that was still rapidly flashing lights in my eyes, as it had been doing for maybe the past half hour. Tragically, the space Roomba swiftly slid away well outside by kicking range - not that my landing that kick was highly probable to begin with - and continued to both watch me warily like a cat on its guard and flash that stupid light. "Get back here, you dick!" I vented my frustration at the space Roomba, only to notice that Scarlet had flinched a little at my outburst, and was now looking at me in muted bewilderment. That made me instantly awkward again as I muttered, "Sorry."

    "I don't mind," Scarlet said mildly. It was great that she could tolerate my frustration and that bloody space Roomba, although she started looking between the two of us, as if expressing obvious wariness at my antics, or just being around the two of us - me and space Roomba - in general.

    I, in the meantime, was too busy trying to chase the space Roomba down, albeit with only a quarter of my previous enthusiasm; in despite of my simmering anger, I was totally aware that it traveled faster than me, could disappear into slits at the bottom of walls, and otherwise had successfully evaded every single previous attempt to capture it. Or punish it. Either was fine to me. And indeed, the space Roomba was backing away in circles, so my following it while muttering swear words under my breath meant we were literally going in a circle around Scarlet, who just watched on awkwardly. "If you're going to follow me," I finally snapped after about half a minute of futilely catching that blasted thing, "at least go get me some food!" Then, as an awkward afterthought, "Oh, and, uh, for Scarlet as well."

    The space Roomba, of course, stayed rooted to where it was, flashing its light in my eyes with silent persistence now that I was no longer trying to kick it into the upper atmosphere. Or, at least, that was what I thought would happen. Instead, after a moment of seeming consideration, the space Roomba suddenly spun around and darted into one of the slits under the walls that I at this point suspected were service corridors specifically for those little shits.

    "Wow," I blinked, not actually sure how to react to this. "That...worked?"

    "It...seems like it," Scarlet offered, sounding just as incredulous as me.

    "That thing never actually listens to me."

    Scarlet sent me a look that borders on alarm. "It's not supposed to."

    At least Scarlet was more familiar with these space Roombas - or servitors, whatever - than I was. "Well, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth."

    "Pardon?"

    Right, English idioms might've been something unfamiliar to someone who didn't speak English as a first language. "I'm not going to get pissy about little blessings here and there I can get in a pile of shit."

    Again, Scarlet stared at me for a moment of muted confusion before simply stating, "Right."

    I felt like I really lucked out. That for a girl with a gun and clear familiarity with how to use it to kill people, she was being remarkably patient. If she was, in fact, keeping me around so she can sell me to Eastern European sex traffickers or whatever, then at least she was being awfully nice about it. I hoped she wasn't an Eastern European sex trafficker. Her accent sounded like it? I didn't know. I certainly didn't think that Eastern Europe had any foxgirls.

    But already, Scarlet was moving on, striding in a direction that I thought was in the general direction of "away from the people who were shooting us". She didn't motion for me to follow; perhaps she assumed that I would just tag along without being told. In this, she was probably right. "We should move deeper into the arkology," she declared. Then, after a moment, she suddenly stopped and swiveled around on her heels, and I almost crashed into her. "No, we should've taken the firearms from those idiots I killed." She looked at me and shrugged. "I didn't expect to...be with anyone else here."

    I nodded agreeably, although there was one bit of concern I felt obligated to raise: "But, uh, the space Roomba is getting food for us. Shouldn't we wait?"

    Scarlet blinked at me again in that inscrutable way people do when they think you're crazy, an idiot, or both. "The...servitor knows where we are. This is an arkology."

    It was my turn to blink, right up to the point where I nodded along and replied, "Right, I'm going to pretend I understood what you just meant. Lead the way, I guess."

    And so she did, retracing her steps through the corridors of stainless white panels and gold highlights, navigating the twists and turns that rooms with multiple doors presented. Or at least I thought she was retracing her steps. Even if I did have a good sense of direction and did remember the rough path we had taken in our escape, there was a period a time after the whole "getting shot" thing that had been excised from my memory. Or perhaps it had failed in even registering in my memory in the first place, so blind had my panic been.

    And so it was after about five minutes of incessant walking that I finally worked up the courage to ask, "Do you know where to go?"

    Scarlet's answer was as curt as it was surprising: "No, of course not."

    "Oh," I blinked, my sense of concern swiftly rising. "Well, you seem like you do."

    "I'm making some guesses," she admitted. "You begin to get a feel for the patterns these arkologies are built in, usually around your third or fourth expedition." I imagined that was a nice way of saying she was making educated guess, which I supposed was still significantly better than any uneducated guess I could make.

    Thankfully, although it took somewhere in the realm of half an hour - and although there were a few moments involving hesitation and backtracking that made it seem like Scarlet was losing her way just a little - yet another set of doors before us opened...

    ...And we were rewarded to the sight of half a dozen space Roombas.

    It was almost a comical sight, watching a bunch of these disc-shaped robots zipping around left and right. Then I noticed that this was indeed the same room where Scarlet had shot dead the three women that had already been lying as corpses on the ground. You know, the same room where Scarlet had almost blown my brains out. Half the space Roombas had attached cords to the bodies and were apparently dragging them away. I wasn't exactly trying to look too hard, but just as I had thought, all of them had fluffy ears coming out of the top of their heads and tails from the rear. The remaining space Roombas, meanwhile, were gliding over the trails of blood coming from those bodies, cleaning it away and leaving the floor behind them almost startlingly pristine clean. That part was less comical and more like something from a dystopian movie, where all signs of screwed up violence were eradicated to give credence to the image of a "perfect" society.

    There was also the fact that they seemed to be trying to take away the guns that were on the ground as well, though, leading to Scarlet dashing ahead to pick them up off the ground away from the space Roombas reach. After a futile attempt to chase after their targets, the three space Roombas turned towards Scarlet - now carrying about five different guns - and seemed to stare for a moment, as if trying to say "what gives". Then they decided that cleaning the blood was more important, and simply rolled off.

    For me, cleaning the blood was an important thing too, because the weapons were still stained with blood from the pool it had been lying in. Unfortunately, Scarlet didn't seem particularly perturbed by this, and even more unfortunately, she gave each gun only a cursory rub against her trousers - leaving semi-dry stains - before handing one over to me. Trying not to hesitate for too long, I gingerly took what seemed like a handgun in between two fingers, trying to hold it where it wasn't stained with the blood of bodies that were now being dragged out of the room. The space Roombas passed through the sliding doors before they closed, and that was the last time I saw of them.

    It was another moment before the fact that there were multiple space Roombas completely settled in. I mean, this was a giant place, so somewhere deep down, I had always assumed - without ever really thinking about it - there was going to be more than on space Roomba cleaning up the place, but I had only ever seen one at a time. Now that I was confronted with this fact, though, I wondered whether or not the space Roomba that tormented me was among those that had dragged away the corpses and cleaned away the blood. Whether or not it was the same space Roomba, in fact. Or if those little bastards were all in on it and took turns messing with me.

    I didn't have a lot of time to think about it, though. Even as I was trying to figure out which parts of the handgun were less bloody and thus sanitary - and non-gross - for me to touch, Scarlet was looping gun straps around her shoulders where applicable, shoving a smaller gun into a spare holster, and hiding another gun into a bag. "How good are you with a gun?" she asked.

    "I've never fired one before," I admitted. I had never been comfortable with them.

    "That is unfortunate," said Scarlet in the kind of tone that suggested she somehow expected this to be the answer. "It's a useful skill for a hacker to have."

    "I'm not a hacker," I pointed out. I was increasingly unsure from where Scarlet was getting this impression. "I'm a mechanic."

    "Ah," Scarlet allowed, looking quietly thoughtful for a moment. Finally, she concluded, "It's still a useful skill to have. Do you know how to shoot one?"

    "Point, pull trigger?" I shrugged helplessly, still looking at the handgun between my fingers like it was toxic or radioactive. Or both. "I'm not trying to be a smartass, I'm trying to express the degree to which I know."

    "Right," Scarlet said, slipping in behind me with such casual grace that I didn't even fully realize she was suddenly pressing up behind my back until her arms had slipped under my own and her hands had slid the gun into my own hands, apparently trying to push me into a proper firing posture that I might've paid more attention to were it not for the fact that, first, this felt incredibly awkward and maybe even embarrassing, and, second, Scarlet smelled kind of nice.

    Which was not exactly the kind of thing I really wanted to be noticing when there were corpses here just a moment ago and my hands were probably now stained with blood from the spots Scarlet hadn't bothered to give a thorough cleaning to, but.

    Already, with all the grace of a master pianist, Scarlet's fingers guided my own to the different parts of the handgun, first at the level behind the trigger. "This is the safety," she explained, clicking the mechanism up and down. "When you think it's super unlikely for you to run into anyone hostile, click it to safe like this. Never put your finger in the trigger guard, this circle here," she guided my finger along the metallic loop that surrounded the trigger, "unless you need to shoot or prepare to shoot. Now when you need to shoot..." She trailed off for a moment, a thought seemingly occurring to her, then asked, "Are you dominant in your left or right hand?"

    "Right," I answered, like the ordinary schmuck that I was.

    "Alright," Scarlet nodded, readjusting my hands around the gun, which was my first clue that the foxgirl behind me was probably left-handed. "Hold the gun in your right hand. Pull back your right foot just a bit..." and here Scarlet's foot reached out and pulled my right foot back, causing me to assume a slightly sideways slant even as my arms continued to be angled and bent forwards, "...and bend your knees a little. Take your left hand up to your right like so."

    It was - in my completely inexpert opinion, formed through the course of watching cop or spy films while on lunch break - a pretty simple stance, nothing particularly special or fancy. Still, having been made to assume what I was assuming to be a proper shooting position, I still felt pretty badass. Like I was actually some kind of super capable superspy instead of someone who had twice within the last few hours tried to run away screaming like a little pussy.

    "When you shoot," Scarlet concluded, letting go of me and stepping into my field of vision before gesturing to her boobs, "aim for the chest area." She looked at me for a moment, as if to make sure that I was maintaining a proper position even after she had let go, and nodded in satisfaction. I felt a bit irrationally pleased; despite being underutilized, underappreciated, and undervalued, I did work in a somewhat physical, precision-demanding technical job. I knew how to hold a proper position at awkward angles. Scarlet returned to my side, sliding a finger to a button just beneath the safety. "This releases the magazine," she explained, allowing the magazine to slid out from the grip of the handgun before sliding it right back in, "and you just slide a new one in like this. Easy."

    "I guess," I shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant rather than confused. I was almost certain that there was much more to shooting a firearm - this was supposed to be something that soldiers trained months for, if not years - but as a one-minute crash course, it was...sufficient. It was easy enough to understand, even if I knew that, realistically, all of that was going to fly out of my head faster than flying bullets when the bullets started...well, flying.

    There's also something hilarious about the fact that I was trapped in a secret giant military-like technology facility with foxgirls running around in special forces outfits, yet with the one obvious exception of an lightning gun or a plasma array or whatever the shit, guns were still guns that shot bullets.

    It was right around this time when a slit at the bottom of the wall opened, and - ignoring the fact that Scarlet and I whirled around in preparation for being attacked by people with guns again - the space Roomba suddenly appeared, a tray perched atop its "head" with twice the amount of packaged food as it had carried previously. Somehow, through no rational explanation I could provide, I knew - distinct from the half dozen space Roombas we saw dragging away corpses and cleaning blood just minutes before - that this was the space Roomba that had harassed me for all this time.

    True to form, the space Roomba skidded to a stop a few feet away from us, allowing the tray to slip off itself and across the floor, coming to a near-perfect stop just inches from our feet. Then it remained a few feet away, as if furtively watching for any sign I was going to try to kick it again.

    And since the tray was now off its head: Of course its light was still flashing irritatingly.

    Scarlet was still staring at the space Roomba for entirely different reasons, of course, looking mutedly as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. After a moment, her hunched soldiers finally relaxed a little bit as she bent down to pick up the tray. "It...seems to be cautious of you," she allowed eventually, as if trying to find something relatively polite to say in the middle of her disbelief.

    "It's a little shit," I sighed, even as I began to make a short sprint to the space Roomba, such was my annoyance with its badgering. "Stop. Flashing!" I screamed at it, even as I delivered a swift kick in the area where the space Roomba once was. I knew, of course, that it'd safely retreat another five feet back like a cautious housecat. I didn't really think I'd be able to successfully send it flying in the first place. Sure felt like the point needed to be made, though. After feeling a bit annoyed at my predictable failure and feeling a little embarrassed when I turned around to see Scarlet staring at me, I coughed and made my own attempt to find something relatively polite to say. "So how many bad guys do we have to shoot?"

    "The Fortune's Wings was carrying about a hundred, although probably a fifth of them or less are going to be crew."

    "Oh." So that's about eighty-ish people. Which was not so significant a downgrade from a hundred that I was feeling in any way better about all of this. "That's...a lot of people we have to shoot."

    But Scarlet corrected, "We don't. Over the next few days, or so I hope, they'll be too busy stripping out everything that isn't bolted down. They'll have to come deeper and deeper into this arkology if they want to break even with everyone they've hired." She plucked a packaged food bar from the tray before passing it to me when I finally got back within arm's reach of her. "We should pick some things up along the way too. But we wait for them to stretch themselves a little thin, sneak past them, and get back onto the ship. Preferably when we start detecting voidwaves."

    "'Voidwaves'," I repeated slowly, even as I took the tray, set it down on a nearby surface that wasn't quite a table insomuch as it seemed like a metallic block that was part of the architecture, but which served fine enough as an ad hoc counter. I was, of course, trying to seem nonchalant - unwrapping my own food bar and taking casual bites out of it - about the fact that more bullshit words were being thrown around, and I was continuing to feel like the biggest idiot in the room. "Right. So what happens when we start detecting the 'voidwaves'?"

    "Well," Scarlet explained in between bites, "the arkology begins its transition back into voidspace. At which point we need to get off before our innards get splattered across the walls." She shrugged. "Or worse."

    This was a conversation I wish we had before I started eating. "There are...worse things than getting our innards splattered across the walls?"

    "Theoretically, we could also have our innards stuck inside the walls."

    *****​

    The next few days were actually remarkably uneventful and stress-free, if one discounted the fact that we were - as far as I knew, anyways - perpetually within a mile of people with very dangerous guns. So it wasn't exactly an entirely stress-free environment because of the lingering background radiation of my current life that was suddenly being shot with little to no warning, but humans are good at coping.

    Still, it was mostly just a matter of waiting for the aforementioned "voidwaves" to appear, or something. I didn't exactly know what it meant or how to look out for it, Scarlet didn't explain it because she thus far had the impression that I wasn't as dumb as a brick and I didn't really want to change that, and I figured I'd just start running when she told me to.

    So in the meantime, we waited. Hours blended into each other, marked only by the clock on what looked like Scarlet's super-advanced phone. One meal arrived after another from the space Roomba, which wisely maintained a cautious distance from us. Light conversation was made, even though I got the feeling that both of us were maintaining a respectful distance from each other, at least until we figured each other out. Which was something that was still being relegated to the distant future, perhaps. I mean, Stockholm syndrome or no, I tend to have my guard up around anyone with a gun. I blame my mother.

    Scarlet wasn't terrible company - she remained polite and helpful and astoundingly tolerant for someone who didn't bat an eye at killing people - but she also didn't really offer much about herself either. She mostly talked about what to do if we were to run into anyone, how to properly fire my handgun, how to stay behind her whenever possible, so on and so forth. It felt like she was one of those survivalists who had their own show on Discovery or National Geographic, the kind of people who stocked up on guns and canned food in the middle of the woods, waiting to duck into their bunkers at the first sign of nuclear armageddon. And speaking of Discovery or National Geographic, Scarlet reminded me in a way about something I had probably learned from one of those wildlife shows some time back, talking about the differences between "domesticated" and "tame" animals, where "domesticated" animals such as dogs were bred through the generations to be hypersocial with humans, whereas "tame" animals largely tolerate the presence of humans but are still fundamentally "wild". For all Scarlet was polite and patient, she didn't seem like she was in all that much a hurry to get to know me or introduce herself. It was surprisingly professional for two girls surrounded by a lot of people with guns.

    But maybe some people are just like that. Maybe people would've describe me like that too, an anti-social, frigid loner bitch. Gunfire, I suppose, was bringing out the clinginess in me, which was pretty pathetic, to be completely honest. That, or I still hadn't gotten over the fact that this was literally a foxgirl. Did I mention that I'm stuck in a sci-fi military base of some description with a foxgirl? I felt like that was really worth repeating. Because the past two weeks needed to get even weirder, apparently.

    Still, I was entirely willing to just follow her lead, where she's move from room to room, picking up little trinkets and pieces of equipment here and there before shoving it into her knapsack, sometimes removing something she had picked up before to make room for something new. Sometimes she'd stay in one place for a while, even hours at a time, making some obligatory small talk with me about nothing in particular, telling me the ins and outs about a potential threat we might face. We'd find the increasingly familiar futuristic beds, bathrooms, and showers. We'd sleep in shifts. Then her ear would twitch, as if she heard something, and then she'd stand up and say that we have to move. This happened a few times, although there was at least one close call, where we evacuated from one room just a bit too slow, and as we reached the door on one side, the door on the other end of the room slid open, revealing a quartet of armed women on the other side. I did manage to spy more animal ears and tails, but I understandably did not make out that many more details on that front, in no small part because my attention was far more fixated on the guns slung on straps around their shoulders.

    Fortunately, they were also carrying all sorts of gizmos and gadgets in their arms - significantly larger pieces than the trinkets Scarlet was picking up, some as large as mini-fridges - and they did not expect to see us. Scarlet, on the other hand, was prepared, had both her hands free, and was faster on the draw.

    I admit I didn't pay that much attention to the outcome of that brief shootout, because I was tripping all over myself in the opposite direction, panicking pretty much all the way, and by the time I managed to gather my wits, Scarlet had dragged me several rooms away before assessing that we were probably safe, and it was all I could do to laugh maddeningly a little and try to kick the space Roomba again for still flashing its stupid light. I didn't even remember the fact that I had a gun until some five minutes after I remembered how to breathe like a proper human being again.

    But after two weeks of being alone and a couple of awkward days with Scarlet, things started to feel like they were settling into a sense of normalcy. That this was the new normal, a routine that I could get used to. The space Roomba constantly following us - or me, at least - even stopped flashing its lights at me after the first day with Scarlet was over. Things felt like they were going to be tolerable, calm, alright.

    Right up until the point that the facility's klaxons started blaring again, red lights turned on, something on Scarlet's person suddenly started beeping, and I almost shat my pants.

    "That's the signal," Scarlet announced. She was in the middle of examining yet another small pile of little gizmos and gadgets that I couldn't identify for the life of me, but she was suddenly alert and adamant after checking some kind of small electronic smartphone-like device on her forearm, and I was in absolutely no mood to contest this, even as the space Roomba began to incessantly flash its lights at me once again. "We need to go."

    I merely nodded. I certainly wasn't going to follow the space Roomba again.

    And so we ran. Dozens of minutes through a dizzying maze of bright corridors and splendid halls, where I remained in awe of Scarlet's ability to maintain a sense of direction, because I had no idea where we were going. It was scary, running around and fearing that we might eventually run into someone dangerous and hostile with a gun, but there was never a hint of anyone else. Just our echoing footsteps off empty halls. It lured me into a state of false complacency.

    And of course, by "false complacency", I meant we passed through a hallway, reached the door on the other side, stepped into one of the rooms, and suddenly we were looking at a dozen people with guns looking right back at us.

    A dozen people in similar garb and gear that Scarlet was wearing, that really weird combination of special forces and medieval knights, a combination of form-fitting suits of high-tech textiles, rugged scarves or jackets or capes, and scuffed-up metallic guards on the elbow or on the shoulder or on the knees or around the chest. A dozen people who - like Scarlet - had different animal-like ears and tails. A dozen people who swiftly spun around when the doors, shouting warnings as guns were raised, as I froze in place and Scarlet immediately pushed me in that thin space beside the corridor doorway.

    The first time we had ran into a bunch of other people with guns, we had caught them by surprise. As in, they had seemed to be genuinely startled and had had to improvise a reaction. This time, they seemed utterly prepared. Not as if they were expecting us to come through the door in that precise moment, but the kind of expectation that we would do so eventually, and that they needed a bunch of guns, including our long-lost friend: The fixed lightning gun. The plasma array. Whatever.

    In other words, we were being ambushed. I'm not sure how the dynamics worked or how it happened, but one didn't end up on this end of so many guns without them expecting us. Scarlet's prediction - that we would be able to sneak through while everyone was busy looting the place - was sadly off.

    All I knew was that my world exploded in gunfire. And lightning, now that the plasma array was firing. It was hard to register anything or explain anything under this sensory overload and panic attack. All I knew was that I was stuck in a corner on the wrong end of too many bullets. I was only peripherally aware that Scarlet tried firing back a few times, but the hail of gunfire eventually got so bad that she, too, was forced to duck back with me. With the amount of bullets flying around, with the enemy approaching, it was all we could do to make slow, haphazard moves from cover to cover, Scarlet dragging me along at a speed slower than these people with guns were advancing on us.

    I screamed. I cowered. I cried. I was certain I was going to die.

    Then...

    <Attempt #38145...SUCCESS. Neural handshake protocols established.>

    What. The. F...

    *****​

    For those of you who have played "The Jovian Concord" for Warframe: I came up with the space Roomba first.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Update. Yey. So, having read the summary on that story website, I'm sure I've figured out like, about a 1/3rd of the plot. Or perhaps premise would be a more accurate word. That, of course, still leaves the rest of it so looking forward to how things progress.
     
    I'd probably have trouble telling that this and On the Road to Elspar were by the same author just by reading them. The different voices of the main characters can really be felt.
     
    Kei said:
    If she was, in fact, keeping me around so she can sell me to Eastern European sex traffickers or whatever, then at least she was being awfully nice about it.
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    OTOH, that would at least mean she can get in touch with someone who knows where Eastern Europe is, eh? :) Think positive!
    Kei said:
    I screamed. I cowered. I cried. I was certain I was going to die.

    Then...

    &lt;Attempt #38145...SUCCESS. Neural handshake protocols established.&gt;

    What. The. F...
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    Huh... did she just accidentally log in to something? Curious.
     
    More like every time that Roomba blinked it's lights at her it was trying to get the mind-link going, I think. The failing had a tendency to annoy her though or maybe that's mental damage talking-I might need to re-read the earlier chapters to be sure, I'm fairly sure she said what's up.
     
    cB557 said:
    I'd probably have trouble telling that this and On the Road to Elspar were by the same author just by reading them. The different voices of the main characters can really be felt.
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    Aye, I was never able to get into Elspar, but this story has been pretty fun to read. I think it maintains that vague air of mystery where we get just enough points of reference to not be lost, but still have absolutely no idea what's going on.

    Good work on the chapter Kei. I was rather amused by how the gun-teaching moment did not result in titillation, like so many anime would have. And also by Scarlet's dungeon-looting prowess. Can't wait for the next one :)
     
    Chapter 4: The Arkology (IV)
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    • Chapter 4: The Arkology (IV)

    <Reassessing situation...>

    Something was talking in my head. It sounded feminine and damningly calm, despite the situation...except I wasn't hearing it insomuch as I was perceiving these words directly in my brain. It was a total telepathic experience, and it was weird and terrifying, but I guess I would've been more shocked had I not spent the last three weeks in this weird-ass facility and were I not being shot at by all the guns. There's a point of diminishing returns, a level of surprise that really can't be psychologically exceeded, I supposed.

    <Unidentified armed belligerents on arkology. Unsanctioned conflict detected near Unidentified Civilian Inhabitant 1 in Section 12-16-39-4.>

    <Assessing probability of successful retreat: 7%.>

    <Assessing probability of mitigating death or serious bodily harm: 3%.>

    Oh, gee, thanks. Great to know.

    <Locating nearest armed patrol...FAILED.>

    <Contacting nearest emergency response dispatch...FAILED.>

    <Contacting Arkology Control...FAILED.>

    <Contacting Local Fleet Command...FAILED.>

    <Pinging on all channels for response...FAILED.>

    Holy shit, that was a lot of failures. Should I've been concerned?

    <Activating Contingencies 14, 15, 17, and 21 under Section VI, Article XII. Running Protocols 331-1 to 387-5.>

    <Reassessing situation...>

    What was actually really, really weird was that I was not listening to these words in real-time. Or, more specifically, it was not like I was "listening" and "waiting" for this weird feminine voice in my head - speaking with all the deliberate clarity and cadence of an artificial intelligence in sci-fi movies - to get all the words out one-by-one. Rather, it was almost as if the messages themselves were being shoved into my brain, and the speed at which I comprehended the message really only took as long as...well, as long as I needed to comprehend what seemed to be like signals in my brain. Maybe it was just the adrenaline, but I was almost sure everything I'd been "hearing" or "receiving" in my head thus far took only a handful of seconds.

    <Unidentified civilian inhabitant, you are currently deemed to be under imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm due to unidentified armed belligerents on this arkology. Relevant official organs are not responding. Under Contingencies 14, 15, 17, and 21 under Section VI, Article XII, you may exercise your right to assume control of defensive emplacements until relevant official organs can respond. Estimated time until response: Unknown.

    <Would you like to assume control of defensive emplacements?>

    "Yes!" I screamed, barely hearing my voice above the gunfire. Scarlet probably didn't even pay me any attention. I didn't care. I didn't care that there were literally psychic voices in my head and I had no idea what it was trying to say. All I knew was that someone said "defensive emplacements", and I would really, really like them right now.

    <Request granted. Transferring control of defensive emplacements to Unidentified Civilian Inhabitant 1...SUCCESS. Please review all technical manuals for relevant emplacement modules, and engage in defensive action responsibly.>

    It was at this point that my consciousness was suddenly flooded with this complete perception of the room I was in and the room from which a dozen armed shooters were still coming at us. It wasn't a video feed - nothing like surveillance camera footage popping into the corner of my vision - insomuch as it was this strangely instinctive understanding of these rooms I was caught between, being able to understand the layout the same way I could instinctively imagine what a ball would feel like in my hand. I could perceive everyone around me - Scarlet, the dozen other people - despite not being able to see most of them, given I was hiding behind something like a large computer console. Rather, I felt their existences, their state of being in the space around me. It was almost like how I could feel ants crawling across my skin even if my eyes were closed, except they were crawling across the surface of my consciousness. It was as if I had developed a new sensory organ, one like a radar that perceived space all around me. It was a wholly alien, strange, and terrifying sensation.

    But there were other things I could feel too: Machines, hidden away under the panels of the walls and ceiling. I could feel them in the same way I could feel my fingers; I could feel in what direction they were pointed despite not seeing them, could feel that with a mere thought, they could pop out from the walls. I could feel their capacity to turn in any direction I wished, the ability to direct the focus of these machines, the ability to flood any part of these two rooms I wished with hostile intent, directing them through my new spatial understanding of the world around me. I wasn't entirely sure what they'd do, but there was just that instinctive understanding that I could defend myself through this new expanded consciousness.

    And let's be honest here, it was almost certainly going to be guns.

    So with a thought, I commanded these new minions of mine to counterattack.

    Hidden seamlessly into the white metallic walls and ceilings of the corridor we were cowering in, three white circular panels the size of manholes - previously invisible to the naked eye - suddenly popped out, revealing beneath each one menacingly black machines that looked very much like some kind of futuristic machine gun, possessing two barrel-like shapes each, albeit almost rectangular in shape and with slits running down its length. There was a sleek, futuristic quality about them that was at odds with the almost strangely rugged quality of the gear that everyone else carried, something that was only noticeable in contrast; the defensive turrets, like this facility I was trapped in, looked like it was designed by an artist and built by an engineer with laser tools, while the guns that Scarlet and I and all these people shooting at us held felt more like old hand-me-downs from the Cold War, built decades ago out of spare parts in some bleak Soviet factory or something.

    More importantly, I could conceptualize where these defensive turrets were. Even in my panic, I could see them, but more pertinently, I could understand their positions relative to everything and everyone else, and in what directions I could make them fire. I could practically feel the guns telling me their predicted lines of fire as vectors converged in my mental map of the my surroundings, focusing on the door through which all the gunfire was coming from. And there was the understanding that I could make them fire.

    So I thought that particular thought very hard.

    A small group of three shooters had just pushed past the door, rounding the corner in preparation to gun Scarlet and I down, when the three guns that had emerged from the walls swiveled with the silence and speed of a ballerina. With a thought, the guns fired, and even though I didn't watch the guns fire - focused as my eyes were on the people with guns a split-second away from killing all of us - I could somehow perceive the green lines of powerful energy leaving the barrels, smooth and clean beams unlike the jagged, messy that came out of that plasma array. The jetted across the corridor, and then suddenly all three of our assailants were on the ground with smoldering holes in their chests, exactly where I had intended those shots to land.

    I barely noticed Scarlet flinching beside me, reacting with alarm to the fact that these guns were suddenly firing, even as she swiveled her aim at the guns that just saved our lives. She didn't fire, at least, insomuch as she was trying to make sure they weren't trying to kill her. But that didn't entirely register in my mind, nor did the fact that I just managed to eliminate three people, because I was already preoccupied with the lingering threat to my bodily integrity and life: The other assholes on the other side of the door with all those guns. Shouts of confusion and shock came from the other room as the remaining nine-or-so shooters realized what was going on, but I wasn't going to give up the initiative. I could feel their presence in the chamber beyond the doors I was hiding behind, just as I could feel the five guns beyond the door, hidden behind the white metallic surfaces of the walls and ceiling.

    A thought, again, was enough to activate the guns in those rooms; I couldn't see them, but I could perceive where they were and how they were and where they were aiming. I could hear the panic in the other room as I swiveled the guns - my guns - towards the enemy. I could feel them barely managing this register the presence of the threat to their live, as if they couldn't believe what was happening. And then my guns started firing. Four of them were instantly killed as I directed my guns with lethal intent, energy bolts flying smoothly in clean and straight lines landing in their chests. The others - finally coming to their senses - started running around, diving for cover, firing back. But they were no match for me and my understanding of the spatial dynamic of that chamber they so futilely attempted to ambush in. Some of them sought cover behind furniture, consoles, and pillars from one or two guns, so I simply directed another gun to swivel around and slam energy bolts into their backs. Their bullets bounced harmlessly off the instruments of my vengeance, and seeing how they exposed themselves to my return fire, I was entirely happy to create smoldering holes where their faces used to be.

    With almost methodological precision, I focused on each of the shooters, and my will was made manifest as energy surged across the room, dropping our assailants one by one, until the remaining two survivors managed to cut their losses and run, fleeing through the door and out of the range of my expanded consciousness.

    Eventually, where there was once an all-encompassing cacophony of gunshots, now there was only silence. Hesitantly, with no small amount of fear and confusion, Scarlet looked out around the door with trepidation, only to eventually relax a little bit as she looked around her, stunned, looking around with a half-dazed expression as if barely managing to comprehend what was happening even as the adrenaline rush began to pass. I myself finally stood up, having been cowering in a corner. I felt pretty good, all things considered, at least for a girl who nearly just pissed herself moments before being shot. Just a moment ago, I had only a three percent chance of surviving. Now, I had turned the tables on the people with guns who had been trying to kill me, and they were dead.

    Which was really an abstract concept for me, up until the point where I saw the bodies on the floor. Smelled them. Saw their corpses with terrified expression frozen in time, with slack jaws and empty eyes, with smoldering holes in them, charred wounds where flesh used to be. Dead people where live ones used to be.

    I was cutting them down. I was cutting them down.

    I crumpled onto my knees and fought the urge to puke my guts out, urgently clasping my hands over my mouth while my eyes glazed over with tears. It hit me all at once, the fact that this was the first time I killed, the first time I turned complete strangers into fatalities, and I didn't even blink until well after the fact. It didn't really matter that they were trying to kill me. That all of them had animal ears and tails didn't matter, and wasn't a subject of intense curiosity like it once was. The full weight of what I had done was...different. Terrifying. A visceral realization that no amount of self-justification could paint over.

    I wasn't a cop or a soldier or anyone particularly acquainted with killing or violent death or even shooting; I was an underpaid, underappreciated millennial mechanic. I was not ready for this.

    "How did you...?" Scarlet began to ask, sounding amazed and breathless and scared at the same time. As if she could not comprehend what had just happened, which was fair because I could barely comprehend what had just happened. But seeing me on my knees, hyperventilating over the fact that I had just murdered people - in self-defense or otherwise - she seemed to cut her questions short and collect herself. When she spoke next, it was in a soft, comforting voice. "It's alright," she murmured, kneeling down and placing a hand on my shoulder. "They were trying to hurt you. You only reacted in self-defense. It's fine. You're fine."

    In that moment, I could've kissed Scarlet. She was a complete stranger, yet acted like the closest, supportive friend I've never had. I tried to control my shaking, my shivering, my trembling, even as Scarlet put a hand on my shoulder as if trying to reassure me that I did the right thing. That I did the only right thing. That this was self-defense, and regardless of my visceral reaction towards dead people that I killed, that I did the right thing.

    "I'm alright," I lied, trying to catch my breath. It was funny, in a way; Scarlet was still in shock for one reason or another, but was trying to prioritize my emotional well-being, so here I was, trying to overcome my own current emotional shock so that we could get a move on, just as Scarlet had wanted. "I'm..."

    <Automated systems have elevated the current threat assessment to Level 3,> went a voice in my head once more, and although it was still a calm and feminine voice, it was clearly different from the one that had spoken to me earlier and granted me access to the turrets that were now retracting back into the walls until no sign of their existence remained. <As per Section II, Article XII, all civilians are to evacuate immediately to their nearest emergency shelter.>

    Again, I wasn't hearing this insomuch as the words were forming in my head, so I couldn't exactly use my sense of hearing to trace it back to the source of a sound that didn't exist. Yet somehow, I was already turning in the direction of the space Roomba behind me, the little bitch having been hiding in the corner with us when we were under fire, and which was now maintaining a healthy ten-foot distance away from me again. For no reason I could ever adequately explain, I somehow just knew it was this little bitch that had been talking to me just now.

    If you could talk, I wanted to say, you should've bloody done so earlier. For better or for worse, however, I was too busy staring at it wide-eyed even as I blankly told Scarlet, "It's...trying to tell me to evacuate."

    Scarlet, still kneeling beside me where I had crumpled onto the ground, blinked in confusion. "What?" she asked.

    I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself before explaining, "It's telling me that we need to evacuate to an emergency shelter."

    Frowning, Scarlet looked around for whomever "it" might've been, followed my gaze, and stared at the space Roomba. "The servitor?"

    "The space R..." I began, before deciding now was probably a decent time to just use terminology she was familiar with. "...Yes."

    Scarlet stared at me for a moment, then at the space Roomba. And then that shock and uncertainty was gone, replaced by that cold, blank, single-minded focus in her expression whenever shit was about to get real. "We need to go," she says simply, her voice devoid of emotion, "or we're stuck here, forever, even if we don't die."

    I nodded along dumbly.

    Unlike before, although she moved with caution as if expecting a second ambush, Scarlet did not check the bodies for weapons or equipment, and instead was largely heading for the door directly on the other side of this large chamber, her submachine gun shouldered and pointed at every possible corner that any of these assholes could be hiding behind, every possible door that they could emerge from. I, too, was following along at a respectable distance, not so close that I would interfere with this foxgirl who was my guarding at this point, but close enough that she could shove me into safety again or something if something went wrong.

    As Scarlet passed by every corpse on the ground with sizzling, smoking holes in them, she would stop right beside them and fire two more shots into their chests. It was shocking to see her do that for the first time - to inflict further violence upon someone who was dead, followed shortly afterwards by the realization that she was ensuring that someone who might've survived was truly dead - and that shock wasn't something that had entirely left my psyche even as the surprise passed, even as I resolved to just look away instead of commenting on what felt - to my pampered first world sensitivities, at least - like cold-blooded, excessive cruelty.

    Of course, maintaining a ten-foot distance behind me, the space Roomba continued to follow me as all this was happening, and in addition to trying to flash a light into my eyes, it was now talking in my head: <Please follow this servitor to the nearest emergency shelter. Please follow this servitor to the nearest emergency shelter.>

    It was fortunate that I was too preoccupied with the whole "get out of this facility before the voidwave thing happens and I end up having my entrails splattered across the wall or whatever" thing to care that much about the space Roomba's continued attempts to annoy the hell out of me. I had bigger things to worry about as we finally reached the double sliding doors on the other side, and were greeted with a family sight.

    Once again, we found ourselves in that giant, pier-like expanse that stretched for miles to my left and right, that nexus of platforms and railings and cargo crates, that spot where I saw the starry night sky beyond the familiar sight of that ship Scarlet had been trying so hard to get back to, the Fortune's Wings, the ship sounding like its engines were whirring and increasing in power. I had known, of course, that we were getting close to our escape, but I hadn't quite realized we had been this close. That, once again, I could see the stars, that distant promise of an escape.

    The problem, of course, was that the starry night sky was no longer, in fact, a starry night sky. Or at least not entirely. Instead, that black expanse with pinpricks of lights was suddenly saturated with color, going from green to yellow to pink and on and on. It took me a moment to realize that the closest thing I could compare it to was an aurora borealis, like as if clouds of colorful light had come between me and the sky. It was all at once beautiful and at the same time terrifying; defying the appeal it made to my visual aesthetic senses, looking at it somehow filled me with a sense of dread, as if there was some deep, instinctive part of my subconsciousness that told me this was wrong, that the lights I was looking at were somehow an affront to reality as I knew it.

    I suspected these were the "voidwaves" that Scarlet was talking about. And I was beginning to understand why she was so concerned about this and so adamant about getting back onto the Fortune's Wings.

    Of course, we weren't going to get back on and escape without a fight. The two survivors who had fled from my turrets of wrath had made it back to a ramp that led into the Fortune's Wings, joining about another half dozen of their compatriots who looked alarmed at these escapees screaming warnings at them. This surprise gave Scarlet just enough of a moment to shove me behind a crate, and against we were caught in the middle of a shootout, bullets flying across this pier.

    "Can you do what you did back in that corridor again?" Scarlet demanded, even as she popped off two shots around the crate before ducking back to avoid a hail of gunfire in her direction.

    "I'll try!" I shouted back at her, even as I tried to think about connecting with things in self-defense. I had no idea how to do this; this was an entirely new sensation that made absolutely no sense to me, and I was trying to take the initiative this time instead of the voice just speaking inside my head first. At this point, however, it wasn't like I had a choice; Scarlet was hell-bent on trying to get back onto the Fortune's Wings, even if that meant putting us in a situation where we were pinned down by something like eight people with guns, because apparently the alternative was worse.

    Fortunately, however, fate was working in our favor just a little longer, because a feminine voice spoke in my head again: <Unidentified armed belligerents on arkology. Unsanctioned conflict detected near Unidentified Civilian Inhabitant 1 in Hangar 12-16-3. Under Contingencies 14, 15, 17, and 21 under Section VI, Article XII, you may exercise your right to assume control of defensive emplacements until relevant official organs can respond. Estimated time until response: Unknown. Would you like to assume control of defensive emplacements?>

    "Yes!" I screamed again. In part because I wasn't entirely sure how hard I could think "yes" at this weird voice in my head. But it did the trick; once again, my senses could perceive space around me, and there was a momentary sensation where my mind suddenly felt like it was in free fall, as it struggled to fully comprehend in spatial terms just how large this miles-long pier was around me, as I attempted to grasp its space in more than just visual terms. There was a terrifying sense of vertigo, as if my mind was entirely unmoored and drifting out of my body.

    But then I focused on the fact that there were four turrets in the vicinity, hidden above us in the walls. Once again, I could control these guns with my mind as they emerged from invisible seams in the wall, as I registered where the people shooting at us were, as I directed this lethal firepower at them.

    And once again, bursts of powerful energy zapped their way across dozens of yards, and screams could be heard as my shots - my shots - found their targets. There was something to be said about not having to look at where I was shooting; there was that psychological, emotional distance - even after my previous episode of panic and hyperventilating - between myself and the fact that I was committing multiple homicide. Plus not exposing myself to gunfire around the crates I hid behind was also quite nice. All I needed to bear was the clear sense of panic amongst the enemy, the screams that escaped their throats as energy zapped at them like a machine gun, burning smouldering holes into them. Survivors were shouting for a retreat, for an evacuation. I mustered the courage to peek around the crate; most of our assailants were dead, but the few that remained - three or four of them - were swiftly fleeing up the ramp and into Fortune's Wings.

    Scarlet saw the same, and already she was dashing from the crates, taking advantage of the fact that our enemies were too busy evacuating than shooting at us. But she had made it little more than a quarter of the distance between our starting position and the Fortune's Wings when the last assailant boarded the ship, and the metallic door on its hull slid shut with a hiss and thud. Seconds later, that whirring sound that the ship had been producing from since we stepped through the doors and onto the pier became a full-on roar, and the ship began to drift away from the pier, as if pushing off into the distant seas.

    "No, no, no!" Scarlet screamed in equal parts terror and frustration, even as she realized - just as I realized - that the ship was pulling away further than Scarlet could reasonably cover the distant by the time she got to the end of the pier. Certainly, the ship was drifting away with surprising speed for something its size, swiveling around to point in the direction of the night sky, and...were those rockets on its back?

    Flaring with heat or some other energy, the rockets on the back of the Fortune's Wings flared with blue light, and then it suddenly accelerated away from us, knocking Scarlet off her feet and sending her flying through the air before she landed on the metallic floor and slid back towards me. It was all I could do to take cover behind the crates and hope the sheer pressure of those rockets didn't just kill me.

    It didn't kill Scarlet, though, so it certainly didn't kill me; the redhead seemed a bit dazed, but she managed to pick herself up for a moment, as that slack-jawed shock was replaced with the dawning realization that we may have just missed our only ride out of here, leaving us to the mercy of whatever "voidwaves" were, because at this point, it seemed like nothing was going to surprise me.

    Save for the fact that there was more that we were at the mercy of. As the Fortune's Wing cleared the hangar and accelerated away, going from "small tanker" to "size of my thumb" in mere seconds, lines of flickering light suddenly appeared, flying away from the vessel before turning in an arc towards our direction. Given everything I'd seen thus far, it was almost surprising to see something that I maybe recognized, but I still found myself staring at those lines of light approach at startling speed, asking like a complete moron: "Are those...?"

    Scarlet didn't let me finish my question, because she suddenly got back onto her feet just to throw herself at me. "Get down!" she yelled, tackling me down to the ground behind the crates I was already hiding against.

    A split-second later, those arcing lines of light finally reached us, propelled by streaks of blue flames, slamming into the hangar in sudden explosions, concussive force, deafening sound, and ballooning mansions-sized balls of fire that threw crates and scrap metal into the air, tossed around large metallic containers like they were plastic bricks. The white lights were swiftly overwhelmed by the orange glow of violent flames that threatened to engulf the entire area, even as I shrieked and tried to cover my head with shaking hands.

    "Are those missiles!?" I screamed over the blasts, as each missile slammed into the hangar and turned our surroundings into a firestorm with every miss. "Is that ship firing missiles at us!?"

    "Yes!" came Scarlet's urgent but otherwise damningly succinct reply, even as her hand continued to press my head against the ground, as if it would provide me even the slightest hint of protection..

    Well, then, I figured we're pretty screwed. Although the missiles were going fairly wide, slamming into the general area rather than our specific area, every blast launching hundreds of pieces of large debris at terminal velocities that threatened to crush us or impale us. Fires were beginning to catch on, although the missiles - for all their power - did not actually seem to be doing significant structural damage, did not seem to put any real dent into the walls or the catwalks.

    But it didn't really matter. Either the missiles were going to kill us, or the colorful aurora borealis that was already beginning to enveloped this facility was going to melt me into a wall or something equally horrifying, neither of which seemed to be good news for my internal organs. My only source of comfort was a moment where the explosions had somehow flipped the nearby space Roomba onto its side, the little robot spinning helplessly on its cylindrical edge as it made distressed beeps, invoking a barely-noticed sense of smug satisfaction at the stupid space Roomba finally being messed with. It took a while before the force of another explosion finally managed to knock it back down on its side, like a coin that had finally managed to stop spinning.

    Still, smug satisfaction or not, we were almost certainly going to die. And it was in that mindset - as I desperately looked for somewhere else to be, somewhere else that wasn't here - that my eyes caught onto one last interesting thing, one last string of hope. I pointed further down the catwalks and shouted, "What's that!?"

    "That" was a vessel, docked at the end of a perpendicular pier about a hundred fifty, two hundred yards or more away from us. It was smaller than the Fortune's Wings but still of a respectable size - like a large yacht or a small superyacht that a family could take a vacation in - and pristine where the larger ship looked aged, creaky, and rusted. In fact, the white sheen of its hull matched the rest of this facility so well, it seemed almost logical that the vessel was part of this facility. This being said, it didn't look like a ship. A large ramp led into the vessel in a way entirely similar to how cargo planes loaded cargo through the back hatch. In fact, the vessel seemed to have "wings", albeit not necessarily in the shape of a plane; from behind, the oblique delta-like structure of the vessel had an almost avian look to it, its swooping wings outstretched.

    In spite of her reservations towards me, whenever she thought I said something stupid - or whenever I thought she thought I said something stupid - Scarlet would at least do me the courtesy of being patient or at least just guarding her expression really well. But perhaps the prospect of being left behind and being shot at by literal missiles was finally putting a crack in that mask, and although it's mild, she finally gave me the kind of expression that normal people make when you ask a stupid question. "That's an Antecessor ship," she pointed out flatly. "We can't..." she started but quickly trailed off, her eyes suddenly widening as she started thinking exactly what I was thinking. Hesitantly, she whispered, "...Can we?"

    For some reason, I had been able to take control of this "arkology's" defensive guns. This was clearly something that Scarlet could not do. And if I could do that, could I take control of a ship? "Only one way to find out," I scowled, even as I began to run down the catwalks towards that ship, Scarlet taking a moment to realize I was moving before easily catching up with every athletic stride of her long legs.

    There was a brief lull in the explosions, almost as if the Fortune's Wings was reloading her missiles, even though the sounds and sight of fire continued to consume our surroundings. Blue lines erupted once more from the sides of the ship, seemingly slowing in its shrieking speed as it angled at us instead. I tried not to pay it much mind even as I found safety in the yacht in front of us, dashing up the ramp and into its interior, with Scarlet having caught up at my side and that damned space Roomba still chasing after us, flashing its stupid light and trying to tell me something about how the threat assessment has been increased to Level 4.

    Scarlet, meanwhile, had outpaced me, running ahead and leading me towards what I could only guess was going to be the helm. We struggled to keep our balance door after door as the vessel trembled with every explosion rumbling nearby, until the last door brought us to what I assumed to be the helm: A triangular room with seats, computer consoles, and a massive slanted window that looked right outside, returning us to the view of the arkology and the night sky and the flames burning around us.

    "Can you take this ship?" Scarlet asked before I even had a chance to acclimate myself to my surroundings. Honestly, although there was a level of familiarity to the helm - just from pop cultural osmosis that surrounds sci-fi and superhero films or whatever - I had absolutely no idea what anything was or what they did.

    "I...I'm trying," I said, trying to psychically concentrate as if I knew what psychically concentrating even was. I was much more accustomed to a world that didn't have psychic powers, unfortunately. And the flashing light from the stupid space Roomba that had persistently followed us here was not helping.

    "Do you know what you're doing?"

    "No," I scowled. "No, I really don't. I have no idea what..."

    And of course a voice chose that moment to speak in my head: <Per Regulations 4 and 6 under Article IV, Section V, impounded vessels not reclaimed after a civil investigation for a period longer than fifty standard years will have their registration voided. Would you like to register this vessel to yourself?>

    Although the timing was annoying, it was at least convenient. "Yes," I said, even as an explosion went off way too close to the yacht we were on, filling even the window with bright fire, and I screamed and ducked and covered like a complete coward.

    <Biometric scan complete. Please state your name for identification and voice recognition.>

    "Artemis Chan!" I screamed.

    And right at that moment, there was suddenly a mechanical whirl that reverberated through this yacht, as if an industrial power switch had been flicked on, as the dull lights around us swiftly brightened and as blue icons began appearing on what I assumed were computer consoles all around us. "It's starting up!" Scarlet said excitedly, even as another explosion went off and filled the view outside with flames.

    "Why the hell are they even shooting at us!?" I screamed, mildly less concerned about whether or not things were turning on compared to all the explosions.

    "Whatever you did with the arkology's defense must've caused them to panic!" Then, looking around at the computer consoles that were starting up, Scarlet looked at me and asked, "Can you fly this thing?"

    "Are you kidding!?" I shrieked. She may as well have asked me if I knew how to assemble a nuclear bomb. "No, no, of course I can't!"

    Wincing, Scarlet took a deep breath before she turned around and settled into one of the chairs, the one that I assumed was the helmsman's seat or whatever. "Alright, let's see if this works," she muttered, looking at all the dials and switches and buttons and things around her, holograms materializing to the left and right, trying to acquaint herself with whatever systems controlled this vessel. "This is the stick. This is...throttle, the throttle. This should be..."

    Oh, great. Scarlet wasn't really a pilot either. We were all going to die. Me, her, and that stupid space Roomba. At least that stupid space Roomba would die with us. That was a silver lining in the middle of this horrid two weeks here.

    "Alright," Scarlet muttered, flicking a switch, "is this the...?" And a shrill alarm began to sound, causing the redhead to wince and flick that switch back. "No, no, it isn't."

    Yup, we're all going to die.

    "Here!" Scarlet suddenly exclaimed as she pushed some sort of lever, and there was suddenly a quiet whining sound that reminded me of a plane's turbines reaching takeoff speed. Holograms began popping up all around her with panels and icons and readouts and basically nothing I understood. And just as suddenly, I nearly lost my balance as the floor below me shifted just a bit while the yacht itself abruptly shot forward like a rocket - literally like a rocket, albeit without the actual acceleration as we went from zero to a kajillion instantly, the pristine-albeit-burning surroundings of the arkology disappeared within the blink of an eye - tore through what I had originally thought was a blue glowing window but turned out to merely be light, and shot into the night sky at a speed that I would ten seconds ago never had associated with even a jet ski.

    And it was at this point as I looked out the viewport that I realize that the night sky over a tranquil ocean I was looking at - with all those clear stars in the sky and the aurora borealis that I've been told is void waves or whatever - was not actually the night sky over a tranquil ocean after all.

    I was looking at outer space.
     
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    • I'm having problems getting into this. While an interesting idea and your writing is very good and quite massive.

    There's just not much of a hook? If you're going to do into screen worth of discription we need more of a hook and reason to care. Lost and wandering doing nothing for days really isn't it..

    After i reading what you got and giving it a secound look you notice you can skip entire pages of text and it would change nothing. Ahh thats not to good?
     
    Pai said:
    I'm having problems getting into this. While an interesting idea and your writing is very good and quite massive.

    There's just not much of a hook? If you're going to do into screen worth of discription we need more of a hook and reason to care. Lost and wandering doing nothing for days really isn't it..

    After i reading what you got and giving it a secound look you notice you can skip entire pages of text and it would change nothing. Ahh thats not to good?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The hook is here already.

    Be a teen.

    Enjoy saving waifu with your overpowered access to the environs and save the love of your life in style and get a expensive yacht for nothing.

    Whatmore do you want? Drama?

    Ahhh you killed people! Ijust wanna mechanic stuff!
     
    Last edited:
    Pai said:
    I'm having problems getting into this. While an interesting idea and your writing is very good and quite massive.

    There's just not much of a hook? If you're going to do into screen worth of discription we need more of a hook and reason to care. Lost and wandering doing nothing for days really isn't it..

    After i reading what you got and giving it a secound look you notice you can skip entire pages of text and it would change nothing. Ahh thats not to good?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I totally get you. I'm fundamentally bad at hooks. I'm kind of an organic setting person trying to develop the conceit and the story and the cast organically, but I do realize that I am fundamentally bad at the thirty-second elevator pitch because I'm not happy with what I feel like gimmicks. It's a matter of personal taste, I realize this is detrimental to me selling my writing sometimes, and you are absolutely right in that I don't have that one immediate draw for readers who don't already know my style. I'd be grateful if you enjoyed it on the strength of my writing alone - you seem to regard it fondly and I'm super happy about that - but you're under no obligation to do so. Thank you very much for the feedback, though; it's something I already knew and which I'm trying to improve on, but I appreciate it nonetheless. x_x
     
    Kei said:
    I totally get you. I'm fundamentally bad at hooks. I'm kind of an organic setting person trying to develop the conceit and the story and the cast organically, but I do realize that I am fundamentally bad at the thirty-second elevator pitch because I'm not happy with what I feel like gimmicks. It's a matter of personal taste, I realize this is detrimental to me selling my writing sometimes, and you are absolutely right in that I don't have that one immediate draw for readers who don't already know my style. I'd be grateful if you enjoyed it on the strength of my writing alone - you seem to regard it fondly and I'm super happy about that - but you're under no obligation to do so. Thank you very much for the feedback, though; it's something I already knew and which I'm trying to improve on, but I appreciate it nonetheless. x_x
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    And here i thought the mystery of what's going on was the hook, still great either way.
     
    Kei said:
    I'm fundamentally bad at hooks
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...


    But you had some. You just didn't use them. Unlike what that waste of text posted before yours I do *not* mean drama.

    The set up you have? Civilian revived by a system breaking down, not knowing whats going on, and ending up in default command of it all? That's a very interesting hook.

    The tencho path thing going on? Another very interesting hook. It's just stuff that takes 4 chapters of skippable words to get to. Not many is going to make it that far ya know?

    Drop some of that in earlier? Make it more important? Base building and world-building can be very interesting.

    All so casual murder is not something to build a relationship on. I really would rather not read chapters worth of abusive and dependancy based pairing.
     
    Artemis: AURORA BOREALIS?! At this time of day? In this part of the country? Located entirely around this Arkology?!

    Scarlet: Yes.

    Artemis: ... May I see it?

    Scarlet: Your kinda going to have too...

    And yeah, I have to echo Warer: the mystery of what's happening was more then enough to get me invested and even now we don't have quite the full picture of the world Artemis is in.
     
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