Chương 102: 2.43 Show Them

When Hector returned to the others and dropped the two glossy black hooks into the pit at Mathews's feet with resounding thuds, everyone looked up at him, startled. None had heard his approach, but that wasn't their fault; he'd been using Shadow Stalk for the last leg, not wanting to lead any predators back to the blind.

"You actually did it?" Kristy asked, eyes wide as she took in the hooks. They each were longer than she was tall, but Hector had been surprised at their lightness—the natural weapons retained some kind of intrinsic heat and were closer to plasteel than horn or ivory in density.

"At least tell us it wasn't easy," Mathews said.

"We were taking bets on if you were dead," Freddy added. Hector smirked, sitting down in the soft dirt. The others had chased away most of the worms, but he didn't care; he was filthy, covered from head to toe in sticky, dried blood—most of it the titan's, but not all.

"It wasn't easy." He stretched his neck until it popped, then added, "If my bones weren't so tough, I might have been done for." It was true; when the titan fell on him, he'd escaped with cracks while natural human bones would have likely shattered. He'd never have been able to keep running long enough for his regeneration to kick in.

"If we can bring these hooks through, Commander," Paige said, "my database says they're worth a pile of bits at auction."

"Then we're bringing them through," Mathews replied, but she seemed distracted, still staring at Hector.

"Don't get mad at me, Hector, but actually you brought it up. I still don't understand how you incorporated that similite into your bones." Hector frowned. It went without saying that he didn't want to talk about his aura system; he didn't want people knowing about what he—what Evie —had done. Still, he'd be a fool if he thought these people weren't coming up with their own fantastical ideas.

He'd already given them a version of the truth, but he supposed they'd been through enough together that he could tell them a little more. He glanced at his countdown timer: 08: 12: 44. Nodding to himself, he cleared his throat and said, "I guess it's no secret I've got a high-end system."" And?" Freddy asked, tapping his helmet so his visor went from reflective gold to transparent. His eyes, every bit as gold as the shiny bits on his armor, were open, transparently displaying his earnestness.

"So do I, Hector, and my system AI wouldn't know the first thing about using similite to make up for a shortfall in nutrients!" Hector nodded, looking from Freddy to Mathews, then over to Paige and Kristy. They all stared, and even the two techs were dialed in, listening. He looked into Ling's dark eyes and saw something behind that Zen mask of his for the first time—something that made him uncomfortable, something that looked too damn much like admiration.

He felt like he was back on those rocky islands off the coast of the southern American continent—a raw recruit, thrown into his first conflict again. For a moment, Paige looked like Theresa, and he could imagine they'd just come through a campaign together, just put down another insurgency. Angels! When was the last time I thought of her? For some reason, he felt his throat tighten, and some heat in his chest as he said, "We've bled together, haven't we? We've lost brothers and sisters on this damn world.

I won't lie to you, then, but I won't tell you everything. Half of it, you've already guessed: I'm older than I look. I've been caught up in the shit before—too many times to easily count."" How old?" Freddy asked. At the same time, Kristy said, "Ghost chip." Hector ignored them.

"My AI's better than good, she's a goddamn genius, and I don't know where she got the idea for what she did, but it saved me, and that means she saved your asses, too! You get that, right?" He looked around again, pointedly making eye contact with everyone.

"I don't know if she could ever do it again—you know how system AIs are; she had a creative inspiration. Maybe she could repeat it, but maybe not. Whatever the case, I don't want to have the whole goddamn Empire hunting me down so they can try to split her off from my engram. It'd kill me, and—" //I'd rather die! //"—it'd kill her, too."

"So keep your goddamn traps shut about it," Mathews growled, mimicking Hector's posture, leaning forward and staring until everyone made eye contact. When Willa failed to look at her, she pressed the issue, "Willa? Are you going to be a problem?" The tech looked up, and her breather mask went from reflective to transparent as she hastily shook her head, her eyes wide and sincere.

"N-no! If, if that's what you all want, I won't say a word." She glanced toward Freddy.

"I'm sure, um, I'm sure you know what's best." It took Hector a beat to realize what was happening, and when it clicked, he almost laughed. Willa wasn't a vet; she wasn't any sort of military. She knew Freddy was a Royal, though—a bona fide member of a Great House—and she knew better than to cross him. Hector wondered what her story was. What the hell got you mixed up in doing rift harvesting?

"There's going to be more we'll need to keep our mouths shut about," he said. As they all looked at him, he jerked his thumb in the direction of the rift.

"Depending on who comes through that rift, and what we learn from them, we'll need to come up with a plan—a story." The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"And with the pearls and these hooks," Mathews added, "there's plenty of incentive to get it right. If you want your cut, it'll be as simple as toeing the line." Hector nodded.

"Right. Like I said, we all lost friends in here—" He glanced at Kristy, and images of her clowning with Perry back at the base danced across his mind's eye.

"Some of us more than others. Let's not—" Mathews stretched out a blood- and dirt-stained hand, grasping one of the mirror-shiny black hooks.

"We bled for anything we manage to squeeze out of this nightmare. We stick together, we win. We don't, and we're all going to end up in a cell."

"A cell?" Paige asked. Mathews nodded.

"I don't believe they expect survivors. The drone…" Hector clenched his hand into a bloody fist.

"We stick together." Freddy cleared his throat, and everyone looked at him.

"I know this is my fault—" He held up a hand, waving to the side.

"Not directly, maybe—I didn't ask for whatever political play sent that drone through the rift—but I swear, I'll use every resource I still have available to keep you all out of trouble. If we stick together, we can get through this next part." He stared into Hector's eyes as he emphasized the word. Kristy put her hand on Freddy's shoulder, but she, too, looked at Hector.

"Together. In blood," she said, her voice raspy through her helmet's grille." Through blood," Paige said, moving a little closer to Kristy and adjusting the bulky dressing on her thigh. Mathews looked at the two techs.

"Is that all crystal clear? Take my hand and swear it." Willa crawled closer to Mathews, sliding through the moist dirt to grasp her hand. Her nails were jagged and caked with dirt, and she shook a little as she rested her weight on the commander.

"I swear. Whatever you think—" Again, she paused, turning to look at Freddy.

"I…I'm just happy to be alive." Mathews nodded, seemingly satisfied, then she looked at the other tech.

"What about you, Ling? No matter who you were before this—no matter who any of us were—we have to stick together out there. They'll separate us, try to get us to turn on one another." The pit was silent, everyone waiting to see how the quiet man might respond. When he spoke, his voice was low and raspy from the harsh air he'd been breathing.

"Every day since the bomb has been a gift, and I will continue to see each new morning in that light. I am honored to have survived with you all. I am in awe of you, Commander, and your iron will. And Hector—never did I think I'd witness a legend…" He smiled faintly.

"No—that isn't right. I think we've become part of one." He shifted his gaze from Hector to Freddy.

"I feel this is the seed of something greater than any of us." Hector mentally reeled. Has he said more than five words the entire time we've been on this damn planet? //More than five, but not many. // Is he talking about what Freddy told me? Was he listening— Before Evie could address Hector's paranoia, Mathews pulled her hand back, shattering the spell Ling's words had laid over the scene. Willa heaved a sigh and leaned back beside the other tech, rubbing his shoulders briskly.

She looked at him, her face echoing the surprise Hector felt.

"I don't know what's going to happen out there," Kristy said.

"But Freddy—" She jostled his shoulder and then looked at Hector.

"—and Hector. Don't you two disappear! Don't leave us sitting in some IG interrogation ward." Hector tilted his head to the side.

"Lumping me in with the Royal?"

"Come on," she said, glancing at Paige and then Mathews for support.

"Be honest. There's no way you'll walk through that portal and let the IG, or whoever sent that drone, take you into custody." Mathews grunted her agreement.

"I know you said you want to wait and see who comes through, but you've got to have something cooking up here—" She tapped the side of her helmet with her knuckles.

"—some inkling of a plan." Hector, having already shared more than he wanted and finding the experience somehow cathartic, slowly began to nod.

"I do, but I don't know if our young Royal is going to like it." Freddy leaned forward again.

"Me?"

"Yeah. Tell me this, Freddy. You've got a neurodeck, don't you?" ### Sass slung the pack over her shoulder, and then carefully extracted herself from the crawlspace. When her cab had driven up to the rental home and she'd seen that the front half was nothing more than a pile of rubble, she'd instructed the vehicle to circle the block. She'd expected something to be off; maybe there'd be Imperial Guard soldiers or PKs watching the place, or maybe it would be abandoned. She hadn't expected it to be destroyed.

Nevertheless, she'd stuck to the task, finishing Hector's—hopefully not —last request. After circling the block twice more, and feeling confident the building was empty and that no one was watching it, she'd snuck through a broken window, into the back half of the building which was, thankfully, not destroyed, and now she had Hector's pack in hand. She slipped out the same way, vaulted the fence, and climbed back into her cab.

Her other bag was there, waiting, and now she felt like she was driving around with two bombs. What had Hector said in his message? She couldn't recall the exact words, but the gist had been that she didn't want to tell anyone what she had. As if I even know! Of course she was tempted to open one or both containers. She was curious, but she wasn't stupid. Hector had told her to get a shielded case for the object she'd retrieved in Redwick; taking it out without a plan wouldn't be wise.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but did you have a destination in mind?" The cab's AI had taken her instruction to "drive" but now it wanted more specifics.

"Um, drop me off near that tall hotel—the one by the market."

"Are you referring to Kessler Suites?"

"That's it." While the cab hummed along, Sass leaned back in her seat and looked at the local news page. The front page was covered with articles about the rift, most prominently one about a shift being "imminent." Sass frowned as she read it. Hadn't Hector said it would be more like a month before it opened? A little more reading explained things: the rift had gone through some kind of quickening cycle, but was slowly readjusting, moving back to its usual timings.

"That's good news, though, right?" She'd muttered the question to herself, but the cab, recognizing that she was alone, assumed she was speaking to it.

"I'm sorry, miss?"

"Do you have access to local news feeds?"

"Indeed. Shall I give you a summary? Are you interested in live music?"

"No, I was curious about the rift. It's good news that it's reopening early, right? I mean for the people trapped inside?" The cab's AI didn't respond immediately, but the little blue light on its console pulsed, indicating it was thinking.

Sass looked out the window, watching the countryside blur past, and it almost startled her when the AI spoke again, "After a review of the available media, it seems that the missing rift party is presumed dead, though authorities are careful to indicate that they can't be certain of their fate. Pundits are almost universally pessimistic, I'm afraid." After another pause, it asked, "I'm sorry, miss, but did you have a connection to the missing party?"

"Um, no," Sass replied.

"I was just curious." She clutched the backpack's strap, her fist shaking with the strain. Come on, Hector! These people don't know who you are—show them!