The scrapyard isn't how I remember it.
Or rather how Ace's memories represented it. There's much fewer materials of any kind here, a year later. It looks like the anklebiters have chewed through one of the trucks, leaving only a rusted husk that looks ready to collapse any second. The busted down robot chassis is totally gone, its only vestiges a couple scraps half buried under the snow.
I've climbed on top of a more intact truck, scouring the distance and keeping watch. It's a clear day, so there's nothing but empty white for kilometers, all of it under the oppressive sight of the Reclaimer Beacon. An uneasy wind courses through the scrapyard, driving flurries in small cyclones. The heavy skies hang low and gray.
I'm not sure what I was so afraid of. There's nothing out here. Sure, the biters could be burrowed and pop up any second, but we've been out here all morning with no signs of life. Or… Machine existence.
Wait. Are we alive? Do we count?
"Hey," Razor says from below. "Ace."
"What?" The woman in question is hip deep digging up snow.
"Have you noticed anything new or different with your current body? By that I mean… I seem to have keener eyes and sharper senses. I look at this snow and I see tracks, and I know what left them, which way it went, and how long ago it was here."
"Yep. Never had a stealth module before, but it's on my dashboard waiting to be utilized. I think I saw something about emergency repair something or other in my onboard? Your point?"
"I think whatever unique traits we had originally may have either changed or merged with the bodies we're now inhabiting."
"Oh, damn. Okay. Yeah, I'd second that observation. We are in other heads than our own. Who knows? So, you're a tracker now? Can you track the spider?"
"No, that's what made me speak up. There are signs of plenty of machines, but I don't see anything that screams giant spider."
"Damn it." Ace stops digging, tossing her hands up and dropping them at her sides. "Yeah, the SMG is a lost cause. It's been an entire year since I died, the snow banks have totally shifted, and in all likelihood, the biters snacked it up already."
"You're probably right," Razor says, glancing up at me. "We could find you another one. Or have Scribe make some foundry designs."
"Yeah. It's just… That was a gift, you know? Quentin gave it to me." She trails off, eyes closed, brows knitted in frustration. "Damn. Why'd they have to lie to me? Keep me in the dark? I'm still kinda stuck on that. I was fine about it in your head, but now I'm here for real, and it's much more… immediate."
"I know. But remember, we talked about this. They didn't distrust you personally, they distrusted you as a Nep unit. Because of Nep-15. And–"
"I know. Sorry, slasher. I know what they said. Still kinda sad about it regardless. Can we move on?"
"Sure, shooter. Unfortunately for your SMG's fate, there isn't much room for sentiment in a place like this. It's gone."
"Yeah… I know it's gone. But can I… I want to look for ten more minutes. If that's okay with you two. Maybe find some scraps from my old body or something. I don't know."
"Certainly."
I reply, "Sure."
She doesn't say anything else, getting up to dig in another spot with Taser beeping encouragement. Initially, Razor was helping search, but now she's just roaming around checking things out. Tune is off to the North, monitoring for anything that might be heading this way from the distant wilds.
The Reclaimer Beacon looms.
It makes me uneasy seeing it in person.
I go back to pacing the length of the truck's roof, glancing off toward the inverted truck that's been rusted out and devoured. The square hole where Ace and Zenith cut through the chassis has widened into a round one, its edges dangerously sharp and corroded. I wonder if that man's corpse is still in there, but I don't dare to check.
Reclaim. Reclaim what? Cipher-3? No, thanks. I'll pass.
I perk up when my sensors detect motion. "Biters. Pack of five. Two hundred meters south, coming this way."
Razor slinks her way next to me without a sound, taking a look. "They seem hungry."
Ace jumps and clangs when she lands, scoping them out with her sniper. "Not worth the bullets, if you ask me."
"I'm not running out there to meet them."
"Sounds like a perfect job for me," I announce. "Observe."
Striking up my Tech interface I draw on my Prism Bolt CleanTech, tuning it to green for corrosion. A handful of sickly neon green acid converges in my right palm, empowered by the Conduit, then it channels into my index finger, the first digit of which glows the same color.
Even from two hundred meters away, how could I possibly miss? Locking onto my target, the one in front, I point my finger. The substance fires like a dart or a bullet, gone in a blink.
The distant anklebiter pops like an overripe tick.
Ace whistles. "Direct hit. Damn."
So I do it again, four more times. Not a single miss. I just can't be stopped. Once the Biters are gone, Ace lowers her rifle and scowls at me.
"Who are you?"
"I don't understand the question."
"You killed something. Five somethings. You should be screaming and crying and running home."
"What can I say? I'm a natural warrior, it seems."
"Don't look at me," Razor hums with a faint grin. "I don't know either. Are you complaining, Ace?"
"I don't like people who can switch just like that," she says in a low voice.
As she moves, her imposing figure looms like a threat over me for the duration of a heartbeat and then it's over and she's gone, dropping off the side of the truck. Even with Fearless active, I feel a distant blip of sheer terror, far away like it belongs to someone else even though I know it's mine. She thinks I might be faking it–my fear. I'd better come clean, and fast.
"Ace, wait–"
"Don't care," she calls back up, walking away. "If it works, I don't care. We're done here. Let's move before any more of those things show up and bring their friends. Come on, Neps, we're going east. It's time to finally clear some ground in the basin."
"Yep," Razor says, giving me a shrug as she drops down after her. "I'm sure there will be other guns, Ace. It's like the saying goes–love finds you when you least expect it. That's how it was for us, wasn't it? And now look how far we've come. Logos and I are so happy together."
"Pfft. I support your endearment towards your awesome plasma sword."
Calling Tune back over, I drop down too and trot to catch up. "Hold on, you two. Come here, let me do this before we need it."
I consume an L1 Charge to give us all Group Overshield, then another to give myself TechArmor. As soon as I'm done, Ace grabs my wrist. Lifting it up, she scowls as she looks my arm over, her grip so tight it hurts.
"Explain this again," she demands, pointing out the SmartChip ports on the back of my hand. "Six of them? How?"
My focus on Fearless is faltering. It hurts.
"Let her go," Razor demands. "You can't just keep grabbing Witch like that. She's gentle."
"Oh. Sorry." Ace lets go, gazing at her own hand for a short few seconds. "Sorry, Witch. Are you alright?"
I nod, massaging the pain away. "I'm okay."
"It is pissing me off though. How much better you are with Tech. I'm not sure I buy it, these being stock parts. You must have gone through dozens of Nep bodies while rebuilding us, right? Did you pick and choose the best for yourself? Because I do respect that. I'm just trying to wrap my processors around you."
Razor tilts her head. "Let's move and talk."
This time we stay relatively close together, and I tell them the truth. "It's like I said. I haven't changed anything about my own body. I landed with these arms, this many SmartPorts, this many Charges, Tech Cylinders, and Cylinder slots."
Ace asks, "So then what about the other Neps? Were there any bodies that had as many, say, SmartPorts as you? Is that the term for them?"
"That is the term for them. But no, there were none with more than four, but the numbers did vary. I looked for the best possible parts for you two, but didn't find anything near the condition these were in. I decided base functionality was more important."
"Better this way."
"Yeah. Agreed."
"That's good to hear. We did take data on Variants, SmartPorts, and Cylinder ports, but Scribe has all of it. I wasn't really paying attention to anything besides rebuilding you two. I think Martials were the most common Variant, actually. Of the bodies we found, that is. Which makes sense. They're the most adaptable."
"Yes, I am," Ace proudly says.
Razor starts walking backwards to face me. "Do you think there's any way to predict a pattern to this? The reason I ask is because I wonder if we could seek out specific Neps who got delivered and died with better hardware."
Ace interjects, "And what? Cherry pick the best parts from our dead cohorts?"
"Yes."
"No further questions. I'm in."
"From what I can tell, it's totally random," I answer. "If there is a pattern, Scribe and I would need more data to find it. Regardless, even if there was a perfect Nep body out there somewhere, chances are the anklebiters have torn through it or the weather has destroyed it. Our hardware does not last for long on the surface of Cipher-3."
Ace sends a dark look past me to Razor who shares the same one.
Neither of them verbalize whatever they're thinking so I question, "What? Did I say something wrong?"
Razor tilts her head but Ace speaks first. "Witch, how well did you document the process of rebuilding us?"
"In excruciating detail. Everything down to the ohms of your individual resistors. Scribe has the master file. Why?"
"I want to first make sure we can rebuild ourselves and each other. If you die, can we follow the same process and bring you back?"
"Yes. So long as you follow the procedure. My notes are very clear. I still don't know why you're asking me this."
"Because if you end up dead," Ace begins, then hesitates while scanning the horizon. "The next Nep would be dropped to Cipher-3 in her pod. Her hardware would be intact. Brand spanking new."
"Yes. What's your point?"
She's staring at Razor who still won't say anything. Exasperated, Ace says, "I don't feel right even saying it out loud."
"She's talking about insurance," Razor cuts in, giving me a cold glance. "Or maybe more like harvesting. A macabre sort of hardware delivery service. We could pick and choose the optimal standard issue hardware. Or, we could capture and rewrite ourselves over brand new units. Point being, we could theoretically continue rebuilding ourselves over and over."
I nod. "Like farming mobs for loot drops. But the mobs are us. That would mean killing or dismembering the new Nep."
"Yes. It would."
"Brutal," Ace mumbles, still looking elsewhere.
"It's a thought," Razor counters. "Not a decision."
I frown, considering it. "There's sound logic to that. Especially when we consider it in the context of our directive. Who has a better shot at locating McElroy and seeing through her execution? The continuous recursive iteration, born clueless and infantile, ignorant of what progress has or has not been made toward that end? Or the three of us, who already have the understanding and relative experience that we do?"
"Feels wrong," Ace states the obvious.
"It's cannibalistic," Razor says, and that strikes me as true. "Or maybe vampiric. Consumption of the living by the dead. Or do we qualify enough to be considered among the living ourselves? You know, there's superstitious precedent in humanity's folklore and mythos glorifying the consumption of specific parts of corpses to bolster that part on the consumer. Say someone with a gangrenous hand eats the healthy hand of a freshly dead neighbor. Some early human societies used to believe that act would then heal the gangrene."
"Freaks," Ace comments.
"Some cultures, maybe," I concur. "Though some early cultures also denounced the consumption of other people, even the dead. The mythos of the wendigo comes to mind."
"So what?" Ace grumbles, shouldering her rifle and scowling. "Some monkeys banging sticks together hundreds of thousands of years ago said cannibals either gain supernatural power or become horrific monsters? What does any of this have to do with us?"
Razor answers, "I'm only discussing the ethics of the prospect of harvesting future Neps for our own personal gain. I'm not trying to argue, if that's how it's coming off."
"I wasn't either," I quiver. "I thought we were just talking."
"There isn't much good that can come from talking about all this," Ace responds with a heavy sigh. "Let's shelf it. Doesn't matter right now anyway. Witch is the current Nep and I don't intend to let her die. None of this is relevant in any way until and if that changes."
"Wait," I say, drawing on my Fearless Tech to speak up for myself. "We may not get the chance to talk about this if we put it off. Like Razor said, it's insurance. And I might not want to be alive, but I don't want to be dead either. So… If I die, I do want you two to bring me back. Please. Even if it means overriding another Nep."
"Of course," Razor says with a solemn nod. "Let's make a pact, all three of us. If any of us die, we'll bring her back. If two of us die, the third will…"
"Bring Witch back," Ace laughs, nudging me. "Best to get the necromancer back on her toes first than risk fumbling it, in my opinion."
"I'd have to second that. And what Witch said. I, in particular, am wary of sudden changes to the state of my health and wellbeing. So, Ace, Witch." She extends a hand, palm down. "Do we have an accord?"
"I'm in." Ace places her hand over it. "Whatever happens, it's us three."
I nod, adding my hand with its diamond Conduit to the conglomerate. "I'm in as well. I swear my ability to the two of you. However... difficult it may be to utilize..."
"From here on, we fight as one and we die as one of three," Razor declares, looking us in the eye. "Even if it means destroying other Neps to rebuild or override each other. That's as far as we'll take this pact for the moment. A last resort, and no further."
"Agreed," Ace nods.
I do as well. Beneath my focused Tech propping up my bravery, I recognize a touch of my fear melting away. It was far from a mistake bringing these two back. It's undeniable I wouldn't be where I am without them, beyond the Station, out of hiding. They will protect me, I know. There isn't a question about it. We may argue or fight or disagree, and I have lots of growing to do in order to catch up to them, but the simple truth is they will guard me through it.
With them at my side, I'm willing to push on.
Through whatever comes.
Well… within reason. I'm still not that brave.
We let our hands fall and Ace turns away, marching onward. "Good talk, girls. Let's get going."
Razor lets out a hard to read hum, watching her go. Without looking at me, she follows. I glance at Tune, wondering what she thinks about all this, but not willing to ask. With her following me, I bring up the rear of the group as we clear the last distance to the basin. Ace pauses for a while to reflect at the monitor beacon she fixed with Quentin, then stands at the precipice.
"A year," she says, optics trained in the distance. "A year since I set point here. That signal is still calling out there, across from this massive crater. And now we're going in. A year later…"
Neither Razor nor I say anything or make a move.
Ace sighs then slides down the snowbank into the crater. Razor gives me a vacant stare for a few seconds then does the same.
I take Tune's hand, standing at the edge.
No going back now. Do I even want to?
Fearless, I squeeze Tune's hand and take the plunge.
These are our first steps into the crater basin.