Chapter 09

‘Bullet Time, Oracle Sense, Nanomancy-Foundry, Overhaul, Warp-Relay.’ She read the readout that displayed in her field of vision as she cycled through her new abilities. The technician, Leon, he’d done a good job when he debugged her factory settings. She now had access to her suite of combat protocols and default Gatekeeper authorizations, so she’d definitely be a more effective fighting unit.

When she asked if her abilities were unique back at the Steel Curtain, she’d been told that the abilities are usually based on already existing tech, mass-produced versions of Starfall Salvage, or came from The Forge. So it’s not accurate to say that no two gatekeepers have the same abilities, several of them are based on, sidegrades of, or derivative of other pieces of tech loaded into her hardware.

For example, the Bullet Time ability, it’s derivative of a function that Naomi’s hardware came with. Naomi had gave a brief technical description of it, got bored, and then just told her that it’s the, “ranged variant of mine without the custom settings.”

The group had been flying for quite some time, and unfortunately she didn’t have time to test out her new abilities as the order was marked as urgent. The comms clicked on, “Um… H-How f-f-far is the LZzzZz?”

The other girls in the flight pattern; Sofia, Kumoko, Mariposa, Claire, Irene, and Naomi all stayed silent while they flew in the formation. Maybe she didn’t send the message right? HK wasn’t used to this method of communication — described to her as akin to getting a message in your brain since flying at these speeds and talking were impossible.

Well, from what she remembered about the mission, their presence was requested in an unincorporated settlement out in no man’s land, between the borders of Soluna, New Genesis, and the FSA. She remembered that when Sofia received the mission parameters, she had Bell packed with supplies such as food, water, blankets, medicine, and other things that aren’t much use to a Gatekeeper.

‘What was the mission code? A 10-47-RSP?’

The comm-signal clicked on, and finally, Mariposa said: “What about Louise?”

“Nah, she doesn’t seem like a Louise. Oh, maybe she can be our third sister, so uh… I don’t know, like… Beetle? So, Betty? That doesn’t sound right.”

“Oh, what if we named her after an object instead, like uh… Rose?”

“What’s a Rose?”

“A prickly-stemmed, pinnate-displaying, flowered shrub belong to Rosa genus. The common image of a rose is a red flower, but the Rosa genus was expansive and included various other specimens.” That bored explanation could only come from Naomi.

“What?”

“A red flower with thorns that doesn’t exist in this region.”

“Ladies, please!” Irene had clearly had enough with this idle chatter on the comms. They’d been trying to come up with a new name for HK — because they grew tired of calling her by her serial number — since they left the Steel Curtain. “Commander Sofia, shouldn’t we be keeping the comms clear? It’s outlined in the manual, section 13 page 562! It’s recommended to keep comms clear so we can readily coordinate to the ever-changing state of the battlefield!”

“Hmmm…” Flying at the spearhead of the flight pattern, Sofia stayed silent, from this distance it was difficult if not impossible to gauge her body language. Then she finally sent a message on the shared squad line: “What about Carter?”

HK heard the other girls try to hold back their laughs in the comm, to varying degrees of success.

“Guys, this is very unprofessional!” Claire seemed to back up Irene.

“Thank you, at least one of you understands decorum and professionalism!”

“Yeah! Obviously, we should pick a name for HK that starts with H, obviously! I mean, really, how weird is it that we all have different first letters, and then one person comes in with the same first letter! It’s so unbalanced! And it’s a ‘C!’ I don’t wanna change my name, I like Claire! What would I go by instead?! Zira? You mean like the Zira “The Jaeger” of the Razorback Regiment! You want me to be like Zira?!”

The comms all lit up with a cacophony of jeers and criticism for the Razorback Regiment — even from Mariposa, as unlikely as that seemed — apparently, Razorback Regiment was another Gatekeeper group stationed in a different sector of the Steel Curtain.

They — as in Sparrow Regiment, this regiment that HK belonged to — were on the eastern side while Razorback was stationed in the North-West.

From over the comms, Irene could only let out a defeated sigh as she was apparently outvoted on the whole professionalism angle.

“Sorry.” HK apologized on behalf of the group, but if Irene cared she didn’t respond.

“...Maybe Heather? Kinds rhymes with feather, because we fly a lot?” Apparently Irene had just given up and decided to join the guessing, perhaps if only so the chatter can be kept to a minimum.

As the girls continued their conversation, HK scanned the ground far beneath them. Unfortunately, life behind the wall didn’t look any better. Without the safety of the Steel Curtain, signs of war were evident. Rusted out machines of war, and broken towers, covered in the bleached and shattered bones of those who died alone in the bombed out ruins, from the warmth and comfort of their homes and loved ones. There’d be no mothers, sons, grandparents, or lovers to mourn them. No, the only visitors they had now were the occasional pack of scavenging wildlife.

In the distance, she spotted a range of mountains that seemed to have spawned beneath several buildings. Or at least, it looked like a range of small mountains, however her automated scan told her, quite clearly, that those too were the bones of some once massive creature.

“W-W-Would we have to fight thoooooose things?” She accidentally voiced her thoughts aloud in the squad network. Could she feel embarrassment, would her cheeks look red right now?

Sofia responded, “Yeah, sometimes. That battle was a few years ago, various factions signed a temporary ceasefire since it threatened us all.”

“Too bad it had to die.” Mariposa, ever the kind one, showed remorse and uttered a small prayer for it as she flew by.

“It did try to eat us.” Irene interjected.

“It actually DID eat me.” Claire noticeably shivered. “I’ve had my memory cleared several times, but I still remember… the smell.”

“Wish I could’ve been there,” Kumoko sighed, but then flexed her arms. “but don’t worry, next time it happens, Big Sis Kumoko will beat it down into the dirt! Because-”

“Big Sis Kumoko’s got this.” All the girls said in unison, eliciting a groan from Kumoko.

“Where did it come from? Something that big existing… it doesn’t seem likely.” HK said as they passed by the range of spinal columns.

“Says the living-dead robot girl made with reality-defying forces flying as fast as an aircraft while having a casual conversation about the history of the region.” Claire responded, smirk implied.

“I… okay.” HK cleared her throat, “Still though…”

“It came from inside the Warp Anomaly. Possibly attached to a piece of debris or as part of an ecosystem in there.” In addition to an explanation, Naomi send several archived images and autopsy reports on the leviathan before it died.

Claire made hmmm sound, and then started, “Seriously? Hard to imagine something could live in ther- WAIT, ECOSYSTEM?! ARE THERE MORE OF THOSE THINGS?!”

Naomi, instead of responding, just opted to send a small, stylized image of herself shrugging.

What followed was a series of images from Claire, each with a theme that could only be described as the essence of the phrase: “OH HELLLLLL NO!”

“Sofia! Please petition the council to authorize a mission to shoot every bomb, bullet, hell I’ll build a catapult if we need something to launch a bunch of knives! This is of the utmost security concern, in fact-” Whatever Claire had to say next was muted by Sofia’s command controls. Claire had not yet noticed and kept on her anti-leviathan screed.

“Wanna take bets on when she notices she’s been muted?” Sofia asked.

“30-SCs, fifteen minutes!” Kumoko said.

“The Enlightened-Nine caution against gambling. Buuuuut, they also say to not let opportunities pass you by, and there’s a sale on my favorite book series in a few weeks so… 45-SCs, she’ll stop midway through, repeat herself, and keep going for another 20 minutes.”

“I don’t think this is proper.” Irene began, paused for several moments. “Ah screw it, I need some hardware upgrades on my gaming rig, so 90-SCs says that she’ll notice when she says, what she thinks, is a really good joke and no one responds.”

“20-SCs, she’ll keep going up all the way until we reach the LZ.” Naomi, in her trademark monotone, seemed pretty confident.

HK didn’t take part in this betting though, she was instead more curious about the Warp Anomaly. She checked her Archives for what it had to say on the matter.

‘The Warp Anomaly is a mysterious, unknown energy force that encases the entirety of the region in an impassible dome, its estimated age predates known history by several hundred if not thousands of years. It is considered the highest level of dangerous phenomena; no ship, probe, or person in recorded history has ever passed through the field and survived.’

‘However, on occasion, space debris that seems held inside the warp anomaly’s field falls to the region, taking with it a small portion of that field which eventually dissipates. This event is known as Starfall; it is currently not known how this process occurs.’

‘When a living creature comes into physical contact with the warp, they seem to be dismantled until not a shred of their being remains. However, it is believed that contact with the Warp Anomaly can create the conditions necessary for a living subject to develop supernatural abilities which defy common laws of reality. Unfortunately, the process has never been seen in-person, and it’s estimated that roughly less than 1% of the population gains these unnatural abilities.’

She finished reading the entry, it was surprisingly vague. Though, that probably goes to show how mysterious the Warp Anomaly was. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what’s on the other side? Perhaps that beach region is beyond the veil?

Sofia’s voice came out over the comm, “we’re almost at the destination,” off in the horizon, they could barely make out the forms of columns of soldiers preparing battlements as war machines stood guard as silent sentinels of death. “Prepare for landing. Also, set your threat detection protocols to level-02, we’re no longer in Soluna territory.”