"Keep moving."
I glanced over my shoulder, my lips in a tight, pale line as my friend struggled up the rocky path, gravity and the loose pebbles and dirt threatening to knock her backward with every step. Her face as she looked up at me, had gone far beyond flushed and was now pale in exhaustion, sweat shining and plastering her fiery red hair to her face.
"Red, please, I can't," she gasped, and with a start I realized her fingertips were bloody from scrabbling at the rock all the way up. Her legs trembled violently, even cast in those cybernetic enhancements to battle the cerebral palsy that had tormented her her entire life.
"Do you want to get obliterated?" Despite my consternation at seeing her in this condition, and my sympathy for her exhaustion and pain, my thoughts were turned to the more obvious and much, much more dangerous problem.
We were being hunted. Not directly—if our pursuers knew we were actually here, they would be on us so fast we wouldn't even know we were dead. But I had the horrid feeling that they knew we were out here, they knew someone had escaped, and they knew we weren't far.
We had to keep moving.
"No," my friend panted. "But, oh god, just a second. Let me rest for a second."
"It's either rest or live," I snarled cruelly. "Get your lazy fat ass up."
"No, Red. I need to rest." And she turned and sat on the rock she was currently resting on, leaning her head back with a grateful sigh as her weakened legs splayed in front of her, the cybernetics working overtime to restore circulation. Her skin there was deathly pale, and purple veins spidered across her legs, startlingly clear and obvious. Her skin slowly began to flush as the machines did their job. Behind her, the smoking crater of our home was just visible through the haze of dust that permeated everything.
I felt my own legs weaken. Now that we had stopped, and I was watching her rest, I felt the overwhelming urge to join her.
If I sat, I wouldn't be able to get up.
"Lara," I said.
"If they're close enough to catch up with us now," she near-whispered, not opening her eyes, "they're close enough to catch us even if we were walking."
I wavered uncertainly and sat next to her.
Lara looked at me. Exhaustion rimmed her blue eyes, and I knew I looked the same way. Not to mention the burns, scrapes and bruises decorating her face, hands, and forearms. I had a few less than she did, probably—it was easier for me to run and catch myself if I fell.
We said nothing, just sat there for a good long two minutes. The pain from my own blessedly minor wounds slowly rose as I brought my mind from escaping and the past to the just-as-horrifying present. I pushed it back with fear and anger.
"Come on," I said, standing. My legs wobbled dangerously and I locked my knees.
"Please, Red, listen, just another second—"
"Get the fuck up or I'm leaving you here."
She jerked her face up to look at mine, shock warring with fear and pain on her features. I said nothing, hardening my own face so she would think I wasn't kidding.
I would never leave her. I couldn't leave her. She was my best friend. I couldn't sacrifice my humanity by saving my own life, despite that she was in fact slowing us down.
But it worked. Lara heaved herself to her feet, panting with exertion and giving me a tormented look. I hid my concern behind my anger and turned my back, forcing myself up the long rocky path with strength born of sheer will and desperation. Behind me, my friend did the same. I knew her back was screaming in pain, that her fingertips were likely numb by now, that her legs couldn't handle much more stress.
It was better than being shot by geth.
They had come out of nowhere. Our colony was situated dangerously close to the Traverse, but just far enough in that people were wary, but not overly concerned with our proximity. Unfortunately, our colony happened to also be atop a very large and very dense eezo deposit. It was the whole reason it had been built there in the first place. It had begun as a mining colony, and had slowly grown as more and more people settled their families there. It had been paradise. At least, that's what I remembered it as.
Now, it was nothing more than a smear across a few square kilometers of the rocky, mountainous region.
The geth hit us hard, severed our communications, fired from orbit and destroyed much of our colony, and then came down personally to wipe the rest of us out as their machines split open the earth, ripping away chunks of eezo as their soldiers slaughtered anyone still left alive.
Except us.
Lara and I had been on a hike in the red cliffs above our home when the geth first struck. We had a perfect view of the destruction, and had been helpless to stop it, as our friends, family, and everyone else we knew were killed in one fell swoop. The shockwaves had nearly blown us off our feet, and if it weren't for Lara's quick "Get down!" I would have been frozen in blank confusion as I was swept off the side of the cliff. As it were, we anchored ourselves to the rocks and covered our heads as the geth burned the ground once, twice, three times.
Our binoculars helped us watch survivors when the dust settled slightly as they were coldly and systematically gunned down.
Our colony had been a small one. Everyone knew everyone else, and both Lara and I knew the names of every single man, woman and child that had died to an unsympathetic artificial intelligence, crushed like a bug under the heel of someone who cared not one iota for the smaller creatures.
We'd recorded every movement they had made. Recorded it, so someone would know what had happened to us.
I used my desperation and terror and rage at the injustice of it all to fuel my ascent into the mountains. Behind me, I hoped Lara was doing the same.
The dust and shards of stone still fell from the sky. The once-perfect day, with flawless cloudless skies, was now a sickening tannish-gray, and I expected it to stay that way for some time. Probably days. If not weeks.
The thick dust drifting around caught in our eyes and slipped into our nose and throats, and didn't make it any easier to walk, see, or breathe. Poor Lara had been born with not enough oxygen to the brain, which caused her cerebral palsy, and the choked air made it even more difficult for her to climb than me.
I remembered my studies of Ancient Earth, of the time of the dinosaurs, about how the meteorite had hit the planet and choked the air with dust, blocking out the sun. I wondered if this was how the dinosaurs felt.
Would we ever seen the sun?
We were headed up towards an old mine shaft that had hopefully not been collapsed by the blasts. It was our favorite hideout, and we had long since put food, water, and medical supplies there for when we stayed there overnight during the weekends. Hopefully it was all untouched. We needed all of it now, and we needed to stay low while the geth searched for us.
Because the geth were searching for us. I don't know why they weren't just firing at the mountainsides in hopes of simply incinerating us. Maybe they were worried that the resulting rockslide would ruin their machinery in the pit that was our home. Or... whatever. But through our binoculars, we had seen several geth look around at the mountains before sending out pale, quick-moving others that moved with a blur across the landscape in various directions. That was when I had doubled our pace.
"There's the rock that looks like a dick," I said. It had somehow survived the blasts, though it looked precariously close to finally collapsing. The rock had been a source of amusement and a good landmark for our periodic journeys into the mountains. "We're close."
"Oh... good..." she said it on a rising inflection, as if she was going to say something more, but then gave it up in favor of more panting.
After a minute, though, I looked over my shoulder. "What?"
"I-I think we're being followed."
I turned around fully and she collapsed against the rock wall, taking advantage of my pause. "No shit, Sherlock, we're being followed. They're hunting us." I wasn't really angry at her stupidity—she wasn't stupid, really—but had to sound angry. I was angry. Just not at her.
"No, I mean..."
"What? Fucking say it."
Lara looked up at me, then laboriously turned and looked down the path. "I heard something. I think they're onto us."
Oh, god. I stared down the path, and it was Lara's sweaty, bloody hand grabbing my own that snapped me out of it. "Come on. Let's go. Fast."
She didn't reply, just started up again. I let go of her hand and scrambled up the path, slipping and stumbling and probably making way more noise than was necessary, but oh god if they found us...
"Red! Wait, please..."
I turned and stumbled down a few feet and grabbed Lara's arm, pulling her up the last little bit of path and into the cave just as a flexible white geth skittered over the rocks right for us, flashlight eye staring unblinkingly at us. It paused, looked between Lara and I, and I grabbed a shovel right as it gathered itself for a leap.
I must have hit it, because it stumbled to the side off of me.
I was on the floor? As if it came with that realization, there was a sudden, blinding pain in the back of my skull and my shoulders and I felt my whole body clenching in paroxysms of agony. I saw stars. I retched. The geth must have leapt at me, and hard, because I was on the floor and my head, oh god my head...
A sudden scream. "Get OFF of her!" And there was the clanging sound, like metal on metal, only slightly dulled. It sounded again and again. As my vision cleared I saw that Lara had finally, finally found the strength to leap up, grab the shovel, and begin smacking the geth with it over and over.
Lara's legs were weak, but her arms were very, very strong. The geth stuttered and backed up as she followed it, smashing its head with the shovel so hard it jerked back and hit its head again on the stone wall. Lara dropped the shovel. I didn't know why, and it pissed me off. Her whacks had only been annoying inconveniences to it; what was she doing?
"Pick it up," I groaned, pushing with one hand and rolling myself over onto my side. The world spun. I fumbled at my omni-tool, fighting to dispense some medi-gel to at least get rid of the pain, but the keys wouldn't stop weaving and rippling under my gaze.
Lara screamed. The geth had reared up and was now towering over her, and oh god in another second it would crush her skull in a single swipe of its hand...
A suddenly loud, hissing crack sounded, and the geth was flung across the cavern with the force of whatever-it-was, spraying something white and liquid. Some of it splattered on me, and an arm skidded to a halt next to me. It had been blown clear off the geth's body.
Lara was slumped against the cave wall, mouth open in utter shock, and I lifted a hand, waving weakly to her. She snapped out of it and scrambled over to me. "Okay, wait, just... wait," she scrabbled at her own omni-tool, and after a second the pain faded and I could literally feel the bone healing itself and the skin sealing up.
I remained on the floor, dumbfounded and my thoughts whirling. "What—what—"
"I don't know," Lara's voice was panicked, "but please get up they know we're here now! Get up, Red!"
I kicked my legs and pushed with my hands. With Lara to help me, I got up, swaying, and stared, disbelieving, at the body of the geth. That couldn't have happened. It couldn't have. No one had a sniper rifle that powerful to take the machine out from across the gorge on another mountain! It wasn't possible—and through all the floating dust and debris, no less—no, it was impossible, it couldn't have happened...
"Lara. Lara. What happened."
"I don't fucking know, but we've gotta move..."
I looked down at her, and almost began laughing at the irony. We had switched roles. If I started laughing, however, I knew I would collapse into hysterics. "Okay. Grab the medikits over there, and the food packets, and put them in the backpack—"
We scrabbled together as much as we could, and stuck it in two backpacks. Neither of us were rested up enough to carry such things, but we didn't have much choice. The mine shaft went through several mountains and ended up on the far side of the range. We had no weapons besides random bits of machinery and ancient shovels and pitchforks. We could only hope to travel quickly, and quietly, and get to the other side before...
...There was nothing for us on the other side. But I suspected it was just a goal, something to look forward to, something to set. If we could make it to the other side, we would be accosted by more geth... but we would make it to the other side.
Something to look forward to, at least.
We headed into the tunnel.