For Fio.
He's never ready for the rain. This world seems to have it in excess, and though the little mountain cave he's claimed in the months since the Mothership's fall is hardly the most sophisticated shelter, Rider still finds himself darting inside with every first sign of thunder. Sometimes the rain whispers and sometimes the rain roars, but the lightning always comes tearing out of the skies like a promise of violence, too powerful to ignore. Rider huddles in the shadows and scowls into the dark. He's not afraid, he tells himself, just-apprehensive.
The shocks in his cell had never been enough to kill him. The exhaustion would claim him eventually, perhaps his Jailer would grow a little too enthusiastic in his games, but the shocks hadn't been designed to be fatal. He'd never been so naive to assume that had been an act of mercy. They'd come at regular intervals, at first. One shock every fifteen seconds just meant he had fourteen seconds to focus on anything but his surroundings. His short time on the surface had given him more than enough material: The lake he'd found just over the hill from his landing site. The first time he'd seen a sunrise. That field of wildflowers he'd stumbled upon three days after first contact. Until he'd come to this planet, Rider had always thought green to be an exceptionally ugly color.
Then his Jailer had decided to rip the timer out of the machine, and from then on all Rider could ever think about was when those shocks would come. Even in the quiet, where the anticipation of pain was somehow worse than any actual pain, the eternal storm raging just outside his prison made sure he would never have a thought of peace again. He would try to think of that field, that horizon, those flowers, and then the world would tear apart with a scream of thunder, and he would be left with nothing but the shards of a memory, cutting into him like teeth while his Jailer laughed and laughed.
Rider curls tighter, legs in a knot, head in a storm, and waits for the violence to pass.
The thunder lumbers away by sunrise. Rider wishes he could say the same for the clouds. The years spent locked in that cell have conditioned him to expect cruelty in calmness, and so he stands at the mouth of the cave for what feels like days, staring up at a sky that never does anything more than threaten rain while he waits for the first bolt of light to crack through like laughter. It's past noon by the time he ventures out into open air, and the little he can see of the sun seems so small and far away. The mountain is cold and damp. Everything smells like water. Rider vaults onto a slick shelf of rock and tries not to think about all that debris still floating around in the atmosphere.
He knows he isn't alone out here. A forested valley stretches beyond the base of the mountain, vast and green. He's seen a few deer, some birds. Wolves. Once, not long after he'd decided to land here with the revelation that stone was only mostly unaffected by his presence, he'd stirred to find a bear ripping fish from the river not ten steps from where he had stopped to rest. It had been a hulking thing with eyes like slate and teeth as long as his fingers. He'd been quick to creep away, more for its safety than his own. He's seen a thousand planets fall to ruin in the decades since his last activation, and the only thing that has ever given him the slightest cause for hesitation is the knowledge that not everything mired in Corruption dies in an instant.
In the distance, some lone alien creature lets out a scream.
Rider presses his nose to his knees and ponders. It's all he can do now, really. Ponder. Ponder what he's done, what he hasn't done, what he can only ever hope to do here on a world that crumbles to cinders with the lightest brush of skin. There's that vague sense of guilt that always comes with these moments, some innate instinct that compels him to keep moving even when he has nothing left to scout, and even though he knows he's freed himself of these obligations, he can't shake the thought that he's doing something wrong. The Mothership is gone, no, destroyed. One glance at the sky is enough to tell him it hasn't disappeared. He has no memory of the planet he'd been created to save, but he's certain its days are numbered. He wonders if he should feel guilty, thinks better of it. That phantom world had never been a home to him, and Rider knows well enough that nothing can be done for a planet doomed to die. … Perhaps with one exception. Rider stares up at the Mothership's ruin and wonders just how many of those shadows share his face.
The wind comes sharp and biting by the time his thoughts release him, whipping his hair into a frenzy until he manages to tame it under the collar of his coat, and he knows that's water on the air even before his skin starts to sizzle and hiss. Rider rips the zipper up his throat and thrusts his fists into the long-neglected sleeves, twisting himself in fabric until he's suffocating in red. He'd found it on a corpse who knows how many worlds ago, the only thing to not burn away to ashes the moment his feet had passed it over, and he's long since discovered that it seems equally impenetrable to water. Whatever its construction, it's served him as a better companion than what little else was granted to him by The Star.
Rider scans the valley before his eyes catch on a flower rooted in the cliffs below. It's a small, delicate thing that's still managed to claw its way out of the rocks, its petals the same cold electric blue as his pupils. He wishes he knew its name, wonders if he's the first to ever see it. Even now, this world continues to surprise him with all it has to offer. He thinks back to the reports he'd scanned in preparation for first contact, how fascinating they'd been in their claims and how inaccurate they'd been in testing. The land is teeming with flora, the fauna varied and constantly changing, and the days race by in a flash, far faster than on any other planet he's ever been assigned. It's a world as intriguing as it is mystifying, a great ball of silicate rocks and metals that still manages to support so many differing lifeforms. The reports had told him that the planet has undergone more change in the past ten thousand years than any other planet in the solar system. Rider doesn't know if that's true. He only knows that this is everything he-or an assimilator-could ever want in a target.
The sky is darkening quickly, and not for a lack of day. By the time Rider picks up on a drop in barometric pressure, the sun is a slip of yellow light in the clouds and the birds have nearly gone silent. Rider mindlessly scrapes his hands over the soil and rips back to find his palms black with ash. It's nearly evening.
The river is cold and clear as ever by the time he wavers over to it, fat little fish darting through the rapids as the light of the sinking sun winks cheerily over their scales. The banks have swelled considerably since last night's downpour. Rider doesn't like to think about what it'll look like with another. A fine spray flutters up to hiss against his skin. He stares, absently curling his toes in the silt. He'd had boots, once. Gloves, too. Both had been taken from him moments before he'd been locked into that machine. Rider dips down to take two small rocks he'd left on the ground the day before, one in each hand, and very carefully sends a few splashes into the vaguely bowl-shaped slip of stone. The water runs over his hands from clear to neon green and boils when it touches the ground. He dries his fingers on his coat and turns up his head to confront the sky. Another storm is coming. It's far off on the horizon, but it's still too close. He feels a tightness in his throat when a bolt of lightning slips soundless over the clouds, and he tilts into a sprint before leaping back down to his cave, safe for another night.
A revelation comes with the first pitter patter of rain: Rider's hair is starting to become trouble. He supposes it's been trouble ever since he'd been freed from that machine (-and there comes that thought again, is he out there, is he safe, and Rider once again rationalizes that a man like that would never allow himself to come all that way for nothing-) but the low artificial gravity of the cells had at least been enough to keep it out of his face. He has no such luxury here. All the water in the air somehow causes it to both knot together and stick out in all directions, and the constant hiss of Corruption with anything greater than a sprinkling is starting to worry him. He has to cut it, he tells himself, but then what? Should he bury it? Burn it? What can he do without corrupting anything further? Briefly, he dares to entertain the idea of flinging it out into space. Rider huffs at himself before pulling his coat tight over his shoulders. He doesn't think he can go back out there again. He's a scout. Even if he no longer has a mission, he belongs on land. He doesn't sleep-not in the same way humans do, at least-but it's something close enough, and he welcomes the rest.
He stirs some time later. How much later, he can't say, but it's still dark, and the rain is tumbling down in sheets. The crash of water against stone echoes on a breath of cool, damp air, and Rider is just beginning to nod off again when the world splits in half.
Rider rips to his feet, nearly cracking his head on the stone. His ears are ringing, his heartrate rocketing to more than twenty beats per minute, and the stench of ozone is as smothering as the realization of just how close that lightning came to strike. The air tastes like burnt wire. Rider takes a step, stops, curls his fingers into fists and tries to quiet his breathing. He manually dilates his pupils and still can't see much beyond a shadow of water on blackness. He forces down a breath before fumbling around in the darkness. His flight suit. Where is his flight suit? He stumbles over a shadow and smashes a rib on a stone.
Stop, a voice tells him before he can do more than scramble on the floor. Collect. Assess. The cells are months behind you. The Jailer is months dead. What was it He said, every time you were defeated? What was it He told you?
Rider can't remember.
Yes, you can, the voice insists. Stop lying to yourself. Focus!
Rider tries. But all he can hear is thunder.
I hear thunder, pitter patter, the voice echoes like a mockery. Rider think that'll be end of it, that he'll just lie here caught up in a memory until he can't anymore, but then The Voice is there, The Voice is whispering to him, and all that matters is his command. Time to wake up.
Rider pushes to both knees, grasps a furrow in the wall, strains, pulls, stands. He stumbles around until he finds himself back at the mouth of the cave. Rider smells smoke. There's a roaring sound, made by nothing living. When he dares to peer outside, a tongue of bright orange flame greets him through the curtain of water.
Rider watches the forest burn for what could easily be hours. He can't remember making the conscious decision to kneel, but the cave floor comes up to meet him all the same, and he stares, numb, as the trees crackle and burst and the rain runs black as oil. The wind is blowing away from him, the river and curve of the mountain a natural barrier to flames that sear the air. He's in no danger. But he still flinches every time the clouds crack in half.
The sun has come and gone and come again by the time the fire begins to die. Ribbons of flame spark over the ruin of the earth to be smothered by dampened ash. More than once, Rider sees a knot of charred wood pop and ignite to send cinders scattering on the wind. The rain is more a mist than a patter. There is no lightning. Rider creeps out under the clouds and doesn't even care that every step sends more water boiling green. A thin ring of thinner young trees is all that remains of the forest, bowing in on the blackened heart like a cone of overburdened tentpoles. There's no sound but the water, no sign of life but the rush of blood in his ears. Every breath sends more smoke burning up his nostrils.
He can't stay, he tells himself that night, curled so far in the back of the cave that even the smoke can't touch him, but a part of him thinks that there's nowhere better in the world for him to be. What more could he do to this place that hasn't already been done? But Rider can't lie to himself. It isn't a question of whether or not he can stay here. It's a question of whether or not he wants to. It's a strange sensation, wanting something. Rider doesn't think he's ever allowed himself to experience it before. Protocol tells him to keep moving until he finds his target. Riders have no home. They are created to protect another. But experience tells him to stand back and assess the situation while the shocks have faded and the thunder has gone quiet.
So Rider considers his options. The first: he doesn't move. He stays in this cave until the world fades out or he fades out and every planet left in this ravaged system sits unaware of how close each came to destruction. Rider doesn't know if it's possible for him to die of old age, but he knows what it's like to die, and spending the rest of his days wrapped in the cool, quiet darkness doesn't sound half so bad as watching another world burn down. Of his options, this one carries the least risk. Perhaps that's why it also carries the least appeal. So on to the second: he ventures out into the smoke and ash and finds another place to hide. It doesn't have to be a forest. It doesn't even have to be somewhere green. So long as it's isolated and he has a cave to hide in and stone to walk over, he can learn to be content with what this world has given him. But that's not his last choice. Third: he climbs into his flight suit and returns to the void of space, never to see this world again. He can't say he knows if there are other Stars out there. He can't say he knows if there are other planets left. But the galaxies stretch on and the possibilities are limitless, and there's always been a strange comfort in coming to a new world even while every cell and wire screams that he's nothing without a command to follow.
Rider makes a fist in the dirt and discards these idea with a shower of pebbles and ash. He's being selfish. He knows he is. And he knows he doesn't care. All that's left is the fourth option, the one he's thought about the most of all, even before coming to this mountain: Rider cleans himself up, locks himself in for the first of many flights, and finds his way back to where he started. After lifetimes of conquering planets, a few continents don't seem nearly so far a distance. The coordinates to the launch tower are still programmed into him. He can still make it. But those same questions linger.
Do you think they will welcome you? The Star had asked, a final bid for reason to convince him to lay down his weapon and turn up his head for his inevitable neutralization, but in that moment, Rider hadn't been thinking at all. Not about his future, not about his past, not about those he'd left on the surface, nor those he'd left to rot in their cells. He hadn't even thought far enough ahead to wonder where he would go once the cannonfire had stopped and the trackers in his brain had gone quiet. Contingency plans had never meant much to him when any obstacle could be burned, shot, or hacked to pieces, and even those rare dangers could still be easily outrun.
All but for one.
Rider clenches his hands in his lap. Perhaps it's best not to think about what he can or can't do. Questioning his actions has never been an option before this world, and he's sorely unpracticed. Perhaps it's wiser to just move, leave this all behind for something he can do more than passively observe. He's an invader here, he knows that, but this world is nothing if not open under his feet, and he has a long way to go before he'll exhaust his discoveries.
Another night passes before Rider climbs into his flight suit and maneuvers it back into the sunlight. It's an overcast day, gray but not unwelcoming, and Rider tries not to think about what dangers are hiding in that unassuming slip of clouds. He casts what he thinks is going to be his last look at the sky beyond the mountains, and stops.
At certain times of day, Rider can still see the cells. They're harder to scope out than the Mothership and don't stay around for nearly so long, but they're still an unwelcome reminder of things better left forgotten. Rider does the usual tests and routines before locking himself in and kicking into launch, coat sticking to him as the vertical climb forces every stray hair flat against his skin. It's no time at all before he pierces the clouds, and soon, he's moving forward, racing west into the setting sun.
The world passes under him in flashes through the clouds. Valley gives way to taiga, taiga to tundra, and sooner than he expects, the sea opens up to swallow the land whole. Sun winks over the water before being devoured by another long stretch of earth. He can't say how long this goes on, but when a second ocean passes and the rocky shores open up to a patchwork of winding green hills, Rider knows he's getting close. He reconfirms the coordinates with a glance at something unseeable and finally makes preparations to descend. Per the position of the sun, it's mid-morning at this latitude. It's warm. Though fluctuations in temperature have never been much more to him than yet another piece of data to observe and catalogue, Rider thinks he likes the warmth. The launch tower sprouts up from the horizon to confront him on high, and he follows it like a beacon, not stopping until he's swallowed by its shadow.
The land shows him nothing. There's no one around for miles.
Rider hovers a safe distance from the surface, scanning. All he can see is a world waiting for ruin. The scars he's left on the land are still black and barren, carved into the earth like some ashen memorial, and the dark path splits and terminates in three notable directions. The first, the launch tower, formidable and grim. The second, the door to the cells, rain-tattered and awaiting activation.
The third. The last. Marked by a microphone left abandoned in the grass. Rider only goes down to it when he tells himself he can't do any more damage than he already has.
The microphone and its stand are cool to the touch and heavier than they appear, tangled in grass blades long yellowed and rotted. The blades burn away completely when Rider eases the microphone loose and takes it in both hands, and he runs his fingers over it, marveling at its smoothness. Rider can make out the fine lines in the thumbprints that have survived exposure, and when Rider presses his own thumb to it, it only leaves behind a smooth, formless smudge. He sets it upright like he expects it to shatter to dust. He stares at it for a long, long time.
The walk back to his flight suit feels especially difficult, though it can't be more than ten steps before Rider straps in and looks to the sky and asks himself what he's going to do now. The clouds are pure white here, floating and free. There's no thunder waiting just beyond the veil. The green seems to go on forever, and the breeze drifts up with the sharp yet welcome scents of flora he can never name. Rider takes it all in and thinks this, at least, is something he can protect. He coasts over to the launch tower and peeks inside. A single red emergency light is all that's visible in the blackness. He flies in and climbs out of his flight suit and moves like he means to close the doors behind him. He stops with his fingers inches from the button. He considers. The breeze ruffles his hair like a beckoning hand. He makes sure to follow the trail he's etched into the dirt and doesn't close the door again until he has the microphone safe inside. An attempt to flick the lights on just leaves him flinching hard when something bursts and sends an arc of electricity flashing. He stands there, alone in the dark with one hand still wrapped around the microphone, and shudders.
Rider fumbles around for another switch, running through a memory only half-remembered, and it isn't too long before he's got a hand on it. He presses. The ceiling rocks, sending a dull cloud of dust fluttering, and then the circle splits and shrinks outward like a camera's lens, panels tilting up like petals on a flower. The panels running up the sides of the tower are quick to follow. Sunlight floods the room, only separated from the floor by a gold-tinted forcefield. Rider takes in the disorder with muted distaste before abruptly realizing that this is not how he left it.
Loose wires and mismatched panels crowd together on the floor, the pattern only broken by a few strange gadgets Rider has no hope of recognizing. A single chair sits empty in the corner, and beyond that, some forgotten relic of machinery partially covered by a sheet. Rider creeps over like he's expecting a trap and covers his hands with his sleeves, tugging the sheet off. He nearly jumps away when he finds The Voice staring back at him.
No, not The Voice. It's his mask, dangling sideways and encircled by no less than a dozen arrows, each scrawled directly onto the machinery by a neat, practiced hand. Rider tilts his mouth. He reaches into the hollow of the mask and pulls back to find a small, palm-sized cube with a bright yellow button built loose into its casing. Attached to it is a note. Handwritten. PUSH ME, it demands. Rider wrinkles his nose before doing just that.
He flinches when the cube springs up from his fingers, spinning in the air before it stops and rights itself. It floats to the center of the room as a side splits open and a light shines out, forming a hologram of something he eventually recognizes as a topographic map. The hills stretch and rise as the hologram gains another dimension, and he's suddenly looking at a flickering, washed-out model of his surroundings. The launch tower is the last to pop up, blinking hard, and then an arrow forms just over the top of it, text sprouting up not long after. YOU ARE HERE, it screams at him. Rider glares. The hologram wavers and stretches, and suddenly it's tripled in size, shrinking the launch tower down to a speck on a hill. There at the end, past a meadow and a lake, another arrow blooms. There's no text this time, but Rider's sure he's caught the message. The hologram snaps out of sight and sends the cube tumbling to the ground. When Rider presses the button again, it holds where it left off, the second arrow floating just beyond the lake.
Rider doesn't hesitate to climb back into his flight suit. He judges that he still has a few more hours of daylight, and the weather is warm and welcoming. Wind sends waves through the grass as he ascends a few hundred feet in the air, and he turns, scouting. There, he thinks, seeing a meadow that stretches miles ahead, and he races out to it like he expects it to run away. The meadow opens up to more hills, a cliffside, a grove of trees, and suddenly the lake is racing forward to meet him, blue as it is brilliant. There, on the distant bank, he can see a crude human settlement. Rider makes it halfway across the water before he abruptly stops.
The last time he'd seen this many humans in one place, he'd approached them with every intention of killing them. Not so much out of cruelty as it was necessity, but Rider knows it doesn't make a difference. It feels like an eternity ago, but it hasn't been long enough to forget. Someone has spotted him. A dozen figures fly out of their homes to collect at the bank, and suddenly they're scattering, a few tripping over themselves to flee. Rider clenches his jaw before circling around the side, making sure to keep his distance from both the ground and the people before he spots a shelf of rock jutting from the grass. He lowers himself onto it, powers down his flight suit, and waits.
It takes a while for them to realize that he isn't approaching them, though many of them are already long out of sight. Rider eases his way out of his flight suit and moves to stand on the rock as slowly as possible. Corruption blackens the earth when he moves just a little too far. He finds a safe spot and crouches, pulling his coat over himself like a shield.
An eon passes. The few humans who haven't fled form a semicircle a fair distance ahead of him, but they don't move any closer than that. They look confused as they do frightened, and they all wear simple, loose-fitting clothes that flutter and snap in the wind. Rider scans. Small, tall, old, young, male, female. So eager to differentiate themselves, and yet he can scarcely tell them apart. All but for one. The only man to approach him is the only man to leave his head uncovered. Not that it matters when he knows he's never seen his face, but Rider takes in the details with a sense of familiarity all the same. Straight dark hair, cropped short at the ears. Light brown skin, smooth and clear but for a few shallow lines around his small, worry-bright eyes. A pair of dry, chewed lips seemingly made for anxious frowns. Utterly unremarkable.
But that smile. Rider knows that smile anywhere.
"I knew you'd come back," The Voice says through his grin. Rider blinks. Even now, he's still so eager to speak for him.