Give Me Liberty
Notes: I wrote this over the weekend but haven't had any time to post. Sorry :C… I have a date with NaNoWriMo (yes, you heard me) so updates might be a little…slower. Alas, enjoy this delicious third chapter.
Edit: SORRY. IT'S REALLY SHORT. I've got no time tho, so :C...
Chapter III
Alex's lungs were burning, her legs were quivering unsteadily and her arms felt like frozen gelatin - all because of a dead body. Of course, it sounded ridiculous when Alex thought about it, but she was running through an alien-infested city with a dead police officer thrown over her shoulder, and she hadn't expected it to be this physically taxing. The young woman wasn't particularly out of shape, but wasn't exactly a body-builder either. In high school – which felt like forever ago now – she was on track and hiking club, et cetera, but hadn't been obsessed with the healthy lifestyle bullshit. She ate her share of junk food and Michael, being a moderately awesome cook, had prepared plenty of delicious things for her to get a little chubby on.
She leaned against a wall, letting the body sag to the ground, the dry blood crackling in protest. The police officer was as young or younger than the twenty-three year old; Alex grimaced at the look on his face. A plasma shot to the abdomen had killed him; his facial features echoed the death. He looked surprised, as if it wasn't happening, as if he could never die. His eyes were wide and glassy, his mouth slightly open, the blood that had dribbled out of it was dry and reddish-brown. He had only been dead for a few hours; Alex assumed that he became a corpse when the Covenant landed. The thought of the young man rushing into battle without knowing what he was getting into - but attempting to protect his city nonetheless – brought a frown to her face and a smile to her heart.
And a little bit of resolve: she would get out of this city, not only for herself, but for this young and very dead police officer. Alex had no idea who the young man was, but she would carry on his memory to the remainder of living humans. Someone had to remember him; someone had to remember all of the people dead in this city. She had to remember Michael. If Alex could do it, she would. That is, if she could get that door open.
The young woman picked up the body again and kept moving. Her plan went something along the lines of, 'get a dead person who is authorized to open the door'. It wasn't a particularly well thought-out plan – especially because there were not a lot of dead police officers this far out from the Covenant landing areas - but she would do what she had to. It was still at least three blocks to the door, and from what her earlink was telling her –
Alex stopped dead in the street, staring in front of her without seeing anything. Her earlink was… was… whistling at her. It went from spitting out directions in the Superintendent's voice to whistling. It was a high whistle without screeching, a pleasant sound that was strangely inviting, as if the thing making it was asking to be friends. It stopped abruptly and the Superintendent came back on, sounding absolutely indifferent to what just happened. Alex frowned; slipped the technology off of her ear with one hand while balancing the dead police officer precariously on her shoulder with the other hand. She glanced over the piece of technology, looking for damage. There was none present; Alex fixed it back on and kept up with her snail's pace.
At last the door drew in sight. With a large sigh of relief she rushed up to it as fast as she could, her burden flopping around over her shoulder. She placed one hand on the door to steady herself while pulling the officer's arm out precariously, trying to place it upon the small pad while not falling over.
The pad did not respond. Realizing her error, she punched in a few keys in an attempt to get the Superintendent to 'wake up', so to say. Nothing happened. She deposited the body on the ground and focused her attention on the keypad; her mind wandered, trying to remember the way she had gotten to the mainframe before. The thing was that it was literally not responding at all – it was completely black. Alex leaned in to inspect the device for damage when the whistle she had heard earlier exploded in her head.
Alex leaped backwards with a restrained yell, her head blasting with this unexpected noise. She clawed at her earlink and threw it across the clearing – it hit the metal door and fell to the ground. The trilling stopped when the earlink left her body, and the young woman stared at the piece of technology in alarm. After a second she padded cautiously over to it. It did not look compromised, but she decided to leave it where it was. Picking up the police officer again, she approached the door, hoping to everything and anything holy that it would open.
She was just about to make contact with the keypad when it lit up, the Superintendent making a small noise of greeting. Alex blinked, sighed in relief, and brought the officer's hand up once more. As soon as the dead flesh made contact with the security pad, the city's AI made another noise – this one garbled and a little louder than normal – before bright green lights flashed and the hydraulics controlling the door finally consented and began to slide the heavy metal to the side.
Sure of her success, she stood with the body still slung over her shoulder, a smug look of satisfaction on her face and a hand in her pocket, ready to continue upon her path to freedom. The metal slid aside – and Alex immediately regretted this whole idea.
If anyone sued her – if anyone was still alive to sue her – she could blame it on the Superintendent, right?
Average Buoyancy had actually not been surprised by the battle going on below it – a Human soldier had attacked the Brutes holding the Engineer hostage, which wasn't so unexpected as the Covenant was fighting Humanity and all. What the floating alien had been surprised at was the… presence on the other side of the intersection. While Average Buoyancy wasn't entirely familiar with the city's door security system, it was fairly sure that the red light over the huge metal door meant it was closed. Something on the other side of that door – marked closed – was trying to get through, and Average Buoyancy could immediately tell because of his foolish Brute's earlier meddling.
All of the Brutes handling Engineers had been ordered to link the floating aliens into the Human network of New Mombasa as soon as possible – something about artifacts and finding and the Prophets, but Average hadn't been entirely informed nor listened in to the Brute's conversation, being entirely uninterested. The Huragok had then downloaded door codes from the hacked system and also a map; what Average had done covertly was a permanent link into the city's system. It would enable the alien to know whenever some thing was opening or trying to open a door near the Engineer – something that could've helped Average Buoyancy get out of the city, but no longer.
Now it was informing him of a presence – neither Human military nor Covenant, as the Huragok would have identified those forces immediately – was trying to get through, and being the curious being that it was, Average Buoyancy floated over to the door. As it drew closer, it accessed the camera overseeing the intersection and frowned as well as it could without a mouth.
The thing standing in the intersection appeared to be a human female, tapping on the keypad desperately. The city's AI was not responding favorably; she cursed and ran off screen. Average Buoyancy could hear the battle winding down behind it; it ignored it and kept watching, waiting for the civilian to come back. Finally the noises ceased behind the alien and the young woman drew back on screen – carrying a body, it looked like. Completely ignorant of her plan, the Engineer decided the woman was no threat and got to work on the door's locks.
When it was done, the door slid open with the sound of hydraulics and clean metal gliding over concrete. Average Buoyancy didn't fully understand the implications of the image presented to it; Rookie, who had drawn up behind the alien, did – and was severely alarmed.
About six things happened in that second that Rookie stopped behind the alien while it opened the door. Rookie had no idea what the alien was but merely wanted to stop it from floating away, and hadn't realized what it was doing until he was much closer. He was about to poke it in order to stop it from floating through the door when he was assaulted by a very strange and potentially disturbing image.
There was a young woman with a corpse slung like a bag of potatoes over her shoulder, her hand in her pocket and her face frozen in fear. She did two things simultaneously – dropped the body and turned to run. Rookie did one thing in the same second: ran after her. Average Buoyancy looked between the two in utter confusion as to what was going on.
Something in Alex's chest was balled up and ready to explode. The adrenaline of fear had already shot through her, so she wasn't quite sure what this new thing was. All she knew was running was a glorious, intelligent idea – she looked like she had just murdered a police officer and was now running from an ODST. In the long run it wasn't very intelligent; the ODST would most probably outrun her in distance and speed; that didn't particularly matter. Her sneakers hit the asphalt with soft thuds while the armored boots of the Marine behind her got increasingly closer. She bolted around corners, through cluttered intersections, over corner gardens crowded with dead grass.
It wasn't any use – she backed herself into a corner, stopped, panting, and slowly turned around, her hands in the air. The ODST didn't look particularly happy, but neither was he threatening: his shotgun was not raised and the … gods, was that a Gravity Hammer? Alex bent over, one hand still in the air feebly while she panted. Gosh, this out of shape thing sucked. Rookie stopped, not panting and not making the effort to threaten a fellow human who was also fleeing the Covenant.
He wasn't quite sure why she had run, it was silly to run away from an ODST and while her earlier 'position' had been a little… questionable, he probably could've worked out that she needed the fingerprints to get through the door. Perhaps her nerves were so shot from her lovely New Mombasa death-jaunt that running from everything sounded like a good decision. Rookie didn't really care, he just wanted to get out of here and if she wanted to tag along, good for her.
Alex looked back up and straightened, her breath sufficiently back in her lungs. The ODST in front of her had one hand on his hip, looking skeptically at her through a darkened visor. His face, as such, was unreadable, but she wasn't quite sure she wanted to see his face anyway. A stuttered apology worked its way from her lips:
"S…sorry, I didn't kill him – the Covenant did. I just needed his fingerprints…" Rookie shrugged, turned on his heel, and began walking away. Alex blinked at his back and walked quickly to catch up. Standing slightly behind him sounded like a good idea – she did not want to get caught in the middle of a firefight and with her harebrained run through the city streets, she had probably run right into Covenant jaws. Stupid, stupid Alex.
Far back down the road and around several corners, Average Buoyancy was still very, very confused.
End Notes: What? Really? You expected me to let Alex run around on her own? Psh. Don't worry - she's only got Michael on her mind. In fact, she can't really fall in love with a guy she can't see the face of - he might be hideous! Is she really that shallow? Who knows, I haven't thought this out yet. This story is by the seat of my pants bros. No plot beforehand whatsoever. But don't worry, I can't write seriousbusiness mushy love stories - just mindless sex and humorous affection. DON'T WORRY, I'VE GOT THIS UNDER CONTROL, GUISE. Besides, Alex doesn't randomly hump everything that moves. That's weird. But does Rookie? Who knows. He's shifty, you know. Very shifty.
What am I even talking about pfffffffffffffff.
So tired. Review if you want. Review if you don't want. I'm just saying, you have to review. The awesome of Average Buoyancy compels you.
