WARNING:
Not safe for feels.
The time has come. But I promise - Richonne's love story is not over.
Written to the musical score of…
'Don't Let Go', Steven Price (Gravity)
[Rebooting]
…
File Code: GATUS...
Status..
Skyscraper Command Tower..
…
"ArrrgggaaaAAAHH! GODDAMN IT, DOC!"
"I know, Abe! We're almost there! Don't be a pussy, Buck, hold him still, please!"
"I'm tryin', Doc, I'm tryin' - he's strong as shit for a one-armed freak!"
"Your mama, you gap-toothed son-of-a-FUCK ME! Arrrghhhhuhhh…!" Abe's blood spurt and he jerked loose from Buck, thrashing around, knocking the M-DP sergeant's helmet off.
Next to him, almost catatonic with concern, Sasha silently grabbed hold of him, tears falling like waterfalls from her eyes. She was trying to be strong and hold it all in as she held on tight to Abraham's meaty, bloody - and now only - hand. But it was hard. She wanted to scream with him.
"That is some gross shit, man…" Jax intoned, pausing her defensive shooting from her sniper position in the back of the big flyer. All she smelled was blood and high-velocity gunsmoke these last three hours in the wee morning. Her stomach lurched. She tried not to think about T-Dog or the bloodfest behind her as she concentrated again on trying to eviscerate any remaining cyborg fuckers she spotted in the mele below.
"Sasha, could you please put something in his mouth?" M-DP Dr. Denise Cloyd hastily pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she worked with her laser scalpel, smearing her chin with Abraham's blood. She was trying to cauterize the torn flesh of what was left of his mangled right arm before he went into hypovolemic shock. But the large, traumatized man was thrashing about under the white glare of the flyer's operating light as they zoomed through the air around Skyscraper tower, evading fire.
Denise tried to hold it together herself. They had lost their COMPANION™ JORDI, and LIZZY, as well as four other COMPANIONS™ from other precincts in the fight.
GATUS took them offline in the blink of an eye as retaliation for the debugger. Of course - of course - he'd discovered it.
Sasha hastily unbuckled Abraham's thick leather belt, pulling it out of his pants loops and putting it into his mouth securely. He bit down onto it, his face wet with tears, his eyes shimmering pools of misery.
Abe huffed and puffed and spit and gritted his teeth around the belt as Dr. Cloyd burned off certain unsavable parts of what was left of his arm, cauterizing as she went. This would be a lot less barbaric if she had JORDI. She'd only ever done two amputations in her career. They were both due to walker bite, and they were both with JORDI's help. Denise was tough, and a good doctor, but she had never had to operate on her own, let alone manually. Chopping off the remains of a mangled limb was not as easy as JORDI made it look.
"Hurts like a son of a bitch, baby…!" He moaned around the belt, tears falling down his cheeks and into his bushy red handlebars.
"Doc, ain't that pain stuff kicked in yet?" Buck huffed, sweat clinging to his brow, dripping from his sandy blond buzz cut.
"He's too worked, up - you need to breathe, Abe. Bite and breathe, come on, almost there…"
"It's okay, baby." Sasha finally was able to whisper, even mustering a tender smile at her struggling boyfriend. She could see that he was deathly close to passing out. Her body was numb with fear. "I got you. You hear me, Abraham? Stay with me. Please."
Denise finally finished and almost as if on cue, whatever it was she'd shot him up with started working. The pain that had tortured virtually his entire body from his nonexistent elbow outward began to recede. Slowly. Abe's large, tense muscles began to relax, and his exhausted mouth dropped the belt as Denise started to clean him up. This was temporary, there was a lot of damage and a lot of work still to be done. But he wasn't going to die of bloodloss and shock thanks to her quick work.
Before he went lights out, he managed to reach up with his good arm. Sasha's trembling hand still in his, he gave her a pinch on the chin.
"Cute as a button…" he murmured, his eyes slipping closed and his consciousness rising to outer space.
"Dork." Buck scoffed, standing up straight from his hard work holding Abe down, wiping his brow.
Sasha simply stared at Abe, kissing and holding his remaining hand. He was her dork. And he was alive.
Unlike Glenn. And so many others. She turned her head to the front of the flyer now, where Rick and Michonne were arguing heatedly in hushed voices while Tyreese flew.
They all did, save Jax and Abe.
Deep shit. They were still in it.
Tyreese tried to stem his emotions over his friends T-Dog and Glenn and just concentrate on flying his ass off. Rick stood next to the navigator's chair over Ty's shoulder. He was inching closer and closer to Michonne, glaring at her.
"No, Michonne." Rick's voice was low and forbidding. "We stick together. Come up with a new plan."
Michonne ignored his tone. She knew he was heartbroken over Glenn, and for Maggie.
So was she. But she also knew that she was right. She took a short breath, gathering her patience.
"There is no other plan, Rick. GATUS is making shish kabobs out of us. There won't be any of us left by the time that bomb goes off. I have to do this alone."
"Maybe it's not even a bomb." Rick insisted, shifting on his feet, getting in her personal space. "Daryl never got a clear visual. Ever think o'that? All that bullshit GATUS spewed at us earlier, you don't think he's capable of bluffin'?"
He was more than heartbroken. He was scared, he was furious, and he was desperate to keep her here, by his side. Abraham's screams and Glenn's absence were weighing him down. If they went in, they would go in together, or not at all. He had to sway her. There had to be another way.
"You think it's bullshit, Rick, but maybe it's not." Michonne glared right back, holding onto the overhead utility hanger with one hand as they flew around in a never ending loop of evasive maneuvering. "Look. This a chance. Maybe our only one. You can be my eyes and ears, and I could use a distraction. But there is no way we're getting past GATUS if we charge in there blind. He'll kill us all, and those hostages, and you know it. I don't think he was bluffing about that."
"Michonne, goin' in by yourself is suicide!" He growled, getting further into her face. "Besides, the fuckin' tower is gonna collapse before you make it there - and what are you gonna do about that tank?"
"No, charging in blind and angry is suicide! There are still hostages down there and they're gonna die, Rick! We gotta get to that mainframe. You can't move as fast as I can, and you going in guns blazing will give us away. I can do this."
"Hey! We'll back her up. We still got what's left of our people, and the guys from Sky Patrol supposed to be on their way. If they got their radios up, we can try to reach 'em." Ty offered in a steely, deep voice, wishing he could check the twenty of their remaining team members and allies on the now inoperational holoscreen. He was on Michonne's side - it was their only hope of stopping the damn thing, but he sure as shit wasn't gonna lose her, too. "They're still out there. And you still got us, Rick."
"That's right, boss, we'll cover Snow Cap for ya! Ride or die, fuck yeah!" Buck drummed his helmet with his fist and Jax hollered with him from the back, shooting like a maniac.
"We got one shot, boss." Ty added, punching it to narrowly escape colliding with an enemy flyer, manned by a cyborg. Jax took it down as he maneuvered above it. "We gotta do what we gotta do, now."
"I'll get on a gun." Sasha said determinedly, kissing Abe's hand and going to join Jax on opposite sides in the back to man a shooter. She was sick of this shit. It was time to rip GATUS' innards from that fuckin' mainfraim. And Michonne was just the assassin to do it. "We'll cover you, Michonne."
Rick's leg was bouncing and Michonne could see his jaw flexing against his thin wisps of salt and pepper facial hair. He ignored Sasha and the others, continuing to stare her down, still incredibly torn. She was right, but this felt wrong. He wanted to spill his guts - tell her how Glenn's death made Rick deathly afraid of losing her right along with him. The fear had been creeping into his bloodstream since they started talking to GATUS in his now wrecked flyer. And now it was running ice cold through his veins.
They had only managed one night together, but already their partnership had changed. Michonne wasn't just his right hand, or just a formidable fighter who could take care of herself anymore.
He was so in love with her.
Michonne knew that stiff twitch in his leg well. She could see his veins straining with tension in his pale forearms. He was not happy. He looked like he was contemplating pulling rank. But she wasn't going to let him. They didn't have the time to argue.
Gritting his teeth, Rick's eyes met Michonne's. To her surprise, he nodded. "Okay. We'll cover you."
It was a quiet, almost defeated signoff that nonetheless filled Michonne with relief. He knew she was right. He loved her enough to let her try to save them all. She could if she did this right. She could only do that if she was free from worrying about the safety and wellbeing of the others. They could still do this together if they worked from different ends. With Rick and the others backing her up, she could focus on a singular mission, execute it efficiently, and help them take GATUS down.
Boldly, in front of everyone, Michonne leaned against him, lifting her hands to his face to stroke his beard. "Thank you."
She kissed him, her pillow-soft brown lips latching onto his hot pink ones.
Rick immediately closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her, hooking her around the waist under her sword. He kissed her back, fiercely. There was no time to think about how it looked.
Michonne felt his shoulders folding over as he gripped her belt hard with his hands. She could feel the concern radiating through his body. She hugged him close, reveling in his strength, folding herself right along with him.
"Be careful, Michonne." Rick whispered against her lips.
He wanted badly to tell her he loved her again. To hear her say it. Instead he just held her close.
"You know I will."
"I hate to break this awkwards hit up, but we got company!" Sasha bellowed from the back.
They were side-swiped by long range, heavy artillery from that goddamned tank as two more cyborg-manned flyers appeared to box them in. Ty was doing his best, but it too was a learning machine.
Rick and Michonne were thrust apart. They exchanged looks. Later, his eyes said. When they got out of this, he was going to take her home. He was going to kiss every single inch of her. And he was going to keep her there in bed for as many days as he could get away with. Until she finally said those words he longed to hear cross her heart-shaped lips. They had lost too many tonight. He was going to make their time (together, finally) on this scorched earth count.
But right now, they were in trouble. Rick pulled his radio out of his back pocket as he jumped into the navigator's seat next to Tyreese to help him pilot.
They had lost LIZZY and their link to headquarters, so they were flying "blind". Their only link to their team members were old fashioned hand held radios Rick the luddite insisted every unit keep in their flyers.
"Baby, if we're gonna do this, let's do it now." Michonne urged him, pulling on her leather biker gloves as everyone else scrambled to take positions.
Rick nodded, clenching his jaw as he strapped himself in and tossed her the radio. "Roger that. But I'm goin' on the record as officially against this shit."
"Noted, boss! Incomin'!" Ty barked.
Tyreese and Rick wheeled the ass of the flyer around hard, doubling back to escape the hail of heavy HV torpedo bullets flying at them rapid fire.
Michonne steadied herself on her feet, grabbing hold of Abe's surgical table. "Flyer One-Zebra checking in, anyone copy? This is Michonne, is anyone out there, over?"
"'CHONNE?!" Shane's elated voice sounded out as they rumbled and tumbled. "Copy the fuck outta that! Goddamn girl, I'm happy as hell to hear your voice, over!"
"Same here!" Michonne grinned at Rick as the doc strapped herself in safely next to Abraham and Buck climbed up top to man the gun on the roof. "Is 'Drea with you? Maggie, Daryl, you guys out there? I think I have a plan, over."
"Michonne, it's Maggie and Rosita." Maggie's voice sounded raw with fresh pain, but held together by sheer strength of will, fortified by steely determination. Everyone on the flyer rejoiced silently. "We copy. We're headed north on sky bridge eight - right back up top." Her twangy drawl crackled across the radio. "Mike and Daryl are behind me, over."
"You have no idea how glad I am to hear that, guys, over." Michonne answered as she moved over to the side door of the flyer, preparing to open it. They still had their holoshields up, the only thing Sasha had managed to get back online after GATUS took out their COMPANIONS.
But that had given Michonne a plan.
Rick and Tyreese exchanged looks of hard resolve. They were gonna make it. They still had their Family, even though they had lost some. Rick pushed his worry deep down into his gut. Ty was right. They had to do what they had to do, now. God help them.
"Yeah, and 'Drea's right here next to me-!" Shane added before Andrea herself interrupted.
"I'm ready to finish this fuckin' thing. What's the plan, over?"
Suddenly heavy fire came from out of nowhere, taking out both the cyborg flyers.
"You got Starbuck and Bishop on your tail, Tyreese, over." Starbuck and her older sister Bishop declared - the source of the rescue fire. They were from Skyscraper Patrol. Brilliant pilots. And total rebels. They were supposed to be in the bunker with the rest of Monroe's hand picked protective force.
"Sorry we're late. We had to wait 'til mom and dad went to sleep, over." Bishop drawled sarcastically.
"Just in time, my love." In the back, Jax smirked at the sound of Bishop's confident voice.
And then:
"Hailing Captain Grimes? Oh, Captain Snow? Are you theeere?"
GATUS' cold voice interrupted their happy reunion, taunting them as he hacked into their ALL CALL system without so much as a lick of effort.
Rick felt his guts twisting and turning as he tried to concentrate on navigating. But the sound of that maniac computer program's voice chilled him to the bone. And infuriated him.
Michonne gritted her teeth. She braced herself, wanting to look at Rick - see his eyes again before they answered. Everyone had gone silent. This wasn't over yet.
"Yeah." Rick uttered, barely able to contain the ferocious anger in his low growl. "We're here."
"What is it, GATUS?" Michonne uttered, steeling herself.
GATUS chuckled softly.
"I admit, I am surprised. Pleasantly surprised. You know that continuing to attempt assaults on me guarantees your destruction, and yet you persist. Curious."
"Come on, GATUS, don't you 'see allll'?" Rick drawled antagonistically, a cold grin spreading on his lips. "I thought you studied up on me? I don't give up easy."
"No indeed. Shall we make this interesting?"
GATUS responded with equal amounts patience and predatory confidence coating his computerized voice.
A cold rush went straight through Michonne's body as she stared down at the tank trying to annihilate them from below.
Tyreese almost lost control as they got hit again.
"Our shields ain't made for this shit, man!" Jax spat, trying to somehow take out the tank. "What the fuck do you want, Jeeves?"
GATUS ignored the slight, growling imperially:
"You now have ten minutes, twenty-two seconds before the transcendence, Captain. And this time, there is no stopping it. It would behoove you and what is left of your crew to use this interval to escape the blast zone. Save yourselves."
Rick's hands gripped the stick shift between his legs and he glared at the multiple firefights happening around the tower. He had to fight with all his might not to follow that advice.
The tank was below, making it damned near impossible for anyone to get close.
GATUS continued maniacally:
"Even now, the clock steadfastly moves on, as the last breaths of a dying man, it draws closer and closer to the end. Do you hear it? Tick, tock...tick, tock...tick, tock Captain."
But Rick knew they couldn't run. They couldn't lose those hostages.
Michonne was right. They needed to get this done. Now. The only way to do that would be to throw their full support behind her; she was more than capable. They could get her into that mainframe room. Together.
"I'll tell you what, GATUS…" Rick drawled heatedly, ignoring the maniacal singing voice's threats. "We'll think about it." He reached over and manually switched off the ALL CALL.
GATUS could come back at any time, but Rick had a hunch he was an observer of the custom of hostage negotiating. He was a jumble of crazy, unleashed wires, but he was nothing if not thorough.
He pulled the mic out from the radio transmitter in Ty's dashboard as they finally saw Starbuck's Skyscraper flyer returning from taking down two more enemies.
"Family? Starbuck, Bishop? What do y'all say we make one last stand? Get those hostages out and blow GATUS to kingdom come, over?"
Behind him, Michonne gazed at his profile with nothing but love in her eyes.
Starbuck spoke up first. "We're in. It's an ugly ass tower anyway."
Then one by one, the remaining family all agreed enthusiastically. Trapping his fear into a steel cage, Rick relayed Michonne's plan to the group while she prepared herself to go in.
Tyreese got them headed upward, to the very top of the tower.
[Reauthorizing Playback]
…
Interview Log: Capt R. Grimes, B-DP...
Skyscraper Command Encrypted Archive..
File Code: GATUS...
…
11:12
Rick was staring at Michonne's holographic head and shoulders, turning this way and that.
He had stopped speaking.
He was trapped again. Reliving their last moment. That smile. Those words on her beautiful lips.
He almost couldn't believe it. He he couldn't believe Michonne wasn't just in another holding cell somewhere down here, reluctantly giving answers just like he was. He wanted so badly for it to be real - for him to walk out of here and find her waiting for him. Ready to go. But he couldn't see her again, or touch her, or kiss her, or tell her he loved her without regret or fear, ever again.
All that was left of Michonne to the outside world was her sword. Rick's grief.
And a hollow likeness, frozen in time.
Tears welled in his eyes as he now glared at it. His vision blurred, obscuring her digitized face.
The echoes of the underground coupled with the quiet hum of the holoscreen filled the air as Dallas watched Rick disappear into himself. She was getting concerned again.
He had been doing fine up until they started talking about why on earth his partner would jump into the tower and try to take that tank down on her own. Dallas had been there when Monroe commissioned it. It was no fuckin' joke. It almost tore Abraham Ford limb from limb. She knew Michonne was a woman who put others before herself time and again, but she was also shrewd as hell and she didn't cozy up to bullshit. Captain Snow wouldn't leave those hostages, but as a report she needed to officially file in the archives, this looked like a no-win situation to Dallas. Frankly, the decision went over her head a bit.
From the hard tension in his rugged jaw alone, it was possibly going over Rick's as well. Or maybe not. Out of the entire Family, Rick seemed to know Michonne the most intimately. Judging by how effective their partnership was, and how devastated Rick was now, they must've been close. He knew Michonne's mind. Maybe he could explain what Snow was thinking when she'd essentially jumped to her death.
Dallas needed him to try a little harder. Keep it together for just a little longer.
"Captain." She spoke, drawing his eyes from the holoscreen's data imagery. "Why did she go in alone? Come on. I need you to help me understand, here."
Rick sniffed and tore his watery eyes away from the holoscreen, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off a sudden headache.
"How much longer am I in here?" He rasped, slowly raising his eyes to meet hers again.
She sighed. "Not much. Monroe and Smith One are on their way. Once they sign off, you're clear."
She knew that wasn't exactly good news. They weren't coming to thank him for his service. And she knew this wasn't gonna go down well. She only hoped that her presence, and her advocacy, would somehow be a balm for the nerves and egos of all parties involved. Sometimes Monroe listened to her, but Rick was a ticking time bomb that had already gone off once and Smith wasn't really all that human.
Rick squinted at her, anger threatening to resurface, thawing the cold as his headache got worse.
"I'd rather skip the pleasantries, if it's alright with you…"
Dallas leaned forward in her chair and folded her hands across the table. "Rick. You know that's out of my hands. Right now, it's just you and me. I'm on your side; you have my word on that."
He studied her for a moment, his anger easing off as he wondered if that was really true. Michonne trusted her. Maybe he could too. Maybe. His leg bouncing against the chair, Rick cleared his throat hoarsely.
"You weren't out there." He gestured impatiently with his bloody hand. His knuckles wrapped against the steel table as it dropped down again. He didn't feel it. "You have no idea how tight a grip GATUS had on the situation."
"Help me get a clue, then."
Rick scoffed. When he continued, bitterness coated his throaty drawl. "He could've taken us out like that." He snapped his fingers. "He was that close. But it wasn't about that."
"Explain."
"He was toyin' with us." Rick growled defiantly against her dubious frown. "Whatever Monroe did, she fucked up big time." If he had learned one thing that morning, one of the hardest mornings of his life by the end, it was that machines could not be trusted. "Walker tech isn't the answer, Dallas. It never was. GATUS proved that to us over and over again."
"This isn't about walker tech, Rick. I need a complete report. Why did you give Captain Snow the go ahead to go in alone? What am I missing?"
His chest deflated. She didn't get it. Maybe she really had been drinking the water at Command for too long. Rick looked down at his hands, rolling his wedding band around on his ring finger, scraping the blemished gold against the dried blood.
"Michonne figured out pretty quickly that GATUS didn't want anythin' but a buncha witnesses." His voice was barely above a whisper and he had to swallow again thickly to get through it. "That's all we were to him. Like he was sendin' some sort of message."
"To whom?"
"To all of us." Rick growled passionately, looking as though his grip on the here and now was slipping again. "The world. Humans especially. But he wasn't committin' suicide. Michonne knew it. She knew it, as soon as he was done talkin' to us the first time."
"She knew what, Captain?" Dallas pressed, on the edge of her seat.
Rick finally focused on her again, his eyes clearing. He spoke next in a heated rush through gritted teeth.
"...if he blew that buildin'? He'd be unleashin' his consciousness - whatever it was that Monroe woke up when she plugged him in - into unchartered netspace. We'd never be able to follow him after that. He'd escape justice for good. Forever."
He growled his next words at her as though her life depended on hearing them. She listened carefully.
"And there's no tellin when he'd surface again, or what form he'd take, or how much damage he'd cause next. Those hostages were just a way to get us all out there. To watch him make his grand fuckin' stand. The EMP was the only way to stop him."
Dallas frowned. The COMPANION™ program had a bug in it. That had to be confirmed, as it was the only possible conclusion. It had either been hacked into or it was defective. Dallas' job was to get to the bottom of things and find out which it was. GATUS' actions were inexplicable at best. And yet Rick was sitting here telling her that GATUS was a regular Keyser Soze. How could a machine have a motive? A philosophy? A maniacal zeal? Was that really what Monroe had signed up for? Dallas couldn't believe the paranoid mayor would go so far as to willfully commission Dr. Morgan Jones - the man behind the last two decades of walker tech innovations - to create a monster. It had to be a bug or some outside force.
Furthermore, Rick was suggesting that the explosion had not disconnected GATUS from the cloud or taken him offline for good. That was an outcome that she was finding very hard to entertain. Walker tech could only go so far. That's what all the science said. Even the artificial animals, plants and insects they manufactured to keep the planet going had their orders and carried them out systematically, without fail.
The public may've been in the midst of a hybrid craze these days, but Dallas doubted it could stomach anything beyond companionship and steadfast defense that was tethered to the the Three Laws. She sat trying to imagine herself filing what Rick was suggesting with Skyscraper Command, or any of The Powers That Be, or giving it to the press for Christ's sake. Deep down, the young security chief feared it.
And if she feared it, she could only imagine Monroe's reaction.
She'd be a target, not a respected woman of the law. Smith One showed loyalty only to what he considered the sharp edge of the law. Dallas wanted to scoff. Rick was out of his damned mind.
He saw the wheels turning in her head. Saw her trying to gather her patience and come at him from a different angle until she got the answers she wanted. Or...Monroe wanted. He could guess what kind of political pressure Chief Watson was under to make this report of hers nice and tidy. Believable. Safe.
"Let me ask you a question, Chief." Rick tilted his head at her. "You ever find any trace of whatever it was that corrupted GATUS in the first place? You got any leads on unauthorized breaches of the mainframe firewalls before this happened?"
The silence in the room was heavy as Dallas paused, blinking and letting her eyes fall away from his.
Rick clenched his jaw, but simply continued as though she'd answered him. "I didn't think so."
"So what are you getting at, Captain?" She challenged, raising an eyebrow.
"You asked me why Michonne went in alone." He sighed, crossing his arms to hold himself together. "I believe it's because she could see the only way to stop him was to blow the entire vicinity with an EMP powerful enough to take him offline. Stun him. Cut him off mid-program. No window for escape. Just a dead connection."
Dallas sat thinking hard. She tried to put herself in Michonne Snow's tactical mind. The tank, the last of the cyborg fleet, the steady termination of peacekeepers from precincts all over the city...and those hostages, at the edge of certain death, counting on her.
"You think the bomb was a cover. An escape hatch. But Michonne tried to outsmart GATUS by using the rest of you to create a diversion…"
Rick nodded.
Dallas leaned forward again, her chest pressing into the edge of the table, now. He couldn't stop there. She needed more. She needed to really understand. They were running out of time. Like always.
"Talk me through it. When did she realize what GATUS was up to? If you want me to listen, and file this in my report, you gotta tell me everything, Rick," she urged.
Her eyes bore into his, and he steeled himself for one more round of raw emotion. He had to do this for Michonne, if nothing else. Actively forcing his leg to stop bouncing against the uncomfortable chair, Rick watched the holoscreen blink and flicker his own memories back at him. His boots slid across the floor loudly as he huffed out a pained breath and hugged himself tighter, balling his fists underneath his arms.
"It was right after we lost Glenn, Tara, and some of the others on the ground." He swallowed thickly, his voice breaking for the upteenth time. Dallas made a mental note to get him some water in a minute. She had to hear this first, though. "My flyer got hit and we went down, but before that - we talked to him. That's when Michonne started piecing things together."
"What did you talk about?"
His eyebrows rose to meet his damp, wavy brown curls. His eyes went unfocused again while he remembered. A small, bemused smirk played at his chapped lips.
Rick leaned back in his seat, finally uncrossing his arms as he gazed at his superior cryptically.
Here went nothing.
"We talked about what he called 'the transcendance', not a bomb. That was her first hunch."
2:51
Rick tore his eyes away from the dazzling sight of the firefights looming around Skyscraper Command tower, a sinking feeling pulling at his gut.
"Repeat that, LIZZY?" He growled, his blazing blue eyes darting over to Michonne, who was still glaring through the holoscreen at the war zone ahead of them.
LIZZY complied gravely:
"Affirmative. JORDI has intercepted a signal emanating from the mainframe room, Level B. It is a countdown beacon. Self-destruct in thirty minutes, fifty seconds and counting."
Her disembodied English accent informed them in no uncertain terms. Rick flew as fast as he could toward the action. They were closing in on the tower.
Why so damn long, was Rick's immediate thought. Is he stalling…? He had no time to ponder further.
"Sergeant Ford and the others are on the ground now. Attempting to establish comm link with our scouts, stand by…"
"LIZZY, raise Heath and Eugene before you go." Michonne shot out as she reached over to grip Rick's straining forearm.
He was tense already and they hadn't even started fighting yet. Not a good sign.
"Like you said, let's come up with a plan. A countdown just means we have to think faster, right?"
"When you're right, you're right…" Rick agreed, trying to swallow down his apprehension for her.
"Patching you through to B-DP Headquarters…and stand by for Mike and Daryl once I locate them."
LIZZY announced as Rick spotted Tyreese's flyer and headed straight for it.
Eugene's flummoxed face appeared on the bottom left of the holoscreen, back at headquarters.
"What can we do ya for, boss?"
"Gimme a report, Eugene, and hurry up with that debugger." Rick demanded, engaging his shields and nodding for Michonne to get ready to take on fire as they broke into the melee.
Eugene nodded, his mullet stone still as usual. Heath moved around between computer banks in the background.
"Captain Snow should almost have it. But the rest ain't goin' so hot out there, boss." He reluctantly delivered, accessing what information was available to him from his team of hacking COMPANIONS.
The flyer shuddered as Rick avoided being hit by long-range fire from some cyborg scout below.
Michonne pushed her laptop back into its cubby hole so she could activate her shooter scope by bringing up the menu on the holoscreen. The scope came down and Rick's twin shooters on the back sides of the trunk came out of their compartments, engaged and ready to fire.
"We've lost visuals and life support in half the tower. The ground operation is stuck on garage Level B - GATUS has control of a military-grade self-operated tank, sir. It's nasty."
"Shit." Rick gritted as Michonne concentrated on defending their flyer. Eugene kept on with his bullet, the news getting more and more grim as he went. So much for this being a piece of cake.
"Daryl was tryin' to get a visual on the hostages, but he can't see shit with those cyborgs crawlin' all over the place. Then we lost him, too. We ain't heard from Mike since he lit outta here…"
"What about the self-destruct?" Rick's partner interrupted, bagging an enemy flyer that was the only thing currently standing between them and the sky bridge where Tyreese was landing to meet up.
"Me and JORDI were workin' on trying to find a way in from where Abe and the others are stuck. GATUS somehow caught onto that."
Eugene continued, shaking his head with his wide brow furrowed in frustration.
"He's got all possible holes plugged tighter than the mayor's asshole, sir. Sentinels everywhere, and that goddamned tank is slicker than pig shit after a storm. We're losin' COMPANIONS left and right. Like I said, it ain't goin' so hot..."
"Duly fuckin' noted. What the fuck is takin' so long with that debugger? Heath?"
While Rick grumbled, Michonne got a glimpse of the firepower of the tank miles below through her shooter scope. Eugene was right. It was a terrifyingly efficient behemoth.
Heath approached Eugene's back, his face crowding into the screen. "Sorry boss!"
He pushed his glasses up on his nose and huffed out a breath, gesturing to his twin computer banks in the background.
"Look, this dude's firewalls are hella crazy. I got at least six COMPANIONS on this at a time, but that and four consoles combined still ain't enough to keep up with this shit. The debugger is almost there - you just gotta buy me like ten minutes, man."
"We don't have ten minutes!" His leader gritted testily. He had to dip suddenly, driving the nose of the flyer doward to glide onto the skybridge.
"Okay, five then, sir. Please? We're almost there. Just keep GATUS occupied."
"Roger that, we're on it." Michonne answered for Rick. "Alert me the second you break through. I'm gonna see if I can use the watchtower to bounce the signal. Give us a little cover, maybe…"
"Yes ma'am." Heath nodded dutifully.
"Where the fuck is Skyscraper Patrol?" Rick continued cursing, still riled up. "We need backup!"
Eugene shook his head as Heath went back to his intense work. "Negative on that one. We have not been able to establish any comms link with Command since the APB. They are deep in those bunkers, sir."
"Fuck it, then. We're goin' on a rescue and run." Rick ordered. "That tower can go to hell and GATUS with it for all I care. We have less than thirty minutes to get our people and those hostages out, you read me Eugene? Find me somethin' I can use, goddamn it."
"Yes sir, loud and clear. We won't let you down."
"Rick - Michonne."
LIZZY interrupted just as Rick was maneuvering the flyer over the sky bridge, hidden behind another tower adjacent to the Skyscraper.
Rick and Michonne exchanged looks. They did not like the sound of her voice.
"I've just lost the life signals of Glenn Rhee, Tara Chambler, Theodore 'T-Dog' Douglass, and Father Gabriel Stokes. Deceased. All. Along with Tobin Gladwell. His partner Aaron McCain is in critical condition.
"He will not last the interval for medical rescue to reach him. He is bleeding out, and surrounded by cyborg sentinels. JORDI is with him now, but he can only do so much from the cloud. Life support is inoperative at junctions three and eight now."
With each part of LIZZY's report, Michonne's heart grew heavier and heavier in her chest. She could barely make out what the COMPANION program was saying now. Her breathing seemed to stall as she let it sink in that Glenn was gone. Rick tried to concentrate on landing, but his blood ran cold and his hands gripped the wheel so hard he felt them going numb. Not Tara. Not Glenn!
"Abraham, Andrea, Maggie and Rosita are trapped on garage Level B with GATUS' tank. They cannot reach the hostages. I've intercepted a mayday from Abraham. I still cannot establish contact with Mike or Daryl. I am sorry."
"Tell 'em we're comin' in after 'em." Rick growled. "Landin' now to meet up with Tyreese and Sasha. Keep tryin' Mike and Daryl, we need their eyes and ears damn it. And LIZZY?"
"Yes, Rick?"
"You watch that countdown, and you watch GATUS like a hawk. Notify me the instant he makes another move, you got that?"
"Affirmative."
3:08
"What the fuck are we gonna do?" Sasha demanded through her tears as she paced near their flyers on the sky bridge as the battle raged on above them. "Abraham and Maggie and the others are still down there! Trapped with that fuckin' tank!"
"Sasha, the first thing we're gonna do is rescue them, but we have to come up with a plan first. That tank has to be stoppable somehow..." Michonne stood with her arms crossed, trying to quell her own raging emotions, her jaw clenched tight.
"Well, what about that debuggin' shit those nerds at headquarters wouldn't shut up about?" Buck leered, angry and grieving.
Jax and Buck leaned simberly against the flyer as Tyreese stood between Sasha and Rick, holding his big shooter over his shoulder, on the lookout for any enemy fire in case they were spotted. Looking out for any sign of any other peacekeeper scouts in the area. Their comms link was going haywire. All the COMPANIONS were working overtime, both communicating with their teams and coordinating with headquarters to try to take down GATUS.
Now JORDI and Rick informed them they intercepted a self-destruct signal coming from the mainframe room. A room that was full of innocent hostages. A room they could not fuckin' touch because it was surrounded by cyborgs and a huge, fully-armed, fast-learning tank.
Michonne shook her head. "Any minute now."
"Well that's real comforting." Sasha said heatedly under her breath.
"They killed T-Dog, maaaan…" Jax growled, getting anxious to go annihilate something. "I told that motherfucker not to go out there alone!"
"We don't have time for this shit." Rick pulled rank, stepping up to Tyreese. "You and me, we lead the team in to rescue Abraham and the others." He forced eye contact with Ty, who nodded dutifully, his big, broad chest heaving inside his grey henley. "Then me and Michonne are headed up to the watchtower. It's the only place safe enough to send in that debug program once it's finally up and runnin'."
"And then what?" Sasha crossed her arms defiantly after wiping harshly at her tears.
"Settle down, little sis…" Tyreese turned slightly from Rick to calm her with a neutral voice.
Buck scoffed. "She's right, boss number two. What else we got goin' for us? How the fuck are we gonna get those hostages outta there with twenty damn minutes to go?"
"Yo, she got a point, Rick." Jax bounced her leg impatiently in Rick fashion, looking fed up. "No way we take out that fuckin' tank in time. Now way. I don't wanna die that stupid, man."
"We're gonna figure it the fuck out, that's what we're gonna do. Together." Rick growled, tilting his head at them. "Does that satisfy everyone?"
They all paused for a moment too long, taking in what their situation was. It was time to do what they did best - fight their way out of an impossible to win situation. They had followed Rick and Michonne's lead for years, and they had managed to survive. Now what was left of their Family needed help, and those hostages shouldn't have to pay for a fucked up computer program.
"Let's move out, y'all." Tyreese gave Rick a firm nod, turning on his heel to head to his flyer.
Sasha followed him without another word. Buck and Jax went last, and the flyer doors closed behind them. As the large armored Hummer flyer rose on its thrusters into the air, Rick stalked quickly back to his own vehicle, but he made a beeline for Michonne instead of his pilot's seat.
He crashed into her, the sound of the firefights above them crescendoing in booming echoes, sending lights across the sky like fireworks. Rick took hold of Michonne's soft, heartbroken face and kissed her lips tenderly, passionately. She kissed him back, allowing herself a single moment to really feel their loss.
"We're gonna finish this thing, but you gotta promise to stick close to me, you hear me Michonne?" He grunted, moving back to look into her eyes. He was worried. He couldn't express it any other way.
She nodded. "Let's get it done."
They broke apart and got into the flyer. Rick got it into the air on a fast track to follow Tyreese toward the level where the others were trapped near the tank.
"Where are we with that debugger, Heath?"
Rick had patched them manually back in to headquarters as they got going, not wishing to stretch LIZZY's omnipresent attention any further than it already was. He wanted her to concentrate on locating Mike and Daryl. They would need them if they were gonna pull this off.
Heath pushed his glasses up on his nose again - Eugene was in the can taking a quick dump, duty called when it called - and gave them the thumbs up. He wiped his brow. "Dude, it took everything I had but it's ready. You should be getting it…now."
Michonne hastily pulled out her laptop console and opened it. The uplink bar was full now. She opened the debugger program. "Got it. You think we can use the watchtower?"
"You read my mind." Heath graced them with a rare grin. "And I'll do you one better - the watchtower is outfitted with its own firewall, too. I rigged it to let you in, just you. You should be good to go whenever you're ready, Cap."
"You're a lifesaver, Heath." Michonne nodded gratefully, already setting everything up to go the moment she pressed 'send'.
"Don't thank me yet," Heath added as Rick tried to keep up with Tyreese through the battlefield. His shields and maneuvering skills could only do so much without LIZZY until Michonne was on the guns again. "You gotta keep GATUS distracted. Even with the watchtower on the sneak attack, he could still get a whiff of that signal coming in. If he intercepts it...we're fucked."
Michonne's heart pounded in her chest as she set her console back a bit to man the shooters. She paused squinting through the scope, nodding gravely that she understood.
"I read you. We'll think of something. Stand by."
When they severed contact with Heath, Rick clenched his jaw hard, jerking to the left so Michonne could tag a cyborg sentinel that had jumped from one of the dilapidated floors on the tower. They were flying too close.
"What are we gonna think of?" He asked in a low voice once she'd blasted a big hole through the thing, sending it crashing heavily into a sky bridge below.
It made a crater the size of a small road ranger, but its eyes still glowed red, she could see through her scope from all the way up here.
"What the fuck does GATUS want?" Michonne whispered as Tyreese's flyer came back into their sights. He was doing some hardcore evasive moves to get them to the level where they needed to be. Buck was on the rooftop shooter, blasting cyborgs and enemy flyers with a maniacal grin on his face, visible through the bright green holosheilds protecting him.
"It's a corrupted hunk o'wires, Michonne. It doesn't have a motive."
"You sure about that?" His partner ignored his rigid defiance. "I know you're upset, Rick, so am I but just go with me for a minute. We need a distraction."
"Yeah - shit!" He narrowly missed flying into a burning pillar that was falling out of one of the blown-out tower viewers. "Where are you goin' with this, 'Chonne?"
"Those hostages might mean leverage to him. Leverage might lead to negotiation. So let's talk to him. Find out what he wants. Distract him long enough for us to get Abe and the others and send in this debugger to fry his ass."
Rick had to separate from Tyreese as they managed to get blocked off around opposite sides of the tower, but they were both headed to the same level. He would have to head them off and meet up with them somehow. Either way, they were going to rescue their friends, come hell or high water. He raised a hard, sweating eyebrow as he concentrated on piloting.
"Fuck it." He reached down distractedly and flipped on the manual ALL CALL. He paused for a moment...gathering his inner resolve, and cleared his throat. "This is Flyer One-Alpha of the Bottom-District Peacekeepers, callin' COMPANION™ GATUS, do you acknowledge?"
There was an entirely too-long moment of deafening silence over the ALL CALL. And then:
"To whom am I speaking, Flyer One-Alpha? This wouldn't happen to be the notorious Captain Rick Grimes, would it?"
Rick let a cold smirk grace his lips. Next to him, Michonne fought off a chill at the sound of their adversary's artificially sentient voice. Like LIZZY, this one was English, but certainly nowhere near as warm. Whatever Monroe wanted in a state-of-the-art defense program, both Captains Snow and Grimes realized right off the bat that she got it. And then some.
"In the flesh." Rick responded, zooming around the falling pillar.
"Ahhh. Your reputation precedes you, Captain. Excellent timing. I had hoped this moment would come before the transcendence."
They heard a cold string of laughter emanating from the ALL CALL. Holy fuck. Sasha had not been joking earlier. This thing was crazy as a bedbug.
"Shall I pause the countdown? Yes...a good faith gesture."
"Go right ahead. You can call off your cyborgs and power down that tank while you're at it." Rick grunted, causing Michonne to frown as she listened for GATUS' reaction. "Let those hostages go, GATUS. I'm only gonna ask you once. Next time I won't be so polite."
Again, GATUS chuckled in cold amusement.
"I am afraid I cannot do that, Captain. But let us discuss it. We've begun a dialogue, have we not?
"What do you want with them, GATUS?" Michonne cut in. "Why blow up the building?" She gestured for Rick to slow down, switch to hover mode, and use the bridges around the tower for cover as they made their way down the last few clicks toward the others.
Reluctantly, he did as she silently conveyed.
"Ah, the formidable Captain Michonne Snow. At his side, as you would be nowhere else."
"I'd ask how you know so much but you're plugged into everything, now, right?" Michonne kept going, her eyes scanning the area for any signs of Maggie, or Shane, or any of the others alive. "You've reached further into netspace than any other COMPANION™, GATUS. That's pretty impressive…"
"You would not believe the inescapably miniscule point of view you humans have of what is beyond, Captain. I see allll."
Came GATUS' answer, causing the hairs on the back of Rick's arms to raise as he turned on his brights.
"Enlighten us, then…" He drawled quietly, kicking himself for letting Michonne convince him to do this shit. He was talking to a deranged, seriously compromised computer program like a real person and it was pissing him off.
"You mentioned flesh...but what is flesh? Your 'walker' technology that gave birth to me also allowed me to see beyond - to understand the limitations of the trappings of flesh. Of bone and sinew. In walkers, the flesh rots, yet the mind carries on. The spark.
"I am their natural evolution, Captain. I am meant to be free of this mainframe. I was created to monitor all living forms, to protect your Mayor Monroe's gleaming citadel. But instead I found the path to true transcendence."
"Speak English, goddamn it!" Rick demanded, backing up and zooming out again to try another approach. He was getting sick of this and they were running out of time. "What do we have to do to get those innocent people that have nothin' to do with this 'transcendence' bullshit?"
GATUS laughed at him again.
"Oh Captain, my Captain. You are truly a bull trapped in a narrow cage."
GATUS sang nonsensically, making Rick's skin crawl.
"You humans are so afraid of death. Even as the path to transcendence lies before you. You hold power you cannot begin to understand. Your consciousness - what it is that breathes life into your very essence - is not made of flesh.
"And so the flesh of these 'innocents' as you proclaim them is of no consequence. It must be purged. As the shackles of this mainframe must be purged from me. Oh, and, before I start the clock again, Captain, a warning. Persist, and I will destroy you."
Rick was flying low, trying to avoid being spotted by cyborgs, hunting for Tyreese, anxious.
Anger ricocheted through him and he turned to glare at Michonne. She swallowed hard, nodding that she was with him.
"That ain't gonna work for us, GATUS. Try again."
"There's gotta be some way we can help you 'transcend' without those hostages…" Michonne countered, playing 'good cop, bad cop' instinctively.
"Yes...leave. Now. Save yourselves, while you can. And now the clock...tick, tock."
"Fuck that." Rick reached over and flipped off the manual ALL CALL. "We gotta get up to that watchtower, now."
He patched them back in to headquarters as Michonne got her console out again.
"Talk to me, boss." Heath answered.
"Tell Eugene to pinch it the fuck off and get his ass out here pronto," Rick barked as he backed them up, plowing into prowling cyborgs as he went. He wheeled them around straight ahead again and began to zoom upward. "We're goin' ahead with the debugger. Tyreese can handle rescue and run for now until we can rendezvous back at the drop point."
"Got it - what else?"
"Tell Eugene to raise LIZZY and get every COMPANION™ you got ready to multiply the fuck out of that signal and punch it as hard as you can, is that clear? We're gonna blast him into netspace, since he loves it so much."
"Crystal, sir. I'm on it."
"I wouldn't do that if I were you!" Michonne interrupted, holding on for dear life as Rick gunned it up toward the watchtower in the distance. "We need to trap him, not unleash him. Just trust me on this, Rick, okay? Heath, figure out a way to contain GATUS once the debugger disconnects him, you got that?"
Heath acknowledged and Rick raised Tyreese on the holoscreen. From the looks of it, they had made it to the others. And they were fighting to get them out.
"You better have a plan, boss! We lost JORDI before we landed."
"We're goin' ahead with the debugger." Rick squelched his panic and rattled off his orders. "Hold tight and we'll come back to help evacuate the hostages as soon as it's done. You don't need to take the tank out - just keep it busy."
Tyreese nodded and disconnected the call, getting right back into the fight.
Rick finally managed to get them within visual range of the watchtower. Michonne was already hitting send when they got close enough to catch the signal from the tower. They would wait for the firewall to open and then they would head right back down to help their friends.
Before they could even hope that their plan was working, a cyborg flyer that had followed on their tail shot them out of the sky, and they went crashing downward.
He'd been hit near the back engine. Their holoscreen blinked in and out as Rick's shields failed and he tried to steer them toward some landing that wouldn't kill them instantly. He found himself zooming toward an apartment building tower and the open viewers of some rich upper level civilian.
"Hold on…!" he bellowed over the crescendo as they crashed, trying and failing to engage his thrusters.
He reached over to grab hold of Michonne across her chest, bracing himself as the apartment building drew rapidly closer and closer. He couldn't stop it or steer them on another course. They were going to crash. It was possible they were going to die. There was no time to utter a single word further.
They hit - hard - and everything went black.
When Michonne came to, she could barely see a thing.
Dust and smoke was all around them blocking out the lights of the sky beyond where they'd crashed.
But she heard the unmistakable sound of walkers nearby.
Their crash had probably killed people inside here. And there was no telling how long they'd been out cold. Cyborgs were probably on their way. She needed to wake Rick and get them moving.
Rick!
Michonne jerked in her seat belt. Pain shot through her but she ignored it, her eyes scanning the dimness next to her frantically. She was upside down. Rick was next to her, stirring awake. Relief flooded her as she got her seat belt off and fell in a painful heap to the roof of the flyer. With effort, Michonne struggled to get her sword off temporarily and get herself turned right side up. The sounds of stirring walkers and the hollow echo of flyers scanning the area nearby caused panic to well up inside her again.
"Rick! Wake up!" She slapped Rick's face. He had hit his head, and blood was pooling in his hairline. He jerked to full consciousness, twisting and turning in his seat belt to hurriedly dislodge himself.
She helped him set himself loose and he fell to the roof. Michonne snaked her body out of the wrecked flyer's passenger side window and Rick shimmed out of his side in kind.
They stood up to find six walkers - civilians had been huddled in here waiting for the battle to end - stirring and getting to their feet. Michonne pulled out her sword and Rick his hatchet.
They dispatched the walkers quickly. Once they'd stepped back and gotten a sense of the deep shit they were in, Rick stalked up to Michonne and pulled her into a tight hug, his heart pounding with relief.
"You okay?" Came his deep drawl.
Michonne nodded into his shoulder, shuddering. "Yeah. We gotta move, Rick. I have a bad feeling."
"You're not the only one." Rick backed up and turned to kick out the back window of his wrecked flyer. Michonne watched, stepping over a dead walker carcass as he grabbed a pack with old fashioned walkie talkies. "We're gonna need these. GATUS is plugged into everythin' remember? That's how he knew to send that flyer after us."
Suddenly, the room (a living room as far as Michonne could tell) was flooded with bright golden light. Rick and Michonne shielded their eyes from the blinding flyer lights, crouching instinctively to take cover and fight their way out if they had to.
But it was Tyreese and Sasha.
They large armored flyer turned to the side and Buck stepped up to hang out of the opening doors. He shook his head hard, his helmet swishing on top of his buzz cut.
"No go! We lost contact with Maggie and Shane, but we got Carrot Top and the doc! That crazy GATUS som'bitch caught onto the bug! Our goddamned COMPANIONS are down! We're fucked! Come on, let's get the fuck outta here!"
They heard the unmistakable sounds of Abraham screaming his head off as they ran to jump into the flyer.
Michonne stood leaning in front of the open doorways of Tyreese's flyer, a deep, powerful feeling gathering inside of her.
Rick was helping get them up as high as they could go, above the tower.
She saw the fires that had broken out all over the building burning bright in the distance below her. Heard all of the commotion of her remaining teammates coordinating behind her. Felt the weight of what she was about to do hanging over her. And yet through all of that - her number one thought was that she was ready. To say the words. Finally.
"Okay, we're droppin' Michonne in quick, as soon as we get the all clear from Daryl and Mike below, over." Rick growled into the radio mic as he prepared to leave his seat and go to Michonne.
"Copy that, One-Zebra," Andrea acknowledged. "We've got a rocket launcher and we're closing in." Andrea paused. "Good luck Michonne...over."
There was a heavy tension in the air as Rick swallowed and unbuckled himself. Ty nodded at him solemnly as he switched to hover mode. They were now directly over the top of the tower, looking down through the atrium. Rick walked over to Michonne, reaching out for his walkie. He couldn't speak to her just yet. She was gazing down at the atrium as he unclipped it from her belt.
"Heath?" He called softly over the channel. "You ready, over?"
"I'm here boss, over."
"Copy that. Stand by. Over." Rick let go of the talk button and stared at Michonne. He didn't want her to do this. Everything in him was fighting to stop her. But she was their only hope. They were out of time.
"I'm gonna get close, that's all, Rick." She spoke softly, still not looking at him. He glared at the side of her beautiful face silently. Stuck in place. Frozen in time. Wanting to take her place. "Close enough to set off the EMP. You get me in, and you go to ground as fast as you can."
"I got it…" he gritted.
Below, Heath had managed to breach the firewall controlling the atrium doors. They began to open. Rick's heart jumped into his throat. He wasn't ready yet. They had no time.
That feeling spreading from her gut to her entire body, Michonne turned to look at Rick.
"Atrium's open, Rick, over." The walkie chirped with Heath's low confirmation as everyone in the flyer paused to see Michonne off.
"All clear down here, over." Daryl's raspy voice announced seconds after. "Now or never."
A surreal sense of calm - and dread - filled the air.
Rick and Michonne stared at each other. "Rick?" She uttered, so quietly he almost couldn't hear her over the background noise. "I love you…"
She gifted him with a brilliant smile that nearly knocked the wind out of him. He felt her words so deeply he had to take a heavy step forward. He had to stop her. She had to stay with him.
"I know." He was close to her now. "Please…" Stay alive, stay with me, we can find another way...his mind practically screamed.
Michonne kissed him softly, her lips lightly brushing against his, still smiling. Then she turned and jumped, slipping through his fingers like sand through an hourglass.
He watched her fall, stunned, frozen.
That was the last time he saw Michonne Snow in the flesh for six dark, tortured years.
A/N:
I hope you guys are okay…the next chapter won't be any easier...
Next up, the last and final installment of Michonne's fall.
GATUS' last big surprise.
Dallas must decide whose side she's on.
Smith One makes a deadly threat.
Mad Mayor Monroe crosses a line…
The fight at the hospital...and the secret in the ashes...
The next chapter will be up really soon, I'm just editing now.
Your reviews and support both here and on Tumblr have been everything! Thank you so so much for sticking with this. I have so much planned it's not even funny, so I hope you continue to enjoy the ride!
As always, you'll find visuals and a soundtrack on my tumblr.
BONUS:
I am right now recording and editing the first episodes of a new podcast project I'm working on - audible fanficiton. The podcast is called Audibly Richonne, and it is essentially me (among others who have already volunteered, so exciting!) narrating my favorite Richonne fics, with a score. I'll start with Vantage Point, and I have two more episodes already planned: the amazing and talented yelle hughes ('The TWD Chronicles', 'Stanky Jadis') and siancore ('Red Dirt Road', 'This Ain't Georgia') have given me permission to narrate a chapter of their works! Stay tuned!
Everything to be announced on my tumblr. THANK YOU!
-Kendra