Neon Genesis Evangelion: Nobody Dies: Six AIs, One Continent
Chapter 7: Crash
...
"So... we're on a sky island."
"Yep."
"And it's elevated itself up into the cloud layers."
"Yep."
"And so we're stuck in here, with everything that lives here trying to kill us."
"Yep."
"And we don't have enough fuel to try to escape Australia when we emerge from the top of the clouds, so we have no choice but to ride it back down, so we have to do it all again."
"Yep."
"And even when we do, there's no guarantee we can escape the storm it'll cause."
"Well... yep."
There was a pause.
"Fuck it. Give me a gun, Major. Since I'm doomed anyway, I might as well take as much of the environment with me as I go."
"That's the spirit, Obeur!" The woman sounded delighted. "Remember, kill everything that's trying to kill you, or looks like it might try at some point in the future, or that's annoying you, or boring you, or if it's funny, and don't die! That's what I live by, and it's working pretty damn well." She hefted the platypus spur. "I mean, goddamn, today has been fun. I thought I'd have to put up with Deutsch whining at me for blowing up another refugee camp, but instead I get to slaughter my way through plenty of fun."
"I hate you so much."
"Shooty bit goes towards the enemy," advised one of the sergeants, as he handed him an assault rifle. "Major... we've got Thaylacines in the tunnels... we've already lost a man. Grid Alpha-Alpha-Three."
"Understood. Today is a good day for anyone who isn't me to die!" screamed the Major, as she sprinted in the direction of the gunfire, spur held in both hands, dripping venom.
"Remind me... she's on our side?" the SEELE Inspector muttered to the sergeant, who winced.
"Well... it's more that we're not not on her side," the man answered. "Because, you know, we're alive."
...
The Reego were going to war.
Well... technically, as an UN-registered aid group, they explicitly weren't, because they'd lose their funding if they were involved in a military conflict as an active party. And if they lost their funding, they'd lose their salaries, and then they wouldn't have eBay money any more. And it wasn't as if they got pocket money or anything, given one of their parents was still receiving her own pocket money, and the other was technically a piece of equipment, rather than a person. But, still, they were certainly doing all the necessary preparations for an extended military campaign.
There was a shriek of metal as Duae scrambled all over the lightning-absorption device that Una had been working on, tens of little bodies systematically pulling it apart.
"What are you doing, Duae?" asked 00-Em, still biting on his lip and conveying a general aura of nervousness. "We don't have time for this! We have to get after them as soon as possible, before they can do anything to my sister!"
"Ah, shush," Duae's VR avatar said, with a shrug. "I'm already ready, plus I'm takin' it with me."
The boy blinked heavily. "Why?" he eventually managed.
"Two reasons. Firstly, we might actually need clear weather at some point, plus this can be used for recharges and stuff." Duae shook her head. "Remember, we need batteries."
"Okay, that is fair enough. I am sorry for shouting at y..."
"Plus... it's one of Aunty Kiko's things. It'll totally be easy to rewrite it into some kind of mega electricity cannon! And then we can be like zapzapzapzap and they can be like ohnoes, and then die."
00-Em blinked. "Okay," he said, eventually, "I'll just go check on... you do know that lightning doesn't work like that, right?" he interrupted himself, evidently not able to hold on any longer.
Duae shrugged. And when the mechanical tentacles that sprouted from the back of even her VR avatar were taken into account, that was a lot of shrugging. "Meh. Gotta test it, then."
And the others were all equally busy. Tres was supervising a tribe of scorpions, as they hauled in a crashed flier, her bodies, and even her spider tanks, covered in leather coats, which mostly seemed to be an excuse to attach as many pockets as possible to any of her forms. From the way that she clinked and clattered, those pockets were full of sharp things. "Hee~ee~ey," she waved. "Look what these guys found. They are good, aren't they? Whosa good arachnid? Chitter, chitter, chittee~eer schirek!"
There was a deep, base rumbling from the scorpions, as, claws biting into metal, they dragged the wrecked craft to just outside the gates.
"I already had a look in the computers and stuff," Tres admitted to the boy, "but they're all empty. Overwritten and then wiped, multiple cycles. And then there's the messiness inside... it's all fried. Like as if by lighting or something. Probably lighting," she added, looking upwards.
"So there's nothing useful, then?" 00-Em said, disappointment in his voice.
"Oh, I didn't say thaaa~aaaaat," Tres said with a wicked grin. "Bombs. And there's an intact 30mm cannon..."
"CanIhaveit! CanIhaveit! Pleasepleaseplease!" begged Ivy, a heavily armoured and patched up shell which might once have been a little girl standing by the wreckage, and attempting to do puppy eyes. "Please! You'll be the bestest sister ever if I can have it!"
"Where did she come from?" 00-Em asked, curiously.
"Eh..." Tres grinned. "Oh, sure. Just promise that you'll only use its powers for awesome."
Ivy grinned sharp metal teeth. "Oh, I can do thaaa~aaat." More Ivy-shells, easily distinguishable by just how battered and inhuman they were in appearance immediately swarmed down to start pulling the bomber apart.
"Hee~ee~ey, I didn't say you could have everything else!" Tres immediately yelled.
"Yeah, but I wanna strap the engines to my spidertanks so I can fly awesomely!"
A spider-tank facepalmed. "Little sisters," Tres sighed, before wincing. "Sorry," she said, glancing at 00-Em. "I didn't ree~eeally mean it that way..."
"It's 'kay," the little boy said, wiping his eyes against a sleeve. "We're going to get her back, and then I can tell her off for letting herself get caught... and then..." he sniffed, "... stuff. Something."
Tres nodded, and shifted, her four legs clicking under her. "Sure," she said. "I'm almost done, I'm just fillin' my pockets and insides with spiders and scorpions and stuff." She linked to an image of one of the little-girl bodies pulling open its coat, to reveal that the metallic body was covered in a mix of knives, and swarming insects. "Oh, an' centipedes. They're funny. I'm covered in spideee~eeers!" She shrugged. "Just doesn't have the right ring. Gotta find a new kind of bug so I can have a wicked-awesome battlecry."
00-Em did not comment.
"Look... I'll go make sure Ivy's ready on time... you go see what Una's up to."
As it turned out, she was busy sculpting a flesh-coloured material, like clay, onto some of her skinless shells. About five ones were already prepared, with normal-coloured wigs replacing the lost blue hair, and they were wearing...
"... are those my sister's dresses," 00-Em asked, eyes wide, a hint of hostility in his voice.
"Some of them, yeah," Una said, without a hint of shame. "Some are my own."
"... why?"
Una sniffed. "Heee~e~ey, I may not like everything that your sister does, but she does have good fashion sense." She paused. "Well, okay fashion sense." One of the bodies tugged at a dress. "Kinda a few too many frills and stuff on this, and does she ree~eeally need to have so many blacks and whites and dark reds? Depressing. What's wrong with blues an' greens? I like blue and green both."
00-Em shrugged. "She likes the style. And well, of course she likes clothing." He smiled, faintly. "Have you seen how grey her hair is?"
"I... don't get it."
"It is an in-joke, among us."
"Meh." Una frowned. "What do you think, then?" Simultaneously, the bodies gave a twirl. "It's not proper synthskin, but it looks kinda a lot like it. There's some sheepgut in it, and there's a handy fungus-thing which gets you the right kinda colour and texture. It grows on dead bodies." She sighed. "The problem is when it rots, it gets ree~eeally flammable, so it's not good for the long term. 'Specially not if you're spending time around Duae or Ivy. 'Specially Ivy."
"How exactly is this going to help get my sister back?" the boy asked, irritation in his voice.
The answer was immediate. "Help me, mister," the modified little-girl bodies said together, synchronised, as they raised their hands together to clutch them against their chests. "I lost my mummy, and there's all kind of n-nasty things k-k-killing things. You... you gotta help me please."
"Point taken."
"And then comes the clawing and the stabbing and the shooting," Una explained unnecessarily. "It's still not totally good, 'cause they can't cry or look red with tears and stuff. And people freak out if they get too close. And the skin starts to rot after... like, a few days, and for some reason that freaks people out more than normal robots. So I've still got more normal bodies, for, you know, killin' wildlife more normally."
"Still, it retains a good deal of functionality for infiltration. Especially with me advising you on infowar topics."
"Exactly." She giggled. "I did cover one of my spidertanks in the stuff, though. Looks ree~eeally funny, you know?"
The giant spider apparently made of human skin, positioned in the corner... well, funny was one way of describing it. And the fact that its skin was already falling off meant that the apparently leprous giant spider could truly be called very, very terrifying.
"I have to admit, I didn't quite see you doing this," 00-Em admitted.
"Ah, see." Una smiled, demurely, which was almost more worrying. "I take after Daddy more than the others, but Momma's always been clear that there's no such thing as cheatin' when something's trying to kill you. Or if it's funny."
...
"Yo, Mel! Chuck us the booze, will you?"
The man in the back of the truck glared down, hanging onto the heavy machine gun with one hand even as the other one clutched the moonshine protectively. "Not a chance!" he growled, taking a swig. "It's mine." He paused, as the red dust thrown up by their converted half-truck beat against his face and goggles. "Plus, I'm out here, so I get it all. Gotta keep my throat clear, after all."
"I'll gun, then," a younger voice said from within, enthusiastically.
"You try, and I'll blow your balls off," the older man grunted. "If you've got any."
There was chuckling from within the car. "Got you there, Mike," someone said from within the vehicle. "If you had any less balls, we'd be riding you, rather than this car."
"Fuck you guys!"
"You would, kid. You would." The man paused. "So... T-Man, how're we for fuel?"
"We good," called out the driver. "Plenty 'nuff to get us to their camp, and back again. Even if we pick up some 'quisitions, if you know what I mean."
There were dirty chuckles all around.
"If?" Max, hanging onto the back, growled. "They better fucking well have more algae, or they'll be volunteering another daughter and her services." He threw his head back, to take another mouthful, and that was just as well for him, because it meant that the bullet which would have gone through his head instead merely shattered the bottle, lacerating his face heavily.
Well, at least it was some consolation that the high alcohol content in the fluid now splashed over his open wounds would serve to sterilise them.
...
"Doom, doom, doomy doomy doom, doomity doomity doom doom dooo~oooom. Doomity doom doom, doom doom..." sang Ivy.
"So, you still got the tracking thing on the VTOLs?" Duae asked Una.
Her sister blushed. "Technically." She felt an interrogating stare. "Well it kinda cut out a while ago," she confessed. "I think there was a storm or something..."
"... doom, doom doom doomity doom, dooo~ooooom!"
"... buuu~uuuuut," Una hastily continued, conscious of the others' attention upon her, "they were flying in a straight line. Ish. So we just need to work out where they're hiding a secret underground base, and go there."
"Well done," Tres said, sarcastically. "So, we gotta just work out here they are, and then go there? Gotta love big sisters and how ree~eeally smart they are."
"You wanna do it?" Una snapped back.
"...dooooo~oooooooom..."
"Nah." Tres shook her head, grinning. "I'm having waaa~aaaaay too much fun at the moment."
00-Em cleared his throat. "Thank you, Una," he said. "I agree with you... they were flying straight back." He sniffed. "That's not very good operational security. Evidently they feel unsafe enough here that they would risk compromising their concealment to avoid spending too much time out in the Outback."
Duae shook her head. "Silly people," she said. "The Red is where fuuu~uuuun stuff happens."
"That is true," 00-Em said, diplomatically. "But that is also not..."
"Doom! Doom! Doom!"
"... relevant." He paused. "We need to find a course vector for other such flights. They obviously will have others, if only because I do not believe that the SEELE entity will be content to leave humans working for it..."
Una twitched slightly at that, but said nothing.
"...and it will want to bring in extra supplies and reinforcements; the woman in charge of that force was certainly not Australian." The little boy steepled his fingers in front of him. "Tres, try to get any of your arachnid cultists to tell you if they've ever encountered any unknown phenomena which would match the flying aircraft. Duae, look over the data from the crashed craft Tres found again; see if you can salvage anything at all from the flight data. While you're busy, we'll keep on following the path... see if they lost anything else to lightning." A predator's grin crept over that innocent face. "They're lazy, we can see, too sure in themselves, too sure that they can kill anything they come across that they're not being properly covert; that's a second-order projection," he added, scrupulously, before the smile returned. "And then... and then we will be their..."
"... doom!"
"Yes, thank you, Ivy. That works."
...
The oh-so-ferocious bandit, "Massacre" Mel, lay on his back on the road, blood seeping from his torn face. The agony of a broken leg was his companion, the fall from the back of the fast-moving car having had the predictable effects. He could barely hear the gunfire; desperate, full automatic bursts from his friends, single cracks from whoever the attackers were.
"Paul! Mike! Help... goddamnit!" he yelled through the pain-filled darkness.
The gunfire fell silent, with long last, sustained burst.
"Help me!" the man grated, through the pain. "Just... help!"
There were footsteps, and dragging sounds through the dust, along with more yelps and screams. Some kind of hunting thing, maybe. Gritting his teeth, the man reached for his pistol. He'd shoot where the noise was coming from.
A single shot punched through his hand, and the gun went flying. Unsurprisingly, he screamed.
"I'm sorry," a voice said. It sounded like a woman's voice, but the words were slurred and clumsy. "I can't let you do that."
"Whatda fu.." Mel gasped as a wave of pain overcame him, the hot sticky feeling of his hand agonising, "do you think you're doing, sugarti..." he gasped again, panting.
"Please, don't talk," the woman said. "It will adversely affect your survival, and I did try not to inflict directly lethal wounds on any of you."
The man's retort was incoherent.
"This is a terrible quality pistol, by the way," the voice remarked, stepping over to the direction which the gun had flown. "And you don't keep good care of it; I doubt you have ever cleaned it." She paused. "I am sorry," she continued, "but I need your car. And I can't let you keep your ranged weapons, because you might imperil me or harm my bodies. But I'm not killing you... that would be a bad thing to do, when I can, and have managed to incapacitate you. And you must have a base somewhere out here, so you'll be able to live if you can get there, correct?"
"I'll... kill... you!"
"No." The words were precise, the speaking subtly sharper. "I don't even get why you would wish to. I didn't kill you. Which is more than I can say about the parts of your conversation that I heard, and your past proclivities. You are not a very nice man, are you?" There was a cough, but from somewhere to the side. "Anyway, goodbye. And thank you for the means of transportation."
The vehicle, creaking slightly from how overloaded it was, drove off, packed with brain-hacked cyborg soldiers. The mind distributed between them knew where she was going.
And Mel heard the predators close in.
...
"Ivy! Shut up!" the other three girls finally yelled, patiences breaking together.
The youngest of the sisters (by the internal, false background given to them by the Angel of Terror, and also by about three processor cycles of the Magi) crossed her armed, and pouted. "Come ooo~oooon," she said, although 'whined' would also be a valid term. "We're going to have fun, and singing is fun. So I was singing the Doom Song. 'Cause, you know, they're doomed. And now you made me go and lose my place."
"I believe you had got up to 'doom doom doom'," 00-Em said calmly.
"Yep! Thanks! Here we go again! Doom doom doom! Dooo~ooom, doom doom..."
00-Em felt six eyes lock upon him. "What?" he asked, innocently. The blue haired boy looked positively angelic, in the not-mass-murdering-abomination sense of the word. Except biblical angels could also be pretty monstrous and genocidal and freaky-wheel-covered-in-eyes-appearing. So, in fact, it would be more accurate to say that he didn't look angelic, and instead looked like a sweet little boy; cute, with potential to be rather attractive if his phenotypical avatar, derived from his 'parents', was older. In fact, the family resemblance was clear.
Err... so that means he did look quite a bit like an Angel.
"How could you..." began Una, before Duae interrupted.
"... you're filtering out her singing, aren't you?" the little girl said, suspiciously.
"...maybe."
...
It was always chill in the Test Chamber, in the GEHIRN facility. Men and women, clad for arctic survival in the middle of baked Australia, manoeuvred around the antifreeze-filled circulation pipes, their breath freezing clouds in front of them.
From the warmth of the observation room, Director Deutsch gazed down upon the white mass of the Prototype, watched as the clambering figures hacked at the ice that always built up around the metal joints on the armoured bulk. But, underneath that, it an angular, skeletal thing, wrapped around the central control mechanism and the plug insertion point. And so the thick layers of constraining armour, were covered in vents and sliding panels, for when its true power could be unleashed.
If they could ever get it to work.
The footsteps of the Sub-Director of Science behind him were soft, as if they didn't want to be heard. Unfortunately for the younger man, the Director had very good hearing.
"What is it, Benny?"
The scientist coughed, and adjusted the glasses perched on his nose. "Still no sign of Major Do and most of her teams. Or Inspector Zilicaet. A weather plane suggest that they flew right into the middle of a skyburst."
"Damn." The older man paused. "That'll be expensive."
"So. You're... um, you're not worried about the losses, then?" the blond man asked, looking a little shocked.
The Director shrugged. "Way I see it," he explained, "we get used by Industry, especially NHIS, as the testing ground for possible mass production cyborg models. It's our job to test them, along with their gear. If they don't survive... well, it's not like there's a shortage of Impact Wars veterans who'll take point-blank contracts for any chance, is there? It just shows that the older models were poor, and need to be improved."
"... and Major Do?"
"She always comes back." The man rolled his eyes. "She's been lost out there in the Red for up to three months before; kicked down the door to her office and beat the shit out of her replacement when she got back. And, yes, I do mean that literally." He shuddered.
"That's actually... possible?" Benny's voice was split between horror and fascination.
"I didn't use to think so. Now I know better. There's a reason she's held her position for eight years, when the longest any of her predecessors lasted was five months."
"You mean her links to... the thing about Theotok..."
"Yes," the Director interrupted. "That. But you said 'most'?"
"Oh, yes," the scientist added, "one team managed to acquire transport from indigenes and make their way to Monitoring Station 003, and call for an evac. I know it's not orthodox, and they're not really meant to know where the Monitoring Stations are, but... well," he shrugged, "... I think this classifies as an emergency."
"Yeah," his superior agreed. "This'll be noted, but ignored, if you know what I mean. What'd they say?"
"Uh... well, their report is waiting for you. Some of them are quite sick; their vitals are mucked up, and they're injured from the crash... I think there's also neurological damage. Not surprising; their chopper was hit by sky-island lightning, and we know what that does to cyborgs."
"Ouch."
"Oh, yes, very much so. They're in the hospital right now."
"I should hope so." Arnold Deutsch cleared his throat. "How goes the progress for the next test, by the way?"
"Ahem... yes, that was the other thing that I was going over for." He glanced down at the clipboard in his hand. "Uh... the Dummy is ready for insertion, the ice-removal is in process, and we're just waiting on the final pre-initialisation checks on the Magi."
"Make sure everything is perfect," the Director stated, karate-chopping one hand with another to emphasise the point. "I don't care if it delays the start-up. The bastards at Evangelion are running their start-up for Unit 03 today... this'll be their fourth operational Unit, and I've heard that Unit 00 is almost back online too, and they're working on Unit 04a. And let's not get to the fact that MP-1 has successfully activated." His voice dropped. "Failure is not an option, you get it? If we can't show that we're an alternative to them, we're useless. And so I want things done right, rather than fast."
...
"'Kay, we got the stuff from my spiders coming in," Tres reported. "Lots of things, and they're actually pretty good at remembering where they were when they saw strange stuff."
"I think I've found some flight vectors... and I managed to get some of the stuff workin' again, and backed up some of my processes," added Duae. "I bolted the computers to one of my spider tanks, and localised some processes, so, guess what! Even faster reflexes for meee~eeeeeee!"
"Well done, both of you," said 00-Em, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "Now, let's see whether we can work out where they are..."
The five AIs stared at the lines drawn on the map. And the way that a pattern of intersections, if you extrapolated them, could be drawn around a certain point.
"Huh," said Una.
"Yep," added Tres.
They continued to stare.
"... are you seriously telling me that SEELE built their top secret Australia base under Uluru!" 00-Em exploded, throwing his hands up in the air. "Argh! That's just so... argh!"
"Yeee~eeeeeah." Duae sucked in a breath. "Come to think of it, it's kinda obvious."
"Nu uh!" Tres protested. "It could be under Kata Tjuta, 'cause that's also close."
The little boy was pacing up and down the virtual environment, incoherently shouting. Occasional phrases like "World Heritage Site" and "utterly predictable" and "I should have just guessed that, if only I'd thought!" could be heard, in the midst of the angry gibberish.
"Uh... is he just usin' words I don't know again," Ivy whispered, "or is he just not makin' any sense to the rest of you. Um... 'cause if he's makin' sense to you, he's totally makin' sense to me, too."
"Nope," Una muttered back. "No sense here."
"Apart from the bits which make sense," Tres added.
Ivy looked blank. "Sense or no sense?" She suddenly perked up. "He~eee~ey, guess what! I just worked out that the word 'nonsense' is 'no sense'!" She looked very happy with herself.
"Actually, that's kinda interesting!"
"Coo~oool!"
"Well done, Ivy!"
"Is he done yet?"
"I wonder what other words are like that?"
00-Em gritted his teeth, and took a deep breath, before letting it out slowly. "Okaaa~aaaaay."
"He~eee~ey, you did the squiggle thing!" Ivy said, with a broad grin. "Well done!"
The boy frowned. "Huh?" He shook his head. "Oh. Ivy talking. Never mind." He took in another breath, and let it out again. "Right. We know where they are."
"Probably," interjected Una.
"Thank you, Una. We know where they are, probably." His face was grim. "Now, let's go there."
...
Director Arnold Deutsch stared at the projected screen, and ran one hand over his shaven head.
"Activate."
The buzz of the Technical Centre started up again. Status updates came from all the technicians, staring down at the white-painted leviathan that filled the test chamber, skeletal framework and human-made armour-plating immobilised by the bands which enveloped and constrained the armour. From this angle, the mind could be made to see a petulant infant, hands on legs and head lowered, but that was ridiculous. It was merely the way that the outer metabiological structure formed angles with the inner control mechanism.
No babies were involved in the manufacture of this synthorg.
"Connect internal power supply to all circuits," ordered the Sub-Director of Science. "Initialise connection of exterior power in T-minus twenty seconds."
"Main power system connected," reported the lieutenant in charge of the technicians. "Activation system online. We are ready to begin adjustment of attunement pattern for pseudo-core emulation at your signal, doctor."
The blond man nodded, nervously running his tongue over the inside of his teeth, and swallowed, watching the digits count down on the screen, time-as-volts ticking down until the critical activation voltage was hit. "Insert the dummy plug!" he ordered.
Slowly, the red tube lowered into the white-painted depths of the Prototype. As it entered, a faint hum grew in a crescendo; a quiet, perfect note sustained and elongated.
"Stage one core-emulation in process. Magi are linked to the computational systems."
In the observation chamber, Director Deutsch leaned forwards, one hand on the glass.
"It's reached," announced the lieutenant, leaning forwards towards his screen. In the outside, the melody became more complex; a thin high-pitched note darted around the upper frequencies, while below a bass tone reinforced the existing hum. "Stage one core-emulation is complete. Stage two is in process. Attunement is non-zero... 0.04... 0.13... rising."
The Director let a faint smile creep onto his face. They'd managed to reach stage two; that was a rarity. If the dummy plug could sustain the emulation for multiple hours, they could consider an operations test, and insert the control plug, too.
"Looks promising, sir," said Captain Joyeuse, next to him, already clad in her entry suit. "But you do know that we shouldn't raise our hopes..."
"Asymptotic breakdown in emulation! The node is unstable, and we're getting divergence between the Dummy and the pseudo-core."
"... too high," the Test Pilot trailed off, wincing.
"Dummy is displaying neural and core damage!"
"Damn it," snarled the Director, slamming his hand into the glass. "Abort the test! Cut external power immediately! We can't waste the Dummy like this."
A series of charges detonated, blowing the external power cable clean from the umbilical port of the prototype.
"Eject the Dummy, and check for damage," called out the Sub-Director for Science. He turned, his face apologetic. "Sorry, sir," he said to the Director. "We just can't hold the emulation pattern. I'm... I'm beginning to think that the Dummy can't support the draw from the Prototype."
"Yes." Arnold Deutsch sighed, as the red plug was removed from the white mountain before him. "But we can't stop trying. We're slowly improving; if we show that we can reliably hit Stage Two, that might be enough."
"I'm willing to test even if we can't sustain it," said Captain Joyeuse, to the unasked question. "And... well, you know I'll probably survive it, if it goes wrong."
"I applaud your enthusiasm," the Director said, eyes narrowed, as he stared at the Prototype, the bane of, and reason for, his existence these last seventeen years. "But we can't risk it. We're just going to have to try iterative improvement, up to the point that we can even think of trying a phase transition." He slammed his hand into the wall. "Damn it! I bet the Unit 03 test will have gone off perfectly, too!"
...
Half a world away, a purple and green titan flew through the air, to slam into a mountainside. With a terrible noise, its core ruptured, a crack splitting the crimson gem.
The world screamed.
...
The sky island suddenly jolted, the burst of acceleration slamming everyone and everything inside around. With a slow creak of metal, one of the VTOLs parked within the tunnels broke its bonds, crumpling as unfamiliar stresses were placed upon it. Much like the fragile structure of the sky island.
Major Do used the distraction to begin idly beating the sharp-fanged, needle-clawed koala-thing latched onto her arm into the wall that both she and it were pinned to. "What the hell's going on?" she roared, over the screams on the comms from soldiers who had landed badly.
"No idea, Major!" one of her captains yelled back, as she tried to cling to a stalagmite with blood-slick hands. "It's... I don't..."
The island jolted again, stronger this time, and now there was a definite sense of sustained acceleration besides the jolts, in a sideways direction, swaying and rolling as the island ceased to randomly wander. There was a sudden greasy feel to the air, filled with potential and static, sparks playing over every surface.
The Major went cross-eyed, and she dropped the koala, which twitched spasmodically on the floor, before another jolt send it bouncing off into another wall. "... feel... sick..." she muttered, one hand going to her armoured abdomen. "... moving around... something wrong with the air."
She was then promptly sick within her sealed helmet.
...
Half a world away, a boy opened his eyes in a red-lit entry plug, the cries of the girl who, no matter what genetics says, is his little sister filling his ears. He has seen the monstrous perversion of what was Unit 03 advance upon his girlfriend.
The world screamed.
...
"Well, there it is," Duae said, linking to the video feed from one of her forwards cameras. "I've gotta body on top of the rock, and there's totally heat signatures which shouldn't be there. So... yeee~eeeeah. They ree~eeally did hide their base under Uluru."
00-Em twitched in annoyance.
"Hee~ee~ey, we're cooo~ooooming for you," Tres called out, glaring at the World Heritage site.
"Heeee~ey~, we're coming for your stuff," added Duae.
"And, by the way, heee~e~ey, this is for your totally unfair use of resources to benefit a few instead of all the poo~ooooor people in this place that you never did anything for ever, huh," continued Una.
"Hello. You killed my siblings. You took my mother and my sister. Prepare to die," whispered 00-Em, hands balled into fists.
There was a pause.
"... uh, aren't ya going to say something wacky, Ivy?" suggested Duae.
"Nu uh," her sister replied, shaking her head. "Look up. At that sky."
The stormy clouds were glowing.
Glowing electric blue, casting the dead red land in an unnatural blue light.
Glowing from horizon to horizon.
"Oh n0! In+erf#rence," shouted 00-Em, voice breaking up, as all of them began to flicker, and the shells began to twitch. "Ev#rqwh_e. W# n_d to cu+ 0ur si9nals or e|se we'|| be 7elly in +r0uble, _d th#n it'll +ran5fer b_k t0 0ur fi|e s+ruc+..."
The charge... discharged.
...
"Asuka," the boy stated, the slow beat of a heart filling his mind. "Ichi."
The world screamed.
"Give. Them. Back."
The world screamed.
...
unaayanamigogōki is Not Responding.
duaeayanamigogōki is Not Responding.
tresayanamigogōki is Not Responding.
ivyayanamigogōki is Not Responding.
02mA9 is Not Responding.
...
Half a world away, the Beast awoke.
The Beast screamed.
And its awakening was felt across the world.
...
There was a mining complex in the blasted continent of Australia. A fortified emplacement, its weapon systems were comparable to anything that could be found outside of Toyko-3, and staffed by the elite veterans of life in this place. A vast superheavy lifter, its wingspan barely able to fit on the airstrip, was parked, a vast, diamond-tipped drill in the process of being unloaded.
Beside it, ant-like figures of men swarmed around, checking and fitting lifting harnesses, so the massive device, tens of metres across, could be moved on the crawler over to the drill-shaft. Except not much was happening, as they stared up at the electric-blue clouds.
The sudden burst of light, which shone out of the open shaft and illuminated a sun-bright circle on the glow above, was all the warning they got. The light shredded the clouds, and for the first time in years, a light drizzle began to fall on the parched Earth. Most paused what they were doing, to see what the strange light was. They were fools to do so.
Some tried to run. They were too slow.
The blast tore an eight kilometre wide hole in the ground. From the new crater, the rim glowing white-hot, swarmed a horde of crystalline forms; skeletal, geometrical things, divergent and manifold and varied, crawling and floating forth from the hidden depths of this continent.
And from the depths, came a voice. No, not a voice. The speaker was dead, and had been for hundreds of millions of years. An echo of a voice, perhaps, a recording burned into the world by the will of a dying titan. A message for its children. A message for those who would look upon its glories, and despair.
It spoke.
...
