Sand.
Sand.
Endless sand.
Nothing but sand for as far as the eye could see, except for the three fucking idiots behind her.
She had seven other members in her squad. Why, for the love of God, could she not have fallen through the portal with them?
Her communicator read 11:03. Jessica had spent the last two hours with nothing but these idiots, the sun, and this damned sand for company.
The sand had somehow found its way underneath the waterproof armour and was now chafing at her thighs with every step.
Being at the front of the formation, she couldn't fiddle with her gear without the others getting an eyeful, so she had been forced to put up with it.
It was telling then that her companions were still worse.
If they had only stopped somewhere for shelter, then perhaps she could have stepped around a corner and fixed herself up, but of course they fucking hadn't. They hadn't stopped to rest because what would be the point?
Which of these sand dunes had any shelter to offer?
And that was the other thing. The sun was sweltering like a bitch, and Jessica was getting thirsty, and being a revenant she wasn't sure how much the sun had to do with that.
Life was better now, of course, compared to a few months ago. Supplies of blood beads had grown bountiful again, and society was finally no longer breaking under Colonel Silva's blood tax.
The research base up by the Old Church had apparently made some sort of breakthrough, and bloodsprings all over New Amsterdam were fruiting again. She didn't know what kind of breakthrough - it was all very hush hush - but whispers in the barracks claimed that it was linked to the coup that had caused everyone in Central to frenzy. Personally, Jessica wouldn't put anything past secessionists. Always complaining about taxes, and never lifting a finger to work.
What part of needing to maintain the mistle network could those louts not understand?
In the aftermath of the attack, Colonel Silva himself had appeared for the first time in Lord knew how long and announced that despite significant loss of life, the terrorists had been defeated and the bloodsprings were here to stay.
Whatever his reputation these days, the man still had her trust. It was hard to go through something like Operation Queenslayer and not be left with enduring respect for him. As far as she was concerned, the situation was under control and blood beads were plentiful now.
Good enough for her.
One consequence of this was that Central could afford to deploy troops with actual blood beads now - the stuff they actually needed to not turn into a monster.
Just a few weeks ago, Central had been filling ration packs with fucking bread; K-Brot trying to pass for recreational eating. What a sad state of affairs it had been when they had so much food they could share it with undead SOBs that didn't even need it for sustenance.
Besides, if the idea behind useless food rations was to keep staff morale up, then if you asked Jessica they should have been producing hot chocolate instead.
At any rate, the Provisional Government had gathered up every living human left in this little corner of NAC but they didn't even make a dent in their food supplies - there just weren't enough of them... Not yet, anyway. The one time Jessica had brought up breeding programs, Captain O'Malley had chewed her out like a dog toy. It was just a question.
Geez.
"Prickly bastard…"
"You say something, Sarge?"
"I said to pick up the pace," she barked.
"How does she even know we're going the right way?" Nguyen asked with a sneer. At least she assumed he was sneering. After decades of serving together, Cerberus soldiers had a knack for picking up body language, even through their masks, but it was never a sure thing.
That was the point though, Jessica supposed. The period right after Operation Queenslayer had been equal parts jubilant and panicked. Jubilant because the Queen was dead. Panicked because, no, they still weren't getting out of this hellhole. Something about unleashing an army of evil vampires into the world hadn't sat well with the brass so they'd erected a red wall of death gas around the city.
By then everyone knew that the Provisional Government was probably less provisional than the name implied, and as Jessica expected there were riots and warlords.
There was a need to reassure the populace. To convey to the people that, yes, there was a plan and, yes, they knew what they were doing. But not all people were equally reasonable, so there were times when they also needed to cow them into submission.
It had informed the design choices of what would eventually become the Cerberus armour.
Bulky, imposing, and the aesthetic of the mask as the cherry on top. Intimidating and indifferent, at least that's how Jessica saw it. It certainly didn't say 'harmless civil servant' when she was staring down dissenters.
Good times.
But that had come later.
When the Provisional Government had been formalising their military arm, they were recruiting from top to bottom. Colonel Silva's closest aides would recommend subordinates who had proved themselves during Queenslayer. Those same subordinates would look through their own command and nominate subordinates as well.
In theory, it was the perfect solution. There wasn't much time, and they needed to separate the wheat from the chaff. It was jury-rigging a military organisation out of thousands of conscripted civilians, most of whom knew as much about fighting as a soccer mum. Some of them were actually soccer mums.
Why not start from the top and let the best pick the best?
Jessica herself had been one of the first invited to join. She had been headhunted by her CO just a few days after the conclusion of Queenslayer and was far from unhappy with her current lot in life.
Unfortunately, nothing was ever perfect in practice. Case in point, Captain Mubin had personally recommended Nguyen, Leung, and Tsai.
Omar Mubin himself was infamous amongst sergeants these days as being a useless shammer, so it stood to reason that the men he recommended were more of the same.
"Yep, she's not answering. We're fuckin' doomed."
"What's going to doom us is sitting in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and waiting to frenzy," she said through grit teeth. Teleportation was powerful, true, but it had its limits. How far could it have possibly thrown them? "This area has been documented. We just need to keep moving until we hit a landmark."
"Pretty sure the 'sandy area to the south-east' wasn't a full-blown tundra," Leung muttered, thinking that she wouldn't hear, no doubt.
"You see all this emptiness around us? I bet we're in the middle of the fuckin' Atlantic. We're all going to die here," Nguyen whispered back.
"Enough! We know where we are. We'll be back at Central within the week."
Perhaps they agreed, or more likely they knew not to push her because the three men marched behind her in silence.
Sand.
Sand.
More sand, but to her satisfaction, not even a bit of coral.
As much as it chafed to be confined within the Vein, it beat being outside where the next source of blood could be months away. Or dead. There was a lot of speculation about the world beyond the Red Mist, but nobody knew for certain if anyone had survived the Horrors without revenant protectors.
The idea that the four of them might be stranded outside and fated to become Lost didn't bear thinking about.
Thankfully it didn't seem likely.
The Great Collapse had done all manner of strange things to the geography around New Amsterdam, so she wouldn't be surprised if they were simply somewhere so high up that the city ruins couldn't be seen from here. The worst-case scenario was just that, the worst-case scenario, so Jessica kept disciplined and continued marching onwards.
For thirty-two precious minutes, there was nothing but the sound of the wind and their footfalls in the sand. Nothing but Jessica and her steely determination.
Then Leung gave a girlish sigh behind her. "You know, it's not all bad."
What was it now?
"What the fuck are you on about?" Nguyen asked.
"The Lost are unkillable, right? If we really are outside of the Vein and we all succumb to bloodthirst, at least we'll be our own proof that we existed. Wandering the desert forever, eternal monuments to the fact that the four of us lived and breathed." Leung sighed melodramatically. "It's kinda poetic, don't you think?"
The dunes around her were shimmering in the heat, yet Jessica found herself shivering. An eternity with these three? Lord, deliver her from that nightmare.
Silence reigned for a little before Nguyen eventually replied.
"I mean, if you say so."
"You don't agree?" Leung sounded almost startled.
"I mean, I don't really see the poetry in losing my mind and wandering this fuckin' desert until the sun blows up."
That seemed to take the wind out of Leung's sails because his next reply was more subdued.
"I guess I just finally understand how Ikari Yui felt."
Who was that supposed to be?
"I don't know who that is."
"It was Shinji's mum in New Genesis Evangelicons."
"Meeta coto ga nai," Nguyen replied flippantly.
Jessica could imagine Leung looking foolishly taken aback. "Seriously?" he asked, reminding her of nothing so much as a high-pitched tween. "Evangelicons was a classic!"
"It was like a hundred fuckin' years old, mate. I don't watch old anime."
"Jesus," Leung breathed. "Well, I've got it right here on my communicator. Let's watch-"
"I really don't want to."
"No, no, you have to."
"I don't want to watch anime with shitty graphics."
"It's the remake of the remake and was made in the 2040s. C'mon!"
Jessica considered the next few hours of her life. In the best-case scenario, they'd find their way out of this desert.
In the worst-case scenario, she could be stuck listening to Evangelicons in the background for hours on end. The problem wasn't that she didn't want to hear it. The problem was that she hadn't seen Evangelicons either, and she'd much prefer it over the sight of this fucking desert.
But that would mean swallowing her pride and asking to watch it with these three, and was anything worth that?
No, she didn't think so.
Jessica had some self-respect to maintain. If Leung invited her to join in then she'd begrudgingly accept, but otherwise, she was keeping her eyes forward, come what may.
Besides, that was just the worst-case scenario. She was still holding out hope that they'd find something soon.
Leung never invited her.
In the end, she spent her time trying to follow the story from what she could hear and the trio's comments. Tsai had ended up watching as well, so it was just her keeping watch.
Absolutely shameless. What if they had been ambushed by Lost?
Appalling.
Still, at least now she knew who Ikari Yui was.
Apparently, she was a mad scientist working for an organisation obsessed with engineering human evolution. She orchestrated events such that her toddler son watched her turn into goop after her soul was sucked into a giant robot.
The idea was that in her new immortal robot body, Yui could stand sentinel as a testament to the fact that humans had existed.
Forever.
She understood Leung's comparisons now, but it didn't sound any more appealing. Rather than the Lost, the first thing that the plot brought to mind was the radical elements she had to sometimes put down. They liked to claim that revenants were the next stage in human evolution and sometimes clamoured about their right to human blood.
They were mostly harmless, but some of the more militant ones were introduced to their right to being locked in a hole.
Good times.
It was just under five hours later when they'd finished the films. Without the distraction of the films, it wasn't long before the trio began to get on her nerves again.
"It's been five fuckin' hours and there's still nothing in sight. Finally going to admit that we're doomed, Sarge?"
Jessica took a deep breath.
"I've never heard of a gift that could teleport anybody more than a few miles. The Red Mist is almost 90 miles across. We just need to keep moving."
Nguyen had the gall to give a long-suffering sigh.
"Yeah, we're fucked. Guess I kinda understand the comparison now. Still don't think it's going to be poetic," Nguyen said.
Leung sniffed. "Well, at least you get it now. Better a Lost that's seen Evangelicons than a Lost who hasn't."
Jessica felt her clenched fists creaking.
"Sergeant, I think you need to consider the scenario that we actually are beyond the Red Mist," Tsai 'helpfully' added.
If - if - that was the case, then there was nothing any of them could do. They'd be doomed anyway.
Jessica marched on in silence. The others did not.
Whatever she was expecting to feel at the sight of those ruined apartment buildings, 'even angrier' wasn't it. Hours of whining, second-guessing, and predictions of their doom when her choice to just march had been right all along.
She didn't even feel like telling them 'I fucking told you so,' she was so aggravated.
Worse, for a while now, a feeling had been nagging at her that something was wrong, but she just couldn't put her finger on what.
All of this meant that Jessica was extremely on edge.
"Huh, good work, Sarge."
Shut up!
Whatever the three of them had to say about this, Jessica didn't care. She just leapt off the crest of the sand dune they'd been standing on and began sliding down the side.
Even if she didn't care, she heard the trio sliding down behind her.
Unlike the broken buildings in the city centre, the ruined apartment buildings here had been more worn away than shattered; the concrete looked positively ancient.
Jessica knew that sandstorm erosion was a powerful thing, but seeing these buildings rounded and smoothed down with her own eyes was a different matter altogether.
Just twenty years ago, these buildings would have been coated with fresh paint and full of life. Part of the crown jewel of the United States of America.
Not any more.
Her Cerberus records had mentioned that the human, Jessica Chow, had been born and raised in New Amsterdam. She had owned an apartment on the northern end of Rockaways Island, just across the Yameco Bay from the County of Essex.
The artificially expanded island was, these days, home to the headquarters of the Provisional Government. Her old home would have stood on its northern remnants, just beyond the veil of the Red Mist.
Jessica wondered now if the apartment in her missing memories had been worn down just like these.
She shook her head. Now wasn't the time for sentimentality.
With more than just sand in all directions to go on, she could finally get her bearings.
Continuing to cross between the shadows of each building, she pulled up the map on her communicator. She wanted a little distance from her men right now, and she thought better while walking anyhow.
If we just came from an area that's been less explored, and we've now hit the city ruins then…
And to find north, judging by the angle of the shadows at this time of day she-
Froze.
The shadows.
That feeling of wrongness had gone from nagging to screaming.
The sun, Jessica realised. Her communicator read 18:13 now, but the sun hadn't moved at all.
With the bloodsprings reviving and Gregoria Silva leading in the public eye again, life is looking up for Cerberus Sergeant Jessica Chow. Sure, there was the snag with that portal just now, but how far away can she possibly be?
"I just want A2 ;-;" - Beta P
"Really boring [...] so I started skimming." - Beta M
"This is one I'm inclined to shrug on." - Beta J
A/N: Thanks to Pira, M, and especially Jayne for beta reading and editing.