"I am your Ghost," the little machine said, sounding pleased. Her fingers were aching now and she shook her head once, the action more another strong shiver than a conscious motion.
"Ghost?" she asked. "I don't understand. Who am I? I don't- I can't remember anything…"
"I know, I'm sorry," it told her. "There is going to be much you don't understand for a while, but I will do my best to help you. Let's take this one step at a time."
The metal box had started to cool. The Ghost turned toward it and heated it up again with that beam and she nodded gratefully, moving her hands closer to it again.
"Sometimes," the Ghost said, looking back at her, "with a lot of concentration, a name can be remembered. Not always the whole name, but the first name at least."
"What?" she asked, looking at him stupidly.
"Names are a very intrinsic part of an organic's identity," he said. "Names are associated from the moment an organic is born and is reinforced throughout their entire lives. Concentrate if you can, see if you can remember it. What is your name?"
She blinked at the thing once, then twice. Her brows knit up again and her mouth worked into a tight frown of concentration.
My name… she thought. My name. Think. What is my name?
It wasn't easy. Her mind was a swirl of confusion. What was this little bot machine? Where was she? How had she gotten here? The dark black that preceded her wakening in the road just a moment ago was an impenetrable void that both worried and outright scared her.
Trying to sort through the confusion she kept repeating to herself over and over again: My name…what is my name? My name…
After a long minute of silent struggle, the Ghost made a sympathetic sound. "It's all right," it said gently. "Sometimes the name just can't be remembered. You'll just get to pick a new one."
She looked at him as he reheated the cooling box again. "Perhaps…" she said slowly. "Perhaps if you take me by surprise?"
He turned back toward her. "Surprise?"
"Yes," she said. "We can talk…about something else. Like what I am doing here, and who you are. Then, when I'm not thinking about it, ask me my name. Maybe it'll be a reflex, and I'll just give it without thinking."
"Huh. That's an interesting idea," he said thoughtfully. "Well, won't hurt to try."
"So…what are you? Can we start there?" she asked.
Occasionally turning to reheat the metal box, the Ghost started to speak. He didn't first tell her what he was- clearly thinking she wouldn't understand without a bit of background first. Instead, he started the tale much further in the past and built up to it. He told her about human civilization, about the discovery of the Traveler on Mars long centuries before. He told her about the Golden Age that the Traveler's arrival had ushered mankind into.
"Sadly, we don't know much about the Golden Age. Quite a lot of it was lost in the devastation when it came to an end."
His ocular light seemed to indicate the landscape around them, outside the truck. "It was terrible. All of mankind's great cities, colonies, accomplishments, torn into ruins in a matter of days."
"Is this…is what is out there, is it all that is left?" she asked quietly.
"Not all, but most, yes," he said. "There is a city…the City, the last one on Earth or anywhere else. Billions died when the Golden Age ended, some say trillions. The few who survived fled back here, to Earth, to the City. And that's where they remain, the last of their species."
"But…what caused this End? What happened?"
"The Traveler had an enemy, something the Ancients called the Darkness. We're not sure now exactly what or who the Darkness is, but it was the cause of the End. The Traveler was able to save the City and those in it, but at great cost. The Traveler is badly damaged now, dormant- some say it is dead, or so close as to make no difference."
"And the Darkness?"
"Gone. Maybe nearly dead itself, no one knows for sure, and many fear it will be back."
This sounded like a fairy tale, a story told over a campfire somewhere. She had no context for its reality, for even starting to be able to accept it as fact. Of course, she had nothing to suggest it was not fact, either.
"And…me?" she asked. "Where is it we are now? What happened to me? Why can't I remember?"
"Right now, we are in what used to be Russia," the Ghost said, reheating the box. "Near one of the old Cosmodromes. It used to be a launching station for the colonies. During the End millions tried to flee the devastation of the Darkness here. That's what all those cars are out there, this truck. That…is where you come from."
"Where I come from?" she asked. "I don't-"
"You lived during the End," he told her kindly. "You were here, then, fleeing from the Darkness like those millions of others, most likely. Here is where you died."
She looked at him, the word umer not really sinking in. Died. She had died?
Giving her a moment he continued. "When the Traveler drove away the Darkness, it was too badly damaged to continue, and it knew this. It created the Ghosts- still creates them now and again in a sort of unconscious reflex. These Ghosts- like me- are tasked to find those who can do what the Traveler itself no longer can. They're called Guardians. You are a Guardian."
"I died, and now I'm a Guardian?" she asked flatly.
"Yes," he said. "Ghosts contain enough Light to regrow an organic from the smallest DNA sample. That is what I did with you. I found a sample that matched what I was looking for and used the Light inside me to…bring you back."
Thinking about this too hard made her feel sick, so she decided to just accept it for now. There wasn't much else she could do and she was too exhausted, cold and confused to even want to try. "Can you not bring back everyone who died then?"
"No. A Ghost only has enough Light to reconstitute a single person, and in doing so most of that Light transfers to the person they bring back. The Light I used to resurrect you is inside you now; it is part of you."
She pressed a hand to her chest and rubbed lightly, as if suddenly seized with momentary indigestion. The action was unconscious.
"Part of me?"
"Yes," he said patiently. "I have enough Light remaining inside me that I can interface with what is inside you. That allows me to heal you of almost all wounds if I need too. I can even bring you back from the dead again- in some circumstances. So long as I get to you fast enough, and you are in a large enough piece."
She must have suddenly looked both green and horrified, because he moved back an inch or two and seemed flustered.
"What I mean to say is it isn't- I mean, you're not immortal now if that's what you are thinking. You can still be killed, and if you are- if I'm gone or can't help you in time- it'll be permanent. The Light now inside you, it also does more-" He seemed suddenly eager to get the subject off of death. "Depending upon any aptitudes you might have, it will also grant you certain abilities. It can take what is written on your DNA and enhance it exponentially."
She shook her head again, clearly not following. He heated up the box again. Outside the wind had died down once more and the snow was thinning.
"Well, ones wiser than I will have to explain to you- mentors, other Guardians. I have been searching for you, so I have not spent time at the City or in the Tower. There is much I myself don't know. Suffice it to say that the Traveler made me to find you to be a Guardian of mankind in its stead- one of many. And the Light that now dwells inside you will help give you the abilities and tools you need to fulfill that duty."
She was quiet a very long while, long enough for the Ghost to heat the box up again twice. Finally she said slowly, "If the Darkness is gone, what do Guardians do? What do they guard people from?"
"The Darkness may be gone, but it had its servants as well," he said. "There are also others who simply want to take advantage. Mankind isn't alone in the system. There are the Fallen, the Cabal, the Hive- here on Earth the Fallen are the most concerning. They would delight in nothing more than to take down the City and kill every last human being alive. What is your name?"
As she had suggested, he asked the question when she was least prepared for it, her thoughts now completely on the concept of hostile alien creatures she was going to have to fight to save a dying human race.
It worked. As he asked, she got a momentary flash of memory- the only thing yet to have broken the impenetrable darkness that swallowed up everything before waking in the freezing cold.
A single image, quick as an eye blink. Someone smiling at her, a radiant smile that seemed as bright and hot as the sun, and in the wake of it she blurted out her name.
"Minerva Anosova."
"Ha!" The Ghost said, and gave a quick little spin. Though it had no face or any features a face would bear, she could have sworn it was grinning at her. Then it dipped forward a bit in a little bow.
"It is my honor to meet you, Minerva Anosova."
She had slept some. The discovery of her name- the only thing that actually felt solid and real in the entirety of her short life- had seemed to bring home exactly how cold, miserable, and exhausted she was. Without apology, she curled up in as tight a ball as she could, as close as she could to the metal box without risking a burn, and all but plunged into sleep.
She awoke an unknown amount of time later thickly drowsy, feeling as if every part of her body had frozen. It was the Ghost that awoke her, his little shape hovering close to her nose.
"Come on, you need to get up," he said, sounding heavily concerned. Her eyes slammed shut again almost immediately, and she mumbled something incoherent even to her.
The Ghost prodded her again with something that stung her cheek sharply, and she blinked stupidly at him.
"You need to get up," he said. "You're hypothermic. I didn't revive you just to let you freeze to death all over again."
Wearily, her gaze turned to the cold metal box nearby. Without her having to ask the Ghost said, "It's not enough to keep you as warm as you need," he said. "The sun is up but you'll still freeze to death if you stay asleep. I could bring you back, obviously, but I think you'd probably rather avoid that if you can. We should be moving anyway."
It looked out of the gaps in the truck almost worriedly. "Now that its daylight and it's stopped snowing the Fallen will be on the move. They won't waste a chance to kill you and destroy me if we're spotted, and in your condition, with no armor or weapons, you won't stand a chance."
In stiff, jerky, exhausted motions, Minerva managed to push herself up into a sit. She was so cold she wasn't even shivering any more, and her very organs felt encased in ice. Her hands had gone flat white, her fingers blue to the palm. The tips of several had patches of both white and black growing on them.
"Frostbite," the Ghost said. "Easily fixed. Hold them out."
Moving close to her hands as she stiffly obeyed, he passed a kind of thin beam over them. With a throb that felt like it was pushing sludge through the thin veins of her fingers, the patches of white and black shrank and vanished, and some of the color came back into her fingers.
She tucked her hands into her armpits. Thought came as slowly as motion did, and every fiber of her wanted to lay down and sleep again. Struggling against her stupor she said, "Where…do we go..?"
"I've sent a signal to the other Ghosts," he told her, passing that glittery beam over the rest of her. "The Tower will not leave a newly born Guardian exposed like this- they'll send someone to pick us up as soon as they can. Until they do, we need to get into the Cosmodrome. It offers cover and shelter and may even yield up something in the way of supplies."
The beam switched off. "There, that should at least make it easier to function. Healing takes a lot out of the one being healed- the worse the injury the worse the exhaustion. I'm sorry for the discomfort, but if I put you at perfect health and keep you there, you'll be so exhausted by it you won't be able to move."
She did feel better. Movement was easier, and though she was still horribly fatigued, thinking was no longer nearly impossible.
The Ghost bobbed out of the truck and took a quick look around before signaling her to follow. Somehow she managed to get out of the truck bed without falling on her face, and with a shuffling motion, she started to follow the little machine.
The sky was almost painfully bright though still overcast, clouds as white as the snow high overhead. As they left the truck, Minerva got her first real look at the world into which she had been so recently born.
The highway was so broken and overgrown only scattered slabs of concrete and shattered pillars showed it was a highway at all. Horribly rusted and battered by the elements, all the vehicles still on it had turned the same color- an almost necrotic orange yellow. Most of the vegetation she could see was scrub grass, jutting out of sweeps and hillocks of snow, with the occasional stumpy and thorny tree to add variety.
They wove through the graveyard that had once been a highway, the Ghost careful to find and lead her along the most level and easiest paths. The air was still bitterly frigid, and what little healing he'd managed to do seemed to be succumbing to the cold again. She couldn't do much more than shamble, hugging herself in her flimsy canvas and leather clothing.
About a mile ahead the highway took a bend to the left, and less than a hundred yards after that, huge walls as rusted and battered as the cars loomed into the sky. The highway seemed to vanish into them, the cars and trucks piled up right to what looked like a massive pair of gates that were only slightly ajar.
When they reached the leftward bend, the Ghost healed her a bit again. She felt simultaneously better and more drained, and she understood what he meant by exhaustion. The shapeless rubber boots on her feet felt as if they were actually made of lead, and her muscles barely seemed to want to cooperate.
They trudged on, but they had only made it about a hundred feet past the bend when a strange distant howling suddenly split the cold morning air. Minerva looked up at the sound, and the Ghost started darting about, turning his oculus in every direction.
"Wh-wh-what was that-t-t-t?" she asked. The healing had pulled her out of hypothermia enough to start shivering, and her teeth were chattering like mad.
"Fallen," he replied ominously. "Not close, but I think we've been spotted. Come on. We're nearly there."
He started on again and she hurried in his wake as fast as she could, her rough shamble transformed into a wearily staggering walk that did not give her progress much more speed. Ahead of them, the small gap in the Cosmodrome gates grew slowly nearer.
They had almost reached it when another howl broke out, this one sounding much closer. It was such an odd sound, animal yet like no sound any real animal would be capable of making. She wasn't eager to meet the thing that made that sound- certainly not while half frozen and unarmed.
Unarmed…would you even know what to do with a weapon if you had one?
At the very end of the highway, right in front of the gate, the rusted wrecks were piled so tightly against each other that at first Minerva thought she would have to climb them. It was a feat she was pretty sure would be impossible in her current condition, but thankfully the Ghost bobbed sharply to the left and lead her through a thin gap. Just as she reached the looming dark of the gate, something blue and strangely swirling sailed past her face. She felt a momentary flip, as if a light breeze had gone past her face, then the quick whiff of burning hair. The blue light struck the edge of the gate in front of her and scorched it.
"The Fallen!" the Ghost said, alarmed. "Hurry!"
She ducked into the black shadow of the gap and fumbled forward blindly for a second. Then the Ghost was sailing past her, its ocular light brightening and illuminating her path. Just past the wide gates there were yet more wrecks, the light carving them out of the darkness. The entire path forward seemed to be blocked, but an old stairway so overgrown with rust it looked like coral was to their right. She turned toward it, wondering how many steps she'd get up before she either collapsed or the Fallen shot her in the back.
Then suddenly there was even more light. Something dropped down in front of her from off of one of the trucks, the only sound a faint flap of cloth. Minerva jolted to a halt as a figure rose up in front of her. She could see no features, just a smooth mirrored blank plate, visible over some kind of scarf wrapped around what would be the nose and mouth. Over the figure's head was a fabric hood, attached to some kind of cloak or a cape.
The figure was a good deal shorter, and she gaped down at it. A face gaped right back up at her from that mirrored plate, and she hadn't even processed that it must be her own reflection before the looming barrel of a pistol pointed at her nose took its place.
"Hello," said a tinny, chipper female voice. "Drop please?"
