Chapter 71…

Ashley was starting to wonder if the rain would ever stop…

Lyra-1's climate seemed to be nothing but rain and storms. A persistent rain fell from the sky, day and night, with no indication of it ever coming to an end. Sometimes it was a light drizzle, other times a torrential downpour…

Ashley leaned back in her makeshift seating arrangement. The dark haired woman stretched out her sore, bruised legs, groaning as her skin was gently stretched by the motions. Clenched in Ashley's left hand was her SMART pistol, a sullied white cloth in her right.

Obsidian-coloured eyes watched as the rain continued to fall. As Ashley watched and contemplated, she continued the gentle motion she had been repeating for the past few hours; she gently rubbed the cloth against the slide and barrel of the SMART pistol, again and again until the black metal began to glimmer in the dim light of the building…

Pursing her lips, Ashley dragged the cloth against the slide of the SMART pistol one last time. She turned her eyes downwards to look at the weapon. Her ruinously expensive pistol, her spoil of war from that terrible night on Antheia, was now covered in a new assortment of scratches and nicks. Ashley rubbed her fingertips against the scratches, feeling the jagged new grooves along the barrel and slide.

Ashley dragged her finger against the pistol's activation switch, watching as the scanner booted up. The dark haired woman flicked the switch to deactivate the pistol just as quickly. Ashley set the weapon down atop a crate to her immediate left - just one of the many crates which constituted her current seating arrangement…

The rain outside was picking up again… from a drizzle to a harsh downpour hidden by the fogs of the murky swamp which surrounded the dig site.

Taking a moment to rub her temples, Ashley clenched her hand tightly on the cleaning cloth and turned her head to her right. She had already cleaned her SMART pistol to the best of her abilities, although the environment called for a deeper cleaning once she had the proper tools; neatly stacked to her right was the rest of her equipment - her joint-pads, vest, and helmet.

Ashley's jumpsuit, which had been soiled with mud and grime, she had peeled off of herself at the earliest opportunity she could find. The long article was draped over a crate and left to dry in the cool air of the building. Ashley's equally waterlogged boots, hopelessly dirty and worn-out from use, had been turned upside down to drain out the majority of the water within.

Without her jumpsuit and boots Ashley had been left clad in her underlayer, a loose shirt and thin pants. The thin clothing left Ashley exposed to the cool air of Lyra-1's climate, but she was more comfortable than she would have been in waterlogged clothing.

Leaning over, which in her current state caused a painful strain on her midsection, Ashley scooped up her helmet into her hands. Settling herself back in her seat, Ashley placed her helmet in her lap and stared down at the object. The dark haired woman bit her lip as she observed the helmet's mute features. Her outstretched finger traced against a deep groove on the helmet's exterior - a groove which could have only been made by a bullet…

'What the fuck am I doing…?'

For a moment, Ashley considered tossing her helmet to the ground, but decided against it, instead allowing the heavy piece of headgear to roll off of her lap and onto the floor.

Two days in a row, Ashley had stared at that helmet. Two days in a row, Ashley had absentmindedly cleaned her SMART pistol. Two days in a row, Ashley had listened to the falling rain and tried not to think about what she and her cohorts had stumbled upon…

Ashley's helmet struck the floor with a hollow "thunk" and rolled away from her…

The strange headaches had stopped a day ago, replaced with a low humming buzz in the back of Ashley's head. It could have been a migraine, the constant rainfall and changes in air pressure would be a clear cause…

… but it wasn't a migraine, Ashley knew that much.

The headache… had a pattern to it… a pattern which Ashley recognized from somewhere but couldn't accurately put her finger on where…

But it was gone now, and Ashley couldn't even hope to remember it.

Picking at the bandages concealing the wounds on her arms, Ashley tried not to think about what had transpired two days ago. She tried not to think about the battle, the cavern… or what had been hidden away at the bottom of the abyss. Ashley tried not to think about the ancient room, with its time-worn decorations and faceless statues…

'A place not built by human hands…'

… and Ashley's boot prints were probably still down there - proof of her involvement in stumbling upon that place.

As it turned out, aliens existed… or had existed at one point in time…

Alien-life did exist, just the plants and trees littering the swamps of Lyra-1 was proof of that. But intelligent life, life capable of building such a complicated structure… those ruins were irrefutable proof…

Ashley continued to pick at the bandages on her arm, a numb feeling spreading throughout her body, as if ice water had been injected into her veins. After a few moments she realized that she was clenching her teeth together and relaxed her sore jaw.

"How are you?"

Snapped out of her reveries, Ashley looked up towards the wide doorway of the building. Her finger remained hooked underneath a bandage wrapped tightly around her right elbow.

Standing in the wide doorway was a tall imitation of the human form which Ashley was growing steadily more familiar with. Elijah was leaning against the doorframe, his long metal arms crossed across his chest, his clamp-like hands folded into his elbows in an eerily human motion.

"In pain…" Ashley answered with a frown. "Although my head's stopped hurting, so there's that…"

"Sheesh, you should consider yourself lucky…" Elijah chuckled in his distinctly computerised tone.

The simulacrum pushed himself off of the doorframe and padded into the small building. Rainwater dripped off of the metal plating bolted to the exterior of his body. With every step, Elijah's series of servos and joints flicked more water around the small room.

Elijah took a seat on an unattended crate, his metal body creaking and shifting as he grew still. His blue optic shone brightly in the dim light of the building, illuminating the room and casting small shadows on the walls.

"Lucky?" Ashley scoffed. "I can barely stand without getting sore…"

"Which gives you the excuse to sit around and relax," Elijah explained, his square head tilting to the side. "The rest of us are busy doing all of the heavy-lifting."

Ashley could imagine a man's face when she looked into Elijah's optic… perhaps an amused look, even. It was incredible what even the smallest of gestures could do for the simulacrum.

"Considering all of the shit I went through, I'd say that I deserve the right to rest… injuries aside…"

"Fair… and you did do a pretty hefty chunk of the work in capturing this place…" Elijah straightened his metal spine. "And now that you mention it… you look kind of like a mummy…"

The comment about Ashley's appearance elicited the smallest of chuckles from the dark haired woman. Her thoughts briefly drifted towards memories of a happier time - the brief respite she had had from the violence which had defined most of her life…

"Woah, did you just laugh…?" Elijah asked, his voice filled with wonder.

"Never…" Ashley pursed her lips. "I've just heard that joke before…"

"The metaphor?"

"Simile, technically," Ashley raised an eyebrow at the simulacrum. "And yes…"

"Where'd you hear it?"

Ashley paused for a long moment, her dark eyes scanning the steady downpour of rain just outside of the building's open door.

"I lived on a planet called Antheia for a while… it's where Barker recruited me," Ashley cleared her throat. "I made a few… friends… there."

"Antheia…" Elijah murdered. "Maybe I've heard of that place, but I've never been. What's it like?"

"Beautiful," Ashley answered, the edges of her lips lifting up into the slightest of smiles. "It's a garden planet, leafy and green, with winding rivers and fields of wildflowers."

"It sounds like a paradise…"

"Almost," Ashley let out a small groan as she pulled in her bruised legs. "It was close to a paradise, but held back by bands of roving marauders and hallucinogenic pollen…"

Elijah gave a computerised chuckle.

"I'm not joking…" Ashley lifted an eyebrow at her teammate.

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"Damn," Elijah shifted in his seat. "So why leave? Why join up with Barker?"

Ashley frowned and looked down at her lap. "Our team leader asked me that exact question… and she came to an answer before I could…"

"Money?"

"Bingo."

"But was that really the reason?" Elijah asked.

Ashley blinked in surprise.

"I know how Val comes across sometimes…" Elijah muttered. "She hates the IMC with every fiber of her being, and with very good reason. And after Demeter, well…"

"Demeter?" Ashley frowned. "What of it…"

"After Demeter the Militia's ranks swelled with IMC defectors…" Elijah continued. "Val was never much fond of that… even if we did need the manpower…"

"What are you saying?" Ashley gently shook her head.

"I'm saying that she has a habit of jumping to conclusions…" Elijah tilted his head again. "Are you really just here for the money, Ashley? I'm not judging you, we're both mercenaries, after all…"

"Yes and no," Ashley's frown grew deeper. "The money is… necessary…"

"But that's not the reason."

"No."

"Then why?"

"Personal reasons, I suppose…" Ashley cleared her throat. "There are some things I need to take care of before I can lay down my guns for good…"

"I won't pry into your reasons, we all have our secrets," Elijah gave a shifting shrug. "But you're planning to leave this life behind?"

"Eventually… live by the gun, die by the gun…" Ashley leaned back in her makeshift seat. "I got a taste of what regular life was like… and it wasn't all that bad."

"You have an admirable goal, and I really should take a page out of your book…" Elijah complimented, followed by a computerised sigh. "But for me, there's no end to this life."

"Oh?"

"I've given my entire life for this fight…" Elijah explained, his blue optic shining with an eerie glow. "Hell, I gave up my body too…"

Ashley's eyes flicked over to examine Elijah's metal body, with its complicated servos and criss-crossing wires.

"I… can't really live like I used to," Elijah turned his metal head towards the rain. "No five senses, and everybody gives me funny looks…"

"So that's it?" Ashley asked. "Just keep fighting? You've never wanted to do anything else?"

"Ashley, I'm functionally immortal…" Elijah splayed out his arms and lifted his square head. "Even if my current body gets turned into slag, my consciousness will simply be installed into a new one. Sure, it sounds good on paper… but then I realized that I would outlive everybody I care about…"

"So you'll just… keep going then?"

"Nah…" Elijah shook his square head. "One day, I'll probably just request for my consciousness to be deleted… it's the closest thing to death that I can think of…"

Ashley hesitated for a long moment, contemplating the simulacrum's words. The dark haired woman surprised even herself when she began to chuckle…

"What's so funny?" Elijah asked.

"That's it? You lost your body so there's no point to living?" Ashley continued to quietly chuckle. "Elijah, I've already outlived everyone I've ever cared about. But no matter how shit my life has been for the past few years, I've never thought about ending it…"

"Maybe you and I have a different way of looking at things…"

"Maybe," Ashley pursed her lips. "How did you become a simulacrum anyway?"

"Not much to tell," Elijah shrugged. "I was fighting from inside my titan, Eddy, when the cockpit was crushed-"

"Eddy?" Ashley turned her head to the side. "You named your titan 'Eddy'?"

"ED-7890," Elijah elaborated, a hint of whimsy in his computerised tone. "He was a good titan, a friend. What about you-"

"CN-8749…" Ashley answered the incoming question, the sides of her lips tightening into a frown. "Or 'Cain', as he used to prefer…"

"Cain?" Elijah chuckled. "Interesting choice of name, the-"

"The first murderer," Ashley nodded and sighed. "I regretted that name the moment I suggested it, but he insisted on keeping the designation…"

Elijah chuckled and leaned back in his seat. "Not a bad name for a titan…"

"He was a good friend," Ashley nodded. "And he saved my skin more than once…"

Ashley's frown grew more pronounced. "But we're getting off track here… how did you become a simulacrum?"

"Right, well they pulled my mangled corpse from the wreckage…" Elijah made a noise akin to a throat being cleared. "...and there were still a few neurons left firing around in my brain, just enough to make a copy and upload my consciousness into the Militia's database."

"It sounds like a complicated process."

"I don't understand any of it… but one day I woke up like… this…" Elijah muttered, his head turning down to examine his metal body. "It was a real shock… and in all honesty wasn't my first choice."

"Then who made the choice?"

"The boss…"

Ashley raised an eyebrow. "Barker? He made the call? He had you uploaded?"

"It was that, or let me bleed out…" Elijah shrugged. "He made the call, and I suppose that I should feel grateful…"

"But you don't…"

"It's… complicated…"

"Sure."

The conversation came to a natural end, the implications left hanging in the air. Ashley turned her attention back to the pouring rain, absentmindedly wringing her scarred hands together in her lap. Over the constant patter of rain arose a new, unfamiliar sound - a high pitched wind - the sound of air being sucked through engines…

Ashley's eyes widened as a large, dark form began to descend from the skies. As the object descended its form became clearer, and Ashley soon recognized it as a dropship. The vehicle was large and angular, with bent wings and bright running lights which cut through the rain and illuminated the muddy ground of the dig site.

With a groaning hitch, the dropship came to a rest, its landing gear sinking into the mud.

"The Militia is here already?" Ashley turned towards Elijah. "I thought that they were still a few days out…"

"Barker spooked them so much that they picked up the pace."

Pursing her lips, Ashley turned her attention back towards the dropship.

There was the loud echoing sound of metal rubbing against metal as the dropship's ramp began to lower. The bottom of the ramp sank into the muddy ground of the digsite, raindrops dancing against its metal surface.

Ashley narrowed her eyes as six unidentified figures began to descend the ramp. Each person was clad in combat equipment, their heads and shoulders shielded by rain ponchos which obscured their features. Only one of the six did not carry a rifle - the leader, perhaps, judging from their position in the centre of the formation.

"There's the boss…" Elijah pointed out, his clamp-like hand gesturing towards something in the distance.

The simulacrum's optic was clearly more powerful than Ashley's human vision. Squinting her eyes, Ashley watched as the silhouette of a familiar man appeared in the pouring rain. Barker was shielding his head with his hands. Flanked by two other pilots, Barker approached the small group which had exited the dropship. The sound of rain drowned out whatever the two groups were speaking about, but whatever the topic was, it seemed to be the cause of consternation; Ashley watched as Barker's hands began to fly up in frustrated gestures.

After sharing words, Barker led the group through the rain and in the direction of the quarry.

In a brief moment, the hooded leader of the Militia group turned their head, sweeping their gaze across the muddy expanse that was the dig site. Amongst the drab greys and browns of Lyra-1's environment, Ashley caught a glance of red cloth beneath the hood. The hooded leader turned their head away just as quickly, re-joining their cohorts as they stalked off into the rain.

"I wonder what that was about…" Ashley mumbled. "Looks like it was getting heated…"

"Barker doesn't have the best reputation in the Militia," Elijah explained. "It could've been about anything."

"Somehow, that news doesn't surprise me," Ashley frowned, re-adjusting her seating position and straightening her back. "But what's so important about those ruins? This seems like a job for archaeologists, not soldiers."

The simulacrum sitting beside Ashley remained silent - an action which instantly piqued the dark haired woman's interest.

"What is it?" Ashley huffed. "I'm still a recruit, so if there's something that I need to be filled in on, don't hesitate…"

"Alright…" Elijah muttered, his computerised voice low. The simulacrum turned his metal head from left to right, as if scanning the small building for eavesdroppers.

The motion made Ashley uncomfortable…

"Have you ever heard of a planet called Typhon?"

"Typhon?" Ashley frowned. "Didn't Barker mention that name back in the bar? Something about a 'situation', I think?"

"It's a planet- or, it was a planet," Elijah muttered, a noise escaping from his speakers which sounded eerily like a loud cough. "It was a former IMC stronghold, a garden planet in a distant system."

"You're saying that it was destroyed?"

"I'll get to that…" Elijah waved his clamp-hand dismissively. "To make a long story short, the Militia received some intel about a small IMC operation on Typhon; but when they got there the intel turned out to be bad and the Militia lost an entire fleet worth of ships. As it turned out the planet was a fortress and the IMC was working on something, a weapon… something capable of destroying planets…"

"Bullshit…" Ashley chuckled. "That's not possible."

"Normally, I'd share in your skepticism," the simulacrum shrugged, his optic glowing an eerie blue in the dim light. "But I watched from orbit as Typhon - a large planet - fractured, shattered and became a debris field. Some pilot, a guy named Cooper, managed to sabotage the weapon before it could fire and destroy Harmony."

"I don't believe this."

"Because you weren't there to see it…" Elijah insisted, leaning forwards in his seat.

"Whatever…" Ashley scoffed. "So what does any of this have to do with what we found in the bottom of that cave?"

"It could just be a false alarm," Elijah shrugged his metal shoulders. "But apparently, and I heard this second hand, mind you… the IMC weapon was powered by something called 'the ark'..."

"And?"

"I don't know…" The simulacrum shook his metal head. "Maybe this is all just a coincidence… but whatever this 'ark' was, humans didn't build it. And while the 'ark' found on Typhon was confirmed to be destroyed, who's to say that the IMC didn't find another one…?"

"I'll admit, my view on the universe has changed quite a bit the past few days…" Ashley shook her head. "But I'm staying skeptical on this one, Elijah."

"You do you…" Elijah grunted as he stood up to his full, imposing height. His metal servos audibly whirring, the simulacrum made for the wide door of the building. "Well, I've slacked off enough for the time being. Do you need anything? I think the rain is going to be falling heavily for a while."

"My helmet," Ashley jerked her head in the direction of the discarded headgear. "Could you toss it over?"

"I'll hand it to you instead…" Elijah huffed as he bent down and retrieved Ashley's helmet. "You and I both know that you couldn't catch your helmet if you tried…"

"In a few days, when I can move again, you're going to regret saying that."

Elijah chuckled, extending his arm and offering the headgear to the dark haired woman, which she gently accepted into her hands.

"See you later, Ashley."

Extending his metal fingers, Elijah offered a mock salute before he stepped out of the building. The pouring rain dribbled and danced off of his metal plating; and in just a few moments the simulacrum had disappeared from view, his body concealed by the rain and fog.

Ashley relaxed into her makeshift seat, turning her helmet over in her hands so that she could stare down at the mute faceplate.

"Ridiculous…" Ashley muttered. "Just ridiculous…"

But her murmured words lacked any conviction, and Ashley knew this.