Crawl

A/N: Cross wasn't the only one to have trouble getting to NLA, and Lila is no Cross. Grit will get you far, though.

Set pre-game, on arrival on Mira, with heavy spoilers to Ch.5. Pain, not much swears. Lila is not Cross, she's not even close, just a non-canon NPC with a blue speech bubble on skell fuel usage. Everything else belongs to the geniuses of MONOLITHSOFT.

Because, on a really bad Monday, what other choice do we have?

Except it isn't a Monday, at least not when I left, thought Lila. She wasn't sure how long she'd been in the pod, and there was no one to ask. No one left that could answer.

She had snugged herself into Emergency Escape Pod WW/11/28c only moments before, by her own consciousness. At the time, she had been on the White Whale, and the last person left in the local evacuation center after WW/11/28b had launched, but clearly things had happened since then. For one thing, she was planetside, probably the planet that had unexpectedly bumped them into orbit. For another, the other personal capsules weren't empty, or least they hadn't been. The pod must have waited for more passengers, arriving in the precious window after the start of the loading sequence and before the start of the launch.

Unfortunately for them, they hadn't survived the trip. Once she'd climbed out, Lila had noticed damage to the outside of the pod, probably beam energy from the enemies that had swarmed the White Whale. Why they'd target something as insignificant as an escape pod, she couldn't say. Maybe it had been fire aimed at the big ship itself. Maybe they really were as petty and murderous as humans feared. Inside, three capsules were blackened, but not empty.

Several of the capsules were missing. The escape pods had an extra safety feature. In case of extreme failure or attack, the capsules could self-launch within the planetary range, scattering about the surface. Perhaps they were safe, somewhere nearby, although in that case they were probably still asleep, since independent capsules couldn't self-revive.

Then why was Lila's capsule still with the main pod? She found her answer, looking down along the side of the wildly tilted pod. Enough damage had been done to it so that not all capsules could eject. Four lucky ones had stayed put because beam damage had fused the clamps on that side. Three had turned unlucky when the lowest side of the pod scraped the ground when it crashed into the planet, dragging a long scar in the earth. Only her capsule, not too burnt, not too scraped, but just right, had survived successfully.

And that was all she learned, for a long while, as she turned her eyes up to a rich blue sky, then across a sweep of improbable mesas and majestic waterfalls. A herd of reptilian wolves wandered past. The air was real, with a gentle wind, and full of sounds that weren't echoes on panels and had no mechanical qualities whatsoever.

Agoraphobia struck her like a rock to the head, and she fell off the pod, crashing to the ground. She crawled as far under the tilting, blackened pod as she could, whimpering. Thought left her, as she tried very very hard not to vomit, not to scream, not to die.

The crevice where pod met ground was muddy, and smelled like burnt insulation. If a smell could be evil, this would be the one. It also smelled of rain and roots, destroyed roots. She felt so sorry for the plants. They hadn't asked to be torn apart like that. She concentrated very hard on feeling sorry for them, and not for herself, and ignored her gasping breath until it wasn't quite so gasping. She was quite cold from the mud by the time that happened, but she was glad that it actually had happened.

From the safety of the crevice, she peeped at the new world. She was prepared this time, though. She didn't look at the cliffs or floating islands … "How? How could they do that? Don't think about that, do not think about that," she schooled herself. More breathing followed this, more focus on mud and roots and calculating the chances that the grass might grow back within a month. She peeped one more time, looking only a scarce meter from the edge of the pod, and very carefully no farther. Grass, innocent of any damage, sat almost within an arm span. Somewhat shaded by the pod, but otherwise unconcerned. The planet was just fine, apparently.

Maybe she could crawl to that clump, because even though she craved the security of the pod, she knew it wasn't safe. Things still crackled inside it, the burning smells were not stopping, and the whole thing was tilting perhaps just a bit more, squeezing down on her. A cozy sensation, in one way, but if it decided to shift, she would be squished. More than squished, she would be dead. It wasn't a far crawl, and the gently waving grass would make a fine welcoming committee to an alien refugee that couldn't stand upright without losing her mind.

More breathing followed. She really wanted to stay in the crevice, but the pod seemed to be growing warmer. This was the final push to start her journey. But not on foot. She could do this, but only if she kept her nose close to the ground. Only crawling on her hands and knees could work, a crouch would not do. At least I'm not reduced to belly crawling, she thought. Yet.

The attempt was a wild success. She made not just the clump, but a sort of bush almost two body lengths beyond it, an assemblage of carnelian branches, covered in knobs that unfolded into slightly flared tubes at the tips. She looked back, very carefully focusing on the lowest, closest stretch, to admire her success, and noticed the black smoke pouring out of the escape pod along with a few dainty orange sparks. No resting, then, she needed to put as much space as she could between herself and the as-yet-unexploded remains of her erstwhile savior. She eyed another clump of grass, directly away from the bush, probably west, guessing from lengthening shadows. "Let's do this," she whispered, closed her eyes and left the safety of the bush.

It hadn't been like this before. Back on … she shuddered to a halt and laid her face full in the dirt, ignoring the prickles and the something poking her nose. She could only handle one trauma at a time, and thinking about Earth wasn't helping. Yet more breathing, until the first worrisome popping sounds from the pod spurred her to renewed crawling.

Back before, this hadn't been a real problem. Sure, she hadn't enjoyed large spaces, with or without crowds, but that was only a mild dislike. A momentary pause to orient herself, a slight maneuver to be closer to a wall, a preference for an inside booth rather than patio life, it all could be dismissed with a sheepish shrug. She'd lived a normal life. She'd cheered herself hoarse at football games (Go Navy!), gotten sunburned on the beach, gone on wobbly bike rides, she'd managed so many things before it was all … (taken away, gone gone gone, lost, destroyed, ruined and stolen, gone gone gone) (stop) And here she was at the clump, this one split into three parts with a small viney herb twisting low between the stems. She saw a small shiny crawling thing, redder than the reddest lady bug, and with a few more legs.

No, you couldn't blame any of this on what was before. The problem had really started when they transferred the crew into the mimeosomes. A good idea, let them test it before the ship went up, back when some people weren't even completely sure it would have to go up. Plus the strength and stamina of the mims contributed to the project being completed almost a year ahead of schedule. It was probably what had saved the ship.

But there had been issues. The first mims were featureless droids, scanners for eyes, internal speakers for voices. She'd seen videos of them, and they were creepy. As it turned out, they were also very hard for humans to control. Without binocular eyes, the mims would spin and swivel, trying to control the field of vision. Without proper mouths, they emitted garbled noises, at best managing a stream of consciousness jumble of words and jibberish. So the designers had reluctantly added eyes and mouth assemblies, and then, because that looked truly creepy on its own, they had added proper faces.

But it was still hard for humans to communicate with these blank faces, so they'd added mobility, lips that could frown, pupils that could dilate, cheeks for blushing, eyebrows to raise, tears. Once you started on this path, there was little point in stopping. Hair. Toes. Flesh generally. Fingerprints (but these they improved, making them truly unique and coded with your service number). Breasts and belly buttons. The designers didn't even enter the exciting argument about genitalia, pro or con, simply applying it as accurately as possible, and moving on to the more fiddly issue of necks and just how far they should be able to turn and bend.

The final result was a series of mimeosomes that could be individualized, in very small and easy ways. The process took 30 minutes at most, if you took it slow. Very effective, but in reality, the change was only on the outside. You saw a group of individuals, but the base forms were still fairly standard, within a limited range of heights and weights. Maybe a little more muscle here or slightly more gracile limbs there, but for the most part, they were interchangeable. A brilliant advantage for the ship, where the infrastructure could now be standardized. Same suits, same chairs, same beds, everything fit so much better.

Except for the stubborn problem that a large number of humans simply could not synch successfully with the standard model mims. About 10% of the crew were at a loss when put in a body that deviated too much from their original size and shape. The number was probably higher, masked by the fact that the standard range matched so many people to start with. Many, but not all. The Chief Engineer was a choice example. Put him in a standard body and he spun like a loose puppet, unable to stop his limbs from flailing and body from turning. Hilarious, unless you believed his growled death threats directed at the mimeosome development team in general and that fool laughing in the corner in particular. They'd had to make him a custom mim frame, with shoulders like this and fists like that. (And the mim team had wisely kept the technician with the unfortunate tendency to giggle far far away from the ultimately successful synch, lest the Chief carry out his promise to pound him so hard his grandson would feel it.)

After that, any trouble with synchronization signaled a need to build a custom mim. It really wasn't much of a bother. The process was fairly simple, by the end the mimeosome team had it automated and it only took a few extra days before the resynching could occur. Lila hadn't worried when her tall, slender, perfectly standard mim had crashed to the wildly tilting floor at the first fitting. The Chief had been fine, Louisa in fuel optimization had been fine, and so would she. Sure, she'd kind of looked forward to not being so very short. She'd made the military height requirement without having to stretch, but she definitely couldn't slouch. It might have been nice to look the Chief in the eyes, or closer to it. But no, not a chance. Still, short was good, solid was good, she was built for distance, not for speed.

Definitely not speed. She'd made it to a rock by this time, actually the crumbling debris from a cliff. Uphill, no less. The rock seemed deeply serious and was a silvery grey color, too fine for sedimentary rock, but fracturing in a way that didn't match metamorphic rock. Something to ponder, later. Lila crawled to the far side of it to rest in the late afternoon sunshine. She didn't sit up, let's not be crazy, but she managed a relaxed curled position, not quite fetal but evocative of it. This was exactly where she needed to be as the escape pod, now a fair length behind her, started to fragment in a series of smallish explosions. She cowered, much less relaxed, for several minutes, even though no debris quite reached her. She heard animals make protesting noises in the near distance, but she didn't look up. Snuggling with the dirt, grass, and this experienced rock seemed a far healthier personal choice.

She had no idea where she should go, what she should do. No amount of crawling or cowering or considering geology could really distract from the utter terror ripping her insides. She'd started west when she'd left the pod, was it hours ago? Something seemed to pull her in that direction. She'd made use of this kind of weird intuition before, back on … during the project, and decided that perhaps the root cause was still in effect. The bluff that had generated the kindly rock lay to the west and would make a good target even when the sunset had finished. She wasn't properly crawling anymore, managing only a sort of dragging scrape along the dirt and grass, with a lot of whimpering and even some stifled moans. But she'd make the bluff or die. "Possibly both," she whispered, and then choked on the strangeness of her voice.

The resynchronization had worked perfectly. They'd even risked an extra two cm of height, with no ill effects. She'd walked the line, completed the reaction tests, read the eye charts and followed the bouncing ball, all no problem. Congratulations all around, but very quickly, next please! She'd trotted down the hall and out the exit door.

By the unseen heavens, did she really need to remember that first hit of agoraphobia at this exact minute? Did she really need to top her reaction to whatever this planet was doing to her with another one, on a planet long distant and so long gone (lost lost lo.. stop right now)?

She laid her head in the alien mud and wept, hopelessly. Far above her, the sky took on all the colors of a super deluxe Hawaiian shave ice, with gently crooning floaty glowy sky whales passing by. But Lila was far away, remembering the moment she had exited the mimeosome synchronization unit. All those years ago and distances away, she had walked out of a now destroyed building, onto a now destroyed desert playa, under a now destroyed sky, and completely been unhinged. Things had billowed and swayed and both rushed at her and torn themselves away. The hot air had growled somehow, and she had been unable to breathe or move. She'd felt her way along the wall, blinded, and made it to the barracks. Rest, food, a good night's sleep, clearly that was what she'd needed.

It hadn't helped. The sensations had ended the instant she made the inside, but the next morning, she crossed the doorway into terror again. For three days, she lurched about her job, finding it increasingly difficult to go out into the wild carnivorous storm. Impossible under the best of circumstances, but since her job required fine tuning the experimental solar array several times a day, it was more than impossible. It was deadly.

Just as deadly to report to the mimeosome team. Already, good people were disappearing, replaced by unreliable strangers with lesser skills and questionable bone fides. One teammate had gone down with the stomach flu, right after his scheduled synchronization. Lila had never seen Manny again. Five days later, his job was filled by a bored and icy blonde. The stranger had casually handed her toolkit to a series of boyfriends, men who had done wildly unreliable work, while she herself at best watched with enormous violet eyes; just as often, she'd evaporated for her own purposes. No one could figure out why she had replaced Manny. But clearly, mims couldn't get flu. Lila had asked around, just casually, and found out that the mimeosome team had diagnosed Manny with mim related motion sickness, rare and sadly something they couldn't fix. Grounds for removal from the project. After that, Lila had tried not to hate the blonde, a wasted effort, but necessary for Lila's own peace of mind. She could hate only so many things at one time.

She'd made the bluff by now, night cooling rapidly. Crickets chirruped, except they couldn't be crickets. She had no idea what they might be like. The angry buzzing was definitely not mosquitoes. Luckily, the sidearm that was part of the pod emergency pack she'd grabbed was amazingly effective, considering how she had fired wildly while crumpled on the ground, face buried in the crook of her arm. An insect the size of a duck, with a stinger the length of her hand, crashed down beside her. By the end of the second day, she was over and around the bluff, and moving west one grass tuft at a time. Maybe a few minutes hike under normal conditions. Still, this was effective, this might work. She could only hope it was the right thing to do.

When she felt too terrified even to move, which usually happened when she was most exposed, she simply gave up for a while. She let her mind completely loose, sacrificing most of it to the terror that surrounded her. But one small part she focused on the dirt or grass nearest her. Sometimes there were even flowers, she lived for when there were flowers. She could look at those, a centimeter from her face, and try to think very hard about their existence. Were they white to attract insects? Or to reflect light? Or just because that was a side effect of some other biological need? Even without flowers, she could imagine what existence for mud was like, the skin of this new planet, maybe her new home, stretching she didn't yet know how far. It helped her return to herself after some minutes, or maybe hours, of helplessness. And the next grass tuft promised another chance to focus.

Back when she'd first been synchronized, her only hope had been to mask her symptoms, and after three days blundering around the desert facility, her luck had run out. Or maybe her body couldn't do it. The Chief had found her shaking and blank faced, plastered to an electrical switching box next to the panel array. He'd frog marched her back to his office, hand clamped tight to her arm, probably holding the whole of her weight as they moved, and dumped her into a chair in the tiny office he almost never used.

"Explain what's happening, Petty Officer Brown."

The military rank, while obsolete for the project, brought Lila back to a safer environment. She'd felt a moment of gratitude he'd remembered her final rank; she'd only made Seaman when she'd first worked for him years back. Her eyes regained their focus, and she was proud she'd only needed to cough twice before speaking. "I'm having some problems with my synchronization, sir."

"Motion sickness?"

She hesitated. "No, Chief, not exactly. More of a trouble with perceiving distances."

"You're still no good at lying, Brown. I've seen you play poker. Terrible."

She hated poker. "It only happens outside, sir."

"You can't do your job. Hell, you can't do any job. We're going to have to replace you."

"Respectfully, sir, the synchronization works fine indoors. And it's only been three days…"

She knew what it meant to be replaced. So did the Chief. He was right, but she really didn't want to be left behind. Others pretended this was a just-in-case project, but the people she respected weren't treating it that way.

The Chief frowned and kept silent. Lila steeled herself for his decision. She knew what it had to be; she would take it and not argue.

"Is it worse during the daytime or night?"

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Day or night? Is it worse?" he growled impatiently.

Lila had to pause to consider, even if it made him angrier. Stammering and umming was far worse. "Daytime, sir. It's harder during the day. Something about the heat and light."

She knew at once that she'd said the right thing. The Chief's smile returned, and he whistled in relief. "Come on, Petty Officer." She'd trotted after him, only to balk at the exit.

"Come on." He'd grabbed her wrist, hard. And off they went, Lila so close on his heels that she crashed into him when they reached the skell maintenance hangar. It was like crashing into a largish tree.

"Sorry, sir."

"Get in and tell them I've sent them somebody for the night shift."

Turned out, the skell repair team had been whining about needing more hands, especially overnight, doing the grunt maintenance work. Oil changes, refueling, scrubbing the treads, brainless ugly stuff. Alexa, the auburn head of the department, explained it all cheerfully. "It's a waste for anyone on the project, of course. Somebody's got to do it but nobody wants to. You don't get to ride 'em or improve 'em, just make them all pretty for the real crew. What's the fun of that?"

She looked speculatively at Lila. "Sooo, what exactly did you do to get the Chief so mad at you? Because this is NOT a reward, I promise you that."

Lila had said something completely unconvincing about wanting to help out any way she could.

"Probably got pushed into doing it by dear sweet Nagi. God, I love that man almost as much as I love me some skells." The woman gave a happy sigh before asking sharply, "You don't happen to owe the Chief money, do you?"

"I'm terrible at poker, apparently," Lila replied, and the matter was settled.

The switch worked, or at least well enough to keep her on the project. She'd made each and every skell a thing of beauty, zealously changing and dusting, refueling with an accuracy usually found only in the manual. She'd also cleared up the endless whirl of paperwork, earning the casual thanks of Alexa.

By the second week, Lila had come to terms with the problems her mimeosome was causing. There were tricks for crossing the campus when the outside was a world of poison, acid and knives. Racing along walls took more time but could keep her from buckling. Darting though buildings drew suspicion until she took on the task of refilling vending machines along the way. (There was some reasonable complaint that this was a waste of valuable resources. Mims didn't need to eat the same way humans did. But no one could deny the universal law that, mim or human, if you were working insane overtime, snacks were essential.) She'd worn a welder's helmet for two days before the ridiculous nature of it made her reluctantly abandon that plan. Pride wasn't stronger than terror, but it couldn't be ignored either.

The true solution came from the nature of the mimeosome itself. Lila found that, if she was very clear in where she wanted to go and if she launched herself fairly quickly toward it (i.e. at a flat out run), the mim automatically went to the destination. Lila could zone out and leave it to swerve, turn, even jump. Internally she could be a jibbering wreck of pain and fear. Externally, her body would arrive at the end point without her help. She couldn't return greetings, problematic, but she could get to where she needed to go. She couldn't risk driving, but for short distance travel it worked perfectly. At the end of the month, she reported to the Chief that she was contributing completely to the project, and he had given a noncommittal grunt. Nothing more about replacement was said.

The mimeosomes had a certain homing censor, which helped their owners orient themselves in varying gravities or electrical fields. Or when blindly running across a parking lot. Lila hoped that this censor was leading her towards the White Whale, or whatever was left of it.

Eleven days later, plastered with mud and purple dung, knees worn clean of any artificial skin, and with an encyclopedic knowledge of the grass species and lesser insects of the planet she would learn was called Mira, Lila made the Eastern Gate of New Los Angeles.

a/N: Written on a really bad Monday, clearly, as I sat like Patience whilest Youngest Child howled about history homework (elementary school has much to answer for). Probably the third piece I ever started, and the one that made me think, yup, this is now a thing, I'm doomed. Also, do you get that I love Primordia almost as much as I love Oblivia?

Next up: Safe and sound in New Los Angeles. And who is that hunk with the perfect powder blue eye shadow? Lara? Baby Doll! Mediators FTW!