"How was the ceremony?"
"You could've been there to find out for yourself." Annoyance permeated Pa-5's entire being. It wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last. Sometimes, she questioned if he had ever loved anything aside work.
"I could've. And if I were there, you and I wouldn't have this conversation right now."
The remnants of their meal were strung across the table between them. Two steaming mugs were all that remained; they were untouched. She looked into his eyes, finding sympathy, but no apology. Was it so hard to set aside the duties of the Prime Beacon for one day?
"Your man would've handled it. He's capable; otherwise, you wouldn't have accepted him into the position."
He gave the usual, infuriating chuckle and stretched. They listened to his joints popping. "Understanding my reasoning means nothing. They needed me on hand if a higher tier appeared."
"And did one appear?" She'd already read through the follow-up reports and knew the answer. Yes, a blue Aud had appeared during the ambush. And yes, it was dead now, thanks in no small part to the man sitting across from her. "He's nearly as capable as you."
"If a job requires a hundred percent output, ninety wouldn't cut it."
"Old man, you never make a lot of sense. Ever thought of taking breaks? One day, you'll run yourself so ragged there won't be enough of you to fit in that WAV you live in."
"That's uncalled for. I only spend as much time as I do in Co-6 to train."
"You named your suit. And you sleep in 'her'."
"Is that jealousy I hear?"
"Who'd be jealous of it? I'm just concerned you one day won't come out of it."
"Maybe that day will come sooner if you don't start being more respectful!" They shared a smile despite their age difference. Just as he picked up his mug, there was a buzz from his neck.
She waited while he answered the call, anticipating what would happen after. After a few minutes of tense whispering, he ended the transmission, looking apologetic. "I have to go."
Just when they started getting past his last exodus. She sighed, tossing her hand. "Make sure you don't come back this time covered in lacerations. You come home so little as is; I'm getting tired of visiting you in medical."
"It's just a meeting. Nothing will try to kill me," he assured her, already pulling on his coat and disposing the waste. She smiled bitterly into her mug. For once, the syrup failed to cheer her up.
"You should get going too." She looked up, seeing his face peeking around the corner.
"Where?"
He pinned her with a hard stare. Something felt wrong the longer he maintained it. "Out of here. Hallucinations are a waste of time."
She blinked, and he had crossed the distance of the room. Their faces were close enough she felt his hot breath on her cheek; she was exposed to the hostility radiating from every pore.
"Wake. Up."
Reality returned in a rush of agony permeating every fiber of her being. She felt like an Aud sat on her. Maybe that was what was happening? She tried to sit up, but her limbs were defective, refusing to twitch.
Even twitching seemed beyond them. They were stuck in a seizing grasp, unable to do anything but transmit the pain signals to her overloaded brain. She sucked in a couple breaths, coughing raggedly. Most of the suit's internal LEDs had cracked, but they still flickered weakly with light, painting the insides red. Or was that the blood?
She hacked up another glob, wishing she could wipe her mouth. Distant and glitchy, the HUD came to the rescue. "Notice: Resuscitation procedure successful. Addendum: Additional injections deemed harmful. Proceed?"
It hardly mattered at this point. She couldn't feel her legs. "Y-yes."
A needle pinched her arm, injecting copious amounts of painkillers and coagulants. All that internal bleeding had compounded. She'd been tossed like a ragdoll, forced to resist countless impacts, nearly blew herself up, and…right. She'd fallen a tremendous height.
The pain was dampened as the painkiller solutions reached the troublesome areas. It brought her enough clarity of mind to force together her scattered thoughts. Come on, she told herself. It wasn't the first time she'd forced her brain to work under drugs. She was surprised she was even capable of coherent thought.
The greater tunnels were kilometers high. She should've been falling long enough to approach her terminal velocity. And what was worse, she had been packed inside the WAV. The only explanation for her survival was the frankly insane number of injections she'd subjected herself to.
But even those hadn't done the job right. If not for the HUD's timely resuscitation, Feeling limited strength returned to her neck, she turned the helmet on its side, staring out into the darkness. The night vision function had been deactivated, so a blanket of blackness pressed down on her from all sides. The power core had been undoubtedly damaged by the fall.
She willed her hands to move, wincing even in her drugged state. It felt like thousands of shards had replaced her bones. She pressed them against the ground, fighting against gravity. It was a long, arduous struggle, but she relented. She felt faint, about ready to return to unconsciousness.
She needed a plan. She couldn't move on her own anymore; her body was compromised. But while convenient, the WAV didn't need her body to move. Just her head. And it was more or less still in one piece.
"Activate automated movement. Protocol YJ-3." The HUD took the reins, assigning dozens of quaternary intelligence programs to cover the various functions of the suit that remained operational. It abandoned its diagnostics and instructed the suit to sit up.
The servos were in such a bad condition she could hear them creaking behind her back, but before they even made it up halfway, something forced them back down.
The HUD crackled. There were Aud around her. She could surmise that much. Her fall would've been louder than any flash cylinder, anyway. And one of them had located her. Or it had already been by her.
No. "Notice: Two green furs in immediate vicinity." She felt the fight leave her bones. One was already on top of her, preventing any possible movement. The light WAV wouldn't have had a chance at moving it had it been in its prime condition, never mind how it was now.
She could only hope they were merciful and didn't play with their food for too long. She froze as one of them moved, pressing down on her chest. She could feel the hoof slowly sink into the chest plate. It wasn't planning on crushing her the old-fashioned way?
Her surviving audio sensors caught its companion growling, and the pressure relented. She took in a breath, relieved. But also suspicious. Why had it been called away? Her earlier conclusion about their intelligence came back to haunt her.
Knowing what she did--which still amounted to nothing, she was prepared to die a swift death, but also a long one. Aud were spontaneous when it came to their method of slaughtering humanity. Sometimes they would be almost kind, ending the suffering with a single bite.
Others, they could appear almost vindictive and sadistic, ripping off the limbs of victims one by one, or slowly slitting open their stomachs. She squeezed her eyes shut as if she could will them away.
Further down, she heard something crunch, then tear. She was dragged forward. The HUD informed her of a breach in the thigh plating. The damage to internal modules was inevitable. Although it was a small comfort, she was relieved to discover they didn't start in the leg storing the Aud blood and the triangle stone.
And it was only a small comfort. More ripping and she was dragged further forward. She bit her lip in the darkness as nothing else happened. What were they doing to her? Or what were they doing already?
The cave winds rose furiously, echoing past and obscuring what little noise the sensors could still discern. She felt herself tugged forward. Was that a snap?
She spent a few agonizing moments unable to catch any other indication of what the Aud were up to. Pa-5 felt ready to scream to hear something aside from the deafening winds when they suddenly died down.
Was that…chewing? The echoes were distorted. It sounded wet. She gagged as a nagging thought intruded in the back of her mind. She couldn't feel her legs. And the leg armor had been the first portion torn open.
She was nauseous at the idea, pushing it down. But it refused to be silenced, pushing back with increased fervor. It made sense. The only reason to explain why she wasn't dead already.
She was being eaten alive.
And the Aud had started with the one part of her that might as well have been dead weight. Relief came first, followed by terror. She couldn't feel the pain of being consumed, but what did that matter? She was still being consumed in the first place!
"HUD?" She couldn't stay like this. Her leg had to be half-gone by now, and it wouldn't be long until they moved to other parts of her body. Her other leg, her stomach, her…
She swallowed the bile, grimly staring forward. Or was it to the side? Or up? She lost all sense of direction despite being rooted to the stone ground.
Wait. Stone was fragile. She summoned the diagram, frantically reorienting the angle. She zoomed out, abandoning the close-up she'd maintained until now. It wasn't moving fast enough!
She felt another pinch in her already numbing arm. She wasn't sure whether she'd give out from the excessive doping or the Aud ripping open her flesh first. It was a small comfort to know that until then, the HUD would do everything in its power to keep her alive.
There! She studied the tunnels hurriedly. Above the greater tunnel was the lesser tunnel with the fragile ground she'd fallen from. They both stretched on into what seemed like infinity, but they were no longer what interested her. What she needed, rather, was what was below her.
Another greater tunnel had made a path cutting right underneath the one she was suffering in. Or maybe it was the same tunnel twisting back around, but that wasn't important. She felt desperate as she was dragged forward again, hearing the sound of metal being torn open.
The scutumsteel had held admirably until this point. She closed her eyes. Would this work? It would certainly be a surprise to the Aud ripping the flesh from her legs. But she needed something better than that to survive.
So she dragged her sluggish mind out of its dying stupor. Ignoring the signals the arms were still sending it, it sent its own. Instructions. Even numbed, her arms were plenty capable of making her feel like they'd been stabbed through and through.
But her arm obeyed this time, rising into the air. She smiled, her teeth painted red. It was said all animals had an instinctual need to put up one last iota of resistance before succumbing to their wounds. Here was hers.
Before the HUD could tell her the plan a broken, drug-addled mind produced was riddled with holes and not likely to work, before the blood loss returned her to unconsciousness, and before she could change her mind, Pa-5 aimed her surviving launcher at the ground.
Here went nothing.