Futuristic Tyrannicide [Nacre]

[Lorsh]

"Soon as possible, so hurry it up. I've got the briefing notes on my PDA. You and Lian falling under me, basically," Terma informs you. She finger beckons you, beginning to walk off in the direction of the armory, expecting you to follow.

As the woman walks, she glances about the facility, keeping an eye out for Lian. Unlike the surface, there was little uniformity and each individual stood out slightly. Many of the rebels here still wore government-issued clothing, mostly citizen coveralls and utility jumpsuits, but they spited the Autumnal Dress Code by modifying them, and mixing and matching various articles that usually weren't allowed to go together. Slogans were stitched in them, company and Party patches were ripped off and replaced with those of the Connection.

Lian met Terma in one of the flickering corridors. He had a drab green Seclusion District jumpsuit, along with some synthleather shoulder and knee pads strapped over it. His hair looked blondish, except also a little green. A carbine was already slung over his shoulder. "Ready," he told her. Terma nodded, and soon she dropped by the armory. She gave her request to the man behind the bulletproof glass window, and two subguns were soon slipped into the small compartment after she completed the sign-out sheets. She slung hers over her shoulder, and handed you yours, along with three magazines.

"Right, so, before we take the wasteland tunnel outta here... The two of you are gonna stick behind me. No running off to do your own thing. See something weird, hear something weird, tell me. Let me do the talking when we get to the HVT. Apparently she's a real hothead or something, so... uh, keep that in mind. They had to mention it in the fucking briefing for some reason, so I guess keep it in mind. Any questions for me?" she asked, picking at something in her teeth.

Lian didn't have any questions.

 

[Yokai]

Affirmation given Eden forced herself to stand on tentative feet, abandoning the Station Mess in favour of trailing after Terma with a grim but resigned expression. Together they walked through the facility with Eden keeping her gaze straight ahead, fixed on the weaving figure of Terma as she passed through the crowds, visibly keeping an eye out for their third party member. It did not take long to find Lian. She was getting better at not staring these days too and she remembered to offer him a small nod of greeting.

With Lian in tow the three of them dropped by the armory. Eden murmured her quiet thanks when Terma passed the subgun over to her, slinging it over her dominant arm before taking the offering of magazines. The behavioural note on the cybie caused her brow to crease slightly as she wondered how hot-headed someone had to be to actually come with a disclaimer like that. Terma seemed like an easy-going and relatively relaxed individual, at least. Eden had no issue leaving the talking to her.

“None.” Eden answered her question briefly with a shake of her head. Asking a load of questions would just make her more anxious, and would probably annoy both Lian and Terma. It was best to just follow the natural progression of things.

 

[Lorsh]

Terma nods, keeping you and Lian in tow as she walks over to the tunnel entrance, which looks just like any other door in the complex. Though, after disengaging all the locking mechanisms and pulling it open, a craggy, cavernous thoroughfare is revealed, with a rough-hewn walkway. Terma ignites a lantern, leading the way through the darkness for what seems like hours as your forehead is intermittently dripped on by foul-smelling water. Many different turns and twists are taken, but Terma seems to know where she is going.

Eventually, the other Doxy comes to a stop, and begins to scale a stepladder that has been left in a specific spot. She pokes around at the ceiling, and sunlight begins to shine through as she pushes some plywood and sheet metal out of the way, finally crawling out of the

A dead forest of warped trees, ashen sand and dying weeds lays in front of you. This is the Gloom. Ablicar Urbzone's tall walls can still be seen in the distance, though you are now far beyond the range of any monitoring systems. The area is completely devoid of life, and things are eerily silent. There isn't even the sound of birds.

"Well, here we are, the great outdoors." Terma coughs into her sleeve, before glancing at her PDA, hitting some buttons as she tries to navigate.

Lian falls in behind her, surveying the area as they walk, looking for threats. "You know, I hear people live out here," he says quietly. "Free people. I wonder what it's like."

You see a few random things among the sand and rocks. Old cans, plastic shards, metallic-looking glints.

​

 

[Yokai]

From the oppressive, dank darkness of the tunnel below came the exposed, ashen husk of what was apparently the Gloom. Dead, charred trees reached with twisted branches to a seemingly endless, gray sky above and a chilling silence enveloped the three as they exited the tunnel’s entrance. Was everything dead out here, even the birds? Whiskey dark eyes blinked rapidly as Eden’s pupils adjusted to the change in light and she reached with her free hand to pull the neckline of her coveralls up, tucking her nose beneath the gray material in an attempt to escape the dust.

“Free people live out here?” Eden repeated, sincerely incredulous at Lian’s suggestion as her gaze caught on one of the particularly sharp metallic shards. It hardly looked like a liveable environment. She tried to imagine herself in the place of those who were ostracised and punished for simply being born. She wondered whether she'd be desperate enough to seek sanction in the Gloom. “It must be difficult… but at least they’re free.” It must be difficult, but at least it'd be equally difficult for everyone.

But was that the price for freedom? Living in a wasteland? Eden's lips turned downwards in disapproval and she turned her gaze to Terma instead.

 

[Lorsh]

"Sure, you're free from the Autumn fascists," Terma shrugged. "But if you try to live out here, you'll either starve, or get ate by mutants. Looks barren, but they're out there, trust me. And while I've heard they exist,I've never seen a Gloom dweller in my life. So I suggest you two dreamers stick close, and don't get any ideas about popping smoke."

Lian continued to muse as he walked. "I wouldn't live out here. I'd go looking for the Bloom, though," he said. "There's patches of it out there. Much easier to survive, if you find it. Mm, and real-life plants."

The grizzled rebel woman sighed, and looked up from her PDA. "Good luck with that. Right, anyway, I've locked onto our girl's life capsule signal." She made a knife-handed gesture straight ahead. "Thattaway. Come, troops. Keep a lookout."


It takes about two hours of walking. The scenery doesn't change much. Occasionally, you pass by clusters of discarded trash, spent brass casings, or the dried skeletal remains of a human or beast. You do see life; an ant mound by a rotting tree, and a small, skittering scorpion at one point.

Eventually, you and the others reach a large, dented metal cylinder with a dusty glass window, all slightly embedded in the cracked ground. The life capsule contains the HVT. You can tell that it's a tall, pale woman with dark, messy hair and a freckled face. She looks like the definition of a cybie, with skeletal-looking mechanical arms, and obvious wires coming out of her head. Bionic traces can be seen around her eyes, even though they're closed.

Lian took a knee and scanned the area, providing security. Terma crossed her arms. "Looks like our lady. Ready to open it?" she asks.

 

[Yokai]

As they meandered deeper into the ashen wasteland Eden found her mind polluted with images of the Bloom that Lian had conjured. Green foliage and untouched nature; it just sounded too good to be true. An actual place unspoiled by the rotten death and decay of civilization? That sounded mythical at best. And yet, as they walked Eden found her gaze tracing the open horizon, as if hoping that she could catch a glimpse of the elusive oasis itself.

Minutes turned to hours with time passing by in a lethargic fashion as they crossed the Gloom. It was slow but steady progress and Eden found her mind wandering despite her initial paranoia. When they reached the metal capsule, presumably holding their quarry, it was as if her mind had snapped back into place. Tentatively Eden reached out a hand to wipe away some of the dust that clung to the capsule window, peering inside at the sleeping face of the cybie. They were definitely in the right place.

"Sure," Eden agreed with Terma, stepping away from the window as she slung her gun higher up her shoulder. "Lemme just..." Sun-kissed hands, one now caked with dust, reached out to find the handle that would crack open the capsule. Opening it would expose the woman to the Gloom around her, and she wasn't sure that was such a great sight to wake up to. It was definitely best if Eden stayed out of the way and let Terma do all the talking.

 

[Lorsh]

You pull on the latch, and a hydraulic hiss is heard as the capsule door pops off, and something within the mechanism seemingly jabs the young woman awake. "Fuck!" She sits up with surprising speed, and is already getting out of the capsule before Terma can even offer to help her.


"Easy," Lian urges from over his shoulder.

The cybie exhales, and you can almost feel her heart pounding. She gives you and your companions a once-over, then wastes no time speaking. "They... the army has a Forward Post near here. If anybody else from the station is left, they might have brought them there."

Terma raises her eyebrows at the implication. "We're not a fighting patrol. Listen, we're not going to-"

Cybie interjects sharply. "Don't care." She's suddenly holding a pair of pistols that she retracted the metallic holsters on her legs, checking them over and ensuring they're still loaded. Must have been able to keep them with her.

Lian says, "Alright, but what if your friends aren't there? We're risking too much."

The cybie woman purses her lips. "Well, then I get to kill an outpost." She definitely sounded cocksure about it. She suddenly seemed to be looking at you, perhaps noticing your own augments- the MedJack, the aiming brace, and maybe the AimPiece if you're wearing it. "That stuff makes it all easier, doesn't it? Well, it's even more easy for me. Soldiers don't have that shit."

 

[Yokai]

Large, dark eyes blinked slowly at the other woman as she wrenched herself from the capsule and into the barren world beyond without an inch of hesitation. Eden recalled the debrief mentioning that the cybie had a temper, and yet that still somehow failed to prepare her for the headstrong way in which she presented herself. It was completely jarring from what she was used to.

There were only three of them on this rescue mission and she expected them to go running straight into an armed outpost guns blazing? That was a suicide mission and definitely not the rescue mission that they'd signed up for. Eden wasn't going to lie to herself, or her squad mates, and pretend like she was some kind of hero. Because she definitely wasn't and she didn't want to get killed pretending that she was one.

Eden tried not to falter when she met the cybie's inquiry, her gaze uncertain. "Yeah, it helps," Eden admitted and licked her too dry lips, then glanced to Terma for permission. She'd said to leave the talking to her but it was rude to not answer someone. "But this isn't a combat team and I'm not trained as a soldier."

And then, because while Eden wasn't particularly brave or heroic that didn't make her any less concerned, "I'm... sorry about your friends. Are you certain that there would be some still left alive at the outpost?"

 

[Lorsh]

"I'm not sure if anybody is there at all," the cybie admitted. "But, as I said- I need to kill some Autarchist assholes right now. You don't know how many people we lost at my station." She used her fingers to tighten a few bolts on her augments. "You people need some confidence. These aren't the front lines of the Great Victories(1), so they won't know what to expect. Either that, or they're just useless Homeguards(2). A human army unit fights from a trench and relies on its heavy machine gun- they're as good as dead if we catch them off guard. An outpost usually has one or two guys on sentry, so if we take them out, we can get the drop on the rest. Use their machine gun against them, even." She goes over it like all the little tactical details are the keys to win a little game. "I'm not an idiot. I know how it works," she assured everyone.

Terma looked a little apprehensive, but Lian shrugged, perhaps enthralled by the concept of wasting doxies. "Sounds like it could be done."

The cybie looked at you (as opposed to anyone else) when she finally decided to introduce herself, smiling. "Oh, by the way, I'm Poppy."


(1) The propagandic name for the general war against the posthuman states.
(2) Soldiers that do not deploy to the war, and simply remain behind for city security. They tend to not be trained or equipped to as high of a degree as regular soldiers.

 

[Yokai]

Another apprehensive glance was shot in Terma’s direction as Eden quirked an eyebrow at the woman in question, concerned for the fate of their mission. And, more importantly, their lives. Were they really going to storm an outpost based on the word of a cybie that was deemed to be temperamental? It seemed that was the case. Eden hitched the sling of her gun higher up her shoulder and resolved herself for the fight ahead. She didn’t enjoy killing and she doubted that she ever would, but this was her life now.

Capturing Poppy’s lingering gaze she offered her a small nod of acknowledgement, a vague hint of a smile curling at her lips before disappearing completely from view. “Nice to meet you, Poppy.” She ran her tongue over her teeth nervously, whiskey eyes flickering away to survey the Gloom that surrounded them before coming straight back to her. “I’m Eden, and I guess we're doing this?” The last part of that sentence was directed at Terma.

 

[Lorsh]

Terma looked none too impressed at her companions. Her feet remained glued in place, and she still looked like she was trying to process this drastic change of, as well as the threat to her authority. Though she was a senior rebel, she was still more or less a grunt... an asset like Poppy definitely wasn't her subordinate.

"This isn't a good idea," she exhaled. Though, she nodded to Poppy, regardless. "Better hope your friends are actually there."

Poppy clapped her hands once- and since they were made out of metal, the sound was hardly crisp. "Marvelous. Just follow me."


The cybie leads her motley crew on another trek through the Gloom after usurping control from Terma. She makes a hand signal to halt, then to crawl through the dead grass for a short distance. She stopped again before pointing out a decayed building ahead. "Riiight there." You can see a jeep parked, as well as a man standing on the balcony. "Doesn't even look like they bothered with a trench," she whispered.

"Okay. Chem," she says, looking at Lian. "You have a rifle, sort-of." A carbine was close enough. "You shoot that guy, then I go up the front. One subgun to the left, one to the right. I'll go up the middle. Eden, can you go right? Look for some kind of window, so you can shoot them from the side."