(Rewritten) Ch. 22 – R&R

"A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, unless acted upon by a force."

– Newton's First Law of Motion

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The woman in my arms jerked slightly at my sudden voice, but I patted her quickly and she settled back down, though she cocked her head against me to hear more. That actually sounded like a good idea. Distract her a little. And I'd get to get used to my new voice, too.

Perhaps it might help to formulate your priorities? I'm afraid you lack the means to accomplish much right now.

"Alright. Okay. Yeah. Let me think for a second. It's still very dark, like midnight dark." A mental nudge caused my aug to spin up a new semi-conscious thought that felt like a super-accurate biological clock, which told me that I'd been awake for roughly an hour. "About one o'clock in the morning dark."

Huh, so Tynea'd woken me up roughly six hours early? Explains the brittle bones thing.

Focus.

"What's our situation, really?" I continued on, mostly for the woman's benefit. "We're stuck, for now."

I was a little night-blind from the lamps inside, so I moved out of the circle illuminating me, around the building's nearby corner, to let my eyes adjust to the night.

"I can taste a small amount of toxins and rot in the air, but it's not enough to be dangerous."

I leaned my head forward, so my lips rested on top of the woman's head, and let my breath flow out through my nose. It whispered warmth through her hair, and I think she enjoyed that sensation, from the way she cuddled closer. Maybe it made her feel more like she wasn't alone? After the isolation in her cell, for however long she'd been there.

"Hmm, okay. What do we need? Food, water, shelter. We can get those fairly easy. Shelter is right behind us, even if I don't really want to stick around."

The only ones who knew we were here were enemies. It'd be kind of stupid to stay in this place. But then again, it was very low tech. I could turn everything into a death trap, couldn't I?

So, shelter, we had, at least in a pinch. "Go back into the cocoon, maybe?" That would be very different from just staying in a cell, even for the traumatized girl in my arms.

"Food." They'd have to have kept their prisoners fed somehow. "Either they brought in regular deliveries, or they had a pantry I haven't found yet." I could work with either. Maybe even hijack the delivery vehicle?

Oh. Maybe the woman wouldn't want to taste more of their crap? Wait, she had no tongue. How'd they feed her?

Later. I could figure that out when we crossed that bridge.

"Water… same story, probably some kind of well or plumbing. I'll have to find it. Finally, we can use a few points daily for sustenance, if absolutely necessary. Better not to, though."

The girl was relaxing into me more and more as I continued speaking. It appeared my idea of distracting her with my voice was working.

My eyes had already finished adjusting to the darkness, and let me take in the scene. There was an empty landing pad for large hover vehicles. The building I'd come from was pretty small, just an ugly concrete shack leading underground, without windows. I saw some solar panels and batteries bolted to the roof, and nothing else. No access roads, nothing.

"Tynea, where exactly are we? Can you show me on a map, please?"

One popped up in front of me, and I saw a pin stuck inside a meteorite crater.

We're located at the pin, right in the center of this crater. The closest road is an old highway, likely in bad repair and disuse, to our east. It's roughly thirty kilometers away.

Hmm. I could cover that distance fairly easily in my new body. But then what? There wouldn't be anybody there to pick us up and drive us seven hundred kilometers to New Montreal.

The crater has turned into a ring of toxic swamp. While we're currently safe due to the distance to it, crossing that swamp without the right gear could be deadly.

No walking then, got it.

"Okay," I said, "we're kind of stuck here for the moment. Closest road is about thirty kilometers—uh sorry, about twenty miles?—eastways, and probably abandoned. But ten points a day are enough to live off of, and even slowly accumulate more. I can turn this place into a death trap for the assholes, while we recover and get enough resources to move again. We might be able to find food here, save the points. Maybe we can hijack a delivery vehicle or something, and get out that way. What do you think?" I asked the woman I was hugging.

She buried her nose in my chest and sighed. Shrugged her shoulders. Guess she didn't have the energy to care much. Or maybe it was just too much effort to communicate anything so complicated? I hugged her close.

I thought about how I might secure ourselves, and decided I'd try to imitate spiders and draw a few lines of silk across the landing platform to catch the vibrations of anything or anyone moving there. Drag the silk through the doorway, all the way to my cocoon. Be ready to ambush invaders with guns and stuff.

The cocoon would isolate us from the reality of our location, which could only be a blessing, psychologically speaking.

It took some experimenting to find the right thickness for the lines, such that nobody would be able to see them from far enough to avoid triggering them, but heavy enough that the breeze wouldn't constantly set me off. I managed to give the silk tiny sticky sections every meter or so, so that I could drape the thin strings along the walls and keep it tensioned with them. A bit like extra-long guitar strings.

I ended up destroying most of the lamps, so that the majority of the facility was properly dark. I could still see with my enhanced eyes and the spatial sense of my antennae, but I was pretty sure nobody would be able to notice the strings, not even with a lucky glint of light off of them.

Turning off the old computer, I disconnected it, and stashed it behind my cocoon. Made it look like somebody had broken out and decided to take it with them. I even broke some branches and kicked a few rocks in the direction of the old highway for a few dozen meters to sell that idea. Probably useless, especially with the string outside having to be a little thicker against the wind, and thus somewhat noticeable, but whatever. Maybe it would cause enough confusion to give us an opening for a hijacking, or maybe it'd distract them enough that they'd never actually look close enough to find the silk.

I did find the pantry at the opposite end of the corridor. It had a few hundred liters of water in plastic bottles, and several dozen liter plastic jars full of a mostly tasteless nutrient soup. My antennae told me it wasn't high quality stuff, but it wouldn't kill us. I took a few of both, carved out some sections of silk from inside the cocoon to stuff the food in, and settled down in the bottom curve of the bubble, with the woman resting on top of me.

She must've been seriously exhausted. It only took lying down and stroking her head a few times for her to fall asleep. I'd figured we'd start exchanging information somehow, but instead I let her be and wait until she'd wake up again. Even if she was drooling on me.

The gunk from the jars was almost nasty, but I forced it down. For the points. Urgh. At least I could wash it down afterwards with the water.

It was strangely relaxing, to just lie there and let events pass me by while keeping a figurative eye on the landing pad through the vibrations in the strings with my antennae, in the middle of enemy territory. It reminded me of those quiet times during my childhood when storms interrupted travel. I'd get some time to myself, all stress paused, cooped up in dry, solitary caves, just watching the weather.

Settling down further, I analyzed myself. I felt a little…disconnected somehow? A bit numb, I guess. But I found connection in the girl using me as a pillow, soothing her when she seemed to have a nightmare, making sure she didn't feel alone.

Having basically only just woken from my own sleep, I wasn't tired in the slightest. A good thing. The killing of those two strangers crawled in the back of my mind.

It had woken old, sleeping monsters. I wanted some…distance before I risked the nightmares.

Time passed, I quietly played around with my voice, and eventually she did wake up again.

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