🔒 Community Fan-Fic
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04. January 2019, 18:08:58
Yeah, does that "7 YEARS AGO" need to be so bold and so red? Lol.#30
I couldn't leave your story thread unaddressed. It was bothering me. I feel you had a different thing going than my more space-oriented plotline so I felt compelled to marry the 2.
... but it's not done yet nudge nudge.
04. January 2019, 23:58:28
I think my idea was that the blue haired girl is Shobecca who illegally immigrated from the moon (after the Von Braun's crash there) to find the Hacker. It's told from the point of view of a false Marie Delacroix (the woman on the train). The original Delacroix was brain copied by SHODAN before she died and then imprinted to another woman after Shobecca's arrival on earth. I thought the psychology of Rebecca, who's barely conscious of what is driving her and an unknown with false memories of being Delacroix would be interesting to figure out for the Hacker. I had no idea about an ending. But I'll gladly let you take me on another ride.#31
05. January 2019, 01:13:20
oh lol sorry then cuz I butchered your sub-plot since I didn't pick up on that. There were elements of the setting that i had confused in my head. #32
05. January 2019, 12:47:34
Not at all! I think it's great to see you continue this and get some surprises out of it. #33
06. January 2019, 02:40:46
Shuttle Pilot Lorne's personal log supplemental:#34
A lot has happened in a short time and this may be my final log so I'll do my best to document everything that's happened. Not sure to what end though... there may be no one left to review this. I guess I just have that human tendency to cling to hope against all odds, so here goes.
It all started with my return from Europa. I'd been sent there by the company to replace a faulty guidance chip in one of the submersibles used to map the sea floor beneath the crust. It was an unpleasant trip on account to how cold and hazardous it is there but I completed my mission without any major problems. The work took 3 days if you count landing, searching for the submersible, retrieving it, servicing it, testing, re-deployment and taking off.
I was on my way back to the moon, which was an uneventful trip. I spent most of my time playing Doom and staring out the window, thinking of Ayami-chan, that nice girl from Neo-Tokyo who gave me the works last time I was there.
I got within 100 thousand clicks of the moon when I began standard hailing procedures for landing. There was no reply. I tried again. Nothing. So I decided to move in for a closer look. Everything seemed fine visually. I saw the base and landing pad. There was no one in sight but the landing beacons were flashing as they should. I decided to do an orbit around the moon to check the other stations out. They too could be visually identified but there was no human activity to be found. Something was off. Things were far too quiet. I was tempted to go all the way to Luna, the planet's capital but decided not to out of laziness. I figured I'd land manually at my own base and have a look before jumping the gun.
So I touched down back where I started, at my home base and left the shuttle on foot with my old sparq handy in case... I dunno. It was stupid really. I didn't really think I'd find aliens or anything but there was something eerie about the atmosphere in the base that day. Always trust your guts I say. And I was right. I wish I wasn't. God damn! I wish I was wrong. Inside, everyone lay dead at their stations or wherever they were, doing whatever they were doing at the time. No sign of a struggle. Just dead. The station was intact and everything seemed fine. Whatever killed these men must have come out of nowhere and had lethal efficiency.
I had a sinking feeling of dread that this was only the beginning. With no clues to go on, I left the station and boarded my shuttle. I decided to head back to Earth. I had to let people know what I had seen here.
No more than 10000 feet from the surface I caught a shimmer in my peripheral vision and took a look out the port-side window. That's when I saw the wreckage. Some large craft had smashed in to the moon not far from where I was so I changed course to investigate. Once I got close, there was no mistaken that this was the Von Braun! Everybody knew about the Von Braun because of the publicity around the trip. Of course I'd never seen it this close, this smashed up or this... empty. I touched down in the softest patch I could find and got out to have a closer look. It was that sinking feeling all over again. No signs of life. No signs of anything for that matter. Just the fractured hull and the surrounding debris. There were a few notable exceptions however. For example, I did see a large pillar that surprisingly seemed to have power, albeit what little power it had was barely enough to illuminate the face on the front of it. Another thing I noticed was the heat coming from one of the lower decks, not far from the pillar. It registered on the infrared sensors in my helmet. Perhaps the reactor was also semi-functional? But this is all speculation. I had far more questions than answers.
God, what had happened in the 3 days I was gone?
On the way back to the shuttle I accidentally kicked something that was sticking out of the ground. I had been tripping over debris here and there but this was different. It looked like a hypo but it wasn't. It was some sort of electronic thing I had never seen before. Looked home made. Looked important. I took it with me.
Back at the shuttle I moved calmly but with a purpose. I set a course for Earth and departed. I needed answers.
I was only half-way back to Earth when it got big enough in the window for me to see that things had gone from bad to worse. The Earth didn't look like it should. It was all white like it was covered in snow. I can't believe I didn't see it before. Heck, even the oceans were white. Maybe I thought it was just cloud cover and didn't look carefully enough to see that it wasn't. It was surreal. Not a detail to be found anywhere. No continents, no water, no lights on the dark side where great cities ought to be. The feeling of dread turned to horror when I tried to imagine what could have happened to Earth and its population. I thought these strange happenings were isolated to the moon but those poor bastards may have been the lucky ones. Whatever was going on down there on Earth was so terrifying I couldn't even begin to imagine... what could have happened?
I wish I hadn't seen it until the last minute. The next 90 minutes were the longest I had ever experienced in my lifetime. I sat in the middle of the floor, eyes closed, focused only on the sound of my heart beating, the thrum of the ship, acutely aware of the distance surrounding me. I sensed I was alone in the universe. As the ship disappeared all around me, I was floating in a void of black. No sound, no light, no thought. Just the endless expanse of the vacuum.
Eventually I broke from my trance and, with a heavy heart, I hauled my tired frame over to the console to see that I had arrived at my destination. Again I found that I was thinking reactively, as I had not figured out where or how I would land on a featureless planet. For several minutes I just sat and stared at the surface, slowly undulating with different shades of white'ish gray.
Then I heard it. How had I heard it? I was in space... Was I hallucinating? Had the trauma of what I'd seen finally driven me insane? It sounded almost like a human voice but it was distorted and... raging, like a storm. It sounded like some sort of electronic hell and the call was that of the Siren but in this alternate narrative, the Siren's call was not seductive but a piercing wail that reverberated inside me. In shear panic I grabbed the controls and turned my shuttle back towards the moon. I rocketed out of orbit at maximum speed, my only instinct, to get me as far away from that sound as possible.
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I am here now, standing on the surface of the moon, staring at the wreck of the Von Braun, with that odd device in my hand. So much has been lost. All our history, our hopes, our dreams... dashed in the blink of an eye. As I stare out into the blackness of space, my desiccated home hanging in the sky like a Christmas ornament, a cold reminder of how small we are in the universal arena creeps into my consciousness. I push it away. I no longer have a home, a family, a job or any social framework to which I am responsible. I am but a man, and my purpose is now my own.
This is Lorne, captain of the Von Braun, signing off.
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