Death Stranding--Death Stranding Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Leave us a review

  Copyright

  Characters

  Vocabulary

  Episode VII – Deadman

  Episode VIII – Clifford

  Episode IX – Heartman

  Episode X – Higgs

  Episode XI – Die-Hardman

  Episode XII – Clifford Unger

  Episode XIII – Bridges

  Episode XIV – Sam Strand

  Epilogue I

  Epilogue II

  DEATH

  STRANDING

  02

  DEATH STRANDING

  Volume One

  DEATH STRANDING

  Volume Two

  DEATH

  STRANDING

  02

  BY HITORI NOJIMA

  BASED ON THE GAME BY HIDEO KOJIMA

  TRANSLATED BY CARLEY RADFORD

  TITAN BOOKS

  LEAVE US A REVIEW

  We hope you enjoy this book – if you did we would really appreciate it if you can write a short review. Your ratings really make a difference for the authors, helping the books you love reach more people.

  You can rate this book, or leave a short review here:

  Amazon.com,

  Amazon.co.uk,

  Goodreads,

  Barnes & Noble,

  Waterstones,

  or your preferred retailer.

  Death Stranding: Volume Two

  Print edition ISBN: 9781789095784

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789096590

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP.

  www.titanbooks.com

  First edition: February 2021

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Death Stranding by Hideo Kojima/Hitori Nojima

  Copyright © 2019 Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

  Created and developed by KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover illustration by Pablo Uchida

  Original Japanese edition published in 2019 by SHINCHOSHA Publishing Co., Ltd.

  English translation rights arranged with SHINCHOSHA Publishing Co., Ltd. through The English Agency Japan Ltd.

  English translation copyrights © 2021 by Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  Carley Radford asserts the moral right to be identified as the translator of this work.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  CHARACTERS

  Sam Porter Bridges - A “porter” who has rejoined Bridges for the first time in ten years. He is heading west as Bridges II.

  Amelie - The leader of Bridges I, who went out west to rebuild America. She is currently being held in Edge Knot City.

  Bridget Strand - The last President of the United States of America. She has devoted herself to rebuilding the UCA to reconnect a broken world.

  Die-Hardman - The director of Bridges, an organization created specifically to rebuild America. A close associate of Bridget.

  Deadman - A member of Bridges and an ex-coroner. He is in charge of BB maintenance among other things.

  Mama - A mechanic from Bridges involved in the development of the Q-pid and Chiral Network.

  Heartman - A member of Bridges who hopes to unravel the mysteries surrounding the Death Stranding and the Beach.

  Fragile - The young, female leader of the private delivery organization Fragile Express.

  Higgs - A member of Homo Demens who is trying to prevent the rebuilding of America and accelerate human extinction.

  Unger - A mysterious man who wants the BB.

  VOCABULARY

  Bridges - An organization created by the last President of the United States of America, Bridget Strand, for the sole purpose of reconnecting all of the disjointed cities and people across the ex-USA and rebuilding America.

  Death Stranding - A mysterious phenomenon that affected the entire world. When antimatter stranded from the world of the dead comes into contact with the living, it causes a voidout.

  BB - Bridge Babies. Artificially created “equipment” that allows its users to sense the presence of the dead.

  DEADMAN

  (continued)

  Once the winds calmed, the force of the snow flurries finally weakened. The black clouds that hung in the air all around Sam, that had seemed close enough to touch, had dissipated, but the sun was still nowhere to be seen. It had been four days since Sam had left Mountain Knot City and he had finally reached the highest peak in the mountain range. Despite the detour, he was relieved to discover that his path would indeed lead him over the summit. Yet once he reached the top of the peak that stood thousands of meters above sea level, he still found he could not see beyond the pale veil that covered the sky and obscured the world on the other side. It seemed impossible to him that a vast blue sky stretched out just beyond the clouds, slowly fading into the jet-blackness of space.

  Sam remembered a conversation that he had with Bridget as a child. It was the one in which she told him all about their ancestors’ expedition toward the western frontier. About how once they had reached the western frontier, they then carried on and aimed for the next frontier—space. Finally, once they had conquered the last physical frontier, they embarked upon a quest for the electronic frontier of networks and cyberspace. “Listen, Sam,” Bridget started. “The Strand family all come from a single ancestor, who was among the first to reach America. Cultivating new places and building the infrastructure to give other people a future is in our blood. It was our ancestors who were the first to build a bridge to the island of Manhattan. That’s why I want you to build bridges, too.”

  How naïve Sam Strand had been back then as he obediently nodded and promised her that he would.

  But the path to space was now closed and the bridge they were now trying to build was to the world of the dead. Was that the new final frontier?

  The Chiral Network was an amalgam of a network and the world of the dead. Lockne had told him all about it. A member of Bridges, she was the younger twin sister of the theoretical physics expert Mama and the co-developer of the Q-pid.

  “I don’t think it’s meaningless for the Chiral Network to access the world of the dead and bring back the past we lost and everything that went with it,” Lockne had once explained. “We need to reclaim the knowledge that the Death Stranding stole from us, but if that’s all we do, then what are we doing but staring down memory lane? We run the risk of becoming bound by the past, just like Målingen and I were bound by our daughter.

  “Mountain Knot City may now be a knot on the Chiral Network, but that doesn’t mean I want to go back to Bridges. I need some time to think,” Lockne told Sam. Now that Lockne and Mama had managed to untangle themselves from the estrangement caused by the misunderstanding about their dead daughter, Lockne had new paths open to her. Sam wondered what kind of options he had now.

  He looked down at the empty void on his chest.

  Lou, the BB whose pod normally occupied t
hat area, was with Deadman for repairs. All that was left was empty space. Even when the repairs were complete, the pod that would be returned to Sam would no longer contain Lou, but a blank BB with no memories. There had been no other choice. And now, on top of that, Sam found himself dwelling on Deadman’s news about the shadier side of Bridges. What was he supposed to do about the fact that Bridget had carried on the BB experiments in secret? What about the past of Die-Hardman, who served her? It seemed that for now, the only option open to him was to pretend like he hadn’t heard anything and carry on with his task of transporting goods and reconnecting the Network as he went west in search of Amelie.

  That was why he had battled the winds and traipsed all the way up the sides of these snow-capped peaks.

  While Deadman was busy repairing Lou, Sam was to summit the mountains and head west from the direction of Mountain Knot City, to deliver some chiral allergy medication to the Geologist’s shelter. As the people stationed there continued to excavate the land, they had reported early symptoms of chiral contamination. Sam had DOOMS, so contamination didn’t bother him too much, but for normal people it could easily become deadly. Luckily, the symptoms that the Geologist was experiencing appeared to be on the milder side, but they still needed dealing with fast.

 

  A codec call came through his cuff links and jolted Sam out of his thoughts. The tone was peculiar, in that it was restless yet aloof.

 

  Even within Bridges, Heartman knew the most about the Beach by far, but Sam had only ever been able to talk to him via wireless means or as a hologram.

 

  Heartman was speaking at such a pace that Sam wondered if he was even closing his lips between sentences.

 
 

  It was just as Heartman had described. The plan was to drop by their shelters and activate the Chiral Network for them. But first, he needed to deliver the medicine to the Geologist. Once he had done all that, he would need to drop by Deadman’s place to pick up Lou. Heartman may have been very talkative and extremely quick-thinking, but he would have to wait.

 

  Sam wanted to point out that their call had been more like a monologue than a conversation, but before he could say anything, a robotic voice interjected with

 

  Heartman disconnected the call with the same urgency that he had originally rung with. The phrase “a fossil Beach” echoed around Sam’s head. He wondered if it had anything to do with the fossils they were finding of the dinosaurs that had managed to cling on until the very end. He wondered what fossilization of the Beach even meant. He couldn’t even fathom it. But, just like Heartman said, none of this was confirmed, so there was no point thinking about it yet. Sam stood up, looked up at the sky, and readjusted his hood. The snow was beginning to fall again.

  Black clouds once more obscured the heavens. Something sounded like an animal howling in the distance, but on further listening, Sam realized that it was the sound of the violently blustering wind. Gusts battered Sam, crying like countless invisible beasts, which threatened to topple him over. He braced himself against the land, but he couldn’t withstand the weight of his cargo and fell backward.

  The violent, beast-like wind rushed over Sam as he became buried in snow. The flurries swirled and groaned and blocked out his vision. As he struggled back to his feet, cursing, the wind knocked him back down. Standing had become impossible.

  There was nowhere to shelter from the wind on this blizzard-battered mountain peak. Sam grabbed a climbing anchor out of his backpack and thrust it into the bedrock beneath the snow. He tied the strand around his waist and secured himself to the other end.

  All he could do was lie face down and wait for the winds to calm. He clung to the snowfield on his belly. If there was any space between himself and the ground, the wind would get in and blow him away. He wondered just how far his body would be carried in weather like this. Would it be just like when he was taken by the supercell before?

  Sam could feel his body heat draining away as he was rendered immobile. He couldn’t stop the ringing sensation in his back teeth. The feeling of being cold had already disappeared and now the only sensation running through Sam’s body was pain. But that pain would eventually disappear, too. Then it would be the end. He tried to muster all his strength into his limbs, but his fingers and toes only continued to grow more and more numb. The snow gradually concealed the outline of his body from the waist down, making it look as if his body was gradually dissolving away into particles. Just like a BT. That thought felt like part-hallucination and part-dream. It was a bad omen. He couldn’t look inwards at a time like this, he had to look outwards. He had to bind both body and mind back to earth.

  After a while, Sam realized there was a rhythm to this wind. It didn’t stop blowing, but there was a little bit of a calm after the more violent gusts. If he could predict when the calm would come, he might be able to move. If he stayed here, he was going to succumb to frostbite.

  The wind weakened. Sam gripped the strand that was tied to his waist with both hands, and began to move forward as he kept his center of gravity low to the ground. Once he reached the summit it was all downhill. He concentrated his strength into his hand, which gripped the strand. The feeling in his palms and fingertips was returning. Perhaps it was because of the change in terrain, but the wind seemed to be losing strength. The snow continued to come down in droves and Sam still couldn’t see anything, but he was sure that even at this pace, he was slowly making his way down the mountain.

  He kept telling himself that it was just a little farther. He didn’t think about anything else, he just put one knee in front of the other like a machine.
If he could just keep doing that then he would escape this blizzard and make it back to the real world.

  Something suddenly made Sam nervous. He could hear a sound. It was like the groan of a BT. It was getting closer and louder. He could hear it from overhead, from the peak of the mountain he had just ascended.

  But it was no BT. It was only after something hit Sam hard, flinging him down the mountain like a rag doll, that he realized what it really was. It was a rockfall. He had barely avoided being hit head-on, but had still been grazed by the falling rocks. The earth and sky switched places over and over and Sam was plunging through the black clouds. One of his backpack straps snapped and cargo was sucked into the sky.

  He was completely disorientated. All because of some stupid rockfall, Sam was tumbling all the way down the snow-covered slope. He was groping for something, anything, to grab onto to stop his fall, but there was nothing.

  It felt like his ka had disappeared from his ha. Just like it did at the Seam. Even though he felt like he was falling through the sky, he could hear the sound of waves. A baby was crying.

  It was calling out for Sam. A wave had rolled onto the shore and was trying to drag the naked baby into the sea. Sam broke into a run and jumped into the water. Lou was still crying out for him. The waves tossed Sam around helplessly as he stretched out his right arm and barely grasped onto the BB’s umbilical cord. He used it to reel the BB in and take it safely into his arms. As he cradled it to his chest, he realized that the baby was Målingen and Lockne’s daughter. But Sam didn’t question it. A BB was a bond, both shackle and anchor. The BB gave meaning and direction to Sam’s life, a bridge from a fixed start to its end, whenever that may be.

  Once he realized that, he broke down and wept. He couldn’t see anything through the never-ending stream of tears. That’s why he didn’t notice the red suit approaching him in the distance. The baby cried out and tried to break free of Sam’s embrace. It was a joyous cry from the heart that Sam had never heard before.