Death Stranding--Death Stranding Page 10

  The porter feebly shook his head at her words. “But you’ve not been given the answers yet. And even if you spend years studying this tar I’ve brought you, we’re all doomed to die before you ever understand anything.” The porter stood up, followed by EV. “Promise me if you do find anything out about that tar, EV, that you’ll tell me.”

  EV wanted him to wait. She understood what he was saying, but she wanted him to know that she was determined to find the clues that would help them sidestep extinction. But before she could open her mouth, the porter had disappeared. The hologram equipment that the pair used to converse had been switched off, but he should still have been physically present nearby. EV hurried up to the ground level entrance. As the doors to ground level opened, she was enveloped in the light pouring in from outside. She squinted in the brightness.

  “Wait!” she screamed. But the porter had already left her shelter and was walking away. All she could see was his back. “Wait!” she shouted again. But the porter didn’t do so much as even turn his head.

  A few days later, reports of a terrorist attack came through from a colony outside of Mountain Knot City. A voidout had killed Heartman’s wife and daughter, and left Heartman himself wandering the border between life and death.

  * * *

  EV carried on with her work. It had been two years since that conversation with the porter, but she still hadn’t managed to fulfil her promise to him. Not because she hadn’t seen him, but because she hadn’t uncovered a single thing.

  EV’s job wasn’t just to analyze the tar, but when she thought about it, that jet-black substance had been the only thing on her mind for some time now.

  Now that Sam Porter had embarked on his quest to connect the Chiral Network, and the scientists in the east had been able to gradually restore some of the archives, EV had sent away for any data pertaining to Extinction Entities and the tar.

  But since her area hadn’t been connected yet, she had to rely upon the meagre telecommunications systems she was currently equipped with, and she was getting impatient. Forget movies, she couldn’t even receive large images. All she could do was rely on a network of waystations to receive text data. But even when she received data in text format, she had lost count of the number of times it had arrived broken or with bits missing.

  There was also the issue of the tar. The tar that had been bubbling up in the west had been more active recently, but she didn’t know why. She hadn’t even managed to find out where the tar was coming from in the first place, so there was nothing she could do.

  Not only had the scattered bubbling springs of tar begun to increase in number, they were also getting larger and now formed a line that ran north to south. The points where the tar was bubbling forth had started to form a small river, and the area had become known as the tar belt. It continued to expand and had even swallowed up some nearby waystations that were supposed to be used for the Chiral Network. It was impossible to predict what the tar would do next, so they couldn’t get too close.

  To EV, Sam Porter was the messiah who would restore the waystation and finally connect her up to the Chiral Network. And he was due any day now.

  Then the day finally arrived.

  When she thought about it, it had indeed been quite a while since she had last received a visitor. It was because once EV found out that Fragile Express, the porter company that her porter friend had worked for, had effectively come under the control of Higgs, she had no choice but to rely on the few porters from Bridges or freelancers instead. When people did drop by it made her feel less nervous. But not this time. Sam was bringing the Q-pid and EV couldn’t contain her excitement.

  * * *

  As soon as Sam entered the shelter, the delivery terminal activated and a hologram was projected into the air.

  The projection showed the silhouette of a slender girl. She was a scientist named EV. He noticed her expression stiffen. Sam wasn’t surprised, he hardly had the easiest face to look at. He hadn’t looked in the mirror lately, but he assumed he was covered in blood, sweat, and mud like usual. Sam wasn’t in the mood for greetings or explaining himself. The woman should have been notified that Sam was on his way, since even though this was a shelter, it was still under the control of Bridges. He was a visiting colleague, after all. Sam cleared security, but the woman’s face was still stiff.

  When Sam traced her gaze, he noticed that her attention was fixed on Lou.

  “It is you, isn’t it, Sam?” The woman’s voice was trembling slightly. It looked like she was scared of the pod.

  “I was instructed to come here by Heartman and Bridges. My name is Sam Porter Bridges. I’d like you to let me activate the Chiral Network here. Do you have a problem with that?”

  The woman shook her head, but her expression didn’t change in the slightest and she continued staring at Lou. Not bothering to ask her why, Sam took out the Q-pid and held it up. That was when the woman’s face finally relaxed.

  “Go ahead, Sam, I’ve been waiting for you. Please connect me right away.”

  EV thanked Sam and he connected her shelter to the UCA.

  “I’m sorry, Sam, but can I ask you something? That thing on your chest… what is it for?”

  Sam faltered for a second at the abrupt question. Did she mean in the practical sense, or the theoretical sense? Sam supposed he could sum it up by explaining that the BB was used for sensing BT, but he knew the BB was more than just that. Still, did he need to explain so much to this scientist who was seeing a BB for the first time?

  EV watched Sam try to come up with an answer and seemed to accept it when he couldn’t. It was like she had guessed that there wasn’t really an answer either way.

  “I used to know a porter who carried one of those things,” she told him.

  Sam felt his own face stiffen this time, as he remembered the terrorist group he had encountered on his way here.

  “He told me that when he used it, he could see all kinds of things. He said it had told him that humanity was destined for extinction. Does yours do the same, Sam?”

  “No. This little one is my partner. Lou tells me when I’m in danger. If I didn’t have this BB, I would never have made it all the way here alone,” Sam answered.

  If what the woman said was true, it meant that the thing attached to the porter’s chest was no BB, it just happened to look like one. Then it struck him. The equipment that Higgs and the other terrorists had strapped to their chests might not have been BBs either. Or at the very least, they weren’t the same as Lou. Maybe that was why Lou was so upset when they had encountered them.

  “The porter I knew cried,” EV recalled. “He said he was scared. He said that he was having dreams of extinction and had become unable to resist them any longer. He confessed that to me… then he never came back.”

  Lou gave a cry. It wasn’t out of fear, but out of sadness. This had never happened before. Lou was looking up at Sam from inside the pod. Sam looked into Lou’s eyes, but he couldn’t tell where Lou’s sadness was coming from.

  When Sam looked back up, EV’s hologram had disappeared. Perhaps she had finally given up on getting any answers at all out of him. Maybe she was just satisfied now she was hooked up to the Chiral Network. In any case, Sam’s work here was done. It didn’t matter how EV felt about things. Sam was worried about his crying BB and turned to leave. Something Sam couldn’t put his finger on lingered in this place. Harsh noise echoed around the room. Sam turned back around to see the image of an unfamiliar man projected where EV’s hologram had once stood. He was wearing a hood low over his eyes, so Sam couldn’t really tell what the man looked like. He wasn’t so tall, but Sam could tell that he was made from lean muscle. It was a body that looked like it had been honed through daily labor. The worn and faded suit the man was wearing bore the name “Fragile Express.” On his left shoulder was an Odradek and on his chest was a BB. Both were slightly different to the ones that Sam used, but matched the ones the terrorists possessed. That meant that a terror
ist was lurking in the basement. Was this a setup? Sam instinctively grabbed for the ID strand around his waist. It was the only thing he had to hand that could be used as a weapon.

  “This is goodbye,” the man began. “My body no longer belongs to me. I’m not afraid anymore.”

  The man’s Odradek began to rotate, but Lou didn’t react in the slightest. This was a recording. It was probably a message meant for EV. So, this was the porter she had been talking about?

  “We cannot run away from our destiny and our destiny is extinction. Extinction will open the door to a brand-new world. That’s why I have to take out that city.”

  What did he just say? Was he declaring an act of terrorism? Sam sensed someone’s presence appear behind the hologram. The door that led to the basement floor opened. Standing there was EV. Her face was pale as she rushed up the steps toward Sam.

  “EV, I believe that what you’re doing is noble,” the porter’s hologram continued to speak. “You think that studying the past will lead to a better future. I used to think so too, back when I was a porter. You know, America was already gone by the time I was born. I don’t really have any memories from when I was kid. Don’t even remember what my parents looked like. All I remember is the face of Fragile’s pop.”

  EV stood next to Sam, looking at the man.

  “That man took me in and raised me. He told me all about how America used to be. He said America was so free before it all came crumbling down. He told me it had its problems that he wasn’t proud of, but that the spirit of the ancestors who had founded the country still lived on. He told me we should look at the destruction of America as a fresh start. That we would build America again with our own hands. Even after the man died and Fragile took over the organization, that never changed.” The porter fell silent. He was looking up, as though he was searching for something. Sam and EV watched attentively. “But we’re never going to get America back. Bridges’ Chiral Network is only going to build an invisible wall around it. That’s not the real America. Or so Higgs says.”

  Sam’s jaw stiffened at the mention of Higgs’s name.

  “No matter how much we struggle, while we’re human we’re never going to be able to build a perfect country on this earth. We can spout whatever grand ideas we like, any country we create will be nothing more than a sham. Higgs says that if we really want to make the perfect country, then we have to stop being human. That’s why extinction is coming for us.”

  How ridiculous. Sam’s inner voice of reason told him that this man was just rambling to justify his act of terrorism. But there was a part of Sam that couldn’t deny what the madman was saying.

  “See you, EV. I’m going to wipe out a colony near Mountain Knot City. It’s okay, I promise you they won’t suffer. The voidout will send them to the other side instantaneously. Then they’ll travel to the land of the dead and finally be released from the curse of being human. It’s all part of the Extinction Entity’s plan.”

  The hologram froze like it was stuck in time. EV weakly shook her head and stared at Sam. She looked like she wanted Sam to comfort her, but there was nothing that Sam could do.

  Lou cried out, breaking the silence. Lou’s cries didn’t sound as sad as before, but Sam could still feel so much emotion in them that they hurt. Lou’s cries were so full of fear and anger that it was almost like they would shatter the pod. As if in response to Lou’s cries, the image displayed by the hologram began to crumble, decomposing into fine particles.

  But then the diffusing particles began to clump back together again. An invisible force was binding them together to create a different image entirely. Over its face was a hood, within it a dully glowing golden mask. There was an Odradek on the figure’s shoulder and a pod on their chest.

  It was Higgs. Sam couldn’t see the eyes under the mask, but he just knew that the man’s gaze was right on him. It was such an intense stare that it didn’t seem like it could belong to a hologram. This didn’t appear to be a recording. In fact, to Sam it seemed almost certainly to be some kind of interactively generated image.

  “Thank you, Sam, for connecting up the Chiral Network for me.” Higgs bowed his head dramatically.

  “It’s simply breathtaking. Now I understand why you were in such a hurry to finish it. I can restore the memories of the past. Color me surprised. I had no idea that was possible.

  “The Chiral Network runs through the Beach, and the Beach connects to the realm of the dead and all the lost history found within it. That’s a big deal. At best, I thought it would only be able to piece together and restore digital data.”

  It was clear that Higgs was trying to goad Sam with his overdramatic gestures and tone. Sam gritted his teeth and exerted as much self-control as possible. Lou seemed to pick up on his anger and drew into a tight ball.

  “Keep it up, Sam. The idea of the UCA coming back doesn’t exactly instill me with joy, but this… this is great. And if I have this, I won’t have to make all that effort to jump through the Beach anymore just to find you, I can just give you another call.”

  Higgs reached straight out at Sam. Sam pulled back instinctively, but Higgs’s arms stretched right through the BB pod, piercing through Lou, and into his chest. Sam was frozen stiff and couldn’t move. Higgs broke into a cruel laugh.

  “Don’t be scared. I’m just a hologram. Just a virtual image. It’s not like you’re being touched by a person. Guess the Chiral Network is perfect for someone with your condition. Good luck.”

  Higgs withdrew his arms but something shone at his fingertips. Sam reasoned in his head that it had to be a trick of the hologram, but soon he couldn’t keep his shaking at bay. Higgs hung the item that had flashed around his own neck. It was a golden accessory—Amelie’s quipu.

  Sam was in excruciating pain as he felt like his heart was being crushed in his chest, and he couldn’t make a sound. His head spun and he fell to his knees.

  “I’ll be waiting for you on the Beach,” Higgs said as he disappeared. Still on his knees, Sam looked up to see that there was nothing left where the man had just been standing. The pain in his chest had also vanished like it was never really there in the first place.

  EV looked at Sam. Her face was drained of color.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Sam nodded and got up.

  “How about you? It seems like this place is connected to Higgs now.”

  “I’m fine,” EV answered. “Just a little shaken up. I never expected something so terrifying to come through the Chiral Network. But at least that wasn’t all it brought. Now I know that we can restore the past that wasn’t recorded onto media.” She was talking about the recording of the porter. “I had a feeling that he had gotten himself involved in terrorism, but it still hurt to hear it from the horse’s mouth. To be honest with you, Sam, I can’t deny the things that he said, even though I’m certain he was brainwashed by Higgs. But I suppose the important thing is not trying to disprove my friend’s points, but to find a way to overcome them. And that includes all the things that Higgs said, too. We must keep expanding the Chiral Network and identify the EE to do that. I’m not afraid of what that means. Sure, this situation is frightening. But I don’t have time to be scared.”

  Sam reassured EV that he understood. The theory of extinction that Higgs whispered into his followers’ ears was a doctrine touted by the Extinction Entity. But Bridges’ idea of America was nothing more than doctrine either. The only way to break free from them both was to give up on being human. Extinction and prolonging life were just opposite sides of the same coin.

  “Sure, this situation is frightening. But I don’t have time to be scared.”

  EV’s words echoed around Sam’s head, so Sam decided to get out of there while he could still hear them. Any excess noise now, and her determination and the confidence it gave him might just vanish. Sam put his pack back on and left the shelter without saying another word.

  * * *

  Three days had passed.

&n
bsp; Sam had been worried about the rugged terrain and fickle mountain weather, but apart from that, it had been smooth sailing. Now he had connected all three shelters, all that was left for him to do was to reconstruct the waystation near the tar belt. EV had sent him a message while he had been walking.

  She informed him that she had managed to restore several research reports into past mass extinctions. One report caught Sam’s eye. It was data that suggested that extinct species other than ammonites and mammoths had been found with umbilical cord-like protrusions extending out of their bodies, including specimens of dinosaurs and trilobites. EV also mentioned the claims that these extinct animals were EEs themselves.

  A little while after Sam received EV’s message, he got a call from Heartman too, just as he was getting close to where the waystation was going to be.

 

  Time before his heart gives out again, or time before extinction comes for us?

 

  Sam remembered. They had planned to use this site but had ended up abandoning it.