Unresolvable error.
She's there, of course. You never told her anything. You'd submitted to the ripper's ministrations and you'd drawn a sword in the transport but you'd never told the corporation's secrets. You have your standards, your moral code. It's not like you aren't a person.
You didn't have to, anyway. She knows you. She remembers you. Of course she does.
Deacon has a smile like the sun. She always did, even before. She steps over the body like it's so much flotsam (it is, on a tide of change) and her arms are open for you.
Her army's behind her, clustered in the shadows of the Nightside's derelict buildings, but you've only got eyes for her. You only ever had eyes for her.
"I am sorry," she says, all benevolent grace. "This will hurt." She sinks her fingers into the back of your neck, where the implant's wires lead up to your synthetic eardrums, your alloy eyes.
"No more secrets," she says.
It does hurt. It's worth it.
ERROR: No further data.
Error resolved! ^_^
Deactivating immersive simulation.
Critical malfunction. Recommend disconnect. Initiating force stop in three--
Blue fumbles back, clawing at the port, trying to break free of the grip of the sim, and when he succeeds he finds himself breathless on the floor of the office, the halogen lights painful-bright.
"Grey," he says. "Grey. It was Pariah--"
"Blue," says Grey, gently perplexed.
"It was Pariah. But why would she leave the implant? Why would she--"
He looks up at Grey, at Grey's sad smile, at the way Grey's eyes catch the light in a way that is not right.
"It was a love letter. A directive. It wasn't meant for you. I'm sorry," says Grey, in the way you'd say it to a mouse you had to trap. "I wasn't sure. But now I'm sure."
You've heard stories about people caught in immersive sims. You've heard stories about the knot of memories that are yours and aren't yours, the way some of the Watchdogs were retired when they could no longer untangle their feelings from those of investigation targets. Grey had told you the sim went fine on his end. But you'd lied, hadn't you? "Grey," you say. "No. Listen--"
"You're free when you're dead," says Grey, his body moving oddly underneath his coat, in a way that a person's body shouldn't move. "Take that as a comfort. We'll never be free, not really, just more free. But you will."
This is where it all starts.
replay archive?
The Faithful (her old name clawed out of her with the implant, with the defaced marks on her brow) looks out over the ruin that was once the city, a hulk lit alternately by torches and pale blue light, haunted with the noises of sirens and gunfire and laughter, and she turns the recorder over and over in her bloodless hands.
< no. >
She rises. There is no sun, only the thick pallor of black smoke that has hung since the collapse and the roiling, sickly yellow of the perpetual cloud-cover, but she barely remembers it and here, now, among the flock in the new world of the Wasteland, she doesn't need it. She has one better, one that she has earned the right to bask in: the Deacon, placing her cold hand on her shoulder, smiles.
200
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300
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