Severance M/History
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Not everyone is so fortunate as to live at the foot of Cole’s shiny commode. The rest of us are born, live, fight and die out in the Wild Lands. Me, they told me the place used to be called Michigan. We actually had a few advantages in places like that. First and foremost is the weather. If things can’t grow, then the Devouring Earth loses some of its allies. Second are the salt mines. People need the salt to survive, but plants don’t seem to like it too much. Plus, if the rock beasts tried to form out of that salt, well, water would take care of them in short order. So it was a place to hole up, even somewhat prosperous when we could make shipments of salt to other colonies, but the siege was endless.
Many of us cut our teeth fighting them in the dark, twisting tunnels beneath the Great Lakes. Every now and then, someone wouldn’t make it. The crystalline beasts were our most dangerous foes, hurling jagged shards of themselves great distances with terrifying accuracy. I found out quickly that I could keep our people calm. I never understood how I could do it. I just spotted what they were afraid of and showed them how to fight it, how to overcome, and they would. Or they would at least believe they could. I knew I was valuable, but I didn’t think it was for that; we were all valuable, if we could shoot straight and duck fast.
But some of us, lucky or unlucky, take your pick, we would get to leave the tunnels to play escort going topside. We can’t trade anything if we can’t get it out of the mine in the first place. Cole’s people made the rounds. It never came regularly, but they always found some way to let the local colonies know before another weapons shipment would be arriving. And of course, nothing ever came without a price. Still, we gave them our lip service and whatever else we could trade if it meant we could keep the monsters at bay for another month.
The thing is, the rocks, the plants, the little mold men, beasts though they may be, they learn. I don’t know if they saw the helicopter, or they heard the rotors, or maybe even just felt the wind currents shifting around it. It doesn’t matter how they spotted it, not now. They did. The negotiators and three more men went down first, choking on some kind of spores. Thank God the pilot cranked up the engines or that stuff probably would have just spread out to the rest of us.
The goods were abandoned, the weapons were abandoned, and my people were bolting. One by one, they were being picked off by vines, thorns, and God knows what else. I tried to show them what was going on from my perspective, and I guess it worked. They all stopped. Then, the most horrible thing I ever heard, the ground split open. I could make out each one of their voices as they fell into the new sink hole. Two of the rock beasts were piecing themselves together from the rubble along the edge. Then, the beasts leaped in after them, and the voices stopped.
I shook myself out of my stupor to see everything being loaded on the helicopter. All the best weaponry in the world, and they could have lifted a damned finger to help us, and now they were going to take off with everything like common looters. I tried to make them stop, but nothing worked. It was like they couldn’t see me or hear me... so that’s what I made them think. I climbed up onto the ramp as it started to swing shut and hitched a ride out of there with them. It was either that or the Devouring Earth.
I still wonder if I made the right choice.
We must’ve circled the city proper for half an hour waiting on our window to pass the sonic barriers. Or maybe they were trying to find me before the ship landed. I never knew I was psychic, I just knew I could do things. Unfortunately, that made me valuable, something for Cole to possess. They were waiting for me on the tarmac.
I wasn’t about to make it easy on them, not after what I just went through. If there’s one thing you learn in the Wild Lands, it’s survival. How to get by when you’re not entirely sure of your environs. The first trick is to get sure. The second trick is, if you’re sure you’re in danger, get somewhere else. I didn’t know where I wanted to be, but I knew I didn’t want to be where I was or where they wanted to take me, so I bolted for the river, and eventually the sewers.
Even still, you can’t run from psychics. Once I knew what I was feeling, I could feel them all trying to pick at my mind, at least a dozen at a time, all buzzing around and plucking at whatever they could find like crows. It was maddening. And I suppose it worked. I lasted for a good week, dragging pursuers to places I knew would be just as dangerous for them as me. But eventually, you run out of places to run.
I don’t know if I ever turned into one of those floating, imprisoned slaves. I remember the sewers, I remember the pursuit, I remember... trapped. Then, something was wrong, and there was an explosion. Someone was trying to bring down Mother’s facility. They killed some people, maybe even themselves, and even though the floor above me had been virtually vaporized, the brunt of the damage was done not to the hospital but to the sonic barriers atop the wall.
The system wasn’t destroyed, no, not in the least, but it was compromised. But chaos, they hate chaos, true chaos, and a hole in their precious security field was certainly not their brand of chaos. The cleaners, the sweepers, the builders, the menders, and the dismantlers, they were all already in motion to clear the rubble, repair the pieces, get the system working optimally again. I had to act. I couldn’t fool the clockwork. They were firing at me before I’d even fully cleared the hole in my roof, but it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t stop me. Not now. I would be free. And I would show them just how much I did not appreciate my recent accommodations.
