There aren't any more shuttles and the pods we use to make repairs to Citlali might get me where I need to go, in about a hundred years.
It's okay though, 'cause I don't need them.
Hunt is in the back of my mind, not saying anything, just there, a beacon guiding me through Citlali's ruined corridors, through the gangway connecting it to Aeotu, and deep into the alien ship's bowels.
It's different down here, the bulkheads dark, the patterns carved deeper, sharper. Urgency and danger radiate from them, saturating the air, my blood, making my heart beat harder. From Aeotu or Hunt? I can't tell. All I know is that the vision of Hunt, of the faceless thing on the other side of the umbilicus, is more vibrant down here.
The atmosphere tastes like old sweat and adrenalin, musty and ancient, seeped into the bulkheads over millennia ago.
I can almost see Them racing down these stairs, almost feel like I am one of Them, fug-feet taking the risers without the awkwardness of my human legs. And now I'm stepping through a doorway, the hatch snapping shut behind and it almost feels familiar.
There's no corridor here, just a room. An airlock, the last line of defence if the—
I shake my head. The stuff in my brain is a tangle of numbers and equations, things slipping through Hunt's translation and skidding off my grey-matter. It doesn't matter why this is an airlock, all that matters is the massive, squashed-egg-on-its-side hatch in front of me, and the thing behind it.
My heart's pounding hard, the SNICK SNICK of my fug-claws boom in my ears, and I can't get my breath.
The hatch pulses under my hand, the vibration rippling up my arm, beating in time with my heart. Whatever's behind the door is going to change my life, change it in ways that the fug-armour has only hinted at, and I can't help remembering Grea whispering to me in the dark. 'We're going to live forever.'
I don't want to live forever. That knowledge blooms in my anima, in the very core of me.
I'm gonna live for now though. Got to find a way to get to Grea and out of the mess she's landed us in, and that way is on the other side of the hatch.
I take a step, draw in a breath to fortify my courage, and nod. 'Okay,' I say. 'Let's do this.'
A pulse of acknowledgement, and then the wall snaps back.
The space beyond is cavernous, three decks tall and four times as wide. For a moment, I imagine a half-dozen shuttles crouched on the deck, furred, flat-nosed aliens scurrying between them, carrying tools and dragging hover-sleds laden with cargo, and struggle to know if the imagining is mine or Aeotu's.
The hangar is dark and deserted now, the massive expanse of deck empty but for dust and the metallic sentinel waiting for me on the other side; the only light comes from the corridor and the glow hovering over my shoulder. It's barely enough to make out the thing's feet.
The thought has barely crossed my mind before light floods the space, and I know by the pulse through the umbilicus, that it's Hunt responding to me.
It's huge. A steel grey colossus of metal. The HUD is mapping the… armour? Human-shaped shuttle? Mechanoid? Mech? Whatever it is, the HUD outlines it in white and red and blue.
Eight-point-three-five metres. The awareness tells me that a second before my HUD starts popping numbers, readouts and power levels and material scans flying outward from the centre of my vision, cluttering up the sides of the screen.
I ignore them. Numbers and scans can't quite encompass the enormity of the thing before me, can't quite describe the unreality, the coolness, the deep-seated freak-out happening in my chest.
The mech is Hunt, and it looks like me. There's no face, no nose, no eyes, just a blank space on the top of its neck. It barely even has a neck, the head sloping into the shoulders with a short stump between. No hair. No nothing that would immediately make you sit up and go 'Holy Terra, they turned Kuma into a robot', but somehow... Somehow it looks like me. There's an aura coming off the mech, a sense of identity that wasn't there when I first saw it, was just a nascent glimpse of the future. And now, now its identity radiates off it and… It's me but not.
I take a breath, a big one. There's no time to wonder at it.
Dude chitters, his paw on my ear as he rears up for a better look.
The multi-hued thread connecting the critter to Hunt, pulses.
Brother. Hurry.
Aeotu's voice shivers through the air, pushing me forward, reminding me of Grea and the ships outside.
I hurry, fug-feet padding across the deck.
I'm at the mech's feet, the top of its toes coming up to my chest, before I wonder how I get in. Do I get in? Aeotu made it sound like I was taking a shuttle, so in makes sense but—
Knowledge smacks me in the back of the head, and there's that golden web moving under my skin as Dude takes control of my feet. I'm jogging, feet aiming for a circle carved in the deck before the knowledge finishes sinking in. I'm in the circle and the outside of it is glowing, my HUD picking up the surge of power, and then we're shooting into the air as Dude releases my muscles. It's fast enough to make me wobble, to find myself peering over the edge of the platform as it leaves the deck behind and... Oh shit, I did not expect that.
The platform stops.
There's a ringing in my ears that I'm pretty sure is because my heart is beating a million parsecs an hour. The deck is a long way down – six metres whispers Hunt – and my foot is a really close to the edge – eight centimetres – and I'm not really sure I want to move, until awareness urges me to turn my head. I'm staring at Hunt's back. At dancing patterns and cords of metal-stone rippling with movement, writhing like there's something under them, pushing to the surface. And then the cords are parting, a curtain drawing back and outward, individual strands reaching. Reaching for me. There's a moment where my heart stops thumping and lodges in my throat, a moment when I remember the viyusa and the endless, furious red of Grea's anger. And then I'm reaching back.
Strands wrap around my arms, my waist, and the fug-armour shifts, changes. It's merging, me and Hunt, the fug armour. We're all part of a whole, little bits slotting together like we were made for each other.
No. Aeotu whispers. Made for you, little brother.
Made for me.
'When?'
There's no reply, nothing save Hunt folding around me, drawing me into the hole in its back. Even Dude. The world goes black, and there's a moment of confusion, a sharp spike of fear as nothingness claims me. No sight, no sound. Just the throb of Hunt and squeeze of the fug.
And then light, awareness but not the awareness of Hunt. The awareness is mine, is ours, flowing between us from senses that baffle my brain, that make my head hurt just trying to comprehend–
{{ Here. }} The voice is not a voice. It's in my head but not like Onah or h'Rawd, not even like Grea. It's my own, and yet there's that tingle that is Hunt. But now it's me too, and it's directing my attention, drawing it away from the chaos of new information, toward something simpler, something I can understand.
My arm. I lift it, and even though it feels like my own fleshy Jørgen self, what moves can only belong to Hunt. Metallic and strange. I lift hands the size of a rucnart, clench fingers, one at a time, into a fist. One. Two. Three. Four. No fifth, just the three thick digits and a long thumb, wrapping around my knuckles. Left then right, both hands clenched like one of the old Terran boxers, held in front of my face. Two hands, and yet I'm not finished, can feel other limbs twitch under my armpits, the flex of new muscles in my back, and Hunt is whispering again, showing me how to move them, how to lift those limbs, how to make the hands at the ends work.
And now I'm holding up a second pair of fists, just below the others, and it's weird and not, and I'm thinking I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, and that my brain is going to explode, and–
Gold swarms over my thoughts, a blanket calming the roil of tension building in my gut, leaving behind a... It's almost an emote but too much like a Jørn thought-packet, sinking into my brain, sharing the sensation of skittering through tubes and over bulkheads on six legs, the movement of muscles, the automatic placement of paws.
I breathe again.
'Thanks, Dude.'
He chitters, and for the first time I realise that my ears still work in here, that I can hear stuff. Stuff like the CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK of the trapdoor opening under Hunt's massive feet.
'Oh, shi—'