Severance Universe One-Shot - Behind Worn Bones
Friday, September 19th, 2014 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mindcrackloveIn the furor that is the madness of "UHC: Foundation" [link here to the full compiled story document], one tends to forget that there is a whole universe and a rich lore behind all of it; volumes of information that are--even now--still being revealed to those observing it, including myself, the series creator. It goes far, far deeper than what we have published here thus far. Indeed, there are whole histories and backstories begging to be told, all of them are either being forced to wait until they are relevant or impatiently bursting forth because the lore just wants to be known.
This is one of those tales that just wanted to be told and couldn't hold back any longer. ... and it's a story that needs to be told. It's one of those little forgotten footnotes in a world's history that will be felt in a big way.
Just how, you may ask?
You'll just have to wait for the answer like the rest of us, dear reader.
A big thank-you to Elfy for jumping on this little side project and for her help in developing this important piece of the Severance Universe's Lore. We hope you'll enjoy the show as much as we had putting it together. <3 ~Lioness
[Approximately 4 years and 9 months after the Treaty of Novis City or 11 Years after the De-Synching]
Too much dust in here. I’m gonna start sneezing any moment.
It had been three months since his people started disappearing, and barely a month after an assassin had failed to silence him.
He didn’t know how much time he had, but he wasn’t going to waste it hoping for this to just pass over. If he was going out, he would go out along with everything he’d worked on; he’d be damned to let that crazy dragon woman capitalize on his life’s work. His pride wouldn’t let him.
Of course, if he could at all help it, he’d just as well take every chance he had to wriggle out of this mess along with all of his hard-earned (in his mind, anyway) knowledge, and maybe even get a shot at giving the power-mad harpy some dues in return.
Thus he was now sitting cooped up inside a nearly-forgotten annex within the sprawling underground complex, a largely featureless room that could have easily passed as an old, abandoned observation chamber. His only companions were the handful of grimy old computer banks sitting along one wall, his back facing a demi-translucent “spy” glass that overlooked another, slightly more spacious but equally stripped-bare chamber.
He knew that the place was about as out-of-the-way as it could get, but it was necessary. In order to access the key data storage he was after, he needed a computer link that was still connected yet sufficiently ‘off-the-grid’ to avoid being traced by the ever-vigilant AI he was currently skirting - both in terms of software and hardware.
Merely hanging around in this room creeped him out ever so mildly … though that was part of the package for this old annex. It had once been an even older Moderan research lab. Who knew what godawful things had transpired in here …
He quickly shook his head and focused on his game as he pulled out a heavily customized USB data stick from one of his pockets, plugged it into the nearest harddrive cluster and promptly powered up the old workstation in front of him. Time was at a premium and the more he spent musing about the past, the more he was putting his future at risk.
His gloved fingertips hovered impatiently over the keys - the lights of the tiny USB stick flickered at him, its colors cycling through the rainbow once and then again, before the screen finally lit up from its darkened state to reveal an impressively cluttered desktop.
It took a few minutes and several long strings of clattering keys before he got to the heart of what he was looking for. Now came an even more tedious task …
“Hacking is more fun in the movies,” he muttered in quiet annoyance and impatience as he began flicking through the files that appeared before him. “Junk, junk, junk, my—stolen stuff, junk, work stuff, junk, junk …”
He paused his browsing at a series of video files that suddenly came up on screen. They were all named quite simply, if ambiguously: “attempt01”, “heart02”, “psychosis03”, “phone04”, among others. Tens if not hundreds of videos, and another, tantalizingly locked folder, titled “crown”.
The cursor hovered over “attempt01” for a moment before he clicked it. Only twenty-two seconds long, it flashed wildly back and forth between static and pitch black. A slow, heavy hum began at the twelve second mark, growing ever louder. He almost wondered for a moment if the file itself had gone corrupt … until, at twenty-one seconds, there was the sound of a thousand things shattering at once, almost drowning out the terrified screams.
It flashed white, and the video cut.
As unnerving as that had been - and he was certain a lesser man would have been scared out of his skin - it had definitely piqued his interest.
He scrolled further down the list, clicking another video at random - “skull16”. This one was much, much longer, so he slid the window over to the secondary monitor and continued his browsing while it began to play.
It started with audio this time, with someone talking, and a different darkness than before.
“DB? DB!”
---
“DB? DB! Deadbones!”
“Huh?” I shake the fogginess from my head, slowly blinking the sleep out of my eyes. Looking down at the short girl before me, I feel her piercing gaze through her patterned gas mask. “What? What’s up, CT?”
“New mission tonight, so get your ass out of the tree for briefing.”
“Ughhh I never get to sleep.” Tipping over lazily, I drop off my branch and flop gracelessly onto my side. After a moment of making sure I can still move it, I hold my arm out for CT to grab and she pulls me smoothly to my feet.
“You’re going to dislocate your shoulder again and be off missions for a week,” she warns with a caustic tone.
“What, from falling or from you helping me up?” I wink at her. “And then I’ll get to sleep!”
She shakes her head. “Just find Bark, I’ve got LD. Usual place at twenty-one-hundred.”
“You’ve always got LD. Know where Bark’s at?”
“Shopping, so either grabbing chalk or tuna.” She looks at me curiously for a second. “Is your mask starting to rust again?”
“Yeah, I think it’s the cold. It always gets bad this time of year.”
She is already halfway out of sight when I turn around to wave. I roll my eyes, then suddenly realize my own nakedness. I dig into my pouch, glad I’ve emptied it save for the beer, snacks, and …
I pull the worn leather strap (it’s going to have to be replaced soon, I notice) behind my head and slide the metal mask into place, double-checking that it fits right and won’t fall off in the middle of a mission (again). Sure enough, familiar streaks of rust have already formed along its edge. I sigh, then head out for the briefing.
I stroll towards the gates of the park, mentally mapping my way around Blockhaven and begin my quest to find my friend.
For a man of his size, he is always surprisingly hard to find.
Five pet stores, two art supply shops and a grocery store later, I finally catch up with Bark in the back aisle of the new hardware store off Main and Third. He has a small container of white chalk powder in his hand, applying it in a familiar pattern to the small black kitten perched on his shoulder. I wait for him to finish, then slide up beside him, scratching Kat underneath her chin. She sneezes half the chalk off, and Bark looks at me scrutinizingly.
“She was going to do it anyway. Should just get her a mask herself, not matching tattoos.”
He raises his own tattooed eyebrows at me. We stare at each other in silence for a moment before I shrug and go on with what I’ve been sent to say.
“ANYWAY briefing tonight at twenty-one-hundred, usual place and all that.”
He nods. Kat mews.
Bark resumes with his chalk, now painting his own face. I give a farewell nod and head out the store’s exit, humming the public radio channel’s song along with it.
“Everyone hail to the Pumpkin King, now, this is Halloween, this is Halloween …”
---
He hit the pause button, breathing out for a moment. He didn’t realize he was rubbing his eyes until he felt the stars and stripes swimming across his vision.
There was just this one thing … fundamentally off with the vid. It didn’t quite play like a headcam recording - it gave him the weirdest kind of nausea, almost motion sickness, like he wasn’t following the bobbing of an external device, but looking through the literal eyes of the person that these recordings must have belonged to.
This ‘Deadbones’.
Curiosity overtook him. There was still a bit of a stretch left of the vid. He adjusted his seat and hit the play button. This time, he consciously braced himself.
The vid continued with a brief, dark static, like a video feed graft, until a perceptible image flickered onto the computer screen once again.
---
We all lean in around the map, lit dimly by the glow of the campfire and our captain’s torch. … well, technically he is a major, but we all call him captain anyway. I don’t think he ever really minds.
“Search and destroy, the usual.” BTC puts one finger onto the map and traces a path from our colony here in Blockhaven, to Colony Dumiose. He circles it, then pulls out a smaller map of the colony. “No witnesses.”
“I like how they keep including that like we’ll listen to it,” CT mutters. I snicker, BTC rolls his eyes, Bark gives a small smile and LD quickly removes her mask to give CT a fast but genuine peck on the cheek.
“No PDA during briefings, guys,” BTC says in a tone that implies this isn’t the first, or second, or third time he’s had to say it (it isn’t) before pulling out a marker to begin drawing on his map.
“It’ll be tough, like the usual … we’re right in the heart of Moderan territory, bigger, more fortified … the team’ll be just us.”
“Hooray for tiny strike team!” LD cheers.
“Deadbones, you and Barking Dog Never Bites are our lookouts. DB, keep an eye open for guards, civvies, anyone who shouldn’t be there, and get rid of them quickly and quietly.” He points to my spot on the map. “Bark, you’re with him. If things go south fast, you know what to expect.”
I salute lazily, while Bark simply nods.
“Lady Danger and Connecticut, you’re with me. Our target is Carolina Fall, codename ‘Ladyhawke’, and yes, LD, I know she’s stealing your thunder.”
LD gives an irritated nod. CT rubs the back of a finger against her girlfriend’s arm.
“She’s a higher-up in Dumiose. Sharp, strategic, so we have to be better. Her strongest defense, besides that, is her bodyguard. Wears full power armor. It’s a flex strategy - we don’t know how much they’ve got or how many we’re up against. All we know is that our starting route is through the sewers and we’ve gotta go from there. You guys ready?”
---
He didn’t even flinch this time when the video feed graft flickered past again. This was getting good. Damn good. His eyes were riveted to the screen as the recording resumed.
---
I perch in the tree, one hand tightly gripping my bow and the other hovering permanently by my quiver. BTC wasn’t wrong - the walls are thick concrete, barbed wire hanging across the rooftops, and huge, blinding searchlights swing their blazing cones back and forth over the streets.
A dead sentry stand leaned against the trunk of my tree, an arrow embedded in his throat. Had to make sure I got an ideal position. I’ve no idea what he was doing here, no comm-link or weapons on him, but he certainly wasn’t a civvie, either. I tighten my scarf around my neck, as if it’s going to make some difference on what I assume is a cold October night.
“Okay, we’re in.” CT’s voice comes in over my com, muffled slightly by her mask. “Sewers were clear. LD’s working on the alarms …”
“Copy.”
“Red wire, red wire, red wi—okay, you were right, it was the blue wire.”
“HA!” LD shouts in the background, quickly shushed by her girlfriend. “Er, ha.”
“Any problems, DB, Bark?” BTC says over the coms, crisp and business like always.
“Unarmed sentry in my tree, but he’s been dealt with,” I report. Two taps of a mic come in from Bark - things are fine on his end.
“We’re beneath the main courtyard,” our fearless leader continues, and I consult my map. “We’ll be taking the air vents to get to the inner sanctum. Be back in ten.”
I wait in my tree, keeping my watch on the colony below. Ten minutes later on the dot, BTC comes back over the com. “Triggering blast in T-minus-60. Make sure we’re not swarmed, any of you. DB, if you feel safe enough you should be able to move up to the courtyard roofs. Careful of the wire.”
“On it, boss.” I drop down to hang by my arms, then swing forward and land by the side of the building. I retrieve my sabreclaws from my pack, eyeing my finger angrily as it scrapes along a claw edge and begins to bleed. I shake off the blood, dig the claws into the side of wall and start to scale it.
I try to hop over the barbed wire, but end up tripping gracelessly onto the concrete rooftop. Checking to make sure I haven’t scratched anything or twisted my ankle, I resume my post overlooking the city, claws back in my pack and bow at the ready.
3 … 2 … 1 …
A boom, and the hiss of smoke emptying into the air. The spotlights all swivel over to the sanctum, and I have to give LD credit - no klaxons are going off for once.
Soldiers, guards and sentries begin pouring out towards the blast. I grasp my first arrow and notch it, then let it fly into the fray.
I sit there for several minutes, just firing into the crowd. I can see the occasional silver flash of Bark’s swords, barely masked by the smoke. A tap over my mic indicates that, whoops, I almost hit him just now.
“Sorry,” I mutter into the mic and fire further to the left.
Faster than I’d expected, another two taps come in over the mic. We’ve cleared them out.
“… there’s usually more, especially somewhere so heavily fortified …” I murmur, notching another arrow but holding off firing it. I grit my teeth, pull the arrow from the string and slide the arrow back into the quiver, then I jump forward several roofs. I can barely see into the sanctum through the blown-open door.
There she is. Ladyhawke. Military uniform, bright red hair tied back and hands in the air, her face a stone mask. LD and CT both have her pegged, BTC pulls his gun from his holster like quicksilver, and fires a single shot.
A split second before the bullet hits, the woman flickers and disappears.
“Teleport! It’s a trap!” LD’s screech nearly sends feedback across the whole com. The trio turns to leave, only to be blocked by a concrete wall slamming down where the door used to be. They vanish from my view, but LD’s mic stays on - through it, I can hear constant thuds and gunshots.
“Yeah! Connect those cuts, Connecticut!” I would’ve been more worried had Danger not continued her wisecracking. That’s a good sign at least.
Then the faint wheeze of gas is heard through the com. I know that CT will be fine with her mask, but neither BTC or LD will make it through if it’s poison - and even if it is just sleeping gas or laughing gas or whatever, they’ll likely be out of it in minutes.
My hand reaches under my mask for a moment, the ghost of pain spreading where I know it touches. I reach back into my pack and seize one sabreclaw in each hand.
“CT, grab LD and get the hell out of there. Backup plan Epsilon. I’ve got BTC. Bark, make sure the girls get out.” Two microphone taps come in from Bark.
“Copy - we’ve only got enough for one blast, though,” CT pants, and I am almost certain she’s been wounded.
“I’ll be fine.”
In the next instant, the outer wall explodes again, this time leaving a hole barely large enough for the two to crawl out. As soon as they’re clear, I jump through and inside.
Another concrete wall falls into place behind me.
---
He blinked behind emerald goggles. The recording had just … ended. Not even a video graft or some garbled metadata flickering past, just a complete cutoff and the video playback shutting down.
He had seen the mysterious, eerily first-person point-of-view barrel across the last stretch, blur into a forward roll, and then blur again in a face-heel-turn to catch that one, ominous glimpse of the final trap slamming shut. And then nothing. Like someone had purposefully removed the entire rest of the vid.
No … not a video. A memory.
He closed the application, glanced at the door to the room, then quickly dragged the files - both the videos and the mysterious “crown” folder - onto the USB icon, making a mental note and a promise to unlock its contents proper when he reached his next safehouse. He pulled the stick out of the harddrive bank with practiced timing, the computer screen flickering and dying moments before his compatriot entered the room.
“You ready to go? Time’s up here.”
“Sure thing, Cthulhu.” He slid the USB stick into one of his many pockets, then looked at the scaly green man, who was watching curiously with twitching tendrils hanging off his face.
“Find anything interesting?” the extremely spliced-up human asked his former employer.
“Not really.” He shrugged noncommittally as he reapplied his janitor disguise and stood to leave the room. “It’s given me a couple ideas for a new project, though …”
The door closed behind the two men with a creak and the satisfying click of a deadbolt lock, and the tomb-like stillness returned to the abandoned observation chamber.
It was in this stillness that something stirred beyond the mirrored glass; laying disheveled, dinged, covered in dust, and sitting long forgotten, a small golden crown’s red gem began to glow.
(FAQ):
"What is the Severance Universe?" -- The Severance Universe is the setting for the 'UHC: Foundation' serial. Read all the previous chaptersodes here or here and read more info and lore click here.
Severance Universe One Shots:
SUOS 001 - Hat
SUOS 002 - Descent and Denial
SUOS 003 - Into This World
SUOS 004 - Hostility
Elfy's Contributions
Sentimentality
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