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The rank, low elevation of Overflow were unmistakable to a Runner. An inverse oasis with its swampy atmosphere in the middle of the canyons of Perimeter. Through worm printed filters and artificial senses delayed by milliseconds, Recon could feel herself come to, the strong smells and the sounds of sloshing water coaxing her awake.
It was late, pitch black out except for the floodlights of the facility. She felt her feet moving through water, but gliding, not stepping. She felt a numbness in her lower arms but a bit of pressure on the upper ones. Her head was limp, heavy, but she turned just enough to see a UESC bot holding her arm, facing forward as if she weren't there. When she mustered the will to turn to her other side she saw the same thing. The bots hovered above the waterline while her feet kicked up whatever had settled in the shallow pools over the countless years since they were last maintained by human hands.
So much of Tau Ceti felt how the Overflow facility did. Not much of it looked the same though it could share the same descriptor of ‘abandoned’
Some places were uncomfortably quiet and empty. Some places showed clear signs of action, whether it was retaliatory or predatory was up for interpretation but the destruction was striking. Places like Overflow lacked upkeep. Parts of it had broken open or been picked away at, other parts were being slowly reclaimed by the alien nature of the planet. Fungi grew along support beams that lifted the main buildings above the water around. The side buildings fared worse, oblong in their stance as some struts still stood while others had long given up.
The bots continued to chariot Recon into the base, into an open tunnel area under the base. Some more strength in her, she tried to flex her wrist a bit. She wasn't sure how she was still here. The official word from ONI and and Nona was that Runners couldn't go longer than half an hour before Tau Ceti scrambled the Shell connections. There were rumors of Rook shells and daring Runners who outlasted or disappeared but Recon didn't put much stake in them. She turned her thoughts to whatever she could recall. She remembered heading into Station looking for some salvage, on a Traxus contract. She remembered hearing something, a floor below her. There was scuffle with an Assassin only for a third Runner to come across them both, then UESC. The rest was a haze but she hadn't gone down, clearly.
Recon noticed the bots come to stop before dropping her into the water harshly. The cool water and ground hit her hard and woke her up some. She winced but the pain was superficial and nothing else seemed to hurt; someone, maybe the bots, had patched her up.
She lifted herself to her knees, submerged in the liquid. She looked to either of her kidnappers who seemed to just hover there. She looked forward and almost fell backwards into the water. Before her was a mass of scrap metal, much of it sporting UESC markings.
The thing hovered like the bots that’d carried her here but it was so misshapen and even its levitation looked imperfect and painful. The central mass was like a poorly formed meatball. Wiring and limbs hung off it like drops of paint that refused to detach. Recon looked in fear at it. She noticed places where it had fused like lighting had struck and welded it. There were places where red energy seeped and pulsed like exposed veins and fresh wounds. There was a sound too, like gurgling but run through an awful speaker. Then the thing muffled something at her.
It was communicating, trying to at least. Recon recognized it only because it spoke in code but had cadence. Code was lines, patterns but not the kind that flowed. Music had its own feel, so did conversation and it was conversing.
“What?” her voice was raspier than usual and it sounded muffled, even to her. The thing repeated its gargled speech and all Recon could do was shake her head.
“I… I can't understand you.” With no warning a tentacle shot out from the thing's mass and embedded itself in one of Recon’s palms. She lifted it, feeling a sharp piercing pain and then a hot rush. She watched red light race up her arm and could feel the invading heat like deep stinging. The techno pattern mirrored the pain darting and splitting. She watched her fingers start to twitch and crack as if possessed. Recon screamed deeply and tried to wrench her hand away. It was an instinct, no way did she believe it’d work but she felt the heat retreat for a moment and taking a deep breath she continued to tear. The heat resided more but there was still a pull, this thing wanted to be in her but she could fight and she did. For minutes they pulled at one another. Recon screamed and yanked and the Homunculus of UESC drones continued to choir at her as if it wasn't actively trying to overtake her.
“Let me go!” Another instinctual beat. Recon didn't believe the thing would, or even could. For all she knew it was a malfunctioning hunk of code, or worse, this was some sick prototype the UESC were about to dispatch across the planet to push the Runners out. The thought of it glaring down at her as fire rained on Outpost. The idea of it lording over the Complex at Dire Marsh. Each image her head produced scared Recon more and more but she used the fear, it willed her to continue pulling away from the thing. Finally, enough torque and enough rage and fear filled Recon for her to tug again and feel her lower arm completely separate. Again she hit the cold water and it recentered her a bit. She took a few deep breaths and assessed herself. There was little pain, she knew the arm was gone, she was sure of it but still she found herself strangely free of pain. She looked down to confirm and saw the ‘comforting’ sight of blue leaking from a jagged wound.
Again, the thing whirred at her but she didn't even look back. Recon picked herself up and started to leave, she waited to hear the UESC shift but they didn't and at the entrance of the little under area she looked up at the night sky and saw the Marathon hovering peacefully, watching her and the rest of the things playing out across the planet. For a moment she wondered if somewhere on Tau Ceti something nicer was happening to someone, or maybe something worse. The thought gave her pause, despite the horror right behind her. She could take the next step, leave this behind and think about how to barter the info to a Corp for something but first she’d have to leave the surface and she wasn't sure how.
“What will you do?” The voice was a gentle whisper, not her voice but it felt full of her intent. She thought about the question. There was no way she could exfil and though she didn't expire already there was no telling when she would or if she would. Maybe if she was in this shell too long she could do some real damage to her brain; and she was down an arm. Exhausted and trying to be purely logical, Recon felt for her knife, a quick puncture in the right spot would eject her; but it was gone. Maybe lost in the fight, maybe purposefully tossed away by her escorts earlier.
A sick thought entered her head as she turned back to the hovering mass. It wasn't pursuing her, it had never used its broken voice to scream at her in any way…it had invaded her systems but maybe it had been trying to speak, to translate its code with her shell’s
“What do you have to lose?” Again, a voice that was not hers but spoke her thoughts. She took a step toward the thing and it seemed to chipper up. She took another and then another. The thing slowly produced more of the sharp ended tentacles. They carried no recognizable features, they looked like new tech apart from the amalgam of the thing that produced them. Each one was a deep black that muffled any light cast on them. Red energy traced faintly at their base, near the mass and ended in a red glow at the tips, the hot metal. One shot forward and hit her shoulder, it hurt a bit but passed quickly. Another hit her side, another dead center of her chest. They worked quickly, spreading across her and filling Recon with an almost comforting warmth. A memory bubbled up out of thin air, of a woman silhouetted by the sun reaching out. Though she eclipsed the sun, its warmth seemed to come from her…or through her. Another tentacle hit her in the knee and she went down into the water, the memory was gone, she was back on Tau Ceti, under Overflow, alone with a monster in a shallow pool. The tentacle in her knee hurt and after a moment of clarity she could feel them all, they all hurt and that warmth became more uncomfortable with each second, a shower slowly getting too hot against skin.
She was afraid again, more than ever. She feared she’d made a horrible mistake and prepared to tear herself apart rather than let this thing continue its invasion of her body. She looked to see it looming over her.
“It’s too late now.” The voice was not hers, and neither was the thought. She thought it could be this thing’s but this voice wasn't innocent; it was wielded by something treacherous and seasoned and wickedly, dangerously curious. It was right though, it was too late. Several more wires fired out of the thing into Recon’s neck and head and stomach. Others didn't stab but wrapped, allowing it to lift and pull her closer, faster. They wrapped around her arms and waist and neck. One wrapped around her helmet awkwardly but tight enough to pull. All she could do was wince as the thing finished and lifted her softly into its center. The light intensified around its exposed areas as the side of her face neared its frame. She felt bliss take her again, like a soft dimming of a candle but again she woke up briefly and tried to fight, there was no fight left. The surface of the mass gave off an intense heat and Recon could feel the synthetic skin of her cheek bubble and pop like hot plastic as the homunculus seemed to embrace her. Recon screamed.
For the rest of the night across an empty Perimeter the sounds of forced integration howled out from Overflow.