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Two days into recon, I think, and I hear a gunshot from behind me.
Worst-case scenario, I had been expecting it, being this far from the Tower’s protection and the Traveler. The surface of Venus - hell, probably the entire inside of it was crawling with the machines if they could manage it. It wouldn’t seem far-fetched, really, since they seemed to defy and deflie everything we know about time. So, of course, our resident expert would be someone ...eccentric enough to make sense of them in a way that the rest of us couldn’t begin to comprehend. Not really my place to, anyhow. I just watch, point, and shoot. That’s as complicated as it needs to be. My tolerance for nonsense usually runs out too soon to think of listening to it.
So, it would make sense that I would expect the one who dabbles with the Vex to know that firing a gun in the quiet generally isn’t a good idea because THEY could be listening.
My scope sees both too much use and not enough in the seconds following the crack that seemed much louder than it probably should’ve, and every curse that comes flooding out of my mouth is met only with a sigh.
A… sigh?
I turn more slowly than I would’ve liked, blindsided by the inappropriate response to the shot heard ‘round Venus, to see the warlock’s ghost hovering over her corpse, an entrance wound bright, red, and new and square between the eyes.
When I first came back, before I understood the nature of the Traveler and the ghost, this would’ve no doubt sent me into a fit. Suicides were common in military groups, sure, but for a guardian it was just… pointless. You were dead before, and your ghost brought you back to fight back everything that would destroy the world as we know it. You weren’t getting a pass out of that easily. It’s just gonna bring you back again, so why do it?
I nudge her body with my foot when her ghost speaks. “This is the fifth time this cycle,” it sighs, and I can hear the exhaustion in its projected voice.
“So you’ve rezzed her four times recently?” I ask.
“Yes, of the times she has felled herself.”
A beat passes, and I look out the windows of the long-dilapidated building over the Sink, towards the machine vault. I’m unsure if I’m relieved or unnerved to see that the doors remain as still as they were when we arrived. “Not to rush you, ghost, but I need you to make it five.”
“I’m afraid she has requested I wait when she does this. She awakens most disappointed otherwise.”
“Better disappointed and shooting than on the ground and bleeding while we’re getting shot at .”
“She really prefers to wander, but if you insist…”
“What’s she gonna do? Pout at me?” I snort as I hear a defeated sigh and a thrum behind me. “We can’t waste any time if even one of those machines out there heard you. I can only see the ones in the Sink, but there’s no telling how many of ‘em are in the Vault--”
“Hunter, what is the longest scream you’ve ever let flee? How long did it take before its legs grew tired and heavy?”
I have no idea what to say to this. Of the cryptic things she’s asked me since I’ve known her, this has to be in the top six. “Uhh… ten seconds? Maybe? I don’t know, but it’s a record I’ll beat if we don’t get moving, Vexpert.”
“There is a scream that has lasted - that will last - for more than five centuries whose echoes started not too long ago, but of which we will soon hear the end through frequencies as distorted and forgotten as the one who made them. He runs desperate and for naught, his fear realized and then falsely alleviated. It’s quite sad.”
I meet her golden eyes with silence. “I don’t have time for this,” I decide, and prime my equipment as I hear stirring that I’m not sure is imagined or real.
“Perhaps not. Though he has nothing but and yet not enough,” the warlock says without any worry in either her voice or body. “We will all remember and come to his rescue too late.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but it’ll be us if we don’t relocate somewhere more defensible in the next few minutes. A basement’s not exactly an ideal sniper nest..”
“A few minutes is already too long,” I hear her say behind me, and I know she’s not talking about us.