Transcript for 5.19: Juno Steel and the Terrible Waste (Part 2)

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Yeah, well, it is. So it sounds like we've all got to get used to that fact.

Come on, get in here quick. What the hell was that?

God damn it. We just saw somebody get gunned down by some kind of zombie and that's still all you two can think about. It's hell out there. And those life up worker things. That's what the exact call them, right? They're chasing people into their homes.

Come on. You can lose your marbles in a minute. Right now, I need you here. Those life-or-things are going to figure out that we're up here any second. Do you have any way to keep them out of here?

By the hell not. It seems pretty defensible to me, only one way in. I'll weed see the bottom of the ladder from here. If any of them try to climb up, I can just blast them right back to you. We'll blast no one, Juno.

You were stated right next to me when that woman got shot through the skull, whatever love she felt for that life-up work or thing was not mutual. And that gives you license to kill them all over again, does it? You're not listening to me. And the one thing every person in Vavapolis hasn't common is that they were willing to give up their lives for the sake of bringing back someone who died. That's real love. There's no faking it. And if that thing didn't feel any love in return, if it could just shoot her dead without a second shot. Oh, it's calling them things. They are people. I don't know that they are. I don't think a person could have done something that cold without a second thought. It's time to wake up and face it, all right? To con it and bring back people, they brought back workers. And that's all they're good for now because that's what's good for the bottom line.

Malay, I get it, or at least I'm trying to get it. But we can hold on for your dad while those lifers are banging down your door.

They think they're trying to starve us out.

But damn it, why would they bother? They already have you all working for them for free, don't they?

They don't eat or sleep or get sick or anything.

What's left, really? Well, when all this over, we'll get one on the therapist counter, try to drill down into that answer. For now, how the hell are we going to get out of here? Because if we're going to make a move, it has to be before they pick out the best spots and touted camp out.

Lasting our way out is still an option. You two can climb down the ladder before me.

I'll put it on stun, what's the big deal?

Okay, so to sum all this up, we're being attacked by the recently dead every second counts because they're going to completely trap us in here any minute now and I'm not allowed to use my blaster. Anybody have any more hurdles for us to jump because I figured we should get it all over with now while I'm limber. Well, that's something, anyway. Only one thing left to do then. Which is? We call them the professionals. I had two professionals in mind when I picked up my comms. Well, three, actually, but from the thin-wet feel of it in my pocket, I could tell that the Ruby still wasn't feeling ready for action. First, of course, was Rita.

We didn't. Rita, we're going to need you to work some of that hacker magic for us. What can you pull off from where you are?

Well, we are in a city made of garbage where the dead have come back to life and they're posted with high power blasters all over the day and place, so mostly we're looking for a way to get the hell out of here.

Yeah, you're on speaker right now, so I wouldn't say that again. I've just got a couple of stairs called enough to kill you straight through the comms. A couple, who else is there with you?

You can't pray. Eyes on the prize, Rita. There's a big gate leading out of town, but it's been closed on us. Finding way to open it would probably be a good place to start. You got five minutes and also I'm gonna be making another call. Good luck. As for expert number two, the fact was we didn't know the first goddamn thing about what we were up against. And if we were really planning on going into a fight on arms with no idea what our enemy was, well it wouldn't be long before we'd be dead eyed, marching in plays that'll counter group right next to the other lifers down there. Problem was, I didn't know anybody who'd gone up against a crack squad or living dead before. So we were kind of in brand new territory here. But I did know one person who tangled with one of the dead on the daily basis. And even if his dead was less gun-toting, cold-hearted robot, and more slabbering, ball of excitement, it was a place to start anyway. Hey, Mick. Hey, Mick. So listen. If you had to take Wilcoe on a fight, how would you do it? Also before you answer, you should know that my next question is going to be, if you had to take 50 Wilcoes on a fight now, I'd guns. How would you do it? Yeah.

Wait, is something wrong with will go?

You shut sounds tragic, heartbreaking, devastating. That was gonna say gross, but mostly all those things, you said, yeah, I'm sorry, pal. So it's just, what, falling apart?

Do you know? Sorry about your dead dog, Nick. I gotta go. Bye. I got kind of intense.

I had, actually. But I knew I couldn't share it. If watching Wilco fall apart had that much of an effect on Mick, how the hell would melee feel watching her dad fall at pieces? Or, Narayah of watching slip? It would be too much for them to take, but it was maybe the only advantage we had against those life-up workers surrounding us. So I said, melee, can you put together some stuff we can use to fight him hand to hand? Even if we're not gonna shoot him, we're gonna need to disarm him.

And then called Rita back up for the final sound, whether she could get us the hell out of here. Well Rita, what do you got for us?

Sure, if it's hidden, hiding its part of the security system, people are only going to spend the big crowds on a security system for a safety people might actually get to crack.

and the bad news. Nobody ever specifies that there's good news unless there's also bad news. That's why there's no such thing as good news in a spill.

Because what you usually do is experiment turning things on and off until you've got the place figured out, but you do have to hurry my kill somebody.

So it's on a completely separate network.

Hasn't the room we're in right now?

Hopefully. Rita, there's no way to open the gate without that uplink.

Well, the magic I can think of is just a weird puddle in my pocket right now, so that's a no-go.

Sounds like we got no choice other than going down there and fighting them ourselves. And the sooner the better, before they figure out what we're up to.

Malay had plenty of junk scattered around that workshop, so it didn't take long to find a couple of things we could use as weapons. A couple of short metal pipes for Naraya, a flat sheet of metal like a shield for me. A long iron rebar club for Malay. We looked less like we were prepped for battle and more like we were prepped to play pretend in the backyard, but it was the best we had.

You mean the organs we don't even know if they're using?

Yeah, cool. Sure. I'll be gentle with the killer corpse as real cool.

I did my best not to look down at Vavopolis as we descended the long ladder in melee's place. It wasn't just that the height made my brains do back flips. It was the fact that I knew the slower we went or the louder we went, the more likely it was that someone would notice us as we climbed down. They sent me down the ladder first, supposedly because I had the best tool for protection against laser blast, but now it's not like it was the first time I was forced to take a lead in a death march. It just comes with a territory of being so naturally charming and likely

I'm not sure. I kind of already see what's been chunking up. Never mind, if I had one. Juno, look out! Once the stars cleared for my eyes, I saw a man with white hair and a white stare standing over me pointing a blaster straight into my face. I swung my scrap shield in front of me, but... turns out I didn't need it because someone else was quicker.

That's one down. Only, oh, five to go.

And then what do we supposed to do? Take each other, blasters, one by one, and just like stuff about pockets.

Those life-up workers were fast, but Nareyev and Melee were faster. In a flash Nareyev and used each of his metal pipes to whack up pistol to him rest in Melee had pushed two of the lifeers so far outbound the one shot they did get off only put to hole in the seal. Two for Nareyev and two for Melee left one for me and luckily my shield was thick and reflective enough that its laser shots could only give you a high temperature haircut. But unlike the array of sticks in melee's club, the shield's not much of a weapon. And I can only keep my defenses up, so before those dead hands reach me. Guys! Little house here!

Meanwhile, the life-up drone assigned his my dance partner was laying in on trigger too fast and too hard for me to fight back. It's dead closer and closer until I could see its fingers crest over the top of my scrap metal shield. And that's when I knew I had no choice but to do something really, really gross. It had to do with what Mick told me about Wilco. These lifers weren't anything like him. They weren't held together by anything more than yours dead flesh and me, some glue. So when I saw that hand reach over to grab my shield, I grabbed its wrist instead and I pulled.

I was clearly dead. Cold to the touch. Aaron's skin, not anchored on quite right. The wrist-eyed grab wasn't like that. It was warm, soft. I could feel the blood rushing through the veins. It was alive. While I was puzzling over that, the glyphor clearly saw that it didn't need to take my shield anymore. It already had the angle at me. The barrel of a blaster crept around the side of my protection. Angled somewhere in my guts, and if I didn't find a way to stop it, it was going to stop my heart. I couldn't retreat. My back was up against the door. We'd locked the first dead guy behind. Mary was taking her space to my left and arrayed to my right. So I stabilized my shield with both hands and charged the only direction I had left. Straight forward. Into the worker drone. Trying to kill me.

I don't know. It looks like it worked. Maybe. Come on out of there. You whatever the hell you are. You and I both know that wasn't enough to kill you. But life-up drone didn't come out. In my big tackle rush I pushed it backwards clean across the room and threw the doorway into a closet so dark I couldn't see the opposite end of it. That meant I couldn't see the walking corpse either. It was lurking in there waiting for me to follow and I didn't know which would be worse. Going after it or turning my back to the closet letting it come after me. I kept my shield up and took a few steps in until my foot kicked up against something and I jerked it back. So terrified by the feeling that I swore I could feel fingers closing around my ankle. But nothing came. So I kicked it again. And again, nothing and nothing. But the life I couldn't have just been sitting in there. Got it?

Hey, melee, you got a light switch for this closet? Yeah.

Never mind, I think I found it.

Maybe the better question is, what makes them move at all in the first place? What are you doing, Judah? Testing an idea. Are you there, Rita? No, just... You said you could intercept any wireless network, but anything on that network would have to have something that connects it to the network, right? Yeah, that.

Rita, is it possible for you to check if there are any of those receiver things near my comms right now?

If there are no receivers inside the workers and how the hellity executes controlling them, that is the question.

So if we shut down the lights, we shut down the workers.

It was a strange experience. Huddling around the toilet with my comms out waiting to see if Rita could hack our way out of a vopolis. And even if she could. Hell, I didn't know what the plan was after that. I didn't catch your name by the way. You didn't throw it. It's a long story. Well, whatever your name is, slips the name of the guy you're looking for, right? It is. And once you find him, what that

Kill them again, you mean?

Oh, uh, it's uh, it's just, uh, you know, it's kind of like, uh, I won't be angry. You can tell. I, uh, okay. I know someone who bought it. I guess, uh, kind of prototype of the life-up tech they're using here. It was a dog, not a person.

Kinda. But his dog doesn't stay, you know, put together. Cuts and scrapes don't heal, bones don't men. Nothing's over time, he's just falling apart.

Come on, you can't put that on yourself. Fine, too. What?

Look, I'm just gonna say this once because I think I know how well it's gonna go over. Juno, we can still get out of here. Salvage the people in Vavapolis we can, hide out till the ruby seven recovers, then cut our losses and go. It's an option, it's all I'm saying.

Yeah, Rita, tell me you've got what we need so we can get out of this hell hole.

Did you say it was all controlled by a main computer somewhere though? They couldn't have disconnected that, could they?

And it sounds like we need to get to the central computer then. Taking a lead us there in the dark melee. I just said I could access the lighting system either. More than one way to unscrew a light bulb. What do you say? Now do I get to use my blaster?

No, settle. Just watch me. Listen, no matter the occasion, I am always ready to sharpen the old sharp shooting skills.

Was it just me or was Nureye of smiling a little when he said that? Whatever. Not the time to think about that. May like out as a light to guide our way forward, but we had to be careful with it. Killing the flittering lights had not the lifers out colds, but just a flash from our beacon and they'd shudder to life all over again. Not that they'd always attack us, mind you. Whatever system the executives had implanted and then the cave them commands through flashing lights must have been sophisticated. Because depending on how we illuminated them, they did just about everything. One crawled at us using a leg, a hand, and they got him head pushed them forward through the choke. One made quick jittery motions with its torso like a puppet on table with strings. One twisted and contorted itself like hell's own pretzel. In a way the ones that didn't attack us felt worse to look at because then you could get a real look at them. You could remember that their faces used to hold a motion that there were people down here that had spent years toilet just to see those faces again. Anyway, our strategy is shooting the lights out and creeping our way forward worked pretty damn well until we got to the central computer that is. It was held inside a scrap iron brick of a building two stories tall at least, and the building was well lit on the inside, but I couldn't get a good angle on any of the lights from the outside.

In there? Geez. Can I just kept them in computer in your place?

That's fair, I guess. It doesn't explain how the hell we're gonna get in there without getting perforated, though.

Then, from one of his many pockets, Noray have pulled out a tool I'd only seen amuse a few times before. I think it looks like a little plasma pen knife on the end of a long cord. The activated the blade, spun it at a side, then launched it up towards the window above us. It cut into the wall, and then four plasmative metal anchors sprung from the sides of the pen knife and anchored themselves in the iron wall, melting it and welding it to the tool in a second. Then he tested the cord with his weight and began to climb. It was so different from how he looked on the surface of the trashball, but so like the Narayev I had known from our year, working with the Arinkos. Hell, from the Narayev I knew from tangling with me as my back in the Martian tomb. There was a quick sureness to his emotions now that had been missing for a while. I wonder what that meant and more in the fact that I'd probably never get to know.

Yeah, sorry about that. I didn't need to see nor I have to know what he was doing up there. If the lock was digital, he'd probably use a short range wireless transmitter to blitz the lock and fry it from the outside. If it was mechanical, maybe some kind of Jimmy to crack the window open, then a long thin wedge to turn the catch from the other side. Either way, he got the damn thing open. Then he looked down at me in melee, motion for us to wait a moment, and crawled in the window. So we waited. And we waited.

I think we have to follow.

Yeah. You can stay here if you want.

You're holding our only source of light, so I think it's gonna be me. Here goes nothing. I was halfway up the rope and something strange happened through that window above us. The lights flickered off.

We won't know until... Ahhhh!

Yeah. Yeah, just a dead egg or something. I'll keep moving. The window is hanging open. Creaking in its frame as I climbed up a side it. I couldn't make out a goddamn thing in the darkness, and my ears were strained so far they were playing tricks on me. Was that the breath of a life or the hiss of air filtration units? I didn't know. Hey!

The lights flickered back on. And when I got a good picture of what was going on, well, it sure wasn't good. One of those executives had Narayev in an iron grip. One hand locked tight over Narayev's mouth. The other holding a strange device bound with snake-light coils to the sputtering computer in the back of the room. And surrounding us, of course, with lifers. Judging to life is the lights we can make. The executive has to button on that device. The lights are flickered in quick and old patterns. When I realized what was happening, I went for my blaster, but I was too late. Two sets of strong arms, grabbed mine, sending my blaster clatter across the floor towards the window.

Me?

Don't fall for it, God dammit, man. I don't you fall for it.

One of the lifeers stepped forward from the pack, a sleek metal speaker box dangling from his neck. There was no resemblance between him and melee, not even the mirrored expressions you sometimes get between people who've spent a lot of time together. All that stuff, the expressions, the connection, the experience, must have died a long time ago. But I can't blame melee for seeing those things in his face, even if they weren't really there. You want something long enough and its ghost starts to haunt you. It starts to crop up wherever it hurts most.

There was a war going on behind May Lasis and I couldn't blame her. The Decona group's move was a little obvious, sure, but it's stacked with a deck so that obvious might be enough. You want something bad enough for long enough, and your brains will do backflips convincing you it's exactly what you need no matter the cost. Norea was watching her closely, too. It didn't take a genius to figure out what he was thinking, confronted with melee finally getting what you wanted for so long.

Malay was on the ground in a second. My blaster in her hand, and before the executive could do so much as twitch towards that remote he was holding, she'd sent a beam of hard light straight through the thing that used to be your father. Malay, what are you doing? She wasn't the best shot. My blaster was fully charged, and she had as many lasers as she needed to get the job done. She sent one close enough to the executive's hand to start limits dropping the remote. If you miss shots later, and she managed to crack the single, dangling ball of light in the room.

Damn it, I can't see anything. Melee, you still have that light?

Damn he's fast. He's already gone. I'll go after him. You two figure out the computer so we... Let him go, Juno. But he saw you! If he tells the other executives you're here... It's all right, Juno.

She was standing over the body of her father, and... It's awful to say, but he looks more human that way. At peace. We let her have a few minutes just to look at him. She'd waited long enough to earn him, I thought. Melee opened the gates to Vivopolis soon after. Then brought Narei and I back to her place.

We sat in the silent dark for a while before either of us managed to speak. I got the sense that Naraya was chewing on something he should have thought about a long time ago. Hell, maybe I was doing the same. But eventually, I couldn't take quiet anymore, and I said, no, I have.

Did you notice... That executive said he was looking for me. Hell, when the guards tied us up and said the executives wanted one of us, maybe they meant... But what the hell did he mean?

Scary. I get it. You don't have to if you don't want to.

Have it helped. No, I have. What are you gonna do with? Or I guess when you get slip out of here?

Future comes at you, whether or not you're ready for it. I think Mayla is probably dealing with that right now. Guess I'm gonna have to cross that bridge pretty soon, too. Ever since Stark matters to have a cart blanche, the Ruby and I have had a pretty one track mind. Find our family one by one. Well, here's the last one.

I don't know. I guess you just... Look to see if you have any unfinished business. And if you don't, you find some new business to start.

Let's go. You ever get a feeling in your guts that a plan just isn't going to come through? When I look back, I think I had a little bit of that back in the old town days when me and Mick and Sasha would talk about meeting up again 20, 40, 50 years later, like no time at all had passed. The future belongs to promises and the presence to reality. And sometimes when the latter crashes up against the former, fate turns into a liar. Narayav and I wouldn't breach that topic again soon, is what I'm saying. There was a long, hard road we'd have to walk in the meanwhile. And a big question about who the hell we'd be when we got to the end of it. It started on our way out of a vopolis. Melee had gathered the survivors together in a group ahead of us, and there were only a couple of lights to go around so the group had taken him. That left us, mostly, walking in the dark. In my head. There was this feeling in my head, this pain that I couldn't pin and couldn't shake. It was the same high pressure feeling I'd had before climbing the rope up to where the executives were.

I mean, I think so. I don't know what would be wrong. No.

It felt like a solid core of dread to just dense as a bullet and big as a cannonball. Ready to push my skull open from the inside out. It was a feeling too big for me to hold and it definitely felt like a feeling too big for me to have come up with. And I realized just a second to light. That's because I hadn't come up with it. The Ruby 7 had, and then suddenly I saw what it saw. I felt what it felt out there in the dark, and it was a hell of a lot more than any of the rest of us were noticing.

I pushed at the one closest to me, which was Maylight, but I felt as clear as it was my own hand doing it. A molten tensile of the Ruby 7 push out of my pocket and push an array of away from me, too. Half a second later, and we would have been too late. For them, I mean, we were already too late for me. Or for the Ruby.

Did he go? I'm not sure. It was too dark. My brain cramped full of too many volts for me to tell. And in the way that sometimes happens when you're about to lose consciousness. Trust me, I know. I've been in enough knock-down drag-out fights to have the experience. My mind was focused on one thing and one thing only. See, the Ruby 7 was still stretched out of my pocket when that stunt hit us. It had closed over me, but only part of it. But apparently, it couldn't take the strain of all that shock, because half of the would be severing was still in my pocket. But I could feel the other half, writhing and twisting and pain, on the ground when Rave's feet.

Right. Yeah. Monster gun.