There are no bright colors anywhere.
The weather is turning worse. The waves aren’t too high, but they’re still rolling endlessly in. The sea spray gets in the eyes. The air is full of the boom of cannons, the chattering of gunfire, the sound of men shouting or screaming, the sound of metal creaking, the sudden explosive noise as a ship is broken by Titalion or falls apart from previous battle damage.
The kaiju is departing the scene. Some of the faster ships have apparently received orders to lure it away from the rest of the fleet. Their guns are in nearly continuous action, and they’re deploying depth charges to irritate the beast still further. The rest of the fleet is firing sporadically, mostly to keep the beast from getting too close too fast by giving it a further distraction.
Some of the guns are still shooting at Otto, Mo, Bill, and Summer. Maybe the Russian commander lied. Maybe, like Tarasenko, the commander made a decision the subordinates don’t like, and they’re showing their displeasure.
The guns don’t matter.
The brothers are still pulling people out of the water, still drawing sailors away from oil slicks that could catch fire, still diving to find people who might not be buoyant enough to surface on their own. These people are being steadily pulled aboard the ships that are still afloat.
Well, the guns matter a little bit. Despite Summer’s shields, Otto and Bill have been nicked a couple times by that damned purple ammo. To keep their power and cooling systems from draining out completely, they grabbed hold of hot metal and simply wrapped it around the injured limb, like a steel band-aid. Then they went back to work.
“At some point we’re gonna have to call it quits,” Otto radios grimly. “We can’t just keep receivin’ pot shots, and there’s only so many dudes in the water.”
“That’s your call, boss,” Bill reminds him.
Otto growls and grouses over the radio. “Yeah yeah yeah. Guess I’m just settin’ up an excuse to call it. But realistically, there has to be a stopping point. Guess I’m trying to feel out where you guys are on that.”
“It’d be easy to just say, whatever you say, boss,” admits Bill reluctantly. “You’re askin’ the hard question. 'Cause none of us really like these people. Kinda hate ‘em right now, actually. And that’s me sayin’ it.”
“Ain’t sayin’ let 'em drown,” Mo adds. “But yeah. Once they’re safe, fuck 'em.”
Otto hasn’t heard from Summer about this, and speaks up. “How 'bout you, sunshine girl?”
Summer is playing defense for the brothers. Her force field strength is dangerously low. And at some point she’s gonna have to tell them that.
She doesn’t want to say it as an excuse to leave. She doesn’t want the others to take it as such. But what else could it sound like?
Fez has been crying. Aria feels neglectful as a parent.
She carries her child in an internal Nursery - a computer system in her abdomen, where Fez’s electromechanical brain is connected. The child’s experience is a huge virtual space, with a giant screen where they can see what their mother is seeing. And Aria can hear them in turn.
Now, she can’t put it off any longer. She summons Fez out of the Nursery, and into holographic existence in her arms. She strokes her baby’s head with a gentle, loving smile, and is rewarded with a soft cooing and gurgling child rather than a fearful, crying one.
Still…
She looks down at Leo. He somehow had the presence of mind to cable himself into the Heart Factory, and plug that into the city’s systems - to the mind of the Deep Leviathan in which they all reside. Now he sits cross-legged, vacant, staring at nothing.
She checks the Heart Factory.
Leo’s only a few commands away from a full transfer - his mind into the Deep Leviathan of the city.
Oh god.
He’s not crying, but he needs me just as much, she tells herself. He was useful - he saved our friends, helped save the city - but did we lose him in the process? Did I let him go this far?
She recognizes the impulse that’s driving him. She shares his memories, though they’re flavored for her reality. She has something of that inner nature that drives him - all the Newmen do.
Right now, Leo is retreating into a world where he’s safe and secure. The Deep Leviathans are calling to him in his soul. Become one of us. Give up your mortal life and human concerns. Strike the enemy, or retreat into the depths. Stop worrying about law or justice or public attitudes, the way you’ve had to as a superhero, as part of the city’s leadership.
Just be. Just exist.
Managing the city has been her dream. But faced with the prospect of kicking everyone out of Safe Harbor, and just disappearing into the ocean, she can feel the temptation of it.
Summer hasn’t wanted the popularity she got after being the face of the Haven rescue. Would she, if given the chance to disappear, take it? Would she go running off to hang out with Alycia and Jason and whatever black-ops team those two have going?
Summer’s fame developed in “415 - Star-Crossed!” – Ed.
How can I pull him back from that abyss when all I want to do is follow him into it?
She looks down at her baby. And she looks at Leo’s placid, empty face.
Right now, the rest of the world doesn’t exist. It just can’t. She needs it to all go away, so she can tell her husband how she feels.
“Leo. It’s Aria.”
She sits down, cross-legged, her knees inches away from his own. She recognizes that unconsciously, she’s taken the same pose he has.
She reaches out, placing a hand on one of his knees. The other is cradled under Fez, supporting a weightless holographic child.
“You’d tell people, ‘connection is strength’. But you’re always afraid of connection, aren’t you. Because it’s a gamble. A family you won’t get to see again, because Rossum or AEGIS takes you away.”
She looks down at Fez, and back at Leo, uncomfortable with what she has to say next. “You made us. A connection that couldn’t be broken. Then you went to a future where it was, and you saw what you became…”
This was detailed in sessions 40 and 41 of the original game – Ed.
Her hand moves from his knee to his shoulder, as she leans closer.
“You met your mother again. Only she’s now working with the government on the Atlantis situation. And your father’s still in jail somewhere.”
Leo first met his birth mother Ji-a Lee in “215 - Invisible Invasion” – Ed.
“So we wrapped ourselves up in these layers of armor, didn’t we. Don’t we. Your suit. My carbon construction. Our city. We built things, stronger and stronger. A relationship, strong as anything.”
She smiles at her - their - child. “We made someone new, together.”
The sphere shudders slightly, as the Deep Leviathan continues to swim through the ocean. “But - Saito got to you. Tried to use you. You stood up to him. And it cost you.”
The tattoos covering Leo’s body are extensive. They’re intended to catch his eye, draw it away from focusing on the places where the Atlantean surgeons tortured him, give him something else to look at, something else to think about.
“Those memories pushed us to Australia. Then we had to come back here. To our friends and family.”
She leans close, and rests her head on the shoulder her hand isn’t already touching. Her eyes are shut, and she’s trying not to cry.
“It cost you again, didn’t it. To be back here, the place that keeps that trauma alive. And… Then they came. The Russians.”
She leans against his cheek, feeling the warmth of human skin against her carbon equivalent.
“It feels like there isn’t any place safe, doesn’t it. It feels like no matter what you make, how secure you make it, how much you need it, it just feels like there’s gonna be some god damn asshole who tries to come and take it away, doesn’t it.”
The last words come dangerously close to a scream of frustration. She can’t speak anything else for long seconds, as she fights the emotion for control of her voice. Her fists clench, and she forces them open before even trying to find more words inside her wounded soul.
“We just want a family, and a home of our own, don’t we. Is that too much to ask? Is that something we can’t have? Why can’t we just be left in peace?”
She feels the pull of the abyss in those words. The temptation is there, stronger by her admission of weakness.
But it’s not wrong, is it.
It’s not wrong. But it isn’t everything.
The thought makes her choke out half a laugh.
“I mean, we had Australia. You and me. We had that peace, didn’t we. We came back for Fez’s safety. But it wasn’t just that, was it. We couldn’t not help people. When it comes down to it, really when it’s all said and done, we can’t let people get hurt. Even if it hurts us. Can we?”
The monitors at City Ops show what the Deep Leviathans see. Right now, that’s the Newman rescue organization fishing their enemies out of the sea.
The tears are still flowing. “So… please don’t disappear into this silence. Okay? I know, I know, I know it’s a risk. It’s always a risk. But please come back. We’re here. We’re waiting.”
She feels Leo’s arm move. And she looks, through blurry tears, at where it’s going.
Towards the Heart Factory…?
To complete what he began? An invitation for her to join him?
In the end, the thing that makes Summer call a retreat is the lives of her friends.
If her force fields shut off, there wasn’t any way to keep them safe. Her flight would be gone soon afterward anyway, and she’d sink like a stone. Well, realistically, she’d bob because of her low density. But you know.
She’s come close to getting shot a few times. Her barriers are still holding, but they flicker sometimes.
Finally she says it out loud. “Guys, my drone juice is almost gone. It doesn’t matter if there’s more to do if we can’t do it.”
Nobody else wants to chime in. Nobody else wants to build on the suggestion of retreating, just because everyone would love to do it.
Otto speaks up anyway. “Alright. I’m making the call. Pack it in.”
The four robots dive, hoping that they don’t run out of power on the way to the nearest Deep Leviathan’s airlock.
There’s one more job to do.
They have to assess what’s left of the shattered city.