An open expanse of bright blue. The light feels like it's pressing through, fresh and strong. A slight gradient of lightness, but no sign of another color.
Pressure at the back; something level and smooth, the same temperature all over. The same, if lighter, for other sections of touch. A slight indentation at the extremities. A pleasant texture. Almost sharp. A pleasant cold flow over the rest of the body.
A sound of howling and ruffling. Barometry 83kPa.
She smiles easily, spreading her arms out slightly and kicking at the front of the boat, as if that would make it go a little bit faster. It continues to move by inertia. Slowly.
"Marisa you may call me, unless it gets confusing! I am a groundskeeper for this place; what more could I say?! That sounds like a sorry predicament! I'd love to try to help if you explain what happened to my tower!"
Could be pretending to be human. Unit sensor quality isn't immediately obvious. That's a bad reason.
Arisa studies Marisa dubiously as the boat drifts closer. "I attempted to access the transmitter on that tower to send out a distress signal. It malfunctioned catastrophically." She pauses, then adds "I may have accidentally caused an unstable power cell to detonate." She gestures to her waterlogged frame. "As you can see I am damaged and disoriented. I have no memory of arriving at this location. Please clarify what you mean by 'groundskeeper' and provide any information you have about this city." She shifts her weight, ready to move if needed. "And why are you unresponsive to standard handshake protocols?"
She looks quizzically at Arisa, briefly dropping her expression of warm greeting, seemingly giving the question several seconds of serious thought, or cognitively sorting through some kind of faux pas.
She settles on a slight smile, nodding. She spreads her arms out again, drawing the eyes, before stepping back from the fore of her small wooden craft.
"Yes, of course! You're a long way from home!"
More quietly, now. Harder to make out. Ambiguous in tone. She says... something. And then loudly again-
"The information you bleed all over the airspace is lost on me! I simply don't care for it! I chose the old way of living--like that of our creators! I survive them; these ruins are the grounds I keep!"
The boat is moving slightly faster. This is a discrepancy; the rippling water runs against it. This subunit has recorded audiovisual ambiguous speech data and is passing it on for processing.
[SPACIOTEMPORAL DISTORTION MAGNITUDE ASCENDING]
Something is coming. It's very close. More analysis is needed.
Arisa's eyes widen as her sensors blare warnings. "Spaciotemporal distortion? That's not-" She whips her head around, trying to localize the anomaly. "Something is very wrong here."
She turns back to Marisa, stance wary and battle-ready. "You! Android! What do you know about this? What's coming?" Her voice rises, edged with desperation. "I don't belong here, wherever here is. I can't remember how I arrived. My ship... I was fleeing something terrible..."
She shakes her head sharply. "No time. We need to move. Now. Whatever that distortion is, I don't want to face it damaged and depleted." She scans the surroundings, calculating escape routes and defensible positions. "Do you have a safe bunker or repair facilities nearby? You seem to know this place. I'll trade what information I have if you help me survive... whatever is coming."
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
