The Dreamscape and Musings of a Mad Queen Stein

[Stein]

I'll be posting my random musings from disparate stories I've played in.

Maybe sometimes I'll post one-off poetry or even videos of spoken-word performances.

[Stein]

To Sow Hope

Prologue
_{A Mavericks derived Story}

Apprx 20 Hours Prior to the New Lilith Space Sendoff Parade

Frances Kindt typically didn’t work Friday through Saturday. Once he hit his 25-year mark, the custodial department head offered him the option to opt-in for a paid day off, so he chose to apply it to Friday’s. Only caveat was he couldn’t use those days if it was one of their “all-hands-on-deck” weeks and weekends. Festivals, parades and such. Working New Lilith’s municipal district— and for City Hall no less— those happened more frequently than he wanted. But the pay for the municipal district was good, and they treated him well, at least like a person, for the most part.

So here he was, sweeping the steps of city hall in the dimming dusk. Because he was smart. He knew he couldn’t get his typical 3-dayer this weekend—either today or tomorrow off along with his Sunday. So, he traded his Saturday shift with one of the young guys who just had to go to the launch of that new techno-house-EDM-doohickey club downtown—Synfulesque. Once he finished loading new bags in the bins (making sure to stow two extras underneath, just in case), Kindt would be finished for the day. Where most of the crew had to work the parade tomorrow, Kindt was going to be in attendance, celebrating, for once. Not cleaning up the aftermath of celebration.

Frances leaned on his broom for a moment, looking down the steps toward Main Street below him. The dusk in the sky was giving way to the deep blue of night, and streetlights sprung to life across the wide street. His grandson, Jarrod was in town and Frances hadn’t seen the tyke since he was 3. And now his grandson was a whopping 7 years old. Loved all the tech stuff, and gadgets galore. But mostly, the kid just loved figuring things out. Frances was getting the chance to watch him until Tuesday while his daughter in law, Jarrod’s mom, went to a work retreat.

The parade tomorrow was a celebration of one of New Lilith’s own embarking on his first voyage into space. Frances knew that would be the perfect surprise for Jarrod, seeing a whole city of folks celebrating an astronaut. A black astronaut, at that. And he wanted Jarrod to see this, to see faces like his celebrated by a street filled with people. By this time tomorrow, the astronaut Alexander Dumont Latoja would be handed his keys to the city and a medal in the very spot Frances stood: underneath the 5 meter tall statue of a blindfolded woman in a flowing tunic holding scales, and wings sprouting from her back. A gift to the city titled –Ariadne, Winged Justice. Frances patted her exposed foot. “Hope you got something else to wear tomorrow. People might think you’re just reusing the same outfits for photos,” he joked to himself.

[Stein]

To Sow Hope: Part 1

_{A Mavericks derived Story}

Where a city street was once covered in confetti
see Her slick with screams, singed by fire

and smelling of gasoline and the debris of dust.
At the end of Her road, a noose is hung before Justice.

A damned man weighs the innocent
and find his wanting in the taking of creation.

Unknown

--

I.

Annie is out of ammunition. Her HUD gauge details critical ranges for the internal thrusters. Her core’s temperature is bordering the orange range. It was an error to enter an unpredictable mission environment and use her AEGIS O.S. so soon. A miscalculation on her part.

┤NOTICE:├
_{˹.005m, 270°˼}

Annie releases the quik-eject valve in her kneecaps. Reduces pressure, tilts her frame parallel to the ground, allowing her to narrowly avoid the horizontal swipe of longsword.

┤NOTICE!├
_{˹.065m, 230°˼}

˹_{Disengage Joint Locks: Shoulder Rotator}˼ Annie follows through her bend and places both hands on the ground, swinging her body up just in time to miss the polearm brought down where she’d been. Her miscalculations were becoming more frequent. Was there a malfunction in her HESTIA program?

II.

Falling toward the city. Every sense and neuropath alight—like the twinkling concrete sprawl below him. The whip of air, the anchor embrasure of gravity, pulling him down. In the howl of falling, tears blurring his vision, he smiles. Tasting ozone—Miles was actually alive, falling through the sky.

As he falls, Miles screams hope to the clouds he passes. He can do this. Of course he can, because as he plummets, his left fist—slick with precipitation—pulses blue with light. Reminds him that it’s audacity that gives way to sow hope, sometimes. Miles grips the source of the glowing light tighter: a glowing fidget cube.

The light glows and bends to coalesce around him, a translucent cocoon, as he plummets toward the chaos below. He falls closer to the chaos below and the cube glows brighter still.

III.

┤NOTICE!├
_{˹Multiple Hostiles˼}

˹_{Disengage Palm Lock}˼ She straightens her left arm. ˹_{Engage Reinforcement. Engage Rotor Wrist Function. Command – Begin Spin}˼ Annie’s body spins rapidly from the wrist. Spreading her legs, the force of her spin is enough to take out the 4 enemies surrounding her in 3 cycles. She brings her legs together. ˹_{Disengage Rotor. Engage Palm Thruster – Output .55}˼

┤NOTICE├

Bringing her arm up as her thruster launched her inverted form into the air, she looks down at the blade that was aimed to sever it, swinging where her arm had just been. Annie tucks her body mid-air. Extends her left leg to bring it down on the head of this 5th enemy. Planting the foot to a low-wide stance, Annie juts out her right palm. ˹_{Thor Palm: Engage}˼ Sinking it into the abdomen of the final enemy. The resulting voltage was enough the shudder the man to the ground.

Annie straightens herself and surveys the area. Opening her mouth, she inhales a large amount of air. Cooling intake to help her exhausts and core temperature. Around her, the chaos has subsided mainly. There are a few stragglers and medical aids, but seemingly no more hostiles.

˹_{Energy Spike Detected}˼

┤NOTI—├

A force slams into Annie’s frame. She can feel the crunch, the ripple of force, as it shoots her skidding down the pavement. A metal pebble skipping across an asphalt pond, she collides with the side of an abandoned delivery truck.

The figure closing the distance between them gave a different aura than the other enemies in the area. Standing over 2 meters tall, a metallic mask over the face, the figure brandishes his weapon: A great-axe rippling with energy, crackles audibly. Annie hears the pinging in her HUD. This one was giving off a dense surge of gravity particles. With a swift motion, he unholsters the great axe, twirls the weapon over his forearm before pointing the hilt at her. She has enough time to read the spike in energy. To recognize the opening barrel of an energy rifle, to deduce that her AEGIS is truly out of commission, before the weapon fires at her.

--

But tell me, what is Hope, ‘cept sparks hopped
from nothing but audacity and dried dreams?

Who can beam from darkness but broken boys who shine curiosity
looking for the best in men who break for the sake of pleasure

takes sheets of best wishes and the pasty memories of forehead kisses
to build lilac shields and sapphire umbrellas to catch the spray of blood.

Unknown

--

IV.

Miles can smell smoke now. Can see splats of fire across two blocks. Sees dots scurrying about. Some dots file into blocks—emergency vehicles and cars—that speed off. He knows, in seconds, the scattering dots will become humans scattering in panic. Some dots won’t move. This will become real.

But his friends were down there. Annie was there. Past the howl, cut of air and growing fear, they needed him.

V.

˹_{Bunt Shield: Engage}˼ The small shield springs from her forearm just in time for her to catch and deflect most of the beam. All she can do. But not before she is almost thrown off-balance. Annie can deduce that this battle will not be immediately favorable to her. She sends a scatter signal SOS, switches her visual receptors from battle to analytics mode.

“PERFECT!” he booms. His voice is enough to rattle the car windows near him in the nil of sound surrounding them. “It’s just as we thought,” he points at her. “Your power reserves are low. Your core temp is probably near its danger range. But most importantly—your pesky little AEGIS is down. Which means…”

Instantly, he was upon her. ˹_{Aegis: Enga—}˼ His hand gripped her throat. Fingers clenched to dig into her alloy neck frame. A hum grew from his palm that she could feel against her throat panel. “You can’t dodge this!” ˹Engage˼ She couldn’t! Her processors weren’t responding. ˹_Eng—Error˼ A series of jolts ran from her clavicle panel down to her frame—each shock slackening the tension rods around her joints until she was limp.

VI.

He taps his ear where his comm still resides, and it blares an S.O.S. It’s coming from Annie!

Annie says she doesn’t have a heart, that she’s all artificial. Gears, pins, alloy, pistons and everything else that’s cold. But Miles has seen her warmth, so he knows that isn’t true. He can feel it, that essence of her. That want to be more than she is, that she can be more. He can feel it holding on as the rest of her dims—sputters ichor and traces of fumes on the city street far below.

VII.

With a flick, he chucks the android across the street into the side of a wastebin. The wastebin crumples and she slumps to the ground. Her frame was still unresponsive, so Annie could only look up at the figure as he walked toward again, brandishing his axe. “Short story— my leader wants that AEGIS system you’re running,” he touched the tip of the axe to the center of her chest plate. “Also wants that core, since it’s technically stolen property from his father’s empire.”

“Between you and me,” With a touch to the side panel of his face shield, the smooth surface hissed a series of lines across the face. They segmented and folded into themselves as he crouched down, revealing a humanoid face. The major difference seemed to rest in his smaller nose and reptilian eyes. “I don’t think it’s gonna mean much, y’know. Kid’s birthright empire is falling, father banished him and he thinks finding a team of skilled warriors or bringing home…trinkets is gonna fix that.” The man shrugs and stands, taking one step back.

VIII.

No!

Miles juts out his fist. The cube swells with light, pulsing in his palm. Turning it to the joystick face, he breathes in. Exhales then—flow:

ʭJoystick: L, R, D, Pr, U, D -> Input: TL, BRBR, BLBL, TR, BR -> Wheel: C90, CC180 -> Switch: FOn, FOff. ʭ

The input takes less than 2 seconds and on the last flick, Miles feels a warmth start in his chest. It cascades to his ears, a melody of tones. Around him— this boy falling from the sky— lines of light trace outward. The wisps build outward while he plummets, becoming tendrils that wrap and weave, bind to become wings. A last surge of light before dulling into an azure eagle streaking toward the ground.

The azure eagle enveloping Miles tucks its wings and falls faster. She was close. Miles urges it faster. His eyes glow blue, he can now see the street—focused in on Annie’s form sprawled on the ground. ‘Faster.’ She was so close. ‘I will make it.’ The enemy was closer. ‘Faster!’ The axe was being raised. ‘Faster! Tilt.’—

IX.

“But with as much as he’s paying me, I don’t need to think.” He pointed the axe at her chest again, lining up the swing. Though her circuits in her fingers were starting to twitch. But her body frame was still a long way off. “So here we are,” he finished with a raise of his axe.

Annie doesn’t have time to simulate a string of probabilities to evaluate an escape option. Only time to scatter one last S.O.S. Before the blade whistles through the air, ready to cleave her chest.

X.

The construct scrapes the ground, chucking up and billows of dust. Miles, unsure of his recovery plan, only sees Annie. He rips down the street as the axe falls, urges himself to be light itself. The eagle construct swipes through the space where Annie’s form lays only a shaved instant before the blade of Galtrin’s axe cleaves through it, cutting only the streak of cerulean light.