'Bad day', thought Beyhund as he fell toward the rapidly growing body of water immediately below him. He knew it was a bad day when he woke up this morning and his personal RADAR refused to show him anything but a single arrow against a featureless background. No matter which direction he was facing, that damn arrow always pointed north. But, he was used to the occasional snafu, after all, being practically immortal, there is always time to get around to fixing these little problems. So the techs usually took there time on something affecting only one solder. Though the techs might have warned him that the guidance systems of the HART were tied directly into a solder's RADAR instead of learning the "hard way". His drop pod opened at an altitude of 800 meters and nearly 3km off target. Which left Beyhund in his current predicament. At least his inertial dampeners were working. He twisted his body in an attempt to catch a glimpse of where the shore was and thought 'its not too far, I think I can make...(splash)
The water swallowed him, thrusting him into an alien world of silence, and yet it was oddly peaceful. Beyhund started walking toward the shore giving no thought to shedding any of his equipment in order to gain buoyancy. He just held his breath and set out on the march of the determined, he was taut well, just not how to swim. In this quiet landscape he started to think about swimming and why nobody (at least nobody that he knew) was taught how. But, he decided that this is one of those topics that gets filed under "things he didn't need to know".
With his oxygen reserves rapidly dwindling Beyhund began wondering why he hadn't reached the shore yet. By his best estimate he should have long before now. He decided to risk a couple seconds of oxygen to check his map. What he saw stopped him cold. He was further from the shore then when he started. 'Bad day.' (glug..glug)
His consciousness being consumed by the giant super computers when his body died was a weird sensation. It was not that different from the eerie quite he had just left. He felt disconnected, almost like he was looking down at his own body. Beyhund didn't like it; frankly it gave him the willies. He wondered if other people felt the same way, but he never had the courage to ask anyone. Weakness was not tolerated, and complaining about getting an uneasy feeling whenever he died felt like weakness to him.
Inside the spawn computers his mind felt clearer. It seemed to him that without his body to tend to his mind could spend its energy on other pursuits. His all to frequent visits here gave him time to ponder all those things that keep getting stashed in the "didn't need to know file". A prime example is the respawn interface. He was just a disembodied consciousness floating around in some giant computer somewhere. How did the computer give him his options? And how did it know what he chose?
The options seemed to just appear to him like some long forgotten memory that suddenly floated to the surface. As if they were always there, always a part of him and the sensation of being submerged in the computer triggered their release. When making a selection of a respawn point nothing conscious that he is aware of locks his decision in. Its like his brain kicks in reflexes that bypass his conscious mind, he is aware of making a decision but its not the decision itself something else triggers the spawn. Beyhund knew it had to be something else because he has tried to trick the computer, play games sometimes for several hours trying to get the computer to spawn him somewhere he didn't choose. But, the computer has yet to fall for it. He always wound up where is true decision lay.
Now Beyhund was given a choice of where he wanted to respawn. As usual the choice he wanted was not there. Just once he would like to see a deserted island be one of the options. Some place where he could be alone while still in possession of his body. But he was presented with a limited selection. He decided on the AMS just outside the base his squad was sent to reinforce. The Gens were down at the base itself otherwise he would have spawned there. He didn't know how he knew they were down, he just knew.
A thought that would have to wait as Beyhund was once again in possession of mass, and by that queasy feeling in his stomach apparently he had velocity too. 'Bad day'...(splat)
Well, now he had a little more time to think about things. Like why they were here, again, fighting over this base, again. The three empires have been fighting for so long he wondered if they even knew what they were fighting about anymore. While in his body these thoughts would be treasonous, but as a free roaming soul (if indeed that is what he was) such thoughts only seemed natural. Something he added to that ever-growing file. Only two days ago his squad had taken the entire continent with minimal resistance. Today the NC had pushed them back to this single base and things were not looking good.
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2003-11-10, 08:00 AM
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