Zootopian Eclipse 5
#3 of Fanfiction
After surviving an encounter with mysterious kidnappers, Judy is reassigned to a wilderness patrol where hopefully she'll be out of sight.
But, that doesn't quite preclude the possibility of other things taking notice of her.
"I know what you're all thinking." The briefing, as it were, was being given by a Mares Ranger sleeved in an "Alpiner" morph polar bear. "You're here thinking that this post will be taking potshots at decade-old Warbots and Headhunters, allow me to disabuse you of that ridiculous notion."
Judy, sitting in the front row, couldn't help but be reminded of the drill sergeant she'd had at the police academy back in Old Zootopia. Harold Wolford had advised sending her to the TITAN Quarantine Zone on the grounds that it would be the last place on Mares that her stalkers in New Zootopia would be willing to look for her. And some idiot in marketing thought XP of her in action against feral war machines might make good publicity shots for the lagomorph Fury.
"The big machines are a vanishingly small percentage of what you'll see out there. You're more likely to run into mammal treasure hunters and thrill-seekers than anything the TITANs made. But, if you do run into any of their scat it'll probably be the little things. Smartmines, nanoswarms, tentacled monsters that may have been mammals once..." The bunny perked up in surprise at that last comment, exactly what did she mean by that? "If you do happen to encounter any grey goo or fractals, you're better off just calling in a kinetic than trying to fight them on your own. Now, how many of you are sleeved in Rusters or Alpiners?" About half the room raised their hands, Judy wasn't one of them, her Fury would be in a vac-suit the whole rotation. "You'll probably be tempted to take your helmet off for a nice fresh breath of dusty air. Don't. The TITANs pumped all kinds of nasty viruses and toxins into the local atmosphere that will kill you, filtered lungs or not, if you're lucky."
Judy had considered asking the Ranger if she knew anything about "Exsurgents", but now, she was thinking that she didn't want to know.
Project Ozma command to TQZ embed:
An employee of Direct Action that we have been observing for a time has been confirmed to be compromised and in contact with our opposition. Arrange for her to have an "accident". The use of WMDs is authorized.
As the patrol buggy crossed over the line into the TQZ Judy thought she noticed a change in the terrain outside her transparent aluminum window. Physically, it was ungrounded, the place was equally deserted to either side of the line of warning beacons, the ground dotted with craters of nuclear glass and the otherworldly pitting produced by disassembler nano. But, she felt a difference in her heart, a sense of foreboding and looming terror.
She looked around at her squad-mates again. A rhino named "Rhinestone", carrying a plasma rifle in each meaty hand, a leopard who called themself "Pardus", their field commander, and a coyote by the moniker of "Huey", their sensor tech. Judy checked the safety on her particle bolter nervously, hoping for an uneventful patrol.
It was several hours before they came across the first sign of the past horrors that had transpired in this place. A squadron of semi-anthropomorphic Warbots, toppled over and sprawled over a large clearing apparently during the Fall. They took one quick check for scavengers or live threats, then moved on from the giant metallic carcasses.
As they were passing by Judy noticed what seemed to be a series of mammal skeletons, most of them still intact, chained around the waist of the nearest warbot like a gruesome belt. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she asked what those were for.
Pardus answered her. "The TITANs didn't just know how to use robots and railguns against mammals, they were masters of psychological warfare. Whatever intelligences were piloting those mechs knew that they were big targets, so they would sometimes scoop up a few refugees and strap them over their machines' vital areas. Troops fighting to drive them off would need to shoot through screaming innocents in order to bring them down." Seeing the bunny's eyes widen as she realized the implications of the belt of bones, they added, "they did what they had to do."
They'd slowed to recharge their suits' batteries and eat a few ration bars twice, Huey showing considerable relief not to rely on his suit's integral maker for calories, before coming across the next sign of TITAN activity. The coyote called for a halt in the middle of a barren plain and pointed at what seemed at first like just another patch of dirt and dust. "Catimir perturbance, I'm sure of it. Look at the dust in the air."
Judy scrutinized the spot Huey was indicating, it did seem like the airborne dust was slightly less thick above it, but she wasn't sure that meant anything. At her uncomprehending expression the coyote stepped out of the buggy and picked up a rock. It sailed through the air for ten meters before hitting the edge of the "perturbance" as Huey had called it, then it swung straight down and buried itself in the ground.
"Seed AI figured out how to mess with gravity." Huey commented as he leapt back into the vehicle and passed a nanodetector over his suit. "If we could figure out how they did it the space elevator and Bouncer morphs would be obsolete." He went back to his sensor feeds as Rhinestone set a course around the anomaly. "Lucky we didn't run into one of the ones that toss you 10 meters into the air."
As the first day started to come to a close, Judy was beginning to get her hopes up that they wouldn't run into any TITAN enemies, just their remains and weird environmental hazards. But, just as the sun was beginning to set they spotted a trail leading off towards the border. The trail formed a path of perfectly smooth ground 3 meters wide, completely without wear. "Damnit", Pardus swore. "Huey, can you tell me if it was a nanoswarm or a Fractal that did this?"
The coyote puzzled over his instruments. "Not from over here. If I got in close I might be able to tell what made that trail and how recently."
"And how close it might be to civilization now." The leopard nodded towards the rhino. "Rhinestone, cover him, if we're lucky we can get a satellite view on it in time to stop it." They started to call in to headquarters as the coyote and rhino stepped out of the buggy and walked over to the trail.
Huey swung a mini-radar scanner over the edges of the trail, Rhinestone pointing his plasma rifles off in the distance towards the edge of the TQZ, where their quarry had supposedly fled. After a minute the sensor tech called over to them with his findings. "Uniformity of the trail seems to suggest it was either a Fractal or a very densely-packed nanoswarm, can't say for certain. The computer thinks from the dust drifting in from the edges that this trail was made no more than 15 minutes ago."
"That's some good news," Pardus noted. "It would still be in the Quarantine Zone then. Satellite tracking is locking onto the trail from here and we should have a kinetic kill shot lined up in five minutes."
All while her teammates were discussing this, Judy kept her eyes locked on the TITAN trail leading off in the distance. Something about it didn't seem quite right for some reason, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Huey took a step onto the nano-worn trail itself for another scan.
The ground burst open and an indescribable black horror leapt up to envelop the unsuspecting canid.
Judy lifted her particle bolter and leveled it towards the trail with her right hand while priming an EMP grenade with her left. "Huey, Rhine, get out of there now!" She shouted over the squad radio.
The coyote looked back at the buggy in confusion. "Huh? What's going... AIEEE!" A dozen tiny arms that branched out into a hundred smaller arms branching into a thousand appendages too small to see with the naked eye reached out of the glassy soil and wrapped around Huey's feet. His screams of terror and pain as the fractal's microscopic digits shredded his suit and skin at the molecular level overwhelmed the channel.
Stunned by what was happening to his teammate, Rhinestone hesitated long enough for Huey to topple over into the rest of the bush-like robot as it emerged from its hiding place under the carefully arranged soil. Finally coming to his senses, the rhino fired off two quick bursts from each of his plasma rifles into the Fractal and its victim, vaporizing several branches and silencing the coyote's agonized shrieking.
Rhinestone's plasma rifles smoked and shuddered as they tried to radiate the waste heat from their barrels, but their cooling systems were not fast enough to save their owner as the fractal lunged towards the rhino. Microscopic digits disassembled the hands holding the weapons and lifted them away as the robotic monster began to consume its next victim.
"Hold on Rhine!" Judy chucked the EMP grenade in her hand at the fractal and it burst less than a meter from the branching limbs. The bunny looked away from the bright flash of light and electromagnetic energy for a moment, then looked back hoping to see the horrible nanotech falling away from the unfortunate patrolmammal.
The rhino was still in the grasp of the Fractal horror and it was advancing, the EMP had no effect.
"Hopps you fool!" Pardus shouted, jumping into the driver's seat. "It's not a nanoswarm, the whole thing is hardwired. All you did was short out our radios." The leopard grabbed the manual controls to the buggy and slammed the accelerator down, steering far away from the horrifying sight behind them.
They hadn't made it five meters when their rear wheels exploded in a plasma burst from Rhinestone's rifles, now appropriated by the fractal. The buggy bucked, them slammed into the ground hard, dragging behind them. Pardus took their feet off the pedals and threw open the door, Judy couldn't bring herself to move.
The day of the Fall flashed before the rabbit's eyes again and again. A crowd of terrified people eaten alive, molecule by molecule, with no one to help them. But this time, nothing they could do would even slow down the nanotechnological monstrosity.
"Come on!" The leopard shouted, beckoning to Judy. "They'll be carpeting this location with kinetics in..." They were cut off abruptly by the burst of plasma vaporizing their head.
Judy glanced idly out the window, the Fractal was approaching rapidly, seeming to float on the ends of its microscopic limbs even as it "digested" its prior two victims. "This is it." She thought. "At least my backup won't remember this." But as she slumped over in her chair to die, her eyes chanced upon a small box under one of the other seats.
It was sealed with yellow and black tape, but Judy decided there wasn't much point obeying safety rules at this point. Curious, she slit the tape and swung the box open, inside was a small steel sphere with a white-filled circle surrounded by a black ring painted under the standard nuclear material warning symbol. She allowed a small grin to cross her face.
The bunny picked up the detonator and flipped it over in her hands, trying to figure out how to set it. It looked like a fairly standard remote, but there was no sign of an antenna or access jack. The proton-antiproton weapon itself showed no sign of an interface either, just a smooth metal sphere with only the warning markings standing out.
She was still trying to set it when the Fractal tore open the back of the buggy as if it were tinfoil. A digit-studded branch began to reach for her, then stopped, spotting the device sitting on the seat next to her it plunged every one of its limbs in the car down towards the antimatter bomb. But, to her surprise it wasn't trying to disassemble it, if anything it was building onto it, wrapping it in a dense black material that sparked and fizzled as it was spread across the surface of the bomb. At first Judy was frustrated that it was denying the weapon to her, but after it didn't even attempt to attack her for several seconds she started to consider again that she might be able to escape alive. With a glance back at the door Pardus had left open she realized that she had an opportunity to escape now.
Particle rifle in hand Judy leapt straight out the door, from the outside she was able to spot the rest of the massive bush-like construct, while the branches inside the vehicle were preoccupied with the bomb those on the "back" were fusing together Rhinestone's two plasma rifles into a single large device with two barrels. Before it could be turned to aim at her the bunny activated her neurachem and ran a particle bolt through the weapon, ignoring its' diffuse wielder. She only watched long enough to see the first wisps of smoke trail out of the plasma weapon's barrels before turning and running pell-mell out into the wilderness.
Judy kept running for what felt like miles, ducking around sand dunes and cliffs, before she even tried to get her bearings. With her mesh antennas shorted out by the EMP she couldn't connect to GPS satellites or call for help. She would need to attempt navigation the "old-fashioned way". She slowed to a stop and looked around, nothing visible but open desert all around and not a cloud in the sky. The sun dropping over the horizon was clearly visible, she could recall that they had come into the TQZ from the south so logically she would want to go perpendicular and to the left of the setting sun, but she'd been wandering around for hours, would that still be the shortest route back to civilization?
The bunny was still contemplating that issue when a blazing fireball streaked across the sky, making the ground shake with a sonic boom as it passed. Without thinking she dove to the ground and began burrowing vigorously, hollowing out a crawl space just before the directed meteor tossed a wall of soil into the air.
In her panic she didn't even notice the giant metal dragonfly zipping around the sky 50 meters above her.
Turning away from the plume of destruction Nick beat his synth wings furiously as he flew. Within minutes he found Finnick, sleeved in a large six-limbed Synthtaur based loosely on a maned wolf. Landing his meter-long Dragonfly body on the larger synth's lower back he explained the situation. "They ran into a Fractal ambush back that way." He reported. "Her teammates all got killed but she got out and ran away. The kinetic would have buried her though."
His friend rotated his large-eared robotic head around to stare at him. "Any chance she survived?"
Nick shrugged as much as his insectile body would allow. "I'd say it's pretty slim, she was trying to dig a burrow last I saw but she'd have to be ludicrously fast in order to get a thick enough roof over her head."
"She was fast as a Flat. Now she's got augmented muscles and neurachem." Finnick turned his massive body around in the direction Nick had come from and began walking. "Wire me the coordinates, at the very least we can try to dig up her stack."
Nick crawled up Finnick's upper torso to the access jacks built into his neck. But he hesitated before connecting to him and transferring the data. "Are we sure we need to?" He asked nervously.
Finnick stopped dead in his tracks, then swiftly swung one arm back and grabbed Nick by the thorax and held him directly in front of his face. "What is up with you Nicky?" He shouted angrily. "You've been looking for excuses not to come near a mammal who was closer than blood to you before the Fall happened. Is it because she's an async now? Or does she just bring up some painful memories you thought you'd deleted?"
"Wha...?" Nick flailed his insectoid limbs uselessly against the Synthtaur's grasping fingers. "We were really that close?"
"Yes Nick." The robotic fennec shook the fox in a bug. "Ever since you graduated from fuzz school the two of you were inseparable. You actually opened up to her, remember that time we got drunk and you let slip about the whole Junior Explorer thing?"
Nick let out a simulated groan. "Yes, I remember that. I also remember that I never told that story to anyone else, ever."
"Well, you told her." Nick ceased struggling and went limp in shock. "She told me herself, when she came back to Zootopia after accidentally turning the city against predators and leaving in shame, she was looking for you. She found me and asked where to find you, I asked her why she was wasting time with you instead of going straight to the cops with what she'd discovered. That's when she told me about you telling her your deepest darkest secret and how she needed to apologize for betraying your trust in her. Then when I directed her to the bridge you were living under you had a big hug and cry and brought down Bellwether. A few months later some of us were starting a pool on when or which one of you would pop the question."
Nick could not believe his auditory sensors. It was ridiculous, him, the hustler from childhood, opening up to a bunny cop? But, he did know that he joined the ZPD to be her partner on the force after meeting her, even if he couldn't say why. "I... I don't know what to say."
"Well then, let's have those coordinates and go get her so you two can catch up on lost time then." Finnick held Nick up to the port on his neck and after the slightest hesitation the formerly bigger fox led a cable into it.
The newly disturbed topsoil quivered, swelled upward, and burst to reveal a vac-suited bunny trembling in exhaustion at her effort. Judy threw herself out of the hole she'd dug in the new hillside and collapsed onto the surface, willing herself to breathe normally. When she was sure her heart wasn't going to explode she looked around. It was night now, the sun was gone and the stars and moons were out. Part of her thought it would be a good idea to go back into her hole and wait for morning, but her suit's maker had barely more than enough power to recycle her wastes into usable air, water, and carbohydrates for another 40 hours, and she didn't want to waste any of that limited time sleeping.
Staring up at the night sky of Mares she wished she had taken the time to learn the constellations of mammalkind's new homeworld, then she might be able to navigate her way out. Recognizing a potential lifeline she spoke to her muse. [Skye, any chance you have a Mareisian starchart downloaded?]
[Yes, as a matter of fact I do.] The AI answered in a moment. [It was part of the Mares Ranger survival package they sent to everyone on rotation. I might even be able to discern our present location given a few minutes.]
[Oh good,] Judy sighed audibly in relief. [Anything you need me to do?]
[It might help if we had a higher vantage point. Can you climb that dune over there?]
[Of course.] The rabbit replied. She scrambled up the crest of loose dirt and sand, losing her footing a couple of times, but accelerated reflexes keeping her from tumbling back down to the base of the dune. She looked up, surveying the vast landscape of the TITAN Quarantine Zone from up high, staring into the stars as the AI in her head attempted to form patterns from the distant points of light, the light now steaming into her eyes from some of them produced before the Cornucopia-Makers ventured out from their own homeworld, wherever that might be.
[All right, I think the nearest edge of the TQZ is 30 kilometers in this direction.] An augmented reality arrow pointed off into the far distance. [You should be able to reach it in six hours, but there's no guarantee you'll meet anyone who can help you report back in.]
[The sooner we're out of here, the better.] Judy started to climb down the duneside carefully in the direction indicated by her AR. Glancing off to one side her eye happened to catch a dark silhouette off in the distance. It was too dark to discern any fine details, but they appeared to be some manner of tall, long-limbed mammal. [Who would be all the way out here?]
[Probably one of those thrill-seekers or TITAN scavengers we were warned about.] Skye answered. [I believe the local term for them is "Zone Stalker".]
[Well, if they have a ride out of here I might let things slide.] She started off running in the figure's direction, calling through her suit's speakers. "Hello? I'm a little lost here, if you have a buggy or something that can get me to the..."
As the silhouette turned in response to Judy's calls she caught sight of the figure's face, or what passed for one at least. In sharp contrast to the figure's dark skin it was wearing a stark white mask in a crude caricature of a horse's face, with two large empty holes where eyes should be and only a narrow slit for a mouth. Even before it began its piercing wail Judy knew that it was no creature that had any business existing in this world.
Judy slowed, the horror before her restricting her legs. In desperation she started to turn back in the direction from which she'd come. Only to see another silhouette, this one wearing a wolf mask, waiting for her.
To the sides more figures were coming into view. All around her the monsters were closing in, there was nowhere to run. Thinking she might burrow again she crouched down to tear at the topsoil and brought away two handfuls before her arm exploded in agony. Judy fell onto her other side and quickly examined her wounded limb, gasping in shock at the diamond-edged flechettes protruding from her bleeding vac-suit. The reason why became apparent as the creatures came closer, one of them grasping a smoking shredder gun.
[Scat!] Nick sent his one-word message over the emergency laser line he and Finnick shared. [She's alive, but a pack of Exsurgents found her.]
[Exsurgents?] Finnick responded, yanking a railgun sniper rifle off his back as he galloped up to meet with the Dragonfly. [You sure? What type?]
[Black skin, white masks.] The other fox relayed. [I count at least five of them. That enough intel for you?]
[Wastewalkers.] The Synthtaur identified as he crested the ridge, rearing up on his hind legs and rapidly reconfiguring the front pair into a second set of arms. [With any luck they're just hungry.]
Nick began streaming the feed from his visual sensors to the fennec taur, who was bracing one lower arm against a rock and unholstering an SMG with the other. [Why? What would be worse than eating her?]
[They could be looking to turn her.] Finnick explained, drawing a bead on the nearest Wastewalker with his rifle. [Those masks aren't just decoration, they carry the nanovirus. Don't even touch them.]
Judy laid there, bleeding and twitching in terror, as the monsters closed in on her. A meter from her resting place they stopped, forming a circle of gangly giants around the fallen bunny. Now that they came close she could see that their skin was hairless and smooth, like black plastic, and their seemingly featureless fingers and elbows ended in long claws. One of the creatures cupped its hands in front of its ivory face and it seemed like a fountain of milky tears poured out of the gaping holes it had for eyes and into its palms. The fluid hardened, curled in on itself and in seconds a replica of the creature's own mask lay in its hands. It held its work up to show Judy and she let out a shrill scream of horrified realization as she recognized the species of the new mask. It was a bunny.
[No!] Nick shouted as he zoomed in on the mask in the Wastewalker alpha's hands.
Finnick's rifle cracked and sparked as a supersonic slug sped from the end of the barrel into the back of the closest Exsurgent. It staggered, but remained standing as it turned to face the one who had shot it. A second shot caught it in the middle of its mask, causing it to collapse. [Nick, I don't think I can kill them all in time.]
[You have to Finn. If she meant as much to me as you say she did, I can't lose her now. Not when I was so...] he trailed off, the death of the one Wastewalker left an opening in the circle that exposed the terrified bunny. [Finnick, shoot her!]
The Synthtaur stared up in the Dragonfly's general direction. [What? Are you sure?]
[It's the only way to save her. Do it! Please.]
Finnick drew his rifle back up, lining up a shot that would pass straight through the bunny's chest.
A bullet at twice the speed of sound plunged straight through Judy's lungs and heart, reducing them to a bloody pulp.
In the split second before the bullet impacted, Judy shifted so that the tungsten-carbide projectile passed through her skull instead. Her dying breath sounded like a sigh of relief.
Finnick unloaded his rifle's magazine into the remaining Wastewalkers, killing two more and sending the remainder running. Once Nick was certain there were no active threats in the area he slowly descended onto the remains of the first rabbit Fury. He grasped her head in his feelers, praying to whatever benign gods this insane world might allow that she could be salvaged. If he had lungs he would have let out a sigh of relief when he found that the exit wound was far above where her cortical stack was secreted away. He would have to thank Finnick later for the clean shot straight between her eyes, he decided.
Turning her head back around Nick flicked out the smartmatter utilitool affixed to one of his forelegs and began to cut into the top of her spinal column with its shapeshifting blade. Behind her cervical vertebrae he found his prize, a diamondoid cylinder barely bigger than a blueberry, upon which her Ego was saved.
Securing the bloody implant in a compartment on his insectoid torso, he flew off towards Finnick again as the robotic fennec-taur was preparing a thermobaric grenade. Without a word, he tossed it into the center of the ring of corpses he'd created. The detonation incinerated Exsurgent and mammal alike, leaving no sign that they had ever lain there.
Finnick turned as Nick landed on him again. "You salvaged it?' Nick took the stack out and showed it to his friend. "Planning to pursue a second career as a Headhunter?" Finnick joked.
Indignantly, Nick leapt off of the Synthtaur and flew off in the direction of the pick-up point. Leaving Finnick behind.