Chapter 23: Disruptive Assocation — Part 3
Analyzing . . . Biodroid or cyborg or composite: It is receiving commands from an undeciphered central transmission. Her suit texted her, answering her question. Thousands more approach. The tendrils of the offensive unit are working their way into your arm, up it, probing for chinks, trying to get at your flesh. When it finds an opening, it will then devour you, in spite of my attempts to protect you.
“I can’t break free.” Orchid shouted in desperation as thousands of dots descended on her from all sides and countless angles.
A snap cannot occur while the biodroid is attached to you.
Orchid felt the first painful effects of acid as the mouth of the somewhat hume creature took another bite at her arm, drawing her fist deeper into its throat with each swallow. In a moment, she found herself buried to her elbow, and in so much pain she was forced to scream out in desperation. She punched the semi-hume biodroid with all her might, but the biodroid didn’t budge, its armor holding despite her enhanced strength. She tried to pull free even as she felt the bones in her hand and wrist start to crack, her skin, being sucked through holes in her suit, liquefied by the acidic juices of an enemy bent on devouring her.
“Sever the arm and Snap.” Orchid shouted at her suit.
Complying. The bender suit texted across her vision.
The Suit bent the energy of six kinetic batteries back in on themselves at the shoulder. The resulting explosion dislodged the armor overplating that locked the shoulder blade and protected it from the ripping force of the biomechanical predator. Orchid’s ears were ringing when the blast had finished, but while the explosion had destroyed her armor at the shoulder, partially severed her limb, and cauterized her flesh, the biodroid had been only momentarily stunned. The biodroid pulled once, twice, then yanked hard a third time, trying to tear her arm free. The suit slammed out away from the creature as it yanked back on Orchid’s already damaged arm. Orchid felt her arm pop and wrench from her shoulder, breaking free. Less than a second later, the snap portal closed around her, blood trailing from the tattered skin and tendons hanging out from her chest. Orchid screamed in pain, feeling desperately alone.
She snapped so far from Mauve that the forces sent to kill her would never find her, and she was no longer in subspace: The others who lived in that terrible darkness could not follow her. Orchid lost consciousness despite her fear. She had sacrificed her arm, and now she would live. Somewhere near her, an angry red star glowed as if in rage at being so near the end of its life, and yet she felt some comfort in the heat of its fury. She had no more strength to think, to try to coordinate her position, or to plot a course home. Her suit would have to get her to safety.
“Thank you.” Orchid said quietly, consciousness drifting away.
You will sleep now. The suit texted.
When Orchid came out of shock the first time, Diane and Yap were wrapping her wounds as tightly as they could, each moving so quickly that their hands were blurred. A blue star had replaced the red, and she knew that her suit had snapped her closer to Earth, meeting Diane and Yap at some safe place at the far end of its range. Once wrapped, Diane synchronized with her suit’s spatial harmonics, and the trio Snapped as a group. The darkness of the Snap engulfed her, and at first Orchid thought she might be back in the terrible darkness, demonic predators descending upon her from all sides, and she started fighting with her captors, her mind torn with hallucinations. But these creatures were stronger than her, and her own suit had her locked down tightly, as if it had lost all its powers and been frozen in place. Unable to face that death again, Orchid lost consciousness once more.
She lay in a coma for three days, until a flash of light across her eyes confirmed to her deeper seat of consciousness that she was not in subspace, had not indeed been devoured. It would take her another two days to work her way out of the void of thoughtlessness, and weeks more before all the pieces of truth came back to her. Before she knew she was awake, however, before she could even talk, she started screaming, tears streaming down her eyes, and the memories, too horrible to endure, pushed her back into the darkness one more time.
