Czeffyr Desert, Mort. June 18th, 29487.
The wrist-mounted datapad on his arm finally flickered and stuttered as the power cells gave in to the ravaging sands. An emergency signal broadcast, as was automatic with these devices when their power failed. It rarely ever happened, but if it did, it usually meant the owner was far from safety.Quote:
IRRK Freelance: The Search for the Security Minister
June 12th, 29487 - Lucetta Phoenix
The Newland Minister of Security is still missing. Where is he, and what
happened to him?
It was a cool evening in Newland three years ago. The swift breeze flowing
over the sandy cliff cascaded pleasantly down through the small city.
Despite slowly bubbling tensions overflowing from Borealis, it was largely
uneventful.
Agrestus Wright, Newland's Minister of Security, stood at the balcony of
his apartment at No.11. He packed a small backpack with essentials and left
the city toward the desert.
He hasn't been seen since for three years.
This is a stor-
Agrestus didn't care, though. He'd either be dead or long gone by the time anyone could trace the origin. At least, that's what the plan was.
The ragged man rose up from the scatter of rocks he'd spent the night beside. There was worse nights, nights with mantises and vultures, despite there being little evidence of the savagery he had endured. Nanobots continually worked overdrive to keep him alive, yet they were beginning to fail. Several NCU's on his belt had ceased to function over the past three years, along with most of the specialised equipment he enjoyed as part of his duties.
He ventured into the sands to find himself, to seek answers and a purpose again, free from the real vultures that were the people of Rubi-Ka. Yet, it seemed that the sands took his very soul. Eroded his mind, and his sanity.
A jabbing pain grabbed his stomach. He had to eat. Not unlike the ravaging wastes of the long winter on Earth, he would surely starve if he did not continue to fight. But why? Why not let the sands swallow him whole, as they have yearned for all these years?
That was what this planet wanted. It had tried ever since he entered those cursed coordinates to Rubi-Ka. He had resisted, but the sands would erode. They always erode. Eroded his future. Eroded his friends and family. Eroded what he stood for, and what he loved. Now, the sands would erode him, until finally he would be nought but a weathered skeleton among the hundreds that litter the surface of the planet.
Try as he might, he couldn't give in to it's call. There was something else speaking to his being. It clutched at his heart, leaving an abyss yearning to be fulfilled. He didn't know what it was, but he had to disobey the sands until he knew. The sands grew angry, he thought. Torturing his vision in body and mind as they whipped up to fill the landscape with desert void.
With the torn blood-stained cloak covering his face from the elements, he staggered through the sea of whispers as he searched for food. The sand ushered to him as he fought through, summoning voices to his mind that broke through to visions each night.
In the last of his dreams, he was on an island. A lush, green island with a pleasant breeze. No walls or windows, just an island with three lone doors around him, embellished with objects surrounding them. Each door appeared to represent a faction, or so he thought. He certainly wasn't going to enter the one with the Omni-Tek banners on either side.
"If you had to pick one, which would you choose?"
He turned around to see a ghostly Xeavier Humbold, smiling inquisitively in his immaculate brown suit. This man had asked him the question - a dead man - yet it seemed so... normal.
Agrestus rose to his feet to reply, noting that he had no damage or injuries. The ragged sandy man seemed whole again, his once proud armoured uniform of red and black feeling new again.
"Each door... represents something. An afterlife, or a path to take. That first one," he pondered, his mind clear as ever. "seems to be a door from the city of Home, with the archetype sands and skeletons of once great beasts behind it."
"And the others?" Xeavier asked, the soothing voice easing Agrestus' warped mind.
"The second one bears formations and etchings of the Shadowlands. And the third... the third appears like an abandoned Omni-Tek facility. The cracked door and the abandoned consoles and terminals behind it."
He looked to Xeavier for approval, but the man simply smiled, awaiting his choice.
"Is there a door with a swimming pool behind it?"
Agrestus was surprised at himself that he still had humour, his mind so seemingly fresh. Xeavier laughed for a moment, but stopped to look at another figure manifesting nearby.
"You!" The voice called. Agrestus turned to see a figure he once knew. A Borealis Freedom Fighter, yet despite the clarity he could not recognise the woman.
"Can we count on you when the time comes?"
He opened his mouth to reply, but a swarm of soldiers pounced on her. Gunfire echoed through his mind as he looked to his hands. His pistols were already drawn. He just needed to step forth and pull the triggers.
