Death Stranding--Death Stranding

by Hitori Nojima

  Sam gripped the dreamcatcher hanging around his neck. Why had this thing never disappeared in all the years he had it since he was a kid? He was never without it. Even when he left Bridges. No matter what danger he faced. He never consciously took good care of it, but whenever it broke, it did seem to repair itself. It was like a part of his body now. As he grew up and his old cells were replaced by the new, it was the only thing that had remained constant. His oldest body part.

  “Dreamcatchers are a product of Native American tradition—that of the Ojibwe people, to be precise. They were said to ward off nightmares, to alter one’s dreams. If DOOMS is indeed Amelie’s gift to us, her shared dream of our future, perhaps it’s an invitation for us to change it. A test—challenging us to find hope amid the hopelessness.”

  Sam could almost feel the body heat radiating from Heartman. He was right. At the very least, Sam refused to get overwhelmed by this unjust world.

  “I’ll go back east. I’ll go to find Amelie,” he told them.

  “While we await your return, I’ll search the Beach for Amelie and the director. I doubt my ties to them are strong enough, but better that than sitting around doing nothing,” Heartman said a little bashfully, lightly tapping the AED on his chest.

  “I’ll see if I can’t find something in the records on the two of them, and Clifford Unger. Maybe they’re more connected than we know.” Deadman also seemed to have come to life in the room beside Sam as he mulled what might be coming in the future.

  “Then we hereby enter into a contract with Sam Porter Bridges. We would like you to transport one repatriate all the way to HQ in Capital Knot City. We’ll be here to receive you.”

  CAPITAL KNOT CITY // BRIDGES HQ

  Are we doing the right thing? Deadman thought, sitting down and looking up at Heartman as the AED on his chest announced that he had one minute left until cardiac arrest. Heartman had been looking at a map of the continent on the monitor with a concerned look on his face. He headed over to the sofa and lay down.

  The monitor was displaying chiral density in real-time. The different sizes and colors of the circles across it were fluctuating wildly. There was no pattern in the fluctuations at all. Uncontrollable energy was swirling around them. It made Deadman think of a newly formed primordial planet.

  But it hadn’t been this way until everything was connected.

  Heartman explained it in this way: when each of the Knot Cities was connected it was like creating simple junctions between different galaxies, but once they were connected into a whole, they began to collide with one another.

  The AED made a beep and Heartman went into cardiac arrest. Deadman stared at the monitor and sighed. Was Heartman accessing a Beach on that map somewhere?

  There was no doubt that such huge spikes in chiral density would have a corresponding physical effect on the planet. Deadman imagined that regions that had never experienced timefall before were getting their first taste of its cruelty. That new BT territories were springing up all over.

  We’ve gone and made a terrible bridge, Deadman thought to himself.

  If they didn’t change this world back using the meta-level laws that would integrate the Beaches, this would become the new normal. Deadman was trying his best to keep up with Heartman’s hypotheses and explanations, but it was extremely difficult to wrap his head around. The Beach is just a concept in one phase, but real in others? Maybe Deadman was destined never to understand. He didn’t have a Beach.

  But Heartman was out there wandering the Beach at this very moment. Fragile had fallen into a coma from all her jumps through it. Deadman knew that he would never be able to think or feel about the Beach in the same way they did. He would never understand them and they would never get him. Not Mama, who had been connected to her BT daughter, nor the director, who people celebrated as the man who wouldn’t die. It made Deadman feel lonely. So he exaggerated his differences. Broadcast them. Even though he wished for nothing more than for people to be able to understand him and for him to be able to understand others, he was different. That’s why it was so impossible. He used that excuse as a shield. He told others that he was made of seventy percent cadavers. That he was grown from pluripotent stem cells. He wanted to connect with other people more than anything, but he used these tales as extreme cover stories to refuse the formation of those bonds in the first place.

  For someone like Deadman, the BBs were special. He felt like they were something he could identify with, that they could be a means to understand himself. That they would help him to finally get closer to someone. In this case, Sam. Not being able to go to the Beach himself, he had seen something of a kindred spirit in Sam, who could only go as far as the Seam. It was like the BBs had become a bridge for Deadman to finally reach out.

  Now that he felt like he finally understood someone, he had an epiphany. Perhaps the meta-level law that would integrate the Beaches was that kind of understanding. Maybe some kind of symbol that connected people. Something that made it possible for people to understand each other or bestowed people with an identical delusion in which to share. It didn’t actually matter what it was.

  Once Deadman had his revelation, Heartman came back to life.

  He looked at Deadman with a puzzled expression as he sat up and wiped the tears from his face.

  Deadman realized that he had been crying, too. He began waffling on about his epiphany in a bid to explain his tears away.

  Heartman listened to what Deadman had to say, showing him a smile at various points along the way. He was looking at Deadman with the pride of a teacher listening to a bright student, and watched as Deadman tried his best to explain his theory so animatedly that he broke out into a sweat.

  “That’s right.” Heartman nodded in satisfaction and gave the thumbs up. “But let me elaborate a little. Both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens are believed to share a common ancestor in the form of Homo heidelbergensis, but there are clear differences between the two. Neanderthals were brutish and brawny, well-equipped to hunt larger animals and survive in colder climates, whereas Homo sapiens were slender-limbed, and only capable of hunting smaller prey. The Neanderthals even had larger brains than us. Normally one would think that would mean the Neanderthals would outlast us Homo sapiens. But they didn’t.

  “As millennia passed, Homo sapiens learned to create tools and hunt in packs. The Neanderthals also fashioned tools of their own, but these were crude in comparison, and developed little over 200,000 years—perhaps because these simple-minded beings favored small family units, so that even if a breakthrough occurred, it was unlikely to be shared with others. This isolation, more than any other factor, seems to have led to their decline.

  “Homo sapiens, meanwhile, conceived religion, with which large numbers of individuals could be bound together in service to a common cause. Strength in numbers also made their communities more resistant to famine and other calamities. In other words, Homo sapiens grew stronger through interpersonal connections. By creating what came to be called ‘society.’ The meta-level law we talk about could be referred to as fiction. While each Beach belongs to an individual, what unifies them all is a common fiction.”

  After listening to Heartman’s explanation intently, Deadman turned back toward the monitor showing the North American continent. The chiral density was still spiking wildly. What kind of fiction, what kind of story, would be needed to resolve this?

  “There is something that we will never be able to influence, no matter how we apply ideology, principles, religion, myths, or disciplines like science. Homo sapiens are weak. If tossed out naked into a forest with no tools, we’d die extremely quickly. So we put distance between ourselves and our natural state to survive. But the price we paid was giving up a part of us that we’ll never find our way back to. Despite its evident nature in all other living things, we became estranged from it. Yet we still struggle unconsciously against it. I suppose it’s also why I keep dying for twenty-one minutes at a time, even though I know I’ll
never see my wife or daughter again,” Heartman said, tapping his AED. “Philosophers named this part of us ‘Id.’ On a primitive level, Id thinks. Id determines. They recognized that this Id that humans can’t control is what makes the world go around. That’s why people make offerings. To try and appeal to that part of us that no one can reach. I’m sure you must know the song of London Bridge. There’s a theory held by some that the My Fair Lady mentioned in its lyrics is a human sacrifice buried in the foundations of the bridge. The bridge was destroyed and rebuilt so many times that people started to bury others alive there, to appease whatever was causing such misfortune. Today we’d consider this illogical, irrational nonsense. But when everyone believes in something, it gives that thing meaning and a function in reality. This is another example of the meta-level law of fiction.”

 

  An electronic voice put a stop to Heartman’s long-winded speech. Heartman lay back down, wondering aloud if he had talked for too long.

  “Id was what made this heart-shaped heart.” Heartman pointed to the left side of his chest and winked.

  “Maybe Id flows through the Beach and the Beach comes from our Id. Or maybe Id is the Beach itself. In any case, the Beach summoned the BTs here and acted as an intermediary for the Death Stranding. It’s an unpleasant, frightening domain, yet we can still ‘use’ it. This is a new reality for us, a new dimension of fiction. That’s why I believe that you have a Beach too, Deadman, even if it does differ from mine. Oh, looks like I’ve talked too much, it’s almost time. I’m off.”

  The AED began to play the Funeral March and Heartman closed both eyes. All Deadman could do was look at the monitor now he had been left all on his own again. Heat was radiating from the center of his head. It was like his thoughts and emotions were swirling into a vortex. Just like those displayed all over the monitor.

  SOUTH KNOT CITY OUTSKIRTS // SAFEHOUSE

  Sam fiddled with his cuff link in the midst of a downpour and unlocked the door to the safehouse. He descended to the private room in the basement, connected Lou to the incubator, and had just sat down on the bed when he was finally overwhelmed by tiredness.

  It had been more than ten days since Sam woke up after returning from Amelie’s Beach. At least, that’s what it felt like. Sam had already lost count.

  The cuff link wasn’t operating as it was supposed to. Both the vitals monitoring devices and the log system had stopped. Even the communications function was fickle. The map was still displaying properly, but it hadn’t updated lately and still only showed the old data from Sam’s outward journey. For all intents and purposes, it was broken. Or, to look at it in another light, Sam was now free from the shackles of all of Bridges’ systems.

  That might have made him quite happy once upon a time, but not right now. He had no idea about Amelie’s movements or anything else that was going on around him and the stress was becoming unbearable. He had been repeatedly struck by a profound sense of isolation, like he and Lou were shut off in their own little world. His communications with HQ were limited to when he reached Knot Cities, Bridges facilities, and safehouses equipped with communications terminals.

  Lockne deduced that the reason the cuff link was acting so strangely was due to all the chaos on the Beach. It was interfering with the flow of time and causing lags in communication. The system was completely incapable of handling its new load. Sam could communicate to a point using fixed communications equipment, but mobile devices were useless.

  The timefall continued to pour. On his way here, Sam had seen the dense chiral clouds that blocked out the sky illuminated by bands of light. They were similar to the auroras that were observed at the poles, and looked like blood bleeding out of the heavens or enormous dragons crossing the cloudy sky.

  The Chiral Network had warped and twisted this world—the time-space of this continent. And Sam knew he only had himself to blame. He felt shackled by the weight of his actions on his shoulders. He couldn’t even excuse it by saying that he was asked to do it. Putting things right was the cargo he bore now.

  Sam activated the communications equipment in the room. He established a link with HQ and connected with Deadman. The timeless, high-capacity Chiral Network was now just a network in name only and could only offer a voice-only connection.

  They still hadn’t found Amelie, Die-Hardman, or Cliff. Nor any clue about how to access Amelie’s Beach. Deadman’s investigation, however, had yielded some results.

 

  “That doesn’t make sense. The first BB experiments took place long before Lou became a BB. That can’t be the reason why Unger keeps going after Lou.”

 

  Sam could still vividly remember what he saw when he activated the communications terminal in that ramshackle facility by the tar belt. How a BB pod was embedded in that equipment that looked like a huge cross. So, he hadn’t imagined it after all. The thought made him feel sick.

 

  What were you up to, Bridget? What kind of America was she trying so desperately to rebuild if she would go so far as sacrificing unborn babies? What’s the point of surviving extinction if she was just going to throw away lives? Sam wondered if the reason Higgs was so bent on having humanity wipe themselves out was because he knew all of this. Or was he just a vehicle for Cliff’s intentions?

  Had Fragile managed to get anything out of him on Amelie’s Beach? Sam needed to wake her up out of her coma and get her to tell him everything she knew about Higgs. Yet another reason why he needed to get back east as soon as possible.

  SOUTH KNOT CITY

  Even after traversing back over the snowy mountains that had given him such a battering on his way west, passing by Mama’s old lab where he had found her holed up with her BT baby, and finally arriving at South Knot City where Fragile’s body had been ruined forever and sullied with the marks that caused her such shame, the skies hadn’t changed at all. The timefall may have let up, but the clouds were still illuminated by beams of light that looked like bloodstained dragons.

  Once he had arrived, Owen Southwick, a Bridges employee who was stationed in South Knot City, gave Sam the news that the Elder had passed.

  —I’m no prepper. I’m ju
st a parasite.

  Sam remembered the Elder saying that as he gave his shelter over as a knot for the Chiral Network.

  Ever since he had joined the UCA, America had gotten more and more involved with the Elder’s life. The Elder used to refer to himself as a parasite, but now it was America’s turn to exploit his shelter and feed off him. Maybe some people would call that coexistence or symbiosis, but while the Elder had died, America had lived. America had completed the Chiral Network and created this distorted world, all for the purpose of sustaining itself. The sole reason America disposed of the Elder’s dead body was for its own preservation. It was like the Elder and all other people under the UCA were nothing more than resources. American reconstructionism was touted as a way to save mankind from extinction, yet all it had done so far was leave a trail of human sacrifices in its wake.

  “The Elder seemed grateful to you guys,” Owen told Sam. Even though the surface was even more dangerous than before, Owen Southwick insisted that meeting in hologram form would not do and he had come up specially to the cargo room on the upper floor.

  “He told me to thank you and all the other couriers and porters. Fragile and her dad, too.”

  “Fragile and the others deserve gratitude, but not me,” Sam commented.

  Sam hadn’t gone all the way to the Elder’s shelter for the Elder’s sake. It hadn’t even been for something altruistic like saving mankind. The only reason he had taken part in this ridiculous plan was because he wanted to save Amelie and Lou. And underpinning all that was nothing but a selfish desire of wanting to prove his own self-worth as a repatriate. He just wanted to know why he had been born this way. In that sense, he was also a parasite, just one on America and this expedition.

  “Come on, Sam. There’s plenty to thank you for. It was you and Fragile who saved us for a second time, remember?” Owen said, reaching for Sam’s arm. When Sam avoided his grasp, he looked a little dejected. Sam felt sorry when he saw Owen’s expression. How could he possibly accept the gratitude of someone he wouldn’t even let touch him?