Death Stranding--Death Stranding

by Hitori Nojima

  “But maybe… maybe this is the next best thing. Maybe he brought me back from the Beach for a reason… one last time. He wanted me to do this. To keep on being Die-Hardman.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Sam cut in.

  John blinked.

  “Nobody wants a president who acts like they’re immortal. If you’re not scared of death, how can you value life?” Sam said, shoving the gun against the president’s chest.

  “And yeah, the old ways die hard, but that’s what’s gonna have to happen… if we’re gonna come together and build a better America. ‘That gun won’t help you here.’”

  The president slowly received the gun with both hands. Guns had been around since their ancestors first came to America. They were used for protection, killing, and upholding justice. But now, in the president’s hand, a gun was becoming something else.

  “Her words, not mine,” Sam added.

  That gun had been a bridge to Sam. The president stowed the gun in the inside pocket of his jacket and wiped the tears from his face.

  “Thank you, Sam.”

  Sam walked away as those words echoed behind him. He was heading outside. From the underground hallway to those fields shining with light.

  “Hey, Sam. Been waiting for you.” Deadman had been standing outside like a guard. The strong shutter that stood at the beginning of the slope leading outside was down. It was exactly where Sam had set out all that time ago to incinerate Bridget’s body. Where it all began. Deadman looked up from his feet. In his arms was the BB pod.

  “Lou!?” Sam didn’t even have to check. That pod was already a part of him.

  “The decommissioning order finally came through.” Deadman’s voice was cold. He sounded nothing like the man who had embraced him earlier. “Poor thing was never truly alive. Not in this world, at least. I know you have a connection with Lou, but Lou doesn’t belong here anymore. Can’t risk necrosis. The body can’t stay here. I thought you might want to take care of it. You could try taking Lou out of the pod just to see what happens, but that would be in direct contravention of an executive order.”

  Lou was floating in the amniotic fluid, eyes closed. Sam could barely tell whether Lou was sleeping or dead.

  “And there are laws about that kind of thing now that we’re a nation. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. But if the alternative is defying the president… I can’t do that, either. Not me.” Deadman was cradling the pod with both arms like anyone else would a baby. “I’m sorry, Sam, I—”

  “Alright. I’ll go to the incinerator,” Sam told him.

  That was the incinerator where Sam first connected to Lou. As he handed over the pod, Deadman tried to act casual and wiped away the tears from his face. At the same time, he removed one of Sam’s cuff links.

  “I just took your cuff links offline,” he explained.

  His tears were probably real, but while he pretended to wipe them away, he accessed Sam’s cuff links using his own.

  “In that state, there’d be nothing to stop you from removing them. If you did, the UCA wouldn’t know where you were or how to find you. You’d be invisible. When you use the incinerator, you’ll be reconnected to the network automatically. You can’t use it offline. I trust you’ll remember what I said?”

  “Right. Absolutely.” Sam took the pod. “Thanks for everything.”

  Before he ended his sentence, he turned around and hugged Deadman. That man who had first burdened Sam with Lou behind his back was now openly entrusting him with the BB. The weight and significance of the action was completely different from last time.

  The shutter went up with a creak. Pale light streamed into the room and a shadow of a person was cast over the floor of the entrance.

  “How’s the weather?” Sam asked. Fragile turned around.

  “Don’t think you’ll be needing an umbrella,” she answered.

  She had made a complete recovery. It seemed to Sam like her smile had become softer than before. There were no longer any gloves covering her hands as she put the umbrella away. She had stopped hiding her scars.

  “I decided to follow my father’s dream after all. Don’t worry. I won’t get mixed up with any terrorists this time. UCA’s got my back. We’re the first private delivery company to get official approval,” Fragile explained.

  “Sounds like you’re moving up in the world. Congratulations,” Sam told her.

  At her chest, over her brand-new uniform, hung a quipu, exactly the same as those worn by Deadman and the others.

  “Thanks. Wait. There’s something I have to tell you.” Her smile turned into a more serious look. “I didn’t shoot Higgs. Couldn’t pull the trigger. So, I let him choose. Death or eternal solitude on the Beach.”

  As she bit her lip slightly and looked at her feet, it was difficult to tell from her face why she was telling Sam this. Did she regret not getting her revenge? Did she regret exacting her revenge on him, the same way he did her?

  “Fair enough. You never did like breaking things.”

  “That’s right. I find and fix what’s broken and reconnect it. I’m Fragile…” Her tone and expression lightened up a bit. “But…” She looked Sam in the eye. Sam nodded and opened his mouth…

  “…but not that fragile!” they said in unison.

  “Wanna come work for me? Could use a man like you.” Fragile asked the same question she had asked back in the cave so long ago. Sam had to play along.

  “The world’s still broken. The same as before.”

  “Come on. You put America back together, didn’t you?” she countered.

  “Doesn’t mean there’s a place for me. I’ve got no ties to anyone or anything. I might as well be dead. I felt like that when we first met in the cave, and I still do.”

  Fragile put her hand on Sam’s shoulder.

  “Don’t act like you’re the same person! You’ve learned how to touch. To feel. You’ve connected with people—with us!”

  She was right. Ever since she jumped him back from the Beach, he had begun to get better. Yet he still couldn’t bring himself to be openly happy.

  “Everything I touch, I lose,” Sam told her.

  Fragile’s hand left Sam’s shoulder. Both her warmth and the weight of her hand disappeared.

  A ray of light pierced through a gap in the thin cloud cover. It was a sight that no one had seen for a while. Fragile squinted up at it.

  One day, a woman like her might be able to go beyond the clouds. He secretly hoped that she would.

  “C’mon, Lou. One last delivery,” Sam muttered to himself as he began to climb the slope.

  The ground underfoot was frozen and hard. But the blades of grass that covered it were soft, like they were newly grown. A young Bridget had said that the sand on the beach she dreamed of when she was young was made of the corpses of coral and shells. But this ground was made up of the rotting corpses of living creatures, too. After the Big Bang, the small amount of matter that remained that didn’t come into contact with antimatter came together to create this world. If it had come into contact, it would have disappeared. This world existed because something didn’t reach out in return.

  Sam crossed a river that froze him to the bones, circumvented a cliff that looked like it was about to collapse, and struggled up the slope of a hill. Cryptobiotes wriggled out from the shadow of a rock and floated idly in the air. If it hadn’t been connected to the world by the Beach, this strange creature would never have been discovered. It would never have been preyed upon by humans, either.

  Right in front of him was something that Sam had never seen before. He stopped. It was a dull white, rod-shaped object. Slender like a stick. It didn’t look human. No matter how humans died, it was unlikely they would leave bones behind. Whether it was a voidout or incineration, no trace of humans was ever left behind now. They weren’t returned to this world. Nor were they eaten by animals, other than the BTs. They were completely erased from the circle of life on this planet. Eventually, all trace of the
m would wither away and they would disappear.

  Sam licked the bone. It tasted of dusty earth. Humanity didn’t return bones to the cycle of life and death, instead they remodeled them into tools of aggression and destruction. Humanity had made its own system and become the rulers of this world. But that too was about to end.

  If I survive until that time comes, will I see her again? Will she be there waiting for me on the Beach?

  It was impossible.

  Sam flung the bone away as hard as he could. Being so light, the bone didn’t even follow a curve, it just dropped to the ground. It felt like someone was telling him that it was never going to reach beyond the clouds. It was of this land, of this earth.

  * * *

  As Sam reached the top of the hill, the incinerator came into view.

  The inside of his nose began to hurt and his eyes began to water.

  This wasn’t an allergic reaction. They were tears of mourning. Tears that the living shed in tribute for the dead—for they could not lay the dead to their eternal rest where they belonged, but, for their own protection, had to incinerate them into nothingness. Sam understood that now.

  He was still outside the facility. To enter, he would have to verify his identity.

  Should he go in? Should he go back?

  The inside of the pod was dark. Sam couldn’t tell what kind of condition Lou was in.

  Not knowing whether he was doing the right thing or not, he pulled out the cord and connected to Lou.

  His mind exploded.

  —This child’s special.

  —This child will be the bridge that connects us all.

  Sam heard a muffled voice and opened his eyes. Everything around him was blurry when someone’s face swam into view. No, that’s not right. Water flooded into his mouth as he tried to open it. It tasted like the sea. It ran down his throat and filled his lungs. But he wouldn’t drown. He hadn’t been born yet. He was still a creature of the sea.

  —This is all my fault. I should… I should never have put you in that prison.

  Even from within that pod filled with amniotic fluid, he could distinguish Cliff’s voice.

  —And the second all this is over, I’m gonna take you wherever you wanna go.

  “Don’t hesitate, sir. This is the only chance you’ll get.”

  This wasn’t the first time Sam had seen the revolver that Cliff had just been handed. It was the gun that Amelie had given him on the Beach. The gun he had tried to blow his brains out with after he lost all hope. Cliff checked the cylinder. This time it was fully loaded. John silently left the room. He only had five minutes.

  Cliff opened the cabinet and took out one of the stacked towels, wrapping it around the gun. Then he found a cushion and turned toward the bed. This bed was no ordinary bed. It was a manmade cocoon composed of light metals and reinforced plastic and electric circuitry. Or a manmade coffin. The sleeping woman within was half-dead.

  “I’m sorry, Lisa.” Cliff pressed the cushion to Lisa’s face and the gun into the cushion. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him. I promise you.”

  As he bent down to kiss her, he saw the black and blue bruises. The marks that had caused her brain death in the first place. Cliff didn’t know what had driven her to do such a thing. He had shut those memories away.

  “I’m sorry.”

  How many times have I said those words to her now? And how many times am I doomed to repeat them in the future? Cliff wondered as he squeezed the trigger. He turned his face away and heard two muffled gunshots. The instruments connected to his wife hid her death and carried on spoofing vitals as if she was still alive. He had five minutes to get everything done.

  The face got closer and closer to Sam as Cliff cradled the whole pod in his arms.

  “ВВ. Can you hear me?” Cliff asked. Sam’s world shook, but it didn’t feel unpleasant. “Can you hear me? It’s Daddy.”

  Cliff opened the door to the room and exited into the hall without making a sound. Even though Cliff had walked these corridors plenty of times before, tonight they felt like a labyrinth. But this Orpheus wasn’t trying to take back his lover. He was trying to reclaim his son.

  There should still have been a little time before the guards made their rounds. Cliff advanced straight toward the end of the hall, looking left and right as he went. As he took a left toward the entrance, alarm bells went off in his head. Several soldiers were headed his way from the right. But they hadn’t spotted him yet.

  Cliff immediately went back the way he came and held his breath.

  Three soldiers passed by silently. He couldn’t go after them. He had to stick to the plan. Cliff headed to the right, the direction from which the soldiers had come from. He had three minutes left.

  He decided to sneak into a separate building from the adjoining hallway. But the door was locked and made of reinforced glass.

  He gave up and considered his options. Should he use his original escape route? Or take a detour and head straight for the exit? Before he could decide, one of the options was taken off the table. He could hear voices at the end of the hall. They were getting closer. It sounded like a doctor and their staff.

  If he acted casual, maybe they would just walk right past him. It was still one minute until the alarm alerting them of Lisa’s death went off anyway. His temples were covered with sweat. Cliff realized he was nervous. His hand that gripped his gun and his arm carrying the pod were both trembling slightly. This had never happened to him before. He had always managed to give any kind of danger the slip. He wasn’t afraid of death. But once his son was conceived, death became much more of a worry. Even if he wasn’t afraid of death himself, he still couldn’t allow himself to die.

  That in itself had dulled Cliff’s judgment and forced him to resign from active duty.

  It was no longer Cliff but the impending alarm that decided his next course of action.

  The doctors were heading back in the direction they had come, but from the opposite side came the sound of several sets of footsteps.

  Cliff put his hand to the door in another attempt to open it, but from the other side of the glass came several guards with their guns at the ready.

  “Freeze!”

  The laser sight attached to the soldier’s gun was dancing around Cliff’s chest area. Cliff held up his own gun in his right hand and pressed it against the pod. The sound of the gun scraping along the side of the pod traveled through the amniotic fluid, but Sam wasn’t scared.

  “Drop it!”

  The call for Cliff to put his gun down was echoed throughout the hallway. But Cliff made use of his trump card and kept the BB hostage. The soldiers backed off as he glared at them. Then, the commotion from the other end of the hall grew louder.

  “Stand down!” a soldier shouted, but Cliff was already off running in the opposite direction. He heard a soldier fire on him.

  His left shoulder grew hot. Lukewarm blood dripped down his arm. The pod was also covered in it and Sam’s view of the world was stained red. It was the same red that he saw in the sky and in the sea on Amelie’s Beach.

  * * *

  Sam had unconsciously yanked the cord out of the pod.

  A pain blew through his shoulder like he’d also been shot. His body was covered in sweat. It was that vision again. In it, Sam had played the part of both Cliff and the BB. But Cliff was already gone and Lou had grown extremely weak. Why was he seeing that now? Something had made him see it. Maybe Lou was trying to reconnect with him. While one part of him hoped that was the case, another more logical part of him knew that he shouldn’t get any more attached. It was the same logic that knew that Lou shouldn’t be kept in the gap between life and death forever.

  That pushed Sam forward.

  The incinerator gave off the same sour scent of decay as always. This place was the end of the road. It was where all traces that someone’s body existed in this world disappeared. To the living, this was the world’s end.

  Sam remembered when he fir
st met Lou. How Igor had entrusted Lou to him, and how he had repatriated from the Seam. He remembered going against the command to incinerate Lou, and the first time he tried connecting to Lou. He and this kid had come a long way together.

  If it wasn’t for Lou, Sam never would have made it to the other side of the continent and back. Even though Lou had exceeded the usual one year of service life, Sam had relied on Lou to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Of course, Sam was mad that the Bridge Babies were used as communications mediums and that they were sacrificed as the cornerstones of American reconstructionism, but Sam had done the same to this child.

  Had Sam really thought about what was best for Lou? He’d just blindly believed that because Lou was a kid, still just a baby, the BB needed protection and guidance.

  But he was the one who had been protected.

  * * *

  The incineration apparatus rose from the floor.

  The reason why it resembled an altar to Sam was because he wanted to remember the months and years he had spent with Lou as something special. For Lou, he wanted to transform the incinerator from a place of simple erasure to a place where he could preserve those memories for all eternity. This was to be a ceremony just for them, not for the American nation, so he removed his cuffs links.

  —In that state, there’d be nothing to stop you from removing them. If you did, the UCA wouldn’t know where you were or how to find you. You’d be invisible.

  Sam decided to trust in the help that Deadman had given them.

  He put his cuff links on the altar. He was going to erase the Sam that belonged to Bridges.

  He put the pod on there, too. To free Lou.

  Sam could hear thunder. The sky suddenly darkened and the smell of rain filled Sam’s nostrils. If Sam dealt with Lou here, then at least Lou wouldn’t be cursed to wander around with the rest of the dead. If the kid couldn’t live in this world, then the least he could do was send Lou on to the next.