| Generated by Google Gemini Pro and Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1 |
August 19, 2526. Breanna and Cashmere are plummeting through the air. This
high up, they’re going to be falling for about four minutes, which is enough
time for a brief conversation. Breanna taps on her wrist interface to
control her HUD. “Okay, Cashmere, I’m programming my parachute to deploy at
600 meters, just in case I pass out before then. You should do the same, but
if something goes wrong—and you’re hopefully still awake—you’ll have to pull
it manually. It is not safe to go below 200 meters, so if you reach 599, and
it hasn’t opened, go ahead and pull. Don’t wait.”
“Hold on.” Cashmere taps on her own suit. “There. Now you have full control
over my IMS. If I do pass out, and the chute does fail, please
don’t let me die. And you can just call me Cash, if you want.”
Breanna gives Cash control over her suit as well. “Good idea...Cash.”
Neither one of them passes out, and neither one of their parachutes
malfunctions, but by the time they stop falling, and start drifting, they
notice a problem. The ground is no longer solid. It’s churning around like
soup. Buildings have collapsed, and are sinking into the soil. Debris is
floating every which way. If they try to land in this stuff, they’re gonna
sink and die. “This is an extinction level event,” Cash points out. “What
could cause something like this?”
“A coronal mass ejection. That’s what happened. It destroyed our ship, it
expanded the atmosphere so it was closer than we thought, and it has turned
the surface into melted butter. It’s called thixotropic liquefaction, and it
probably didn’t happen to the whole planet—the equatorial regions are at
most risk—but that doesn’t matter right now because this is where we are.”
“Where can we land?”
Breanna points. “That hunk of metal right there is probably a building. It’s
still sticking up high enough for us to land on it.”
That’s gonna be tough. It’s pretty far away.”
“Then start navigating there now.”
“I am!”
They adjust their risers, combatting the unpredictable weather, trying to
cover the distance to the only safe area that they are close enough to. Cash
was right, it’s extremely difficult, especially since the wind is doing
everything it can to keep them from it. Cash is a little bit lower than
Breanna when they make it there, or rather when she almost does. Her
feet hit the fallen down side of the building, but she doesn’t find
purchase, and ends up tipping over to her back, into the soup.
While Breanna manages to land safely at first, the wind continues to try to
pull her into the soup too. It’s even stronger than the retraction
mechanism. Her only solution is to dump it. It breaks off, and flies away.
She dives down to her stomach and reaches out for Cash. “You’re too far
away, can you get closer?”
“I think the only thing keeping me from sinking is how evenly my weight is
distributed. I don’t think I should move.”
Breanna inches closer, but if she goes too far, she’ll slip in, and they’ll
both sink eventually. She’s agonizing over whether she should get up, and
try to look for something to extend her reach, or to stay here and keep
trying. She just needs a few more centimeters, and maybe she can at least
touch the tip of Cashmere’s boot.
A man suddenly appears next to her, on his hands and knees. He’s not wearing
a suit of any kind, but just regular clothes. The air is extremely toxic
right now, he should be dead unless he specifically designed his substrate
to survive just about every deadly gas and particulate known to man. He must
be one hell of a posthuman. He slides back and takes hold of Breanna’s
ankles, then he nods.
Breanna nods back, then lets herself slip into the soup. She grabs onto
Cashmere’s ankles, and lets the man pull them both up to safety. She rolls
over to her back and finds that the man is not alone. He’s with a woman who
looks similar to him, and is also walking around completely unprotected. She
helps Breanna up while the man handles Cashmere. After he smiles and gives
them both the a-okay sign, Breanna takes off her first stage air filter.
She’s not using it as her internal carbon scrubber is working optimally. It
has this handy little feature where it remains tethered to her, though, so
even though this guy apparently doesn’t need it, it’s the best way for them
to communicate, like a tin-can telephone.
He accepts it, and places it against his mouth so the sound will travel
through. “My name is Tertius Valerius. This is my daughter, Aeterna Valeria.
We detected your arrival on the roof via a rectenna’s diagnostic alerts, and
were making our way towards it when we saw you parachute down. What luck, we
met in the middle.”
“How are you even alive?” Breanna consults her environmental readings again.
“The glassified dust particles alone should be shredding your lungs.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Tertius replies. “We need to get you to safety. We
were only still in Leviss to look for stragglers who refused to evacuate
before. Breckenridge is still safe for now, but they’re in danger too. If
this liquefaction spreads, they’ll need to continue northwards. You can join
us in our...boat,” he adds as he’s looking over towards the other side of
the pylon that they’re standing on. “Hm. It’s sinking too.”
With their only means of transport gone, they start looking around for
options. There’s a hill jutting out from the soup, which Breanna’s sensors
show is solid enough to stand on. If they can reach that, they will be four
and a half meters closer to North Exit. Their IMS units come with smaller
speed flying parachutes, which can launch and retract much faster than a
primary chute. They’re designed to cross chasms and ravines, but they will
work in this situation, as long as these islands are sufficiently
close to each other. The problem is Tertius and Aeterna. They’re not wearing
suits. Even if their bodies can survive this environment, they likely can’t
fly.
“We have tandem straps,” Cash reminds Breanna.
“Those are designed to carry children, like a bjorn,” Breanna argues.
Cash shrugs. “They’re strong enough to hold an adult man.”
Breanna sighs. “Okay, we can try it.”
Tertius straps in against Breanna’s chest while Aeterna straps in with Cash.
Despite the awkward configurations, they manage to get a short running
start, and then jump. Their speedchutes pull them upwards just enough to fly
forwards, and drop them on the hill. “Told ya,” Cash teases
“You were right,” Breanna admits. “This might actually work. Let’s go look
for the next place to jump to. Hopefully it, uh...exists.”
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