Blank Slate Ch.2: Lost and Found

Table of Contents https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/225386550/0/0 [i] Faces floated before me. I knew them, or should have. Names came and went. I didn't know which ones matched the people. More faces. They spoke to me. I heard them, but forgot the words before they touched my ears. I was surrounded by other Exos, then on a table, surrounded by regular humans. This time I remembered the words. "He's the oldest we have, by far," one voice said, "This'll be his fifty first mind wipe. Most Exos don't live this long." Training with the other Exos. Targets, live ammunition, hand-to-hand. "He won't last," said another, "His mind is ruined." "It's been ruined for a long time," someone replied, "The wipes just made it worse." A chair and a one-way mirror in an otherwise empty room. Constantly checking mental state. Couldn't be too far gone. "He can't just be thrown away," a third person argued, "He's far too useful." Endless battles. Bodies. Position being overrun. Keep up the suppressive fire. "Make sure he's not still conscious," a fourth voice chided. Too many memories. Too many shattered pieces. Wash away what wasn't needed. One last voice spoke, "Goodnight, Keis." Everything went black for a moment. My right knee gave out and I fell onto it; put my left hand on my left leg to support myself. Wet sand squished under my weight. My right arm wasn't working. Shrapnel piercing farther in. Too many wounds to count. It seemed like it was finally my turn to die. I looked forward. The city was in shambles, smoke rising, gunfire in the distance. Not enough. Last Exit protocol had failed everywhere, even around the Collective. I looked left and right. Bodies, flesh and metal, covered the beach. Many belonged to my enemies. Many didn't. Charred earth, blood running. So many bodies. I felt something lap at my boots and looked back. The sea was mixed with red blood in some places. Black from oil. White. Other colors. More bodies, trying to drift away. Flaming wreckage; some sinking deeper, and some still falling in. The sulfuric acid would erase it all from memory. So many bodies. The sound of the waves. Drift away. Sinking deeper. I looked down the beach again as I collapsed. The sound of the waves. It was finally my turn. Everything went black. Too far gone...[/i] "Guardian!" Ghost shouted, "It's been almost an hour!" I pushed myself up off of the floor and put a hand on my head. It was day nine. I couldn't remember the dream. Just one thing. "Guardian?" Ghost asked. "No. Keis-51..." I whispered. "What?" Ghost asked, taken aback. "My name," I said, "Is Keis-51." • • • I stood on one of the taller buildings on the East side of the city, about forty stories high. It would have taken all day to get up if I wasn't a Guardian. Exos already didn't have to eat or sleep, but the Light made that possible for all Guardians, and increased our physical abilities. Ghost and I looked over what we could see of the city. Even after nineteen days, we still had a lot more to explore. "I hope this view is worth the climb, Keis," Ghost grumbled. "Do you see anywhere an old ship could be hiding?" I asked Ghost. Ghost floated up and spun around, then answered, "There are some large warehouses to the North, and a massive factory to the West. They could have something." I began walking to the West side of the roof to have a look, and tried to make a plan. If the factory looked promising, it was the better choice. We had already come across a second building with solar panels, and any others would be our priority. The more messages we left, the bette- My foot hit empty air, and I fell off of the building. I sighed and crossed my arms while I waited for impact. After I died, Ghost revived me back onto the roof. "Blank," she sighed. "Blank," I echoed. Then something clicked. "Blank," I repeated, "Blanc is a name. And it seems like a decent one for a mechanical flying eyeball." Ghost's shell scrunched up and she hummed thoughtfully, "Im not sure how I feel about being named after various white wines, creams, and cheeses. But I do like how it sounds." "Good. It's settled," I said, stepping to the edge of the roof. "What are you doing, Keis?" Blanc asked. "I saw another building with solar panels on the way down," I replied, "It'll be faster to jump along the rooftops. C'mon." I jumped, and Blanc followed. • • • It was day thirty nine and I was laying on the floor. We had found a fourth building with solar panels. Blanc had said it was a good thing people were dumb enough to put a bunch of these things on the cloudiest planet ever. I knew she was talking about the ever-present layer of clouds, and I told her I thought it was only seasonal. The clouds would probably clear soon. Blanc said I wouldn't know a joke if it slapped me in the face. I told her that jokes did not have physical form or a will of their own, and were incapable of slapping someone. She told me that I'd be a knockout at parties, then to stop talking and work. After moving the panels, I came down into the building and laid down to relax for a few hours. I held a hand up and twirled little swirls of Void between my fingers. With little else to do, other than walk from one place to another, I had practiced using the Void constantly. I had discovered that the Energy Drain could be much more dangerous than slowly sucking the life out of daisies. I could completely drain the energy from most things I touched, even inorganic objects, causing them to dissolve into wisps of Void. I welcomed the swells of energy I got from the Energy Drain. My only test subjects were plants and bricks, but there wasn't a tree in the city I couldn't conquer. I was also fairly good at gliding, which is where a Warlock uses the Light to defy physics and glide through the air after jumping. Blanc said that Guardians used Light to make grenades and Voidwalkers had something called a Nova Bomb, but those both sounded too explosive to try without an actual Guardian's supervision... "Keis! Keis! Keis!" Blanc cheered, soaring in circles over my head, "Look!" I put my hand down and looked to the open doorway. A slender man stood in the hall. He was tall, though not as tall as me. He wore black armor, a black helmet with a red visor resembling goggles, and a red cloak with the hood pulled over his head. He looked down at me and said, "You look like hell."