[03] Arctic Sector

[DA 2009]

ARCTIC SECTOR

Time Of Day: Dusk

Bunker: Active

Starting Players: -none-

[Alexander Trafford]

His hand was trembling again; each bony finger shook uncontrollably. Struggling mightily, Alexander slowly slid a fresh, white Marlboro into the corner of his lips. With a wink of his eye, the tip of the cigarette ignited with energy, which quickly subsided and evaporated, but left the cancerous retreat burning strong. His nerves seemed to calm as he inhaled, filling his lungs with gaseous relaxation.

Trafford’s stride had returned to a slow, wandering trudge and his mind had spiraled downwards into blankness. In his search for absolution, he had taken a step backwards. He sought to confront his problems, instead of burying them beneath drugs, prostitutes and self-delusion, yet all he had managed to accomplish thus far was adding another fault to the length laundry list of issues he needed to address. Vad was dead, and his death had come by Alex’s hand. How could he come to peace with murder? Granted, he had to kill the saiyan or be killed himself, but he could not afford to lower himself to the same level as Zulenka. He could not afford to become a monster.

Trafford was not paying attention to where his feet were taking him, and he barely felt the freezing cold winds as they rushed over his body. On one hand he was numbed by the shame and disgust of his act, but he also felt relieved, uplifted even, by the fight’s conclusion. Delivering the coup de grace had removed an ethereal weight from his shoulders, and from his heart.

“I had to do it,” Alex whispered to himself through his teeth’s incessant chattering. How had it gotten so cold? Where had the mountain breeze’s warmth gone?

The young telekinetic snapped back to reality. He was standing in front of a familiar fortress in the center of the frozen tundra. Billows of snow whipped around his body and a fierce, howling wind lashed out at his extremities.

“This has got to be a fucking joke!” Trafford exclaimed, visibly upset with his absent mindedness. He had managed to stroll a good distance in the complete opposite direction he had intended to travel. This kind of shit only happened in classic comedy movies, like Dumb and Dumber. Shaking his head and inhaling a plume of smoke, Alexander pushed open the thick, metal door to the bunker and walked inside.

Alexander enters the Arctic Sector Bunker

[Jesper]

Her hands were shaking.

No blood was shed, but it might as well have been dripping from her fingertips and she looked upon her friend’s dead body, caught in an emotion somewhere in between horror and sheer hopelessness. Her collar began to vibrate and beep—a sure sign that she would be whisked away from the scene. She would be teleported to another part of the city and expected to put all of what had just happened behind her. Out of sight, out of mind, but she wouldn’t forget. She couldn’t allow herself to forget.

A last beep pierced the fog of silence, and she was transported elsewhere. She blinked, unable to tear her eyes from where they had set before. A patch of cracked concrete sat where her friend’s corpse had once met her line of sight. Sighing, the healer looked up again and rubbed her neck, looking around. She had no reasonable way of knowing where she was without looking at her map, so she brought it out and unfolded it. That was the first time she had even considered doing such a thing, and it took her a bit for her to figure out what was what. She pointed to her area, and ran her finger along the surface until she found a reasonable path to an adjacent area.

“Arctic sector, huh?” Sophia breathed, softly whispering to herself. “Sounds…”

Her voice trailed off as she realized that nobody else was around to hear anything. Normally, the arctic sector would have been the option furthest from her mind—just reading the word arctic would have immediately turned her off, but maybe…maybe it was the perfect place for her to go. Glancing from the map, she scanned her surroundings until she saw the beginning of the path that she had mapped out. Biting her lower lip, she put her map back and put one foot in front of the other, doing her best to move on.

When she got to where she needed to be, the city stopped suddenly, just as it had on the other side. However, it was an even more stark contrast this time. The healer stopped just at the edge, looking straight up at the sky. Snow was falling like crazy just a few inches away from the tip of her nose, but where she stood, on the pavement, not even a flake reached her. She felt like such a child upon making that observation, as she was surprised literally every time something out-of-the-ordinary happened on the island. She figured she should have been used to it at that point, but…she shrugged. When does one truly get used to something so illogical?

Sophia took a deep breath and raised a leg to take a step. When she did step through the threshold, she immediately wished that she hadn’t. The cold bit her from all sides, suddenly making her aware of her noticeable absence of sleeves. Gasping so hard that it hurt her chest, she turned tail and ran back to the city, shivering.

“What…what the heck!?” she cried, her face shifting from numbing to stinging. The healer shook her head and turned back towards the blizzard—there was no way she could make it through all of that. She put a hand on her forehead as she began to ponder her other options. She could have tried for another bunker in another area, but there was the chance that her collar was close to deactivating. She grunted in frustration, trying to spot the bunker from where she stood, but all she saw was an endless blanket of white. She couldn’t afford to lose then—she was already dead, so she there was nothing to lose there necessarily, but getting “dusted” didn’t sound appealing. Tightening a fist, she lowered her head and charged right through.

*

The cold wasn’t so bad when she lost any and all feeling in her extremities. In fact, she started to feel warmer, though she knew that that was just her body screaming at her to get somewhere that wasn’t so blindingly cold. Hope welled up inside of her, however, when the bunker came into view through the snowy haze. It looked exactly like the other bunkers, save for the sheet of frost that had covered it. It was obvious that Dukes didn’t have the most artistic touch in history, but to a tired and near-frozen girl, nothing seemed more like home.

Swinging open the door, she rushed inside with more agility than she could remember herself ever utilizing before. The wall of heat was a welcoming sensation as she shoved the entrance closed. Sighing, she turned her back to the door and rested the back of her head on it. Facing the harsh conditions of the area wasn’t exactly the most fun she had ever had, but it did make her focus on more things than how she felt on the inside—namely, how her outside was freezing. Rubbing her arms to warm them again, she looked around.

The entrance was dark and damp, with just enough light for her to see her way around, but not enough to illuminate objects to clarity. Taking cautious steps forward, she poked her head through the next door to see if anyone else was there. In the center of the room sat someone, though she couldn’t tell who. She had to take a few steps closer in order to recognize the blue hair.

“…Sage?” Sophia tilted her head, surprised that anyone else was even there. She sighed upon realization of who she was talking to, however. “Oh…right. You’re used to the cold. Of course you’d be here…”

“Oh…h-hey, S-Sophia,” Sage spoke with a lowered head, only glancing briefly at the healer before staring back at the table. It seemed as if the collar-fights had done something more to the poor girl, which only served to add to the healer’s worries.

Sophia considered asking what happened, but decided not to. “Are you here by yourself?”

“N-no…there’s s-someone else…here,” the girl spoke.

“Oh…” Sophia shook her head. She wasn’t up to the task of playing Mommy, not when she needed some comfort herself. The blonde placed a hand on Sage’s shoulder before walking to the room in which she hoped there would be a bed. “Well…take care of yourself. I…I need to rest, I think.”

Sophia had locked away her tears when she was around Sage, even flashing a smile to the girl as she closed the door to the bedroom behind her, even though she wasn’t looking. Turning around to face the nearest bed, she found that the room had become much brighter since her eyes adjusted to everything. Crawling onto the bed, she sat on her pillow and leaned her back against the wall, holding her knees. She sat alone with her thoughts, trying her best to collect herself, but it was hard to even concentrate on a silver lining when she was bunkered in the middle of nowhere, freezing to death, and participating in a game where she would be forced to fight more of her friends eventually. She rested her head on her knees as those thoughts began to sink further.

She thought of Tempo and began to sob.

Sophia has left the City Sector and has entered the Arctic Sector.

Sophia has entered the Arctic Sector bunker.