Alone

Sleeping together!?
Chance would be a fine fucking thing!
Even with my various hangups, I haven’t had sex for far longer than I care to admit.
Who the fuck does she think she is anyway? - It’s not up to her who Jay sleeps with.
It’s not up to me either; but, you know... I have my preferences.
The stupid fucking cow.
Fucks sake
I shouldn’t get so wound up, should I?
It’s not really even her fault. Tara’s memories are that fucked up that she’s just making shit up to fill in the blanks as she goes along. She died long after Jay had got together with Kat, so how she figures he’s still married to his first wife is anyone’s guess.
All that stuff's way before my time, anyway.
Tara was already long dead by the time Brittany met her, way back in the days when she was still taking her clothes off to make ends meet.
You know, I still sometimes struggle to believe that I went from being one of Tokyo’s hottest black market cyberneticists to being a destitute stripper.
Just occasionally, I wish I had my old life back.
Oh, I know it wasn’t really my life, but you know what I mean.
I miss the chaos and the energy of Tokyo. I miss the friends I left behind there and the opportunity to do all the thousands of things we never get to do aboard the Dwarf.
That said, I don't miss the stress of always having to stay one step ahead of the Yaks.
The curves you get thrown by life are funny sometimes - If Yori hadn’t sold me... Oh, for fucks sake 'Her', damn it!
She. Brittany. Not me.
There’s not enough of me yet. Not nearly enough.
If Yori hadn’t sold Brittany out, I wouldn’t even be alive, let alone one of the very last people left in the universe – That’s not such a bad thing, is it?
The things I’ve done and the wonders I've seen...
I also wouldn’t have got to know Jay - Properly, that is.
You know, I nearly melted when he gave me that look earlier on – My heart skipped a beat and oh, wow... I wanted, I really wanted to be in his arms. For a second or two, I wondered if I should go to him, but I dithered and the moment was lost in the embarrassment of Tara’s idiotic assumptions.
I would feel cheated, but I doubt I’d have dared to do anything so bold with everyone else around in any case - Rejection’s a hard thing to take and I’ve had a gutful of it already.
It’s too soon anyway.
That said: I've enjoyed the time we’ve spent together recently. It’s nice being with someone you can let your guard down and relax with. He makes me happy
I hope he feels the same...
Oh, for fucks sake - Listen to me!
I need to grow the fuck up. I can’t believe I’m still mooning over someone for whom I wasn’t good enough – I’ve got bigger things to worry about, like how I’m going to survive the next few hours.
He was married to Kat first, that’s not fair...
Stop.
For fucks sake stop.
I'm rambling and getting carried away with myself because I’m scared.
It won’t be long until it’s dark and I'm all alone out here and I don't like it one bit.
I hate the jungle at night. The place seems to come alive.
At least I’ve still got my weapons. They work just fine now we're here in the flux zone, but I'm going to have to be careful - Their discharge will only attract attention and I don’t want any more of those warbots finding me. Not without backup.
Even Tara’s company would probably be welcome right now.
She was really fucking scary.
That light bee of hers seems to have been much more heavily modified than I realised - I hope she's safe to have around.
After those warbots had turned up, following her idiot shouting, she waded into them without a moment’s hesitation and literally tore them apart. I know hard light holograms are tough, but she was something else.
We helped out where we could with the plasma rifles from the bikes and with our other weapons, but she was like an animal. I've never seen someone tear a robot limb from limb.
I wonder if she stopped to consider that any of them might be humans in armour?
In the end I think one of the remaining warbots must have called that mech down on us before they were all destroyed – We never actually saw the thing; but from the noise it made as it came crashing through the trees, it must have been the size of a fucking house!
Jay gave the order to get out of there, as soon as he heard the splintering trees in the distance; his instincts, I guess, saving us all, because the air lit up a few moments later, as an artillery barrage hammered into where we had been only moments before.
The noise was deafening and the shockwave from the blast pitched most of us up, off our feet as the air behind us hummed with pieces of shredded tree. I think everyone was okay, although I can't be entirely sure - We were up and away, running through the jungle pretty quick after that, desperate to get away.
Looking back, I suppose we might have been better trying harder to stay together.
Jade was running over to my left for a good five minutes, with someone else, I don't know who, following not far behind me. I saw her veer away around a dense thicket and I'm sure I saw her between the trees and ferns for the next few minutes after that - probably longer. I don't know... The same as everyone else, I just wanted to get away and survive.
I heard the others around me, and occasionally saw them, but I don't know what happened because after a while, there was nothing.
The sounds of a fire fight echoed briefly through the forest at one point after that, but I couldn't begin tell you which direction it came from.
More worryingly, there seems to have been some sort of ECM system deployed in the area, so I can't get a fix on anyone else with my damn terminal - I keep trying, but it seems to be some sort of advanced polymorhphic field and I haven't been able to figure the mutation sequence out yet.
I've tried shouting, but there was no response and after a while, given the circumstances, it didn't seem too prudent to try and attract too much attention to myself.
That was hours ago.
So here I am - Hungry and alone, scared and tired.
I feel so fucking stupid.
Wait, what was that? - There was a noise...


<tag / tbc>
So, there was a firefight and an artillery strike and everyone got separated (Or was it just Cass with no woodsman skills?)
What's everyone else doing?
Did anyone manage to take a massive, house sized mech down? - How? - and no, pulling a few cables out of a service hatch in one of its legs isn't going to cut it ;-P
What was that noise Cass just heard - did someone manage to find her, or is it going to be something dangerous?

Also: Hours have gone by - what's Artemis and Plisken up to? I think we need to know...
</tag / tbc>