Chapter Text
Court doesn’t remember how to sing. She lost the skill somewhere in between her fifth or sixth iteration. She understands how to execute the skill in theory but can’t manage it in practice. It also probably doesn’t help that she no longer has vocal cords. Court has a complex speaker system and vocal presets that make up her modulated voice. So whenever the Exo does feel like making music, she has to get to a certain elevation. Tonight’s perch of choice is a water tower, leaning a bit too far right to be considered structurally sound. Her Ghost floats nearby, revival and snarky commentary protocols at the ready. Court crosses her legs, stirring up the spongy cushion of moss beneath her. There are very few radios waves floating through the Manhattan Nuclear Zone so her options are limited. It takes almost all of the processing power of her neural network to pick up a radio station. Court’s yellow face-plates twitch as she manages to match the needed frequency.
“Well this isn’t what I expected but it could be worse,” Lucien drawls as she floats closer.
A warm melody, mostly composed of string instruments, trickles out of her external speakers. Court eases her weight backward slowly. Ever cautious of her precarious perch, she manages to recline onto her back. Her helm ends up buried in a stray patch of dandelions. The white fluff drifts past her optics and dances upwards towards the exposed stars.
“I think this is the beginning of a concert,” Her statement is perfectly timed as the rest of the symphony instruments join in. The vibrancy of the strings makes Court’s plating warm and the lower brass shakes her circuits.
“I could cross-reference Cryptarch archives to identify the piece?”
Court waves away the offer with a lazy flick of her hand. Gloved fingers snag one of the umber rings orbiting Lucien’s shell and pull her down. The Ghost releases a disgruntled burst of static but doesn’t resist.
“Let’s just enjoy it for now,” Court hums.
The symphony swells and bursts with a roar from the percussion section. The sound drifts and dies until it is only being carried on by the woodwinds and lighter brass instruments. The symphony is enthralling like a dying bonfire. No longer are the flames ferocious and tall, but are dwindling to their final death. The result of a fire going out is nothing surprising but people still crowd around to watch the last ember pass away. When Court relays her feelings about the music to her Ghost, she scoffs.
“Well, I guess that is one way to interpret the data.”
Court snorts at the comment and tells her Ghost to give their interpretation of the music. The Guardian is immediately treated to a long lecture on the history and fundamentals of orchestral music.
“A chamber orchestra usually comprises 50 or so musicians. Based on my wave analysis there are about 70 or so different instruments playing in this orchestra so it would be classified as a symphony or philharmonic. I have no way to determine if this concert was played in this city, but if it was, the performance most likely took place at the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts. The 16.3-acre complex hosted millions of people and entertained them with a multitude of different performances. During the Golden Age, the Lincoln Center was most famous for-“
The lecture and symphony are both interrupted by the sound of gunfire below. Ghost and Guardian blink at each other before identical sighs rip out of them both. The portion of Court’s schedule dedicated to music always seemed to get interrupted by something. The Guardian was more than familiar with the paracausal, fate shaking forces that shaped the galaxies. What the Guardian didn’t understand was why those forces were hellbent on preventing her from hearing a song to completion.
~~~~
Court-8 is stuck on a window ledge. There are no fellow Guardians or Vanguard to witness her misstep, only her Ghost. Which is 307% worse in her humble opinion.
“This is why proper maintenance is important,”
Court will find no mercy in Lucien’s single glowing eye. So the Guardian digs her boots in further and focuses on not falling. She is sixteen stories in the air and a fall from this height would end in the vilest of ways. Lucien would record her rapid descent from the heavens and replay the vid during the worst moment possible to maximize the embarrassment factor. The Ghost did the same thing with the pie video after all.
Rather than traverse around on foot, Court opted to take the high ground. Jumping from building to building cut down on travel time but also came with its own set of risks. One of them being, that the rocket-powered boots used to close gaps between buildings sputtering violently before dying out. Which is why Court had to fling herself onto the nearest windowsill and hang on for dear life.
“This is bad…”
“Well, you’re not wrong about that ,” Lucien says completely and utterly unsympathetic. Court twists her head to stare at her Ghost. She has her helmet on but she knows, that Lucien knows, that she is currently pouting. Well, pouting as much as an Exo could without lips.
“We have places to be Court ,” Lucien reminds.
“You’re right, per usual.”
There isn’t a time crunch on this mission but they are supposed to move with purpose. Getting down off the window isn’t an option, so Court is going to have to go through. The Titan cringes as she regards the full pane of glass in front of her. It’s one of the few good windows left in the Manhattan Nuclear Zone. She was hesitant to break the window, to break anything in general. Lord Shaxx often reaffirmed that a good Titan knew when to hold the Wall and when to charge the front line. Court-8 was not a good Titan, she was passable at best if her Combat Efficiency Tests were to be believed. She broke a lot of things on accident and was often reluctant to leave behind good cover. But she was improving! Her mentors still preferred yelling at her rather than praising her efforts, but at least the Ol’Lady had stopped hitting her.
Court takes a deep, unnecessary breath before rearing her knee back. The first few hits from her knee pad only cause a spiderweb of cracks to form. Swearing under her breath, Court calls the window several offensive things in at least four different languages. She brings her leg back again, ready to hammer away at the pane when her boots cut on again. Court swears into her helmet as she is suddenly blasted through the pane. She tumbles ass over teakettle into the room and flops hard onto her back. Glass plinks and plonks against her armor before scattering across the floor.
“Luci,” Court rasps. “Did you turn on my boots?”
“Yes. ” Lucien responds, “ You weren’t going to be able to break it on your own. ”
“You’re the worst.”
“ Our destination is a block away. Please hurry up.”
Court lets one more pitiful groan rattle out of her chest before climbing to her feet. She shakes like a damp, disgruntled dog, removing any glass lingering on her armor. With her boots working again, it’s a piece of cake to jump to the adjoining building. She does have to clamber up the side of the building to get to the roof, but thankfully there are more hand and footholds. Court-8 heaves herself onto the rooftop, banging into an exhaust vent as she re-balances.
“ I wouldn’t if I were you ,” Lucien comments unhelpfully.
Court pauses in her trek across the roof, right foot hanging in the air pointed in the direction of the rooftop access doors. She lets her boot drop back down into the dust and grime.
“Ok, well what should I do, Luci?”
“ Find another point of entry Court. If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed that those hinges on that door are caved in and the metal is warped. It would have collapsed the instant you touched it. AND then you would have been crushed by the concrete, trapping you in a small, hazardous environment. That would make executing revival protocols very, very difficult for me.”
“And we can’t have now can we?”
“We most certainly can not.”
Court snorts and begins looking for another way down. The space between the top of the roof and the first windows was too long of a drop. She was shit at hovering so the likelihood of her making the jump was slim to none. Lucien continues to chatter on in her ear, remarking about her vital position to the mission and Court’s continued existence. Court can’t exactly argue against any of her points so she lets the Ghost continue. So immersed in her argument, Lucien doesn’t notice her Guardian pooling Void energy until it is being lobbed against the roof. Lucien doesn’t curse but gets close to it as the Light crackles and sizzles across the concrete.
“ You idiot...” Lucien isn’t afforded the chance to finish her tirade as the concrete cracks and a fissure opens up. The Guardian tumbles through the hole and the Ghost follows, reluctantly after. Concrete hits the floor, an explosion of pewter fireworks. Court rolls sideways, avoiding one of the larger pieces.
“ Nothing,” Lucien began, “ Nothing about this situation surprises me, but I am disappointed .”
“I’ll get you a feel better soon card from a gift shop later.”
“You’re so fortunate that I don’t have hands to beat you with.”
“I know,” Court laughs, barely audible over the cacophony made by the last of the concrete settling. The ceiling now sits in a misshapen heap towards the center of the room.
“How far away is the target Luci?”
“ The R&D department is 6 floors beneath your current location.”
“Copy that.”
Court pats her Ghost before she vanishes in a flurry of Light. She double times it over to the stairway exit. The door is already open, held in place by an overgrowth of weeds and moss. Court carefully shifts her weight down the first few steps but goes no further. The staircase is mangled and broken. Long branching lines travel through what little concrete remains attached to the building. Court hadn’t been hoping for much but her only way down, save throwing herself down an elevator shaft, was an eroding, jagged mess.
“Thoughts?”
“ Based on my preliminary scans, 82% of this staircase is no longer structurally sound. Standby while I chart a course for yo-“
“Don’t bother,” the Titan cuts in. “Just keep count.”
Court plants her hands around what remains of the guardrail, and in a practiced motion, she is up and over. Lucien pushes an irritated and exasperated feeling over their bond as the Exo starts to free fall. Her mark floats upward, the fabric forming a rather ineffective parachute on her right side. She holds her arms loosely above her head, to keep them out of the way, and at the ready to grab a handhold.
“Four more floors until you reach the destination.”
She nods slightly and shifts her attention to the programs in charge of running her boots. She had plenty of subprograms that could calculate the optimal moment to turn the boosters on and stop her rapid descent. Life-altering calculations were easy to make for a machine, but sometimes it was more fun to do it the human way. Eyeball the problem, take your best guess, and pray to the Traveler that you stick the landing. Court cuts the rocket boosters on hard and drops her arms down into a T to keep balanced. The last thing she needed was to start a tailspin. Short bursts of flame drop her closer and closer to the crumbling landing. Court’s boots catch on the lip of the 14th-floor landing. She rocks her body forward and lets the momentum carry her away from the edge.
“ I can’t believe that worked. There was a 63% chance you ended up splattered at the bottom of the stairwell or with a piece of railing through your chest.”
“Have a little faith Lucien.”
“I will allow an application of faith when your deaths from accidental falls go down.”
“Oh hush you,” Court huffs.
The door to the R&D department, like most other doors in this place, is rusted over and jammed shut. She doesn’t have enough space on the landing to unleash another grenade without getting caught in the blast.
“Time to get old fashioned with this shit.”
Court drags her boot along the door sill, disturbing moss and other vegetation gunking up the entryway. She wedges her body against the door and begins to shove. She strains against the door, interior fans kicking on to cool her core reactor. The door retreats inch by inch, scraping against the moldy carpet.
“ Brace for impact,” Lucien informs her rather abruptly.
The door gives way and Court goes tumbling along with it. A hazy cloud of dust and spores billows upwards as she hits the ground. Not for the first time, Court is thankful that she was built without the need to breathe.
“Thanks for the warning.”
“ You’re welcome,” Lucien's tone is as equally dry as her own.
She picks herself up slowly, brushing dirt from her pants. The rough landing had jostled the Guardian but she was otherwise unharmed. Court surmised that this was another of Lucien’s infamous teaching moments. The Ghost has no qualms over allowing her Guardian to be injured if a lesson could be learned. Lucien constantly ran simulations to ensure participants suffered no permanent physical injury from said tests. However, mental trauma was deemed inevitable and therefore was not factored into any preventive calculations.
Court grumbles as she steps over the fallen door. Lucien bursts into existence over her right shoulder. Metal rings orbit at a dizzying pace as the Ghost zooms off to begin scanning consoles.
“Got anything good on there?”
“A moment, if you would….”
Court raises both hands and backs away from the furiously glowing orb. She rests her palms on the back of her neck and links her fingers together. She steps away from the Ghost to give her the space to work and to survey the room. This R&D cube farm had seen better days. Most of the wooden desks are rotted through and the paint is faded off the walls. Years of rain exposure and sunlight turned the carpet into a bleached, rotten mess. Her boots crunch over broken glass as she weaves through broken cubicles. Court twirls in a short circle, taking in the desolation around her. Mother Nature has all but consumed the once urban area of Manhattan and the rest of New York City.
“Found it…”
Court whirls around to face her Ghost, who is no longer fluttering from computer to computer like a technologically advanced bee. The Titan shudders in her rocket boots. Those techno bees were evil little fuckers. Court hops over a broken swivel chair to reach the computer that Lucien hovers over. The glass monitor is shot to shit, making it difficult to read the scrolling green text through the fractured glass.
“So now what?”
“We go fetch what we were sent here to find.”
“Why do I feel like that’s not going to be as easy as that?”