The Suit
Prompts: guilt, confession, impostor, lifeguard
I’m trying to write about 500 words today with some random prompts. Here’s the first one!
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Riley quickly picked over the corpse that lay before them. The deceased was a Verndari, the colony's lifeguard. The dog tag read ‘Chouffe, N.’ That would be Riley’s new name. That was their ticket off of the gloomy, icy rock that was Kalfu.
Riley slipped into the adaptive armor and it snapped in tight around their wiry frame. The crystalline helmet lens closed and with a hum obscured their face and replaced it with a standard, rendered visage.
The features of the suit began to turn online, enhanced hearing, optic zoom and enhancement, bioinformatics, and a regional HUD to start. The suit flashed a warning; one of the building's support columns was close to failing. Riley decided to not scavenge the rest of the building; she had found enough loot with just the suit to move on. She thought about her exit strategy.
Verndari weren’t usually seen in the Skips. Certainly not alone. They’d need to avoid the hoi polloi of the immediate area and get a few blocks away to Hellion’s Circuit. The nightlife district always had a few on and off-duty Verndari. But how?
Guilt washed over them. A building collapse. The Skips were notorious for being structurally unsound–Riley would know, they’d lived there for 20 long years; a native. Most Skippim slept outside on the roads, in alleys, or in abandoned lots. It was safer than in a building; it was rainy season, and crumbling buildings were the norm. Skipping avoided an entire block or two after a collapse, in case adjacent buildings went with it.
But that would mean Mr. Chouffe’s body would never be found. Never returned to his family. Riley’s brother never came back from fighting the Odaudir east of the colony. She knew how hard that was. It couldn’t be easier now that neighborhoods were in open conflict. You never knew if the Odaudir got them, or a neighbor, or an accident. Still, risking his body being found meant risking the suit being deactivated. Riley needed the suit for at least another day.
Riley walked over to the weakened support column and pulled out their plasma cutter. The HUD flagged a few pieces of rebar as at fault. A quick flick of the wrist and they were cut. The HUD flashed red and displayed a countdown in the top field of view.
’Building Collapse: 35s. Retreat 40m.’
Riley didn’t need telling twice. In a matter of seconds, she had slipped out the closest window and sprinted towards Hellion’s Circuit. She paid a few yingbi for a room for the night. They laid down and started to try and tease out a plan.
She knew that there were daily elevators off of Kalfu for the Verndari and the Khunnang to the Orbital Station. From there, you could arrange direct flights as far as Hnoss. She had no idea what security there was to verify who got on the lift, but she had to try. Odaudir had been spotted as close to the colony as Ephemeral Mere. If the longhouses couldn’t get their shit together, the whole project would be overrun and evacuated. Riley knew that in that case, her odds of getting out were footy at best.
Sleep never came. The dull white light of morning crept through the room as the lights adjusted to give off morning UV. Riley slipped back into the suit and navigated to Hoist Point. You could see the ortholinear bundle of elevators and supply tubes from kilometers away.
Riley saw a line of blue and white figures, all Verndari in armor, and got in line. A few minutes later she was rising upward faster than she had ever moved. She had never been this high, and had longer to go. They felt queasy. Dizzy. Lightheaded. Blackness.
Riley awoke. A window faced them. You could see Kalfu in the distance. A voice echoed through the room, through some concealed speakers.
“We are going to need your confession to stealing state property, and impersonating a member of the Verndari.”
They weren’t windows. They were doors. And they slowly began to open.