La Generación del Atardecer Presenta: The Binary is Fictional, es la conclusión del cuento Eavesdropping. La señal del fin de los tiempos llega a la ciudad de Aragón. Las defensas de la polis aragonesa se enfrentan a un terror innombrable de la profundidad
-We’ve got incoming!-
Ilustración por Esteban Mercado.
“Decían que los Taka eran esqueletos que volvieron a la vida por alguna maquinación supranatural. Algo los trajo de vuelta. Oficialmente se dice que no existen, sólo los balbuceos que van y vienen entre los pueblos. Pero pistas de ellos estaban por todas partes, en blogs de mala muerte, en graffiti por callejones e instituciones, en la diarrea verbal de los pordioseros. Los Taka bordean las cunetas, sus tribus mecánicas te rodean, te atrapan en su software, y eres suyo. Nadie sabe que hacen con estos. Dicen que recorren los sistemas de reciclaje de aire de los guetos y los globos de agricultura.”
[Diario Del Emisario Jeremías Baker]
Ana nears the industrial quarter; smoke oozes from several locations inside its perimeter. The smolder melts away with dark rain clouds approaching. The Colossus’s high pitch wailing fills the atmosphere. A huge chunk of the fortified wall around the complex is blown off. “Yogi baby, you’re gonna have to take over,” She says while approaching the main gate “Aye, aye” answers Yogi and closes its bear eyes connecting to the vehicle’s interface and resume driving it. The automated machine guns have been blown up and factory guards lay scattered on the floor some dead, others dying. “So what’s the plan?” Yogi asks, “You’ll see soon enough,” Ana replies as she swoops to the back seat of the transport and begins loading a Z52 milton grenade launcher. “Try to make contact with our people at the factory.” She stands up, half her torso outside the rooftop, “What are you doing Ana?” the notebook inquires. “Improvising my dear,” she answers as the vehicle makes its way to the main building’s garden, where a dozen or so Taka raiders are patrolling the area, scanning for any remaining guard force. All of a sudden grenade rounds rain down their positions, the Taka’s metallic limbs drizzle around the car, 2 pirates are offline by the first pass; the rest scattered, taking defensive positions around vehicle. Yogi charges and flees while Ana bombards the garden of the compound. As they go for another pass the taka throw a few hand grenades that Yogi barely evades, hauling the car from side to side, up and down, but Yogi drives on. 3 taka leap at least 40 feet into the air while pouring bullets down towards Ana, the now grenadier. “We got jumpers!” says Yogi. Ana targets the jumpers and manages to hit 2 in mid leap, the remaining taka lands on her transport, yet lost its riffle on its way down. Standing on all fours on the vehicles hood, the pirate proceeds to tear the remnants of the windshield to shreds. “I can’t see where im going!” cries Yogi as he flees the driver’s seat. Ana dives inside the car, takes out her moth .45 and puts 2 bullets on the taka’s metal cranium. Suddenly the car runs into the fountain and Ana is shot flying though the air into the shallow water.
“The missile strikes on training camps run by the habiru represent a broadening of the South hemisphere Boru campaign inside Amapolas, which has been largely carried out by automaton aircraft and PMF troops in the Amapolas-Aragon border. The Boru guard and its private military firms such as Epitome Revelations and Execute Outcomes reinforcements, frequently attacked militants from both the habiru and Sau Faude Revolutionary Front which were involved in cross-border bombing along with kidnappings of local official government in the name of freedom”
[Insurgent Joe, unknown location [pirate signal]
“Ouch” she whispers while still dipped in the fountain and aching all over. Rain droplets start mauling on her face. As she’s getting up, Yogi flies by, Zumwalts voice is heard from its speakers, but no visual, “Come in Ana!”, “I’m here, I’m here,” Ana says as she stands up. “I’m glad to hear from you,” Zumwalt continues, “they’ve cut mostly all electricity and the comm’s a bitch. What few guards we have are assembling at their checkpoints.” “Where are the Taka now?” Ana asks. “They’ve split into two forces,” Zumwalt responds, “One pushing towards the engineering vaults, one towards the fusion reactor.” “The reactor…? Holy St. Rita! They’re gonna blow this place to Topus Uranus and leave no trace, just like St. Braire. Have half the able personnel meet me in the reactors main entrance, the rest are to position themselves between the remaining Taka elements and the vaults, do not let them inside the vaults!” Ana sprints into action and makes her way back into the wrecked transport, Yogi follows. The car barely turns on; Ana drives towards the hole created by the Taka’s colossal vessel. Once inside the building she continues at top speed down a series of corridors, chambers and cubicles. “How you holding up dear?” asks Ana. “I’m a soaking mess,” Yogi replies while shaking from side to side ridding itself of the excess water. “The lost tribe of the Taka… here in the west fold!” says Ana. “That is most bold of them; those uncivilized crazies only bring ruin… that’s them up ahead heading for the reactor, they’re in haste!” Yogi states. 4 figures are running down the corridor leading to the reactor’s chamber. Ana, in pursuit of the soulless plunderers, steps on the accelerator and shoots ahead at their forms. They dodge the bullets and with agility, soaring from the floor to the ceiling, from wall to wall. One taka takes a hit on its arm which snaps off, making him smash into an elevator door. The remaining raiders toss grenades in the floor and vanish through the ventilation. Ana steps on the brakes just in time for the blast to blow the hallway ahead inside out. “Well, looks like we’ll have to continue on foot from here” says Ana, Yogi zooms out of the car, its screen emitting light on the obscure hallways of the complex. “Lead the way Yogi,” says Ana while reloading her moth .45. “Oh sure, send the disposable flashlight in front,” Yogi responds as it drifts ahead. “Oh don’t start that again” Ana says, rolling her eyes.
“The sea people made a conspiracy in their islands, all at once the lands were removed and scattered in the fray. No land could stand before their arms: from Hatti, Qode, Carchemish, Arzawa and Alashiya on, being destroyed one at a time… They desolated its people, and its land was like that which has never come into being. They were coming forward toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them… They laid their hands upon the land as far as the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting!”
[Pharaoh Ramesses III]
After a few minutes of navigating the bleak compound they hear gun fire. “From what I can tell,” says Yogi, “the entrance room of the reactor is about 20 meters through that hatch”. Ana walks towards the hatch pointing her firearm at the darkness in front of her. She reaches the manual leverage and starts opening it; then swoops inside and descends down a ladder. Yogi suddenly bumps into Ana’s head while hovering downward, “Oh, my apologies mademoiselle O,” Yogi says, “didn’t see you there.” “Two words…” Ana says rubbing her forehead “passive-aggressive.” The gun fire becomes louder as they reach the end of the passageway. “Something’s coming down the hatch,” says a male voice. “Is it one of us? or one of those unholy machinations?” asks a second male voice. “It’s me gentlemen, Chief O,” says Ana as she drops down to their level. 4 soldiers are returning fire hidden behind craters and knocked over desks. 2 taka lay above; one drops down from the ventilation shaft and opens fire giving its comrade cover. The second skeleton dashes towards the nearest soldier and snatches him by the neck as it leaps back into the ventilation. The taken soldier’s screaming becomes distant, until it can be heard no more. Ana joins the guards in repelling the assailment. The former pirate is less fortunate, as it was making its retreat, the taka’s body was dismantled by incoming fire. It hissed in panic, futilely slithering to safety before having its chest severed by a burst of bullets. There are soldier corpses on the floor along with the remains of Taka pirates from the great beyond. The chamber reeks of decomposition; bugs moved in the organic material imbedded in the pirate’s ancient bodies. “Who’s in charge here?” asks Ana whilst grabbing a riffle from the ground and pointing at the darkness ahead. “That’d be me chief, Corporal Llacksón!” says the first soldier, his face is dirty and tense, “We’re what’s left of unit 78, ordered to hold the reactor’s entrance hall at all costs. We lost most of our people getting here and securing the area, now we’re pinned down; they come and pick us one by one. We have only destroyed 2, counting this one. They thrive in shadows using hit and run tactics, plus the ventilation system gives them access to most areas of the facilities, except the reactor’s core, which is through here.”
“In any event, the project of a conceptualization of totality is more easily stated today, and such a project in and of itself escapes the determined totalities of classical history. For it is the project of exceeding them. Thus, the relief and design of structures appears more clearly when content, which is the living energy of meaning, is neutralized. Somewhat like the architecture of an uninhabited or desert city, reduced to its skeleton by some catastrophe of nature or art.”
[Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference]
The binary is fictional
The prowlers are relentless, swift, and almost impossible to predict; they approach from the dark, covered in cloths filled with scum and mud; their bodies decorated with bizarre symbols. A synthetic hissing fills the room, melodically shifting within the unperceived areas of the chamber. The flashlights of the unit’s riffles pierce the darkness of the room; in the bare ventilation lines a silhouette moves with intent. Yet the assembly of guards holds their ground, but how long until the cognitive lines that connect and secure the structure of this residual force give out? “What a monstrosity,” says Yogi as it hovers by the remains of one of the invaders. “I’ll see if I can tap into their systems using this taka hardware,” Yogi says as its limb connects to the taka’s skull, “how abnormally sexy… now let’s see what I can find in here. Hmm peculiar, I think they’re…” Sparks shootout of Yogi, and coincidentally the Colossus’s cry intensified; the laptop crashes on top of the misshape chrome cranium. “No!” says Ana as she launches to Yogi’s aid, disconnecting it from the offline pirate. “Sir, we’re almost out of ammo,” says Llacksón as he loads his final clip. In that instant the last taka made its move; a claw materializes grabbing the corporal’s face, slamming him into a concrete wall. As the taka sprints forward, it hurls Llacksón’s unconscious body towards a soldier about to open fire. The mechanical bezerker then kicks the last sentinel in the chest, sending him flying into a pile of crates. Ana stands up and opens fire, the taka darts chaotically around room and across its walls, evading all harm. It propels itself with the wall and dives toward Ana, she rolls out of the way just in time, but loses her riffle. The taka immediately makes towards her, punching her in the face, her skull jolts and she gives a step back. The pirate tries to score another punch but Ana ducks. Then she rises with a round house kick headed to the ferric saboteur’s head. But taka pirate grabs her leg in the last moment and sends her flying towards the end of the room by the reactors chamber. She crashes into chambers wall and falls to the ground. The reactor gives off a faint golden radiance to the room and its kinetic components. Ana stays motionless for a few seconds on the floor, warmness leaks down her forehead. She stands up, making sense of what happened. The taka hurls a crate at Ana as it dashes towards her, at the core’s chamber. She evades the speeding crate, jumping out of the way in time; nevertheless the pirate tackles her in mid leap against the reactor’s door, grabbing her neck. Ana, keeper of the westfold, was in a snag, “c’est la vie?” she thinks. The taka raises its other arm prepared to strike; then 3 subsequent detonations shock the raider’s upper body. A smoking moth .45 in the darkness. The automaton insurgent falls to its knees releasing Ana. She gives it a final look before placing a bullet in its ocular apparatus. Ana sighs. Yogi’s screen turns on, displaying a disentangled teddy bear face “what the… that was orgasmic, now what did I miss?”
{A terrible incident took place today at the Manhattan harbor in the Jersey district as pirates raided the Aragonian shore and the Lotus Enterprises energy complex. It left 63 dead between security personnel and civilians, plus at least 100 injured. Mayor Rifkin said “this was an unprecedented attack by the mechanical raiders, well pass the southern wall.” The BORU Security Council (Banco Orbital de Restructuration Universal) voted unanimously authorizing its nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases wherever they are found. Councilman Dae Yung Douglas is one of the active voices pushing for strong actions against the raiders: “These acts of piracy are categorically unacceptable and will be put to an end.” Lotus Enterprises has issued a statement condemning the incident as “vicious terrorist attacks” and stating that they are “most determined to work alongside local and international allies to bring this insanity under control.” The Taka, as the faction is called, stole 9 millions credits worth of property from the city, plus left another 23 more millions in structural damages. The Lotus gave no comment when asked if anything on their plant was stolen. In the aftermath of the attack none of the taka’s bodies could be found.}
