Sepokku
A Menace
- Shortly after having been built Ech0 found herself deployed on her first mission. She woke up in what she could only describe as a coffin, wires, and needles piercing her skin at infrequent intervals. Worse, she was intubated. Even worse than that, it didn't hurt. During her brief stint in college, studying to be a nurse, she had learned that intubation hurt like hell, even days after they removed the tube; she felt nothing. The notion of which caused her to thrash violently in her tomb, or at least, she wanted to. Instead, her body was eerily still, which made her panic further. She started to hyperventilate and thanked God that she was able to do so because if she hadn't been able to, she might have cried.
After what felt like a thousand shallow breaths later, there was a sensation of movement as her coffin tumbled through the air. It landed with a thud and then opened, her movement suddenly restored by whatever demon had snaked it from her while she slept. Clawing her way out of whatever gel had filled the chrome-colored receptacle, Ech0 stood up and tore the tube out of her throat. Her vision lit up with an overlaid Heads-Up Display. It had a message.
'Good morning, please eliminate the target.'
She shook her head in confusion, 'Target?' A blue marker appeared in the distance and the surrounding hills suddenly disappeared, replaced by wireframe copies she could see through. Some sort of site had been set up ten kilometers or so in the distance, it was filled with people. Various options lit up on her HUD, displaying recommended routes, various sets of data about the people in the encampment, detailed psychological profiles on the target; the whole nine yards. She looked up at the sky, the light flashed harshly before immediately being dimmed down to a more acceptable level.
It felt eerily similar to her favorite game. In fact, it felt exactly like her favorite game. She recalled the thousands of hours spent streaming her exploits to her fifty loyal fans. There had to be a way to know if it was the same interface. 'The ping! It was the V button in Gun Game EX.' Not that there was a keyboard in front of her. She tried to think of what the ping did in-game. A port opened up on her scapula and emitted a sound. The area around her was suddenly mapped out, in frightening detail, local wildlife included.
She laughed. It was a nightmare. What a relief. She must have fallen asleep streaming, or watching some shitty horror movie on The Witching Hour. Regardless of what happened next, she'd wake up eventually, and the nightmare would be over.
'Mission starts in one minute.'
Echo looked around, there were other coffins scattered about behind her. In her horror, she hadn't noticed them or the people currently going through the same fucked up tutorial she was. At least, she assumed they were people, like her, all she could see were varying shades of chromatic metals in humanoid shapes. She tried to call out to them, and her vision was flooded with information about her vitals. Her throat was... Missing?!
That rising feeling of panic returned. Something hurt at the back of her mind. What was she doing here? Why couldn't she remember falling asleep? Then it hit her. Falling to her knees, she recalled the last moments of her life. Some wretched plebian screeched out his social media handle before slashing her throat. There was a visceral spray of dark red arterial blood, it colored the sky, as she wondered how life might have been different if she had just stayed in college and got her nursing degree. Then everything went black.
There was a sound like a klaxon alarm and the chromatic shapes around her tore forward, her HUD highlighting their paths as they made their way to the target. Tears began to stream down her face as she made sense of her surroundings. She had been Isekai'd into a game she wasn't even sure she still liked and was having a fucking panic attack during her first match. Classic Echo. She coughed several times and lost whatever paste that tube had pumped down her throat. - A few hours passed and the rest of her squad had successfully wiped out the encampment, without any assistance from Echo. An evacuation team picked them up and returned the squad to an apartment complex in Upper Neo-City. Upon landing, a drone walked her to her new living quarters and explained that she was to stay in the complex when not on assignment. With nothing else to do, she started acquainting herself with her new life. For the most part, it was just like being alive again, a vast majority of her human senses had been, not only retained but enhanced. Her nerve damage was gone, and despite the terrifying ordeal she had gone through upon waking up, she seemed to be in full control of her actions. It was almost humane.
Out of boredom more than anything, she tried to log into her old social media accounts, only to find out that the password had been changed. All of her accounts were still active, in fact, like she had never died. None of the recent posts actually had her in them, but the blurbs attached to them and responses to her followers all seemed like things she'd say. After half a day of investigating she found out that the accounts were all posting Omnitech-sponsored content.
Outraged she stormed out of her room and demanded an explanation of the nearest drone. Of course, he had none, but he recommended she use the mailing application to file a complaint. It guided her through a painful ten minutes of filling out the forms that were required to officially hire her onto Omnitech Industrial Solutions, and then showed her the mailing application. She immediately started filling out Human Resource complaints, accusing the company of theft of intellectual property. For months they went largely ignored until she was returning from a successful coup in the Maltese jungle and noticed her inbox had an urgent letter, directly from the big boss herself, Miss Anderbilt.
'Greetings Ech0 Unit-4272,
Your complaint has been processed and summarily recognized. I too would be very upset if my brand was stolen and monetized while I was forced to watch with woeful impotence. As such I have attached a debt form for the procedures that you were forced to endure after the event of your death. In a proposal that I think you will find mutually beneficial, I am offering you the chance to work off the amount that you owe and earn your account back. If you have any further questions, feel free to see me at the main office.
Your friend,
Lilian Anderbilt PhD'
There were indeed several files attached to the letter. She opened the debt amount first, it was screwing her over to the tune of half a billion credits, and it was actively counting up. She had the sudden realization that she was never going to be able to pay the debt back and her heart skipped a beat. The debt number stopped rising for a fraction of a second, then in tune with her heartbeat, it ticked up again. Lilian was charging her for every beat of her heart. "That perfidious little b-" - The floor plan of Omnitech headquarters was a nightmare; Echo marveled how someone so good at inventing could have such shit taste in architecture. After being led around the building for what seemed like forever, she was forced to wait while "Miss Anderbilt finished a meeting." You would think the greatest inventor in Neo-City could've figured out a way to make sure her schedule didn't clash. Thankfully her secretary had been some sort of French Naval Officer turned singer before he was brought under company employ, and the eye candy made her more than eager to lounge around the admittedly posh interior. The French hunk looked up from whatever paperwork he had been filling out and smiled at her causing her cheeks to flush red. She had to admit, being brought back from the dead by a madwoman who seemed to be taking over the city had its perks.
"I'm not sure if it's a fashion statement, but Miss Anderbilt would like me to ask you to take your helmet off when indoors."
Of course, she had forgotten to retract the blast shielding that had been, only two hours earlier, keeping her alive while an eco-terrorist was fleeing a failed bank robbery. You get led through a labyrinth so that you can demand your account back and all thought goes out the window. That would be the start of this day. She sent the signal to her spinal cord and the moment her helmet retracted, she got a notification, 'Miss Anderbilt will see you now.'
The secretary hunk who had rudely not introduced himself gave her a grin, "Good luck."
She rolled her eyes, "Thanks. What did you say your name was again?"
"I didn't."
"Cool, so go fuck yourself." She stood up and made her way to the double doors that led into the Chief Executive Officer's office. Her feet stopped before she went in, 'Why am I like this?' Turning around, she donned a honey-sweet smile, "Sorry, it's been a long day."
He barked out a laugh, "Don't worry about it, I can imagine." He ran a hand through his sandy blonde hair, "You can relax about the boss though, she looks scary, but she's a big sweetheart. If things feel like they're going south, just be honest with her."
She was dumbfounded, someone was actually being nice to her, like, for no reason? "T-thanks. I'm Echo, my mom was big on Hellenistic bullcrap. And you are..?"
That was the moment that changed everything, he locked those sea-green eyes onto hers and smiled, "Integra Amantem. Give the name a Google. I think you'll like what you find." - Ech0 looked up at the ceiling, her ankles crossed as she lay on the chaise lounge wondering how her life had gotten to this, truly absurd point. There was a brief moment of contemplation as to exactly why Miss Anderbilt insisted on conducting their meeting like this, before she decided there was no reason questioning things out of her control.
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