The morning after my rebirth, armed with a notepad and pen, I set out into the Tower, to try and find out more about this place. At this point, I knew the basic details, but I still needed understanding. And the easiest way to do that was through observation. Watching Guardians and the people of the City in their natural environments.
And for some reason, I had the oddest desire to narrate it all with a British accent.
My first stop was one Rebecca had recommended to me the night before. While we’d been having dinner, I’d pointed out that I was suffering the cliche of not having a thing to wear. She’d found this very amusing, because it turns out that for most Guardians, body armour is considered acceptable social wear. In almost any situation. Working in the wilds outside civilization, I could completely understand. Even when the Tower, the last line of defense for the City, I could understand. But what about dinner parties, or doing the gardening? It sounded very uncomfortable.
Still, at least she’d understood the problem, and had a solution. Following her directions, I made my way to the northern section of the Tower, not too far from the commercial lane we’d been in. Soon enough, I found myself at the entrance to a small alcove filled with shelves almost overflowing with all sorts of goods. Fabrics of all types, paints, dyes, various sets of Guardian armour, it was packed with everything a tailor wanted.
Right now, there was only one other person present, a human woman in what I guessed was her mid-fifties at best, clad in bright, multi-colored robes. “Ah, good morning my dear,” she said as she caught sight of me. “You must be Rose, yes? Rebecca told me you would be coming.”
“That’s me, yeah. Are you Eva Levante?”
“I am indeed,” she said, smiling. “I serve as the outfitter, for Guardians who wish to be more than just a suit of armour and a gun. Please, come in.” As I came closer, she considered me, her expression thoughtful. “Hmm, now then. Rebecca said that you were after actual clothes, as opposed to wearing your armour all day.” Picking up a tape measure from the table, she looked me over again. “Hold out your arms please.”
Obeying her commands, I let the woman work, while I considered the civilians I’d seen around the Tower. Robes, thick vests, scarves that were often large enough to cover the head. “Denim doesn’t seem to be a common thing around here,” I commented.
Eva glanced up from her tape measure, eyebrow raised. “Was that a request or an observation?”
“More the later,” I replied, not entirely sure why I’d even had the thought. “I’m looking to blend in, to look normal… Whatever that might be these days.”
“Mmm.” Putting the tape measure down, Eva gave me a thoughtful look. “You want to be normal?”
“Or at least know what it is.” Chuckling, I shook my head. “I’m a long dead woman with no memory, resurrected by a tiny robot to protect the future. My life is in a weird place right now.”
“It is not that strange by modern standards,” she pointed out, although she was clearly amused. “You wish to know your place?”
Thinking about that, I nodded. “I suppose so. Everyone wants to know what they fight for, right?”
To my surprise, Eva’s expression actually turned somewhat regretful. “Not all Guardians do. There are some who simply fight because it is all they know. They go out, kill the enemies of the City, return to the Tower to resupply, and repeat. They never seek anything more than that. It never occurs to them to even ask if there is anything else.” She shook her head, closing her eyes. “Many of them never even speak. They live, but sometimes I wonder if they are truly alive.”
My throat suddenly felt very dry. “That… isn’t something anyone else has mentioned.”
Appearing next to me in a flicker of Light, Ghost looked almost apologetic. “I considered it,” she admitted. “But given how much else I have to tell you, I thought it could wait. I mean, that’d be a worst case scenario, and it clearly hasn’t happened to you, so…”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed softly. “I’m going to keep finding disturbing things, aren’t I?”
“That would happen anyway,” Eva pointed out, her voice soft. “This is a very different world to the one you lived in, even if you can’t consciously remember it. This is a world that has been at war for centuries. We have survived, and in doing so, we have adapted.”
“And now it’s my turn,” I mused.
Placing a hand on my shoulder, Eva nodded, squeezing gently. “It is. But remember, you do not have to do it alone.” A silence settled over us for a moment, before the outfitter spoke again, her voice much more cheerful. “Now then, let’s see about making you something a bit more pleasant to wear, shall we?”
***
Eva was every bit as good as Rebecca had told me. Within half an hour, I was wearing simple but well fitting clothes, as opposed to the body armour Ghost had made while resurrecting me. Now feeling much more human, I made my way back to the Tower plaza, then went up the stairs to a balcony off to the side.
I hadn’t noticed it in all the excitement the day before, but this far above the ground, there was a noticeable chill, that even clear skies and the morning sun couldn’t completely chase off. Considering the snow-covered mountains that surrounded the City, I had a growing suspicion that my new home rarely had summers fit for a day at the beach. Thankfully, Eva had been kind enough to lend me a headscarf as well. Wrapped up in that, and with Ghost resting comfortably in my head, I settled down to indulge in some simple people watching.
The plaza was actually a lot busier than I’d realized yesterday. There was a jumpship of some sort arriving or departing at least every five minutes, with Guardians of all shapes and sizes transmatting in and out. Eva had mentioned that she often helped Guardians decorate their armour, to help them establish their own image and identity despite the chaotic lifestyle they lived. I could see it in the crowd below. No two Guardians looked the same, even those in similar armour.
As I observed, I started asking Ghost questions again, occasionally writing down notes, often for things she couldn’t answer, or topics to come back to later. Much like the previous day, there was little in the way of direction or structure, instead simply going wherever my curiosity took me.
By midday, I was starting to feel a little hungry, and the chill was beginning to get really annoying. Writing down one last question for Rebecca later (‘Why are Guardians randomly dancing in the plaza?’), I put the notepad away and stood up, stretching a kink out of my back. “Right then. Lunch?”
“Lunch,” Ghost agreed.
Walking back towards the stairs, I paused, catching sight of a Warlock and a Hunter climbing over the railing at the edge of the plaza below and onto the antenna beyond it. As I watched, the pair walked out to the ends of the antennas, briefly turning to talk to each other. “What are those two doing…?” I muttered.
“I think I know… Guardian, try not to freak out too much,” Ghost said. Frowning, I gave the air in front of me a confused look, hoping that it was conveyed to my partner somehow. Then, both Guardians took a few steps back, before…
Before they took a running leap off the antenna and into open air.
I couldn’t speak, simply staring at where I’d seen two people seemingly commit suicide. Just like that… But surely I wasn’t the only one who’d seen them do it? Why was no one else reacting?
Two Ghosts appeared near the antenna, one of them shaking back and forth in clear exasperation. As I watched, both of them separated into their component parts, their outer layer floating a short distance away from their cores, Light gathering inside the sphere they created. Reality shifted, the Light took form, and then the two jumpers reappeared, both clearly unharmed. The Hunter was even laughing, while the Warlock looked irritated.
“Was that a resurrection?” I asked, trying to contain my disbelief.
"It was, yes. A lot of Guardians, um… Let’s just say that Tower jumping is something of a sport among certain groups.” Understandably, she sounded more than a little embarrassed by this detail.
“Tower jumping,” I repeated. I could already imagine it. Points for distance, style, speed, impact… “What’s below that ledge?”
“A large flat surface no one uses. It was part of the original Tower schematics.”
Which meant the original architects had expected something like this. Slowly, I took out the notepad again, opened it up, and wrote another note down.
‘Guardian Suicide Games. WHAT.’
***
Sadly, I wasn’t able to corner Rebecca and shake some answers out of her. She’d left the Tower before I even woke up, leaving a message for me with my Ghost. Apparently, she’d gone to the Cosmodrome, to help track down that Ketch I’d seen, and then do something about it.
Considering that comment, I looked up from my soup at Ghost. “What do you think she meant by ‘do something about it?’”
“Best case scenario, they capture it, then take it somewhere that they could safely refit it for the City fleet,” Ghost replied, sounding thoughtful. “That’s not too likely though. The Vanguard has only ever captured a handful of Fallen Ketches, mostly because removing the pilot Servitors control over its systems tends to leave the ship in no shape to fly for quite a while.”
“So, if capturing it’s not really a workable option, I’m guessing the next option would be destroy it, or just plain break it?”
“Or kill the ships commanders at least. Any Baron considered worthy of commanding a Ketch is a serious threat to the City.”
Nodding, I returned to my meal, although I was still worried. “Do you think she’ll be alright?”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s been around for a long time, after all. She’s nowhere as big a name in the history books as Zavala, the Iron Lords, or Lord Shaxx, but I’ve heard rumors she was around in the Dark Age. Dealing with a Ketch isn’t a huge problem for her.”
“If you say so.” Sighing, I dropped the spoon back into my meal. “Even if someone gets a lucky hit in on her, I get the feeling she’d be used to it by now.”
“She’d likely resurrect with no more reaction than a curse and desire to return fire,” Ghost chuckled. That chuckle faded as she saw my expression. “You’re still thinking about those two Guardians, aren’t you?”
“Yeah… It’s just…” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “They treat suicide as a sport. They jump off the top of the Tower, die, then come back and laugh about it!” Despite my best efforts, I shuddered, imagining the sensation. The fall, the terror, the impact… “Eva said the world was different from what I knew, that there would be adjustments I’d have to make… but is life really so cheap now?”
Surprisingly, it wasn’t Ghost who replied. Without my noticing, Cayde-6 had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and was pulling up a chair. “Yes and no,” he said, spinning the chair around and sitting on it backwards, resting his arms on the chair back. “If you head back out there, into the wilds? You’re going to get killed at some point. Hell, you’re going to get killed a lot. There’s a lot of things that don’t like us. Fallen, Hive, weird-ass robots on Venus, angry turtle men mining Mars, and that’s just the obvious ones. There’s a thousand other ways to go. Jumpship breaks down and you crash, you explore an old building that’s not as stable as you thought, accidentally shoot a Golden Age power source, you realize an old minefield is still active after you’ve walked into it…” He coughed, despite not having lungs. “Happened to a guy I know.”
“You’re not really making me feel better sir. Also, I’m trying to eat,” I added, gesturing at my soup.
“I know, I’m getting there. The thing is, when you die, you can come back. As long as your Ghost is there, and you can still channel the Light. Here, in the City, no problem. But there are places out there the Light can’t touch. Things that know how to kill Ghosts. I’ve heard people say Guardians don’t fear Death. That ain’t true. It’s just that we’re better at slipping away from the Reaper… most of the time.” His voice was serious now, deeper, slower. “There’s a lot of Guardians that have trouble with that. Some of them get reckless, even out there, where their luck could run out. They asked themselves the same question you are now, and they didn’t like the answer. They decided it was that cheap.”
“And the ones jumping off the Tower?” I asked.
"Stress relief. Think about it. They did it where it’s actually safe, where they knew without a doubt their Ghost could bring them back. It was death, yeah, but not Death with a capital D. It’s more a really extreme sport. Or a really weird fetish, I suppose. Not my thing personally, I have an aversion to pain after all… Am I making sense?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” I admitted. “I think I see where you’re coming from. Maybe.” Strangely enough, it was making me feel somewhat better.
“Mmm. Motivational speeches aren’t my thing. I usually leave that sort of thing to Zavala, but he’s a Titan. All ‘heroic last stands’ and ‘make them pay in blood, yours and theirs’. Not really Hunter thinking.”
Smirking, I leaned forward. “And what exactly is ‘Hunter thinking?’”
Somehow, I could almost see a matching smirk on the Exo’s face. “Today is a good day for the other guy to die.”
“And if we die too, get back up and kill him again?”
“And steal all his stuff.”
“Nice. I kind of want to translate to Latin and use it on a coat of arms.”
Slapping the table, Cayde laughed. “I wonder if I could get Ikora to do that for me. Pretty sure she knows Latin.”
Shaking my head, I picked up my spoon again. I still wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the attitudes to death, but at the same time, knowing that it wasn’t entirely casual acceptance did help. Somewhat. “So, besides helping me out of a mood, any particular reason you tracked me down?”
“That was just a side benefit,” Cayde-6 replied. “I was on my way to lunch myself when I saw you. Now, I was going to contact your Ghost later on, but since we’re both here… You interested in some work?”
That made me raise an eyebrow. “I’ve been alive for less than a day,” I noted. “You can’t be that desperate.”
“Nah, but it’s low risk, that footage your Ghost recorded showed me you can handle yourself, and it’s a good chance for you to earn some glimmer and start making a name for yourself,” Cayde said, shrugging. “I could annoy a few other Hunters, but you’re already here…”
Glimmer. The word sparked something in the back of my brain, despite my best attempts to suppress it. A form of mass produced smartmatter created in the Golden Age, the City used it as a form of currency. The rate it was used in manufacturing compared to the rate Guardians and mining expeditions recovered it from the wilds made it a surprisingly stable economy, better than any printed money the City could have attempted to use.
And right now, I had only a tiny supply of it. A small stipend the Vanguard had given me to help me establish myself, and whatever Ghost had managed to salvage while she’d been searching for me. It wasn’t going to last long, and when it ran out… “What’s the job?”
“There’s a relay station in the Cosmodrome,” he replied, before raising a hand. “It’s in the Mothyards, well away from where the House of Devils decided to make trouble. There might be a patrol or two to dodge, but it shouldn’t be too bad. We know the station’s functional, it’s just grumpy about accepting remote commands.”
“Not a problem for a Ghost,” my companion noted.
“If you get it online, we can reactivate the old patrol network we had there, and get transmat ability into the western part of the Cosmodrome. It’d make our jobs a lot easier all around.”
Thinking it over for a moment, I very nearly decided to decline. Going back to the Cosmodrome? I’d barely gotten out of there the last time. But if I stayed away from the Fallen, then it really was just a simple case of getting in, having Ghost do her magic on the relay station, and then get the hell out. “I’m in,” I said.
“Fantastic,” Cayde said, holding out a hand. A gleaming white dodecahedron appeared in it. “You’ll want these.”
“An engram?” I asked, taking the item from him. Rebecca had shown me these. A wonder of the Traveler, they were information given solid form by the Light, a process that supposedly even scientists in the Golden Age didn’t truly understand. This strange item, almost weightless in my hand, could be almost anything.
“Tracker class body armour,” the Hunter Vanguard replied. “Better than what your Ghost made for you. Still not brilliant, but your Light’s still new. That’d be the most powerful armour you’d be able to power right now.”
Looking at the engram for a moment, I nodded and let it vanish into Ghosts storage. “Thanks.”
“I gotta look after you guys. It’s one of the few parts of the job I like,” he replied, standing up. “Before you go check on your ship, go talk to the gunsmith. He’ll know you’re coming, give you something a little better than that rusty old relic you dug up.”
“Hey, I like that relic,” I protested.
“So much you’re gonna take it back out there?”
“I’m nostalgic, not stupid,” I shot back.
“That’s my girl. You have fun out there. Try not to die, even if you can rez. Still hurts like a bitch,” he noted as he walked off.
Watching him go, Ghost turned back to me. “Back to the Cosmodrome. You sure you’re up for this so soon?”
“Hey, you brought me back to be a defender of the City, right?”
“That’s not necessarily an answer,” she pointed out.
“I know. Still, probably the best chance we’re going to have to ease into things, right?” I said, turning my attention back to my soup. If I was going out into harms way, I’d at least be doing it warm, with a full stomach.
And for some reason, I had the oddest desire to narrate it all with a British accent.
My first stop was one Rebecca had recommended to me the night before. While we’d been having dinner, I’d pointed out that I was suffering the cliche of not having a thing to wear. She’d found this very amusing, because it turns out that for most Guardians, body armour is considered acceptable social wear. In almost any situation. Working in the wilds outside civilization, I could completely understand. Even when the Tower, the last line of defense for the City, I could understand. But what about dinner parties, or doing the gardening? It sounded very uncomfortable.
Still, at least she’d understood the problem, and had a solution. Following her directions, I made my way to the northern section of the Tower, not too far from the commercial lane we’d been in. Soon enough, I found myself at the entrance to a small alcove filled with shelves almost overflowing with all sorts of goods. Fabrics of all types, paints, dyes, various sets of Guardian armour, it was packed with everything a tailor wanted.
Right now, there was only one other person present, a human woman in what I guessed was her mid-fifties at best, clad in bright, multi-colored robes. “Ah, good morning my dear,” she said as she caught sight of me. “You must be Rose, yes? Rebecca told me you would be coming.”
“That’s me, yeah. Are you Eva Levante?”
“I am indeed,” she said, smiling. “I serve as the outfitter, for Guardians who wish to be more than just a suit of armour and a gun. Please, come in.” As I came closer, she considered me, her expression thoughtful. “Hmm, now then. Rebecca said that you were after actual clothes, as opposed to wearing your armour all day.” Picking up a tape measure from the table, she looked me over again. “Hold out your arms please.”
Obeying her commands, I let the woman work, while I considered the civilians I’d seen around the Tower. Robes, thick vests, scarves that were often large enough to cover the head. “Denim doesn’t seem to be a common thing around here,” I commented.
Eva glanced up from her tape measure, eyebrow raised. “Was that a request or an observation?”
“More the later,” I replied, not entirely sure why I’d even had the thought. “I’m looking to blend in, to look normal… Whatever that might be these days.”
“Mmm.” Putting the tape measure down, Eva gave me a thoughtful look. “You want to be normal?”
“Or at least know what it is.” Chuckling, I shook my head. “I’m a long dead woman with no memory, resurrected by a tiny robot to protect the future. My life is in a weird place right now.”
“It is not that strange by modern standards,” she pointed out, although she was clearly amused. “You wish to know your place?”
Thinking about that, I nodded. “I suppose so. Everyone wants to know what they fight for, right?”
To my surprise, Eva’s expression actually turned somewhat regretful. “Not all Guardians do. There are some who simply fight because it is all they know. They go out, kill the enemies of the City, return to the Tower to resupply, and repeat. They never seek anything more than that. It never occurs to them to even ask if there is anything else.” She shook her head, closing her eyes. “Many of them never even speak. They live, but sometimes I wonder if they are truly alive.”
My throat suddenly felt very dry. “That… isn’t something anyone else has mentioned.”
Appearing next to me in a flicker of Light, Ghost looked almost apologetic. “I considered it,” she admitted. “But given how much else I have to tell you, I thought it could wait. I mean, that’d be a worst case scenario, and it clearly hasn’t happened to you, so…”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed softly. “I’m going to keep finding disturbing things, aren’t I?”
“That would happen anyway,” Eva pointed out, her voice soft. “This is a very different world to the one you lived in, even if you can’t consciously remember it. This is a world that has been at war for centuries. We have survived, and in doing so, we have adapted.”
“And now it’s my turn,” I mused.
Placing a hand on my shoulder, Eva nodded, squeezing gently. “It is. But remember, you do not have to do it alone.” A silence settled over us for a moment, before the outfitter spoke again, her voice much more cheerful. “Now then, let’s see about making you something a bit more pleasant to wear, shall we?”
***
Eva was every bit as good as Rebecca had told me. Within half an hour, I was wearing simple but well fitting clothes, as opposed to the body armour Ghost had made while resurrecting me. Now feeling much more human, I made my way back to the Tower plaza, then went up the stairs to a balcony off to the side.
I hadn’t noticed it in all the excitement the day before, but this far above the ground, there was a noticeable chill, that even clear skies and the morning sun couldn’t completely chase off. Considering the snow-covered mountains that surrounded the City, I had a growing suspicion that my new home rarely had summers fit for a day at the beach. Thankfully, Eva had been kind enough to lend me a headscarf as well. Wrapped up in that, and with Ghost resting comfortably in my head, I settled down to indulge in some simple people watching.
The plaza was actually a lot busier than I’d realized yesterday. There was a jumpship of some sort arriving or departing at least every five minutes, with Guardians of all shapes and sizes transmatting in and out. Eva had mentioned that she often helped Guardians decorate their armour, to help them establish their own image and identity despite the chaotic lifestyle they lived. I could see it in the crowd below. No two Guardians looked the same, even those in similar armour.
As I observed, I started asking Ghost questions again, occasionally writing down notes, often for things she couldn’t answer, or topics to come back to later. Much like the previous day, there was little in the way of direction or structure, instead simply going wherever my curiosity took me.
By midday, I was starting to feel a little hungry, and the chill was beginning to get really annoying. Writing down one last question for Rebecca later (‘Why are Guardians randomly dancing in the plaza?’), I put the notepad away and stood up, stretching a kink out of my back. “Right then. Lunch?”
“Lunch,” Ghost agreed.
Walking back towards the stairs, I paused, catching sight of a Warlock and a Hunter climbing over the railing at the edge of the plaza below and onto the antenna beyond it. As I watched, the pair walked out to the ends of the antennas, briefly turning to talk to each other. “What are those two doing…?” I muttered.
“I think I know… Guardian, try not to freak out too much,” Ghost said. Frowning, I gave the air in front of me a confused look, hoping that it was conveyed to my partner somehow. Then, both Guardians took a few steps back, before…
Before they took a running leap off the antenna and into open air.
I couldn’t speak, simply staring at where I’d seen two people seemingly commit suicide. Just like that… But surely I wasn’t the only one who’d seen them do it? Why was no one else reacting?
Two Ghosts appeared near the antenna, one of them shaking back and forth in clear exasperation. As I watched, both of them separated into their component parts, their outer layer floating a short distance away from their cores, Light gathering inside the sphere they created. Reality shifted, the Light took form, and then the two jumpers reappeared, both clearly unharmed. The Hunter was even laughing, while the Warlock looked irritated.
“Was that a resurrection?” I asked, trying to contain my disbelief.
"It was, yes. A lot of Guardians, um… Let’s just say that Tower jumping is something of a sport among certain groups.” Understandably, she sounded more than a little embarrassed by this detail.
“Tower jumping,” I repeated. I could already imagine it. Points for distance, style, speed, impact… “What’s below that ledge?”
“A large flat surface no one uses. It was part of the original Tower schematics.”
Which meant the original architects had expected something like this. Slowly, I took out the notepad again, opened it up, and wrote another note down.
‘Guardian Suicide Games. WHAT.’
***
Sadly, I wasn’t able to corner Rebecca and shake some answers out of her. She’d left the Tower before I even woke up, leaving a message for me with my Ghost. Apparently, she’d gone to the Cosmodrome, to help track down that Ketch I’d seen, and then do something about it.
Considering that comment, I looked up from my soup at Ghost. “What do you think she meant by ‘do something about it?’”
“Best case scenario, they capture it, then take it somewhere that they could safely refit it for the City fleet,” Ghost replied, sounding thoughtful. “That’s not too likely though. The Vanguard has only ever captured a handful of Fallen Ketches, mostly because removing the pilot Servitors control over its systems tends to leave the ship in no shape to fly for quite a while.”
“So, if capturing it’s not really a workable option, I’m guessing the next option would be destroy it, or just plain break it?”
“Or kill the ships commanders at least. Any Baron considered worthy of commanding a Ketch is a serious threat to the City.”
Nodding, I returned to my meal, although I was still worried. “Do you think she’ll be alright?”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s been around for a long time, after all. She’s nowhere as big a name in the history books as Zavala, the Iron Lords, or Lord Shaxx, but I’ve heard rumors she was around in the Dark Age. Dealing with a Ketch isn’t a huge problem for her.”
“If you say so.” Sighing, I dropped the spoon back into my meal. “Even if someone gets a lucky hit in on her, I get the feeling she’d be used to it by now.”
“She’d likely resurrect with no more reaction than a curse and desire to return fire,” Ghost chuckled. That chuckle faded as she saw my expression. “You’re still thinking about those two Guardians, aren’t you?”
“Yeah… It’s just…” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “They treat suicide as a sport. They jump off the top of the Tower, die, then come back and laugh about it!” Despite my best efforts, I shuddered, imagining the sensation. The fall, the terror, the impact… “Eva said the world was different from what I knew, that there would be adjustments I’d have to make… but is life really so cheap now?”
Surprisingly, it wasn’t Ghost who replied. Without my noticing, Cayde-6 had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and was pulling up a chair. “Yes and no,” he said, spinning the chair around and sitting on it backwards, resting his arms on the chair back. “If you head back out there, into the wilds? You’re going to get killed at some point. Hell, you’re going to get killed a lot. There’s a lot of things that don’t like us. Fallen, Hive, weird-ass robots on Venus, angry turtle men mining Mars, and that’s just the obvious ones. There’s a thousand other ways to go. Jumpship breaks down and you crash, you explore an old building that’s not as stable as you thought, accidentally shoot a Golden Age power source, you realize an old minefield is still active after you’ve walked into it…” He coughed, despite not having lungs. “Happened to a guy I know.”
“You’re not really making me feel better sir. Also, I’m trying to eat,” I added, gesturing at my soup.
“I know, I’m getting there. The thing is, when you die, you can come back. As long as your Ghost is there, and you can still channel the Light. Here, in the City, no problem. But there are places out there the Light can’t touch. Things that know how to kill Ghosts. I’ve heard people say Guardians don’t fear Death. That ain’t true. It’s just that we’re better at slipping away from the Reaper… most of the time.” His voice was serious now, deeper, slower. “There’s a lot of Guardians that have trouble with that. Some of them get reckless, even out there, where their luck could run out. They asked themselves the same question you are now, and they didn’t like the answer. They decided it was that cheap.”
“And the ones jumping off the Tower?” I asked.
"Stress relief. Think about it. They did it where it’s actually safe, where they knew without a doubt their Ghost could bring them back. It was death, yeah, but not Death with a capital D. It’s more a really extreme sport. Or a really weird fetish, I suppose. Not my thing personally, I have an aversion to pain after all… Am I making sense?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” I admitted. “I think I see where you’re coming from. Maybe.” Strangely enough, it was making me feel somewhat better.
“Mmm. Motivational speeches aren’t my thing. I usually leave that sort of thing to Zavala, but he’s a Titan. All ‘heroic last stands’ and ‘make them pay in blood, yours and theirs’. Not really Hunter thinking.”
Smirking, I leaned forward. “And what exactly is ‘Hunter thinking?’”
Somehow, I could almost see a matching smirk on the Exo’s face. “Today is a good day for the other guy to die.”
“And if we die too, get back up and kill him again?”
“And steal all his stuff.”
“Nice. I kind of want to translate to Latin and use it on a coat of arms.”
Slapping the table, Cayde laughed. “I wonder if I could get Ikora to do that for me. Pretty sure she knows Latin.”
Shaking my head, I picked up my spoon again. I still wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the attitudes to death, but at the same time, knowing that it wasn’t entirely casual acceptance did help. Somewhat. “So, besides helping me out of a mood, any particular reason you tracked me down?”
“That was just a side benefit,” Cayde-6 replied. “I was on my way to lunch myself when I saw you. Now, I was going to contact your Ghost later on, but since we’re both here… You interested in some work?”
That made me raise an eyebrow. “I’ve been alive for less than a day,” I noted. “You can’t be that desperate.”
“Nah, but it’s low risk, that footage your Ghost recorded showed me you can handle yourself, and it’s a good chance for you to earn some glimmer and start making a name for yourself,” Cayde said, shrugging. “I could annoy a few other Hunters, but you’re already here…”
Glimmer. The word sparked something in the back of my brain, despite my best attempts to suppress it. A form of mass produced smartmatter created in the Golden Age, the City used it as a form of currency. The rate it was used in manufacturing compared to the rate Guardians and mining expeditions recovered it from the wilds made it a surprisingly stable economy, better than any printed money the City could have attempted to use.
And right now, I had only a tiny supply of it. A small stipend the Vanguard had given me to help me establish myself, and whatever Ghost had managed to salvage while she’d been searching for me. It wasn’t going to last long, and when it ran out… “What’s the job?”
“There’s a relay station in the Cosmodrome,” he replied, before raising a hand. “It’s in the Mothyards, well away from where the House of Devils decided to make trouble. There might be a patrol or two to dodge, but it shouldn’t be too bad. We know the station’s functional, it’s just grumpy about accepting remote commands.”
“Not a problem for a Ghost,” my companion noted.
“If you get it online, we can reactivate the old patrol network we had there, and get transmat ability into the western part of the Cosmodrome. It’d make our jobs a lot easier all around.”
Thinking it over for a moment, I very nearly decided to decline. Going back to the Cosmodrome? I’d barely gotten out of there the last time. But if I stayed away from the Fallen, then it really was just a simple case of getting in, having Ghost do her magic on the relay station, and then get the hell out. “I’m in,” I said.
“Fantastic,” Cayde said, holding out a hand. A gleaming white dodecahedron appeared in it. “You’ll want these.”
“An engram?” I asked, taking the item from him. Rebecca had shown me these. A wonder of the Traveler, they were information given solid form by the Light, a process that supposedly even scientists in the Golden Age didn’t truly understand. This strange item, almost weightless in my hand, could be almost anything.
“Tracker class body armour,” the Hunter Vanguard replied. “Better than what your Ghost made for you. Still not brilliant, but your Light’s still new. That’d be the most powerful armour you’d be able to power right now.”
Looking at the engram for a moment, I nodded and let it vanish into Ghosts storage. “Thanks.”
“I gotta look after you guys. It’s one of the few parts of the job I like,” he replied, standing up. “Before you go check on your ship, go talk to the gunsmith. He’ll know you’re coming, give you something a little better than that rusty old relic you dug up.”
“Hey, I like that relic,” I protested.
“So much you’re gonna take it back out there?”
“I’m nostalgic, not stupid,” I shot back.
“That’s my girl. You have fun out there. Try not to die, even if you can rez. Still hurts like a bitch,” he noted as he walked off.
Watching him go, Ghost turned back to me. “Back to the Cosmodrome. You sure you’re up for this so soon?”
“Hey, you brought me back to be a defender of the City, right?”
“That’s not necessarily an answer,” she pointed out.
“I know. Still, probably the best chance we’re going to have to ease into things, right?” I said, turning my attention back to my soup. If I was going out into harms way, I’d at least be doing it warm, with a full stomach.