Django Quik
Dust2Dust.
Top Men.
1475
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Posted - 2013.09.19 18:33:00 -
[1] - Quote
(continuing on from https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1309646#post1309646 )
There's a difference between being told you're immortal and really believing it. You can hear the stories a thousand times, have the entire process laid out in front of you, even see other people die before your eyes only to reappear moments later but not until you actually go through it does it really sink in.
I remember screaming the first time. I don't think it even really hurt that much; just something innate inside me said it was the end and I wasn't coming back. Then the darkness engulfs you, slipping away into a void, flashes of something strange, indecipherable, then boom! Lights, camera, action, you're on!
It's funny how you get used to things after enough repetitions though. The first few times you do have that fear that something will go wrong and this will be the last death but after a while you just come to trust the technology. Eventually, you relax into it, drift almost. The flashes become images, almost like long lost memories you're not quite sure are yours GÇô red skies, bloodied walls, 514... yeah, it's pretty weird. It doesn't scare me any more though. Maybe that's more scary than death anyway GÇô not fearing it.
Don't get me wrong though, it still bloody hurts! Especially the slow ones. Even with all the chemicals they pump into these clones to keep them going, make them stronger, faster, more durable. A shotgun of plasma pellets to the knee will still shatter dozens of nerves and send pain signals shooting up your spine. And don't get me started on those damn nova knives! I know that as a member of the scout society I'm supposed to love the things and when a squad member gets that perfect slash on the forge gunner pinning me down, damn I love them but that feeling... eugh... that searing, rending pain... when it's happening to you, it's unbearable. And if the wound is high up enough on your armour, damn that smell of burning flesh is the worst thing!
But yeah, it's funny. You get so desensitised to the whole thing. Life, death, it's all pretty meaningless really. Now money, that's the thing that drives us. When I die now I'm no longer thinking GÇ£Balls, I'm never gone get laid againGÇ¥ or GÇ£I wish I'd had better last words than *gurgle, gurgle, splutter*GÇ¥; I'm thinking GÇ£Oh man, that's another 100k isk goneGÇ¥. Isk is everything. If I'm gonna die, I've got to make sure that I'm taking down as many of those reds as I can before I go. If I'm losing 100k, they're losing 200k.
But to be honest it doesn't even happen that much any more. The first few hundred deaths go to stupid things, like reloading at the wrong moment or running into the open or totally misjudging a jump and not getting your inertial dampeners on in time GÇô yeah, we've all done that before! But now, now I'm like a ghost on the battlefield. Nobody sees me. I'm in and out before that HMG can turn around. Blaster turret pinning down our guys on the ridge? I'm in and hacking in seconds, then it's ours. Snipers pinging the squad from the far mountain range? It'll take me a minute to get up there but I'll do it, totally invisible, line up my trusty pistol GÇô bam, headshot, bam! Love the sound of those helmets cracking before the bodies thud to the ground.
Who are they? The people I kill? Hell if I know. Someone paid me, someone paid them; we're all clones fighting someone else's battles. I've killed some of my own friends ten times over. Who cares? Someone else. They were on the wrong side that time. Sometimes they're on my side; sometimes they have to die. After the fires die down and the HAVs crumble, we revive somewhere else, get paid and all head down to Matar for some hard quafe and tribal freakiness. Who said clones couldn't have fun? |