Welcome to the Bakery!

(This is planned to be a multi-part series in which I play with the world and lore of Marathon the Game. I do not work for Bungie or Sony and this is strictly fan art made as an homage to the world Bungie created.)

Sweat beaded down his spine, an odd tickling sensation dancing beneath the thin cotton of his old t-shirt. As always, about halfway through this trek, he wondered to himself if it was even worth it. But he knew the answer was “always”. Head down, large over-the-ear headphones drowning out the city noise, he saw only his feet as he meandered on.

The city was positively overstimulating. Neon lights blinked furiously and sounds, each louder than the next, practically screamed for attention. In this section, bodies packed the sidewalk with no spare inch for personal space. The street roared with cars whose affluent owners required an arrival time that had come and passed. Even the air, thick with a cocktail of humidity and pollution, buzzed. For those whose income trumped any who could barely afford a car, air shuttles hung heavy in the summer air. Each one excessively large for its one to two passengers, eating up airspace in the name of luxury. But he had nothing but his feet to take him anywhere. Even a bus ticket stretched his budget too thin. And that was why on this brutally hot evening he found himself not inside, but on an odyssey to the one place that gave him any peace.

His stomach felt as if it were eating itself as he trudged onwards. The scent of food mixed with the putrid stench of garbage and exhaust. Even marred as it was by pollution, what scents he could pick up made it more obvious how long he’d gone without a proper meal. There was no money for that either and the poor excuse for food the communal home served was a punchline at the end of a cruel joke. But what else was there but to endure? He kept waking up, laying down and dying did not seem like an option and while destitute, he was not suicidal.

And so he continued until the traffic cleared on both the sidewalk and street. The shops here were few, far, and in between and what remained open was worse for the wear. Instead of bodies bustling down the sidewalk’s expanse, he had reached the part of the city where tarps were to be stepped over like landmines. You never knew who was underneath, taking solace the only way they knew how. As the world had gotten more automated, and along with it the promise of life being easier and cheaper for all, it instead got more dystopic. For several million dollars, you could have your nerves rewired, your body parts replaced with varying levels of incredible machinery. Space travel wasn’t a dream any longer, it was yet another travel destination if you had the money. And there was the catch.

The rich had gotten richer and more detached from reality while the poor suffered, as was always the case. And in this city of technicolor and dreams were those living a greyscale nightmare. And he was no different. There were hundreds of thousands of him scattered within this city alone. The starving and ill and uncared for outnumbered the rich hundreds to one, at least. But it’s hard to fight anything when you’re starving. It’s hard to revolt when you never know where you were putting your head down that night. Exactly how those in power had wanted it. These thoughts danced in his brain as loud electronic music attempted to drown them out. He knew it was bad when disassociation couldn’t be reached.

His legs complained as he continued on, the route taking a sharp turn upwards. There were less buildings and more fields full of trash. Abandoned cars dotted the landscape, many being used as housing. Above the buzzing was no longer due to private air transportation and instead the humming of electrical lines. The sky was dark with them as the hulking beast that was the power plant loomed in the distance. But the sky was also darkening in general as night was creeping in. As he took himself further out of the city, he began to look up to notice small glowing flecks peeking through the cotton-candy-colored clouds. They were stars, of course, and a rare treat saved only for when the compulsion to roam took him out beyond the glowing city behind him.

The air felt lighter here and less warm. A gentle breeze played with his shirt, at least two sizes too big but the only thing that had been available. Unfortunately, the pollution still stretched out beyond the maws of the claustrophic sidewalks and streets. Taking a deep breath meant tasting the various things humans had done to ruin the planet. They were still alive, humanity that is, but the Earth had long since stopped giving warnings. She was on life support and what was there to do but wait out the clock? Affluence bought escape, but again, so few had access that it was nigh pointless to consider.

On the horizon sat a small building. His destination. Various sandwich boards littered the parking lot, bereft of cars, any that could start anyways. Husks of rusted bicycles and a motorbike or two rested in the lot as well. He felt himself errantly wondering where their owners had gone. He spun a tale of them escaping to something better, something more, but knew in his core that that was not how the story ended for people like him. Death was often the only, and final, escape.

As he got closer, the building appeared vacant. It was a small convenient store selling magazines, books, cheap snacks, and cigarettes. He’d found it as a kid, one of his many attempts to run away had led him here. He laughed at that, the idea of running away as he could not outrun himself. Wherever he went, there he was and so too were all his problems. The most egregious being born poor in an uncaring world.

A few newspaper bins sat to the left of the front door. Rusted and defunct, remnants of a time no longer. His musings about such a world momentarily distracted him from noticing that the glass door, typically shut to keep in the cool air blasted from a single air conditioning unit, hung open. Not only was the metallic frame bent, but the glass was blown out, shards of glass glistening on the ground like their counterparts in the sky.

Adrenaline surged through his body, the muscles in his thighs contracting so violently that running was not an option. Not that running had ever saved him from any fate that had sunk its claws into him. The old shopkeeper, the same man who was here at all times of day and night was not visible and he began to fear the worst.

Glass crunched under the soles of his sneakers as he drew closer. His hand hovered over the handle of the door, a routine but useless gesture as it was already open. Just as he lifted a foot to step into the shop, whose innards had clearly been torn apart, he heard a voice from somewhere behind him.

“I would not go in there if I were you.”

The voice was smooth, deep but with the undeniable affectation of a woman’s voice. He turned, startled, as he’d seen no one there previously and as if from thin air stood one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life. She was all long limbs and angles. Her high waisted slacks, a vibrant shade of blood red, draped elegantly over a pair of heeled boots. Tucked into said pants was a shirt so black and form fitting, he wasn’t exactly sure if it was a shirt or some sort of shell or skin that he was too poor to know existed. Whatever it was, it seemed to be long sleeved, and the neck rose up to nearly her jawline. Overtop this was a jacket whose hue matched her pants and looked to be made of leather. It was asymmetrically cut with the zipper starting at her left shoulder and cutting an impressive angle across waist and hip.

The skin on her face and hands was so pale they appeared to be made of porcelain. More shocking was what appeared to be a tattoo blacking out the skin of her neck, creating a harsh line where her lower jaw began. She had another tattoo, also in black, bisecting her left eye. It started just below her hairline and came to rest about halfway down her cheek. He slowly noticed she was all contrast of blacks and whites and reds as her eyes were clearly prosthetics, shimmering a solid black with what looked like white teeth biting around her iris, a bright red that echoed her coat, pants, and the shade of her lips. Her hair was also black and pulled back tight behind her head in a style he could not see due to where he was standing.

He turned to face as her as she walked towards him. There was something uncanny about her gate as if there were unseen motors and gizmos moving her through space and time. She was jarring and everything about her screamed two things: money and danger. His pulse began to race, and it felt as if his heart was climbing up his throat, attempting to escape, the thing he should be doing. Instead, he was mesmerized, something like a bug with certain spiders.

Almost as if she could hear his thoughts she stated, “There’s no use in your running away. I am an inevitability.” He remained frozen in place, a deer in the proverbial headlights. The danger she appeared to be seemed to flatly state she was a predator and he was very much incapable prey. He knew he couldn’t outrun her and besides, where would he run? She’d warned him not to go inside the shop, meaning he’d likely not like what he found inside. And there wasn’t much worth in attempting to outrun something that presented as human, but did not seem as such.

She got within arms distance and he could see the curved lines of her fingers were in fact blades, but only one her left hand. Her right hand ended in nails painted a red so bright they looked like they had been dipped in freshly spilled blood. Her movements were fluid but there was an air of the uncanny that kept the hair on the back of his neck raised. She was other dressed up as human.

“I’ve been watching you for some time and have a proposal you can’t refuse.” The finality in her tone and the weight of her gaze only underscored his lack of ability to dissent. He tried to speak, but with his heart hammering in his throat it took a few gasps before the words rushed out, “What is it?” She raised the non-bladed hand to his face and he was shocked to discover that her skin, clearly not but the best word he could use, was nearly cool to the touch. Almost as if there was some coolant flowing beneath. The idea of her being some sort of machine was only making more sense. Her hand lingered on his cheek, forcing him to look into her eyes before she pulled away.

The sudden release of both her touch and gaze sent him reeling, the husk of a car behind him saving him from slamming onto the pavement. Some sharp, snarled piece of metal dug into the back of his arm and he felt the sensation of hot blood running down his arm. He raised his hand and watched the rivulets converge into a singular drop that seemed suspended in animation, hanging from his palm. Beyond that impossible drop, she stood, watching it all unfold much like he’d imagine a wolf would watch the torn throat of a lamb. She was practically salivating, feral, and she had begun to sink into a sort of crouch as if ready to spring. The drop of blood finally acquiesced to the laws of gravity and the pair watched its descent to the pavement. As soon as it hit the ground, whatever spell they’d been under broke.

“You have nothing worth saying goodbye to and because of that you are an ideal candidate for our new program. Space travel and colonization is not new, but is still an emerging science that has its…issues” The words “space travel” peeked his interest as he could hardly afford to travel across his own city, let alone leave the planet. She paused, letting his thoughts catch up before she continued, “You are going to come with me to assist in an initiative to recover lost data in the hopes to uncover what occurred within the Tau Ceti system.”

Tau Ceti? He’d heard of it in school years ago. Sadly, his education was as poor as he was and that was all he knew. Questions danced through his mind, raising into an internal cacophony she could see playing out on his face. She made no move to explain or provide further instruction and before his eyes could comprehend, she had closed the distance between them and sunk something sharp in his neck. Fear pulsed briefly before unconsciousness claimed him.