SECU%^&^*! Override Acce@$ed
SECURITY BREACH DETECTED!
FIREWALL FAILURE AT LIN&6%#...
ANTIVIRUS F&^!! AT L(#!##!!!
OVERRIDE ACCEPTED, C8 ACCESS GRANTED
UPLOADING DATA...
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UPLOAD COMPLETE!
LOADING FILE "Deathsquads.AVI"...
FILE LOADED!
BEGINNING PLAYBACK...
“Of course I remember the deathsquads. Anyone who survived a deathsquad would never forget them. Black hardsuits, blue visors, red highlights…”
The old man takes a raspy cough before putting a wooden pipe to his lips and clasping onto it with his teeth and lips. A couple of puffs and his coughing slows to a stop.
“I ran before it happened. I’d heard rumors of deathsquad but…I’m grateful I didn’t have to see them do what they did to my family.”
He clicks his tongue, looking off to the side. “No relation but… if you spend two decades on a station with the same few dozen people…what else are they but your family?”
He chokes a bit, not on his breath but his grief.
“When they came off their gilded shuttle, I ran. I ran as my family investigated. The gunshots, the screaming…it was a nightmare…and I will always be grateful I didn’t have to see it with my own eyes.”
He rolled his jaw, it popped a couple times underneath the wrinkled skin. “I ran to maintenance, I had to rip my clothes off so I had nothing they could track me with.
I had to run around them, dodge as they searched the station. They did it for hours, hours and hours… every once in a while they’d catch someone else who managed to give them the slip and I’d have to hear them do their worst.
Letting demons out on those poor souls would’ve been more merciful…”
“I got cold.” He picked up after trailing off. “Very cold…hypothermic. And it saved my life.” He licked his lips with a dry, papery tongue.
“I was in a locker, they were doing a final pass through maintenance and they passed my locker. I held my breath, oddly warm despite freezing to death.
They didn’t catch my heatsig, so they left. Chalked it up to me throwing myself out an airlock.” He swallows and blinks a few times, as if staring into the distant past.
“When I came out, I had a rad suit on to get my warmth back, and wandered. Trying to find someone… anyone…” He shakes his head slowly.
“They took the bodies too.” He pointed a creaky, wicked finger. “They were doing their due diligence you know, checking off corpses compared to crew manifests.
And I was their outlier. And their downfall.” He nods quietly, and leans back to rest in his chair.
