Bates’ Point of View (page 153)

We descended in Rorschach, the grunts assembled around me.  I let them loose, wires uncoiling in different directions to scope.  Keeton hovered, unconsciously staying close, never going as far as they could go.  I always objected to the restriction, 90 meters never seemed to give me enough space to explore.  Although the grunts were important, they were more dispensable than us (even if we had replacements) and it was a risk I was willing to take.

I could feel the fuzziness set in, right behind my eyes.  It was only a matter of time before the hallucinations set in.  I seemed to do better than the others.  Quickly, I tapped into one of the grunts.  They seemed unaffected by the hallucinations and even if i couldn’t depart from myself completely, the more time I stayed with them, the better.  i had learned that after feeling like nothing.  No one ever wanted to feel like they were dead.

A shiver crawled up my spine and I focused on another grunt by Keeton.  It seemed to be picking up some movement.  I shifted the other grunts to check out that section.  Data started swarming in immediately, so much so that looking at their perspectives, I could get a real picture of what was going on.  I switched away from them but may sure they stayed alert.

“Do you see that?” Sascha whispered.

“You can see it too?” I asked.  At least I wasn’t the only one staring horrified at this thing.  Standing, it was just as big as a man.  With several tentacle-like arms waving back and forth.

And it was right in front of Keeton and he didn’t seem to be aware of anything.  I maneuvered the grunt and set the gun ports toward the thing.

“Keeton!” I called.  “Don’t move.”

No response. But he sensed something was up when he looked at the grunt.  He started to move.

“Keeton!” I called again.  “Don’t fucking move!  It’s to your right.  Right in front of the grunt.”

“Can’t he see it?” Sascha asked.

Frustration and annoyance seeped in.  Something was wrong with the communication.  I made some adjustments and called again.  This time he acknowledged.

The thing came closer.  Michelle was now melting into hysterics; she was not going to like what I was going to do.  I prayed someone else would take over.  There was no time to contemplate if this thing was sentient or not.  Shoot now and ask questions later; we could not afford to lose another person and Keeton was not getting the hint.  People may have questioned my methods in the past, but I got results, and I wasn’t going to second-guess myself now.
I switched to the grunt next to Keeton, aimed, and fired.

I wanted to write this scene in someone’s point of view beause this is a time when Keeton can’t see what everyone else is seeing and they are having technical communication problems.  This gave me more freedom to visiual what they say and fill in the gaps of what they were saying or thinking.  I wanted to be in Bate’s point of view because we have learned about her military background and questionable methods.  We have already seen Keeton and Bates talking about her rule as their defense, a positions she takes seriously and I think she shows it here.  She takes the necessary steps she believes must be done to protect Keeton and the others; She’s not like James who believe that the scramblers are not threatening.  We see this again later when she tortures the scramblers.  We know that Bates is also connected to the grunts, so I wanted to explore just how much agency she has controling them.

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