[I'll be the architect of your doom HAH!] Raising her hands and mimicking Ester's words, Eva doubled over and nearly fell off of her chair in the process.
"Shut it" Growling at Eva, despite the threat audible in his voice, it didn't work as effectively when its speaker was flushed to his ears, something Eva noticed as she doubled over in even more laughter.
[I'll be the Architect of your doom! Oh Architects I'm dying!]
Somehow making her speaker wheeze with laughter, Ester debated the merits and demerits of taking her speaker away from her just so that he didn't have to listen to her laughter.
Then he realized that demerits outweighed the merits.
The mere fact that he had to manually detach all of her nerves to shut her up was a demerit on its own never mind the fact that he would have to put her under.
Then he had to reattach it later...
'I guess I have to deal with this laughter for now.'
Restraining the urge to clobber the laughing woman with one of the many computers currently being shoved onto a cart without any wheels, he placed it down.
Then he compromised with grinding her forehead with his knuckles, the metal kind.
[Ack! Candy! Candy! I'll stop laughing! Candy!]
Hearing her cry with exaggerated pain in a mechanical lilt Ester felt the sadistic satisfaction of revenge satiate his soul as he relented her head grinding.
Hurriedly shoving his arms off of her as she began to rub her head where the raw feeling lingered, Eva pointed accusingly at him.
[You beast.]
"Pray tell, how am I a beast?" Grinning with glee underneath his respirator mask, the sound of pumps taking in air was soon masked by the wheelless cart slowly floating upwards against the pull of gravity.
Feeling his hair stand on its ends as the static electricity crawled out of the eight rings hiding underneath the cart, Eva slapped his back.
[You know damn well why I'm calling you a beast.]
Ester raised an eyebrow as he pushed the cart forwards. "...No?"
Eva saw the confused look in his eyes and let out an annoyed hiss of air, eyes pointedly staring at a spot just below his midsection. [You don't exactly stop when I say the safe word.]
Mind instantly darting back to the cramped vents where they usually slept, Ester felt his ears heat up as vivid memories barged into his mind like uninvited guests.
"Ah"
[Ah indeed you horny beast.]
Slapping his back one more time, before he could react, Eva darted away to where a turret waited quietly.
[Now if you don't mind me you beast, I'm going to dismantle this turret for our use.]
"I'll be back soon."
[I would hope so, now shoo.]
Making a motion of shooing him away, Ester helplessly walked the hovering cart to the side of the Driller, cooling his heated ears with the touch of his right hand.
It was gonna be a long scavenger hunt today.
---
As it turned out, there could be to much of a good thing.
"Are you sure we have to get rid of all the turrets?"
[Are you going to place the turrets onto the side of the driller while paying attention to the dynamics of how well it can move underground while making sure they wouldn't negatively influence any of the other systems in the driller in a short period of time?]
Ester defiantly opened his mouth. "If you give me a day, I can solve all those things you just pointed out."
[The problem is we don't have a day. It's been fifty years since they started Project Void Buffer and unless they're the most corrupt fuckers out there, they should be nearly done with making the rockets able to move even a planet. And we both know that we don't want to be anywhere near when it starts]
Ester deflated.
If there was something that you learned surviving on the trash planet it's not choosing fights where you know loosing is an inevitable event.
Raising his hands in surrender, Eva stared at his deflated visage before she let out an annoyed hiss of air escape her throat, rubbing back of her metal neck as she did. [You know something Ester?]
"What?"
[You're the biggest baby I know.]
"...Why the sudden insult?" Ester tilted his head in confusion at the sudden jab at his age, he swore that if she had a mouth it would be wearing the nastiest grin the world would have the pleasure of seeing.
[If you want one of the turrets act like a baby, My baby.] Eva corrected herself
Blinking at the strange statement, Ester opened his mouth to ask her why she would tell him to act in such a manner.
But then he finally comprehended her words and instantly shifted priorities from asking questions to becoming the baby she wanted.
"Goo goo gaa gaa Mother, I desires the milk from your breast."
[I did not think this through.]
Now being the newest victim of the red eared curse of embarrassment Eva slapped Ester on the back.
Ester grinned as he picked up one of the many dismantled turret emplacements, holding the turrets as big as his torso and bringing it through the air lock.
"Well you should've thought it through before I sold my pride for a turret that is probably more effective as a gun than as a turret emplacement like a previously dreamed."
Eva let out a short laugh as she followed Ester through the air lock.
[Well maybe you should've thought it through.]
"I don't appreciate you using my words against me but I appreciate you for having the audacity to use my own words against me."
[Well I feel better.]
"Well I don't."
[That makes me feel even better.]
"And that makes me feel even worse."
Chuckling lightly underneath her mechanical breaths, Eva changed the subject.
[Anyways, are we forgetting anything before we got sidetracked? I don't want to come here more than we need to.]
"Off the top of my head, no."
[Really?] Bending down to remove portions of the floor to reveal a hidden compartment, Ester was forced to tear his gaze from her sizeable behind.
"Really."
[Even when what we're forgetting is the space flight key?]
"Yea- Wait what." Snapping his head to look in Eva's direction, she nodded her head.
[We forgot to search for the space flight key.]
"On the thirteen?"
[On the thirteen and your soul.]
"Why are we using my soul? Can't you use your own?"
[Let's not n-nitpick on the small details rrrright?]
Feeling her balance shift as the space underneath her shook, Ester hurriedly caught Eva before she had the chance to slam her forehead against the sharp edges of the secret compartment.
Looking around in Ester's arms, she tapped his arms using the unique language that the two of them were forced to create due to how often her Speaker box broke down.
What. Happen.
"Void if I know."
Feeling the metal sheets of the Driller shudder to life from underneath his feet, he shifted uneasily on his feet as his eyes roamed the inside of the Driller.
As their own little home, it was big enough for their needs.
Roof at a height where he only needed to worry about bumps if he jumped up a bit, the flickering lights from various bulbs and fixtures illuminated the small space roughly sectioned into four areas.
The top, bottom, front and back.
The top of the Driller was a network of vents currently being repurposed as their sleeping quarters and now a drivers seat.
The bottom secret compartment on the other hand? It was in all seriousness just their storage.
The front of the Driller consisted of the entrance, his personal work desk where he would ward, repair, tinker and dismantle sometimes all at once and Eva's work station consisting of a pilot's seat and Channeling equipment.
The final part of the Driller that being the Back of all trades was as its name suggests an all rounder that contains their engine, their kitchen, their water set up, their fridge, their air filtration system, their garden and their drug manufacturing ring.
It was all in all, literally the back of all trades.
It was their home.
And now that home and the people within it were shaking.
Feeling the effects of dizziness strike him despite not doing anything that would cause this dizziness, Ester felt a queasy and uneasy feeling deep in his chest.
"...Do you think we can find the Space flight key fast before the earthquake hits?"
*Crack!
Ester snapped his head to the side of the driller where the distinct sound of the earth breaking beneath them reached his ears, answering his questions right then and there.
"Scratch that, do you think the Ground to Space Array would be able to withstand an earthquake?"
[I would say so since this Ground to Space Array has survived 50 years in this place while still receiving signals.]
[And unless this earthquake is a lot stronger than all of the ones before it, I would say that there's nothing we need to worry about.] Eva inched towards the controls. [But better to be prepared than sorry right?]
Turning it on, the ground underneath them shook again, eliciting a stronger bout of shakiness than before.
Glancing at each other with all jokes between them gone like the wind, the Driller's engine groaned to life, idling away as they looked through the numerous monitors depicting the outside of the Driller.
But in all honesty? They didn't need to look outside of the Driller in the slightest due to the sudden and harsh vibrations nearly knocking Ester off of his feet.
Ester cursed underneath his breath as he saw the ground of the array break open. "For fucks sake."
Instantly grabbing hold of the wheel, Eva cried out [Hold on tight!]
Shifting gears with the lever in front of her, the Driller groaned with age as it switched to a higher gear, the engines roaring to life as it jolted forwards over the number of cracks appearing on the ground.
Pulling up a live diagram of the entire driller on a different screen, Ester immediately noticed a problem which he quickly rectified by channeling into the computer system.
Forming a small grey ash ball with embers flickering around its edges, he noticed the large number of storm clouds all over the place trying to drive the Driller safely without crashing.
Briefly admiring the amount of multitasking that Eva was pulling off, he nevertheless refocused on the task at hand, his little ball of ash moving through the complicated maze of wires and data, searching for the problem and cutting off the power flowing through it.
As for whether this would cause problems for him to deal with later? Well that would be future Ester's problem.
Present Ester's problem is making sure that problems appearing on the Driller wouldn't kill him.
*THUD
"Architects above!" Being torn from the Channel state and flinching from the resulting backlash as he briefly floated upwards, Ester admired Eva's focus before he was forcefully brought back to reality.
[Ester! Get back here!]
"What do you need!?"
Eva screamed as the entire Driller swerved to the right.
[I don't know where the void I'm goiNNG!?] Hurriedly spinning the wheel around and turning the Driller in a sharp right, they briefly floated left as the centrifugal force grabbed at their bodies.
And having forgotten to grab something in the midst of his Channeling induced shock, Ester was slammed into the side of a desk.
"Ack!"
[Ester!?]
Hearing the loud bang but being unable to look to the side due to immense focus on the outside, Eva shouted worriedly as she maneuvered the Driller over constantly collapsing terrain.
[Ester! What the void happened back there!?]
Voice penetrating the roar of the engines going at full throttle as plastic and metal slammed against the Driller's side, Ester grunted as he grabbed at the corners of the hard metal desk.
"I'm fine back here!"
Grimacing as a chunk of shirt gave way to a bloodied wound that was decidedly not fine, Ester nevertheless ignored it.
When he weighed the odds, it was just an all round better plan to not cause Eva any unnecessary worry when she already had her hands full with piloting the Driller around the large collapsing expanse of the Array.
'Is this place built over a slagging cave?! Why is everything collapsing!'
[If you're fine back there throw me a bone! I don't know where the void I'm going!?]
Feeling his feet briefly lift up and off of the ground Ester grimaced as more pressure was pushed onto his left side.
"I'm doing something woman! Just wait!"
[Whatever you're doing you better hurry!]
"Hurrying!"
Grabbing the sides of the Gravitator to steady himself as another jolt nearly sent him stumbling onto something that would probably aggravate the wound, he realized that this thing was probably useless in this scenario.
As much as it was a good locator, it couldn't exactly locate an exit could it?
A flash of inspiration flitted through his mind as a glint appeared in Ester's eyes 'Maybe it can actually!'
[Whatever the void your doing you better hurry!]
"Doing it!" Grabbing the side of the Gravitator and hurriedly channeling his thoughts into the machine, despite how often he said that he disliked Runes, Ester was still skilled enough to code something basic.
In this case, that something basic was detecting empty space all around them, restricting the heigh of the scan and the detail of it all.
All they really needed was the way away from buildings that can crush them after all.
"Got it!"
Slamming his finger onto the enter key, a three dimensional map unfolded onto the accompanying monitor detailing every single bit of empty space around them.
The monitor lagged somewhat as it struggled to compute whatever data it was receiving, but that was why Ester put a size limit and a distance limit, couldn't exactly map out their surroundings if everything breaks.
Eye snapping to and fro from the map, Eva nodded her head seriously. [Got it my ass! Help me find the way out of here! I can't see shit!]
"Oh yeah!"
Belatedly realizing that keeping them alive through a masterful amount of hand eye coordination and mentally mapping where they needed to go next was probably a bit to much to multitask, Ester limped towards the monitor where a small grey ball of ash marked their position.
"Right!"
[Going left!]
Hearing the loud crash of the ground in front of them splitting apart as they narrowly dodged the hole, Ester briefly floated right as the force lifted him up off of his feet.
[Next path that doesn't suddenly break apart!?]
Shouting desperately as her eyes turned into pinpricks, the lights above flickering frantically, Ester could only hold onto her waist for dear life before he could fly off from one bad turn.
"The left after this one! That's the closest path!" Ester shouted, his voice carrying into Eva's panicked ears as she instantly darted into the first left she saw.
"Wrong pat- This right!"
Clinging onto the chair that Eva was on and making sure that she wouldn't fly off and lose control of the Driller with how sharp of a turn she continued to make while simultaneously anchoring himself to the ground, Ester thanked his past self for having the foresight to anchor the Swivel chair to the ground as he briefly glanced at the 3D map then at the monitors in front of him.
It was the physical manifestation of disaster.
On every monitor and on every outwards facing camera, the buildings around them sunk into the ground, their creators clearly not expecting them to do well against the ground itself opening beneath them.
Rock and plastic being tossed up into the sky as the earth around them continued to shake, in the distance Ester was vaguely able to see a mountain of trash crumble down.
But crumbling mountains aside, he should probably focus on making sure that they wouldn't be joining the buildings in their brand new coffins of plastic, scrap and concrete.
A flash of a large boulder smashed into a camera rendering one of the monitors a mess of staticky grey.
Then something flashed in front of him.
A massive mangled communications tower tilted from the massive earthquake, slamming onto the path on the left.
"I- Hug the right path!?"
Shouting instinctively with a note of confusion in his voice, thankfully, Eva didn't seem to catch this hint of confusion as she followed his words instantly, the Driller hugging the right path just as a massive mangled communications tower tilted from the massive earthquake, slamming onto the path on the left.
[I'd hug you for seeing that but I'm a bit occupied at the moment!] Eva screamed, her mechanical voice slipping into his mind.
"I- Yeah!" Still holding onto Eva while forcefully preventing the swivel worthy chair from swiveling, Ester's eyes continually slammed from the 3D map to the numerous screen monitors like a game of Pong.
Flashes of something happening now intertwined with his commands, the paths which would've led to their doom from the buildings collapsing in on themselves being avoided as they got closer and closer to the place they first entered.
Despite how randomly those flashes of insight suddenly appeared, Ester couldn't deny that they were an incredibly useful skill.
"We're nearly there!"
[We're nearly there!?]
"Yeah! Just at this bend right here-" Eyes darting from the Gravitator readings to the few remaining monitors not reduced to a staticky blinking mess from the many boulders slamming into the Driller and no doubt leaving behind numerous scars onto its steel body, another flash of something appeared in his eyes.
The ground opened up underneath the vehicle, its wheels moved much to fast to stop as it tripped over the large gash in the ground, flipping through the air and slamming into the nearby walls right before the gate in front of them collapsed onto them.
Eyes widening as he mentally processed the image in his mind, Ester shouted out a warning.
But there was a reason why he said it was something happening now
Feeling his body lift up and off of the ground not from the sharp turns Eva made the Driller do but from the Driller itself floating through the air, Ester instinctively spun Eva round so that she would now be facing his chest.
Then everything went black
+++
Currently surviving on suboptimal sleep levels
Tree
[Rewrite]