“Sam, I knew you could do it. Thanks to you, the relay is back online. So far there are no issues with strength or safety. Lockne’s going to keep an eye on this area too, so there shouldn’t be any need to worry.”
It was Heartman. He was using the terminal’s communications function to project his hologram.
“I just got back from the Beach. I’ve got twenty-one minutes until the next trip, so listen carefully,” he continued.
The hologram suddenly disappeared. Maybe the connection was unstable. Or maybe this is what they got for such a hastily cobbled together piece of junk. Sam called Heartman’s name out toward the terminal, but there was no reply.
Then, his cuff links activated. Heartman was calling again, requesting voice-only communications. Sam fiddled with his cuff link to pick up.
<I know that the Chiral Network is online now, but I want us to use this older system. I don’t want anyone from HQ listening in.>
Sam detected what seemed to be a hint of nervousness in Heartman’s voice among all the noise and static. Then, Heartman began to recount his incredible findings.
<I looked at the umbilical cord that you brought in with Mama’s body. In reclaiming our past we’ve uncovered a number of vital clues, and using them I’ve come up with a theory. When you met with Mama, you experienced a strong antigen-antibody reaction, correct?>
Sam thought back to when he first visited Mama’s lab. Heartman was right. Sam had the same feeling as when he approached BT territory. Lou reacted in the same way, too. But Sam didn’t think it was too unusual, given the situation there.
“There was a BT in the room,” he explained.
<There was. But something else may have been causing it. I’ve discovered large quantities of chiral matter in Mama as well. Not just the usual kind that collects on our skin or on our suits. It’s in all her cells—cells that are no longer active.>
Sam remembered how Mama’s breath never showed white in her cold lab, and how she had unfastened her cuff link on one hand so that her vitals couldn’t be detected. It was all evidence that pointed toward her being dead. It was only thanks to her connection with her BT daughter that she was able to move in the first place. Sam had surmised that much on his own, but now it looked like there was more.
<The BT you encountered there was special. It was her child, but also her own soul. Somehow, her ka and ha failed to separate. They must have remained connected through the umbilical cord.>
In other words, Mama was in a state of being both alive and dead. Did that mean that her ha and ka were both stuck between life and death?
Mama’s daughter was like Lou. So if Sam was connected to Lou, did that make him just like Mama? Sam had so many questions, but he didn’t feel like asking them out loud. Heartman carried on talking as if he took Sam’s silence as an affirmation to continue.
<I have a message for you from Deadman. He says that he’s sorry. That you deserved to know what you were carrying, but he couldn’t risk Die-Hardman finding out about the case. So he had no choice but to keep it off the books. But thanks to you, Sam, the umbilical cord finally reached me all the way from Capital Knot City.>
“You mean that wasn’t Mama’s umbilical cord?” Sam asked.
<The umbilical cord was taken from Bridget Strand. Deadman removed it in secret at her request when she was still alive. The cord wasn’t attached to a fetus. It was… “outside” her body. She asked him to take care of it. Said it was the key to unlocking the Death Stranding. Bridget’s umbilical cord and Mama’s body have a lot of things in common. They show no signs of decomposition or necrotization. It’s almost like they’re frozen in time. Like they’ve been released from the flow of time in this world. We also detected chiralium in the umbilical cord, just like what we detected in Mama. That means that the president’s umbilical cord may have been connected to the Beach.>
Heartman’s hypothesis was bold, but what was more shocking was the revelation that the umbilical cord was attached to Bridget. The fact that Amelie was born on the Beach must have been closely related to this umbilical cord.
<Life on Earth has been rocked by many extinctions, great and small, including the Big Five. And if you examine the Earth’s strata—its history, if you will—you’ll find chiralium deposits and Beach fossils that can be dated to each. What if the manifestation of Beaches and other associated phenomena correspond to extinction-level events? Our Death Stranding could just be the latest of many. The records and research you helped us to recover strongly suggest that we are in the middle of the Sixth Extinction.>
So, it was true. And this time humanity was up for the chopping block? There was no doubt about it now.
<Thanks to the Chiral Network, we’ve managed to piece together records of other extinct creatures being discovered with umbilical cords. Trilobites, ammonites, dinosaurs. The mammoth, the Iceman. All, without exception, found with umbilical cords. Which is to say that all may have been connected to the Beach. And this, when viewed in the context of the Extinction Entity (EE) Theory that EV is researching, leads me to surmise that organisms with strands are in fact Extinction Entities. You see, Sam, EEs are connected to the Beach via their strands, and it is through this connection that they somehow bring about a Death Stranding.>
Heartman had been speaking so fast that Sam had barely managed to keep up.
“So you’re saying Bridget was an Extinction Entity?”
<It’s far too soon to say anything for certain. And since you burned her body, we may never know.>
Sam had a more pressing question on his mind, but wasn’t sure how to put it into words. Higgs had referred to Amelie as an Extinction Entity.
<Sam, think. Assume that President Strand was an EE. Isn’t it possible that her daughter is, too?> Heartman said, as if he had read Sam’s mind.
“So, he kidnaps her for her EE powers or whatever to cause a mass extinction?” Sam mused.
<Perhaps, perhaps not. I doubt a single EE is powerful enough to cause a Death Stranding. Assuming Amelie, or indeed Bridget, is an EE. Although Higgs certainly seems to think she has what it takes.>
Sam knew that whatever Amelie was or was not, they still had to get her back from Higgs.
<One minute to cardiac arrest.>
Sam heard the countdown continue.
<I’m sorry, Sam. Time’s up. In any case, we need you to go out west and save Amelie.>
Then the transmission cut out and Sam was left all alone again on the desolate shore. Edge Knot City lay out there somewhere way out west, but all Sam could see was the thick, black sea in front of him.
A fishy smell blew toward him from across the tar belt, the breeze it rode in on tickling Sam’s cheeks. Sam may have been successful in activating the waystation’s—that gigantic crucifix’s—telecommunications terminal, but he had been stuck on the shore for quite a while now, unable to find a way across the tar.
He had walked all along the bank searching for a point to cross on foot, but it had so far all been in vain. Didn’t Bridges know how bad it was out here?
Perhaps they had just been optimistic that if anyone could find a way across, Sam the repatriate would. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t think of a single solution. Even though he had reconnected the country this far, even though it was now just a final push until he reached Amelie, he was stuck.