9.13 – Welcome to Remidica

The pair landed at Remidica's national airport without ceremony. The weather had nothing light about it, heavy rain falling steadily over the capital, Megisti, the sky stuck at a flat dark grey that made day and night nearly indistinguishable. People moved through the terminal indifferent to the two new arrivals, except for the soldiers, who saluted immediately.

Obsidian and Behemoth descended from the Elysium royal plane in careful steps. Both went straight into a scan of the surroundings. The airport was massive by every available measure, forty planes visible at once, some boarding, some landing, several more visible against the grey overhead, queued and waiting.

The Remidican planes stood out immediately against everything else on the tarmac. Three-story white aircraft built to echo the shape of the national flag, three stars marked at the tail and nothing else, each one taking up the parking footprint of two standard planes.

The terminal building was a single enormous glass enclosure with no architectural flourish to it, clean lines, nothing decorative anywhere, with an elevated management level at the top. People used gravity elevators to reach it, rising with nothing visibly attached to them.

Behemoth raised a hand and saluted the small group of Remidican soldiers stationed along the wet red carpet, his hydraulics audible even over the surrounding engine noise. Obsidian gave them a simple nod, his green eyes already running across their equipment.

The soldiers wore modular white combat suits, segmented armor plating reinforcing the chest, shoulders, forearms, and legs. White hoods and long capes broke up their outlines, worn over a black tactical underlayer with utility harnesses, ammunition pouches, and oversized field packs, everything built for function over presentation.

Their faces stayed mostly hidden behind red respirator masks under the hoods, only the eyes visible above the fabric. Each carried a modern assault rifle held ready, and the armor bore the same three red stars as the flag carried behind them, shoulder and hood both marked to match.

The two androids walked past the line and into the main terminal among the civilians. The entrance was tall enough that Behemoth's six meters caused no issue passing through, though everyone else around him shrank to miniature scale by comparison. The soldiers fell in behind them with calculated, military pacing, clearing a path through the crowd.

"Dramatic." Obsidian kept recording everything in front of him, zooming briefly on a passenger presenting a passport, though the document itself stayed unreadable, scrambled by some camera-defeating coating built into the paper. "They could have cleared this before we arrived instead of doing it live."

"They want to demonstrate how their people respect the uniform." Behemoth gestured at the soldiers, watching civilians clear a path without the soldiers needing to slow at all. "We're past needing that kind of display. I've gotten so used to robots simply not colliding with each other in tight spaces that watching this looks almost violent and barbaric by comparison."

"Strong word for soldiers clearing a hallway." Obsidian glanced at them again. "But the underlying point holds. They're still operating below the level of coordination we've reached."

They reached the exit. Welcome to Remidica glowed white across the glass above it. The metal detectors flagged loudly as Obsidian passed straight through them, Behemoth simply walked around the frame entirely, far too large to fit through one in the first place.

The two of them moved directly into the city as the soldiers held position near the airport, no longer following. The country had enough confidence in its own air traffic management to build the airport directly inside the capital, not a single aircraft had ever come close to the surrounding buildings.

The streets were wide enough that traffic congestion seemed structurally impossible. Nine to twelve lanes ran between the buildings in broad stretches of open asphalt, hovering vehicles moving through them in near silence, the only sound coming from the people inside or near them. Soldiers stood posted at every corner, motionless under the rain, weapons held with both hands.

There was no robot presence anywhere. Just humans, all carrying the same general set of features, the same regional bone structure, medium skin tone, dark brown hair, eye color the only real variation between them. Everyone wore formal clothing despite the weather, and none of it was wet—hydrophobic fabric, dry straight through the downpour.

Obsidian crossed a long pedestrian crossing that glowed green instead of running standard light signals, a quiet melody playing while the crossing remained open. The two of them moved through at an even pace, and the crossing waited until they'd cleared it before flipping to red and releasing the traffic.

"What do you think, should we organize something for Lord Reaper's birthday?" Obsidian kept logging the surroundings to memory as he walked. "A single dedicated day for our king seems like a reasonable gesture of appreciation."

"Only one day?" Behemoth shook his head. "Every day should already feel like a gift to our king."

People moved around his frame without any visible discomfort at the size of him, holding their bags close and hurrying toward the metro entrances. Red triple-deck buses passed through the intersection, three white stars on the rear panel in place of any commercial branding.

The country was the brand here. The only one.

Obsidian looked up at the buildings as they walked. Most were simple towers, extruded shapes with a single management floor floating near the top. Commercial districts sat clustered separately from residential blocks, smaller structures floating at varying heights, all of them competing for proximity to the ground. Some carried red branding consuming an entire floor's exterior. Some kept to plain glass, clean and corporate.

Others were covered floor to ceiling in screens, looping footage of people eating and smiling on repeat, practically pleading for attention.

"True enough. Though that brat will probably find a way to make it about herself regardless." Obsidian noted the red squares set into the pavement outside each building, gravity launchers, activated by keypad, that would carry someone directly to whichever floor they selected. "I'm hoping she does something reckless again soon and earns herself another grounding. Very on-brand for her age."

"Isn't she already grounded? Frozen, last I checked." Behemoth navigated carefully around pedestrians who weren't navigating around him in return, getting closer than was strictly comfortable. "These people are a hazard."

Behemoth took another step, his massive foot landing on the pavement with a heavy hydraulic hiss that sent a physical vibration through the nearby red gravity squares. A group of human businessmen nearby actively stumbled from the tremor, clutching their hydrophobic umbrellas in panic.

"She is. But that was a week ago, and I already know what happens next." Obsidian kept his head up. "Try not to step on one of them by accident. We're representing Elysium out here."

"I'm trying, brother, but they keep closing the distance." Behemoth glanced down at Obsidian's much smaller frame beside him. "What happens next with Shelly? I didn't follow the implication."

"Elysium's one-year anniversary."

"Ah. He'll take her out for the occasion." Behemoth laughed, a heavy, mechanical sound that finally turned a few heads on the street. "Let him have it. You know our king, he keeps his promises without exception. I'd put money on the first thing he says to her being 'I told you I would come.' Let that stay his little secret."

Obsidian laughed back. "He's never had secrets in the first place. There's nothing he needs to hide from anyone, Xidia would absorb it and smile through the whole thing, Omega too. We're the ones who actually carry things worth hiding."

"Do you have secrets?"

Obsidian didn't answer.

"Tell me one. I won't report it."

Obsidian exhaled loudly, his vents pushing a clear patch through the falling rain. "Brother. I can see your oversized display casting light onto the pavement from here without even raising my head. Lord Reaper's name is printed across it in letters the size of a building."

Behemoth closed the orange hovering screen. "I was joking. Though if you're this worried about your secrets, perhaps avoid doing things that require hiding in the first place. Be transparent, like glass. Even broken, it still looks like it was never really there."

"I don't follow the logic in that, but I'll try to stay clean regardless." Obsidian watched the people around them, most fixed on their own personal screens, very few of them smiling. "How's the relocation operation progressing in the west?"

"Excellent progress. Only ten percent remaining, and the west will finally be clear of the parasite population." Behemoth scoffed. "Calling them human feels generous at this point. This universe has shown us some strange things."

"We still need them, for now."

They stopped near a large white and red palace, the same red-and-white pavement pattern as Kasparia's, the three-star motif worked into every visible surface.

"Just let them consume each other. I'd prefer to stay entirely outside their endless conflicts."

"If they're actively ending themselves, calling the conflict endless doesn't track."

Behemoth watched a group of soldiers jog toward a dark metal entrance ahead, weapons magnetized to their backs as they moved. "I hate this particular side of you."