Hitori Nojima: Death Stranding: The Official Novelization, Volume Two

Sam Porter Bridges – A “porter” who has rejoined Bridges for the first time in ten years. He is heading west as Bridges II.

Amelie – The leader of Bridges I, who went out west to rebuild America. She is currently being held in Edge Knot City.

Bridget Strand – The last President of the United States of America. She has devoted herself to rebuilding the UCA to reconnect a broken world.

Die-Hardman – The director of Bridges, an organization created specifically to rebuild America. A close associate of Bridget.

Deadman – A member of Bridges and an ex-coroner. He is in charge of BB maintenance among other things.

Mama – A mechanic from Bridges involved in the development of the Q-pid and Chiral Network.

Heartman – A member of Bridges who hopes to unravel the mysteries surrounding the Death Stranding and the Beach.

Fragile – The young, female leader of the private delivery organization Fragile Express.

Higgs – A member of Homo Demens who is trying to prevent the rebuilding of America and accelerate human extinction.

Unger – A mysterious man who wants the BB.

Bridges – An organization created by the last President of the United States of America, Bridget Strand, for the sole purpose of reconnecting all of the disjointed cities and people across the ex-USA and rebuilding America.

Death Stranding – A mysterious phenomenon that affected the entire world. When antimatter stranded from the world of the dead comes into contact with the living, it causes a voidout.

BB – Bridge Babies. Artificially created “equipment” that allows its users to sense the presence of the dead.

Once the winds calmed, the force of the snow flurries finally weakened. The black clouds that hung in the air all around Sam, that had seemed close enough to touch, had dissipated, but the sun was still nowhere to be seen. It had been four days since Sam had left Mountain Knot City and he had finally reached the highest peak in the mountain range. Despite the detour, he was relieved to discover that his path would indeed lead him over the summit. Yet once he reached the top of the peak that stood thousands of meters above sea level, he still found he could not see beyond the pale veil that covered the sky and obscured the world on the other side. It seemed impossible to him that a vast blue sky stretched out just beyond the clouds, slowly fading into the jet-blackness of space.

Sam remembered a conversation that he had with Bridget as a child. It was the one in which she told him all about their ancestors’ expedition toward the western frontier. About how once they had reached the western frontier, they then carried on and aimed for the next frontier—space. Finally, once they had conquered the last physical frontier, they embarked upon a quest for the electronic frontier of networks and cyberspace. “Listen, Sam,” Bridget started. “The Strand family all come from a single ancestor, who was among the first to reach America. Cultivating new places and building the infrastructure to give other people a future is in our blood. It was our ancestors who were the first to build a bridge to the island of Manhattan. That’s why I want you to build bridges, too.”

How naïve Sam Strand had been back then as he obediently nodded and promised her that he would.

But the path to space was now closed and the bridge they were now trying to build was to the world of the dead. Was that the new final frontier?

The Chiral Network was an amalgam of a network and the world of the dead. Lockne had told him all about it. A member of Bridges, she was the younger twin sister of the theoretical physics expert Mama and the co-developer of the Q-pid.

“I don’t think it’s meaningless for the Chiral Network to access the world of the dead and bring back the past we lost and everything that went with it,” Lockne had once explained. “We need to reclaim the knowledge that the Death Stranding stole from us, but if that’s all we do, then what are we doing but staring down memory lane? We run the risk of becoming bound by the past, just like Målingen and I were bound by our daughter.

“Mountain Knot City may now be a knot on the Chiral Network, but that doesn’t mean I want to go back to Bridges. I need some time to think,” Lockne told Sam. Now that Lockne and Mama had managed to untangle themselves from the estrangement caused by the misunderstanding about their dead daughter, Lockne had new paths open to her. Sam wondered what kind of options he had now.

He looked down at the empty void on his chest.

Lou, the BB whose pod normally occupied that area, was with Deadman for repairs. All that was left was empty space. Even when the repairs were complete, the pod that would be returned to Sam would no longer contain Lou, but a blank BB with no memories. There had been no other choice. And now, on top of that, Sam found himself dwelling on Deadman’s news about the shadier side of Bridges. What was he supposed to do about the fact that Bridget had carried on the BB experiments in secret? What about the past of Die-Hardman, who served her? It seemed that for now, the only option open to him was to pretend like he hadn’t heard anything and carry on with his task of transporting goods and reconnecting the Network as he went west in search of Amelie.

That was why he had battled the winds and traipsed all the way up the sides of these snow-capped peaks.

While Deadman was busy repairing Lou, Sam was to summit the mountains and head west from the direction of Mountain Knot City, to deliver some chiral allergy medication to the Geologist’s shelter. As the people stationed there continued to excavate the land, they had reported early symptoms of chiral contamination. Sam had DOOMS, so contamination didn’t bother him too much, but for normal people it could easily become deadly. Luckily, the symptoms that the Geologist was experiencing appeared to be on the milder side, but they still needed dealing with fast.

A codec call came through his cuff links and jolted Sam out of his thoughts. The tone was peculiar, in that it was restless yet aloof.

Even within Bridges, Heartman knew the most about the Beach by far, but Sam had only ever been able to talk to him via wireless means or as a hologram.

Heartman was speaking at such a pace that Sam wondered if he was even closing his lips between sentences.

It was just as Heartman had described. The plan was to drop by their shelters and activate the Chiral Network for them. But first, he needed to deliver the medicine to the Geologist. Once he had done all that, he would need to drop by Deadman’s place to pick up Lou. Heartman may have been very talkative and extremely quick-thinking, but he would have to wait.

Sam wanted to point out that their call had been more like a monologue than a conversation, but before he could say anything, a robotic voice interjected with

Heartman disconnected the call with the same urgency that he had originally rung with. The phrase “a fossil Beach” echoed around Sam’s head. He wondered if it had anything to do with the fossils they were finding of the dinosaurs that had managed to cling on until the very end. He wondered what fossilization of the Beach even meant. He couldn’t even fathom it. But, just like Heartman said, none of this was confirmed, so there was no point thinking about it yet. Sam stood up, looked up at the sky, and readjusted his hood. The snow was beginning to fall again.