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

“Madam President!” Die-Hardman shouted out to Bridget, who was still draped over Sam. Sam raised his arms into the air in a daze. He looked like a soldier making a plea of surrender.

Die-Hardman lifted up Bridget’s body and rushed it back onto the bed. Deadman, along with the nurses who had rushed into the room behind them, began to attempt to resuscitate her. He placed the breathing mask back over her face and started up the AED. He kept calling Bridget’s name into her ear, but there was no response. Bridget’s body began to transform into a state that Deadman knew all too well. She was going cold. Her ka began to separate from her ha .

All around him was the sound of sobbing.

Looking up, Deadman saw his fellow Bridges members gathering around Bridget’s bed and grieving for her. They had assembled from locations far and wide to stand at the deathbed of the last President of the United States of America.

America had fallen. It had fallen before the very eyes of her freshly repatriated adopted son.

The son was sat with his back against the wall, looking stunned in Deadman’s direction. Bridget’s still-fresh handprints covered his exposed arm. They were simply marks from the physical rejection that Sam’s body had shown her still living flesh, but they were the only traces left of her life now.

“Listen. No one can know that the president is dead. If word gets out, Bridges is finished. Now, what happened here does not leave this room. Do you understand?” Die-Hardman whispered to Deadman urgently.

Deadman nodded and looked back toward Bridget. Her death would be celebrated by those who had no interest in rebuilding America. Bridget had been the great backbone to those who still believed in this country. If she disappeared, everything would collapse. The lights flickered. The dome of the bed contorted and disappeared. Then the desk, the sofa, the carpet… Then the portraits on the wall went, the elegantly curved border of the window and the gently blowing curtains. Even the finely crafted door. One by one they all disappeared.

In their place was a cold floor and walls that dully reflected the light. Even the bed had been stripped of decoration and transformed into a functional and basic medical bed.

The only remnant of the president left in the room was an American flag that drooped from the rafters.

That was fast, Deadman thought to himself. The moment the president died, the hologram that had been projecting the veneer of the Oval Office shut off. The holograms of those who were located far away disappeared too, and the place where the men were now stood had turned back into a standard hospital room. Although now it felt more like a morgue. They had to be quick and dispose of the body properly. Even if the dead body in the room used to be the president, she would receive no special treatment. Death came to all human beings equally.

Deadman was in charge of disposing of the body. He couldn’t even begin to mourn the president’s death until he had finished the prescribed disposal procedure. He gave some instructions to his staff and then attempted to contact the Corpse Disposal Team, but Die-Hardman took charge.

The director bent down in front of Sam and looked him in the face.

“Sam. Before she died, the president made a contract with you.” He was quiet, but the tone of his voice told Sam that he had no choice in the matter. Sam glared at the director.

“What are you talking about?”

“As a member of Bridges you’re going to work with the rest of us to rebuild America.” The director pointed at the cuff around Sam’s right wrist. Deadman may have been the one who had fitted it onto Sam while he was asleep, but the director was the man who ordered him to do it—Deadman was very aware of his role in the events that led them all here.

“You think you can recruit me? Like she tried to?” Sam tried to break free from the cuffs. The director nodded.

“Well, she succeeded,” Die-Hardman replied.

Just as Deadman had suspected. The director already knew this would happen. If that was the case, Deadman knew that he also had a duty to fulfil as a member of Bridges.

“Director, the cancer spread throughout her entire body,” Deadman said. “Harvesting organs is out of the question, and there is no need for an autopsy. Her body needs to be cremated before she necrotizes.”

“Cause if we don’t, this place’ll turn into another crater,” the director replied, his eyes still fixed on Sam. Deadman nodded and crouched beside the director.

“Listen, Sam. We don’t have any porters right now.”

Sam frowned at Deadman.

“Igor is gone, too. All the other CD teams were annihilated in that last voidout.”

Sam looked away. Deadman kept pressing on.

“But the president’s body has to be burned. This is no ordinary transportation. This job has requirements. DOOMS. Repatriate. There is no one else that we can ask. No one else who can even do it. The road from Capital Knot City to the incinerator was compromised in the voidout. Now, the only way there is on foot, through the mountains. But the chiral density there is off the charts. It’s got to be BTs.”

“So me. Why?”

“Sam, you’re already on the clock,” Deadman replied, pointing to the cuff on Sam’s wrist. Sam raised his right arm and tried to smash the cuff against the floor, but all that followed was a dull echo. Sam raised his arm to try again, only for the director to grab it.

Sam’s arm immediately began to turn red. The director continued to speak, acting as though he hadn’t even noticed.

“Now get it done, Sam Porter Bridges.”

“The president was a symbol of American reconstructionism,” Die-Hardman said as they placed the president’s body inside a body bag.

“She worked tirelessly to bring the nation together again. And without her, there would be no Bridges. She deserves a funeral with full honors. But we can’t give her that. If she dies, America dies.”

“Without her, Bridges will cease to be,” said Deadman.

“Her cremation must be carried out with the utmost secrecy.” Die-Hardman’s voice was taut.

“Even if we pull it off, what then? Who’s gonna take her place?” Sam voiced his opposition. “Face it. America’s history.”

Nothing had changed since the last time he was here ten years ago. They still embraced the same slogans with the same religious zeal. Their persistence riled him up inside.

“Sam, America isn’t dead yet,” Deadman argued.

Sam raised his eyebrows. Hadn’t Die-Hardman just said it himself?

“He just said that it dies if Bridget dies.”

“She may be lost to us… but we still have an America worthy of the presidency.”

“Sorry, what?” Sam pressed Deadman, but the director admonished Sam in return.

“Let’s not get into it now. What matters is that we’re going to finish your mother’s work and rebuild America as she intended. That’s the reason Bridges exists. So take the first step, Sam, and deliver the president’s body to the incinerator.”

“That’s right, Sam. She may be the president, but if we just leave her then her body will necrotize like any other.” Deadman continued to make his case.

“We cannot let Capital go the same way as Central. You’re the only porter here now,” Deadman said.

Bridget’s dying words replayed in Sam’s memory. If we don’t all come together again, humanity will not survive … I’ll be waiting for you on the Beach.