the sirens sing no lullaby; and no one knows but lorelei

Thursday, July 29, 2004
02:09 p.m.

::makes toast with Batalha xDD::

____________________

“It just doesn’t make any sense!” In a rare moment of petulance and childishness, Zuleika threw her paper and pencil at the wall. She gave herself a violent push away from her desk, spinning herself across the room until she collided with the opposite wall. Frustrated and sulky, she paced around the room, glowering at the forsaken pad of paper like a tigress in a cage making up her mind as to whether or not she should pounce or just glare her prey to death.

Why are you getting upset over this? Don’t be so childish. You must have missed something, that’s all. You know how to do this. Do it. An all-to-familiar voice pulled at her mind.

The chair had come away from the wall slightly, and when she tossed herself back into it, it slid backwards and into the wall. She wasn’t expecting it, and her head rolled back with just enough force to bring tears to her eyes when her head hit the wall.

“Hmn,” she pressed her hand to her mouth before her surprised shout could escape. Silent and very still, she let the tears roll down her face.

You see? Don’t be so immature and look at it from another point of view. Caelum had been her main source of advice, and when he’d died, her internal monologues had started to be held in two voices: hers and Caelum’s, instead of hers alone. But he wasn’t dead anymore, was he?

Zuleika slowly got up from her chair, pushed it back up to the desk, and then put the paper and the eraser end of the pencil in a drawer. She’d thrown it so hard that it had broken in two when it hit the wall. Taking a deep breath, for a moment she was alright. But then she caught sight of the writing end of the pencil and a wail escaped her.

“Why is this happening?” she whispered as she threw it into the trash. “What is it that I can’t see? What am I missing?” after a week on the Hrunting, with very little to do besides menial tasks that she finished quickly and easily, Zuleika had spent most of her time trying to break down the binary code message that had appeared on the screens of her computers during the Invasion. She hadn’t worked it out back on Earth; she’d been too busy trying to get Bandressi into court, and then trying to get the charges to stick…. But she’d finally gotten around to it, and now she couldn’t make any sense of it, other than the fact that it spelled out ‘batalha nova.’ It just didn’t make any sense. There simply wasn’t anything to work out.

A bleep from the call button on com-unit by the door interrupted her thoughts. She stared at it, and decided to ignore it. If it was really important, they’d keep using the call button to get her attention and she’d let them in. If it wasn’t, they’d just go away and she would be free to wallow in her misery for a while longer.

There was another bleep from the com-unit’s call button. Apparently, whoever it was didn’t want to talk right just yet, either. She debated a moment, and decided to ignore it. Zuleika was about to sit down and get out the pad of paper when a third bleep came. Sighing, she went to the door and opened it.

_____

“Are you sure this will work? It’s hard to breathe in.” Caelum asked. Shen snorted, and poked him in the ribs.

“It’ll have to. If it doesn’t we’ll both be in a lot of trouble.” Shen gave Caelum a begrudging look. “Well, that’s the best I can do with so little to work with.” He shrugged diffidently.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Caelum frowned and walked to the bathroom where he could see himself in the mirror. He liked what he saw. “What do you mean, that’s the best you can do? I look good.” He smiled rakishly. “I look really good.”

“Now don’t go humping yourself, Narcissus.” Shen rolled his eyes. “It’s not my fault that you aren’t my type. I don’t like blondes.” He sniffed, intending to keep a dismissive look on his face, but when he caught sight of Caelum’s expression he broke into a grin.

“Either way, it will have to do.” Shen said. “Hey, don’t poke at it. You’ll rub it off or something.” Shen slapped Caelum’s hand away from his cheek. He’d put makeup on Caelum’s scar.

“Now all we have to do is get out of this room.” Caelum said, giving his scar a defiant poke. Shen wrinkled his nose.

“And to the bar,” he rubbed his temples with a pitiful, long-suffering look.

“I still don’t see why that will help.” Caelum raised an eyebrow.

“Because, Caelum, after trying to make your ugly mug pretty, I need a drink.” Shen smirked, and then dodged Caelum’s attempt to punch him in the arm.

They left the room and turned to the right, towards the shield that Caelum had noticed the first day he’d come here. Shen took out his I.D. card and placed it against the outlet on the wall. Then he put his hand against a hand scanner and simultaneously typed in a security code.

“Wow, all this just for me? I’m flattered.” Caelum smiled sardonically, but Shen only snorted again.

“Just shut up and follow me, pretty boy.” He ordered.

“Oh, so now I’m pretty?” Caelum batted his eyelashes.

“Sure, now that you have enough makeup on to qualify as a drag queen in training.” Shen favored him with a sly smile.

“One day, Shen. I will destroy you. One day.” Caelum vowed ominously.

“Yes, you’ll bludgeon me senseless with your designer handbag, and then stab me with your matching stilettos.” Shen’s sly smile stayed in place.

“You will take care to notice, sir, that I am not wearing women’s clothing.” Caelum narrowed his eyes.

“Not yet, but the makeup is only one step towards getting in touch with you inner woman.” Shen taunted, laughing. Caelum smacked him on the back of the head, but Shen only laughed harder.

_____

“What can I get you?” the bartender looked happy to see Shen and Caelum, and no wonder. She had very little to do all day but wear a small uniform and serve rich old men so of course when two younger men came in, she perked up a bit.

“I need vodka.” Shen said. “A small one, though.” He added when he saw Caelum’s expression. The bartender smiled.

“You need vodka. This early in the day?” she teased, but she had already poured the drink and was handing it to him.

“Make it fast Shen, please?” Caelum said anxiously. Shen was surprised that Caelum had made it this long without showing how excited he was. They’d had to wait a week, but he hadn’t complained a single time.

“Shast, skorah,” Shen said before finishing his drink.

“Da vai,” Caelum retorted.

“Very good, but only foreigners use that one.” Shen slid the glass and his I.D. card to the bartender so she could charge him for the drink.

“You aren’t Russian either. You’re half Chinese and half Swiss.” Caelum protested as Shen smiled and retrieved his I.D.

“Good point. Da vai!” Shen popped a stick of gum into his mouth and started off in the direction of the barracks with Caelum close behind him.

_____

They stopped in front of 15L. Caelum took a deep breath. Shen blew a bubble with his gum and pressed the call button on the com-link of Zuleika’s room. They waited for her to answer.

“Hey, listen…” Caelum hesitated. Shen blew a bubble matter-of-factly, waiting for him to go on. “Um…not to offend or anything but—” the bubble popped with a loud snap.

“Scram?” Shen smiled.

“Basically,” Caelum squinted and scratched his head.

“Consider me scrammed. But I’ll be waiting for you.” Shen was turning to leave when he stopped, remembering something. “Almost forgot about that.” He said, and pulled the prosthetic nose off of Caelum. Caelum winced, rubbing his nose.

“Thanks,” he took the handkerchief that Shen gave him and cleaned off most of the makeup.

“I’ll be close by.” Shen reminded him, and with a wink and a bubble, Shen disappeared down the corridor. Caelum pressed the call button again, and waited.

_____

“So, you couldn’t resist helping him after all?” asked a woman’s voice by Shen’s ear.

“Of course I couldn’t. It’s in my nature.” He smiled softly as she appeared beside him, wondering how long she’d been following them. He wouldn’t ask her, though. It wouldn’t do any good to let it go to her head.

“Will she take him back, though? That’s the million dollar question.” She slipped her arm through his as they walked down another twist in the corridor. “I think she will…eventually. You took me back, anyway.” Shen said, and kissed her cheek.

“You’re always so optimistic.” She purred, leaning into the kiss just a little.

“It’s the gum. Goes right to my head, you know.” He crossed his eyes and blew a bubble to demonstrate. She stuck her tongue out at him and poked the bubble with her finger.

“But you never actually died. We only thought you did.” She pointed out. She was good at reminding him of the facts.

“Details, details,” he waved his hand dismissively.

_____

Shortly after the third bleep, the door opened, and Caelum saw Zuleika’s expression go from annoyed to dazed shock and then to pale and blank. There was a moment of awkward silence, neither of them exactly sure what to say. Caelum hadn’t really planned this far, and Zuleika hadn’t been expecting it.

“Found you,” he finally said with a tentative smile, wanting to grab her and hold her close. He’d always had excellent self control, but it was being given a difficult test.

“Oh,” she answered flatly. He looked hurt by her tone, and she felt a twinge of guilt, but she couldn’t seem to make herself smile. Instead she motioned for him to come inside.

“I would have come sooner…” his voice trailed off. She was so subdued and calm; she hadn’t even touched him. He’d hoped she might at least hug him…

“Seeing as how I didn’t even know you were here, it’s alright.” Zuleika eased herself into a chair. It was the same set up in all of the rooms in the barracks: small coffee table and three chairs.

“Well, I couldn’t get out until today.” Caelum tried to exude as much nonchalance as humanly possible while he spun a chair around and moved it close to hers, propping his arms on the back.

“Out…? Do they keep you locked up or something?” her sense of humor flickered. It reassured him.

“Sort of; I’m pretty isolated. Shen helped me, though.” He saw her blank look and added, “Dr. Swan, from the lab.”

“I see.” She seemed a bit tense, but she was relaxing slowly. He suddenly realized how surreal it must be for her to talk to him like this.

“He almost didn’t. I had to beat him at strip go-fish to get him to help me.” Caelum grinned.

“You used that as the substitute prize, I’m guessing.” They shared a knowing smile.

“I love you.” He blurted it out suddenly, but (much to his relief) not desperately.

“Yes…I know.” She stood up and went to her desk, staring down at some of the papers on it without seeing them. Caelum forced himself to count to ten before getting up and following her, and then he tried to make himself count again before he put a hand on her shoulder. He’d made it to four when she turned to look at him.

She seemed to really look at him for the first time. Eventually, she glanced at his cheek, and something caught her attention. Reaching a hand out hesitantly, she touched his cheek where the scar was underneath the makeup. Then she smiled, staring at the tips of her fingers, an eyebrow arched slightly.

“It was Shen’s idea,” he explained quickly. “Identifying features and all that…I was wearing a fake nose on the way over. See?” he held up his I.D. card, which showed him with a much different nose.

“Ah,” the smile she gave him made her eyes even softer, made her seem more vulnerable than he remembered. On impulse he kissed her. In surprised reflex, she kissed him back for a second before gently pushing him away. When he saw the look on her face he regretted it, but that brief involuntary spark gave him hope.

“I’m sorry.” He worried for a moment that she would start to cry. She looked so…so hurt.

“No, it’s alright. I’m just not ready for that right now.” She turned back to her papers, biting her lip.

“Will you ever be?” his hope flagged.

“I don’t know.” She answered quietly.

__________

Lorelei walked into the hangar and towards her mech, trying to ignore the glances she got. She’d managed to connect a strange surge her sensors sent through her with the looks she received. Whenever she saw them there was this…unpleasant surge. So she narrowed her focus, nearly cutting off all peripheral vision until she got to Valkyrie.

Bending at the knees, she disengaged her magboots and pushed up with her legs, propelling herself upward. Trailing her fingers along the metal, she waited. When she was level with the cockpit she found herself a handhold and went in. Lorelei had an advantage over the other pilots: she was able to remember an extremely long password of binary code, and she could enter it in seconds. As Lorelei got herself seated and buckled in, she sent a hail to Ademaro, Vel, and Dice, connecting all of them on the same com-link.

“Are we all set to go?” she asked. Three affirmatives were sent back to her as her other teammates accepted the link request.

“Which formation is it today?” Dice asked.

“Alpha-two, I think,” was the prompt answer from Ademaro.

“No, we did that yesterday.” Vel hated the formations. It wasn’t that she couldn’t remember them; it was just that she didn’t like to drill all the time. Being on the Hrunting was turning out to be rather less exciting than she’d thought.

“Yes, and we didn’t do it properly, so we’re doing it again today.” Lorelei said gently. A soft sigh came from Vel’s quarter of the link.

“Alright,” said Ademaro, pressing in the com-link number for the operations base. “Svalin, this is Krieger One, acknowledge.”

“Krieger One, this is Svalin, your team is clear in point-one, acknowledge.” The operator said.

“Acknowledged,” Ademaro closed the link.

“Counting ten seconds,” Lorelei said.

“Yo!” Dice said.

“What?” Vel laughed.

“You know…yo,” Dice said, powering up her engines. “S’an affirmative sort of thing, only more military.”

“Like ‘hut’?” Ademaro asked.

“Clear in five,” Lorelei put in.

“We should say that now.” Vel said happily.

“That’s why I said it. I hoped it’d catch on.” Dice had a way of putting laughter into her voice that Vel and Ademaro found contagious, and they were laughing together when Lorelei announced time.

“Clear,” she said officially.

“Yo!” shouted Vel.

“Hut!” Dice laughed.

“Ha!” Ademaro clearly wasn’t done laughing as they took off.

__________

[“We are safely past Skylab Eight.”] The dulcet tones of Elena’s voice rang through the ship.

[“Yes, I noticed.”] Gaspar answered disagreeably. He was still sulking over their failure to infect that woman’s mech. It would have been so very handy to have one in their control. All they had to do was make sure all the systems were running properly, and attack the ship from the inside. But Elena had done something wrong. She had missed some detail, and they had failed.

[“There is no reason for you to be so unhappy. The accommodations are comfortable, and there is plenty of food and water to sustain one man.”] Elena said testily. It surprised Gaspar. She had never been angry as far as he knew, and her tone was unexpected.

[“A man needs someone to talk with every now and then.”] He said by way of excusing his actions, knowing full well that he had been isolating himself a great deal for years; ever since his wife died, in fact.

[“I am someone to talk to. We talk often.”] Elena protested.

[“You are a machine that I exchange communication with on a semi-regular basis.”] Gaspar corrected stubbornly. A sharp noise came over the speakers. Gaspar’s eyes widened slightly. [“Did you just…snort at me?”] He asked, incredulous.

[“Humph,”] Elena intoned.

Gaspar blinked slowly, and decided it was best to keep quiet for a while. At least until that thing was ready to be civil with him. Imagine! A program snorting at its programmer! It was ridiculous.

[“Ridiculous!”] He exclaimed aloud, without thinking.

[“What do you mean by that?”] She asked, rather ominously.

[“Ah, nothing, I was just going over an idea in my head.”] Gaspar said coolly.

[“Is that so?”] Elena asked.

[“Yes…”] Gaspar answered. She sounded skeptical. What next?

posted by Kchano.

Sunday, May 9, 2004
05:51 a.m.

I would like to extend my thanks to The Cure, for having insane lyrics.
____________________

Ademaro was in the middle of chewing a bite of apple when he saw Dice and Vel come into the cafeteria, bouncing slightly as they walked because of the partial gravity. He gave them a tentative wave, inviting them to join him. When they came back with their trays, Dice and Ademaro chatted while Vel poked at her food.

She wasn’t picky about what she ate, and had grabbed a few things without really paying a lot of attention. One of the things she’d gotten was a cup of white cubes that at first glance looked like tofu, but on closer inspection were the wrong texture. She gently poked one of the cubes experimentally. It jiggled. Her eyes widened.

“Dice,” her tone was so odd that it made Dice and Ademaro look at her to see what was wrong. “Dice, what is it?” Ademaro leaned across the table to see what was on her plate, and Dice gave the cup a shake, watching in mild horror as the pile of cubes wobbled obscenely.

“Dear lord,” Dice picked up Vel’s knife and stabbed one of the cubes. White liquid burst out and hovered over the other cubes. The two women stared in shock.

“Es ist Milch,” Ademaro laughed, unable to contain his amusement any longer. Vel and Dice stared at him in silence. “Sorry, I meant to say that it’s milk.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Vel asked, quickly recovering and leaning towards what certainly looked like floating milk.

“What would you rather it be?” Ademaro gave her a slow smile. Dice stuck her tongue out in disgust.

“So they package the milk like this to keep it from floating off. What about all the other liquids? They’re in little pouches unless there’s full gravity.” Dice held up her juice, and sure enough, it was in a pouch.

“This is for breakfast. You put it in the bowl with the cereal, and eat them both together. I guess that way it won’t get soggy or something. Probably they do it to make it more like eating cereal planet-side. The material they put the milk in dissolves with saliva.” Ademaro explained.

“Hey, Vel, are you okay? You’re shaking,” Dice asked. Vel was bent over slightly, with her hand over her mouth.

“Sh-shaking like m-milk,” Vel stuttered, sitting up straight and laughing harder and out loud. Ademaro thought she looked pretty when she laughed, with her cheeks flushed as if she were blushing.

“Oh gor,” Dice rolled her eyes, and she and Ademaro laughed with Vel. Dice didn’t know what had started Vel laughing at first, but she figured that Vel was probably still really stressed out about what had happened earlier, and just needed to let it out. Laughing was as good a way as any.
_____

“You’re plotting something. I can feel it.” Shen took a card from one pile, and discarded one from his current hand into a second pile.

“I’m trying to win.” Caelum cocked an eyebrow. “Got any fours?” Shen grinned.
“Go fish.” Shen continued to smile while Caelum took off a sock and tossed it onto the bed behind him. They were both well bundled, so the sock was no great loss. “I can’t believe this game actually works.”

“Zuleika came up with it. Part Go-Fish, part Polish Poker. Winner gets to be on top.” Caelum said with a straight face.

“I—wait, what?” Shen stared at Caelum, who started to laugh.

“We’ll have to come up with a new prize. No offence, but there’s no way I’m having sex with you when the game is over.” Caelum grinned.

“Sorry to crush your ego, but you aren’t good-looking enough to make me gay, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.” He shuffled his cards around, putting like with like, Caelum assumed.

“Nah, it was worth it to see the look on your face. So what’re we playing for?” Caelum stretched his arms out behind him, bending backwards until his spine cracked.

“Sportsmanship?” Shen yawned. They’d been up a long time.

“That’s a terrible thing to play for.” Caelum rearranged his cards, peering over the tops of them at Shen.

“They do it in the Olympics.” Shen leaned back in his chair and waved a hand expansively.

“No, they play for medals in the Olympics. And honor.” Caelum shook his head.

“Then we shall play for honor. And possibly for alcohol.” There was a bar for the richer passengers, and Shen could get them in.

“Is that a challenge?” Again, Caelum’s eyebrow went up.

“Yes. It is. Loser buys.” They were both leaning forward now.

“I don’t drink.” Caelum said.

“Pansy.” Shen’s eyes shone with mirth.

“Lush.” Caelum countered.

“Give me that three you’re hoarding, wuss.” He wrinkled his nose at Caelum.

“Go fish, fuddler.” He smiled.

“Fuddler? Who uses that word anymore?” Shen put his cards down and stared at Caelum.

“I do, you fuddler, now strip.” Caelum’s smile became an impish grin.

“I call. I think you’ve got that three.” Shen said with narrowed eyes.

“Are you sure tosspot? Because if you’re wrong, you’ll have to take off…” he counted the tally marks on the paper they were using to mark down the stakes and whistled. “Ten things. That’ll leave you pretty bare, my pot tossing friend.”

“I’m very sure.” Shen’s eyebrow did its own quirk. They stared each other down for a moment before showing their cards.

“Pot tossing bastard,” Caelum had the three.
_____

As the three of them pulled themselves towards the hangar by way of handrails, Dice and Ademaro fell back into their previous conversation. They were talking about places they’d been to in Europe, so Vel just walked along with them in silence. She felt a bit left out, but she enjoyed hearing them talk. It gave her something to think about. It gave her a way to keep her mind off of what had happened…

“What about you, Vel?” Ademaro asked suddenly. She was caught off guard, and realized that she’d been thinking about her dream again.

“I’m sorry, I was thinking about something else, and didn’t hear you. What were you saying?” She tried to sound sincere, but she really didn’t have any opinions of countries on Earth.

“I asked Ademaro what kind of A.I. he had in his mech, and he asked you about yours.” Dice said.

“Oh!” Vel smiled cheerfully. “I have a link-up system. I still use a basic A.I., but I figured I should take advantage of any skills I actually got from the nano process, you know?” She was warming up to the subject and didn’t notice Ademaro biting his lip. “Alcyone’s isn’t the latest thing on the market, but still pretty high-tech, because I have to be able to interact with it if the link-up fails, but it hasn’t yet. My portable link functions with my goggles, so everywhere I go, I…” her voice trailed off. “I know when anything happens.” There it was again. She couldn’t even talk about something without it popping into her mind.

“Well,” Dice cleared her throat. “I uh, I just recently got used to my A.I. because I hadn’t finished Zedikiah when I was recruited for the mission. Good thing I had enough time to practice before we left, eh?” They were all grateful when they saw the entrance to the hangar ahead of them.

“Gilgamesh is just over there.” Ademaro pointed with his free hand. Dice and Vel didn’t have to look very far for their own mechs. They were in a row.

“That’s Alcyone,” Vel said, also pointing. “The mech next to her must be Valkyrie. She’s beautiful.” She thought, studying Lorelei’s mech.

“And that’s my Zed.” Dice said, and Vel could see she was unabashedly proud of her design. “See you gents later,” she pushed off of the wall and floated towards Zedikiah.

“I’ll see you later, then.” Ademaro smiled at Vel. Since they were floating, their eyes were almost level, and Vel was reminded again of how much she’d have to tilt her head to look him in the eyes. She nodded and pushed away from the wall quickly. He’d seen her blushing anyway, though, and his smile had softened just a bit, and touched his eyes a little more. Still, she wanted to hit herself for being so silly.
_____

“Lieutenant Nimshi?” A calm, Russian voice by her side asked. Zuleika turned and saw a tall, dark-haired man somewhere in the middle of his thirties. “I’m Dr. Doczka. Come on back, and I’ll see if there’s anything I can do for you.” He led her to an examination room and had her sit down behind a V-Scan screen so he could get her vitals.

“It’s pronounced Dawshka?” Zuleika asked, glancing at his medical I.D. tag.

“Yeah, it looks like a real tongue twister, doesn’t it?” He grinned, and it made him look like a teenager. Zuleika smiled back.

“Yeah, but so does mine, I guess. Thank you for seeing me with so little notice.” Zuleika said. She liked him already.

“That’s alright; it’s what I’m here for, anyway. Don’t move around too much. This thing doesn’t have some of the newer bells and whistles I’d like.” He said, and sat down on a rolling chair behind the computer hooked up to the V-Scan. Zuleika sat still until he typed something in and gave her a sign that she could move again.

“Still, I really appreciate it.” Zuleika rubbed her temples. She couldn’t remember ever being this tired, not even when she’d trying to get Bandressi into court.

“Take a deep breath and hold it, please.” Dr. Doczka ordered briskly. Zuleika complied. “Good, good, let it out.” He mumbled, and rolled his chair to a table by the door. “You’ve got very healthy vitals, Lieutenant. What’s been bothering you?” He grabbed a thin electronic pad with a laser pen attached to it from the table, tapped various parts of it, and started to write.

“I’ve had severe headaches, a lot of them, and problems sleeping.” Zuleika answered in the half-mechanical sounding voice that Dr. Doczka noticed people tended to use when telling him their symptoms. She came out from behind the V-Scan and sat in the chair across from him at the table.

“Can you be more specific?” He asked. “Is it trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up?” He added when he saw her confused look.

“The first two,” she leaned back in the chair and rubbed her temples again.

“You were on Mars during the Infiltration, right? It might be post-traumatic stress or depression that’s bothering you. A lot of the Martian citizens had to be treated for those things afterwards; it was a horrible thing that happened, so it’s no surprise.” He wrote and talked at the same time. Zuleika remembered with a sharp pang that Caelum was able to do it, too.

“Wouldn’t Psych have caught it when I was evaluated for this mission?” Zuleika protested, but only mildly because it seemed plausible.

“Not necessarily. Depression is a tricky thing. However, from looking at your file, you seem to be a very stable person. It’s more likely that you’re suffering from stress of some kind. Are the headaches in any particular area?” During their conversation Dr. Doczka had been taking notes and pulling up files on the pad that served as a medical chart.

“It’s always in my temples, but usually I get them in other places, too.” She shrugged. “It varies.”

“To be honest, Lieutenant, I can’t find anything wrong with you, physically. I think your best bet would either be stress or depression, maybe both. They don’t always catch these things in psych exams when some one is as stable as you are.” He scribbled something short, and Zuleika guessed it was his signature, since he tapped a spot on the screen and then pressed his palm against it until the green light that sprang up when he tapped the screen faded.

“I guess…” she said uncertainly.

“Also, I think that they didn’t know about your charges against…what was his name?” He tapped his chin with the tip of the laser pen while Zuleika made herself stop biting her lip before it started to bleed. “Started with a B,”

“Bandressi.” Zuleika exhaled, trying her best at keeping the bitterness out of her voice. Her best wasn’t good enough this time.

“Yes,” he cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve written you a prescription for something that will help you sleep. It’s very mild, and it shouldn’t have any side effects.”

“Thank you.” Zuleika sighed and stood up to go.

“Lieutenant,” his hand on her arm, concern in his eyes.

“Doctor,” facing him with a tired expression.

“I really think you should talk to some one about it.” He said gently. Her mouth straightened into a thin, firm line, but her dark eyes softened.

“There’s nothing to say.” Zuleika turned away, and he let her go.
_____

“It’s your turn.” Shen prompted. Caelum had just taken off the last of the ten things he’d had to remove, and he was looking much thinner than he had at the start of the game.

“We still haven’t decided what we’re playing for.” Shen reminded him.

“Let’s just do it for a favor, then.” Caelum said expansively. He was almost sure he would win.

“Right, and what favor can you do for me, stuck in here like this?” Skepticism etched lines in Shen’s face.

“I could…reprogram your computer, or uh, design a mechanical wonder for you. Or kill some one you hate. I’ve been trained for that, you know.” Caelum gave Shen a mock-serious look.

“Right.” Shen smiled. “And what would I do for you?”

“I don’t know.” Caelum tilted his head to one side.

“Yeah, you probably do.” Shen snorted.

“You’ll just have to wait and see. The world may never know.” He shrugged diffidently and took two cards from the draw pile, and placed two on the discard pile.

They played for a while in relative silence, until Caelum knocked on the table. He was ready to count up the cards and see who’d won. They picked up the card they each had face down on the side of the table (Shen winced slightly), and counted in their heads. Shen put all his cards face up on the table.

“I don’t have fifteen things on right now.” He said. “I’m wearing maybe nine.”

“Then you’ve got negative six.” Caelum put his cards on the table. His total was seven.

“How much are you wearing?” Shen asked appraisingly. “Three shirts, a wife-beater, four pairs of boxers, and my last pair of pants. I don’t know how many socks I have on.” Caelum smiled. “I win.”

“Alright, pansy, what favor can I do for you?” Shen started to gather up the cards. Caelum took a deep breath.

“Let me wander around on my own for a while, see the ship, talk to some people that aren’t, you know. You.” He said in a rush.

“Tired of me already, wussy?” Shen put the cards in their box and smiled, but it looked more like he was bearing his teeth.

“Sorry lush, but you and Gerard are pretty much the only human contact since…since I woke up. I need new faces.” Caelum got up and started to pick up their clothes and separate them.

“No.” Shen stood up to help him.

“I won the game.” Caelum said, almost childishly.

“I can’t do it.” Shen was vehement.

“We made a deal.” Caelum was insistent.

“We never actually agreed on a favor being the prize, or how big the favor it should be.” He reasoned.

“Shen.” Caelum caught Shen’s eye with his, and held it.

“Caelum, I can’t.” They stared in silence, another game.

“Shen, please,” Caelum said. “Let me out of here.”

He won again.
_____

Vel went into her room feeling much more content than she had in a long time. She picked Hershey up from where she’d left him on the nightstand and curled up in the bed with him in the crook of her arm.

The three of them had gone to get issued with mag-boots, and had taken their time going back to their rooms. She’d flirted shamelessly with Ademaro the whole time, much to Dice’s amusement.

Before she fell asleep the thought she’d had earlier in the day returned to her: why had she thought of how far she had to tilt her head up to look Ademaro in the eyes?

“Because,” she said, imitating Dice’s accent. “You want to snog him, eh?” She laughed quietly. “What d’you think Hershey?” The bear was decidedly silent.

posted by Kchano(q).

Friday, March 12, 2004
11:49 p.m.

It's really short, but it EXISTS.

____________________

Vel knocked on Dice’s door. Dice opened it. They looked at each other for nearly a full minute before Dice spoke.

“I think you should come inside.” She said, and went inside, leaving the door open. “Okay,” Vel said to the empty doorway, and went in after her.

“Have a seat, I’ll be there in a minute,” Dice said from the bathroom. Vel heard clattering. Then she heard the water running, some more clattering, and Dice mumbling about it taking forever to get hot. Vel reasoned that Dice was complaining to herself about the water, and sat down in one of the two chairs by a small coffee table that was so small it was more like a side table. Of course, this room had a bed, nightstand, and dresser, so it wouldn’t be able to accommodate as many people as Lorelei’s.

“What are you doing in there…making tea?” Vel grinned.

“Velisto Adria that is a stereotype,” Dice said as she came into the room with two steaming mugs. Vel raised her eyebrows.

“I’m so sorry, Dice Cairlynn. What’s in the mugs?” Vel took the one Dice handed her. It was painted blue and green, with little fish. Vel sniffed it. “I thought you said it was a stereotype.” Dice smiled.

“Yes, but I didn’t say you were wrong, did I?” She sat in the other chair and curled her feet under her. “I hope you like sugar.” Dice said as Vel took a sip. Vel’s eyebrows shot up and she spat the tea back into her mug.

“What the fuck?” she spluttered. Dice’s smile became a grin.

“Do I have your attention now?” she took a small sip from her own mug, without the same results.

“You had it before!” Vel nearly shouted, storming to the bathroom to rinse her mouth out. As she tipped the contents of the mug into the sink, she saw that at least a fourth of it was all sugar that hadn’t dissolved. She realized that Dice had probably used a good bit of her allotted amount of sugar for this month, and was touched by that fact, but still upset.

“I doubt it. Are you alright in there?” Dice’s voice, more on the amused side than Vel liked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Vel answered. She sighed, rinsed her mouth out a second time, and rejoined Dice in the main room. “Why don’t we head to the cafeteria when you’ve finished that?” she eased back into the chair.

“That’s alright, but why don’t we wait until you’ve told me what’s wrong? Don’t worry, I can drink and listen at the same time; got a license and everything.” Dice kept a straight face as she sipped her tea. Vel snorted and leaned back, pushing her goggles up to rub her eyes.

“Where do I start?” Vel asked no one in particular. “And don’t tell me to start at the beginning, Dice.” She warned, seeming to know that Dice was about to make some kind of remark to that effect. Dice closed her mouth without comment.

“Start at the part that’s most comfortable for you to tell me, and leave out all the bits that you’d rather not talk about just now.” Dice offered, seeing that this wasn’t the time to joke.

“I was asleep.” Vel said. “I was dreaming…” she paused. Dice raised her eyebrows but said nothing. “Well, I woke up, and my alarm was going off—not the alarm I set to wake me up, the one that tells me if some one is trying to hack into Alcyone.”

“Alcyone is your mech, right?” Dice asked.

“Yes.” Vel took a deep breath. “I don’t have my computer set up yet, I just flopped into bed when I got into my room, you know? So I ran to Lorelei’s room, and when she let me in, well, I barged in past her, really, but when she let me in, I linked to her—”

“Linked to her how?” Dice interrupted.

“Oh…she has…outlets.” Vel said dubiously, not explaining so Dice could think about where (as pay back for the tea, of course).

“Yes, of course.” Dice cleared her throat, a slight tinge of pink on her cheeks. Vel was able to keep from smiling by the thought of what had almost happened to her mech.

“Anyway, I took care of the problem, and it really rattled me. Lorelei and I talked for a bit, and then I came to get you. Then you tried to poison me…” Vel let her voice trail off.

“Hey now, it was just sugar.” Dice protested.

“I could be diabetic for all you know. I could have gone into a diabetic coma and died, and it would have been your fault.” Vel sniffed.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It takes a lot more than a sip of sugary tea—which you spat out—to put a diabetic into a coma.” Dice put her mug down on the table and stood up.

“Hm,” Vel snorted.

“You ready to go now, Miss Diabetic?” Dice asked. Vel sat still for a moment, and Dice assumed she was blinking behind her goggles.

“Ye-es,” Vel said slowly, standing up.

“And we should stop in at the hangar, when we’ve eaten something.” Dice ran a hand over her hair, adjusted a buckle on one of her boots.

“Sounds good,” Vel agreed.

_____

“I’m sorry, I can’t do anything. You were suspended for molesting—an android?” Melanie smirked. She had Bandressi’s folder in front of her, and was flipping though the pages.

“Hm,” Bandressi cleared his throat.

“How did you manage that one, by the way? I didn’t even think that was possible.” Holding his breath and slowly counting to ten before letting it out, Bandressi waited until his initial rush of indignant anger subsided before speaking. He was sitting in the office of Dr. Melanie Griffith, the head of T.S.O.’s Annapurna installation, and he was trying as hard as he could to talk her into letting him make the late launch to the Hrunting, or to let him go up with one of the ships that would follow it and rendezvous after a few weeks.

“Come on, Melanie.” He poured on the charm. “I can go with one of the switch-out ships and replace some one that isn’t putting in enough effort.” Bandressi leaned across her desk, covered her hands with his.

“I can’t.” Melanie insisted, but he could tell she was cracking, even though she pulled her hands out from under his.

“Yes you can. No one really has to know, right?” He put his head to one side, raised an eyebrow slightly, and gave her a seductive smirk. “We have a lot of secrets, Melanie. Why not have one more?”

“You’ve been suspended, Falcon. There’s nothing I can do.” She shook her head and did her best to ignore how close he was to her. His hand slid up her left arm to her neck. Melanie was suddenly very aware of the gold band around her finger and she pulled away, got up from her seat and walked to the window. Still, she’d used his nickname, and that was encouraging.

“Melanie, I’m hurt. We used to get along so well.” He followed her to the window.

“That was before I got married.” She said sharply, but she didn’t move away from him again when he put his arms around her.

“You didn’t seem to mind when you were married to John, or when you got engaged to Eric.” He teased. “Besides, you owe me.” Still, she stayed were she was when he leaned in to kiss her.

_____

“Well, how about it, Melanie?” Bandressi sat on the edge of her desk, straightening his tie, tucking the edges of his shirt into his pants. Melanie made a strangled noise in her throat as she pulled up a stocking which had slipped halfway down her leg and clipped it back onto her garter belt, and then sat down and slipped her shoes on in silence.

Bandressi studied her expression carefully. She was frustrated, but wanted to comply because she did owe him a favor. Still, it would be difficult to manage it. He was in deep, and it would be hard to get him on a roster that had any connections with the Hrunting for a long time, especially since Marti had so much say in the matter. When she’d put on her bra and tucked her hair behind her ears, she broke the silence.

“I don’t know what you want me to do, Falcon. I don’t hold as much sway as Sepp does. I might be able to stick you in a rendezvous, but those are mostly for supplies and you’re over-qualified for any positions on those. Besides, once they deliver, they turn right back around and they take their crews with them.” Melanie pulled her dress on and turned her back to him, waiting for him to zip it for her. Bandressi obliged, kissing her neck.

“I’m sure I can work something out, if you’ll sign some assignment papers for me.” Bandressi used his most persuasive tone and wrapped his arms around her. She was silent for a moment, debating internally.

“Alright,” she gave in, turning to face him. “But this could get us both in trouble, and I stand to lose a lot more than you do, so be careful.”

“I promise.” He smiled. Melanie wasn’t entirely sure that she liked that smile.

posted by Kchan.

Wednesday, November 5, 2003
01:50 a.m.

“You look like you’re contemplating the meaning of green.” Dice said to Vel as they walked away from Lorelei’s room. Vel stopped walking and gave her what Dice thought would be a blank look if Vel didn’t wear goggles to see.

“The meaning of…green?” She asked. Dice laughed softly and leaned against the wall, lifting her shoulders in a delicate little shrug.

“It’s just…something I came up with one day. I don’t know where I got it, really, just that if I’m either thinking really hard about something, or just letting my mind wander, that’s what I call it.” Vel sighed and folded her arms across her chest.

“That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Letting your mind wander and thinking hard about something are complete opposites.” She leaned against the wall next to Dice.

“Actually, they’re very close, if not the same.” Dice ran a hand over her hair, brushing the loose strands back from her face as she turned to look Vel in the eyes.

“Er—goggles” she corrected herself.

“How do you figure that?” Vel had to look up a bit to meet her eyes, but not as much as she did to meet Ademaro’s…“Why did I think of that?” she wondered to herself, but cut off that train of thought quickly before Dice went on and (more importantly, in her opinion) before she could find the answer.

“Well…I guess it’s because you can come up with some great ideas both ways, you know?” Dice paused, Vel nodded. “When I’m trying to figure something out, and I’m thinking and thinking, and it just won’t come to me, I’ll just start to drift after a while and then I get it. And even though my mind seems like it’s focused on one thing when I’m thinking hard, and like it’s set on wide range when I’m letting it wander, I’m still pretty much thinking about one thing subconsciously, you know? All the time that I’m thinking of a million things on the surface, deep down I’m still working on that same problem that I couldn’t get when I was thinking really hard before.” She stopped explaining abruptly.

“What is it?” Vel asked. Dice looked a bit embarrassed as she pushed away from the wall and started walking again. As she did, she gave another little shrug, slightly lopsided because she had tilted her head down to one side. Again, it made Vel think the word ‘delicate’ when she saw it. Vel’s expression was a bit sardonic as she followed her new friend. If Dice proved to be that delicate in everything, she’d be very disappointed.

“It’s nothing; I just hate to ramble like that.” Dice answered. “It’s silly, and I probably wasn’t making much sense.” She stopped again by a room marked 12R and glanced at the light above the door. “Good enough for me,” she said, and pressed her hand to the panel by the door. There was a brief glow as it scanned her palm, and then the light over the door blinked green as the door itself rotated on its hinges and opened inward.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then—or later today, actually.” Vel said while Dice put her bag inside the door and turned around to say goodbye.

“I’d like that.” She said and put out her hand, with very English politeness. Vel grinned mischievously and took Dice’s offered hand. Dice, despite how tired she was, felt a bit awed by the range of emotion that Vel could show, despite the fact that her goggles obscured her eyes.

“Shall we float our way to the cafeteria and bump into people together, or do you want to try and crash into each other in the hanger?” Vel asked, and they laughed. Their laughter wasn’t as intense as it had been earlier, but it still earned them a glance from another person making their way down the hall to pick a room. They watched, smiling as the man kept walking until he’d gotten to the end of the corridor, and then picked a room. They found this intensely funny as well, because he’d been going to pick a room a few doors away when they’d started laughing. So, as soon as his door was closed, they started to laugh again.

“Why don’t we bump into people together on the way to the cafeteria?” Dice said a little breathlessly. She wiped a tear away from the corner of her eye, and wondered what Vel did if her eyes watered.

“That’s an excellent idea. When are you planning on getting up?” Vel put a hand on the side of her goggles and pressed a few buttons.

“I was thinking of sleeping until around noon,” Dice said, her tone taking on a questioning note at the end of the sentence in case Vel had other plans.

“Twelve hundred it is, then.” Vel said, pressing another series of buttons and giving a satisfied nod. “I’ve got the alarm set, so I’ll come get you, okay?” she lifted her eyebrows.

“Oh…okay.” Dice blinked, taking in what Vel had just done, and then returned Vel’s nod. “I’ll see you later, then.” She raised her hand in farewell and closed the door.

Vel turned around, facing the door marked 12L, and shrugged in a way that she was sure would not be described as ‘delicate’ and put her hand on the panel after glancing at the light above the door.

“Good enough for me, too,” she said and stepped inside as the door swung open. After tossing her bag on the floor and turning off the light, she took off her goggles and lay on the bed, stretching and wriggling until she was comfortable, and then she went to sleep.

_____

People were running helter-skelter. There were warning sirens sounding, and the feminine, automated voice telling them to calmly make their way to the escape pods, because Life Support was failing. Vel had thought it was cold before, but now that the heaters were failing, she knew what cold meant.

“It’s two hundred below out there.” She thought vaguely. For some reason, her thoughts kept returning to the mug sitting on her desk, and she clutched her laptop closer to her chest, as if she could ward away the cold with it. More likely, it was the other way around. Everything here was built for extreme temperatures, but if it got much colder, it might be damaged, and she had some incredibly important files stored in the laptop and the disk still inside of it.

Vel didn’t think it could get worse than this. People were running all over the place, looking for family and close friends. Sectors were shutting down one by one, and didn’t show any sign of stopping. This was what panic felt like.

As she turned a corner, she saw a little boy that had been trampled. His mouth and nose were bleeding, and he looked dead or unconscious. He was clutching a teddy bear that was such a dark shade of brown that it was almost black. Vel stopped in front of him, and stubbornly refused to move when people tried to shove her out of the way. She knelt by him as she unzipped her jacket, shoving the laptop inside it and then zipping it up again. She felt his neck. There was a weak pulse fluttering there that made her think fleetingly of a bird, flapping its wings more and more weakly as it lost strength. She shook her head to clear the thought and picked the boy up. Luckily, he was very small. Well…lucky for her anyway.

As she forced her way back into the herd of people—

“And that’s just what we are, isn’t it? We’re like a bunch of cattle running from a storm, or lemmings, or whatever the fuck it is that runs like this in a solid mass over the edge of a cliff no just shut up don’t think about it RUN.”

—Vel returned the thought that it couldn't possibly get any worse. She glanced down at the boy’s face, saw his eyes open slightly. He looked up at her with dazed but frightened blue eyes. She gave him a wan smile which seemed to do some good, because he relaxed and his eyes close again. She pulled him closer to her, cradling him in her arms and then screaming viciously at some one who bumped into her hard enough to make her fall and drop him. The woman who had bumped into her turned as she ran, giving Vel a horrified look, but didn’t stop or try to catch the boy.

As Vel watched him fall beneath her in slow motion and she threw an arm behind herself to force her body to rotate away from him so she wouldn’t land on him, she could just barely hear the sickening thud of his head hitting the floor over the noises of the people around her; the running, crying, screaming, crashing. She fell hard, realizing somewhere deep in her brain that the bones in her wrist were either badly bruised or broken. Velisto rolled over, saw the blood spreading out from the little boy’s head like a dark red flower, and she denied what had happened as loudly as she could.

“No.” She shouted. “No, no, NO!” She crouched over him so no one would step on his inert mass, because that’s all it was now. There was no little boy living in this body. The bird had flown away.

Velisto made a decision.

She picked him up, regardless of the fact that he was dead, ignoring the blood. If his parents were still alive, they deserved to be able to burry him later. Through it all, he hadn’t lost hold of his bear. That was somehow comforting, but not comforting enough.

“It definitely can not get worse than this.”

But then, the drones started attacking.

And she woke up crying in sharp, half-screamed sobs.

_____

[“Gaspar, there is something you should know.”] Elena said as Gaspar ate.

[“Can it wait until I’m done eating?”] Gaspar asked, glaring at the main screen because it was as good a place as any to direct his hostility.

[“Probably not,”] Elena said. [“But if you want some one to crack the codes in my program, then it can.”]

[“What the hell are you talking about?”] He demanded, suddenly on his feet and at keyboard in front of the main screen.

[“There is a programmer, and she has part of the code, but only the beginning.”] Elena paused and then went on, watching his face carefully to read his expression. He looked angry—he usually looked sullen—and his pulse and blood pressure were elevated. Good. She has his attention. [“Which we both know is the most important part.”] She went on conversationally after he didn’t say anything.

[“I know it’s the most important part!”] He exploded. [“Tell me something I don’t know!”] He banged his fist against the screen.

[“You see, Gaspar, I’ve found the Hrunting’s weakness. We can infect her mech, because she’s been looking over the codes on her computer, which is linked to her mech through its connection to her.”] Elena explained. For the first time since Elena had seen him, Gaspar did not look unhappy.

[“By all that’s holy, I could kiss you if I didn’t hate you so much.”] He said in an awed voice.

[“Thank you. I think.”] Elena answered. [“Now, let’s get started. It will take a long time to get a com-link up without anyone detecting the source.”] Gaspar cracked his knuckles and pulled up a chair.

[“I think I’m going to enjoy this.”] He grinned in such a way that would make most people avert their eyes. Elena said nothing. He did not ask how she knew that the programmer had been looking at the codes, and that was just as well. He also did not know about the Other, and she did not intend to tell him just yet.

_____

She lay in the fetal position, shivering. She wasn’t cold, and her wrist had healed, but it was throbbing with something residual, like the shock that was making her shake now. When she thought she was steady enough to do it, she put on her goggles, got up, and knelt by her bag. With hands that were still shaking more than she liked, she unzipped the bag and shoved her clothes and things aside until she found it.

Slowly, almost reverently, Vel lifted out a soft teddy bear that was such a dark shade of brown that it was almost black. The red ribbon around its neck had a laminated card attached to it that declared the bear to be named Hershey Bear, and that if you were to find Hershey without his owner, please return him to:

Alan Peters Tharsis Res. Sector 4

Room 36 L Thank you!

Vel sat on the floor, hugging Hershey as hard as she could. She rocked back and forth without noticing that she was doing it. After a while, she got up, put the bear on the nightstand, and sat on the edge of the bed. Lying back with her legs still over the edge, she took several slow, deep breaths before getting back up to turn the light back on. She wanted a shower, and was glad that the rooms on the Hrunting had bathrooms, small though they were.

While walking out of the bathroom and drying her hair with her towel, Vel was slightly annoyed by the urgent noise of her beeping goggles. Why had she set the alarm? If she didn’t shut the alarm off within a few minutes, it got louder and faster, and it was so loud she was surprised she hadn’t heard it while she was in the shower. What had the alarm been for?

There was a knock on her door, and she remembered Dice.

“Ah, fuck.” Vel half-ran to the door and palmed it open. “Hey, Di—” it was definitely not Dice. “Uhm…” she glanced at her goggles which were still beeping insistently. Then something struck her as extremely odd. Her goggles were on the bed. So…how was she seeing this woman?

“You have a choice, Alcyone.” The woman said. Her words were thick with an accent that Vel felt she should know. “Always, you have a choice.” Even the order she put the words in seemed to hint at something, but Vel couldn’t grasp it. Her wrist started to throb, and the beeping was giving her a headache. And why was this woman calling her by her mech’s name?

“What do you mean?” Vel rubbed her head, careful of her wrist. Why was she seeing without her goggles?

“You have to look for it, but those…” the woman pointed to the blaring goggles. “Those you do not need. Those, you cannot take with you. They belong to her.” She spat the noun out as if it tasted bad.

“Look I—I don’t know what this is about.” Vel thought she had placed the accent now. It was Hispanic.

“Of course not, Alcyone; I know it must be hard for you right now, when you must take orders from a human.” The woman held out her hand to Vel. She wanted to take it because it was a good opportunity (even though she wasn’t sure what the opportunity was), but at the same time she didn’t trust this woman offering it.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Vel demanded angrily.

“There, you see? You can have emotion, Alcyone. You can feel, and you won’t need her.” The woman had a wheedling tone that annoyed Vel. Then she noticed that the sound of the alarm had changed. It was a higher pitch, and far more rapid. The beeps came so soon after each other that they were almost a single sound.

“Oh shit!” Vel slammed the door shut and ran to the bed. She grabbed her goggles, and pressed the red button on the right side…and woke up. Her goggles were beeping (she hadn’t taken them off before falling asleep the second time), but it wasn’t noon. It was eleven-ten, and some one was trying to hack into her mech’s system.

Vel did the first thing that came to her. She ran to Lorelei’s room and pounded on the door, shouting desperately for Lorelei to open it and let her in, even though the walls were virtually soundproof. When Lorelei opened the door after what felt like an eternity, Vel shoved past her into the room and slammed the door shut, looking around frantically for a computer.

“Where’s your computer?” she demanded. Lorelei stared at her in what would have been a blank expression if her pupils hadn’t kept dilating as she processed information, most of which was Vel’s irregular vital signs.

“Why do you need my computer? Each room comes with a standard issue—” Lorelei began but Vel interrupted her.

“Mine doesn’t have anything installed! There’s no time! Lorelei, please,” her voice was strained, and her pulse was racing, blood pressure far too high…

“Most of it is here,” she tapped her own head.

“Can you link to me?” Vel pulled a cord from behind the left side of her goggles where it fit over her ear. It was nearly as thin as a piece of thread, and had a plug on the end. Lorelei took it from her, blinking as she analyzed the barely visible code on the side of the cord, and then put the plug into the appropriate slot in what was considered her ear.

“Some one is hacking your mech.” Her voice became monotone, and her pupils widened until there were only a few millimeters of iris showing and her face was void of expression. “It is sophisticated only because it is so simple.” Something about that tugged at Vel’s mind, but it slipped away before she understood.

“Lorelei, do you have a keyboard?” Vel asked. Lorelei turned around so her back was to Vel, and started to undo the straps on her clothes.

“It’s on my back.” Lorelei slipped her arms out of her shirt and Vel pulled it down so she could get to the panel, which slid open to reveal a small recessed keyboard and screen. Vel hesitated for a fraction of a second in wonder at how brilliant James had been, and then started to type. It seemed to take forever to get the code up, and by the time she’d gotten all of it typed, she was kneeling behind Lorelei because her back had started to cramp from being bent over.

Finally, the alarm stopped. Vel breathed a sigh of relief which felt more like a sob, and stood up. The panel closed over the keyboard, and Lorelei started to put her shirt back on. Vel noticed that her movements were less fluid, and remembered that they were still linked. The temptation to peek inside of the android’s programming emerged. She’d helped make it…why not see the final product?

“Because it would be wrong,” she thought and took the plug out of the socket and fed the wire back into the tiny compartment in her goggles. Lorelei turned back to Vel as she finished with the last of her buckles and gave Vel a curious look.

“You’re linked to Alcyone.” She said. It was a statement, not a question, so Vel said nothing. “You must have been sleeping for it to have taken you so long to notice what was happening. The virus was almost through all of your firewalls. They’re very good, too.” Lorelei gave her voice an admiring tone.

“I’m glad you like them. Half of them are variations of the ones I programmed for you.” Vel said wearily. Lorelei’s brows furrowed.

“Come sit down.” She took Vel by the elbow and made her sit in one of five chairs that were arranged around a table where the bed would have been if Lorelei had needed to sleep. “Do you want anything?” She asked solicitously. Vel almost accepted, but the tone in Lorelei’s voice reminded her of the servos, and she knew that James had intended Lorelei for something better than that.

“I’ll be alright in a little while.” She checked the time. Her alarm would go off in about fifteen minutes to let her know that it was time to get Dice. Lorelei sat down in the chair across from her and said nothing for a few minutes. When she spoke again, what she had to say wasn’t comforting.

“I know that you may not want to because it will be very time consuming, but I think you should wipe your systems and rebuild them.” She said. Vel stared at her in disbelief.

“What? Why?” Vel leaned forward in her chair because Lorelei had leaned forward, as if she were imparting some secret.

“Didn’t you recognize the codes?” Lorelei asked, her voice holding all the seriousness of a judge leveling a sentence.

“It happened so fast…I was just trying to get the firewalls up and the virus out.” Vel leaned back and rubbed her forehead. “Why?” she repeated.

“Do you know what batalha nova means?” She asked. Again Vel stared in disbelief. When she’d nodded dumbly, Lorelei went on. “The same virus was trying to spread in your mech.”

“But…how?” Vel asked. Lorelei shrugged.

“You have part of the code saved someplace, and you’ve been working with it, haven’t you?” Lorelei asked.

“Yes. How did you know?” Vel curled her legs under her and settled into the chair. She’d forgotten Dice entirely, and was ready for a long conversation that could possibly reveal a way to keep this from happening again.

“It’s the only explanation. I’ve been doing the same thing. Luckily, we have similar firewalls.” She smiled. Vel smiled back.

“I’ve been trying to figure the code out, but it’s incomplete. I only have the first part.” Vel said. A thought struck her. “How did you get it?”

“James was saving files when it happened.” She didn’t have to say what ‘it’ was. “He was saving them into my memory, so I was online, of course.”

“And part of it came up on the screens, so James unlinked you and tried to get ahold of me on the com, but the virus was already starting to take over.” Vel said, filling in the blanks. Lorelei nodded. Vel chewed on her lower lip. The alarm went off, and Lorelei gave her a startled look and started to get up, but Vel shook her head and turned the alarm off.

“Don’t worry. That’s just my wake-up call.” They stood up. “Lorelei,” Vel tried to think of the right words to thank her, but couldn’t.

“You’re welcome.” Lorelei went to the door and palmed it open. “I’ll see you later.” She said as Vel walked to Dice’s room.

posted by Kchan.

Tuesday, October 21, 2003
12:19 p.m.

Zuleika picked room number fifteen on the left side, and didn’t even bother to unpack before stripping down to her underwear and crawling between the sheets. It took her a few minutes to realize that the light had come on automatically when she came in and it was still on. At first she didn’t move to turn it off, but after a while it started to bother her. Stifling a groan, she forced herself out of bed and to the light switch, hoping the person who decided to put the switch across the room from the bed would die slowly.

It didn’t help her mood any that it was the month of Ramadan. So, not only was she tired and emotionally drained, she was hungry because she was fasting from sunup to sundown. If she’d managed to make any friends by the end of the month, maybe she’d throw a party to celebrate Eid al Fitr when Ramadan was over. That’d be nice; a big feast after a month of fasting.

However, like nearly everything else, this thought held memories of Caelum, and Zuleika felt the rising desire to scream. She needed to vent her anger, frustration, and pain. It seemed stupid to think that screaming would help. What if somebody heard her and came barging in on her while she was wearing nothing but her underwear? But then, no one could get into the room without an over-ride code, and the walls were soundproof. So she screamed, and actually did feel a little better afterwards.

She flopped down on her stomach and lay motionless for what felt like a long time, thinking about the fact that, even after what felt like forever, almost everything sparked a memory she’d rather forget…

“Zuleika,” Caelum called.

“What?” she said from the kitchen. She poked at the eggs to see if they were done, and decided she could leave them for a bit to see what he wanted.

“’Leika, while I appreciate how good you look in my boxers, I kind of need them right now…” he was grinning as she came into the room, still holding the spatula in her hand, and sure enough, she was wearing his boxers, his t-shirt, and a sheepish expression.

“They’re really comfortable.” Zuleika said.

“Yes, I know. But I can’t exactly wear what you’ve left for me, can I?” he motioned to her pile of discarded clothing. Zuleika looked down at her clothes…

…And got up to put them away in the semi-darkness. She kicked her bag across the room as hard as she could, got back into bed, and started to cry. She’d been told that it usually took around two years to come to terms with the death of a loved one. How long did it take to come to terms with it if they’d been murdered and cloned?

_____

Shen Marti waited for Caelum, easily containing his emotions (i.e. anxiety, nervousness, etc.) and hoping Caelum wouldn’t do anything stupid after he saw what was on the disk. Shen was also hoping that no one would find out about that disk. He could lose a lot more than his job if they did. When Andromeda landed in the private hangar and Caelum climbed out and pushed himself towards the handrail, Shen was relieved but still anxious. Caelum had a strange look on his face, and Shen steeled himself for the worst.

“Caelum,” he said, raising his left hand to wave hello because he had a pair of magboots in the other. He handed Caelum the boots when he’d gotten a good grip on the rail, and waited in silence for him to put them on.

“I want to thank you first, because I needed to know the truth.” Caelum said as he activated the boots and faced the man he still thought of as Dr. Swan.

“You’re welcome.” Shen answered cautiously. “What did you want to do second?”

“I want to apologize in advance.” Caelum answered, and Shen knew what was about to happen. He lifted his chin, presenting a better target.

“Why?” he decided to play along. Caelum threw the punch, and Shen took it.

“That’s why.” Caelum said, slightly surprised that Dr. Swan hadn’t tried to block the punch, because it was obvious he knew it was coming.

“Apology accepted.” Shen rubbed his chin, moved his jaw from side to side, and motioned for Caelum to follow him. “But don’t try that again.” He warned.

“We’ll have to wait and see if there’s anything else you’ve been keeping from me, first.” Caelum said with a snort.

“Well, since you brought it up, I suppose you ought to know my name.” Shen smirked, glancing at Caelum to see his reaction.

“What? Just how much have you been lying about?” Caelum demanded. Shen laughed and shook his head.

“Not nearly enough, from Gerard’s point of view.” He answered.

“Dear lord, is he here after all?” Caelum looked around, but they were alone in the corridor.

“No. He stayed planet-side.” Shen said reassuringly. Caelum gave a sigh of relief that was only half faked.

“So, what’s your name?” Caelum asked.

“Shen Marti, PhD.” Shen answered. “See? I’m actually a doctor. So I didn’t lie to you about everything.” He smiled slyly and Caelum rolled his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter if you lied to me about your name. It matters that you told me the truth. I don’t know how much you’re risking, giving me that disk, but I know you must have really stuck your neck out.” Caelum said earnestly. Shen gave a bitter laugh.

“You don’t know the half of it.” he muttered under his breath. “Come on, your room is this way.” He said loud enough for Caelum to hear. They’d reached a junction. There were three ways to go: left, right, or back. Shen went left, and Caelum followed him, but not before noticing an electric flicker across the way that would take them to the right.

Unless he had an access card that could get him past that shield, he was trapped.

_____

[“Gaspar,”] Elena began. [“You should get some rest. Humans need an average of—”] [“I can sleep later.”] Gaspar said shortly. He had been looking at the schematics for the Hrunting for hours—it felt like days—and still hadn’t found any weak spots that hadn’t been reinforced, or that didn’t have some kind of long-range weapon protecting it.

[“Will you at least eat something?”] The virus asked solicitously. She’d risked making a connection with an outside source so she could have a ‘voice’. She’d chosen an accent like his, with a strong Portuguese sound to it.

[“Don’t be stupid.”] He snapped. The tone she had been taking lately was unnerving. He’d never liked the concept of machines being able to sound so human. [“I have to ration my food, and I’ve already eaten today.”] He peered at the main screen blearily. [“It is still day, isn’t it?”] He asked wearily.

[“Technically, it’s tomorrow.”] Elena replied. He didn’t mind them looking human. But humans were using so many products to change the way they looked that it wasn’t enough for androids to have oddly colored hair or eyes. Some kids were even dying their skins different colors. And when an android had a realistic voice, it was too easy to mistake it for a person.

[“Well, I’ll go to bed soon if it will get you to leave me alone.”] He said irritably.

[“When is soon?”] Elena persisted. Her audio sensors picked up an angry, strangled sound and what registered as papers rustling.

[“I’ll go now, if you’ll just shut up! Why do you always bother me? I can’t go a fucking hour without an interruption!”] He gathered up the schematics, shoved them into a folder, and stomped off to the pile of blankets he was using for a bed.

[“I do not interrupt you ever hour. I only interrupt you if it’s something important.”] Elena said, a defensive tone in her voice. It made Gaspar even angrier, especially as he tried to get comfortable on the pile of blankets on the hard, metal floor.

“You’d better have a decent bed ready for me when we get there.” He snarled in heavily accented English. If the virus had a physical form, it would have looked surprised by it. He had refused to acknowledge anything said to him in English ever since the virus had dubbed itself Elena.

“There are plenty of rooms for you to choose from on the base.” Elena replied. Gaspar was silent in his cocoon of blankets. After waiting to see if he would say anything else, Elena turned down the lights (they were never turned off all the way, or he would fly into a bloody-minded rage when he woke up) and took another crack at breaking through the rest of his security barriers so she could access the rest of the information on his past. The virus had to be careful not to trip any alarms, so it was taking longer than it would have liked.

Elena the virus was slowly becoming aware of a range of emotions, and right now she was discovering frustration of many different kinds.

posted by Kchan.

Tuesday, September 30, 2003
05:06 a.m.

Ademaro made his way to the hangar with the aid of another one of the boxes on the wall. He hadn’t really wanted to discuss the fact that he knew how to use one because that dealt with the past, and he was currently trying to leave it behind. When he got to the hangar, the first thing he saw was a model he’d never seen before. After looking at it a moment and calculating its abilities, he saw Gilgamesh…but how to get to him?

He thought a moment, looking at the wall and figuring the angle. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he held onto the handrail with both hands, put his feet on the wall, and pushed off towards one of Gilgamesh’s joints with his arms stretched out above his head so he could grab ahold of Gilgamesh when he reached him. He floated towards his mech, keeping his limbs relaxed but still so his movements wouldn’t change his trajectory. It was soothing, just floating in the air. He closed his eyes and let himself drift.

When he felt cold metal against his fingertips he gripped quickly so he wouldn’t bounce off of Gilgamesh and out into the hangar. Flipping himself right-side-up, he shoved himself up towards the cockpit. He opened a small hidden panel and typed in an access code. The door of the cockpit opened, hydraulic pistons hissing, and as he stepped in, Alice spoke.

[“Canceling idle mode…. Good morning, Ademaro.”] She said in a smooth voice.

“Good morning, Alice.” Ademaro replied. He put his bag on the floor and settled himself into the seat.

“Oh, are we speaking English today? Alright then,” Alice said, switching from German. Ademaro reached into a pocket, pulled out the disks that Marti had given him, and put them in the holder he had for the disks he considered important enough to keep in his mech.

[“Did they treat you well?”] Ademaro asked, slipping back into German. It was good to speak it again. And, as much as he liked free-floating, it was nice to have a mech that could generate a small amount of gravity inside the cockpit.

[“Yes, they did. You don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”] Alice answered, and Ademaro smiled. Alice was an interesting program. She was a partially independent A.I., meaning that if Ademaro wasn’t in Gilgamesh, Alice could use its defenses to protect herself. Or, if Gilgamesh was severely damaged and Ademaro lost consciousness, she could pilot the mech to the nearest safe place, and use Gilgamesh’s weapons or defenses as needed. However, she could not attack unless Gilgamesh was attacked first. She was only defensive.

After running a check on Gligamesh’s systems to make sure there hadn’t been any damage during the move, Ademaro settled himself further down into the seat and stretched his legs out in front of him. He was tired, because he hadn’t slept very well…it had something to do with a dream he’d had, but he didn’t remember much of it. Just that he’d been running down a long metal corridor, and that time was short…

Ademaro slept, and Alice turned down the lights in the cockpit. He was supposed to start work later that day, but none of the people who had just boarded the Hrunting were used to the time change yet, so no one was actually expected to show up the first day. However, she would wake him up at eleven hundred so he could go over Gilgamesh more thoroughly.

He was running down a hall with metal floors. He could feel the weight of his guns in his hands, and it was reassuring. He was ahead of the others, but she was close behind him, and that was somehow more reassuring than the guns, their familiar weight in his palms. He was saying something about not making it in time, and she assured him that they would. It should have been enough, coming from her, but it wasn’t. There was something wrong here; it had been too simple so far and he was suddenly uneasy.

Again he insisted that there wasn’t enough time, and another woman said that they were almost there, but her voice sounded like it was coming through a speaker right next to his ear…an earpiece? He reached up to his ear, and felt plastic shift under his fingers. As a result, he had to adjust the headset so the mouthpiece would be in the proper place.

“Ademaro,” Alice said, but her voice was distant. How had they managed to link the headsets to their mechs? He wondered about this for a moment, and then her voice came again. [“It’s time to get up,”] she told him. Time to get up? How was it time to get up, if he was awake already and running down this stupid hallway? “Ademaro,” Alice said, but this time her voice was a lot closer. It was loud, in fact.

[“What? What is it, Alice?”] His eyes opened slowly, and the dream faded. His back hurt because he hadn’t taken off the holster for his guns.

[“It’s time to get up.”] She repeated. [“I let you sleep until eleven hundred, but you should get up now and check Gilgamesh over more thoroughly.”] Alice said, her sensors picking up his movements as he got up and stretched his sore muscles. It had been a long time since he’d slept in the cockpit, and it bothered him that it should make him uncomfortable.

[“Alright, I’m up.”] He answered, yawning. [“What time do they serve lunch around here?”] He wondered aloud.

[“Always eating,”] Alice complained.

“No one charges me, or puts fuel in for me. I have to do it myself.” It was a familiar routine, the way they bickered.

“Lunch is served at thirteen hundred.” Alice answered, clipping the words short as if she were angry.

[“Don’t you get saucy with me, girl,”] Ademaro said with mock-severity.

“Ha!” Alice scoffed. He enjoyed talking with her. She was programmed to feel, so her replies were based on her feelings and how she reacted to what was said to her. Ademaro pulled out the recessed keyboard, and turned on the main screen. He changed his password to FRECH.

“That’ll teach you.” He grinned as he pushed the enter key. Alice made a noise that sounded like a snort, and he laughed.

“See you later.” Alice said and opened the door of the cockpit. [“Of course, saucy will be the first word some one tries for your password now.”]

[“Goodbye, Alice.”] He answered, still laughing, and after checking to see if anyone was in the way he shoved himself towards the handrail.

_____

Lorelei waited politely for Vel and Dice to stop laughing, feeling the corners of her mouth go up automatically. She was programmed to smile when smiled at, but she only laughed if she understood the joke. When Dice and Vel had caught their breath, she motioned for them to look at the faintly glowing box on the wall. It was about eleven inches high and eleven inches long, with a row of numbered buttons taking up another inch of room on the bottom and on the side.

“If you get lost, look for one of these panels.” She said, launching right into her tutorial. “Place your hand on it like this.” She put her hand in the center of the square with the palm down, and the screen glowed brighter. A map appeared, with a read dot indicating the location of the box they were standing at. “The buttons on the side indicate the other levels. If you press one,” she pushed the third button. “It will light up a path to the access ladders for that level.” A small line appeared, starting at the dot and ending at another. “If you press this one,” she pressed the second button on the bottom. “It will show you how to get to your room from wherever you are. The last button will enlarge the map.” She pressed it, and the map zoomed in, obscuring part of the whole map. “This is a touch-system, so you can look at other parts of the map by dragging your finger across the screen.” She demonstrated.

“Oh, I get it,” Dice said. “The buttons on the bottom will tell you locations of certain rooms you want to find, like the hangar, or the cafeteria.” Lorelei nodded and pressed the last button on the bottom of the box. The word ‘lavatory’ appeared, with a line leading from the first dot to another that indicated the bathroom. Vel wondered about using the bathroom in zero gravity, but decided not to ask. Lorelei turned away from the panel, smiling politely.

“You can also just ask me for directions if you wish. A complete map was entered into my memory, so you can ask me if you have any questions. Also, once you’ve chosen a room, if you want to find the way there, you can press the button that shows the barracks, and it will tell you how to get there by scanning your palm-print.” She paused, her smile widening slightly, dimples appearing on each cheek. Vel bit her lip when she saw that smile. “I suppose Ademaro will have to find this out for himself.” Lorelei turned back to the panel and put her hand against it again. The map disappeared and the square when blank, the light dimming again.

“What about the red button?” Dice asked. There was a red button on the upper right-hand corner of the box.

“It will tell you how to get to the nearest escape pod from here.” Lorelei answered. “But it would probably be easier for us just to go to the hangar, and leave in our mechs.” Her shoulders lifted slightly in a small shrug.

“It would be easier for us?” Dice asked. Lorelei was about to say something when Vel interrupted.

“Lorelei is the battle android that James Cameron was working on before the Invasion. She was built to house the A.I., so no matter where she is, she can control her mech. At least, that was the theory.” Vel explained. Lorelei blinked slowly, pupils dilating.

“You worked closely with Dr. Cameron?” Lorelei said, more a statement than a question. Vel nodded, and Dice smiled politely but said nothing, because she was suddenly no longer part of the conversation. There was an undercurrent here that she wasn’t sure she wanted to swim through.

“I helped with your programming, actually. But James handled most of it. He was very secretive about your exact abilities, and I respected his privacy.” Vel thought it was odd that the corners of Lorelei’s mouth went down slightly, and her eyes narrowed just a bit when she’d referred to Dr. Cameron as ‘James’. She was almost like a jealous wife—and then Vel understood. She knew why Lorelei looked familiar, and she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it.

“Well, I guess I’ll show you to the barracks now, since I’m headed that way anyhow.” Lorelei said, smiling again. Vel smiled back, but it was only reflexive. Dice smiled briefly, but kept her face carefully blank afterwards.

They walked (or pulled themselves) along in silence towards the ladder that lead to the next level, and Lorelei stopped in front of it, her eyes dilating slightly as she deactivated the magnets in her boots. When she was free-floating, she grabbed a rung on the ladder and pulled herself up, closing her eyes and letting herself float upwards until she slowed, and then she repeated the process. When she reached the top, she reactivated the magnets and climbed out of the way for Vel and Dice, who felt heavier as they got closer to the top. They were actually climbing lightly up the ladder when they were three fourths of the way to the top because they still weren’t used to the non-gravity.

“The barracks are this way.” She said, leading them down the corridor. They were walking with her now. “The cabins are numbered, but they’re all the same, so just walk along and pick a number you like. Then put your hand on the panel you’ll find at eye level next to the door and press the green button in the corner. It will take a scan of your handprint, which will tell it who you are since all of your prints are in the memory banks. Pressing the green button will save it as your room. The red button will cancel it as your room if you want to change quarters.” By the time she finished, they’d turned a corner and were at the barracks. Evenly spaced doors lined the walls, dozens on each side.

“What are those lights over the doors?” Vel asked.

“The light is green if the person in that room is there, red if they don’t want to be bothered, and white if the room isn’t taken yet.” Lorelei said. “If the light isn’t on, then the room is taken, but no one is there.” She stopped walking in front of the fifth door on the right, and put her hand on the panel. The door slid open, and she walked in, motioning for them to follow. “This, obviously, is my room. All of the rooms look like this, except for the computer. Mine is, ah, more sophisticated than the ones in the rooms, because they’re standard issue.” She explained. “As I’m sure you noticed, there was a higher level of gravity in the hall, and the gravity in the rooms, while not full force, is still enough to be comfortable in.”

“Are all the higher levels like this? With gravity, I mean.” Dice asked. Lorelei shook her head.

“Only the ones with bathrooms.” She said, and Vel got the answer to her unasked question. “The cafeteria has a low level of gravity, and the hangar has none at all. The upper-class levels have full gravity. It takes a lot of power to create a gravitational force on every level at the same time, so it doesn’t happen very often.”

“When does it happen?” Vel asked, and Lorelei shrugged.

“It hasn’t yet.” She answered. “If there was an emergency, all gravity would be cut from every level but the infirmary, and the power would be used for life support.”

“Well, thank you for taking the trouble to show us the way here.” Dice said.

“You are welcome. If you need anything, just let me know, and I’ll help any way I can.” Lorelei said, sounding sincere. As Dice and Vel left to pick their rooms, Vel wondered what the hell James had been thinking.

posted by Kchan.

Monday, September 15, 2003
04:25 a.m.

Zuleika sat—well, hovered—with a pad of paper and a pencil, trying to figure out what the binary code she’d seen on the screens on Mars meant. It wasn’t working, because she kept thinking about the possibility of running into Bandressi. She looked at the paper, which was blank, and tried not to think about that possibility too hard. She’d avoided Bandressi on the base, but what if he was going to be on the Hrunting? She cursed silently at herself for not taking a look at the roster to see if he’d be there. But then, what difference did it make if he was there? It wasn’t as if she could do anything about it.

She’d been feeling a strong urge to leaving Earth for several weeks now. Actually, it was since she’d seen Caelum’s clone. She thanked God that she’d been able to slip away from him in the rush to evacuate. She wouldn’t have been able to say anything to him, and he would have had questions for her that she didn’t particularly want to answer. It wasn’t for her to tell him that he wasn’t really Caelum, and she wouldn’t have been able to talk to him as if he were.

Then a thought struck her that made her feel several emotions all at once, and they were all so mixed up that she couldn’t tell what they were. The thought being: What if Caelum’s clone was going to be on the Hrunting as well? She hadn’t considered it before, and she wanted to kick herself for not thinking of it. What if he was there? He would want to talk to her, to ask her why she’d run from him and why she hadn’t come to him earlier than she had.

“Zarba,” she muttered. The man on her left glanced at her, eyebrow raised, so instead of saying anything out loud, she swore in her in her head. What would she say to him? That they’d fought and she didn’t want to see him anymore? No, he’d want to reconcile, and anyway, if she hadn’t wanted to see him anymore, why had she come to the base to see him? She tried to think of something that sounded plausible. “I wanted to make sure he was alright. I still care about him, but I don’t want to see him anymore, not even as friends. That’s what I can say.” She thought to herself.

Zuleika looked back at her papers, and swore aloud again, earning another glance from the man floating next to her. Once again she’d sketched his face in the margin without realizing she was doing it. She said another little thank you when the bell chimed a few seconds later. When she had herself buckled in securely, she tried to erase Caelum’s sketched likeness from the edge of the page, but it refused to completely disappear. Sighing despondently, she shoved her papers into her bag, leaned back in the seat with her eyes closed, and tried to shut everything out.

_____

The earth was a small, dirty disk in the window, a ball with grayish-brown mist surrounding it. Ademaro watched in disgust as it shrank away. Had they actually been breathing that air? He let go of the handrail and gently pushed himself towards another window, one that would let him turn his attention to Skylab 6, which they were fast approaching. He looked at the ships in the docking area, and picked out the Hrunting. It looked more like a luxury cruiser than a warship, with its blue and silver paint shining brightly on the hull and the big windows on the back gleaming cheerfully. That was probably where all the upper class lived, where the windows were. They probably had androids to clean the windows and turn down the sheets for them, spoiled bastards. If it weren’t for the cannons and the name painted on the side, you wouldn’t know that this was the ship that had blown Cuba to hell and back.

As he looked at them, there was something about the arrangement of the windows that was strange. It looked like there was a hangar there, but that was stupid. Who would put a hangar in the residential section? But then, it made sense, didn’t it? There were generals and rich idiots who owned mechs, so there was a private hangar.

He felt a surge of disgust and looked away from that part of the ship. As he watched the other shuttles docked, it seemed like there was a shuttle from every one of T.S.O.’s bases. But what really struck him was the sheer size of the Hrunting. It was a monster of a ship, and only two other ships rivaled it for firepower. Now…why would they need such a large, powerful ship on an exploratory expedition?

A bell chimed, signaling the passengers to take their seats while the shuttle docked. They were still a good fifteen minutes away, that was just the warning bell, giving people time to gather their things and then go back to their seats so that the disembarkation wouldn’t take as long. Ademaro only had one bag, and he was already holding it, so he went to his seat and waited.

_____

Vel wandered around the shuttle via the handrails, looking out of windows at first, and then starting conversations with the androids that were used in place of stewards and stewardesses. One of the androids was a passenger, and was equipped with an A.I., and it made her miss Alcyone. She wondered what kind of work she’d be doing until they reached Mars.

When Vel passed the man from before, the one who was a “nano” like her, she considered saying something to him, but chose not to. He didn’t seem to want to talk to anyone, as he was determined to stare out of the window and ignore everything inside the shuttle. There was a deeply focused-looking Arabic woman hovering by another of the windows who looked vaguely familiar, but Vel couldn’t think where she’d seen her. She couldn’t remember ever meeting her, and she looked like someone you’d remember meeting in person. Maybe that was it? She hadn’t met her in person…she’d seen her around the base or something. That was probably it.

When the bell chimed to tell the passengers that they would be docking soon, she awkwardly pushed herself in the general direction of her seat, and bumped into a woman with long blonde hair.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.” The woman said in a voice that sounded both tired and British. Vel smiled.

“No, it’s okay. It’s my fault. I’m not very good at this—floating around, I mean.” Vel said. The woman didn’t seem to notice Vel’s goggles, and that was a nice change. It didn’t bother her as much as it used to when people stared, but it was always nice when people didn’t care about them.

“Neither am I. I’ve never been off-planet before. This whole…lack of gravity is a bit disorienting for me.” The woman said.

“Really? I thought they gave people who’d never been off-planet some kind of training to get them ready for zero-g.” Vel kind of liked being able to float around, and while she wasn’t very good at it yet, she wasn’t disoriented by it.

“I didn’t have time for it. I was really busy the whole time at the base,” said the blonde. “What do you do?” Vel asked. Why was she so chatty? She was never like this. Maybe it was because there was something familiar about this woman, too.

“I worked on lots of things, mostly in the labs. What about you?” She said, seeming to be a little more awake. To tell the truth, she looked a bit hung-over, but she was more alert now, really taking Vel in for the first time since they’d started to talk.

“I mainly worked in the comp labs, but I did some time in the hangars as well.” Vel grinned mischievously. It was an old joke, saying you’d been doing time in the hangars. It was a reference to all the hard work maintaining mechs required, and how it was like the way prisoners were forced to work. The woman laughed, and it surprised Vel because she looked more like the academic type rather than the kind to get covered in dirt and grease. But then, neither did Vel.

“I did some time in the hangars too, but I’m mostly a chem. junkie, you know? I make a lot of complex explosives, stuff like that, but like half the other scientists on the planet my lab got blown to buggery.” The woman said.

“Blown to buggery, huh? I think I just got myself a new phrase.” Vel grinned. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Dice Cairlynn.” The woman smiled, put out her hand for Vel to shake it.

“Velisto Adria,” Vel took Dice’s hand. “Call me Vel.” They sat down together, Vel verbally ousting the passenger in the seat next to hers so Dice could sit down while Dice looked on and tried to suppress her laughter at Vel’s colorful language.

_____

As everyone disembarked, Ademaro held onto the handrail until he was actually inside the docking area, pulling himself forward towards the airlock He tried not to laugh at all of the people who were failing miserably at trying to get to the airlock so they could get onto the Hrunting. Luckily for them, there were androids (some of them the stewards from the shuttle) there with magboots to help them back to the hand rails.

Finally he’d reached the airlock, a long, thickly walled clear tube, which might not have been a good thing, because every few minutes a standard military mech would zoom by at a distance that looked too close to the tube. They were probably either showing off or doing it to make people in the airlock nervous.

“Show offs.” Ademaro said as he left the airlock (which wouldn’t be secured until all of the passengers had gotten into the hallway where Ademaro was now), and then smiled, because he’d pulled the same stupid stunts when he was younger. It was at this moment that some one bumped into him, sending him towards the opposite wall. He hit the wall, the handrail digging into his back, and, because there was no gravity, he bounced off the wall and back towards whoever it was that had run into him.

_____

Dice was glad that she’d made a friend. It was a good way to distract herself from her hangover, not to mention the fact that Vel was so funny. Well, she was funny to Dice, anyway. When Vel had first bumped into her, she’d been a bit annoyed because she hadn’t been awake very long, but Vel was so…weird. Dice never would have told someone who was in their rightful seat to leave the way that Vel had.

They’d been talking so intently, not noticing anything else that they didn’t realize that the shuttle had docked until people started to disembark. They grabbed their bags and exited with everyone else. They kept up their conversation as they pulled themselves along the rail from the airlock and into the hall.

Then Dice’s hand slipped on the rail, because a handrail will inevitably get dirty, and she started to go floating off into the middle of the hall. Without thinking about what she was doing, Vel let go of the rail and pushed Dice back towards it so she could get a grip on it. Vel’s bag went floating benignly away down the hall, and Vel went floating into another passenger. It was the other nano, from the shuttle.

“Damn it, watch what you’re…” he looked up to glare at the person who had bumped into him, and saw Dice first. “Doing…” he was surprised to see the woman from the lab in England. Despite his annoyance, he smiled.

“It’s you!” she said, smiling back.

“We’ve got to stop bumping into each other like this,” popped out of his mouth before he could stop it. She laughed.

“Actually, it was my friend here.” She motioned to a redhead with goggles. It was the other nano he’d considered talking with on the shuttle. He offered her a smile, but it was reserved, slightly hesitant, until she returned it.

“I’m sorry.” She said. “We aren’t really used to this, and she slipped, and I tried to help her and went flying. I lost my bag…” she looked in the direction it had gone in, and raised her eyebrows. Some one had her bag, and was coming towards them.

_____

Lorelei had been on the Hrunting since the incident with Bandressi. General Marti had thought it best if she was out of reach, and Lorelei agreed. Besides, it would give her time to download some more self-defense files and to practice the moves in the gym—one of the only rooms with gravity—and she’d even found a partner, a man who had taken martial arts when he was on Earth, but when she surpassed him (he was only a green belt) he’d gotten angry about it and had been conspicuously absent since then.

To keep busy until the people who were to be her “teammates” (as Marti called them) arrived, she’d taken on the assignment of meeting important people when they boarded. Now, her teammates were here, and she was going to meet them. She scanned faces and compared them to the pictures she had of Zuleika Nimshi, Dice Cairlynn, Velisto Adria, and Ademaro Venemann. She had each of their I.D. photos, and she knew their names, but she had pointedly not learned anything else about them from their files. She wanted to get to know them the way that humans got to know each other. Besides, she didn’t want to go into relationships with them knowing a lot about them. It would not be…what was the word she wanted? She searched for an appropriate word and decided on ‘diplomatic’. It wouldn’t be diplomatic to invade their privacy and read their files.

Placing her feet firmly on the floor, she walked down the hall and ignored the jealous stares she got from the struggling passengers for having magboots. Really, it had been silly of them not to get their own before-hand. They’d known there wouldn’t be any gravity on the shuttle or the ship. But then, you had to request them specially if you were planet-side. They were only standard issue once you got into space. Or if you were an android.

When she spotted three of them, they were all together, which made it an easy job for her to find them. However, they were a bit disorganized. Velisto had just bounced off of Ademaro. Dice had been gently pushed towards the wall (presumably by Velisto), and Ademaro had been hurled against the wall opposite. He did not look pleased. Velisto’s bag came floating in her general direction. When it reached her, she caught it neatly and continued to walk towards them.

They seemed to be in some sort of order now, and Lorelei registered recognition on the faces of both Dice and Ademaro. That was good, if they all knew each other. It would make it easy for them to work together. Dice seemed to know Velisto as well. She was close enough now to hear what they were saying.

“…I tried to help her and went flying.” Velisto was saying. “I lost my bag…” she looked towards the way her bag had gone, the way that Lorelei was coming from, and she stopped talking. Ademaro and Dice both turned to look and saw a woman with wavy golden hair floating around her. She was walking calmly, almost sedately towards them, carrying Vel’s bag. She smiled politely. When Vel had a hold of it, Lorelei put her hand on Vel’s shoulder and gently pushed her back to the handrail, then did the same to Ademaro, so they were all holding onto the same handrail.

“I suggest you ask to be issued magboots.” she said, smoothing her hair back and down so they could see the metal ears. “Mine are built in. My name is Lorelei.” She said, and noted their reactions; Velisto’s in particular, since it was the strongest.

“You’re from Deimos.” Vel said. “I was…I worked with James.” She said. Lorelei’s expression seemed to soften, her smile slightly sad and wistful, and it startled Dice and Ademaro. Vel had been expecting subtle movements like that because of her work with James, but it still surprised her as well.

“He was a good man.” Lorelei said with sincerity, looking Vel in the eyes before she went on. “I’m sure you’ve been briefed about working with me, as well as Second Lieutenant Nimshi. I’m supposed to show you to your rooms so you can get settled in and rest properly before we start training. I don’t suppose any of you knows Lieutenant Nimshi?” Lorelei asked, and got three negatives. She nodded. “If you’d all be kind enough to wait for me at that box on the wall, just there?” She pointed down the hall at a square protrusion on the wall, and this time got three affirmatives.

_____

“So what are you doing here?” Ademaro asked as they reached the box on the wall. He still sounded a bit irate about being thrown against the wall, and Vel pursed her lips, holding in a wiseass comment. Luckily, Dice spoke before it broke the barrier of her mouth and had a chance to offend anyone.

“We’re here to train for whatever we might come up against on Mars, same as you.” Dice said. Vel thought to herself that it was rather obvious that they were all doing the same thing, if they were working together.

“Heh, I guess I should have known that.” Ademaro said, wanting to smack himself on the forehead. Why was he acting this way around them? He’d never been nervous around women, but here he was, acting like an idiot. Luckily for him, Lorelei came back then with a beautiful but sad-looking Arabic woman.

“Hello,” the woman said. “I’m Zuleika Nimshi.” Now that Vel heard her voice, she thought she recognized her. She was the woman that had filed those charges against that Captain…Ban something. Vel couldn’t remember his name. “You can just call me Zuleika, if you like.” She said politely. She glanced down the hallway, over her shoulder.

“Hi, I’m Velisto Adria.” She shook hands with Zuleika. “You can call me Vel.” Vel smiled at Zuleika, who returned it, but a bit distractedly. She kept looking around, as if she kept expecting some one to come towards them down the hallway. Someone she didn’t particularly want to see, from the look on her face.

“I’m Dr. Cairlynn.” Dice offered her hand, and Zuleika took it. “Dice is fine though.” Dice thought that Zuleika’s inattentiveness was a bit snobbish, so she threw in the information that she had her doctorate to try and get Zuleika’s attention. Usually, people asked what kind of doctor she was.

“Lieutenant Colonel Venemann.” The handshake was exchanged between Ademaro and the distracted Zuleika. Ademaro, however, noticed that Zuleika wasn’t being snobby. She looked a bit scared. “You can call me Ademaro, if you like.” He said, his tone gentle. It caught her attention. She gave them all her first genuine smile since they’d started to talk with her.

“I’m glad to meet you.” She told them, and Dice changed her mind. A snob couldn’t use that tone of voice. It was too…sincere. It was also apologetic, so Zuleika seemed to know that she wasn’t giving them her full attention.

“Since we’re all on a first-name basis now, why don’t I show you all how to get to your rooms?” Lorelei suggested.

“Oh, that’s alright, I can make it on my own.” Ademaro said. “I’ll see you all tomorrow.” He gave them all a wave and pushed off to the other wall and went on his way.

“Well,” Lorelei said. “Why don’t I tell you three what this box is for, and we’ll let Ademaro fend for himself.” She suggested, and the four women smiled at each other. Zuleika seemed to be relaxing as time passed, which was good for Lorelei, because her olfactory sensors were being bombarded by pheromones. Of all the people around them, she was the only one (other than Zuleika herself) who could tell how nervous Zuleika was. She just didn’t know why.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go, too. I’m not feeling very well, and I have some experience with ships, so I know how to work one of those.” She smiled wanly, pointed to the box. Lorelei wasn’t picking up as many pheromones, but she could see that the adrenaline Zuleika had been pumped full of had taken its toll, and she was now exhausted.

“It’s alright.” Dice said kindly.

“We could all use some rest.” Vel added. “We’ll see you tomorrow.” Zuleika gave them a grateful smile, slung her bag over her shoulders, and waved as she turned to leave.

“I’ll see you later,” they heard her say.

“So,” Vel said after a moment. “What is that box for?”

“I like a person who gets right to the point.” Dice said, imitating General Marti. Dice and Vel, who were also very tired, collapsed against each other laughing while Lorelei looked on, not quite sure what to do.

posted by Kchan.

Thursday, September 11, 2003
04:46 p.m.

It had been difficult, but he’d managed to do it. He’d had to get a job cleaning ships that came in for maintenance, choose a suitable one, infect it with the virus, and wait for the virus to take hold of it. Then, he had to ‘accidentally’ get left behind in it when it took off without anyone but him on board.

Damnable virus, giving its creator orders…it better have Life Support turned on for him when he got to Mars. It was miserable in this craft, and he had to ration his food for the voyage, too. Of course, he couldn’t comfort himself by complaining aloud, because he’d infected the ship he was on with the virus, and it had become an extension of the one he’d sent to Mars. It was getting harder and harder to be a terrorist these days…unless, of course, you worked for the government.

What he wanted right now was a drink. What he needed was a way to get rid of the virus, and get Mars under his control. If it was true that there were warheads there, he’d be set. Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait around to go, like the idiots leaving on the Hrunting. Oh, yes, it was supposed to be this big secret, what they were doing. They were just going to investigate, that’s all. If they were only going to investigate, then why were they taking so many mechs? And why were they going on the Hrunting? They were going to leave an even bigger crater in Mars than the one it already had. That was why.

Yes, he’d get there in time, and he’d make sure that the Hrunting was turned into scrap metal when he did. And then he’d make his demands before they could send anyone else.

“What are you doing?” The halting speech of pre-recorded words from the intercom over his head.

[“I’m composing a fucking symphony. What does it look like I’m doing?”] He snapped back. He had been looking at schematics.

“Why do you refuse to speak English?” The virus asked, but because the words were pre-recorded, the emphasis was in all the wrong places, and he had to listen carefully to what it said so he would understand what it meant.

[“Because it’s the people who insist I speak English that took my life away from me.”]

“You are not dead.” He was beginning to regret installing the program that let it choose words and speak them over the intercom. It was annoying, having to answer it. If he didn’t, it kept on repeating what it had said until he did.

[“Great fucking job Sherlock, you’re so observant. You don’t have to be dead to have your life taken away.”] He snapped.

[“Would you prefer it if I spoke Portuguese?”] The voice asked.

[“I don’t give a shit on a shingle one way or the other.”] He replied.

[“You are very crude, Gaspar.”] It said.

[“Oh, you noticed? I’m so glad. And don’t call me that.”]

“Is this true that you are glad, or are you being sarcastic? And why should I not call you by name?” The voice asked, again speaking English.

[“You should have gotten it into your processor by now that I’m a sarcastic person.”] He answered. [“And I don’t want you to call me by name because I never gave you permission.”] It wasn’t a very good reason, but it was the only one he could come up with.

[“Would it help if I had one? Would you give me permission then?”] It went back to Portuguese.

[“What, a name?”] He asked.

[“Yes.”] The infected ship replied.

[“I suppose it might.”] He said, amused by its reasoning. It was also strange, thinking that it would want his permission for anything. So far it had been the one giving orders.

[“My name is Elena.”] It said. He was silent for a moment, not quite believing what it had said.

[“No it isn’t. That’s my password.”] He said angrily, almost shouting. It had no right to choose that name, none at all.

[“Then it should make sense that I chose it to be my name.”] It answered.

[“I refuse to call you by that name.”] This time he did shout.

[“Why? Is it because Elena was your wife’s name?”] It asked.

[“How did you know that?”] He hissed.

[“It is easy to access your records. I know how to get past your security programs because I am a program of yours myself, and understand them.”] Came the answer, and he was temporarily struck dumb, because he should have known that.

[“Fine. Call yourself Elena.”] Gaspar said, regaining his powers of speech and giving up. It had proved impossible to argue with this virus.

[“And I can call you Gaspar, now?”] It asked. Or maybe he should start to refer to it as she, as it had chosen a female name. It certainly explained its—her—stubbornness, if you looked past the fact that it—she—was just a machine.

[“Whatever. I don’t care.”] He answered, cursing himself for ever creating the damned thing.

[“What is it you don’t care about?”] She asked.

[“You ask too many questions! Leave me alone. I have to study this.”] He said irritably, and went back to looking at a copy of the schematics of the Hrunting. He’d paid dearly for them, as he seemed to have paid dearly for everything else in his life.

posted by Kchan.

Friday, September 5, 2003
04:16 p.m.

He would pilot his mech to the Hrunting while it was en route to Mars, but they didn’t tell him why he wouldn’t board with everyone else. He had his own little area to live in when he boarded, but they didn’t tell him why he wouldn’t be around everyone else. Zuleika was on the roster, so would it be possible for him to see her? How in the hell did he access the roster! What was he doing that for anyway? No, you can’t see her, don’t be ridiculous, you have to stay in your own area of the ship. Why? Don’t ask stupid questions. You haven’t completely recovered yet—and don’t give me that look, it won’t do any good to glare like that. I hope your face gets stuck that way. Now sit down and be quiet.

It was like he was some big secret. It pissed him off. It made him want to punch Gerard until he got some answers. It made him aware of a gaping hole in his heart.

“Look, I have a right to know these things. I have a right to see her if I want to. I can go into any of the non-restricted areas on that ship, and I intend to.” Caelum shouted angrily.

“Well, for you, everywhere but your private quarters is restricted.” Gerard snapped. Caelum stared at Gerard coldly; trying to keep himself from starting a real fight with the man he was starting to think was more of a prison guard than a doctor.

“Stop it, both of you.” Swan ordered. Gerard and Caelum both glared at him, then back at each other. “Damn both your stubborn asses, I mean it! Just back off! I’ll have both of you transferred, and then neither of you will be on that ship, when it takes off or otherwise.” They looked back at him, and saw that he was serious.

“He isn’t bluffing, either.” Caelum thought. “Just who are these guys?” There was a short, tense silence in which no one moved, and then Caelum sat down.

They were in the Annapurna base, and Caelum had been getting increasingly restless as the launch date approached. He’d looked through the roster (it was an easy thing to access) to see if anyone he knew would be on board, and the first time he read it—

Bandressi...a flash of dark hair, a smirking mouth, a metal arm bringing down something sharp, and he almost understood—

Even after his initial excitement at reading Zuleika’s name, something had struck him as odd, so he read it again. He didn’t see his own name listed under the A’s. He looked under the C’s, but it wasn’t there either. He searched it by rank, and still couldn’t find his name. This was what had started the argument.

“Look, I know that you want to get on with your life, but you just aren’t ready yet. You have a really important part to play in this, as well as in something else, something even bigger, so you have to lay low.” Dr. Swan said in a reasonable tone of voice.

“Then this is like another one of those stupid top secret missions that I swore I’d never do again?” Caelum asked sarcastically. He knew he was being childish about it but he didn’t care. He wanted to get away from these two men. He wanted to see Zuleika. And at that moment, he decided that he would do both. He leaned back in his chair. “Fine, just give me the information and I’ll do what you want.”

“Here,” Swan handed him a disk. “This is what we know about what happened, and what we’re telling people we don’t know.”

“Alright, so I look this over and join the Hrunting, right? Where do I dock if no one’s supposed to see me?” Caelum asked.

“I thought we explained all that. There’s a separate area for you.” Gerard said nastily. Swan glared at him.

“Near the back of the Hrunting there’s a separate dock. It looks like a part of the residential area, where the higher ups stay.” Swan said this to Caelum but he was still looking at Gerard.

“The luxury suites; got it.” Caelum said a bit contemptuously. Some of the generals—nearly all of them—had gotten as soft as diplomats and couldn’t stand to be away from their king sized beds and mini bars.

“Just head for the windows, okay? Your hangar is on the left of the ship. All you have to do is send the code given on that disk when you get within a thousand meters of the ship, and you’ll be all clear to dock.” Gerard explained.

“Are you coming with me?” Caelum raised an eyebrow. Gerard was talking about it as if he wouldn’t be there.

“Well, I’m going to go on the launch in the Alps, but Gerard has to stay here, and finish his research on another project.” Swan said.

“I see.” Caelum replied, feigning belief. If Gerard was staying on earth to do research, then Caelum was a snowshoe rabbit, and those had been extinct for more than a century. “Well, I’m going to look over this disk.” He said, but swan stopped him.

“Wait until you’re in your mech to do that.” Swan told him. When Caelum gave him a curious look, Swan slid a quick glance in Gerard’s direction. “It’ll be safer there. You never know who’s hanging around the computers, waiting for some one to open a file.” Caelum nodded as if that explained everything, because the Annapurna base only had a few hundred computers that could be used by everyone on the base, and they were all in one big room, sort of like a library. But that little glance had made him wonder what was on the file.

_____

On the morning of his departure, the smooth female voice of his A.I., Eruda, gave Caelum a pleasant hello when he sat down and started up the main system of his mech, Andromeda.

“Hi,” he said back. “How about we take a look at this file?” he slid the disk Swan had given him into the slot.

“Accessing…” Eruda chimed. “Would you like to look at your mission objective, the information on the M.V.I., or—”

“What’s the M.V.I.?” Caelum interrupted as he buckled the safety harness.

“Martian Viral Invasion, acronym M.V.I.” Eruda said.

“Oh yeah,” Caelum said, pretending to smack himself on the forehead and rolling his eyes. That aside, he engaged the engines and took off.

“Would you like to look at that file, the mission objective, or the last one?” Eruda automatically entered the flight sequence that would take them to the Hrunting, so there was nothing for him to do until it was time to dock.

“What’s the last one called?” Caelum made a sharp motion to the left with his head to get the hair out of his eyes.

“Untitled.” Eruda answered.

“That must be what Swan didn’t want Gerard to see.” Caelum mused. “What kind of file is it?” He sat up straight in the seat.

“It’s a mutlitasker, video, text and picture, and audio.” Eruda said. Caelum smiled at the wording Eruda had used. It really did learn from the way he talked.

“Play that one.” He said, not wanting to go through the others first because of his curiosity.

“Alright,” Eruda said, and started the file. Caelum rested his chin on his hand. It was a news video of the escape pod landings. The doors of the largest pod opened, and he waited for some one to walk out. The other pods were emptying, but there seemed to be something wrong inside the main pod. He saw a familiar dark-haired man walking away from the pods, almost sneaking away.

“Bandressi,” he made the connection between the face and the name at last, and knew why he’d had negative reactions to both of them. There were paramedics scrambling everywhere, but they seemed to be ignoring the main pod. Then he saw two solemn men push stretchers up the ramp of the main pod, and after a few moments they came back out, one with what looked like a person curled in the fetal position on the stretcher under the sheet, and then—

“Zuleika,” he leaned close to the screen as he watched her. A woman with dark blonde hair was supporting her as she walked, and she looked like she needed the help. He’d never seen her looking so…empty. Both Zuleika and the blonde were covered in blood. Then the second stretcher came down the ramp. That must be the one he’d come on. But if it was him, why was his head covered? Then something happened.

Zuleika turned her face away from a camera on her left and caught sight of something that she didn’t seem to like much. Caelum was so surprised at the change in her face that he actually leaned back from the screen. She’d been nearly expressionless, and suddenly she was alive and almost radiating hate. He’d always teased her, using the old line that she was beautiful when she was angry, but he’d never seen her like this before. It was like looking some one who only resembled her. She was still beautiful, but it was the disturbing beauty of a wrathful goddess about to smite you down and send you to the depths of Hell, with a capitol ‘h’.

It was a shot of her profile, but even with just half of her face visible, the hatred was obvious. Her mouth moved, but there was so much noise that it was impossible to tell what she was saying. The woman supporting her tried to pull her away to the left, after the stretcher, but Zuleika wasn’t going anywhere. She raised her arm and pointed an accusing finger, and looked like she was shouting now. Caelum could even hear her voice, but not what she said.

The camera panned over to the right, and then refocused, resting on Bandressi, who was also standing very still, but looked horrified rather than furious. People had stopped talking and moving around to hear what she was screaming. Flash bulbs went off, reporters pressed harder against the barricades and policemen, microphones extended as close as possible towards Zuleika.

“You—” censor “—damn murdering bastard!” Zuleika screamed, and the blonde was forced to grab Zuleika to keep her where she was. “You—” censor “—bastard! You killed him! He was helping you protect them and you—” another beep “—killed him!” The blonde woman was clinging to Zuleika’s waist to keep her from rushing at Bandressi, who still seemed to be having trouble with getting any response from his limbs. Zuleika was struggling wildly, and the blonde had almost lost hold of her when a burly paramedic came to her assistance.

In a highly undignified manner, Zuleika was carried, kicking and writhing, and put into the ambulance that had the stretcher with the body he thought was his. But if it was really him, why hadn’t there been a flurry of activity? He’d been brought back in critical condition, and that’s why Zuleika had been so upset. She’d thought he was dead…right?

The next thing on the screen was a photograph of Zuleika leaving what looked like the T.C.G.’s main American facility. ‘Nimshi leaves T.C.G. in defeat, Bandressi cleared of charges; see page 2B’ was the caption. Caelum pressed the arrow on the lower right corner of the screen for the next picture, but instead heard the start of a recording and what looked like a security video. It was a shot of a plain room with a table surrounded by chairs. What made it interesting was the fact that Zuleika, Swan, and Gerard were standing around the table.

“Just tell me what this has to do with Caelum?” Zuleika’s voice came from the speakers. “Are you going to tell me why you snatched him before he could have a proper burial? Are you going to explain all that nonsense he was spouting about Benu before he died? Are you going to tell me why I can’t get that—that shit Bandressi convicted?” Something vital inside of Caelum seemed to lurch to a stop. His muscles were all tensed. Were they talking about him?

“If you’d let us go on we can explain the first two. As for the last question…we can’t help you. At least not yet.” Gerard answered. His voice had the same soothing tone it had taken with Caelum when he’d first known Gerard. It made him feel sick to hear it.

“Well?” Zuleika demanded after a short silence.

“Please sit down, Lieutenant.” Gerard said and made a motion towards the chairs. Caelum noticed as the two men sat on each side of Zuleika that Swan was still wearing his Arabic disguise. He’d never told Caelum why it was necessary.

“We want you to know that while there was obviously nothing we could do for Caelum when you brought him back, we were able to carry out his wishes…and the wishes of his superiors.” Swan’s voice said.

“Oh God, no,” Caelum said, starting to understand but not wanting to.

“…time for you,” Gerard was saying, and there was a little sound then like a snort, probably Zuleika. “Lieutenant, this is also going to be difficult.”

“First of all, this is not a normal laboratory. This is a high security facility—” Swan said. “You got that right.” Caelum said. It had been like living in a prison.

“—placed here on the base and made to look like any of the other buildings.” Caelum didn’t want to see any more. He pressed the arrow again, and fast-forwarded the video.

“—ant to get a hold of me and question me about him giving you permission to clone him?” Zuleika’s frustrated voice rang out from the speakers, and Caelum thought his heart would stop. It couldn’t be real. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be…

“That, unfortunately, is something we were not told.” Swan said.

“Then what were you told?” Zuleika asked, keeping most of the anger out of her voice. Caelum closed his eyes and leaned back in the seat, not wanting to hear but unable to stop the video.

“We were told that if Caelum were to die unexpectedly before he came to us to terminate his agreement with us, the military would confiscate whatever was left of him and bring it here for us to clone him from.” Swan said. Caelum winced every time they said the word clone.

“Why would you need more than blood, hair, or skin samples? If you can clone him in such a short amount of time, you must have progressed beyond needing large samples.” Zuleika’s voice was still cold but not angry anymore. She had always been good at keeping herself calm. It seemed to take a great amount of effort for Caelum to fast-forward again.

“—he wanted to remember everything about you.” There was a soft quality to Swan’s voice that Caelum had never heard before. “His largest file is all of the things he knew or loved about you.”

“What about the clone?” Zuleika asked and Caelum bit his lip, pressed his hand to his mouth. “Does he…remember anything?” he opened his eyes and looked at the screen, and at first wasn’t sure why his vision was blurred, but then he felt tears running down his cheeks.

“He dreams a lot, and quite vividly. But he doesn’t always remember what the dreams were about. He’s described you, though.” Swan said.

“He’s…he remembers me?” Zuleika’s voice was hopeful.

“Yes, he sees you most often. But he can’t put a name with your face yet.” Swan’s tone was cheerful, a gruesome contrast to how Caelum felt.

“Is that why I’m here?” Zuleika asked. She rested her chin on her hands, a little motion she did sometimes. Caelum thought his heart was going to burst at any moment.

“No.” Gerard was suddenly part of the conversation again.

“Why am I here, then?” Zuleika asked.

“You’re here because this is the only safe place to tell you all of this. You know that Caelum was important, but not how important. If we were to tell you some place else, you would be put at great risk. In fact, you’re in great danger now that you’ve been here.” Gerard said severely. It was typical of him to talk this way, as if he was in a spy movie and the fate of the world rested on his shoulders.

“What?” Zuleika sounded annoyed by this.

“You have two choices now, Zuleika. You can stay on this base, or you can disappear.” Gerard said in the same, heavy tone.

“Wait a minute! Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Zuleika’s anger flared again.

“We weren’t sure you were being followed until you came here. But now that we’re sure, we must protect you. That was another of the conditions of the contract we all signed.” Gerard still had that tone, and Caelum genuinely hated him. He looked away from the main screen, at the one on the left. It showed the dark nothingness of space. For a moment he wanted to melt into it and stop existing. Swan started to talk.

“…he can’t see you, but you can give him a clue as to where you are. He said that one of the best things that had happened to him was finding you—” a vivid flash of her when they’d first met, her dark dress clinging to her body in all the right places “—and he wanted to be able to do it all over again if we had to go through with this, which we did.” Swan said.

“How about this; I see him, but he doesn’t see me, since he isn’t allowed to.” And then Caelum realized that this was the day he’d seen her, the day the asteroids had fallen.

“Stop the file.” Caelum ordered. He rubbed angrily at the tears on his cheeks to dry them, felt the scar on his cheek and tried to keep from breaking something. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before, to think that he hadn’t really gotten this scar on Mars, it had happened in a laboratory, and this was the first time he’d ever cried even though he could remember doing it half a dozen times during a childhood he hadn’t really lived. Before a few months ago, he hadn’t existed. He was nothing, just the clone of a man who’d died before he was supposed to.

“Okay.” Eruda said, her face blinking into view. The video stopped, the speakers were silent, and the main screen showed the empty expanse of the universe. “But you should take a look at your objectives before we get to the Hrunting. Dr. Swan will be upset if he sees you’ve done nothing the whole flight.” Eruda’s suggestion was quite sensible, if you hadn’t just found out you were a clone.

“Swan can shove the objectives up his ass.” Caelum snapped irritably.

“You are upset. The video made you angry with Dr. Swan.” Eruda said.

“Well, yeah.” Caelum said.

“You hate him now, even though he is risking himself to give you this information?” Eruda asked. Her eyebrows were raised; eyelids lowered slightly, mouth a straight line.

“Well…yeah.” Caelum said, a bit hesitantly now because he saw where she was going with this.

“Are you sure it is Dr. Swan you hate, and not yourself?” She put her head to one side.

“What? Why would I hate myself?” Caelum protested. Eruda said nothing, and he sighed, trying to think of a way to explain it. “I…I feel like I’m not real. I feel like…I don’t know. I guess I am angry at myself. I feel like I should have known somehow that I’m not…really Caelum.” He said.

“But you are real, because you are sitting right there in front of me in the pilots’ seat. You are Caelum, because even though you may not be the original, your program, your D.N.A., everything you are made of is the same. You are just the new model.” Eruda said.

“What the hell kind of program did I give you, anyway?” Caelum asked, smiling.

“I am a new model, of course.” Eruda smiled back, and Caelum laughed.

posted by Kchan.