Tears streamed down Rita's cheeks and dripped from the point of her chin, then splashed as they landed in the palm of the hand I held out to catch them. I was still hot from exercising, but the tears burned like 20mm slugs. My heart was pounding. I was a junior high school student asking a girl to the dance. Not even battle pumped my blood pressure this much.
Rita clutched the bottom of my shirt, squeezing so tight the tips of her fingers were white. On the battlefield I could see every move coming before she made it, but here I was clueless. I'd programmed myself to dodge a thousand Mimic attacks with ease, but what good was my OS when I really needed it? My mind wandered, looking for an out. I wondered if my shirt was sweaty where she was grabbing it.
The last time, I had stood like a park statue until Rita regained her composure and spoke. Maybe after ten more trips through the loop this would all be routine. I'd know just what to say to soothe her as I held her gently against my shoulder. But that would mean reducing my interactions with the one and only person in the world who understood me to a rote performance. Something told me it was better to just stand there and take it.
Yonabaru was gaping at us like a tourist in a zoo gapes at a bear who has suddenly stood up and begun to waltz. At least I'd finally found a situation that would shut him up. Ferrell politely averted his eyes, but only halfway. And that was more or less how the rest of the platoon behaved. Fuck me. I was the dancing bear. Don't stare. Don't say anything. Just throw your money in the can and move along.
What was it you were supposed to do when you were nervous— picture everyone naked? No, that was for speaking in public. In training they taught us to hold ourselves together by thinking of something we enjoyed. Something that made you happy. In battle, this would probably be one of those happy things to think back on, so why was it so nerve—racking now? If God had an answer, He wasn't talking.
I took Rita by the wrist. She looked lost.
"I'm Keiji Kiriya."
"Rita. Rita Vrataski."
"I guess I should start with ‘Nice to meet you.'"
"Why are you smiling?"
"I dunno. Just happy, I guess," I said.
"You're an odd one." Rita's face softened.
"Let's make a break for it." My eyes glanced over her shoulder. "My two o'clock. You ready?"
Rita and I sprinted away, leaving the men on the field scratching their heads. We slipped past the chain link fence bordering the training grounds. The breeze blowing off the sea was cool against our skin. For a while we ran for running's sake. The coastline lay far off to our left, cobalt—blue waters spreading beyond the meaningless barricade of barbed wire that lined the beach. The ocean still blue because we had fought to keep it that way. A patrol boat cutting a course parallel to our own trailed a white wake along the sharp line that divided sea and sky.
The deep shouts of the soldiers faded. The only sounds were the roar of the sea, the faraway shuffling noises of military boots on concrete, my too—loud pounding heart, and the sigh of Rita's breath.
I came to an abrupt halt and stood dumbly, just as I had before we started running. Rita couldn't cut her speed in time and came crashing into me. Another OS slip—up. I took a few awkward steps. Rita stumbled as she regained her balance. We held on to each other to keep from falling. My arm was wrapped around Rita's body and hers around mine.
The impact risked breaking any number of regulations. Her toned flesh pressed against me like reactive armor. A pleasant scent assaulted my senses. Without my Jacket, I was defenseless against any stray chemicals that chanced into the air.
"Uh, excuse me." Rita was the first to apologize.
"No, my bad. I shouldn't have stopped."
"No. I mean, excuse me, but—" she said.
"You don't have to apologize."
"I'm not trying to apologize. It's just—would you mind letting go of my hand?"
"Ah—" A red ring stood out on Rita's wrist where my fingers had gripped her skin. "Sorry."
To me, Rita was an old friend, a companion of many battles. But to her, Keiji Kiriya was a stranger she'd just met. Nothing more than an ashen silhouette from another time. Only I remembered the relief we'd felt when we stood with our backs pressed against each other. Only I had experienced the electricity that flowed between us when our eyes met in implicit understanding. Only I felt a sense of longing and devotion.
Before I joined the army, I saw a show about a man in love with a woman who'd lost her memory in an accident. He must have gone through something like what I was going through now. Hopelessly watching all the things you love in the world being carried away on the wind while you stand by powerless to prevent it.
"I'm—well…" I didn't even know what to say to her this time, despite the previous loop.
"This your clever way of getting the two of us out of there?"
"Yeah. I guess."
"Good. Now where exactly are we?" Rita spun on her heel as she took in her surroundings.
We stood in a wide space bordered on one side by the barbed—wire barricade and a chain—link fence on the other three. Weeds sent shoots of green through the cracks in the concrete that covered the roughly ten—thousand—square—meter enclosure.
"The No. 3 Training Field."
I'd managed to take us from one training field to another. Smooth. I'd been spending too much time with Ferrell. His love of training bordered on serious mental illness, and it had started to rub off on me.
Rita turned back to me. "It's kind of bleak."
"Sorry."
"No, I like the emptiness of it."
"You have unusual tastes."
"Is that even a taste? The place I grew up was hopelessly empty. We didn't have any oceans, though. The sky out here is—it's so brilliant," she said, her head tilted back.
"You like it? The sky?"
"Not the sky so much as the color of it. That shimmering blue."
"Then why's your Jacket red?"
A few moments of silence passed between us before she spoke again.
"The sky in Pittsfield is so washed out. Like the color of water after you've rinsed out a paintbrush with blue paint in it. Like all the water in the ground rushed up in the sky and thinned it." I gazed at Rita. She looked back at me, rich brown eyes staring into mine. "Sorry. Forget I said that," she said.
"How come?"
"It wasn't a very Rita Vrataski thing to say."
"I don't know about that."
"I do."
"Well, I thought it was nice," I said.
Rita opened her eyes wide. For an instant, they flashed with a glint of the Full Metal Bitch. The rest of her face remained still. "What'd you say?"
"I said it sounded nice."
She looked surprised at that. A lock of rust—colored hair fell to her forehead, and she raised her hand to play with it. I caught a glimpse of her eyes from between her fingers. They were filled with a strange light. She looked like a girl whose heart strings had begun to unravel, a child whose lies had been laid bare by the piercing gaze of her mother.
I broke the awkward silence. "Is something wrong?"
"No."
"I wasn't making fun of you. It's just something I wanted to say. Guess I didn't get the timing right."
"We've had a conversation like this before in an earlier loop, haven't we? But only you remember," Rita said.
"Yeah. I'm sorry."
"No, it doesn't bother me," she said, shaking her head.
"Then what's wrong?"
"Tell me what you're planning."
"Well, there's a lot I still don't understand," I said. "I need you to explain how to end the loop, for starters."
"I'm asking what you're planning to do next so I don't have to think about it."
"Are you kidding?" I asked.
"I'm dead serious."
"But you're Rita Vrataski. You always know what to do."