Wholesome.
Mia and Drake are inseparable now. Rennin spots them eating and joins them. He sits, feeling a slight wave of dizziness that passes momentarily.
“It’s good to see you two have managed to pry apart your pelvises long enough to eat something,” he says smiling lopsidedly.
“Is that a smirk or are you having a stroke?” asks Mia.
The general mood at the table is quite depressed, even the jokes seem to have a more serious edge than usual. Drake looks at him in a resigned way. “How are you feeling?”
“Am I as charming as ever?”
“Like a cobra.”
A hand taps on Mia’s shoulder and she looks up to see a group of people dressed in combat gear. “What’s up?”
A woman, clearly a civilian, but wearing Horizon Military armour speaks. “It’s going to be twilight in twenty minutes. The light at dawn and dusk seems to frighten the contaminants so we’re going to use that time to get out of here and look for survivors.”
“That’s insane,” Mia says through a mouthful of food.
“There could be others like us or even like Tessol out there, we have to try to find them.”
“What’s your name?” asks Mia.
“Sandra Kay.”
“Do you even know how to handle that weapon?” asks Mia, eyeing her machinegun.
“We’ve all been taught to shoot since we’ve been here,” she says defensively.
Mia stands up. “I can’t go in the field because I honestly think it would be stupid to venture out since pretty much the entire city is overrun now. You’re looking for someone in particular?”
Sandra looks down. “Anyone. Feels like the end of the world cooped up in here. The others with me feel like I do.”
Rennin can’t resist an audible scoff. “I can hear a very faint violin playing somewhere.”
“It’s probably the whistle of the wind passing through that chasm between your ears,” says Drake.
Sandra shakes her head at Rennin and faces Mia again. “We could use your help, you’re the best sniper here,” she says and Rennin is about to disagree but Drake flicks some food into his face.
Mia leans in towards Sandra and whispers something but Rennin’s keen hearing picks it up. “Pregnant?” he cries looking at Drake. “We’ve got a city full of hungry, angry, pointy mutants and you’re fertilising the lawn?”
Drake throws his utensils into his tray, “Jesus, Rennin!”
As they start arguing about who’s the bigger, grander fool, Mia pulls on Sandra’s collar to see if she’s wearing a chain. “No dog tags?”
“I’m not a soldier.”
Mia pulls hers from around her neck and hands them to Sandra. “Take these for luck. Lose them and I’ll kill you.”
Sandra takes them and puts them on with a wan smile. “Thanks.”
“Don’t be sardonic, they have a short range tracker in them in case you get lost, nearby friendlies can pick up your location up to a klick away.”
“Only that far?”
“Well you don’t want enemy satellites tracking your troop movements. They’re only for short range tracking in case you get separated from your squad. They’re encrypted but it’s not worth the risk.”
Sandra nods, “Then thank you.”
Once Sandra walks off with her small band, Mia sits back down. “They’re insane.”
“They didn’t even ask if Boy Blunder here would go with them,” says Rennin reaching across the table to pinch Drake’s cheek.
“Well they didn’t ask you, either.”
“I have a bung eye and a concussion.”
“Sure it’s a concussion,” says Drake nodding with exaggerated slowness.
“By the way I’m not pregnant,” says Mia. “I fucking hate kids.”
Rennin laughs.
She shovels another spoonful of suspiciously pink sludge into her mouth, “You tell someone you’re pregnant, no one asks you to do anything. They’re all suddenly really concerned about a collection of bacteria that’s more like a tumour than a person.”
“Well there goes my appetite,” sighs Drake.
Rennin smiles, poking at some greenish goo on his plate that looks like it may once have been a potato blended with broccoli and old liposuction fluid.
“Do you think Antares will pull through?” he asks half-heartedly.
In the medical structure, Caufmann has been keeping hourly status reports on Antares’ steadily deteriorating condition. Recently she had woken up, temporarily overcoming her grievous wounds to manage a few brief conversations.
Caufmann reads her charts with a detached expression but when Rennin enters Antares’ room he knows the doctor isn’t happy.
“Just like old times?” asks the former watchman.
Caufmann puts the chart down on the bed, peers into Antares’ weary green eyes then glances to Rennin, “You have no idea how close to the truth you are, Ren.”
Something terrible gleams from Caufmann’s eyes and it makes Rennin lean back slightly. “What is it?”
“I haven’t performed such a despicable perversion of a patch up in over fifteen years.”
Antares smiles. “I told you… to leave me… on the street.”
“What patch up?” asks Rennin.
“She’s mortally wounded and all I’ve managed to do in a fortnight is slow the process down. Just like the Jupiter Sieges…” he trails off, taking a ragged breath. “Everyone died, all I did was slow it down so they’d be able to fight longer to see out their last fragments of borrowed time under the same rain of firepower that killed them in the first place.” he says gritting his teeth and turning away from them both.
Rennin glances at Antares then looks to Caufmann. “Why did…” he starts, unsure what his question is.
“We weren’t reinforced. We had to make do with what we had. I was brought dead androids, and I made them live again. Can you picture it?”
Rennin shakes his head slowly. “No, sir.”
“I think the worst of it was when the Jupiter Sieges ended. Watching maimed troops survive the last battle just to succumb to their injuries,” he says holding his hands up in front of Rennin. “They survived the war but they didn’t survive me.”
Antares huffs out an artificial laugh. “Decora, you… blamed yourself for every death we suffered. It’s… quite enough.”
“What did you think you were doing running at three Suvaco units like that?” Caufmann yells wheeling around to face her. “There are too few of us left to throw our lives away!”
Antares is still smiling but her eyes are wet and closed. “I’m so tired. I don’t want to fight anymore. My husband—” she chokes up slightly, “my… Forgal was everything I fought for. He fought to free us, Nexarien, and I fought to free him. From them and from himself. He wasn’t strong enough to fight on his own. None of us were. But through our slaughter of the humanists we learned that carnage can’t free us. Of all of us, I pity Saifer the most. Even more than I do you.”
Caufmann shakes his head, “Saifer? Why?”
“He knew more than anyone that something was wrong with our existence. He threw himself into the frontlines as if fuelling the rage would make him whole. Zillah followed. The two of them butchered thousands but their madness only grew. I didn’t think either of them would ever come back but sooner or later the fighting, the killing, the murder, has to stop. Like all things living, rage withers and dies.
“Saifer had nothing. Now he, himself, is nothing. He died without purpose and without value, in himself or anything. He represents the true tragedy of all of us.”