-----
He stood beneath a mosaic mural, recently finished. A radiant nucleus shone a hot yellow like a star, wreathed in atomic rings of gas, set against abstract steel bands machinery. A firefighter, a miner and an engineer formed a trefoil around it, keeping the energy at bay with dispassionate faces and strong arms.
A monument to the defeat of the reactor, and those who’d beaten it. Lun’s fellow travellers had put it together.
All those who’d worked on the reactor, had their names added to the wall. The heroes who risked the cruellest of deaths to save the station.
He could see his own name, along with his engineering team. He could remember the heat from the shield of Unit 2 soaking through his boots as he manually cranked valves the computer systems wouldn’t unlock.
He’d taken enough rads to burn him out for life, according to international best practice. He’d gone back to work a month later, as if nothing had happened.
Going into a room without a geiger counter had earned him that cruellest of deaths.
A simple mistake.
I am already dead.
The words swam inside Marco’s mind, even as his body insisted otherwise. He’d stopped throwing up, leaving only a vague emptiness inside and the sense of his stomach turning with the echo of a headache in behind his eyes.
Like the Monday morning after a weekend-long party.
But not dead.
Some of the other fitters were still getting sick. All of them would get better. Of course, the medic had gone into excruciating detail of how dead he already was. His body had already begun to die - within a few days it would catch up. Not more than a week.
Already he thought he could feel his feet itch in his boots.
He’d snuck out of the infirmary, not wanting to spend the next few days lying in that room when he had other places to be. He thought about saying goodbye to his crew. He thought about writing his last letters home, but couldn’t conceive of anything to say. He thought about a will, about what’d happen to his apartment, his things, the small twin-engined speeder he’d bought.
Again the thought rang in his mind.
I am already dead.
Dead man walking.
A zombie. A walking ghost.
People said hello and didn’t know. He kept to himself, not really feeling the need to explain. The rumour mill would inform them soon enough. Yes - I took a thousand rads and am going to rot to death but I’m OK for now.
He didn’t feel dead. He could keep down a bottle of water. He could run. He felt strong enough. He helped someone push-start a car.
He met a friend, Armin from team four. Oh hey, they let you out of the infirmary. Yeah, for a short while anyway. Hope you feel better soon then man.
Not fucking likely.
His feet carried him to the main concourse with its lurid electric signs hung from the concrete and steel pipework above speaking in a strange hybrid of the Crystal Ohtori and the Neon Genaros. Steam drifted from the foodstalls under the mezzanine, readying breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next shift-change.. Scents of Chinese, Indian, Italian and Texan cuisine drifted through his nose, carrying him forward, mingling with heavy smell of machine oil, ozone and metal from an engineer’s workshop.
A draft of heat from inside the shop carried the distinctive rose-perfume of two duellists. The pair stood in their androgynous gold-trimmed uniforms, trying on new foils for size. He watched one of them draw a few graceful curves in their air with the blade, polished steel iridescent under the neon.
He stopped outside the Midoriyah - a cafe where he’d lunched a hundred times or rmore and realise that, despite having not having eaten anything for two days, and with the smell of fresh baking drifting on the air.
He just couldn’t bring himself to feel hungry.
Marco walked on. The botanist - Emi - and her small selection of flowers brought a small patch of green life to the concrete, steel and neon. He saw one of the founders, Kotono he thought her name was, buying a fairly elaborate selection.
She glanced at him, flashing a momentary smile.
He smiled back. Maybe they’d flirt - have a night together and then…
He’d rot alive in bed within a week. First would come the burns, on his skin, on his feet. Inside his stomach. Inside his bones. Dead skin would blacken and burst open. Dead muscle split from the bone like cooked meat. Dead eyes turn white and blind. He would choke on his own stomach while his insides rotted into human soup.
And through it all he would feel every single moment, right up until the last.
In a moment, he felt sick all over again . He ran to the public toilet, shouldering open the door to the one unlocked stall. His knees cracked down onto hard white tiles, his arms bracing against cold white porcelain.
His body retched, barbed- wire coiling around his stomach. A chimy mix of water, bile and blood boiled up from inside him, burning up the back of his throat while his insides coiled themselves into a knot, convulsing against a poison that didn’t really exist.
He gasped for breath, cursing, sweat dripping down his face. Another, coiling retch drew a zombie-like moan from his throat and nothing but foul, brown slime.
It left him shivering, his body turned to jelly, melting inside
A voice carried across the stall wall. “You okay man? Sounds like you’re dying in there?”
A groan emerged from his own lips.
“You don’t know how right you are.”
The pain dulled down, muting as the coils unwound themselves, leaving him drained of energy, supporting himself on quivering arms.
Maybe staying in the infirmary would’ve been a better idea.
After a few minutes, he found the strength to push himself to his feet. He swayed on his feet, flushed the toilet clear, and took another deep breath. Some fresh water from one of the wash-hand basins washed the taste out of his mouth.
He left the bathroom and kept walking.
The station general store carried the basic necessities of life - base foods that could be grown in the hydroponics bay, clothes, and general necessities and appliances that could be planned in on weekly shuttle. His station account had gone so far into the red he wondered if it’d follow him to the grave.
On the plus side - it didn’t get accounted for his annual dues. It didn’t account as income - just a benefit.
Beside it, a meticulously recreated Intershop carried more, and could order more specialised items from the rest of the system - but it needed hard Credits rather than the scrip the Station handed out. Those who wanted things quick, picked up a side-hustle or two.
The drawbacks of being at the tail-end of a long supply-chain.
Everyone else would take either, at whatever exchange-rate suited them - but the scrip would always be worth less unless someone had a serious tax issue.
The two constants in the universe. Death and taxes. He faced both.
Children’s classes had finished for the day in school block. Adult classes had begun - on everything from dancing, to sabre duelling. Beside it, The Rock and Hard Place had just started to wake, a building humm of conversation and the thrumming beat of the music spilling out into the tunnel outside.
A single exocomp stopped on its way to some menial task, the machine taking its time to investigate him with its implements. It stopped for a half second, checked one more time to be sure, before spinning like a top and accelerating away with a crack from its thrusters.
Of course it detected the radiation in his body and panicked - the reactor had fried at least a dozen of them.
He kept walking. At the end of the passage, away from the general flow of the crowd, waited a room that’d once been used as a small lecture hall. It’d been sealed with an armoured bulkhead
A sentence had been stenciled onto the door in white paint.
Blitzkrieg Panzer Kunst.
He paused, not quite sure what he’d been expecting himself to do when he’d gotten there, or why he’d bothered to make the effort.
A concrete room - converted into an oversized airlock, with a space-door opposite. On the wall to his right, an oversized Balisong, large enough that he’d struggle to lift it. Beside it, a sniper rifle that’d been a starship cannon. Other weapons he couldn’t identify.
At the centre of the room, Jet herself. For a heartbeat, he saw her face, blue eyes staring through him, before she vanished into a blur
Barely visible at the speed she was moving, his eyes unable to keep up as she swept across the floor with a turbine shriek, dancing between drones striking for her body. Her hands cracked off the concrete floor. Her feet cracked off the concrete ceiling.
She landed with a third crack, barely a meter in front of him, turbines in her body winding down, wings spread wide, twin blades on her forearms sparking in the light. The drones furled their own wings, before latching onto hers
But, of course, he wasn’t going to die. Only his body. His future stood in front of him in cybernetic armour. That’s what they’re going to do to you.
Her eyes closed and tension clamped down on her body. A forced smile crossed her lips. Her eyes still looked tired. Marco found himself wondering momentarily if she’d slept - or if she even needed it..
“They let you out of the infirmary?”
“No,” he admitted. His eyes fail to the blades clamped to her forearms and the dark patterns in the steel, flowing like waves of dark oil. “But I just didn’t want to lie there and wait”
Her smile softened, becoming a little more honest. She stepped aside, letting him in - making a point
Marco’s eyes followed her around the room. He picked out the photographs on the wall, the certificates, the awards from Great Justice. He watched her detach both
“So, what brings you here Marco?”
“I don’t know.” he said, quickly. “You know anything about the others?”
She look at him for a second, just long enough to to make him think she didn’t know the answer. One of the fins on her back adjusted its position. “I’m told two hundred rads was the worst. They’ll recover”
That amount of radiation would still leave a mark.
“And I got a over a thousand,” he heard himself say,
The weight of it settled on his body. For a moment, he thought he’d throw up. A small part of him begged to burst out in tears, but that wasn’t who he was.
“Having second thoughts?” Jet’s voice interrupted. He thought he saw a glimmer of sympathy in those sapphire eyes
“It’s a lot to take in. What you are.” He found himself eyeing her body - picking out the little details that proved she wasn’t just a human in a suit. A data-drive hung from the plastic cover over her ear. A small pouch on her hip pumped a tan liquid into a port in the side of her torso.
“Even what I’m going to be,” he said. “Looking at you I can’t even imagine it. I can’t even imagine that I’m dying - I know it, but I don’t feel it.” Aside from the itching in his boots. “Not yet anyway.”
A rueful smile crossed his lips.
“I can’t imagine being human anymore.”
“But I was thinking about something you said? Being among the stars, rather than looking out at them? I do want to know what that’s like.” He felt a shiver run through his body, a grin turning the edges of his lips up. “I’m actually excited”
----
Gaige didn’t know whether to call it acceptance, resignation or silken underwear. At least it meant a good, solid night’s sleep for the first time. She lingered in her bed curling her toes on the bedsheets finding one momentary scrap of comfort, before resigning herself to facing another day.
She rolled to her side, grasping for the workbook left on the table beside. A clasp across it unlocked with her thumb-print. It hinged open to show a flexible screen
Hi _Gaige_
Good Morning and Welcome to day three of your workbook. We hope you’re feeling a little better. The steps may be small, but all progress is good progress. So, tell me, how did you sleep last night? Did anything keep you awake?
She added the answers expected. The mind in the workbook answered back with its suggestions. Things to try, things that’d make tomorrow that little more comfortable
Gaige started with the shower, all the while wondering why someone would want a body that got that sticky with sweat. She toweled herself off, taking a little care around the tender parts of her body.
She dressed herself, taking note that she’d reached her final leotard. Everything else that’d been given to her, had either been torn by quirk, or covered little to nothing at all. She held one black item against herself, just out of curiosity
Gaige didn’t really know what to call it. A single piece strapless dress that left little to the imagination and guaranteed someone would get a good view of her underwear. It didn’t look like it’d fit. She’d seen her sister wear it once or twice.
Gaige set it aside, with the rest.
She nestled herself into the leotard, slipped her feet into a pair of thighboots that’d become almost welcoming. Two small straps clipped her boots to a belt, and kept everything together.
All ready for another day’s work. She felt herself sigh. It had to happen.
The doorball chimed. She sighed again.
Gaige considered just letting whomever it was get bored and go away. A second chime told her that wouldn’t happen. She crossed the floor, mustering up the energy to tell whomever it was to fuck off.
Reluctantly, she opened the door. A bunch of colour answered on the other side. Reds, whites, yellows and luscious freshly cut greens with scents of fresh cut grasses and succulent nectars.
Gaige blinked, the words in her mouth dissolving as her jaw hinged open.
“Flowers?” she managed to say.
Oh no, she thought, it’s been three days and already I’ve got a bloody admirer.
Kotono’s face emerged from behind the bunch.
“I didn’t know what else to get you, and this place could use a little colour,” she smiled. “It’s my way of saying sorry for yesterday. ” Her arms extended, offering the bushel to her. Kotono bowed deeply. “Please accept my apology, Gaige Kisaragi”
Gaige felt her breathing stop for a heartbeat. Even wrapped in pink plastic, the green, living blossoms felt cold and fresh in her hands, beads of condensation running down the cellophane film that held them tight.
“Thanks…..I…..” Gaige trailed off, a creeping unease crawling up her body that something evil would happen if she took them. She looked to Kotono. “What do I do with these?”
Kotono smiled. “Normally, you put them in water.”
Gaige rotated them in her hand, gazing into the depths of the blossoms. The sweet scent of nectar tingled inside her nostrils, a smile crawling across her lips.
“Nobody’s ever given me flowers before.”
“I should’ve known you wouldn’t have a vase,” Kotono glanced around, placing a hand under her chin
Gaige thought a moment. “Wait!. I’ve an idea.” She ran back into her apartment.
Kotono stepped in behind her, a bemused look on her face letting the door finally close behind her. She watched Gaige run up the stairs to her bed on the mezzanine, still holding the bunch in her left hand.
Gaige returned after a minute, holding a mirror-polished black leather ballet boot with a toe that came to a point. The front side went well past the knee. The backside stopped most of the way up the calf, a trio of buckled straps holding the boot tight to the leg.
Kotono blinked, eyeballing her own reflection in the leather. “You know what your sister paid for those,”
“I know it’s uncomfortable,” said Gaige. “It looks uncomfortable.”
Kotono settled herself into the couch, content to watch while Gaige fumbled to fill a boot with water from the kitchenette tap, before settling the blossoms into place, tying them securely.
Proud of herself, she placed the boot on the coffee coffee table, right in front of Kotono
“That actually…….That looks really nice.” Kotono almost sounded surprised to Gaige’s ear.
The boot stood on its own on the table, blossoms cresting the tongue, green stems held tightly in place by loops in the straps.
“Thanks,” Gaige said,picking an armchair for herself. She settled herself down into an armchair, her body’s legs crossing themselves tightly. For a moment, it seemed like she resisted, tension rippling through her body, before she relaxed into it relenting to the body’s own programming.
“You’re looking better today,” said Kotono. “More relaxed.”
Gaige breathed, shifting in her chair, any hint of relaxation leaving her body in that moment.
“Resigned, I think,” she answered.
“Resigned?”
Gaige looked away, taking a moment to gather for feelings. Something caught in her throat, an echo of last night. She felt the sob in her throat, the pressure rising
“Jet told me why I was shot down last night”
Kotono stirred, before settling herself back. She inhaled a breath, setting both of her hands patiently on her lap, , giving Gaige the space to speak or not.
“They wanted me alive,” Gaige said, after a few moments. Her eyes went to her feet.. “They wanted Mackie alive. They still want Mackie.”
She breathed, looking up to Kotono for something sooth.
“....I’m sorry.” Kotono managed to say, at a loss for anything else.
“So, either I spend the rest of my life like this,” she pressed bother her hands against her chest. “Or I spend the rest of my life in secure protective custody.” She sat forward, with her elbows on her lap, still looking at the floor. “I don’t even know how to begin to deal with that.”
Kotono thought a moment, before sitting herself forward with a smile on her face.
“Well, the first way is the traditional way.” she said, almost as if she was s It’s the plot your sister follows. You get changed, or something happens and you have to gain strength to overcome it. You gain your power by overcoming and you finish stronger because of your journey.”
Gaige looked up.
“Or,” Kotono held up a single finger. “You can take a different approach.You already have your power. You’re already strong, and what’s happened to you, and what anyone did to you, doesn’t take that away. Who you already are, is strong enough.”
“I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life like this.” said Gaige, looking down at her body.. “But I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life in a box either.”
“Honestly,” Kotono said, settling back into her chair again “I can’t imagine trying to make that choice.”
“I hated being the Knightwing.” Gaige said. Her body visibly tensed.
“Does that help you choose?”
“If ‘sis finds the people who shot me down, then I don’t have to,” she said “I need to finish the jet to help with that.”
“And if she can’t,”
“I need to finish the jet.” Gaige said, her gaze hardening with determination.
“Because you’re a pilot?”asked Kotono. A moment later, her mind caught up to what her mouth an already realised, her face lighting up with surprise at her own genius. “That’s the very first thing you did, wasn’t it?
Gaige’s jaw fell open, the words dying in her mouth when she realised what she was about to say. For one brief moment, Gaige’s heart knew what it wanted.
“...Ah No.”
“What?” Kotono loomed forward, wearing a cat-like smirk, waiting to hear the words.
Gaige settled back, crossing her arms again, refusing to say what’d “I think Jet’s going to find them.”
“Hmmmm…” a momentary chuckle escaped her lips.
Gaige sat there, unable to keep herself from smiling, despite herself.
-----
He stood beneath a mosaic mural, recently finished. A radiant nucleus shone a hot yellow like a star, wreathed in atomic rings of gas, set against abstract steel bands machinery. A firefighter, a miner and an engineer formed a trefoil around it, keeping the energy at bay with dispassionate faces and strong arms.
A monument to the defeat of the reactor, and those who’d beaten it. Lun’s fellow travellers had put it together.
All those who’d worked on the reactor, had their names added to the wall. The heroes who risked the cruellest of deaths to save the station.
He could see his own name, along with his engineering team. He could remember the heat from the shield of Unit 2 soaking through his boots as he manually cranked valves the computer systems wouldn’t unlock.
He’d taken enough rads to burn him out for life, according to international best practice. He’d gone back to work a month later, as if nothing had happened.
Going into a room without a geiger counter had earned him that cruellest of deaths.
A simple mistake.
I am already dead.
The words swam inside Marco’s mind, even as his body insisted otherwise. He’d stopped throwing up, leaving only a vague emptiness inside and the sense of his stomach turning with the echo of a headache in behind his eyes.
Like the Monday morning after a weekend-long party.
But not dead.
Some of the other fitters were still getting sick. All of them would get better. Of course, the medic had gone into excruciating detail of how dead he already was. His body had already begun to die - within a few days it would catch up. Not more than a week.
Already he thought he could feel his feet itch in his boots.
He’d snuck out of the infirmary, not wanting to spend the next few days lying in that room when he had other places to be. He thought about saying goodbye to his crew. He thought about writing his last letters home, but couldn’t conceive of anything to say. He thought about a will, about what’d happen to his apartment, his things, the small twin-engined speeder he’d bought.
Again the thought rang in his mind.
I am already dead.
Dead man walking.
A zombie. A walking ghost.
People said hello and didn’t know. He kept to himself, not really feeling the need to explain. The rumour mill would inform them soon enough. Yes - I took a thousand rads and am going to rot to death but I’m OK for now.
He didn’t feel dead. He could keep down a bottle of water. He could run. He felt strong enough. He helped someone push-start a car.
He met a friend, Armin from team four. Oh hey, they let you out of the infirmary. Yeah, for a short while anyway. Hope you feel better soon then man.
Not fucking likely.
His feet carried him to the main concourse with its lurid electric signs hung from the concrete and steel pipework above speaking in a strange hybrid of the Crystal Ohtori and the Neon Genaros. Steam drifted from the foodstalls under the mezzanine, readying breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next shift-change.. Scents of Chinese, Indian, Italian and Texan cuisine drifted through his nose, carrying him forward, mingling with heavy smell of machine oil, ozone and metal from an engineer’s workshop.
A draft of heat from inside the shop carried the distinctive rose-perfume of two duellists. The pair stood in their androgynous gold-trimmed uniforms, trying on new foils for size. He watched one of them draw a few graceful curves in their air with the blade, polished steel iridescent under the neon.
He stopped outside the Midoriyah - a cafe where he’d lunched a hundred times or rmore and realise that, despite having not having eaten anything for two days, and with the smell of fresh baking drifting on the air.
He just couldn’t bring himself to feel hungry.
Marco walked on. The botanist - Emi - and her small selection of flowers brought a small patch of green life to the concrete, steel and neon. He saw one of the founders, Kotono he thought her name was, buying a fairly elaborate selection.
She glanced at him, flashing a momentary smile.
He smiled back. Maybe they’d flirt - have a night together and then…
He’d rot alive in bed within a week. First would come the burns, on his skin, on his feet. Inside his stomach. Inside his bones. Dead skin would blacken and burst open. Dead muscle split from the bone like cooked meat. Dead eyes turn white and blind. He would choke on his own stomach while his insides rotted into human soup.
And through it all he would feel every single moment, right up until the last.
In a moment, he felt sick all over again . He ran to the public toilet, shouldering open the door to the one unlocked stall. His knees cracked down onto hard white tiles, his arms bracing against cold white porcelain.
His body retched, barbed- wire coiling around his stomach. A chimy mix of water, bile and blood boiled up from inside him, burning up the back of his throat while his insides coiled themselves into a knot, convulsing against a poison that didn’t really exist.
He gasped for breath, cursing, sweat dripping down his face. Another, coiling retch drew a zombie-like moan from his throat and nothing but foul, brown slime.
It left him shivering, his body turned to jelly, melting inside
A voice carried across the stall wall. “You okay man? Sounds like you’re dying in there?”
A groan emerged from his own lips.
“You don’t know how right you are.”
The pain dulled down, muting as the coils unwound themselves, leaving him drained of energy, supporting himself on quivering arms.
Maybe staying in the infirmary would’ve been a better idea.
After a few minutes, he found the strength to push himself to his feet. He swayed on his feet, flushed the toilet clear, and took another deep breath. Some fresh water from one of the wash-hand basins washed the taste out of his mouth.
He left the bathroom and kept walking.
The station general store carried the basic necessities of life - base foods that could be grown in the hydroponics bay, clothes, and general necessities and appliances that could be planned in on weekly shuttle. His station account had gone so far into the red he wondered if it’d follow him to the grave.
On the plus side - it didn’t get accounted for his annual dues. It didn’t account as income - just a benefit.
Beside it, a meticulously recreated Intershop carried more, and could order more specialised items from the rest of the system - but it needed hard Credits rather than the scrip the Station handed out. Those who wanted things quick, picked up a side-hustle or two.
The drawbacks of being at the tail-end of a long supply-chain.
Everyone else would take either, at whatever exchange-rate suited them - but the scrip would always be worth less unless someone had a serious tax issue.
The two constants in the universe. Death and taxes. He faced both.
Children’s classes had finished for the day in school block. Adult classes had begun - on everything from dancing, to sabre duelling. Beside it, The Rock and Hard Place had just started to wake, a building humm of conversation and the thrumming beat of the music spilling out into the tunnel outside.
A single exocomp stopped on its way to some menial task, the machine taking its time to investigate him with its implements. It stopped for a half second, checked one more time to be sure, before spinning like a top and accelerating away with a crack from its thrusters.
Of course it detected the radiation in his body and panicked - the reactor had fried at least a dozen of them.
He kept walking. At the end of the passage, away from the general flow of the crowd, waited a room that’d once been used as a small lecture hall. It’d been sealed with an armoured bulkhead
A sentence had been stenciled onto the door in white paint.
Blitzkrieg Panzer Kunst.
He paused, not quite sure what he’d been expecting himself to do when he’d gotten there, or why he’d bothered to make the effort.
A concrete room - converted into an oversized airlock, with a space-door opposite. On the wall to his right, an oversized Balisong, large enough that he’d struggle to lift it. Beside it, a sniper rifle that’d been a starship cannon. Other weapons he couldn’t identify.
At the centre of the room, Jet herself. For a heartbeat, he saw her face, blue eyes staring through him, before she vanished into a blur
Barely visible at the speed she was moving, his eyes unable to keep up as she swept across the floor with a turbine shriek, dancing between drones striking for her body. Her hands cracked off the concrete floor. Her feet cracked off the concrete ceiling.
She landed with a third crack, barely a meter in front of him, turbines in her body winding down, wings spread wide, twin blades on her forearms sparking in the light. The drones furled their own wings, before latching onto hers
But, of course, he wasn’t going to die. Only his body. His future stood in front of him in cybernetic armour. That’s what they’re going to do to you.
Her eyes closed and tension clamped down on her body. A forced smile crossed her lips. Her eyes still looked tired. Marco found himself wondering momentarily if she’d slept - or if she even needed it..
“They let you out of the infirmary?”
“No,” he admitted. His eyes fail to the blades clamped to her forearms and the dark patterns in the steel, flowing like waves of dark oil. “But I just didn’t want to lie there and wait”
Her smile softened, becoming a little more honest. She stepped aside, letting him in - making a point
Marco’s eyes followed her around the room. He picked out the photographs on the wall, the certificates, the awards from Great Justice. He watched her detach both
“So, what brings you here Marco?”
“I don’t know.” he said, quickly. “You know anything about the others?”
She look at him for a second, just long enough to to make him think she didn’t know the answer. One of the fins on her back adjusted its position. “I’m told two hundred rads was the worst. They’ll recover”
That amount of radiation would still leave a mark.
“And I got a over a thousand,” he heard himself say,
The weight of it settled on his body. For a moment, he thought he’d throw up. A small part of him begged to burst out in tears, but that wasn’t who he was.
“Having second thoughts?” Jet’s voice interrupted. He thought he saw a glimmer of sympathy in those sapphire eyes
“It’s a lot to take in. What you are.” He found himself eyeing her body - picking out the little details that proved she wasn’t just a human in a suit. A data-drive hung from the plastic cover over her ear. A small pouch on her hip pumped a tan liquid into a port in the side of her torso.
“Even what I’m going to be,” he said. “Looking at you I can’t even imagine it. I can’t even imagine that I’m dying - I know it, but I don’t feel it.” Aside from the itching in his boots. “Not yet anyway.”
A rueful smile crossed his lips.
“I can’t imagine being human anymore.”
“But I was thinking about something you said? Being among the stars, rather than looking out at them? I do want to know what that’s like.” He felt a shiver run through his body, a grin turning the edges of his lips up. “I’m actually excited”
----
Gaige didn’t know whether to call it acceptance, resignation or silken underwear. At least it meant a good, solid night’s sleep for the first time. She lingered in her bed curling her toes on the bedsheets finding one momentary scrap of comfort, before resigning herself to facing another day.
She rolled to her side, grasping for the workbook left on the table beside. A clasp across it unlocked with her thumb-print. It hinged open to show a flexible screen
Hi _Gaige_
Good Morning and Welcome to day three of your workbook. We hope you’re feeling a little better. The steps may be small, but all progress is good progress. So, tell me, how did you sleep last night? Did anything keep you awake?
She added the answers expected. The mind in the workbook answered back with its suggestions. Things to try, things that’d make tomorrow that little more comfortable
Gaige started with the shower, all the while wondering why someone would want a body that got that sticky with sweat. She toweled herself off, taking a little care around the tender parts of her body.
She dressed herself, taking note that she’d reached her final leotard. Everything else that’d been given to her, had either been torn by quirk, or covered little to nothing at all. She held one black item against herself, just out of curiosity
Gaige didn’t really know what to call it. A single piece strapless dress that left little to the imagination and guaranteed someone would get a good view of her underwear. It didn’t look like it’d fit. She’d seen her sister wear it once or twice.
Gaige set it aside, with the rest.
She nestled herself into the leotard, slipped her feet into a pair of thighboots that’d become almost welcoming. Two small straps clipped her boots to a belt, and kept everything together.
All ready for another day’s work. She felt herself sigh. It had to happen.
The doorball chimed. She sighed again.
Gaige considered just letting whomever it was get bored and go away. A second chime told her that wouldn’t happen. She crossed the floor, mustering up the energy to tell whomever it was to fuck off.
Reluctantly, she opened the door. A bunch of colour answered on the other side. Reds, whites, yellows and luscious freshly cut greens with scents of fresh cut grasses and succulent nectars.
Gaige blinked, the words in her mouth dissolving as her jaw hinged open.
“Flowers?” she managed to say.
Oh no, she thought, it’s been three days and already I’ve got a bloody admirer.
Kotono’s face emerged from behind the bunch.
“I didn’t know what else to get you, and this place could use a little colour,” she smiled. “It’s my way of saying sorry for yesterday. ” Her arms extended, offering the bushel to her. Kotono bowed deeply. “Please accept my apology, Gaige Kisaragi”
Gaige felt her breathing stop for a heartbeat. Even wrapped in pink plastic, the green, living blossoms felt cold and fresh in her hands, beads of condensation running down the cellophane film that held them tight.
“Thanks…..I…..” Gaige trailed off, a creeping unease crawling up her body that something evil would happen if she took them. She looked to Kotono. “What do I do with these?”
Kotono smiled. “Normally, you put them in water.”
Gaige rotated them in her hand, gazing into the depths of the blossoms. The sweet scent of nectar tingled inside her nostrils, a smile crawling across her lips.
“Nobody’s ever given me flowers before.”
“I should’ve known you wouldn’t have a vase,” Kotono glanced around, placing a hand under her chin
Gaige thought a moment. “Wait!. I’ve an idea.” She ran back into her apartment.
Kotono stepped in behind her, a bemused look on her face letting the door finally close behind her. She watched Gaige run up the stairs to her bed on the mezzanine, still holding the bunch in her left hand.
Gaige returned after a minute, holding a mirror-polished black leather ballet boot with a toe that came to a point. The front side went well past the knee. The backside stopped most of the way up the calf, a trio of buckled straps holding the boot tight to the leg.
Kotono blinked, eyeballing her own reflection in the leather. “You know what your sister paid for those,”
“I know it’s uncomfortable,” said Gaige. “It looks uncomfortable.”
Kotono settled herself into the couch, content to watch while Gaige fumbled to fill a boot with water from the kitchenette tap, before settling the blossoms into place, tying them securely.
Proud of herself, she placed the boot on the coffee coffee table, right in front of Kotono
“That actually…….That looks really nice.” Kotono almost sounded surprised to Gaige’s ear.
The boot stood on its own on the table, blossoms cresting the tongue, green stems held tightly in place by loops in the straps.
“Thanks,” Gaige said,picking an armchair for herself. She settled herself down into an armchair, her body’s legs crossing themselves tightly. For a moment, it seemed like she resisted, tension rippling through her body, before she relaxed into it relenting to the body’s own programming.
“You’re looking better today,” said Kotono. “More relaxed.”
Gaige breathed, shifting in her chair, any hint of relaxation leaving her body in that moment.
“Resigned, I think,” she answered.
“Resigned?”
Gaige looked away, taking a moment to gather for feelings. Something caught in her throat, an echo of last night. She felt the sob in her throat, the pressure rising
“Jet told me why I was shot down last night”
Kotono stirred, before settling herself back. She inhaled a breath, setting both of her hands patiently on her lap, , giving Gaige the space to speak or not.
“They wanted me alive,” Gaige said, after a few moments. Her eyes went to her feet.. “They wanted Mackie alive. They still want Mackie.”
She breathed, looking up to Kotono for something sooth.
“....I’m sorry.” Kotono managed to say, at a loss for anything else.
“So, either I spend the rest of my life like this,” she pressed bother her hands against her chest. “Or I spend the rest of my life in secure protective custody.” She sat forward, with her elbows on her lap, still looking at the floor. “I don’t even know how to begin to deal with that.”
Kotono thought a moment, before sitting herself forward with a smile on her face.
“Well, the first way is the traditional way.” she said, almost as if she was s It’s the plot your sister follows. You get changed, or something happens and you have to gain strength to overcome it. You gain your power by overcoming and you finish stronger because of your journey.”
Gaige looked up.
“Or,” Kotono held up a single finger. “You can take a different approach.You already have your power. You’re already strong, and what’s happened to you, and what anyone did to you, doesn’t take that away. Who you already are, is strong enough.”
“I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life like this.” said Gaige, looking down at her body.. “But I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life in a box either.”
“Honestly,” Kotono said, settling back into her chair again “I can’t imagine trying to make that choice.”
“I hated being the Knightwing.” Gaige said. Her body visibly tensed.
“Does that help you choose?”
“If ‘sis finds the people who shot me down, then I don’t have to,” she said “I need to finish the jet to help with that.”
“And if she can’t,”
“I need to finish the jet.” Gaige said, her gaze hardening with determination.
“Because you’re a pilot?”asked Kotono. A moment later, her mind caught up to what her mouth an already realised, her face lighting up with surprise at her own genius. “That’s the very first thing you did, wasn’t it?
Gaige’s jaw fell open, the words dying in her mouth when she realised what she was about to say. For one brief moment, Gaige’s heart knew what it wanted.
“...Ah No.”
“What?” Kotono loomed forward, wearing a cat-like smirk, waiting to hear the words.
Gaige settled back, crossing her arms again, refusing to say what’d “I think Jet’s going to find them.”
“Hmmmm…” a momentary chuckle escaped her lips.
Gaige sat there, unable to keep herself from smiling, despite herself.
-----
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.