"What are you doing?"
"Don't mind me. I'm just trying to figure out the mechanics of the new helmets."
"Which mech-wait, what new helmets?"
"The ones you can eat through, silly!"
"Wash-you-oh, you must have gotten the prototype one," Carolina said, a hint of a smirk in her voice. She leaned across the table and took the helmet from Wash, pretending to inspect it more closely
This was a prank he was particularly proud of. He and North had knicked Wash's helmet while he was sleeping and strategically covered it in black masking tape, in order to make it look like a new prototype. When he woke up, Wash had gotten so excited and started playing with it, even North couldn't bring himself to fess up.
Propping his feet up on the table, his ankles digging into the metal, York took a swig from his water bottle. It was getting low. He didn't have the energy to care.
"Hey man, you going to be done soon?"
"Buzz off." York distractedly waved his free hand in the air as though swatting at a bothersome gnat. The voice quieted down again.
"York, don't just stand there! Help us figure-"
He sat up a little more, his boots slipping off the edge of the table. His legs swung down and his heels smashed into the hard metal floor, echoing in the sudden silence. Wash's voice had stopped suddenly, the recording showing a too-familiar "Data File Corrupted" message across the screen, surrounded by distorted colored blocks.
"Fuck, not this one too."
"Need some help?"
"Nothing you can do." York smashed the keyboard with the tip of his finger, dragging the file to a different folder marked 'Partial Recovery.'
"Well, that's not true. I can offer useless platitudes."
"I'm good."
Alpha's voice fell silent again as York pressed on another file, bringing it to life.
"All night, man. He was up all fuckin' night."
He paced across the floor.
"I mean, how many videos of his friends can one guy watch? It's pathetic. I mean, really pathetic."
White walls on all four sides. White floor. White ceiling. Was it even a ceiling? Who knew anymore.
"Yeah, I've lost it. I'm talking to the walls again. Is this a wall?"
He punched the space in front of him. He hit nothing.
"Come back to me!"
"I don't care anymore."
"I made you a muffin!"
"That wasn't even for me, it was for Sheila."
"I try not to remember the bad things about people."
Alpha shook his head, warping the pitch of the voice. It had been more persistent lately.
"Look at what I took credit for finding!"
"Shut up!"
He couldn't keep most of them straight anymore. Reds bled into Blues. Personalities overlapped. Voices changed, settings changed. He'd grown used to the void, but often found himself sitting on the roof of Red Base, staring out over the empty canyon. If he squinted, he could sometimes see the Warthog rolling across the landscape.
What the fuck was a warthog, anyway? It really looked more like a puma, not that anyone ever asked him.
"Hey...Caboose."
"Automatic dishwasher!"
Alpha smiled. "What is time made of?"
"Time isn't made of lines! It's made of circles-"
"-and that's why clocks are round," he finished in sync with the recording. "That's right, buddy."
One voice never changed. Or went away. As much as he sometimes wanted it to be silent. He was glad Caboose stuck around. True friends stuck around, even when they weren't really there.