Thank you all for the reviews,
I appreciate them greatly.
Here is another chapter,
V
Wind; taciturn, it blew the branches towards the gleaming glass, kissing, softly, against her skin. She opened her mouth, swallowing, chest getting tighter, tighter;
She released, and it came out in a soft puff, her nostrils flaring as she opened her eyes yet again. Her muscles loosened a modicum, and her hands shook no more.
The night was beautiful, truly. She looked off the garden's patio, down, onto the sea, drifting, swishing, waves dashing against the concrete base, so, so many miles below. The building rose, a giant, above the water, but the ocean continued in every direction, infinite, listless, and the salt of the sea still reached her nose. (How long had it been?)
The stars were pockmarked scars across the black sky, nebulae and galaxies swirling, kicking up eternal dust. Venus glowed bright, and Saturn grew dim. She took in another breath, and it simmered in her lungs for a minute before she let it out again.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
She turned to the silver man. His sweater was abandoned, sitting to the side, desolate. Genji stood, arms behind his back, his metal hull unreadable. Hana considered him for a moment. His visor shone a neon green, lighting up the night like nothing other than the silver moon.
"It's pretty."
"Men thousands of years in the past have looked up into this very same sky, and asked the questions that led us here today."
"I guess we all share some things."
Genji chuckled softly.
"Do you ever wonder if an omnic looks up into this same sky and sees what we do?"
She hadn't. She told him so.
"Sure, they don't see it with eyes, like we do, but what's to say that they don't see more of it than we do? What's to say that they don't know the story behind every star?" His voice grew quiet.
Who's to say anything? They didn't understand decency or kindness, so why would that matter?
"Sometimes I wonder if people are the cause for all the hurt in the world. We cling to things that are old and weak, fearing to give them up."
Hana said nothing.
"We're broken, Song. I know what you are, and you probably have figured out what I am. The world doesn't have use for us any more."
"You're wrong."
"Oh, are you sure of that?" His voice lilted up, and he walked nearer to her. She tensed.
"Yeah."
"I wish I could be as resolute, Hana. Attachment is the root of all chaos. In order to truly reach something approaching perfection, we must truly let go of all our attachments."
"I don't think that's how it works. We need others... to survive."
"Simple difference in opinions. Perhaps age has dulled my naivety."
She simmered with a rebuttal. What good would it do, however, to make an enemy out of a colleague?
He crossed his arms.
"You probably wonder what kind of man I am."
"A rude one…"
He barked out a laugh.
"You're not wrong. I grew up wanting for nothing. The world was delivered to me on a silver platter, and it was then that I realized that I was truly special."
He looked down. "But I needed to fly out of the nest. So I took up the sword, under my brother's guidance. It was going well, so well."
"It was... not to last. The omnics attacked. They were strong, and even our family of warriors had no hope of eliminating them all. So we fought. I thought we were shoulder to shoulder till the end, dying by each other's side."
"Turns out, I was the only one left. The others had all fled, leaving me alone to perish. The only one who came back was my oldest friend, my brother."
"When he found me, I was not long for this world. My broken body was dismantled, bloody, gored, limbless, barely clinging to this realm out of pure willpower. Hanzo needed someone to save me, a miracle worker. And he did. Doctor Ziegler. I lived, and I was given… this form."
"You're very lucky to be alive."
He barked out a bitter chuckle.
"Luck! That's a funny word for it."
"I survived and am now in a body with many times the strength of my old, flesh one...But I will never be able to feel the sun on my back, eat the food I love, or know the touch of a woman again."
"That I learnt one thing: you can trust nothing but your own two hands." He slowly brought his black hand to his visor, touching the metal fingertips to his faceplate. "The way to survive is by yourself, because if you trust others, you will end up alone anyways; and this time, without warning."
Hana looked up at the stars. Millions and millions of light years away, they shone for an aeon, before burning away, leaving nothing more than dust in their wake.
"We only have so many years on this earth." She sighed. "I'd hate to spend it alone."
"We all end up in a casket that seats only one."
(She didn't really want to continue the conversation.)
"I heard you mistreat Dr. Ziegler."
"Me?" He seemed to think about it, his green glow dimming for a second. "She may have saved my life, and I am… grateful for that. I do not mistreat her. Who would have said that?"
Hana wanted to say something, but she realized that Ziegler was as much a mystery to her as the cyborg.
"The commander said your way of responding to her service is la...lacking." She cleared her throat.
"I see."
Genji turned to the table and took a seat. Glass with wicker chairs, there was a flat board haphazardly crouched on the surface, tiny pieces of ceramic around it.
"A game of chess till dinner, Miss Song? Assuming you know how to play."
She tilted her head. (What?)
"You are welcome to go inside, but I know that you do not consider this place your
Home. You'd be as lost as a puppy if you wandered those halls. However, you could stay here and pass the time until the good doctor collects you."
She fidgeted, but took a seat anyways, the hard spine of the chair pushing into her tailbone. Slouching over as the metal man arranged those chess pieces, she put her hands on her knees and took a deep breath.
"Nervous?" He chuckled.
"Y-yeah. How'd you guess?"
"I can hear your heartbeat. You're rather anxious about something." His head stilled, as if concentrating. "Are you sure you want to play? I may reconsider my offer."
"I got it."
"As you wish."
He waved at the pieces, his silver hand coming to the forefront and his other retreating under the table.
Hana looked down at the pieces. Pawn, Knight, King, Queen, Rook, Bishop...
(Games were her life. She knew games more than she knew her own anatomy, more than she knew when the sun rose in the sky, when the moon shone full or crescent. She learnt the rules first, and then, the way you break those rules and get by anyways.)
She pushed the pawn forward.
He pushed his pawn forward.
She moved her bishop.
He moved another pawn.
(Checkmate in seven moves)
She moved her pawn.
They played.
As so it happened, checkmate in seven moves.
"You are a challenging opponent, Hana Song." Something in his voice was a cool glass of iron nails. She ignored it. Her mind was swimming.
(It has beaten us seventy times out of eighty. The human surpasses our algorithms in every possible way. Lobotomy is now disincluded as a possibility, as it would be a waste of resources. Please continue to monitor.)
"Thanks."
"How did you know I was going to try to pin-check you?"
"I saw it in my mind's eye." She massaged her temples.
"Very interesting. Another?"
Her head was pounding. She said yes.
"I shall play white this time."
(She won again, because of course she would.)
She excused herself from the company of the silent ninja, stumbling through the halls until she saw the polished sign of the women's restroom.
It was lit with a dim orange bulb, and she saw herself in the mirror.
Her body dropped onto the counter, and she held herself up by her elbows. Her palm wrapped around the knob of the faucet, that sleek metal wrenching under her grip. Her fingers protested as she shook the knob, but finally, it gave, and the rush of water splashed against the bowl of the granite sink.
She was breathing heavily, and her shaking hands brushed the cold, cold, water. She touched her hands to her face, and shrieked inside as the chill splashed across her cheeks and eyelids. She rinsed her face and ran some through her hair.
(The girl in the mirror looked absolutely pathetic.)
She walked back to the balcony.
"Sorry, I had to go to the bathroom."
"No issue, Hana. Are you feeling alright?"
"Yeah I'm… I'm fine."
She took her seat again, the wind blowing softly against her wet hair.
"It is about dinner time." He said.
"Oh?"
"Yes, you should go and have your meal."
She didn't want to, but she left the chair, her spine protesting. She stretched, her legs strained despite herself.
"It's been nice." She said.
"Indeed. It has been nice meeting you, Hana Song." He nodded genially, and she went back into the building.
The dinner was, surprisingly, not a buffet. Angela insisted that Hana sit at the head table again (for reasons unclear). Hana felt less like eating and more like doing the opposite, but when chicken pot pie was laid in front of her, she took hesitant jabs at it with her fork.
The people seated had changed, with some having disappeared mysteriously through the day, like the wayward Commander Reyes and his cowboy sidekick, leaving empty chairs and cutlery.
Instead, seated among them were a few new faces, chief being an energetic young woman with spiky brown hair that reminded Hana of the hurricanes she had seen in her youth; she moved with a kind of supernatural urgency that didn't mesh with her genial, easygoing temperament.
"Nice to meet you! I'm Lena." Freckles, warm hands, and a neon blue glowing contraption strapped to her chest. Lena ate her pie in the time it took Hana to pick up her fork, and she spent the rest of the time chatting with her.
"You okay, luv? You doin' alright?"
"Yeah, I'm just new to the place. I got here this morning."
Lena nodded. "You'll be right at home, I promise you that, love. Don't be too down!"
Ana was seated on Hana's other side, taking sips out of a martini glass pinched between her fingers.
"Lena, Jack decided to give her the entrance exam after dinner."
"Oh, really? No wonder, then! Jack's always been a bit hasty bout these kinda things. I'll have a word with him, aye?"
Hana said, no, it was okay.
"Alright, love, if you really think you can do it, I'll be cheering for ya!"
When dinner was done, Hana wished she was back in the medical room with the coddling Dr. Ziegler. (Screw this, screw the stress, screw me). She'd probably fail, she was a tiny emaciated teenager who had spent the last few years in captivity, and the years before that? Playing computer games for money. She had no marketable skills nor anything that would be useful to a burgeoning rebellion. Hana briefly considered jumping out the window.
Jack Morrison walked into the hall, in his blue jacket (That jacket). His strides were wide and practical, the occupants of the hall turning their heads to him, their eyes magnetized. Tracer waved, and the Commander gave her a pert nod.
"Song. Follow me. Amari, Oxton, report to the training room after twenty minutes." Lana had already finished her dinner, but she stayed at the table.
Hana followed him, quietly. She kept her eyes on the bright red seventy six on his back in those stylized block numbers, his broad shoulders straight as a ruler as he marched.
"So you're probably nervous, Hana." He said.
"I guess so."
"You should be. I want you nervous. I'm glad you're taking this seriously."
He descended a set of stairs way faster than she could, so he slowed down for a moment.
"If it looks like I'm being hard on you, I am. It's really the only option anymore. We've got to be hard to survive."
And then they entered the training room.
Stark white and with mirrors, it felt way more like a gigantic gym than anything else; blue mats marked every dozen feet, people in sports outfits going at each other, fists in front of their faces, dashing, striking, falling. Metal panels intersped the floors and walls.
And then, Morrison raised his hand. And it all stopped.
"File out."
They did, in thunderous footsteps, mats curling in seconds, ants tearing the nest apart and stuffing it into a closet. In a minute, it was barren, with only her and Jack still standing, ten feet from each other, on the wooden paneling.
A table raised itself out of the floor, Jack placing his hands on it and gesturing her to move onto the other side.
And then he pulled out a gun, and handed it to her. She hefted it, feeling the familiar knot in her wrist, again. Black, with a hard grip, the weight seemed as pregnant as ever, as lethal, and she rubbed it with her pinkie.
"I assume you've used one of these before?"
"Yes, sir."
He pointed to a set of targets on the opposite wall, about twenty feet away.
"We don't have a true shooting range anymore, nor do we have headphones. Thankfully, guns aren't as loud as they were when I enlisted." He gripped her shoulder, and she breathed in heavily.
"Shoot the targets."
Her arms were out, straight, her stance rigid. She knew how to fire these.
Bang.
It missed the target by a foot.
Neither said anything, and they didn't need to. Hana felt a slight softness in her wrist from the recoil, but she loosened it, and closed her eyes a second. After opening them again, she fired.
She didn't miss a second time.
There was a bullet hole in the dead center of the target, a red light shining where she had shot it. Her hands weren't shaking anymore. She moved her body on her heel, and fired, again.
Another dead bullseye.
"Nice shooting."
She shot five more targets, her accuracy snowballing, her elbow straightening, her hands still, her heart still, breath caught in her lungs, her eyes magnetized to the sights. She didn't even hear the bangs anymore. There was her finger squeezing the trigger, and then moving to the next. She knew she was good enough to hit it.
There was a hand on her shoulder.
"Ok, Song. Your aim clearly isn't a problem. Very impressive. Now, you have one more test before you can join us."
She put the gun down, and turned to him.
He took a few steps back, throwing his jacket to the floor. His arms were out, bent, his eyes narrowed, and he adopted a defensive stance.
"Show me what you got. Beat an old man up, will you?"
Her eyes widened.