Fools and the Fools who Follow Them

Gigolo was worried. If Elesa planned on telling someone about what he had done, it could be very bad for him. June, the president, was known to be a great feminist, and looked dimly on men forcing themselves on women. Normally, it would only be enough to get him a verbal reprimand, and probably not even from June herself, but with Decarabia teetering on the edge, it could be the last straw to get him kicked from the clan. He had to shut her up somehow.

Violence or threats wouldn't work- that would only land him in deeper trouble. Besides, he wasn't sure he could threaten her at all. He didn't have anything to use against her, besides a few rumors from men she had rejected that she was a lesbian. Not that that would worry her. He could plead with her, but she hated him anyway. He'd have to find something to offer her, something that she wanted. It pained him to admit it, but he depended on her right now. He couldn't get kicked from the clan, not now that he was getting so close to removing Zero.

A message interrupted his thoughts. It was from Vivian. He opened it, and her image flickered into his vision.

'Message to all of Decarabia squad. Meet at the hangar immediately. We have an assignment. Details when you get here.' The image disappeared. Gigolo frowned. This was unexpected. Normally they got a bit more warning before being sent out on a mission.

He stood up from his bed and dressed in his armor. He took his weapons from their stands and jogged to the elevator.

At the hangar he arrived to see everyone but Zero already there. Vivian nodded to him when she saw him. Atlas waved.

'Where's our esteemed leader?' Gigolo asked Atlas.

'Dunno. Haven't seen him since Meier gave him a bollocking earlier.'

'He's just there,' Vivian said, frowning at Gigolo. She pointed to the elevator, and Gigolo saw Zero jogging towards them. Zero slowed when he reached Vivian.

'Brief them,' he said, then walked into the pelican.

Vivian turned to watch him go, then looked back to the assembled Spartans. Gigolo, who was watching carefully, thought she seemed worried.

'Our mission is simple recon. Benzene, who we have an alliance with, have stopped responding to messages recently. We're going to check that everything is okay with them.'

'How recently?' Midori asked.

'Within the past 12 hours.' Vivian replied. 'Normally we wouldn't send a recon team until a few days have passed, but as the Torchbearers have also been out of contact, ops decided that it was better to play it safe. If it's some kind of sabotage by the Scorpions, we have to know.' Vivian paused. 'Any other questions?' Everyone shook their heads. 'Good. We leave immediately.'

The squad moved into the Pelican. Gigolo tried to avoid meeting Elesa's gaze. He could tell she was still angry with him; she kept glaring at him. He could only hope that she hadn't told anyone.

'Hey, man,' Atlas said, pausing as he walked to the cabin. 'What's up with Elesa? She keeps shooting daggers at you.'

'I'll tell you later,' Gigolo said.

'Suit yourself,' Atlas responded, shrugging. He walked into the cockpit. Gigolo watched him go with a feeling of envy. He was the only man in the squad who didn't have a girlfriend. It must be so much easier for Atlas, being in a stable relationship.

The pelican took off and flew into the clear air. They touched down about 15 minutes later, at the Benzene base. The base was a hexagonal compound, with squat buildings inside, none more than 5 stories high. As clans went, Benzene was pretty low on the tech scale. They didn't have the sort of equipment and skill that Aspertias had.

'I tried to open communications repeatedly with them,' Atlas was saying. 'I got nothing. Plus, this place looks deserted from the outside.'

The pelican had landed near the gate to the compound, a few hundred meters from the hangar.

'Check the Hangar,' Zero ordered. 'If they evacuated, their birds will be gone.' He turned to Gigolo. 'You and Midori stay here.'

'Shouldn't I be staying-' Atlas begun, but was cut off by Zero.

'Don't question my orders.' Atlas nodded sulkily. 'Lets go.' The four of them set off, leaving Gigolo and Midori behind.

'Clever,' Midori remarked when they had disappeared.

'How?' Gigolo asked her.

'He wants someone he can trust at the pelican, and as long as Atlas isn't here, nobody can leave.'

'I thought he trusted Atlas,' Gigolo said, surprised.

'He's cleverer than you give him credit for,' Midori replied. She sat heavily on the rear of the pelican, and refused to talk further.

2

Vivian led the way to the hangar, following the map in her HUD. Nobody stopped them, or attacked them. The base seemed deserted. They jogged in silence, none of them particularly wanting to talk to each other. After a few hundred meters, they reached one of the struts holding the elevated hangar open. Elesa scanned the inside quickly. When she gave the all clear the rest of the squad entered and began climbing the stairs.

At the top the stairs opened out to reveal the hangar, full of aircraft bearing the Benzene insignia.

'So they didn't evacuate,' Vivian said. 'At least, not by air.'

'We could check the car pool if you want to be certain,' Atlas said. 'But I don't think we'll need to.' He gestured to an aircraft at the end of the hangar. 'That's a Scorpion Pelican.'

'So the Scorpion's attacked? That's it?' Vivian asked.

'No.' Zero looked around the hangar slowly. 'This isn't an attack. For one thing, there's only the one pelican. How could a single dropship of troops take out an entire clan?'

'This whole situation feels odd,' Atlas said. 'I mean- when have you ever seen a totally empty base?'

'That's true,' Vivian said. 'If they'd been beaten, we'd either still be seeing Scorpion troops around, or some of the Benzene would have respawned already. Where is everyone?'

'No point standing around,' Zero said. 'We'll check out the Scorpion pelican, then head to the motor pool. Move!' He began to jog towards the other end of the hangar.

3

Gigolo was getting frustrated. Midori was being stubbornly uncommunicative, and he was bored. Zero leaving him at the pelican was a petty and stupid move- he was the squad's infiltrator, for god's sake- but also a good way of getting back at him. He glanced at Midori again. If only it was anyone else but her. Though not Elesa. Or Zero. Or Vivian. He sighed. Most times Atlas seemed to be his only friend in this hellhole of a squad. The rest seemed to always take Zero's side over his, even when Zero was blatantly in the wrong.

Suddenly he spotted movement and was on his feet in a second.

'What- where?' Midori asked, also on her feet.

'On the bridge to the left. 4 Spartans- Scorpions.'

'I see them.' Midori glanced to the side. 'Zero? We've spotted 4 Scorpion Spartans. They haven't seen us yet.' There was a pause. 'They don't seem to be coming this way.' She paused again.

Gigolo suddenly heard the crackle of distant gunfire. He zoomed in his vision on the Spartans and saw that one of them was firing his gun into the building they had just left. He tapped Midori on the arm and pointed.

'Hold up, Midori said. She leaned forwards. 'They're firing at something. Can't see what. No, there's no return fire.' She stopped. 'That's odd.'

4

The Scorpion pelican looked as though it had been left in a hurry. The rear door was open, with the lights still on and the engine idling. There were no guards, and no sign of where the squad had gone.

As Zero chatted to Midori on the radio, Vivian and Atlas gave the interior a once over. There was no equipment left lying around, but the door to the cabin was open and the controls unlocked.

'I could just take this, right now,' Atlas said. 'I mean, how hard would it be for them to lock the controls? They must have left in a real hurry.'

'I don't know about that,' Vivian replied. 'If they'd been under attack it would show. I think they just didn't expect anyone else to be around. Which is still weird.' Vivian rubbed her arms slowly. 'Say, are there any records of this happening before? Of clans disappearing without a trace?''

Atlas shrugged. 'I wouldn't know about that. You're the one who knows this stuff.'

'Worth a try,' Vivian said. She sighed heavily. 'Then I haven't a clue what went on here.'

'We need more information,' Atlas said. 'Just as soon as our esteemed leader gets off the radio we can go and check the rest of the base out.'

Vivian looked straight at him. 'You and Gigolo are just the same,' She said angrily. 'Too self important to see that you're the reason this squad is having so much trouble. Zero was doing just fine until you lot came along.'

'That's not how the records show it. They show-'

'Quiet!' Zero commanded. Vivian turned to see Elesa and the other Spartan standing at the door to the pelican. 'Midori and Gigolo have seen a squad of Scorpions. We're going to go and find out what they're doing here.' He turned to Vivian. 'Can you plot us a route to the core room?'

'Sure,' Vivian said. She brought up the map in her HUD. 'Head left and out of the hangar.'

5

'We should go and see what they were firing at,' Gigolo said.

'No.' Midori replied. Gigolo sighed, exasperated.

'Come on Midori! We're just sitting here, waiting for our old age to come. We should be out there, finding things out.'

'Well, unless you've lied about your age all this time, you should have at least another 350 years before your old age comes. So we can wait a while longer.'

'Screw it, I'm just going alone.' Gigolo got up and made for the back of the Pelican.

'If Zero hears you've disobeyed orders, he'll find a way to get you kicked out of the clan.' Gigolo stopped. 'And then how will you be able to carry out your grand plan of taking the leadership of the squad from Zero?'

'How do you know about that?' Gigolo asked quietly.

'Oh, come on,' Midori said. 'It's obvious by the way you act around him.' She held up her hands. 'Just so you know, I don't really care who leads this squad, and I'm not getting involved in your petty squabbles. I just wanted to stop you doing something you'd regret.'

'I'd be a far better leader than Zero, and you know it,' Gigolo said. 'The man is an idiot! It's his fault that we keep screwing up, and that none of us are ever going to be promoted to a better squad.;

'It's your fault you're here, Gigolo, not Zero's.'

'Well,- yeah, but it's his fault I stayed here.' Midori shook her head, then froze.

'What was that?' she asked. 'I saw movement.'

'Huh? What do you- oh, shit.' Gigolo saw a black Spartan, wielding an energy sword, standing 20 meters away from him. It slowly turned to face him. Then it started sprinting at top speed towards him. In a flash Gigolo had his assault rifle out and began firing at the Spartan. 3 bullets dropped it, but more appeared behind.

'Midori, help!' Gigolo shouted. Midori jumped to her feet and ran towards Gigolo. 6 more black Spartans appeared from behind him. She opened fire with her rifle at them, dropping them quickly. She caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye and saw a single black Spartan flanking them. She tried to fire but her weapon clicked uselessly. With no other options she hurled the rifle at the enemy Spartan. It impacted straight in it's chest, dropping it.

Gigolo was still firing away as even more of the black Spartans appeared from nowhere. Panicking, Midori grabbed the closest weapon to hand- her rocket launcher- and used it to club away one of the attacking Spartans. She then hoisted it onto her shoulder and fired a rocket at another black Spartan. The tube rotated, bringing her second shot round, as another Spartan lunged at her. She fired on instinct. The rocket exploded in the Spartan's chest, and then the blast wave blew her to pieces.

6

Zero stopped running as Midori and Gigolo's signs disappeared from his HUD. The rest of his team stopped behind him.

'We just lost our way out,' he said sharply. He turned. 'We're heading back to the scorpion pelican. Now.'

'Why?' Atlas asked. 'It's not as if we need a way out. We can just kill ourselves and respawn back at base when we've found what we need.'

'Something's stopping the Benzene from respawning. That same something could happen to us,' Zero said. 'You're young, Atlas. I can't imagine permanent death sounds very attractive to you right now.'

'You don't know that's what caused it,' Atlas said, unsure.

'All of us here have at least 300 years left to live,' Vivian said. 'You have even more than that. I think we should leave now and come back with more troops- preferably a platoon or two.'

'Fine,' Atlas said. Vivian nodded and began to run back towards the hangar. She'd gone 15 paces when a black spartan jumped out in front of her, holding a glimmering energy sword.

On instinct she pulled her DMR out and shot it in the head. It collapsed immediately.

'Hostiles!' She shouted.

'More behind,' Elesa said. Vivian heard the sound of gunfire behind and turned to see Elesa finishing off a pair of the black Spartans with her rifle.

'Move it!' Zero shouted, and the squad began running again.

'More behind,' Elesa said again. Gunfire sounded. 'Lots of them,' she added.

'The hangar's just up ahead,' Vivian cried. They burst into the hangar and sprinted for the dropship, losing all semblance of order. Atlas pulled the cockpit door open and thumbed the control for the rear door.

'Get in, now!' He shouted. The rest of the squad dived through the opening as it swung shut behind them. Immediately the sound of swords on metal sounded from beyond it.

'Let's get out of here,' Atlas said, and the Pelican rose up and flew off towards Aspertias base.

7

Vivian wasn't the sort of person who spent much time at all in coffee shops and bars; when she was dating Zero they had mainly been to the handful of restaurants that Aspertias base boasted- the most in the northern continent, not that it meant anything- or had dinners at their apartment.

As far as she knew, Elesa wasn't the coffee shop sort of person either, so it was quite a surprise when she received an invite asking her to meet at the coffee shop, 2 hours after returning from their scouting mission at the Benzene base.

She arrived at the place- it was called Benny's, she noticed- a few minutes early, and saw that Elesa was already there, sitting at a table next to the panoramic windows looking out over the valley, shrouded in darkness. Elesa spotted her and waved her over.

'Sorry for calling you out so late. I need to talk to you,' Elesa said hurriedly, when Vivian had drawn up a seat. 'Gigolo and Midori haven't respawned yet and Zero is being debriefed by Meier so I thought now would be the best time-'

'It's fine, I understand,' Vivian interrupted. Elesa paused, and then nodded.

'It's about what's been going on with Gigolo and Atlas,' She said.

'I thought it might be,' Vivian replied. 'But go on.'

'We need to do something. Get them removed from the squad, if not the clan.'

'Realistically we'd probably only need to get Gigolo removed,' Vivian said. 'Atlas just follows his lead. He's something of an idiot that way.'

Elesa nodded. 'I don't know what Midori sees in him.' She looked out the window. 'So how would we go about removing Gigolo?'

'I've been in a similar situation before,' Vivian said. 'Before I met Zero- it would have been about 40 years ago, but the rules are the same now as they were then. We need to get everyone in the squad except Gigolo himself to say that they want him to be removed.'

Elesa groaned softly. 'I feared it would be something like that. We'll never get Atlas to agree.'

'He can be made to see sense,' Vivian said. She looked around. 'Hey, how exactly do you go about getting coffee here?'

'Go up to the bar,' Elesa said, gesturing at the bar where a single staff member was wiping some glasses, 'And order. And while you're at it, get me some as well. Black.'

'Of course,' Vivian said. She stood up and walked through the mostly deserted shop to the bar.

Elesa looked out of the window. A seat like this would be hard to get during the day, but at night, with the majority of the clan either asleep, away, or using the nightclubs, they were normally free. She came here several times a week, always at night, to relax and get away from Midori. Although at night, the view wasn't as good- darkness covered the valley, and not much could be seen beyond the moonlight reflected off rivers and snowcapped mountains.

'I got black too. Thought I'd need it.' Vivian sat down again, sliding a cup of coffee over to Elesa. She sipped it appreciatively.

'I think I may be able to convince Midori,' Elesa said. 'She is supposed to be my best friend.'

'She's going out with Atlas, isn't she?' Vivian asked. Elesa nodded. 'Then she may choose to listen to him over you.'

'She'll see sense. She doesn't much like Gigolo anyway- she's said several times how she doesn't like Atlas being friends with him.'

'I hope you're right,' Vivian replied. There was a silence as they both sipped their coffee.

'Zero will agree even if I don't ask him to,' Vivian said. 'So it's just Midori and Atlas we need to convince.'

'Yeah,' Elesa said quietly. Vivian looked at her. She was staring out of the window, a complex expression on her face. Vivian sat quietly. She didn't know Elesa very well, but she knew enough that she would gain nothing by asking Elesa what was up.

'You and Zero,' Elesa said suddenly.

'What about us?' Vivian replied, surprised.

'How did you get together?'

'Oh, that was way back,' Vivian said. 'Must have been- what, 35 years ago? Yes, it was, because I had just turned 30. We were placed in the same squad, and one day we got talking, and we hit it off, and we've been together since. Well-' Vivian's face took on a pained expression- 'It's been difficult for the past 10 years.'

'35 years,' Elesa said with wonder. 'I'm not even that old.'

'Hey, I'm still young,' Vivian said indignantly. 'Why do you ask?'

'No reason really,' Elesa said. 'Just interested.'

Vivian sat and chatted to Elesa for a few minutes before the other woman made her excuses and left. Vivian finished her coffee, and with one last glance out the window, returned to her apartment.

8

'So, fill me in. How did our illustrious leader get us out of that mess?'

Atlas smiled. 'He ran away with his tail between his legs.'

'Not surprising,' Gigolo replied. He stretched his arms, cracking a few joints. Atlas winced. 'Respawning has never really agreed with me,' Gigolo said, seeing his friends expression.

'Me either, but then I'm not normally on the front line,' Atlas replied.

The elevator doors opened, revealing the lobby of the command center. Gigolo and Atlas stepped out of the lift and walked towards the desk. A secretary looked up as they approached.

'May I help you?' She asked.

'Um, yeah,' Gigolo said. 'We're looking to make some inquiries about our squad.'

'Complaints,' Atlas added.

'That too,' Gigolo said, giving Atlas a look. The secretary gave them both a funny look.

'Down the hall,' She said, pointing to the left. 'Second door.' Atlas and Gigolo said their thanks and walked in the direction she had indicated.

'She was totally interested in me,' Gigolo said as soon as they were out of earshot.

'In the same way as you'd be interested in a pile of horse dung.' Atlas replied.

'Shut up,' Gigolo said. 'Like you'd know. You've been out of the game for so long you've forgotten how to pick up a chick.'

'I've been dating Midori for, like, half a year,' Atlas said. 'I think I can still remember how to get a girl.'

Gigolo rolled his eyes. 'This is the one, right?' Atlas nodded. He pushed open the door.

Inside was a small office room, with a desk and a couple of seats opposite. A short man sat behind the computer, gesturing at the screen behind him stood an instantly recognizable man.

'Just who I was looking for,' Meier said, a nasty grin on his face. Then he looked closer at the pair. 'Wait, never mind. You two aren't clever enough to be able to help me. Tell Vivian to come up here when you see her.' Atlas saw Gigolo stiffen as Meier so casually insulted them. He put a hand on his friends shoulder and tried to look confident.

'Actually, we were here for a reason, sir,' He said.

'No, really?' Meier asked. 'Well, out with it!'

'It's not something you really need to hear...' Atlas trailed off under Meier's gaze. He swallowed. 'We wanted to make a complaint.'

'About your squad leader?' Meier asked. 'Why am I not surprised?'

'Because you also know he's barely capable of looking after himself, let alone an entire squad?' Gigolo said suddenly.

'Why would you...' Meier began. The he paused. 'No, that would have been before your time.' He shook his head. 'You newbies. If you really want to get rid of Zero, then you need everyone in your squad- except Zero of course- to request him to be removed as well.'

'What! We'll never get that, not with Vivian in the squad!' Gigolo exclaimed.

'Sorry lads, protocol rules,' Meier said. He looked at the two younger Spartans thoughtfully. 'Are you sure you want Zero out?'

'Yes!' Gigolo said impatiently.

'All right,' Meier said. 'Though maybe you should try finding some out about your leader's history before you go trying to kick him out.' With a nod to the clerk behind the desk, he walked out. 'Remember to send Vivian up here,' he said as he left.

Gigolo looked at Atlas. 'Well that's a load of-' Atlas shushed him.

'Not here. Lets go somewhere we can talk about this,' he said.

Tight lipped, Gigolo followed him out of the command center and into the elevator. Atlas nodded when they were inside.

'How the fuck are we going to get Vivian to agree!' Gigolo shouted. 'This is bullshit!'

'I know, man. No need to shout,' Atlas said. 'Anyway, there are ways.'

'Like what,' Gigolo asked.

'Perhaps if we highlighted Zero's failings to her, she'd come around?' Atlas said.

'You mean if we made him mess up in front of her?' Gigolo nodded. 'I like that.'

'And if we can't get her to come around, I'm sure we can find some other method,' Atlas said.