Yay! Day off from school and work, and character-to-character interaction, nice and lenghtly reading! enjoy! Btw happy Veteran's Day
CHAPTER 8. COURTING
Identified: Specimen Negative.
Eve has heard those responses before from her holopad. Usually, when she was sent on the yearly reconnaissance missions to various terrestrial planets to find any traces of life forms, from microbiological specimens to full sized plants; to varify if the planet is capable of sustaining complex life. But hasn't found ONE on any mission she was sent.
In her mind, she was basically sent on some getaways to new worlds, for simple joy flights to get the feel of 'freedom' that she imagined from this kind of work on top of making glorifying discoveries of life on alien worlds, all she had to do was to have fun and look. But the ease of searching for life for glory was just a empty promise to this job, having to search countless worlds across astronomical distances for just even a tiny trace of life wasn't easy. Nothing was easy for something only a certain few of priviledged humans were allowed to do outside of their own generation ships; Eve thought she could become famous to her people by just bringing back a microbe of a specimen, and she could goof off if she wanted to. But she found no life, at all, throughout her line of work. Her drive for fame to become the first person to find a habitable world full of lush, green life was waned out by mission after mission with the same A1-01 directive and the same result: no plants and nothing to do but fly around. After a week of searching here on Earth of all places, it was getting on her nerves; her task now felt more like a 'down to earth' task as she calls it.
Eve shakes her head as she closes the hood to a rusted pick up truck she just scanned. She continued her search to enclosed spaces where living things are likely to, hiding from the harsh extremes in this environment. She tries not to react when she surprisingly gets another reading from inside a toilet booth.
Identified: Specimen Negative
At least they would have some microbiological development that would be enough to satisfy her scanner's evaluation relay and to end her silly searching so she could go back home to the Axiom; but she guessed wrong. She groans in frustration as she closes the door to the port-a-potty, contemplating her thoughts.
Home didn't feel like free either. She would usually return weeks later after traveling in cryosleep, debrief useless information, and then she'd end up spending all year training for the next mission in a cramped starship, it was all feeling dull and routine. After a while, she hated traveling onboard the Axiom Reconaissance Vehicle in hibernation, cryogenic sleep felt very uncomfortable to her, having to freeze and unfreeze hurt her skin and was worried it would mess up her pretty features. She always got confused too, having to wake up weeks later as if nothing happened; and it interupted her aging process, though she was only 22 years old, she was younger technically by at least a couple years as she was frozen for weeks at a time on several missions, slowing her age and prolonging her lifetime. Getting to and back from missions was only the worst part of a boring job. Now that this directive was something no one else wanted to do since no habitable planet was ever discovered, but had to keep searching nonetheless; she herself and not a group of scouts would be sent to scout a planet surface once every 5 years instead of once a year, and they chose Earth, the least expectant of all impossibilities. The home planet long abandoned by her people for almost 700 years since the Axiom and the BnL starships left with the population of humanity.
So why search an already dead planet? Eve thought to herself as she got antagonized in her search of her next scanning. Even though she's never seen Earth, she didn't think she would. Ever since she was born and raised on the Axiom; she always dreamed of escaping the cabin feverish walls of the ship, having grown sick and tired of doing the same 'activities' as everyone else onboard that ship. She grew up, schooled, and trained with her mind set onto the promises of the timeless horizons of space, looking for infinite worlds and skies to fly through, the ultimate freedom. Earth was so dead and pointless; and due to the fact that she could only go where she was told, it made her think that there isn't much freedom in anything. Her prolonged life felt like it was to be trapped in routine, no matter where she went.
Her thoughts were interrupted by yet another Identified: Specimen Negative, Eve was scanning the inside of a BnL replica of the Apollo capsule. As soon as she heard that negative chime, she slammed the hatch shut, failing to not react angrily.
Identified: Specimen Negative
All through the day she got angrier and angrier by the minute at that sound after hundreds of readings. She just finished what she just thought would have had productive results was in the cargo hold of an ancient BnL cargo ship in the late afternoon.
Identified: Specimen Negative!
"Aaaagh!"
Eve slammed the cargo doors with all her might, screaming in frustration as she threw her holopad over the railing and down to the dried up bedrock. Her actions only fueled the fire, she stomped away off the ship to go find her holopad and just call it a day, not noticing a metallic grating sound from behind her.
Before Eve could register a tugging sensation on her, she was yanked off her feet and pulled back into a large circular magnetic disk, attached to a cargo crane. Her torso, arms and legs were immobilized by the powerful magnetic field.
"What The Hell?" she exclaims at what just happened.
It hit her that her suit was magnetized. It was made of nanofabricated ceramic gossamer, made for skintight sporty girl looks and as protective suits in the harsh environments of any extraterrestrial landscape; it was thin, comfortably smooth, and its own form of clothing almost indistinguishable from Egyptian cotton; it was still metallic regardless of its characteristic structure.
She tries to budge, but to no avail, still infuriated, she fidgets violently and flings around trying to brake free. She activates her antigravity servos, trying to fly away, maybe swing with enough momentum to brake free. She almost makes it, but the magnet is far too strong, what idiot ever put this magnetic crane up for lifting cargo but unable to take it off? she thinks, cursing all sorts of things in her mind.
After a few minutes of trying, Eve has finally lost whatever patience she had left. She wrestles her hand for the plasma rifle strapped to her leg. She struggles as she pries it out of its harness, as it is also metallic. But she has the barrel aimed at the magnet, set to low power so she doesn't blow herself up. She closes her eyes and pulls the trigger.
The bolt of plasma melts through the magnet, releasing her as she stops from falling with her antigravity boots.
Finally free to release all her rage and anger from the day of not finding what she's looking for on the ship. She unloads discharge after discharge of ionized gas projectiles, screaming and cursing at the freighter; blasting at full power at the hull, superstructure, and especially the crane, twice for good measure. One shot hits the petroleum fuel tanks, instantly the ship lights up in a ball of fire, as she continues firing at the disintegrated ship in a blind rage.
The raining fireball's debris and her stray plasma bolts causes nearby ships to explode as well. Eve's anger is lighting up the dead valley like Hiroshima.
...
Wally watches in terror and awe at the site of the pretty woman turned explosive on those ships, all while trying to avoid flying flaming debris from his cover at a safe distance from the ship, and from her in this state. In the week she has been here, he tried to get as close as he can to her, but hadn't recovered his confidence to get her attention after he built that statue for her; and it took him a while to pry himself free from those pipes, he didn't want to go through that again. Seeing the woman full-blown enraged made him scared to even consider going over to her.
She has finally stopped shooting, now she's back on the ground. Her beautiful face that showed murderous rage now blank from hopelessness. She is so lost in thought she doesn't notice the ships she blew up tilting over each other, creating a fiery domino effect. She's slumped over in defeat, with her head in her hands. Wally notices she is clenching her fists, hiding her face in her hair and arms, closed up at not finding a single specimen in an entire sector; saddened beyond measure.
Concerned, he feels something tug inside himself. He loved her gracious self, but he couldn't stand to see her so depressed; he wanted to go over to her and comfort her however way he could. But disturbing her would most likely worsen her god-awful mood and he would risk getting incinerated by her own fury.
It wasn't until then when Wally notices a shining blue screen along with the burning debris in front of him. When he picks it up, he recognizes it as the woman's holopad. He saw her throw it almost in his direction of his hiding spot.
"Hmm" Wally looks between the holopad in his and to the woman; he gets an idea, one that might actually work. He could return this to her and maybe she will at least thank him, maybe get an opportunity to talk to her. He would do anything for this girl to say at least a few words to him; he's never even met a girl before. He looks back at the woman and back to the holopad in his hand. He made his decision, he will run the risk of her killing him, but at least he would try to get close to her.
It's now or forever be a coward, he thinks as he composes himself with all his 'courage', and slowly makes his way over to her side, but not without feeling a bit of nervousness in his gut.
...
Eve sat there unresponsively, her face buried in her hands, exhausted from spending her anger and energy on the defenseless ship. Her eyes threatened to water, Eve thought for a moment if she could have just put her energy into flying away, feeling free from directives and frustrating as hell readouts; but having already vented her willpower to even move, there wasn't much she could do to ease her pain. She felt for the first time true hatred for her job, cursing the planets she ever visited to having no life, and cursed her superiors for selecting her for this meaningless safari. She just wanted to shutoff from reality then and there, she won't respond to anything, she just wanted to go home and away from this hellhole; she wouldn't look forward to returning home either, she wished she could fly away from this life, if she could...
Slow, careful footsteps to her left caught her attention. Her sonic detection automatically registered it as the annoying garbage man that kept following her around. She wanted to just blast the irritating little weirdo on the spot, her plasma rifle lie next her, it's barrel was still glowing red hot from firing continuously, it's ion power cell was fully drained and in need to recharge.
But...somehow, even if it was fully charged, she wouldn't have had the will to bring herself to kill someone who she didn't know or didn't even do anything wrong and just wanted someone else to suffer.
She heard another noise; the garbage collector was sitting no more than ten feet away from her. He slowly shifted closer to her; he looked very nervous, tapping and fidgeting with his fingers as he whistled out of tune for no reason. Eve didn't bother with him, he seemed rather harmless to her.
Eve then thought about the man next to her. There was something about him, the way he kept following her and popping into her thoughts. She had nearly killed him the first time they meet, she over-defensively presumed he was hostile, but his innocent looks and curiosity was the only thing present in his eyes. She remembers those eyes; the way he looked at her, he looked like a very lonely man, trailing her like a lost puppy. She also knew nothing could survive here as far as she could tell, she was told that all of the Buy N' Large cleanup settlements left on Earth died out long ago; in the 695 years of reconnaissance, the scouts sent from the Axiom starliner never found a single survivor anywhere. But how is it possible for this living, breathing worker to be here on Earth? Could he be the sole survivor of the long lost government of this planet?
Maybe he knows; even better, maybe he knows where to find what she's looking for, he was the only thing in her search of Sector NA-001 she hasn't bothered with yet. She thought of even more questions like who was he? Where did he come from? Why is he here? How did he survive this world? Her blossoming curiosity about him snapped her out of her gloomy state.
He was now only four feet away, sitting awkwardly, its apparent to her that he wants to speak. Finally! She can do something useful on this meaningless mission, and satisfy her inquisitive mind.
...
"You can do this" Wally repeats to himself, trying to overcome the growing nervousness in his stomach.
He was just over a meter away from her, she probably knows he's there and hasn't had the ability to kill him for the time being. He is neither relieved nor panicked, he is still sitting next to her in awkward silence, and the only sounds are the cracklings of fire from the burning hulks of the ships in front of them. He collected his composure, clearing his throat, ready to speak. He forgot what he was going to say, but he's going to say at least something to her.
"So what's your story?" The woman said, turning her head to face him.
"Ah!"He jumped at the sound of her speaking to him and looking at him so suddenly, he fell over on his back in surprise and closed his eyes preparing to be blown away.
The woman calmly tried to reach out to Wally. "It's alright, it's alright. I'm not going to hurt you."
Wally wasn't expecting that to happen, he realizes he was on his back and he was not dead. Wally sat up from the ground slowly, and found himself in direct eye contact with the woman for the first time since she arrived. Only this time, wasn't starring down the barrel of a plasma gun, nor into the eyes of a trained killer. He was looking at a sincere woman with no intention to harm him at all. She was looking at him awaiting an answer, her crystal clear blue eyes continued to stun him.
"You're very jittery aren't you?" Her voice is soothing, and friendly, for she seemed amused by his anxiety at the slightest of her actions. It finally hits him, "She's talking to me!"
"Directive?" she asks.
Still nervous, he tries to say something. "uuuh...Huh?" was his only intelligible response.
"You're a garbage collector, yes?" she asks him again with her sweet voice.
"Oh!" he realizes what she was saying. "Um…uh…y-yes, yes I-I am." He stutters, but he was not as nervous about her.
Eve almost let herself have a girlish giggle at the sound of his voice, it was a bit high-pitched for someone like him, yet it was distinguishable enough to indicate that he was an adult with the roughness of his voice, like his throat was wheezy and riddled with years of inhalation of dust.
He notices a pile of trash nearby a compactor. For a moment he stared at it and realized that maybe he could impress her.
He eagerly whips out his shovel and proudly scoops it all into a broken compactor nearby as swiftly as he could. The compactor grinds painfully as the rusted away gears try to compress the trash. Finally it spits out a cube, only for it to fall apart.
"Uuh….Tadda!" he nervously triumphs over the sloppy cube.
"Oh" she looks at the fallen apart cube in mild amazement as if she never saw the act of compacting garbage before.
Wally tries to speak first, know that the ice is broken, kind of.
"Um…so…w-what's your d-d-..dir…ec…tive?" he asks shyly, trying to sort out what English he still remembers.
"My directive?" the woman points to herself at his question, he nods.
"That's classified" she says coldly while looking away, neither short nor cutting in her answer.
"Oh…sorry" he replies in defeat, mentally cursing himself at asking that question.
Suddenly he remembers the holopad she threw away. So he quickly pulls it out of his pocket and hands it to her.
"Um…you uh, I-I believe t-this is yours."
She looks at her holopad in his hand. She remembered she chucked it over the railing because it drove her to madness, destroying a boat for not finding what she was after. She hates having to do that again or be reminded of it, but he didn't know better. She takes it from his gloved hand, and examines it, it wasn't damaged, and it's built tough anyway for a 'frustrating' job. At least she won't have to go look for it or replace it.
"Oh, thank you, um-uh, what's your name?" she asks him.
"Huh?" He looks at her, confused, "My name?" he repeats.
"Yes" as she looks at him for an answer.
He's never said his given name for as long as he could remember, speaking to anything or anyone in particular who asked of it. He remembered it, it's even written on his uniform for that matter, but hasn't said it for almost…forever; it's hard for him to say it.
"Uuuh…uhh" It's really hard for him to say it. "W…Wa" he takes his time "Wa…Wa-Wally!" he finally manages to speak it.
"Wally?" the woman repeats it perfectly, with her harmonious voice.
The way her voice is, the way she spoke his name. Wally's heart felt so warm, he cues at the beautiful sound that rolls off her tongue as she says it again.
"Wally", she giggles lightly, "That's a nice name" she says at him, smiling. He gazes lovingly at her.
"My name is Eve" she says, pointing to her name patched on her arm, under a single gold bar for the rank of 2nd lieutenant and a green plant patch with BnL Navy - Axiom E.V.R.E. embedded in it. (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Reconnaissance & Evaluation)
Her name is the most wonderful word Wally has ever heard. He tries to pronounce it, but he isn't very good with phonetics either.
"Eeeeee?" he repeats as best he could.
"No, Eve"
He tries again "Eeeaah" he fails again.
She says her name slower "No it's like this: Eeeeevveee."
Now Wally was putting all his efforts into pronouncing it right, only to worsen his speech impediment.
"Eeeeevvvvvaaaahhh"
That slow stuttering sound made Eve giggle uncontrollably, he's trying so hard to get it right and his pronouncing of her name with an A sounded too cute. It made him look so adorable!
Wally is entranced at the sound of her laugh, with her voice it was like music to his ears; he loved making her laugh so he says her name again, this time with his voice's volume and tone in line with hers to sound as normal as possible.
"Evah!" still with a high voice.
Now she's laughing out loud, holding her stomach so she doesn't fall over. His childish voice ranged from a whisper to almost yelling, like he couldn't pick a tone; though it was from spending years of not speaking in a dead and silent environment to make vocal tone difficult, yet it didn't matter to either of them.
She collects herself after a few seconds. "You're funny; it's Eve, but that sounds good to me." she says with a smile on her face, making him more drawn to her, now he's up close, personal, and on friendly ground with the first human being he has spoken to in known memory.
It's getting cold, the wind begins to pick, its growing howling sounds drawing Wally's attention away from Eve. The sand at their feat blowing with the wind, he recognizes that sound. The winds are blowing from behind Eve, he looks past her and sure enough, a column of dust and sand headed their way, and fast; a sandstorm.
"Oh no" he says half-panicking, his truck was about a kilometer away, and judging from the wind's speed and distance of the wall of sand, they had less than a minute before it hits.
"Evah! We need to go!" alerted, he moves to grab her and run.
"Whoa, don't touch me!" Eve warns him, drawing her plasma rifle on him; Wally stops dead in his tracks, but she doesn't know what's happening.
"Evah look! There's a storm coming!"
Before she could turn around, the winds hit full force; Eve is dumbstruck by what just happened. The sand now picking up and obscuring her vision; even her HUD is unable to shield her face. The gale force winds have even extinguished the fires of the burning ships. Eve is now totally disoriented in the blast of air and dirt all around her, difficult to not get blown over. Suddenly she remembers Wally standing near her, only to disappear in the cloud of dust as the storm hit.
"WALLY! WALLY! WHERE ARE YOU?" She calls out to him, no response. It's so loud and visibility is zero. She panics, she can't find any shelter, and the only person who knows what to do is gone, she won't survive in this for long.
Suddenly she feels safe, as a rough, gloved hand grasps her own for dear life; she can't see him, but she knows he's there.
"EVAH!" Wally screams to her over the blasting winds, he's still there, and she's going to live. His silhouette form appears in the cloud of dust as a shadow.
"DON'T LET GO! FOLLOW ME!" Wally calls out to her, as he puts on his UV goggles, guiding him and her to the only place she could be safe.
So wutchya think? Chapters will get longer later on with more dialogue. I have tomorrow off so i will try to post chapter 9 and draft up a few more if i can. And thats AFTER i get a few hours of sleeping in first!
