9
Things have gotten closer to the sun
And I've done things in small doses
So don't think that I'm pushing you away
When you're the one that I've kept closest
-The Xx, "Crystalised"
Jade
The world was shifting.
It was moving beneath her, like the oscillation of a wave. The bumping, lofting rises and falls had lulled her for a time. Amidst the lethargic blur there had been flashes of light and voices, she was sure, but that felt so very long ago.
Her body began to tip now and she felt herself spilling over, like a ship about to capsize. A waking, primal fear gripped her–
I'm going to fall.
Failing to stop her movement with a flung-out arm, Jade rolled onto a surface slightly lower and significantly harder than the place she had been before. Her eyes opened in alarm, before quickly slamming shut. That light…
Pain stabbed her vision. She tried to squint the echoing brightness away from behind her eyelids, rubbing them with her palms, but the ache persisted. The pitch darkness of her academy dorm room never felt more inviting than now, amidst blinding confusion.
"Rather unpleasant, isn't it?"
Jade couldn't bring herself to look up. Her hair had come loose at some point, wildly curling around her face. She struggled to focus. Someone was sitting across from her, of that much she felt certain. Behind the fog of pain, she managed to acknowledge she was likely in one of two places – neither of them good – which meant this man was probably an enemy.
"It's a shame the academy doesn't adhere to mandatory stun training. Treating aftershock is one of the first things I teach my recruits."
Him then… Jade surfaced momentarily, her writhing, pent up frustration overcoming her discomfort. It was hard to believe or fully accept, but somehow she knew – without even looking at the stern, cracked lines of his face – that Major William Fiske sat before her, probably examining her in that critical, unflinching way he often did in video recordings.
Then that means–
The pieces slammed into place as she remembered, her memories colliding in a span of time too small to fit so much turmoil.
The night. The mountain. The wolf. The lights. The people.
If she was with Fiske now…
Then Orin, could he be here too?
On the hillside, Chelsea had said–
It was all too much then, thinking about Chelsea and her impossible, horrible betrayal… let alone what Orin's desertion to Swiftjustice meant. She had failed him beyond comprehension this time. How did any of this happen? Her head throbbed anew as she held back a sob. The impulse to laugh seemed just as likely, making her throat tighten.
"Hydration helps, but a muscle relaxer and a painkiller do the real work." Something skidded across the space between them, sloshing as it hit her thigh. "You're lucky we picked up a chemist during our last recruitment. Pharms are harder to come by outside colony walls."
Jade felt herself reach for the rectangular pouch, a water pack, she guessed. She was so thirsty, she realized then, with water potentially in hand. Cracking her eyes open, she pushed up onto an elbow, trying to inspect the clear liquid. Two unmarked, white pills were taped to the plastic, one larger than the other.
"You expect me to take whatever these are, Fiske? After one of your men stunned me in the first place?" she murmured, massaging her neck.
How did I miss someone sneaking up on me? The thought should have stung her pride more, made her question her abilities, but instead she found herself curious – perplexed, and wondering just how many skilled recruits this Major had managed to persuade into his service. How many more had he stolen away in the night?
"If you know what's good for you, yes." Fiske said, the warning sounding more like a statement of fact than a reprimand. "For all of your training, I doubt you could make it through what's to come without meds."
"And what's that…" Her voice sounded too loud in her skull. She made herself sit up, head still ducked away from the light. Hands steadying herself, she felt cool, metal paneling beneath under her fingers. The thrumming was there, in the metal. Jade hadn't been on a transport ship before but had monitored enough surveillance of vessels entering the academy to feel certain it was where she found herself now. Her skin prickled from the implications.
"You will be briefed soon. It's a shame our time table required us to recruit on a trial day. I would have preferred to have you in your best form, Lieutenant. Reports paint you as quite the swordsman." The Major sounded genuinely disappointed by her state, and there was also a level of sureness in his words, as if he had always planned on meeting her. As if he knew her.
She cut through the confusion and buzz of less important questions, pushing back her hair, discovering a score of scratches on her palm.
"My brother, where is Orin?"
"Of course."
There was gentle scuffing, like the sound of boots against the floor, and then a tangy, musky smell permeated her bubble of isolation. Jade forced her eyes open, brought her head up slightly, and prepared to defend herself. It would not amount to much, she knew – not against anyone, let alone a man with extensive combat training.
But Fiske simply looked down at her, his head haloed by the lights above. His silvering hair had thinned and retreated up his forehead and his skin was a few shades darker now, like desert sand, but it was undeniably the disgraced Major. His stiff posture and beak-like nose would have been proof enough. He had traded in the mottled green fatigues the academy issued for grey and black ones, and this more than anything else about his appearance worried her. It was monotone camouflage, meant for a muted, urban environment.
"Private Ashwin is here, but he has also come to us in poorer shape than I had anticipated – thanks to you, I'm told. He will be unable to join the operation he was meant for."
Part of Jade exhaled with relief, but she made her words biting.
"Then let him go."
"You need to hydrate, Lieutenant." Fiske said, ignoring her plea. He squatted in front of her and took the water pack, ripping open the seal and pushing it on her, as if to tip the liquid into her mouth.
If Jade hadn't been wary before, she was suspicious now. She scooted back, as quickly as she could manage, and swung at him with a fist. Instead of connecting with his stern, frowning face, she struck the pack, its contents spraying through the air.
It was over before she could move again – before she could take back her impulsive urge to fight – her skull thudding from the effort.
Fiske's hands pinned her biceps against the wall, as unyielding as binder cuffs. He didn't move or seem to breathe.
"You're in a difficult situation, one you didn't intend to fall into. For that, I will grant you this one misstep." The war-veteran said quietly. "But cross me like that again, and the repercussions will be enormous for you and your brother, Lieutenant."
Jade took in the deadly promise, weighing it. His deep-set, brown eyes were unyielding and flat, without expression, even as she tried to challenge him with a glare. She knew so little about this man, aside from gossip, tactical histories, and the academy's official denouncement of him, and in none of those versions had Fiske ever seemed merciful, or conciliatory. It seemed, as she stared back, that some of it rang true. An aura of fierce authority was there.
If only for Orin's sake, she decided to tread more lightly.
"What do you expect from Orin? Because if he's as hurt as you say he is, he can't fight for you. Why not drop us somewhere? Just leave us. I don't care where you're going or what you're doing. When we get home we won't pursue or even mention this. It hasn't happened."
Fiske let go of her arms and picked up what remained of the water pack. He peeled off the two pills and offered them to her. Jade would say he was guarded, but that seemed wrong. His feelings weren't hidden; they just weren't there.
"Take these."
She eyed them, then examined his face again, frustrated by his diversions and indifference. It seemed unlikely that he would try and drug her – for some reason, he seemed to want her here, as much as she wanted to disregard the inkling – but without understanding his motives she hesitated to agree.
"If I do, will you explain and let me see him?"
"I'll explain some of it if you cooperate, yes. But seeing Private Ashwin is out of the question for now."
"Why? You said he was on this ship." A new bout of unease stirred at the back of her mind.
The Major's arm was still extended, but his mouth tightened.
His first sign of real anger – because of my refusal, or my question?
"Take the meds, Lieutenant."
The pounding in her skull was like an echo now, begging her to stop talking. She had to close her eyes again for a moment, but the point was too important. If nothing else, she needed to see Orin, to at least confirm his presence.
"I won't. Not without knowing he's here and safe."
Fiske made a small noise in his throat, almost like a cough, his features frozen yet still calculating. Jade thought there was a twinge of annoyance hidden there, a slight twitch of his lip, but she couldn't be sure in her state. He looked down abruptly, and Jade had to drop her head as well from the fluorescence. She heard him tapping at something – a data pad, she recognized, after years of typing herself.
"It seems your recruiter wasn't exaggerating about your stubbornness." he said steadily, his fingers light and fast on the screen. "Nor your attachment to your brother."
He almost sounded… pleased?
The typing stopped before Jade could see what he was doing or work through what he meant about her having a recruiter, and then her right hand was suddenly in his grasp. She tensed and watched as the Major roughly peeling back her fingers, placing one pill in her palm. His data pad was shoved under her face then, screen side up.
Orin was centered in the video window, lying on a cot in what could easily be the cabin area of a cargo ship. Is he truly here, or elsewhere? He didn't move, save the barely perceptible rise and fall of his chest, and his face, usually twisted with scorn, was instead loose and placid. He looked so young and broken, and defenseless.
Her dismay flared momentarily, only to be replaced with exasperation as she noticed his blood-soaked pant leg.
"You haven't treated him?"
The Major angled the pad away from her, double tapping the stream back almost an hour in time. The video blurred then resumed, and someone – a thin, dark-skinned man in the same shade of fatigues Fiske wore – sat at Orin's side, pulling a length of silvery stitching away from her brother's leg. An IV drip ran into the crook of Orin's arm, the tubing swaying with the ship's movements. He was still asleep, or knocked out, but he was being tended to.
"Now, one pill for each request," Fiske said slowly as Jade tried to soak in every detail of her brother's condition and the room he occupied before the pad was pulled away. She wondered if he could run, walk, or even stand at this point. Their escape, when opportunity presented itself, would depend upon his mobility... And unless they were on a larger cruiser ship, which she doubted, he couldn't be far from her.
Fiske's harsh demand broke off her thoughts.
"I've shown you Private Ashwin, so take that pill." He re-pocketed the pad.
He was truly ordering her now, Jade realized, his wall-like façade slipping towards displeasure. It was how she would have imagined him censuring his misguided recruits: an echo of the callous military leadership which had supposedly led men and women to slaughter. Do not ask questions, simply follow and act.
She had faced the apathy of higher ranking officers before; had grown up under the distance of a father, who no matter how loving and protective of his children, had still managed to create an authoritative separation between them. Military conduct and a strict adherence to the constructs of their budding society had a way of bleeding into one's personal life after a time. Especially after a loss. As an officer who had taught hundreds, she herself had grown to rely upon a semblance of order and emotional distance which she did not naturally possess.
Despite her familiarity to the cold, structured normalcy, Jade felt annoyance shoot through her. The Major, if he could even be called that anymore, had no authority over her. Even if everything else reported about him had been twisted by fear or propaganda, he remained a manipulative warmonger and kidnapper. The inclination to let consequences be consequences rose in her throat, begging her to react with hostility once more.
It was the image of Orin that withheld her. Always Orin. He was both her center and her weakness. Coupled with the Major's explicit warning about their future well-being, she couldn't bring herself to act rashly. Somehow, the restraint hurt more than the aftershock of being stunned.
She threw the pill back in her throat before she could over-think it, swallowed, and caught Fiske's nod of approval.
"Good." He pushed the half-empty water pack and it's remaining pill into her hands and then straightened, turning away. "I'll allow you one more question, Lieutenant, with the expectation that you take the other pill in my presence. And I may feel more inclined to elaborate if you drink some water as well."
The first pill was a thick lump in her throat. It seemed pointless now, to deny herself water when she had already given in to the other. Her mouth was so dry… She swallowed the second, refusing to acknowledge the placid look of triumph on Fiske's face, and then forced her hands to steady on the pack. She took slow, even gulps but it was all gone too soon.
The Major stayed silent, waiting for her, watching.
Jade resealed and unsealed the empty pouch, searching the floor, deciding what information she would need most for their eventual escape.
Though it will hardly matter if he lies, she internally scoffed. She could only hope to read his response and search for authenticity.
"What is this ship's final destination?"
It was her turn to wait. When silent seconds passed she looked up through her hair at him, startled by his new intensity.
Leaning forward from his seat, his dark gaze had settled fully on her, as if recording the total of her reactions for review. The thought crossed that he had a photographic memory – she'd encountered a student with the trait once before, initially thinking him a cheat in her advanced coding class – but that seemed unlikely. This was something else entirely.
"Our destination, Lieutenant, is the answer to all that we aspire. It is where we will end this era and strike out the memory of it from our colony's histories." He gestured to his left, with their direction of flight. "We are finally venturing towards the new beginning the academy has failed to reconstruct these past years."
"So… there." She said flatly, unimpressed by his fervor. Why were military men always so impassioned about war? As if they truly enjoyed it? She would never understand wanting to place yourself or your loved ones in harm's way…
In the next instance, the trailing thought brought her back to the meaning behind his answer.
With his confirmation – which by all appearances of excited candor seemed legitimate – the omnipresent danger of battle at last hovered before her: a blackness she had personally kept at bay for years through a watchful eye and the sabotage of her brother's professional career.
Why hadn't she said it? She felt childish now, for holding back the moniker.
Robotropolis…
The ruined city. A ravaged, transformed place, which was once the pinnacle of Mobian society.
The reason that most Mobian's hate humans. The reason we are all surviving, rather than thriving in their midst.
The stronghold of a man bent on senseless destruction.
It wasn't that Jade necessarily feared the place itself or her journey towards it - she hadn't fully coped with that dilemma yet. It was more so the reality of her situation; the realization that she and Orin must already be so very far from the deep mountain passes which held their home and safety... that she found herself on a transport ship with a zealous leader wrapped up in the glories of his self-created mission.
"I've been told you've rarely been outside the academy, Lieutenant?" Fiske asked, pulling her out of her disarrayed dread.
She stayed quiet, refusing to admit to the disadvantage.
"You have accomplished much, during your time indoors. There is no shame in the pent-up life you've led." He cocked his head, "Your skills are invaluable to this war, but it seems the academy has been content to waste you, making you teach and mentor foot soldiers. You will find more meaningful and productive work to do here, with us."
Hardening her features, as if to discipline a wayward trainee, she wiped away any sign of discomfort and sat up straighter.
"If you presume to know me so well, then don't fuck with me. I'm not another one of the gullible trainees you've manipulated into your service. I didn't come here willingly."
"Like Private Ashwin, or your roommate, Private Chelsea Mendez?"
"They're young, and impressionable." She said slowly, deliberately. He had taken everything she had left and was taunting her with it. "Their eagerness for battle blinds them."
"They have vision, Lieutenant. They understand that without real risk there can be no reward." Fiske seemed to be gaining momentum again, voice rising. "As much as your academy's elder council may preach the necessity of building a 'disciplined society' before ever attempting another full-scale engagement, they all know in their vapid, frightened minds that they will never truly be ready to overthrow the android legions. They could spend another century building armies and refining weaponry, and it still wouldn't be enough. The time to strike is at hand. A focused, swift attack will prevail."
He believed everything he said, Jade was sure, but the words seemed practiced, as if he had made the speech countless times before.
"You've sold those trainees on an idea which is too simplistic." she said, slowly shaking her head.
"Private Mendez reported that you had the opportunity to read Private Ashwin's recruitment message before leaving..." He mused, "It paints very broad strokes, I'll grant you that. But of course you don't truly believe I'd explain the breadth of our mission electronically? You of all people understand the persistence of digital media, even after its... deletion."
She clenched her jaw, wishing that her lance was in hand. "Unless you have weapons like those that leveled cities in the last Earthian wars, the details, however well constructed you believe them to believe, do not matter. What you want to do will ultimately fail, and it will doom the rest of us."
"That's the fear and narrow mindedness of the academy talking." He countered.
"No, that's history talking - our limited, stunted history on this planet!" An accusatory edge had taken over, and she let the past day's trials and struggles fuel her anger. "It's there, in the failures of the first conflict with Robotnik, which you were a part of. The armistice is all that protects the colony now, and you would wipe it away with aggression."
"Everything I have accomplished has brought us further." He stated carefully, as if she was too slow to see the obvious. "Every sacrifice has been essential. Whatever failures have come before this mission, will prevent further mistakes. What we do now is built upon that essential experience."
"You aren't a revolutionary. This isn't as simple or as honorable as you try to make it sound. I don't know how much of the past is true, but if you directly instigate conflict, you will get people killed."
"As I said, sacrifice is necessary. Many more will die before the end. It is the only way to succeed."
Jade stopped short, her lips parted. There was so much confidence, such fiery certainty, as he leaned into the space between them, that it was now laid bare what truly defined him.
It's all true about him...
"The soldiers don't matter to you, do they? They're just a means."
The Major stood quickly, starring down at her for a long moment and she could see the unrestrained anger at last. Directed at her, but not really. As if it were stored up and meant for something or someone else. Before she could blink, he was winding himself back in, straightening and pulling his weathered features into placid indifference once more, as if the moment had never occurred.
"I care more than you could possibly comprehend, Lieutenant."
He looked down his nose at her for a beat, and she refused to diffuse as he had. She wouldn't be civil about something so monumental, so affecting.
I can't let any of this happen... If I can get Orin and I out of this mess, we won't be safe returning home now. And we'll be abandoning who knows how many others to his callous plans.
Fiske turned away, to leave it seemed, though Jade felt it was far too early. A thousand other questions, rebuffs, and concerns were hanging unsaid.
"I won't fight for you, if that's what you intend." She heard herself telling his back.
He half-turned, looking past her, as if he was one of the lifeless android's he so vehemently opposed. All vigor and war-glory seemingly evaporated.
"You will make yourself useful, Lieutenant, I'm sure. You are a soldier who carries her own weight." He pulled his data pad from a chest pocket, raising it. "Private Ashwin, however… well, it may be sometime until he's recovered, as you argued yourself."
Jade stilled her breath, nails biting into her palms, waiting for what she had hoped wouldn't arise. What she had hoped wasn't his intention.
"Make sure you rest and think on this before your briefing…" The Major keyed open the panel door behind him and stepped through. He turned fully to spear her with an intensity that seemed chiseled and permanent, the creases and taunt ridges of this face pointing towards only one conclusion: ruthlessness.
"I never keep things around which are useless."
