Hollow Regrets—Ch. III
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One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of strength to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.
Joe Darion, "The Impossible Dream"
There were whispers coming from the rec room. Slight, even words that were too low to understand, that could only barely be distinguished them from normal night sounds, and then, it took a double check for them to even register as talking. Worser had to blink stupidly for a second. It was way beyond the point of curfew. Whoever was there shouldn't've been there. Ears trained in warfare, straining for a purchase into the whispered conversation, picked up something recognizable to the sound matrix. It was a giggle. A giggle. From the rec room.
Worser's thick eyebrows drew together, pulling skin from a diverse selection of wrinkles and folds, rearranging his features 'til they easily could've passed for some other crusty specimen of humanity. What the hell was a giggle doing in the rec room three-and-a-half-fucking-hours after lights out?
He'd find out. There weren't that many girls mixed in with the cadets, but then—some of the boys were young and prepubescent enough to have made that noise. He was lucky with it being the rec room, because there was only one exit, so he didn't have to worry about sneaking up on whoever was in there, being heard, and scaring them off, because hell knew, he'd never be able to keep up with some fifteen year old git in training to be a soldier on the run. But he was already standing in front of the one exit. The door couldn't even claim to be cracked open, it was so close to being completely shut.
That didn't stop the murmur of voices from leaking out to him. He gently pushed the door open, letting it swing on the squeaky hinge, knowing that the harsh sound in the quiet night would make them stop—with nice, guilty expressions on their faces.
Or make them disentangle themselves. Worser cringed on that one. Adolescents. May God save him from ever having to deal with them again.
The squeak did get their attention, and two pairs of wide eyes stared at him, and, thank God, it didn't look like they'd been doing anything as bad as he'd feared. When he got a good look at them, he was almost unsurprised to find out who it was; the braided kid, MacEvans, and one of his friends, Waters. They were hunched over something, concealing it from his view, but he knew it had some sort of screen on it immediately, because he could see the greenish glow reflected on their hands and faces, and the white cloth of MacEvans' shirt.
The part of him that most feared the adolescents' purely scary behavior relaxed, even as the part of him devoted to his life as a soldier perked up a sleepy ear, opened a complacent eye, as he walked across the room. He just let his suspicious tendencies sit in the back of his mind while he dealt with the boys.
They had two hand-held games connected with a cord. That was it. With the guilty expressions plastered over their faces...
"What the hell are you doing?" They jumped at the outburst, hands clutching the small electronics to the point where the screens began to flicker from the pressure. Their eyes may've been directed at the officer ever since he'd pushed the door open, but they sure weren't making contact with his own. He got the distinct impression that they each had chosen points somewhere in the vicinity of his forehead to stare at. It was the blond who finally gave up a timid answer.
"Sir...we...uh...we..." He got that far in a faltering voice, then the rest rushed out. "We were playing a game, because they said they were going to send some of the kids away tomorrow, and they didn't say which ones, just that it was going to be a random selection, and we didn't know..." He trailed off at the look Worser had on his face—that, or the one on MacEvans' though, his, and the kids expressions were being compelled by completely different emotions.
No, it was the one on Worser's, 'cause the kid was staring at him like someone would an angry, poisonous snake. The man didn't think Waters had even looked at the other kid. God knew he could feel the perplexed/surprised/anything look on his face as he looked at the miscreants. He let a laugh loose in his mind, but kept the look steady on his face. He'd been told how many times in the past that there was no fuckin' way anybody could read his face.
As far as their actions were concerned...damn, but he was a soft touch, 'cause he supposed he could understand where they were comin' from. And they were leaving at o'dark hundred in the morning...so it couldn't really hurt to do this for 'em. That didn't stop his increasingly used chant, or prayer, he wasn't really sure which, from voicing itself once more through his mind. Never, never, ever, again.
A heave of his shoulders and a long moment with his eyes focused on them in silence, while they both sat where they were, nervousness written all over their faces. But then, one of the beefy hands reached for a bulging pocket, revealing a data-reader. Worser squinted at the dim screen a moment before he gave another heave, which, if someone were stretching it, could almost be labeled as somewhat related to a sigh, before he strode across the room to hit the overhead light switch. He didn't move back immediately, choosing instead to look at the pad, one hand cradling it, the other dwarfing the stylus as it dabbed at things across the screen. He found what he was looking for, and put the thing back into a pocket, leaving the overhead on as he went back to the boys.
They were still sitting down, dodging looks at each other as they awaited whatever response to their actions Worser might take. He took up a stance in front of them, legs slightly spread, like he had to brace himself to keep his bulk upright, and crossed his arms.
"You're both scheduled to go." He said it very simply, and he watched as first, their eyes widened, and then they looked at each other in relief. They still didn't say anything else, though, just waited for whatever else Worser was going to say. When he didn't, not immediately, they began to lose the slightly relaxed positions that they'd assumed at the good news.
He shifted his eyes to them both, back and forth, before he just heaved another sigh and, on the exhale, told them: "Okay, just get outta' here, and DON'T do it again!"
They jumped up and saluted him, speaking in unison. "Yes sir." Then they looked at each other, then at him, and "got out of there", taking only a split second to disconnect the games from one another, each electronic device finding home in a large pocket. After they left, Worser didn't stay very long either, going on with what he had been doing before he'd come across them: he'd been on his way to bed, and sleep, 'cause if he were shipping off in the morning, like those two little numbskulls—even if, from his observations of them, they seemed to be, perhaps, a little more on the ball than many other kids their age he'd seen, and, recently, interacted with. But God, he'd be a hell of a lot happier with more than the three hours he was gonna' be getting.
He'd just known he was right about the plan for moving the kids, and felt some slight amount of pleasure mixed in with the disgust he felt for his lack of sleep, when, the next morning, he was ousted from bed at some un-godly hour to, himself, oust the kids. Why the hell he had to help do it he didn't even want to know.
Twenty-one of 'em, and all of them grumbling about it as they hurriedly packed up "stuff"—which is what one of them called the junk when asked, hurriedly rushing around to be on the ship before he got reamed by one of his tutoring officers.
At the boat, or ship, or whatever, in the docks...with the wind coming off of the water, and the pre-dawn, it was beyond cold. As he stood there, watching as they loaded up and settled down in one of the crew spaces, Worser couldn't wait until he could go to his own miniscule quarters—shared with three other men, sailors all—and coax some warmth back into himself. The standard issue uniform jacket, (all-weather, supposedly,) wasn't worth /shit/, in his opinion.
Luck seemed to be sorta' with him, 'cause it didn't take too long before he was allowed to do just that, and he made a lump under his blanket, falling to sleep to catch up on what he'd lost, ignoring the hustle going on that was merely a ship getting ready to embark.
Worser was on the main deck, heading for the stern of the boat, to watch the wake, the split of the water, with the white against the darkness of the water, when MacEvans, interrupted his "stroll". The kid was leaning up against the bulkhead in the passage, tossing a foam ball up and down in the air.
"Hey, Sir. You wouldn't be interested in overseeing a dodge-ball game, would you?" The kid gave him a cheerful grin, his eyes sparkling up at the lieutenant.
Worser, stopping, turned to frown at him, hands on his hips. "A what?"
The ball, still going up and down in the air, halted, held up lightly in one hand to show the big man. "A dodge-ball game. Me and some others—we want to play, but we need...uh...I think 'adult supervision' were the exact words." He figured the kid must be gettin' pretty bored, if he had the time to play games. They were what, three days out now, and they weren't being kept busy enough already?
"So...in other words...you want me to baby-sit you." There was no question in the words.
The grin widened, and the ball went back to being thrown, up, down. "Yeah, but, come on, they're fun to watch..."
"Kid..." The annoyance was beginning to thread through his voice, but the cadet, not to be deterred, kept on.
"Oh, come on, Sir! We're even going to use the dust-balls!" The kid's aggrieved cry was punctuated by another thrust of the foam ball, this time at Worser's face.
Which is how, instead of watching the water's wake, he was leaning up against the padded walls of the gymnasium, converted to that purpose some long time ago from the hangar it used to be, the great doors welded shut, watching twenty kids lining up, hands out to grab any of the ten balls, all in a nice neat line across the line that divided the "court", the colored dust swirling lazily in the bright light from the halogen bulbs.
He let them stand there for about thirty seconds, both sides having already huddled together for the mandatory "Okay, as soon as anyone gets hit, shoot the ball over to someone else", and laughing and joking around, before he let out a sharp whistle to tell them "go". Then there were balls everywhere, (they were using ten of them,) and laughter filled the giant room as bodies dodged back and forth, graceful from years of fencing lessons.
Lost in and amongst the laughter were friendly insults, banter thrown back and forth like the balls.
"...get you, Randy!" Followed by a ball thrown at the kid so-named, that he dodged a second before launching at the boy who'd thrown one at him, hitting him.
One of the balls bounced against the wall behind them, and began to roll towards the center, back to the team that had thrown it. "...get it, get it, get it...NOOOO. You let it get away!" The more daring sat at the line, waiting for the balls to come to them, but that was a high-fatality area, the no-man's land in between both sides, and not many lasted for very long that way.
"MOVE! You're gonna get HIT!" In the midst of the words, a hand would snake out to grab the offending person, dragging them barely out of the way of the dusty ball, letting the thing bounce once on the floor before the same hand would snatch at it.
"Ha! Missed me!"
God help 'em if they used a moment to celebrate getting missed, though, because it was an open invitation for the other team to demonstrate how well they actually could hit It was kinda' funny to Worser. The game revolved around hand-eye coordination, with a dash of tactics and strategy, mix in a little flexibility for the actual dodging...all in all, this game, the more he thought about it, was a good one for soldiers, really, because they had to use all those different skills, in the midst of a "battle". He'd be remembering that.
There was a ruckus as someone missed, and the taunt, "What, you're goin' for the wall behind us?", 'pparently wasn't looked on with too much enthusiasm. But the kid who'd thrown it, someone the man didn't know, just gave an unrepentant grin, and bowed out gracefully a minute later when he was hit, because most of the other team was aiming for him.
They'd sweep forward to the line, tossing the balls, or throwing them with /force/ to hit their targets, and the numbers on each side were dwindling, until there were only five kids left on the "court". Worser noted, idly, that MacEvans and Waters were part of those still left, and began to watch them more carefully. Barely a minute later, he straightened up a little bit where he was leaning against the pads to watch them in earnest—just like they were playing.
Those two kids, they were playing against each other, instead of the rest of the kids, and for some reason, he thought that maybe they'd been doing that even before he'd begun watching...and they were cheating. But it was subtle cheating; the other kids left playing, all three of them, and the people on the sidelines, marked with large patches of chalk, hadn't noticed. The MacEvans kid...he was in possession of more than one ball, but it just looked like he was able to grab a new one as soon as his hand was emptied. He'd kick them along with him as he moved, and kick it up into his hands as soon as he threw the one he held. And Waters, he was using his teammates as shields.
That's not what really caught his attention, though. They were moving very fast, with very refined movements, like they were dancing in and out of the others. And they were only aiming for each other. Like the other boys were moving obstacles, or, in Waters' case, moving bunkers.
That was it. The others left, all boys, would aim for them, and miss; even if the other three kids were throwing it from a supposed blind side, it'd miss, those two boys would dodge it, and it'd just look like luck, as if it were just an accident, it was so damned casual. After another five minutes, which was a very long time in this game, it was just the two of them, and they were even more intent, their movements going a notch higher, as they were into the very grist of the game, no more hiding, the other kids no longer a distraction or a cover.
Now they were dodging wildly, and they both gave up all pretense of not carrying more than one ball as soon as they were the only ones left on the "field". They were catching them when the other would throw a body hit, and would move, with their dodges, to more balls, using the movement to get them there. They had thrown the middle line rule out a while ago, too, and were all over the place.
It was the ball-chasing that caught one of them. As MacEvans was dodging, going for a ball, Waters anticipated him, and threw the ball to where he'd be, catching MacEvans in the stomach hard enough for him to exhale all his breath. But the blond didn't just count on that, he threw another two balls, one in each hand, getting him in the face and the chest as well, the chalk marks lined up in a near-perfect line, (though it could have been a perfect line Worser didn't want to look close enough to really see.)
MacEvans looked stunned for a moment before he dropped the one ball he had, and simply started to wipe the dust off of his face. Then Waters was there, helping, and visibly, (Worser couldn't hear anything in the cheering of the other cadets,) began to profusely apologize for hitting him in the face.
Worser wasn't believing it was an accident. He'd seen the kid throwing mostly with his right hand, had even seen him writing in one of the many "classes" he'd observed or had to baby-sit on. The kid was right handed, and he'd thrown that ball with his left. Just like many of the other balls he'd thrown with his left hand—that had been thrown accurately enough to head straight for MacEvans' chest, only to be caught time and again. He'd meant to hit his face. He hadn't just wanted him out, he'd wanted to be positive about it. And the looks on their faces while they'd played...fierce, with grins that reeked of determination.
It was a personal competition, and they'd both been out to win, and they hadn't been going for anything else from the moment they'd stepped up to that line of other cadets. Maybe, with a stretch, it could be labeled as friendly competition...but he didn't think so.
And Waters must have some pretty big hands, t' hold two of those balls in one of them. Those balls, they were what, about five inches across, and he'd been running around for awhile like that, two in one hand, one in the other, switching them pretty damn fast, and hadn't dropped one. They were soft balls, so they'd squish up a little, but not enough to make it very comfortable for a kid that size, he didn't think.
When they'd fawned over the two cadets enough in Worser's opinion, he pushed his shoulders off the pads. "Come on. Tha's enough for now, I think. 'Sides, s'time for mess, so clean up!"
As they filed out, Worser watched the two who'd "won" walk out in companionable animation, Waters still apologizing, it looked like, and MacEvans just cheerily waving it off. They both had large hands, about the same size, though MacEvans' were much more slender, looked like they were longer in the fingers, more delicate. He could feel a grimace on his face for thinking that. Delicate. That kid ain't that, that's for damn sure.
There was some good-natured grumbling, but they went, and about ten minutes later, twenty clean boys, back in "street-clothes", emerged from the locker rooms that were adjacent to the gymnasium and the pool. He looked them over quickly before he nodded to them, and they rushed out the door for the mess. He was glad that he didn't have to follow them. They'd have someone else's adult supervision there.
One of the last out the door, MacEvans stopped for just a moment, giving him a wide grin. "Hey, man, thanks for watchin' the game for us!" He didn't stay after that, but turned on his heel and, dry braid trailing behind him, something that stuck with the lieutenant, because he'd thought they were taking showers, scampered off after the other teenagers.
Worser slapped another of the nasty bugs on his arm. The smear it left was only partially satisfying, because he knew it wouldn't be very long before an equally nasty welt was raised, and he'd have yet one more place that itched like the damned. How the hell the suckers got out to the middle of nowhere he had no idea, but here they were.
The moon was shining, sliding in between the clouds, dotting the ocean's small waves. It looked like a discarded snake-skin, long after the snake had molted, and the skin dried, with small valleys and ridges, in a slightly diamond-shaped pattern, shiny here, shadowed there.
The big man's arms seemed even more muscular where they rested on each other, the weight of his upper body making them press down hard on the metal railing. He was standing in the shadow of the command tower, just by the over hang that marked the entrance up to the officer's mess. With the moon's light, though, so very close to full, he could see clearly. When he turned to lean against the railing, he could see the bright colors, though they were more muted, with silvery tones to them, instead of the neon brightness they usually were, that marked the fire-extinguisher beside the hatch.
Despite the brightness of the moon, despite the lack of shadows, Worser didn't see the boy as he walked up to him. To Worser, he simply wasn't there until he spoke. "What, can't sleep either?"
The lieutenant jumped up, away from the railing, turning towards the aft of the boat, only to find MacEvans leaning calmly against the railing next to where he'd been relaxed a moment ago. The boy shot him a wry smile, his eyes nothing but dark spots under the thick shadow of his hair. He had his arms crossed over his chest.
"Geeze, man, you need to take something for those panic attacks. Don't want you havin' a heart attack or something." Worser could only gape a moment, before his scattered thoughts pulled back together, and he was in the right state of mind to give a good rejoinder.
"Would'a thought a kid like you'd know better'n sassin' yer elders. 'Cause the only way I'm havin' a heart 'tack would be kickin' yer sorry ass te' next Tuesday!" He gave his own grin with his words.
MacEvans laughed, his arms clutching his stomach as he nearly doubled over. He stayed that way for a minute, straightening up and making a big deal of wiping away imaginary tears—imaginary because Worser could tell, in the flash of the moonlight, that his eyes were dry. His voice was still tinged with laughter when he spoke. "I like you, sir."
Worser snorted as he turned back to lean against the railing once more, about a foot away from the kid. "And why on Earth would th' opinion of a piss-ant like you, be of any 'portance t'me?"
"Hey, man, you'd be amazed!" There was a note of the "con man at the festival" in the kid's voice. The one that said, here, sir, step right up, you know, I'll bet you I can guess your weight and your birthday, and if I get it wrong, why, I'll give you back your money, sir, and, you know, just for grins, I'll give you five bucks, on top of it! And they'd say it all without a breath. The kid had it, even in that little bit, he managed to convey that...oiliness.
So Worser just snorted, and they stood there for a while, slowly moving into identical positions, their backs against the hard railing, (though, in far different areas of their backs because of the height difference between them,) their arms crossed over their chests, their feet braced on the metal deck, their eyes lost in the darkness, but someone looking at them would have no doubts that they didn't see whatever it was they were looking at.
The large man finally sighed, his arms dropping to his sides as he turned once more to face the ocean. The kid stayed where he was, but watched the man when he moved. The slap of the water on the metal of the hull merely accentuated the despondency that seemed to envelope them both. "You know, kid, what is this world coming to that we have to spend so much time, and effort and money to protect children? When did children become the greatest targets?" Worser couldn't tell what was in his own voice, whether it was a mixture of contempt, and anger, or if that contempt, that anger, was only an overlay of the despair he was feeling, somewhere in his barrel-sized chest.
He heard a slight noise beside him, almost silent, lost in and amongst the noises of the ship and the sea, slight even as the whispering breeze that swept through the higher points of the ship and created a background whistle that gave a depth to the night. He thought that the noise must have been a sigh.
"You know, sir...I..." The boy trailed off, to become once more just a shadow, unsure of his words and his welcome in speaking them to such a rhetorical question...though the question almost begged for a response.
"What?" But there wasn't an answer for the longest time, some minutes, even, and Worser, wanting to know the opinion of one of these children themselves, turned more towards the boy, and repeated his word. "What?"
The boy, still leaning backwards against the railing, forearms crossed, the skin itself hidden under his turtleneck, designer, Worser was sure, just shook his head, and, eyes still unseen under the fringe of his bangs, just spoke, voice low. "Nothing, sir. I—." He shook his head again, violently. "Nothing at all."
Uncrossing his arms, and using his elbows, he pushed off from the railing, coming to stand solidly, all weight on his feet, in a graceful move. "'Night, Lieutenant." He gave a cheery wave over his shoulder, already moving away in the darkness.
"'Night, kid."
After the boy left, Worser stayed there, lost back in his own thoughts. What was it about that boy that struck a chord somewhere in him? Both of them, really. MacEvans, and his shadow—or perhaps it was the other way around?—Waters. If what he'd seen this afternoon on the transfer roster was right, he'd be seeing a lot less of MacEvans, because he was being shifted. So it might even be safe to say he'd not see him again at all. Because with that kid in the middle of nowhere for awhile, and Worser himself getting dropped in South America...And really, lowly lieutenants didn't see space pilots all that often, did they? So it was looking like, if he wanted to get deeper into the mystery that was those two boys—all five of them, from before, truly—he'd have to go through Waters...
And that boy had none of the spunk that the MacEvans kid did, that was for damned sure. That little blond boy was just about as docile as they could come, which made him think more and more that of the two of them, it'd be MacEvans doing the leading...though—it'd been Waters, not MacEvans who'd won that game, and it hadn't been won through sheer determination, like he'd thought it'd have to be, those two had been so involved in the competition. That was it, too. It wasn't a game, it'd been a competition between the two of them, a challenge that had gotten...it'd been finished, that was all he could really tell. And Waters had been the one to do it.
But he'd thought that when he'd first seen it. It didn't add up. Why would two boys, supposedly, from their files, boys who'd known each other for quite sometime, be in such a fierce contest, and...with the amount of time it'd taken Waters to end it with those three balls...they hadn't played much together, because they didn't react to each other's moves like they knew them, from long association.
He rubbed his eyes as he stood there. Maybe the sea spray was finally making them sting...or maybe he was just getting tired. Or old.
With the water's depth here, it was too deep to drop anchor, but they didn't really need to. They only needed to stay with the surfaced submarine, as dead in the water as they, so that the cadets could transfer over. It left their complement at forty. Forty kids, and almost four-hundred men. There were nervous gestures abounding as the cadets leaving—nineteen of them—learned where they were going. It wasn't a new idea, by any means, but there wasn't any general public knowledge of the under-water environments, so Worser was sure that learning that they would be staying on one was quite a feeling. Thinking about it, he thought it was probably the safest place in this war. Perhaps it was full of soldiers, but it was also, without a doubt, the easiest to hide place on the entire Earth.
So it made perfect sense to drop kids off there, the next step in this nearly ridiculous evasive dance.
Worser was leaning on the railing again as they unloaded. The bright sunlight shone down and delineated everything into crisp lines between light and shadow. It reflected off the water, making the sunglasses he wore absolutely necessary in his opinion, and creating an almost too-real feel to it all. Everything was bright, white light, and there was no gray area.
He had to give a slight snort of derision for himself. Normally, he wasn't so contemplative, but recently...recently, he'd been questioning everything, not only with respect to general things, suspicious movements, or ridiculous situations—but all of it seemed to end up, lately, with a philosophical air to it. The worrying of the gray area. He shook his head. Just the thought of light and dark, the lack of gray area, made him wonder how many people were seeing this war that way.
But how could they really have any understanding of what was really going on? What would they be thinking if what the military was thinking would happen, or was in the works of happening, came true, and they lost some of these installations.
He had to shake his head at that thought. How could they really believe that kids, killing kids, would be a strategic move in this war? Sure, they were the next generation of mobile suit pilots, but those Gundams were decimating the current generations just fine. Gundams.
Now, why the hell'd /that/ thought pop up there? Worser didn't shake his head, but the want was certainly there, to shake it, like he wanted to shake the volley of thoughts running around out. He stood there, leaning against the metal of the railing with only a few real cares in the world, and thought about the thoughts that had been coming to him.
Some of his suspicions...were either coming together, or getting out of hand.
He stayed there, still, as the kids filed down the gang-way, as it rippled a little in the movement of the sea. Watched as MacEvans sent a cheery wave over his shoulder, not looking, when Waters threw him a shout of farewell, goodwill, even.
But the blond kid didn't stay at the railing for very long. He was gone when Worser was done with his short jaunt of watching the braided kid, disappeared into the crowd. Worser, from where he was above them, and a little to the side, searched the crowd of kids there for the bright hair reflecting the sunlight, but he was gone. Funny how those kids did that, really, the both of them.
He shoved himself off the railing to head back to his bunk. The sunlight was startin' to hurt his eyes, and he'd had enough suspicious thoughts about children recently, he thought. Sleep...he could feel a smirk cross his face. Sleep was a soldier's commodity, wasn't it?