The haze of sleep and the wonderment of dreams can only detach from reality's noises for so long. Eventually, one's rudely awakened from their slumber by the offending sounds. And if anyone else had awoken Diesel, their smoldering corpse would be the only evidence of the intrusion before he rolled back over and slept for another hour or two.

Unfortunately for his bloodlust and rest, the shouting match threatening to overboil was none other than the two idiots he chose to follow. Zero disappeared all night "scouting for info", although what facts they still lacked remained unclear. Phase shut down while they drove back, and he hadn't seen or heard from her since the moment they claimed this territory as their current base.

With a groan, he blearily blinked awake and looked up at his allies, trying to make sense of whatever nonsense was happening.

"Calm yourself. We haven't seen the last of him," the sleepless exhaustion in their leader's tone was clear even through his helmet, and Diesel assumed Phase must have ambushed him as he came in. God, how early was it?

"I told you, he's mine. You two," she waved her knife in both Zero and Diesel's directions, "nearly ruined everything."

"Attack first next time."

It was strange to see such a role reversal in this argument. Normally Zero rambled about whatever pissed him off today while Phase nodded quietly, unless she had that rambunctious echo with her. Today however, Zero was clearly attempting to drop her complaints until later, gradually motioning to leave the room and sleep anywhere else.

Phase wasn't having it though, "Where were you last night? Don't tell me we're waiting around for coordinates again."

"If you must know, I located our next objective while you sulked around."

She gripped her blade tighter, "And?"

"And we'll tackle it in due time. Now if you'll excuse me-"

Diesel sat up eagerly as Phase pointed her knife up threateningly, "When exactly…?"

Zero merely scoffed and casually lowered her blade with his hand. Diesel slumped a bit in disappointment, before his wish for fighting caused him to interject, "I'd like to know too." He wondered how much Zero was glaring at him through his armor.

"...We will retrieve the Ultimate Power when we visit the final temple."

"Yeah I got that, but why not head out today or tomorrow?"

Phase...made a good point. They both stared expectantly at their commander, and Diesel half-expected him to teleport out of this conversation. After a minute of silence, Phase's patience snapped.

"Zero. Don't fucking tell me we still can't open it."

More silence, this time with an air of guilt.

"Holy shit."

"Now Phase-"

"You're telling me not only did we not know where to find anything, you aren't even sure how many artifacts we need? How do you know this temple is the right one? How do we even know we have the right keys?"

Zero huffed, "The Ultimate Power would clearly be in the most locked temple. There cannot possibly be more than four keys on this planet."

"Oh can't there be? What about that fucking mercenary who escaped? Unless Diesel finally put a bullet in his head," she glanced over to him and he shook his head, "then how do we know that wasn't it?"

During her yelling Zero brought out his own artifact and for a morbid moment Diesel gleefully wondered if he'd stab her somewhere non-vital and walk off. Instead, he merely looked down at it thoughtfully while saying, "The mercenary called for extraplanetary help, perhaps his weapon was merely a red herring or a copy of a key here. Regardless," and he lifted his head once more to match hers, "why are you concerned about the details? Neither of you ever pressed like this before."

Diesel shrugged, a silent signal of attempting to gain some entertainment at this time of day.

Phase bristled, "When that mercenary sent out the SOS, we had to stay under the radar for a few weeks in fear of retaliation. Now we've pissed off the biggest military organization on the goddamn planet multiple times, and suddenly fucking around cluelessly is fine? Not only that, you let your fucking psycho possibly kill the main reason I even joined this wild-goose chase!"

Psycho was probably the most frequent insult he got, but he'd be damned if he let his supposed "ally" talk about him like he was someone's pet. His key clacked roughly against the one she rapidly unsheathed in defense. A sharp "Stand down" from Zero kept it waiting there.

The atmosphere in the room felt icy. A beat of silence longer and Zero finally stated, "Your echo is weakening. You should retrieve it soon."

"...And until then?"

"Use her. Get the last key."

And with that last command, he stormed out of the room, leaving Phase and Diesel to their anger.


The mission yesterday was a disaster. Thankfully, West was out of critical, although he still hadn't woken up. Personally, Wash had enough of hospitals to last a lifetime.

Still, he figured he should check in on East. He knew he wanted to talk to her about something, and now was as good a time as any to make sure she was okay, even if she wasn't hit directly by the...what was it...a grenade? No, something with more power behind it…

...And where the hell was she anyway? He started marking down which rooms he'd checked. Not the hospital, nor her room. Not training. None of the others have seen her, although everyone but Carolina was iffy discussing her. Shit, was he forgetting something else that happened?

There was...an argument last night right? Something One said caused a fight with whoever was still awake. But what was it…

He popped his head outside and, deep in thought, he nearly missed the pink-clad girl sitting atop one of the cliffs, staring out to the horizon as she absent-mindedly fiddled with the scattering of sand on the rock.

Had she...stayed out here all night? Did she even get checked out? Hadn't Carolina said she was...not an AI but…

"East?"

The not-quite human jumped at the sudden interruption of her thoughts, thankfully not falling off the ledge. As if realizing the same, she scooched back before staring down at him, "Don't tell me we're already back to training. Isn't our commander...out of commission?"

The words sounded impersonal, and it was impossible to tell what her expression was from her helmet (had he ever seen her out of it?).

"No...but are you...okay?"

She laughed slightly, but made no other sign she heard him, merely gathering another bunch full of sand before letting it blow into the wind.

"Your dad-"

"Not my father. My family is dead."

"...Oh"

More silence, more sand.

"...We'll stop Viper, it'll just take a tad longer than the AOD wanted."

She shook her head in disagreement, but didn't clarify further.

"...What are you doing up there anyway?"

"Didn't want to hear everyone crying over him."

"Ah…"

He hesitated for a moment, before clambering up the rock face next to her. She tensed as he approached, but ultimately stayed put as he settled in next to her.

He looked out in the direction she initially faced. Even through the haze of desert sand, the sky was a lovely shade of blue, with puffy clouds rolling past the burning sun. It was a nice spot to hide away.

But...hiding from your problems doesn't help anything. He didn't want to talk about himself, but his current attempts at directly figuring out what was on her mind weren't going anywhere. With a sigh, he turned to look at her, "I'm...pretty messed up y'know."

"...Phase grabbed you, but your friend shot her. I think you're fine."

"No, I mean...mentally. I'm not all there."

Now he had her full attention.

"Cerebral hypoxia. Ever heard of it?"

She shook her head. Figures, he hadn't heard of it before either.

"Got shot in the windpipe. Turns out your brain kinda needs air," he laughed humorlessly, "Lost most of my short-term memory as a result."

East nodded slowly, before glancing down, absently tracing patterns in the stone. He nearly concluded Carolina was wrong and he couldn't help when she finally spoke up, "I can't remember a lot either."

"Oh?"

"What he did to me...what they did...not my short-term but...it's different. Mostly the past, but sometimes..."

"Whose they?"

"Starlight Labs," she shuddered out.

Was she tortured like Alpha Church? When he split off Epsilon, he lost his memories. But wasn't she shipped off in the first place because she was sick? AI can't get sick, can they?

"My brain...it's like...a radio. And now it's...empty static…"

Well that's an interesting description. "I consider it more foggy than static but, what do you mean by a radio? Like your internal voice reminding you?"

"Something like that…"

He prodded a bit more, but it appeared she wouldn't reveal anything else. Still, he noted what he did learn, intending to share it with Carolina later.

"I need to get back inside before I forget how to climb down," he joked. At her silence he added, "Whatever happened yesterday...well hey, miles give the static and fog a freebie right?"

He heard a soft snort from her and considered it a win. As he began the descent down, he caught the slightest whisper, so soft he nearly thought he imagined it,

"Thanks…"