CHAPTER TWO, PART 2
"Look, I'm sorry," Rizavi said, trailing behind me as I left the cafeteria, sidestepping around a group of laughing cadets on my way out. "You're interesting, and—"
"It's okay," I interrupted.
I didn't want to hear her tell me how I was interesting when I clearly wasn't. It'd been about the battle, the Jarvises, Dr. Jarvis, but not about me—I was only the tattered sockpuppet telling it to them. That was all I'd been.
"Really?" She asked, her brow furrowed. "'Cause, it sounds like you're mad. Also, how do you know Keith?"
And there it was—yet another poignant question. What was with this girl and asking all the right—or wrong—questions? I stopped in front of a floor-to-ceiling window. It opened into a glaringly bright breakroom, and I turned to her.
"Let's get something straight," I said. "I get that everyone's curious and everything. I get that. And I get that you all don't know me and don't owe me shite. That's fine—it's all good."
"O—kay," She said, taken aback.
"I'm a bit annoyed—and not just at you—but that's life." I sounded crazy, even to my own ears, and my conscience seared painfully in my chest. "Everything'll be okay when I get over it, which will be a lot sooner if you don't keep bugging me about it. And, I don't want to talk about Keith. Would you please take me on that tour—y'know, the one you were supposed to take me on?"
Rizavi stared for a long moment, then scratched her cheek. The silence stretched, and it made me want to squirm. After such a stupid, up-my-arse-and-around-the-corner speech, she probably thought I was crazy. Because I was.
"Sure," She said after a moment. "I can do that."
I narrowed my eyes at her.
"Just like that?"
"Just like that," she said, tapping her index fingers together. "I mean, I did make you talk about your dead commander—er, program director—in front of everyone."
I shook my head. She hadn't made me do anything; I should've been in control of the conversation. I should've stopped it. Me. Like how I should've tried not to make myself a target or should've tried harder to get along with my parents.
You deserved it, a voice in my head told me, but I shook my head and tried to ignore it.
"Not your fault," I said, looking down at the shiny black toes of my boots.
She walked a short way down the hallway towards a glass wall, motioning me to follow.
"Well, this is the gym—it's open 24 hours for the night shift, so—"
I stared through the glass at the wide, shallow room. The ceiling was extremely high—more than one story—and thick white ropes hung from it, probably for climbing. The parts of the concrete floor that weren't taken by shiny equipment were covered by orange and black mats. A stretch of running track ringed what would've been the second floor, a set of concrete stairs leading up to it from one side.
The floor was dotted with gym-goers in sweat-stained cotton and spandex. In the back, two men were preparing to wrestle, and nearby, a group of women conversed next to a tiled hallway. It looked suspiciously like it led to a change room.
I blinked, struck by how normal it appeared. It could be a civilian gym, one of those fancy ones that still had memberships instead of unmanned ones, forcing you to swipe your card to open the door. I'd expected everything to be militant here, but it wasn't turning out to be the case. Even the cafeteria had an open-air feel, an underpinning of camaraderie and familiarity, which made me both nervous and envious.
"Is it like this on the Atlas?" I asked.
Rizavi shot me a curious glance.
"Yeah. Why wouldn't it be?" She paused. "You've never been off-planet before?"
Shaking my head, I started to put my hand on the glass but then realized I'd leave a mark. So I stuck it in my pocket instead.
Until the war, space flight had still been pretty rare, reserved only for Garrison members who'd proven themselves both on the ground and in the air. It'd still taken months to reach the edge of our universe, and we hadn't ventured beyond. But the arrival of aliens—a word I was sure was now rude—and their quintessence-powered ships had propelled humanity into the future. Now, anyone with enough credits could jump on a ship and fly anywhere in our universe—or outside of it. Apparently, space did go on forever, after all.
"It's pretty similar to living down here," she continued. "Unless the gravity generator goes out—" She blinked, then suddenly added, "But they can fix it!"
"A person could live a whole life up there, huh?" I asked, staring at the tiny stretch of utopia on the other side of the glass.
"I don't see why not," Rizavi said, but I didn't hear her.
Maybe, I thought. They didn't have to come home.
After a thorough tour of the Garrison—thankfully, without another mention of Keith—Rizavi turned down a long hallway that ended in a set of double doors. When we pushed through them, we were on a bridge with a clear plastic floor with two massive doors towering to the left of us.
The bridge had a noticeable seam in the middle, and when I turned, I was face-to-face with the windshield of a massive white ship. Its rounded corners and orange and black accents gleamed in the glow of a thousand fluorescent lights.
"Is that—?" I gasped.
"The IGF-Atlas," Rizavi said, a smile on her lips.
I put both hands on the railing, eyes wide. This ship was my savior—my opportunity to change things—and this was the first time I'd laid eyes upon it. It was shaped like a wedge, with forward-facing arms, and somehow, there was something gentle about its curves—something feminine. It was like, under its skin, it thrummed with life.
"Is it true it transforms?" I asked.
"Yeah!" Rizavi said. "And it's freakin' cool—everyone has to duck and run for cover because the ship rearranges itself all around us. If you're not careful, you could get squished."
She pointed past the Atlas at a small fleet of much-tinier ships, each with two barrel-like structures on either side of the cockpit, atop their wings. They were the same white, orange, and black as the Atlas itself.
"Those are the MFE Fighters," she said. "We pilot those—Griffon, Leifsdottir, Kinkade and I."
The names didn't ring a bell, but they didn't seem to be important, so I held my tongue. Instead, I pointed in the other direction, where, way in the back of the hanger, a catwalk was being hung. Another crane was lifting a human-like metal body into the bay behind it, and I directed her eyes to it.
"One of the Jarvises."
Rizavi went dead silent, her arms hanging at her sides and her mouth ever-so-slightly open.
"It looks almost human," she whispered.
I grinned, pleased with myself, and folded my arms on the railing, watching the crane do its job. This Jarvis wasn't completely repaired yet—its arm coverings were still removed, and I could see its insides. Ropes of synthetic cabling curled around its arm, from its shoulder to its elbow.
"Dr. Jarvis designed them that way," I said. "When we connect, it's so close, so granular, that it's like we're one with the mech. We can move each finger, each part of the mech like it's our own. We can even feel where we get hit—it's seamless. So, she gave them bones, tendons, and skin, so we could move like we do in our own bodies."
Rizavi glanced at me from the corner of her eye.
"Though, when we're not connected," I continued with a wry smile, watching the mech dangle. "They're lifeless. They look alive while we're in them, but they're really just metal puppets."
"Were you and Dr. Jarvis close?" she asked, turning her back to the railing and leaning against it. She crossed her legs and cupped her hands together in her lap. "It sounds like you were."
I looked down at my hands—at my short, clipped nails. Dr. Jarvis had been the program's founder and director, but she'd also been so much more. She'd adopted us like we were her own. Acted as a mirror for us and urged us to hone our self-awareness. But, her dedication had been both deep and conditional. I'd known if her research was in danger, she'd choose it over me. And, in the end, that was exactly what'd happened.
The limitless dedication of a parent couldn't be faked, and it couldn't be replaced. You either had it at birth, or you didn't. And if you didn't, there was no way to gain it—you had to live without it.
I exhaled slowly.
"We were. But, nothing lasts forever, right?"
It sounded like a platitude, some flat saying used to deflect, because it was. I knew better than to go into detail about my sorrows with a stranger. They asked out of politeness, or curiosity, but they didn't really want to know. If I leaned into that hint of kindness, then they inevitably thought I was a creep.
"I think I know my way around now," I said, standing straight and pointing a thumb towards the bays. "Thank Rizavi—but I should go check up on 343."
She waved an arm as I turned towards the stairs on the other side of the bridge.
"See you around?" She asked, looking somewhat disappointed.
Had she wanted me to invite her to see? I couldn't tell, and it was too late to ask now.
"Maybe," I said, and to be honest, I wasn't really sure.
Leaving her behind, I clomped down the stairs and started across the hangar floor. From down here, the Atlas looked bigger than it did from above. I passed one of its tires and noted, with a brief smile, that it was taller than I was.
It took a long time to walk past the Atlas, but when I did, I noticed a smaller, darker ship in its shadow. Its ramp was open, revealing a dim interior lit with purple lights. A tall man crouched atop a crate outside, his disproportionately—at least to me—long arms hanging over his knees. His hands were big as baseball gloves, long nails visible through the fingers of his gloves.
A Galra. I hadn't seen one since they'd pulled out after the war, leaving a devastated Earth in their wake, and I had expected to feel a tingle of fear—but instead, I felt nothing. That guy was only sitting there, guarding the ship or whatever he'd been told to do. His day was likely going no different than mine might've if I hadn't just arrived.
"Hey," I said, holding up a hand as I passed. "How's your day?"
A previously unseen tail perked up behind him as his ears caught my words. He was wearing a helmet, so I couldn't see his reaction, but his tail's stiff arch suggested surprise.
"Hello," he said in a deep, gravelly voice. "I am well."
"That's—er, good. Have a nice day!"
I kept walking, but as the distance between us grew again, my fingers twitched nervously at my sides. Frowning, I shoved my hands in my pockets and tried not to look bac