Waking up Belle was like opening a box of chocolates – though you would ascend the stairs at hours any reasonable soul would consider too late, set to rouse her from her slumber, you would never know what wondrous and bewildering reaction would await you.
Wise walked to the dorm room next door and opened it up. The converted container living space was just wide enough to squeeze a cot into the far end of the corrugated chamber, and on the metal skeleton of a bed, a cocoon lay, with two arms jutting out at random 90 degree angles, and a skull that sprayed blue hair in all directions.
Giving a sigh of lighthearted exapseration, Wise used his fraternal privilege to sit on the bed's edge as hard as he could, the jostling causing the half-dozing girl to stir ever so slightly, emitting a groan weighed down with fatigue, hatred, and the essence of 'just five more minutes'.
"This is no time to wake up in the evening, sis."
"Mphghelshutup. Goway," came Belle's muffled retort, face immovably lodged in the pillow as it was.
"Well, the early bird gets the worm."
"That's why this worm isn't getting up early…" Belle buried herself further into her bed, head turning to the side so her brother could see her tight squint as she kept fighting the day.
"Come on, the Mochizuki staff already ate most of the breakfast. Get up, or all you'll have left is congealing rice porridge."
That last threat managed to get Belle up to her elbows and knees, and Wise took it as his cue to leave while he listened to her make a noise somewhere between a yawn and a gargle.
Smacking her lips loudly, it took a few minutes for Belle to remember how or why the word "Mochizuki" was so important, and why breakfast would include rice porridge. But as she sat up properly to glare up at the blue expanse through the window, the fog of yesterday slowly cleared up.
"Not going to hang around?" Belle asked Caesar as she settled back on her chariot chopper.
The celebration had been shortlived, and consisted mostly of cold drinks to revitalize the Sons of Calydon. But past that, it seemed they wouldn't stay.
"Work's never done," Caesar simply said as she slotted a key into the ignition. "It'll be up to you for now. I'll come as fast as I can if things go belly up, but I think you and the Mochi guys have this in the bag. Work your usual magic."
The Proxy scoffed and looked away at the Overlord's overacted wink.
Piper ambled up to the pair and threw herself onto the seat behind her leader, and nodded. "Stay safe, alright? New Eridu's a long ways off from here."
Twisting throttles and tailpipe flames marked the departure of the biker gang, with the two siblings waving farewell at their dust trails.
In what was a decidedly cinematic moment, the four specks made their way into the wavy mirage of the horizon at a blood red sunset, which marked the end of the day. Wise turned and spared a last look over his shoulder, the distant silhouettes of the Sons and their fading choir of shrieking steel fading from sight.
"I guess we better get the car parked and our equipment ready…"
The great carrier was freshly awash with new activity, as local workers in more consistent uniforms slowly began unloading the battered transport. Sticking out like a very odd thumb was their car, nestled in the mess of crates like a misplaced toy.
"No."
Wise turned to look at his sister, her grim pronouncement, and her hard stare at the horizon, which slowly turned to meet his gaze.
"We're going to sleep until I've completely forgotten about today."
Well, if there was ever an excuse to bow out of the day…
Wise watched his sister exit the communal bathroom, face still a bit damp, though far more awake than she had been only a little while ago.
"Got it in you to meet our illustrious clients?" Wise was ever quick to tease, eyes crinkling in amusement at Belle's indignant harrumph.
"Well, if you've got it all arranged, why don't you take the lead?"
Wise shrugged and turned, providing direction for Belle to follow. "Sure. Besides, I think Mss Orion's getting antsy waiting for us."
"Orion?" She wondered aloud, blinking blearily as she watched Mochizuki in full swing.
Like she had seen yesterday, the meat of the facility seemed dedicated to a long runway that was flanked by hangars on one side, which eventually gave way to boxier offices and workshops, and a large, multi-storey building that had its own air control tower.
In the light of the day, the figures of workers passing by were hazy smudges in the distance, though the thrumming of an engine had Belle turn her gaze towards a prop plane that taxied to the end of the straightaway before surging forward to take to the air.
For an aeronautics company, it was a little underwhelming to see when New Eridu's many businesses were busy plastering their names across cutting edge zeppelins.
"Mia Orion. The Thiren," Wise supplied as they approached the front doors of the largest building, with its dust-caked double doors and a large placard with the company's logo.
Pushing the doors open, the two found themselves in a reception room that wanted to look like it was ripped right from the city, with its glass window counters and soft cushioned seats. Frankly though, knowing it was in the middle of the desert just gave the pair major uncanny vibes. It reminded them of an aesthetic trend built entirely around graphic editors trying to make empty office spaces as creepy as possible.
Well, points for effort. Even though the place had no customers, a Bangboo with a tie attached to his chest dutifully stood at the ready, and dutifully nodded at the Proxies as they approached.
"En-nah-neh-nur?" (How may I assist?)
"Uh, we're Proxies here to meet your bosses?"
It was certainly a lot harder to tell if the receptionist's cheer was practised, especially when it clapped its stubby arms. "Nah! En-nah!" (How delightful! Right this way!)
Hopping off its stool, the pudgy machine motioned for the siblings to follow it. Their route took them through more office space, surprisingly mundane for a company out in the Outer Ring, and for a moment wondered if the four members of the company they had met the other day were truly as corporate as their business appeared to be, despite the scrappy attitude they showed the other day. Phaethon took all sorts of commissions, but the skeeviest ones had always come wrapped in starched collars and polished buttons. It had cost them a few times.
That thought quickly passed as they heard muffled but still legible arguments from the other side, and Belle had to stifle a laugh.
Theoretically, the meeting room was what it sounded like, and the white board that was set up did lend some credibility to the official name of the space it occupied, but beyond that, the long conference table was a disaster, strewn with metal trinkets, stacks of documents, multiple ashtrays filled to the brim, and coffee cups and empty soda cans that were gratefully empty even if they lay abandoned like a hoarder's stash.
Of course, the largest point of interest for the occupants was an active board game that had easily slid into their proceedings at some point. At the head of the table, Mia turned her back to the game to cross a sentence off a written list, her cunicular ears twitching as she did so.
"Queqiao, how's today's work?"
The question was addressed to a woman presided over by a pair of Bangboo. She wore the beginnings of an office outfit, with a blouse and pants, but also a armless long coat that let her white sleeves through. Past the stylization, she just seemed busy. A one-eared headphone and mouthpiece was tied to her head, with the free half instead hosting a smaller earbud that ran a line under her collar, which was closed off with a throat mic. Running across her chest was a whole bandolier stacked through and through with walkie-talkies set to different frequencies, as well as yet another microphone clipped to her shirt cuff.
Her two companions were a mismatched sight, with one Bangboo's body covered in cowprint, while the other was wearing a knit sweater that slung snug to its rotund body. The cow-themed Bangboo handed Queqiao a clipboard, while the sweater-clad one picked up the die and dropped it onto the board.
"Not a quiet day, but it's all scheduled," Queqiao answered, flipping through the sheets. "OR-29 took off five minutes ago for the survey job. OR-73 is in transit to Black Half. There's six more flights lined up that I have to look at. I'm returning to the tower right after this."
"Nah-nah!"
The sweater Bangboo called out to its master, and Queqiao nodded appreciatively.
"Very good, Basket. Take that off the board."
As the stocky robot cheerfully reached for a wood coin with a green plane painted upon it and plucked it from the board, Mia continued to draw a line across a list of agendas on the white board and turned to the Chief Engineer.
"Next, our new airship." Her brows furrowed, and her ears followed suit. "Is it okay, Kessler? It got treated pretty roughly."
Kessler was slumped over the table, one arm folded under his chin while the other rested against his head. His cap now sat atop a throne of technical readouts.
"The boys are doing an inspection of the back half of our new ride, but preliminaries say the superstructure is still tip-top. The outer shell needs a lot of work, but my work staff already have the whole work flow set up. I'll get you the final report before the day is out."
Mochizuki's Chief Engineer reached over and tapped a few commands into a keyboard. On his command a manipulator arm from his backpack, which lay on the conference table, spun around and plucked up a die from the table. Dropping it, the white cube clattered several times.
"Five. Shortcut."
A claw plucked up a blue token and set it down on the opposite side of the board. Mia hummed, tapping her cheek with the butt of a marker, while her blue and green eyes narrowed in thought - then widened, ears pricking up.
"Kessler, since we have two airships now, can we move ahead on the Dreamcatcher?"
The engineer shrugged, watching the Thiren roll the die and shift her red token forward along the board's "runway" section.
"I mean, sure? Still, there's always a process to follow - you know it's never ideal to rush these things. At least, we need to get our new ride cleaned up and shook down before we start slotting it into our project. I know the pressure from the Terminals is huge, but…"
Mia sighed. "I know. But it's just – we have some solid options now. A real path forward. With Fair Lady One and Fair Lady-"
"We're not calling it Fair Lady Two."
Kessler's gravelly retort came as rolling thunder. The rabbit fixed him with a perplexed stare, before speaking very slowly to a very slow employee, tapping her marker on the board for emphasis. "I'm the boss, and the chief pilot. I get to name it."
"And I'm the guy who's gonna make it fly," Mia's engineer retorted. "I'm not living in a world where when I'm a shriveled old fart I look back at my life's work and see a row of zeppelins named Fair Lady One to One Hundred. Have some imagination, for crying out loud – and some consideration!"
"Differentiation would make my job easier," Queqiao shamelessly admitted, while moving to the coffee machine.
"That's what the numbers are for," Mia said breezily, rolling her eyes, before turning to the quietest member of her cohort, and hoping to pull her back into the conversation. "Stell, if I can't call it Fair Lady, what works? Call it pilot privileges."
The Thiren cast her eyes at the blonde woman who sat farthest from this verbal back and forth, distracted. Without the padded suit from the other day, Stella seemed smaller and less impressive, her straw hair draped over a practically and pragmatically-dressed pale body that was leaning back almost grumpily against her chair.
"...Is this really the time to joke?" Her response was piercing, her gaze only partially focused on the game in front of her while her frown deepened.
"We won't have many chances for any kind of humor, Stell", Kessler offered, airily waving a hand. "Not even black."
"Wise words," Stella said, bristling as she straightened in her seat, "coming from someone who was one misstep from being roadkill all of a few hours ago." Her eyes darted across the office, falling on Queqiao, then Kessler again, and settling on Mia. "We may have had the Sons' protection, but it took almost everything we had and more besides just to make it back in the state we did. You don't think their failure is only going to galvanise them?" She sighed, wearily. "Prioritising the airship was too much of a risk; we should have focused on the Hollow instead."
"B-but," Mia argued, "we needed to recruit the Proxies first! Even if our collective Ether aptitude is optimal, we can't just crack this Hollow on our own! You've seen the preliminary-"
Stella simply sighed harder, and the atmosphere in the room seemed to turn to ice as she did so.
"That's incidental. If they hadn't been roped in, you still would have been all fired up about your new balloon and gotten attacked all the same. Do we really have the time to take those kinds of risks?" Stella exhaled, folding her arms. "The one certainty is that we should have sat on the airship until later. The refurbishment, the Dreamcatcher project, all of it should have been kept on ice until we're sure the Terminals can't pose a threat to us."
Kess offered a judgmental snort, a small burst of air that carried the weight of a lightning strike, with both Stella and Mia turning to face him - the former scrutinising, the latter almost alive with nerves as her ears shot skyward in alarm.
"Can't say I don't get you, miss," Kessler drawled, hissing air through his teeth, "but that skirts on quitter talk to me. Wise man says 'tis simpler to get what's harder out of the way. May have taken a few licks, but we got through – better that than letting it sit around for someone else to mosey up to the Sons and take it for who knows what. You think like that, who knows how long it'll be until we achieve Mia's dream…"
"Kess!" Mia fixed her engineer with a stern look, one that quickly shifted to quiet pleading as she turned her attention back. "Stella…come on. Don't do this…"
Mia was almost begging, but it was too late. Stella rolled her eyes and rose from her seat, her voice like stone.
"Never mind – what's done is done. We've already taken the punches, so I guess I'll roll with them." Matching words with actions, Stella casually picked up the die and gave it an errant toss before walking away. "That's my win."
The other three looked down at the board, and saw that Stella's last piece was indeed liable to depart from the map, and straight to victory.
"...How does she do that?" Kessler muttered under his breath. "Every fucking time…"
"The co-pilot continues to be cut from a different cloth, I see," Queqiao snorted, more amused than anything.
The sound of a door opening was different today, mixed with the yelp of a young woman.
"Oh- Uh, hi!" Belle's voice drifted into the room from beyond the threshold, and the members of Mochizuki looked up from the game to see Stella standing in front of their new contracted help.
"...Phaethon?" Stella paused, momentarily surprised, before her expression firmed up. "Excuse me, I'm on my way out."
As the two Proxies moved aside to let their client stalk past them and out of the meeting, they heard Mia give a dry laugh, though the rabbit Thiren recovered quickly, seemingly unbothered by the rough attitude on display. She waved at the siblings from across the room. "Don't mind Stell, she's just…trying to look cool." Behind her, Kessler and Queqiao traded silent glances.
"If you say so," Wise said with a roll of his shoulders, allowing the tension in the air to fade as he and his sister filed in.
"I know you had a crazy day yesterday," Mia continued tentatively, hands pressed together with a slight air of apology. "So have a seat, and we can go through some proper introductions."
"Just one thing," Belle added, piping up. "Is there still any breakfast I can get?"
The coffee was acrid, more designed to transfer caffeine and sugar than flavor, and the breakfast burrito carried an underlying sense of guilt – surely you weren't willingly consuming a frozen, rehydrated, microwaved melange of additives, chemicals, protein and carbohydrates – but it was enough to last the layabout of the two Proxies long enough to meet their clients and walk back out on baking tarmac.
Queqiao. Head air traffic controller, who had left to herd the cats (Bangboo and humans, all bustling with panic) up in the tower.
Kessler needed no introduction, while he ambled behind the party, hands in his pockets and a freshly lit cigarette burning like its own landing light.
The absent Stella Lucero was one of the company's top pilots, alongside Mia Orion, who, despite her stature, still apparently stood on all of their shoulders as the company's president and founder.
"There's a whole lot I want to show you, but I don't know if you'd really be interested," Mia admitted, shrugging, while typing away commands on her smartphone. "I'll sort of explain on the way, since you're going to see what we've been working the whole time, anyways. Kessler, can you get the go-cart?"
"Ah, yes, the chariot of shame." Kess chortled and walked off, leaving Mia with the two proxies.
"Meanwhile, I can reintroduce you two to my second-best friend," the Thiren said, as she pressed a final command on her gadget.
From around the corner, in the sheds flanking the office intended for bicycles and scooters, a thudding ensued, increasing in volume with each passing moment, and before long Belle and Wise saw the towering, bone-white mech tromp over to its rider on two legs. Without the chaos of yesterday, the two were able to take it in more clearly. The machine had a true utilitarian look, with hard edges and visible, freely spinning swivels and double joints keeping each part in place. The large wedge-shaped torso could be better seen flaring out towards the back to make room for the pilot's seat that was currently folded down against its back. Belle noticed and recalled what some sci-fi shows nicknamed a "mono-eye" – the machine shared some similarity with army mechs (rebel or otherwise) with its single bright lens, though unlike them, the safety of its eye was paramount, with its blue glow hidden under a thick metal canopy, under which its eye slid about on a set of tracks.
That eye followed Mia's gesture as she raised then lowered her hand, and it obediently sat down on its imitationary haunches, like a giant house cat. Mia beamed from ear to ear as the quadruped craned its head further down to meet its rider's hand.
"Meet Arsh! Well, uh, again. He's an all-environment exploratory vehicle I designed. I kind of find it hard for me to go anywhere without him, so I'll be using him to lead the way."
"Exploratory, huh…" Belle couldn't hide a snicker as she watched Mia, made ever smaller in the presence of something so colossal, mount her majestic metal machine with a smooth and practiced motion. "Damn thing piledrived a truck."
Arsh obediently lay on all fours, turning itself from a giant to a beast of burden for its master, who effortlessly, unconsciously, climbed its odd ledges and slopes until she sat atop it and grasped the handle bars.
Without a moment's hesitation, Belle strode forward. "Can I ride along with you again?"
Mia quirked an eyebrow, and let a slight smirk rise on a corner of her cheek even as she fought it down. "You sure? It's not going to be an easy ride."
With almost unnatural insistence, Belle flung her arm out, eyes agleam. "Just give me your hand."
The Thiren's firm grip allowed Belle to clamber along Arsh's odd surface until she could take a seat behind her client, while she smugly looked back at her brother, a freshly coronated queen atop an iron throne.
"Wise, this is your only chance this year to be cool!"
In response, the more sensible sibling folded his arms and gave a sniff of playful derision. "I'll take a rain check."
"Good call, Wise. Join me in being a normal person." Kessler's interjection rang out across the tarmac as he arrived in the driver's seat of a relatively modest shuttle. "Belle, word of wisdom: ya ain't unique, you're just weird. Like the boss."
The Proxy stuck out her tongue, attempting a lethal blow by pulling down an eyelid for good measure, and Mia giggled before speaking again. "Kess, I'll go ahead and take her to the top of the mesa. She needs to see the Hollow for herself."
"Yeah, sure. Definitely not an excuse to spend quality time with your precious baby." Kessler snorted, a grin on his lips, before he threw a firm nod in Mia's direction. "Gotcha. I'll meet you there."
Belle had watched a few Westerns in her time, including a niche trilogy that wasn't shot or produced in the country that birthed the genre. Arsh was no horse, but to not see Mia give her steed any kick – just a few switch flicks, button presses, and a rev of the throttle – to get her machine on all fours was oddly unexpected. Arsh's manuerverability, however, made a strong impression all its own, with Mia leaning to the side and letting a gyro instruct her machine to make an about-face and begin rapidly trotting to the far side of the airport.
Behind her, Belle heard her brother mutter to Kessler. "Her what?"
"Don't worry, you'll get the whole ass boring tour schtick from me too when we get there…"
With that, their voices faded away, while Arsh slowly picked up speed, going into a full feline gallop that tore down a dusty trail leading away from the main facility's roads.
As exotic as the experience of riding a robot was, Belle couldn't help but quip. "I don't know about you, but for being in the business of planes, this Arsh of yours doesn't strike me as being flightworthy."
Mia laughed. "Thankfully, it's not for flying through atmosphere...though I do suppose there's room for some kind of flight pack." Mia turned to look over her shoulder, smiling with mischief. "What do you say? When all this is dealt with and we can free up our budget, will you believe a robotic cat can fly?"
Belle raised a hand. "I love giant robots as much as the next girl, but I'll pass. I've fallen through more than enough Hollows in my time…don't want to make myself even more queasy."
Mia fixed her eyes ahead. "Though you know, aeronautics means a lot more than just planes. I founded this company to accomplish a dream that flies way higher than that."
"What do you mean by…"
Mochizuki Machinery was built next to a tall, round mesa. Mia's route circled the the side of the ancient red stone, and as her eyes fell upon what could only be a world wonder, her question dying stillborn, there before her lay something Belle certainly had only seen in movies.
The meat of the second facility was vertical, consisting of several towering support rails, rotating gantries, and various suspended pipes that stitched themselves to a bright orange tube with several more white pylons bolted to it. At the bottom were various funnels, and Belle couldn't stop herself from rising from her seat, feet digging into the foot rests and hands gripping Mia's shoulders so she could stare at this marvel out of time.
"That's… is that, like… a legit spaceship?"
Even from above, she could hear Mia's grin of satisfaction. "Like it? The Lao Yue is actually designed to deliver payloads into low orbit, but you're basically right. That's built to take things into space." Mia's eyes followed Belle's own, her voice wistful. "It's been years, but Mochizuki Machinery will be the first private company to recapture space travel."
"So your Arsh is for space exploration…still, are you sure this is practical? I don't know what kind of market there is for rocket launches…" Through the outer fabric of her clothes, Belle felt Mia shrug.
"There's a lot of business potential for space deliveries… at least I think so. But more than anything, I want to prove it's possible."
As they approached the rocket, more details of the site could be made out, including a chain link fence and a small security station whose rent-a-guard didn't even blink at the sight of the two women sidling in on a mech. All he did was hold out a scanner so that Mia could lean over and swipe her ID card across it, permitting her entry.
The spacecraft was monumental up close, and the pair could see every ridge, fin and contour and every concealed screw, and hear the hiss and grind of pipes that were feeding the sleeping beast with whatever it required.
"Is it ready to launch yet?" Belle asked, marvelling at the construction. New Eridu had created many things, which made it all the more absurd to imagine a group of people in the middle of the desert were responsible for one of the most ambitious projects she had seen in her life.
"Sort of." Mia gave the titanic craft a once over, eyes scanning its length. "There's still some fuel issues we're working through, but theoretically, it should take off."
"Though I suppose the Terminals are making that difficult…"
Given the sheer fervor that spurred them into going after a simple transport, she could imagine how delicious a prize it would be to dash Mochizuki's ambitions to shards.
"Thankfully this is on the opposite side of the direction they've tried to come at us. It's easier to just attack our planes. Less time for us to respond. But… well… I need to show you why I need your help."
Belle gave a momentary yelp as she felt Arsh shift under her, and she grabbed Mia anew for stability while the two rose several feet into the air on the back of the mech, which stood on its two feet. The rabbit Thiren steered her work towards one of the steel struts closer to mesa, and Arsh raised its stumpy limbs, whose ends unfurled into a flower of rubber-tipped digits that grasped the steel and, with a rhythmic non-confidence, began climbing upwards.
A nervous chill crawled up Belle's spine, knowing she was ascending high above the ground without even a safety line, but Mia's lack of reaction showed how unfazed she was, or perhaps how all too familiar she seemed with Arsh's capabilities.
The Proxy simply opted to wrap her arms around Mia tighter, which got a slight jolt of surprise out of the rabbit.
"Don't worry about it," Mia assured, a wispy smile on her face. "If there's anything machines have over organics, it's precision and strength."
"Yeah, but everything else isn't so obliging."
"...well, touche, I guess. But if nothing else, you can trust Arsh to get us out of any sticky situation."
Belle decided to distract herself memorizing every detail of the Lao Yue, and by the time she realized she was at eye level with its topmost cone, she found herself spinning in place, Arsh swivelling its shoulder and hip joints to make it rotate out until it could grip the adjacent rocky wall with its other limbs, before quickly flipping over like a hinge to keep crawling upwards until it came over top, effortlessly flipping onto all fours again to maintain its momentum. As the two rode to the center of the mesa, Mia quickly pointed into the distance.
"That, there, is our problem, and your job."
Belle and her brother had seen many a Hollow across their career. For most, they were just curious sights that science learned to drain Ether from to power their lights and recharge their phones, places that common sense and years of public service announcements trained them to avoid or put squarely at the back of their minds. But proxies were intimately aware with the danger they posed, especially with the object lesson that was Hollow Zero and its myriad yet equally insatiable Companions. The view from Scott Outpost alone, too close for comfort to the apocalyptic rift in reality, even ensconced within a cocoon of Shiyu pillars and containment units, was a grim reminder that Hollows were hungry and eager to feast until they consumed the horizon.
The warbling, shimmering, black void atop the distant desert left an uncomfortable weight in the pit of Belle's stomach. There was a broadness to it that made it feel wrong, and though she was not poetic, she still wanted to say her new adversary had a similar sort of "gluttony" rivalled only by the oldest and dangerous of Hollows, legends kept alive through tales spoken in whispered tones of Hollow Zero and the monstrosities dating back to the days of Sunbringer that lingered beyond the Dark Wall.
"That looks pretty bad. But it's a fair distance from your business," she deduced, squinting at the Hollow, her mind already slowly drafting ideas that her brother would eventually give shape and heft to. "Isn't it manageable?"
"Under different circumstances...perhaps it would be." Mia worked her controls again, and Arsh's primary optical sensor flared brightly. A moment passed, and her fingers drummed across another set of keys and switches, leaning forward to hide her furrowing brow. "We did a lot of surveys when we first noticed, and this Hollow has an appetite."
Mia gestured towards the screens, and Belle stooped forward as best she could. Two images were contrasted on a central monitor - one displayed date-marked visual data from yesterday, a visual capture taken from atop the very mesa they were standing on. The other was the capture Arsh had just taken, and even from this distance at maximum magnification the difference was evident. Belle felt her blood turn frigid.
"At its current rate of expansion," Mia determined, taking her attention away from the screen, "it's progressing a rate of about a meter a day."
Belle choked, turning to her rider with wide eyes.
"With that speed…"
Mia's face was stiff and joyless as she stared at the beast in the distance.
"Mochizuki has a few months, tops… before that Hollow swallows it completely."