Chapter 10

I Am The Problem

I spent the rest of the day training with Frankie. We did a few rounds of enemy tag simulation, and then an hour of tri-5.1 spatial training. She mostly watched, and was a little quieter than usual. It was nice to have a break from her comments, honestly.

When I hit the showers, I had a massive headache that brought me to my knees. It was unlike any headache I’d ever had. It was almost similar to the pain I’d felt when I’d brought SIGINT to the Third Intelligence. Somehow, it was different. The throbbing pain moved throughout my body instead of torturing my mind. At least it was short lived, only lasting twenty minutes. It was a long twenty minutes, but I felt completely fine when it stopped suddenly.

What the hell was that?

[Performing a diagnostic scan on your stats,] Pipper said. [Scan complete, nothing out of the usual. Health remains the same. Strength, stamina, and core stats are stable. No debuffs. Check with Nikola for more comprehensive tests.]

[Thanks Pipper,] I said. [I appreciate you. What about you, Orion? How are you?]

[I’m fine. I…]

[What’s wrong? It’s unlike you to hesitate.]

[How do you know if someone is in danger?]

I froze for a moment. I could always trust Orion. His hesitance put me off kilter for a moment.

[What do you mean?] I said.

[One of your teammates—Frankie—is suffering.]

[Frankie’s in trouble?] I said.

[There are no enemies near her location, but she’s crying. I don’t sense an environmental threat, but she’s in pain. See what I see.]

Orion changed the vision in my Cyborg eye. Instead of seeing the rack of bath towels in front of me, I saw the habitation from my Cymech suit. From the helmet’s visor. Nothing seemed immediately amiss in the habitation. No monsters. No enemies. No dire circumstance.

Frankie stood a few meters away from my mech and Cymech suit. She’d been working hard and was covered in grease. Tools littered the floor around her. She was rubbing her face, her eyes. When she removed her hands from her eyes, I saw that she’d been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy. Her face was twisted in sadness, or in mournful agony, or something. Her lip trembled and she sniffled. With a finger, she wiped a tear from one eye and heaved a shaky sigh.

[Urgent,] Orion said. [Is Frankie in danger?]

[No,] I thought softly. [No, that’s… No, she’s not in danger. She’s…]

[She’s in pain, brother.]

[Yea. Yea, you’re right, Orion. It’s not a threatening pain. It’s a… different kind of pain. She’s sad, that’s all. I’ve been sad before. Remember when I was on the mission on Mahns-a-Lore? There were times I felt overwhelmed and sad.]

[Can we rescue her?]

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Just then, Frankie collapsed and sobs wracked her body. I grabbed a towel, wrapped myself in it, and ran through the FreeWheel.

Perhaps Orion’s urgency made me panic. Perhaps his sense of protectiveness of my comrades made me feel like Frankie really was in danger. I don’t know what it was, but my body just ran.

“Gnath?” Nikola said as I bolted past him in the hall. “Everything alright?” He yelled as I quickly left him behind.

I came upon the habitation room, lifted a hand to knock, and… …I couldn’t knock. I wanted to. My heart was beating a thousand kilometers per hour. I was panting, heaving deep breaths. My fist was poised over the door.

I can’t. Frankie is vulnerable right now. If I barge in, she’ll be mortified. She hates me. I’m the last one who should be finding her crying on the floor. Shit. What the hell do I do?

“Gnath? Is everything alright?” Nikola said, coming up behind me at a jog.

I whipped around at the sound of his voice.

“Nikola,” I said. I realized then that Nikola would be the best person to see that Frankie was ok. The very least he could do was be with her so she wasn’t sad all by herself.

“Nikola! Frankie…” I stammered, unable to condense my thought process down to a few seconds. “Frankie’s in there. Will you go check on her?”

I must have really alarmed Nikola, because he burst into action. I moved aside and let him fly through the doors to the habitation. The doors closed on me, and I turned away to make my way back to my room.

I still saw Frankie in my Cyborg eye. Nikola approached her and she scrambled to her feet, trying to hide the fact that she’d been weeping.

[Gnath,] Pipper said. [Let’s give them some privacy.]

With half a thought, the vision in my Cyborg eye returned to my own vision and I quickly made my way back to my room. I made some coffee and put myself in the recliner opposite my bed. I gazed out the window into space, marveling over the pastel planet of Miconia.

What had Frankie so shaken up? It couldn’t have been what I said, right? It was a small comment, I hardly one-upped her on her capabilities as a builder or engineer. I was just stating facts, trying to be a bit playful maybe. It couldn’t have been that. Maybe she’s just frustrated with having to deal with a low level person like me? Maybe she felt demeaned by having to train me?

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure it out.

At some point, just as I drained the last of my coffee, I heard a knock on my door. I let Nikola in and let him sit in the recliner while I sat on the bed.

“How’s Frankie?” I said.

“Frankie’s… …fine. She’s dealing with something she never thought she’d have to deal with before. It’s got her all mixed up.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Nikola paused for a moment and his gaze drifted away from me.

“There’s nothing I can do, because the problem is me. Isn’t it?” I said.

Nikola took a deep breath, tilted his head, and then returned his gaze to mine.

“The problem is Frankie’s, and she didn’t exactly tell me what the problem was.”

“It sounds like you know what the problem is, anyway,” I said.

“I do, because I figured it out.”

“It’s me.”

Nikola was in a tough spot, I was putting a bit of pressure on him to give me a straight answer. I didn’t want Frankie to have a problem with me and thought maybe I could do something to help, if only I knew what the problem was exactly. I didn’t want to be a burden to any of my comrades, even if they didn’t like me.

“I want to confirm something,” Nikola said. “How did you know Frankie was distraught? Were you using your split vision?”

“Yea. Orion thought someone was in danger, and asked me to take a look. So I did, and saw Frankie crying. That’s when I went running down the hall. I’m glad you followed me because I don’t think it would have been good for Frankie if I had been the one to see her breakdown.”

“That was really good thinking,” Nikola said. “It would not have been good for you to find her that way.”

“So I am the problem,” I said. “It’s ok that Frankie doesn’t like me. I just don’t want to cause her trouble.”

“Hm. You’re not the problem you think you are. Anyways, we have to cut this conversation short because we’re meeting with Uzik at the mess hall. C’mon. Let’s get some food. After our meeting, I’ll run some scans on you, take some blood, and make sure you’re leveling up without abnormalities.”

Nikola and I were the last to arrive at the mess hall. The first thing I noticed was that Dani was livid.