24.1 Shower
The assignees, feeling positive about the conclusion of their respective missions, are walking down the hallway of their hotel accommodation in Tesset, recounting the events of the past few days with narrative—and as Maeven suspects in certain cases—embellished flair. They’re unzipping their VR jackets, swinging damp boots by their fingers. The atmosphere is good. They had just eliminated two criminal leaders in record time, and they have nothing else assigned for the day.
Maeven is Optimising to try and bring herself to wakefulness. She had fallen asleep the entire trip home. Before she knew it, Forrest was tapping her by the shoulder. She pushed herself upright and saw through the Humvee window that they were back in the city.
Victor opens the door to their hotel room, where Maeven grabs a fresh uniform set from her bunk, her towel, her toothbrush and soap, then leaves for the showers. Under a narrow showerhead she closes her eyes, turns it hot enough so it steams. The water runs down her hair and over her ears, and for a while she doesn’t move. She listens to that noise.
She’s the last to return to the bunks, in her VR pants and black undershirt, a white towel slung over her shoulder. Ocean, Sand and Sky are huddled between two bunks by the right wall. Just like Maeven, they’re not wearing their jackets.
“So listen, I’m finally screwing my head back on. I’m lying on a pile of shipping crates, everything is spinning. I’m thinking: Man, Babda really got me with that one. Then I flare my Optimisation and shake my head. Wake up Hara!” says Hara.
Victor pats the bunk behind him as she approaches, motioning her to sit. This is Henri’s bunk. He hands her some chai.
“Feeling better?” he whispers. Maeven crosses her legs over the mattress and hums.
“Then I’m hearing someone starting to talk to me,” says Hara. “I turn around. It’s Maeven.”
“What’d she say?” says Gunner.
“She’s like: you hear what Babda just said? I say: no. Then she tells me: punch the gun.”
“What?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” says Hara. “I’m like: come again? Maeven’s like: punch the gun. I’m thinking: well alright I can do that! I mean I’m sure it has something to do with something. It’s not like you’ve been wrong so far.”
I said more than that. Maeven tried to explain to her how it was linked to Babda’s strength of Will, but there was only so much talking she could fit into the moment.
“So I step out.” Hara rolls her shoulders. “Come and get me! I say. When Babda shoots it goes BRRR!”
The Users smile at the demonstration. They look at each other, understanding what that means.
“I’m guessing you dodged it,” says Ina. Her intonation a little flat.
“I felt like a god.” Hara widens her fists. “One hundred percent! Pwah! I run up to Babda and punch him right in the firearm.”
“You’re tellin’ me that worked?” says Gunner.
“Yeah it did! Babda’s screams. Nooo! Like some bad guy in a movie. He turns around and starts to run away and his Resonance is like—I feel like it’s gone a little weak, you know? Riel’s yelling: rear naked! Rear naked! I don’t waste any time, I jump on his back and wrap my arms around his neck.”
“You choked the lights outta him,” says Callum.
“That I did. Slept before I could tell him sayonara.”
The assignees ease as if they were collectively holding their breath.
“So it was a Will Condition,” says Victor.
“Something like that. Right Riel?”
“He anchored his power to the market value of his weapon,” Maeven explains, and Victor rocks back at the information, considering it.
Find the little rules that Users might have grown dependent upon, and you might discover the very pillars that hold them upright. Babda’s leaps in strength felt so unreasonably beyond his baseline, there had to be a trade-off somewhere, she thought, and the fact that he was boasting about his weapons every few seconds did him no favours in its discernment.
“Very observant of you, Riel,” says Rain. Then the medic pats Ina sitting beside her on the shoulder, perhaps out of concern that she feels neglected. “And your cobra mode was very cool.”
Maeven offers a nod at the comment.
“Well done you guys, that sounds like some good teamwork,” Victor says. “And If you don’t mind can I please mention.” He looks to the right of the group circle. “Win.”
The Creationist’s eyes turn from the far wall, swinging a water bottle by the cap.
“You’ve been hiding your cards from us,” says Jackson.
“Where on earth did Heigen come from? I mean that was something,” says Victor.
“It was epic!” says Hara.
“I wasn’t trying to hide anything,” says Win. “You just never asked.”
“Who would have thought all this time Win was a minionist,” says Victor.
Win doesn’t reply.
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“What’s a minionist?” asks Forrest.
“They’re Creationists, Forrest. To put it simply they make puppets,” says Victor. “I mean, did anyone else know he was a User or was it just me?”
“Nope.”
“It was news to me.”
“Ocean Company did you guys know?” says Victor.
“I think Maeven knew,” says Gunner. And she affirms the statement with a nod.
The conversation settles a little after that. A pause when the assignees reflect over what was spoken. Maeven considers the outcome of their BA mission and thinks that maybe it went alright. Sand Company and Ocean Company, they didn’t do so bad together. There were a few mistakes here and there. She could have warned Ina not to fight so recklessly. She should have figured out some alternative to making herself the Contract Enforcer. Lessons to consider, she supposes. Questions to ask herself when her mind is right.
“Which city do you think we’ll visit next?” says Adi.
“Not sure,” says Victor. “It’ll be north.”
“Soon right?” says Gunner. “Since we finished the BA mission. I’m guessing that ticked some sort of box.”
Probably, thinks Maeven.
“I feel a little bad about the other assignees. They don’t get as much missions as us since we’re Willed and all,” says Victor.
“It’s safer that way,” says Ina.
“Yeah, I guess,” he responds. “I just hope they don’t feel any less important.”
They chat for a couple hours, learning various things about one another. Henri wants to work for his local subsidiary guild owned by Reach, for example. Hara’s a taekwondo coach for juniors, Ina hates her sister (she didn’t say it outright, but they got the idea once they let her elaborate enough about her family). Later on, Rain, Patrick, Ina, and Adi leave to check out the markets while Jackson starts a game of poker. Others, including Maeven, withdraw to their bunks to read or rest.
Maeven naps for a short while. Her consciousness returns when she catches onto a familiar Resonance rising into the hallway outside their room. Sharp, vigilant, attentive. There’s another quality to it that wasn’t there before. It’s a little muted.
She gently opens her eyes, head rested sideways on her pillow. The User is approaching their room, it seems. I’d better sit up.
The door cracks open.
“Maeven,” says Captain Eyeshot, head turned towards a small square of pad pixels hovering by her ear. The captain signals her with a finger, not totally present. She’s focused on what’s being said over the device.
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24.2 Odd request
Maeven follows Captain Eyeshot through the hall. Striding, the User’s attention never leaves the pad, until just for a moment, she looks a Maeven.
“Excellent work on The Black Ammunition,” she tells her quietly. It’s a brief pause. So unexpected and ‘slipped in’ that Maeven would have missed it if she wasn’t paying attention. But the comment goes by as if she didn’t hear it, when she finds herself struggling to absorb its reality, and the captain proceeds into the hotel room she’s been using as a makeshift office.
The door is shut behind them. The captain pulls the chair from the desk for Maeven to sit, not wasting a single movement. Maeven is beginning to glean onto some sort of urgency, so she neither loiters for a second.
“Repeat what you just said,” the captain speaks to her pad, tapping it to speaker.
“I’m inclined to agree with June’s assessment.”
Immediately, Maeven recognises the voice. Infinity Girl. A Creationist that works for the United Lands’ Secret Operatives Commission.
“I should only snoop for so long, but, the numbers don’t look right. There shouldn’t be this many with a User on duty. And the logistics reports I mean…It appears to me that they’re being under resourced.”
Maeven organises the information as it’s spoken. There’s something there’s too many of. She bookmarks that comment. Too many of what?
“I recommend you take a look at South Sarafiyah as soon as possible. I’m not sure I would trust Captain Mills much longer.”
“Our air support from the Marines in Oman, what happened to that agreement?”
“Again, not utilised.”
Captain Eyeshot rubs her eyes with her thumb and index. A variation of disappointment she had never experienced leaking from the captain before. “Absolutely unbelievable.”
“I’m prioritising the SOC’s investigation as we speak. I’m sure we can safeguard Mortareste within the month, once we figure out—potentially stop whatever it is that Captain Mills is doing.”
“I still have obligations with the Mortaresi government in conclusion of The Black Ammunition,” mentions the captain.
A pause follows.
“Can Maeven do it?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
Maeven is still putting it all together. Mismanagement with the second half of assignees, numbers 500 to 1000; Captain Mills is primarily in charge, they’re supposed to have major firepower from the Marines up north, but Mills hasn’t taken the opportunity to use it, and there is concern as to what that means for the current campaign and the general safety of Mortareste.
Maeven takes the map from her pants pocket and begins to unfold it.
“Let me figure it out, Infinity,” says the captain.
“I wouldn’t be too friendly with Leichman either given—”
“I know.”
“Sure.”
“What about communication? Have you seen any emails, calls involving Mills?”
“It’s more the lack thereof that I’m concerned with.”
“But other than that nothing out of the ordinary?”
“No.”
Captain Eyeshot opens her mouth to speak again.
“Ah—I’m sorry to cut this short but there’s something I need to get back to. Do you need anything else?”
“OK.” The captain waves her hand. “That was helpful. Continue what you were doing, please.”
“Good luck.”
Captain Eyeshot hangs up the call. She withdraws the pad pixels to her pocket with the swipe of her finger. Eyes downturned to the desk, she thinks.
Maeven quietly reads the map in her hands in the meantime. She finds Tesset, scans northward, up and up until she finally spots Sarafiyah South.
It’s several hundred kilometres away, a little before Mortareste’s top border. Less than a day by motor vehicle. That’s where Captain Mills and the latter half of assignees are currently stationed.
The captain breaks her silence. “You still have the bank card I supplied to you, yes?”
“Yes,” answers Maeven, folding the map.
“Can you please go to South Sarafiyah and tell me what is going on?”
She senses restraint in the words. The Resonance-equivalent of gritting your teeth. She doesn’t know what happened to the captain, if it’s due to the situation at hand, or something that happened during their BA mission. A switch has flipped. She wasn’t this readable before. Something’s changed.
“Today,” says Maeven.
“Tonight,” says the captain. “Bring a few water bottles, a couple MREs. I am only asking for reconnaissance. You stay hidden and this will be sufficient. Mills’ Intuition is negligible.” She swipes a small square of her pad pixels and hands it to her. “For contacting.”
Maeven takes the pad pixels.
“You can do this?” says the captain.
To travel to another city and perform a recon mission, that’s not a problem. But to accept the unfolding situation in full faith, she’s not sure. It’s so spontaneous, after all, and the captain’s trust in Maeven is always…wavering.
“You just want me to gather intelligence in South Sarafiyah?” says Maeven. She doesn’t really need the clarification. She needs the assurance that this is all real.
“Correct,” says the captain. “Keep your distance and do not engage.”
Maeven stands from the chair. She agrees with the advice, at least. She wouldn’t stand a chance with any of the VR captains.
Maeven pockets the pad. “I’ll call you after I get there.”
The response whisks them into action.
“You can leave tomorrow morning if you like,” says the captain, shrugging her holster off her shoulders and placing it on the bed. “Perhaps it is better to arrive during the low light.”
“It’s fine.”
Maeven walks to the door. She turns it open.
“Maeven,” she hears. “Just call me Eyeshot.”
The Optimist doesn’t announce it out of cordiality, nor out of a sudden, newfound respect for each other. It’s uttered out of resignation. A sort of—refusal that the title belongs next to her name.
Maeven leaves without saying anything.