A failureSina, that's all what I what you are. I said to myself, my mind wandered back to the moment Jays took that Technocrat by the neck. It was an unfitting scene for an execution, the gray room with the servers and other equipment seemed to be robbed of its color and sound. Despite the sound and buzzing of the strained machines and the other scientists and Battlebudies which stood at attention.
It curled and sat wrong in my stomach, how wrong it seemed, she was so smug and sure of herself until she realised Jay wasn't playing around. It was only a snap of a moment from Jay's pistol wandering beneath her jaw and her twitching, but it felt like an eternity when the lasfire burned its way through and Jay tossed her to the ground like a discarded napkin.
I can't help to relive that moment again and again, despite how many times I tried to flee from it, collecting my free essentials, cooking, bathing and sleeping. It would always come back, replaying in my head, the moment she hit the floor, so sure of herself until it got replaced at a moment's notice with pure and unfiltered shock.
I ran, I ran away from it, from whatever transpired in those chambers, and no one stopped me. Ibuki, Clyde or Chloe were there and none would have stopped me, or was it better to let me? Again I was running and this time I think I screwed myself royally. There is not anyone who is going to make the effort of running after me again, and Kyle is out of commission for god knows how long.
Maybe this is it, maybe I should just abstain from any vows of unity, but then again. I don't intend to abuse anyone or get abused by and neither do I want to experience rampant and unfiltered Capitalism or what breakneck ideology those various space faring empires pursue.
I opened my phone searching for my chat with Kyle. I wondered what I should write him, I took a deep breath and decided to type honestly without thinking too much. "Hey Kyle, I hope you really get better soon. I tried to talk with you but you're always pulled out of reach, I really feel like I need to talk with you, I don't know what I am going to do, put on myself much longer…"
I looked at my screen a little longer. Is it really going to help me and change for the better if I talk to him? My friend is a nut case with skie-googgles and a scarf around his neck to obscure himself as much as possible, but that nutcase skie-goggles wearing weirdo is still the friend who I have known for many years.
I waited for a reply, which I knew wouldn't come for quite a while. I switched apps to a search engine and scrolled through the recruitment post from Legionized Intergalactic. Multiple headlines were covering the topic of them breaking contracts or returning their rental fees to haul their arses back to Directorate space and root out an hardware and software failures on multiple ships on top of that, Billions of their personnel has to be retrained in accordance with all of their refitting and restructuring of their equipment. "Apparently, it is also a bad time to become a mercenary," I said out loud.
"There is never a good time for becoming a killer on demand, such a market draws the weirdest lines on the stock exchange." A voice commented in my kitchen.
I stood up and reached uncomfortably for a weapon which was not there, left behind by my frantic desire to run out of that hell hole as fast as possible. I slowly crept through my empty flat, towards my kitchen, peering past the corner, my door was wide opened and in my sparsely equited kitchen.
Stood a young man was treating himself to my coffee machine, he was wearing a hoodie in the familial color scheme of a Technocrat factioneer, dark grey, white and black in allegiance to the Directorate color scheme.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, choosing to question him rather to confront, scream for help or wack him with the nearest things I could lay my hands upon.
"Good, thanks that you're not running away, Sina. I would have hated to run after you, anyhow. I hope you didn't mind that I was helping myself to use your coffee machine, water, and electricity come with the free essentials, but the coffee is all mine. I didn't want you to waste your allowance on that." The Technocrat turned around, revealing a familiar face. Like many Technocrats, his augmentation was never subtle once you got a proper look at them. His eyes, Arms, hands, legs, and probably spine were not what he was born with. I looked him into his eyes and saw something akin to a cockwheel spinning and turning while the color of his iris changed from blue to gold.
"Matt, I ask again, what are you doing here? And how did you get into my flat?"
Matthew didn't bother to answer me immediately, he elected to take a sip from his coffee, looked dissatisfied, he took a spoon. Twirled it inside the cup of coffee and then drank another sip, still looking as dissatisfied as before.
"You intend to answer me at some point?" I looked over to my door. "How have you come in here? Can this be fixed? Can you fix that? I'm definitely not staying here with my door compromised, and neither do I want to be homeless!"
"Relax, you're effectively homeless with your room so robbed of any artistic flavor. Last time I was here, you actually had furniture. Where is your TV, your Computer or much or anything? Don't tell me you sold all of that to live a lifestyle together with your friends, which was not sustainable with your income as a social outcast."
My hand twitched, the urge to slap his stupid cup of coffee out of his hand was as great as slapping him across the face. I forced a smile on my face. "Matt, I don't know how many times I've asked you already. But what are you doing at my place? You don't have any right to judge me like that, and my door! Is it even safe for me to sleep here at night? I have a physical and DNA lock! Did you break either of them?"
Matt eyed me up and didn't, took another sip with which he was dissatisfied with. "You don't happen to have any sugar here, don't you?" My hand rose, and his right eyebrow went up with the mechanical gear in his eye spinning and turning. "I get it, I get it. It's not safe to stay here unless I perform the necessary repairs to your door."
"YOU BLOODY BROKE IT! Are you bonkers or something? Where am I supposed to stay like this? You can't expect me to stay at my own place with my bloody door broken!"
"There is nothing stopping you."
I blinked.
Matt blinked at me. His iris turned purple.
"YOU HAVE TO BE JOKING! I CAN'T TAKE IT, MATT! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! YOU BLOODY BROKE MY DOOR AND YOU'RE JUDGING ME? YOU CAN'T JUDGE ME WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO DO SO!"
"I just did."
"Huh?"
Matt looked me in the eyes, "I just did."
I blinked.
He blinked back at me.
"If I wouldn't know any better, I would kick your metal buns."
"You might as well try," Matt said. "But they're not made out of any alloys."
I exhaled and put my hand against my face. I brushed it through my hair, which hasn't been treated nicely in the last few days. "Why are you here and what are you doing? Tell me that in five words or fewer. I'm getting a headache."
Matt looked at his hand and counted his fingers, then looked at me and showed me every finger except his thumb. "To drink coffee here."
"Matt," I said slowly. "If you don't stop toying with me, I'll beat the crap out of you." I took a step closer.
"You might as well try," he said, leaning closer. "While I'm at it, I'll hand you the first strike."
I stopped in my tracks, "you know what, I'm gonna call the emergency service, jump out of the window while screaming your full legal name."
For the first time, he paused and thought about an answer. "That would be… problematic." He put down his cup of coffee. "Every good thing is never meant to last."
"Matt. If I have to ask again about anything, and you don't tell me what I want to know when I ask you. We're having a problem."
He shrugged. "I hoped to find you being a mess of yourself, but anyhow. Here, have your weapon." He leaned down and threw my weapon over to me.
"W-what? Why?"
"You're going to need it later, most likely, anyhow there are things working far greater than you think, and your former team is moving at a rate faster than anticipated. And they happened to know more than they were let on. Ibuki is already running two steps ahead of the script the Commissar handed him. And I think it is appropriate to give you a role back at center stage."
I took a step back. "Oh no, what are these two doing again?"
"Nothing, yet," Matthew said ever so frustratingly, building up suspense. "Anyhow, after everything I've seen and with the limited authority I have been entrusted with, I think it is worthwhile to give you the means to take back control over your life."
"Can you stop speaking like that? I don't know how to say it, but you make it sound like my life is just another resource in your calculation."
"..."
"Matt, don't tell me you're calculating if affirming my belief or denying yields better results."
"... I'm not quite sure…"
"Oh god, you're as hopeless of a case like that genius which tormented Kyle."
"Don't call her a genius." Matthew snapped.
"W-what? Why?"
"Unlike her, I'm a natural born geniu,s but every kid of the DEIMOS project is nothing else than an artificial genius."
"From her point of view, she must have thought she was a genius with all her doing and being so sure of herself."
"If she did, she would have been a bloody imbecile," Matthew said, shaking his head. "Her genius was already engraved in her infant state. Existence knowledge and theories were spliced into her genes. Literally, her genius was put into her DNA! She was able to solve Mathematics equations which would have made supercomputers evaporate tons of water, only to start processing the equation and for cooling purposes alone. If the thought ever crossed her mind that was the fruit of her own labor or her genius, she would have been an imbecile."
I remained silent while Matt was on his rant.
"Anyways, she is dead now and that's for the better. It was questionable to see such a genius become sentenced to the statistically super rare cause of dead, summary execution with no court case! Can you even believe the disappointment all of my superiors felt seeing her go like that? All that genius and she does something so obviously stupid."
"If she is really such a genius, like you say. Why would she do something like that or why did she do what she was doing?" The vision of all of my friends who went with Kyle that day and never returned flashed before my eyes.
"Beats me, big fish in a small pond or whatever. Maybe there was so much in her head that nothing was going on. Or her entire thinking capacity was filled to the brim with her ego."
"I see…"
Matthew shrugged.
"Sorry that you had to suffer through that, even in death she does nothing but take on space which could have been used for more important matters."
"Uhm Matt?" I asked.
"Yeah, what?"
"You're getting to the point of why you're here in my flat?"
"Yeah, right," Matthew said, clearing his throat, "as we speak Kyle is most likely getting sworn into the service of the Commissariat, has to run errands here and hopefully get shipped to the sector capital. Preferably with you and Ibuki. But that is your choice to make, but first Ibuki spotted the obvious not so obvious factioneer in your team. And he requested her to do some maid service but kept the topic vague."
"Maid service?"
Matthew nodded.
"Did he request her to wear maid clothes?"
"Oh he did."
"Dear god, what is he up to?"
"Who knows." Matthew Shrugged. "In all likelihood he figured the entire gig out and that is why he gathered all of the operatives ahead of time. And why am I here inviting you to a restaurant which you would never have the chance to come to, considering you would use multiple life times to get entry."
"Hey!"
"It's nothing but the truth, it's as much as a Technocrat only establishment as a cover up for a private place to discuss the really important matters without any prying eyes and ears."
"And what would happen if I went there with you?"
Matt shrugged. "Some closure, and maybe study something with a bigger purpose in life than studying something which doesn't need studying."
"You can't tell me music isn't worth studying!"