None of Gahn’s troops deviated far from their stays. For those willing to step off of the ship, none went further than a few miles away; less to do with disinterest, and more to do with anxiety.

  Lym watched from the shore as some of them bathed in the ocean water. The Ilunian sun was in the midst of setting, showing wondrously beautiful red, purple, and blue streaks across the sky. It was a stark contrast to the huge urban environment behind them. The shadow of a floating skyscraper slowly passes over them as it repositions itself to a neighboring district.

  Surprisingly enough, one of the troops had invited Lym to join them on the beach earlier, introducing herself as Aolia. Lym had declined, claiming her clothes to be unsuitable and not wanting to risk revealing her identity. In reality, her robes would pose no issue under any circumstance.

  Nonetheless, Lym found herself standing on the beach, watching. As the wind brushed up on her, she decided, with a tentative gentleness, to take off one of her boots. A scarred and calloused foot soon came out to touch the sand, and she began feeling each individual grain seep between the toes. It was soft, almost as though it should be powder, even if it wasn’t. Stepping closer to the water, she began feeling the wetted parts of the sandy shore, and felt her foot sink down with each lap of the ocean’s waves, the cool water rushing back and forth from her ankle. The wet sand seemed to be embracing simultaneously as it was consuming. Curiously, she removes her other boot, even if the experience for her other foot is ultimately useless, being a mechanical prosthetic.

  When was the last time she had been to a similar place? Seven hundred years? That time wasn’t the same though; the oceans bubbled of lava and its beaches were of ash.

  Perhaps then, this was her first time touching an ocean.

  A gust of wind flutters her robes for a moment.

  “Coming out here too, Vertan?” she says.

  “Some sharp ears, you have,” Vertan replies as he walks up from behind her. “Everything alright out here?”

  “No present danger,” Lym responds.

  Vertan rolls his eyes with a sigh.

  “You know what I mean,” he says.

  “Hm?”

  “Always on the lookout, aren’t you?”

  “And you’re not?”

  “I do keep myself aware of things, just maybe not all of the time.”

  “Why not?”

  “Hey, I know that the past few weeks have been pretty hard on all of us. I was just hoping to see if you could catch any breaks, you know?”

  “I am fine.”

  “Alright, then.”

  A moment of pause.

  “You seem to be expressing worry,” Lym comments. “There is currently no clear and present danger.”

  “Hm?” says Vertan. “No, I, uh, well yeah, I was concerned for your wellbeing.”

  “Why?” Lym asks earnestly. “I am fine.”

  “Hm.”

  “Hm?”

  “You thought I asked because I saw something dangerous?"

  “Correct.”

  “Ah. Well, that’s not quite what I meant.”

  “What do you mean, then?”

  “Well, how are you doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “How would you define that?”

  “My body is in working order.”

  “Well, how are you doing internally? How are you feeling?”

  “Feel?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I feel…”

  Lym blinked for a moment. Vertan’s doing that thing again, that she couldn’t quite explain. His questions all seem so basic, and yet, she comes short of an answer.

  “I don’t know,” she finally responds.

  “That’s alright,” says Vertan.

  “Really?”

  “Want to walk?”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t always have to know right away. What do you know then?”

  “I know that I don’t know.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Perhaps unsure.”

  “Of what?”

  For a moment, Lym’s eyes removed themselves from the horizon, and from underneath the half-mask, Vertan could see the dim red glow of her mechanical eyes looking towards him as they walked down the shore.

  “Everything.”

  “Well, that’s quite specific.”

  “Maybe this was bad to begin with.”

  “What was?”

  “That I lived.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I should have died as intended, with my brother. We failed our people gravely, and that was our penance. Somehow, being allowed to live, this feels wrong.”

  “Ah. I understand.”

  “You have experienced this yourself?”

  “In a different way, yes. I once had a brother, too. Not by blood, but by soul. I still remember his fate on that forsaken world, and to this day, often I find myself wishing I hadn’t come out alive at all. It should have been him.”

  “If you serve no further purpose after, then what reason did you have to continue living?”

  “Well, he had always wanted the best for me, and asked that I think about myself more. Stop feeling obligated to constructs. Stop chasing things. Even if it meant letting my father go. I figured no matter what I felt, killing myself would be disrespectful to his legacy. ”

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “Interesting.”

  “I sense that you beg to differ.”

  “Correct. We are all bound by duty and obligation to our collective good, and I am no different. If the greater good demands I die, so I shall. And I should have. And yet…”

  “You haven’t.”

  “Mm.”

  “Well. Maybe you’ve already died.”

  “What?”

  “I’m serious. Why not, right? It’s not like your people know you survived.”

  “True.”

  A hesitant pause.

  “A small part of me wonders if going home would be a good idea,” says Lym.

  “What?” asks Vertan. “How come? And now? We’ve already gone so far on this journey to turn back. You were determined to find your gunship too, and why wouldn’t they welcome you back?”

  “In some ways, maybe I don’t understand them so well, anymore. I immediately worked towards my return home, but then…”

  “You thought for yourself?”

  “Right.”

  “Right.”

  “Did you want to go home when you first came here?”

  “I acted upon the obligation of duty.”

  “So. Not of your own volition?”

  In the midst of calculating for an answer, Aolia walks up to them, the rest of her comrades walking back up the beach. The sun had set below the horizon, the main sources of light now coming from the bright blue city behind them.

  “Hi, Lym!” she says cheerfully as Lym and Vertan look up towards the shorter woman. “We’re about to go check out some of the clubs here if you’d like to come with us. I saw you two looked a bit down, maybe we can go get our moods up!”

  Vertan and Lym look towards each other.

  “Well?” asks Vertan. “What do you feel? What do you choose for yourself?”

  A moment passes between them.

  “What’s a club?” Lym asks.

  *****

  If Suprima was of red and orange, then Ilunia would be of teals and purples, so Vertan thought.

  The expansively overwhelming urban center stretched up to the sky as much as it did deep into the ground. Both above and below, mammoth buildings would then and now float from their position, the city ever shifting its form. Somehow, the place seemed to be even more alive at night, as though the sketchier side of its personality only awakens after sundown. Despite the different culture, architecture, and society, Vertan couldn’t help but notice much of the same signs of decline and decay as he once saw on Suprima, years since he last visited.

  These thoughts passed through Vertan’s head as he lit a cigarette whilst waiting for Lym and Aolia. The latter had offered to take her clothes shopping with a few other comrades. It made sense anyhow if they were going to be out. Lym’s robes were going to stick out too much as foreign in this environment and may draw unnecessary attention, given the kind of information going around. Already, he was seeing holoboards displaying requests for information leading to the arrest of both him and capture of the “anomalous demon”, with handsome rewards offered in exchange. Somehow, he found it obvious that no such money will be rewarded.

  Well, they ought to make do with what they got. It was only fair that Lym is offered such security in exchange for protecting them, as well. A part of it did bother Vertan however, and he’d rather they had all just left for the ships completely instead of coming back out after changing in their quarters.

  His face contorted with disgust as he watched someone throw up in an alleyway. The man soon after gets mugged and stripped of all belongings.

  “Hey! We’re back.”

  Vertan looked up to find Aolia having returned and surrounded by the other comrades. They had all dressed for the part, looking starkly different than they usually would in their uniforms. Suddenly, off-duty, they were no longer soldiers, but normal people, ready to go enjoy normal things.

  But only one of them caught Vertan’s sight.

  He almost didn’t recognize her, but it was indeed, Lym. They had her change out of her robes completely, and she looked almost like an entirely new person. Even her half mask has been replaced with a more ornate one. Somehow, despite dressing more modestly, she stood out more distinctly than the rest in her slacks and jacket. A slight touch of makeup brought out the features of her lips and eyes. A necklace and earring shone in the night’s glow, and her hair had been let down and stylized, reaching just above the shoulders. Only in these clothes could any of them perceive a very lean and firm build, not bulky, but far from slim and slender.

  The strategic usefulness of it eluded Vertan for a moment. Sure indeed, the inability to recognize her will certainly benefit them when going about the city. But for a fleeting instant, Vertan felt a twinge of melancholy. Perhaps this could be her in another life, in another timeline, had history not played out the way it did. Would she be the first of her kind to go clubbing? Would she be the first of her kind to apply makeup or dress in such a way?

  Being brought back to reality, many of the female comrades out of the group chattered excitedly about Lym. It’s clear that they had fun with the process, as foreign as it was to Lym, and they were growing closer to her.

  “Hello, Vertan,” said Lym, their eyes meeting again. In the night’s glow, Vertan could see that the makeup’s foundation had completely disguised and covered some of her scars. Somehow, almost jarringly to him, she appeared with an aura of gentleness for the first time.

  “Wow, Lym,” he started. “You look, um. Different.”

  “I feel different,” she said, looking down at her new self. “I almost didn’t know how to adapt to it.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think. I think I like it.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I feel. I feel beautiful. I feel like a flower, and not a gun anymore.”

  Amongst the chatter of others on their walk, only Vertan would notice the slightest hint of relief in her voice.

  The thought continues to occupy his mind, even now as they have entered the club. It was exceedingly larger than any recreational space he’s been in, and was intense to a nearly overstimulating degree. Somehow all of the flashing lights in colors and patterns he could never have conceived of before managed to make sense, making up all sorts of exciting imagery. The sounds of the beating music pumped through the air, sending shockwaves through his body, though this was far from enjoyable. The feeling reminded him too much of his days in the Expeditions, feeling the recoil of gunfire, shock of explosives, and then by extension the memories of countless dead. And so, he simply drifted aimlessly, keeping an eye out for any suspicious actors floating amongst the crowd.

  He watched from a distance as Aolia tried to show Lym some dance moves, with the other five comrades standing close by. Slowly, Lym began moving up and down, at first awkwardly, then slowly more on beat with the music. Watching Aolia and her friends, Lym began to copy their moves, incorporating them into her own. He had seen this enhanced learning process before when she first learned the common language of the stars.

  For a moment, she was left alone through the thick air and crowd, Aolia and the group momentarily separated.

  Suddenly, a man sneaks up from behind her, and slaps her buttocks, before making a poor attempt to sneak away, smirking as he does so.

  Alarmed, Vertan attempted to make his way through the crowd, but he had already lost sight of the creep. A fury began boiling up in him until he saw Lym immediately seeking out the man, having never lost track of him.

  In astonishment, he watched Lym slap the man back on his ass, similarly as he had done to her. Even with her self control, the slap almost knocks the man down, and he gives her a dirty look as he limps away, painfully rubbing at his bottom. A few surrounding others laugh at him, presumably his friends.

  “Lym!” Vertan called out. “Lym! Are you alright?”

  “Hm?” Lym replies. “Yes. Such a strange culture. He didn’t seem to like it back.”

  “What—?” Vertan stutters through the noise. “No, what were you doing?”

  “Greeting him back.”

  “What, no—that guy’s a creep, stay away from people like them!”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Where’s the others?”

  Aolia manages to make her way back to them through the crowd, and tries to give Lym a playful shove, which ironically didn’t budge her one bit.

  “I saw what you did to that pervert!” she cackled. “We were going to go beat him up ourselves, but you handled that so good!”

  “Oh, yes,” says Lym as the others had a good laugh about it. She couldn’t quite yet emotionally understand the irony of her situation, even if she could grasp it intellectually.

  A pop rings out amongst the noise, almost indecipherable, but then it becomes clear that there were multiple shots. A body falls to the floor. Alarmed, the group looks up to see several armed people barging into the club, having already taken out the bouncers out front.

  But this shooting would be short-lived.

  Cutting a wave through the panicked crowds, Lym efficiently manages to close the gap to the shooters, once again the machine she was made to be. With a sudden strike, she thrusts her arm cleanly through two of the thugs with such force that she ends up ripping the arm of her jacket altogether, revealing a complex mechanical arm.

  A shot from one of the other two surviving thugs would have placed a bullet into one of them had Lym not caught it, once again the sheer speed and force ripping the other arm of her jacket, revealing a scarred yet muscular arm. With a swift motion, she sliced the man’s head off, and immediately crushed the other’s face before any further action could be taken, and their blood pooled together onto the sticky floor.

  Panicked patrons continued to pour out of the establishment as the floodlights came on.

  Aolia and her group began urging them to make their way to the door, but something stops Vertan from doing so.

  Approaching the bodies of the four dead men, he notices a peculiar piece of equipment. A familiar piece of equipment.

  Holding up their Daero Counters, he found that indeed, they crackled loudly and gave back a reading of 100%.