It takes me a moment for her words to process in my head. Huh? I'm taken aback. Well that's a name I didn't mind hearing never again. "What do you mean he's gone?"
She hesitates at first. But then, pulling herself straight she states the unimaginable. "Most probably...
"He's dead."
...
-!
The world rings for a moment, before the next instant hits when I truly register what she has said.
What?
Billy...is dead?
Stunned, I gape at Sally.
She looks away.
"W-what do you mean he's dead?!"
She continues looking off into the distance through the windows. It's as if guilt is holding her tightly in a chokehold, because not a single word comes out of her mouth.
All of us share startled looks. I am stunned, but their faces flash horror. Of course they have known him far longer than I have.
This doesn't seem right. How can she be responsible? She doesn't seem like the person to sacrifice others, does she?
Heck no. If she were like that I wouldn't have wanted her to be our leader. And look how the turn of events are. She is a commander now...
-!
"Billy died in war?" I blurt out.
Her eyes drift towards me. "There are casualties in war. If it were like that, I wouldn't have felt so... responsible. I mean, technically yeah, but, to die in a war is honourable. Still, no. No, he didn't die in a war." Again, her words have no confidence.
"Then how?!" Rocky looked at her, incredulous. "I know you didn't murder him, of course not! But then....what..." He looks up at Sally, through eyes that could kill. "Does Noah know about this?"
Sally doesn't look at him directly. In fact, she shuts her eyes close. "And about him..." I watch her clench her fists tight. "He's gone missing," she says, in a broken manner.
"What?!" Rocky gasps. He stumbles to the side and sits on a now empty bed of someone named Ryan. He grabs his hair. "Billy..." he breathes heavily. "H-he didn't deserve to d-die! How could he die? He did not have the purest of hearts. That doesn't mean-" He catches his temples. His hands are shaking. "And Noah is missing... I can't make shit out of this! What's the meaning of this?! What's happening!"
Sally sits by his side. A lot of the others are watching us now hearing the commotion. She places her hand on his shoulder. "I wish I knew. I'm trying to make heads or tails out of this situation myself."
I can hardly keep up with their conversation. So, I walk up to them, holding a shocked Kevin and a confused Beth close. "Who's Noah?" I ask.
Rocky was friends with Billy, wasn't he? I saw him seated with him and another annoying guy.
Sally frowns. "Right. You never got his name. It's that guy who sat by Billy's side on the first day.
My eyebrows shoot up. "I see... He is called Noah, then."
...
Unsure of what my next action should be, I back away. I don't know what to do.
I redirect my attention to Space buddy. So you searched through my memories, huh?
Yes. I have access to what little you have stored in there. I can't get into the past memories through... They seem..., he trails away.
I swallowed. I don't know what to make of this. I place my hand on Rocky's broad shoulders. But I can't say a single word more.
I look down at Kevin. His eyes are wide open, and tear stained.
Beth is confused, as if refusing to believe what we have all heard clearly. Fiona and Diana look at each other but don't share any words.
"I think, it would be best to show you how," Sally says. "I just can't make myself begin to explain it. That won't do Billy justice." Stopping, she looks straight at me. "When we are all up at the station, follow me." Leaving us with that, Sally walks away.
____________
The spiral slide to reach the ground floor is not as fun anymore with them being used to it, and with the mood being the way it is.
I hold hands with Beth and Fiona like last time and somehow keep myself from stupidly shouting. This is only my third time.
Well, I have regulated your adrenaline levels like last time so there shouldn't be a problem.
And then there's him. Thanks, Space buddy.
I reach the ground floor soon after, and find my heart not jumping out of my chest, like it should.
He really does come in handy.
____________
Taking a seat on the ground at the dining area, nobody says another word. It's been quiet like this ever since we left the human hive.
Why did she have to-
No. I'm a very bad person if I say that. It was her duty to tell us. And maybe I've been away from my group for quite some time but they must have had encounters with Billy and that Noah frequently. Maybe everyday. I don't even know what to say. And moreover, Sally blames herself for being responsible. For what happened to Billy. But how could- aghhh!
"This is so not how I imagined my day to go, after what I've accomplished," I mumble to myself as I sit with my knees close to my chest, my head resting against my folded arms.
Currently, we are sitting for breakfast. But dare I say, I'm full on an empty stomach right now. And so are they.
Beth is by my left side, Rocky on the right. He is still in shock. Crying.
The mood is heavy. And I'm not at all feeling it. That jerk,...how could be just die like that? Out of nowhere?
"Ugh." I hold my head. "For once, I thought I could show Billy what I could do! How can he just up and leave like that? This isn't fair." That's not exactly true. But, yeah, if I were to meet Billy now, that's definitely what I'd do. Show him that I'm not useless. It's not something I had planned to do, but it's the course of action I would have followed in.
"Life isn't fair, " Sally says. "It just had to be him. If it were a nobody-" she tches, brushing her red hair back. "What difference does it make. We all are the same race. Why does a person become special? Just because we know him? Have spent some time with him?" She slams her fist down on the hard ground. "Nothing's fair! Nothing makes sense." She pants.
"You didn't sleep last night, did you," Diana says, her voice deep.
Sally scoffs. "As if I could."
I clench my fists, try to calm down. Easy. Easy. Taking in a deep breath, I take action.
"So," I begin, trying to divert them all from brooding like that. I need to learn a bit more about Billy, what he was like. Maybe we all do. "He got into the front lines as well? How good was he? All this time I was gone, you guys must have had interactions. I hate him, but, he's a person after all. I wish I could have known him better, to have hated him more."
Beth snorts. "Really?"
"Yeah I mean it! Hating someone or something for no reason isn't a good trait, y'know?"
I wish Sally started speaking but she is too pained to say anything. It doesn't even occur to anyone that this is the second time, the only time after I was taken away that I'm sitting down with them, having a meal. But that's not important now, is it?
Well...the meal hasn't arrived yet, but...it would. What I'm trying to say is, it's not a happy reunion anymore. All because of-
I clench my fists.
He didn't give you an easy time when he was alive. He is not gonna give you some even after he's gone. What a guy.
"He was, surprisingly well. In combat. Training. Everything. He had an attitude, but it didn't keep him from progressing further," at last it's Sally who begins speaking about him. Of course, she has monitored him. She is the commander after all.
"He teased me, for being weak. Which I am. But..." Kevin says, his voice strained. "But this one time during our break on the station, he had helped me. I was gonna fall over badly, but he caught my arm. Whatever he said later, didn't matter."
I stare at Kevin's unjustified sad expression, and frown automatically. Ugh, I hate Billy even more, now! Pushovers who had a heart but still acted like one without, are the worst. Why do they have to be like that? Being a bully is not a trait to take pride in.
"He teased me non-stop. I hated him as well. He may have had a heart. But... I don't care, if he had. He wasn't a good person. And anybody would have helped Kevin if he was toppling over. Because he would have died, had Billy not saved him," Beth says.
I look at her in shock.
"She isn't wrong, you know," Fiona says. She doesn't look at me, which is odd. It's almost as if she's uncomfortable. "Anybody would have done that." Her distant, wavering vision is directed at her lap, her hands are uneasily holding her body close. Yes, she is uncomfortable.
"Hey, Fiona. Don't tell me. Did he do something to you?" I say, almost too scared to put that into words. Because, I don't know what I'd do to him if they turn out to be true. Doesn't matter if he's dead or alive. I'd find him in hell if need be.
She looks at me, then smiles faintly. "Not the worst scum there is," she shrugs. "But he's the worst I've seen. He flirted around non stop. It was irritating. He got in my skin. It was like he had no interest in me, but, he just liked me getting irritated. He did tease me a lot... But, not anything further than that. What I'm trying to say is, it wasn't a pleasant experience around with him to say the least." She clasps onto her robe, as if on guard.
Diana chuckles, "I fought with the guy. Wasn't a pleasant experience either."
"Why would you do something like that?!"
"What do you mean? Dude, he stole my stuff! It was important to me and I had to get it back."
"Okay, but did you?" Fiona says, after a sigh.
"Well, I had to steal it from him, while he was bathing. He didn't come at me later for it though."
We all break into smiles hearing that. And on that note, the food service robots come in.
"Well," I pat Rocky's back. "Let's eat, buddy."
He sniffs. "Yeah. Let's eat."
_____________
I put a small ball of the given food into my mouth, and taste it with extreme caution.
I'm relieved. "Thank god, it's not that disgusting stuff." I put in another bigger ball in before I finish the current one.
Kevin looks at me curiously but doesn't pry in further.
If I had to guess, we are having something like pasta and gravy. But it's all mixed into a goop. As is usual. We eat in relative silence and I savour the food as well as the relatively short-lived peace that I get while eating.
But, I'm not able to maintain it for long. Because-
"Hey, what about Noah? Nobody told anything about him? Don't you guys see each other a lot?" I say, almost in an intruding manner which I realise a moment later when it's too late.
Sally frowns. "He doesn't mesh in well with us. Like Billy. His ideals and attitude... that kid's tough to handle. Once he starts arguing it's virtually impossible to make him back down."
Well. That's the impression I got of him from earlier.
"Where does he work?" I ask.
"Honestly, we don't know. We have never seen eye to eye. So we haven't really talked much the last few weeks or so." Sally is visibly annoyed talking about him. She is frowning and eating her food faster.
"Honestly, we spoke to him twice after you were taken away the last time. Both times, it was a headache. One time he got into an argument and Sally here tried to mediate. Let's just say, he didn't take that nicely. And then another time he went on and on about his ideals and how we were sitting ducks in this infested land. He's a total nutjob if you ask me," Diana says, blowing out air through her lips that make them go brrrrrrr. "It's good he got lost. Wouldn't have to listen to his 'glamorous' speeches anymore."
What a character.
Yeah...
Huh? Wait. Was that in reference to Noah or Diana here?!
Ah, forget it.
Once we are done, all of us get up. I follow the crowd through the exit from where the robots entered and move to the right, somewhere I didn't go when I came here last day searching for food. Walking a bit, I find a long artificial channel with flowing water, with water coming out of one end, flowing through a metallic semi-cylindrical path and disappearing into the other. We dip our hands into it, one by one, wash them, and then rinse our mouths.
"Come with me, " Sally says to me in particular, and I follow her lead, the others in my group keeping close behind me. They are not talking amongst themselves like last time.
After traversing the length of the familiar hallway, with the lift-like structures, I come out into the open.
"Wow, I can see it from here!" I blurt out without thinking. But, in the very next moment, I realise. "Why, of course."
The black tunnel juts out of the ground from a few hundred metres up the field ahead. It's like a thick line, with no dimension for being completely black. But it has a circular base. What a creation, of... It.
"Yeah, nature won't produce something like this."
Sally doesn't even acknowledge the black oddity in her peripheral vision and keeps walking.
I follow the lead of the line that has formed, walking to the right. We are not walking towards the black tunnel. Instead, we walk more and more in the direction of what I can recall should be the point where the entrance of the building is.
"Stand by, " Sally says.
We are going to the station now, are we?
Yeah. I think we are waiting for the ship.
Within a minute, my expectations are betrayed.
I spot a pinpoint in the sky, growing bigger and bigger. Descending.
Something comes down. From the sky.
"What is... that!" That's gigantic!
Like the mechanism that opens an umbrella, a gigantic collumn descends before me from the sky, with frightening speed.
"It's gonna crash!" I brace for impact, but nobody moves and Rocky holds me still.
A moment later, I'm surprised. There's no sound of the impact. The metallic unlocking clangs and clicks increase to a halt, and the base touches the ground- perfectly, and silently.
And after a mere instant, the line moves forward.
"A space elevator?!" I gape at the unfathomable construction.
"Fancy, isn't it," I hear Diana say from behind, without emotion.
There's a black armoured pest standing inside it. Many in the crowd enter and stand at the base as the glass doors slide open. Others go by stairs to higher floors within it.
Sally studies my face for a few seconds. "The floors are marked by profession. You didn't check your pamphlet, did you?" She sounds unnaturally cold. It's not like her.
I fumble. "They gave me one? Sorry, I didn't have it in mind." That's true. It's important to know basic operations like these. And to top it off, I would have got to know how I'm supposed to be a military man. Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.
"The third floor," Sally says, and I follow her upstairs.
Once everybody gets in, the alien present on my floor speaks a few words, incomprehensible to me. After a few moments, once I see that the line is completely gone from my vantage point, the elevator jerks and starts ascending up.
I'm not right in front of the glass windows but I can catch glimpses of the entire alien cityscape get smaller and smaller.
"Wow... " I can't help but whisper that out.
It's beautiful. Especially the rings, they are getting clearer and clearer.
You're right.
I watch as the turquoise sky slowly turns darker and the rings get sharper, brighter and more detailed, as we rise higher up. I can even make out larger rocks suspended in it, individually which were blurred out by the atmosphere now below.
We may be slaves, but you have to admit. This is something even billionaires wouldn't have got to experience back on Earth. Not to mention Earth has no rings, so if they did want to experience something like this, they'd have to go to Saturn, Uranus or Neptune. But, that's not even it. There are no rocky planets in our solar system with rings. So this experience is exclusive to this planet here!
Moreover, you humans couldn't come up with a material strong enough for a space elevator.
That's right. This alloy they use everywhere. It's quite strong.
Stronger than all known materials that can be mass-produced by your kind.
I nod.
Looking up at the upper edge of what I can view through beyond, I think I see the structure of the station-
"Sweet mum of Jesus!"
It's sick! It's sick! We exclaim in unison.
What slowly comes into view is a humongous structure. Far bigger than humanity could ever build. With lights shining through it on what should be different floors, spires coming out, compartments jutting from various places, it's an unbelievable scene that I can't believe I'm beholding with my own eyes.
Sally briefly looks at me. "Yes. That's the essence of our lives, there," she says, wistfully. "Whatever we do here that leads to anything constructive, it's all taken up by that mammoth station."
I stare at her, but shortly avert my eyes away. What could she have felt, seen or experienced, to speak that way...
She's had it rough. Quite rough.
Yeah.
After tens of seconds, the elevator connects and the individual floors start collapsing upwards.
When ours finally enters the station and the doors slide open, I am spellbound. But the crowd disperses, like a routine of everyday.
Only Sally and I remain. She looks at me, then down at her feet. "I know, it's hard for you... This is your first day coming here on the station, your first day out of the mess you were in, for that matter, and I broke a news so terrible to you, first thing in the morning. Please do forgive me."
"Well, it's your responsibility. I don't think you could have avoided this," I say.
She looks surprised at first, and then- for the first time today, I see her smile faintly. She nods, glad that I understand her.
She stands there a moment longer, before saying, "Come, I'll show you around."
I follow her.
There are halls, equipments, robots, black-armoured aliens, floors above me, others below, lights blinking, alien writing, human writing. An overwhelming amount of detail breathes all around.
The words Rocky said to me right after I woke up come back to me briefly.
And now I feel excited.
But, I can't help but feel that with a tinge of guilt.
____________
Walking ahead in the direction she takes me in, sliding doors open to an area with mechanised robots and ships. The walls in this hangar (I believe) are black, lined with white lights. Some ships are being tended to. Maybe they'll take off soon as part of the training program. One is missing, with its docking port empty. Some robots are being mounted and moved around. They are insect-like contrary to what I would have expected to see.
You were picturing this humanoid mobile station with guns for arms, I see. Things are not always that convenient, are they?
I sigh. These are not so bad though. I mean anything alien is super cool-looking so why would they be an exception.
"Those are called first grade stealth interceptors, or Figsies for short, " Sally begins, pointing at the curious looking vehicles. "During combat, you ambush the enemy with those. They have high ranged canons mounted on top of the shielded pilot compartment, right there. There are mini railguns on the sides that fire highly coordinated laser beams that can cut or burn through most materials. But those are short ranged and can only operate on short bursts."
"I see, so they can only be fired when the Figsy is close ranged to the target."
Sally nods approvingly. "Precisely. The six legs, as if mirroring these insect beings would give you greater mobility and coordination on challenging terrain. They can also detach flaps from the ends there for underwater operations." She points at the ankle positions of each of the six legs. "There are compact thrusters in the back."
"Oh?" My eyebrows shoot up. "Then what about airborne assistance? Oh right, they do that job don't they?" I stop midway and point at the spaceships that are parked in a line, hatches behind each, that look kind of like flies.
"No, they are more like dogfighters of the old. Third grade close ranged fighters. That doesn't have a good acronym so we just call them Flies. Simple. They are the most basic short ranged fighters for close aerial combat. But their reflexes are fast with their integrated brains. They only require a pilot to guide and locate targets, and the rest of the job is taken care of."
She walks to the right, and I follow her through a thin passageway. Looking over I can see the floor below me, with little and large parts bestrewn, a few in white robes carry stuff around. So that's the assembly section.
Covering the length of the path we are walking, she turns around to the left and resumes.
She has become quite stiff. Like those generals in the military.
Hey, you know what?
What?
I think I can remember a good whole lot of real life details of the past from Earth. But nothing too specific from my life in my memory. Those are few and far between.
It is peculiar... As I was saying before, only those memories seem blocked off. As if on purpose.
It's no surprise now, is it? They probably want me to begin a new life over here. Anything of old is but a hindrance to my work flow, I'd assume. People, belongings, families...memories with them. They cause me pain. I grit my teeth. Golden locks flash by behind my eyelids. But letting me remember past details of Earth is letting me keep my humanity, lest I grow totally mad.
I snicker, almost breaking into tears. I can't even remember how Helena looks like. I just know I have a sister. It's insane. I feel my throat tighten up.
"Here we are." I see Sally's red hair against my face. I skid to a stop. I almost knocked into her.
Backing off a bit, I look ahead.
She looks back at me, then sighs. "These are called first grade airborne reconassiance vehicles. Or Discs for short." She waves her hand matter-of-factly. "They have minimal weaponry and are automated. They serve for our stealth delivery and enemy report. They ought to seem familiar to you."
Rubbing my eyes I take in the sight.
At once, my mood changes. "Cooool."
I stare with wide eyes at these Discs. They are practically drones, but given how the Figsies look like flies, or bees if you rather, drones can seem like a misnomer.
Because they don't look like drones. They are discs. Flat discs. Not the frisbees from my vision. But a lot more compact and smaller.
"UFOs." Right in front of me are classical examples of such flying saucers of legends.
But as much as I want to scrutinise them, I'm not given the luxury to stare at them for long.
"Let's get back," she says, "the others should have come inside by now. I will show you around later. Let's get to today's business first." She turns around. A sullen look on her face introduces me to a person I haven't met before today.
...
"Or rather," she stops. While massaging her temples and rubbing her eyes, she smiles woefully. That single expression crushes my heart from within. "Catch up with the disaster of yesterday."
And with that soul-crushing sentence, she walks away.
I stare at her back, unable to breathe.
"She's a ghost." Those are the words that escape my mouth as I watch her form blend in with the dark.