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Nautica crossed the threshold of Visages quickly, squeezing the wrench in her hand. The door slid shut behind her with a soft, dainty sound. The air was on the uncomfortable side of cool. It was dim, no overhead lights, just the branded logo neon on the walls.
There was no one here, except Mirage. Nautica had never spoken to him before, was not sure she had ever heard his voice from a distance. She only recognized him from the briefing Brainstorm had just given. Mirage turned to her, from behind his glittering bar, his face brightening. The chilly air didn't seem to bother him.
“Hello! How may I help you?” He stepped over, his footsteps making no sound. He pushed a slim, illuminated menu down the polished metal bar towards her. For a moment, his fingers faded, revealing fancy calligraphy beneath, advertizing expensive, tantalizing drinks.
“Ah,” she paused, blinking, not sure she had just seen that right. “I was told you have class R gamma-1 blockers?”
His charming smile drained away. Puzzlement flashed across his field. Mirage glanced around the empty room. “Why... what...”
“Brainstorm said you have some.”
“Well, that is rather forward.” He studied her. “You don't want a drink?”
“No, thank you,” said Nautica. She focused on twisting the wrench in her hands, trying to keep nervousness from infiltrating her carefully-held neutral field.
Mirage sighed and swept the menu away, under the bar. “That medication is expensive, you know,” he said. “And not easy to manufacture. One cannot make it aboard ship. I must get it subspaced from Cybertron.”
“Yeah, I know. Here.” Nautica set a small box onto the bar. “Payment.”
Mirage scarcely deigned to glance at it. “It's worth much more than that to me. I'm the only one on board who has a prescription. It's tailored for me. What use could Brainstorm possibly have for it?”
“Oh, something or other.” She waved an arm through the air, trying to mimic the nonchalance Rodimus radiated like a miniature sun. “Some kind of... mental type thingy.”
He scoffed. “A mental thingy? I could tell you a thing or two about 'mental thingies.' They're not to be taken lightly.” He flicked the corner of the box. Cheap foil flaked off at his touch. “This is an insult.”
She sighed and pulled out another four boxes. Brainstorm had given her strict instructions to bargain for the material, but she wasn't well versed in such things, and wanted to end the conversation as soon as possible. Her very, very short visit had confirmed what she had expected: she didn't care for Visages. The cold, glassy interior had none of the convivial warmth of Swerve's place.
“It's for a perception-based shielding prototype,” said Nautica. “It's meant to counteract the weaponry the Black Block Consortia likes to use. It will filter out false and hallucinatory sensory data.”
Mirage's shoulders twitched. “Hrmm.” He swept the boxes into his arms and turned. “This medicine works in response to a build up of gamma-cybrobuteric acid in the processor. I'm not sure how that will help Brainstorm counteract long distance weaponry, but I shall allow him a small amount.” He paused and glanced back at her. “I would not wish those visions on anyone.”
She nodded and looked mutely around the bar. The triple striped logo pattern adorning the walls flashed in a neon wave. Elegant glasses in unusual shapes were stacked neatly on the bar, distorting the logo light behind them. Nautica tapped her fingers on the bar top, counting out the pattern the neon made as it cycled gently through the rainbow.
Something touched her hand and she jumped. Nautica turned just in time to see Mirage flicker into sight, grinning. She blinked. “Did you just-”
“The gamma blockers,” he said, nudging a small tube against her hand again.
She snatched it up and inspected it. She made a disbelieving noise. “I gave you 300 shanix!”
“Yes, quite a discount. Imagine how much it costs me.”
Nautica frowned and tucked the tube into a small subspace compartment. “Thanks,” she said tersely. She turned to go.
“Are you sure you wouldn't like a drink?” Mirage called.
“Absolutely positive,” she said, walking towards the door as fast as she could.
She had almost reached it when she heard Mirage's voice. “Oh.”
She stopped. She certainly didn't know him well, but the tone of his voice seemed strained, nearing on the side of fright. She turned cautiously. “What's wro-”
“I think-”
They were cut off by a pulse of the neon lights, and then the bar plunged into blackness. Nautica stumbled and bumped into a table.
“It's dark for you, too, right?” Mirage cried out.
“Yeah.” She pushed herself up, fumbling around, willing her eyes to adjust faster. Her biolights pulsed red, tingeing the cool air.
“I have a lantern,” said Mirage, and a burst of yellowish white flared to life. He swung the light around a bit before locating her, then settled its beam at her feet.
“Thanks,” she said uncertainly. “Um. Does this happen often?”
“No,” he answered. “Well, yes. But I do not always have another party present to confirm.” His eyes were golden, hovering above the lantern.
“I see.”
They stared at each other for a moment, until Nautica pointed to the door. “I don't suppose...”
“You could try it,” Mirage shrugged. The light bounced in unison.
Nautica moved carefully to the door. It did not respond to her presence, nor to her vocal commands, nor the swift kick she gave it. “I think it's locked,” she called.
“Probably,” Mirage said. “Safety protocols and so forth.”
With no other recourse, she headed back to the bar. She sat on a tall stool and set her wrench on the bar top. Mirage shuddered the lantern light at an angle so that it illuminated their slice of the room. “I wonder what's going on,” she said.
Mirage offered no explanation, busying himself behind the bar, testing the engex dispensers and flicking switches.
“How long do power outages usually last in here?” asked Nautica.
“Usually not very long,” he said. “Damn. The dispensers are offline.”
“That's too bad,” said Nautica. “I was thinking of getting a drink after all!” She forced a laugh.
“A timely inconvenience,” Mirage said, standing.
A band of light from the lantern cut across his face. Nautica noticed scratches along the sides of his helm. The paint in the decorations flanking his cheeks was cracked; some of it had peeled off to reveal a dull silver underneath. Where the lantern's light faded on his cheeks, she could just barely make out shadows in the thin, swirling, parallel lines characteristic of paint strokes. This seemed a stark contrast to the short burst of information Brainstorm had given to her- “upper class, rich, confident, well put together, you know the type.”
Most disconcerting were the edges of his eyes. Those delicate ridges, the thin slivers of face that slanted in to meet the ocular glass, had tiny flecks of bright white that flashed as he moved.
“Are you feeling well?” he asked.
“Um.” She touched her cheek armor unconsciously and looked away. She didn't care to look people in the eyes most days. She struggled to come up with an excuse for staring. The chilly atmosphere clung to her. “It is a little cold in here,” she said at last.
He nodded. “My apologies. I cannot do anything to remedy the situation until the power comes back on.”
“Right.” She rubbed her arms. “Brr.”
Mirage pressed his fingertips together and vented slowly. “I... realize that, at this juncture, we have long passed the accepted timing for the following question, but as it seems you may be my guest for the immediate future, I am at a disadvantage. May I have your name?”
“Oh! Nautica,” she said. “Don't worry about social conventions with me. I've studied all of them but my friends say that I still have a lot of practice to go before I've achieved proper implementation. Transgressions do not offend me in the slightest.”
“Mirage.” He put his hand to his chest and bowed his head gracefully.
“Yeah, I know who you are.” She reflected on her response and hoped her tone hadn't been dismissive. “Er. I mean, it's an unusual name!” Then, before she could stop herself, “Mirage, noun: 1) an optical illusion caused by environmental conditions. 2) something that appears real or possible but is not so.”
He smiled.
“Uh oh!”
They both startled at the unfamiliar voice. Mirage scanned the room, posed for combat. Nautica stared at the rows of fancy glasses until the back of her processor knocked and she realized what the sound was.
“Oh, it's my wrench,” she said. She held it up. “One of the alarms Brainstorm installed on it.”
Mirage returned to a standing posture, his back straight. “What kind of alarm?”
“Um.” She fumbled with it, activating the tiny holographic screen. “It's an Impending Doom alarm.”
He made a dry, unamused, “hah.”
“Unfortunately,” she laughed nervously, “it tends to have a rather, ah, high accuracy rate, when predicting the percent probability of, er, unpleasant situations.”
Mirage looked from her to the wrench and back again, the edges of his eyes flicker-flashing.
“It's, ah, kinda funny, that one would be unhappy with accurate predictions,” she babbled, wishing the other mech would help her fill the cool silence of the room. “I'll have to report to Brainstorm the outcome of this particular situation! Not that, er, it's, um, feeling particularly doomy at the moment, of course. Everything is,” she gripped the wrench and forced a smile, “supremely hunky dory!”
He arched an orbital ridge at her. Little white flashes of light came and went around his eye.
“Yup! Nothing objectionable or unexceptional happening here!”
Mirage barely suppressed a scowl and grabbed a clean cloth from beneath the bar. He wiped the counter with quick, angry, darting motions. “The only objectionable thing that has happened here recently was Megatron's poetry reading. I have had hardly any customers since.” He frowned, and his eyes deepened in color as he moved out of the lantern's light. “I am most certain this was a calculated, offensive move on the part of Swerve. Previous to then, Megatron had never once visited my establishment.” Mirage scrubbed hard at an invisible stain on the countertop. “And such a move was unwarranted! We catered to different clientele. Mechs seeking a refined and dignified experience came here, and the rest... went to Swerve's. It was fine. Everything was fine!”
Nautica resisted the urge to counter Mirage's implications- that, as a friend of Swerve and a patron of his bar, she was assumed to be unrefined and undignified- but his anger flared out into the chilly room, and the edge of his field pulsed once with hurt, before being quickly retracted.
“I... didn't know that,” she said slowly. “Er. I'm sorry.” She pushed her lips together, then said, “it... sounds like you've lost more than just sales.”
He glared at her. “Yes.”
The word was spoken with such bitterness, she winced.
He must have noticed, because his frown softened. He shook his head. “I shouldn't be angry with you.” He gripped the cloth in his hands. In a show of good faith, he relaxed his field out to gently, gently brush hers with a tinge of calm. “It has meant a lot to me, having this place,” he said softly. “But I've lost more in the past.” He was quiet a moment, the field receding with a tiny flash of pain. “I will rise again.”
Nautica felt a pang of sympathy for the stranger, who had just revealed so much of himself to her. “I-”
“Ung,” Mirage shut his eyes, one hand moving to his forehead, the other clawing at the bar top. He moaned. “My head.”
“Are you okay?”
“Nnnn.” He shook his head.
Nautica reached for her subspace compartment. “Do you need your medicine? It's right here. We can figure out a new price or someth-”
“No,” he said, his voice staticky.
“Er, okay.” Nautica leaned on the countertop. She didn't want to get too close to him, but she also didn't want him to feel alone.
Mirage fumbled under the bar and brought up a large, ornate glass bottle filled with dark liquid.
“I don't think it's a good idea to drink if you're sick-”
He moved his fingers off the label, revealing the logo for a non-intoxicating base, a bubbly fluid for mixing with stronger drinks.
“Oh. Yeah. Okay.”
Mirage downed the drink, gasping a bit between gulps. His eyes were shut, he grimaced, his field pulsing erratically, sometimes colliding with hers. She shrank back. She knew he wasn't trying to be rude. He was not feeling well.
When he finished, he leaned against the bar, gripping the bottle in both hands. Though his eyes were unfocused, they still flashed at the edges. Nautica watched him closely. She didn't understand those flashes. Were they some kind of decoration? They didn't seem to change with his moods. They flashed like tiny facets in a prism.
“Um. Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.
Mirage's hands twitched and the bottle exploded. Nautica flung her arms up over her face. Glass shards bounced off her forearms, tink tink tink. A few brushed her thigh on the way to the ground. She peeked back at him.
He flexed his fingers, venting shallowly. His hands weren't bleeding.
“Wow!” she said. “No cuts? Lucky break! You-”
A long, curlicued gash had appeared across his cheek, caused by an errant shard of glass. It wasn't bleeding, either. It was glowing. The exact same yellow as his eyes. Nautica felt sick at the thought that somehow his eye had been cut, melted, dragged down his face like a knife, taking its unique color with it. Nautica pushed herself away from him, grimacing.
“Oh,” he said, and touched his fingertips gently to his face. He blinked erratically, the extra light shining through his wound interfering with his vision. Nautica shuddered. He turned away from her. “Please excuse me.”
“What is that?” she asked, a little too loudly, her voice quavering. Oh, Primus. She heaved herself up to look behind the bar. There was glass, glinting faintly from the floor, but no blood. Nautica hated the sight of blood. She steadied her breathing. “No blood,” she said softly to herself. “No blood.”
“Nothing to worry about,” he said from the darkness beyond.
Nautica held the wrench to her chest and drew her knees up. Unease prickled across her back and shoulders. Everything about this place was weird. Too silent and cold. She glanced around the dark room for... she didn't know what. A sign of danger, a flicker of returning electrical power? But she saw nothing.
She smelled paint.
Mirage faded into the circle of lantern light, the scratch covered with a wet smear. “There we are,” he said, but his face still creased with pain. “No worries. No problems at all.”
“Um,” she said. Outside of cultural or religious reasons, most mechs didn't paint their faces. The metal of the face was usually polished and allowed to shine its natural color. But Mirage painted his one of the many default grays Cybertronians exhibited.
And when the paint scratched off, light shone through...
Then something... changed. Nautica sat up, the prickling against her plating growing stronger. The air pressed in, colder, thicker. The lantern's light wavered at its edges. She felt breathless, as if on the edge of a precipice, staring down into an anomaly of darkness and time twisting together. Mirage's intakes came in hitches, loud and panicked, and he looked at her in fear.
“Mirage?” she asked. His hands twitched on the bar top. “Are you okay? What's happening?”
He made a strangled sound and the lantern light went out.
~~
Nautica blinked furiously. Mirage's biolights- the small circles at his elbows and neck, around the rims of his tires, down his torso- shook in the darkness. He was shivering. He had biolights on his fingers, too. Thin, delicate rings around each joint. They were blurring.
“Mirage, I see your hands. I'm going to-” she swallowed and reached out. “I'm going to hold them, okay? Is that okay?” She found his hands and wove her fingers between his. He squeezed her, still intaking sharply. His hands were cold. “You poor thing,” she said, trying to keep fear from her voice. “Why are you so cold?”
“Muh- mal-” he said. He couldn't get the word out.
Nautica leaned forward. A weight left her lap and a loud clash of metal sounded from the floor. For a split second she thought a part of her body had fallen off. She pushed the thought aside quickly. “Oh! Oh gosh, I'm sorry. That was my wrench. I forgot I had it!” She laughed, the sound awkward and scared. “I just remembered, I have a light on the wrench. I should get it.” She turned away but Mirage gripped her tight, mumbling something she couldn't make out. “Please,” she said, tugging her hands. “Please, just let go, I'll get a light and then-”
“Light,” he said, and there was a flash.
Nautica yelped. The bar lit up for a split second, as if by lightning, and just as quickly fell back into darkness. “Oh, Primus,” she said. “What the hell is going on here. Did you do that?” She turned to him, but he was gone.
His biolights and eyes were gone. His hands were gone, though she still felt his fingers gripping hers. Her spark hitched in her chest. “What the-”
“Please don't leave me.” His voice was a pained whisper, and she shivered. His voice came from the place where his face had been seconds before.
“I won't, I promise, but where are you? What is going on!” She tugged at her hands again. “Please! I don't understand what's going on here and quite frankly it's getting scary!”
Light flashed again, then again, and in the next swath of darkness Mirage returned. His eyes were orangey now, crimped at the edges with fear. His biolights were pale, his field staticky and sickly.
“What's going on!” Nautica yelled. “This is beyond bizarre!”
He shut his eyes and moved his lips, but she couldn't hear him.
A flame appeared on the bar top, stabbing the darkness. Nautica flinched away from it. As she stared, it grew backwards in a lazy curve, licked along the fluted glasses, down the bar, down the stools, to the floor, until they were entombed in the yellow orangey glow. “Fire,” she whispered. “Fire?”
The light of the flames played across Mirage's face. He was staring past her.
Nautica's processor sent several logistical errors to her HUD, noting that the air had remained a steady temperature, and there was no smell of fuel or burned material. She blinked at the numbers- she was so disoriented she hadn't noticed these things via her senses, and she was so confused, her logic center had barged into view with the only tangible data it could grasp.
Just as she was getting a grip on the idea, the fire went out.
Then the darkness was peppered with gunfire and lasers- they streaked across the ceiling and slammed soundlessly into the floor. A pool of light grew from their impact and spread, replacing the bar's dark flooring with bright white tiles. When the light touched the walls, they stretched back and out. Towering, shattered windows appeared, beyond which buildings stood against a blue sky. Nautica squinted in the bright sunlight. “A city?” Military ships hovered in the sky, barraging the buildings and streets below with bombs. The room shook, and though Nautica did not feel the floor beneath her move, she swayed with the visual. Smoke filled the room. She blinked reflexively. No soot stung her eyes.
“They're screaming,” whispered Mirage. Below the eyes, his face was hidden by a veil. There was gold painted in square patterns on his body- what she could see beneath his white robes. He pulled their interlocked hands to the sides of his head. Her fingers went through the cloth there. His field stuttered, then coursed with naked fear. “Not like this!”
Mechs in similar robes rushed past them for the windows. Even though they had no aerial modes, they threw themselves out, between the flames and the broken glass, to smash onto the ground below. The military ships unleashed another dark barrage. The room rocked again, and fire burst all around them. Mirage wailed, the only sound in the chaos.
The sound shook Nautica from her stupor. She peered around the room, grounding herself in the logistical errors that were flooding her mind. The scene was absolutely realistic visually, but it made no sense otherwise. The bright sunlight, the fire- none of it had raised the air temperature. There were no screams from the dying people. The fire did not crackle or roar. She could not smell the smoke.
“It's not real,” she said unsteadily.
“It is!” cried Mirage. “Don't you see it? Can't you hear it! Can't you feel it!”
Mirage...
She scanned the room again, but could see no seams in the scene. It was horrifically realistic. But there was no way it could be...
Mirage...
“I'm sorry!” she said, and she pulled her arms towards herself, yanking him close, and smashed her forehead into his. Or, at least, that had been her intention. She smashed her forehead into his nose. It cracked. The room plunged into darkness again, the hallucination gone.
Spiderwebbing cracks radiated out from Mirage's nose and across his face. They flashed gold and white, just like the edges of his eyes. The cracks split and divided, carving his cheeks and lips with knives of golden light. After a horrible, weightless moment, there came the sound of glass shattering, and his face collapsed into itself, exposing the pure, bright light of his optics inside. She screamed as he teetered back, limp, biolights fading. She snatched her hands to her chest as he fell behind the bar. His body hit the floor with a crash. The yellow light, and his field, went out.
“Oh, Primus, oh Solus Prime, oh Primus,” she breathed, half pleading prayer, half blasphemous swear. She bent and felt around the darkness for her wrench. “Oh please work, oh please, oh please.” She fumbled for the right button. A beam of white light shot out from one end. She backed away from the bar and brandished the wrench like a sword.
She waited, panting, but Mirage didn't move, and the yellow of his eyes did not shine again.
“Okay,” she said. She fumbled once more with the wrench and sent a distress signal. Then she backed away, all the way to the door, and slumped against it.
~~
Hot Spot whistled, long and low, the sound reverberating through the dark bar. His torso lights caught the dead neon bulbs on the walls as he swiveled around. His huge form reached over the bar and scooped Mirage's body up from the darkness. He cradled the broken figure in his arms. “I haven't seen a glass-faced mech in ages.”
“Huh,” grunted Aquafend. The three lights crowning his helm cycled green and yellow in frustration as he struggled to set up a tall emergency lamp. He kicked its base a few times. His gun, which he had leaned against the lamp, fell over. He cursed.
Aquafend and Hot Spot had been the closest members of the Security and Emergency Response teams, respectively, to Visages when her distress call had gone out. They'd arrived in minutes, blasted a hole through the door, and somehow understood enough of Nautica's frantic cries to assess the situation. They secured the area, sat Nautica down with a warm drink, and got to work.
Nautica sipped the drink, watching Aquafend struggle with the emergency lamp. She was about to stand and help him when, with a final bout of swearing, Aquafend shouted, “light!” He jammed the top half of the contraption into its base and flooded the bar with brightness. Nautica tensed for a moment, expecting everything to plunge back into darkness, as it had so many times before, but the light was steady. It hummed, emanating heat.
Hot Spot squinted and lumbered towards them. “Look at this,” he said, laying Mirage onto a couple of tables. “You can see the bare optics, the brain module, everything.” He'd already strapped a few medical devices across Mirage's chest. “Vitals are... okay. He's stable. We'll stay til First Aid gets here. He's on his way?”
“Affirmative.” Aquafend regarded Mirage with a flash of his visor. “Knocked out. He'll be all right. If he can find another face.” He jutted his chin at Hot Spot. “Who makes glass faces anymore? Maybe one of those un-empurata places?”
“I know a guy who can probably do it.” Hot Spot pulled a biohazard box from subspace. “I'll try to save as many pieces as possible.”
“Why-” Nautica interrupted. She paused and reset her scratchy vocalizer. “Why did he have a glass face?”
“On-duty Aquafend will tell you that it probably related to his function or duty during the war,” said Aquafend. He chuckled darkly and leaned towards her. “Off-duty Aquafend says some bots just like things freaky.”
“Ugh.” Nautica leaned away from him.
“Don't,” growled Hot Spot. Aquafend held his arms up in a placating manner. “Nautica, now that the situation is under control, can you please give us a... slower account of what transpired here?”
“The power went out,” said Nautica. “And then... lights... happened.”
“The power is out in this sector due to some pranks your buddy just pulled,” said Aquafend, pushing tables around to clear space for Hot Spot. “Brainstorm's done something again and pissed off Ult Mag, who ordered a lockdown in certain areas.”
“Oh.”
“But,” continued Aquafend, gesturing to the emergency lamp. “The lights aren't back on. So what're you talking about, 'lights happening?'”
“I think...” Nautica took a sip of the warm drink. It was soothing, comforting. “I think Mirage has some kind of ability to project light, or holograms.” Aquafend made a sound, like a snort of derision quickly covered by a cough. She ignored him. “He was...” she didn't know how much of his illness she should disclose. Not that she knew much about it, but if it wasn't her place to say, she didn't want to be any ruder than she had been. She'd literally smashed his face in, after all. She owed him some measure of dignity. “-sick. And so I think something was malfunctioning on the inside, causing all these horrifically realistic light shows and scenes. It... it scared me, so I... well, I couldn't see any projectors or figure any way that the holograms were being produced, other than by Mirage himself, somehow. And he was so cold to the touch, I thought, maybe whatever produces the holograms was using most of his energy reserves. I wanted to knock him out so he'd stop projecting his hallucinations. But, I didn't quite hit the part of his head I was aiming for.” She looked away from his body. “I didn't... know people could have glass faces. I've never heard of such a thing before. That explains the paint, at least.”
“Heh. It kinda explains a lot of things,” said Aquafend.
Hot Spot knelt beside Mirage. He pulled glass gently from the cavity of the mech's ruined face with forceps and set it in the biohazard box. “And you, Nautica? Are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. She downed the cup. “Yeah. I'll be okay.”
“Good,” said Hot Spot. “You sit tight, til First Aid gets here. Once he clears you, you can go. I'd suggest heading straight back to your quarters for a nice, long rest.”
She nodded. “Definitely.”
Even though Mirage was inert, Hot Spot's emergency training had kicked in, and his field streamed out of him as he worked. Nautica edged away from its gentle, fuzzy touch. The calming, very slightly anesthetizing energy had a dizzying effect on bystanders. Aquafend, too, stood clear. His field was a combination of pompous machoism with an undercurrent of authority, typical security guard stuff. Nautica pulled her own field closer, painfully aware of its chaotic mixture of slowly ebbing fear and general anxiousness.
“Will he really be okay?”
“Yeah,” said Aquafend, settling into a chair. “He's tougher than he looks. You know, I'm really surprised he never got his face kicked in during the war. He hung with Optimus for some of the nasty bits.”
Hot Spot held a piece of glass up to the emergency lamp. “Looks original,” he said finally. “Thin, chipped at the edges. Probably leaked light around his eyes. But if he kept up with his painting, no one would ever know.” He set the piece into the biohazard box. His hand dipped again and pulled up a chunk of curved glass. “Tongue.”
It was silvery. Nautica's tanks churned. What did it feel like to paint your own tongue? “Sorry,” she whispered. The word hung in the warming air. Hot Spot glanced at her, a hint of a kind smile in his eyes, but said nothing.
First Aid arrived in a flurry of sterile-smelling equipment and hushed, practical orders. During Nautica's quick interview and look-over, he touched her forehead crest. “A little denting and chipping. Gonna need a touch up here,” he said. “Looks like the impact site.” She nodded. “But I don't see any other damage. Unless you have any specific concerns, you're cleared to go.”
“Thanks.”
Aquafend pushed himself up from his chair. “Catch you later, Hot Spot, 'Aid,” he said, slotting his gun back into his hip. “C'mon, Nautica. I'll escort you back to your room.” He gave the medical team a sarcastic salute and left.
Nautica hurried after him. She didn't speak much on their long walk to her quarters- didn't even ping Brainstorm to let him know what had happened. Aquafend more than made up for her silence with lascivious gossip and a tiresome ranking of water nozzle brands. He gave another flippant salute at her door. She rushed into the room and turned all the lights on- the overheads, the decorative lamps, even the teeny tiny emergency lights in the rivets of the floor. They remained on during her fitful recharge, which was neither relaxing nor refreshing, her dreams cracked at the edges with golden light.