Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It all starts with Derma and Shino's doctor.

Eugene isn't there at the time. He has better things to do than babysit, even if he still gets antsy when he thinks too hard about one of the kids going out alone. Which is dumb because Derma's an adult now and four years into independence, there's not a lot of danger left to worry about. Doesn't make Eugene any less grateful he usually takes Dante along for moral support. Derma is a lot more cheerful these days but having the prosthetic taken away, even for a little while, can send him back to some very bad places. This time around though, Dante's too busy to make it so Shino volunteers instead. Says he needs a break from all the studying he's been doing.

What he actually means is, a break from going stir-crazy because he's stuck on his own while Yamagi's off partying on the Saisei. Honestly, if he's that cut-up about it, he shouldn't have spent all that time pestering Yamagi to go visit Eco, should he?

So it's the two of them, Derma and Shino, in the pokey little clinic with the mad doc who, in the middle of the check-up, turns around and says something like, “So you boys used to be military contractors, yes?”

Eugene can picture their reactions perfectly. Derma will have gone into lock-down, shutting off his expression and tensing up. Basically screaming 'yes I did' with every fibre of his body. Shino meanwhile will have started babbling, denying everything in a way that blared 'you have correctly identified me as an ex-soldier and the worst liar on Mars' to anyone with working ears.

Urgh. At least he's walking around under his own name so Eugene doesn't have to deal with him blowing a cover-story every five minutes. That'd be even more of a pain.

Anyway, the important thing is Doc Chaifin follows this up with, “That's good because I could use some help.” And the long and short of it is, ey want someone to go check in on eir daughter.

“She's an archaeologist,” ey explain, once Eugene has excused himself from the office and pelted down there in response to Shino's frantic call. “Treasure hunter, if you're being less polite.”

Chaifin is tall and sturdy, with weathered golden skin and silver dreads coiled on eir head. It's frightening easy to imagine a younger, more energetic version of em raiding lost ruins or some shit.

“She went on a dig last month to a remote hell-hole west of Avalon and now I can't reach her. Getting a bit worried. Wouldn't want to put you to any trouble, only the bloody child can't go five minutes without breaking some law or guideline or whathaveyou. Usually wriggles out on her own but I'm getting a little old to stand the waiting around while she does. So if any of you fine young men can get eyes on her, I'm willing to owe you the favour.”

It isn't that simple, of course. That is, they can do it. Even setting aside their government contacts, a few ex-Tekkadan members have decided to go back to military work now the heat's died down. All of them over Eugene's objections but it's not like he can run their lives for them. If that's where they think they belong – whatever. He can't talk, running security for Kudelia because it's close enough to what he's good at. Point is, it's a resource they can call on when they need.

But is a favour from some old doctor really worth doing the calling?

Eugene doesn't trust Chaifin. Not a deal-breaker; he doesn't trust anyone much these days. Between Ride going berserk and Yamagi keeping important stuff secret, even people from Tekkadan aren't above suspicion. He pulls the background checks from when the Doc was first contracted by the Admoss Company and goes through them with a fine comb. Gets Chad to do the same, double-checking his paranoia.

Eldin Chaifin has the qualifications to make it at the most prestigious hospitals in the Union, yet all eir life, ey've worked in slums and back-alley clinics. Never anything criminal, though, unless you count not turning away gang-runners or space-rats. That willingness to treat anyone is why Admoss reached out to em in the first place. Earth-sphere crap about putting machines inside humans might not matter so much on Mars, but there're still plenty of prejudices to go around. Barrelling through them has given Chaifin a lot of respect and a lot of privacy. Keeps everything nice and low-key when someone winds up at the orphanage with fewer limbs than they should have.

Ey made it very clear at the start that ey would take Admoss money and referrals but absolutely nothing else. No oversight on other cases, no interference, nothing that would make em change eir practices. Fair enough. Eugene wouldn't want a company built on blood calling the shots either. It's good to know where eir lines are.

There's nothing in the files about eir daughter, beyond the fact she exists and was educated at Delphi University. The traces of her afterwards are sporadic and suggest someone it'll be trouble to get involved with.

“We might not have a choice.” Sitting on one of the couches in Kudelia's office, Chad hugs his pad to his chest. “I think I've worked out what she was researching. Mobile armour.”

Kudelia's eyes go wide. Eugene swears and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You're kidding, right?”

“I wish I was,” Chad says apologetically. He puts the pad on his knees, peering at notes he's already memorised. “But that's what all the signs point to. Her work has all been centred on the Calamity War. That seems to be one of the reasons she goes outside the official channels.”

“Because Gjallarhorn always restricted or heavily monitored research on the subject.” Kudelia's fingers are working at each other, something Eugene's noticed she does when she's given a lot to think about, very quickly. “And the Union isn't in a hurry to change those rules.”

“She visited the mine where the 'armour Mikazuki killed was first discovered. The guy who let her in was caught but she wasn't. My best guess is she wanted a look at the conditions there. If you were trying to find others that hadn't been detected, that would be a good place to start."

“I thought Gjallarhorn already checked there weren't any others hiding out there.” Eugene feels mildly ill, giving those bastards any credit, but he's sure they'd have done their best to locate more giant metal bird monsters waiting to come screaming out of the dust.

“I'm not sure how much we can count on that.” Kudelia brushes a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. She's been running full pelt through another session of negotiation and it's probably not a great time to be dropping something else in her lap. But they all know it's best to snip disasters off when they're small. “Planetary surveys take years. It wouldn't have been finished when they pulled out.”

“And even focusing on half-metal deposits that haven't been depleted, that's still a lot of ground to scan and a lot of variables to factor out. The chances of missing something are super high.” Chad raises one hand helplessly. “We can't ignore the possibility more of those things are out there, or that someone who's spent their life looking into the Calamity War might be able to find one. It's a long shot but…”

“But the risk of another mobile armour rampaging through a populated area is too great to ignore.” That's Kudelia's decisive voice. The one that means she's seen the right thing to do and this is the end of the debate. “We need to find this woman before she does something foolish.”

Eugene wonders if anyone raised by Chaifin could be all that stupid. On the other hand, clever people can be the worst when it comes to really bad decisions. “So who do we know who could get out there? Wherever there is.”

Chad pulls up a map. “An abandoned excavation project. There's really nothing else there. The only way to find out what's going on for sure would be to go and look.”

“Can't we just send in the local rangers or something?”

“I kind of thought that's what Doctor Chaifin was trying to avoid?”

“Besides,” Kudelia points out, “if we rush to an official response, we risk a panic. Which might the appropriate reaction if she's really found one of those monsters.”

“Only not if it's a false alarm. Right.” Eugene rubs the back of his head. Groans with the thought of how messy it could all get. “So we need someone we can trust, who knows what to look for, and who can make the judgement call on what to do if it's a problem.”

And because Eugene's life is one long pain in the neck, that's how he ends up driving a battered old rover truck through an empty desert with Shino snoring in the passenger seat next to him.

Past the city of Avalon, in the far south of the Chryse region, is a whole heap of fuck-all. For some reason, the terraforming never took out there. Despite all the changes to the atmosphere and environment, all the magic the pre-Calamity human race worked to make Mars a second home, this bit resists becoming liveable. It's a wasteland. As close to the raw planet as you could want to find.

It is also the single most boring place Eugene has ever seen. Just endless red dust, a cloudless sky, and a road that last saw repairs back when Gjallarhorn were the good guys.

“How the hell can you sleep through this?” he mutters, sparing a glance at Shino, who somehow dozed off not long after they left the city. The suspension on the truck is decent for its age but Eugene can still feel every bump, pothole and crater. He's almost grateful. Keeps him alert.

He'd prefer a conversation.

Maybe.

Why'd he let Shino tag along? He could have picked someone from his team, or one of the other guys. Someone who's a bit less of a…

Walking miracle who should on no account be placed in danger for risk of undoing a stroke of insane good fortune that almost restored Eugene's faith in the justness of the universe.

What the hell is he going to tell Yamagi if Shino gets hurt? How would he live with himself? It's not like he thinks Shino is a fragile flower or anything. But come on – the guy hasn't seen action in over half a decade, he's mostly scars and spare parts, and his left arm's bright pink. He doesn't even bother to cover it up most of the time. He's a walking tactical liability.

Also, if Eugene gets Shino hurt, he's fairly sure what he tells Yamagi won't matter because Yamagi will be too busy disembowelling him with a spanner and one of those weird pointy tools you use to tune up mobile workers.

Thing is, Shino offered. And on the list of people Eugene distrusts the least, Shino's near the top. He isn't the kind to get freaked out by super robots from the dawn of time, he has no problem taking orders when it's necessary, and he has pretty much zero capacity for carrying around a hidden agenda. Half the reason he spent years oblivious to a crush Yamagi practically put up in neon lights for him is because he's clinically incapable of guile. Cunning, maybe. Sometimes. But not stabbing someone in the back outside of a fair fight. Not betraying a friend for a greater cause. Not keeping the kind of secrets that can get people killed.

Eugene forces himself to loosen his grip on the steering wheel. Damnit. He is surrounded by dumbasses and the biggest dumbass of all is the one least likely to drive up his blood pressure. The world is a fucking joke.

“If it is, we're the punchline.” Shino yawns enormously and pushes himself straighter in his seat. “Also, they say talking to yourself isn't a good sign so you might wanna get that looked at.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Damnit. “Thought you were going to sleep all the way there.”

“Believe me, that was the plan. Geez, how much of this have we got to get through?”

“Another… hundred and fifty seven klicks.”

“Fuuuuck.” Shino flops back against the headrest. “What the hell is anyone doing out here?”

“Kinda what we're trying to find out.”

“And there was me thinking we were two gallant knights riding out to save a fair maiden.”

“Knew it was a bad idea for Dante to let you read stories to the kids.”

“Why? Because I'm way better at it than you?”

“Fuck off. You are not.”

“Yeah I am. Todd, Maxie and Yu all said so. They like how I do different voices for the two princes and make the dragon sound like a cat.”

“Shit. Should have known that'd be your favourite.”

“What can I say? I like happy endings. And it's not like anyone ever read me stories as a kid. Might as well get my fill now.”

They lapse into silence. The road continues to grind towards the horizon. Shino yawns again.

“My grandpa had a movie about deserts on Earth,” Eugene says, for no other reason than he dislikes long, awkward quiet.

“Yeah?”

“They get so hot the air starts to… float about weirdly. Makes people think they're seeing things.”

“Huh.” Shino stares out the window. “Guess you don't get that when there's no heat.”

“Guess not.”

More silence. More potholes. The sky maybe gets a shade or two darker, though that could be wishful thinking.

“You think Yamagi's having a good time?” Shino asks, like that's something Eugene could possibly know.

“It's the Saisei. How can he not? 'Sides, he's with Eco. She'll make sure he has fun.”

“Yeah.”

“If you're worried about it, you should have gone with him. You could've. I'm sure Eco and Azee would have wanted to see you too.”

“I guess. But I gotta learn how to be me when he's not around sometime.”

It's a weird thing to say. Weirder still for Shino to say it. He doesn't sound like he usually does.

Like he used to.

Because that's it, isn't it? Sometimes Shino is the same as he always was, loud, hopeless and annoying. Sometimes he's a totally different person: quiet, downcast, saying things like there's no barrier between what's in his head and the rest of the world. Old-Shino and new-Shino. Eugene isn't proud of thinking about it that way but it fits. The man sitting beside him is at once a friend and a complete stranger.

He still doesn't know what he's supposed to do about that. Especially as he seems to be the only person apart from Yamagi both Shinos are comfortable around. Eugene has no idea why. Maybe it's just because he was there, when Shino came back. Maybe it's because he doesn't try and pester the poor guy into being happy all the time, like some of the others do.

Eugene hates the fact that's mostly because he can't deal with new-Shino enough to properly communicate with him.

“Is that why you came with me? You wanted to prove something?”

Shino laughs. Quick, soft, mostly at himself. “Maybe? Doesn't everyone want to show off how brave they are by going out and facing the unknown?”

“It's on a freaking map. How unknown is that? Besides, we'll probably just find out the Doc's kid got herself buried under a rockslide and it'll be a miserable waste of time.”

“Gee, thanks for that. Cheered me up completely.”

“Or maybe she's fine and got really interested in a three hundred year old bolt or something. Academics are like that.”

“How would you know?”

“Do you have any idea how many schools and universities Kudelia's visited since she became chair of the Union? I swear, it's like she's working through all the places someone could shoot her.”

“She's got you, hasn't she? I bet she feels invincible.”

“Urgh. I'm going to go grey unless someone invents a sniper-proof kindergarten.”

“You'd look good in grey. Distinguished.”

“Screw you too.”

The road begins to curve, skirting the edge of a hill. That's probably the most exciting the landscape is going to get. Eugene catches himself wishing for an ambush to break the monotony. No, nope, not thinking it. He is not going to start tempting fate just because he's bored.

“Eugene… can I ask you something?”

“Not sure I can stop you short of kicking you out of the truck.”

“Back before… in Tekkadan… did you think you were a a kid?”

Oh, for the love of – “What?”

“It's something Yamagi said. That we were all kids back then. And I was thinking… that's not what it felt like. I didn't think I was a kid.”

Eugene scowls. Then takes a deep breath. “I guess it's how you look at it.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You didn't even know how old you were. How were you supposed to tell?”

“Well… I was big enough to fight, so… yeah.”

“Right. Only what about the younger guys? You think Takaki thought he was a child? He was looking after his sister, bringing in money for his family. Might as well have been an adult.”

“Yeah, but he was… I mean he was small.”

“So was Mikazuki. You ever think for a second he was just a little kid?”

“You're kidding, right?”

“Exactly. Everyone called us kids but they didn't treat us like it. Soon as we had the implant and could hold a gun, what did it matter how old we were?”

“We all wanted to prove we were real men.”

“Some of us more than others.”

“Yeah. You were really in a hurry with that.”

“Just to be clear, I can kick you out of the truck if I want.”

“Whatever you say, deputy-boss.”

The title always stings. Eugene knows no one means it to. He knows everyone who says it, even as a joke, does so with affection and respect. And he tries not to be ungrateful. He really does.

“I guess…” Shino folds his hands behind his head. “I was thinking about the kids at the orphanage. Kinda feels weird. Like that could have been me in there. Or that it should have been.”

“We didn't get a choice.”

“Yeah, but –”

“No.” Eugene slaps the wheel, hard. “When did you actually choose anything about how we used to live?”

“I dunno. When I backed Orga up on taking over? Or when I joined the CGS to begin with.”

“And why did you do that?”

“Come on, you know why.”

“Exactly. It was the same for me. CGS was the best of the bad options. Better to risk my life there than end it for sure somewhere else.”

“Doesn't sound like much of a choice when you put it like that.”

“Same damn thing all the way to the end. Even when Orga was saying we could do what we wanted, the other choices were always total crap. We just convinced ourselves we were doing the right thing because it was easier to live like that.”

There's movement in the corner of Eugene's eye. Shino, hunching up and gripping his left arm so tight it's like he's trying to put finger marks in the metal. “You really think that's what it was?”

“Yes. No. Sometimes. All I'm saying is, there's more to having a choice than just picking the thing that hurts least. Can't be real if some bastard's shutting off all the options that don't suck.”

“R-right. I, uh… I guess that's what Yamagi meant.”

“Way I figure it, Yamagi decided being a man means he gets to have a say in who he is now. Easier to draw a line under everything if one side is 'kid' and the other is 'adult'. It helped him cope. And you gotta remember, he's not like us. He never got to pretend it was his choice to be there. CGS just snatched him off the street one day 'cos they were running low on guys to turn into space-rats.”

Shino is quiet for a while after that. When he eventually speaks, it's in the not-quite-him voice. “Did you cry? When they put the Alaya-Vijnana in?”

Eugene thinks about lying. He always used to. But what's the point now? “Like a baby. You?”

“Bit my lip so hard it swelled up for a week after.”

“Huh. I don't remember that.”

“You were too busy acting the big shot and trying to copy the older guys so they'd take you seriously.”

He remembers that. What a dumb kid he used to be. “Then some jerk slapped me so hard on the back I face-planted into my lunch and it's been downhill ever since.”

“You're welcome.”

“Heh.”

For a moment, the silence is almost comfortable.

“That's the first time I saw Yamagi.”

Which doesn't make sense. Yamagi arrived years later than that.

“I mean after the surgery,” Shino goes on, though Eugene doesn't think it's in response to his confusion. “He was all bundled up and shivering. And it was like… they always used to just throw the rejects in a truck before we could see 'em. But he wasn't a reject, he was just sick, so they put him in with the rest of us. And they weren't doing anything for him, just waiting to see if he made it. I got so angry. Like I needed to do something. Only I didn't know what. I didn't know how to help.”

Eugene can't picture it. He knows it happened. But there were so many times none of them could do anything: if he tries to hold on to each one, it'll drive him crazy. “It's not like any of us knew.”

“Because we were…” Shino doesn't finish. “Can we… can we talk about something else?”

As if it wasn't him who started them on this grim-as-fuck conversation. As if this isn't all for the benefit of whatever demons are chasing around that thick skull of his.

“Sure. Whatever.” Eugene fishes for something to say, searching the empty desert for inspiration. “Are you two gonna keep living in that shoebox together? You could find somewhere bigger.”

“I don't mind. It's cosy.”

“You mean, you like it because Yamagi has to sit in your lap all the time.”

“What's wrong with that? We're… he doesn't mind.”

“I'll bet.”

“It's not like we can afford anywhere bigger until I get a job anyway.”

“I could sort that for you. Job or the house. Why d'you think I took up with Kudelia to begin with?”

“I just figured we owed it to keep her safe after all she did for us.”

“Yeah, obviously. But it's not just that. We gotta be smart. Use whatever we've got to keep going.”

“And the smart thing to do is not to get you owing too many people big favours. I'm not like the others, remember? I'm still me, officially. Sticking your neck out for someone who's definitely ex-Tekkadan is gonna be way more trouble than it's worth.”

How does Shino always manage to demonstrate a functioning brain exactly when it'll piss Eugene off the most? It's uncanny. “That's not the point. I can help. Don't go acting too proud to ask.”

“It'll mean more if I do it on my own.”

“Are you listening to a word I'm saying?”

Shino drums his fingers on the door beside him. Rat-a-tat-at, plastic on plastic. “You don't have to be him, Eugene.”

Eugene tenses. He knows, instantly, what Shino means. And just as instantly wants to tell him to shut up. This is not something he wants to talk about, especially with –

“I know Orga always looked after everyone but you don't have to –”

“Someone had to.” One breath. Two. Don't go shouting. Be professional.

Shino looks at him. Waits for more.

“Someone had to keep it together. Make sure we got to Earth and Makanai delivered on the new IDs. Make sure we made it back home safe and stayed hidden.”

“Well… sure. You did a great job, but –”

“And someone had to tell everyone it was OK to cry. Someone had to make sure those who wanted to talk could and those who didn't weren't going to be stupid about it. Someone had to get Ride to eat something, get Chad to go sleep, drag Dante out of the simulator because there wasn't any point any more. Someone had to stop Alessio walking out the airlock and take the knife away from Embi and get some clean bandages on Derma because he didn't think losing a freaking arm was that big a deal next to everything else.”

One. Two. Focus on the road, this isn't going to end up in some dumb as hell crash.

“Someone had to pick up the fucking pieces and there wasn't anyone else left to do that. It sucked. I was crap at it. I'm not Orga, I can't be that kind of person. But I did the best I could and I'm gonna keep doing that until there aren't any more pieces to pick up. And if this is about you being guilty for not being there – you can fuck off all the way back to Earth. It wasn't your fault.”

Huh. How about that. Didn't even raise his voice. He's getting better at this.

“OK."

Eugene looks sharply at Shino. “OK?”

“Yeah. OK. I'm sorry you had to go through that. But I'm not gonna make a big deal of it if you don't want to.”

Eugene is –

Really, really grateful it won't be a big deal.

“Sure, whatever. It's not like I was doing it all alone. Yukinojo and Merribit were there. Lots of the guys helped. But everyone looked at me to –” What is he doing? They just agreed not to talk about this. He scowls at the sand and the pale sky. “Fucking Orga. Wanting us to be Kings of Mars. Who'd want to be king of this shit-hole?”

“Avalon's named after a place where a king went to sleep forever after a battle.”

“It's – what?”

“He was hurt and some fairy queens took him away to a magic island so he could rest. Avalon.”

“I don't remember reading anyone that story.”

“Nah, I read it in the colony history.”

“You… did?”

“What? You think I spent six years on my own and didn't get bored enough to try reading proper books? It's not too hard.”

Eugene wouldn't know. He doesn't read proper books. Just reports, official records and the endless string of messages that come with his job. Occasionally being roped into entertain children is always a bit of a relief, honestly.

“Anyway,” Shino says, “can you imagine it? Lying around, looked after by hot babes forever? That's the life.”

“Sleeping forever doesn't sound like much fun. How'd you enjoy that?”

“Well, he was going to wake up eventually. In the hour of greatest need.”

“Huh.” Eugene considers the horizon. “Must be good at sleeping through his alarm.”

“That or we haven't hit the big one yet.”

“Oh, great. Yeah, I really needed to be worrying something worse could be coming for us than all the shit we've already been through. Thanks.”

Shino pats him lightly on the arm. “Like you weren't already. Look on the bright side. If it's bad enough ancient kings are waking up to lend a hand, then I figure we all got stuck in a fairy-tale and it's going to end fine. Two princes riding off into the sunset on the back of a grumpy dragon, right?”

Eugene growls at him. “Riiiight. Except we all know the princes are you and Yamagi so, what? Fuck the rest of us?”

“Well, I figure you're the dragon…”

There isn't enough room to punch him. The most Eugene can manage is a quick whack across his chest with a fist that has barely any force behind it. Shino laughs, brushing him off.

And so it goes until they run out of road.

Chapter Text

The LCS drone rises into the sky, dwindling to a speck far, far above them. It's a high-altitude model, intended for long-distance connections. Sure enough, a minute later there's a ping through an Avalon network point. Ivan, back in Chryse, acknowledging the message.

“There. They know we're here.”

“Wherever 'here' is,” Shino mutters. He's studying a fissure in the cliff ahead through Eugene's binoculars. The dig site is buried up there, in a dead-end full of shadows and too many ways for the other guy to have the tactical advantage.

Why did Eugene agree to this again?

“No heat signatures. Some signal emissions though. I think. They're faint.”

“Hn.” He squints into the fissure. No way to tell what's in there without going in.

“How do we play this?”

The smart thing would be to send another drone ahead, scope out the path. But that risks looking like they're planning an attack, which is not the impression to start a rescue mission with. On the other hand there's no way Eugene's walking in there unarmed. So.

They put body-armour on over their fatigues. Nondescript, reliable stuff. Matching equipment harnesses. Utility knives, flares, flash-lights. And guns. Eugene straps on a pistol and slings a rifle over his shoulder. A good, solid, high-power weapon that he can carry non-threateningly.

“How many of those did you bring?” Shino asks, reaching into the cargo compartment.

Eugene slaps his hand away. “Enough. But they stay here.”

“Seriously? Come on, I've used these before.”

“When? Six, seven years ago? Have you done any training since…?” He gestures at Shino, at the prosthetic arm.

“If you've got a mobile suit in there, I'm better than ever with those.”

“Yeah, no.” Except that'll mean walking in without any practical backup at all and then what is the point in Shino even being there? “Urgh. Fine. Here.”

Taking another rifle from the rack, Eugene sets it on the rim of the hatch and picks up a magazine. This, he tips upside down, pouring the bullets into a side tray. Then he slots the empty cassette into the gun. “Take this and try to look intimidating.”

Shino looks absolutely disgusted. “What am I supposed to do if things get messy? Shout 'bang'?”

It's very tempting to say yes. Instead, he grabs two more magazines and pushes them into Shino's hands. “Do not load those unless it's necessary. I mean it.”

“Sure. Whatever you say.”

Finishing up with more ammo for himself, Eugene shuts the hatch and locks the truck down. It can sit out here, hidden by the outcropping they'd parked it behind. The radio seems fine for now so they'll have a connection to base long enough to get in a scream for help if this all goes instantly sideways. Which will be completely useless, given any help is at least two day's travel away.

Eugene sets his jaw. “OK, let's get this over with.”

The dust is loose where it's been blown into piles at the mouth of the fissure. It shifts under their boots, slippery and uneven. As soon as they move between the ragged walls, the temperature drops, making their breath mist in the dry air. Eugene glances up, noting how rapidly the sliver of sky is shrinking.

“Look.”

He jerks, following Shino's line of sight to a shape off on one side. It's partly buried but it doesn't take more than a second for him to recognise it as a mobile worker. One of the forward struts is buckled, leaving it slumped at a useless angle, guns pointed into the dust. No, wait. Those are drills.

There's another further in, this one armed and crumpled by a massive impact to the upper section.

“You want to check them out?” Shino asks.

It'd probably be smart. At least to get a better idea of what caused the damage. Eugene peers into the darkness ahead then nods, taking a step towards the crushed 'worker.

A bullet thwips into the dirt, not half a metre from his foot.

“Stay where you are!”

He didn't catch the muzzle flash and the voice bounces between the walls too much for him to pinpoint where it's coming from beyond 'somewhere in front of him'. Was that really a deliberate miss? If so, how accurate was the aim? How quickly could he make it to cover?

“Hey!” Shino yells. “Sorry if we startled you!”

There's a few seconds of silence. “That's OK,” says the voice, “but to be clear, I will shoot you if you try to come any closer.”

Eugene spares a glare for Shino before shouting, “We're not here to start any trouble.”

“Good to hear. Who are you, exactly?”

“We were sent to find out what happened to the expedition that came here.”

“Sent by who? TiCorp?”

“No. We're… we're here from Doctor Chaifin.”

Another silence. Then: “Eldin Chaifin?”

“That's right. Ey wanted us to check in on eir daughter.”

One more beat. “You got transport?”

“Yeah? Of course.”

“All right. You can come up here. Slowly. No sudden moves, got that?”

“Sure. Got it.”

“Is it a good idea to walk towards the armed person we can't see?” Shino hisses in Eugene's ear.

“No. But how else are we going to find out what's going on?”

The fissure narrows as they edge forward. The ground closes in overhead, forming a cave. Eugene reaches for his flash-light, wishing he'd gotten it ready before someone started shooting at them.

A spotlight snaps on. Another mobile worker, just inside the cave. There's a silhouette beside it.

“You got any way to prove you're really from Chaifin?”

The gun is still trained on them. Eugene spreads his fingers to show they're empty, then carefully digs into one of his pouches. The photograph slides out easily, a single printed square showing a younger Chaifin with a child bundled up on eir lap. The kid is wrapped in bandages, squirming away from the camera.

He holds it out. “Ey wrote something on the back.” Scrawled characters Eugene can't read, either because it's not a language he understands or because the handwriting's just that bad.

The gun wavers. “Just so you're aware, anything happens to me, this place gets really unpleasant, real fast.”

“Good to know. Here.”

The figure takes the photo, snatching it out of Eugene's hand. He steps back, offering some safe space. They flip the picture around and give a snort of laughter. “Good enough.”

As his eyes adjust, he starts to make out details of the person in front of him. They're about his height, swathed in a heavy coat with a hood and goggles. Camouflage against the dust and stone. The rifle looks old. There's corrosion on the barrel.

Shoving the photo into one of their pockets, they sling the gun over their shoulder then beckon. “Come on in. And excuse the mess. I've been busy.”

It's less a mess and more the aftermath of a battle. There are broken mobile workers and shattered barricades all along the tunnel. Though strangely, no bullet impacts. Everything seems to be the result of blunt force, save for a couple of holes that look like they were drilled. Did someone smash up this place with one of the mining machines? No bodies, which is not entirely reassuring.

“Lot of equipment for one person,” Shino notes unnecessarily.

Eugene waves him to silence and calls out, “So are you who we were looking for?”

The figure in the coat stops under one of the loosely-strung overhead lamps. “Well I'm Sri Chaifin,” she says, pulling back her hood and lowering the goggles, “so I suppose I am.”

She doesn't look anything like Eugene expected. Beneath a bob of straight black hair, her face is a perfect pale oval, smeared all over with dirt and engine grease. Her eyes are bright brown and twinkle in the lamplight, laughter to match the curve of her lips. She has the cutest little dimples.

“Hi!” Shino steps past Eugene while he's busy trying to get his tongue unglued from the roof of his mouth. “Good to meet you! I'm Shino.”

“Good to meet you too. Nice arm.”

“Yeah, the Doc does great work.”

“Ey do at that. And this is…?”

“Oh, this is Eu –”

“Eugene Vought.” He clears his throat. Looks around pointedly. “So what happened?”

Sri shrugs, unconcerned. “A bunch of stuff.”

“Yeah, I'm gonna need more than that.”

“Why? Did Chaifin ask you to find out about that too?”

“Well, no. But –”

“Then I don't really see the issue.”

“I –”

“Don't mind him.” Shino slaps Eugene's shoulder. “He's paranoid for a living. You were taking us somewhere?”

Her eyes narrow a fraction.“Just up here.” She carries on along the tunnel.

Eugene tries really hard not to notice the way Shino is gawping at him.

Shino, unfortunately, isn't going to let it slide. “So that's what Yamagi meant.”

“Meant about what?”

“About how it's really easy to tell when you think someone's hot.”

“Shut up!” They're already whispering but his neck warms at the thought of being overheard. “It isn't. Fuck off. We've got a job to do.”

The tunnel is as cold as outside. He focuses on that. He was just taken by surprise, that's all. He'd been picturing someone who looked like Doc Chaifin and there'd have been nothing wrong with that, obviously, it's just –

What the hell is wrong with him? It's like being around Shino again is regressing him back into a teenager. He's better than this!

More importantly, he needs to concentrate on a situation that is clearly more complicated than he first imagined. There was a logo on one of the abandoned mobile workers. He's been trying to place it and now the name comes to him. Titan Corp. TiCorp. Of course. One of the proper old-school mercenary companies. He's heard they aren't doing well lately. New laws from the Union and the push to end human debris practices haven't been kind to groups like that.

What were they even doing here in the first place? The mining stuff can't be theirs, unless they've been branching out. Which is possible, he supposes, if they're trying to survive in a post-independence world. But that would make upping and leaving everything even more unlikely.

The tunnel takes a sharp left and opens out to give him a lot more to worry about.

Eugene's not spent enough time underground to know the finer distinctions between giant freaking holes in the planet, but he knows instantly there's something weird about this one. The rock looks like it's been liquefied and then blown into a bubble, leaving strange curves and ridges in the walls. It must somehow have filled up with dirt and loose stones over time: someone's had to dig down to uncover the floor. And what they found there is straight out of Eugene's nightmares.

“Woah.” Shino's looking at the roof, which is made up of overlapping slabs, almost as if they're standing inside a folded-up flower.

Sri stops by another light, this one a heavy-duty flood-lamp. There are a dozen more like it spread around the cavern. “Take a good look. It's not often you get to see what an Ahab reactor does when it unspools mid-operation.”

“What's that mean?”

She holds her hands apart. “So you know how they're usually a sealed vessel and even if they fracture, everything just sort of stops working?”

“Uh huh?”

“Well now imagine instead of that, someone jammed something long and pointy very precisely into dual-series reactors when they were running at maximum output, triggering a colossal explosion followed by a close-to-planetary gravity spike.”

“Right…”

“Whoever pulled that off probably blew themselves halfway round Mars but you can't argue with the results.”

Eugene walks closer to the edge of the hole, staring at the metal bones strewn out below. Everything's warped out of shape, torn apart by forces he can't wrap his head around. But there's enough left for him to tell he's looking at the remains of at least three monsters, all tangled together.

“Knew it!” Sri claps. “What are you? Government? Please don't say Gjallarhorn.”

“I – what are you talking about?”

She points. “You know what those are. I can see it on your face. Is that why you're really here?”

“I thought we established we're here for you?” Shino shifts closer to Eugene.

“Maybe we did. But I'm a cautious person. And it's not just anyone who gets appropriately spooked when they walk in on this.”

“You got any idea how stupid it is to dig up mobile armours?” Eugene asks, since there doesn't seem any point in wasting time.

“Yes. How many decimal places do you want it to?”

“It's not a joke! The last time one of these things woke up, it nearly took Chryse off the map.”

“One whole city? Hah! A mobile armour could wipe humanity off the face of Mars. Multiple units would be able to trigger a complete environmental reversion. Which is terraforming speak for 'planet go phut.' Centuries of work undone just like that.” She snaps her fingers and fixes Eugene with a level stare. “I've studied the Calamity War for a decade. If you think you have the slightest idea of what it was like, you're wrong. No one living today does. It's taken me years to begin to grasp what the human race went through, looking extinction right in the face. So don't start lecturing me about how dangerous my work is as if you're even the slightest bit qualified to judge.”

Eugene really hates academics. “It's the people living today I'm worried about. You go poking around with these monsters, your qualifications won't matter shit.”

“True! If I turned on a mobile armour, I'd be the first to go up in ashes.” Flinging her arms wide, Sri spins on the spot. “But how about you look. And tell me: can you see an on-switch in that mess?”

“She's got a point.” Shino crouches down, leaning over the edge of the hole. “They look pretty much in pieces to me.”

“Exactly. I've been here over a month and I can tell you, there's no means under the sun of getting these fellas up and running again. If there was, I'd be on a ship to Jupiter.”

“Yeah, well, I – fine. Fine! Then what are you doing here? If this is just a heap of junk, why come all the way to look at it?”

Shino glances up. “Isn't that what archaeologists are supposed to do? Dig out junk and look at it.”

“Read that in a book, did you?”

“Am I wrong?”

“Not really,” Sri says, with that half-laughing smile, “though sometimes we also sell the junk for a tidy profit too.”

“I thought that was treasure hunters,” Eugene snaps, regretting it immediately.

“Six of one, half a dozen of the other. That's what happens when you get fascinated by a forbidden subject. Can we get on with the tour now? You're getting in the way of my work.”

He wants to argue. He wants to demand she tells them everything right now. But he can tell a losing battle when he sees one. Besides, she's already walking away and Shino is already following her, giving Eugene a 'what-can-you-do' shrug.

There's a building at the far end of the excavation, set up against the wall. That seems to be where they're headed. They walk past a few more tunnel entrances, jagged openings no one has bothered to light up. Eugene scowls into the pit, picking out identifiable bits of mobile armour. Here a claw, there a fragment of wing, over that way a whole head, snapped clean off and half-buried in the dust.

He can't shake the feeling that it could all go back together. The creepy notion one of these things might start rebuilding itself, rising from its grave to howl searing light into the sky. He knows that's the paranoia talking yet it's hard to ignore when he's been there for one resurrection already.

“So I always wondered.” Shino hurries to catch up with Sri, falling into step beside her. “How did the Calamity War actually start? No one ever seems to talk about that. Did someone just wake up one day and decide everyone needed to die?”

“That's the big question. Thanks to Gjallarhorn no one knows. Not even them, these days.”

“I sort of figured it was like that. There was this book I started but it was really vague about what happened before the fighting began.”

“Yeah, it's a lot harder to make everything about epic heroes and inhuman villains if you give context. Everyone who studies the subject has their pet theory. Most of the fun is in trying to prove yours and disprove everyone else's.”

“So what's yours?”

Sri raises an eyebrow then presses a hand to his chest. “Stand there a second.”

“OK… right here?”

“Yeah.”

She goes on a little way and Eugene moves up next to Shino. He looks bemused. Eugene scowls. Sri rolls one of her sleeves up.

“Let's have a metaphor: you're a pair of strapping lads with big guns and I'm a lone mecha-historian who's run out of bullets. You've got all the power in this dynamic. But if I do this –”

She presses something on a band around her wrist. Instantly, two of the abandoned mobile workers whir to life, anti-personnel weapons swivelling to cover Eugene and Shino.

“– then suddenly I've got the upper hand, all because I rigged up a remote system in these bad boys to target anyone who isn't me. See?”

Eugene does, very clearly. He wonders if he can knock Shino to the ground before the machine-guns tear them both in half.

Sri grins at him. The kind of expression that should come with fangs. “So what happens if I lose control of that system?”

“We're all screwed?” Shino suggests.

“Top marks! Now imagine that but instead of you and me, we're talking about competing power blocs. And instead of a couple of clapped-out mobile workers, we're talking about the most sophisticated autonomous weapons ever constructed.”

“I get it. Someone used mobile armours to keep everyone under control and then it all went wrong.”

“Exactly. The guardian angels of the solar system off their leashes, peacekeepers turned exterminators because someone got the code wrong. Or just had a really bad day.”

“Huh. No wonder Gjallarhorn doesn't want anyone looking too close, if it was all caused by someone like them in the first place.”

“That's what I think anyway. No idea if I'll ever prove it.”

“It's something to aim for though, right?”

“Right! I've found enough evidence that I don't think I'm entirely wrong. So I keep digging, looking for more, seeing what fits and what doesn't.”

“Ahem.” Eugene jerks his head towards the mobile workers.

Sri's grin widens. But she presses her wristband and the guns power down. “Demonstration over.”

“Thanks.”

Shino nudges him in the ribs. “Be nice. We're learning stuff.”

“Like how many death-traps there are in this place?”

“It's sweet you think that's something I'd tell you,” Sri calls over her shoulder.

The building is emblazoned with 'Zeus Mining Company', which is the name Chad found when he was looking into who originally started digging around out here. It's a prefab structure, a living block with storage sheds attached. The inside smells musty and neglected. The floor's been stained red by dirty boots.

“So here's how it's going to go.” Sri props her gun against the wall and puts a hand on her hip. “I've got a couple of experiments to finish, then I'll be happy to catch a ride back. You two can hang around here until I'm done. There's a bunk room in the back, rations and a filter-water tank, and you'll find all the incriminating evidence in the foreman's office through there.”

She looks at Eugene as she waves down one of the corridors branching off from the entrance bay. Mocking him. Great.

“You need any help?” Shino asks. He's got his empty rifle pointed at the floor, standing easy as he does his best impression of an eager dope who'd do anything for a pretty face. “It's no trouble if we're gonna be stuck waiting for you anyway.”

“Thanks but no thanks. It'll be quicker for me to do it on my own.”

Eugene puts a hand on his hip as well, mirroring her. “And what exactly will you be doing?”

“You can read the paper when I publish it, just like everyone else. Play nice and I might even put you in the acknowledgements.”

“I'm serious! Enough with the banter, OK? Just give me a straight answer or –”

“The longer you spend asking questions I don't want to answer, the longer I'm going to make you wait in a hole in the ground surrounded by dead robots. There's no 'or' in this where you come out on top. So give it a rest, big man, and let's all get through this without any more fuss.” She turns on her heel and heads outside again.

“Let us know if you change your mind about the help,” Shino calls after her.

“Will you stop?” Eugene snaps as soon as the door has slid shut.

Shino gives him a look halfway between 'kicked' and 'why are we friends, again?' “Stop what?”

“Flirting with the woman who's wired this place to kill us at any second!”

“You want me to annoy her, like you're doing? I'd prefer to give her a reason to keep us alive.”

That's not the point. Eugene nearly says so but has to catch himself because the first argument he can think of is, it'll piss Yamagi off. Which doesn't match the seriousness of the situation, even if it's true and he really doesn't want to have to deal with the fallout when they get back to Chryse.

He settles on, “Flirting with people can annoy them too.”

“She seems into it. And it's not like she couldn't brush me off. Place wired to kill us, remember?”

Eugene gives up and goes to examine the gun Sri left behind. It really is empty. The woman wasted her last bullet on a warning shot. He's not sure what to make of that.

“You want to look around?” Shino asks, “Might as well see where we'll be staying.”

They split up, Shino going to explore the living quarters while Eugene takes the rooms at the front. Most have been stripped bare, so it's easy to tell which one Sri was talking about. The foreman's office has big floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the dig site. He can see her out there, fiddling with something mounted on a tripod. She catches him watching and waves.

Kudelia is going to owe him hazard pay on top of the overtime for this. Lots of it.

The 'incriminating evidence' turns out to be a stack of pads, all labelled Zeus. Either they were left unlocked or someone already broke the passcodes. Site-logs and personal notes, inventories and performance metrics. Middle-management stuff, the kind you'd leave at your desk and not think to rush back for in an emergency. At least if you were rich enough to give pads out to just anyone.

He settles down to read with a twinge of nostalgia for a time when he didn't spend most of his life eye-deep in paperwork. That would have been, oh, a little while before Edmonton? He can't even remember how he got dragged into doing logistics so often. It wasn't just to prove he could do that side of leadership as well as Orga. Not entirely. The same capacity for abstract thinking that makes him good at fighting in space, that was part of it too. He's always found things easier to handle when they're on charts and maps. Next thing he knows, he's the deputy-boss, Orga's go-to second in command. A real big man, like he always wanted.

It never did feel as good as he thought it should.

He's absorbed in the files when Shino knocks on the office door. The door is open so clearly he's trying to be funny. “We've got the good rations. The crunchy kind that don't taste like feet.”

“Hm. That's good.”

“And the water tank is half-full, which is a lot more than you'd need for just one person working alone. This place was stocked for a full crew not so long ago.”

“Not the original one.” Eugene puts down the pad he's reading and prods at one he's already been through. “The Zeus team pulled out two years ago 'cos someone suddenly cut off the funding. Doesn't seem they knew what they were digging for but it wasn't just this place. They're talking about other sites, moving people around, geo-surveys…” He flicks through some of the message logs, trying to find the relevant bits again. “They didn't have a bunch of mobile workers either.”

Shino nods thoughtfully. “So all that's from whoever came here with Sri.”

“Titan Corp.”

“You think she hijacked all the mobile workers and drove them out?”

“I didn't even know you could work them remotely.”

“You're not supposed to.” When Eugene frowns at him, Shino elaborates, “Yamagi told me there're laws against putting mobile weapons under remote control. They have to be careful when they're testing at the factory. It's OK if it's done with tethers but radio or LCS isn't allowed.”

“Huh.”

“Maybe Sri didn't know that either.”

“Yeah, right.” Pushing the pads into a heap, Eugene goes over to the the window. There's no sign of their 'host'. Did she go into the hole? “Was there anything else back there?”

“Not really. Though…”

“What?”

“You know how back in the CGS, we'd sometimes half-ass the cleaning and shove stuff in the corner or under the bunk when we thought we could get away with it?”

“You did that. Some of us took some damn pride in our work.”

“Like hell. Anyway – there's a pile of rags and shit in one of the closets. Didn't go poking through it but could be someone swept out the bunk room and just shoved everything in there.”

“At least she's a tidy psycho, I guess.”

“That's not fair. She's not done anything to hurt us.”

“Yeah, 'cos she wants our ride.”

There she is, climbing out of the pit carrying a pole and some kind of metal sheet. She's absorbed in her work, not paying attention to Eugene any more. What the hell is she doing down there?

“Well, let me know if you solve the mystery. I'm gonna go catch up on the sleep I missed on the way here.”

“Are you serious?” Eugene demands, rounding on Shino. “This is important.”

“Why? Doesn't make any difference to getting her back to the Doc.”

“That's not what I'm worried about.”

“Then what is it? Come on, you can't really give a shit if Sri got one over on a bunch of private security bastards.”

He does, in fact, give a shit on the basic level of knowing what kind of person he's dealing with. But Shino is right. It isn't that. “It's this whole dig being here at all. Who was funding it? Were they looking for a mobile armour? And if that's the case, why'd they pull out when they found it?”

Shino's expression loses some of its amusement at Eugene's expense. “You sound like you already have answers.”

“Maybe. You know how Yamagi found you? Why he started looking, I mean.” He braces himself as he says it. Talking about what happened tends to affect Shino's mood.

But apparently today is a good day. “Sure. Files Ride stole.”

“Some of those files made it look like Gjallarhorn's been funding excavations on Mars.”

“To find old mobile suits. That's what – what Goibniu was about.”

“We found a Gundam next to a mobile armour. Can't count it out as being part of the same thing.”

“And you're worried it's going to cause problems for the Union. For Kudelia.”

There's that functioning brain again, connecting the dots. “It's my job to see threats coming and a confrontation with Gjallarhorn over this… they could use it to say the Union was trying to cover up dangerous material, or take the mobile armour for itself.”

Shino rubs the back of his head. “OK, I see how that's something to worry about. How about I go dig through the trash properly? See if there's any more clues in there.”

“That… thanks. Yeah, that'd help.”

“No problem. Can't let you do everything by yourself, can I?”

Eugene hears the edge to that. He opens his mouth to say – something. To respond to another insinuation that he's taking too much on. Which, yeah, maybe, but again, what's the alternative? Not try and head off the looming shitstorm before it can ruin all their lives?

Too slow. Shino's already gone.

Eugene spends another hour searching through the pads and doesn't turn up anything more useful than what he's got already. It occurs to him Sri could well have sent him in here as a massive distraction. She certainly can't have expected him to find anything to incriminate her. Then again, if what Shino said about the mobile workers is true, it's possible she doesn't care either way.

What was it Chaifin said about her breaking rules? Eugene's starting to get a really good idea of what ey meant.

He gets up and wanders around the building, poking his nose into a few more abandoned rooms before deciding Shino has the right idea. After the drive out, Eugene needs rest too. It won't make him feel better, but it should mean he'll be better able to face it all.

A woman's laugh echoes up the corridor ahead of him. A totally innocuous sound, which definitely shouldn't have Eugene breaking into a flat-out run towards the bunk room. It does, obviously, with visions of several horrible scenarios flashing through his head. Sri took Shino out with a trap. A gaggle of mobile armours is standing outside, marching to her tune. The flirting worked.

Shino showing off his prosthetic arm wasn't on the list but since he's taken his shirt off, it's close enough to option three that Eugene has to take a moment to check whether it's the room or him that feels too warm. No, definitely the room. Must be right next to the freaking generator.

“I'm surprised ey let him do this,” Sri says, hands moving along the metal and plastic.

“Yamagi's a real persuasive guy.”

“That or ey're going soft with age. This bonded paint?”

“He said it's the same they put on mobile weapons, so it won't chip or fade.”

“Smart choice. Oh, hey big man. Your pal was just catching me up on how you know Chaifin.”

She's got long, delicate fingers. The kind it's easy to imagine doing fiddly work, like hot-wiring military equipment.

Shino has the decency to look embarrassed, though not nearly as much as he should. “Just about em making my arm.”

“Is there more to it than that?” she asks as she lets go.

“Err – no, that's it.”

“OK then.”

Eugene steps aside automatically to let her leave the room. She raises her eyebrows at him as she goes by. More mocking. A little further along the passage, she pulls a ration bar from her coat pocket and rips it open. Takes a big bite and gulps it down.

“You really got stuck like that this time, didn't you?” Shino asks when Eugene turns back.

Which just makes his frown deepen. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Finding out things. Like how the generator's going full-blast because she needs a lot of power for something. And there were enough guys here with her before that she's got a bunk out in one of the sheds with a lock on the door.”

That is not entirely useless information. Eugene is at least prepared to consider that maybe Shino isn't just acting the fool for the sake of it. Doesn't mean he has to like it. “That's all you're doing?”

“Well I'm also trying to make friends since you're clearly wound too tight to bother.”

“And you needed to be topless for that because…?”

“I'm hot,” Shino explains bluntly, tossing his shirt on one of the cots that stand in rows along the room. He drops down after it and stretches out. The scars across his torso flex as he breathes.

Eugene mutters darkly and crosses his arms, trying to ignore how that makes the stifling atmosphere feel worse. He digs his toecap into the floor, painfully aware he's now too irritated to rest even if the temperature was reasonable.

After a minute, Shino says, “Come on, you're not that mad are you?”

“Yes! You're being – unprofessional.”

“I'm not a professional. At anything. This isn't even a job. It's a favour we're doing.”

“Yeah, well, I…”

“And you're the one who's drooling over her.”

“No I'm not! I just –”

“Really need to get laid?” Shino sighs loudly over the spluttering that's all Eugene can manage in response. “Seriously. Come on. Are you really so boring now you can't find a date? Generally, I mean. Leaving aside the fact you go tongue-tied with people who turn you on.”

“I'm busy! I work hard – what do you want me to say? Not everyone has time to lie around all day and… whatever you and Yamagi get up to.”

That's unfair. Eugene knows that's unfair. He nearly takes it back. But then Shino responds with, “Sure. But you have to unwind sometime. Hell, I'll get you off if you want.”

It's like Eugene's brain just slammed into a wall. He has to stare at his boot for a second before things start working again.

“The hell did you say?!”

“If it's that hard for you to find someone else. If you wanted. Just saying it's an option.”

“OK, no, shut it!” He closes the distance between them, furious. “You screwing around and flirting with everyone you meet is one thing. Offering to actually screw someone behind your boyfriend's back – that's another fucking thing! I don't care what's going on with you, you don't do that!”

Shino looks up at him, face placid. Like nothing Eugene is saying is getting through. “'If it gets too bad, I want you to find someone you can be close to. However will help you the best.' That's what Yamagi told me before he left.”

“That doesn't – he was just being nice, you idiot! He didn't mean go fuck any random person you like!”

“Yamagi doesn't say things to be nice.”

There's that wall again.

“He does things to be nice. But he doesn't say them. If he didn't want you to do something, he wouldn't cover it up. Even if he didn't say it outright, you'd know.”

And Eugene's been Yamagi's friend long enough he can't argue with that. But – even so –

“And he knows I'm not good at being on my own right now.” Shino's voice has gone soft. Wistful, is that the word? He's new-Shino, all the way through. “Which is shit because I'm not great about being around other people either. I guess Yamagi thought… oh, hell, I don't know. I just figured, maybe you'd gotten so caught up trying to be the boss you'd forgotten how to relax. Just wanted you to know you could be close to someone too, if it'd help. Forget it. Sorry.”

He rolls over, putting his back to Eugene.

Who stands there, struck dumb, vibrating with what should be rage but somehow isn't.

Chapter Text

Eugene can't stay in the bunk room. Standing there listening to Shino breathe is too much to bear. He stalks out and stamps along one corridor after the next, hoping against hope that he'll gain the ability to think rationally about –

Whatever the fuck just happened.

Instead, his head fills to bursting with out-of-context memories:

Shino, in the doorway of a Saisei brothel, arm around Eugene's shoulders, asking him if he wanted to share.

Shino, noticing a guy ogling him from across a Chryse bar, saying he was gonna be busy for the rest of the night.

Shino, floating in the mobile suit bay, explaining he hadn't noticed Yamagi's searingly obvious infatuation because 'that kind of thing couldn't happen between family.'

Eugene, who walked in on too many things to be under any illusions about what could happen between members of the Tekkadan family, often used to think he should have shaken Shino until he agreed to give Yamagi anything he wanted. If some dumb idea about them being proper brothers was the only thing he was worried about, then he should have fucking well got over himself while there was still time to do something about it!

But Shino didn't care about taking anything like that seriously, did he? Shino always wanted a good time, nothing more. He'd never have been able to understand the crumpled wreck of affection that stared out from behind Yamagi's eyes after he was gone. Old-Shino wouldn't have. Past-tense Shino. The man who existed in Eugene's memories, an entry in the tally of the dead he keeps to remind himself why he does what he does.

Only… that's not the man who came back.

New-Shino seeks out contact with Yamagi in a manner that goes past 'overly affectionate in public' and all the way to 'if I let go of this person, the world will end.' He shows up on Eugene's doorstep, distraught over the smallest, stupidest arguments because he can't figure out how to make things right. His mood shifts erratically, the slightest thing making him flinch and lock up. He's got cracks running through him Eugene knows weren't there before and can tell won't fade any time soon.

And it suddenly occurs to him to imagine what it must look like from the other side. Because there's an old-Eugene and a new-Eugene too. He knows full well how he's changed since Tekkadan ended. He's got a damn therapist to take him through the steps. Growing up, Yamagi would call it and it's true he's ironed one or two wrinkles out of his personality over the years. But that's not all there is to it. Some things only get worse with time.

Can Shino see that? The cracks that run under Eugene's skin as well?

Eugene puts a hand against the wall, swaying with the realisation. Because – this is Shino. Shino, who could never leave anything the fuck alone. Shino, who used to go teary with anger at not being able to help the younger kids. Shino who, despite everything, was always there when Eugene needed him.

Of course the idiot wants to help. Only how's he supposed to do that? Here he is, thrown into a world where all the people he knew have moved on to new things, found new purposes in life, and he doesn't even have a job yet. Can't pay for brothel trips on a bare support income, can't be the life and soul of the party when he's fighting his own demons.

So what does he do? The one thing a soldier's good for: he offers his body up for his comrade.

Back-up, when Eugene needs it. A second pair of eyes, trying to see the things he doesn't. Friendship, like the old days. And if Eugene wants…

He scrubs at his face. No. No, he doesn't. How could he? He can't do that to Yamagi. Hell, he wouldn't dare do that to Yamagi. Besides, he likes women.

Just like Shino does.

Right. Great. There's another kind of crisis for him to deal with.

Besides, he doesn't need fixing. It's not Shino's place to just decide to make everything better. That's not how this works.

Eugene storms through the outer door and down the steps to the cavern floor. He is a professional, damnit. He knows his issues, he knows how to manage them, and he is perfectly capable of balancing a healthy life alongside his responsibilities. He's been doing just fine all this time, thank you very much, without any input from Norba fucking Shino! What other choice does he have, exactly? Everyone is relying on him and he has absolutely no intention of letting them down.

And for fuck's sake – he didn't come all this way to deal with his relationship issues.

“That's a relief,” Sri says, emerging from one of the storage huts with a coil of wire over her shoulder, “because I am uniquely unqualified to help you with them.”

He will die now, thanks. “Urrr… sorry, I wasn't…”

“Don't sweat it. I'm also the last person who's going to judge you for talking to yourself.”

Well, this is unfathomably awkward. Eugene kicks at the ground, hoping Sri will just keep walking.

She does, but she also calls back, “You want to talk about it anyway?”

“Uh – no. Why would I –?”

“I figure there's good odds it'll be a lot more interesting than the big tough military guy act. Come on! What's the worst that could happen?”

He spontaneously combusts from sheer embarrassment? Then again, if that was an option, he'd probably have done it already.

“Look at it this way, if we have an actual conversation, I might slip up and tell you what I'm doing. And won't that make you happy?”

Eugene doubts it very much, on both counts. But seeing as how it really can't possibly make things any worse, he follows her into the hole.

Navigating the rickety plank-built walkway is a useful exercise for steadying his mind. Doesn't look like anyone's been maintaining it and it clearly wasn't the safest set-up to begin with. Sri traverses the path effortlessly. Eugene wonders how many times she's made the journey that she can skip easily over the rough patches and stride confidently along vertigo-inducing stretches where his instinct is shuffle. Like any familiar place, he guesses: the flaws just become part of the scenery.

The pieces of mobile armour are even more sinister up-close. He never got near the one Tekkadan fought but it was huge, way bigger than a mobile suit. These fragments are likewise massive. A single clawed toe would crush him flat simply by falling over. The broken-off head stretches out like a train. He looks at the scarred metal, trying to grasp the force needed to stop a giant like this, let alone three of them. What the hell kind of people were the Calamity War Gundam pilots? A legion of Mikazukis? Sri's right. He can't begin to imagine what that must have been like.

She stops about halfway along the head, in a ring of spotlights. They're aimed at a point on the skull's underside – which thanks to the angle it landed at is now a near-vertical wall – just in front of where the neck would have been connected. There are wires and cables snaking into access panels, linked up to a collection of battered computers.

“So,” Sri says, dropping on to a camp stool so she can work one of the keyboards, “what's the trouble?”

He almost laughs. Almost decides to turn around and walk away. But he's here now and, again, not a fan of uncomfortable silences. “It's nothing. Dumb stuff that isn't important.”

“Show me a relationship that is. The grand sweep of history does not give a flying flip about your emotional drama. But it probably matters to you anyway.”

This is turning out to be a really weird day. “I guess. It's just… that guy up there? He died. Years ago. And then he came back.”

“Shino did? I spoke too soon. That sort of thing does generally make it into the history books.”

“We – I thought he was dead. Turns out he wasn't.”

“Oh, I see. That kind of coming back. Is that a problem?”

“No! No, it's great! He's my friend. I'm happy he's here.”

“But?” She glances up. “That was definitely an 'I'm happy but…' tone of voice.”

“It's just weird. I feel like I turn into a different person around him. Someone I used to be.”

Oh god. Shino is literally making him act like the person he was half a decade ago. At least when he's old-Shino. They keep falling into familiar patterns because that's how they left things the last time they saw each other, and maybe they can both see they've changed but they can't… well, they can't deal with that, can they?

Sri chuckles. “Is that all? Sounds pretty normal. Don't you have that with your family?”

“Uh…”

“Whenever I'm around my par, I feel myself starting to act like a child again. It's just how I always related to em. Makes for some spectacular arguments.”

“I don't have that kind of family.” Not for a very long time, anyway.

“Fair enough. I'm just saying, it's not that unusual.”

“I thought you weren't good at relationships?”

“Theory and practice are very different things. I know what I'm looking at even if I can't do anything with it.”

Eugene can relate to that. A lot. “It'd be easier if understanding it gave you all the answers.”

“Wouldn't it though?” She types for a few seconds, brow furrowed. “Ah, there we go. So what were you however long ago that you don't want to be now? Or is it just you can't stand him any more?”

“It's not that.” It isn't. Whatever else, he's honestly, genuinely happy to have Shino around again. “I just don't think he gets how things are different now.”

“Yeah? Or are you worried he does and he's going to call you on it?”

He really shouldn't trust this woman. It's blindingly obvious she's dangerous, possibly even unhinged given her specialist subject. She almost certainly murdered a whole bunch of guys to get her hands on this site.

On the other hand, it is nice to talk to someone without having to spell out every little thing he feels or worry about upsetting them so much he ends up not saying half the things he wants to.

“There's a guy I used to know. I told him once it was dumb for him to take everything on himself. But some days, I'm just as bad. I know it, so does everyone else. Shino just hasn't learned to leave me alone about it yet.”

“Friends are annoying like that. Was it the same for the other guy? Did he push everyone away so he could do things all by himself?”

“More like he never even considered the rest of us could help with anything important. But that was 'cos we always pushed the important stuff up to him. It was easier that way.”

Safer to let Orga shoulder everything, put all the scary, big-picture things on him, even when Eugene pretended like he could handle it too.

“I don't see how but… sure. Why did he let you do that?”

Eugene looks away. “Because he cared. More than anyone else I ever knew. People'll say, my friends'll do anything for me. But they don't know what that really looks like. It's terrifying.”

“Is it that what it is for you? You care, so you put it all on yourself?”

He thinks it over for a while, running though halting therapy sessions and feelings about what he does. It's annoyingly incoherent when he tries to pull it all together. “No,” he says eventually, “It's more like duty. I used to want to be a hero, as cool as everyone else. But in the end I was always just the guy who did the work to make sure everyone else's plans came together. Someone had to.”

Sri makes a final adjustment and stands up. She shrugs the coiled wire off her shoulder, plugging one end into the computer. “There's no shame in that,” she tells him as she runs the other end across to the mobile armour skull. “People don't tend to record the names of those who do the actual work but history wouldn't happen without them. You think Agnika Kaieru maintained his own Gundam?”

“Isn't he supposed to have been some amazing guy who could do anything?”

“Do not get me started on Gjallarhorn mythologising.”

“Why shouldn't I? Seems like I'm the one who's doing all the talking. What happened to you slipping up and telling me something useful?”

Grabbing a ladder, Sri moves it along so she can reach a dangling junction box. “Maybe you just haven't been paying attention.” She tosses him a grin as she starts climbing. “But I was right. You're a lot more tolerable when you're acting like an actual human being.”

“And you've got something wired into this mobile armour's central processor.”

“Hah! Good eye! See? You are learning something. Now I just need to get this in there too and I'll be all set.”

She hasn't put the ladder far enough over. She has to lean out to get the wire connected and though she seems totally confident doing so, he sees her starting to unbalance. Instinctively he moves closer, reaching to steady the ladder. Only he's too late and Sri's already falling. She doesn't try to grab hold of the the cables, like she doesn't want to risk pulling them out. For the love of –

“Oof!”

It's not the most elegant catch, but he stops her slamming into the ground so he's going to call it a success. She laughs as he eases her on to her feet. “Look at that. Practical as well as decorative.”

Eugene starts to retort then stops, fingers pressed into the back of her coat because he can feel –

“Holy shit, you've got whiskers.”

Sri pulls smartly away from him. “Right. Good hands too.” She wrinkles her nose and puts some more distance between them. “You mind if I keep working while you get the whole 'filthy space-rat' thing out of your system?”

“No, but it's gonna be short 'cos all I gotta say is how crap it is when people call us that.”

“Oh.” She blinks. “Sorry. Assumptions. Guess it makes sense why Chaifin sent you now.”

“Yeah, I think that was more because ey wasn't going to have to pay us anything for the trouble. Seriously, you saw Shino without his shirt and you didn't realise what we were?”

“In my defence, I wasn't paying attention to his back. That guy is pretty jacked for someone who looks like he went three rounds with a combine harvester.”

A fact Eugene really doesn't want to be thinking about right now. Or ever. What the hell was Yamagi doing, telling Shino he could just – argh!

He watches Sri fiddle about with her spider's web of computers. What's she up to, exactly? The skull is definitely not attached any more. There's nothing to power it except the cables and surely a single prefab mining building isn't going to provide output equivalent to multiple Ahab reactors.

It would be really nice if that was what he was able to focus on, not those bumps under her coat. He squints at her back as she bends over something that looks like a transmission booster. Now. What's a cool and totally non-weird thing to say in a situation like this?

“I've never met a woman with the Alaya-Vijnana before.”

OK, definitely not that. God damnit.

Thankfully, Sri opts to laugh rather than throw something at him. “You still haven't.”

“But you've got…?”

“It's residual. Non-functional.”

“Uh… I thought…” Eugene frowns, trying to remember if he ever heard of anyone coming out of the surgery intact if it went wrong.

She props her chin up on her hand, elbow resting on top of the booster. “Didn't Chaifin tell you how we met?”

“Kind of assumed it was at birth.”

“Hah!” Her other hand works at a control pad, tapping in a series of numbers. “No. Ever been to Delphi?”

“Not yet. Heard it was nice.”

“Bits of it. Other bits… not so much. Especially when I was a kid. I got picked up by a mercenary group. Guess mine was less invested in the masculine ideal than yours.”

“Yeah, look, I didn't mean –”

“Relax, big man. I'm just ribbing you. But you can probably guess the rest. Needles and nanomachines and a serious leg failure. Not fun.”

“And Chaifin saved you?” Eugene guesses. He's never heard of a reject being fixed either, but then again, those he heard about weren't going into the hands of expert surgeons.

“Chaifin bought me. Bought a bunch of us. It was an easy trade. One thing mercenaries are always going to need more than people who can only work from the waist up: money. Ey took us in as test subjects, to try out an idea for undoing the worst effects of failed implantation.”

“That sounds… uh.”

“Really icky when I put it like that? I know. But what exactly was ey supposed to do? It's not like there's any hospitals with dedicated space-rat wards. 'Least, there weren't back then. Ey did what ey needed to do. Near as saved our lives.”

“Did ey manage to fix all of you? How many was that?”

“Seven. And no. Two died with complications. One of the others only got partial mobility.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You shouldn't be. Seriously. Ey gave us a choice about going through with it. You think our lives were going to be a picnic if we didn't take the risk?”

She's totally unsentimental about it all and he realises – yeah. He knows exactly what she means. Sometimes things aren't a choice at all and it's not even the fault of the person asking. There's a reason that for all he huffs and puffs, Eugene isn't ever going to be able to truly hate Orga.

“Anyway,” Sri continues, stepping away from the booster and moving to another of the keyboards, “the others went home to their families. But mine was gone and I guess Chaifin felt eir job wasn't done if I didn't have a safe place to be afterwards. So ey adopted me. Any questions?”

Eugene nods at the armour skull. “How far back should I be standing when you turn this thing on?”

And he must be going totally round the twist because this time, it's kind of exciting to see Sri's grin.

“If you ever want to piss off an archaeologist, start going on about how the digital revolution was a great step forward for humanity.”

“The digital revolution was a great step forward for humanity.”

They're halfway up the walkway so Sri has to stop to look back and stick her tongue out at Eugene. He respects her commitment to responding to his childishness in kind.

“Used to be,” she says as she starts walking again, “you chiselled everything important into a big rock and it lasted for thousands of years, give or take the odd bastard with a hammer. But then along came computers and suddenly information's disposable. Instead of being set in stone, entire cultures could be wiped out with a magnet, or trapped on media no one can read, or just plain overwritten. The motivation to preserve knowledge when it's spread across a million servers is non-existent and anyone powerful enough to establish themselves as 'the source of truth' is almost certainly going to edit everything to their advantage.”

“Is this the mythologising rant you didn't want to get started on?”

“It's adjacent. My point is, it's incredibly difficult to get facts on the Calamity War because, thanks to the way we do things now, three hundred years is enough time for the recorded information to be utterly obliterated.”

“Outside of Gjallarhorn, who've definitely edited it to their advantage.”

“Oh, I wouldn't trust their records as far as I can spit. Maybe the technical data, though I've got my doubts about how well they bothered to preserve even that. Which means the only chance people like me have of working out what really happened is to interpret from material evidence or…”

“Or find something that was there at the time and recorded everything.” It's obvious when she spells it out. “And what's going to know more than the things that started it all?”

“I could explain why that's a huge oversimplification but it's close enough. Well done, big man! You've successfully deduced my evil plan to download the contents of a mobile armour's memory in the name of preserving history.”

And she's back to mocking him.

“You could have just said that's what you were doing,” he points out. “It'd have saved a lot of time.”

“It'd have saved you a lot of time. Have I made it clear yet just how badly I respond to shouty military types who think knowing how to shoot means everyone should listen to them?”

How can he blame her, given what happened to her? Hell, it's not like he reacts any better to that kind of person. “I suppose I should say thank you for not gunning us down on the spot.”

Sri laughs, loud enough for the sound to go echoing around the cavern. “I wouldn't have shot you!” She sighs. “One space-rat to another, I'm all smoke and mirrors. Big threat display and a lot of silent prayer that I won't actually have to follow through.”

“Pretty brave to hold us up with an empty gun.”

“Maybe. Or maybe this is the lie and I really would set the machines on you if I felt like it.”

Exactly what Eugene was thinking. “You aren't bothered about making me trust you, are you?”

“Is there anything I could say that'd mean you would?”

“Tell me why you care about the Calamity War so much.”

For the first time, he thinks he's caught her off guard. She glances over her shoulder as she mounts the final plank, eyes going briefly wide before the amusement settles in again. “Why, huh?”

“You've gone to a lot of effort for some data. Is it going to make a difference?”

“To the world? Earth and Mars and Gjallarhorn? Probably not. Puncturing the fantasy only matters if everything's actually built on that. Which it never is.”

“Then why do it?”

“Because people like you and me, we inherited something going back to a war that killed a quarter of humanity. Our bodies are given up to it because it's way more valuable than we are. I want to know who to blame for that. Not a fairy-tale about angels and demons. I want names I can curse.”

Eugene tries to imagine getting satisfaction out of something like that. He can't, really. The war happened so long ago, it doesn't have any bearing on his getting the Alaya-Vijnana beyond being where the technology came from. The people who actually put it in him already got what was coming to them, more or less. And he probably got more out of the surgery than he lost.

Though maybe he'd feel differently if he'd been a reject.

“Plus,” Sri says, stepping on to solid ground, “if I find definite proof of what happened back then, I'll be set for life. Lectures, publishing deals, tenure…”

“Gjallarhorn trying to kill you.”

“At least I wouldn't be bored.”

She leads him past the tripod he saw earlier, over to another, smaller nest of computers. This one is set up around a chair that looks as if it was ripped straight out of a mobile worker. There's even an Alaya-Vijnana connector, the first one Eugene's seen in quite a while. Why would Sri need that?

“Hold this.”

He takes her coat automatically, opening his mouth to protest. But the words die on his lips.

Her shirt is cut low at the back, like the tank-tops Eugene used to wear in the old days. Clearly it's for the same reason: easy access to her whiskers. Or at least, the things that should have been whiskers. They look like a ridge of horns, little curls of flesh and metal that run for a dozen centimetres down her spine. A faded web of scar tissues spreads out from them, following some anatomical pattern Eugene doesn't understand. It's as if the nanomachines tried to form the right shape only to go fountaining off in all directions. He can't imagine how much that must have hurt and he feels terrible for staring.

That could have been him, if fate had rolled the dice a little differently.

Sri seems oblivious to the attention as she sorts through a tray of electronic odds and ends. “Here's a fun fact. Did you know there's no fundamental difference between a mobile armour and a mobile suit? Exactly the same principles, just with a different layout and controlled by an intelligent central processor rather than a human being. I'm using 'intelligent' in quotes there, but you get the point.”

Eugene doesn't and tells her so, getting a roll of her eyes for his trouble.

“It means, in theory, you can substitute the control system from a mobile suit for the processor and use it to run the armour. It'd be a bit weird if you actually tried to operate it because it's not built to replicate our bodies, but it should be possible.”

“Even better to use a mobile worker then. They're already not human shaped.”

She nods approvingly. “You could be right. Though it's not like I had anything else to rig this with.”

“And this is how you're gonna download the armour's memory?”

“Let me put it this way: there's on switches and there's on switches. I can't just activate the whole thing because there really isn't enough intact superstructure for it to function, and I wouldn't do that even if I could because – slight chance of genocide. But if I can trick the systems into thinking this set-up is the central processor, that should let me access the databanks.”

“Why not just rip out the databank and take it away?”

“Same reason I don't just try hot-wiring it directly. Too much risk of damaging what I'm after. This is a much safer bet.”

“You said 'in theory'.”

“I did.”

Eugene folds the coat over one arm and smooths the fabric. Then he gives Sri the look he gives Kudelia when she springs some ridiculously risky bit of public outreach on him. The one where he tries to say, without words, 'you are out of your goddamn mind, a danger to yourself and others, and I really resent the fact it's my job to keep you alive.'

It's about as effective as it usually is, which is to say, not remotely.

“The only way to prove a theory is to test it.” Sri finishes fiddling and shows him a black oblong, about as long as Eugene's hand, with a plug on the top. The base is slightly curved, with a hollow space inside, just about the right size for –

He looks sharply at the chair. “Is that to go on there?”

“Yep.”

“You said you don't have a working Alaya-Vijnana.”

“I don't. I do, however, have a nanomachine link into my brain. It's how Chaifin fixed my legs. Used what was put in there to replace the nerves that got shredded. Doesn't do anything for my spacial awareness but it makes for a passable human/machine interface.”

“You're going to plug your brain into a mobile armour?”

“Good grief, you're a melodramatic sod, aren't you?” She deftly slots the block on over her spine ridges. “I'm going to look up a file directory, not ride the bloody thing into battle. I don't have the capacity for nerve feedback even if that was likely. It'll just be a ones and zeros I can direct without needing a keyboard. A lot safer than you plugging in, in case you were about to gallantly volunteer.”

“I wasn't.” Because Eugene has a working sense of self preservation. “This is crazy. You realise that, right?”

“It's reckless. Not crazy. Crazy implies it isn't logical. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to do given my resources, abilities and goals.” Folding her arms, Sri looks down at the ground and taps her foot. “Are you going to try to stop me?”

He still has his rifle over his shoulder. His sidearm is in easy reach. It would be trivial to hold her at gunpoint, threaten her into backing away from the science experiment, even inflict a flesh-wound to keep her still. They're close enough that he's fairly sure he could also grab her wrist, take the bracelet off her before she can summon her remote-controlled guard dogs.

However. Eugene is here specifically in the interests of this woman's safety. He's not sure what Doc Chaifin's policy on kneecapping someone in a good cause is, but he can't imagine em being pleased if he inflicts an injury on eir daughter. More to the point, he doesn't want to injure her. And in that context, it doesn't seem likely any threat he makes is going to have an effect. Which just leaves reasoned argument.

Crap.

“Is there anything I could say that would make you change your mind about this?”

“Probably not,” Sri says, “unless you're going to offer me a fully-funded research team backed with government approval to dig up and properly study everything in this cave. Can you do that?”

“Uh.” Kudelia will want to find out more about the mobile armour. For her, knowledge is the most important weapon you can have. At the same time, everything Eugene told Shino stands. Messing around with this stuff will be a diplomatic nightmare, and the chances of a reckless, possibly-criminal ex-space-rat being put in charge of the investigation are slim to non-existent. “No.”

“Then I think you've got your answer. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to plug my brain into a mobile armour so I can get what I want and we can all get back to –”

There is a noise. A scraping, grinding sound that sets Eugene's teeth on edge. It's coming from one of the tunnels leading off the cavern and, more importantly, it's coming closer.

“Oh hell.” Beneath the grime, the colour drains out of Sri's face.

Eugene drops the coat and swings his rifle around. The sound keeps coming, advancing in fits and starts. He strains his eyes trying to make out what's causing it. There's a light now, a faint red glow pushing the shadows off the rock, getting steadily brighter. What the fuck is that?

“So,” Sri says as a huge black claw slides out of the darkness and the red light turns to look at them, “about all those reasons you don't trust me…”

Chapter Text

It's a pluma. Because where there are mobile armours, there are plumas. What is wrong with Eugene today that he didn't see this coming? There were dozens of the things around the 'armour that attacked Chryse. How many more would there have been for three of them?

Then he realises there's something wrong with it. The ones from before rode on thrusters, gliding across the desert. This one's dragging itself along the ground with its claws, bulbous shell swaying as it moves. He thought it was looking at him and Sri but it's more like it just happened to turn in their direction as it came around the corner. Now it's crawling at an angle away from them.

Towards the pit.

“You activated that thing?” he hisses as he ducks into the meagre cover of an up-ended cargo crate. There's a lot more he wants to say, at a lot more volume, but he also doesn't want the murder machine to hear him.

Sri moves to join him, snatching up a pad on the way. “Not deliberately.”

He takes his eye off the pluma for a second so he can glare at her.

“What do you want me to say?” she whispers, “I thought it would be easier to get into than the 'armour. It was. Unfortunately, I underestimated how trigger-happy the guys I hired were. They got spooked and next thing I know, everyone's shooting and the pluma's gone into defence mode.”

“Who'da thought people would get freaked out by the killer robot?”

“Spare me the attitude. Short version: it chased TiCorp out and I managed to convince it that it really needed to guard a rock formation three caves over.” Her fingers fly across the pad. She clicks her tongue. “Unfortunately, the operating system is smarter than I gave it credit for.”

The pluma moves along the rim of the hole, drill-tail sweeping a trail in the dust behind it. Which puts it between them and the exit to the surface because the universe hates Eugene, specifically.

“So that's why you've got all the mobile workers rigged.”

“God, no. That was for TiCorp. They came back for their stuff when the din died down.”

“You held off an entire military company with a couple of 'workers?”

“I may have convinced them I could set the pluma on them if I wanted. I think they ended up deciding it was easier to leave me here to starve.”

“I can relate,” Eugene informs her.

“Yeah, yeah. Damn. My link to the control node is well and truly severed.”

“So we're screwed. Tell me something I don't know.”

It didn't go straight for the attack. Coupled to the weird way it's getting about, he guesses that means it's damaged. Or low on power. Or both. Figures. Any explosion big enough to take out the main body of an 'armour isn't going to have been kind to the accessories.

“As long as we don't do something stupid like open fire on it, we should be fine.”

Is she serious? “Those things are meant for killing people. We are people. What's it going to matter if we shoot back or not?”

At least a pluma doesn't have a beam weapon to atomise them with. It'll probably just shred them with its claws or mince them with its drill. On second thought, can atomisation to be an option?

Before Sri can respond, there's another noise, above and behind them. The door to the Zeus building sliding open.

Shino. Come to investigate to commotion.

Shit.

To his credit, he does everything right. He doesn't rush out and the instant he sees the pluma, he ducks back inside. No standing in shock, no startled sounds, just quick survival instincts.

It's Eugene who screws up. Eugene who half-turns, panic in his chest, to wave Shino away. Because in the moment, he can't trust those instincts are still there. Because the idea he might have to watch his friend die again is too terrible for rational thought.

And so it's Eugene's gun that knocks against the crate, sending some instrument of Sri's crashing to the ground.

The crunch is way too loud, hitting just right to echo around the cavern. The pluma reacts instantly, swivelling towards the sound. It levers itself up, visibly alert. Then there's a screech of stressed machinery and it rockets forward, clearing the lip of the pit and dropping out of sight.

Eugene has just enough time to send a silent curse after the long-dead people responsible for building the thing before it comes screaming up the other side of the hole and lands, towering over him and Sri.

The pluma's red eye blazes down at them, lens clicking. This close, he can see every crack and dent in its black hide. There are a couple of places where the armour has crumpled inwards, pretty serious damage, of the kind that would make it easy to take out in a fairer fight.

Is this the part where Eugene's life is supposed to start flashing in front of his eyes? Because all he's getting is a dim sense of annoyance that he's only got himself to blame for dying like this. He tries to raise his gun, make a futile last stand of it. But Sri's hand clamps around the barrel, forcing it to stay where it is.

And then the pluma moves away.

The wash from its jets sends grit into Eugene's mouth, which is hanging open in astonishment. He doesn't spit because he's afraid any noise he makes will bring it back. But – they're alive. The pluma is going back into the pit, ignoring them, and they're still alive.

It didn't kill them.

Very slowly, when it's clear the pluma isn't going to come back, Sri lets go of his gun. “We should get inside.”

Shino neatly sums up Eugene's thoughts on the matter the second the door to the building is closed behind them. “What the –?!”

Sri raises her hand and plays with her pad for a second. “Hell, hell, hell, hell, hell! That bloody thing actually folded back my own trick! That's why there wasn't an alarm.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever.” Eugene stops just short of grabbing the pad away from her. “How are we still alive? And no messing around, damnit!”

“Oh, fuck off!” She shoves him back, with a lot more force than he'd have expected. “You want to know why it didn't kill us? Because it's damaged and it's dumb. It's machine code and databases, yes/no rules on what things are and aren't. And to it, we aren't people. Because there weren't space-rats during the Calamity War, not like us. When it looks at you, me, Shino – it doesn't know what it's seeing. We're not attacking it, we're not its target, so it classifies us as scenery and moves on, like the bloody overgrown calculator it is!”

“The overgrown calculator you turned on!” If she's going to start shouting, then Eugene might as well too. “It was the quickest way to get what you wanted and you didn't stop to think if maybe there'd be consequences you couldn't control!”

“Err, guys?” Eugene barely hears Shino. Sri ignores him completely.

“Right, because I have so many other options with the research I could literally be arrested over!”

“And that makes it fine to gamble with everyone's lives? What happened to 'I know how dangerous everything is'?”

“Ever heard of a calculated risk? I knew what I was doing!”

“This is what it looks like when you know what you're doing?”

“It was under control! If those grunts had listened instead of thinking with their triggers –”

“I bet you didn't even tell them what you were planning!”

“Like they'd even have been able to understand it if I had!”

“Right, because you're so freaking smart!”

“I am smart! Smarter than those thugs, smarter than you, and certainly smarter than some clapped-out drone that can't even tell I'm human!”

What was it she said? A big threat display and behind it…

Eugene bites his tongue to stop himself from carrying on like this, acting the shouty military type he could have turned into if he'd got anywhere with the CGS First Group as his role models. That's his threat display, loud and angry with the urge to be heard. But he's known for a long time it doesn't work and he needs to start remembering how to be better.

“Sucks, doesn't it? When things don't go how they should.”

Dropping his voice back to normal throws Sri. She's still inhaling to shout some more when his words register. Her mouth twists as she looks down and sees the pad shaking in her hands. “Patronising me isn't the way back to my good side.”

“I'm not, believe me. I'm trying to say I know what it feels like to deal with the fallout from something you knew was a bad idea at the time.”

She spits out the breath. “Like I said. Reckless. Not crazy.”

“Err…” Shino looks between them. “Maybe I'm being slow but what's the problem? If it's not gonna attack us, why can't we just walk out of here?”

Eugene thinks he can guess the answer but he waits for Sri to speak.

“It's digging.” She turns her pad, showing them a rough graphic of the dig site. The pluma is near the middle, worrying at the ground. “It's not meant to act on its own. The mobile armour gives it power and instructions.” She's speaking quietly, measuring her voice. “But there's a fail-safe. If the armour's destroyed, the plumas can be activated in a recovery mode. Turn on one, it goes looking for another. Then they go looking for two more. And so on.”

“And then what?” Shino asks, sounding very much like he doesn't want to know.

“Get enough, with access to power and resources, and they'll try to put the armour back together.”

“OK, starting to see the problem now.”

Eugene frowns at the shapes that mark pieces of 'armour. “Could they even do that here?”

“No idea,” Sri admits. “That's why I wanted it staring at a rock until its batteries went flat.”

“So it might run out of juice before it finds another one?”

“Maybe. How lucky are you feeling?”

Never that lucky. “Then we need to destroy it.”

He expects an argument. Kind of hopes for one since this is clearly a decision it's best to be talked out of. But Shino just nods and Sri, well, Sri's the expert, able to tell him to all the decimal places how bad it will be if they go from dealing with one pluma to a whole bunch.

OK then.

“How did you fool it before?” Eugene asks Sri. She's turned the pad back around to carry on working. “You said something about the, uh, control node?”

“I plugged into it while it was offline and used repeaters to keep the connection. Won't work again now it's active.”

“Is there anything else you've got that could?”

“I… I don't… gimme a minute, big man.” She starts walking away. “Need to work this through.”

Shino steps aside to let her pass and, once she's gone, looks over at Eugene. “You all right?”

“Me? Yeah.” He forces out a laugh. “Not like it's the first time I've nearly died.”

“When was the last time? Six, seven years ago?”

“Ha, ha.”

“I'm serious. You, uh, kind of freaked out back there.”

And here Eugene was thinking Shino might have been too busy keeping under cover to actually see him mess things up. “Yeah, well, that thing brought back bad memories.”

“I'll bet.” Shino bounces his heel on the floor. “You sure it wasn't my fault?”

“What are you talking about?” Is it too much to hope this will be one of those times when he'll revert to old-Shino and just call Eugene names? Rather than saying something like –

“I distracted you, didn't I? Guess you were right about me being out of practice.”

“Urgh – that was on me, not you. Don't beat yourself up about it. We've got more important things to worry about.”

“Yeah. We do. So're you gonna be OK sending me in?”

One breath. Two. Stay professional. “We don't even have a plan yet. We need to focus on what we're gonna do before –”

“Give me a straight answer, Eugene.”

He looks at Shino. It's a struggle, because he feels unaccountably guilty. “I don't know, OK? What did you expect? You came back from the dead! You think I want to risk that?”

“You sure that's what it is?”

Of course he is. “Yes!”

“So you're saying you'd be fine if it was Chad here with you? Or Dante? Or any of the other guys? You could order them into battle, no problem?”

“Chad wouldn't be here – he's too important to drag away from the office. And Dante looks after kids these days! I wouldn't –”

“You gave me an empty gun because you thought I might hurt myself. You came down here yourself because you don't want to send anyone else into an unknown situation. You've got it into your head that you need to do everything so no one else has to risk anything.”

“And? What, what's your point? That's my job.”

“No! It isn't.” Shino steps towards him with the usual disregard for personal space. He doesn't make any move to actually grab Eugene but he's close enough that he could if he wanted. “I already told you, you don't have to be Orga.”

“And I told you, I'm not Orga!” It's a snarl, the bite of everything Eugene tries to keep deep down inside himself. “I'm not leading everyone to some imaginary goal! I'm not going to risk their lives because it's the quickest way to get what I want!”

“Well, right now, that's a problem 'cos your job is to stop this going to hell and you're going to need my help doing that. Aren't you?”

It would be easier if he were being aggressive about it, if his getting up in Eugene's face actually felt like a threat. Instead, his voice is low and concerned.

Just like how Eugene got Sri to calm down. Appealing to him over the things they both understand.

“I know you want to protect us,” Shino tells him. Now he sounds kind. “I get it. But you don't win fights by trying to protect everyone from everything. We're not running away from this thing. We have to take it out.”

“You shouldn't have to fight!” Eugene hates the way his voice cracks. “None of us should.”

“None of us except you, you mean.”

“Better me than you. I've still got both my arms.”

“So have I.” To make the point, Shino punches his fist into the palm of the prosthetic. “Not the ones I started with, but I make do.”

With metal where there should be flesh and bone. Scars all over him. Fractures in his soul.

“I left you there!” Oh, fuck, where did that come from? No, no – that's not fair, that wasn't supposed to get out. Only now it has and Shino is staring at him like he doesn't understand and Eugene needs to explain. “Orga wanted to go back for you. I made him go through with the plan. You were still alive and I…”

And Eugene couldn't stop any of what happened next.

Orga, shattered by the weight of their expectations, charging straight into his grave.

Yamagi, furious and heartsick, thinking his grief made him broken.

Shino, trapped, alone, lost to them for six fucking years.

The same Shino who nods and says, “Of course you did. You're a good leader. You knew the plan, you knew the stakes, and you saw it through. You saved everyone.”

“No I didn't.”

“You saved everyone you could.” He moves back, giving Eugene breathing room. “It's not like I want to get hurt,” he says, fiddling with his rifle's strap. His lips twitch, not quite making a smile. “But that's why I need you doing what you do best, so we can finish this and get on with our lives.”

That isn't fair either. He knows what Shino means, can hear what he's trying to say. But all Eugene can think about is all the people he's had to leave behind. Shino, yeah, but Mikazuki too. Akihiro. So many others, all the endless dead he was never able to bring home. And the worst part – the bit that keeps him awake at night – is knowing he could do it all over again, if it was necessary. If it was the best way to make sure the plan came together.

He hates that in this one respect he really is as good as he always bragged. It would be so nice to be able to cut that piece of him out. To forget he ever had the capacity to order his friends into battle and live with the consequences.

Only, of course, Shino's right. First they have to deal with what's in front of them.

What was it Mikazuki said to him, right before the end? 'Get going and do your job, deputy-boss.' Words to live by, whether he wants to or not.

Eugene grits his teeth. “I preferred it when your idea of a pep-talk was kicking me in the ass.”

Shino grins. “Sorry. Kicking leg gets sore these days. You wanna go see what Sri's come up with?”

They gather around the desk in the foreman's office. The pluma isn't visible through the window but they can hear its drill grinding into the dirt and the image rendered from sensors planted around the cavern shows them all they need to know.

“It's working slower than it's technically capable of. But it also doesn't care about proper archaeological practice so it's still making a lot of head-way.” Sri has pushed the projection to one of the Zeus pads so that she can keep using her own. “And before you ask, no, I can't tell what's down there. The geo-scanners went with one of the mining machines it tore apart. It might have locked on to wreckage or another dozen intact plumas.”

She seems a lot more put-together for having that minute to think. Eugene hopes that's more than another smokescreen. “Do you have any explosives?” he asks, since it's the obvious place to begin.

“Sorry, fresh out. I prefer excavation methods less likely to drop the entire cavern on me.”

“OK. What about those mobile workers you rigged? Can they fight?”

“I can get them to shoot. Manoeuvring's not much good though.”

“How many have you got?”

“Five in here. Thing is, I'm not sure how useful they'll be. This is the system read-out I was able to snag before the pluma ran wild.” Numbers and charts fill her pad's display. “The armour's compromised but it's still going to be effective against the calibre of weapons I've got control over.”

“And the pluma's gonna go straight for anything that shoots it.” Eugene picks up the Zeus pad and fiddles until the projection has changed to a relief map. He peers at it, trying to fix everything in his mind. The building. The pit. The pluma. There are the mobile workers, the lights and the equipment, the entrance and the side-tunnels. The pieces of 'armour. Lines and cover, terrain… “Can you move the 'workers at all?”

“Basic back and forth, some turning. Why?”

“We could lure it. Draw it away in a particular direction.”

Shino's been standing quietly, watching them talk. At this he finally pipes up. “Are there any mobile workers you didn't take control of?”

“A couple of mining units.” Sri leans across and points at the screen in Eugene's hands. “Didn't seem much point doing it with something that's only got drills.”

“They got the Alaya-Vijnana?”

“Yeah, I assume TiCorp modified them from standard combat models.”

Eugene twitches. Heart-to-heart or not, he still doesn't like the implication of the question. But those machines are something else to work with. Drills might be more effective than bullets in this situation. They could focus on the damaged sections, take out the claws. Though pulling that off will depend on how fast the pluma moves: it's not just going to stand still for them and a 'worker isn't going to stand up to blows from something that can dent a mobile suit.

They need a more certain option.

“Wait.” He bites his knuckle for a second then says, “Back when that mobile armour was attacking Chryse, when it was destroyed, the plumas shut down. All at once. Because it was directing them?”

“Basic operational risk. Like I said, they're not meant to work alone so if the command flow's interrupted – ah!” Sri's face lights up. “You mean, how does the pluma get its orders?”

“LCS, right?”

“Right. Even with my tap overridden, the main receiver will still be operational. But – the commands are secured. Give me a month and all the caffeine I can drink, I might be able to find a decrypt that'd work.” The light gets brighter. “Or –”

“Or we find something that already knows the codes.”

“Uh…” Shino is looking between them again. “Any chance of an explanation for those of us not at the 'finishing each other's sentences' stage of the relationship?”

Sri's fingers flash across her pad as Eugene fills Shino in on the set-up she was planning to use to steal the 'armour's database. “Two problems,” she announces when he's done.

They wait expectantly.

“Number one: I've no idea if that's the 'armour the pluma belonged to. There might be general commands but I can't tell from the data I've got so far.”

“So at worst it's a one in three chance.” Eugene shrugs. “That's practically good odds for us.”

“Well that's horrifying. Problem two: the pluma severed some of the control lines when it was rushing over to take a look at us. We'll have to fix them up before I can access the 'armour.”

Which they'll have to do in full view of the pluma. “The more we move about where it can see us, the more likely it's gonna decide we're a threat.”

“Oh yes. And interfering with the 'armour remains will likely make us targets anyway.”

“Great.”

“So we do what you said,” Shino suggests. “Lure it out of the way with the mobile workers.”

Eugene looks down at the map. “We could get them to fire in a sequence,” he says, highlighting the remote-controlled 'workers in turn. Then changes his mind and starts over, choosing an order with slightly better coverage. “Get the pluma to chase between them until we're done.”

“Until it destroys them, you mean. We're gonna have to put a piloted unit out there to keep it back after the rigged ones are gone.”

Deflecting, Eugene asks how long Sri thinks it'll take to fix the control lines.

“Not sure. I've got some splice-patches that should make short work of it, but it's going to depend on where exactly the breaks are. If we're going to do it fast, it needs to be a two-person job.”

“Eugene can help you with that.”

“Wait, that isn't –” He shuts his mouth, closes his eyes, counts to three, and thinks.

Shino is the better pilot. He always was. He's certainly got more recent piloting experience and he told Eugene Gjallarhorn had him doing sims in all kinds of 'weapons, mobile workers included. If either of them is getting into one of the mining machines, he's the right choice.

Even if it is like pulling a tooth.

“I'll help you with that,” Eugene tells Sri.

“Lovely. Are we really going to do this?” She's put the pad down and has her hands flat on the table either side of it. Her mouth forms a smile but it's the kind that isn't actually one at all.

He bites his teeth together and then starts holding up fingers. “Getting it to attack the rigged 'workers will use up its power and the guns should do a little damage as well. Going in with a fully-operational mobile worker will do the same and there are better odds the drills can get through the weakened sections. Pulling codes from the mobile armour might let us turn it off outright. And the alternative is taking the bet it'll run down before it finds anything. Which is great if things work out and a total disaster if they don't.”

“That's a yes,” Shino supplies helpfully.

“I figured,” Sri sighs.

It takes about half an hour to finesse the details. Ludicrously little time to plan an operation that feels like even less because of how minutes contract to eye-blinks when you're racing towards something you don't want to do. All too soon, Eugene is crouched on top of a mobile worker in the lee of the Zeus building, ready to haul Shino out of the cockpit if powering it up brings the pluma straight to them.

The engine splutters softly into life. Eugene listens, tuning one noise out so he might hear another. After a moment, Sri – standing beside the 'worker, monitoring things from her pad – gives him a cautious thumbs-up.

He nods to Shino, who raises his eyebrows and begins readying the systems for combat. His movements are quick and confident. The drill arm behind Eugene twitches, swivelling on its mount and extending slightly. The one on the other side does likewise.

“Feels a bit weird,” Shino says, head tilted.

“Problem?”

“No, just weighted differently.” He inhales and flexes his hands and feet. The 'worker's struts move with him, raising it up. “I'm good to go.”

“OK.” Eugene starts to climb to the ground. “You'd better not screw this up.”

Shino glances up, showing his teeth. “You better not either.”

“Do I get a macho one-liner too?” Sri asks as Eugene drops down next to her.

“You want one?”

“No. Let's get on with it before I come to my senses and run like hell in the opposite direction.”

They sneak around to the front of the building and over to Sri's chair set-up. Still no sign of the pluma reacting to their presence. The shrill grinding of its digging rises and falls in a slow pattern. How deep has it gotten by now? Eugene supposes he'll be able to see for himself soon enough.

He hunkers down while Sri checks over the equipment. After a minute's consideration, he puts his rifle beside the crate he knocked earlier. It'll just get in the way if he tries to do the repairs while carrying it. Also it's useless right now anyway. He still feels naked without it.

“This one, this one and this one.”

Eugene marks the cables Sri indicates, following them with his eyes to where they drop over the edge of the hole.

“I can fix the rest from up here. You know how these work?” She gives him a handful of splice-patches. They're the same kind they used to use on the Isaribi to make temporary repairs.

“You sure this'll be enough?”

“If it's not, we're already stuffed.”

“Great.” He finds pouches to put the patches into and when he looks up, Sri has her hand on her wristband.

She's staring at the pit with an expression he thinks might be the most honest thing he's yet seen on her face. Open fear mixed with regret. He has the irrational urge to tell her it'll all be OK. Which would be dumb on several levels, not least the one where this is an awful plan and they're all going to die.

Eugene breathes in and out, once. “Ready?”

“Trick question. Are you?”

He grunts and slinks closer to the hole. “Start 'em up when I give you the signal.”

By the time he's at the edge, he's crawling, worming his way across the dirt to the point where the ground drops away. From there, he can see the pluma clearly. It's propped on its claws, drill swung forward as it works to widen the bowl-shaped depression it's cleared under itself. It doesn't react to Eugene's presence, so he assumes he's still being classified under 'scenery'. He looks down.

One of the cable-breaks is obvious, about four metres below him where the drop curves into the floor of the pit. The pluma must have snagged it as it climbed out. He'll do that one first, then work away from the wall to find the others.

OK then.

Don't screw this up.

Eugene lifts his hand and gives a thumbs-up. There's a pause, long enough for him to suspect everything has already gone wrong. Then, on the other side of the cavern, one of the mobile workers lurches into motion.

It turns jerkily and rolls forward. The pluma stops drilling. With a comparatively smooth movement, it turns to face the approaching 'worker. Eugene scrambles over the edge and, right as the shooting starts, lets himself fall.

The pluma's jets scream over the percussion of bullets. Eugene's hand, knee and foot draw furrows in the loose earth, controlling his descent. He reaches the break as the pluma slams into the 'worker and does his best to ignore the crushing sounds while he pulls the pieces of cable back together. The second 'worker opens fire as he gets the patch in place. The pluma screams again.

They lose three 'workers in the time it takes him to find and fix the break in the next cable. He can't see what's happening but the sounds are clear enough. That's well into his most pessimistic estimates for how long they'd be able to keep the pluma busy. Typical. And of course there's no sign of the other end of the third cable.

In a final excruciating screech of tearing metal, the last of Sri's toy soldiers gives out. How far away is the pluma now? Eugene knows the distance, intellectually, knows where that 'worker was positioned. That's not the same as being able to locate the enemy. Damnit, why can't his whole life come with a targeting map?

There! There's the last cable. Or – no. Oh fuck. Somehow, the pluma ripped it in two places, leaving this piece sitting in the dust like a dead snake. OK, don't panic. Get this fixed then find the rest.

Eugene can't hear Shino's battle-cry: they opted against using comms for fear of being detected early. But he can imagine it, in the engine roar as the mobile worker hurtles out from hiding and in the rending clang of metal on metal that follows.

Shino is going to die. He's going to die and Eugene's the one who sent him in there and –

No. Be. Professional.

He tugs the cable with him, eyes fixed on the ground. If it landed back there, it must have been dragged in that direction, so the rest of must be –

There.

“That's got it!” Sri yells as soon as the patch is done tightening. Eugene drops the cable and runs full-pelt for the plank walkway.

Somehow he makes it in one go, urgency getting him over the bits that sway or sag under his feet. He stops at the top, to catch his breath and because the sight of the ongoing battle pins him in place.

Shino's making the mobile worker dance, using its smaller size to dodge around the pluma's flailing claws and jabbing it with quick, darting blows from his drills. Already, he's managed to rip open one of the limbs, leaving naked machinery exposed to the air. It's kind of stunning to watch and Eugene feels a stab of envy because even after all this time, he's never quite gotten over being outclassed that badly by his friends.

The pluma suddenly swipes with its tail, only missing because Shino jams the 'worker into reverse at top speed and jinks under the blow. And Eugene remembers that all the skill in the world isn't going to keep this up forever.

Sri is plugged into the chair when he reaches her, stiff as a statue. There's no blood but her eyes are wild, moving so rapidly it looks as if they're about to vibrate out of her skull. One of her hands is tight on the edge of the seat; the other taps violently at her pad, quick, erratic motions that could be meaningful or could be some kind of seizure.

“Are you OK?” Eugene asks, reflexively. There's no answer, either because it's a fucking stupid question or because she's not OK enough that she can't hear him any more.

He looks back across the pit to see the pluma smash bodily into Shino's 'worker and slam it against the cavern wall.

It's not a fatal strike. The armour buckles but doesn't collapse and the cockpit stays intact. Shino's immobilised for a few seconds though and that's enough for the pluma to destroy one of his struts. He rallies, driving a drill-bit into the pluma's hip joint, sending up a fountain of sparks and doing some serious damage.

Only the pluma is still moving and it rears up, bringing its tail to bear –

Sri cries out, a quick. unintelligible sound, and the pluma spins to face her. This time, it is definitely registering her as a threat. Something shifts under its eye. Its 'chin', opening to reveal a gun barrel.

Right. Eugene was kinda hoping the fact it hadn't used its ranged weapon up to now meant it couldn't. Fuck.

“Hey! Ugly!” Shino's voice booms from his 'worker's broadcast system. “We're not done!”

He lurches away from the wall on his remaining wheels, driving his drills into the underside of the pluma's body, throwing off its aim. Eugene dives for his rifle. As the pluma straightens and knocks Shino aside, he starts firing at its eye. He's no idea if that'll do any harm and at this range, most of his shots go wide anyway. But come on – that's got to be distracting!

“Look at me you bastard!” he yells, sprinting away from Sri and firing again. “Over here!”

Shino's still trying to fight, even though he's lost all manoeuvring. He flails uselessly and swears at full volume, calling the pluma every name he can think of, which is a few more than Eugene can.

Eugene's clip runs out. He reaches for a spare, knowing he's not going to have time to load it because the pluma is taking aim again, training its gun on Sri and she's completely helpless and now he's too far away to drag her out of the line of fire and –

The pluma twitches. The light in its eye flickers, like it's blinking in confusion.

Eugene freezes, magazine halfway to his rifle. He holds his breath. Shino's worker stops moving, static hissing from its speakers.

The pluma falls over.

Just – splat.

With a shuddering gasp, Sri sags forward in her seat. “Bloody hell! Oh… bloody hell.”

Eugene looks from her to the pluma then walks slowly to her side. “Is… is that it?”

“God, I hope so. That was not fun.”

The temptation to say something extremely sarcastic is strong, but he's too relieved to get the words out. Across the pit, Shino cracks the hatch on the mobile worker, staggers across to the pluma, finds an opening in its armour, and shoots his rifle point-blank into the gap. Empties one clip, reloads, and does it again.

“I really should be mad at him for damaging historical artefacts,” Sri mutters as the echoes of gunfire die away, “but I think he's probably got the right idea.” Her eyes are bloodshot and she winces when she flexes her hands.

“So.” Eugene drops to his haunches, squinting into her face. “How much were you lying about it being safe to plug this thing into your head?”

“Don't recall ever saying it was safe.” She smiles and this time, she's not mocking him at all. “Thanks for the concern, big man. But don't worry. It's just a migraine with a slight chance of mild brain damage. You should check on Shino. Looks like he got pretty banged up out there.”

He follows her gaze. Now everything's still, he can actually take in the punishment the mobile worker endured. 'Banged up' is putting it lightly. If one of those blows had been just a bit harder…

But they weren't and here's Shino, with a massive grin on his stupid face, and if he's injured at all, it's nothing worse than bruises.

Wow. Look at that.

They actually won.

Eugene had forgotten how exhausting winning feels.

Chapter Text

To Eugene's total lack of surprise, Sri insists on finishing her work before they leave. Not just downloading the mobile armour's memory: she also wants to study its system architecture and get a good look at the pluma's guts, pull data from that as well and take samples to go into her collection of ancient components and metal shavings.

He points out she should probably take it easy after what she just did. She chooses instead to slug some painkillers and work through the night. At least she lets him and Shino help out with a few things, before sending them off to sleep on the excuse of wanting her drivers to be fresh for the journey back.

In the morning, they carry her equipment out to the truck. There is a lot of it and Eugene would be resentful if moving it wasn't something he specifically insisted on doing because physically relocating her stuff seems about the only way he's likely to get her to actually come with them.

While loading the last few crates, he runs through an evaluation exercise, assigning Sri a threat level based on what he's witnessed so far. The result makes him want to giggle hysterically and possibly emigrate. Do Takaki and Fuka have a spare room at their place on Earth?

Because how exactly is he supposed to contain Sri and the trouble she could cause, pulling stunts like this? He's Kudelia's security, not law-enforcement. If he locks her up, it's kidnap. And going to the actual authorities would bring a whole heap more problems. Really, he can't see anything he's going to be able to do about this situation beyond waving her on her merry way with the hope that what happened here will serve as some kind of character-changing life-lesson.

Which –

Yeah, more hysterical giggling is definitely the right reaction to that idea.

It would help if he could actually be angry about everything. He feels he should be, given they were potentially on the verge of a second Battle of Chryse without a Gundam to back them up. Yet having heard the steps that led Sri to where they found her and assuming she's telling at least half the truth, he can't really argue with the basic point of her not having many other options. She's like him. They're both space-rats trying to make the most of lives stacked against them from the start.

Plus, he's been forced to the conclusion that he kind of sort of maybe… likes her?

Not like that.

OK, maybe a bit like that.

But as a person too. Despite all the winding him up – and the misleading and the obfuscating and the terrible decisions – he keeps returning to their conversation in the pit. How she let him lay out his feelings and didn't judge him for them in the slightest. How she trusted him with her past in return and actually seemed to take it seriously when he asked why she cared about her work.

It is very depressing that this is the closest he's gotten to meeting someone interesting for… um…

Shit. Shino's right. It's been way too long.

And now he's thinking about Shino again. Something he'd been successfully avoiding since they dealt with the pluma, via the simple expedient of focusing very hard on all the other stuff. He supposes he can't actually run from it forever. The complete upheaval of how he sees his friend that's come tumbling out of this whole dumb trip.

Or is putting it that way making excuses for only now looking closely at things he'd already realised?

Eugene sinks to sand and puts his back against the side of the truck. His therapist tells him it's important to notice how he's feeling. To actually take it in, rather than just letting it rush through him. It's not easy. All his instincts are the other way around. The things he's good at depend on not noticing his emotions until it's all over, so he can get his work done without anything he feels getting in the way. The problem being, that means abandoning control over when those emotions make themselves known. Which is dangerous, seeing as there's nothing to stop them deciding to go really loud right in the middle of something important, because he didn't realise how strong they'd been getting while he was ignoring them.

Like how he didn't notice how much it'd been eating him, the realisation he hadn't forced Orga to abandon Shino's corpse. He'd forced him to abandon Shino.

And that was the right call. It really was. But having his friend back underscores what a crappy call it was to have to make.

One among so many.

Perhaps the reason he falls into familiar habits around Shino is that it's nice to be old-Eugene for a while. The person he was before everything got big and out of control. Sure, that guy was a total idiot with an ego the size of the Isaribi and nothing to back it up. But there are ways in which it was easier, when all he had to worry about was Orga showing him up or how cool he'd look, charging head-first into Earth's space defences.

A shadow falls across Eugene. “Hey.” Shino sits down beside him, stretching his legs out.

“Hey.”

They stare at the sunrise for a minute.

“About what I said earlier,” Shino begins and he's going to need to be a hell of a lot more specific. “I meant it. I don't blame you for anything that happened.”

Eugene rubs the bridge of his nose. “I do.”

“Yamagi blames himself too. So do I.”

“Yeah, but it wasn't your responsibility, was it? And don't say it wasn't mine either. It literally was. What else was 'deputy-boss' supposed to mean?”

“I know. I get that. I just…” Raising his hands helplessly, Shino thunks his head against the truck. “I hate seeing you carrying all that around.”

“Yeah, well.”

“No, don't – can't you just admit for a minute that it makes you miserable?”

“Of course it makes me miserable.” Eugene snorts and shakes his head. “I'd worry if it didn't.”

“I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you. I'm sorry I didn't help you when I was there.”

“What are you talking about?”

Shino sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “You had doubts over everything and I just told you to trust Orga. If I'd actually listened and backed you up, maybe we could have found another way out.”

“Like hell. It was already too late by then.”

“Then I should have stepped up sooner. I was supposed to be a team leader, wasn't I? If I'd been better at that –”

Eugene thumps him on the chest. “Will you stop? You want me to tell you all the reasons that was never going to happen? After the Brewers… you're not that kind of guy, OK? You're the one who cared about everyone. The one people liked.”

“Hey, people liked you too. You didn't scream at them so much when you were drilling them.”

“Yeah, and I'm the one who made them do all the paperwork and gave out the hard work, and I never even invited 'em to a brothel afterwards.”

Shino looks at him out of the corner of his eye. Smiles and then frowns, clicking his tongue. “Uhh… argh, what was the name of that girl you liked at that place? You kept going back to see her. It's gonna bug me now.”

Eugene thinks for a second and considers for a second longer if reminding Shino is a good idea. It definitely isn't but what the hell. “Lorelei.”

“That's it! Lorelei! You really liked her, didn't you?”

He screws up his face, because that's better than blushing at the memory.

“Was she why you realised money wouldn't buy you love?”

Eugene groans and buries his face in his hands. “I was a dumb kid. What do you want me to say?”

“Hey, it's OK. I just can't believe I never figured that out before.”

Frankly, Eugene's glad he didn't. Although… “Hey wait a minute. You went to that place lots of times too, didn't you?”

“Sure did! Don't worry, I never asked for Lorelei.”

“No, I know you didn't. She told me that.”

“Well, you liked her.”

He doesn't know whether to laugh or hit Shino again. “That's… that's –” There aren't words for how ridiculous that is.

“You told me you didn't want to share.”

“That was one time! Are you telling me you – of course you did. You absolute dumbass.”

Shino chuckles. Then looks away. “I meant the other thing too. About how if you needed to be close to someone… sorry if that made you mad.”

And there goes the mood. Eugene looks in the other direction. “It's fine. Don't sweat it.”

“I just figured, there was so much I didn't get to say or do before. With Yamagi and Orga and – I dunno. Everyone. 'Cos there wasn't time or 'cos I didn't realise or… whatever. So I ought to say things now, while I can.”

Is that what it is? Eugene doesn't really dwell on the things he didn't get to say. Seems like a waste of effort. But then he doesn't care about this stuff in quite the same way as Shino, does he?

“I get it,” he says, mostly truthfully. “But you – you've got to look after Yamagi, OK? What I said about him drawing a line, that… that wasn't always good for him. He pushed everything down and tried to move on and – it got him hurt. I need to know that's not going to happen again.”

Shino's eyes bore into the side of his head. Eugene swallows.

“Just tell me you'll look after him.”

Shino nods slowly. “It's the least I can do, with him looking after me so much.”

“Yeah.”

Silence falls, awkward and painful in ways that make Eugene wish for another pluma to deal with.

“What would you have wanted to say to Orga?” he asks when he can't bear it any longer.

“I'd have told him thanks,” Shino says, wistful and sad, “for everything he did for us. And I'd have said sorry that he had to do so much of it on his own.”

And the truth is, Orga didn't do it on his own. They were all there, sharing the load and getting dragged down with him. But that's not what Shino means and Eugene thinks that maybe he'd have wanted to say something like that too, in another life where he got the chance.

“Come on.” He pushes himself to his feet. “Let's see if Sri's ready to get out of here.”

Eugene has Shino collapse the cave entrance with the last mining machine before they leave. Maybe that won't stop anyone determined to get in but it can't hurt. He plants surveillance devices along the fissure to ensure he'll know if someone takes an interest in the site. There's still TiCorp after all and he can think of a few ways they might try leveraging knowledge of the dig to make up for the loss of their equipment. He's going to need to keep an eye on this until official channels can take over.

And afterwards too, obviously, until he's sure it's safe to look away.

The journey back is uneventful. Shino does the driving, Sri falls deep asleep almost immediately, and Eugene dozes between potholes. He listens to Shino hum tunelessly and wonders if there's more to say. Or whether he should have said less than he already has.

Two questions to which the answer is always 'yes'.

Why do emotions come with all these contradictions? How can he be so bitter about what happened with Tekkadan and still miss it so badly? Why does being deputy-boss feel like a curse and something he never wants to let go of? What makes Shino the most irritating person on the planet and someone Eugene wouldn't give up for the world?

They were there together at the start, when the CGS poured nanomachines into their bodies and punched them for feeling the pain. He can actually remember Shino's lip swelling up. Snatches of it. A rangy kid in tank-top three sizes too big, hooting with laughter despite the bruises. Eugene thought he was stupid and resented how easily he made friends, and didn't reckon on being one of the friends he made.

Now here they are, Shino offering his body because he hates seeing Eugene miserable and Eugene repaying him by putting them both in harm's way. He can see how they got to this point, more clearly than when they left Chryse, and that should help. Give him some idea of what to do about it all. But it's like Sri said, about the difference between theory and practice.

Understanding new-Shino a little more doesn't tell Eugene how to respond to him any better. So they've ended up where they started, just with some extra shit hanging between them.

Fucking typical, really.

“I see you're still alive,” Doc Chaifin observes dryly, looking eir daughter up and down.

“Did you really need to send the heavy squad to prove that?” Sri jerks a thumb over her shoulder.

“If you bothered to write once in a while, maybe I wouldn't have to.”

“Come on, par. You know my work takes me out of contact a lot.”

“Hmm.”

“It does!”

Shino gives Eugene a sideways look and does a terrible job of hiding his smirk. Eugene folds his arms. “Guess that's our job done, then.”

Chaifin nods to him, not getting up from eir workbench. “Thanks boys. I owe you.”

Sri's eyebrows go up. “Bloody hell. You were worried.”

“Should I have been?”

“Ehhhh…” She waggles one hand, grimacing.

The Doc's sigh somehow combines deep resignation with the satisfaction of being proven correct.

“We'll let you know when we come up with something you can do for us in return,” Eugene tells em, before turning and heading for the door. He thinks he hears Sri make a surprised noise but he doesn't look back to find out for sure.

Outside the clinic, Shino elbows him in the ribs. “You're hopeless, you know that?”

Eugene pretends not to know what he's talking about.

Kudelia fiddles with her fingers as she listens to Eugene's report and does not question any of his decisions. She thanks him, saying to leave the problem with her, that it'll be worth taking their time now the immediate danger has been avoided. Then she says he should go home, seeing as how he's already put in more than his fair share of overtime between the travel and the brushes with death.

He declines and goes instead to his office to find out what he's missed while he was out of town.

Ivan, as usual, has kept things running smoothly on the security front. No scares, no threats, not even any especially rowdy rounds of diplomacy. Eugene can rest easy knowing the Office of the Chairperson didn't fall apart without him and the Admoss Company is still ticking along as normal.

In wider news, the Union has passed a resolution to invest in better transport links between the cities. Following the success of Chryse's tram system, they're going to lay down train-tracks to make it easier to move people and goods across the desert. Be nice if they'd thought of that before he had to haul a bunch of archaeological junk up from Avalon by road.

Off-planet, there's another wave of unrest spreading through the space colonies. Protests at back-sliding on workers' rights, among other long-standing grievances. The sense of history repeating leaves a bitter taste in Eugene's mouth.

A top Teiwaz executive has been killed in a shuttle crash that could have been an accident and on balance probably was. Better not to dwell on it until there's a reason to.

The prototype for Gjallarhorn's new mobile suit has been shown off at an inter-planet arms fair, a big publicity stunt translating to 'look, you still need us.'

Nearer home, Dante has left a message about some woman visiting the orphanage. She was offering funding, apparently, but he got a weird vibe off her and thinks it might be trouble. His description is vague: young, well-dressed, reeking of money. Blue hair, which sets off distant alarm bells in the back of Eugene's head. He'll have to do some digging.

More seeds of trouble to watch over. More reports and paperwork, more angles to keep covered. Because yes, Eugene does make his living staying alert to all this shit, head on a swivel to see what's coming and how to stop it.

But it's only paranoia if the universe isn't out to get you.

Things return to normal and the call he's been dreading comes midway through preparations for a museum inauguration. His screen is full of blueprints and line-of-sight annotations as he tries to work out how to best to deploy the security detail.

“Hi Eugene. We need to talk.”

The quiet absorption he's been enjoying for the past couple of hours flies out the window the instant he hears Yamagi's voice. “Oh… uh. Talk?”

“I think it'd be a good idea, yes.”

He brings up his calendar, considering how best to claim he'll be busy for, oh, the next decade. But today is traitorously empty of pressing commitments. “I can do lunch?”

Sixty minutes. Nicely time-boxed. An easy excuse to leave if he needs it.

“Sure. I'm in the area. Kharos Park in an hour?”

Eugene is a dead man.

They get wraps from a street cart and find a bench tucked into one of the groves that dot the park. It's one of the weirder parts of working in the centre of Chryse, having spaces this green within walking distance. Status symbols flaunted by the people who never use them, left for everyone else to enjoy.

Yamagi, with his threadbare clothes and combat boots, looks out of place in a sea of business suits. Eugene's never really thought about the contrast before since they usually don't meet in places this up-market. Doesn't seem to bother him much. Or maybe it's just that Eugene is so uncomfortable, anyone else would appear entirely calm by comparison.

“So,” Yamagi says, swallowing a bite of his lunch, “Shino told me what happened.”

“I swear I wasn't trying to put him in danger. He volunteered and I didn't think it'd be a big deal.”

“Mobile armour is kind of a big deal.”

Eugene flinches, looking around to double-check there's no one close enough to overhear. “Yes, I know,” he hisses, “but I wasn't expecting to have to fight a goddamn pluma. I should have been more careful. It won't happen again.”

Yamagi sighs. “It's not fair to just decide Shino shouldn't do something because we don't think it's safe. That's about the worst thing we could do to him.”

Which is a very good point Eugene feels terrible for not considering. “You're right. But…”

“I know. I think we just have to be honest with him and listen to what he wants.” He takes another mouthful. “Though, actually, that's not the bit I wanted to talk to you about.”

Of course it isn't. “Yamagi, look, I –”

“No… mm, no, let me go first. Shino's afraid he's made things weird between you two.”

Eugene bites his tongue against the natural impulse to agree.

“More than that, he's worried what you told him means that he's let me down somehow.”

“I didn't mean that! I know he was trying to help me out or something. It's fine.”

Yamagi gives him a look. He is very good at giving looks, since he doesn't usually meet other people's eyes and it's therefore really noticeable when he does. “Eugene.”

“Yeah?”

“You realise I meant every word I said to Shino before I left for the Saisei, right?”

“Sure, but you guys are total lovebirds. I can't see why you'd want to risk that.”

“Oh, jeez.” Yamagi puts a hand over his forehead. “I always forget what a romantic you are.”

“No I'm not. What's that got to do with anything?”

“The first time I had sex with Shino was right after I said I hated him. I don't think we fit any definition of 'lovebirds'.”

The only response Eugene can manage is choking on his wrap.

“I love him. I don't think I ever stopped. But that doesn't mean I can be everything he needs all the time. I've tried doing that for other people.” Yamagi's voice goes soft. “It never ended well.”

How many times did Eugene watch Yamagi light up because he'd found someone to be with, only for things to fall apart after a couple of months? He never really pressed for the details. Just like Yamagi never pressed him about his love-life. They both offered to listen to the other's woes and they both found excuses not to share their own.

“Yamagi, you and Shino, it's obvious how much you care about each other. You can't start doubting that just because of the way some other bastard treated you.”

“I don't. That's what I'm trying to say. Because I think it's the bit you don't get.”

“What more is there to get? Seriously, I don't – I don't see why you'd say something like that if –”

“You don't see why because you're the kind of person who thinks every part of a relationship has to be perfect and each person has to be everything to the other.”

“But… that's…”

“I don't care if Shino has sex with someone else if that's what he needs to keep himself together, because watching him fall apart is so much worse. You weren't there. You didn't see what he was like when he was around that…” Yamagi trails off, fist balled up. “I know he's still Shino about everything but you need to remember, he's not a teenager screwing around because he's suddenly got the money to get girls. He's someone who spent years without any control over his life, who needs to remind himself every day that he's free. Looking for intimacy when he needs to is part of that. And if you ever make him doubt I've got his back on that again, you're going to regret it.”

Kudelia made an off-hand comment once about what a sweet guy Yamagi is. Eugene had to spend longer than he'd have liked explaining the difference between 'sweet' and 'quiet'.

“Understood,” he says, visions of spanners and pointy tools dancing in his head. Yamagi holds his eye for a couple of seconds then nods slowly.

Eugene takes a few more bites of his wrap, which does not taste as good as it did a few minutes ago. “Uh, for future reference, what should I have said?”

“What, to turn him down? Just say no and move on. Did you ever see him press something when the other person wasn't into it?”

“Right.” Obviously. Shino always whined about girls who wouldn't look his way but he was never an asshole about it. “If it happens again, I'll do that.”

“It's kind of funny you didn't do it this time.”

He freezes. “Well, I…”

“At least from what Shino told me. He said you just got mad on my behalf and stormed out.”

If he starts running now, Eugene can make it to the panic room in Union Hall inside ten minutes. There're supplies meant to keep dozens of people alive for months. He should be able to last years.

Yamagi smiles a small, knowing smile. The kind that should be classified as an offensive weapon. “It's OK not to know the answer.”

“I got taken off-guard. That's all.”

“Right. But also for future reference, if you both wanted it, I wouldn't have a problem with you letting off steam together.”

Is he trying to make Eugene blush himself to death? Is that it?

“Sex doesn't have to be about commitment,” Yamagi goes on, because he is actually a sadist, “and if it'll help you relax –”

“Nothing about this situation is helping me relax! Seriously, I'm sorry I upset you. Can we please stop talking about this?”

“All right. Oh, wait. Would it make it better if I was there too?”

“If you were –” Gah! No, Eugene is not thinking about that. He is not remembering the way the two of them grabbed on to him in the Ice Flower's landing bay, the feeling of being pressed between –

“Then you wouldn't have to worry about going behind my back. Though that might be hot.”

“Now you're just trying to weird me out!”

Yamagi's smile widens a fraction. “Is it working? I promised Shino I'd traumatise you enough, hanging around him wouldn't seem so bad.

“Yes, it's working. Well done, you absolute –” Eugene crams the rest of his lunch into his mouth.

“Yes, no or don't know, it's fine. That's the point. You don't have to protect my honour and you don't have to save Shino from himself. But aside from that, you should do what you want. Please?”

“I'm the deputy-boss, remember? I don't get to do what I want.”

“Eugene…”

He stands up, brushing crumbs off his jacket. His tie feels way too tight but he can't bring himself to loosen it. “I'll… think about it.” What fucking choice will he have, after this? “Anything else you wanted to say?”

There's uncertainty on Yamagi's face, maybe even concern. But all he says is, “No. Except it'd be great if you could remind Chad he's still got my big cooking pot. He was going to bring it back, then you and Shino had your road-trip. I can come pick it up from the office if that'd be easier.”

“Sure. I'll prod him.” Eugene digs a toe at the grass. “Tell Shino I'm not mad at him, will you?”

“Of course.”

It feels like there should be more to say. Only there isn't, so Eugene walks slowly back to the office, trying to notice what he's feeling and concluding that it's too contradictory to be worth the effort.

He returns Yamagi's cooking pot on Chad's behalf and gets invited to stay for dinner. It's a surprisingly un-weird evening, even if that damn apartment is still way too freaking small.

Yamagi looks incredibly content, curled on Shino's lap.

Shino looks so very content to have him there.

Eugene keeps thinking.

The museum opening, weeks later, goes smoothly. Security is not too much of a headache and the guest-list is free of overt jerkasses. Eugene and his team get to fade into the background, keeping watch without anyone hassling them or starting a scene.

Plus, Kudelia leaves early because from here, the trip to Atra's place will be shorter than normal and she's found enough space in her schedule for a long weekend with her wife. It should, by rights, be Eugene's job to drive her up there. His responsibility at least. But he also needs to stay on to supervise the remaining couple of hours of the party, so he delegates chauffeur duty to Ivan and goes to lurk in the corner of the grand atrium, watching academics mingle over drinks and finger food.

He's just taken the last of the scheduled check-ins from the security team and finished his sixteenth reread of the posters extolling the benefits the museum will bring to the local community when he notices someone staring at him.

She's a few metres away, standing apart from the main throng of conversation. At first he doesn't recognise her. It's dumb but cleaning off the grime and changing her clothes makes her look like a completely different person. So it only hits him when she's already come over, smile-laughing at his expression.

“Well well, who'd have thought?” Sri's dimples deepen. “You look really good in a suit.”

“Uh… you too.” She does. It's dark blue and flatters her way more than the coat and camouflage.

“Thanks. But I'm only wearing this so I'll fit in with the proper, respectable human beings. You actually look comfortable.”

He can't work out how to take that. She takes advantage of his confusion to move in beside him.

“Have to say, Bernstein's bodyguard wasn't on my list of guesses for your day-job.”

“Yeah?” He raises an eyebrow. “What was?”

“Oh, private security, gang-runner, maybe corporate militia? Something less interesting than guarding the planet's figurehead. Then again, perhaps I should have seen this coming. You seem like you've got an idealistic streak in there.”

“Kinda think you're assuming that because we talked over my relationship problems.”

“Hey, I know plenty of gang-runners who'll open up if you catch them right. Everyone likes being listened to. No, it's more how you sounded. When you were talking about the other guy.”

Eugene frowns.

Sri spreads her hands. “Or not. Never mind. Nice to see the real you, either way.”

“You think this –” He gestures down at himself, at the suit and tie. “– is the real me?”

“Isn't it?”

“Uh.” Yes? No? Who the hell knows? Time for a change of topic. “You here to steal something?”

She glances at him, considering. “Would you stop me if I were, big man?”

“Eh. I'm here to look after the people, not the exhibits.”

“Now that's the kind of attitude I like in a security guard.”

“Seriously, how the hell did you get in?”

“My name's on the guest list.”

“No it fucking isn't.”

“The name on my invitation is on the guest list. And before you panic, that name belongs to a perfectly respectable doctor of archaeology who happens to have my exact biometric data.”

Someone is still getting an earful for not doing the background checks thoroughly enough. “So you pretend to be someone respectable and – what? Get into parties?”

“Parties full of important professors. It's tedious but I need the connections.”

Makes sense, and it's not as if Eugene's in any position to criticise someone for living under an assumed name. He lifts a hand to the ID badge pinned to his front pocket. 'Eugene Vought'. It almost feels natural these days.

“Back at the clinic,” Sri says after a minute, “you kind of ran off before we could talk,”

Eugene shifts from one foot to the other. “What was there to talk about?”

“You could at least have given me a chance to say thanks. Or sorry. Or both.”

“It's definitely both. And it's fine. I was just doing what Doc Chaifin asked.”

“I know my par thinks I can't go five minutes without getting into trouble but I'm pretty sure ey didn't send you down there expecting quite that much excitement.”

“Ey sent us to make sure you were safe. That's what we did.”

“Yes. Thank you. And sorry about all the trouble.”

“It's fine,” he repeats. He'd feel differently if it had ended worse, but it didn't, so they might as well try to move on with their lives. “You didn't mean for things to go that way.”

“Hmm.” Sri looks down at her shoes. Then snaps her fingers. “Oh, there's something I should show you.” Fishing out a pocket-pad, she angles the screen towards him and flicks up an image. “I got into the 'armour's visual records. Seems this is what put them all in the ground.”

The picture is a little blurred, clearly a frame pulled from a video sequence. It shows a single white mobile suit, mid-dash, blue flames shooting from its jets. There's a spear in its hand and it's looking towards the camera, eyes glowing red beneath a forked golden crest.

“Barbatos,” Eugene whispers, not quite believing what he's seeing.

“I thought you'd recognise it.”

He presses his lips together, cursing himself for not having the self-control to keep his mouth shut.

“Don't worry,” Sri says gently, “I already worked it out. You pretty much told me you were there when the mobile armour attacked Chryse and we all know who took that one down.”

Yeah, he did, didn't he? Fuck. “Look, it's –”

“Absolutely none of my business? I completely agree. Get back to me in a hundred years and maybe I'll give a damn on a professional level. Until then?” She shrugs.

Well, that's reassuring. And on reflection, Eugene can almost certainly get her in more trouble by knowing what she's been up to than she can get him into by knowing he was once part of Tekkadan.

“Look at it.” She's staring at the image of Gundam Barbatos. “This is what we were meant to be. Not rats but…”

“Kings?” he suggests.

“Kings don't fight their own wars.”

“Some of them do.”

“There's that idealism again.” Flicking the picture away, she closes down the pad. “Monsters. I think that's the word I want. The monsters who saved the human race.”

The party is starting to break up, a steady trickle of people making their goodbyes and going to collect their coats. Eugene scans the crowd without really taking in the details. “Isn't that mythologising? I thought you hated people doing that.”

“I'm still human. We all do it, one way or the other.” She slips the pad back into her jacket and props a hand on her hip, turning towards him slightly. “So. D'you want to go get a drink when you're done here?”

His tongue glues itself to the top of his mouth. “You, er, want to?”

“Well it isn't like I came here for a relaxing afternoon. Actually having a good time would be nice after all the schmoosing. What'd you say?”

He should say no. OK, technically once the party's over, his job is finished and with Kudelia on her way to Sakura Farm, there's nothing else for him to do today. But he's got some leads about Ride that need following up, some plans for future events he wants to get a head-start on, there are a couple of the guys he needs to check in with –

All things that would keep, if he let them.

Then what about literally everything that happened at the dig? Because even if that wasn't Sri's intention, it was sure as hell her fault. Is she really someone he wants to be involved with any more than strictly necessary?

Sri's actions are not nearly the turn-off they should be.

Seriously though: Eugene is the deputy-boss of Tekkadan, once and forever, and that does not leave room for much else. He's tried to balance it with relationships before. Oh, has he tried. There's just too much to do. Too many people to watch out for.

None of which stops him wishing he could get it right.

And how many times, exactly, is he going to have people tell him to do things that make him happy only to ignore them because he's trying to be everything Orga was, even though he knows half of those things were only what he wanted Orga to be?

Shino's right. Again. Eugene's hopeless.

But you know what? He's also the guy who charged straight through Earth's space defences, flying two ships at the same time, and he looked damn cool doing it.

Eugene lets a slow grin spread across his face and straightens his tie. “Yeah,” he tells Sri, “why not? I could use a good time too.”