Chapter Text
Eurydice is a Junker.
The title describes exactly what her job entails. She goes around the entire godforsaken galaxy in her faulty, stolen ship that’s just big enough for two people to live in, blowing up fairly large asteroids and seizing from the ruins whatever salvageable material there is left.
There’s nothing for her anywhere, really, except for the hunks of rock floating through in the Asteroid Belt. It’s not like she’s got folks to speak of or a shiny, million-dollar reputation to uphold, either, so Eurydice wanders through life at her own pace, a lost soul struggling to keep up with the rest of the universe as it rapidly rolls outwards.
It’s not the best way to live, but it’s easier, she supposes. Easier than getting tangled in intergalactic warfare, than signing up for a death mission with the SEA, or having her every move controlled and thought out by scheming, apathetic higher-ups who have no regard for the thousands of people that they have control over whatsoever.
Higher-ups , she thinks bitterly, as she walks past a training building plastered with recruitment posters for the Space Exploration Agency. It’s all a load of bull, what the SEA does; there’s nothing out there for humanity to explore or, for lack of a better word, conquer , anymore.
In fact, space is what’s killing what’s left of humanity, if anything, but a fool with rose-coloured glasses on will always see everything through a tinted lens. It’s none of Eurydice’s business though, frankly speaking, so she just steers clear of the SEA and its bullshit and lives life on her own path, charting her course through the heavens.
She stalks through the streets like a panther prowling its terrain, a force to be reckoned with in her beat-up leather jacket and pilot goggles (which are mostly for show) precariously perched atop her head of choppy hair. Well, at least Eurydice hopes that she’s a force to be reckoned with. Seeing a familiar sign come into view, she picks up her pace until she’s almost directly under the flickering neon letters.
Her visits to Hermes’ are supposed to be for supplies. However, she finds herself drawn back time and time again for that lovely sign he’s got hanging outside his door, an old one that he’d found at the very bottom of the basement- or so Hermes says. It’s a nice touch, she thinks, a hint of fluorescent-tinged nostalgia amidst a veritable jungle of modernity.
(Occasionally, Eurydice finds herself longing for a time when everything hadn’t been as fast or frighteningly stiff, but it's a longing built upon an instilled fear of what comes next, she thinks. It’s not like she actually knows what it’s like to live in a world where you’ve still got to type on a keyboard to get a letter to appear on a screen.)
“Look who’s finally back,” Hermes says lazily, as Eurydice pushes open the door and steps into the store. He stretches like a cat in the sun before adding, “How long were you out there this time, sister? Two months?”
“Three,” Eurydice corrects curtly, moving over to one of the shopping bots and fiddling around with the dusty screen to see what she needs. She loves Hermes’ store, but it’s not like she loves its owner. He’s too chatty for her taste; too up in everybody’s business.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Hermes says, and Eurydice’s tuning him out already, like Hermes is just another channel on the radio that is her brain. “I can’t bear being up there for more than-”
“A week, I know,” Eurydice cuts in, as she puts ten boxes of instant noodles into her virtual cart, “and that’s because you’ve got cabin fever or whatever. Is that even an actual thing? Or did you just make it up?”
“Don’t invalidate my cabin fever,” Hermes says, insulted. “I’ll have you know that it’s very much a real thing. I start sweating buckets when I’m cooped up indoors for too long. I’ve gotta move, sister; it’s just my way of living.”
“You’re constantly moving when you’re on a spaceship,” Eurydice contradicts, and she’s not even sure why she’s engaging with Hermes so much today; usually, she just replies to Hermes’ spiels with grunts for the older man to interpret however he likes.
“Ah, but you’re not moving your legs,” Hermes says, and Eurydice is now definitely sure that Hermes has finally lost his marbles.
“Whatever you say,” Eurydice shrugs flippantly. “Wait,” she suddenly says. Her brows furrowing at the screen in front of her, she asks, “Did you run out of canned peaches?”
“We didn’t run out, so to speak,” Hermes says, leaning on the counter and watching as Eurydice glares at the screen in frustration. “We never got another shipment after you bought us out of peaches the last time you dropped by.” In what Eurydice presumes can only be a helpful tone, Hermes adds, “You can always get the pineapples.”
“I’m allergic,” Eurydice bites back, but she’s not thinking about her peaches, damn it. We never got another shipment after you bought them all out the last time you dropped by. Eurydice knows about the produce supply issue, sure, but she had no idea that it'd gotten this bad while she was away. She tends to avoid contact with Earth when she’s up in space, alone in the darkness. So, she asks, “Uh, has KoreCorp been doing anything?”
Hermes just stares at her. Shaking his head slightly, he says, “You haven’t read the news, huh?”
“What news?” Eurydice says, and she feels her stomach churn slightly.
“The SEA bought KoreCorp,” Hermes says mournfully, “and they’re working on manufacturing artificial fruits that can last longer up there. All produce manufacture has been put on halt until further notice.”
“Oh,” Eurydice says quietly. She should’ve known; the SEA’s everywhere, now. It was only a matter of time, anyway, until they got KoreCorp too. What’s next? she thinks; are they gonna come for Hermes’ little store, too? Recruit every single human left on this planet to die among the stars?
“So no peaches,” Hermes shrugs, pulling Eurydice out of her reverie. “Sorry, sister.”
“It ain’t the peaches that I’m worried about,” she scowls.
“No,” Hermes agrees. “It ain’t the peaches.”
“Look,” Eurydice says, moving on to the checkout section of the page. “I hope I’m not asking for too much, but can you get my order down at the docks by,” she glances at the clock, “midday today? I’ve got to go unload my loot with Hephaestus, so-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hermes says, waving her away. “I’ll be there.”
“Great,” she says, finalising her payment on the stupid shopping bot; gods above, she hates that thing. “I guess I’ll see you later, then?” With that, Eurydice’s making her way to the door, but-
“Wait!”
Eurydice turns rapidly on her heel, an eyebrow raised inquisitively in Hermes’ direction. “Yeah?” she asks impatiently, sounding like an anxious toddler on the verge of a tantrum. “Make it quick. I don’t have all day.”
“You do,” Hermes mutters under his breath. “You’re just desperate to get up there again.”
She snorts and fiddles with the zipper on her jacket, made obvious by the loud zip-crack as it hits the stopper at the bottom. Scuffing the side of her shoe against the floor, she says, “Well?”
“Just- have you thought of joining the Awakening?”
Eurydice freezes. “What?”
“The Awakening,” Hermes repeats, scratching the side of his head. “I thought you were involved, y’know, those first couple of times you came into my store, with how outspoken you were. Are , I mean.”
“Sure,” Eurydice says. She thinks of the attacks on the SEA, of their bright red symbol, of the countless news reports, of the necklace tucked in the bottom of a drawer somewhere, and shudders ever-so-slightly. “Yeah, I don’t think so, Hermes.”
And she leaves the store without another word, resolutely pulling her jacket zipper up and rubbing her nose with a rubbery sleeve. She all but runs down to the docks where her ship, lousy as it is, is parked next to a giant freight that looks big enough to crush Eurydice’s bones within seconds, should it decide to run her over.
She doesn’t like thinking about the Awakening; never has, never will. Turning a corner, she starts to walk in the direction of Hephaestus’ junkyard, located only a few miles or so from the docks; it’s nice, she thinks, that her visits to Earth are always the shortest possible. Eurydice’s not the biggest fan of staying on a planet so artificial and fake that it’s borderline suffocating.
Deep breaths , she thinks to herself. Just get your ass over to the junkyard, report what you’ve got, wait for some stupid drone to roll over to the storage compartment on your ship to lug away the rocks that you’ve managed to collect, and wait for the credits to enter your account. You’ll be free afterwards; free to fly again.
Joining the long, long line of junkers queuing outside of the gates, she snorts a little, kicking at a stray bit of metal that must’ve blown over the impossibly tall, wire-topped fence. I sure hope so , she thinks, as the guy behind her yells for her to move along. I can’t wait to get out of this shithole.
***
By the time she finishes at the junkyard, it’s already half an hour past noon. She’s satisfied, though, with what her latest scavenging trip has brought in; just a little over six thousand credits. Eurydice’s happy as a pig in mud as she all but bounces back to the docks.
Hermes is waiting there, of course, leaning against a pile of boxes stacked dangerously high on a primitive-looking cart, but he doesn’t bring up their last conversation. She’s grateful for that, she supposes, mumbling a quick and quiet “Thanks” before starting to push her supplies up towards the old, rusty entry hatch to the Songbird .
“Hey,” Hermes calls, as he leaves. “Keep thinkin’ ‘bout what I said earlier, alright?”
“Mmm,” she hums back, noncommittal as always. Pounding gently against the biometric scanner screwed on to the side of the ship, she says, “Sure.” Once she’s managed to get the stupid thing to work, Eurydice turns back to look for Hermes, but the man has already disappeared.
Shrugging, she yanks the cart through the entrance, pushing it through and stepping back out again to check on the fuel levels, leaving the sliding sheet of thick metal ajar so that she won’t have to go through the pain of warring with her scanner again. Eurydice sighs; fuel alone is going to cut her at least two thousand credits short; it costs a lot to keep a spaceship up and running, let alone for three months.
(Well, she’s hoping that she’ll be able to last three months again, anyway. It’d gotten a little boring up there last time. Just a little.)
Once she’s sure that the Songbird , minuscule as it is, is gonna be able to make at least seventy trips to the Belt and back, she unplugs the fueling gun and- you guessed it- pays two thousand and seventy credits. She can’t even imagine what it must be like to keep a ship five times as large as this one up and running.
“Daylight robbery,” she mutters under her breath as she slams the fuel hatch shut and stalks back to the entrance, clearly miffed. Stepping onto the ship and using a bit of strength to close the, well, door, she sighs when she spots the supplies she’d bought earlier sitting in the entryway.
“Might as well get packing, huh?” Eurydice huffs, and starts hauling box after box of instant ramen down to the tiny excuse of a basement that can only be accessed via a very, very rickety flight of stairs. There’s a flash of movement that appears in the corner of her eye, but she brushes it off as a figment of her imagination.
(The Songbird’s ancient, she swears; it’s probably been around for at least a decade, but you never know these things for sure, with spaceships. Sometimes, they age like fine wine; sometimes, they age like milk, curdling in the back of the fridge until someone decides to throw it out.
That someone had tragically been Eurydice. She had the luck- or the misfortune- of picking up the rust bucket from an elderly man for a thousand credits. She’s spent at least quadruple of that on repairs alone.)
All but kicking the last box down the stairs, Eurydice turns on the gravity regulator in the basement and eagerly moves to the cockpit, pulling her goggles over her eyes as she sinks into the well-worn pilot’s chair. There’s something special, she thinks, about taking off into the sky, knowing that the only thing separating you from the void of space is a thick sheet of glass.
Adrenaline pumping through her veins, Eurydice prepares for take-off, her grin wider than it’s been all day. She knows that when she's up there, she’ll be as free as her ship’s namesake, unburdened and unrestrained.