Chapter Text
The hangar is always loud, after being out in space. Absolute silence replaced by shouting, constant hisses of depressurization, the occasional shriek of scraping metal from a botched docking job. I wait until the all clear signal switches on, until the airlocks are closed.
I open the cockpit hatch and fasten my helmet to the back of my suit. When I push off, I can tell I’ve whiffed it. It wasn’t a proper dismount - my foot slipped, and now I’m drifting much too slowly. It’s an amateur mistake. The float of shame across a packed hangar.
Oh, well. Nothing I can do, now. My eyes go ahead of me, looking to the place I’ll end up. No scaffolding, no handholds, but I can probably rebound off of it in a better direction. It won’t be the most graceful contact, but I should manage it without hurting myself. Other than my pride, anyway. I just have to wait until I stop drifting. It’s a long way.
There’s a blur in my peripheral vision. Before I can do anything, someone grabs the bottom of my foot, twisting it. My direction changes - I’ve been reoriented. I’m pushed in that direction.
I crane my head down, staring at the shrinking figure between my feet. It’s Char. He turns toward the open cockpit of the Sazabi behind him, and I realize what he must have done - pushed off the railing, met me in midair, and used my redirection to aim toward his own suit. He’s lined it up so exactly, he barely needs to catch himself on the sides of the cockpit.
I thud into the railing behind me, throwing out a hand to catch it. In front of me, the monoeye of the Sazabi lights up bright green. In absence of Char’s face, I glare at that, instead.
I landed just below the handrail. Someone grabs me and pulls me up the rest of the way.
“He’s still not piloting at the same time as you are, huh?” She follows my gaze up to the Sazabi’s head, and sneers. “Still afraid his dog is going to turn around and bite him?”
Rezin Schynder.
I remember her name now.
****
When you can’t look to the future, and you can hardly bear the present, you end up looking back. It must be why old people reminisce so much.
I’m going to write down everything I remember from Axis. Starting with the beginning, in order. As much as I can. If I get stuck somewhere, I'll see if there's someone I can ask. Quess was there for most of it. Bright might be able to fill in some gaps. I’ll ask whoever is still alive.
It's easier than looking to the future. And maybe, looking back, I'll find…something.
When the three of us finished that lighthouse puzzle yesterday, we found out there were pieces missing. Two holes in the sky. But that wasn’t something we could tell, when it was still in the box. It had to be assembled first.
When I think about Axis, picking up the whole experience and rattling the box in my hands, it always feels like there’s something missing. Maybe there aren’t enough pieces in this box to tell the whole story. To find out which pieces are gone, though…there’s no other way. I have to put everything together.
So, then. Let’s see what I can remember first.
****
“What is your name?”
I don’t know. Not at this point, and not for a while.
“What is your date of birth?”
A hopeless question. I don’t understand what she’s asking me.
“Do you know where you are?”
“Away.” That’s the only word for it. I’m away from something that I should be near.
“Do you know who I am?”
I’ll remember you later. But not now.
“Do you know who the enemy is?”
This will become the most important question.
“Unable to pass basic cognitive screening…”
I’ll be hearing that a lot.
****
I don't remember Char taking me from the clinic. I asked Fa, and she told me that she'd seen him speaking to the nurses there before, multiple times. I'm sure he was his usual charming self, and the staff got used to seeing him coming and going from my room. It wouldn't be difficult to ask for a spare wheelchair and take me outside. For a walk. Just a nice, normal walk. And by the time Fa arrived and saw the bouquet of red flowers waiting for her, it would be far too late.
Did he take me to the Cyber Newtype lab on Sweetwater? I got this metal plate in my head from somewhere, after all. Where was I staying, before I was moved to the ship? I don’t know. Recalling anything from that time is difficult. There's no one left to corroborate anything.
What do I remember? There’s always scattering to it, like the opening shot of a pool game. A breaking sound, too many different directions, memories disappearing into pockets before I can keep track of them.
I don’t remember Fa. I wish I did, but I'm sure I didn't. I felt like there was something important missing, but I could never place it. I could barely place the feeling as a person. Just a hole ripped in my psyche, a useless, tattered sail flapping in the wind.
I can remember wandering around the ship. Trying to get away from places that were too loud. Places that were too bright. A lot of places hurt my head. I spent a lot of time staring into any window to outer space that I passed by, locked in place until someone interrupted me. Quess’s earlier assessment of me as ‘one of those wind-up toys’ wasn’t too far off, I think - I wouldn’t move anywhere unless someone pushed or pulled me first. There are definitely memories of being grabbed.
I can remember voices, though I don’t always know what they’re saying. Hushed voices when I pass someone by, occasionally someone laughing. There are only bits and pieces.
“What the hell?”
…Rezin, dragging me off the visor of her Geara Doga. I have no idea what I was doing up there, or how I even got up there in the first place. Her grip on my arm isn't gentle.
“You're still in the hangar? Is no one looking for you?”
She pulls me down onto the walkway. We pass by a few other pilots who make comments, and I think I hear a whistle. She snaps back at them. This is the type of person that yells.
“He’s going to get himself crushed under a Geara Doga’s foot,” She says, trying to hand me off to someone that could be the chief engineer. “Why is he even allowed to be in the hangar?”
He clears his throat and doesn’t take his eyes off his datapad. “You didn't hear this from me, but I heard the Captain thinks he might be pulled toward battle.”
“...In this condition?”
He shrugs. She scoffs.
“Here. I can take him back to the Director.”
Something inside me flinches at this new voice.
“By all means. He’s supposed to be your replacement, isn’t he?” Rezin leaves with a sneer. The new grip on my arm tightens and pulls me along.
Dark hair, dark eyes. I don’t like the sight of his face. It takes me a minute to recall why.
As soon as we’re out of sight of the hangar, he twists my arm up behind my back. And it hurts, it hurts, it fucking hurts…
“I wouldn’t mind it,” he hisses, “Go ahead and wander in the hangar, then. I hope you do get crushed under a Geara Doga’s foot…”
This did happen a lot, didn't it? Gyunei didn’t like me from the beginning. I don’t know if there was a good reason for it. Most bullies just pick easy targets.
Next…he releases me abruptly, and I follow his line of sight to someone up the hallway. I hear the click of approaching heels.
“I can take it from here. Thank you, Gyunei.”
I can see disbelief on his face for the briefest moment, before he snaps a quick salute and leaves. He knows better than to question his luck at getting away with something.
The smile drops from her red lips. Any warmth she has for Gyunei, fake as it may be, isn’t worth expending on me.
Nanai Miguel. I don’t remember every test she put me through. Maybe that’s for the best.
She leads me away. I want to go back to the hangar.
****
Did I see Char on the ship? Did he try to talk to me? That must have happened. Fa said he spoke to me when he visited me at the clinic, that he seemed to be trying to get me to remember things. So surely, he must have talked to me on the ship, too. But he’s even more phantom-like than usual in this particular timespan, and every image of him fades as soon as I try to focus on it.
I have…that memory of going into his room, grabbing his hand in his sleep, and giving him nightmares. There must be more. But I can’t…I can’t recall anything else.
Am I forgetting something important?
…No, there's nothing else. Not until Quess.
It's the first memory that has any life to it.
****
“Ah, actually, I wanted to talk to Hathaway. Is he there?”
“He’s studying right now. I can see if he has a minute.”
I can hear shuffling on the other end of the line, so I wait, ignoring the burden of something unspoken. I’ve been seeing Amuro Ray. No, I can’t say that.
I haven’t spoken to Mirai in a while. After we both reiterated that yes, the Noa family really should come visit us at the beach sometime, I explained my current record-keeping project to her. She told me it was a good idea. I’m glad someone thinks so.
“Hello?”
I really haven't talked to Hathaway one-on-one very much. “Uh, yeah, hello. Did your mom already tell you what I…”
“She said you wanted to ask me about Londelion. When Quess and I first met you.”
“Right. Quess already told me her account. I was wondering if you could tell me what you remember.”
“Why do you need to know?”
He sounds suspicious. I'm a little surprised by this. “It's just for my own records. My memory’s foggy. But if you don't want to, you don't have to.”
Silence. I guess he's had to be debriefed around soldiers before. The hostility makes sense.
“...Okay. You want the account of when we met you in the woods?”
“Yeah, you can start there.”
The tape recorder spins slowly in front of me. I change over to speakerphone. It takes him a moment to start speaking.
“It was Quess that noticed something first. We were outside, and she suddenly grabbed her head. She kept asking if I could hear ‘that clicking noise.’ I didn't know what she was talking about. She got frustrated with me. Then she turned and ran off into the woods. I followed her.”
Clicking…I don’t know what that is. I let him talk.
“She was ahead of me, and I heard her shouting at someone. I caught up, and…you were there. Just, standing there in the trees. You looked at me, and you…you smiled, and you said, ‘Hello again.’”
Like an echo to his words, I can hear the both of them.
“What? You know him, Hathaway?”
“I don’t…think so…”
“But he knows you! He said ‘hello again!’”
Hathaway hesitates a moment. “I didn't recognize you. You looked…different.”
I'll bet.
“The whole thing looked…strange. Out of place. You didn't look like you were supposed to be there. Quess went right over to you. She said you were the one making the clicking, with whatever you were holding. She wanted to see what it was. It wasn't very big - maybe about the size of a handheld game. It looked almost like a switchboard, with buttons and knobs on it. Quess thought maybe it was a bomb, but none of the buttons seemed to do anything.”
Click, click, click. I rub my forehead. It's coming back, all right.
“We heard the sound of something really big, like an engine. I grabbed Quess and we hid back behind some bushes. Someone else walked into the forest, and he didn’t look happy that he’d found you.”
Gyunei. Has to be.
“He was scowling, and he said something about having to keep fetching you, and he grabbed your arm to go with him. But you - you didn't move. You were still staring at the bushes where Quess and I were hiding. He told you to come on, and you didn't move, so he backhanded you.”
Yeah, that's Gyunei.
I can hear the stress in his voice for the next part. “Quess jumped up then, right beside me, and shouted at him. He pulled out a gun. It was…tense…” With Quess there, I have no doubt of that, “But eventually he pulled you away and left.”
Her voice is loud enough that it startles birds off nearby trees.
“Knock it off!”
“What…?”
“You didn’t even give him a chance to listen to you!”
“Back off! Kids shouldn’t play here!”
Hathaway continues. “After you left, I found the switchboard on the ground. He’d smacked you so hard that you dropped it. Quess and I both looked at it, but we couldn't figure out what it was. We showed it to Amuro later, but he said it was nothing, just junk.”
Amuro would know. In that case, it probably was just a piece of junk from a control panel. Maybe someone gave it to me, maybe I just found it while wandering the ship. There would have been something familiar to me about pressing buttons and switches. In that state, I can believe it would be something I’d hold onto.
Hathaway’s next account of Amuro chasing down Char matches everything Quess told me. I thought she might have been embellishing the truth when she mentioned karate-chopping the gun out of Amuro's hand, but no, Hathaway says the same thing. He continues the story up until the moment that Quess disappears with Char, lifted away in the hand of a mobile suit. He stops abruptly after that.
I glance over the notes I’ve been jotting down, looking back at my tape recorder. “Okay…I think that’s about everything I need. Do you mind if I call you again, if I think of anything else?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
There's a silence I can't really place. “Uh…did you want to talk to Quess?” I offer.
“No. It's fine.”
The call ends. I stop the tape and rub my forehead. Now that Hathway’s told me his account, I can feel a memory coming back, pulling me in whether I’m ready or not. A rush of air from a cockpit opening blows back my hair from my face, and I squint at the light streaming through.
Gyunei is leaning forward in his seat, craning his neck down - it’s a tricky angle, to get something as small as a person in the hand of a mobile suit. The cameras in the suit’s head don’t always point down correctly to see in front of the chest. I step forward and poke my head out of the open hatch. There’s a bright green field spread out below me. And two people, running…
“Watch it!”
He elbows me roughly backwards. I land hard, staring at the floor.
It's a 360 cockpit. I can still see everything below me, under my feet. I trace my fingers over the shrinking figure on the ground. Even from this distance, I can make out the shock on Amuro’s face, not daring to believe what he'd just glimpsed.
“We weren't sure about it,” Bright tells me, when I call him later. “Amuro didn't get a great look at you. We didn't know for certain until Fa tracked me down and told me what happened.”
Right, after Fa tried to shoot Char. But that's skipping ahead.
Let’s stay on track, for now.
****
I’m sure the null gravity in these memories doesn’t help the sense of disorientation. Half the time I can’t even remember the direction I’m facing. When we first entered the colony, I could feel the spinning sensation of it, and I kept trying to lean into the rotation. Once we left it, I felt directionless.
“There you are!”
Her face lights up at the sight of me. She navigates over to me clumsily, still getting used to the sensation of null gravity. She moves like she’s trying to swim in the air. “Here, I brought something for you!”
I take her offering with both hands. The shape of the switchboard is immediately familiar to my grip. I didn’t realize it was missing, and there is something…something reassuring about the physicality of having it back. It’s rare to feel the sensation of a smile on my face.
“I thought so,” Char’s voice. “You have a very kind heart.” He appears from a doorway beside us, and Quess claps both hands up to her face.
“Captain! I didn’t see you!”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “This is Kamille Bidan. He was a pilot with me in the Gryps conflict.”
“Kamille?” She repeats with a gasp. “Oh, what a beautiful name!”
She looks out of place, here. I can’t stop staring at how strange it looks, seeing a schoolgirl float in the hallway after seeing nothing but identical soldiers.
“Be mindful of him while you’re on the ship. Kamille can feel things very powerfully.”
“Can he?” She looks between us. “He called out to me, before.”
“...Did he?”
She’s smiling at me. I must look out of place here, too.
“Kamille was easy to find on the ship. It’s like he gives off a beacon.”
“And you don’t find anything…disquieting about that sensation?”
“Nope! Nothing like that.”
I can feel his grip tighten briefly on my shoulder before he lets go. “That’s interesting. I think you have a role to play in all of this, Quess Air.” He smiles at her. “What do you think about giving Gyunei’s mobile suit a test ride, later?”
“I’ve tried a simulator before! I can be the one piloting.”
“Full of surprises. In that case, I’ll find you once we have it ready. For now, I need you to run along, Quess.”
She giggles and pushes off the wall. “Yes, Captain!”
I watch her drift out of my sight. My thumbs find two switches on the lower quadrants. I push them in tandem. Click.
“...Quess.” I repeat it. Out of my peripheral, I can see Char’s head snap over.
Click. Quess. Click. Quess. Click. Quess…