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The radiator ticked, the open vents pushing out dry, sizzling air against his calves. A gust of wind hit the orange tarp, shaking the lamp that hung from the center bar of the square little room with a creak and the shadows swayed all around him. Footsteps crushed the icy surface of the ground outside. “I traced it back about a hundred meters…” the voice penetrated the tarp, fading down the length of the tent and tension sparked at the base of Amuro’s neck. He reached up and stopped the bottom of the swaying lamp against the palm of his hand. Pushing out a sigh he rose on the tips of his toes, grabbed the electrical wire and pulled. “...But I couldn’t see any damage.” Amuro’s lips tensed over his teeth. The gangly metal skeleton of the room squealed with the tug of his hand as he twisted the cord into a loop and thread it onto the lamp, tightening it around the hook it hung from. With a wobble he lowered himself, his head turning as the mutter of voices migrated out of earshot on the other side of the tarp.
He sat down on the bed, the tent walls quivering with the sound of a rustle and footsteps on the rocky bare ground. Amuro’s head sank on his shoulders, a cold spark across his pounding forehead. “Amuro?” On the other side, Char called out to him plainly. Next to the camping bed, a pair of gloves were tossed aside on an empty crate. Atop his pillow, his thumbed copy of a ‘68 atlas laid upside down, the edge of the postcard stuck between the pages water-damaged and frayed. Amuro slid the tip of his thumb against his front teeth and flipped the book open.
“...What?” He replied abrasively. Amuro set the book in his lap, the marked coastline on the page blue and beige. He flipped the card over and the collage of neon signs and Hong Kong landmarks turned into the bleeding ink of Beltorchika’s curved handwriting, every letter rounded and soft, every serif properly marked. We’ll go back soon for a real vacation; the message was punctuated with a heart.
The tarp rustled. “Amuro, I’m coming in.”
“Sure.”
The tarp parted and Char’s boot came down on the broadly spaced wooden planks with a creak. “The heater in my compartment is broken,” he said simply and Amuro pinched the card between his fingers, bending Beltorchika’s letters.
“Do you want me to fix it?” He turned the page. The receding ice caps were marked with fading lines in pink, the years listed in a column at the bottom.
“I asked two of the mechanics to look at it already,” Char admitted. “There’s an issue with the power supply. I traced the cord back about a hundred meters, but we couldn’t find the issue.”
Amuro closed the book with a thump. “What do you suggest then?”
“Troubleshooting would take a couple of hours at the very least.”
“That’s a very generous assessment.”
Standing with the tarp against the back of his coat and his hands stuffed in his pockets, Char averted his face, a thin smile on his lips. “It is not my area of expertise.”
“Why,” Amuro furrowed his brow, the edge of his lip twitching, “would the cable even break?”
“The firefight from the afternoon could’ve reached across from the valley,” Char theorized lightly, “or there’s frost damage.”
Amuro set the book down on the crate, shaking his head as he stood. “Our equipment should be capable of dealing with much harsher environments than this.”
“I’d ask to stay with Kamille,” Char lowered his voice, “but he requested I don’t speak to him.”
“...I see,” Amuro said, wrinkling his nose.
“Bring it in sideways. Don’t let all the heat out.” Freezing air swept across the floor and the skin on Amuro’s palms burned gripping the light bed frame. He backed towards the wall and the flap closed against Char’s back as they twisted the camping bed upright and lowered it onto the floor with a clatter. Amuro squeezed his calves in between the bed frames and pushed his bed towards the wall, widening the gap.
“Don’t push it all the way,” Char said, his voice hitting the back of his head as he dumped his sleeping bag onto his bed. “The cold from the tarp will transfer to the bed.”
“R-Right,” Amuro pulled it back towards himself with a groan.
“That should do it,” Char pushed past him, the front of his body rushing against Amuro’s side.
“Watch out for the–” with a metallic clack the shadows swayed in the room. Amuro turned around and Char rubbed the side of his head as he exited back out to the middle corridor.
“Excuse me,” he said distantly, his voice fading through the double layers of the wall.
Amuro sank down atop his sleeping bag, his knees hitting the edge of Char’s bed. Distant voices chattered inside the compartment next door and he pinched his forehead with a sigh.
A cold breeze hit Amuro’s side. “Do you want some coffee? The last pot is still warm.”
“I’m good.”
The flap fell shut and Char’s legs brushed past his knees above the edge of the book in his lap. Char sat down with a creak and brought the white coffee mug to his lips.
“How’s Kamille doing?” The tension at the back of Amuro’s neck persisted.
“I had one of the nurses have a look at him,” Char admitted, his shoulders sinking as he had another sip of his coffee. “He’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,” Amuro hesitated, cradling his book closer to his body. The rubble had covered the streets, the bustle gone and the light snuffed out, leaving the city dead and soulless like a corpse. He pushed the tip of his fingernail in between his teeth and exhaled through his nose, the heat rushing down his lips onto his hand. “I told him,” Amuro muttered, “to stay away from her.”
Char angled his face towards him, the glare in his sunglasses shifting across the lenses. “I see.”
“You probably heard but he met her back in Hong Kong. I don’t know if it was just by chance,” the bubbly postcard laid upturned between the pages, the image of the port a far cry from the reality they’d left behind, “or if she was snooping around. I just know–” he turned the page in the book. “He asked me about it. And I warned him. But I guess it didn’t matter.”
“There’s no antidote,” Char’s tired little smile melted away as soon as it came onto his lips, “to youthful delusions.”
Amuro shrugged. “You’d know.”
“I am aware of your resentment towards me,” Char’s quiet voice just about reached across the narrow gap and Amuro’s stomach turned, “so truthfully, I’m thankful. That you’d set it aside for the sake of the common goals of AEUG and Karaba… and for Kamille’s sake, too.”
Amuro gritted his teeth and averted his face. “Kamille shows a lot of promise.”
“That he does.”
“He’s grown even more since I last met him. This is a setback for him. But he’ll overcome it.”
“It’s reassuring to hear that from you, Amuro.”
“It’s not hard to see. He’s a strong boy.”
“He’s a lot like you.”
“He’s a lot stronger than me,” Amuro asserted himself sullenly. Char lowered his coffee mug, his mouth a thin line.
“Amuro, have you,” Char paused, his flat voice diminishing. The tarp walls trembled and voices rose with rowdy laughter layered over a droning chatter.
“Look, look, I’m just saying, on earth, it’s different, see…”
“I don’t recall asking your opinion–” music came on from a sputtering radio, whining guitars breaking through the static along with a woman’s husky vocals. “Don’t judge me, all I said was, I prefer someone with a bit more–” the rising laughter drowned out the words and there was a clatter of glass and the scraping of metal against soil.
Amuro furrowed his brow and Char smiled. “Sounds like the mechanics are back,” he set his coffee cup down, his head zooming up to the ceiling as he stood. “Excuse me for a moment,” he dodged the lamp as he brushed past Amuro’s legs, his hand pushing the tarp open and in the gap a garden table stood propped up with duct-taped legs, atop it an unlabeled bottle of wine and an ashtray, the snowy, wet boots of the men gathered at it tucked in underneath. Char passed outside and the tarp fell shut. “Gentlemen, may I–”
“Could you keep it down, please?” Kamille’s brash voice cut through the air. “It’s rather late!”
“Huh, what’s the problem?”
“We’ve got an hour until curfew!”
“Kamille,” with suppressed urgency Char’s collected voice migrated from the wall. “I’ll have a word with them. Go rest.”
“Don’t touch me,” Kamille defiantly muttered and cackling laughter rose under the sound of the music. Amuro’s head sank on his shoulders, a sigh building in his chest.
The hairs on his neck stood on end as his eardrums were pierced by a blaring siren from beyond the valley. He shot to his feet and as the sound faded into a layering echo there was only a mutter on the other side of the tarp and a click as the music went silent. Amuro stumbled past the corner of Char’s bed. The radio module that hung from the beams, hovering on the opposite inner wall, blinked and crackled with a faint, scratchy noise. The tarp trembled as the siren tore through the air again and Amuro grumbled as he lifted the round little earpiece, the echo coming out through the speaker from the other end as the sound faded into the distance. “Yes?”
With a full swing of his arm, Char whipped the flap open, his lips stiff. There was a faint crackle inside the earpiece and the plastic was cold against his face as Amuro strained his ears to hear the muffled voice on the other end. “We have an unidentified aircraft north west of central camp. Over.”
“Do we have to prepare to sortie? Over.” Amuro leaned against the steel beam as Char drew close and picked up the other earpiece.
“No word on that. We've got a blackout order. Remain on standby. Uh, over.”
“Affirmative. We’ll have two out of three pilots on standby,” Char leaned towards the console, speaking into the microphone. “Over.”
“That’ll do. Await further orders. Over and out.” Amuro hung the spiral-corded earpiece back on the console with a click.
Char curtly turned away and stepped back out through the open gap. “We’ve got blackout orders. Off with the lights and remain on standby,” his stern voice faded alongside his steps down the row of compartments inside the tent house and a mutter of complaints followed before they were silenced by the next blare of the siren. Amuro kneaded his ear, pushing out a sigh as he exited through the open flap and flicked the light switch that hung from the ceiling, the row of bare lightbulbs going dark down the length of the inner corridor, leaving a faint hue of orange light glowing through the tarp inside the compartment at the end of the corridor just as Char stuck his head inside. “Did you hear me?” His distant voice was plain and uncombative. “Lights out.”
The wine bottle stood left behind on the table next to a single untouched glass. Amuro grabbed it by the neck—it was light inside his grip. The final light went out down the corridor and Amuro stepped back inside the compartment and set the bottle and glass down on the crate next to Char’s coffee mug.
“Kamille,” Char’s articulated voice rang out right outside. “Me and Amuro will be on standby. Rest as you need.” There was no answer.
Char closed the tarp behind him as he came back into the room and Amuro stood and reached for the light switch on the hanging lamp. The cold button resisted under his thumb, then, with a click, the world fell into total darkness. Amuro blinked as he sat back down on the bed with a creak. “I have a flashlight in my bag,” he said as Char’s slow steps crept across the floor. Char’s leg brushed his knee. There was a thump above them and Char suppressed a grumble inside his throat as the lamp swayed on the hook with a whistling creak in the dark. “It’s in the left corner by the outer wall.”
“I see,” Char said, the frustration melting out of him.
He shuffled backwards with a rustle, bumped his foot against the bed with a clatter and brushed against the tarp with a whistle. There was a spark behind Amuro’s eyes. “Straight ahead, about three–”
The siren tore through the air, hurting his eardrums, smothering his voice into nothing. He gritted his teeth. Amuro set his eyes on where the radio console should be. Three paces, the back of his neck prickled with sweat. The siren died down, his ears ringing, and three steps creaked over the wooden planks. His bag, slumped against the metal bar. A sway of his mind submerged his thoughts with a shiver down his spine. Amuro pinched the spot between his eyebrows, his heart tightening in his chest. Right outer pocket, the siren rang out again, the sound resonating through his body and a ripple cascaded down his face. Cold vinyl fabric against his palm, the cold from the gap under the tarp sweeping up against his chin. The velcro strap opened and the handle of the flashlight was ice cold. The siren’s blasting signal faded into a distant echo. The button clicked into place. Light came on in the corner, shielded by Char’s silhouette and Amuro’s thoughts snapped back into his head, a tense breath rushing into his lungs.
The echo of the siren faded into the distance across the valley and Amuro counted the seconds. “I found it,” Char announced plainly, turning in place like a ghoul, the light hitting his chin. Amuro grimaced, his fingernails digging into his skin.
Char sat down on the bed and set the flashlight down on the crate upside down, the beam flowing in through the gaps, creating a ball of light inside the box. He slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, his eyes distant and dewy, the rising light hollowing out his undereye as he blinked repeatedly. He opened the collar on his jacket and he slid his glasses into his chest pocket.
“It’s quite warm in here already,” Amuro commented flatly.
“Yes,” Char said, his voice rising lightly. “Because there’s two of us,” he met Amuro’s gaze and Amuro frowned as he lowered his head. “You’re free to sleep if you’d like,” he added. “I’ll wake you up if needed.”
“I’m good,” Amuro muttered. “It’s best we both stay awake anyway.”
“A fair assessment. By the way,” Char reached for his empty coffee mug, “if you’ve changed your mind about the coffee, I could still get you some.”
“What, in the dark?” Amuro blurted out.
Char smiled. “I thought it might help now that we’ll need to stay alert. Wine tends to put you to sleep.”
“I wasn’t planning on having much,” Amuro said defensively.
“I suppose I might indulge too, then.”
The bottle shone against the darkness and the neck was cold inside Amuro’s gripping fingers. He lowered the glass until the beam of the flashlight colored it orange, the glare stinging his eyes. He poured until he couldn’t see the foggy bottom through the wine and then some more. The first sip was sour on his tongue. He pushed back a cough.
“Is it bad?” Char took the bottle from his hand and poured a splash into his mug.
Amuro swallowed, the vinegary aftertaste burning the back of his mouth. “It’s… pretty bad, yeah.”
Char let out a single chuckle. “I’m sure I’ve had worse. And I’m sure,” he paused, the edges of his lips twitching, “your time on earth spoiled you.”
“If you’re going to insult me there are better ways to do that,” Amuro said firmly, his heart tightening with a thump.
“That was not my intention.”
Amuro gripped his glass tighter. He had another sip, the stinging flavor grounding him. “We can work together. We can be civil. But we don’t have to pretend to like each other.”
The wind bulged the outer tarp and with a quiver through the structure the light trembled inside the crate. Char’s tired eyes glimmered, the shadows deepening the lines on his face where the thin, bright red trail of blood had rushed down either side of the bridge of his nose, his flat, dry lips wrinkled with tension like how his voice had rung out with hollow conviction, only answered by its own dull echo as Amuro’s own breathing had deafened him inside the space suit.
Char lowered his head and rested his gaze in the corner of his eye. “You seem to want me,” his persisting, worn-out little smile returned, “to hate you.” Amuro’s field of vision blurred, his eyes squinting in the dark as the blood in his veins ran cold.
Amuro parted his lips with an inaudible stutter. He inhaled. “It’s perfectly normal for me,” he muttered, “to not want you to be so casual with me.”
“That’s true.” Char said dully as he brought the mug to his lips.
Amuro had another gulp of wine. “I sure envy you. You’re completely untethered,” Amuro mumbled, his voice bitter as the cold alcohol cooled his throat, the aftertaste burning.
“Me?” Char let out a laugh, his tired eyes coming alight with a spark. “Untethered?”
“That’s what it looks like from where I’m standing.”
“You’re looking at an illusion,” Char said and Amuro stared into the round redness of the bottom of the glass, his throat tightening. “You’re free to resent me as you please, but I'm afraid I won’t be able to fulfill your wish regardless,” Char’s light voice wavered with a faint crease and the crate rattled with a howl of the wind sweeping past the tarp outside. “Please… don’t hold it against me, Amuro.”
“I will say, this camp is much more comfortable than the one we first landed at.”
A nervous tremor passed through his tired body at the sound of Char’s voice, the light licking the corner of his dry eye. “Yeah.”
“What was that book you were reading before?”
“Arctic sea map.”
“Oh, really?”
The sleeping bag had gotten warm under his body and the tension at the back of head pounded with the beat of his heart. “Yeah. It’s from ‘68 though.”
“‘68?” Char’s voice bubbled with amusement. “So, it’s completely useless, then.”
“Yeah,” Amuro concurred flatly.
“Where’d you find that?”
“There’s a bookcase in one of the common rooms aboard the Audhumla,” Amuro closed his heavy eyelids, the light turning the hue of his own red blood. “There weren’t that many options to choose from.”
“I see, that makes sense,” Char’s hollow tone hid a childlike curiosity and Amuro’s forehead tingled. “Do you mind if I have a look at it?”
“Go ahead.”
There was a rustle and a clatter and Amuro furrowed his brow and drew his knees up atop the sleepingbag, his back dotting with itchy sweat under his jacket.
“Let me know if you want to sleep.”
“I don’t plan on sleeping,” Amuro reiterated with a spark of annoyance. “I’m just laying down.”
“I see.”
There was a fizzle and a crack. Amuro blinked, turning his head on the pillow. The light on the console on the wall came on like a red dot in the darkness as a single low tone rang out. Amuro threw his legs over the side of the bed, shooting to his feet, his field of vision engulfed by darkness, his mind sparking with a stutter but it was too late and his full body crashed into a soft, sturdy mass. His calves hit the edge of the bed, the feet scraping across the wood as he stumbled, the grip on his arm reeling him back in with a sway. “My bad,” Char’s breath hit his forehead. The low signal rang out again and Amuro swallowed as Char let go off his arm.
“You take it,” he muttered and sat back down, Char’s jacket rushing against his body.
There was a clack. The dark lamp swayed with a creak and the light hit Amuro’s face, his brow furrowing as Char passed him, his legs brushing his knees, his form a constellation of harsh shapes and shadows as he rubbed the side of his head with a quiet grumble. With the book in hand Char lifted the earpiece with a click. He cleared his throat. “...This is north east base, Lt. Quattro speaking. Over.”
There was a crackle from the speaker. Amuro strained his ears. “Threat has been eliminated. Return to standard procedure. Over.”
“Affirmative. Over and out.”
Char lowered his hand from his ear and the console clicked. “Must’ve been the gunfire we heard before.”
“Yeah.”
“I wonder. I suppose I'll read the report tomorrow,” Char turned around, his harshly lit face hovering above as he passed back in between the beds. He sat down with a creak, holding the book with both hands in his lap. “We better rest now. I hope Kamille was able to get some sleep.”
Amuro lowered his head. “He’s still awake.”
“Oh, you can tell?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, Amuro,” Char’s voice rose gently, “it would do him good to spend more time with you.”
“Why? He has you, doesn’t he? That’s more than I ever had,” Amuro muttered. “Besides, he clearly doesn’t listen to me, anyhow.”
“Kamille acts stubborn. But I can tell he admires you,” Char’s smile was a fragile crack across the dry skin on his face. “Amuro, if,” the edge of his lips quivered, “if you were to say the word, we could always find a way for you to accompany us back into orbit.”
Amuro squinted at him and above Char’s mild eyes the gash of his scar deepened in the harsh contrast of the shadow. “...You want me to go for Kamille’s sake?”
“Like I said, he would benefit greatly from it.”
Amuro set his chin in his hand and pushed the edge of his thumbnail against his front teeth. He twisted his body in his seat, his breath still on his lips. He swallowed.
“Just think about it,” Char’s light voice swept across the gap like a breeze and goosebumps rose across Amuro’s back.
“I already said no,” Amuro’s forehead tingled with a chill down his spine. He drew a slow breath into his lungs, the rustling tarp enclosing his thoughts, a weight settling atop his cranium.
“Oh, of course,” Char’s quiet, complacent voice was amplified through a warped echo in the back of his mind and unease draped his body, sickness in his gut. Amuro pressed the cool backside of his fingers against his forehead, the threads unraveling and stitching back into place like an endless, impenetrable brocade, the prickling nerves spreading across the surface of his body under the layers of thick, heavy clothing. “It simply,” the light, fleeting joy popped like a bubble and the threads pressed against his skin, chafing against every inch of his body and hazily in the back of his mind surfaced a grainy image, a shadow sweeping across the wall, a towering giant, a dissonant panic, a tingle at the top of his spine and through Char’s eyes Amuro recognized his own face, “crossed my mind, that’s all.”
Amuro hid his eyes behind the shadow of his fingers and Char shifted breathlessly before him, his knee brushing his thigh. Liar, the single word sat painfully unsaid inside Amuro’s tight, dry throat, the roots of his teeth aching within his clamped jaw.