After a hot meal in the mess hall, the group moved to one of the sleeping quarters which had been assigned to them. Red took the top right bunk, while Mia and Gideon lay down opposite one another on the lower bunks furthest from the door. Having nibbled on a little lettuce and some bugs the chef was able to find in the back of the kitchen, Bullseye went with Maddox to assist her in building two new EV suits for the group.
Within two minutes of lying down, Red was already asleep, the rhythmic sound of snoring filling the sleeping chambers as Gideon stared up at the bunk above him. He knew already that there was no way he was going to be able to sleep with everything that was going on and the wet rumble coming from Red confirmed that fact.
“This is weird, huh?” Mia said.
“Yeah, super weird. No chance I’m gonna sleep.”
“Yeah, me neither. Hey, do you mind if I ask what you did before this? It’s okay if you don’t wanna answer.”
Gideon smiled. It was something of a no no to mention someone’s previous life while on Artemis. It wasn’t strictly forbidden or anything, but the Ministry dissuaded hunters from discussing anything from their former life because they wanted to keep the viewing as entertaining as possible and, in their minds, that meant maintaining the game’s facade.
“Burger boy,” Gideon said. “I was a minimum wage burger flipper working my ass off in a dive called The Burger Bin.”
“Wow, really?” Mia turned toward him. “That’s incredible.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I dunno, I just never figured you for a burger boy that’s all.”
He turned to face her, frowning. “Why not?”
“Because…you’re you. Always so confident and ready to rush into danger. I can’t picture you standing behind a grill all day. Maybe owning a burger joint, or a few of them, but not flipping burgers yourself.”
He nodded, unsure as to whether he should take that as a complement or an insult.
“I never really had an option. Some shit happened back when I was younger, and it meant I had to get out of my home town and… Well, I ended up at The Burger Bin and basically bet everything I had on the chance of winning the lottery.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes.”
Gideon smiled. “How about you then? My guess is ex-military gamer girl!”
She laughed at that.
“Not even close. I guess you’re right about the gamer girl part, but I’ve never been in the military. I mean, we both are now, I guess, but not in my old life.”
“What was it then? Teacher? High finance?”
She shook her head, the smile slipping from her lips.
“Hospitals. One after the other, then back home when they realized there was nothing more they could do. The lottery was my way out.”
“Shit.”
“I have a rare genetic condition. Basically, my immune system hates my body and will attack it any chance it gets. The Hunt was a chance to leave all of that behind, the chance for a second life. I knew that once Artemis was over I’d have a few years, maybe months, before it was over.”
“Shit!”
Gideon felt the sting of her words like a knife to the gut. It put his own crappy circumstances back in the burger joint into perspective. He’d hated his old life and considered himself one of the unluckiest bastards on the planet, but at least he’d been healthy, or not sick.
“I’m sorry,” he offered, unsure of exactly the right words to say. “That sucks.”
She shrugged, smiling.
“It is what it is. I came to terms with it a long time ago. I was never gonna have a normal life. I wasn’t going to be able to settle down and have kids, work a normal job, and do any of the normal shit people do. Life was hard but I’d likely only get to my early forties anyway.”
Mia turned onto her back, staring up at the bunk bed above her.
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy life where I could. My parents were great. Super supportive and they did everything they could to make my life better. My dad paid for the lottery ticket. I also had friends, online of course, but they were great. I had to stay in the house or hospital pretty much all the time, but we made the best of it.”
Gideon resisted the temptation to say shit again.
“So, winning the lottery must have been life changing for you?”
She turned to him again. “It was for both of us, by the sounds of it.”
“Yeah, I just mean, because of your situation…”
“It was amazing. I was so happy when I found out I’d won that I almost fell out of the bed. We had a quick impromptu party and then my parents drove me to the closest Ministry center. It was sad, of course, felt like we were saying goodbye for good…”
Gideon waited for her to continue, but it sounded like she was giggling. No, not giggling, sobbing.
He moved out of his bunk and over to her side of the room, sitting down beside her bed, unsure of exactly how to comfort her. As he drew close, she turned to him, pulling him into a tight embrace and sobbing against his shoulder.
They stayed like that for some time, Gideon holding her awkwardly, Mia weeping. He wasn’t sure what to say, or what to do and part of him was ashamed of the fact that he felt thrilled at being so close to her. The feel of her body against his was intoxicating and even though they didn’t really know each other at all, he felt a strange kind of connection with her.
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They were both displaced souls thrust into bodies that weren’t their own and driven into war by blind circumstance. That connected them in a powerful way and Gideon couldn’t deny the attraction they had to one another.
Gideon had left his family behind years ago, out of necessity but also because he had never really fit in. The fact that they might be terrified right now because of the impending invasion hadn’t even occurred to him, but Mia was clearly far more aware of what her parents were going through.
“I need to find them,” she muttered. “I need to make sure they’re alright.”
He nodded. “We’ll figure out a way to find them. Once we get back to earth.”
“How? We’re soldiers now. We have to go wherever the Ministry sends us and they’re not gonna let us find our parents.”
Gideon pushed her back gently. She brushed the tears from her eyes, staring down at his chest. He shook his head.
“Then we force them to help. Fact is, they need us. The other hunters haven’t left Artemis yet or they’ve been shot down by the enemy. That means we’re it. We’re the only echoes in operation over here and the Ministry needs us.”
He motioned to the door.
“You’ve seen what we did here. This base would have already been destroyed by now if we hadn’t shown up.”
She looked at him, nodding as he went on.
“Now they need us to take down this Ashen Harrow bozo. So, we agree to do it if they guarantee that they find your family and take them somewhere safe.”
“You think that would work?”
“Of course it would,” he said with a smile. “It costs them very little and we’re putting our lives on the line here. Plus, like I said, they need us. So, before we head out, we talk with Moynahan and tell her that she needs to send word to the Ministry back home and get your people somewhere safe. Also, they need to arrange coms so you can talk to your folks.”
She smiled, reaching out to caress the side of his face, eyes still watery.
“Okay, that sounds good.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Gideon felt the overwhelming urge to lean in and kiss her, but this wasn’t the time and it sure as hell wasn’t the place. In less than six hours they were going to be fighting an enemy he had no idea how to defeat, an enemy that would likely kill them all.
Mia leaned in and pecked him tenderly on the cheek. She smiled and leaned back on the bed.
“We should try to get some sleep, or at least rest,” she suggested.
“Yeah, good idea,” he agreed, moving back to his side of the room and slipping into the lower bunk.
“Thanks, Gideon,” Mia said. “I’m sorry about that… I just got overwhelmed, that’s all.”
Red snorted, shifting positions as his snoring was momentarily interrupted. A second later the rumbling continued, drawing laughter from Gideon and Mia.
“He really is a moron,” Mia said.
“Yeah, but he’s probably a thousand times happier than we are. Dude’s sleeping like a baby.”
“A very noisy baby.”
They lay in silence for a time until Gideon turned to see that Mia had drifted off to sleep. He crept out of the bunk and headed out of the room unsure of what he planned to do but knowing that sleep definitely wasn’t going to happen.
He needed to hit something, to go for a run or spar with someone for a few hours. There was too much pent-up energy inside, and he couldn’t stop his mind from returning to the Harrow Lord standing outside the lunar base, waiting for the countdown to end.
Gideon: Hey, you there?
Bullseye: Of course, where else would I be?
Gideon: Do we know any more about this Ashen Harrow guy?
Bullseye: Not yet. It has barely been an hour since you retired to the sleeping quarters.
Gideon: Yeah, well there’s no way I’m gonna be able to sleep, so I figure I should do something useful with my time. Do they have a firing range down here somewhere, or a gym or something?
Bullseye: Perhaps there is a more beneficial way for you to spend your time, Gideon. Come to the Chief Technician’s workshop.
A few minutes later Gideon walked into the workshop and saw Maddox leaning over some kind of small mechanical device wearing a pair of magnifying glasses that expanded her eyeballs to comical proportions. Bullseye was standing on a nearby stool watching with interest as the Chief Technician gently pressed two small metal objects against the interior of the device.
“Ah, Gideon,” Bullseye said. “Come and take a look at what our ingenious Chief Technician has built. It is truly remarkable.”
Gideon walked over, leaning down to get a better look at the object. Maddox took off her glasses and wiped her wrist across her forehead.
“Ready to be a guinea pig one more time, champ?”
The small device she’d been working on was about half the size of Gideon’s hand, diamond shaped and with various symbols etched into its surface in silver. There were strips of meat and goop sitting in a small metal bowl next to the object with something that looked like an eye cut in half in the middle of the dish.
“What the hell is that thing?” Gideon asked. “And why does it look like you’ve been doing surgery in here?”
“In a way, I have,” Maddox said. “We’ve dissected a bunch of Stalkers and discovered something in their biology, an organ with non-organic components that allows them to adapt to hostile environments.”
She picked up a strip of meet with a pair of tweezers.
“See, it turns out these boys breathe air, just like we do. They’ve got an inbuilt mechanism that adjusts their biology to the environment. I don’t pretend to understand how the damned thing works, but that doesn’t mean I can’t rig it up so that it will work for you.”
Gideon nodded. “So, you’re trying to give us something that will help us survive longer outside?”
“I’ve bound the Gravity Tether and this regulator together and fixed it to an augment sigil shell.”
She tapped the top of the metallic diamond.
“In layman’s terms, I’ve done some super complicated shit, integrated alien biology and technology with the Artemis System and come up with an augment sigil which should allow you and your fellow echoes to walk around outside this base without having to worry about gravity or the fact that there’s no breathable air.”
She smiled. “I’ve performed a miracle and now you get to test the damned thing so I can confirm it works and then get started on building two more of them.”
Gideon looked down at the small device.
“Okay, so you just need me to use this, then pop outside and check that it works?”
Maddox shook her head. “I need a proper test, under combat conditions. No point taking a leisurely stroll outside when you’re gonna be going head-to-head with Lord Sauron in a couple of hours.”
She opened up the display above her watch and tapped at the screen with her index finger.
“Commander Moynahan has been good enough to supply us with a suitable real world test scenario. Apparently there are a couple of Stalkers causing us some issues out to the north. They’re sniping our people when we try to get close and Moynahan wants them taken out.”
NEW MISSION: Clear the Nest
A group of Stalker soldiers is holding out in a nearby rock formation. Eradicate all enemy Stalkers and return to base.
ENEMIES KILLED: 0/3
REWARD: 5 Enhancement Points
“Okay,” Gideon said, eager to get started. “Let’s do it.”
Maddox lifted up the augment sigil and handed it to Gideon.
“I’d suggest sticking it on your chest. It would work on your arm or shoulder, but if you get one of your limbs cut off, it will stop functioning, so it’s probably best to stick it somewhere near your heart.”
Gideon blinked. She’d mentioned dismemberment so casually that it took him by surprise. The device itself was heavier than he’d anticipated, but when he lifted his shirt and pressed it against the center of his chest, it did as the other sigils had done, losing its physical cohesion and transforming into a tattoo.
There was a slight sting as the mark was burned into his flesh, but it lasted for only a moment. He turned to Bullseye and Maddox.
“What does it look like?”
“Some kind of bird,” Maddox replied.
“A hawk or eagle, by the looks of it,” Bullseye added. “Quite majestic in a simplistic way. The bird’s wings are outstretched as though it has just taken flight.”
Gideon nodded, eager to be out of the station and testing out the new sigil.
“You coming with me?” he asked Bullseye.
“Only in the sense that I will be communicating with you from here. There is a great deal of complicated calculation which is required to create these devices, and we cannot afford to wait for the results of this little test. So, I will need to stay here and assist the Chief Technician with the work.”
“But you’re still gonna be able to talk to me the whole time.”
“Indeed I am. Unlike you and your kind, Gideon, I am capable of undertaking several tasks simultaneously without either task being negatively impacted.”
Gideon smiled, nodding.
“Okay then, let’s do this.”