Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
JETT
Jett stood in a seemingly endless hallway with bright white walls covered in informational signs in a language that he couldn’t quite understand. He stared for a long time at one jumbled set, willing them to take a form and meaning, but it eluded him.
The ship was silent; there was no buzz or hum of activity. No subtle vibrations tickled the sensitive nerves of his bare feet. The ship was motionless in the Void.
He turned first one way and then the other, seeing no difference. He chose his left and walked.
The sounds of his passing were muffled by some strange thickness to the air, a resistance that shouldn’t be there, yet was. He didn’t feel it on his body as he walked, only in his soul. The metallic chill of the floor was the only tangible sensation.
That, fear coiling in his gut, and a horrible recognition. He had been here before, but he couldn’t remember why or when.
He walked.
The corridor continued, unchanging. There were no branching paths, no doorways. Just a gradual tarnishing of the walls, the informational signs replaced by neon graffiti whose paint dripped down the walls like blood.
He stopped, his feet suddenly stuck to the floor. He watched as the paint continued to drip, slowly. A deep, dark mass that had grown along the edges and now crept toward him.
Jett considered the substance as it reached his feet; sticky, cold, viscous. He know that it would pull away in long, wet tendrils to slap back to the floor.
He moved, pulling his feet through the substance, centimeter by centimeter, until he could move no more. The ship was still silent, still hung in the vast black, unmoving, seemingly dead.
Jett knew that he was not alone, that everything was not right. He felt eyes on him, felt the presence of a figure somewhere nearby. Something sinister. A waiting menace.
Jett shook, fell as whatever force held him in place relinquished its grasp.
Catching himself on the wall, he stumbled, the walls oozing that something that covered the floor in seeping, endless black.
The liquid climbed his legs, following the outline of his scars, the rivers of his veins, creeping ever higher.
clank
The floor shuddered beneath Jett’s feet. The liquid sloshing, covering the Void-black topographic map of his calves. Ripples undulated away from him as he came to a stop, his grotesque wake lapping at the walls.
crack
The ship shuddered again.
Fear crashed into Jett as the ship unberthed and began its slow journey through the vast black.
A door opened in the wall to his left, a purple-blue glow reflected off black liquid that now covered his knees. The light flashed softly, casting eerie shadows, beckoning him, a siren Song of visible light.
Black lapped at his waist, ice coated his stomach, chilled him to his core; it crept into his veins, turning his blood to slush as it reached his chest.
The purple-blue grew brighter, hotter, burning in the white and black. A shadow moved within with slow, purposeful movements.
click
A buzz filled the air. The viscous black surface danced, sending ripples outward. Pain lanced through his left eye. Black slid up his lips, slipped between their embrace. Coated his tongue.
Copper. Iron. Smoke. Death.
It was blood.
Jett’s blood.
A quiet giggle echoed from within the room. The shadow moved. Purple-blue flashed off shining silver.
Jett saw her.
The woman and her knife
Jett pulled himself conscious, sweat-stained, shaking—and knew he would get no more sleep.
Three days had passed since he and Eddie had kissed once more.
Three days since something bound them together closer than love alone could forge.
Jett felt the bond even now; he felt where Eddie was in the ship, what Eddie was feeling, so far from Jett in his temporary quarters in the City. The distance made him ache.
There had been no time to explore the bond.
No time for them to have a difficult conversation many years too late.
It had never felt like the right time before, but Jett was certain that there would never be a right time to talk about trauma.
Never a right time to talk about scars and torture and nightmares.
So time had passed where they saw each other often, but spoke only in a professional capacity.
Each night was lonely, filled with terror and memories locked within Jett’s flesh.
And throughout it all that…Song echoed in his mind.
That shattering of stars, those whispers of the universe thrumming through his soul.
It sang to him as Jett dressed in the tight-fitting black suit over which would seal his long-disused armor.
Jett wasn’t looking forward to today, to the overwhelming number of things that could go wrong. Anticipation lay curled in his guts as his fingers brushed over too-sensitive scars, reminding him of the second-worst thing that could go wrong.
No, he wasn’t looking forward to what he must do today. But he did feel useful. Important in a way he hadn’t been in a very long time. This was what Jett did. It was who he was at his core.
For more than twenty years Jett had lived and breathed Emergency Response, surviving shit that most people couldn’t contemplate.
Then the CDF sent him to the wrong place at the wrong time.
And, when they found his ragged remains, Jett was ripped from his home and tossed out with the proverbial trash.
Looking in the mirror, Jett saw age upon his features and grimaced.
Sallow skin in place of healthy tawny spoke to depression, dark circles to his lack of sleep and repeated nightmares.
But worst of all was the utter dejection he saw upon himself: slumped shoulders, dull eyes, long hair pinned back from his scarred, expressionless face.
His youthful beauty had given way to experience, to wisdom, to the comfort that came from having a home and loved one and having those ripped away.
The future was uncertain, unknowable, so Jett tried to focus on the day, on one foot before the other, on safety and the warmth in his chest that was Eddie.
Jett just hoped that the future would extend beyond today.
Shuttle Shibuya waited in the Security hangar. It was a sleek silver shuttle that could accommodate nearly a thousand people, if necessary. Security Officers and support crew milled about, loading the last of the supplies they might need for the day or days ahead.
Jett’s weapons and armor were loaded the day before under close observation.
Without these irreplaceable relics of his past, Jett would have to direct his squads from the safety of the Command Deck with Eddie, or risk wearing ill-fitting armor.
He didn’t like either option. He let Eddie handle the orders from on high and he would do the grunt work.
Within Shibuya’s walls medical bays were prepped for minor injuries, drones charged and calibrated, soldiers rested in lounges and barracks rooms. It was so like his past that Jett could almost believe his old teammates would be waiting to share a game of cards before they arrived.
But his squad was dead now, lost to the darkness of the Void that had tried to consume him.
Jett pushed those thoughts back where they belonged, behind the iron bars of his will, as he navigated spacious hallways toward the Command Deck. Jett hadn’t been on a shuttle of this model before, but he knew the way by instinct and the pull in his chest that was Eddie.
Eddie stood upon the Commander’s platform, surrounded by console tabs scrolling data. He stood too straight, too stiff.
“All hands are aboard, Captain,” the navigator called from the front of the room. Their hands flew across the screen, tapping and flicking between maps and lists. “Doors are sealed and we await your word to leave.”
Silence fell and Jett watched as Eddie fidgeted, his nails pressing into his palms. He cleared his throat.
“By your leave, Martin.”
Despite the anxieties, Eddie oozed command. His voice was measured, his words succinct. Jett knew he’d practiced what and how to say the necessary words, give the right commands, in the hours left to him after planning and preparation were complete.
Beneath their feet, Shibuya hummed to life as it lifted off the hangar floor.
Jett’s stomach dropped as it launched out of the open bay and sped up, faster than a ship the size of the Neo-Tokyo could ever dream of going.
It was a split second of vertigo and nausea, only comparable to traveling through the Astral Gates to Tau Ceti or Alpha Centauri.
As the shuttle settled smoothly into flight, Jett grew restless. There was nothing for him to do, and Eddie was occupied. He was supposed to rest until they were given the all-clear to suit up and board the ship, but there was too much going on in his head to do that.
Turning on his heel, Jett left the command deck.
He found a mostly empty room with stray boxes piled against one wall, and paced.
His mind raced through the past, showing him scenes from his childhood, training, and his eventual arrival on the Neo-Tokyo.
So much had happened in those thirty years, so many good and bad things, but the weight of lives and responsibilities had never fully lifted from his chest.
He worried at those now, at the lives lost to him and the ones that were now in danger. Almost all of his closest friends were on the Shibuya, ready to put their lives on the line in the hopes of saving others.
He weighed the pros and cons of dragging Eddie aside to tell him about his past now, while he still had a chance to do so.
He wanted to apologize, to beg Eddie for forgiveness for every little thing he’d done, every argument started because of his reticence.
But most of all, he wanted to tell Eddie how he still felt.
And he wanted to hear what Eddie had to say in return.
For years they had something—many somethings—just between them.
When they fought over something stupid, the instigator would go to the other and ask him, “Still?” And no matter what happened, the other responded, “Always.” With that out of the way, they could talk again, work through the problem.
Jett wanted that here, now, to know for certain, to hear Eddie say that he still loved Jett.
He couldn’t bear it if something happened and those words were left unspoken.