Aetheral Space

"I really like grapes," said Serena, popping one of them into her mouth.

We're full, admonished Bruno, beating on the walls of consciousness in an attempt to put an end to this madness. Stop eating grapes.

Serena rolled her eyes even as she lay back in the hospital bed. "Full of gross hospital food, not grapes. Duh."

They'd only been staying at the Anna Sait Memorial Hospital for a week or so now, but Serena had already made it her mission to eat them out of house and home. Apparently, their surgery had been touch and go for a few hours, but the doctors had finally managed to get enough Panacea in the right parts of their body to identify and repair the internal damage.

Taking control for a moment and spitting out an offending grape, Bruno put a hand to his stomach. It was strange to think that his body was full of tissue that, not so long ago, had been fungus. He knew that Skipper didn't quite trust Panacea, but Bruno didn't see how anything else could compare to the seamless replacements it provided.

He reached over to the nightstand, slid his hand over a screen on its surface - and the blank window on the side of the room changed to display an image of a raging, but silent snowstorm.

It was only a projection, of course - this part of the hospital was too low down to actually have a good view - but it was a damn good projection. Not quite a hologram, but it still looked like you could reach a hand out and then have it snap off from frostbite - which actually wasn't that nice.

Still, it made him think of home. He felt a murmur of irritation from Serena, deep inside his skull.

"Don't like it?" he said quietly, eyes tracing a snowflake as it drifted out of sight.

You know I don't like it, grumbled Serena. I wanna go somewhere warm. It's always so cold wherever we go.

Bruno shrugged - or, at least, he tried to shrug and then winced as it aggravated the sore parts of his body. "Ask Skipper once we head out of here. He can take us somewhere damn hot, I bet."

He could almost picture her expression of wonder. You mean it?

Bruno smiled. "I mean it."

The door slid open, and one of the helmeted doctors strolled in. "Good morning," they said, in that autotuned voice of theirs. "Just your regular scan."

Bruno did his best to sit up, suppressing the shudder that tried to run through his body. Apparently, the voices were designed to make these guys more soothing, but it just gave him the creeps. Hell, he couldn't even tell if this was the same doctor from his last checkup.

"How have you been feeling?" the anonymous doctor said, scanning his body top to bottom with a script in their hands. "Is there any discomfort?"

Again, Bruno tried to shrug - and again, he regretted it. "No new discomfort," he said, nursing his shoulder. "Same aches and pains as yesterday."

"I see." The doctor completed their scan and smoothly tucked their script away in their pocket. "That's very good news. Had you developed any new pain, that could be a sign that the treatment wasn't taking. That would be very unfortunate."

"Don't have to tell me twice," muttered Bruno.

The doctor cocked their head slightly, clearly not having heard. "Pardon?"

"Nevermind," said Bruno, shaking his head.

The doctor was still for a moment, their body language inscrutable, before going back to check the equipment that was monitoring Bruno's status. "I'd recommend trying to maintain a positive attitude. You'd be surprised how much it can affect your health."

"Mm," Bruno grunted noncommittally. Was this an attempt at small talk? It wasn't very effective, if so.

"By the way," the doctor said, stepping away from the machinery. "You have a visitor. Shall I show them in?"

Bruno's mood brightened - just a shade. A visitor? Skipper and the crew had finally gotten off their asses and come to visit him, then? A smile came dangerously close to appearing on his lips, but he managed to smother it into a smirk. "Sure," he said, as casually as possible. "Let Skipper in."

The doctor chuckled lightly - which was modulated into some kind of awful croak by the helmet.

"Oh," they said. "That man isn't your visitor."

-

"You realize, of course," said Skipper, feet up on the desk. "That I'm losing my patience here, yeah?"

Dir's glare flicked over to the boots on his desk before returning to Skipper's face. Every day this week - hell, every couple of hours - this irritating man had barged into his office and demanded to know when he and his crew could go free.

He'd seen actual prisoners less insistent.

"I believe I told you," Dir said, hands clasped on the desk in front of him. "Our people need time to confirm Roz before we can consider your job done."

Skipper scoffed. "Confirm him? What does that even mean?"

"That's not your concern."

Skipper was absolutely right, though. The wording was ridiculously vague - and when Dir had requested clarification for himself, he'd been denied. Apparently, Roz knew something vitally important, and it had taken them at least a week to get it out of him - if they could get it out of him.

And in the meantime, he had to deal with this layabody running rampant in his office.

He sighed - Skipper didn't miss it.

"Oh, I'm sorry, buddy," he said mock-placatingly, raising his hands in a warding gesture. "I didn't realize I was boring you. It must be so damn dull to be forced to stay in this security complex all day, yeah?"

Dir ran a hand over his smooth head. What he wouldn't do for a drink right now - some foul-tasting swill to make him forget this mess - but he was on the job. He was always on the job these days, it seemed.

He waved his other hand. "I'll put in another word with my superiors," he said, already knowing he wouldn't get an answer. "Your release isn't exactly up to me, so - hey!"

As Dir had been speaking, Skipper had made his way around the desk and began looking through the drawers. Dir hadn't even seen him moving, but the man was already squatting on the ground like some kind of ratman, shuffling through Dir's personal effects.

"Heard it before, baldie," he said, tossing an old certificate over his shoulder. Dir felt a flare of annoyance. "Can't expect me to sit still for every encore."

"Look," Dir said, finally letting some of his boundless irritation creep into his tone. "What exactly do you want from me, man? You know I can't sign off on your release, I know that you know, so why do you keep tormenting me? Do you have nothing better to do?"

Skipper blinked, almost pouting for a second at the sudden admonishment. Then, he lifted up an old poster. "This you?" he said, interested.

Dir opened his mouth to complain again, but his voice trailed off when he saw what Skipper was holding up.

The poster was old, faded at the edges, but the bright red background was as striking as ever. A younger Dir's face stared forward from the past, eyes resolute, long hair flowing over his shoulders and out of sight. That damn stupid helmet sat on top of his head, two devil horns curling outwards from it. At the bottom of the sheet, huge white letters read:

DIR THE DAMNED - SIX SEQUENCE BOUT, TICKETS NOW AVAILABLE.

"Didn't take you for a brawler," mused Skipper, turning the poster to face him. "Six fights in a row, huh? That's kind of a big deal, right?"

Dir waved a vague hand, very consciously looking away from that damn poster. "It's just an old poster. Not relevant."

"In my experience," said Skipper, carefully putting the poster back on the desk. "There's nothing in the galaxy that isn't relevant to someone. You wouldn't keep it if it didn't mean anything to you."

With a groan, Dir snatched the poster off the desk and stuffed it back into the drawer. "It's nothing," he snapped. "Just old trash that I should have thrown away - to avoid pointless speculation like this."

Skipper scratched his cheek. "In my experience, there's nothing pointless either."

Dir raised an eyebrow. "You sure like quoting yourself, don't you?"

It was intended as an insult, not an actual question, but Skipper clearly took it as one. "Well," he said. "I've been giving out so much wisdom for years now, but nobody's been quoting me. Figured I'd get the trend started myself, yeah?"

"Wisdom," Dir scoffed. "Staggering around the galaxy like some drunken lout, you think that's wise? It accomplishes nothing."

"Well, it hasn't accomplished anything yet," Skipper acknowledged, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed. "Besides, it's not all about accomplishing things."

"Of course it is," said Dir. "There's nothing else."

"What about, uh, helping people out?" Skipper said, as if searching for the words. "Having a good time?"

"Those would be accomplishments."

"Oh!" Skipper snapped his metal fingers. "I guess I do have accomplishments, then!"

Dir sighed. "Helping individual people, occupying yourself with mindless carnage. These are petty achievements at best."

"You can do better?" said Skipper, cocking his head.

"S4 provides a valuable public service - the enforcement of law and order. Without us, there'd be chaos. Endless victimisation."

"And less profit, right?" Skipper chuckled. "Don't pretend you guys are doing this out of the goodness of your own hearts. You're guns for hire."

Dir glanced down at his hands, still clasped on his desk. Old scars on the knuckles ached, just slightly. "That's … unfortunate. But the fact of the matter is that this is how Taldan operates. If S4 didn't do this job, nobody else would."

"You see," Skipper said. He stepped away from the wall, snapping his fingers a few more times as if pumping himself up. "That's the problem - right there. This is the way it is. There's no reason things should be the way they are, so you don't even bother thinking of one. Things are the way they are because they … just are. Makes no sense."

"Ah. You didn't strike me as an anarchist."

"You must not have been paying much attention," said Skipper. "It's people all the way down, buddy. Things are the way they are because people let them be that way. You guys get a little too cocky, and they'll change their minds real quick. Might already be happening."

Dir frowned. "I don't much appreciate you framing me as the villain in your little scenario."

"Hey," Skipper shrugged. "I call 'em how I see 'em, buddy. Besides, it's like I said - it's people all the way down, and it's people all the way up. You're not high up enough to be a real villain, Dir the Damned."

At the use of that stupid old name, Did suddenly slammed his fist onto the desk - leaving a noticeable dent. "As I said," he growled, before pushing himself back into a measured tone. "I. Am. Busy."

Skipper took a few steps back, hands held up placatingly. "Fine, fine, if you don't wanna talk about it. I take it I should leave?"

Dir's glare intensified, became more of a glower. "Yes."

"Leave the building?" Skipper said hopefully.

"No."

-

How long had he been unconscious? Muzazi couldn't tell.

As he drifted back into consciousness, the last pangs of his prior humiliation ached like open wounds. To be disgraced by Hadrien, again, in so similar a fashion … it was all but unbearable.

He kept his eyes shut. He needed time to gain his bearings - before he'd come back to himself, he didn't want to broadcast the fact that he was awake.

Cold skin. Sore back.

He was in a sitting position - strapped to a chair. Manacles bound his wrists together, and he could hear the slight tinkling of a chain. Presumably, the shackles were connected to some secondary restraint.

He tried to summon his Aether, just a spark, but nothing came. Either he was still bound with Neverwire, or he'd been dosed with some drug to dull his senses. Some kind of cowardly UAP tactic, no doubt.

"There's no point in pretending you're asleep," a relaxed voice said from a short distance away - across a table.

Muzazi opened his eyes, squinting as they adjusted to the light.

He'd been correct - he was shackled to a chair in some kind of interrogation room, but it was hard to recognise it as that just from looking at it. Rather than the steadfast cleanliness that characterized a Supremacy holding cell, this was a dim, dingy affair - illuminated only by a flickering light panel from above.

A thin, gaunt woman with slicked-back black hair sat across the table from him, the fingers on both her hands drumming rhythmically as she regarded him. It was as though she were playing an invisible piano.

"Hello," she said, her voice friendly but her face far less so. "You've had quite a bit of beauty sleep, haven't you?"

Muzazi shut his eyes again. No doubt he could expect enhanced interrogation in his future at the very least. He took a deep breath.

"My name is Aurelius Let," he said, not even caring that it came out as a monotone. "I am a traveler, currently unemployed. I have come to Taldan seeking work. My details are available on the UAP Universal Database should you wish to find them."

"Hm," he heard the woman say. "We did find Aurelius Let on the Universal Database. We also found Atoy Muzazi on the Officer's Commission database that was leaked a few years back. Do you remember that?"

Ah. He hadn't expected the authorities here to have access to such high-level intelligence.

Nevertheless, he dutifully stuck to the cover he'd been given. "My name is Aurelius Let. I am a traveler, currently unemployed. I have come to Taldan seeking work. My details are available on the UAP Universal Database should you wish to find them."

The interrogator clicked her tongue. "It's not much fun if the other person doesn't play. Can I be straight with you?"

Muzazi didn't reply, but apparently even that was taken as an affirmation.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that the interrogator was now leaning over the table, her fingers still tapping against its surface. "Understand, please, that we are going to torture you," she said, with a barely restrained glee in her voice. "That's not something you're going to be able to avoid, I'm afraid. We are going to get answers out of you, and we're going to have to confirm these answers once we receive them - painfully, of course. We can begin this process now, or after a little bit of small talk. What do you say?"

The door behind the woman opened, and a masked man entered. Even though his hands were clasped behind his back, the heavy-duty stunstick they were holding was unmistakable, its tip sparking with deadly promise.

The interrogator raised an eyebrow, an inquisitive smile playing across her lips.

"My name is Aurelius Let," he said, keeping his voice as steady as possible. "I am a traveler, currently unemployed. I have come to Taldan seeking work."

The woman smiled and the man stepped forward.

"I understand," she said.

-

Serena raised an eyebrow as she observed the skeleton.

Well, maybe skeleton was a mean way of putting it, but the old man did look like he'd died quite a few years ago. Even though his chest rose up and down as he stared back at her, it obviously wasn't easy - every pump of the lungs took visible effort. It was like the man was only alive because he was too angry to do anything else.

She popped another grape into her mouth as she observed the skeleton man. He was sat in the corner of her hospital room in that antique wheelchair, staring at her with his hollow eyes. He'd been doing it for about five minutes now, which was maybe a little creepy but she didn't like to judge.

The doctors had brought him in here and then just left him to glare at her. Did he want something?

Lifting up her fruit bowl, she ventured a guess. "Do you want some of my grapes?"

The man slowly shook his head, a wince-inducing creak coming from his neck. "I've eaten more grapes than anyone could ever need."

"Oh, that's cool," Serena said. Then, she furrowed her brow, sensing either a lie or that old enemy called 'metaphor'. "Hold on. If you've eaten that many grapes, why are you so thin?"

The man might have smiled at that - it was so slight that it was hard to tell. "Time. Time and waste. I once stabbed a man with a scalpel, you know." He raised a shaking hand, thrusting it forward slightly as if to demonstrate. "I was aiming for the jugular, but it landed just above. It wasn't my best day."

Serena frowned. "Did it hurt?"

"He said something to that effect, yes, quite a few times. I felt him die through the vibrations in the metal, felt the breathing cease. He choked on his own blood in the end. An undignified death."

"Why did you kill him?" Serena asked. There was no accusation in her voice, no trepidation at this sudden and grim topic - she was just genuinely curious. "Did he hurt you?"

The old man put his raised hand back down with an exhale of relief. "Yes," he said. "In a fashion. But I was the one who told him to do it."

"Oh," said Serena, acting as if she understood when she very much did not. "If that was me, I wouldn't have told him to do that."

"I didn't know I was telling him to do it until it was already done," the man mumbled, trailing off. Just when it looked like he might pass off to sleep or just pass away, the light flickered back into his eyes and he looked up at Serena. "My name is Sait. I am the director of this shit hole. I came here because … I wanted to ask you something."

She put a hand into her fruit bowl, snatched up a handful of grapes, and messily bit into the squashed mass. "Sure!" she said, still chewing. "Go for it!"

"Why is it you perform actions?"

Serena cocked her head. That wasn't the kind of question she'd expected. She wasn't sure what kind of question she'd expected, but she was sure that it wasn't that. "Perform … actions?" she said.

The old man's voice was like cracking glass. "Attempt to … influence your environment. Alter your circumstances. Enact change. You are here because you acted. Why?"

Serena furrowed her brow. "You want to know why I … do things?"

Slowly, the old man nodded.

"Well, doesn't everyone do things?"

The old man snorted derisively. "Idiot girl," he said. "But yes. Of course they do - they don't understand. They cannot comprehend the way this world functions. But you are a useful sample. I want to know why. From your own mouth." The sentences were short - delivered between deep breaths for air. Given the state of him, it was honestly surprising that he could even talk for so long.

"My friends needed my help," Serena said softly. "So I helped them. Is that weird to you?"

"I find it saddening. You think you have accomplished things, but you have not."

Serena pouted. She wasn't sure if this old guy was trying to give her advice or insult her, but he was being annoying all the same. "How's that?" she snapped.

The old man grinned a checkerboard grin - it wasn't comforting. "This universe of ours," he rasped. "Hates us. Despises us. It would never allow even a moment of relief. That is why people suffer. And do you know what it is the universe hates about us most?"

Serena shrugged, staring up at the ceiling, still pouting.

"It hates," the old man trailed off into a coughing fit, before lifting his finger and resuming. "It hates that we think we can change it. That our actions, selfless or selfish, will have any impact on events. Understand, girl: whatever you do, however you do it, for whatever reason - it is futile. When you look back on your life, all your actions will accumulate to nothing. Less than nothing, for the world is worse for you having been born in it."

Again, his speech faded out to a wheeze at the end, but the hateful determination in his eyes didn't lessen in the least.

"That's kind of depressing," muttered Serena. "I think you're wrong, though."

Mr. Sait shook his head. "As I said - you don't understand."

Serena shook her head back - fiercer, as if it were a competition. "No, no. If nothing you do means anything, then you can't make things worse. If something goes bad because you did something, that means you affected it, right? That's what I think. So if nothing you do means anything, you should just do what makes you happy!" She grinned.

A mirthless laugh escaped the old man's lips, like an old dying monster crawling out of a dark tunnel. "Hedonism, then."

Serena didn't know what that word meant, but from the way Mr. Sait said it, it sounded like an insult. "I am not a hedonism," she said seriously.

Another laugh - but this one slightly, just slightly more genuine. "Of course you are, child," he wheezed. "But I feel I understand your idiocy somewhat better now. I am correct, as I knew myself to be."

"Correct?" Serena cocked her head. She didn't really get this conversation.

Mr. Sait shot her a glare as he tapped the button on the arm of his wheelchair, calling his attendant. "Shut up, girl," he grumbled. "I am done speaking to you."

And with that, it seemed, the conversation was over.

-

"It's rare for you to visit a patient personally, sir," said Sait's attendant, a brat named Haynes, as he pushed the wheelchair. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

Sait let out a wordless growl as he slumped back into his chair. Haynes, like all the others, was an imbecile. A corpse not knowing it was dead.

"I'm very glad to hear that, sir," Haynes said gently - optimistic fucker that he was, he assumed Sait's answer was in the affirmative. Then, he hesitated. "I must admit, sir, I was a little concerned you'd miss your meeting."

"Concerned?" Sait snapped as they continued down the hallway, headed towards the unmarked door at the end. "I don't pay you to be concerned."

Haynes laughed lightly. "Well, you don't pay me at all, sir. It's your friends who pay my wages."

Sait's grip tightened on the arms of his wheelchair. "I don't have any friends," he muttered.

"Is that so?" Haynes said sympathetically - but, bastard that he was, he couldn't quite keep the laughter out of his voice. "I'm sorry to hear that."

They reached the door and it opened, revealing a huge black ampitheatre, illuminated only by a light panel on the floor. Haynes whistled as he rolled Sait over to it, stopping the chair once it was right in the middle of the panel.

"I'll leave you to it, sir," he said, patting a heavy hand on Sait's bony shoulder.

"Go kill yourself."

Sait heard Haynes' measured footsteps leave the room, and the door slide shut behind him. He took in a deep breath through his nose as the projectors on the walls began their work.

It took only a second for his associates to appear, their images weaved from light itself. The bull, the horse, the pig, the octopus and the snail. The flaming bull, smoke pouring from its nostrils, turned to regard Sait.

"Care," it's voice rumbled. "You're late."

Sait stared straight ahead as he answered. "I had matters to attend to."

The bull, the Sponsor of War, didn't seem quite satisfied with that answer - but it moved on all the same, turning to face the rest of the menagerie.

"My friends," it said. "We have much to discuss."