High Moon
Snowdrops
Charley
SilverPaw
Tpartywithzombi
CitrusArms
PapaOso
Tlaloc
Vixere
FestiveSOLIDER Base; Deployment Dock Number Four
It has always been a hard sensation to describe to others. Not even his twin, who had been with him since conception, could truly understand this feeling. An odd sensation where “something” that is not of his own inundates him. It is sudden as it is fierce. All of the nerves in his body flared up like wildfire; every sense became so sharp that the word hypersensitive could not adequately describe the amount of sensory input that bombarded the brain with information. It was chaotic. The Commander could hear, see, smell, taste, and “touch” everything that no normal man could. Yet, there was clarity in the chaos. By the time the sensation melted away and he came to, he knew something was wrong… and, for once, it had nothing to do with Hal.
The Commander of the Sentinels was glaring at John even before he turned around to actually look at the newcomer’s face.
"Commander, I’ve been requested by President Rayne to join the group on this mission, just in case. I hope this is alright with you, sir. The President was quite impressed with my previous missions, and figured the group could use some experienced backup.”
Rene said nothing at first. He just continued to glare at the man in front of him. He had no evidence to support his suspicions: only his gut instinct. But his intuition has yet to fail him. Although he could not deny the fact that the chance of error increased depending on how he interpreted what his senses picked up. “No. I’m not ‘all right’ with it,” the giant finally said, “but it doesn’t matter how I feel about it, does it? You’re going anyways.” The tone in zher twin’s voice made Kimberly look at him, then quizzically at John.
Before an awkward silence had the chance to make the atmosphere really uncomfortable, Beatrice walked over to Hal and asked, “Hey, YOU, funny guy! Tell me a good joke?” out of the blue. Silence of the different variety descended upon the group.
This time it was Rene who put an end to the awkwardness. “Don’t you get it?” his giant hand placed itself on Hal’s back, “He IS the joke.”
“I think you skipped over the set-up.”
“I did? Oh, sorry, let me do it again.” Rene cleared his throat, “This man’s a SOLDIER.” Rene and Beatrice stared into each other’s eyes for a beat or so before Rene added, “You’ll have to look at Al, and I mean really look at Al, to get the joke. Cause he’s the punchline.”
Hal suddenly laughed out loud. “Oh, Ghost! You crack me up! Here’s a tip,” the scientist stuffed the Commander’s mouth with the last bit of dessert he had. “There. You got what you wanted. Now leave before you tarnish my already terrible reputation.”
Rene smirked a bit and started to walk out of the docks, bumping —oh so obviously on purpose— into John, before continuing to talk off without apologizing. “Good luck with the mission.” His voice dipped an octave, “You’ll need it.”
He could hear Kimberly in the distance calling out his name before and after zhe apologized to John for zher brother’s rudeness. He even heard zher food steps following him at one point, but he didn’t stop for zher: he had to follow John’s scent before it dulled completely.
It was hardly surprising that the scent led him to the President's Office so soon.
SOLIDER Base; Deployment Dock Number Four
‘Keep an eye on him.’ That was what Rene had signed on Hal’s back while they were bantering in front of Beatrice. Although the warning was appreciated, it was unnecessary: he recognized Rayne’s dog fairly early on. He even had a name to put to the face in front of him.
The average life expectancy of SOLDIERs was pretty short compared to the rest of the capital’s population —despite the various advantages that came with being a SOLDIER—, largely due to the ongoing war. SOLDIERs over the age of 35 were the minority, thus John Olsen (age 37) stuck out like a sore thumb whether he liked it or not. There are roughly two types of SOLDIERs who lived that long: the ones who would do anything and everything to survive and cowards —there was a third type too, but they were rare as unicorns: the ones forced to live on the basis that they were still useful in some significant manner to someone of importance. Not that that being ruthless or cowardly was a bad thing: a majority of the people under the government’s umbrella could be separated into similar categories: cowards who make others fight; the others who have no choice, but to fight to live; and the cowards who managed to avoid being chosen to be the other coward’s meat shield and sword... and did everything in their power to keep it that way. The world had a tendency of loosing the best of humanity too early, so ends up being dominated by what remained.
“Huh… Well then,” Hal said after the Faye twins left the docks, “we haven’t introduced ourselves have we?” He smiled at his two teammates, “As Funshine ingeniously deduced, my true name is ‘You Funny Guy,’ but people usually don’t believe me when I say that, so go ahead and remember me as Henri.”
He turned his head to look at John then realized something important: he didn’t think of a nickname for him. Then again, John wasn’t originally supposed to be part of the group, so Hal didn’t think he’d have to. Hal started to tilt his head back and forth in thought. He stared into the windows to John’s soul to search for something, but nothing that could really fit came to mind. This was going to be as hard as it was with James, maybe even harder. The longer he thought about it, the more his head started to hurt. Perhaps he should stop thinking, then? Best idea he had all day.
“Uh, you’ll have to forgive me, Mr. Olsen. I need more time to come up with a nickname for you.”
SOLIDER Base; Residential Quarters
Some people can look into another person’s eyes and tell what kind of individual said person is, but for those who lack such refined skills there is another, much easier, way to see what kind a person one is without directly interacting with them: look at their room.
Kimberly was standing in front of Hal’s room with the door open. Considering the amount of time the scientist’s protégés had, they did a good job: the pigsty had successfully transformed into a moderately dirty room with a lot of trash bags that were ready to be taken outside.
Dirty rooms, constant smiles both fake and real, the dark emotions that ran deeper than anyone could ever imagine. They were two different people, but they seemed to have more in common than the twins who were actually related to her.
Their mother smiled a lot, almost all the time, in fact. Even after their father’s death she kept smiling. That’s why everyone thought that she was okay. She was smiling all the time: that must mean she’s fine. She managed to take care of her children without any trouble and, more importantly, the twins were happy. ‘What a strong woman she is.’ ‘Nothing can crush her spirit.’ She tricked everyone, including the twins, and perhaps even herself. She was the greatest actress in the world, but her great and final act would not have been possible if any of her adoring fans had noticed the signs. All it needed to take for the whole act to crumble was for one person to see the one difference. The twin’s mother may have been good at keeping up appearances, but there was one room in the house that had drastically changed after her husband’s death: her room. Each day, it got dirtier and dirtier. She kept smiling, but she stopped caring about herself. No one can last long with such mentality. And she didn’t.
Something about Hal’s room, reminded Kimberly of zher mother’s. It was the kind of messy that felt more like self-mutilation. It is why zhe knew that simply cleaning his room, scolding him about it, would not change anything: trash would start to pile up once again. No matter how hard or how many times they reset everything, to start a new, he would never truly forget why his room got this bad. Or perhaps Kimberly was overthinking things: seeing stuff that wasn’t there and giving meaning to things that were meaningless.
Kimberly snapped out of the thought when zhe heard someone calling zher name. “What are you doing here?” Haziq asked the head doctor.
“I tried… and obviously failed… to catch my brother.”
Haziq stared at the doctor, suspicion colored his expression, but when zhe would not say anything more, he simply “accepted” zher explanation.
“Why are you here?” Kimberly asked.
“I came back to finish up what I can before I head back to my actual work.” Haziq smiled at Kimberly, “Do you know how many people seem think that my job is to baby sit Henri? It’s staggering, really. Believe it or not, we’re not getting paid for cleaning his room.”
“That might be true, but you wouldn’t be cleaning if you didn’t care, right?”
Haziq’s smile twitched ever so slightly before it weakened, “I suppose.”
Zhe noticed, but returned Haziq’s earlier generosity by not prying. Instead, zhe offered to help throw out the garbage; a request, which regained Haziq’s smile instantaneously.
The two walked into the room; Haziq, to continue cleaning, and Kimberly, to grab some filled trash bags. The doctor waltzed over to the first garbage bag in sight and smiled slightly when zhe saw it was full of paper; more specifically, paper with Hal’s writing all over it. They were torn into pieces, but zhe still recognized Hal’s neat handwriting and occasional hand drawn diagrams. Kimberly had read the man’s reports before and zhe had heard of the mixed reviews concerning them. The number one complaint from the elitists was that Hal’s papers were long winded with so much content that could have been cut out from the paper entirely. Interestingly, the content what could have been cut was what made Hal’s paper more popular among the casual reader. As far as Kimberly could tell, Hal’s scientific essays were always written for the average person. His paper became full of “unnecessary fluff,” because he wrote using simple words and when the use of a jargon could not be avoided, he would always take the time to explain what that terminology meant.
Aside from that, the papers were well organized and easy to read for what it was, even by the elitist’s standards. As one critic said it best, Hal wrote in a way that no reader would ever be left behind. Understandable when taking Hal’s upbringing into consideration and a thought that Kimberly shared wholeheartedly: everyone, regardless of their background or age, should have a chance at education. It was comforting to see that this had not changed.
“Kimberly.” The voice that called for zher attention was too flat to be Haziq’s, but when zhe did look away from the papers, he was the only one in the room. He smiled and redirected Kimberly to another pile of garbage bags, “I’d like you to take these out.”
Kimberly picked up the trash bags that Haziq wanted thrown away, but couldn’t wipe away the uncomfortable feeling that zhe just had. Zhe was too focused on the handwriting rather than the actual words to notice anything. Did zhe see something zhe wasn’t supposed to?
