Mcmolly

Amygdala Circuit

The cockpit was cold, and dark, even with the skullport open. As the elevator brought the unnamed Savior down from Aerie Station, Quinn could only sit and feel the odd, artificial gravity keeping her steady. The vents on the suit’s collar warmed her face, but an eager chill raked its fingers down her scalp.

Dahlia stood in the narrow opening. She wasn’t suited up—Dragon was still docked in the hangar—but she’d thrown on a few layers of shirts and coats, and had a scarf around her neck. She still shivered even without being inside, but made no complaints.

“It’ll happen,” she said. Her words were visible in the frosted air. “You’ll get it, it takes a little focus at first but you’ll get it. You just gotta reach out, physically and, y’know, mentally, too. Don’t think too hard about what you want it to be, don’t worry about not knowing what to do with it—it’s all natural. It comes to you, from the Saviors. They know what to do with these things, so, so do you, if that makes sense.”

She looked down below, to the horde of engineers scurrying around the Savior’s feet. Most were running last-minute diagnostics as the elevator closed the last distance to the earth. Some, she saw, were snapping pictures up at them—or more likely, at its face.

Its eye still hadn’t grown back. A month had passed, and the Savior’s socket was empty—covered now by a metal plate. Dahlia had never seen anything like it before, which wasn’t too surprising, because evidently no one had. All wounds dealt to a Modir short of destroying the brain would heal, without fail, in every single case.

Except for this one.

She tried not to think about it. It wasn’t her area of expertise anyway, and whether the thing had one eye or four or twenty didn’t matter to her. Quinn mattered, and Quinn seemed to do just fine with it as it was.

“Alright, touching down,” Besca’s voice said over the comms. Sure enough the strange gravity waned, and with a slight shake the elevator came to a stop. “Slot in whenever you’re ready.”

“Gonna be right here on the lift watching the whole time,” Dahlia said. She scooted in enough to give Quinn a hug she’d likely barely feel through the layers, and then climbed back onto the lift outside. “Good luck, sis.”

As she descended, the view behind the open cockpit opened up. They’d come to a vast expanse of flat, dry earth, and miles in the distance the lip of a crater creased the horizon. The bed of a long-gone lake, perhaps—plenty of space regardless.

Soon enough the door shut, and she was enshrouded.

The eager chill returned. It told her she was ready.

Amygdala Circuit

Where there was an air of indignant anger, there was suddenly distinct feeling of satisfaction, and pride. The chill receded, she was content to listen. So was Besca, evidently, and Dahlia if the speed of her return was anything to go by. They both seemed utterly baffled, looking at her as though she’d torn off her face to reveal some stranger beneath. A glance passed between them, not of malice, but confusion—then, acquiescence.

“Uhm…” Besca stuttered, averting her eye the moment Quinn’s turned to her. “A week. It would have been longer, these were originally doubles-duels; Casoban set the terms to bench Yule though, so now Helburke is using that to bench Dragon. Now it's a one-on-one.”

She paused, hesitating to ask if Quinn was certain about this. Then she felt guilty. An outburst of bravery, warranted or not, wasn’t going to squash her worry for the girl’s safety.

“That’s not enough time, Quinn. I don’t see how it could be. If we dropped you down today to draw out your weapon you’d still only have a handful of days to practice with it—and most of that would be in sims, anyway.” She mustered up a bit of her own courage and looked her dead-on. “I meant what I said; I’ll figure something out. We could get you sick, maybe. We could…I don’t know, we could tell’em you fell into a coma or something, get Follen to put you down for a couple days ‘til Casoban forfeits.”

Dahlia joined her, putting a hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “She’s right we can…” she began, but nothing came to her, so she just shook her head. “You don’t have to do this. I…we don’t want you to have to do this.”

Amygdala Circuit

For a moment Quinn might have thought she went deaf. Besca and Dahlia were talking—their lips were moving—but there was only silence and a tinny ringing in the back of her mind. It was like she’d just disconnected; a brief flash of vertigo, the dark just at the edge of her vision, the lingering breaths between whispers she couldn’t hear, but she could feel.

Anger was offered, but it couldn’t match her own fear. In its absence was an inner chill, and the sound of distance hoofbeats to shatter the silence.

“…renegotiate! We didn’t know the terms!” Dahlia’s voice was too quiet for how loudly she actually seemed to be speaking.

“…Board did. Said her phasing speed…don’t know anything…” Besca was equally quiet, her words faded in and out. “…think Toussaint got played…deal with Eusero anyway…thin our numbers…”

The ringing sharpened, not fair. Throwing us away. Supposed to be safe. No. No.

“No!” Dahlia snapped, and suddenly the world became clear and steady again. “I don’t care! I’ll go down with her and I won’t leave. They can agree to change the terms or they can concede.”

Besca was still deflated, slumped over in the seat with her head in her hands. “Helburke won’t concede, and the Board would rather…they won’t change their minds, either. It’s House Tormont. You go down there and you’re liable to have three or four other Houses joining them.”

“They can send as many as they want,” Dahlia hissed. “I’ll burn them all. I don’t care.”

“Well I care, Deelie! I care! We are not breaking the Illun Accord for Casoban! Helburke will sink the whole country overnight, after they’ve mulched both of you anyway!”

Dahlia balked. “You cannot actually be considering this.”

“I’m…” Besca muttered. “I don’t know what else to do! If we refuse, this turns into another Westwel—then what?”

“Then we figure something out!”

“That...that's not how it works.”

“Quinn is our family,” Dahlia said sharply. “You might not care if we lose any more of it, but I do.”

Besca shot up, eye wide and angry. Dahlia withered, briefly, but she kept her lips stiff and didn’t back down.

“Get out,” Besca said through gritted teeth. “Dahlia, get out. Now.”

Dahlia frowned, but she seemed far more angry than sad. She looked to Quinn, eyes gleaming with held-back tears. “Yes ma’am,” she said, and left.

It was only two of them, then. For a moment it looked like Besca would run after her—she seemed to regret herself the instant Dahlia turned her back—but instead she sat back down. She looked older, suddenly, and tired. She felt both, immensely.

“I’m sorry, Quinn…” her voice was thin and shaky. “I’m sorry. She’s right. She’s right, I—I can’t let this happen. I have to think of…something. Something. I can’t let you go. It’s not fair, you’re not ready. I won’t lose you.”

Amygdala Circuit

The war room was relatively small, an offshoot of the bridge proper, but it was very busy—not with people per se, but machinery, screens, and a general air of unease. These upper floors were much different from the rest of the Aerie; there was no effort here to make things seem organic, or comfortable, or really even habitable. It was sterile in a different way than the medical ward, not to be clean, but rather, to be primed.

At the center was a round table whose surface was a screen, upon which were dozens upon dozens of smaller windows. Two or three other people sat on the far side, busy, blind and deaf to everything else. Besca and Dahlia were stood at the side closer to the entrance. They both turned to Quinn when she entered.

Besca had her phone up to her ear, and conveyed her odd mixture of worry and ‘I’m happy to see you’ through a brief smile. Dahlia hurried over to Quinn, hugged her quick.

“There’s a problem with Casoban,” she said. She looked a bit distressed, like she didn’t have time to word what she was saying any more delicately. “Something about a dispute over trade routes with Helburke. Apparently it’s a really big deal for them. They’re dueling over it.”

Besca gripped one of the chairs and dragged it like she meant to throw it, only stopping herself at the last moment. “How did you agree to this!” she shouted. “How am I hearing about it after the press! I’m your f—I’m your commander!”

Dahlia winced. “She’s talking to the Board…ah…Casoban is losing pretty badly. They were going to accept an offer of aid from Eusero, but Toussaint intervened. It would have dissolved our partnership. He talked to our Board, got them to agree to let us step in as their proxy. But, uhm—I think…I think something’s wrong.”

There was a sharp CRACK as Besca’s phone impacted the far wall. Her hands went to her face, pressed hard, then she all but collapsed leaning against the table. “Everyone with a college degree get out. Now.”

She didn’t have to say it twice. In moments the scant crew had cleared the room, and it was just the three of them left. Dahlia hurried over to her, taking her by the shoulders and coaxing her down into a chair. Besca’s hands shook, she brought them back to her face and rubbed hard at her eye.

“Quinn…” she breathed, voice quavering. “Quinn I’m so sorry…”

Amygdala Circuit

Follen watched her intently, still as a salamander in the sun. It happened quickly—Quinn may not have even noticed—but when she began to elaborate, when she told him about what the voice did, how it probed at her emotions, tried to slot new ones in their place, his pen moved at the mention of a single word: She.

He nodded appreciatively when she mentioned she’d been sleeping well.

“Well, we could have you spend the night here, in the ward, to do a sleep study. It’s not a painful or invasive procedure, but it’s also terribly boring, and frankly I dislike the idea of dragging you out of the dorms to sleep in these crinkly old beds now that you seem to be adjusting so well to your own.”

He scribbled something down onto the topmost page of the file, and thought over a long Hmm before he went on.

“So,” he finally said. “Here’s what I’d like us to try instead. For the next few days, or until our next session, I’d like it if you could write down your dreams for me. You can use as much or as little detail as you’d like, but try to get down what the voice tells you, if you can remember it. If it’s talking with you, and you feel safe, perhaps you could try talking to it. You say you feel as if it’s studying you—I find nothing inherently dangerous about curiosity. If it asks you a question, see what it does if you give it an answer—truthful or not.”

There was a sudden buzzing. Follen blinked, glancing around and patting his own pockets, until they both realized it was coming from her phone.

It was a message, from Besca.

-come to the war room quick. important. deelie already on the way.-

Amygdala Circuit

“Mhm. Mhmm,” Follen muttered as she spoke. He did that often, nodding along, humming affirmative now and then, not obtrusively, but enough that she could tell he was engaged, listening. Sometimes he didn’t make any noise at all though, just conveyed his attention in his eyes, hardly affording himself a blink as though he might somehow miss something in that split moment.

When she brought up the voice, he was silent as the void outside the station.

It had clearly been of particular interest to him—and, he insisted, it ought to be to her as well. At first he had tried to be reassuring, telling her that connecting to a Modir, ‘taunting the circuit’, could lead to some strange side effects. It was not the first instance he’d seen of a pilot hearing voices and feeling alien thoughts even after they’d left the cockpit.

But when she mentioned that voice had been with her in Hovvi, his explanations fell flat. Normally that might have been cause for alarm, but the sheer enthusiasm with which Follen approached that information, the way he made it seem like she had nothing to fear—it was almost like she did have nothing to fear.

As she described the voice following her into her dreams—her hesitation poignant enough that even she could tell he’d noticed—Follen’s pen halted, and he gave her his complete, undivided attention.

“And what is it saying to you in your dreams?” he asked. “You used the word ‘escape’. Do you feel as though it’s chasing you? Threating you? Does it seem to want something from you?”

Amygdala Circuit

Follen’s office was just as she remembered: safe, comfortable, small but in a way that didn’t feel constrictive. In fact it was deceptively open. There were half-drawn blinds on the back wall, behind which a long, tall screen simulated daylight. He had the window partially ‘cracked,’ and from small speakers there was faint and arhythmic birdsong in the imaginary distance. Warm arm flowed in from the vents. Stepping in felt like donning a morning blanket.

Doctor Follen looked up from his work, smiled just as warmly as the artificial sun behind him. “Ah, Quinn, what a pleasant surprise! I had a feeling you’d be by today, came to me while I was putting syrup on my waffles this morning. Come! Come, sit! We’ll get started.”

He pulled a drawer open on his side of the desk, thumbed through a row of files and produced hers. It was already a finger thick, but Follen had assured her that it was because he found her so fascinating. And he did seem intrigued every time. Everything she told him, from her grief to her worries, to the stranger things, he never seemed judgmental, and he never treated her like she’d made a mistake.

These are great, tangled knots, he had told her. Your complexity is not a curse, it is a gift, marvelous and beautiful. Never feel sorry for feeling, Quinnlash.

Flipping the file open, he pulled a pen tucked behind his ear and clicked it.

“So,” he said. “First of all—tell me how you’ve been this week. How have you been sleeping? Eating? I’ve been monitoring the records from your piloting sessions—I’m very impressed. How have you felt these past couple times in the cockpit?”

Amygdala Circuit

The waiter came back with their drinks while Quinn talked. Dahlia listened, clinking the ice around absently in her glass. She thought about Dragon, and how strange it had been to draw her out own weapon the first time.

“Yeah, I feel ya. I mean, we connect our brains with the Saviors, but the weapons are supposed to be us, right? So it feels like a big deal. Don’t worry tho’, I’m sure whatever you end up pulling out will be super cool!”

Quinn mentioned Follen next, and Dahlia couldn’t help but feel a slight unease. She’d always enjoyed the doctor’s company, and he’d never been anything less than nice to her as long as she’d been at RISC. She trusted him with her medical care, her psychological care, and so far he’d never given her a reason not to. But when she’d heard that he’d been the one to sign Quinn on as a pilot—to perform the surgery before she was even awake no less—it…didn’t settle right with her.

She’d never given much credence to the things Besca said about him, and over time the vicious warnings dried up. Until a month ago though, she wouldn’t have thought him capable of entering a room without permission. Now she wasn’t so sure.

Then again, her own evaluation had gone perfectly fine. She was probably just overthinking it; he’d say she was searching for answers to statements, not questions.

“Sounds good to me!” she said. “I’ll run a sim or two while you’re off, then I’ll meet you back at the gym.”

The food came soon after, and Dahlia felt her hunger’s dying roar as the waiter set their plates down. Sweet, floral smells, the fishy twinge of Quinn’s salmon. Hot soup on the side. Yes, Dahlia thought. Quinn makes very, very good choices.

Amygdala Circuit

“Mm! Good choice, I love how they do salmon here. You know, you’d think with us being about as far from the water as you could get, it wouldn’t taste as fresh as it does, but, here we are.”

Her phone buzzed, and she checked it to find Besca had gotten back to her.

-something came up cant come down for lunch sorry :( :( tell Quinn i said hi and will see her tonight. think dinner ! youre treat ? ;)-

Dahlia frowned, and sent back a quick: -What happened?-

-*your-

-casoban junk. wouldve been done but they brought eusero in and now its a whole thing.-

-*it’s-

“Besca got caught up in work,” Dahlia said, setting her phone down on the table and showing the texts to Quinn. Transparency had been another important point to make; she didn’t keep secrets from Quinn, even little ones, if she could help it. “Guess it’s just you and me today. What do you wanna do after this? We should try to squeeze in another session before dinner, but anything on your plate besides?”

There was, actually, but nothing exactly urgent. She had a check-in evaluation scheduled with Doctor Follen for “this week”, but there were still days left. She was also expected to log in a few more hours in the sim rooms, but having yet to draw her Savior’s weapon—or name it, really—there wasn’t much to do there that she couldn’t do in practice on the ground.

Both were options—both could be put off. She had the rest of lunch to make that decision.

Amygdala Circuit

“Lead the way, Deelie.”

And Deelie did. She’d picked up early on how Quinn didn’t much like spearheading things, which was, again, entirely reasonable. Her having picked the place was an accomplishment itself, so today, Dahlia would lead the way, hold the doors, bring them to their seats, and Quinn could breathe a bit easier.

The garden commons were bustling. This month had seen RISC’s numbers bolstered again, not quite to its strength before Hovvi, but enough that the Aerie didn’t feel like a ghost station anymore. Those had been hard weeks; Dahlia would come here now and then, to sit under the center pastel and imagine herself under the shade of the woods near her home. It was so quiet. What crew had remained worked in tight shifts, only a few dozen were ever around, spread so thinly around that for a while the only faces she saw besides Besca and Quinn were Follen, and the janitorial staff.

Now the tables and benches were full. The cafeteria on the floor below was packed, and Danes above sounded much the same. Tohoki Grill was a proper sit-down place, with an “outdoor” patio umbrellaed by scarlet tsubaki trees. Dahlia led the way inside. Lamps hung from the ceiling, their bulbs covered and set to flicker like dim candles. False windows were set into the wall, and behind them were digital screens that pushed artificial noonsun light through the slats.

It smelled good in here. Like fresh fish and spices, and meat cooking on open fires through the wide-windowed kitchen. The head chef was a heavy-set and absurdly happy man from Tohoki, who made a point of putting extra servings on the plates of his skinnier customers. Quinn often found herself a lucky recipient.

A waiter brought them to a corner booth, secluded but not isolated—Dahlia never sat them somewhere where they were entirely alone. They ordered their drinks, and took a third menu. Dahlia texted Besca where they’d settled.

“So what’re you feelin’? I might try the sake-saffron chicken—Besca says it was all she ate for a month once and she never got sick of it.”