Mcmolly

Amygdala Circuit

Dahlia smiled gently. “Yeah, you know what? Me too. How about we hit up Danes? I’ve been dying for a milkshake.”

She helped Quinn down, throwing an arm around her shoulder and staying close. The past few days Quinn had been…more dependent than usual. Not that Dahlia particularly minded—she didn’t need any excuse to spend more time with her—but ever since she’d started going to see Roaki, she’d been decidedly off. It was tempting to ask, and even more tempting to just assume the Helburkan girl had done something to upset her, but whenever she thought that way, she remembered her promise. She wanted to be better. She wanted to be more like Quinn.

Besides, she’d kept visiting, and would have told them if anything truly bad had happened. Maybe it was just the state Roaki was in that was bringing her mood down. Quinn had asked her and Besca for help coming up with some way to convince the girl to stay. Dahlia would have been lying if she said she’d given it a tremendous amount of thought, and that did make her feel guilty. Besca was up to her neck with work and worry, and all Dahlia did all day was the same thing she did every day.

This was important to Quinn. She resolved to put more effort into it, starting right now.

Danes was comfortably busy when they arrived. Where Tohoki Grill was dim and gentle and had the feeling of an old tavern, Danes was bright, excited and warm. Its faux windows were opened and their screens rolled footage of a sunny beachside afternoon. Long, sandy shores stretched endlessly either way, scattered with people laying on towels or under great big umbrellas. More played out in the sapphire blue water, splashing and laughing, or waving out to sailboats rocking gently in the distance. Upbeat, tropical music played over the speakers, as though from a band not too far outside. A series of screens on the walls were tuned in not to the news or the Savior-obsessed talk shows, but to sports and campy daytime shows.

Normally she’d have gotten them a seat at the counter, but today Dahlia brought them to a booth along the wall, where the AC blew fresh air only just tinged with the hint of a salty breeze. The tables were wooden, and weathered in the same way designer jeans were weathered—artificial, but convincing.

Taking one of the menus from the tabletop stand, Dahlia thumbed to a selection of burgers.

“Oh boy,” she said, cheery. “I am about to destroy a pineapple burger.”

She held off asking Quinn what she wanted, let her have a little more time to think today. Instead, she turned her attention to the faux window, smiling out at the ocean. The water was too dark to be a Runan sea, so she guessed it was somewhere in Eusero.

That’d be a nice trip, she thought. Me, Quinn, Besca. Just a day laying out on the sand.

“So how’re you feelin’ about the interview? she asked lightly. “For what it’s worth, Mona’s always been super nice to me. You talk at a table over some food, and it’s really casual. Kinda feels like eating in the dorms. She loves pilots, so I bet all she really wants to do is get to know you a bit!”

Amygdala Circuit

There was a brief and terrifying moment where Besca thought there might be war on the Aerie. Her stunt that morning had been bold, but ultimately toothless. The soldiery onboard hadn’t taken kindly to one of their own being fired for “doing his job”, and in his defense that was mostly true. Her inbox was inundated with complaints, criticisms, and demands for her resignation; in the end it hadn’t mattered. He’d been rehired by dinner, and the emails had stopped.

As commander there were only a handful of people she couldn’t touch. One was Follen—a fact that would never cease to frustrate her—and another was Bren Caster, chief of security operations, and liaison between RISC and Runa’s military. No soldiers got in, or out of RISC without his say so, and when word had gotten to him about one of his men getting the can, his say was: “No.”

His predecessor had gone the way of her own after Hovvi, and they’d risen to their leadership roles together. She’d been vaguely aware of him beforehand, and thus far their working relationship had been relegated to CC-chains and occasionally seeing one another in the hangar or at the bar in Dane’s. He’d asked her there the next day, where they sat in the corner and, over a beer, he told her in no uncertain terms that if she tried to go over his head to fire one of his own again, he’d come after her job with the support of RISC’s entire military personnel. She agreed, and told him that next time someone tried to take Roaki back to holding, she’d just break their hand instead.

Another empty threat; Besca was still powerless to refuse a direct order from the Board. But the Board wasn’t here, and while Caster might have been in charge of RISC’s military personnel, there were plenty of soldiers who still knew her, and trusted her, and he would never have their full, undivided support. He didn’t strike Besca as a vile man. He enjoyed power, but not necessarily lording it over others. If he wanted a coup, he could have it, but that side of him that preferred reason to feeling must have known that a mess was the last thing RISC needed right now.

So a tenuous deal was struck. As it stood, the Board still had not decided who was getting Roaki, and orders aside, Caster admitted he had no desire to put a child in an icebox. She could stay in the ward for now, but when the decision did come, Besca had to swear that she would stand aside.

That left her with a nebulous and dwindling amount of time to put together a plan. Otherwise she imagined she would end up seeing how uncomfortable holding was for herself.

Quinn had put her on to something—or rather, Follen had put Quinn on to something, which was immediately alarming. That was: turning Roaki on Helburke as an informant. They’d granted a similar status to Ghaust when he’d defected, and it had offered him all the rights and protections of a Runan citizen—so long as he continued to aide RISC.

The difference was that Ghaust had wanted to join them. Besca wasn’t even convinced Roaki wanted to live. Quinn was, though. So the planning continued; what could they do to convince the girl she didn’t have to go meekly to her grave? The answer hadn’t come to anyone yet, and though Quinn had resolved to visit Roaki each day, Besca was forced to turn her attentions elsewhere.

The interview was coming. She’d been surprised it had taken so long for the Board to approve Quinn’s first appearance, but then, when she thought it about it made enough sense. The duel in Casoban might have been over some inconsequential territorial dispute, but it would not phase out of the public conscience in a mere few days. No, this breather had been necessary. The Board had wanted time to measure the world’s—and especially, Runa’s—opinion on what Quinn had done. Likely, they’d waited to find the right host.

“Dinner With Mona” had been the final call. Not a news channel, but a celebrity talk show. It was a smart choice; Runa National or Pastel News would have had hundreds of people drafting hardball, invasive questions to throw at her the instant she sat down, trying to get at the heart of RISC’s operations through her. It would have been…harsh, and difficult to watch. Mona was a one-woman operation, so to speak. She had a team, but by reputation she handled most of the legwork herself when it came to actually preparing for an interview. She was also avidly interested in the piloting world and so, Besca hoped, she’d be more likely to go easy on Quinn.

That was tonight. As soon as she found out, she shot Quinn a text to let her know. Not a lot of time to prepare, but she made sure to emphasize that it would be fine, and that she would be right there in the studio watching just off camera. Deelie would have to stay onboard—Besca was beginning to doubt the Board would ever let her be more than five minutes from Dragon’s cockpit ever again. Besca hated that, but with what had happened at Casoban, she understood why they were afraid.

Two singularities had formed out of nowhere. An immediate and furious terror had nearly pushed a national emergency to the public, until it was noted that the two singularities that had opened nearby the dueling grounds had never produced a single creature. That, and the fact that nothing had opened up in Runa since then had quelled the fears—somewhat. Perhaps the Modir couldn’t spontaneously open singularities, but even if they could only move them, which seemed to be the prevailing theory, that was hardly any more of a comfort.

And all of this was still leagues away from the fact that the Modir had spoken. Besca still couldn’t wrap her head around that. She’d heard it, and she still couldn’t. It was still a closed secret; there were no recordings of the logs after the duel had ended—that hadn’t been her doing either, they’d just been wiped. Still, Research’s attention lingered on the swordsman. It had appeared twice now, and while no one had yet made the connection to Quinn, Besca worried it was only a matter of time.

She was worrying a lot these days, and sleeping less. Last night she’d returned to the dorms at two in the morning, and left for the office again at five. It was noon now, six hours ‘til the interview and there were still a thousand things to do before then. Sighing, Besca brewed another pot of coffee, lit another cigarette, and sat down at her desk. Any minute now Toussaint would be calling, or the Helburkan Ambassador, or the Board to tell her they were fed up with her now, and it was time for her to pack her shit and go. A small part of her hoped that call would come. She was ready, she thought.

But she wasn’t, really. And part of her knew that as long as Deelie and Quinn were around, she never would be.

---

---

The simulation fizzled and the world went dark before it exploded back to light. Dahlia disconnected her neural plugs and sat up in the pod-like seat, blinking the dizziness away. Sims weren’t meant to be as disorienting as a real cockpit, but they always left her just a little bit nauseous. It passed quickly though, and she swung her legs over the side as Quinn rose up in the seat next to her.

“Sorry,” she said, giggling nervously. “That probably wasn’t super helpful, was it?”

This session had gone like all the others. Either she blew Quinn away the moment she phased, or she turned phasing off, and let herself be absolutely steamrolled by Ablaze’s superior strength. Dragon was many things, but it was not a brawler, usually. If she tried she could throw a few good punches, bob and weave like a boxer, but as had been demonstrated to her back in Casoban, she was much better off at a distance.

Neither scenario made for particularly good practice. She was glad they muted pain receptors in their bouts—neither of them was particularly interested in hurting the other, even if it wasn’t really hurting them.

“We could try again after lunch if you want? Maybe a run without weapons, or we could just do some target practice or something. Or do you wanna focus on the interview tonight? Oh! We could make up some questions while we eat? Get you in the mood for it, y’know? I still remember some of the things I got asked the first time!”

Amygdala Circuit

---

---

Amygdala Circuit

---

---

---

---

Amygdala Circuit

Roaki grimaced when Quinnlash mentioned asking another question. A part of her wanted to point out that wasn’t fair—it was supposed to be her turn now, even if she didn’t quite know what she wanted to ask. But that was stupid. Somehow, she had almost forgotten that this was anything but a brand of interrogation, and that she was not a prisoner waiting out the last of her days on enemy turf.

So she shrugged. Really, what did it matter? Quinnlash could ask whatever she wanted, and Roaki had no right to refuse her an answer.

Then she went and looked at her.

It was brief, but there it was—that fiery golden eye. Roaki gasped, fixed there like Quinnlash had her by the throat. Her hand went numb, the sheet fell from her fingers.

“What is it you want?”

She had felt the scorching barrel of the cannon against her arm and knew she had no choice. She had screamed with her own memory when her legs were blown away, and then screamed again when Dragon’s pilot had cut her from the cockpit, and knew she had somehow chosen wrong anyway.

What did she want? She wanted her body back. She wanted her life back. She wanted to be Roaki the pilot again. She wanted to have been born as anyone else, and failing that, she wanted not to have been born at all. She wanted not to cry in front of Quinnlash Loughvein.

She got nothing.

“I…” Roaki’s voice shook, her throat burned but not as hot as her eyes. She tore her gaze away to stare back at her lap. Everything still hurt, but she knew it wasn’t sweat dripping from her face. “I want to be alone now.”

Amygdala Circuit

“…What did they do to you, Roaki?”

She didn’t know, at first, and in a way that was funny. So many years of pain, and ridicule, and shame, and yet she was hard-pressed to recall, in detail, anything specific. There were flashes in her memory, of her cramped room, of the cold stone floors of the castle. She remembered meal after meal eaten alone, listening to the rest of them above her, speaking of their futures, and their duties to the family. She could see their faces—the sneers, the disgust, the pity. She could feel the hollow pit in her stomach when they’d stopped calling her ‘sister’.

Before it all, the silence had eaten at her, but eventually she realized it was more that it was cocooning her. The burn, she knew, was her body melting away, so that it could reform again as something greater, something terrifying and beastly.

And she remembered the first night, after it was done. The silence didn’t burn anymore, because even in the dark, if she shut her eyes, she could see him sitting up there at the table, alone. Alone, because she’d made him that way.

For too brief a time, he finally knew what it was like.

Roaki looked up, not quite to Quinnlash’s eye, but close. Close as she could get. So close. “They doubted me,” she answered coldly. “And they were right anyway, but when I’m hanged it won’t matter. Nothing can undo what I did. The whole world’ll know that if I’m weak, then the mighty House Tormont, Sword of Aridea, Bane of Aridea, fell to a weakling.”

Amygdala Circuit

It was strange, the more Quinnlash spoke, the more she revealed about herself, the less Roaki felt like she knew her. There were gaps in her story, but they didn’t feel intentional, they weren’t lies like she was used to, they were omissions of…grief? Anger, maybe? She didn’t know, she wasn’t used to seeing people act like this. She’d heard them break down over comms, she knew what pathetic sounded like, and while Quinnlash certain didn’t sound like the warrior she’d been in Casoban, Roaki couldn’t bring herself to see this display as weakness.

What she did recognize was self-loathing. Roaki hated Quinnlash, instinctually in the way a hunter hated its prey, but also deeply and personally. She knew hate, she was good at hate. She’d clocked it perfectly at the Henkersmahl and she was reading it just as clearly now.

No one hated Quinnlash Loughvein more than Quinnlash Loughvein.

“So we started to lean on each other. And Besca took care of us, so we both leaned on her.”

“We're a family now, that's all.”

Roaki sucked air through a tight cage of teeth. Days in the cold, too tired and beaten to muster anything more than a glower and curt words, had dulled her. It was whole moments before she realized just how furious she suddenly was. Fucked that she didn’t have the energy—or the means, really, anymore—to do anything with it. She could still hardly sit up without the aches and exhaustion laying her out flat.

It should have been great news. Quinnlash was doomed, hopelessly and completely. It might take weeks, or months, or maybe years, but if what she’d said was true—and more and more, Roaki was starting to doubt that Quinnlash knew how to lie at all—then there was no avoiding it.

So why did she feel so compelled to warn her?

“You’re a moron,” she spat, unable to stop herself. Idiot, you’re helping the girl who killed you. But she went on. “They don’t need you. They hate you. They’ll turn on you the second they get the chance, and if you let them do it because you think you need them too, then you’re a moron. You don’t need them.”

It was true. Quinnlash Loughvein didn’t need anyone. Roaki was so sure of that.

“You’re strong. People are afraid of that—even if they say they aren’t. If you let them, they’ll take all that strength away from you. Know where you’ll be then? Six feet under. Or worse, you’ll be right where I am. Fuck's sake, don’t…” her jaw clenched so tight it popped. “If you’re gonna beat me, don’t be me.”

Amygdala Circuit

Roaki wasn’t sure what she’d expected.

No, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d expected a lie, like the one back in Casoban. Maybe that she really had lost it in Hovvi, or during training, or that someone had gotten to her young and gouged it or popped it or something. She’d expected—hoped, even—to catch a glimpse of the hidden truth that someone had managed to beat her in the past. That she wasn’t an invincible, unbreakable champion. That she was weak.

Then again, would that really have made it any better? Would she rather have lost to Quinnlash the monster, or Quinnlash the weakling?

Well, she’d rather not have lost at all.

Roaki could read people well. She was good at sniffing out fear, and even without looking her in the eye she could tell that Quinnlash was afraid even before she admitted it. Maybe this really was the truth. She didn’t know, it had just happened and that was that. It was so tempting to look, to see the proof of that fear forever marked upon her face.

She couldn’t.

When Quinnlash asked about her lost limbs, Roaki shrank back into the pillow. An old and familiar anger flexed instinctually inside her. She’d hurt people, badly, just for looking at her arm, just for seeing her slip the prosthetic on. Her teeth gritted together, an ache shot down her leg, all the way to the foot she didn’t have anymore, the one she’d lost in Casoban.

How much of her had Blotklau eaten before it died?

Not enough.

“I…” her voice withered. She squeezed the sheet so hard her nails dug through the fabric and into her palm. Speak. You lost, now you speak. “I can’t phase, she rasped. She didn’t have the strength or the will to lie, and she was never very good at it anyway.

“I tried, when I was old enough. I got in before the scars were even healed, and I tried.” She blinked, and in that darkness she felt the cold cage of the cockpit around her. “I stayed in the whole time, like I was supposed to. I never disconnected—not until they made me. They said I almost completed the Circuit.”

How disgusting.

“My arm and leg were…part of it,” she said quietly. “They had to cut me out.”

Roaki stared at the sheets, how they fell flat just beneath the stumps of her legs. How disgusting, he’d said. Only half a daughter, but a full measure of failure.

She’d almost proven him wrong.

“Why is Dragon’s pilot afraid of you? she snapped, before she could dwell on those memories a moment more. “Why does she do whatever you say? She’s one of the strongest pilots in the world. And that woman, I heard her this morning—she’s the commander. What did you do to them?”

Amygdala Circuit

“…I just don't know anything about you as a person and I never really got the chance to ask.”

Too late for that, Roaki thought bitterly. Not talking to a person anymore.

But that didn’t change anything. She was at Quinnlash’s torturously inexplicable mercy—what she thought of herself now didn’t matter. Person, pilot, worm, all of it was meaningless. She was a bundle of answers, waiting for the right questions.

These, however, did not seem like the right questions.

Was it a game? Toy with her, make her divulge her life’s miseries on her way out? That seemed appropriately merciful. But then, the girl had also offered to lay her own secrets bare. Tit for tat? Smart, if she thought about it. Roaki would be taking them all to her grave, anyway. Of course, normally she wouldn’t have given half a shit about knowing who Quinnlash was as a person. She’d never cared to know any of her enemies, and none of them had cared to know her. That was the way things were—or at least, how they were supposed to be.

But laying there, Roaki couldn’t help it. There was an almost animal curiosity within her. Quinnlash wasn’t just another enemy, Quinnlash had beaten her. She was terrifyingly strong, and bafflingly cruel in ways that Roaki didn’t even understand, ways she had never seen and never dreamed of. How could she not want to know, even just a bit?

She fidgeted, lips pressed tightly together in a last ditch effort to maintain what little dignity remained. Don’t play her game. Die silent.

“…What happened to your eye?”

Amygdala Circuit

This was a trick, Roaki knew it right away. People called her stupid, but she had nose for this sort of thing. Schemes, plots, strategies—the tools of weaklings who never knew what to do when their plans fell through.

But that was the shit of it. She wasn’t dealing with a weakling, she was dealing with Quinnlash. Roaki followed the girl’s shadow as she stalked from the doorway to the chair across from her bed. She didn’t look at her face. Couldn’t, still. It was pathetic, but she couldn’t. That golden eye burned in her mind, more monstrous than the red gaze of any Savior. If she looked at her, somehow, Roaki knew she would see Ablaze staring back at her. The muscles in her arm twitched at the thought. Her leg ached even below where it had been cut, still, despite the pills these nurses had crammed down her throat.

In the cold, at least she’d been in too much pain to think. Now with the unnatural warmth and comfort of a hospital bed, even with the exhaustion still lingering behind her eyes, all she could do was think. Think. Think.

Fuck, it felt like she could hardly breathe.

Her hand kept a firm grip on the sheet. She didn’t know why, it wasn’t like she could fight her. She couldn’t fight anyone. All she could do now, and for whatever was left of her life, was sit and hurt and fucking think.

And talk, apparently.

Roaki chewed her lip. Of course, she should have seen this coming. This must have been why she wasn’t dead yet, why they’d stuffed her in that icebox and now, why they’d thawed her again. They wanted something. Quinnlash wanted something.

“What…” she started, forcing herself to sound at least somewhat like a person, and not a frightened worm. “What do you want to know?”