Beyond the Scions Pt. 01

Everything Changes

Carol had won the envy of the entire base by receiving the job of cleaning the Suit between uses. She would proudly enter the bunker with her soft cloths and polish, and tenderly buff away every scuff of dirt that marred the paint. Every single time, she held her breath with the anxiety that the Suit had been scratched, and she was relieved when her love revealed that it had magically held its integrity through every bombardment. No one knew where it had come from, but it had become the pride and joy of the military, and she was its sacred Keeper. She often joked that the Suit took up so much of her time and attention, she didn't have any affection left to share with another human being.

Master sergeant Hartmann was considered to be the best pilot, and dominated the missions that were deemed to be 'Suit worthy' as a growing celebrity amongst the soldiers, and he reveled in the adoration that surrounded him during his off hours. However, unbeknownst to any of the higher ups and only vaguely suspected by his underlings, the cumulative effect of piloting the Suit was beginning to degrade his psychological resilience, and he was growing resentful of anyone else who touched what he was increasingly beginning to consider his own. Every time he donned the Suit, he thought about defying commands and never returning to base, certain that no one would be able to stop him if he turned renegade. Only the uncertainty of running from the military with no objective to follow kept him obedient, and his ache was a dark secret.

Brooding, he hung around to watch Carol work on his beloved Suit, and his heart stung with jealousy when he saw how tenderly she touched the metal. When she opened it up to wipe down the leather interior, he couldn't stand it anymore; it was worse than walking in on a spouse in the thralls of another lover. He clapped his hand on her shoulder, roughly squeezed down, and growled, "You ever worn it?"

"No." Carol winced and looked away, not daring to try to free herself. Something in his eyes wasn't right, and she decided that it would be best to slip away as quick as she could before reporting him.

He lowered his mouth down next to her ear, and whispered with his lips brushing her skin, "Try it."

"I'm not authorized," she replied, tilting her head away. She scanned the bunker for anyone else to call out to, but it was lunchtime and the place was empty. Someone took her trustworthiness for granted, and only the surveillance cameras were there to keep Carol company as she worked. She felt a stab of betrayal at having been left alone.

"Do you mean to tell me that you can repeatedly strip the Suit bare, and not feel the impulse to climb inside? Go on and try it, I won't tattle." Hartmann's other hand seized her upper arm, his fingertips digging in deeply enough to leave bruises. He pushed her forward, banging her head against the interior, causing her vision to flash white.

"Here, I'll even tell you what to expect," he said, turning her around and holding her in position with his forearm, as he kicked her legs to get her to step inside. "Don't worry when you hear the words, 'User unknown: booting safe mode', because that's what it does that for everyone. Then it will squeeze tight for a moment before it releases like a breath of fresh air, and you'll feel like you aren't wearing anything at all. Operating it is intuitive, so you should get the hang of it."

He had completely lost his mind, Carol thought as she met his eyes. She was certain that he wouldn't actually try to close her inside the Suit, knowing that it would give her the ability to turn him into a smoldering crater in a heartbeat -- she counted on the idea that he didn't know that she didn't have the constitution to violently retaliate. He was likely trying to get her fired, and that she couldn't allow under any circumstance.

"Let me go," she ordered, hoping that her voice sounded strong and commanding. "I'm not authorized to use the Suit, and I will report you for misconduct."

"You think I care?" Hartmann grabbed Carol's chin and glared at her. "You'll have a fatal accident long before you report anything to anyone."

The look of sheer malevolence on his face caused her to panic, and before she knew it she had hit the button to close the Suit. Hartmann abruptly pulled his hand back with a cuss, and through the visor Carol could see that his wrist had been cut deeply, nearly severing his hand. She stayed very still, shocked and scared, wondering what she should do to get herself out of the metaphorical fire she had just jumped into. Then the interior of the Suit sprang alive with lights and the hum of circulated air, as a computer voice spoke,

"User detected: welcome back, Commander."

Carol's heart stopped.

Now she was really in trouble.

Keeping Secrets

Carol held her breath as the suit began to squeeze against her, gaining terrifying intensity until it abruptly released and she felt as light as a feather. She didn't dare move, however, staring at the master sergeant and wondering if he would let her out of the Suit. The irrational part of her hoped that he would apologize profusely, then head off to the medical bay to explain the truth and take his lumps, so to speak, so she could get her to get back to her job like nothing had ever happened.

The sight of blood and his dangling hand made her feel dizzy, and Carol was sure she would faint. She had not been trained for combat, and had never imagined herself getting anywhere near anything that could be dangerous or gruesome. As if in response, the air inside the Suit turned cool and her head began to clear, making her wonder if it had automatically increased the oxygen content.

The master sergeant's face had gone white, and after a seemingly long period of simply staring, he reached for the radio attached to the collar of his uniform. "The Suit has been hijacked, repeat, the Suit has been hijacked," he said. "This is MSG Hartmann, reporting casualties, in Bunker One."

"Okay," Carol whispered to herself. "Just sit tight, and explain everything when they get here. The security cameras should back up my story, so I just have to keep calm." No one knew that the Suit had called her 'commander', and she could keep that a secret till the day she died. Maybe. At the very least, she needed to escape her present situation without getting killed, or worse, fired, and that was going to keep her from wondering about anything else for a while.

Despite herself, sweat began to tickle her brow. No one was going to calmly listen to her, at least not at any point where it was going to matter for her personally. The master sergeant had accused her of highjacking, and the life of a simple cleaner wasn't going to matter anywhere near as much as ensuring that the military never lost the Suit. They would storm the bunker with their guns blazing, and she would die the moment she left her protective armor without ever getting a single word out. She was trapped.

A menu appeared on the visor in front of her eyes, and in despair Carol thought that it wasn't intuitive at all. "I don't know what it means!" she shouted at the computer. "Help me!"

"Accessing help system," the computer voice answered, and Carol expected the overlay on the visor to change. Instead, her whole body began to tingle, followed be the strangest sensation she had ever experienced, as if her mind had split in two and the panicked part of her had simply floated away. No one had ever said anything about the Suit being capable of something like that before.

She was now thinking clearly. When the soldiers stormed the bunker, she was ready.

"Access on-board camera and audio, and project video; set height to ten feet," she ordered the computer confidently, surprising even herself. The Suit flashed a light in front of it, forming a screen in the air. "Begin replay, starting point minus ... ten minutes." She wasn't sure how much time had passed, and hoped that she had gone back far enough.

Hartmann had ducked behind the line of soldiers, and was in the process of receiving first aid when the replay began. The recording of Carol protested, followed by the echo of his voice loudly filling the room with the words, "You think I care? You'll have a fatal accident long before you report anything to anyone."

He forcefully knocked down the medic and bolted before anyone else had the chance to react, clutching the bandages to his wrist and praying that he wasn't leaving a trail of blood for them to follow. He had acted rashly in a moment of passion, and now he was going to pay the price with not only his rank, but likely his hand as well. All he wanted now was to get away as fast as possible.

After the soldiers had been ordered to stand down, Carol opened up the Suit and stepped out with a smile of relief. She felt high, even as she was seized on both sides and taken to a small dark room, where she was left to wait alone. She was giddy, like she had just made love to her high school crush for the first time, and she was hopelessly caught up in the thought of doing it again. If she was ever let near the Suit after this, she wouldn't be able to stop herself from nestling inside.

The door opened, and a captain stepped in. He looked down at his watch, then up at Carol. "The General is on his way," he announced. "We'll begin then. For now, I want a written statement from you of what occurred." He set down a pad of paper and a pen on the table in front of her.

Carol hesitated, wondering how truthful she should be.

"This isn't official," the captain said quietly, leaning over her. "But I have to ask: how did you know the Suit has recording equipment installed? We could have clarified a certain number of missions had we known about it."

"I accessed the help system," Carol replied, her hand beginning to shake. She was abruptly coming down from her exhilaration, and all she really wanted to think about was what it had been like inside the Suit.

"No one has ever found a help system before," the captain pressed. "How did you know that existed?"

"I just asked for help." She was growing flustered.

He slammed his hand down on the table, making Carol jump. "Tell me, how did you do it?"

Carol kept her mouth shut, biting the inside of her cheek as she dug her fingernails into her wrist. Something deep inside of her screamed that she shouldn't tell him anything, that she needed to do whatever it took to keep her secret, but the way the captain had yelled at her was overwhelming. The emotional pressure brought tears to her eyes, so she blinked them back and struggled to regain her composure.

The captain made a disgusted noise, and once again looked down at his watch. "It's the fucking military, and the general can't be bothered to show up on time," he muttered to himself, then began pacing around the room.

"Am I going to lose my job?" Carol asked in a small cracked voice.

"Probably."

That broke the dam. She buried her head in her arms and sobbed against the table top, certain that her heart was shattering -- after spending her entire life feeling like an outsider, she had finally found true satisfaction and clarity, yet now she would never be allowed near the Suit again. She was destined to spend the rest of her days locked up in a cell, forever wondering why the Suit had called her 'commander,' and never having the chance to learn.

The Captain shook his head and took out his small notepad, jotting something down. When the door opened and the general stepped inside, he glanced at her with a look of surprise, then motioned for the captain to step outside. Having a moment alone help Carol regain herself, and when she sat back up she realized that she had sobbed all over her paper, leaving big wet splotches right in the middle of it. She wondered if she should ask for a new one, or try to write up her statement on it anyway.

"It looks like this is your lucky day," the captain said as he returned to the room. "The general just spoke to MSG Hartmann, and he's taking the entire blame for everything that happened today. He even asked that you not be punished."

"I thought he ran," Carol murmured, shocked.

The captain looked at her like she had just said something agonizingly stupid, and ignored it completely. "Just write up your statement for review."

Of course, she thought to herself, Hartmann had been badly injured and surrounded by soldiers. Even though he had tried to make a break for it, there's no way he would have made it very far. He was probably taken into custody as she exited the Suit.

"Did he explain why he acted that way?" she asked.

The captain rolled his eyes, then turned away and sat down on the edge of the table with his arms folded. Getting the message, Carol turned her attention to what she should write, and found that she was still too much of a wreck to think. With a shaking hand, she wrote, "The master sargent pushed me into the Suit," then stopped to inwardly call herself an idiot and scribbled out the misspelled word. She wondered how long the captain intended to stay there, hoping that if he left she could think well enough to write something coherent, but every time she glanced up at him she got the feeling that everyone in the military was thoroughly trained on how to wait -- he had picked his position, and nothing was going to budge him from it.

After managing to squeeze out another fifty words, she decided she was done. "Here," she said, sliding the paper as far away from her as she could.

He picked it up, and as he read the muscles around his mouth tightened with a suppressed smile, then he wrote something down on the same paper and signed his name. "You may go home now. You're being placed on leave, and you'll get the details in the mail." Carol stood, and he opened his mouth to speak then hesitated. Finally, the smile broke through, so he went ahead and asked, "Has anyone ever told you that you look like a mouse?"

"No, not really," she murmured.

He grunted slightly, then opened the door and held it for her. "Take care," he said as she walked through.

She nervously waved, briefly wondering if he had been hitting on her, then dismissed the idea as absurd. At thirty-one, she knew beyond a doubt that she wasn't anyone's cup of tea, so to speak, and that fact had never bothered her much anyway. He likely just had an odd sense of humor.

The bus ride home was the loneliest that she had ever been in her entire life, and she didn't like the way her tiny one-bedroom apartment felt when she walked inside. After experiencing what it was like under the Suit's help mode, everything about her life was crumbling into dust.

Even her glass of moscato didn't taste the same.

Have I Gone Mad?

Carol didn't know what to do with herself. Whenever she hadn't been needed to clean the Suit, she worked as part of the regular janitorial staff on base, and was thus able to keep herself occupied with a full time job. However, now she was left to keep herself entertained.

She spent a couple of days watching movies, until she felt too burnt out on them to bother. An official letter came in the mail telling her that her case was under review, and her heart sank to the bottom of her feet. That night, she dreamt about being inside the Suit, free to run and jump without the limitations of her body. For some reason, she woke up crying.

In an attempt to pass the time, she deep cleaned her apartment. Buried in her drawers, she found some old tank tops and a red satin pushup bra that she had purchased on impulse a few months prior, but had been too embarrassed to actually wear. After considering it for a moment, she tossed everything into the trash, knowing that she'd never work up the nerve to have that much cleavage.

After a week passed, she was ready to go bonkers. Carol had built up so much nervous energy, she had to fight the urge to tear out her hair and scream. In an attempt to numb herself, she spent more and more time using her phone to surf the internet, until the fateful moment she let her curiosity get the better of her, and she did a web search on Master Sergeant Hartmann.

There were no news stories about what happened, but she hadn't expected that there would be; the military would keep a tight lid on the entire incident. There was very little information available, but she did manage to stumble her way to a directory website that listed a few Hartmanns living in her area. She doubted the one she wanted was in his 50s, and definitely not female, which left her with one J. Hartmann, age 35.

Carol's heart stopped as she thought about paying the small fee to have access to his phone number, and wondered if it was some sort of scam. Oh what the heck, she thought to herself, then went ahead and put in her credit card info. When the number popped up on the screen, she dropped her phone down on the table and slid it away from her.

She was never going to call it.

Ever.

But she was dying to know what was going on. Was the Suit okay? Was someone else taking care of it? Was anyone else able to access the help mode?

Her heart leaped into her throat as she picked her phone up again and stared at the number, memorizing it as an excuse to buy time. What if it wasn't the right person, and she ended up looking like an idiot?

She couldn't do it. It was far too nerve wracking.

Carol put her phone down and went to pour herself a glass of wine, then took a few sips. As the warmth helped relax her, it finally dawned on her that she could try texting.

Going back to her phone, she picked it up and typed out, 'Are you Master Sergeant Hartmann' then squeezed her eyes shut as she hit send. Then she slammed her phone back down on the table and took a big gulp of wine. The phone beeped with a new message.

"Oh god, what have I done," she whispered to herself, pacing around her small apartment. "Get a grip on yourself, and go ahead and look. It's just words, and they aren't going to bite me. Besides, I can block the number if I have to." After her pep talk, she felt ready to look.

'Who is this?' was the reply.

Of course. She shouldn't have expected anything different.

'My name is Carol, and I'm looking for Master Sergeant Hartmann.' She paused, wondering exactly why she was looking for him. 'I work on base.'

This time, she had to finish the rest of her glass after hitting 'send,' then retreated to her bathroom to hide from the new text beep. Several minutes later, she slowly approached her phone like it was a deadly viper, and cautiously picked it up.

'Are you the cleaning lady?'

Her fingers trembled so much that it was hard for her to type, so she settled on a simple, 'Yes.'

This time, her phone started ringing, and her heart stopped as she looked at the incoming call screen. Then she panicked that she was going to miss it, and swiped desperately at the green phone icon until it finally registered. Timidly, she put her phone to her year and squeaked, "Hello?"

Hartmann's voice replied, "You fucking owe me."

"Well, excuse me!" Carol snapped, the side effect of having worked up her courage through so much wine. "If you hadn't pushed me into the Suit, then none of this would have ever happened."

"I was just having a little fun with you. I didn't expect you to retaliate by maiming me," Hartmann bit back, then gave a heavy sigh. "Besides, I already took the blame for that. You have me to thank for the fact that you aren't in jail right now."

"I'm not sorry for injuring you -- you deserved it," Carol said haughtily, then felt horrified at the sound of her own voice. "I mean, I am sorry," she quietly added. "I had a little too much to drink a moment ago."