by M. C. Norris
Nana called her a “little stinker,” sometimes a “holy terror,” whatever that meant, but Luna’s mischievous smile reflected in Nana’s twinkling eyes every time she was snatched from atop the laundry hamper, and whooshed right up into the air with Nana’s gasp of exaggerated surprise. It was all part of their little game. Nana’s job was to chase, and to restore order to chaos, while Luna’s job was to stay a step ahead of her, disrupting all organization, and squealing with delight whenever she was captured. The adorable contest of larval skills versus wizened intuition began the moment Luna’s feet hit the floor, every morning at around five a.m., and it never ceased until the evening birds began to twitter.
Luna planted her chubby palms atop the laundry hamper. She reached as far across the lid as she could stretch, and struggled to pull herself up atop the thing. This was the hard part. It was tall, and it presented quite a challenging maneuver. Her diapers crinkled as she grunted and pumped her legs, wriggling on her belly like a slug. Almost there. She reached out again, further this time, and succeeded in grabbing hold of the far edge. With a firm handhold, it was easy to haul her torso across the cushioned lid, to swing her lower-half up beside her, and soon enough, to have those sturdy little legs beneath her, once more. Standing atop the laundry hamper, she felt like the biggest giant in the world.
Luna could hear her Nana in the kitchen, calling her name. Nana did that so often that it was almost background noise. Luna gripped the wooden windowsill, and she pressed her lips and tongue to the cold, smooth glass. Sometimes, on the inside of the bathroom window, there was the thinnest layer of crusty ice that could be licked or even scraped off in cold filings with one’s bottom teeth, but no window ice was available today. Outside, cars crawled along the road. Their tires slung ropes of tea-colored slush. She licked at the window and watched the cars go by until their repetitive motion lulled her into a trance.
“Luna?”
Her eyes brightened. She popped loose of the window, and turned in the direction of the voice. Her Nana was standing there in the bathroom doorway, arms folded across her chest. She was trying her best to look cross, but Luna knew better than to fall for that act. Nana never got cross with her. Not really.
“Cars!” Luna said, pointing to the window. Seemed like a pretty brilliant distraction from her naughty behavior.
Her Nana smiled. “You see some cars out there? Are they driving? Vroom-vroom?”
“Out there.”
“Yeah, out there.” Nana entered the bathroom, and sat down on the clothes hamper. She snuggled in beside Luna at the windowsill, and removed her phone from her hip pocket. Nana took a moment to watch the cars, too, but she didn’t appear to find the sight of moving cars quite so exciting. In fact, she seemed a little distant. Adults could be funny that way.
“This.” Luna pressed her finger to the window. She wanted her nana to have a taste of it, and feel how cold and smooth it was against her tongue.
“That’s glass.”
“Gas.”
“Gl-ass.”
Sometimes Nana didn’t understand things quite so well. She was a sweet enough woman, but there was something of a language barrier between the two of them that Luna never had to overcome with her mama, or her daddy. Luna frowned at the cars. She hadn’t seen her daddy in quite a long time. Just the thought of him and his inexplicable absence tended to make her irritable. She placed both palms against the window, and managed to smack them against the glass several times before Nana caught her by the wrists.
“No-no.” Nana shook her head.
“No-no.”
“We don’t hit glass. Glass will break. Cut Luna’s fingers. Ow!”
Luna rubbed her fingers together, appraising the unapparent dangers of the window with an expression of contrived concern tilled into her brow. “Gas bake.”
“Yeah. Glass break.”
Since her mama had dropped her off with Nana, she’d asked many times about her mama’s whereabouts. Nana had never given her a straightforward answer, but then, Luna wouldn’t have known what answer would’ve been satisfactory when something that should always be there simply was not. However, Nana didn’t seem to be alarmed, and each time she reassured her that her mama went “bye-bye,” and would be back soon. Those prompt and cheerful responses certainly didn’t give off anything resembling the funky signals that Luna had come to expect whenever she asked about the whereabouts of her daddy. Questions regarding him produced such uncomfortable reactions in adults that after a month or so, Luna just stopped asking about him. Some things were better left alone, she’d begun to learn. However, even though she didn’t ask about him, her daddy was often on her mind. There were times when her mama just wasn’t enough, when she wasn’t the person for whom Luna yearned, and her frustration over a missing daddy could culminate in an emotional meltdown over something so taboo that she couldn’t even talk about it. No one seemed to be able to understand her. She was complicated.
Luna sighed. “Mama bye-bye.”
“Yep. She’ll be home soon.”
Always, that same reply. She might’ve expected that it was coming. Luna didn’t know why she even bothered to bring up the subject anymore. In its own way, the more recent problem of mama’s absence was just as impossible as that of a missing daddy.
Luna chewed on the windowsill, a thread of drool swinging from her chin. Cooing a little tune for the day that she’d just composed, she stared out past the cars, and over the row of beige houses lining the opposite side of the street. Beyond those seaside villas of Turnagain Arm, a forest of masts in the harbor lilted and straightened like trees in the wind. Luna’s chin stopped grinding. She blinked, straightened up, and pawed at some grit stuck to her lower lip.
“That,” she said, pressing the pad of her index finger against the window. She turned toward her Nana, but Nana was busy, staring down at her phone. Luna poked at the windowpane, but she did so gently. She didn’t want to break it. “That, Nana. That.”
Nana glanced up momentarily. Her gaze tracked down Luna’s extended arm to the tip of her finger. “That’s glass, remember?” She looked back down at her phone again. “Nana already told you about that.”
Luna frowned. Finger still pressed to the cold surface of the window, she looked back out over the snowy roofs of the villa into the forest of swaying masts. Nana could be frustrating, sometimes. She wasn’t inquiring about the glass again, obviously. Her curiosity, with respect to glass, had been satisfied. This question was in regard to the glistening monster that had just risen up from the sea to a height that eclipsed the sun. It was just knocking around out there through the fleet of moored ships, sifting through vessels in a haphazard manner that was not unlike Luna’s method of exploring a new drawer.
“That,” she whispered.
***
Skyler slipped in opposite Jill to assist Collin down the Devil Ray’s ramp. Given her unstable legs, the ramp itself was a little intimidating, but Collin had earned her best effort. Still woozy and disoriented from streaming, his legs weren’t quite beneath him. Skyler noticed a rivulet of blood trickling from beneath his headset, in the vicinity of his left ear. Her eyes widened at the sight of the crimson trail winding down his jaw, but she thought it wise to refrain from mentioning it until they had him seated.
Takashi and J.J. marched out in the middle of Shanghai’s SWCC field command hangar, where Commander Bent met them like a fighter emerging from the corner of his hometown ring. The roar of their voices filled the enclosed space, as accusations and threats began to fly. Nose to nose with the Mad Hatter, J.J. held a clenched fist ready in the chamber, while Bent’s stiffened arms were locked straight at his sides. Water pooled on the hangar floor beneath Bent, who’d just been hauled out of the sea by a drone chopper. The SEAL’s gunship was never recovered, along with a few members of Bent’s crew.
“You will stand down in my hangar, pogue, or you’ll never see the light of day! You disobeyed a direct order from the SWCC to shut your program dow
n!”
“We were operating under a higher authority than you,” J.J. said, shouting back.
Bent stabbed a thumb against his chest. “I am the only authority in the Yellow Sea!”
“We’ll see what the Barrier Reef thinks about that, and your attempt to compromise a mission of the highest priority with friendly fire. We’ve got a guy who can barely walk over here!”
“I’ve got a missing gunship, and three SEALs!”
“That’s all on you. You put those men in harm’s way.”
Skyler tried to remain in lockstep with Jill, but old wounds were throbbing up in her legs. It was difficult to keep up, but she managed to do so. Together, they ushered him over to a bench outside the locker rooms, and eased him down onto the seat. Still strapped into his headset, Collin slumped over at the waist. Hotspot trotted over, and licked at his master’s chin. It appeared as though the loyal dog sensed that something wasn’t quite right.
“Is this normal?” Skyler whispered.
“Disconnecting from an active streaming session is never easy. Especially for him. He dives in more deeply than the rest of us. I really don’t see how it can be good for the human mind, but the science is already a decade ahead of the health studies,” she said, emitting a sigh.
“I saw some blood.” Skyler tapped at her own left ear.
“Blood?”
Skyler nodded. “Coming from beneath his helmet. I think it’s coming from his ear.”
Jill knelt before her fallen teammate, and unfastened the snaps beneath his chin. Popping the mouse-piece from his lips, she lifted the Mindbender Rift from his head. “Jesus,” she whispered.
The left side of Collin’s head was badly bruised, as though he’d sustained a powerful blow. However, the pattern beneath the skin was curiously geometric, rather than the amorphous and blotchy appearance typical of a bruise. It almost looked as though a pattern had been printed on the backside of his skin. Skyler watched Jill use the cuff of her flight jacket to wipe the blood from Collin’s cheek and ear. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Skyler asked.
Jill shook her head.
“How do you think it happened? It didn’t happen in the Devil Ray, did it?”
“I don’t know. He did get in the middle of that fight between those two,” Jill replied, gesturing to the ongoing shouting match between J.J. and Commander Bent, “but I didn’t see him take a hit, did you?”
“Not really.” Skyler touched his temple, tracing the queer rays of bruising across his cheekbone. The coloring almost looked pixelated, like a dot matrix. “Look at this. It almost looks computer generated. Right?” Skyler glanced at Jill, whose lack of response to the obvious seemed to be an unspoken confirmation. “Do you think he brought this back from the other side—like, from something that happened during his cerebral experience?”
“The headset is designed to protect against certain types of collateral damage,” Jill replied. “Every neural signal in the host’s brain is being translated from electricity into binary code. That’s a massive stream of information, and most of it is useless to the pilot.” Jill patted the crown of Collin’s helmet. “The headset works something like a filter for all that noise, but we’ve learned through trial and error that some of the extraneous sensory data should be allowed to come through, for the most realistic shared experience.”
There was something strange about Jill’s response. It almost sounded rehearsed, like a statement memorized by some product representative, stashed away in a mental file to be retrieved if something ever went terribly wrong with the product. In case of emergency, break glass. “Pain,” Skyler said, hardening her eyes. “You’re talking about pain.”
“Psychosomatic pleasure and pain reception,” Jill replied, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Does it exist? Yes and no. We’ve discussed our experiences after training sessions, and we’ve seen some evidence for it, yes. Personally, I’ve felt it.” Jill nodded, eyes widening. “This is why I’m not the best pilot. I feel too much, if that makes sense, or maybe I just don’t handle what I’m feeling as well as he does. The whole experience is totally overwhelming to me, and not in a good way. I get nausea, migraines, and vertigo that last for days … and I mean, this is exactly what I’m talking about. The studies haven’t even begun on how this new science will affect pilots twenty years from now, when we’re all developing brain tumors from this crap.” She closed her eyes, and shook her head. “This is why I just can’t.” Her bottom lip began to tremble. “I can’t do this anymore.” Jill rose, hands pressed to her forehead, and disappeared into the women’s locker room.
“You detonated a weapon of mass destruction in the middle of my jurisdiction!”
“Where’s your proof? Huh?”
“The SWCC controls every engagement in the Yellow Sea!”
“I can’t wait to watch you try and explain that to Captain Roswell.”
“Ms. Hale,” Takashi shouted from the sidelines of the fight. “Can you get the Captain on the line? Like, immediately?”
Skyler nodded, and rose to her feet.
“Who detonated the bomb that took down my gunship?” Bent shouted. He stabbed a finger at Collin. “Was it him?”
“It was me,” J.J. replied, taking his Mindbender Rift from beneath his arm, and pulling the headset over his head. He planted his hands smartly on his hips.
“No, it was me,” Takashi said, donning his own.
“I see. Fun and games. You all want to go down together for this? Fine. That’s exactly the lack of accountability that I’d expect from a civilian program.” Bent aimed his finger at everyone in the hangar. “None of you are setting foot off this base until further notice. You’re grounded!”
“Yeah, we kind of saw that coming,” J.J. replied. “You don’t happen to have an air hockey table around here, do you?”
Skyler peered down at Collin, trying not to question everything that she was doing. She removed her phone from her hip pocket. Roswell hadn’t been answering any of her calls or messages. Skyler went a different route, by accessing the iFly app. A list of available military drones popped up on her screen. When drones weren’t working on the Barrier Reef, they were accessible to military personnel as couriers, messengers, and, of course, for fooling around. She scrolled down until she located one loitering in Captain Roswell’s office wing. Skyler selected the drone, and entered her security password. With a fluting riff, the drone’s POV filled her screen. The “voice command” icon was flashing in the top-right corner.
“Find: Captain Raymond Roswell,” Skyler said, speaking slowly and clearly into her phone.
“Finding Captain Raymond Roswell,” the drone replied, in a soft-spoken female voice, complete with an Australian accent.
Just like that, the drone named RACHEL-1023 was off, winding through the labyrinth of corridors, scanning every face that it encountered. Drone messaging was wildly popular, back when Skyler was a kid, but just as the fad caught the eyes of advertising executives, it began to lose its initial appeal. People simply became annoyed with haranguing robots that carried inane messages, insults, and personalized advertisements tailored to a consumer’s purchase history. A backlash of drone bashing was the end result. Ad campaigns tanked. Drones backed-off to a respectful distance. Life went on. However, sending a messenger drone was still a viable option when someone wasn’t answering their phone.
Skyler looked away from the dizzying drone feed on her screen. No need to watch the search. The drone would alert her, if and when it found Captain Roswell. Watching a drone feed for only just a few seconds made her sympathize with the sensory onslaught that dolphin pilots endured. She slid the phone back into her hip pocket, and watched Commander Bent storm out of the hangar. Once he was gone, she rose, and followed Jill into the locker room.
“Hey.”
Jill was standing at the sink, blotting her eyes with a paper towel. Her sharp and deliberate movements, the flatness of her visage, every aspect of Jill’s behavior swore an
oath of resignation. She sniffed, pulled her hair back into a bun, and secured it behind her head with a few bobbies.
“Want to talk?”
Jill’s head gave an involuntary twitch, and her eyelids fluttered. She cleared her throat, sighed, and planted her knuckles upon the counter. She stared into the leveled eyes of her own reflection in the mirror, and then shifted her gaze onto Skyler. “Do you have kids?”
“No.”
Jill shook her head, as though affirming what she’d already suspected. She looked down into the sink, balling the wet paper towel inside her clenched hand. “Those other guys out there,” she said, gesturing toward the door with a tilt of her head, “they wouldn’t understand. This is their whole life. When I saw them for the first time in two years, it was like nothing whatsoever had changed. They were all ready to jump right back into the program like we were all just coming back from lunch break.” Jill wadded the paper towel, and slung it into the wastebasket. “Not me. I’m not even the same person anymore.”
“Parenthood changes your whole life. I totally get that.”
“No,” Jill replied, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but you really don’t. None of you do.” She folded her arms, and leaned back against the counter. “When you reach the last trimester of pregnancy, and the big day is looming, that’s when all the other mommies really start chattering, preparing you for what’s coming. Up until that point, it’s all about names, colors, furniture for the baby room, but the conversations don’t start getting real until those last three months. That’s when you begin to learn what you’re really in for.”
Skyler stepped further into the locker room. She slipped her hands into her pockets, turned on a heel, and leaned against a row of gray lockers. Jill wasn’t giving her much of an entry point into the conversation, and that was probably intentional, to illustrate her point of feeling alienated.
“They all say that motherhood is going to change you, and that you won’t even resemble the person you used to be after the first six months. They say you’ll look at photos of yourself before your child was born, and you won’t even be able to empathize with that person from your past anymore. You hear those kinds of things all the time, and yeah, you nod your head and smile, but you’re not even capable of understanding what they mean until that baby is born. That’s when everything they’ve been warning you about really clicks.”