Diana was a few floors up. The advantage of the com system was that, if you turned it on, its location was shared on a closed network. Easy to find and meet up with someone. You just had to follow the right colors.
The main hall where Nexus Alpha was being kept had several minor hangars branching off of it. Overlooking one of those, Diana sighed as Epoc approached. There, not so much standing as coat-hangered, was what remained of Arcus.
“I think,” Diana said, “she’s going to have to retire.”
“I mean, a bit of tape. A lick of paint.” Epoc tried to joke. Diana even did her the courtesy of cracking a faint smile. “I’m, I’m really sorry.”
“You know,” Diana said, “I’m supposed to be partially in charge of punishment for you. I’m a designated third party that puts you in your place, so to speak, if you damage my babies too much. Whatever way I see fit. But…” She sighed. “If you hadn’t stopped that thing I might not even
be
here, Epoc. That puts me in a bit of an
awkward
situation. What, am I going to punish you for taking a risk that saved my life and who knows how many others? Not exactly spanking material, is it?”
“Hold on, back up,” Epoc said. “You were going to
spank
me?”
“It was in your contract. Nothing too egregious, but we can’t have you going off and having us costs millions of dollars on every sortie, now can we?” Diana grabbed the railing she was leaning against. “Fuck I wish I hadn’t stopped smoking.”
“How long?”
“Five years,” she said. “Wish I could tell you it gets easier.”
There was a silence and Epoc, diplomatic genius, decided to break it. “How much did I cost Mako Group?” she asked.
“Are you kidding me?” Diana looked at her with surprise. “You made Mako Group a couple billions, easy! When someone takes down one of these things, there’s always an argument about who did what and which guns delivered the final blow and who has salvage rights. Nah, I’m pretty sure the board could kiss you right now.”
“Oh,” Epoc thought, not thinking of Winter at all in any capacity, way, shape or form.
“Yeah,” Diana said. “So no. No punishment today.”
“I mean, I feel like I completely ruined a machine that was important to you.”
“Epoc Mako,” Diana said with a raised eyebrow, “it seems to me like you
want
someone to punish you.” She flashed her a grin, revealing her network of crow’s feet. It was a very attractive feature. “Maybe we can grab a drink some time and discuss modes of punishment, yeah? Then we can talk about Nexus, too. What you want to do with her. She should be ready for her first walk next week and I want to make sure she’s perfect for you, too. I want to be there.”
“You know what goes on inside that cockpit, right?” Epoc said. Diana helped build them. Of course she knew.
“I said what I said,” Diana said with a little smirk and, surprisingly, a blush.
“I’ll make sure you’re invited.” Epoc straightened up. “Hey, I’ve been a little lost since I got here. Would you mind explaining the way the colored lines, the alarm codes, all of those work?”
“You didn’t get the brief?” The woman frowned for a second and then shrugged. “Alright. Come with me.”
As she explained the different categories of alerts and colored lines on the floors, the way the tracking systems worked, she guided Epoc through the facilities again.
Generally, red lines were for battle stations. If you knew where to look, they were numbered, and the orientation of the numbers also told you something. Pilots without a communicator who were assigned to a new facility should just follow their number and end up with their assigned Frames. The one exception was “0”. That one took you to the nearest exit.
Blue was for medical issues. No numbers, only a white triangle. Follow the point to the medical station in case of an emergency. Go in the opposite direction towards medical storage. Fairly straightforward.
Yellow for canteen, white triangle again. Point towards the canteen, flat towards the deep freezer. Adjacent to medical supplies, because two freezers were more expensive than one.
Green was for recreation. Bunch of numbers, but they were organized, with the decimals indicating the kind of facility. “You’ll learn what’s what,” Diana said. “Personally, I try to spend some time at the pool every day. Keeps me limber.” Epoc didn’t say a word, and Diana heard it. “You’re welcome to come with some time if you like,” she said. “Good for a pilot to get a solid workout between sorties.”
“Yeag,” Epoc said with what could only be described as a choked chortle.
Diana continued with a grin.
White was executive and administrative suites. If Epoc ever needed to find her way to Winter’s office, just follow the big fat “1”. White was also for information. “0” would take you to the nearest terminal, in case you were lost.
Finally, black was for barracks. The numbered ones were for Rats and Cats. Finally, α was for Hounds. You couldn’t miss it.
The lines were on the ground of every part of the complex. In case of a power outage, someone who didn’t have their com with them could still navigate based on those numbers.
“They’re universal across all Mako Group facilities,” Diana said. “Also, emergency numbers, like 0’s are always visible as a thinner line next to the main one.” She pointed them out. She also explained the way the coloring system for alarms worked, but that was mostly a matter of rote memorization.
It was a comfortable way to spend the day, all things considered. Epoc was happy for the distraction. The events of the day before had done a number on her, in more ways than one.
“Thank you,” she finally told Diana.
“For what?”
“For… a moment of
normality,
” Epoc said. “It’s been a lot.”
“I can imagine,” Diana said. “I imagine you don't have a lot of people to talk to, either. Don’t tell them I said this but the other two Hounds are a little…”
“Extreme?”
“I was going to go for ‘intense.’ But yes. Hex is–”
“Hex,” Epoc finished. “Like a horny squirrel on ketamine.”
“Hah! Yeah. Girl’s got
issues.
And Aaliya is… Hold on, have you seen Cerberos yet?” Epoc shook her head, and Diana walked her to the Wardog’s hangar. The Frame had been almost literally ripped in half by the Megafauna yesterday. It was only connected in the midriff by a few plates and cables. Epoc shuddered. She didn’t want to imagine what it was like to be on the receiving end of that kind of punishment. All the damage to Arcus had been self-inflicted.
Cerberos herself, though, was a different creature from any Frame Epoc had ever seen. Hunched over with a long, elongated head. Long limbs with clawed hands and a curved, almost hunched spine, which gave the Frame a shorter stature than the average Alpha Frame. A remarkable feature were the heavy cannons mounted on each shoulder, giving the Frame a three-headed silhouette.
Most surprising were the digitigrade legs. Epoc had never really tried them. They were panned by most pilots, not because of their lack of practicality but because they were, for most people, too hard to maneuver in. Like standing on tiptoes the whole damn time, she’d been told. Like you were constantly falling forward.
The Frame in front of her didn’t look like it was about to fall over. Even with its miles of titanium guts hanging out and being soldered back together, Cerberos looked like a coiled spring.
“Yeah,” Diana said. “Me too.” She crossed her arms. “That took
work
, I’ll tell you. Those legs are powerful but they
soak
energy. She’s easily twenty foot shorter than Nexus but weighs several dozen tons more, just to keep the whole thing balanced and moving.” Epoc smirked and looked over. She enjoyed seeing a woman proud of her work. Diana looked at her, catching the smile and responding with one of her own.
“Can I see Reefdancer?”
A minute later, they were in Hexacora’s hangar. Thankfully, Reefdancer was in a lot better shape. She had a bit of battle damage, but it was mostly surface level. She was currently being hosed down to get the seawater out of her.
Compared to Cerberos, she looked a lot more like a standard frame, except for three antenna-like structures sticking out of its shoulder.
“What are those?”
“Torpedo launchers,” Diana said. “Barrier – sorry, Hex – is underwater more than most frames, so she had those installed as a permanent fixture. Her chassis houses a whole range of different torpedoes, from sonar to hyperbaric charges. It’s actually regulation that Reefdancer can never set foot within city limits. If her reactor goes critical, the results would be, uh…”
“Catastrophic?”
“Bad. Anyway, that’s how she likes it and what our Hounds want, our Hounds get. Besides, she can be trusted with it.” She pointed at the Frame’s legs, which were a lot wider than standard. “She’s also built for wading and moving through water,” Diana continued. “I had to make them wide to support its movements, but most of her plating can actually shift to allow for flow. She’s the fastest Alpha I’ve ever built. Moment to moment, anyway. I think Cerberos is faster in a flat sprint.”
“She’s beautiful,” Epoc said, hands on her hips. “You’ve done amazing work here, Diana.”
The engineer shrugged. “It’s not that hard when you have the budget and manpower for it. Yeah, Mako Group isn’t the biggest company in the system, but we don’t have to be. Our pilots are the best, our Frames are the best, and we do good work. And, not to put too fine a point on it, we have a
really
good marketing department. Our Cats and Rats get really good deals all the time.”
“Still. I haven’t seen a lot of Frames built with this much… care?”
“We do our best here,” she said with another shrug, but the pride started to seep through again.
“So… Barrier?”
“Hex’s callsign, as you figured. She got the name by wrestling three Boar Class B, practically at once. The last one was about to get through, knocked her down, and then she managed to roll over on top of it. Even when she’s out, nothing gets through. The nickname stuck. Aaliya’s is Wardog, for obvious reasons.” She hooked her thumbs in the waist of her overalls. “You’ll get yours soon enough.”
“We’ll see,” Epoc laughed.
“So, do you have any ideas of what you want to do with Nexus Alpha, now that you’ve seen the other two?” Diana asked, walking them back to the main hangar.
“Some,” Epoc said. “I’d have to pilot her once first, I think. I need to know how she feels.”
“That’s fair,” Diana said. “Look, I actually have some more work to do, but let’s do this again some time.” She put her hand on Epoc’s shoulder, then seemed to consider something for a moment. Finally, she gently lifted the pilot’s face with her thumb and index finger, nudging her chin up. Epoc didn’t know what was happening but it didn’t stop her heart from fluttering up into her chest. Then, out of nowhere, Diana ever so slightly slapped her cheek. “There’s your punishment,” Diana said. She wasn’t smiling, and just turned around to leave.
Epoc just rubbed her cheek in confusion and shook her head. Why was everyone here
like this?!
Was there something in the water? With a sigh, she turned to go grab dinner.
The wake was quiet. Well, the first part. There was a tradition. There was a bowl of LED’s, near the entrance of a large, empty room where the memorial wall had been moved. There were several plaques and walls like it, but with more than enough room for more. In the center of the memorial hall was a table, full of little lights.
Carefully, Epoc picked and memorized a spot – the grid was numbered – and stuck the LED in there. She tried to keep the names in her head as she did, let the sadness over lost life, the guilt over not remembering or even knowing the women who lost their lives, all of it, flow through her for a moment. Her little light lit up. It flickered lightly. It was not constructed well. The LED would probably give out in a day or two.
As the tradition dictated, you were not allowed to mourn longer than it took for the light to burn out. That said, you were expected to come check.
It kept you grounded.
The
second
half of the wake was not quiet. There was a second canteen where she followed everyone else to, wondering why they didn’t use the primary one, only to find out that, instead of the sterile, professional environment, this one looked like a bar. The food counter had been emptied and had a truly outrageous number of shots on it.
It was going to be
that
kind of night, then. Before joining anyone, Epoc stepped out. The mourners spilled into the hall, happily recounting stories of the fellow pilots they’d lost. Some cried. Some were already, somehow, wasted and passed out.
“Winter?” she asked quietly on the com.
“Epoc. How are you doing? I’m seeing you… at the secondary canteen. Is everything all right?”
“Yah,” Epoc said. “I was just… checking in on you. You lost a lot of people today. You should be down here.”
“You don’t– I know. Thank you. Sadly, I’m preoccupied.” The com fell silent, but Epoc gave her another second. Silence was a good way to get people to open up, more so than prodding. “Significant loss of life incurs significant paperwork,” Winter added. “I’m afraid I’m busy.”
“I don’t believe you,” Epoc said. There was a quiver in Winter’s voice, and if there was one thing Epoc couldn’t stand for, it was a woman crying alone. “I’m grabbing a bottle and coming up to you.”
“
You will do no such thing, Epoc Mako,
” Winter snapped. “You overstep. We are
not
friends. You are my employee, and you will behave yourself as such. I
order
you to stay with your fellow pilots and mourn in whatever way you see fit. Leave me out of it.”
The line went dead. Epoc stared blankly at the com. Really.
Really?
She took a deep breath, walked back into the cafeteria. People raised her glass when they saw her walk in and she forced a smile on her face. Alright. Antimony wanted her to partake? Then she was going to fucking partake. She walked over to the makeshift bar and grabbed two shots. No time for second guessing or thinking.
“To the ones we lost!” She raised her shot. Angel, already at least one shot deep, copied the motion, and everyone else followed, including the ones who didn’t seem particularly eager to join the new recruit in a toast. Ignoring it was just… not done.
The hard liquor hit the back of her throat like gasoline, and it was only because of her frustration and, to be frank, several extremely inadvisable weekends back at the academy that she swallowed all of it without coughing.
“To the ones we didn’t!” The second shot went down a lot easier. People cheered. She tossed both shots on the ground and slammed her heel down on the broken glass. Her head swam and her throat burned. But something in her chest needed to be let out.
She had lost people. People she didn’t even know and would now never know. She could have done better. Should have done better. She had done her best and now her Handler was treating her like… like…
Epoc balled her fists and screamed. Shouted.
Raged.
The entire cafeteria joined her. After all, when a Hound howls, it’s bad luck not to howl with them.
Hours passed in a drunken haze. At some point there was crying. There was throwing up. Then some more shots. Somehow, following the black lines on the ground, did she manage to find her way back to the Hound suites.
Dreams were loud and incoherent. Fucking. Giant monsters. Giant Frames. Women. Touching.
She woke up in her bed, and that was a mistake. Her head throbbed and she felt poisoned which, well, wasn’t
not
true. However, when she tried to move, she felt weirdly heavy. It took her a second to realize that that was because of the arm draped across her chest.
“What?” Epoc said quietly.
“Hey,” Angel said. “Good morning, puppy.”
“What?”