Earth Year 2840. Forward Operating Base Aegis.
"So,"
Chang said breaking the silence as he tossed a plastic playing card into the dirt.
"Are we just going to sit here and pretend the giant guy in the medieval armor isn’t the weirdest thing we’ve ever seen?"
Chang asked the squad.
Daniel paused his perpetual nervous rifle maintenance.
"He’s got to be a cyborg, right?"
Daniel theorized.
"Like one of those classified deep space fed projects they build in the orbital black sites?"
Daniel asked, looking at Captain Eva.
"I have watched him move out there, and machines fight with predictable math,"
Eva explained.
"But he fights with anger, he fights with grief, meaning he is human,"
the veteran Captain concluded.
"He is just carrying the weight of a life of endless war,"
she whispered looking out toward the dark tunnel where the anomaly had disappeared.
"Yeah, well, whatever illegal black ops division he deserted from, I’m glad he’s on our side,"
Chang muttered pulling his knees to his chest.
"But you have to admit, he gives me the creeps,"
Chang shivered.
"He just stands there in the dark, watching us like a gargoyle, especially you Zeon"
Chang pointed out.
Across the fire, Zeon was staring blankly into the blue flames having not said a single word in over an hour.
Ruby, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him noticed the rigid tension radiating from his body.
"Hey,"
Ruby said as she nudged him hard in the ribs with her elbow.
"Spit it out,"
she commanded.
"Spit what out?"
Zeon blinked, pulled forcefully from his spiraling thoughts.
"You,"
Ruby accused, pointing a finger at his chest plate.
"You’ve been acting weird ever since we got trapped in that server room on the ship,"
Ruby stated.
"Every time N032 talks, you look like you’ve seen a ghost, so what do you know?"
Ruby demanded.
Chang and Daniel immediately stopped what they were doing, and even Eva looked over.
"I..."
Zeon started, rubbing the back of his neck and suddenly feeling too exposed looking at the weary faces of his squad, realizing he couldn’t keep the terrifying puzzle bottled up anymore.
"Back in the server room,"
Zeon started, his voice barely above a whisper.
"When I offered him the rest of my mom’s food... he tapped the lunchbox,"
Zeon explained.
"He gave it three rubs with his thumb, and two taps on the corner, which is exactly the way I do it,"
Zeon revealed.
"A coincidence,"
Daniel offered softly.
"It’s just a common fidget,"
"He knew about the garlic,"
Zeon said, looking at Ruby as his eyes wide with unresolved fear.
"He handed the box back to me and said my mother always uses too much garlic when she’s worried,"
Zeon recalled.
"He specifically said he knew the cooking from Ark City,"
Zeon stated.
Then silence fell over the camp.
"How?"
Chang asked, bewildered by the implication.
"Did he know your family back in the capital?"
Chang guessed.
"It gets worse,"
Zeon admitted, the dam of his anxiety finally breaking open.
"On the roof of the tank, when the native warrior knocked my rifle away? N032 told me why I lost it,"
Zeon said.
"He said I dragged my left heel when I parried, which is the exact same flaw I have struggled with for years,"
Zeon explained, his voice shaking.
"And when he fights... guys, he uses my exact stance, he just does it perfectly like he has lived a hundred lifetimes practicing it,"
Zeon choked out.
"Ark City Sector 9,"
Ruby whispered as her street kid instincts kicking into overdrive.
"Zeon, do you remember those massive raids the Enforcers used to do in our district?"
Ruby asked urgently.
"They weren’t just looking for contraband because they were actively taking people for the orbital genetic labs to supply illegal federation cloning programs,"
Ruby realized.
"You think he’s a clone of Zeon?"
Daniel asked with his eyes wide with horror.
"Or Zeon is the clone,"
Chang muttered before immediately wincing at his own words.
"Sorry man, but you have to admit, it makes sense,"
Chang defended himself.
"He is a highly classified supersoldier who shares your exact DNA, your exact muscle memory and your subconscious habits,"
Chang theorized.
"Maybe he refused to show the Captain his face because looking at an older scarred version of yourself would completely break you,"
Chang suggested grimly.
Zeon looked down at his hands with his heart hammering against his ribs at the thought of being a genetic replica.
A brother he never knew existed forged in some orbital black site for endless war.
It was terrifying but in the grim dystopian reality of the Galactic Federation, an illegal cloning experiment made logical sense.
"Wait. if we are discussing impossible connections to this anomaly, then I need to say something too,"
Ruby interjected, her icy composure finally fracturing.
"It’s not just you that he is obsessively tracking and protecting, Zeon,"
Ruby stated, her eyes wide with a terrifying realization.
"What do you mean, Ruby?"
Daniel asked, leaning closer to the fire.
"Back on the roof of the tank, when that native warrior knocked me down and raised his dagger for a killing strike, N032 panicked,"
Ruby recalled, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"He screamed at me to watch out,"
Ruby said, her hands trembling as she remembered the agony in his synthesized voice.
"But he didn’t call me Ruby,"
she revealed, looking directly at Captain Eva.
"He called me Sarah."
The campfire plunged into another suffocating silence.
"Who is Sarah?"
Chang asked, entirely confused.
"I have no idea,"
Ruby admitted, running a hand through her scarlet hair.
"But the way he said it. it sounded like his entire universe was ending just watching me fall,"
Ruby whispered.
"If Zeon was grown in a lab, then does that mean I am just a genetic clone of this dead woman named Sarah?"
Ruby asked, her voice trembling at the existential horror of being a replica.
"Maybe he is an older version of Zeon and you are a clone of his dead wife,"
Daniel murmured, rubbing his temples to stave off a massive headache.
"This sounds like some kind of twisted psychological warfare,"
Chang suggested, gripping his repeater tightly.
"Whatever his origin is,"
Eva interjected firmly, her voice anchoring them back to the present reality.
"Whether he is a clone, a cyborg, or a time traveling ghost, he is currently shedding his own blood to keep us alive on this hostile rock,"
Eva stated with unyielding authority.
"If he wants to keep his battered helmet on and hide his face from us, we will let him keep it on,"
Eva commanded the squad.
"We will treat him as one of our own because he has repeatedly earned that respect, is that fully understood, Marines?"
Eva demanded sharply, leaving no room for debate.
"Understood, Captain,"
the squad chorused in unison, forcing their crippling anxiety down into the pits of their stomachs.
Zeon stared deeply into the blue flames, knowing that the mystery of the armored man was only going to burn brighter in his fractured mind.