Valiant

[Valiant #32: Marketing Makeover]

Log Date: 10/25/12764

Data Sources: Feroce Acceso, Kiwi

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Sunthorn Bastion: Barracks

11:01pm SGT

“Rise and shine, scrubs, it’s a bright and sunshiny Valiant day!”

I flick on the lights in the barracks, greeted with the sight of several groggy, shuffling bunks of recruits twisting and rolling in their beds as they’re woken up. Taking the broom off the hook by the doorway, I start banging it on the doorframe. “C’mon, up and att’em! We ain’t got all night!”

“Wha thuh…” Ridge mumbles, squinting around the end of his bunk at me, fumbling for his phone. “Dude, is like… eleven at night.”

“Indeed it is!” I say, laying off the broom-banging and pulling out my phone so I can start a timer. “And our position has just been discovered, meaning that we have to pack up and relocate before ground forces reach our position. Let’s go let’s go let’s go!”

“Wha?” another recruit says groggily, staring at me. “Is the Bastion under attack?”

“No, the Bastion’s not under attack. It’s an exercise. Part of basic training.” Renchiko rasps. She’s already swung out of her bunk and is working her boots on. “Get up. He’s about to start the timer.”

“Oh ho ho, someone knows what I’m talking about!” I grin. “We’re about to do a five mile run. For every additional minute it takes this unit to get out of bed, get dressed, and get outside in formation, another mile’s getting added onto that.”

“What the hell?” Ridge coughs. “You’re waking us up at midnight to make us run five miles?”

“Timer’s started!” I shout, holding up my phone.

“Don’t complain. Just get up and do it.” Renchiko grunts at Ridge as she starts tying her boots. Across the barracks, other recruits are starting to shuffle out of bed and get their clothes on. “The faster we get it done, the faster we can go back to sleep.”

“This is stupid.” Ridge grunts, starting to roll out of bed.

I lower my phone, pointing it Ridge. “Disrespect! You just earned your unit another mile! Anyone else got an opinion they wanna get off their chest?”

“Dude! I literally just told you not to complain!” Renchiko hisses at Ridge as recruits around the room shout at Ridge to shut up.

“Okay okay, geez, fine! I’m going, I’m going.” he says, starting to shove his feet into his boots. By this point Renchiko’s pretty much ready to go, and she runs through the door as other recruits start staggering out of their bunks and making their way to the front of the room.

“One minute! We’re up to seven miles!” I shout as the timer passes the one-minute mark. “Another fifty-five seconds and we can make that eight miles; y’all are gonna get some good cardio tonight!”

The pace of the shuffling and staggering picks up, accompanied by the recruits outside shouting at the ones still inside to hurry up. Everyone’s gotten their butt in gear and out the door by the time the timer hits two minutes, and I turn it off, stepping out to find them lining up in the hall about three wide and seven deep. Most of them still aren’t fully awake yet; there’s plenty of yawns going around. “Alright! This is more like it! We’ll be heading to the grounds. You’ll be running the rim of the Bastion until we’ve made seven miles. You will stay in formation the entire time; there will be no trailblazers and no laggers. You will move as a single unit. If you have any questions, save them for later, because now is not the time for them. Move out!”

The column starts into motion sluggishly, the ones at the front reluctantly leaning forward into a jog, and the rows behind follow. I walk along behind them, bringing up the rear until we exit the barracks onto the road that runs around the rim of the Bastion’s equator, beside the monorail tracks. Parked outside the barracks is one of the open-top groundskeeping carts, with Jackrabbit sitting behind the wheel. Jumping in the back and sitting down, I pat the side of the cart, and Jackrabbit turns the cart on, setting it to a slow cruise so we can stay even with the jogging column.

“That was pretty good!” Jackrabbit says over her shoulder, chipper and cheery despite the time of night. “Usually it takes ‘em longer than that! How many miles are they in for?”

“Seven!” I say, getting comfortable as I pull out my phone and one of my Crescendo speakers. “Took them over a minute to get up and going, and we had an instance of disrespect, so an extra two miles on top of the usual. You wanna let ‘em know what they’re in for while I’m getting set up?”

“Oh, don’t I ever!” Jackrabbit crows. “So, recruits, guess what? The old Challenger training modules were all about getting the most value out of training. And for basic training, which is mostly about physical capability, it leaves a lot of room for mental exercise and knowledge-building, since the exercises are mostly braindead. So every time we do these runs, one of us is going to be reading you history lessons from landmarks in Challenger history, starting with the defense of Shi Morlan. This way, we can train your bodies and your minds at the same time!”

There’s a zombie-like groaning from the column, but it seems like that’s all they can manage for now — full sentences seems to be a little too much for them at the moment.

“Just remember, the longer it takes you to finish the run, the longer you have to listen to me drone on.” I say as I get the speaker hung from one of the hooks on the exterior of the cart. Taking out the mic, I clip it to the neck of my shirt, sync it up with the speaker, and lean back in the back of the cart, reaching from the history lesson I’ve downloaded to my phone. “Occurring almost a hundred and fifteen years ago, the defense of Shi Morlan was the instigating event that led to the formation of the Challenger program…”

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Sunthorn Bastion: The Rim

10/27/12764 4:12am SGT

“…and the subsequent capture of Zackly the Demon Hamster, herald of Asmodeus, resulted in the arrest of several members of the Baron Clan after their involvement in the summoning was revealed by the investigations of the Challengers. Soviet Brazil would end up footing the bill for the city’s repair, with the Baron Clan forever banned from the city for their crimes against decency—”

“Oi, chirper, we got someone tippin’ the bucket.” Jackrabbit interrupts me, slowing the cart to a stop. I look to the side to see that one of the recruits has stepped to the side and is throwing up.

“So we do. Unit! Full stop!” Sitting up a little, I dig around in the back of the cart until I come up with a bottle of water, and lean over the edge of the cart. “Five minute break, on the dot! I’m starting the timer now. Get it out of your system, recruit. Don’t think it’ll get you out of training. You still got three miles to go, and if you can’t, your unit’s going to carry you three miles.”

“Dude, seriously?” Ridge pants, bracing his hands on his knees. “She’s throwing up, she’s in no shape to be running another three miles. Just let her call it and the rest of us can finish.”

“Not an option, rookie.” I say, tossing the water bottle to him. “This is a forced march; you’ve got enemies on your tail. If she doesn’t keep moving, she gets left behind. If she gets left behind, the enemy gets her, and they’ll kill her, or worse. Capture comes with the risk of interrogation, torture, and information falling into enemy hands that could put your unit, or worse, the entire organization at risk. She gets up and keeps moving, and if she can’t, the unit carries her. Now make sure she gets the rest of that upchuck out of her system, and get her to hydrate. A person loses a lot of liquids when they vomit, and they need to be replaced, or you risk further complications and physical stress.”

Ridge catches the bottle and looks at the heaving recruit. “I’m not sure—”

“Give me that.” Renchiko says, snagging the water bottle from him when he hesitates. Opening it, she walks over to the hunched-over recruit, thumping her on the back. “Is that all of it? If it is, take a gulp, rinse, and spit to get the taste out. Do it twice if you have to, then drink as much as you can from what’s left over.”

“Looks like Ratchet made sure her kiddo knew how to take care of herself.” Jackrabbit murmurs over her shoulder to me.

I reach up, turning off the mic on my collar. “Yeah. We would train her in the summers, when she was out of school and we weren’t responding to Leviathan sightings on other frontier worlds. She didn’t like it back then, but I’m glad to see she’s retained some of what Ratchet and I taught her.”

“She’s gonna be a good Agent.” Jackrabbit says, hooking her arm over the back of her seat. “How do you think Ridge is doing?”

“Hard to tell. I dunno if he’s still pissed at me, or if he’s genuinely struggling with the basic training.” I say, shaking my head. “He had it easy up to this point, but basic training is what really tests your resolve. If you can’t get through it, you’re not cut out for being a spec ops, much less rank-and-file.”

“You still haven’t leveled with him about why ya sent him to the Challenger Valiant outpost?” Jackrabbit says, glancing at me.

“I haven’t had the chance. He’s been pushing me away whenever I try to sit him down for a talk. Spending a lot of time with his… boyfriend.”

“You worried about his boyfriend?” Jackrabbit asks.

“Not worried about the fact that he has a boyfriend, just… how do I phrase this.” I run a hand through my hair, tucking some of it behind my ear. “He seems to be trying to use it as some kind of leverage, some kind of power statement or assertion of independence. Like he has a relationship now, and refuses to talk to me about it. I don’t know hardly anything about the boyfriend, and I’m just… vaguely uneasy about that, even though I know I shouldn’t be. Legaci vetted him, so obviously he’s clean, but still.”

“Well, if it helps, I met the boyfriend.” Jackrabbit says. “He seems pretty okay.”

“He does?” I ask, glancing at her.

She shrugs. “Yeah. He seems pretty well-adjusted. More than Kiwi, at least.”

I chuckle at that. “Ouch. Yeah, that’s fair, though… she can be a bit of wildcard.”

“Heard you two are rooming together?”

“Yeah. It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but it’s… I think it’s nice. You give up some of the perks of living alone, but it’s worth it. Although she hasn’t been happy about me getting up at zero-dark-thirty to train the recruits.”

“Hey, someone’s gotta do it.”

“Exactly.” Reaching up, I turn on my mic again. “Alright, that’s five minutes! Up and att’em, we’ve still got three miles to go! Let’s move it; at this rate, you guys might be done in time for breakfast!”

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Sunthorn Bastion: The Rim

10/28/12764 12:27am SGT

“…and that’s how the Siege of Antelemas ended. Moral of the story: do not mess with Ranter colonies. Unless they are actively antagonizing other communities, you leave them be. The Challengers are often remembered for their resounding victories, but they were not without flaws, and the program suffered several defeats during their hundred-year history. While those failures were obviously bitter experiences, they also provided opportunities for reflection and learning from one’s mistakes. We will be embracing that history, both the victories and the defeats, the good and the bad, as the Valiant start to—”

“Hey chirper, hold on that thought for just a moment.” Jackrabbit interrupts me from the front of the groundskeeping cart. I look up from my data slate. “Looks like you’ve got a visitor.”

“A what?” I say, following the line of her finger to where she’s pointing slightly off to the side of the cart’s path. Shambling towards along the rim road is Kiwi, dressed in nothing but the boxers and baggy t-shirt she always wears to bed, her hair still down and messy instead of bound back into the usual messy ponytail. “Huh. Wonder if she’s sleepwalking.”

“Whatever it is, must be important if she’s out here like this.” Jackrabbit says, slowing the cart down so we don’t zip past her. “Hey Kiwi! Not much of a night owl, are you—”

Kiwi holds an arm out, runemarks flaring to life as she grabs me by the shirt, lifts me out of the back of the cart, and slams me on the ground. Jackrabbit slams on brakes, whistling sharply to the column of recruits to stop running, as I cough and wheeze on the ground after having the breath knocked out of me. “Guh! Kiwi! What the hell…”

“You. Keep. Waking. Me. Up.” she growls down at me, straight from the chest. “You. Know. I’m. A. Light. Sleeper.”

“I know, but you could’ve just gone back to sleep—” I begin.

“How am I supposed to get a full night’s sleep when you leave in the middle of the night, I go back to sleep, then you come back two or three hours later and wake me up all over again?” she rasps, her wildfire eyes smoldering with lethargic fury.

“Could just have him sleep on the couch—” Jackrabbit starts.

“Stay out of this, Jack! You’re not the one that has to live with him!” Kiwi snaps, using the grip she’s got on my shirt to lift me a little and thump me back against the ground again. “If you keep waking me up. I’m gonna tie you to the bed before we go to sleep. Got it?”

“But this is my week to do basic training for the new recruits—” I start to protest.

“I. DON’T. CARE. I. NEED. TO. SLEEP.” Kiwi snarls, yanking me up towards her. “You. Bed. Rope. First and only warning. Got it?”

“Okay, okay, I got it!” I say hastily. “It’s only for another two days, we’ll be done with the night run portion after that.”

She lets go of my shirt, letting me drop back to the ground. Getting up, she starts shambling off the way she came; when one of the recruits in the stopped column whistles at her, she charges one of her rune circles and sends him flying without looking or slowing down. Grunting, I get back to my feet, walking over to the cart and getting in the back once more.

“Alright, unit. Forward march; let’s get back to it. We’ve still got three miles to go.” I order gruffly as Jackrabbit eases the cart back into a leisurely cruise, and the recruits start running again.

We pass Kiwi within seconds, and I only relax when we’ve gotten about five hundred yards ahead of her. Jackrabbit gives me a smirk over her shoulder, and I scowl at her. “Don’t give me that look.”

“Tied to the bed, hmm? Some people would beg for that kind of treatment.”

“I will tell Valkyrie you’re being naughty.”

“Seems like I’m not the only one, considering that conversation you and Kiwi just had.”

“Enough, you lewd bunny. You there, fourth row, on the left! Stow the giggles or you’ll earn your unit another mile!”

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Sunthorn Bastion: Feroce and Kiwi’s Apartment

10/28/12764 11:35pm SGT

My eyes snap open when my phone’s alarm goes off.

Twisting in bed, I scramble to grab it and turn it off, killing it within two seconds. Carefully easing myself out from beneath the covers, I pull my boots on and start to latch them shut as quietly as I can, pausing when I feel the mattress shift and move a little. Looking over my shoulder, I see Kiwi stir, rolling over and sleepily rubbing her eyes as she comes awake. Our gazes lock, and for a moment, both of us freeze, staring at each other. I can almost hear the gears ticking in her head as she puts together what’s happening, and I can see the moment it finally clicks.

I figure that moment is the right one to snap the final latch on my boots into place, and bolt away from the bed.

It’s a good thing I do, because Kiwi lunges across the bed a second later, missing me by mere inches. “Oh hell no! Get back here! I warned you—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ve gotta do this, I need to train the recruits!” I apologize as I retreat to the door of our bedroom, slipping out. “I’ll be quiet when I get back, I promise, you won’t even know I’m here—”

“I’m getting the rope!”

“Love you sorry bye!” I shout, rushing to the door of the apartment and ducking out before she can follow through on her threat.

One more day of this, and things can go back to normal.

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Sunthorn Bastion: Feroce and Kiwi’s Apartment

10/29/12764 11:53pm SGT

This time, when my alarm goes off, it’s just a faint buzz, not the usual xylophone scale.

I open my eyes, quickly reaching over to grab my phone from my bedside, and turn off the alarm. Once that’s done, I carefully peel back the covers, so I can roll out of bed without disturbing Kiwi.

A hand planting itself firmly on my chest throws a wrench into that.

Looking to the side, I can see those wildfire eyes glaring at me through a mess of viridian hair. She doesn’t need to say a word to get the message across.

“This is the last night, I promise; after this, the night training rotates around to someone else.” I whisper. “I just need to—”

Kiwi pushes on my chest, leveraging herself up at the same time that she’s applying pressure to keep me down. Pulling herself over to my side of the bed, she plants her other hand on my chest, leaning her entire weight on me to keep me pinned while she glares at me. In the dark, her chimaeric biology is more obvious, the faint freckles under her eyes glowing a dim, green-bluish color — like a sprinkling of stars underneath the fiery rings that are her eyes.

“It’s only be for a few hours—” I begin.

Her rune circles flare to life on both wrists, three of the runes automatically lifting away from the others and glowing brighter. I wince when the pressure on me abruptly triples, as if someone had taken the gravity and dialed it up a couple magnitudes.

“Okay.” I concede with a grunt. “You win. I’ll stay. Just— let me call Jackrabbit so she knows, alright? I don’t want to leave her waiting.”

Kiwi’s eyes go to my phone, and she holds out a hand for it. I reluctantly yield it up to her, and she starts scrolling through my contacts, holding it up to her ear after she’s found and dialed Jackrabbit’s number. After about twenty seconds of waiting, Jackrabbit must’ve picked up, because Kiwi says “He’s not coming. Find someone else.” before immediately hanging up, and throwing my phone off the side of the bed, where it slides along the floor before bumping to a halt against the wall. After that, her runemarks go dark, the pressure on my chest letting up, and she folds atop me, dropping her head on my chest as she closes her eyes, immediately trying to go right back to sleep.

I just lay there, uncertain of whether I’m allowed to move. After a moment, I move my arm, carefully resting it on her back, and she lets out a sleepy mumble, nuzzling her face into my shirt before going still again.

It doesn’t seem like I’m going anywhere tonight.

Event Log: Kiwi

Sunthorn Bastion: Workshop 6

10/30/12764 11:41am SGT

“Well, somebody looks well-rested.” Luci remarks as we arrive outside one of the workshops in the Foundry section of the southern hemisphere.

“I slept pretty well last night.” I grin, stretching one arm over my head, bumping Songbird with my hip. “It’s amazing how well you sleep when your bedmate doesn’t get up at zero dark thirty and wake you up in the process.”

“I was just doing my job!” he mutters back to me. “Someone needs to train those recruits; they aren’t gonna train themselves.”

“Someone else can wake up at the dead of night to train them.” I insist. “I’m sure if you asked Cahriu or Tarocco, they’d do it. Neither of them have partners. Also, I thought we were here for a tailoring session. Isn’t this the Foundry or something?”

“It is a tailoring session. But not for social clothes.” Luci says, turning and tapping at the pad beside the door, which spirals open. “These outfits that Fashionista will be designing for you are supposed to be combat-rated, meaning you can take them into battle. That’s why he’s set up in one of the workshops — he’ll need a fabricator that can make combat-rated materials.”

“So we’ll look cool, and dangerous?” I ask as we follow him into the workshop, which has several well-spaced worktables and equipment along the walls.

“Something like that.” Luci says, stepping out of the way. “I’m just the messenger; I don’t know how any of this shit works. That’s his job.” He tilts his head across the workshop, where Fashionista and Helga are standing beside the fabricator, listening as Legaci’s hologram explains how it works.

I can hear Songbird draw a sharp breath beside me, and I glance over. “Something up?” I ask.

“He’s going to ask us to strip.” Songbird mutters, glaring at Fashionista. “This is gonna be an… experience.”

“Sierra told me to tell you to play nice this time.” Luci warns Songbird. “Cooperating will make it go faster, and there won’t be anyone watching this time except me and your girl.”

Songbird furrows his brows at Luci. “You? Why are you staying?”

“Because I’m supposed to make sure that you two make it upstairs for the holo op once Fashionista’s got you two dressed up.” Luci says, pulling a lollipop out of his jacket pocket and starting to unwrap it. “Why do you think Legaci and Kaiser cleared your schedule? It’s gonna be an all-day thing. Once they got you two gussied up, we’re sending you up to get some high-def holopics for an article they’ll be doing for a Marshy mag, and the partnership Drill set up with Junko to do a line of exclusives.”

“The what?” Songbird demands, and I can see the consternation starting to rise in his expression. “We’re doing a media piece and a product sponsorship? Who signed off on this?”

“Whoa, dude.” Luci says, holding his hands up and waving to himself. “Messenger. Don’t kill. I’m just telling you what they told me; I ain’t paid to pull the strings around here. You got a problem with it, take it up with Drill and Sierra and Legaci and Kaiser. I’m not the one that set it up; I’m just here to make sure you get from point A to point B.”

“Aha! They have arrived! The fated pair, as foretold by the stars themselves!” Fashionista suddenly crows, with a hand outstretched in our direction. It seems like Songbird’s increasingly agitated conversation with Luci finally got their attention. “Helga! The time is upon us! Ready the plasma cutters!”

“Whoa whoa whoa hey, no! Put the plasma cutters down!” Songbird immediately yelps, putting his hands out. “I’ll get undressed willingly this time, okay? Just… put the plasma cutters down.”

Helga, who had started to lift a pair of sparking plasma cutters, lowers them in a deflated manner. Even if she’s a hardframe Cyber with almost no facial expression, her motions definitely seem disappointed, as if she’d been looking forward to using the plasma cutters.

“Oh, this shall be most delicious.” Fashionista says, turning and marching across the workshop. I lean back a little when I see what he’s wearing: a pair of red, fur-trimmed boots, a lime-yellow skirt, a red and white candy-striped bandeau, with fishnet gloves and a backwards-facing spaceball cap. “It has been ages since I last dressed a fated pair. Years! Decades! My time has come; join me, Helga! We shall revel in the fire of this bond, and use its heat to forge a matching pair of battle-fashioned forms that will remembered for centuries to come!”

“Whoa! Hey! Dude, get back over here!” Legaci protests, snapping her holographic fingers at Fashionista’s back. “I wasn’t done! You need to know how to use this thing before you start printing reinforced fabrics for whatever you’re going to be making! God, why does everyone here have the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel?”

“What in the world is he wearing?” I mutter aside to Songbird. “I feel like I’m gonna have a stroke if I stare at it for too long.”

“I… don’t ask.” Songbird replies, massaging the bridge of his nose. “You don’t wanna know. There are some things we’re better off not knowing.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Fashionista purrs as he arrives to us, reaching out and touching Songbird’s chest, before turning his sunglass’d gaze to me, tilting his head this way and that as he sizes me up. “Yes. Some muscle definition. Athletic build, good match for the cheetah. Helga. Helga, help me here. What am I looking at. Is this a wolf? What are we looking at here? I don’t thing this is a wolf. It’s the right dimensions, but the feel is all wrong. It’s not a canid feel, you get me?”

“Is he usually like this?” I ask Songbird, watching as scrawny fashion diva circles around me.

“Sadly, yes.” Songbird replies. “I’m not a psychiatrist, but I think he suffers from some kind of mania. And delusions of grandeur.”

“What am I looking at?” Fashionista continues as he circles back around to the front. “It’s not one of the big cats; it’s definitely not that. You know the big cats when you see them. Like Titania? Lion, all the way down. Majestic. Dignified. Noble. Stoic. But this, this isn’t that! It’s something… smaller, but no less graceful. Jaguaresque? No. Leopardine. Yes! That is what we’re looking for! That is what we’re dealing with!”

“Neither of those are words.” Legaci says flatly, having migrated over to where we are.

“Well they are now! By decree of Taylor McTailor, Fashionista Extraordinaire, these words are now part of the galactic common lexicon!” Fashionista raises, throttling a fist towards the ceiling. “But I am not here to quibble vocabulary with mere mortals. No more delay; we have work to do! Clothes, off! I must take measurements!”

“You don’t have to strip if you don’t want to.” Songbird says as he starts peeling his longcoat off. “Just because he’s giving orders doesn’t mean you have to obey him. We’ve got holoarrays that can take scan measurements.”

I grin at him, grabbing my shirt and pulling it up. “Aw, but where’s the fun in that?” Tugging it off, I throw it at him, aiming to land it on his head. “Own it, Feroce. I’ve got a hot bod and so do you. Ain’t no shame in showing it off.”

He pulls my shirt off his head, at a loss for words, then looks to Luci and Legaci, as if seeking backup. Luci just shrugs, grinning as he pulls his lollipop out of his mouth. “Don’t give me that look, altar boy. I room with Sierra. You know how I feel about modesty.” the Schrödinger drawls.

“I’ve got no stake in these conversations until I get that Synthetic frame you all owe me.” Legaci says, turning and migrating back to the fabricator. “Let’s get on with it. We don’t have all day.”

Songbird gives a resigned sigh as he starts pulling off his shirt. “A lighthouse of modesty on an ocean of deviancy…”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it, you’re pure and we’re all degenerates. Now hurry up, or I’ll start undressing you myself.”

“Oh, one lover embracing their passion while the other denies it? Scandalous.”

“Shut up, Taylor.”

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Sunthorn Bastion: Central Tower

3:24pm SGT

Media piece. Product partnership.

The words bounce around in my head, refusing to leave me alone as I get into one of the uniforms that Fashionista designed for us. They’d been bothering me ever since Luci mentioned them, not least because once again, I’d been left out of the loop on a decision that involved me, and I was not liking it. First Koriah, now this — while I typically avoided confrontation on principle, I was starting to consider giving Sierra, Drill, and Kaiser a piece of my mind next time I saw them.

Snapping the last of the magnetic latches into place, I reach up and run a hand through my hair, newly trimmed courtesy of Fashionista. He’d put these uniforms together in record time, probably helped along by the fact that he’d paused to snort a line of twitchleaf about midway through, which had only made him more manic and frenzied. It seemed like he’d been sitting on the ideas for the outfits for a while, and just needed to get our measurements and have us model them — most of the time down in the workshop was spent printing the fabric, cutting, combining, refining, making adjustments, and reprinting. Kiwi had lost her patience pretty early on, and even I was starting to get a little tired of it by the end.

But they’d eventually sent us back up to the northern hemisphere, with Fashionista sending up the finished outfits a little afterwards. It was only two outfits, really; a field set, and a formal set. The formal set was the one we’d been asked to wear for the media piece, and it was what I was currently putting on here in one of the first-floor bathrooms of the central tower. It was a far cry from the white uniforms of the Challenger program; the exact opposite, really: a tight black uniform with orange chevron highlights, and a pair of big, overlapped chevrons facing in opposite directions on the back of the shirt. No explanation had been given for that stylistic decision, but it seemed like it was shaping up to be the Valiant’s new logo. Nearest I could figure, it could be interpreted as a V and an stylized A overlaid atop each other, which could stand for Valiant Agent or Agent of the Valiant or… something along those lines, I don’t know. Insignia design wasn’t one of my downtime hobbies.

Reaching into the box, I pull out the jacket that had come with the uniform, and bite my tongue. Fashionista’s tailoring choices were… unusual, to put it politely. It was a long coat, also in black, with a number of notable triangular cutouts, most notably a large one on the back that would allow the uniform’s chevron insignia to show through. A stiff collar, sleek lines running along the chest, up over the shoulders, and down along the back, with the hem of the coat somewhere around the knees — not bad, but the cutouts were what got to me. They just seemed unnecessary, more a fashion statement than anything else.

“Hey Feroce, what’s taking you so long?”

That jolts me, considering I’m in the men’s bathroom and Kiwi’s leaning in to peer at me. She’s already dressed — the same black uniform and jacket with triangular cutouts. Admittedly, it does look good on her. “They went all out on these triangle stuff! Even the maglatches are shaped like these arrow-thingies!” she says, stepping in and spinning around to show off how her jacket flares at the hem.

“Chevrons.” I say, reluctantly starting to pull on my jacket. “I guess that’s the new logo for the Valiant. Kinda fits.”

“Well, my uniform fits me pretty good.” she says, grabbing the hood and yanking it up over her head, striking a fighting pose. “I can’t wait to try out the field uniforms. I know these are the formal uniforms, but they’re still pretty cool. Hey, watch this!” Lifting at an arm, she fidgets with the cuff, and without warning her jacket hums to life. Each of the cutouts in her jacket fill in with translucent panels of green light, flexing and bending with the fabric of the jacket.

“Whoa, really?” I say, leaning in and poking at one of the panels, which ripples and fizzes when I touch it. “It’s like a bunch of really low-power static barriers. Here I was thinking they just cut a bunch of triangles into the jacket because it was a weird fashion thing.”

“I know, right? I thought the same thing until I realized the jacket had a touchfabric interface.” Kiwi says, still poking at her cuff and the little icons flowing through the light-transmitting fibers. “I can change the colors of the panels; I can even get the highlights on my uniform to synchronize with the panels on the jacket! I had my doubts when I saw Fashionista doing a line of twitchleaf off Helga’s arm, but I gotta take it back. The man knows what he’s doing.”

I check the cuff of my jacket, finding that it gives me the same options that Kiwi’s does. “Well I’ll be damned. Didn’t Legaci mention something earlier about making these uniforms standard-issue if they went over well?”

“For the Agents, I think.” Kiwi says, closing up the box on the sink counter. “Specifically that everyone would get the standard uniform that we’re wearing right now, but the Agents would get the jackets to show their rank or status. I wasn’t really impressed when she was talking about it earlier, but now that I can see what the jackets can do, I’m hella onboard with the idea.”

“Well ain’t that nifty.” I say, looking down as the cutouts on my jacket fill in with tropical blue light. “Really draws the eye, doesn’t it? Don’t suppose this feature would be included in the field outfit. Pretty much turns you into a moving targetboard that says shoot here, please.”

“Yeah, but let’s be honest, you’d look like a badass if you came out on the other side without any major injuries.” she says, grabbing my sleeve and tugging me towards the door. “C’mon, let’s get out there! The holopic people are waiting!”

My wonder fades as I’m reminded of what’s awaiting me. “Right.” I mutter as we leave the bathroom, headed back across the lobby towards the group of people outside. “How could I forget.”

And try as I might, the next hour is not a fun one.

I could say that it was hard to nail down what it was that was grinding my gears, but I’d be lying. I knew exactly what it was that I found so aggravating about media pieces and holoshoots like this, because I’d so often been on the sidelines of them while I was in the Challenger program. Back in those days, I’d never been involved in any of the media pieces — that was a privilege reserved for the Challengers that were more popular and had more name recognition, like Nova and Jackrabbit. But I remembered how contrived and artificial it all seemed — the posing, the posturing, the props, the preening. An exercise in vanity and ego that, even when I was watching from afar, seemed distasteful on some fundamental moral level.

And now, finding myself as the subject of such a media piece, it was confirming my biases rather than dispelling them.

I couldn’t point to any one specific thing that pushed me over the edge. Part of it was that the whole thing just felt cringy, especially with the holoshoot crew’s relentless posing instructions. Here, let’s have you back to back. Fold your arms, that’ll make you look tough. Do we have a couple of unloaded guns they could pose with? Here, let’s have them move through some of trees here like they’re on a mission. Wait, he’s got swords? Let’s have him pull them out and we can do a set of sword poses! Please, for the love of Anaya, don’t make us do sword poses, they’re so stupid and they don’t make sense ninety percent of the time.

Maybe some of my reluctance could be tied back to my trauma over how the media had chewed me up and spit me out after the Songbird Incident. The lack of control I had over the process was all too familiar; knowing that the pieces of a narrative were being captured, created, and assembled in a way that I have no say over what the end product would be, or whether it would resemble the reality of who I actually was. Sure, it might have my face, my likeness, my general appearance, but the chance that it would actually be me or something approaching it were low, I knew that much.

Perhaps what did me in was knowing what some of the end result would be used for. Some of it would be repackaged, commercialized, commodified, transmogrified into a product or a series of products that could be sold for profit, sucking money out of the wallets of loyal supporters that could probably be spending it on something better. That was something I found particularly nauseating, knowing there would be people out there that would buy this stuff, even if it was useless and served only to try and fund our fledging organization.

And it was clear, from my increasingly strained interactions with the holoshoot staff, that my aversion was showing.

“Okay. Drill, I can’t do this anymore.” the holoshoot lead says, stepping away from the primary scan recorder. “I am doing my best, but you gotta get your guy to smile. The girl’s great; she’s doing awesome. She’s a natural; I could work with her all day. She’s providing ninety-nine percent of the charm in these shots. But your guy looks like he’s suppressing the urge to find the nearest puppy and kick it.”

“Yeah, I was wonderin’ how long it’d take.” Drill says, ambling over to us and snapping his fingers at me. “You guys can take a break. Songbird, with me. We need to chat.”

“Like don’t get me wrong, he’s charismatic, but in the wrong way.” the lead adds hastily. “You wanted me to soften their image, make the Valiant look young and hip and sleek, and the clothes are doing it, and we can put together poses, but I need him to loosen up a bit. He cuts a hell of a figure in that getup, but with how stiff he is and the mood he’s in, nobody’s going to disagree if they see these holopics and they say ‘that’s the guy that killed No…’”

A single terse glare from me is all that’s needed to stop that sentence dead.

The lead puts up his hands. “Ah— sorry, I just, this is not an easy assignment. Drill, if you could just get him to loosen up and take the scowl off. That would be great. Please.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m on it.” Drill says, grabbing the shoulder of my jacket and tugging me along towards the central tower. I brush his hand off, and nothing is said until we’re through the glass doors and just in the lobby at the bottom of the building, where he turns to me and takes off his aviators. “The hell is wrong with you?”

On most days I’m the type to default to diplomacy and deescalation. Today is not one of those days. “You want me to answer that? Because you’re not gonna like what I have to say.”

“Well I’m not askin’ you to hear myself speak, son.” Drill says, folding up his glasses and tucking them in the breast pocket of his loose shirt. “Spit it out.”

“What is wrong with me is you put together a media op and arranged a product partnership for me, you spiky-headed dwarven dunce!” I snap at him, whipping a hand towards the group out on the grounds. “Did it ever once cross your mind to ASK ME FIRST.”

“One: I’ll give you points for a creative insult. Two: most galactic pariahs would be thankful that someone arranged some free image rehabilitation for them.” Drill says. “You know how many aspiring celebrities would lunge for a two-in-one like this? A media op and a product partnership, bundled into a single afternoon.”

“Well guess what! I’m not an aspiring celebrity!” I point out.

“Yes, you are!” Drill barks at me, and the abrupt return to his drill sergeant voice almost shocks a response out of me, and isn’t helped by the stubby finger he’s jabbing into my chest. “You are the face of the Valiant, whether you like it or not, soldier. Whether the rest of us like it or not! You don’t think I would’ve rather have used Jackrabbit for this? She’s got tons of experience with these things and she’s a hell of a lot more natural than you are. She and Nova were our go-to for media ops back in the day because they were good at it. But the problem now is that because you killed the galaxy’s biggest hero sixteen years ago, you now have more name recognition than even Jackrabbit. And there’s no point in us doing a media op and a product partnership for Jackrabbit when your name overshadows anything we might do for her! You are the one that needs image rehabilitation, not her or the rest of them. There’s no point in doing appearances or media ops for her, or the rest of the Valiant, when all the questions the reporters are going to ask are about you.”

I throw my hands up. “Is it not enough that I helped rescue people from Mokasha? Literally rescued them from the Collective, which everybody hates?”

“You really think one daring rescue is enough to reverse sixteen years of CURSE propaganda?” Drill scoffs.

“Okay, what about the Masklings?” I say. “The riot on Wisconsin. I helped save dozens of Masklings. The Cradle. We recovered their ark and returned it to them. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“Sure, that gets you in good with the Masklings, but here’s the rub, brother: you realize that the rest of the galaxy doesn’t exactly like the Masklings, yeah?” he counters. “Trust me, I’d be pushing that shit harder if I thought it’d get us some social credit. But Masklings ain’t exactly popular, and we are working against a decade of CURSE propaganda.”

“Yeah, I know! You’ve told me already!” I snap. “You don’t need to remind me; I’ve been the target of that propaganda for the last sixteen years, which is the whole reason I hate media ops like this!”

“Then you know it’s not going to take a single afternoon to undo a decade’s worth of CURSE bullshit!” Drill says, throwing his arms wide. “This is something we’re gonna hafta do over and over and over again, Songbird. It’s gonna take years to undo all the brainwashing CURSE has done, and it won’t just be media ops. It’ll be product partnerships and interviews with the press and personal meetings with the rich and powerful — any and every avenue we can explore to change what the galaxy thinks you are. Because that is what CURSE has done — they have leveraged every single avenue possible to control public opinion, and the only way to change that is to get on their level and do the same thing. You’re not dumb; I know you understand the media landscape!”

I grit my teeth, looking away. He right. I know he’s right, but I still hate it. “I just hate this game, Drill. I never liked it. I remember when Nova played the game—”

“And she played it well! She was a goddamn master of it!” Drill exclaims. “You should’ve seen the numbers on the contracts for some of those sponsorships she got. And that brings me to my next point, because I know you’re gonna bitch about this too, after that fit you had over the intellectual property for the Challenger comics. We need these product partnerships, Songbird. We need this revenue.”

I start to shake my head. “You know what happened with Challengers and selling out to corporations—”

“Yes, Songbird, I do!” Drill cuts me off. “I was a Challenger too, this is not news to me! I was there too, and higher rank to boot, so I probably saw even more corruption than you did! I know the pitfalls, saw parts of the moral rot that brought the program down. But I’m also in charge of the Valiant’s finances. And I can tell you right now that operations like this need money, Songbird. That’s not an exaggeration, that’s not politics, that’s not ideology. That’s cold hard facts. It costs money to hire and keep people. It costs money to hire lawyers for legal matters and buy high-risk insurance for combat-capable employees. It costs money to import food to this station to keep everyone from starving. It costs money to buy fuel and supplies for the ships that we inherited from the Dussel Mercforce. You know how much it costs to send a Valiant Agent on a mission? Factoring in fuel, supplies, ship personnel and support personnel on deployment?” He pauses, giving a moment to let that sink in, then goes on. “The leasing rights for the Challenger media bring in enough money for one person to live like a king, with some money to spare, if they want to. When you take that same income, and use it to support an elite paramilitary operation? The Valiant as an organization is just barely breaking even right now, Songbird. And we’re only a fraction of what the Challenger program used to be. If we’re going to maintain this, if we’re ever going to grow it beyond what it is now, then we. Need. Money.”

“There have to be other ways to make up the revenue shortfalls—” I start.

“Oh? You want to talk funding?” Drill says, leaning back and raising an eyebrow. “That’s all I’ve been doing for the past year: securing funding for this project. I can tell you each and every revenue stream we’ve considered AND the risks that come with each one. So let’s get to it, why don’t we? There’s government grants and funding, but those come with strings attached, and to no one’s surprise, the governments you’re receiving money from are going to expect something in return, even if it’s not on paper. That’s the whole problem we’ve been having with the Masklings and the Viralix; they are more than happy to give us money, with the unspoken expectation that they will have a bigger say in how the Valiant is run. Corporate funding you know well enough; that’s part of what got the Challenger program in trouble. People thought we were selling out to endorse products from gigacorps in exchange for money.”

“Well— maybe we could produce something, or provide a service we could charge for—” I fumble, trying to find my footing against Drill’s tirade.

“Like what, Songbird?” Drill demands. “What products are we going to offer? You want us to boot up the Foundry and start churning out weapons and kit to sell to various markets? That’s an ethical minefield, even barring the fact that some of our own weapons might eventually circulate around to groups that’ll use them against us. And services? What, do you want us to charge the people and systems that we’re supposed to be helping? You think we should be billing the Mokashans a service fee for rescuing some of their people from an assimilation campaign? There’s already a whole industry built around that and they’re called mercenaries. Last time I checked, that wasn’t what the Valiant were supposed to be.”

“I don’t know!” I shout at him, throwing my arms up. “I just— I don’t know! I just… there has got to be a better way than, than—” I wave a hand at the holoshoot crew out on the lawn. “—a better way than this, than churning out tchotchskes and merch and trying to get people to buy it so we can keep ourselves in the green!”

“Yeah, like some generous stranger with a massive fortune coming out of nowhere to fund this venture out of the goodness of his heart. S’that what you want?” Drill demands, hitching a hand on his hip. “Some miracle source of funding that never runs out and has no strings attached.”

“That money does not belong to you. You built that fortune off commercializing the stories of your dead coworkers and your comrades.” I growl.

“Yeah, and now I’m using it to help preserve their legacy.” Drill retorts. “And I got some news for you: that fortune is running out. It ain’t gonna last forever, Songbird. Money has to come from somewhere, and the kind of organization that we are, and that the Challengers were, burns through money. What that fortune is doing right now is buying us time. It’s there to give us enough time to get off the ground, develop and diversify our revenue streams, and get us to a point where we’ve got the kind of funding that will allow us to continue operating well into the future. But if we don’t hit that point before my fortune runs out, this organization is gonna be in trouble.”

I grit my teeth again, looking away. I hate this, because it’s all true, and I know it’s true. I’ve been around long enough to know that every organization has to contend with the existential question of where the money comes from, and whether there’s enough of it to keep doing what you do. It’s just that the rank and file never have to confront that question, and that was the case when I was the Challenger program. Here in that Valiant, though…

“The problem with you is that you’ve never had to deal with any of this. Nobody ever told you the price tag attached to missions, equipment, logistics, support, and everything else in between.” Drill says. “You and all the other Challengers only ever had to think about the easy stuff, to go on missions and fight bad guys and look good for the cameras and never think about what it all cost. I get it. You don’t like it; you’re a man of principles; you don’t like selling out or compromising your values, especially where it comes to money. But this is where your ideals collide with reality, Songbird. What we do requires money. We have to find a way to generate it, or the Valiant will cease to exist.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know, I get it.” I say, putting a hand up and shaking my head. “I just… fine. I’ll do it. I’ll play the game. I don’t have to like it, but I’ll do it.”

Drill stares at me for a moment, then nods. “Great. That’s all I needed to hear.” He squares his broad shoulders, taking a deep breath in as if he was resetting. “If it helps, and for what it’s worth, I’ve done my best to try and diversify our funding. Legaci has helped me research and apply for grants from various nations and the galactic government that come with as few strings as possible. We’re taking a little bit of funding and material donations from the Maskling Republic and the Viralix Empire. We’re also looking at securing philanthropic funding from wealthy individuals and gigacorps. And we’re trying to round it out with product sponsorships and selling our own merch. The plan, at least as it currently exists, is to get a little bit of money from everyone, and not most of it from the gigacorps.” He looks at me at that point. “I need you to help us out with that. Help us get to that point where the Valiant can be financially solvent, and mostly independent.”

“Yeah. Okay.” I sigh, looking back out to the holoshoot crew. “I’ll… try.”

He reaches out, thumping my arm. “Hey kid, chin up. Look on the bright side. This is a case where the media’s on your side; those guys aren’t out there to tear you apart the way the galactic news networks were. They want to capture your good side, show the rest of the galaxy that you’re actually someone that people would want to hang out with and look up to. Plus you got a beautiful girlfriend out there, she looks damn fine in that uniform, and would love to have a good time with you. You got it made, man. There’s guys that would kill to have what you’ve got. So loosen up and enjoy yourself, okay?”

I give him a look. “I don’t know anyone that would be dying to carry the blame for Nova’s death.” Rubbing my wrists, I look back out to where Kiwi’s chatting with the holoshoot crew. “…I do have a pretty awesome girlfriend, though.”

“There you go, that’s the spirit.” Drill says, putting his aviators back on. “Let’s get back out there and give ‘em a good showing. They came all this way for this holoshoot; we should get them their money’s worth.”

“Okay.” I say, but don’t follow him as he moves towards the door. “But Drill? Next time, you ask me before you sign me up for a media op or a product partnership. Otherwise we’re gonna have problems.”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya.” he says, waving me along as the glass doors of the lobby slide open for him. “Let’s get a move on. We’re burning time, and I still need to get these guys over to Nympho after this for the swimsuit calendar.”

“Wait, the what?”

“You heard me. Stroke of genius, honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. In fact, I’m considering making a full line of swimsuit calendars if Nympho’s print run sells out. I think Jack might be up for doing a calendar of her own, though I’ll have to ask her when Valkyrie’s not around.”

“Anaya above, you are unbelievable.”

“Sex sells, my boy. Besides, a little variety goes a long way in reaching a broader audience. If the swimsuit calendars for the girls do well, I’m thinking about seeing if we can get Luci to sit for a couple shoots. Put together a swimsuit calendar for him, so his lazy moochin’ catboi ass is actually makin’ us some money instead of leeching off our food stores. And then that one Maskling, ah whatsisname, Cary or something?”

“Cahriu.”

“Cahriu, yeah. Big hunkin’ lad. We have got to make a swimsuit calendar for him, put the cabana boy fantasy out there for everyone to enjoy. In the interest of gender equality, y’know. Some for the ladies, some for the lads.”

“Mmm, yes, sure. The entirely noble pursuit of ‘gender equality’ in the market of swimsuit calendars.”

“Don’t knock it, son. It is a calling and an honor to bring this product to the yearning masses. They need it; they just don’t know it yet. On that note, do you think Kiwi—”

“No.”

“Yeah, I figured. How ‘bout we compromise: we can do a couples calendar for Kiwi, and you get to be her plus one.”

“…maybe. Let’s see how the other calendars do first.”

“Hahaha, that’s my boy! Excellent. We’ll get this organization funded yet.”

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Sunthorn Bastion: Sunthorn Spice

9:39pm SGT

“No lassie tonight?” Sandago asks, setting my fizzwater down in front of me.

“Not tonight. I just needed a little space, time to clear my head.” I say, unfolding my arms from where they’d been folded on the counter. The Spice is mostly empty tonight, partly because of how late it is. “Long day.”

“Sounds like it.” Sandago says, drifting along the counter some as he tidies up. “You’re lookin’ pretty snazzy, though. New uniform?”

I look down. I’m still dressed in the uniform and jacket that they had us wearing for the holoshoot. “Yeah. Management thought I needed a makeover. Something about making me a more marketable figure.”

“It’s a good look for you.” Sandago says. “You don’t seem too happy about it, though.”

“It’s not that I mind it; I guess I look pretty good in this.” I say, sipping on my fizzwater. “Just… don’t like the reason it came about in the first place.”

“The marketability thing?” Sandago guesses, washing out a glass.

“Yeah. You know. It’s the game, and I just never liked the game.” I say, running a thumb around the rim of my glass. “I know I gotta play it, but…”

“There’s a lot of things that’ll grow on us if we give them enough time and exposure.” Sandago offers. “Maybe this is one of them.”

“Maybe.” I say, shaking my head. “It wears me out, though. Smiling for the cameras, putting on a face. I don’t like putting on a mask, pretending to be something I’m not.”

“I know some Masklings that would take issue with that phrasing.” Sandago says as he finishes drying a glass and sets it on the shelf behind him.

“I didn’t mean it that way. Just that… you know. Exactly what I said, I don’t like pretending to be something I’m not.” I amend.

Sandago’s faceplate registers a thoughtful emoticon, before he speaks. “Is it that you don’t like pretending to be something that you’re not, or that you don’t like sharing with the rest of the galaxy what you are, or could be?”

I glance at him. “How do you mean?”

“A lot of people have told me over the years that they don’t like pretending to be something they’re not, but what I think a lot of them really mean is that they don’t like sharing what they are with the rest of the galaxy. You’re not being asked to be something you’re not; you’re being asked to let the rest of the galaxy see what you are.” Sandago says, idling back along the counter to stand in front of me. “And I could be wrong, but I’ve been doing this a long time, and it seems to me that after the media debacle sixteen years ago, your first instinct is to stay away from the spotlight. You don’t want the rest of the galaxy to see you, because they might — no, they will — judge you. Playing the game, putting yourself out there for the rest of the galaxy to see and to judge, makes you feel vulnerable.”

I sit for a moment, processing that and mulling it over. My discomfort with today’s holoshoot starts to come into focus; some of it was a principled opposition to turning my own image into something that could be commodified, but underneath that, there was the general reluctance to advertise my existence to the rest of the galaxy. When the court of public opinion had torn me to shreds after the Songbird Incident, I’d never wanted to step foot in the public eye again, at least not as Songbird. The threats, the abuse, the lies and the conspiracy theories had been brutal and relentless, no matter where I went, no matter what I did. People had latched onto every bit of information they could find about me, no matter how trivial or pointless, and extrapolated it to paint me in worst possible light. I didn’t like people knowing stuff about me, because I knew how hateful people could twist even the most harmless, benign facts.

“Yeah.” I say quietly. “Yeah, I suppose that’s a good point.”

“Well, I would say this is your chance to show them who you really are.” Sandago says, leaning on the counter. “To tell your story, instead of someone else telling it for you. That is what happened with the Songbird Incident, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” I say, sipping from my fizzwater as I keep thinking it over. Back then, I hadn’t had any control over the narrative, because the Challenger media office wouldn’t speak up for me, and wouldn’t let me speak up for myself. But now… now that was different. I had an opportunity to shape the narrative. And might have future opportunities to do it again, if Drill arranged more media ops for me. “I can tell people who I really am now, instead of just sitting and taking the abuse?”

Sandago gives a smile emoticon. “Seems that way to me.” He turns his head to the side, the faceplate reverting to the welcome face. “Valkyrie. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

I look to the side to find Valkyrie sitting to the stool next to me. “A shot of Venusian vintage, if you have one open.” she says. “And a little space after that.”

Right off the bat I’ve got the feeling that I’m in trouble. I’m not much of an actual drinker; alcohol just doesn’t do it for me, and I tend to be a mopey, existential drunk. But I know enough to know that asking for a shot and some space is the prelude to something more, a bracing step before a hard conversation.

“Sure.” Sandago says, pushing off the counter with a glance at me. “Coming right up.”

He glides over to the bottles along the back wall, pulling down a shotglass as he goes, and I pick up my glass, taking another sip from it as Valkyrie turns on her stool to face me. “Surprised you’re here without Kiwi.” she says.

“Needed a bit of time and space to clear my head.” I reply, regurgitating what I’d said when Sandago had first greeted me.

“Sounds like you had a long day.” she says as Sandago returns, setting down a napkin and placing the shot atop it, before he retreats to the other end of the counter.

“Any day where you have to deal with Fashionista is a long day.”

She snorts at that, picking up the shot and looking it over, then tossing it back in a single go. Setting it back down and wrinkling her nose a bit, probably at the burn, she takes a deep breath. “I wanted to talk and clear things up a bit after what happened a couple weeks ago.”

I tap my fingers against the side of my glass. “You mean me losing my shit in the COR.”

“Sort of.” she says, resting an arm on the counter. “I understand why you were upset by that hiring decision, given the circumstances. I can see why you would bristle at being told how to handle what you view as your family relationships. I’m not here to argue that. But what you said after that — it seems like you think I have something against you personally.”

“You do.”

“I’m not sure where you got that idea from—” she begins.

“I got that idea when I was trying to congratulate you and Jack on getting married, and you called me by my number instead of my codename as a way of shutting me down.” I say, taking a sip from my fizzwater.

That gives her pause. “I don’t recall—”

“It was about a year ago, right after the riot on Wisconsin. I went to see you to ask about the runemarks that Kiwi had branded me with.” I say, focusing on the bubbles in my fizzwater. “But also, there’s the time you got bent out of shape when I was assigned to an important mission, and implied Jack should’ve been handling the retrieval of the backup archive because I apparently wasn’t skilled enough for such a critical assignment. And the time you didn’t bother treating me after I accidentally started a brawl in the Bulwark mess hall; you just shoved a bottle of blood at me and pointed at the door. And the fact that you just generally don’t seem to like being in the same room as me.” I rock my glass a little on the countertop. “You want me to go on?”

She looks at her empty shotglass, then calls over her shoulder. “I’m gonna need another, Sandago.” She looks back to me. “You’ve got a very sharp memory.”

“Mm.”

The conversation comes to an idling stop at that point, both of us gathering our thoughts while Sandago pours another shot for Valkyrie, then heads off again. Valkyrie doesn’t drink it right away, instead worrying the corner of the napkin that it’s sitting on.

“You’re right.” she says eventually. “I didn’t like you. I was actually angry at you for a long time. The Songbird Incident wiped out my career and the careers of a bunch of other Challengers and Challenger staff. Years of work, down the drain. Resumés permanently ruined because nobody would’ve hired a big name from an organization that had been revealed, or at least portrayed, as systemically corrupt. I could’ve taken the resettlement agreement, but that would’ve been defeat on the principle, and I believed in what the Challengers stood for, even if the administration didn’t uphold it during that last decade. But the alternative was to become an outlaw, to accept a life on the run.” She picks up her shot at this point, tosses it back, and sets it back down, grimacing. She doesn’t speak until she’s gotten the shot down. “A lot of us had to face that choice because of the Songbird Incident. To admit defeat on the principle, or stick to our convictions and lose everything because of it. That was a hard choice, because you lost, no matter what you chose. I chose to keep my integrity, but I lost everything but Jack because of it.”

My eyes stay fixed on the bubbles in my fizzwater, chewing over my words and picking carefully before I reply. “Have you ever considered,” I ask softly. “that the Songbird Incident could’ve just as easily been the Jackrabbit Incident, or the Gossamer Incident, or the Whisper Incident, or any number of variations?” I look at her now. “Nova stole the backup archive. Planned to betray us. Someone had to stop her, and Kaiser could’ve picked Whisper, or Gossamer, or Jackrabbit, or Headache, or Shieldwall, or Laughing Alice, or any other Challenger to go stop her. But he picked me.”

“You didn’t have to kill her, though.” Valkyrie says. “If you had just subdued—”

“That wasn’t an option, Valkyrie.” I say quietly, wiping away a cold bead of dew on the outside of my glass. “If you had been the one ordered to stop her, you would understand.” 

It doesn’t stop Valkyrie for long. “Didn’t you love her?”

My throat tightens at that. “If Jack had stolen the backup archive and Kaiser ordered you to go stop her, would you have done it?” I give her a few seconds to answer, and when she doesn’t, I go on. “Nobody ever wants to answer that question, even when it’s just a hypothetical. But it wasn’t hypothetical for me. I actually had to answer it.” Turning around, I slip off my stool, calling to Sandago. “Bill it to my account, Sandago. Or just charge me for it next time I’m in; it doesn’t matter to me.”

Valkyrie doesn’t try to stop me as I cross the floor towards the door, and I don’t give any parting words. Even with how much this kind of conversation hurts, I don’t want to get cheap shots in or pick a fight. I’m not angry right now; I’m sad, and profoundly so. There’s nothing to be gained from trying to make Valkyrie feel bad about this; nothing to be gained from her trying to make me feel bad about this. There is only more pain and sadness over a past neither of us can change. What I went through, I wouldn’t wish on anyone else — but because no one else had to go through it, no one else can quite understand it.

And that’s tough.

Stepping out of the Spice, I start along the thoroughfare that runs along the third level of the Rim, tucking my hands in my pockets as I go. The empty storefronts pass me by on the left; after the Songbird Incident, a lot of the stores and shops that had satellite locations on the Bastions started packing up and leaving, and would continue to peel off as the scandal and controversy deepened. Towards the end, some of the remainers left in a hurry, leaving behind traces of the brands that once had stores here that catered to the Bastion populations — often restaurants, but also things like grocery stores, clothing stores, home goods, bars, nostalgia arcades, and all sorts of other things. The Bastions had been living, breathing communities, but all of that had gone away after the Songbird Incident. Seeing the faded signs and sealed storefronts, I can understand the desire to blame someone for how it all fell apart. This was once a lively, thriving community; now it was just a ghost town, even if the Valiant were slowly bringing it back to life.

The buzzing of my phone gets my attention; I reach into my jacket, pulling it out to see that Kiwi’s sent me a text. Unlocking the screen, I navigate over to messages, opening them up.

u better get back here b4 bedtime or I’m gonna take a superlong shower and steal all the hot water

I can’t help but smile at that. As silly and harmless as it was, it was a reminder of… everything, really. A reminder of the fact that I’d gotten a second chance. That I had a future, and I didn’t have to live in my past anymore. It would always follow me, of course, and it would always be a part of me, but I could build around it and build on top of it. I could be more than just the lowest point in my life.

Taking my other hand out of my pocket, I start tapping out a reply for Kiwi. On my way. And you can’t run out the hot water here; trust me, I tried back in the day.

The only thing she sends back is a tongue-out emoji, and I slip my phone back into my jacket, smiling. Tucking my hands into my pockets, I pick up the pace, moving into a proper stride as I head back to our apartment.

This new life wasn’t always easy, but it was definitely worth it.