Aftermath

Maria

Xenogears was sitting at the console in Ops, reading text flashing by so fast no one else could have read it, when Icey entered. She spared him a glance, irritation showing on her face.

"My shift," he said, sitting down next to her.

"I will remain. Please leave."

Icey scowled. "Rephrase. Get out."

The young woman did not bother looking up at him. "Make me." She tapped a few controls, and the stream of data changed its direction of flow. The crisp brown-and-gold margins of the Fantasma computer interface (Maria's design, damnit) shifted, and several diagrams appeared.

Icey sighed. "What're you doing? Need some help?"

"I need solitude," she informed him, pressing another control, bringing up a spectral analysis, overlaying a tactical map.

Icey looked over her shoulder, recognized the area. "That's where we lost Maria."

Xenogears turned to him, frustration and anger mixing with grief in her voice. "Look, just get out will you?" she said, and her voice was a rip in his heart.

He nodded once, slowly, stood, and left her to whatever she was doing.

On the way out, Razorback passed by, caught Icey's look, and stopped. "Not a good idea is it?"

He shook his head.

-----

Delithita slammed her fist into the punching bag, ripping a small tear in the thing, wishing Maria were there to berate her about it. But she wasn't. She punched the thing a few more times and then dealt it a kick, tearing a large rip in it, letting sand pour out into a large cone on the floor. She glared at the pile of sand, tears in her eyes, then kicked that too, scattering the dark brown powder around the room. She flung herself into a nearby chair and wept.

Icey entered, and sat beside her. She looked up at him, stood, and went to the bench on the other side of the room. Icey inclined his head in acknowledgement and respected her desire for distance.

"This won't help," he said, gesturing to the sand flung about.

She only growled at him.

"Damnit," he said. "You haven't even got it through your head, have you? We need to stick together! The colony still needs us--"

She did not reply.

He got up, went to her. "You've been here longer than any of us. You need to be the leader now--"

With a hoarse scream-- or attempted scream, her damaged vocal cords would not allow anything more than a thin squeak-- she rose, lifted him, and hurled him bodily into the punching bag, scattering yet more sand around.

Icey took the hint, and left the chamber, shaking his head sadly. "Xenogears to Icey," came over his communicator.

"Yeah?"

"Come to Ops. Alone."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm on my way..."

-----

When he entered, Xeno was still at the console, examining a slew of readouts. He stood beside her, looked over her shoulder. They were meaningless to him.

She acknowledged his presence with a nod, and typed a few more commands. The readouts changed from text to graphics, though nearly as meaningless to Icey. He recognized one image though: a tactical map of the area where the battle had taken place. He scowled.

"I ran a high-res scan with the scarp sensors. While I am detecting organic traces with the correct isotopic ratios for a Mercurian resident-- Maria-- I have been--"

"What the hell are you doing that for?" he said angrily. "I thought you at least would be able to accept she's gone. Where's your goddamned logic?" Disgusted, he turned away.

She scowled. "I was attempting to locate her organomech brain in the hopes that it could be recovered."

He sneered. "A Delta reactor blew up on her. Even her brain would have been vaporized."

"If there had been a fortunate arrangement within the cockpit, there would have been a slim chance the brain would have survived."

"So what have you found?" he said, his voice edged with bitterness.

"An organomech brain has a fiber of 1,5,7-tetrabenzene yttrium sulfide superconductor within the power core. If her brain were vaporized there would be a considerable level of yttrium ions remaining in the area. But I cannot find any."

"What...?"

"Maria is dead. That much is certain. I was able to pick up the residual traces of elements in her combat suit, and the radioactive tracers I recently injected all the Ghosts with." Icey's eyebrows rose. "Yet I cannot find even a trace of yttrium, ionized or otherwise. It is almost as if her brain was not installed when she went out."

"That's impossible," Icey said flatly.

"Yes, I know. That is why I did not want you to bring anyone. Some might get the false idea that somehow, Maria would magically return to us."

Icey nodded slowly. "Del's taking it hard."

"Exactly. I cannot even begin to guess what effect this news would have on her, given her already unstable emotional state."

-----

Icey returned to his quarters, hoping he would get some actual sleep, but doubting it. He had to at least pretend, though, before Xeno sedated him.

He flopped down on the stone bunk, rolling over and covering himself with the thin sheet. "What a lousy week," he muttered to himself. Maria lost, Xenogears chasing ghosts, Del half-destroyed by grief, the other Ghosts uncertain as to where to go from here. Icey wished he could return to Io, where at least if something went wrong he could order someone to fix it.

Perhaps if he had dodged just a bit more to the left, his Gorgon would not have been crippled, and Maria would not have seen the need to kamikaze the enemy pilots. He wondered who the IB people were, why Maria was so alarmed when she discovered them among the BDU.

He wished she were there to tell him.

He closed his eyes, covered his head with the pillow.

Laughter.

He shot to his feet, in a combat stance, as his training demanded. "Who's there? Lights up!" The room's lights activated with a flash.

He stared into the empty corner beside the door. Something had been there for an instant. A figure, clothed in black, with a scarf and a hood concealing the face. Only laughing eyes visible.

He squinted. Nothing was there.

With a disgusted growl, he returned to bed, and fell asleep shortly thereafter. He was certain, though, in the haze between consciousness and sleep, that someone was watching him...

-----

"According to our latest reports, over a thousand of the colony's twenty-eight hundred residents have seen ghosts, specters, phantoms, wraiths, vapors, or other manifestations of paranormal activity." Xenogears's voice was laced with disdain. "I suspect there is a problem with our life support systems, that is resulting in these hallucinations."

"Our life support systems are broken down into cells," Icey retorted. "How could the entire colony be affected?"

Xenogears blinked. Icey smirked. Leave it to the logician to miss that detail. "Perhaps..."

"It isn't the water either, for the same reason," Icey mentioned, watching Xenogears's ire rise, though in a composed and logical fashion.

"Perhaps our food supplies have been contaminated."

"Perhaps," Icey said. "Check the figures against those that use the synthesizers, and those that use the gardens exclusively, and get back to me."

Xenogears looked ready to change color. "Understood," she said calmly.

"Well, is there anything else?" Icey asked. No one volunteered. "Alright... everyone try to get some sleep, eh?" He glanced at Delithita, whose eyes were highlighted by dark circles, and whose hands were trembling. He was pretty sure she had not slept since the battle.

"Well, this week sucked," Altas said. "At least it cannot get any worse."

Razorback made the obvious comment: "Don't tempt fate, my friend..."

-----

Xenogears was irritated. Her figures had found nothing. There were reports of paranormal activity from those who ate from the synthesizers, those that used both, and those that only used the gardens. The only thing noteworthy about any group was the increase in vitamin deficiencies in the latter group. She made a note to see about getting the synthesizers to make some decent fertilizer. Inefficient, perhaps, but too many people just would not eat the "sludge" that came from the machines.

Secretly, Xenogears agreed with them. The stuff was atrocious.

She sighed. She would find Razorback.

An open door on the corridor's right side caught her eye and she scowled. No one in the colony was that stupid: an open door would allow air to flow freely out into space in the event of a pressure drop. Everyone knew better. She entered the room to have a word with whoever was there, but the room was empty. She turned to go, and the door slammed shut on her.

She had her slicestars in throwing position in less than half a second. She was about to kick the door open again when she heard laughter behind her.

She turned, looked into the corner of the room. A figure sat there, dressed in black, her masked. Only the eyes were visible. Their corners crinkled as if smiling.

She blinked, and the room was empty again.

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