Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Crimson ❯ Return ( Chapter 1 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Esperati Nero 
Sub-Zero
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Sci-fi / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 10.24.2006 | Updated On: 10.24.2006 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.9K | Visits: 117 | Status: Completed
Sub-Zero
Miscellaneous: Original Stories Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Sci-fi / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 10.24.2006 | Updated On: 10.24.2006 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.9K | Visits: 117 | Status: Completed
"Redkite, how many times do I have to tell you to call for back-up as soon as something like this happens?" Everyone called the Director of Versatility the Axe. Some called him the Axe-head, but his real name was Andrew DuBois. Very few people knew that. His office was a small room lit with blue-white florescent rods on the ceiling. The light reflected off the undecorated white walls easily. A metal desk stood a little too much towards the back wall to be in the center of the room. A wooden chair stood behind it and a computer sat on top of it. There were messy stacks of papers all over the room.
Satin was all too familiar with this scene. Who knows how many times she's been in here since she started basic training? Maybe Axe-head does, but who bothers to keep track after the 50-time mark? She was impudent and insubordinate by nature, even when she tried hard not to be. "I did. There wasn't a single signal around, I had to run nearly two miles to get half way through a dial tone. I ran back and forth for about an hour before I can get 'SOS' through the broken signal." Her shoulder length black hair was tied back into a ponytail. Its obsidian purity contrasted with her ghastly pale skin and her fiery, amber-brown eyes. There was a clear itallian heritage in her, although her other half could seem anywhere from Mongolia down to the Phillipines. Her nickname of Redkite came from the dark-red choker she wore at her throat. It had a little eagle shaped silver tag sewn onto it somehow. She rarely took it off... it was her only piece of decoration. The jade-green, shortsleeved hoodie and the thin, dark-gray turtleneck sweater she wore beneath it held no decoration except for a pair of 2 cm long, 3 mm wide silver bars attatched to her right shoulder. Her gray-washed jeans and black sneakers were battered and worn out. She looked a few years younger than her 17 years, but aside from that and her torn-up looking clothes, she seemed pretty normal, teenage defiance and all.
"You could have taken the jeep we stored in the cavern and saved time driving instead of running."
"Nuh-uh. It would look a little suspicious if there was a random jeep out in the middle of nowhere."
"It could be covered later--"
"Not really, it was infested with vipers. I'd rather call for a rescue unit and get picked up still alive." Redkite gazed calmly at the Axe-head. He was her Boss, and she was the only one under him who would dare talk to him like this. The nature of her mind was puzzling. Her co-workers called her a natural anarchist. It did fit her character to be ruled by no laws and tolerate only what she must to survive. The steady stare of the Axe-head was more like a glare, but only she and two others out of the Darts could be left unperturbed by the hostile gesture.
"Did you go back and examine the wreckage?" The Axe asked after a long pause of thought.
Satin nodded and gave her report in an even, average voice. It's the general tone that comes to mind when someone says 'female voice'. "Of course. The bomb dropped was a simple one, not too much larger than a fragmentation grenade. It is simply made, with similar composition to the F4s but stronger than a V2. My guess is that is was custom made simple so it can't be traced."
"Did you collect any of the burnt samples for analysis?"
"Yes, I've sent them ahead to the Techs. They should be analyzing it now."
"How long will the analysis take?"
"About two hours at least." Satin seemed to have an answer ready for everything. Either that, or she knows exactly what questions the Axe-head likes to ask. That was always nice, to be prepared for the Axe's ruthless interrogation as to not get chopped up.
The 46-year-old man sighed heavily and relaxed his face, dismissing her with a shooing motion. "Go and find a Med. Get those cuts and burns taken care of. And remember to try to open the windows before jumping through them next time. Satin looked at the sleeves of her slashed up sweater and her hoodie, shrugging.
"They're not bad--"
It was the Axe's turn to interrupt her. Interruption was an argument skill he learned from Satin. It was fun to use it against her. "No questions asked, I'll personally ask the supervising Med if you've followed my orders. If you haven't, I'll make you wash dishes with lemon juice without band-aids or latex gloves or anything.
Satin gave him a look of pure annoyance and turned, walking briskly and silently from the room, taking care to slam the door snappishly after her. Only when she left did the Axe-head smile. At over twice her age, he could still remember when he was like her, with the difference that he was of the opposite gender and lived in a world with less metal. Much less. "I wonder what Erissa would think of me now..." He said quietly to himself as he eyed a stack of documents on his desk with gloomy apprehension. "Old, single, working with the very people she hated." Shaking his head, he pulled out a drawer and produced a pair of glasses. Let the paperwork commence.
Satin turned down the hallway. When the Axe gave an order like that, disobedience was courting death. She hoped he doesn't make all his orders sound that way. That would be pure hell. "Let's see... med bay is this way, isn't it?" She muttered to herself, still annoyed that she had been sent there. "Or maybe it's over here..." She stood between the two corridors, tapping her foot as she thought. "Maybe it'll be easier if I've actually walked there before." The only times she recalled being in the medical bay did not include anything about getting there. She always arrived there unconscious. Anything otherwise was treated by herself or by one of the Darts. Satin seldom saw Meds, mainly because when not in the field, they dressed in white. Large amounts of white induced pure fear in her. Those times in the med bay were spent with blindfolds on to prevent her paranoia from seizing her. Taking her chances, she moved down the left side hallway. Maybe there was a map or something like that. Probably not, since there weren't enough visitors to have a public map. The blueprint was archived, and it doesn't say what room was used for what.
The first person she encountered just happened to be Eridde, whose strange name caused his nickname to be seldom used, like Satin's. Only Satin and the Bosses even remember that he was also known as Panther. He had straight, messy black hair that was turning light brown at the tips. He tries stubbornly to tame it, but his hair stubbornly resisted. He had a light tan complexion, dark green eyes and a slightly skinny frame. But he was still lithe and strong. His face was completely impassive.
"Hey Eridde!" Satin ran up to him cheerfully, pushing her straight cut bangs out of her face. She needed a haircut as soon as possible.
Eridde didn't notice her until she had said his name. Satin was stealthy and he was completely immersed in thought. The moment he saw her, he grabbed her by the shoulders gently and steered her in the other direction, opposite of where she was headed. "It's the other way."
"Eh? The med bay?"
"No. My room."
"WHAT?!" Satin braced her legs against the floor and pushed backwards, stopping herself abruptly. Eridde's hands dug into her shoulders and she winced as it pressured her bruises. "What the hell are you talking about?" She recovered quickly.
"I'm a Dart too, remember?" His voice was flat and apathetic, "I'm good as any med. Unless you want to stay in a blindfold not knowing if they're bandaging you or just touching you as a whim." He shrugged. "It's your choice."
"Uh..." Nevermind, and thank goodness. "Axe-head said he wanted a report of me from the supervising Med."
"I'll give him my report." Eridde said in that same, feelingless voice. "I don't want you freaking out again, since the last time you broke my best thermometer going into something like a panic siezure."
Satin didn't have anything to say to this. Half of her wanted to thank him, the other half wanted to knock his brains out. And a third of each half also wants to sleep. She let herself be steered down the hall and into the dormitory wing, waiting for Eridde to open the door to his room. The dormitories were very simple, furnished with only a matress, a desk, a chair and a closet. Eridde didn't try to improve it very much. The room looked completely bare save for an empty picture frame on the table. The closet was probably pretty full though. Eridde had at least four black trenchcoats, two green ones and one khaki colored coat. Then his black and white shirts and pants and those heavy looking soldat boots. His closet was probably bursing with simple clothing.
Eridde motioned for Satin to sit down on his bed while he got a first-aid kit from his desk drawer. "You should've gotten out of the building without trying to salvage anything. You worried the Axe-head sufficiently enough." He opened the white, tin box to remove a can of antiseptic foam, neosporn and gauze bandages. "And not to sound vulgar, but you have to take off your sweater for me to do anything.
"These are nothing. It's worth it if you salvage half a million bucks worth of information." Satin pulled the zipper on her hoodie, tossing it aside before pulling her turtleneck over her head. "So how's everything going on here?" Sitting there in her black tank top, she felt exposed to the world. At least it was in a tight little room somewhere with Eridde and not someone else. She could feel his efficient hands taking a quick inventory of her injuries. Most of them were around either her hands and forearms or her shoulders and back. They weren't very bad ones, but there were many of them. Hot, fiery pain flooded into her back, causing her to go rigid, gnashing her teeth.
"Sorry..." Eridde muttered. Satin rolled her eyes at him. It doesn't matter if he had been trained to work with emergency first aid thoroughly. He never warned anyone if something was going to hurt. "Since you weren't feeling well with the original plan's conditions, we were sent back down here to wait for a remodification. Seems like you're the main person Axe wants to do the job. But it might take a while, so there would be quite a bit of delay."
Satin winced again as he applied the foam to her remaining wounds. "That sounds... wonderful." At least this time she didn't freeze. Everytime she tenses, her muscles stayed stiff for nearly an entire minute. "Your first-aid techniques haven't changed at all since the first time. Can't you tell someone if it's going to hurt or not?" She asked him through gritted teeth, still annoyed at his inconsideration.
Eridde just shrugged. "I learned that if I warn people, they call me a liar because it didn't hurt as much as they expected." He was gently dabbing neosporn to her shoulderblades where the foam had evaporated. "So I don't say anything. It works. At least I know how to fix people up." He smirked, "You still don't know how to tie off bandages."
"If you weren't helping me now, I'd punch you in the face." Satin muttered in pure annoyance. Eridde and her had been selected around the same time and trained together when a partner system for he Darts still existed. Last year, the partner system was removed and they no longer had to do everything together. They saw less and less of each other, meaning Satin would get paranoid. Eridde knew every embarassing detail of her training and might possibly have let something slip accidentally-on-purpose. Like that one time when she was learning how to throw a knife for the first time.
"Remember when we first learned knife throwing?" Eridde asked. Satin bit her lip. Yes, but I don't remember when you learned mind reading. "Mind reading is my gift. You shouldn't be jealous of it." Satin gave him a glare as he said this. Eridde didn't seem to notice. He was too busy wrapping her her arm up.
"Yes, I do remember. You know I do. And I'm sure you do as well." Her voice was more annoyed than ever.
Eridde gave one of those rare laughs he reseved for his close friends. It was like his voice, soft and rich but not deep. It had a wise yet playful nature to it. "Your hand slipped and the knife went straight up. If Flippy didn't come to the door and take you to the Axe in that split second, you'd probably be pretty close to dead."
"Gee, thanks for rubbing in my stupidity."
"You are very welcome, miss 66% prodigy." As he said that, Eridde pulled the bandages tightly, causing Satin to freeze up again.
"You did that on purpose!" She rapped him playfully on the head. "I have the talent, you shouldn't be jealous of it. It's not my fault it took you half a year longer than me."
"Ouch. You're using my words against me." He secured the dressing on the other arm and wrist. "You're going to have to take off your underthings for me to dress your back.
"Lech."
"You're flat."
"Pervert."
"Do you want an infection?"
"Fine. No touching." She glanced towards the door warily as she pulled off her black tank top and with built-in bra. "Is that thing locked?"
"I dunno." Eridde shrugged. "My door's funny. Just keep your back to it and face the wall." Satin obliged.
"If you left it unlocked on purpose I'll kill you. You're--"
"Tell me the real reason why you didn't like staying in that house. It's not because it's too small." Eridde interrupted her. He could tell that Satin was trying to hide her real thoughts. His hands moved back and forth rapidly, binding the gauze to her body in the most comfortable position possible.
Satin stared intently at the covers on the bed, as if they held the mystery of life in them. "Why do you care?" She wasn't in the mood to answer questions like that. "I just didn't like it."
"Every single wall was white. And the room you shared with Pi was nearly completely white, bed, desk, sheets and all. Don't pretend I don't know you that well. You don't wear blindfolds in the infirmary because you think it looks like a torture room. You wear it to block out the white." Eridde's firm voice knocked her thoughts as flat as plain crepes.
"What's your point?" Three and a half years ago, Satin probably would've burst into tears upon hearing this. Two and a half years of training plus her time as an initiate in the SS hardened her emotions.
"If you told the Axe it was because you were claustrophopic, you might end up having a white room again. Or worse, an entirely white house." Eridde spoke as if he didn't think Satin would be anxious inside. He excluded the factor of what she might be feeling. He asked her with the apathy of a robotic interrogator. It was understandable that if he asked her like he cared, she might not answer in hopes that he'll let it slide. Satin was a fairly good actress. She could cry when she wanted to, just so she can manipulate innocent people into letting her into a government building to look for her 'brother'. Being short and small-chested helped her look much younger than 17. She looked about 12, actually. Her appearance was what made her a great spy and assassin, although it didn't help with reaching books on high shelves. Eridde found his thinking straying off subject. He turned himself back on focus to wait patiently for Satin's answer.
Satin sat in silence for nearly half a minute before giving her answer in slow, hesitating fragments. "No... I told him that... that I can't stand whiteness."
"Alright." Eridde confirmed. He never stopped working on her wounds for a moment. "Did he ask you why?"
Another pause. "Yes."
"And what did you tell him?"
Satin whirled on Eridde, "Why are you asking me all these strange questions? You're prying into my personal business, it's not your place to question me about my antic, however queer or freakish they seem to you! You... you are at least a gifted freak. I'm just a plain, freaking freak!"
"Satin, don't freak out--uh, I mean calm down." Eridde patted her shoulder gently. "Your... blancophobia, I supposed that's what it's called... it might be a sign that you have a gift. You just haven't developed it yet. Chill your temper, it's as red hot as your nickname." He joked. "I'm glad you're not a redhead."
"Enough of the stereotypes." Satin grumbled and let him finish tying the gauze strips. "I'm too old to develop a gift. I'm eighteen already, I think. You're supposed to have it by sixteen, or you probably don't have one." Pulling her clothes back on one piece at a time, she continued to glare at the wall, turning her back away from the door only when she had pulled on her sweater.
"You might be one of those anomalies Geb's always flipping out about." Eridde shrugged, reorganizing his first-aid kit. "I heard that the later the gift, the more powerful it is. My mind reading can get as weak as water. I got it years before I was selected, when I was like... fourteen or something."
"I wish it would get that weak when you try to read my mind." Grabbing her hoodie, she pulled it on and fumbled at the zipper. Bandaged fingers did not go well with small security designs. Eridde sighed and turned her around, zipping it up for her.
"Tough luck on you."
"You act like you're my nursemaid."
"That is fitting. You act five years old." Eridde got up and walked to his closet, opening the door slowly and cautiously as if something might fall out. When he was sure that the coast ws clear, he opened it all the way, revealing his simple sets of clothes and his impressive artillery. Selecting a .22 sniper and a package of ammunition, he walked back towards the desk to get out a dry-erase marker. "I'm going to hone in on my sniping. With your training on hiatus from that accident, I should be able to catch up."
"In your dreams." Satin's eyes caught a flash of red in the grayscale sea of his closet. The piece of cloth tied to the metal rack stood out like a flaming beacon. "You couldn't catch my cold if you tried." She retorted as she watched him close the door, shielding the red cloth from view. "Who said my training was going on Hiatus?"
"Axe did. Ask him if you don't believe me." Satin followed Eridde outside. Every dorm room had a white dry-erase board nailed to it. The word 'Eridde' occupied the blank for 'Name', 'Panther' for 'Code', 'Dart Initiate' for 'Position' and 'In' for 'Status'. Eridde rubbed out the word 'In', replacing it with 'In Training'. If anyone wanted him, they'd know where to find him if his pager broke down.
"I believe you." She grumbled at him again. "I'm going to my room." Eridde closed the door and heard it lock. The keypad on the lock was pretty easy to hack, but the fingerprint ID sensor wasn't. "I bet there's mountains of paperwork in my mailbox."
"Have fun." Eridde walked away, quickly vanishing from view. Satin shook her head. Eridde could be such a nuisance sometimes. He was almost a year older than her but acted like he was her uncle. Her feet tapped lightly on the concrete ground as she ran down the hallways. It took her several seconds to realize she passed her door already. She had been away long enough to almost forget where she lived for the past three to four years of her life.
Tapping her passcode rapidly into the keypad lock, Satin turned the familiar knob and flipped the light switch, watching the florescent bars overhead flicker on. The first thing she did was to take a dry-erase marker from her desk and change her status from 'Ex-City Task' to 'In'. Shutting the door quietly behind her, she looked at her chamber. It remained unchanged since she last saw it almost two months ago. The matress in the corner had a white sheet and no pillow. A dark green sleeping bag that looked like it came from the army was unzipped on top of it. There was a set of spare knives hanging on the wall at level with the mattress, where she could reach it easily if she were ever attacked in bed. Fortunately, she never had to use them. The wall adjacent to the long side of the matress held a rifle on a rack for the same purpose. Satin never sleeps without a shotgun in her hand. Her desk looked more like a metal rack with a space in it for legs. The surface was black plastic, scratched and marked until the plain, grayish plastic showed up underneath. The racks on either side of it were full of books and papers in badly arranged stacks. A small glass jar held an assortment of pencils and pens. Satin looked to the crate under her mail-flap. That was her mailbox... her probably buried mailbox under two months of paperwork accumu--
"Hey, it's empty..." Satin murmured, touching it to make sure she wasn't imagining it. There wasn't a single shred of work in it, only something like a business card. She picked it up and read it out loud to herself. "Your pepper... prayer... ah, paperwork! ...Has been... uh... taken care of in yarn? ... your... absence." It was signed clearly: 'Axe'. Satin knew that he knew she couldn't read cursive. The scrawling curves of the letters were proof that the Axe was capable of laughing, even if it was at someone else's expense. She scowled at the card before tossing it into her empty plastic wastebasket.
Satin fell back on her bed, wincing as the impact stung through her back wounds. Staring at her pale jade green walls, she let a little smile creep into her face. So what if it's shabby? This place is home, sweet home. Man... it felt good to be back.
Satin was all too familiar with this scene. Who knows how many times she's been in here since she started basic training? Maybe Axe-head does, but who bothers to keep track after the 50-time mark? She was impudent and insubordinate by nature, even when she tried hard not to be. "I did. There wasn't a single signal around, I had to run nearly two miles to get half way through a dial tone. I ran back and forth for about an hour before I can get 'SOS' through the broken signal." Her shoulder length black hair was tied back into a ponytail. Its obsidian purity contrasted with her ghastly pale skin and her fiery, amber-brown eyes. There was a clear itallian heritage in her, although her other half could seem anywhere from Mongolia down to the Phillipines. Her nickname of Redkite came from the dark-red choker she wore at her throat. It had a little eagle shaped silver tag sewn onto it somehow. She rarely took it off... it was her only piece of decoration. The jade-green, shortsleeved hoodie and the thin, dark-gray turtleneck sweater she wore beneath it held no decoration except for a pair of 2 cm long, 3 mm wide silver bars attatched to her right shoulder. Her gray-washed jeans and black sneakers were battered and worn out. She looked a few years younger than her 17 years, but aside from that and her torn-up looking clothes, she seemed pretty normal, teenage defiance and all.
"You could have taken the jeep we stored in the cavern and saved time driving instead of running."
"Nuh-uh. It would look a little suspicious if there was a random jeep out in the middle of nowhere."
"It could be covered later--"
"Not really, it was infested with vipers. I'd rather call for a rescue unit and get picked up still alive." Redkite gazed calmly at the Axe-head. He was her Boss, and she was the only one under him who would dare talk to him like this. The nature of her mind was puzzling. Her co-workers called her a natural anarchist. It did fit her character to be ruled by no laws and tolerate only what she must to survive. The steady stare of the Axe-head was more like a glare, but only she and two others out of the Darts could be left unperturbed by the hostile gesture.
"Did you go back and examine the wreckage?" The Axe asked after a long pause of thought.
Satin nodded and gave her report in an even, average voice. It's the general tone that comes to mind when someone says 'female voice'. "Of course. The bomb dropped was a simple one, not too much larger than a fragmentation grenade. It is simply made, with similar composition to the F4s but stronger than a V2. My guess is that is was custom made simple so it can't be traced."
"Did you collect any of the burnt samples for analysis?"
"Yes, I've sent them ahead to the Techs. They should be analyzing it now."
"How long will the analysis take?"
"About two hours at least." Satin seemed to have an answer ready for everything. Either that, or she knows exactly what questions the Axe-head likes to ask. That was always nice, to be prepared for the Axe's ruthless interrogation as to not get chopped up.
The 46-year-old man sighed heavily and relaxed his face, dismissing her with a shooing motion. "Go and find a Med. Get those cuts and burns taken care of. And remember to try to open the windows before jumping through them next time. Satin looked at the sleeves of her slashed up sweater and her hoodie, shrugging.
"They're not bad--"
It was the Axe's turn to interrupt her. Interruption was an argument skill he learned from Satin. It was fun to use it against her. "No questions asked, I'll personally ask the supervising Med if you've followed my orders. If you haven't, I'll make you wash dishes with lemon juice without band-aids or latex gloves or anything.
Satin gave him a look of pure annoyance and turned, walking briskly and silently from the room, taking care to slam the door snappishly after her. Only when she left did the Axe-head smile. At over twice her age, he could still remember when he was like her, with the difference that he was of the opposite gender and lived in a world with less metal. Much less. "I wonder what Erissa would think of me now..." He said quietly to himself as he eyed a stack of documents on his desk with gloomy apprehension. "Old, single, working with the very people she hated." Shaking his head, he pulled out a drawer and produced a pair of glasses. Let the paperwork commence.
Satin turned down the hallway. When the Axe gave an order like that, disobedience was courting death. She hoped he doesn't make all his orders sound that way. That would be pure hell. "Let's see... med bay is this way, isn't it?" She muttered to herself, still annoyed that she had been sent there. "Or maybe it's over here..." She stood between the two corridors, tapping her foot as she thought. "Maybe it'll be easier if I've actually walked there before." The only times she recalled being in the medical bay did not include anything about getting there. She always arrived there unconscious. Anything otherwise was treated by herself or by one of the Darts. Satin seldom saw Meds, mainly because when not in the field, they dressed in white. Large amounts of white induced pure fear in her. Those times in the med bay were spent with blindfolds on to prevent her paranoia from seizing her. Taking her chances, she moved down the left side hallway. Maybe there was a map or something like that. Probably not, since there weren't enough visitors to have a public map. The blueprint was archived, and it doesn't say what room was used for what.
The first person she encountered just happened to be Eridde, whose strange name caused his nickname to be seldom used, like Satin's. Only Satin and the Bosses even remember that he was also known as Panther. He had straight, messy black hair that was turning light brown at the tips. He tries stubbornly to tame it, but his hair stubbornly resisted. He had a light tan complexion, dark green eyes and a slightly skinny frame. But he was still lithe and strong. His face was completely impassive.
"Hey Eridde!" Satin ran up to him cheerfully, pushing her straight cut bangs out of her face. She needed a haircut as soon as possible.
Eridde didn't notice her until she had said his name. Satin was stealthy and he was completely immersed in thought. The moment he saw her, he grabbed her by the shoulders gently and steered her in the other direction, opposite of where she was headed. "It's the other way."
"Eh? The med bay?"
"No. My room."
"WHAT?!" Satin braced her legs against the floor and pushed backwards, stopping herself abruptly. Eridde's hands dug into her shoulders and she winced as it pressured her bruises. "What the hell are you talking about?" She recovered quickly.
"I'm a Dart too, remember?" His voice was flat and apathetic, "I'm good as any med. Unless you want to stay in a blindfold not knowing if they're bandaging you or just touching you as a whim." He shrugged. "It's your choice."
"Uh..." Nevermind, and thank goodness. "Axe-head said he wanted a report of me from the supervising Med."
"I'll give him my report." Eridde said in that same, feelingless voice. "I don't want you freaking out again, since the last time you broke my best thermometer going into something like a panic siezure."
Satin didn't have anything to say to this. Half of her wanted to thank him, the other half wanted to knock his brains out. And a third of each half also wants to sleep. She let herself be steered down the hall and into the dormitory wing, waiting for Eridde to open the door to his room. The dormitories were very simple, furnished with only a matress, a desk, a chair and a closet. Eridde didn't try to improve it very much. The room looked completely bare save for an empty picture frame on the table. The closet was probably pretty full though. Eridde had at least four black trenchcoats, two green ones and one khaki colored coat. Then his black and white shirts and pants and those heavy looking soldat boots. His closet was probably bursing with simple clothing.
Eridde motioned for Satin to sit down on his bed while he got a first-aid kit from his desk drawer. "You should've gotten out of the building without trying to salvage anything. You worried the Axe-head sufficiently enough." He opened the white, tin box to remove a can of antiseptic foam, neosporn and gauze bandages. "And not to sound vulgar, but you have to take off your sweater for me to do anything.
"These are nothing. It's worth it if you salvage half a million bucks worth of information." Satin pulled the zipper on her hoodie, tossing it aside before pulling her turtleneck over her head. "So how's everything going on here?" Sitting there in her black tank top, she felt exposed to the world. At least it was in a tight little room somewhere with Eridde and not someone else. She could feel his efficient hands taking a quick inventory of her injuries. Most of them were around either her hands and forearms or her shoulders and back. They weren't very bad ones, but there were many of them. Hot, fiery pain flooded into her back, causing her to go rigid, gnashing her teeth.
"Sorry..." Eridde muttered. Satin rolled her eyes at him. It doesn't matter if he had been trained to work with emergency first aid thoroughly. He never warned anyone if something was going to hurt. "Since you weren't feeling well with the original plan's conditions, we were sent back down here to wait for a remodification. Seems like you're the main person Axe wants to do the job. But it might take a while, so there would be quite a bit of delay."
Satin winced again as he applied the foam to her remaining wounds. "That sounds... wonderful." At least this time she didn't freeze. Everytime she tenses, her muscles stayed stiff for nearly an entire minute. "Your first-aid techniques haven't changed at all since the first time. Can't you tell someone if it's going to hurt or not?" She asked him through gritted teeth, still annoyed at his inconsideration.
Eridde just shrugged. "I learned that if I warn people, they call me a liar because it didn't hurt as much as they expected." He was gently dabbing neosporn to her shoulderblades where the foam had evaporated. "So I don't say anything. It works. At least I know how to fix people up." He smirked, "You still don't know how to tie off bandages."
"If you weren't helping me now, I'd punch you in the face." Satin muttered in pure annoyance. Eridde and her had been selected around the same time and trained together when a partner system for he Darts still existed. Last year, the partner system was removed and they no longer had to do everything together. They saw less and less of each other, meaning Satin would get paranoid. Eridde knew every embarassing detail of her training and might possibly have let something slip accidentally-on-purpose. Like that one time when she was learning how to throw a knife for the first time.
"Remember when we first learned knife throwing?" Eridde asked. Satin bit her lip. Yes, but I don't remember when you learned mind reading. "Mind reading is my gift. You shouldn't be jealous of it." Satin gave him a glare as he said this. Eridde didn't seem to notice. He was too busy wrapping her her arm up.
"Yes, I do remember. You know I do. And I'm sure you do as well." Her voice was more annoyed than ever.
Eridde gave one of those rare laughs he reseved for his close friends. It was like his voice, soft and rich but not deep. It had a wise yet playful nature to it. "Your hand slipped and the knife went straight up. If Flippy didn't come to the door and take you to the Axe in that split second, you'd probably be pretty close to dead."
"Gee, thanks for rubbing in my stupidity."
"You are very welcome, miss 66% prodigy." As he said that, Eridde pulled the bandages tightly, causing Satin to freeze up again.
"You did that on purpose!" She rapped him playfully on the head. "I have the talent, you shouldn't be jealous of it. It's not my fault it took you half a year longer than me."
"Ouch. You're using my words against me." He secured the dressing on the other arm and wrist. "You're going to have to take off your underthings for me to dress your back.
"Lech."
"You're flat."
"Pervert."
"Do you want an infection?"
"Fine. No touching." She glanced towards the door warily as she pulled off her black tank top and with built-in bra. "Is that thing locked?"
"I dunno." Eridde shrugged. "My door's funny. Just keep your back to it and face the wall." Satin obliged.
"If you left it unlocked on purpose I'll kill you. You're--"
"Tell me the real reason why you didn't like staying in that house. It's not because it's too small." Eridde interrupted her. He could tell that Satin was trying to hide her real thoughts. His hands moved back and forth rapidly, binding the gauze to her body in the most comfortable position possible.
Satin stared intently at the covers on the bed, as if they held the mystery of life in them. "Why do you care?" She wasn't in the mood to answer questions like that. "I just didn't like it."
"Every single wall was white. And the room you shared with Pi was nearly completely white, bed, desk, sheets and all. Don't pretend I don't know you that well. You don't wear blindfolds in the infirmary because you think it looks like a torture room. You wear it to block out the white." Eridde's firm voice knocked her thoughts as flat as plain crepes.
"What's your point?" Three and a half years ago, Satin probably would've burst into tears upon hearing this. Two and a half years of training plus her time as an initiate in the SS hardened her emotions.
"If you told the Axe it was because you were claustrophopic, you might end up having a white room again. Or worse, an entirely white house." Eridde spoke as if he didn't think Satin would be anxious inside. He excluded the factor of what she might be feeling. He asked her with the apathy of a robotic interrogator. It was understandable that if he asked her like he cared, she might not answer in hopes that he'll let it slide. Satin was a fairly good actress. She could cry when she wanted to, just so she can manipulate innocent people into letting her into a government building to look for her 'brother'. Being short and small-chested helped her look much younger than 17. She looked about 12, actually. Her appearance was what made her a great spy and assassin, although it didn't help with reaching books on high shelves. Eridde found his thinking straying off subject. He turned himself back on focus to wait patiently for Satin's answer.
Satin sat in silence for nearly half a minute before giving her answer in slow, hesitating fragments. "No... I told him that... that I can't stand whiteness."
"Alright." Eridde confirmed. He never stopped working on her wounds for a moment. "Did he ask you why?"
Another pause. "Yes."
"And what did you tell him?"
Satin whirled on Eridde, "Why are you asking me all these strange questions? You're prying into my personal business, it's not your place to question me about my antic, however queer or freakish they seem to you! You... you are at least a gifted freak. I'm just a plain, freaking freak!"
"Satin, don't freak out--uh, I mean calm down." Eridde patted her shoulder gently. "Your... blancophobia, I supposed that's what it's called... it might be a sign that you have a gift. You just haven't developed it yet. Chill your temper, it's as red hot as your nickname." He joked. "I'm glad you're not a redhead."
"Enough of the stereotypes." Satin grumbled and let him finish tying the gauze strips. "I'm too old to develop a gift. I'm eighteen already, I think. You're supposed to have it by sixteen, or you probably don't have one." Pulling her clothes back on one piece at a time, she continued to glare at the wall, turning her back away from the door only when she had pulled on her sweater.
"You might be one of those anomalies Geb's always flipping out about." Eridde shrugged, reorganizing his first-aid kit. "I heard that the later the gift, the more powerful it is. My mind reading can get as weak as water. I got it years before I was selected, when I was like... fourteen or something."
"I wish it would get that weak when you try to read my mind." Grabbing her hoodie, she pulled it on and fumbled at the zipper. Bandaged fingers did not go well with small security designs. Eridde sighed and turned her around, zipping it up for her.
"Tough luck on you."
"You act like you're my nursemaid."
"That is fitting. You act five years old." Eridde got up and walked to his closet, opening the door slowly and cautiously as if something might fall out. When he was sure that the coast ws clear, he opened it all the way, revealing his simple sets of clothes and his impressive artillery. Selecting a .22 sniper and a package of ammunition, he walked back towards the desk to get out a dry-erase marker. "I'm going to hone in on my sniping. With your training on hiatus from that accident, I should be able to catch up."
"In your dreams." Satin's eyes caught a flash of red in the grayscale sea of his closet. The piece of cloth tied to the metal rack stood out like a flaming beacon. "You couldn't catch my cold if you tried." She retorted as she watched him close the door, shielding the red cloth from view. "Who said my training was going on Hiatus?"
"Axe did. Ask him if you don't believe me." Satin followed Eridde outside. Every dorm room had a white dry-erase board nailed to it. The word 'Eridde' occupied the blank for 'Name', 'Panther' for 'Code', 'Dart Initiate' for 'Position' and 'In' for 'Status'. Eridde rubbed out the word 'In', replacing it with 'In Training'. If anyone wanted him, they'd know where to find him if his pager broke down.
"I believe you." She grumbled at him again. "I'm going to my room." Eridde closed the door and heard it lock. The keypad on the lock was pretty easy to hack, but the fingerprint ID sensor wasn't. "I bet there's mountains of paperwork in my mailbox."
"Have fun." Eridde walked away, quickly vanishing from view. Satin shook her head. Eridde could be such a nuisance sometimes. He was almost a year older than her but acted like he was her uncle. Her feet tapped lightly on the concrete ground as she ran down the hallways. It took her several seconds to realize she passed her door already. She had been away long enough to almost forget where she lived for the past three to four years of her life.
Tapping her passcode rapidly into the keypad lock, Satin turned the familiar knob and flipped the light switch, watching the florescent bars overhead flicker on. The first thing she did was to take a dry-erase marker from her desk and change her status from 'Ex-City Task' to 'In'. Shutting the door quietly behind her, she looked at her chamber. It remained unchanged since she last saw it almost two months ago. The matress in the corner had a white sheet and no pillow. A dark green sleeping bag that looked like it came from the army was unzipped on top of it. There was a set of spare knives hanging on the wall at level with the mattress, where she could reach it easily if she were ever attacked in bed. Fortunately, she never had to use them. The wall adjacent to the long side of the matress held a rifle on a rack for the same purpose. Satin never sleeps without a shotgun in her hand. Her desk looked more like a metal rack with a space in it for legs. The surface was black plastic, scratched and marked until the plain, grayish plastic showed up underneath. The racks on either side of it were full of books and papers in badly arranged stacks. A small glass jar held an assortment of pencils and pens. Satin looked to the crate under her mail-flap. That was her mailbox... her probably buried mailbox under two months of paperwork accumu--
"Hey, it's empty..." Satin murmured, touching it to make sure she wasn't imagining it. There wasn't a single shred of work in it, only something like a business card. She picked it up and read it out loud to herself. "Your pepper... prayer... ah, paperwork! ...Has been... uh... taken care of in yarn? ... your... absence." It was signed clearly: 'Axe'. Satin knew that he knew she couldn't read cursive. The scrawling curves of the letters were proof that the Axe was capable of laughing, even if it was at someone else's expense. She scowled at the card before tossing it into her empty plastic wastebasket.
Satin fell back on her bed, wincing as the impact stung through her back wounds. Staring at her pale jade green walls, she let a little smile creep into her face. So what if it's shabby? This place is home, sweet home. Man... it felt good to be back.