"You really think it is safe to unplug Ibuki from the instruments already?" A distant, familiar female voice asked.
"Unlike him, I've studied something worthwhile." A male voice retorted. "There, there- looks like someone still has some fight left in him.
My eyes felt heavy as I tried to force them open. "Follow my fingers, if you may." With half-open eyes, I followed the blur of human skin tone. "Could you blink as fast as possible?"
I obliged, opening and closing my heavy eyes as fast as possible, each time growing heavier. "Good, you're discharged." A sharp pain shot through me like a needle.
My vision came back into focus, and the fog in my mind lifted like the first rays of sun after a tumultuous night. "Huh."
"You're discharged, good to go. Bye-bye," the man said, looking like he was in his early thirties.
"Wait, youre an Techonocrat? Arent you supposed to make all matters of things with me, make sure I'm fit for work or something else?" He turned towards me and handed me a small box.
"There are only two more inside. Take them if you feel dizzy. You probably won't need them — your head should settle back into function within the next thirty or forty minutes from now."
"Wait - what kind of medical care is that? And you don't have anything to say about last night?"
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot," he said. He opened his coat, an ordinary street coat instead of a doctor's attire. "After careful deliberation, we've deemed you of no further use than we put you to, cleared you of your charges, and congratulate you on your temporary increase in standing. Now scurry off."
My headache increased tenfold. "What do you even mean? None of this makes any sense! Are you even a doctor?"
"No I'm clearly not," he stated. "I'm a Mechanical engineer."
"Pardon?"
"I have no medical degree. I'm a mechanical engineer."
"Of course you are…" I looked around the room for the female voice and found Lynn. I looked to her for help but she looked exasperated and exhausted, way beyond her pay grade. I opened the box he gave me and found two more syringes, likely filled with whatever he'd already given me.
"You don't intend to tell me anything, or what I'm supposed to do?"
"I can offer you pills if you want to. Pick your poison." I pushed myself off the bed, shoved the box into his palm, and walked past him. Suddenly it felt like my hood started to weigh me down.
Lynn stood up and left the room with me. "So you chose the pills, huh?" She said, rummaging through my hoodie.
"Tell me, Lynn, where's Kyle? Why weren't we in the same room?" We walked through a corridor of open, empty rooms or closed ones we couldn't look into.
"Don't you remember? Or rather, what?" She asked.
"We were in the building because we expected that someone would check the equipment. It must have run on battery life, so they would have to replace it before we have our next maintenance run. But when they came everything happened so fast."
Lynn looked at me without saying a word, we walked further through the mostly empty halls. "Then, past midnight they came, it were only a couple. And then more and more. Kyle already put a trap on in advance but I hadn't noticed with what he laid them. When we noticed there were too many of them, and I realised the only explosives we had with us were those bunker busters… Everything went down too fast!"
"Wait? You didn't look what sky goggles and workaholic was doing?"
"Hey, everything happened way too fast, if it was just paranoia we could have defused the trap or let it stay there. But then they were everywhere, it weren't just a couple. Dozens! Maybe hundred. After the explosion, we just had to scramble and run. You would have done a better job covering Kyle. He just had to drag me and handle all the fighting, you don't know how hard it is. To struggle with someone just having your rifle between both of you until you feel like you have to duck because Kyle, is the way he is, being with him. I feel like what he is about to do next. You could have done a better job covering him. Fending them off."
Lynn shook her head, "you know Kyle best. There probably is no better person who could be next to him. But you havent told me what went down after that."
I stopped, "everything…."
"Huh?"
"Everything! They were everywhere, we ran to the ground floor. But Kyle dragged me aside because they were running out of there, we went through the fire exit. There were more. And then we dropped down, there were dozens. We ran through the city, and there were hundreds! A thousand even!" My palms were sweating, it felt hot and my breath was stuck uncomfortably in my throat.
"Hell, I don't know how many! We just ran, and ran and ran, until my legs hurt! I thought I would die, and then when there was nowhere left to run! We hunkered down, ready to die fighting. And they just threw everything at us. It was loud, light was flashing like another sunrise and it was hard to breathe, it was hard to stay awake. I didn't want to sleep. I thought I'd die if I fell asleep. And then? Everything went dark! I thought the symphony of heaven was ringing through my head when I heard your voice!" My entire body was sweating, I took in deep breaths, making me cool down and feel better.
"Ibuki," Lynn said, her eyes narrowing. "Do you and Kyle know what you kicked up?"
"The Garrison Mobolized, it was a damn ploy from the Commissar, he knew they are there and still let us go knowing that we would stick behind and do all of that!"
"No, he did not! The entirety of the Militia had to scramble with the Garrison and all service personnel and you know why? Nightmares. They showed up all out of nowhere when the troops were sweeping the lower city. They came out of nowhere. It is a miracle that we are standing."
"What! Nightmares?" I said, my voice fading. "It can't possibly be, the instruments showed barely any build-up of Nightmare Ichor, and breach was maybe weeks, months away! Don't give me crap Lynn! You were there when we checked. Even outside you would have heard the machines straining or the notifiers outside heading us for caution. This couldn't have happened!" My head began to ache like crazy. And my hand clutched against my head. Lynn shook the two maybe three pills in the box the Technocrat gave us and handed me one.
I took it and gulped one down, I didn't feel any better. "Ibuki," Lynn said slowly. "A thousand people are dead. Sabine was fighting at a breach at the central wall, and even Sina was pressed into combat. We were told that in all likelihood we stumble over a mass grave if we arrived and what we saw was likely the fiercest melee the planet is ever going to see! I know nightmares a weaker than the average man, but this was a tide streaming out of the gateway. I saw Sina on the emplacement, clutching the standard and still firing Sabine's empty las pistol like her life depended on it!"
My head throbbed even more. I reached for the pills, but Lynn pulled them out of reach. "How could that happen, Lynn? The Technocrats were never wrong about the Nightmares… They don't form out of nothing, as long as the devices worked there wouldn't be any breach, maybe only one or two roaming the streets but nothing to cause a threat to the city…" My voice faded, and I felt like toppling over, going back to sleep.
"The Commissar already said, he wants to hear from you personally, at your next convenience," Lynn said grimly. "The Technocrats went over the case and deemed you of not much further use. You'll take over Sinne for Kyle until he recovers. If he's coming back. They say he has to stand trial for both of your doings."
"Wait, but what about Kyle?"
"He's unconscious, roughen up bad. They say he's in a coma. I don't know what happened with him!"
I slumped against the wall. "But how is he meant to defend himself if he's out cold? Did they already make their verdict?" I asked Lynn.
"I don't know, the public is in uproar, and they blame Sabine. Even before sunrise, they want to hear from her and plead her case at the people's congress."
"Wait, already? How long was I out?"
"Hours, at most."
"It's still the very same day?" I lost all strength in my feet and dropped to the ground.
"We should listen to it later. Talking with the Commissar is going to be essential if we want his help to bail out Kyle," she stated.
"Lynn, we can't let him stay in their custody, he can't meet that minx again!"
"Ibuki, there are more things we need to face before we can address that as well." She clutched my arm around her neck and hoisted me upright. She carried me down the staircase that way until we reached the lobby and went out through the front entrance. There, assembled, were the others-battered and bruised members.
"Sabine told me we need to handle this first."