When he next woke, he was indeed feeling very rested. His mind snapped into motion instantly, recalling everything that had happened and everything that he had learned. He sat up and glanced down at his nude body. 'What a mess,' he thought, 'in more ways than one.' He glanced around but there was no sign of Mikan. 'Strange.' He thought they had fallen asleep together. Had she woken and ran? That didn't seem like a good sign.
Callum got to his feet and retrieved his jumpsuit. He didn't want to pull it on. Asking his sister to wash it after it touched what was all over him seemed disgusting. Callum poked his head out of the storage room and when he didn't see anyone, he quickly padded to the shower room a little ways away. He breathed a sigh of relief that he made it without running into anyone.
He cranked on the shower and stepped into the spray of water. It had taken him some time to get used to this method of washing, after taking baths his entire life. It wasn't bad, though. Not as relaxing as a bath but it was quick. He used the strange gel the carcha used for cleaning. It always burned faintly but it did wonders for getting clean. It even worked on hair.
When he was finished, he quickly dried and pulled on his suit. He was still a little damp but he was clean now. That meant that it was time to find one of Mikan or Valencia, since he had to talk to both of them. His stomach turned. He wasn't sure which he dreaded more. Callum wished he could talk with his sister but with things already strained, he didn't want to come to her to ask advice about the terrible thing he'd done. 'But it wasn't terrible.' Callum didn't know if that was his own voice or Venus's. He wasn't sure what to think anymore.
He exited the shower room and ran right into Dahri, who was hustling down the hallway. The diminutive carcha woman bounced off him and fell on her ass. Before Callum could even offer her a hand up, she popped right back to her feet. She settled her glasses back on her nose. Callum had never seen anything like them until Dahri. She said they were to help correct her vision. There had been humans Callum knew who had bad eyesight but the carcha didn't give glasses to human slaves.
"I'm sorry," Callum said. "Are you alright?"
"Just who I was looking for!" Dahri said, pointing at him and completely ignoring his question.
"You were looking for me?"
"For anyone! I need to show you! I've done it. I've done it!" She began to dance a curious jig of impatience. "Come see! Come see! I did it!"
"Dahri, I'm kind of busy right now…"
"Nothing is more important than this!" Dahri grabbed his hand and began to try and tug him. She was stronger than he expected but still short and slight. He could have resisted if he really wanted but he found it hard to disappoint her. And he was kind of curious. Dahri was the most mysterious of the prisoners Nita had rescued. She was rarely to be seen and nobody quite understood what she was working on.
So Callum let himself be dragged along. It was kind of cute how excited she was. Even as he thought it, Callum went cold inside. He remembered what Venus had said about the carcha. They were creatures of death. "Dahri, do you have the power to pilot a mech...a selachii?"
"Hell, no," Dahri said instantly, "And thank the cosmos for that."
"Why are you happy about that? I thought that piloting selachii was prestigious among the carcha."
Dahri snorted. "It is prestigious if you can survive it. Living as a selachii pilot is horrible. The moment they are identified to have the spark, they are taken from their parents and put into a military training cadre. From then on they live only to pilot. About half of them die before they even graduate to full pilot status."
"They die in training?" Callum asked.
"They're forced to kill each other," Dahri said. She sounded disgusted. Her long black hair waved from side to side as she shook her head. Callum wanted to ask more but he felt bad about ruining Dahri's good mood. Maybe he would talk to Chajin about it, if he could stomach it. He had a feeling she wouldn't mind telling him all the gory details. But what he'd learned from Dahri was enough to confirm that the carcha did gain power via death. So Venus was probably telling the truth about humans gaining power via sex. He had absolutely no idea how to even approach dealing with that.
Dahri led him down into the deepest room of the barracks. He realized that it was the prison room where he had found Riley. No wonder he hadn't seen Dahri at all. None of them had a reason or desire to come down here. Callum stopped short at the sight of a figure deeper into the room. It was one of the dobed. He'd heard that one of them was up and around but hadn't seen it yet. The large creatures were slaves of the carcha just like humans were but they had fought like mad to protect them. Callum hadn't been cruel enough to kill the ones he could spare but he wasn't sure he wanted them walking around free like this. They had been strong enough to tear apart the metal of Angra Mainyu's legs with their bare hands.
Dahri noticed that he stopped and glanced from him to the dobed. "Ah, you don't have to worry about Jeffs. They are raised from birth to treat carcha orders as sacrosanct. Since me and Chajin are the only carcha here and since Chajin is a crazy bitch, I decided it was best to have Jeffs help me with my work." She waved a hand through the air and said, "Put him out of your mind. The real thing to see is what's standing next to him."
Callum shifted his gaze. He'd been so taken aback by the dobed that he hadn't noticed the other figure next to him. It was a young girl, probably about eleven or twelve. Her skin was very pale and she had silver hair that fell almost to her knees and bright silver eyes. Her only clothing was a simple, silver leotard which left her thin arms and legs bare. Her face portended great beauty when she was grown but there was something off about it. It wasn't child-like at all. In fact, it was so devoid of emotion that it didn't even seem human. "Who is this?" Callum asked, when he could find his voice.
"Her name is Myna and she is an android from the Fortress Planet Zalm. She deactivated like all her kind do when captured and no one has ever been able to reactivate one. No one until Dahri, that is!" She laughed and her high-pitched giggle made Callum wonder if she was as crazy as Chajin, in her own way. Were all carcha out of their minds?
"And android? What is that?" Callum asked.
Dahri wiggled her fingers. "It means she is synthetic." Callum gave her a blank look and she rolled her eyes. "Non-organic. She was made, not born."
"Made?" Callum thought about it. "Like Russell?"
Dahri made a weird beeping noise and then said, "Exactly! You know, you're not as dim as I first thought you were!"
"Thanks!" Callum said, caught up in her enthusiasm. He studied the android. She occasionally blinked but that was her only movement. She didn't breathe. "You said she was from a place called Zalm?" Dahri nodded. "Are there humans there?"
Dahri shrugged. "Nobody knows what lives on Zalm. Nobody ever comes back from there. Why do you ask?"
"Because she looks so human. I thought maybe humans made her."
Dahri stared at Callum and then at the android and then back to Callum. "Wow! You're totally right. How odd. I never even thought about that. She does look human. Maybe Zalm is full of humans. How strange that would be!" She laughed but not maliciously.
"So what can Myna--that is her name right?" Dahri nodded. "What can she do?"
Dahri looked like he'd clubbed her over the head. She was quiet for a long moment and then said, "Lots of stuff."
"Like what?" Callum asked eagerly.
"Uh...Myna! What kind of things can you do?"
"What would you like me to do, Mistress Dahri?" Myna asked. Her voice was utterly devoid of emotion or inflection but high-pitched like a young girl's. It was weird.
"I would like you to tell me what kind of things you can do."
"Your question is too vague for me to answer," Myna said. Her voice wasn't accusatory. It wasn't anything.
"Fine, fine." Dahri put a hand to her head with a sigh. "Give an example of a mission you completed at the behest of Zalm."
"I have records of two thousand eight hundred and forty-three missions."
"Pick one!"
"My seven hundredth and thirty-third mission consisted of me taking a datapad with classified contents to a park on the planet Nzia. I was ordered to place it in a trash receptacle near the west exit. Upon placing the datapad, my mission was completed."
Dahri growled. "Are you doing this on purpose? Pick a more interesting mission!"
"I am unable to make a value judgment like that."
Dahri actually screamed. She whirled on Callum, her red eyes flashing behind her glasses. "She can do lots of stuff, okay?! Zalm uses their androids to do stuff on other planets that they can't. Like spy stuff and assassinations and cool shit like that!"
Callum held his hands up. "I believe you, Dahri. She seems really cool. Really." He started backing out of the room. "But, listen, I was right about to go do something really important when you found me. I'll come back and see Myna another time. She's really...something!" He smiled but Dahri only glowered at him.
She let him go, though. Callum hurried away. He needed to find Mikan or Valencia. He checked their rooms but they were both missing. Neither was in the dining area. He decided to try looking out where the mechs were gathered, even though it was approaching midday. Had Valencia been waiting out there for him the entire time? That was going to make him feel even worse.
He ran outside and did indeed see Valencia waiting, leaning against the foot of Angra Mainyu. His stomach sank low but he forced himself on. She straightened as he stopped a little ways away from her. She smiled and said, "What took you so long?" The smile didn't reach her eyes, though. In fact, her eyes seemed too big and hollow. He understood instantly that she already knew somehow.
"Valencia," he said. "I…" Callum couldn't think of the right words.
She stepped forward but didn't quite close all the distance between them. "You slept with Mikan last night." Callum took a sharp breath at hearing her say it. "It's alright. She talked to me already."
"She did?" That threw Callum for a bit of a loop. "When did she…?"
"When I found you two." Callum's jaw dropped but Valencia just laughed. He thought it was probably meant to reassure him but it was too forced and brittle. "Quite a shock, yeah. But she explained what happened. I know that it wasn't your fault. It was that bitch Chajin that caused it all." There was finally a little heat in her voice but not the kind of anger he'd been expecting. This was worse than anger. He didn't know how he knew that but he was sure that it was true.
"I'm sorry, Valencia," Callum said, though he knew it was woefully inadequate.
She closed the last couple steps between them and patted him on the shoulder. It was somehow both tentative and rushed. "Don't be. I know it wasn't your fault." Callum struggled for something to say. He wanted to make things better but he didn't know how. He'd been prepared for rage and for tears but not this. "Come on. We should get to training, right? Never know when those damn carcha will be back." She turned and walked to the rope ladder, scaling it rapidly and disappearing into the cockpit.
Callum stared at the point where she'd left his vision for a long time before deciding to climb up afterward. He hadn't been planning on piloting Angra Mainyu today and he still needed to talk to Mikan. But he didn't think he could just leave Valencia. So up he went. Russell was waiting for him at the top.
"What did you do, boy?" he asked. Callum glanced down and saw that Valencia was already in the PFC liquid. Without him activating the mech, she wouldn't be able to hear outside of it. "That girl looks like she just saw her dog get hit by a car." The metaphor was a little outside his frame of reference but Callum thought he got the gist.
"I had sex with somebody else," Callum confessed.
"What?!" Russell screeched. "Who was it? That hot alien with the blue hair? You sly fucking bastard! How was she? I bet she fucks like a tiger! You fucking shitbird! How could you do that to your partner?"
Callum felt under assault by the rapid-fire and contradictory questions. "No, it was...Have you ever been bitten by a carcha?"
"Fuck no! Who would let those nasty things sink teeth into them? Who knows what kinds of bacterias and viruses they're crawling with. Disgusting!"
Callum shook his head. "You're...not the right person to talk about this with." He brushed past the miniature man and slid into the cockpit. After getting used to the PFC liquid, he activated Angra Mainyu. The mech came on easy as ever. Callum didn't feel any different but then he'd never had trouble running his mech. After the first time, he couldn't even feel it unless he was very tired. If Venus was right about the extra power he'd gained from Mikan, he would have to put the mech through some grueling training. The extra power was supposed to make him able to fire more and more powerful cannon blasts, right? Would it make his mech stronger in close combat? He should have asked.
'What's this about new power from... Mikan?' Valencia asked. Her thoughts were very careful. Callum couldn't help but flashback on what Venus had told him about having sex with other souls connected to Venus. 'I... see,' Valencia thought at him. 'Well, at least something good came from it. Let's test it out!' Callum could tell how much Valencia was forcing herself but he tried to ignore it.
'Right! We need to focus. I need to keep my thoughts on training.' But, of course, trying not to think about something always brought it to the fore and his mind filled with an image of him with Mikan in his lap, the two of them bucking against each other. 'No! I'm sorry, Valencia, I won't think about...' images of Mikan with her lips wrapped around his penis, of him between her legs, licking along her slit and everything else they'd done flashed through his mind before he could stop it.
The mental scream that came from Valencia was possibly the worst thing that Callum had ever heard. Worse was the flood of emotions that poured out of her. Jealousy, self-hatred, hatred for Chajin and an absolutely soul-killing despair that he didn't love her the way she wanted. The emotions were so strong that Callum was literally stunned for a moment. He couldn't even think.
The next thing he knew, Valencia was climbing out of the cockpit. He swam up after her, yelling for her to wait. But she was out of the liquid and he was in it so she couldn't hear him. She probably wouldn't have stopped anyway. By the time he pulled himself out of the cockpit and onto the shoulder of Angra Mainyu, Valencia was on the tarmac and sprinting full out. She must have slid down the rope ladder so fast she burned her hands. He didn't go after her because he wasn't sure what he would say to her. Those emotions...what could he say to that? That he would always be her friend? That's what was causing her despair. 'What the hell am I going to do?'