Futatsu makes a worse first impression. [Earthsiders]

Picks up right where the last one left off. After this we'll switch to 'Kueh's point of view for a while, 'cause 'Tatsu is tiring.

No, you haven't seen Sivier before. He exists. Looks like Quatre only taller and nastier.

I’m not gonna take this lying down – figuratively, anyway – though, so. “I’m gonna be after his fucking blood! I might never get this fucking arm back, and you can’t fly with one fucking arm!” I snarl. Oh. Is that what I’m so damn upset about? Yeah, that’ll do it. Worse than trechery, worse than conspiracy, I am grounded now. I’m a groundie. Gods above and below, that’s disgusting.

But since Marine is looking at me again – fuck him. I have bigger problems – no, I don’t, not at the moment, and not looming over me with fists clenched – okay, I back off. In a manly, reasoned fashion. I absolutely do not jerk back from him and slam into the wall. I knew that wall was there, I just don’t want to upset it by telling it so, so I yelp. At this rate I’m never going to heal.

Boss laughs at me. Oh shut the fuck up. “Down, boy. We already got what we need, we can stop freakin’ him out. Go get some sleep,” he says. “I’ll get him set up, soon enough.” He drops on a cinderblock, hand on his hip holster, and lounges. I gotta give him this, it’s kinda impressive to see a guy lounge on an improv chair made of all right angles.

Marine goes off somewhere, which leaves me alone with the guy who has not yet actually hit me, which is at least somewhat reassuring.

He looks at me. I look at him. He has this shit-eating grin on his face. I doubt I look so fucking pleased with myself.

“Get the canary?” I ask, dry as Death Valley.

He nods. “Ya know, we gotta work on your attitude problem.”

“I will show you a fucking attitude problem the next time I can fucking stand up –“ I growl at him.

“Not great reason for me to let you, is it?” No, it’s not. “Look, here’s where we are – I got a ship needs fixed, you got a powerful need to get off the ground. We’re going’ at the same angles, see?” he says. I chart trajectories before I realize it’s a metaphor. Thought I had a monopoly on those. Yes I know that’s stupid, I told you I was concussed.

“So you let me hang onto you for another coupla days, you can get the feel of the place, we can make sure you ain’t got a bunch o’ friends on backup, we’ll be in business.” He leans back even more on the rough brick. That so can’t be comfortable, though I guess I don’t have much of a leg to stand on – metaphorically, I still have most of my leg intact – since I’m sitting on a piece of metal that’s making a really serious bid for interpersonal relations. I’m too tired to actually move.

“All my friends are brainwashed or dead,” I say. “I still blame that last part on you dicks. Just so you don’t get any ideas.” Would I take another way to get back at the colony leaders? Don’t know. Like ‘em or not these guys did save my life, in a sick and twisted and sadistically torturous way, and only after kicking the shit out of me to begin with. But there’s still shit left to be kicked, so that counts for something.

“I know there ain’t no love lost between us, and I do hate what we gotta do some days. But look me in the eye and tell me you ain’t killed.” I can’t do it and he’s gotta know that.

“Seventy-three. That I’m sure of,” I say. I don’t look up at him. Yeah. I’m not proud of that, either. I don’t know all their names, I’m not some psycho-angsting anime hero, and I don’t know half their faces. But I know I killed ‘em.

“Headed right on down with the rest of us,” he says. Okay, so I killed the laughter too. Not for long though, ‘cause he can’t seem to stay on a hard topic too long, not that I’m in any place to throw stones.

“Think I’ll put you in with ‘Kueh first off. He shouldn’t’a shot ya,” Boss says, conspiratorially.

“Damn right he shouldn’t’a!” Oh shit, I’m picking up his accent. Give me another week and I’ll have his freaking syntax, too.

He continues like he didn’t notice, which, you know, I’m usually the only one who does. “So I think it’ll do him some good, if you’re on his watch for a while.”

“And where the hell does my good come into all this?” I snap. I do not want to room with that bastard. I only have so much control over my animal instincts. And I can’t figure out whether jumping him or hitting him would screw up our further relationship more.

Boss gives me a lazy, mocking smile. “I ain’t never said nothin’ about your good,” he says.

Are infuriating bastards born, or made? Either way, like I said: this one’s had lots of practice. “And if either of us kills the other?”

“I’m not liking your odds in that matchup,” he says.

More footsteps, lighter this time, interrupt my detailed revenge fantasy. It’s a tall skinny blond guy with a big-ass rifle. “Trey,” he greets Bossguy, than sees me and nods. “This is the one?”

“I’m the one? Does this mean I can dodge bullets now?” I wonder aloud.

Boss chooses to ignore me – I knew he learned fast – nods to blondie, and says, “Yeah. Futatsu Walker.”

“’Tatsu, okay? You guys suck at Japanese ‘f’.”

“’Tatsu,” says blondie, blank-faced. “I’m Sivier. You won’t be seeing much of me.”

“Ow, burned,” I say. Sivier gives me what might be the tiniest of smiles. Dear god – does that mean he actually got a joke? There’s someone in this place whose sense of humor isn’t totally fubared? Well shit, I might get along all right.

“Well he might,” Boss says. “He’s Air Force.” Sivier looks at me again with new interest.

“What kind of ship?” he asks. I shrug.

“Little bit of everything – my Stella was custom, got the body of a G-813, little extra in the computers and wings – dammit, it took me like eight months to get those wings attached right…” I say.

“Your Stella?” he echoes. “You called a spaceship Stella.”

“Yeah, I did, and it got me laid for six straight months, so don’t knock it,” I say with a grin. He shakes his head to hide the smirk, then goes back to the poker face.

“Y’all pilots can perv over your boats later, hear? He’s with ‘Kueh for a couple weeks, get that G-8whatever off the ground, and if he’s still in the clear maybe I’ll let you play,” Boss says.

Sivier’s eyes widen. “He’s gonna fix the G-819?”

My eyes’d be bugging out of their sockets if they weren’t halfway to swollen shut. “You have a G-819?”

Boss throws up his hands. “I bloody hope so and not if you don’t get it workin’. I tell you. Pilots.”

“Because you’ve never spent an hour fondling your semiautomatic,” Sivier snarks at him, then puts a kind of intimate hand on his shoulder. Well I guess he’s off-limits then, you really don’t wanna flirt with the boss’s boytoy. Remind me to tell you that story sometime. Or maybe not.

“I ain’t made a career out of it, is all. Sivier, wanna get someone to stick down here for me? I got shit to do and this guarding thing is hella stressful.” Boss is so relaxed he may as well be asleep, but whatever. As long as newguy – do they have chicks in this place? Haven’t seen one yet – isn’t triggerhappy, I’m cool. Since I’m not gonna be getting out of here anytime soon.

“Nice to know I’m a high priority,” I snipe.

Sivier ignores me. I’m truly and deeply wounded. “Yeah, sure. Who you want?”

“Seiji or someone.”

“Got it, Boss.” They touch hands before he leaves. Cute.

***

So the next three, four days, maybe, it’s not like I can tell time anymore what with the distinct lack of window, I sit around and get better, for a given value of ‘better’. I don’t see SDaC – good – but I do see a hell of a lot more of Marine than I want to. And kind of a lot of Boytoy, which I can deal with. As long as I don’t refer to him by that nickname to his face.

And there’s this guy Dirk, who’s the doctor, about seventy years old, a total drunken lout, and fucking awesome. And did something to my leg and ribs that made them heal in about a week. Which, seriously, even if not for the other great aspects to his personality, that’d have me putting up little candlelit shrines to the man. Assuming I had candles.

After three-or-four days, while I’ve still got the fucking cast on, they pull me out of the little cinderblock not-cell and install me in a third-floor apartment with external access only. Charming. Even more charming is the fact that it’s got SDaC living a floor below it. And he’s got orders to check up on me like once every six hours.

Boss’s rationalization for this is that I’m an important guy, got engineering knowledge they can’t match, so I get the most important guard. He grinned way too hard when he said that. Dick.

Morning Number One dawns at, to no one’s great surprise, dawn, when I get stabbed in the face with a sunbeam. Fucking lack of curtains. I roll out of bed, stop myself when I remember bed’s actually off the ground now, manage not to injure myself getting to the little food closet, and accomplish breakfast, the only casualties being some not-very-important-anyway taste buds. This shit they call cereal is almost as bad as MREs.

“Okay, that’s done, is there any way to take a fucking shower in this place? Water pressure’s shot,” I say out loud. “Nevermind, I’ll just stink, not like anyone else cares.” Not like I get to see anyone else, ‘cepting my sort-of jailer.

He’ll be by at some point. Do I care if he sees the place a mess? Nah. Besides maybe he’ll take the messed-up bed as an invitation – good god I need to get laid.

You know what? I bet I can get these water pipes to take steam power.

Two and a half hours, some serious stick-on-wallpaper diagrams, and a rough wooden model later, SDaC shows up looking like someone kicked his cat. “What the hell are you doing?”

I’m halfway buried under the useless kitchen sink with a pair of shitty wirecutters. “Engineering. ‘S why you’re keeping me around, right?” I say, without moving. It took some serious doing to get into this position without killing any ribs and I am not giving it up without a fight.

“What sort of engineering requires tearing down the walls?” he asks.

“This sort,” I say. What the hell is that accent? I thought UK, but it isn’t. Wrong vowels. Weird. I shouldn’t be thinking about this while my fingers are where they are.

I swear to god he actually taps his fingers on the countertop, waiting for me to be more enlightening. I’m torn between being annoying and gushing about my new project. Ah, what the hell.

“I wanna get some piping so I can work out a steam system for the water in this building. Model’s on the table. Might not be the best mockup but it’s scaled, and this ain’t rocket science,” I say, and finally get the damn wirecutters to pierce the last bit of metal. Awesome. The pipe falls on my shoulder, which isn’t so awesome, but whatever. It’s not the healing one.

I wriggle out of the cabinet and make a show out of it, ‘cause I am just that talented, and also ‘cause otherwise it’ll look like I’m pathetically unable to bend more than three degrees. Which may be true. Which is his fault. But I don’t get the feeling he goes in for guilt.

With pipe held above my head – in the single working arm I have currently, not that I’m bitter or anything – I declare, “This is my boomstick!”

He raises an eyebrow. Some people have no appreciation for the classics.

“And what exactly are you going to do with that?”

Ow fuck I think I just bit through my tongue trying not to give the first eight replies that inspired. Seems a damn shame to throw away such a perfect straight line. Such is my suffering.

I plunk the boom-pipe down on the table. “Gonna be my stress-test. Now have you got something to actually do?” I ask him.

“I was supposed to be sleeping, but found that impossible,” he says. Come to it he does look kind of tired. Though his hair’s not messed up. Gotta get him to tell me how he does that.

“Sorry man, it’s time to get out of bed. Bright and shining new day.” I grab my best presketch and look it over. “Hey, you got a big metal tub and some solder?” I ask. Look, I have some seriously serious attention when I’m on a project. Pretty as he is, SDaC can’t compete with steam power.

“Some of us didn’t get in until five this morning,” he says, refusing to be distracted. Hey, okay, I get it, man needs his sleep.

“Been out partying?” I ask. Am I trying to piss him off? Signs point to probably.

He gives me this cutting look and hell, for all I know he could be actually trying to laser a beam through my skull. He’s got his work cut out for him then; I got one hell of a dense head.

“Now that is a hangover look if I ever saw one,” I declare.

I swear he’d be growling if he knew how. I should teach him. “I do not party. I was out until five in the morning waiting for your rescue party.”

Ouch. Man knows how to hurt a guy. “Wait, I have a rescue party?”

The glare’s too far gone to make any worse without doing some serious facial rearrangement, but dammit, he tries. “We got intel that you did. Fortunately, you weren’t that important.”

And again. I’m gonna have to start scoring some points or he’s – wait, he shot me. I still have the moral high ground, at least until he starts bringing up strafing.

So whatever, I let it slide off me and go about my business. Point made, he leaves. I don’t look up from my blueprints - wallpaperprints, whatever - until half past noon.