Kanae sat on the velvet-red couch on the other side of the room, giving me a sign to sit down beside her. She always made gestures like that for me, if I seemed nervous.
“You’ve never been to this floor, right?” she asked as I sat down next to her before she leaned back, grabbing the marble-white cup that had been placed on the couch’s armrest.
I listened to her talk about the earthy and calming smell of coffee – its ability to simultaneously calm one’s nerves and heighten their senses – enough to know that this dark, murky broth inside her cup was indeed this “holy substance” she so vigorously advertised. The whole room was drenched in its odor, imbuing its effects on me. It was the first time since I left the regeneration chamber that my heartbeat slowed down and my hands stopped shaking.
“It’s more than my first time. I’ve never even seen a couch that comfortable-looking,” I said while inspecting the softness of the velvet-red fabric I was sitting on before noticing how it also nestled around Kanae’s thighs and glutes. “The things I can buy for my family—“ I continued. “—are mostly practical things like food and water after I pay for the necessary medical subscriptions of my mother. If we are lucky, we get new furniture from the city’s garbage dump.”
“Well, then it’s time we change that,” Kanae said with a calming voice, again, smiling at me.
“What do you mean?”
“You are here, so we can talk about our next mission.”
Kanae slowly stood up.
The door behind me swung open and a titan of an older woman walked in, behind her a younger man, difficult to be seen. I immediately stood up. Both were dressed in tailor-made, light grey suits. As the woman walked around the meeting room’s table and stepped towards Kanae, the three radiant-white stars that were sewn to the woman’s collar caught my eye. They stood in great contrast to her darker skin-tone and almost black eyes but perfectly matched her almost white hair. She shook Kanae’s and my hand firmly. The younger man who followed the older woman’s every step came out of her shadow. He stopped his mimicry to salute Kanae and me before he again followed his mistress sitting down at the table beside her. Kanae took her seat on the couch again, leaving me guessing where I should sit.
“Don’t you want to sit down?” the older woman asked in a raucous voice.
I looked at Kanae, her eyes navigating me towards the table. Without any objection, I quietly followed the order and sat down in the chair beside the woman’s lapdog. Her dark eyes inspected me for a few more seconds before she began to speak.
“ID-Ranked Pilot 3.46, codename Chroma, we have come here to talk about the incident of your last mission, as well as your debt towards the UGF. My name is Alma Jáuregui. You’re tasked to address me as Section Commander 4 or Section Commander Jáuregui.”
She made a long pause, trying to read my reaction ,especially since she pronounced the word debt very clearly, but the formalities of the United Globe Foundation were part of my everyday life since I became part of this organization ten years ago, so I knew not to show any sign of discomfort.
“Section Commander Jáuregui – people always responded better when addressed by their name – I am here to follow your commands and hear the conclusion the UGF has prepared for me.”
She suppressed a short smile, making it almost imperceptible.
“Four days ago, on the 4th of February, 2372 you were tasked with the rescue of an engineer with the name of Tian Madison. You failed to rescue him. His black box showed that he died shortly after ordering the mission. According to witnesses’ statements, you approached the scene through a wall before eliminating three dangerous suspects in an instant. So far everything you´ve done has been up to our standards. A bit creative, but otherwise by the book.”
She looked directly into my eyes as if it were difficult to speak further.
“Then, you were attacked by a man armed with uncertified body armor. Is that correct Chroma?”
“…yes, Section Commander Jáuregui…”
She paused for a long time while looking at her young subordinate.
“Mr. Namgung here did the autopsy of the man you subdued, Chroma. And Kanae, I didn´t tell you this but –”
Kanae suddenly looked up from her cup. Her expression was so serious I forgot that it was her face I was looking at. The moment she felt my gaze, she tried to cover up her feeling of being caught off guard.
“– the body armor of the man wasn’t an unauthorized copy of a CC Artefact like we assumed earlier Kanae, but it showed implementations of technology we used in older AM models. A combination of technology we’ve never seen and something the big corporations had been researching for a long time.” The Section Commander looked at me once again, relaxing her face to show me a kinder side of herself. “This brings up two big questions. Why did those criminals have technology that even the big companies couldn’t build until now? And how did someone who was equipped with such technology get killed by you and your B-Rank armor?”
I searched through fragments of memory trying to remind myself of that situation, trying to make sense of it, trying to relive the feeling I had, but I couldn’t remember anything clear – only a vague sense of forlornness. The one thing I knew for sure just after I woke up was that I killed the man to survive.
“Chroma,” her deep voice interrupting my thoughts. “You received our augmentation surgery not just because Kanae appealed to us to save you, but because the logs of your Blackbox showed us that you had somehow overridden your armors capacity restrictions, allowing you to use its full scope and we are very interested in knowing how you did that.”
Before my brain was able to overfill my head with useless theories again, a single, simple thought made its way into my mind.
“…I didn’t want to die,” I said while giving the Section Commander a true and honest expression.
She returned the favor and looked at me with an exhausted face.
“As I thought,” she whispered before looking at Kanae. “Chroma, the augmentation surgery was a necessary step towards becoming an AM pilot. It increases the possibilities of your Interface which will then strengthen your body in the long term. A process, unavoidable to be able to navigate one of those machines. We hope that you can explore this feature of yours and become a useful pilot for the UGF.” Kanae smiled as her gaze wandered to me. “That’s why we will send you and Kanae on a mission to investigate the source of the technology that your opponent wore.”
My heart sped up, and I pushed myself off my chair a bit harder than I planned almost slamming it to the ground.
“I will do my best!” I said too loudly.
“Yeah, I know you will,” she said as she stood up. “We found out that the armor of the man you fought was constructed on an orbital base of Mars but since this planet is a war zone and rogue organizations as well as many of the big corporations are fighting for the resources there it was hard to tell from which of the bases the tech came.” She slowly moved to the door. “But we discovered that the armor used an engineering concept we only ever saw from confiscated weapons from an organization named Blue Marble. That way we were able to narrow the number of bases down to three. We will send you, Kanae and another pilot to their base as undercover refugees. I’m sure they will be suspicious, but we already managed to come up with a plan. You will discuss the details, as well as the information regarding the restoration and extension of your Interface with the Head of Operations tomorrow.”
She stood in front of the door; her subordinate had already opened it.
“Your transfer is tomorrow at 1 pm. I believe that you won’t disappoint us. Oh… and Kanae will keep an eye on you, so we don’t have to bring you back to life another time.”
The door closed.