Cover The Cracks

Reaching the door to Pa-5's room, he was about to enter when the quiet noises from within whispered their way into his ears. A hiccup, a sob, groaning. His fist, raised in a knocking motion, tightened and came to rest against the door. His brow wasn't far behind, pressing against the cool metal. He stayed that way, listening to her on the other side. There were brief moments when she sounded to have gained control, only to lose herself again.

He noticed he was cutting his palm with his nails, even through the skinsuit. He forced himself to relax and step away from the door. She needed rest and time to recover. She endured something few survived, both in the literal and lasting sense.

Her body was a mess so dire he held almost no expectations, no hope--as little that existed within him presently--for a natural return to health. Her mind, bruised and battered, held itself together with thin cables ready to undulate and set free at any moment. And her emotional state…the less said, the better.

Here he was, a "fine specimen" of humanity, about to cart her out and thrust her into the sights of others who--he bit his tongue, pressing down until he tasted blood. He let the putrid flavor linger, and creep into every section of spare surface area until he was sure that if he opened his mouth, the interior would be dark red. Swallowing, he knocked.

"It's me. Can I come in?"

The door separated him from her, and the dying lamentations. Each second rendered them harder to hear until there originated nothing. He waited, fighting the instinctual urge to return his hands to their tensing state. Frowning, he was about to knock a second time, when the door slid of its own volition. He stepped away, blinking.

Across from him, separated by the boundary of the door, and suspended in the air, Pa-5 cracked a smile. It felt feeble; anyone would agree it looked much, too, though to admit it would be a shame upon them. "At least I can be taller than you."

He blinked again. And again. Right, he was looking up at her to make eye contact. Oh, right indeed. As serious as he retained a tendency to resemble, the humor went over his head and doubled back, only intersecting with the proper thought lines to develop into a smile with the contribution of a delay, for stewing. He looked down at eye level.

"Are the harnesses tight?" He stepped closer, applying gentle hands to test the straps that kept her afloat. Before coming to retrieve her, he'd requested a last-minute commission from his engineers. He already placed a formal request to the Seventh for cybernetic replacements; those were the only way Pa-5 would ever walk again or live with a vague sense of normalcy. He snorted. Was this life humanity needed to lead normal? In what sense of the word?

Most conscripts or veterans with injuries wouldn't have their forms processed for weeks, but he was the Prime Beacon. Anything he filed had better find itself submitted and at minimum considered with the utmost speed and efficiency; he would accept nothing less on this especially. Unfortunate, then; the process behind making cybernetics was longer than the time it took for his form for processing. Even if he'd submitted it a week in advance, there would be no results the Seventh had to show for twice that amount of time.

With the next meet coming well before that, he couldn't afford to let Pa-5 be carried into the Chamber of Meet--though his paternal instincts did warm him at the thought of completing the action himself--or wheeling in. He would tend to disregard elements like one's dignity if it were anyone else aside from the militarists. Dignity, like pride, was a delicate thing to uphold; to remain successful while avoiding elevating it too high was critical. Letting it fall far below, vice versa, was something likewise that required planning around.

He wouldn't let that happen. He wanted to grant her the option to address those at the meet on her feet. On--with a narrow margin, he dodged the urge to wince. Standing. He needed to rework his speech, both verbal and the intangible until Pa-5 indeed walked again.

But to grant her that, one of his engineers, a tech, and one of the medical staff came together and combined their expertise under a fast-approaching deadline to construct…he didn't know. They never named the finished result, only messaging Ni-6 after that they tested and delivered it to Pa-5.

A simple harness suspended an anti-grav module that went around her shoulders, across her stomach, under and through her thighs, and over her chest. That was the main component of the device. With it, Pa-5 remained disconnected from gravity and the floor by an adjustable height.

The second component was a joystick, originating from a brace around her remaining forearm and circling to rest in her grip. When not in use, its arms were retractable, leaving her hands free whenever she wished. The joystick had an outer maneuverable stick, and on the top, a small rotating cylinder embedded into the tip. The former controlled her axis movements, while the latter controlled her rotation.

"The quality…it surprised me."

"Is it comfortable?"

"Comfortable." The repeated word came out, soft-spoken, in a way that made him query if she mimicked him without conscious thought. It came again. "Comfortable."

He reached up and touched her cheek. "Is it?"

"...don't worry about me." She clicked something on the joystick, and her height came down until she was back to her normal height before the injuries came to her. Now, it was her looking up at him. "I know you have much to deal with."

He did. She was right; he wouldn't, couldn't, deny that statement, but he wasn't of a government mind alone. She occupied his thoughts too, even now that she was out of danger and in front of him again. His hand fell; she must have seen something in his eyes, dangerous, flashing like a cornered beast, for the lacking smile she tried so hard to maintain crumbled.

He took her surviving hand. "I won't let them accuse you of anything." He stressed the point with a squeeze. "Nothing."

He wiped away the moisture still on her cheeks, and she leaned into it. They would've stayed that way, but old duty, his longest-kept friend, pulled him back when his HUD informed him the Third and Eighth Headmen were calling him simultaneously. A second later, so were the Sixth and Ninth's. He sighed. "Are you ready?"

"They don't care if I am, do they?" She tilted the joystick forward and began navigating around him. Her progress halted when he grabbed her hand and interlocked his fingers with hers.

"But I do." What more could he say?

Pulling free, he thought she would continue to move. Instead, she leaned forward and embraced him. He was conscious of the warmth on one side of his torso and the flip-side lack of it on the other. "I know."