“Don’t worry about it. They told me you were looking for me?”
“I wanted to give you the key to the Sky Lounge.”
“Key?”
“Like Rita asked me to. No one’s been inside since you left. It wasn’t easy keeping people out for three whole days, but I can be very resourceful.” Shasta handed me a key card. “Just ignore the stuff by the entrance.”
“Thanks.”
“Glad I could help.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Do you-do you know why Rita painted her Jacket red? It was hardly her favorite color. I thought you might know.”
“She said she wanted to stand out. I’m not sure why anyone would want to stand out on a battlefield. Just makes for an easier target.”
“Thanks. That makes sense.”
“I suppose you’ll want horns on yours?” I must have frowned because she immediately added, “Sorry! I was only joking.”
“It’s fine. I need to learn to watch that scowl. Thanks again for the key. I’m gonna go check out that Sky Lounge.”
“Before you go-”
“Yeah?”
“It’s none of my business, but I was wondering…”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Were you an old friend of Rita’s?”
I pressed my lips together into a wry smile.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, it’s okay. Actually, we-”
“Yes?”
“We’d only just met.”
“Of course. We’d only just come to the base. It was a stupid thing to ask.”
I left Shasta and made my way to the Sky Lounge. I opened the door gently, even though I knew I wouldn’t be disturbing anyone.
Yellow tape with the word “BIOHAZARD” printed at regular intervals crisscrossed the entryway. There was a fire extinguisher near my feet, and a grainy residue covered the floor. I guessed this was Shasta being resourceful. The base was still covered in conductive sand from the Mimics, and decontaminating non-vital facilities like the Sky Lounge wouldn’t rate high on the priority list. Clever.
I stepped inside. The air was stale. Rita’s smell was already fading from the room. Nothing had been moved from where we’d left it. The collapsed vinyl bag, coffee grinder, and portable range underscored just how short her stay here had been. They were the only traces she’d even been here. Almost everything else she owned was military-issue. The coffee set was the only personal belongings she had. Of course she hadn’t left me a note-that would have been too sentimental for the Full Metal Bitch.
The mug on the glass table still held the coffee Rita had made. I picked up the mug. The coffee was dark and still. It had cooled to room temperature days ago. My hands shook, sending tiny ripples across the jet black surface. This was how Rita had faced her solitude. Now I understood.
You were just a piece on the board, and I was the piece that replaced you. Nothing more than the false hero the world needed. And now this good-for-nothing world was going to push me across the same bloodstained, smoke-filled battlefield. But you never hated the world for what it did to you.
So I wouldn’t let the world lose. It could drop me into a field of Mimics with nothing but a tungsten carbide axe and a dying Jacket and I’d fight my way out. I’d march waist-deep in blood through more massacres than all the vets in the UDF had seen combined, and I’d emerge unscathed. I’d train until I knew the precise nanosecond to pull the trigger, the exact moment to take every step. I wouldn’t let a javelin so much as scratch the paint on my Jacket.
While I live and breathe, humanity will never fall. I promise you. It may take a dozen years, but I will win this war for you. Even if you won’t be here to see it. You were the only person I wanted to protect, and you were gone.
Hot tears threatened to fall from my eyes as I looked out through the cracked glass at the sky, but I wouldn’t cry. Not for the friends I would lose in the battles ahead. The friends I wouldn’t be able to save. I won’t cry for you until the war is finally over.
Through the warped window I saw the sky, crystal blue, seeming to stretch forever. A cloud drifted lazily along. I turned to face the window, and like a bone-dry sponge soaking up water, my body absorbed the clear boundless sky.
You hated being alone, but you kept your distance from the barracks, slept and woke in solitude, because it was too hard to face the friends you knew were going to die. Trapped in a cruel, unending nightmare, your only thoughts were for them. You couldn’t bear to lose even one of them, no matter who.
Red was your color, yours and yours alone. It should rest with you. I will paint my Jacket sky blue, the color you told me you loved when we first met. In a field of a million soldiers, I will stand out from all the rest, a lightning rod for the enemy’s attacks. I will be their target.
I sat there for some time holding the last cup of coffee she’d ever made, for someone she’d barely known. Its thin aroma stirred in me an insufferable longing and sadness. A small colony of blue-green mold bobbed on the surface of the coffee. Raising the cup to my lips, I drank.
