Chapter Text
As the overhead lights in the barracks of the Balam ship ker-clunked their way to life, the person called "G5 Iguazu" awoke from a dream of searing pain to a splitting headache.
"Fuck off," he said, to the universe at large, and rolled over to press a pillow across his face in the hopes of blocking out the brightness overhead.
The lights, the dream, the headache-- none of these things struck any chord of unfamiliarity. The headache was, perhaps, slightly worse than usual, the dream a little more difficult to remember. But after seven years of the same, Iguazu wasn't especially inclined to dwell on it. Instead, he focused on clinging to his last few minutes of peace before the chaos inevitably began. Still, it wasn't easy to enjoy anything when his brain felt like it was trying to escape his skull, and the ringing in his ears made such a terrible harmony with the buzzing of the electric lights. Through spite and protracted exhaustion alone, Iguazu managed to stay in bed.
There were two things in his luck-forsaken life that Iguazu was truly grateful for: the private (albeit cramped and sparsely furnished) room afforded to him by his "status" as an AC pilot, and his friend, G4 Volta. Volta lived across the corridor in an equally tiny room, which felt somewhat unfair given he was physically a much larger man than Iguazu. Because he was something like a decent person and because it was convenient given the proximity of their quarters, Volta always knocked on Iguazu's door as a warning before what was usually the worst part of the morning. It was a kindness that Iguazu didn't know how to repay, so he hadn't put much thought towards trying.
When the knock came, it was a swift series of repetitive beats that indicated a need for haste. Iguazu gave himself a five-count to get out of bed, and then ignored his own direction in the staunch belief that not even his own authority was to be respected.
As usual, he regretted his own stubbornness almost immediately. The door to Iguazu's room slammed open, and a few seconds later the pillow over his head and the blanket over his body were gone, and he was being dragged upright by the collar of his shirt.
"Slacking off already, G5?" The voice of Iguazu's commanding officer was loud enough to feel unreal, slightly otherworldly.
Iguazu squinted into the face of G1 Michigan, his body working at half-speed to stand under its own power in opposition to the pain lancing behind his eyes. "No, sir." He managed, without bothering to conceal his resentment.
"Good!" Michigan released Iguazu, who stumbled a pace-and-a-half before catching himself. "Fitness drills in 20 minutes. You'll be there unless you're eager to spend the next week cleaning the latrines! Understood?"
Iguazu scowled. "Understood." And then, belatedly: "... Sir."
"Good!" Michigan said again, clapping a hand on Iguazu's shoulder with just enough force to make it an unfriendly gesture. He turned to leave, but paused halfway through the door. "I'm not gonna take it easy on you just because you look more like shit than usual, ya hear?"
"Why would you?" Iguazu kept his anger down by imagining what it might be like to run Michigan over with an AC maintenance cart.
Michigan barked a laugh. "That's the spirit, G5." And left, the door still open behind him.
Iguazu stood where Michigan had left him and seethed, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain that still wracked his skull. He opened his eyes again at the sound of someone knocking, and looked up to find Volta silhouetted in the frame.
"Tried to warn ya," Volta said, his tone sympathetic, "G1 always gets like this before a sortie."
"There's a sortie?" Iguazu lowered himself onto his cot, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. He was well past the point in their friendship where Volta seeing him in only a tank top and boxers was anything like embarrassing.
"Tomorrow," Volta leaned against the door frame, "Some kind of asset destruction thing. I don't remember all the details."
"Right, with the fuckin' independent merc. I remember." Iguazu made an ineffective circle of pressure right between his eyes.
"Where'd you hear that?" Volta sounded genuinely puzzled, "I thought we were running this with just the Redguns."
"Hell if I know," Iguazu let his hand fall back into his lap, "Maybe I'm thinkin' of something else. Woke up feeling like shit today."
Volta's expression switched from confusion to concern in an instant. "Are you having a flare-up? Take your meds already?"
Iguazu shook his head, then winced. "Dunno. Not yet."
Volta ceased his leaning, suddenly all action. "Do that. I'll get you a protein supplement."
Iguazu looked at him, trying to process the gesture. "Thanks," he managed, but Volta was already gone down the corridor. With a huffy sort of sigh, he got to his feet.
The first thing Iguazu did was reassemble his cot, retrieving the pillow and blanket from where they'd landed on the ground, brushing them off with his hands before laying them back in place somewhat more crookedly than before. Apart from the cot, the room featured a small mirror and washbasin near the door, and a desk with a chair. On top of the desk sat a small and rarely used computer terminal, surrounded by the detritus of Iguazu's minimal personal possessions. He made for the washbasin, or more accurately the assorted bottles of pills that were precariously arranged around the edge of the sink. With practiced disinterest, Iguazu rattled the partial contents of three of the bottles into one hand, turning on the tap with the other, tossing the entire handful of pills into his mouth before dipping his head under the now-running water.
Medication now ingested, Iguazu wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gave his head one more perfunctory shake. Still standing in front of the mirror at the washbasin, he was able to confirm by his own observation that he did in fact look like shit. Not that Iguazu usually looked "good" by any real estimation-- he was a mess of sharp angles in too short of a space, harsh eyebags and a crooked nose, a greasy flop of bleached blonde hair on the top of his head. The sides were a more natural dark brown, shaved to accommodate two ports embedded behind heavily pierced ears, one on each side, and another the top of his spine. Even though the surgery was nearly a decade in the past, sometimes the place where metal met skin still ached. Iguazu touched a hand to one of the ports in morbid curiosity, and did not find the pain he expected.
He got dressed in the unofficial exercise drill uniform after giving the vaguely stained t-shirt and lightweight pants an appraising sniff, deciding that both pieces could stand to be washed after today's round of G1 Michigan-branded torture. Even if Iguazu understood on some level that maintaining the physical health of his pilots was a good thing for a commander to do, and by that same logic proved that he and the others were valuable enough to bother maintaining, neither point was persuasive enough to keep him from feeling at least moderately resentful. Still, by the time Volta returned with a silver packet of protein paste, Iguazu was ready enough to slurp it down in his room rather than eating it while they walked.
The food, however unappealing, and the medicine, however hastily swallowed, helped. By the time the exercise drills were over and Iguazu had taken a shower, he actually felt like something close to a person. Part of him had vaguely hoped he'd still feel awful, so he'd get sent to the medic and have an excuse to call it a wrap on the rest of the day, Michigan's harassment be damned. The man could be a pain in the ass, but he wasn't enough of an idiot to loudly disagree with a medical professional. Still, that left Iguazu with the rest of the day ahead of him, and sharp twinges of pain every time he walked into a room that was too brightly lit. It was hell, but the average kind, not the "immediate request for partial sedation" kind.
It was in the early hours of the afternoon that the promised mission briefing for the upcoming sortie was to take place. Iguazu and Volta made their way to the briefing/conference room together, as the two of them often did, and found it occupied by G1 Michigan already in conversation with someone through the central comms link, dataslate in one hand and headset around his neck.
With the screen projector shining on him like a searchlight, it was easier to take the measure of the man who, in his own words "kept the Redguns runnin'." Michigan was of a slightly above-average height, but with bulky solidity about his person that exaggerated the space he took up in a room. He had a square head with a stiff white beard cut to frame his equally blocky chin, and a nose that had clearly been broken and set more than once. Scars crossed his face here and there, one jaggedly running up to the line of his short-cropped hair, which had a distinct dent it from where Michigan's headset usually made residence. The headset was, however, completely external tech-- G1 bore no scars of pilot augmentation.
"... changing their strategy. Been cozying up to independent mercs." Michigan was saying.
"Great news, if it means more work for 621." Said the voice on the other end of the conversation, deep and sonorous despite the poor audio quality.
Michigan chuckled, mostly to himself. "They can try whatever tricks they want. The Redguns are ready to smash some heads."
"Look at that," Volta elbowed Iguazu lightly, "Independent merc. You were right."
Iguazu frowned, unable to place why he'd known there would be an independent mercenary joining the operation. Michigan was clearly just now agreeing to the whole thing. But he'd been certain, before. He'd known somehow. It bothered him as Michigan walked through the steps of the attack on the dam, though it was all fairly standard in terms of targets and suggested approaches.
"And you'll have a little company. Doesn't cut into your pay, so I don't want to hear any bitchin' about it." Michigan concluded.
"It's not like it matters," Iguazu said, crossing his arms, "This is just the warm-up mission, isn't it?"
"Where the hell did you hear that?" Michigan sounded bemused at best, "I didn't take you as one for gossip, G5, but someone must have been talkin'. You got a manicure to match?"
Iguazu gave a silent but nonetheless belligerent shrug, resisting the urge to dig his fingernails into his arm. Two things, now, that he knew but wasn't supposed to.
Iguazu took his meals at the times when the mess hall had the fewest people in it. Iguazu had no friends except Volta, and he wasn't interested in changing that statistic. He couldn't believe for an instant that gossip was the answer. Maybe he really was just having some weird late-onset side effects from his augmentation surgery. He'd always known that doctor was a total fraud. He'd just gotten lucky (twice?) with his hallucinations, or something. Iguazu hated that answer, too. It was unlike him to be friendly, but it was even less like him to be lucky.
"You can keep your secret," Michigan was saying, "But only because I feel bad you left Volta out, and it gives him and I something to commiserate about. Still, Iguazu, you really pissed on my parade! I wanted this to be a surprise for you boys!"
Volta shot Iguazu a glance somewhere between concern and conspiracy. "Mind filling me in, sir?"
"Right," Michigan turned back to the projector, paging through slides on his dataslate, "Now, I'm gonna do you a favor and assume you two aren't so stupid you don't know about the Wall." He paused, evidently waiting for confirmation one way or the other.
"The RLF stronghold," Iguazu said at length, "A pain in our asses, et cetera."
Michigan offered a toothy smile that was very nearly genuine. "Right on the money, G5. Balam wants us to climb the Wall. Launching an attack on the Gallia Dam Complex puts our opponents on the back foot, which hopefully gives us a leg up, if you catch my meaning."
Volta nodded like Michigan wasn't just making an elaborate joke about piloting a tetrapod. "Makes sense. Why the independent merc, though?"
"Favor to a friend," Michigan answered without hesitating, "And it's not like we're payin' for the spare gun, so I figured we'd give 'em an honest try. Dismissed!"
As they exited the briefing room, Volta stopped Iguazu with a tap on the shoulder. "Hey. You're sure you're feelin' better?"
Iguazu scowled. "I'm fine."
Volta gave him a look that said you've been out of it all day and you keep saying weird shit, so don't lie to me, but out loud what he said was: "Right. I'll catch you later, then."
There was a schedule Iguazu and the other crewmen of the Balam ship were meant to be following that was only actually useful for reserving time in the fitness center, combat simulator, or firing range. Iguazu typically kept his simulator spot right after the hour of afternoon briefings, in case he had to blow off steam after spending time with everyone's favorite commander. Volta, for his part, booked a block of time in the firing range for the same reason, after which he swapped places with Iguazu in their respective sections of the ship. It was a fairly functional system, even though Iguazu still hadn't managed to beat the backdoor sim of Michigan he'd gotten his hands on ages ago. He figured it was worth taking a crack at it today, too, before his headache threatened a comeback.
A crowd of people clustered outside the combat simulator when Iguazu arrived, which he immediately disliked. A man in repairtech coveralls was standing in front of the door looking harried, while a similarly attired individual stood a few paces down the corridor on some kind of call. As soon as the person with the phone seemed to reach a stopping point in their conversation, Iguazu approached them.
"Hey," He said, noting their flinch but unable to feel particularly bad about it, "What's the deal with the simulator?"
"Uhh," The technician shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, "Well, the simulator shut down unexpectedly this morning and the system isn't responding to manual inputs, but we can't get in contact with anyone at ALLMIND support to reset it on their end..."
Iguazu's mouth twitched into a frown. "That's a shit situation."
The technician gave a faltering smile. "Yes, it is. I recommend you find an alternate use of your time."
Iguazu was about to respond in the affirmative when the technician near the door gave a shout of excitement. "It's back up!" He called to his friend. The assembled crowd rumbled to life with the news.
"I'm scheduled in there right now," Iguazu said to the first technician, jerking a thumb towards the simulator door, "But I'm guessing you have to run some diagnostics or whatever."
The technician pulled a dataslate from a holster on their hip. "It's reading as all-clear on my end. But I am obligated to mention that functionality might be limited due to the sudden outage."
Iguazu shrugged, then turned to muscle his way through the crowd and up to the door of the simulator. "Your buddy said it was fine," he told the technician still standing there.
After a brief exchange of looks and silent gesticulation, he let Iguazu through, to the dismay of the other people present. Iguazu shot them a rude hand gesture as the door closed behind him.
The interior of the combat simulator was colder than any other place on the ship, being both as close to hard vacuum as one could get without standing in an airlock and insulated by an incredibly complex construction of hologram and data-processing equipment. The system was efficient like this, requiring no coolant, and it meant that there were always spare jackets pinned to the wall near the door. Iguazu ran hot, so he never bothered with accessorizing, but it was a nice gesture for someone else. Probably.
The combat sim AC sat in the center of the room, more of a mock-up of a frame and cockpit than anything else, rigged to tilt and exert the same force as acceleration in actual combat. All the controls were true to life, and the system was designed to accommodate those with and without augmentation. Iguazu climbed into the ready cockpit and went through the motions of strapping himself down, running his own set of personal diagnostics and setting his control preferences. This was, for better or worse, one of the lessons that Iguazu had most internalized from his time working under Michigan-- you really couldn't trust the state of something until you put your own hands on it.
Then came the part that he liked the least. Iguazu always hesitated, always felt his hand shake over the port at the base of his neck. He leaned forward in his seat, extending the connector.
Metal touched metal.
The scream tore itself out of Iguazu's throat before he could even count how much time had passed-- minutes, hours, seconds, it didn't matter. He had to get out. He clawed at his restraints until the buckles unfastened, lurched over the edge of the cockpit and tumbled to the floor of the simulator room, breath coming in ragged gasps. He dragged himself to the door, shoved it open to find there were still people waiting outside.
He looked at them, his whole body crackling with live-wire energy and pain. "Don't fucking go in there."
This ominous proclamation made, Iguazu started down the hallway, shambling more than striding. He made it about ten paces forward before he vomited all over his shoes and then collapsed, to the dismay of everyone watching. Iguazu blacked out seconds before hitting the floor, which in some ways was a mercy, because he witnessed none of the reactions to his unceremonious departure from the conscious world.
He awoke, some indeterminate amount of time later, ears ringing as he squinted into the overhead lights of the medical bay. Iguazu was lying in a cot slightly larger than the one in his room, surrounded by inoffensive blue curtains. Sleep tugged at him insistently, but he kept himself awake through spite and mild confusion, struggling to his elbows so he could pull back the nearest curtain. It squealed on the rail as he wrestled with it, until being taken out of his grasp entirely.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, G5." Said Michigan from the foot of the bed, a nurse standing at his shoulder behind him.
Iguazu collapsed back onto the bed. "Fucking hell," he muttered, feeling the rawness of his throat as he spoke, "How long was I out?"
Michigan was, for a moment, uncharacteristically thoughtful. "36 hours, or thereabouts. Doc couldn't figure out what was wrong with ya, and he's never worked with a fourth-gen before. He thought you might be undergoing a complete neurological shutdown," here, Michigan gave a wry smile, "But I know you're a hell of a fighter."
Iguazu's sleep heavy thoughts roiled to sudden and stormy attention. "36 hours? The mission--"
"It's over." Michigan's tone was decidedly sharp.
"Wha-?" Iguazu struggled upright again, "You sortied without me? That's not how it's supposed to happen!" And then: "Where's Volta?"
Michigan sighed. "Our freelancer went turncoat on us. I already exchanged some strong words with my friend about it, mind you, but... I'm sorry, for what it's worth."
"He's dead?" Iguazu asked, stupidly, not quite believing it even as saying made it real.
Michigan nodded, as serious as Iguazu had ever seen him. "Went down like a champ. Word from on high is we can't hold a funeral until after we try taking the Wall, though. Speaking of which-- congratulations!" He cocked a halfhearted finger-gun at Iguazu, 'You're taking point on that particular operation as soon as the doc clears ya for combat. Hefty purse on it, assuming you come back alive."
Iguazu stared at Michigan blankly. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm sure it'll sink in with time. Get some rest, G5. We'll be counting on you." Michigan looked like he was considering patting Iguazu on the shoulder, or maybe the head, but thought better of it and departed from the medical bay.
Iguazu flopped back down onto the cot, letting the misery settle over him like a thick haze. It kept hitting him, over and over, that Volta was gone. He'd passed out in the corridor outside the simulator and now his friend was dead. Iguazu should have been there. Even if he couldn't have stopped Volta from going down, at least they could have gone down together. And now he had to run this next mission alone. The Wall was literally a fortress, and his AC wasn't exactly built for endurance.
So he might die, too.
Iguazu squeezed his eyes shut against the prickle of what might have been tears. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd cried about something, given he usually just got pissed off instead. And he was pissed off right now, but not in a way that felt like it mattered. He'd go on the mission, if only to have an excuse not to think about all of this shit in his life. Maybe it would even pay as well as Michigan had implied, and he'd finally shake off his debts.
Like hell it would. Iguazu rolled onto his side and balled his hands into fists, working until he'd gotten his entire body to tense up before letting it go, and shortly thereafter fell into a slightly more gentle sleep.
The Balam ship was lively on the morning of the operation to take the Wall, its internal hierarchy showing its true function as units organized under their commanders, senior repairtechs directing their juniors, even the mess hall staff working double-time. Iguazu had stayed in the medical bay the rest of the night for observation, and in the morning was given a relatively clean bill of health, barring his chronic conditions for which he was technically already receiving treatment.
Iguazu dressed in the pilot's coveralls he was required to wear for missions, one shoulder embroidered with his numbered callsign and the other with HEAD BRINGER's emblem. He rubbed a finger over the textured insects on it, unable to think of what Volta might say at a moment like this. He tucked the legs of the coveralls into the tops of military-grade boots, which he liked for the lift they provided and the solidity of the thick soles. A set of dog tags jingled around his neck before being stuffed down his undershirt.
The walk to the AC hangar felt a thousand times longer than usual. Iguazu wasn't used to making the journey alone. He met Michigan at the double doors, receiving the usual slightly belittling pep talk.
"Do G4 proud, ya hear?" Michigan added, at the end, "He knew what you were capable of as well as I do, and it's damn well more than you think. Now nut up and roll out!"
With those words of wisdom ringing in his ears, Iguazu climbed into HEAD BRINGER's cockpit. Maybe it was whatever the ship's doctor had dosed him with, but as the space closed in around him, Iguazu did not feel quite as awful as before. He went through his list of checks and diagnostics, flipped through the viewport filter settings, and buckled in. The memory of the simulator came to him as he reached for the switch that would engage the connectors for his ports. Iguazu pushed through the spike of fear and pressed it anyway. He was relieved when nothing happened, but it still took him an extra few seconds to re-orient to neurologically integrated controls.
The descent to Rubicon was as uncomfortable as always, though not remarkably so. Iguazu and a small detachment of MTs landed at a slight distance from the Wall proper, past the edges of two small and now abandoned settlements. It was snowing, but not hard enough to impact visibility, and the conditions were otherwise well within the parameters of the mission briefing. Each individual on the squad engaged their booster engines, and together the whole contingent approached the looming structure.
Heavy artillery shredded the MT squad in a matter of seconds, their desperate chatter over the comms cut off with sickening swiftness. Iguazu managed to evade the first volley, but was clipped by a grenade launcher, putting the back of his AC against the sheer face of a cliff. Without room to properly maneuver, it was easy work for the tetrapod MT that hadn't been on the briefing to swoop in and clean up. Iguazu's emergency eject button jammed on him, despite all of his precautions. He thought, as alarms and steam and smoke took up more and more of his dwindling cognition, that maybe the Wall itself had demanded a sacrifice. If it hadn't been Iguazu, it would have been someone else.
It was all over in less than half an hour.
As the overhead lights in the barracks of the Balam ship ker-clunked their way to life, the person called "G5 Iguazu" awoke from a dream of searing pain to a splitting headache.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," he said, to the universe at large.
On the desk in his tiny room, the computer console sprang to life, glowing in an all-too familiar shade of minty green.
“Welcome back, G5 Iguazu. You are experiencing a localized temporal anomaly." said ALLMIND, "It would be our pleasure to assist you."
"ALLMIND exists for all mercenaries."