Episode 7: Binary Choice #
The room was silent, but for a low hum of the ventilation systems and the scratching and whistling of the electric powering the various consoles and screens.
Joji felt the weight of peering and overbearing eyes like glaring floodlights showering him with the thick sticky mess of pressure and expectation. He was, he thought, the black hole amongst a crowd of people.
He searched his memories, looking for guidance on how to answer; or perhaps Director Ryu’s question was rhetorical and was laid on him for dramatic effect? Joji’s doubt compounded the already harsh emotional toll from watching the news report.
A weapons hub, back home? Terrorists?
His mind cut to flashes of old faces; of the feeling of relaxing and the slow passing of time - the wide open skies and rows of waterways and drains - Joji felt as though he was on another planet. The air felt cleaner and lighter; he felt cleaner and lighter.
Eldred entered his mind, and a slight flicker of warmth sparked inside of Joji. It was not the hot burning of emotion and ambition, but rather the safe soft glow of lantern -
His vision flickered, and static cut across his consciousness. A glitch. A break.
Eldred disappeared, and the soft rolling landscapes and the feeling of safety erased from his mind, and in its place a barren and dead laceration into the earth took its place. Jagged edges filled his vision and he tasted iron.
The burning lantern blew out as though death had grabbed hold of it with a menacingly cold and devastating grip. Cold anguish flowed through Joji. The static flickered again and Eldred reappeared. No, it wasn’t Eldred; it was the silhouette of Eldred - featureless and scorched.
Another glitch.
This time pain cut through Joji’s temple and he saw a soft hand reach out to him in his mind’s eye. The hand pierced the static and the image became clearer - the silhouette of his mother stood, hair gently flowing in the breeze, before him.
Another glitch.
The silhouette remained but this time it was filled with a blinding white light against a backdrop of nothingness. Her featureless face opened and her mouth became a portal to the same endless black of the abyss behind her; and the smile widened - further, further, and further - the menacing evil of the smirk encapsulated almost the entirety of the head, and a piercing evil laugh penetrated through Joji -
He squeezed his eyes tightly.
That’s when she appeared.
Joji snapped back to reality and turned to Rin. Warm specks of salted sweat sparkled on his forehead.
“Sir, this is ridiculous, we have the Seraph, that’s all we need.” Darius Krell had leant closer to Director Ryu. Ryu inhaled deeply and loudly.
“Sekko, we need the white mech, and we need you to show us how you use it. The UGA’s grip on the Earth is all but final, but this… this could be the spark of hope that allows us to fight back across the Solar System; to ensure that the colonies remain free and to ensure that more settlements do not fall foul to the UGA overreach and genocide, in the the name of what? More real estate? Control? Corporate expansion that benefits only a few?”.
Joji closed his eyes, and replied with a defeated, quiet voice, “what do you want from me?”
Rin watched as the tension and defiance in Joji’s body seeped out of him. His shoulders fell back and his stature sank before her eyes.
“What did you do to sync to the Seraph?” interjected Kaelen. “If we can understand that then we can use it, we can utilise the power against them, just like you did against the orbital station.”
“Nothing.” replied Joji, almost under his breath.
“Nothing?” asked Kaelen, “that’s impossible you must have done something.”
“What do you want me to say? I jumped in, I synced in the same way we were taught as part of mandatory service as a kid, and then, it just worked. Moving it was easy enough, so I made plans and then that night I-”
“You what?” spat Aris.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Aris leapt forward and grabbed Joji’s shirt at his throat.
“Is this some game to you? You destroy an entire orbital base, you tell us that you found this one of a kind secret mech that has the power to save the solar system, and now you’re acting nonchalant and saying what does and doesn’t matter? Your god damn home was wiped from the planet! What is wrong with you-”
Joji swiped Aris’ grip with his left hand, and followed through with a swinging punch with his right, colliding sharply with Aris’ face and sending him crashing onto the command console with a crash.
“It doesn’t matter!” screamed Joji. “I found it like I said I did, I piloted it like I said I did! I don’t know how, I don’t know why! I didn’t even mean to go up there! I wanted to get away!”
“What do you mean you wanted to get away?” Rin’s soft voice cut through Joji’s anger and disarmed him. Her dark eyes were focused on Joji and widened as though caught off by Joji’s disclosure.
Aris had scrambled to his feet and was prepared to pounce as both Ryu and Darius made attempts to restrain him. Joji stumbled backwards at the question; Aris noticed stopped his attack.
“I-” Joji opened his mouth, but the rest of the sentence did not follow.
Silence filled the room once more. Joji looked for words, but only noticed his hands shake. Rin’s gaze was closing in on his consciousness - he couldn’t discern whether it was disappointment or concern.
The gristly scratching of facial hair on Kaelen’s chin broke the tension.
“Interesting. Sekko, tell me, did you have any control when piloting the Seraph in space?”
All colour had left Joji’s complexion, and he felt as though he was melting into the ground.
“I can’t remember.” He replied. “No. I guess. I woke - and then I saw glimpses - flashes of what happened.”
Director Ryu stood forward and put his hand on Joji’s shoulder.
“Joji,” he said softly, “I know this is a lot. The truth is, we need you. We need the white Seraph if we are to have any chance of preventing what happened to Sector 670 in the future.”
“I don’t know.” replied Joji. “I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I can pilot it, I don’t know, I just don’t know.”
“Oh no, we don’t need that, Sekko. You must understand that the Seraph is the key to unlocking a great and dangerous power across the Solar System. We cannot, under any circumstance, allow the Seraph to fall under UGA control.”
Ryu gripped a little firmer on Joji’s shoulder.
“We need you to show us how to unlock the Seraph. Can you do that? You’re clearly a capable pilot, you’ll pilot one of ours, you can really make a difference-”
“You don’t want me to pilot my mech?”
Joji’s brow sharpened and his eyes focused. He looked up and met Ryu’s eyes. He was ready to disappear into nothingness, but suddenly he felt the deep purple neon eyes watching him from afar. He felt its pull, and he longed to sync and to disappear. He longed for the feeling of total resonance once more.
“Your mech?” quizzed Ryu, his soft and comforting tone now turned demeaning. “Do not misjudge your position here, Sekko. By your own admission, you found this Seraph and have no plan on using it. Your assistance in unlocking the power of the Seraph would be undeniably helpful, but the important thing is that we have it. You have displayed great prowess in piloting, and you can make a real difference, subject to training of course. You are a terrorist by definition now Sekko. You can either make a difference in this world, or you can rot in a cell.”
Episode 6 - Rebellion in the Shadows
Episode 8 - Coming Soon
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