Heat Signatures, part 3
"Does this mean..." Curious in his devil may care, rakish manner, he paused for effect while slashing a sidelong look in her direction. Here, wrapped in a blanket of darkness that blurred edges, she seemed to look more natural. He decided, quite quickly and internally, that she looked somehow more correct in half light. Her toast was met easily enough, drink for long drink. "that I can't look through your windows?" Any student of assassination understood mannerisms and expressions. Her strained look wasn't missed, but there was nothing to be gained from probing or questioning. Not yet, at least.
She hung on his pause, lips lingering on the bottle with eyes peering over it. The night did not blur his edges to her eyes. He was too close for that. It did, however, wash him of color. Something she lamented. Did that mean..."Metaphorically or literally? Metaphorically, as long as you don't earn my ire. Literally...I don't think you know where I live, or else you'd be aware that I only have the one window." Her smile quirked for another sip.
"You know, seeing naked people in thermal vision isn't quite the same. I can see through walls, you know." In an offhanded sort of way, he glanced down and pointed towards the other corner. "For instance, the owner of this place can't sleep, so he's writing. Likely in a journal?" It was easier with his helmet, but he surely did not need it entirely. "I have no idea where you live. I've a loft. I spend a large amount of time on the frigate, but I've still got to have a place here."
"I'm afraid you'd find it much harder to peer through my walls without permission. I thought I recall you saying you couldn't see through clothing?" A brow arching at him slowly. "Or was that a tiny lie?" Her eyes shift to the corner when he points it out, just as soon back to him. She couldn't see through the building in that way so the corner was a boring place to let her attention linger. "I may be moving soon, but I've been staying at the Red Dragon for the past few months."
"Oh no, I can't see detail through clothing. For example...." With a hint of mischief, he stared in her direction. Were she keen enough, she might notice the subtle shift in his eyes, dark brown to bright, vibrant blue. "all I see is what I can see normally, given that I'm seeing you as a heat sign, not a person. The other spectrums would be much the same." Suddenly rather awkward, he turned his face away and managed, around a drink, to speak. His words were quick, almost unsure. "If you do move and need help, you know, moving....stuff? Strong back and a weak mind, or so they say."
If he expected her to blush or shy away, he would be disappointed. He said he couldn't see detail, and she took him at his word. Her interest resting on the slight change in shading in his eyes. "So it's like looking at undefined person-shaped things?" She was trying to envision that manner of perception and so missed the initial awkwardness in his avoidance. The quicker pace of his offer dragged Shae out of her imagination and back to the rooftop and her wine. "I'm afraid I don't have much to my name, but I'll need to buy furniture at some point if I do move. I'd be more than willing to pay you in food and drink for a hand getting it all settled in."
"Here." He was quick to offer a better explanation. Cradled in his hands, he offered over the scarred, marred helmet. It was an impulsive choice, but one made easier by the soft moment, one where walls didn't need to be so high. "If you put it on, you'll see me how I see you when I'm looking at you in that way. Granted, I'll be lit up pretty heavily." She had not said no, therefore he found his breathing once more and collected some small amount of composure. "I won't tell you no, but conversation and, you know, time spent is payment enough, even when unasked."
Moment taken to screw closed that bottle and set it aside. Her own hands reached out to accept the offer he made of that piece of himself. Careful of the weight it may have, her slender fingers could still muster a strong grip. Leaning her head back, the hood was let to fall off her hair. The hair was let to fall behind her shoulders. Then she eased her sights into the roughened confines of his mask to try on his anonymity and his sight. As it settled into place she spoke. "You'll find I'm funny about debts, even perceived ones."
Much as his did, her voice sounded, to his ears strange as she spoke through the open tubes. Rasping and wheezing, he momentarily regretted his decisions to alter the smooth, sibilant tones. He would have appeared like a resting ball of light, supercharged armor bleeding light profusely. Specks of it behind walls were bodies, street lights flared and floated seemingly independently. "You're funny enough as it is, Shae. But yeah, anyways. That's how I see most of the time. It can be turned off if needed. It's easier when fighting, you know? It's easier to shoot something that doesn't have a face." Somber confessions, words uttered before another drink pushed regret back down.
The turn of her neck allowed a slow and careful scan of the field of view presented with that helmet on. After that initial sweep, the motion of her eyes hid her focus on this point or that one. She even looked down at herself and then forward at an outstretched hand. "I think I'd prefer it off." Came her quiet murmur through whatever distortion the helmet would muster. That light seemed imprecise. "Does it respond to thought or to voice?"
"If I'm wearing it, either or, depending on what level of threat it discerns. If the shit's on the fan, it'll react to voice. Thoughts become panicked, confused, when things are going badly wrong. If everything's fine, it reacts to my thoughts. Or this." Quickly, he reached across and, with two fingers, flicked a switch on the helmet's lower grating, perhaps causing knuckle to throat contact, quickly there, gone even more quickly. By now, the visor offered a more normal sort of vision barring the heads up displays that showed status, a locating system and targeting suites. "I leave it off until I need it, personally. Helmet or eyes, I can see in that, which is thermal, pure low light vision, infrared or telescopic. I won't make you wear the rest. I doubt it'd be very flattering."
The quick motion was a surprise and he would be rewarded for that brief contact with the sensation of a small static shock from her skin. That brush of a knuckle would have felt something lurking there. Like a current. A hum in her flesh capable of raising the small hairs on an arm. "Sorry." Offered simply, too captivated by the distraction of the altered display to grant more than that. Each little display of information analyzed, the design appreciated for enhancing the view without obstructing it in an undue manner. "Fascinating..." Also sincere, though her hands were shifting to take the helmet off. Nose wrinkled as it cleared the protection of that scarred shell. "I doubt flattery of form was the objective." Granted calmly as she offered his shared vision back to him.
Somewhat startled by the sharp jolt that shivered a path through his armor and flesh, he broke into sudden, free laughter. It lasted for a moment, the sound that wasn't impeded by dire cynicism and jaded honesty. In explanation, he caught her in the full focus of his eyes while settling the helmet back atop his knee. "Odd, that. Convenient though. The armor repairs itself and electricity helps. You'll eventually see me, I'd imagine, literally plug myself into a wall socket. It's? embarrassing." Her observation, entirely correct, drew the twinkling of a star drenched grin. "The entire purpose, visor, voice alteration, is designed to make us faceless, anonymous figures. Almost not humans. It's equal parts horrifying in an abstract sense and liberating. So no, beauty isn't the purpose here."
The startling sound of his laughter spawned her sheepish smile in reply. "Like I said, yesterday I might have warned you to watch your hands." Her own hand charting a raking path through her hair, but she left the hood down after the helmet trial. The mental picture of him forced to crouch next to a wall with his fingers in a socket, however inaccurate, was the impetus for the first appearance of a grin from her this evening. "Why not just fall through a storm cloud?" It was possible that while she understood the concept of electricity, or what her people called caged lightning, that she hadn't a firm grasp yet on the variances of voltage tolerance. Yet, he's said the suit had been designed to handle electricity. "I follow the psychology of it."
One brow crept higher and higher, an expression that was all too amused and likely spurred by her own flashing, dazzling grin. "A wall socket is one thing, but it's not enough. A generator is just enough, but a **** lightning bolt?" He didn't laugh, he simply shook his head. "That'd be far, far too much and I'd likely ended up with said armor melted to my corpse. Not a pretty picture, is it? Solid idea, and with other suits of armor, it works. This one's much lighter, not capable of handling that. Outside of the field craft, my technical designation within a military group is scout work, something that values speed over staying power."
One comment was considered and discarded for being something that might sour the fleeting mood. The reply chosen was more lighthearted. "I suppose that means I'll have to be gentle." Friendly wink as she reclaimed the drink she had set aside and a slight shift in place. The evening was cooler than the season might warrant, and while the temperature didn't bother her, she still had a lingering restlessness that prompted her to stretch the occasional group of muscles. "The heavier suits must be quite a sight."
"I'm not sure that you should be too worried. Just don't kill me, like I said before when we were texting. The suit's rather against that and tends to explode in an arc in front of me. It'd be messy." A single, flickering red light in the center of Jared's chest hid formed plastic explosives linked to the beat of his heart. In seconds, he became serious. Serious, somber and tentative as he flicked a glance towards her and then tore it away quickly. "Can I tell you something?" From the tone of his voice and the nervous fidgeting of his hands, it was clear that the forthcoming revelation was of great importance to the young man.
"In front of you?" Teasingly she scribbled with a finger against her thigh. "Note? to? self? attack? from? behind." When she looked up again that note of sobriety became infection, and her gentle mirth died away. Another pull of wine from the bottle, red and dry and doing nothing for her thirst. "Well, sure. No talking. I agreed to that. If you want to share something, it'll stay with me." There was, beneath her calm words a restrained interest in just what it was that could be so important for him to say.
"No one else has ever worn, well, you know, the armor." He, at a loss for words, shrugged softly and ignored, or so it seemed, her observation about the armor's technical failure. She was right, but there were so many caveats, layers upon layers of them. "It's not often that we allow someone else to wear it, you know? It's sort of, I guess, a big deal." A lame ending to a suitably awkward conversation.
Silence. A small stretch of it as she reordered his words in her mind. "I'm honored that you would allow me to do so. I realize that it is a part of you, and I hope that the sharing of the experience is not something that will get you into any trouble if it is a 'big deal'. If that was just meant to mean to you personally, then now I really do owe you a debt for such a gesture."
"Get into trouble?" He shrugged, a hand waved into the darkness. "There's very little that I can get in trouble for, if you will. We operate alone, given full independence. It's a personal choice, the armor. The suits are made specifically for one person, one at a time. They are..." He struggled to frame the idea, but she did it well enough. "us. Entirely. Our lives are spent inside of said armor, our worth is found in what we can do while wearing it." Having grown sequentially more silent during the course of his words, he managed to spit out another soft, slow sentence. "I wanted, I think, for you to understand. You don't, and if you do, you're paying it back right now. Understand how I'm seen by people who recognize what this armor is. It's depressing, Shae, to be so needed, so badly required, and then when the fights over, hated for being a killer. It's sickening, pulling a father and mother from a firefight and having them scream, hands beating against one's armor, and ask why you couldn't save a child, or vice versa. We aren't human, we can't ever afford to be. Right now, here, I can be a person with emotions, troubles, laughter, whatever makes someone a human. Outside of this, this right now? I'll go back to the visor, the walls."
"A personal choice." Echoed softly. He might choose a different path, but of course he was a soldier. Of course he would say it was not that simple. That the symbiotic link of man and suit was not something he could so easily withdraw from. She could hear those answers, so she didn't suggest them, it was something she had understood from their first conversation. "The trouble with trying to make machines of people, Jared, is that it can't be done without killing a soul in the process. You're a human with me right now, and you pretend to be just a visor when you put it on. But clothes don't make the man and it's still the man that's doing the work. I know the psychology of it, I said. There is something freeing in anonymity, but there is something damning in silence too. I don't envy you your society, though I do wish it were different, for the sake of those humans who've been trapped inside that thing meant to protect them and others."
"To damn one, to condemn one, is worth it in the long run, so long as that one can prevent the same fate for thousands." It was, for once, not a soldier's answer. It was Jared's answer, quite and firm in the conviction that had formed such an enigmatic persona. "You're right, of course, but there's a gulf between being right and what's applicable, isn't there? The moral of what you said, is, well..." He stopped, he paused and drank deeply before cutting the sentence short and shrugging again.
It was a refrain she was familiar with. Different words but the core of the sentiment was there. Service, sacrifice. There were many ways to wage a war, and it wasn't just one, for he'd already mentioned others. "How long?" Was her quiet question. "Your war, how long?"
"How long have I been fighting in it? I left Corbulo when I was sixteen, Shae. I'm almost twenty three. How long as it been happening?" He could only shrug, dark plates shifting naturally as he peered into the darkness and drank further, hoping to drown the rising demons. "The Covenant doesn't wage war against the Space Command. They wage war against humanity, the insurgents don't fight against humanity, they fight against the Command. How long?" He chuckled at that, bitter and low in his throat. "The very second humanity moved past the known planets, the nine, we found the Covenant. Seven, eight hundred years? The insurgency is a relatively new thing."
A soft sigh escaped her lips as she appraised him. Twenty-two. The armor, the aging effects of combat. She could almost see it as she looked at him. Almost. "So what is this insurgency doing here?"
"Importing weapons, securing recruits, planning attacks, organizing resources. It's easier here, there's only one of me here right now. No more can be risked. RhyDin is a sovereign nation. It's bad enough that I'm here, but someone had to show." The presence of force was often enough to dissuade an intelligent enemy. "Wars aren't won on the front lines, surely not this kind. They're won by what's not fought over."
"I see. And is it working so far? Your presence?" The wine was gone. Empty bottle set to lean against the edge of the roof. Free hand reaching over the lip of the building to dangle out over empty air and the street below. "Do you think they will need to send more, or recall you?"
"It is, yes. There's been a slow down of operation in certain sectors, which is due to a lack of shipments. I can draw upon hundreds of trillions of dollars, an insurgency can't. If I spend ten million to stop ten thousand from being moved, we win that day." Brutally effective was what he didn't say, interrogation and assassination. Terror tactics. His flask was almost empty, though not entirely. Without giving the action a second though, he offered the rum filled container over. "More, no. A large presence is counter productive. Recall, no. This is my duty station, and here I am."
"Trillions?" Brows raising as she took the flask. Its contents considered before she sampled from it and offered it back. "That much money would have been useful..." This trailed off statement not one that was meant to be directed to him. It was sad, almost. How familiar she was with what he didn't say. How soon the memories would be refreshed. "In perpetuity?"
"This armor cost more than this entire district, Shae. And it's expandable, so long as the loss outweighs the gain. My training cost more than some planets make in a year." Words spoken passively were still true, lazy and easy. "My presence? Until I'm dead, yes. I'll die before the insurgency does, so for the most part, yes."
Low whistle as she considered this. "I had a kingdom on my head just now. Eesh." She was almost jealous of his funding. Almost. They system that granted it still turned her off. "You're confident their efforts here will outlive you?"
"Absolutely. One doesn't win a war against ideals, Shae. It's not possible without nation building, and that's not something the Command is interested in. But what the **** do I know?" This time he made no attempt to hide the bitter anger that permeated his words. "I'm just a soldier, not someone who calls the shots. I take them, nothing more and nothing less." So spoken, he stood slowly, tired muscles lifting the armor with a stretch and a yawn. "It's late."
The space of time it took for her to lever herself to her feet was all that she needed to look down and process his shift of emotion again. "Mm. It is." Pause to feel for her feet. They were still there beneath her. The wine had been consumed over a long enough stretch that she was steady. Warm, but steady. Hands delved into her front pocket. "Be safe, Jared."
He, however, was far from steady. Feet were poorly balanced, his armor felt heavy. As he found his balance, he vented a rare showing, abject fury. The flask was crushed between his hands, broken and shattered quickly enough, before the shards were thrown into the night. "That's not up to me. It never has been. Forward, Shae, unto Dawn. Thank you." Thank you for what? He did not explain, nor did he extrapolate before secondary thrusters rocketed him into the air, pushed away and gone.
A moment of lamentation for the destroyed flask wherever it had landed, then Shae was walking to the edge of the roof above the alley, peering down to make sure it was empty. Moments later at street level she walked out of that same alley and considered where the morning would take her.
