The Major could not get tired, they didn’t have muscles to exhaust, proteins to waste or even fuel to consume. Unlike common frames, still used in some shops or to drive the aerobuses, he had been built to be self sufficient, and as effective as possible. The intent of his effectiveness had been lost to time, and to him, the Capitán was the guide to make best use of his existence. Now, the best use the extent of this was organizing a laboratory with all the samples he had brought from the Caldera. The Major didn’t care much for cynicism but knowing the Capitán was still on her own with the Old Man while he was shuffling containers bothered him. Actualization. Introspection.
The Major wasn’t wary of what the human would do, he felt frustration by osmosis through her. The Old Man had never looked at him in the eyes, never talked to him directly when he was at her side. He rarely ever met him again, the idea of confronting him had passed his mind once or twice but no more. The prudence the Capitán showed towards him in all of their encounters was enough to convince the Major he had no part to play in this. He knew better than to step where she didn’t need him to. He focused on doing his best at the task she had given him.
“Make an effort to put them evenly spaced out from each other, please, please, please.”
Behind him, not helping in the slightest, loitered Willow, one of the five members of the Cors. She had taken a rare break from handling her worm colony to pester him, seemingly very excited to get her hands on the cases of flesh he had brought back. When the Capitán wasn’t there to rein them in, her and Armageddon were insufferable to be around. They didn’t obey him, respect him and he doubted they even liked his presence but they didn’t stand in his way so he could manage to ignore them.
“You could participate, so that everything is right where you want it to be.”
“No, no you’re doing great I’m just helping you from there, you need my perspective.”
The Major looked back for a second. Willow sat in an impossible position, stretching the capabilities of the human body, while barely looking at what he was doing. She was small and slender, had short brown hair she cut herself with medical scissors. Willow wore a hand down white coat that was much too large for her but she vehemently refused to change it, even if supply permitted. She would rudely blow anyone off who mentioned the idea to her but the Major remembered she had even refused the Capitán with that request. Willow hadn’t been as vocal towards her, avoiding looking at her and simply shaking her head while blushing violently. The Capitán had let it slide, seemingly satisfied with herself, and as she never mentioned it again, noone else did either.
Willow had no interest in pretty much anything instead of her own activities that the Capitán had provided for her. As a part of his menial tasks, every day the Major needed to force Willow to eat so that she wouldn’t starve to death. She was, above all, a genius. The Cors were composed of geniuses, useful people and the Capitán. One had to be happy with the cloth they were cut from.
“Have you talked to Armageddon? I am almost done.”
“Don’t need her for nothing.”
It was tiring after all. Redundancy into weariness, so much trouble for so little gain. The Major felt like he had this conversation so many times already.
“You see any wires in that flesh soup? I don’t need her to sit behind me all day saying nothing while I’m working.”
The audacity was staggering, the Major felt the scales tip, there was no possible reality where Willow didn’t utter these words not knowing the position she was currently in. He didn’t entertain her with a response.
“Why don’t you ask Dove to dig in too then,” Willow continued, stretching loudly, “Might be more useful than the dusty one.”
“You both have something to investigate in what we brought. Do you want the Capitán to come back to you two bickering again?”
Willow furrowed and sat up. It was all the Major could do, every time. Invoke her name and they all behaved, you’d think she had her hand gripped around their heart. Willow rose and walked around him, at a safe distance, gazing intensely at the containers he still had to mark. The Major remembered where he took the samples from the production number on the containers but he had to label these in a way Willow and Armageddon would be able to keep track of them. Cyan Room / Cairn 3, Ocher Room / Cairn 1 and so on and so forth, still a long ways to go. Even only taking reasonable samples, the containers of gore were in the hundreds.
He had used lighter fuel used for ceremonies and his own capabilities to cleanse the underbelly afterwards. Closer had wanted to be present, staying in the alcove, watching from a distance. The process had been satisfying, the flames were eager to eat away at the flesh, dancing happily across the rooms, consuming everything in their path. The faded colors of the rooms became charred with black, any history they might’ve held reduced to ashes. In the end, nothing remained but smoke, billowing out to the stairs. The smell of char must’ve been as unbearable as the exposed flesh but at least the sight was less daunting. Nothing more could be done there and Closer had taken his leave. “I’ll come by tomorrow, tell lady Capitán as much.” He wanted to tell her as much, but the Sun had set for a while now and she was still not-
“Everything ready down here?” The Capitán shouted, swinging the door open with her cane, making Willow squeal in surprise.
Even without a physical reaction, Major was also surprised. He had missed her approach, she didn’t need to tap her cane in the halls of 131 Byzance that she knew by heart, making her steps as silent as anyone else. Maybe she had also made an effort to walk with the intent to surprise. Either way, everything was better now that she was here.
“I need more time for labels, few hours still. Nothing left in the underbelly. Closer will come after sunrise.”
“Good, good.”
The Capitán paced around the room, threateningly tapping with her fingers against the walls. Willow ducked, scurrying out of her way as silently as she could. Her efforts were for naught as the Capitán lunged for her, clasping her hand across Willow’s face and shaking it side to side to her giddy laughter.
“You’re excited Willow? Major explained what ordeal awaits us?”
“Piles of exploded bodies!” giggled Willow, between breaths, the Capitán’s hand still over her face, “Who were they? What happened to them? I will learn it all!”
“Change of pace from your worms, hm? You and Armageddon will do great.”
Willow stopped giggling but didn’t protest, shooting a look at Major who ignored her.
“What did the Old Man say?” asked Major, still focused on the labels.
“Whole lot of nothing. Decrepit fuck would rather watch the city collapse around him than change his routine for a single second. I pushed my luck this time, got a reaction, but nothing more.”
The Capitán let go of Willow, whose face was completely red, and looked wistfully at nothing.
“I didn’t really expect him to give me Volantis but still, the best come to the eager.”
“Who said that?” asked Major, expecting a significant quote.
“Me.”
The Capitán continued roaming around the room. The basement of their base of operation provided more space than they needed, the sterile environment had previously only benefited Willow. The Major was hesitant to call 131 his home, even if him and the rest of the Cors aside from Dove resided here. The Capitán didn’t refer to the place as such, so why should he? She bumped on a small pile of containers he had stacked in a corner, and she wordlessly turned to face him.
“Bones. Closer seemed very interested in them.”
“Did he share why?”
“I can guess. They were pushed down, buried under the cairns, organized in bulk. When I went through the underbelly at first I didn’t see any, their absence hadn’t registered to me.”
“There’s a new odd detail about this whole thing every time I blink, did he say anything else?” The Capitán asked, lifting a box and rattling it.
“Not to me but he probably noticed the same thing I did. There is a significant discrepancy between the amount of bones compared to everything else. I couldn’t count them all to the perfect amount but it does not add up.”
The Capitán whistled, finding a chair and falling ungraciously in it. Willow slid her chair to sit beside her, listening on their conversation in silence.
“Too many bones?”
“Too much everything else. Between all the cairns, eighteen femurs, eighteen tibia, eighteen humerus, nine pubis. Skulls had cracked all over but there were nine of them in total as well. However, just in the first room there were at least twenty pairs of eyes. The amount of livers add up to fifty. Pairs of lungs amount to twice of that.”
The Capitán glasses slid down the bridge of her nose as her eyes widened.
“So enough bones for nine able bodied people and what? A random amount of everything else?”
The Major shrugged. He had mentally kept track of the exact amount of organs he recognized and couldn’t come to another conclusion, there was no apparent pattern of logic to the distribution of flesh across the underbelly.
“Where do we even start here?” the Capitán asked, leaving her glasses to Willow and dragging her hands across her face, “We have a supposed entity, loose in the city that’s “in theory” capable of absorbing people, regurgitating them and expanding its own organic matter what, tenfold?”
“Also, also, MJ told me the flesh doesn’t necrotize!” chirped Willow, even more excited.
“And the flesh doesn’t necrotize! I’ll be honest, if that thing decides to move again, we won’t have much recourse but hide behind Major, if even,” the Capitán continued, slowly traced her own jaw with her index’s nail, pensively, “However. It hasn’t rampaged, yet. I’ve spent some time when going back from the Aery just walking around, asking, listening. Nothing is amiss, noone paid attention to our cleanup in the Caldera. Everyone will go to sleep tonight thinking nothing ever happened, all the proof is now here in this room.”
That was why she had taken so long to come back. The Major wasn’t comfortable with her going around so much without him but he knew better than to voice that opinion. She was laying the grounds for their next actions, all he should be doing is listening.
“I talked to Arma on the way down, her, Willow and Closer will take what they can learn from what we brought back. I’m sure there’s something in that mire for us but I won’t sit by ildly waiting for results. Major!”
“I am the Major,” the Major said solemnly.
“Go back to school, you’ve been learning history? Dig there, a body mangler of this scale doesn’t appear from nowhere. Why here, why now? Ask questions, find patterns.”
“What about you?” Willow asked.
The Major was grateful she asked in his stead. He had gotten the idea that sending him back to his routine in Universalis was another way for the Capitán to go her own way. He couldn’t argue against not going to the Aery, with the Old Man’s aversion to his presence, but being away from her for days with this unknowable entity roaming somewhere made his thoughts more reckless. Introspection. Actualization.
“I have ideas. I’ll make myself busy while you kids do your best,” the Capitán sighed, taking back her glasses from Willow, “I would pretend we’re on a tight schedule but if this entity is as proactive as the Sun, we might have a few days ahead of us.”
Major hadn’t stopped labeling. He paid close attention to the shifts in her face. He could only guess at how the visit to the Aery had truly made her feel, she would not share that with anyone. He wished she did, in futility. It had happened before, the Capitán never felt so far away than when her burden showed its true weight. He wanted to share it with her, even found himself presumptuous enough to want to bear it in her stead. He knew she didn’t want that. Selflessness, pity, pride. He didn’t know what made her spare him every day, working hard so he wasn’t simply an extension of her will, even if all of the city only saw him as her mindless crushing hand. Actualization. Introspection.
It was hard, conceptualizing thoughts and emotions from what he received from others and especially what he didn’t receive but knew he could have. The Major could not get tired, but suddenly, going back to the quiet contemplation of Sihvan’s classroom seemed enticing.