Clothes sit in folded stacks; five sets of the same tee and trousers. You take what you need without looking. Tug your shirt on, button up your pants, lace up your boots, the motions are mechanical and routine. More a force of habit than anything. Less than a minute and you're dressed down in shades of charcoal and grey, a geometric shell pattern stamped across your back in matte black. You grab your foil-wrapped bar and the unopened can of coffee from the shelf you set them on. You snag the ID card sitting beside them. You don't mean to pause but...you do. A little skip in the daily routine.
It was the image on the card that caught your eye. It's an old picture, taken back when you first came to Korea. It's also not a very good one. You're doing that awkward too-broad smile you always do when you're in front of a camera; showing too many teeth to look anything but forced and knocking at least three years off your face in the process. You were thinner back then. Softer. And Sang-chul hadn't talked you into dying your hair yet.
You tuck the card in your pocket, glance at your nightstand. It's already 7:17 and you shouldn't linger. You close the wardrobe and do a last check of your postage stamp of an apartment. It doesn't take you long; two rooms, one bathroom, not really much to check. You grab your company issued PDA off the nightstand and scritch Emil behind the ears the best you can with your hands full. He stretches out happily on your unmade bed and closes his eyes, tail flicking back and forth. Already dozing again.
"You lazy piece of shit," you say affectionately. Outside, the first drops of rain splatter against the window.
The atmosphere shifts the moment you step outside, the electric lock on the doorjamb flicking from green to scarlet red behind you. Your apartment is...it's yours. A little cramped, a little utilitarian. But it's yours, laced with seven months worth of astral traces from you and Emil. Seven months worth of eating, sleeping, resting, living. Intangible space molding itself to you in a tangible way. But the comfortable, gentle warmth fades out the moment you step into the concrete hallway. You can feel the openness here. It's like a soft breeze, cool and delicate, running over something just beneath the skin. Covered corridors extend between the residential sections, looking out on the city through gaps between the towers. You can hear rain falling harder now. A slow, steady drizzle; the kind that lasts all day.
Thunder rumbles in the distance.
Elevator at the end of the hall, a short ride down to the thirtieth floor station. The tram rattles in a minute later and then you're surrounded by bright plastic benches and haggard office types just coming off a shift or half-awake office types just about to go on. You tug the foil wrapping off your bar with your teeth as the tram starts. Taking a bite of bacon and egg flavored soy and crunchy cereal. Pop the tab of your soycaf, casually raise it in polite acknowledgement to a pair of orks further down the car in Black Turtle clothes. One glances your way, absently raises a hand. Goes back to her private conversation. You drop your eyes, take a sip. Swallow the sudden, bitter taste.
Holoscreens play in the background, suspended from the ceiling in a wash of colors. Your ears pick out strands of English.
"Relief efforts continue on the Japanese island of Kyushu where thousands remain missing or-"
"Saeder-Krupp has announced that it will be deploying several battlegroups to the North Pacific-"
"Uncertainty plagues the UCAS stock market today as the dragon Ghostwalker continues his-"
They overlap and intertwine, blending into nonsense. You recognize some of the faces in the car with you: Balding Guy with the Cigarette. Chinese Lady with the Round Face. Younger Korean Guy with the Silver Case. Familiar people in familiar spots. None of them seem like they're much for talking.
The tram rattles across a chasm between apartment blocks. Rain falls on the glass roof. You keep drinking your coffee.
The tram pulls into the Sze station a few minutes later. Broad stone steps flanked by poster-sized advertisements for magical regents and arcane paraphernalia. Basic home alchemy sets and fashionable robes. Attractive men and women flitting between screens, selling stylish things. The train is already leaving behind you. You finish off your breakfast bar in a few bites, wash it down with the last of your iced soycaf and walk up the stairs.
Cubicle mice one way, straight up the steps in a tide of somber suits and briefcases. Their shoes clattering against the solid stone. Paramilitary personnel another, a small stream quirking away from the river, down a side door halfway up the sets. Through a cement-warded security checkpoint. You wave your card at the reader when it's your turn, yellow gridlines playing over your skin as scanners sweep the entire line behind you.
You're at your locker with twenty minutes to spare, deep within the bowels of the complex. You hear showers going, men chatting, steam drifts over rows of gunmetal gray unit. You swipe your card and get changed quickly. Stripping down and packing your street clothes away. Pausing, looking in the little mirror in the door. Seven months is a long time in a lot of ways. There's a bit more muscle to your frame now. Red tips to your black hair. Bruised hollows under your eyes. You tug your bottom lid down with a thumb, studying the bloodshot scarlet threads.
You shrug and start armoring up. Skin-tight, rubbery, underlayer first. Jet black carbon-weave, striated to look like muscle fibers; grey lights flickering to life along your forearms as you work your fingers into the gloves. Along your shins as you fit your feet into the boots. You seal it up your spine, grimacing as it pulls tighter. Rolling your shoulders, testing your mobility and listening to it softly creak. Next a heavier ceramic vest, you tug it over your head. Segmented portions line your stomach, solid plates pressed against your back and shoulders. You flick metal latches closed along your ribs, brush out the long waist-coat thing that covers the back of your thighs. Your belt and weapons. A black scabbard on your left hip for the monofilament sword, a shorter sheath on the right for the stun baton. Cuffs clink at the base of your spine. The flashbangs you put the order in for yesterday arrived, they rest beside the bracelets.
Your helm last. A smooth expanse of slate-grey crystalline composite, circular filters at the bottom. Matched along your cheekbones. You hold your breath as you don it, brushing your hair back with a black-gloved hand. The world dims for a second, the locker room half obscured behind a thick, silvery fog.
And then light as your HUD boots up. The Ares logo flashing on the inside before breaking away into golden hexpatterns. You exhale, tug the rubbery collar around the base and check the seal. Good, you're good.
You take another deep breath, focusing this time, stretching those invisible sinews. Letting the qi work through still cold muscles like tendrils of heat. Your frame ripples, brawn bunching and relaxing in a wave. You shake yourself like a dog throwing off water. Right. Right. Thumb up beneath the nametag fixed on your breast.
Petty Officer Esser.
You close your locker.
Time to get to work.
You swipe in at the command center with ten minutes to spare. Sang-chul's on you in seconds. Arm hooked around your neck, you mock gag just to humor him and he dismissively taps your helmet hard enough to bounce your head off the inside. Mrs. Nai behind the front desk, giving you a vaguely approving look for your timeliness but a few second prior, frowns severely. He pretends not to notice. She sniffs.
"Heyyyyy, Esser! Good to see you. Ready for another day of fun and sun serving the corp?" Sang-chul -Petty Officer Gahm- is a big man. Taller than you, broader than you, and built like a concrete pylon. His sword and shockstick sit at a jaunty angle as he rests an arm around your shoulders. The little cultural handbook you painstakingly pored over on your flight here said that Koreans view personal space as Important. Ritualized and formalized.
You're increasingly sure that the cultural handbook was a fucking liar. You make to brush him off; he doesn't budge and you do your best to play it off.
"You're too old to talk like that y'know?" It's true. He is. The man's your rank and at least twenty years your senior. His wavy hair streaked with grey.
"Enh, I'm young at heart. So where are you assigned today?"
...That's actually a good question. Technically Black Turtle mandates a rigorous, inflexible schedule that gives no priority to any one worker's requests. And technically you are assigned to guard the Northwest Gate all day. Manning the security checkpoint, carding incoming workers and making sure nobody's walking off with a crate full of office supplies.
In practice if you ply the secretarial staff with enough pastries you can get assigned just about anywhere. And Mrs. Nai has a singular love of the bean-paste waffle-fish things. You look at her. You hesitate. You lean in over the counter.
[ ] "I believe I'm scheduled to work the South Gardens today ma'am." Open aired and pleasant, especially in the rain. Sze takes a lot of pride in their gardens and for the Awakened it's very relaxing. Downside there'll still be a fairly large crowd to watch, and you'll probably have to actually do work at some point.
[ ] "I believe I'm scheduled to man the Sector Eight security station today ma'am." Manning a security station is mostly just a load of sitting on your ass, watching the cameras and casually killing time. Of course, the Captain has a habit of conducting surprise inspections to keep the stockholders happy.
[ ] "I believed I'm in the detail pool ma'am." One of the privileges of a corner office at Sze is the ability to requisition a bodyguard detail for tooling around Togko Plaza. For you, this amounts to babysitting duty. Some can be real nightmares but most just want to shop, and you've scored some solid meals before.
