63 Surface Tension

Commander Chase’s handsome visage occupied Eva’s comms display. He was certainly finely-chiseled and a man of discipline. She was always glad to see him onscreen.

“I’m not interrupting you, am I?” he asked. “You seem a little preoccupied.”

Eva shook her head as she perforated another bandit fighter. It crashed into the rocky ground below.

Both she and Miko had taken a contract to help defend a small planetary colony in a nearby system. The colony had been constantly getting hounded by bandits, and so the two of them decided to chip in their expertise.

They helped the colony’s marshal to repel a number of attacks, then subsequently went on the offensive and attacked the bandit’s base of operations.

The two of them were currently in the process of dismantling whatever was left of the bandits.

“Just doing a little cleanup, that’s all,” she replied. “It’ll be over in a few, don’t worry.”

“As long as things are under control,” he said. “Anyway, just wanted to give you a heads-up that the project is going to officially begin in two cycles. My sister finally got all the paperwork through for the green light.”

“Finally,” said Eva. “I thought we’d never get this job going!”

.....

“Yeah, it’s been block-”

“Whoa, hold on!” she interrupted. “You’ve got a sister?”

“Oh, yes, of course! I’m not leading this project – I’m just a medical officer. My sister, Admiral Sara Chase is the one heading things up.”

Commander Chase has a sister, and an Admiral to boot? thought Eva.

“Aw, and here I was, all looking forward to spend a little face time with Commander Chase. But I suppose hanging out with his big sister will have to do.”

Commander Chase laughed at her tease.

“I’ve actually been reassigned,” he said. “So we’ll be seeing quite a lot of each other.”

“That can’t possibly be a coincidence. You didn’t request that, did you?”

He grinned.

“Well, you’re not the only one who’s been looking forward to some... face time.”

“Commander,” she said, “so glad that you’re starting to play the game.”

“Don’t celebrate yet,” he cautioned. “I’ve also been ordered to observe you. Well, sort of. And with your permission of course.”

Eva was taken aback. Ordered to observe her? Was it due to her grey dealings? But why would a medical officer be investigating her?

“Observe me? Why me specifically?”

“Ah, well, it’s not just you, exactly. I’ve gotta keep tabs on every refugee on this project. It doesn’t matter if they’re pilots, researchers, or mechanics. I’ve gotta monitor everyone. Again, with permission. But the more data I have, the better off we’ll be.”

Eva wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t like the sound of that at all. Someone, somewhere was interested in the refugee’s medical data. Or more.

Commander Chase noticed that her eyes were filled with suspicion, or at least skepticism. No-one liked to be watched, but surely she understood why the orders existed.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that you’re physiologically exceptional. Far beyond normal humans, but not so far as to completely outclass us. No-one knows why that is. We want to know why.”

“Of course,” said Eva. “And I’m sure you’ll try to close the gap, too.”

“I’m sure someone will want to do that, too, yeah. Why? I don’t see a problem. Imagine how powerful human civilization could be, if we all had your traits.”

Eva also agreed that as a whole, humanity would be much improved if they were all more like the refugee players. Stronger, smarter, more capable.

It would allow civilization to shine brighter.

Of course, it would make its darker parts bloodier, too. What if humanity decided to treat them the same way as they treated the synths?

“And there’s another thing,” Commander Chase continued. “All your genetic data is frozen.”

“Explain frozen.”

“Your physiology is frozen in time. It doesn’t change from one moment to the next. You don’t eat or sleep, right? Well, on top of that, your cells don’t replicate, age, or die. Though, it’s still somehow a fully functional body – you breathe, you tire, you bleed. Even so, your metabolics don’t change. You won’t die of old age, and you might technically live forever.”

This alarmed Eva greatly.

People always loved the idea of immortality. As though becoming one allowed them to learn everything and become ultimately powerful. Or of simply looking young forever.

It was possible, yes. But most didn’t understand the complexity of ‘infinity’.

historical

Those who were infinite would see countless finite things rise and fall. Towns, cities, planets, civilizations, galaxies, friends, family, children, grandchildren, entire legacies. Eventually, they would all end. Beyond them, the only thing that existed was the void itself.

Immortality was an infinite prison that created insane gods.

Eva shivered at the idea of coexisting with nothingness. Then a thought struck her like lightning.

“Oh no,” she said. “Miko...”

Commander Chase turned grim.

“She’ll be thirteen forever.”

~

After their bandit cleanup contract, Eva and Miko ported back to Helios to prep for their contract with the Federation Navy.

Or, rather, Miko went to prep while Eva found some time to relax.

She had been rocking job after job, and needed a bit of a break. To that end, she went to the closest gymnasium to work some sweat out of her system.

Unfortunately, most of the people there were regular humans, and couldn’t match her physically. She was stuck without a living partner, and had to resort to using a training automaton.

Although it was heavily padded and had the ability to do some light sparring, it wasn’t anything fancy. It was basically just another exercise machine with pre programmed modes and functions.

But it was better than nothing.

She broke into a bit of a sweat when she put it into overdrive. Still, she had figured out its patterns quickly, and was ultimately unfulfilled. Eva pushed it around for about an hour before she became bored with it and stopped the exercise.

She thought about what Commander Chase had said – that her metabolics never changed. It was interesting to her that she could sweat, as she was doing right then, yet never needed to rehydrate.

Even stranger was the fact that she could almost feel her stamina recharging. As though she actually was a character in a game. One that lived and breathed.

She was also certain that those she had killed stayed dead. They were all immortal, but not indestructible.

It was a strange contradiction to her.

“Hello there,” said a soothing male voice.

Eva jumped a little as her thoughts had run a little too deep. She turned towards the source of the voice, and saw a man who was right around her age. He was slightly taller than her, had wavy brown hair, and amber eyes.

“Freya?” He asked. “That’s your callsign, right?”

His head was slightly cocked as he asked. The grin that accompanied him felt inviting. And also perilous.

“Yep, that’s me,” she replied. “You are?”

“A fan,” he said. “Saw your ‘cast a few cycles ago. Was able to get in touch with my buddies again. Felt really nice to see them all. And since I spotted you here, I figured I’d say thanks for figuring that out.”

“Oh! A refugee player!”

Eva quickly lit up. She immediately re-appraised the man in front of her, specifically his athletic capabilities.

He was in his workout gear, and like hers, were durable and light. She could tell that his body was relatively trim underneath it all.

Eva wanted a taste, and couldn’t help but want to uncover more.

“Spar with me!” she said. “You can fight, right?”

“Geez, I just wanted to say hello, and you’re wanting to beat me up already. Hell, you don’t even know my name.”

She laughed lightly.

“Fine. Tell me your name. Then let’s get in a brawl! You know how hard it is to get a good workout around here!”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” he said. “It’s tough finding partners, even for just basic exercises and whatnot. Either I outlast ’em, or they suffer a heart attack and die.”

She laughed at his joke – it certainly felt true. All the refugees could physically last far longer than any other human in the galaxy. Well, that she knew about anyway.

“Buuuut,” he continued, “I can’t be your sparring partner. I’ve seen your ‘casts. You wreck serious shop, and I can’t handle that. You’d destroy me.”

“Th-that was different,” she refuted. “I was showing off for the camera. Put a little extra oomph in my hits, you know. C’mon – I’ll go easy! I just wanna sweat a little.”

“Alright, alright,” he said. “Just try not to mess up the face, alright? I kinda like it.”

She nodded, then looked him up and down and admired his form.

“Yeah, I do too. Also, I lied. I wanna sweat a whole lot, alright. So you’d better bring your A game.”

He looked at her with a very playful grin.

“I think I could manage that,” he said. “Callsign’s Pelli, by the way.”

He then sent her a friend request through his DI.

She accepted.

.....

~

“I’m sorry, Mack,” she said. “I’m not sure what kind of footage we’re gonna get. Not right now, anyway.”

Mack’s face flickered slightly on Eva’s terminal. He looked a little downcast.

She gave him the heads-up about the contract, about how she had no details about it. She didn’t know if the project was going to be boring as hell.

That was if they could even record at all.

Regardless, they ran the risk of either having shitty footage, or no footage at all. That didn’t really bode well for their budding channels.

“We’re doing great right now, though,” he countered. “I don’t wanna run outta vids to publish. You don’t know how long it’s gonna take – what if you’re out for a hundred days? That’s three months here. We’ll lose our momentum if we end up with no content at all.”

Their subscriber numbers had increased greatly thanks to their videos with Nightmare. In the meantime, they planned to use some of their older bounty hunting footage to help fill the gaps.

If they lost their audience now, it would be hard to get them back.

Eva sighed at the conundrum. She didn’t know how long the contract would take, and she couldn’t take any others in the meantime. Professional courtesy and all that.

“We’ll figure something out,” she said. “Don’t worry. Just... do some breathing exercises.”

He sighed deeply.

“Alright,” he replied. “I’ll trust that we’ll get something good.”

“Great. I’m gonna go and get ready. We’ll talk soon though, alright.”

“Eva, wait.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away slightly. He was nervous as hell, but then steeled himself momentarily.

“I’ve been thinking,” he continued, “about us two maybe trying again.”

Eva’s eyebrow arched.

Again? she thought.

“No,” she said adamantly.

“But I’ve been good! I’ve done my best to make you proud. And... I know it’s long distance, but we can still make it work.”

It was her turn to sigh deeply.

“And I appreciate the changes you’ve made. You’re a much better man now, and I’m really proud of you. But you had your chance, Mack, and you blew it. You said it yourself – if only you had been with me then, you might still be with me now. I really would have liked it if you were with me.”

His face fell slowly as she spoke. He felt his heart break a little. He figured it was something like what she had felt, too. Back then, at least.

“But you weren’t,” she continued. “So here we are now, completely separate... You’re too far away for me now, and I’m sorry.”

Mack’s face twisted in agony as she spoke. He needed her to say ‘yes’. He needed her.

“No,” he muttered. “Nothin’ for you to be sorry for. I fucked up.”

He then cut the line, and Eva’s screen went black.