Chapter 5 - Hanna

  Joe fell onto the hard sofa in the rec room with a sigh; without the heavy plates and uncomfortable suit being the third and second layers of his armour, he wore the last layer with his helmet on the sofa’s arm. It was a tight-fitting, full body suit that reached up to the base of the skull, all the way to fully cover his feet; luckily there were removable gloves that were laying on top of his helmet. The room was small enough to only fit forty people inside at a stretch; the room had two sofas on either end of the square room. In the center of the room was a crowded pool table. The room was fairly packed, with two squads allocated to this room. Most of the soldiers were trying to get their minds off of the deployment by playing pool, while the others tried to get some extra rest. Even though Joe hadn't been training, he had felt more exhausted now than he had for a while. On the way back from dropping his weapons and armour off at the unit armory, he picked up a cup of ice cream, cookie dough of course, from a vending machine. He was about to tuck in before he felt a sharp chop on his head.

  “I can't believe you spent money on that shit.” Lisa spoke from beside him. Before he could turn around, she slumped down beside him, placing her helmet on her lap. She took off her armour and wore the same uniform body suit as Joe. Lisa scrunched up her nose at the pungent chemical smell as he picked up a chunk of ice cream on the plastic spoon. She debated putting her helmet on for the air filter but instead changed the subject. “What are they doing?” she pointed at the overcrowded pool table. It was loud and annoying; every time a clank of balls echoed out an obnoxious cry of boos or cheers followed quickly after.

  “A platoon versus platoon pool match. Guess who instigated it.” Joe said, giving her a nudge.

  “I don’t think I have to guess.” she thought of their squadleader before the cheers from the table roared out. Steve was at the episenter, a smug grin plastered on his face.

  “I've got to go.” Lisa quickly stated, "I have to find a workshop and fix my rifle.”

  “Ahh, so that's why Cook was talking to you.”

  “Yeah Steve was grilling me about the model number being slightly scratched.” Lisa groaned.

  “You know if someone higher rank saw that we would all get in deep shit for it. It's quite a big deal especially when models look the same and the only change is the laser module and lenses.” Joe looked at her with seriousness.

  Scoffing, she stood up “I can see that it can be an issue- but it can't be that serious. I'm off to fix it anyway. I also need to fix a couple of other nicks and scratches I haven't gotten round to doing yet.” With that, she stood up, stuffing her helmet under her arm and walking to the heavy doors. After a push, the door slowly opened and she left the still loud recreation room and headed to the sterile corridor. The heavy fire doors slowly closed behind her and the loud room almost instantly fell away.

  Taking a deep breath, she started to walk. Lisa enjoyed the quiet; even though her line of work involved a lot of yelling and loud noises, it was in the dead silence she felt the safest. It was like that even when she knew her mother. After walking aimlessly for a couple of minutes and vaguely following signs, her quiet moment was short lived as the sound of heavy footprints invaded the serenity. Looking around, the corridor was barren, the steel walls were painted a white grey, while the floors were tiled with a white ceramic. The white LED lights that ran in a straight line down the center of the ceiling reflected off the floor creating an almost migraine inducing effect. Looking at the doors painted with different room numbers, she couldn't identify where the sound was coming from. Lisa took out the helmet and slid it on, the familiar hiss of the airlock was absent and a warning popped up in its pace, as the helmet powered on.

  “WARNING: power supply not connected. Running on internal power. Approximately 3 Hours remaining”

  She ignored the warning, while a timer, counting down from three hours, appeared at the top of her augmented vision.

  “AI, Tell me where that sound is coming from.” She commanded, falling quiet, allowing the Ai to record the sound of the footprints. The sound changed slightly, making room for a wheeling noise and more footprints including two pairs of heavy metallic thumping.

  “Noise detected 10 meters on the right………. CAUTION AREA; SOUND ORIGINATES FROM A RESTRICTED ZONE!” the red blurted across the screen.

  “AI tell me where the nearest weapon workbench accessible to me is?” Lisa commanded again

  “Loading map data…. Follow the corridor for 12 meters before turning left.” the AI spat out replacing the previous text.

  Lisa grinned as she gingerly walked forward, pressing her foot down heel first to reduce the noise. Each step brought her closer to the sound. She could hear the encrypted words of people as they walked around inside the room. Getting to the door she quickly realised why she could hear through the normally soundproof doors. The lock was activated before the door was fully closed leaving a paper thin gap. Lisa creeped to the door and pressed an ear against it. Apart from the sound of muffled encrypted conversations, she could hear the sound of measuring equipment ticking and beeping as well as the sound of the footfalls of many different types of androids. Lisa clicked her teeth. She wanted more; she needed to know about this strange place, Izlathis base was known as a relatively quiet base, only really being a training base but even still- each corridor and room was at least occupied. Here everything was empty. The thought of expiration clawed at her mind, it was too much. She leaned forward and used the small crack in the door to look inside.

  The room was larger than the rec room she was in, however it was split about a quarter away with a blast shield, on her side of the blast shield people in lab coats frantically typed on computers as they came in and out of conjoining rooms to the left and right. In the center there was a control panel where lights beeped rhythmically. A couple of people with the falling mountains logo plastered on their white coats stood directing others. On the left of the control panel she saw the source of the wheelie noise was a long metal tube being pushed through an opening in the blast shield. On the other side only one person directed half a dozen androids to fix a large donut shaped object. The human wore an industrial hazmat suit, its fabric rivaled her undersuit in physical and thermal protection but probably blew hers out of the water when it came to chemical or radiation hazards. Looking at the cylinder she estimated it to be three meters long but the yellow warning sign caught her eye. A dark matter warning. Inside the triangle, the shape was circular while one side of it exploded out in colour. Although she had fortunately never seen a dark matter explosion and prayed she never would, the videos that were shown to recruits are haunting. On overcast days a barren grey field would shine with a beautiful spectrum of colours before folding in on itself and leaving a crater the size of the detonation. Unlike nuclear bombs there was no fanfare or dazzling explosion that can be customized; it was raw desolation.

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  “A camera has recorded your actions. ” the AI typed, covering her vision.

  “Shit” Lisa thought, looking around to see where the camera was. But The Falling Mountains produced, sold and used top of the line cameras and sensors and most of them could be hidden easily. With the money they poured into this place already, the number of cameras in this corridor alone could be ten. Standing up and moving on as silently as possible Lisa moved to the workshop she mentioned before.

  Getting to the door that was marked in a blue text WS-06, the door was the same as all the others. After giving it a push, she hurried herself inside, hoping that if anyone came out of the other room to look for her they would at least struggle to find her for half a minute. Inside the room, it was different to the room she was just peeking in on. It was only a couple of meters across, with a large gated cabinet dominating the room while a lit up workbench was pressed against the wall. On the table, a pistol was neatly disassembled, its parts hovering magnetically in place staggered in section: screws on the outer edges, the exterior body parts hanging stationary closer to the center while the internal mechanism was hidden under a magnifying glass. Moving inside, a noise echoed behind the large cabinet and a fully suited person stood up. The figure was slightly shorter than Lisa but had the same frame making her believe that this person was a woman. Looking up, a shoulder mounted laser tracked Lisa's subtle movements, its camera-like head zooming in and out while she assumed it tried to identify her via her platoon markings and branding. Moving her eyes down the woman's body, she stopped at her left arm. Her hand was missing and in its place there was a layered structure of tools and instruments, a few Lisa could spot were drills, screwdrivers of various heads, scalpels, metal probes and other specialized tools of a weaponsmith. Lisa went to move past her and reach for the cabinet as she recognised it as an armory loading bay, a machine that if given the correct verification, a soldier or officer can receive the weapon they stored in the armory from any connected bay. Lisa reached the bay, the onlooking soldier not stopping or moving, only staring at her. Every so often, the shoulder mounted robot would follow her or the tool selected in her left hand would cycle into something else. Pressing her hand to the plate, she plugged the connecting wire into the slot at the back of her hand, her suit recognizing the desire to open allowed the long needle like dongle to push inside the suit and clip in her wrist port. Lisa felt the electricity surge through her body while her brain tingled a little. On the bay screen, her information popped up: “Lisa Grim, ID number: 6229JV, TFM class 2 Elite Force - Soldier. Platoon IZ-213, Rifle found….Transporting….

  The bay shuddered slightly as what she assumed was hundreds or meters of conveyor until it came to a sudden stop. The bay doors slid open revealing the rifle she stored before heading to the rec room. Grabbing the rifle from its holder, the woman stopped observing and finally moved to speak.

  “So you’re Lisa Grim,” the woman moved her still human hand briefly over the robotic one before sticking her hand out, “you wouldn't remember me but I'm in IZ- 242. We had a training battle against each other once.” Lisa turned her head, thankful her helmet was still on as she looked at the smaller woman.

  “You are right, I don’t.” Lisa spoke resolutely, turning to the work bench. The other woman didn't say anything as with a press of a button the still suspended handgun clattered to the table.

  “You are the reason why I lost my hand,” the stranger finally spoke up, the augmented voice hiding her emotions, making it hard to gauge if she was on the verge of tears or about to explode with anger. The only thing Lisa could go off of to guess her emotions was her body language but she skillfully remained neutral. "That building you and your teammate blew up to try and avoid capture from us. I was pinned under the rubble for three hours.”

  “So what? Do you want to kill me?” Lisa said as she quickly turned to the other soldier ready for a fight.

  “Not anymore. I wanted to thank you actually. I won't have to go out on the front lines anymore.” The soldier moved her hand to her helmet and struggled to pull it off, after a bit of effort it unsealed and a woman's face stared back at her. Her brown hair was tightly bound in the standard issue bun but her fringe fell over her eyes, which shone with hope and life. Lisa could only assume that they looked like a wet stone in a clear stream she had only heard about in stories. While her skin was youthful and smooth she had an eye-catching feature. A large scar covering most of her cheek blemished her cute face, it looked like chemical burn as it singed the corner of her mouth up to the bottom of her eyelid and back to the start of her ear.

  “My name is Hanna, Hanna Coal.” Hanna extended her human hand for a hand shake.

  Lisa stared at Hanna; she looked at her face and a thought that she could have done this to the woman she had never formally met crossed her mind. Her vision blurred for a moment, remembering the training and all those she had affected. The thing to snap Lisa out of her thoughts was Hanna’s hand slowly falling and her face dropping to a concerned frown.

  Shaking her head clearing her mind Lisa reached out and took the woman’s hand.

  “Pleasure. You already know my name.” Lisa awkwardly ended what she was saying and tried to grasp something. “You smoke? I’m going to sort out my rifle and then have a smoke before heading to the bunks.”

  “Sure, I was just tinkering with my pistol before I dropped a screw behind the weapons bay. I could use a break.”

  Setting the rifle against the table Lisa looked at the mess of robotic parts. It was a standard issue workbench and any weaponsmith would own a bench like this. The table was made of a metallic alloy, causing it to be quite hard- necessary to resist the scratching of metal against its surface. In the corner, a magnetic stand was attached, used to hold and display parts not being serviced. Above it all, like a spider, 7 robotic arms hung from a rotating disk each with different attachments and tools. In the center, a red camera-like eye observed the worktable. Searching for the paint and marking related arm, she dragged it down into the start position. On the screen attached to the spinning disk, she inputted what she wanted to do. With a brief scan of the weapon, making sure it was the correct model to mark with the requested markings, the robotic arm set to work stripping the original paint. Turning her head to Hanna standing next to her, she was quickly sorting through the pile of gun parts Lisa had caused her to drop onto the table and rebuilt the gun. Opening her eyes wide, Hanna sped through the process putting Lisa and Joe to shame, even with one human arm she made it look easy. Just as the final layer of paint was removed, Hanna had finished.

  “Looks like you’ll be a minute, I've been in this room ever since getting here so I want to stretch my legs. I'll wait for you at the smoking area.” Hanna then slid her helmet over her head and with a hiss it closed. The footfalls of her boots faded as she closed the door behind her.