Cyan Falling

The Dome

As it turned out, getting Jade out of her cell and getting their stuff back was the easy part. As they moved back down the long hall of the ship’s body, it became more and more apparent which end had seen the most damage from whatever was attacking them.

Parts of the place were caved in, large dents pushing the hall into itself and blocking the path. There was debris from the walls and ceiling panels cluttering the floor, electrical wires sparking from the corners and sharp pieces of metal jutting out. Broken glass littered certain areas from the busted lights, which flicked on and off intermittently.

In some spaces, they had to manoeuvre themselves around things very carefully so as to not get injured. There were sections where the panels had been ripped clear from their bearings and all that was barring them from the rush of cold water was the ship’s backup generated shields.

Jade was leading the way, having been led down this area before when she had originally been apprehended by the ship and been taken up to the brig. She always had a good memory for those sorts of things, ways out of places, ways around obstacles. It was one of her very few good traits in Cyan’s opinion.

After their last encounter, he really didn’t have much good to say about her at all.

They had met each other a few times on different occasions, usually when their jobs intersected or they had been hired in the same area. They had different skill sets, of course. Cyan just had his military training to go off of, but the rest of his knowledge was learned the hard way, on the job, out in the field of action.

Jade, from what he knew, or, more accurately, from what she had told him, had been trained as an assassin from a young age. Her family’s clan was prolific throughout the many nations of her homeworld for the way they created weapons out of their people.

She was highly skilled with each of her weapons and had been trained in several martial arts. She was flexible and agile and had a near eidetic memory for maps and escape routes. She was mentally mapping out exits in every place she entered before she was even through the door.

What he did know to be true, above all else about her, was that she was never to be trusted. She was always to be doubted and questioned at every turn. She had no personal ethics or allegiances to any singular cause or moral code. She did what she was paid to do and did so indiscriminately.

He wouldn’t put it past her to be working for Belvarrian Callus.

She was a good actor, he could give her that, but he had learned to see through the veil of her lies. He learned through experience just how cutthroat and deceiving she could be. He had seen her at her worst and it had awoken him to reality much in the fashion of having a bucket of ice tipped over you. He would never be made the fool again.

She had no power over him anymore.

“How far is the cargo bay?” Jaesong asked.

“Your little companion is asking stupid questions. Is he always so grating?” She directed her words at Cyan and he regretted speaking.

Cyan’s frown deepened. “Well?” He prompted rather than paying heed to her rude question.

“This way, just a little further.” She said, not sparing a look back at them over her shoulder.

“It’s about time. I was starting to think that this hallway would never end.” Cyan huffed as he climbed around a barrier of crunched up metal.

“Tut, tut, Cyan. So impatient.” She chastised condescendingly.

He glared holes into the back of her head but said nothing more. Jaesong looked between them with concern, inwardly hoping that whatever strong negative tension laid between them wouldn’t manage to hinder their safe passage off of this serpentine ship.

There was so much contempt, so much fury radiating from Cyan, that it made Jaesong nervous. He had never seen him so bothered by another person, other than maybe Callus himself. There was a history there; that much was obvious. He didn’t want to broach the subject though, at least not until Jade Fox was well behind them and no longer a cause for turmoil.

He could feel that it wouldn’t take much for punches to start flying if the wrong words were spoken. Cyan was already on edge and Jade was poking and prodding him with barbed comments and needling him with light and teasing sarcasm. She was obviously trying to get a reaction out of him at every opportunity and it was working rather well for her.

She seemed to take delightful glee in his discomfort and unhappiness. Jaesong didn’t know anything about their history, but he was starting to brew his own deep dislike of her the longer he witnessed their troubling dynamic.

“Ah, here we are.” She said, clearing the debris in front of the cargo bay door with graceful ease.

“Is it open?” Jaesong asked.

“Ah yes, I’m standing here at the threshold just waiting for my dear companions to catch up with me while the path to my beloved ship is completely clear and easily accessible.” She mocked with venom under her teasing tone.

“Just open the damn thing.” Cyan huffed.

“Working on it, sweetheart. Have some patience.” She rolled her eyes and worked on the panel by the door.

Cyan knew that Jaesong could probably have had it open faster, but he was positioned in between them and couldn’t get to the door until she moved out of the way. The hall was so battered that they would have to climb rather than walk to the door as it was.

The creature outside was still rhythmically attacking the vessel, but its hits seemed to be more focused on the front now, probably up by the bridge where most of the emergency power had been directed.

After a few moments of frustrated tapping, the door opened up and Jade wasted no time in speeding into the room.

Cyan urged Jaesong to hurry into the room behind her. There was a high chance that if she got onto her ship before they caught up then she would simply leave without them. They clammered to get over the obstacles in their path and darted into the cargo bay, which, while damaged, was open enough that it wasn’t completely untraversable.

When they got there, she was already opening up the door and getting ready to climb inside, so they jogged up behind her.

“Not about to get rid of you stragglers that easily then?” She asked with a wink.

“No.” Cyan replied. “We stick to the deal.”

“Leave that gun you picked up here.” She changed the subject abruptly as the door finished opening.

“What? Why? So you can get the jump on us later?” Cyan asked.

“Please, if I wanted to jump you I wouldn’t have to leave you defenceless to do it.” She said, teasingly, as she turned and began to rag her pointer finger down the middle of his chest, following the zip of his suit.

He grabbed her wrist before she could touch him further, grip tight and glare unforgiving. She looked up at him from under her eyelashes, batting them with false innocence.

“Don’t touch me.” He said, voice low and authoritative.

“Fine, fine. Way to ruin the fun.” She joked, snatching back her hand from his grasp. “I’m only telling you to leave it because they’re unique to the soldiers assigned here. If they see you with one at the security gate, we’ll be immediately detained.”

“Fine.” He said, chucking the gun behind him and refusing to watch as it skidded across the floor to land by the wall at the far end of the room. “I have other weapons.”

There was a pause.

“So dramatic.” She said under her breath and punctuated it with an eye roll as she turned to board her ship.

Jaesong was just looking at Cyan with concern, his lights having settled at a dim level of grey a long while back. This whole ordeal had him unsettled. He sighed and followed Jade onto the ship, checking behind himself once or twice to make sure that Cyan was still behind him.

Something felt disconnected, disjointed.

When they were in the cockpit, Jade was already seated and belted in, pressing buttons and getting the engine started. Behind them, the door closed back up as the ship hummed to life. It lifted up into a hover and Jade reached up to hit a button that had been hidden under a yellow covering.

“This’ll be fun.” She said, and in a second, the ship released an EMP into the cargo bay door, forcing it open and the shields around it to go offline.

They were well out of there before the shield could power back up, but as they left, as they sped towards the dome at full speed, the creature came into view.

It dwarfed the ship they had been on. It was twice as long and twice as thick, barbs splintering off of its sides like thousands of harpoons. Its seven or eight eyes were black and soulless and its teeth were long and thin, as if to cram as many of them into its maw as physically possible. Its fins dragged around it like the broken sails of a ship lost at sea, tattered but monumental nonetheless.

The creature let its body run against the side of the ship, batting it, like it was toying with it. Then, as they got further and further away, it finally bit down on the middle of the ship, bursting it open, like a thousand knives through warm butter.

All they could do was watch on in horror as a few escape pods jetted from the front of the ship in an attempt to escape while it was distracted, before the pressure built in the cabin, before the water gushed through the ship and carried the crew away with it.

Jaesong was the first to look away. He had seen a lot, he was used to giant creatures threatening his life on the daily, but he had always had the know-how to get himself to safety. Watching that chaos was something else entirely. It really drove home that he wasn’t on Yandraven anymore. For the first time in his life, he wondered if this was what homesickness felt like, that longing for something familiar.

He wrapped his arms around himself and stared down at the floor between his feet. It was a cold feeling. He hadn’t really been allowing himself to acknowledge the way he had been feeling, the way all these life or death situations had been affecting him.

It had been easier to brush off before. He had Cyan in his corner every time, but now he felt so far away. Ever since they had found Jade, there had been something wrong, and an air of wrongness that underlined the obvious.

He hoped that they would get there faster, so that they could go their separate ways and Cyan could start acting like himself again. He didn’t like the atmosphere.

They spent the trip to the dome in tense silence. It took them around half an hour to get there at full speed. Jade operated the ship up front while Cyan and Jaesong sat in the two seats at the back, opposite each other. Jaesong stared at the floor the whole way, fidgeting and unsure what to do with himself.

Cyan was rigid in his seat, arms folded over his chest, brow furrowed. He looked as though he was in deep contemplation, but also entrenched in a bone-deep anger. Whatever had happened between him and Jade in the past must have been serious. He was so out of sorts and she was so flippant, each was cold in their own way.

When they eventually arrived at the entrance, it had become almost suffocating to be in the same vehicle with them. They made it through security check-in, got their weapons approved once all of the paperwork was filled in and then they were pulled up in the vehicle storage.

Cyan and Jaesong got up and exited the ship the moment the door was opened. Neither of them wanted to endure the feeling of being sat there any longer.

“So eager to get away from me?” Jade asked, smirking.

“Yes. Let’s never meet again.” Cyan replied, a fake politeness to his voice, a performative boredom.

She huffed in amusement and shook her head. She gave him a look of consideration and then shrugged and started walking away.

“See you never, babe.” She called out as she left.

With that, they were once again alone. Cyan let out a breath of relief as soon as she was out of sight and it was instantaneous, the way his whole body relaxed, like a massive weight had been lifted, like he could breathe again. It was suffocating being around that woman, so stifling and it was exhausting to be so on edge all the time, wired and alert.

“See you never, babe.” She called out as she left.

With that, they were once again alone. Cyan let out a breath of relief as soon as she was out of sight and it was instantaneous, the way his whole body relaxed, like a massive weight had been lifted, like he could breathe again. It was suffocating being around that woman, so stifling and it was exhausting to be so on edge all the time, wired and alert.

Jaesong found that he felt relaxed, too, when she had gone. He felt disquieted by her presence, in the way that it caused his companion to freeze up and behave dismissively and callously.

In their time travelling together, he had grown accustomed to Cyan being a source of comfort and reassurance when things were bad or when their situation had become dire. Jaesong was by no means a timid man himself, nor was he to be considered weak or lacking in personal strength. However, comfort in adversity was a necessity for anyone of any measure of strength.

Having it missing for whatever period of time had lapsed was jarring. It was something akin to a rug-pull. He wasn’t sure what the right words to say would have been, so he remained in relative silence, the few times he had attempted to pitch in, he had been shut down with a mean-spirited bluntness.

He was used to that, he was well accustomed to people reacting to his very existence with vitriol and condescension. He had, however, also become a little used to Cyan standing up for him. It was new, and it still took him by surprise, but what also took him by surprise was how sparse it had been in those moments with her on either of those ships.

He considered that it was likely that Cyan was simply too caught up in his own tumultuous thoughts to pay attention the same way that he usually did. Perhaps it was a little selfish of him to be thinking of himself when Cyan was so obviously upset, but he couldn’t help the way that it made him feel.

He would try to be of some comfort to his friend, but he wouldn’t push the matter, wouldn’t tread the line of those personal boundaries without due caution. He didn’t want to make things worse somehow, or unwittingly dredge up painful memories.

“Are you okay?” Jaesong asked, looking over to Cyan, watching his expression.

“Yeah, I… I’m sorry. I know I was off there for a while. She just manages to get under my skin every time. I wish I had never met her.” Cyan replied.

“Did you - if it’s okay of me to ask - did you have a relationship with her in the past?” Jaesong hoped he wouldn’t take the question poorly. “You don’t have to answer if you’re uncomfortable.”

“No, no it’s fine.” He sighed in a bone-tired sort of way. “It was a long time ago now. Years. We had a short entanglement. I thought she cared about me, but it turned out she was just playing the honey trap and trying to get me to someone who hired her, so they could kill me. Whoever they were, they wanted me to suffer some kind of betrayal. As if I haven’t experienced one too many of those already.” He explained, sparing detail and muttering the last line bitterly.

“I’m sorry. That must have been horrible. I can’t even imagine it.” Jaesong said sympathetically.

“Well, it almost worked, I guess. I did feel betrayed, but as you can see, I’m still alive and kicking, and that particular individual… not so much. So, in that respect I suppose I still came out on top.” Cyan inclined his head as he shrugged, bricking up those feelings for something a bit more light-hearted, though the mask of it was rather transparent.

“I’m glad that you did. Sorry for bringing up bad memories.” Jaesong replied.

“No need to apologise, it’s natural to be curious and I know I was acting weirdly. I kind of owed you at least a little bit of explanation for that. My bitterness just got ahead of me a bit back there.” He turned to smile and a spark of that warmth was back. Maybe talking about it a bit had helped to alleviate something.

“What do you think she’s doing here?” Jaesong asked, a little change of subject.

“Can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she was somehow involved in this mess with Callus. I also wouldn’t put it past her to be on the wrong side of it.” Cyan speculated.

“You have horrible taste in women.” Jaesong said, all of a sudden, and the abruptness of it caused Cyan to bark out a startled laugh that turned into something loud and mirthful before petering off into giggling and wheezing.

As his laughter subsided, he straightened himself back up again and grinned at Jaesong, eyes sparkling with humour.

“It really is abysmal, isn’t it?” He said. “The funniest part is that it’s only ever romantic interests that turn bad for me. I have had nothing but good fortune with female friendships. I have to take you to meet Helena one day. She’s a blacksmith and my best friend. She had a similar statement for me when I went and told her about Jade. She’d love you, for sure.”

“Well, at least we know that you have good taste in friends.” Jaesong teased and secretly looked forward to meeting Cyan’s close friend and enjoyed the thought that he was someone Cyan would want to introduce to her.

It was gradually starting to become less odd, the feeling of being someone that mattered to another person.

Bit by bit, they explored the Dome City. It was something to behold from the outside, a whole city contained in a glass-like shroud, sustaining itself and powering itself by harnessing the current and tide to produce energy. Of course, it wasn’t actually glass that surrounded them, it was a material composed of several substances that was reinforced with technology.

It was sort of like being inside a reverse aquarium. Like they were the exhibit in the universe’s largest museum for fish.

Large jellyfish glided through the water overhead, flashing bioluminescence travelling up and down the long tendrils of their tentacles, which trailed after them for metres upon metres. Schools of fish swarmed around and darted about with the tide, trying to avoid the enormous sharks that stalked the perimeters, billions of tiny glitter-like flecks glowing across their backs and fins in abstract swirling patterns.

The city itself was aglow with neon lights and signs, lighting up shop entrances and laid in strips that decorated the edges of all of the tallest buildings. Swirling patterns danced across the streets and the sides of buildings where the movement of water from outside refracted through the dome and the light of its shielding.

There was something inherently enchanting about the sight. It was something that both of them chose to take in and absorb as they traversed the streets. They stopped for some traditional street food. It was not too dissimilar to sushi, but the fish had a very distinct flavour and it was prepared in many different forms and in many different combinations (all of which were delicious).

They didn’t have time to try everything, however, and soon enough, they were moving on to find a dry-cleaning service. They eventually found one tucked away in a back street off the main road that they were on. It was a little small, washing machines lined the walls and the middle of the room, separating it into two sections.

The counter was at the back, manned by a petite woman with a uniform polo shirt on and a little name badge in an unfamiliar language.

The first thing that they noticed was the fact that she had four arms. She had short fins on her forearms and her ears. She had dark blue hair with little flashes of turquoise and orange that was neatly styled into dreadlocks. She had short fins on her forearms and her ears. Her eyes were dark blue, almost indigo and her skin was grey-blue but for two symmetrical lines of little white lights that travelled from the top of her forehead, over her eyes, then her cheeks and down her neck to disappear beneath the collar of her shirt.

“Excuse me.” Cyan started, unsure if she would understand him. “We need to get our suits washed. Can you help us?” He asked.

She looked up at him and considered him for a moment before looking Jaesong over in the same manner. Her gaze was scrutinising, perhaps she thought them to be an odd presence in her establishment, or perhaps she was simply appraising their suits with thought about how to get them clean without damaging them, especially if she only had the machines in the storefront. Water wouldn’t do the fabric any good, nor the power strips that had been installed.

They needed for those to stay intact. Especially when considering that had it not been for the suits, Cyan likely wouldn’t have been able to maintain control over the energy in his system around Jade Fox. The resentment bubbling beneath the surface likely would have been near impossible to contain.

“We have a decontamination chamber at the back.” She said, in broken English with a thick accent.

“Thank you.” Cyan replied, relieved.

They proceeded to follow the woman behind the counter once she had lifted the barrier for them. It was spacious in the back room, lined with more equipment and washers. Then, right at the back, there was a smaller room and, as she had told them, a decontamination chamber.

It was raised from the ground on a tall counter and looked to have around a 50-litre capacity, similar to a larger washing machine. She looked at them expectantly and, after a moment, they realised that she was waiting for them to hand over their suits.

Why had they not thought of this? They really should have found other clothes first.

“Um… we don’t have any other clothes…” Jaesong said awkwardly.

“You want to clean the clothes you are wearing? I guess that you can grab something from lost property. All the clothing is clean. Wait here.” She replied.

Without waiting, she moved around a corner, where there was some rustling before she returned pulling a large rectangular, plastic container on wheels, filled almost to the brim with random items of clothing.

She gestured to it and told them to take their pick of what was inside. It was easy enough to find something usable, even if it was completely mismatched. Cyan pulled away with some jeans and a large, black hooded sweatshirt, while Jaesong ended up with some oversized grey sweatpants and a lighter grey long sleeved t-shirt that was almost a little too tight. It was better than nothing though.

“You can change behind that wall if you’re worried about your modesty.” She said, noticing their hesitancy as they looked around the room awkwardly.

“Thanks, um, I’m Jaesong by the way, and this is Cyan. I don’t think we got your name. Neither of us can read the language here.” Jaesong said, gesturing between himself and Cyan as he addressed the woman.

“You likely wouldn’t be able to pronounce it with your weak human tongues.” She pauses for a moment, appraising them, and ultimately coming to some unspoken conclusion. “You can just call me Syd.”

“Thanks for your help, Syd.” Cyan said with an upward nod of his head.

They made quick work of changing into the clean clothes they had fished out of the lost property bin and made their way back over to the decontamination chamber, where Syd was waiting for them with her arms crossed over her chest, leaning against the wall beside the chamber.

“You got anywhere to stay? You will be stuck if you didn’t find somewhere before coming here.” She said, taking their suits from them and loading them into the chamber as she spoke.

“No. We weren’t aware that there was a time limit.” Cyan replied.

Syd sighed at that, sounding a little exasperated. “It’s for security in the city. Everything is closely monitored to prevent incidents with travellers. We get a lot of tourists from the quadrant of space and we’ve had a lot more traffic from the refugees that came from Terra a few years back.” She explained.

“There are more humans here?” Cyan asked, interest peaked. He hadn’t seen anyone from Earth in a long time, no one aside from that strangely hostile ship captain.

“Plenty. It’s why we need so much security now.” She said, watching as the machine did its thing. The chamber filled with fog as it made a deep whirring noise. “I suppose that you can board with me for the night. It’s not like you can go anywhere else now.” She offered with a side glance at the pair of them.

“Thank you. We’d be pretty lost without your help and we really do appreciate it.” Said Jaesong.

“I have some extra bunks up top. I live in the apartment above the shop.” She replied.

“You’re awfully trusting of strangers,” Cyan stated, and she turned to look at him fully.

“I like to think I’m a good judge of character. Besides, if you tried anything, you would be stupid… and also dead.” She said it so matter-of-factly that it left no room for argument. “You can wait in the back room, get something from the vending machine if you want. I’ll take you upstairs after I close up for the night.”

That seemed to be the end of their conversation as she pointed over to the staff area, the light of the vending machine visible through the doorway. She then left them and made her way back to the storefront, just before a customer came inside with a large container of laundry and made a bee line up to the counter to buy tokens for the washers.

There was no doubt that Syd was someone blunt and perhaps a little stand-offish, but there was some innate sense of care that rested beneath the surface of it. At least, for the time being, they seemed to be in good hands.