The blonde chuckled, turning her eye toward the beast’s carcass. “Yeah, that’s fair. Seen weirder shit in the zone,” she remarked. Zelsys had noticed her looking, but she didn’t particularly care. She’d let the riflewoman make her own choices, and in the meantime, she was just fine with sitting there and looking pretty.

Sigmund found the violent buzzing sensation that holding the Tablet caused unpleasant, even painful, but he had gotten used to pain. It was a fact of life, as far as he was concerned. The arcane device showed one word at his touch.

SCANNING

He waited for the device to finish scanning him without any thoughts on his mind beyond a hope that his attributes hadn’t decreased since he was scanned at the training camp. While this part of the process took place he sat down on Makhus’s bunk, taking care to position himself in a way that wouldn’t cause him to slip into the drool-stain when he fell unconscious.

RECORD FORMAT NOT RECOGNIZED REGISTER NEW FORMAT OVERWRITE RECORD

“Overwrite record,” he mentally repeated as he cautiously raised his hand to the projection to press it. He never was too confident around Fog devices. When his action caused pain to shoot up his arm, he expected to just pass out the way the other two had. Instead, he felt a familiar sensation creeping in, one not unlike a Rubedo Sickness seizure. The edges of his field of view were fading into silver rather than red, and instead of stiffness he felt himself becoming sluggish and overwhelmingly sleepy but it was worryingly familiar. “Boy, did the sickness mess up my soul too?” he worried, his concerns only worsened by what little he knew of the scan process.

Relief washed over him like a warm summer breeze when he felt his consciousness fading. “Guess I’m just a bit tougher of a nut to crack,” he smiled into his beard as he fell unconscious, sliding down into a lying position as his bald head squeaked against the metal wall.

Just as it had for Makhus and Zefaris, the Tablet woke him up with two words that flashed in his mind’s eye.

DELETION SUCCESSFUL

He woke immediately, sitting up so quickly he slammed his head against the bottom of the top bunk. A pained “Ow!” thundered from his mouth - more an exclamation of annoyance than one of pain, it nevertheless prompted a laugh from outside. The one who laughed was Makhus, to no surprise.

When Sigmund turned his eyes to the Tablet, it had changed to the very same thing it had for the others.

RECORD OVERWRITE PLEASE ENTER NAME

Not questioning it, he thought of his own name.

“Sigmund.”

He didn’t much worry about being recognized - he was there when his death certificate was penned, the last report from their squad to central command, which listed both him and the Captain as casualties. To be a casualty didn’t mean one was killed in action, but that didn’t matter, especially since in his record photo he had a mustache and a head full of hair.