●　● Manila, The Philippines

A large clock display came into view that looked over the airport’s main atrium that Sam entered, pulling her rolling suitcase with her. Seemingly accustomed to hot, humid weather by this point, her hair was in a high ponytail that was twisted into a knot to keep it off of the back of her neck and she wore a sleeveless designer t-shirt pared with matching shorts and sandals. Across her left shoulder just below her collar bone was the remnants of the laceration wound, all but fully healed after advanced repair treatments. It was only noticeable as she kept her left backpack shoulder strap off of it to be safe.

She took her attention off of her mood-matched music she had playing through her earphones to look up, seeing the clock read “1:55PM –September 2nd, 2176” and then checked her watch, checking once more for any message notifications. Seeing it remain blank, she let out a heavy sigh as she began pulling her suitcase once more.

It’s been more than a day and he still hasn’t answered me. Does he even know I’m back to full duty in two days?

She continued on to the opposite end of the atrium and through one of the exit doors that lead to the nearest train terminal. Her exhaustion was evident once she finally got her things aboard, finding an empty set of seats to plop onto, slow to stow away her suitcase and properly set her backpack on the seat adjacent to her. She bumped her wound in the process, drawing a slight wince, stirring up memories in a flash. The entire exchange between Isaiah and her had been on repeat countless times every day since the event passed, wearing on her enough as it was, but lately she also couldn’t avoid the replaying image of Sebastian walking out of the room as if disappointed.

It’s almost like I said something. I wish I could figure even just the slightest thing out that happened that day. Or was it the day before? Her head shook as she grabbed the bridge of her nose, giving it a tug, trying to once more fight off the depressing, stinging thoughts. Hell, at this rate, the only option I have left is to just go to work and hope it helps take my mind off shit I can’t even start to figure out. The train kicked off, bringing out a soft chuckle under her breath. Who am I even kidding? This is me, the never-ending hopeless, helpless mess, right? What have I even fixed for myself since getting to Earth?

The tunnel quickly turned to views of the outside, revealing scenery that almost reminded her of the nicer parts of Dhaka she saw the month prior, but even more modern than that. The sun was blocked out by cloudy skies that showed signs of coming rain, providing better conditions for staring out endlessly and mindlessly, finding comfort in the fading but welcoming respite from her nagging memories. High-rise building after building whizzed by as her tired focus faded away just as quickly. I remember reading about how this place was half destroyed during the last war. I can see what gave way to such reconstruction, but I wonder what happened to the rest of the city? Can’t help but think that ever since getting out of Dhaka. She then began chuckling once more, amused by the simple fact she cared for once about the state of places that would never have any bearing on her life or situation.

She was then harshly startled by the buzzing of her watch, showing an incoming message. Frantically bringing the screen face into view, her wide eyes brimming with expectation sank in a flash, seeing it wasn’t Sebastian. She pulled up the message anyway, seeing it was from Kerry, who she knew was already in Manila since a few days prior.

“Hey, I’m on the train,” Sam spoke as she activated her earpieces. “I should be at the station in a few.”

“Cool. Hope it wasn’t a bad flight over?” she heard Kerry respond casually. “-Hey, look,” she quickly continued in an interrupting manner, “I want to catch you before you get there. Take the third station after that instead.”

“Huh? Why, what’s up?”

“Don’t get off at Boni Station. Wait until you see Santolan- that’s where I’ll be waiting for you, OK?”

“Huh?” Sam fussed once more with a wrinkled brow and a look ahead, away from the windows and the view outside. “But this paper says our base is accessed from Boni…?”

“I realize that, Sam. You don’t have to check into the dorms, yet, you know?”

Ugh, what is she up to? “So if I get off at…”

“-Santolan.”

“San… to lan Station, there is some other place you expect me to stay because you know how much baggage we bring. And I mean that in all possible ways.”

“I just,” Kerry paused midsentence with a giggle, “I was talking to Devin- my fiancé, you know? He agreed to let you crash at our place until active duty starts back up.”

Oh yeah, of course I remember. Devin Yanga. She was always talking about him back at Singapore, she thought as the train slowed to a stop.

“He wants you to get properly accustomed to the land before you get tossed out there and get all the wrong impressions and stuff,” Kerry continued enthusiastically. “And we got an extra room and all here.”

Why does she keep saying “we”, though as if they already bought a house together? Sam’s eyes rolled at the thought, not paying much attention to the train’s doors closing and moving once again. “Well, it’s not like I know what to say yes and no to by this point, anyway. An~nd I just passed up Boni Station, so I guess I will take you all up on the offer?”

“Good! I’m parked just outside the new northeast exit. Look for me in a light blue Tomita; I’ll have the trunk open. See you there in a few!”

“Blue car, got ya. Bye,” she replied as she ended the call, looking back up out of the window as something caught her attention just beyond the four lane-wide street. SM Megamall? That instant, talks with her friends before leaving Akkadia that fateful June rushed back, promises to go shopping once life settled down. It hadn’t sunk in fully until now, realizing she had not gone in months despite having every chance to ask someone to tag along as she never would once go alone. Maybe I should ask… she began to think before feeling like there would be too much going on after all… just as things have always turned out for her thus far. Never mind. The mall passed by, still leaving her in awe at the size. But damn… that thing is still monstrous for a mall. I can’t even start to think how big these could get in a bigger city like Los Angeles or Paris.

.

The train had finally arrived at Santolan Station, cueing her exit as she departed with her luggage. After passing through the main turnstile she spotted the northeast exit as instructed, pulling her suitcase along and down the last connecting walkway. Headed back out into the open air, she felt the rush of intensely humid air blast over and around her, quickly drawing a grimace from her as she began looking for the parking lot from the ledge she approached at the end of the path.

I swear this is the only weather in existence on this planet! Ugh! Kerry, please be down there like you said!!

Looking down and around, she finally spotted the only bright blue car she could, noting it was parked on the side of the street just by the end of the staircase. Oh, un-uh, she thought in disapproval of that route, starting her next search for the elevator. But before she could even take two steps, she heard something in the distance that got her attention. Something had told her it wasn’t the roll of thunder by the nature of it.

A black column of smoke popped and spiraled up into the sky from behind the blocks upon blocks of buildings as the sounds of fire response sirens started going off.

Shit… I know that sound all too well. The sound of the boom shook back memories of the attack she endured her first day in Bogota that rang in unison with the clips of the riots she watched and studied prior to her arrival there. This is looking to be exactly what they said this place would be. She then looked back down at her watch, instinctively tapping it as if to pull up the SOS page before remembering she didn’t have clearance, yet. No, you’re still not activated into service, yet. Just get to that elevator and keep moving, Sam.

She had only made it to the elevator at the other end before losing her battle to curiosity. She walked past a quickly forming crowd at the ledge, finding a spot with a good view of the column of smoke, pulling her suitcase in front of her before pulling out her mobile. Opening the camera app she hovered over the smoke, zooming in until she could make out what was going on just a bit more clearly. That’s a rank of Ai20’s moving around. I wonder what got hit- what’s on fire over there?

Her mobile then began to vibrate, showing an incoming call from Kerry.

“Forget that! Come on down already!” Kerry hollered as Sam snapped out her focus away from the distraction, quickly headed back the opposite way of the crown and toward the elevator. “It was a car bomb they drove into Pack 12, Devin texted me just now.”

“A car bomb? Shit, was anyone hurt?”

“He was saying it like they had missed. But look, that region has been one big mess since months ago he was saying. Hurry up, I’ll explain that all later!”

.

Sam finally made it out of the elevator and up to Kerry’s parked car through the sweat she already worked up. “Woah,” she reacted to the spotlessness and shine of the seemingly quite expensive sedan that she saw Kerry now climbing out of from the driver side. “Wait, you drove this thing yourself?”

“Sam, I see you for the first time in over a week and that’s the first thing you say?!” Kerry laughed as she approached for a hug.

The short-lived hug greeting was still awkward for Sam, and her sweating made things even more embarrassing which was noted in her feeble attempt to return it. “Thanks for coming to get me. I do have to admit, it’s nice seeing you instead of some Infinity officials.”

“Well, let’s get you to a cooler place, huh? You look like you’ve been for a jog or something,” she poked as she took Sam’s suitcase from her, heaving into the trunk, now motioning her to put her shouldered bag in as well.

“Yes, please,” Sam huffed in frustration-laced relief, plopping her bag down before walking to the passenger door. “This is a nice car. Whose is it?” she asked, opening the door and climbing into air-conditioned, leather-wrapped, new car-smelling paradise.

“Mine, of course, dummy,” Kerry smartly replied as she took her seat, closing the door and buckling in before putting a hand over a large, central rotating knob on the console. “Now hold on, you don’t mean to tell me you never thought to spend a single bit of your bonus we got last week!?” she fussed, turning the knob to “drive”.

Sam had been in a truck several times before in Bogota and even rode in a van in Dhaka, but sitting in the front passenger seat this time brought once again another attention-stealing experience, watching the world move around in front of her, feeling even more belittled by the sizes of the buildings and waves of traffic passing by.

“Hey, if you were worried about that attack just now, that’s been constantly on and off over there at Quezon Memorial Circle. I hear of that hot spot for demonstrations from Devin a lot, but he’s long since reassured me that Infinity has had it mostly under control. Just really annoying and persistent, comes in waves, but we aren’t going to worry with it. That’s their job, not ours.”

“Oh!” Sam snapped out of it, realizing how zoned out she was, mesmerized by the world moving by as they merged into traffic. “No, I was just looking around. Sorry, you were saying something before that?”

Kerry let out a nasal laugh, shaking her head. “You sound like you need a nap. You can crash when we get home- we aren’t far. Like, five minutes from here, and it’s relatively peaceful.”

She has a point. I didn’t sleep well at all on the plane ride. Her mind then wandered off to the things she saw earlier before she was once again fixated on the large mall she saw. “Hey, what’s the mega mall thing?”

“Oh, you saw it!?” Kerry said, eyes wide with anticipation.

“How could I not?! Are all Earth malls that big!?”

“You haven’t been to a mall on Earth, yet!? Sam!” she shouted back with profound excitement. “Girl! I was going to wait until you rested, but we have to go hit that place up! They have this designer dress carrier that I’ve been meaning to go to once I got back! And you know I don’t go shopping alone!”

“Well, yeah, me too! But you can’t go with Devin?”

“Devin?! Ha!” she giggled with a cocked brow. “You say that like you would expect your boy Sebastian to do just that for you.”

Right… Sebastian… he wouldn’t, I don’t think. Hell, he isn’t even answering my texts like I would expect.

Kerry saw the mood and the aura around her rapidly sink, prompting an even more emphatic shout: “You know what, forget them for now! I got to show you these dresses they got coming in- they’d be perfect for this club I have been waiting to hit up! And you look like you need a drink already,” she added with a smirk.

Club? Dresses? Drinks? Shit… how long has it really been? She hated to admit it to herself, but she felt a sense of comfort she hadn’t felt since then, even though she somewhere deep down promised it’d be her friends from back home once she could pay them a shuttle down to Earth. But, no, this can’t be a time for play. What was all that going on earlier, shouldn’t I be a bit more concerned? That concern, however, genuine as it may have been, was quite fleeting at best. Considering the temptations, there was no denying her dire need of an emotional pickup. No… Perhaps this would be good for my soul, just maybe, she thought as a smile escaped the corners of her lips, prompting an even wider grin from Kerry.

“I see you, girl, don’t tell me I’m wrong now!”

Sam’s grew equally as large, unable to contain something she had by now been subconsciously holding back for weeks, which was her guard being up in regards to her interactions with Kerry up until this point in time. New country, new city, upcoming new mission, new friend, no Sebastian… fuck it! Let’s hit that reset button! “After I drop all my stuff off, let’s go straight there. I’m already ready,” she answered glowingly through the mental and physical exhaustion. Who the hell am I kidding? This might be exactly what I need!

.

.

The apartment building at which they arrived was of fairly recent construction, sandwiched in between two smaller apartment communities, and faced a rather large Catholic Church with what appeared to be an extensive golfing range. Sam saw all this from the ledge of the 3rd floor walkway as she waited for Kerry to hang up with her fiancé and open the door. But with the look back down the opposite end of the walkway, she could see a cluster of rundown concrete buildings that may easily be more than a century old, cracked and crumbling. The ups and downs of all these towns I visit, even if they look so different in appearance, it’s like a common recurrence. It’s like Eden and Casares satellite nations put into one in random order. I might not ever get used to this… Earth… trend. She casually pointed her mobile in both directions, snapping a picture of both views. In that second shot, however, was the black smoke from earlier showing up in the corner of the screen. Her eyes shifted past her mobile and into the distance, feeling what felt like a sense of guilt. Am I really OK to be just…-

“-Sam, come on! I said don’t worry about that!” Kerry fussed at her with the pull of the door, motioning her in. “If you wanna ask questions about all that, ask Devin. He’ll be home later tonight, but anyway, until then, make yourself at home!”

“My first time staying in a proper housing situation since I got Earthside,” Sam replied with a soft smile. “I appreciate you and Devin’s generosity because I was not looking forward to the dorms to be honest.”

“Welcome to the benefits of being engaged to a local,” she joked as she closed the door behind them as the automated lock bolted in with a distinct pair of clanks.

“Wait, what?” she said with a cock of her brow before realizing she was being pointed to a room to their immediate right as an invitation to place her things. “Oh, this room?” she continued with another tug of her suitcase.

“I’ll just put your backpack on this chair here, but yeah, put the suitcase wherever,” Kerry replied as she checked over the room to make sure once more that it was good enough for company. “Anyway, this is the guest room where Devin’s sister comes to stay sometimes. She’s studying abroad in the NAU as well.”

It was the second comment now that had Sam’s curiosity fully active. “So, when you said local, you never mentioned Devin was from here, though, did you?”

“Well, we met our freshman year of college, right? And he had no intent to move back home to be honest, but here we are, right?”

Hold on! She mentioned him being here for months! And to think he was a local? Her curiosity changed to suspicion on the spot. “You mean to say Infinity placed him here on purpose, knowing he’d be less willing to shy away from the long haul because he’d be what, protecting his home?”

“I don’t think it’s that serious,” Kerry waved off the presumption with a smile, motioning that the two should head back to the living room. “Come on, we can sit at the table while you catch a quick break.” As she turned the other way with her face out of view, her eyes rolled in reaction to that particular statement, but it was short lived. I forget that it’s not like she wants to be wound up like that all the time. None of us ever really get to catch any breaks these days, but I forget it’s me that’s used to things around here, not her. “You drink coffee?” she continued in an attempt to change the subject.

“Sure, whatever you got would be fine with me,” she lightly replied as her eyes began to subconsciously survey the interior of the apartment. She then took the seat pulled out for her with a nod of gratitude, sighing out as she rested her chin between her cupped hands. “I guess you liked the reassignment since you get to be at home away from home, huh?”

“It’s just temporary,” Kerry responded as she opened several cabinets to collect a few items for preparing their lattes. “Devin grabbed up this place the second he got his placement here way back earlier this year. He was here while I was in Myanmar, said ‘hey, if you look to be there a long time, set up a place for us’ kind of thing, you know?” She didn’t notice Sam half paying attention while still locked on studying her surroundings, continuing the small talk while setting the machine for operation. “But the lease is up at the end of the year, and we will end our careers here so that we can get back to the NAU and, you know, find something more normal to do.”

“When do you plan on tying the knot, speaking of?” Sam asked, now looking back over to her. “If I may ask.”

“Well, not until we get back and find a job- I mean, we won’t be rushing because our salaries keep getting major upgrades, you know? But something to settle down on, we don’t even know what town we’ll end up in, but definitely back in the NAU for sure. How about you and your guy?”

What is there to even talk about? Sam sourly replied in her mind, not noticing the nasal sigh she let out the second she heard that question.

“Oh, don’t tell me something’s still going on, huh?” Kerry responded in concern, reading the air as she poured the espresso over two glasses full of ice.

Shit, I wasn’t exactly ready for this kind of conversation. “Sorry, I don’t know what to say, Kerry, I wish I knew what was going on.”

Kerry then reached for the milk carton, half distracted in thought: Well, damn, I can only guess something went down between the two at the hospital in Kolkata because they haven’t even been in the same room since then. She then poured it into each cup up to the marked lines before walking it back to the refrigerator behind her. “Maybe you two just needed a quick break from each other?” Yeah, that’s all it is, maybe. “A lot of stuff went down in such short time, you know.”

Right, what else do you do when you can’t get the thoughts of a murderous sibling out of your nightmares and can’t even tell your own family or boyfriend about it. Sam sat upright, shaking the thought as Kerry brought them their lattes, sitting next to her with a long look. “I can’t talk about all this right now,” she replied with a gentle smile to ease up the mood. “Thanks for the concern, but I need to spend these few days relaxing and recovering from all the shit that happened… have a bit of fun for the first time in so long.”

“I can agree to that,” Kerry concurred as she too relaxed both her expression and her posture.

Sam took a sip of her prepared drink, finding it of starkly similar taste and strength of the kind she would normally order. It went down smooth, seemingly bringing down equal weight in stress with it. “Damn, this is pretty good. Thanks.” And for one reason or another, the goofy smile brought about on Kerry’s face reminded her of Andre. “Hey, where’s Andre these days? Didn’t he get here the same time as you?”

“The dorms.”

“Oh… ouch…” she spoke back in full admittance of her guilt. I really do need to enjoy all of this while I can, then. Things could be so much worse- no. This is all pretty damn sweet of a situation to be in for a couple of days.