Ravens of Eternity

Not that he even noticed.

On his screen was Eva’s full stream, which he had been downsampling for later editing. Seems like she accidentally forgot to turn it off, and sent more than she intended. Far more.

Mack fell deeper into a void as he watched Eva and Pelli draw themselves towards each other. Hour after hour of footage was of her and Pelli, fighting, playing, flirting, fucking. It ate away at him fiercely to see the two of them spending their time together.

The moment he began watching, he felt jealousy stab him deeply. Mack wanted to be exactly where Pelli was, and yet couldn’t. Not ever again. He was reminded yet again of his own failure, of how he let something truly amazing slip away.

I’m such a fucking idiot!

He watched as the two of them got closer and closer physically, and knew that he needed to look away. He needed to for his own good. For his own sanity.

But he couldn’t.

He was watching the undoing of his heart right in front of him, and there was nothing he could do but fall away. He couldn’t even allow himself to sink away and be forgotten. No, they were all counting on him. There was so much that rode on him.

.....

With a shaky hand, he reached for a large bottle of vodka off to the side. There was still a fifth of it left in there, and he wasn’t shy about having all of it.

He slugged back as much of the clear liquid as he could, and polished off the rest of the bottle in a few scant seconds. When it was empty, he pulled the bottle away and dropped it on his carpeted floor with a THUNK. It rolled off somewhere in the darkness.

He then took in a deep breath of air, but immediately coughed right after. Tears formed in his eyes as the alcohol burned his mouth, his throat, his chest. Or perhaps, the tears were due to something much more painful.

He fell deeper into an intoxicated hole as the alcohol worked its way through his blood, and thinned it. The pain subsided just enough for him to brave the screen again.

On it, Eva laughed as Pelli teased her. Their fingers intertwined as they laughed.

Mack’s heart beat pitifully in his chest. The sight of the pair wasn’t something he could handle, not even if he slugged down an entire bottle.

He shot out of the chair quickly and headed straight for his bathroom, stumbling and cursing the entire way. Once there, he threw open the medicine cabinet and clumsily searched around the pill bottles on the bottom shelf.

A number of them fell off and clattered into the sink below.

He stepped back slightly with a stumble – one of the orange prescription bottles he was looking for had fallen. His consciousness had become a blurry haze as he attempted to pick up one of them.

He put it up close to his face, just so he could read it, but his mind processed everything far too slowly.

It wasn’t what he was looking for, so he let the bottle fall down again. This time, to the cold bathroom floor.

Mack repeated this for another two bottles until he found what he needed – painkilling opiates from an old dental surgery. He reasoned through his drunken stupor that these were enough to numb the pain.

With great difficulty, his drunk self ripped open the bottle, which spilled a number of pills everywhere. Not that he cared. All that mattered to him at that moment was that he needed to kill whatever desire he had left for Eva.

He needed to bury them deep, to the point that he couldn’t feel them any longer.

Mack tipped out two of the pills into an open palm, then threw them into the back of his throat. And swallowed.

~

Eva was both elated and enchanted as she piloted her Federation starfighter all around Tartarus Base. She was filled with the absolute heart-pounding thrill of flight yet again, only this time she was in the midst of a Promethean Merge.

And it was nothing like she had ever experienced before.

With sensors on full blast, she was completely aware of everything that was around her – the asteroid bases, her fellow pilots, patrolling drones, gun emplacements, the Admiral’s watchful frigate, everything.

Just as critically, she had a sense for everything that was within her fighter – flight control systems, thrusters, energy shielding, power plant, life support, repairs, coolers, everything.

It was just like when she did those zero-g spacewalks back at boot camp, only this time while wrapped in more than just a pressure suit, and at velocities many times greater.

Even though she was going half the speed she normally would, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was fully immersed. And the joy she felt from doing so was completely unrivaled. There was nothing else in existence that could come close to the euphoria she felt at that moment.

No drug or climax or game could compare.

Her heart beat with deep, steady thrums as she controlled every ounce of thrust with her mind. The fighter slid around effortlessly as she went through maneuver after maneuver, each attempt a little faster and sharper than the last.

Over and over and over.

The others were astounded at Eva, at her ability to simply keep going. She seemed a woman possessed, as though she had been transformed into a machine designed purely to fly.

Perhaps she was.

“Is Freya gonna be alright?” asked Redstar. “She’s been going at it pretty hard these past couple hours. Like, on a whole ‘nother level.”

She and the others certainly found a great deal of joy flying as well, but none of them were quite as ecstatic or enthusiastic as Eva.

Miko was rather unsure. She had never seen Eva behave with such fervor, certainly not on any jobs that they had been on. Not even when she had stripped that digital man of his clothes back at the arcade.

This to her, was unprecedented. Combined with the knowledge that the cores were affecting their minds, she couldn’t help but wonder if Eva had changed.

She eventually replied, after hesitating for a little too long.

“I-I think she is fine,” she stammered. “Perhaps. Hopefully.”

“Don’t sweat it,” interjected Commander Chase.

He too was on the Admiral’s science frigate, and joined her team in observing the four pilots.

“I’ve gone through her service records, and apparently she gets a bit obsessive with maneuvers. She got high praise from her drill sergeants, which is kind of a rare feat, truth be told. Their report noted that she often performed maneuvers for hours, sometimes even entire cycles.”

The pilots were all rendered speechless. Maneuvers for ten hours straight? Everyone who heard him say that simply couldn’t believe it. It sounded like madness.

Especially to Redstar, who had little experience with the refugees’ stamina. Although she had participated in long-distance endurance races, they simply weren’t as strenuous as military maneuvers.

“Should we stop her?” she asked.

“Best to just leave her alone,” said the Commander. “According to my notes, she’s liable to get annoyed if she’s interrupted.”

Miko’s eyebrow arched at his declaration. She felt as though she knew Eva the most, and she rarely showed annoyance at anything. Except perhaps Mack.

If anything, Eva would have been alarmed if she was interrupted in the middle of her work – and would have responded as though an emergency had occurred. Miko was certain about that.

Something about how sure the Commander seemed to be didn’t sit right with her. It would have been one thing if Eva had been close to him, but that certainly wasn’t the case.

Without warning, Eva’s fighter stopped suddenly, right in the middle of a maneuver.

Her ship slowly drifted to a halt, and looked as though it was shivering. It did so for only a few moments before it calmed down again.

But the sudden change had greatly alarmed the others – the Commander especially.

“Freya!” he called out. “What’s going on? Report!”

“Calm down,” interjected the Admiral. “She’s probably just catching her breath.”

“And what if she’s having a stroke instead?”

She looked her brother up and down, and realized that he was highly agitated for some reason. His eyes were wide, a vein popped out, and his hands were trembling. Concern was etched on his face, as was normal of any medical officer.

But the Admiral detected something else just underneath.

Eva’s face came on everyone’s comms display. She was breathing heavily, her face was flushed, and her hair was a little disheveled. Her mouth was shaped into a devilishly playful smirk.

“Sorry for switching off comms,” she said, heavy breaths in between words.

“Is everything alright with you?” asked Miko. “You seemed... entranced.”

Eva’s smirk turned into a full-on grin. Entranced was putting it lightly. She felt high as a kite. Her multi-layered senses and doubled consciousness made her feel like she was experiencing the most intense, most enjoyable trip of her life.

“Yeah, no problems here. I was just in the zone, you know? Needed a little ‘me time’, that sorta thing...”

“We are just worried about you, yes? You have been in your zone for over two hours now, and that is rather stressful on both mind and body.”

“Okay, okay. Maybe I overdid it a bit. Couldn’t help myself. But I’m fine! Admiral – take a look at my readouts. How am I looking? Fine, right?”

The Admiral moved over to her brother and looked over his shoulder. She quickly reviewed Eva’s medical data, which was splayed on his terminal. His scans showed no signs of anything out of the ordinary. Or at least, nothing damaged. Most of her body was highlighted a healthy green, save for a few orange cautionary warnings.

“Not seeing anything abnormal,” she replied. “Blood pressure’s up, along with endorphins and adrenaline, of course. Pupils dilated, muscles tense, chest tight. But other than that, you’re doing great.”

The Admiral’s eyes wandered down to Eva’s brainwave readouts, and gaped at the result. Her response times had somehow sped up greatly – she was down to an astounding 244 milliseconds!