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She woke up when her alarm trilled at her.
Rolling over in her bed, PJ slapped at the machine a few times until her fingers found the slider that put a throttle on its noise. After crawling out from under the heavy woolen sheets, the woman slipped them back into place and proceeded to stretch out her back. Over the last few years, the problems there had gradually become exacerbated, a side effect of aging and the harsh, scarring experiences of her youth.
Making her way over to the alcove that served as her washroom, the woman cranked the spout and waited a few minutes until it started to belch out water in intermittent gasps. As she had for the last week or so, she trapped enough to fill her basin and then turned off the flow. Using the limited amount of water, she took some soap and washed her face. Life on ‘disk desert’ had less imminent dangers than ‘icy hell prison moon’, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed trading endless snow for endless sand. Even with makeshift cloth shutters over her windows, the night winds still managed to infiltrate her simple living quarters.
Once she had washed the thin layer of desert grime, she did some last-minute hygienic functions and emptied the basin into the nearby ‘water recycler’ apparatus that stuck up from the floor. The folks at Syntech (a company that the woman never really expected to encounter out here in … wherever the fuck she was) explained that the system was capable of ‘effectively sanitizing and recycling sixty percent of used water’. She didn’t necessarily buy into anything they were selling, but she also wasn’t going to be a stick in the mud just for the hell of it.
Mostly refreshed and ready to go with whatever lay on today’s schedule, PJ glanced at the reflection in mirror. How long had it been on Inverxe? Months? Years? While clean enough ice could certainly resemble mirrored glass, she had spent most of her time on that icy hellscape smothered in layers. Like an onion, she had constructed layers of refuse and detritus scavenged from the dead—anything to try and allow herself to vanish… to slip into that spot where survival and animal instincts were all that mattered.
Now, she was forced to look at herself for what she truly was—a woman in her middling years who bore all the telltale signs of an abuse- and trauma-laden life. Sure, she knew that she was still pretty by most modern standards, but she also knew the ugliness that lay beneath. Her hair still burned like a fresh fire, but the flames that should still surge inside her body had long ago been ground into ashes. People liked to comment on her green eyes, but all PJ saw in them was someone who had been dead long before crashing onto Inverxe.
“Get it together, Captain,” she muttered as she pulled her hair into a tight ponytail and let it drape down one of her shoulders. “Just another shit deployment for a shit military officer,” the self-deprecating insult still managed to make her smile. Sure, it was pathetic, but it was also the little things that helped you get through life. It didn’t help that it was true. In her twenties, she had reported a famous, high-ranking officer for unwanted sexual advances and effectively scuttled any chance she had in a military career of any note.
She got dressed quietly and efficiently. After fitting a cap over her head, she tucked the scorched, twisted remnants of her dog tags beneath her undershirt. The last thing she did was find the padded gloves and slip them over her hands. They had tried to sell her on the fingerless gloves, but she had insisted in ‘full gloves.’ She didn’t need any unwanted physical contact with people. Her tenure on Inverxe had literally numbed her to that reality, but all it had taken was one of the construction workers placing a hand on her shoulder to remind her to take precautions.
Fifteen minutes after getting up and out of bed, PJ was standing just outside the small, adobe structure that she called home, at least during the extent of construction. Like it did every day, the sun was blazing down on the construction site that would eventually be the city of Uruk. The name, like most associated with ‘Gilgamesh,’ made the woman snicker, but that was only because she came from a world where cities had the most straightforward names imaginable. Oh, it’s near the middle of the planet? Central City. It’s in the Southern Ocean? South City.
“Hello, Miss,” a voice called. PJ glanced to see one of the construction workers waving at her as he operated a piece of machinery transporting bricks toward the ‘downtown’ site. Truth be told, the woman couldn’t remember his name, but he was young and derpy-looking so she tried to always be polite.
“Morning,” she replied with a wave of her gloved hand before pausing to adjust the blue jacket she wore over an almost identically hued undershirt. She knew that her outfit clashed with just about everyone else, and while she hated to stick out like a sore thumb, she had also grown vehemently opposed to the mismatch of cadaver clothes she’d worn to survive on Inverxe. Shedding that attire, along with the ruined remnants of her much older clothes, had been the first real step she had taken to not only accepting her new reality but also trying to genuinely live in it.
Truth be told, Inverxe had only been a few steps worse than her previous post, and while Mesa Roja was a blistering desert, there was nothing here that was actively trying to kill her. Hell, even the sun wasn’t that bad, since the clothes she wore had some sort of stupid fabric that trapped out the heat. They were good at trolling Gilgamesh and had a mixed record with the actual construction, but Syntech could at least make good clothes.
PJ made her way down the dirt path that would take her up toward the district where golden boy ‘lived’ during construction. As he had mentioned, he had been a king—or at least aspired to be one—and that much was evident with how large the foundations for the palace had become over the last few days.
On this day, however, the woman emerged from the footpaths to find that the foundations of the palace were home to much more than Gilgamesh and a coterie of scurrying Syntech workers.
“You dare accuse me of theft?”
The bombast was easily distinguishable from the rest of the crowd’s less incomprehensible rabblerousing.
“The Lars’ are some of the most trustworthy people in this entire region!” A man barked as he stepped out from the larger crowd and put himself to within a hair’s length of Gilgamesh’ face. “You think because you almost won some blood sport that you can just do as you please? That you can trample over the livelihood of us proud moisture farmers?”
“I would never do such a thing,” Gilgamesh growled, his posture noticeably tense even beneath the freshly crafted plate armor he wore.
“Then why have the aquifers run dry?” A woman calmly asked as she stepped forward and placed a hand on the shoulder of the young man who had confronted Gilgamesh. Almost reflexively, a man nearly her same age likewise moved in beside her, his posture revealing all the telltale signs of a husband wanting to safeguard his wife. “Forgive young Jeffrey here… he has been under so much stress lately trying to run his own ranch after his parents’ vanished.”
The young man with the sharp, angular features sagged at the older woman’s words, and without a rebuttal, he seemed to almost melt back into the crowd.
It was then that PJ made her entrance. “Everything okay over here, Gilly-Willy?” She asked softly, noting the king’s ire for a brief and succulent second before turning to the pair of moisture farmers. “Hello,” PJ extended a gloved hand. “Welcome to proto-Uruk… is everything okay?”
Gilgamesh leaned in close enough that the woman felt the spittle from his rancorous remark. “I told you not to bring up the island.”
PJ grinned as she gently and momentarily placed a gloved hand on Gilgamesh’s shoulder before whispering back to him. “It’s okay. Men can cry, it’s… well, whatever year it’s supposed to be.” She wasn’t sure, but she did know that she enjoyed ruffling the would-be/soon-to-be king’s feathers. With Gilgamesh sufficiently ruffled, PJ turned back to the other woman and smiled warmly as she shook her hand.
“I’m Beru Lars… are you the Missus?”
Both Gilgamesh and PJ coughed at little at the remark, but it was the redhead who replied. “No, Ma’am. This is one grave that won’t be robbed by a young scallywag. I’m just a friend.”
“I hate you,” Gilgamesh whispered.
At this point, the older man spoke up as well. “Owen, Owen Lars. There’s no denying that your arrival here coincided with the issues with the aquifers. Whether it’s you or someone else. something is out of the ordinary. We all rely on the moisture trade with Karim for our livelihood. You need to fix this. My wife can do many things, but she can’t hold back a mob forever.”
Gilgamesh scowled at the man for a few silent moments before turning to look at his wife. His expression relaxed. “Are there any others in this region? The Syntech workers mentioned having to fight off a couple of half-naked lunatics on… and I quote, ‘tricked out vehicles’.”
Some of the farmers in the crowd gasped audibly at the description, which prompted Gilgamesh to push onto his tiptoes to try and spot who had made the sounds.
“If that’s accurate, your workers are describing War Boys.” Beru muttered as she turned to look at PJ. “The War Boys are a vile group of nomads who pillage and destroy in the name of their leader, the Immortan. Smaller squads are more bullies than anything else, but if you start spotting them in larger war parties, it’s best to just pack up and leave.”
“I will do no such thing!” Gilgamesh barked as he turned to one of his nearby attendants. “Round up some of the workers and have them scout the south and east using the speeders.”
“Yes, my liege,” the man—one of the crew from Inverxe—replied. “Should I tell them that you’ll be following?”
Gilgamesh turned, his eyes meeting those of PJ. The redhead nodded her head at the unspoken question. “Yes,” the king spoke as he pivoted back to his attendant. “Prep a speeder for myself and Captain Pajamas over here.”
The attendant gave one final nod before scampering off to prep the vehicles.
“When I return with the heads of these… war boys, I expect apologies from all of you.” Gilgamesh demanded to the crowd of assembled moisture farmers before he spun and departed from the palace construction site.
With a small nod to Beru Lars and a wave to the rest of the crowd, PJ followed after the scowling monarch.
Rolling over in her bed, PJ slapped at the machine a few times until her fingers found the slider that put a throttle on its noise. After crawling out from under the heavy woolen sheets, the woman slipped them back into place and proceeded to stretch out her back. Over the last few years, the problems there had gradually become exacerbated, a side effect of aging and the harsh, scarring experiences of her youth.
Making her way over to the alcove that served as her washroom, the woman cranked the spout and waited a few minutes until it started to belch out water in intermittent gasps. As she had for the last week or so, she trapped enough to fill her basin and then turned off the flow. Using the limited amount of water, she took some soap and washed her face. Life on ‘disk desert’ had less imminent dangers than ‘icy hell prison moon’, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed trading endless snow for endless sand. Even with makeshift cloth shutters over her windows, the night winds still managed to infiltrate her simple living quarters.
Once she had washed the thin layer of desert grime, she did some last-minute hygienic functions and emptied the basin into the nearby ‘water recycler’ apparatus that stuck up from the floor. The folks at Syntech (a company that the woman never really expected to encounter out here in … wherever the fuck she was) explained that the system was capable of ‘effectively sanitizing and recycling sixty percent of used water’. She didn’t necessarily buy into anything they were selling, but she also wasn’t going to be a stick in the mud just for the hell of it.
Mostly refreshed and ready to go with whatever lay on today’s schedule, PJ glanced at the reflection in mirror. How long had it been on Inverxe? Months? Years? While clean enough ice could certainly resemble mirrored glass, she had spent most of her time on that icy hellscape smothered in layers. Like an onion, she had constructed layers of refuse and detritus scavenged from the dead—anything to try and allow herself to vanish… to slip into that spot where survival and animal instincts were all that mattered.
Now, she was forced to look at herself for what she truly was—a woman in her middling years who bore all the telltale signs of an abuse- and trauma-laden life. Sure, she knew that she was still pretty by most modern standards, but she also knew the ugliness that lay beneath. Her hair still burned like a fresh fire, but the flames that should still surge inside her body had long ago been ground into ashes. People liked to comment on her green eyes, but all PJ saw in them was someone who had been dead long before crashing onto Inverxe.
“Get it together, Captain,” she muttered as she pulled her hair into a tight ponytail and let it drape down one of her shoulders. “Just another shit deployment for a shit military officer,” the self-deprecating insult still managed to make her smile. Sure, it was pathetic, but it was also the little things that helped you get through life. It didn’t help that it was true. In her twenties, she had reported a famous, high-ranking officer for unwanted sexual advances and effectively scuttled any chance she had in a military career of any note.
She got dressed quietly and efficiently. After fitting a cap over her head, she tucked the scorched, twisted remnants of her dog tags beneath her undershirt. The last thing she did was find the padded gloves and slip them over her hands. They had tried to sell her on the fingerless gloves, but she had insisted in ‘full gloves.’ She didn’t need any unwanted physical contact with people. Her tenure on Inverxe had literally numbed her to that reality, but all it had taken was one of the construction workers placing a hand on her shoulder to remind her to take precautions.
Fifteen minutes after getting up and out of bed, PJ was standing just outside the small, adobe structure that she called home, at least during the extent of construction. Like it did every day, the sun was blazing down on the construction site that would eventually be the city of Uruk. The name, like most associated with ‘Gilgamesh,’ made the woman snicker, but that was only because she came from a world where cities had the most straightforward names imaginable. Oh, it’s near the middle of the planet? Central City. It’s in the Southern Ocean? South City.
“Hello, Miss,” a voice called. PJ glanced to see one of the construction workers waving at her as he operated a piece of machinery transporting bricks toward the ‘downtown’ site. Truth be told, the woman couldn’t remember his name, but he was young and derpy-looking so she tried to always be polite.
“Morning,” she replied with a wave of her gloved hand before pausing to adjust the blue jacket she wore over an almost identically hued undershirt. She knew that her outfit clashed with just about everyone else, and while she hated to stick out like a sore thumb, she had also grown vehemently opposed to the mismatch of cadaver clothes she’d worn to survive on Inverxe. Shedding that attire, along with the ruined remnants of her much older clothes, had been the first real step she had taken to not only accepting her new reality but also trying to genuinely live in it.
Truth be told, Inverxe had only been a few steps worse than her previous post, and while Mesa Roja was a blistering desert, there was nothing here that was actively trying to kill her. Hell, even the sun wasn’t that bad, since the clothes she wore had some sort of stupid fabric that trapped out the heat. They were good at trolling Gilgamesh and had a mixed record with the actual construction, but Syntech could at least make good clothes.
PJ made her way down the dirt path that would take her up toward the district where golden boy ‘lived’ during construction. As he had mentioned, he had been a king—or at least aspired to be one—and that much was evident with how large the foundations for the palace had become over the last few days.
On this day, however, the woman emerged from the footpaths to find that the foundations of the palace were home to much more than Gilgamesh and a coterie of scurrying Syntech workers.
“You dare accuse me of theft?”
The bombast was easily distinguishable from the rest of the crowd’s less incomprehensible rabblerousing.
“The Lars’ are some of the most trustworthy people in this entire region!” A man barked as he stepped out from the larger crowd and put himself to within a hair’s length of Gilgamesh’ face. “You think because you almost won some blood sport that you can just do as you please? That you can trample over the livelihood of us proud moisture farmers?”
“I would never do such a thing,” Gilgamesh growled, his posture noticeably tense even beneath the freshly crafted plate armor he wore.
“Then why have the aquifers run dry?” A woman calmly asked as she stepped forward and placed a hand on the shoulder of the young man who had confronted Gilgamesh. Almost reflexively, a man nearly her same age likewise moved in beside her, his posture revealing all the telltale signs of a husband wanting to safeguard his wife. “Forgive young Jeffrey here… he has been under so much stress lately trying to run his own ranch after his parents’ vanished.”
The young man with the sharp, angular features sagged at the older woman’s words, and without a rebuttal, he seemed to almost melt back into the crowd.
It was then that PJ made her entrance. “Everything okay over here, Gilly-Willy?” She asked softly, noting the king’s ire for a brief and succulent second before turning to the pair of moisture farmers. “Hello,” PJ extended a gloved hand. “Welcome to proto-Uruk… is everything okay?”
Gilgamesh leaned in close enough that the woman felt the spittle from his rancorous remark. “I told you not to bring up the island.”
PJ grinned as she gently and momentarily placed a gloved hand on Gilgamesh’s shoulder before whispering back to him. “It’s okay. Men can cry, it’s… well, whatever year it’s supposed to be.” She wasn’t sure, but she did know that she enjoyed ruffling the would-be/soon-to-be king’s feathers. With Gilgamesh sufficiently ruffled, PJ turned back to the other woman and smiled warmly as she shook her hand.
“I’m Beru Lars… are you the Missus?”
Both Gilgamesh and PJ coughed at little at the remark, but it was the redhead who replied. “No, Ma’am. This is one grave that won’t be robbed by a young scallywag. I’m just a friend.”
“I hate you,” Gilgamesh whispered.
At this point, the older man spoke up as well. “Owen, Owen Lars. There’s no denying that your arrival here coincided with the issues with the aquifers. Whether it’s you or someone else. something is out of the ordinary. We all rely on the moisture trade with Karim for our livelihood. You need to fix this. My wife can do many things, but she can’t hold back a mob forever.”
Gilgamesh scowled at the man for a few silent moments before turning to look at his wife. His expression relaxed. “Are there any others in this region? The Syntech workers mentioned having to fight off a couple of half-naked lunatics on… and I quote, ‘tricked out vehicles’.”
Some of the farmers in the crowd gasped audibly at the description, which prompted Gilgamesh to push onto his tiptoes to try and spot who had made the sounds.
“If that’s accurate, your workers are describing War Boys.” Beru muttered as she turned to look at PJ. “The War Boys are a vile group of nomads who pillage and destroy in the name of their leader, the Immortan. Smaller squads are more bullies than anything else, but if you start spotting them in larger war parties, it’s best to just pack up and leave.”
“I will do no such thing!” Gilgamesh barked as he turned to one of his nearby attendants. “Round up some of the workers and have them scout the south and east using the speeders.”
“Yes, my liege,” the man—one of the crew from Inverxe—replied. “Should I tell them that you’ll be following?”
Gilgamesh turned, his eyes meeting those of PJ. The redhead nodded her head at the unspoken question. “Yes,” the king spoke as he pivoted back to his attendant. “Prep a speeder for myself and Captain Pajamas over here.”
The attendant gave one final nod before scampering off to prep the vehicles.
“When I return with the heads of these… war boys, I expect apologies from all of you.” Gilgamesh demanded to the crowd of assembled moisture farmers before he spun and departed from the palace construction site.
With a small nod to Beru Lars and a wave to the rest of the crowd, PJ followed after the scowling monarch.