#its sensored…sighs disappointedly

[simbasomba]

Deoodoodod VALVEPLUG *throws bomb at you* (yes I drew Meg’s without his helmet let me live)

HONK

[streetlites]

Tower duty is boring. It’s always boring.

“Dispatch, this is tower. I’ve got a small herd heading north unattended. Over,” I said into my comm, watching the group of cows trotting down the dirt road.

A few minutes later, a voice crackled back, “Copy that.” But I don’t see any movement from the guard house below.

I shrug my shoulders – I guess they’re not willing to chase down cows with the advisory in effect. Not that I blame them; it can take hours to get a herd back to their field.  I take a sip from the pouch on my back and allow myself the grimace, it’s gone lukewarm and has almost a stale taste. I’m only three hours into my shift and I’m already longing for a break that isn’t going to come for another hour. I can feel the skin under my mask and armor sweating uncomfortably, but I don’t dare take off either.

Patience is a ‘garden world’ – that is, a planet that can support human life. However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t come with their own set of troubles. This one is home to a type of plant that goes into bloom in the early summer whose pollen is particularly lethal to creatures originating from Earth. Earlier settlers cleared it from the areas that we live and work in but there’s a gorge down south that is thick with it. Combined with the strong winds that circulate once its sun starts heating the surface, means that you must sweat your rear off in a suit and mask almost daily until its blooming season is over.

Which is what I’m doing right now.

I sigh and check the display on my wrist – only five minutes has passed since I called in to the guard house. There’s been gusts here and there, but nothing bad enough to go inside to the sweet, airconditioned shack that serves as the base for our lookout. I tap the side of my mask that brings out a screen over my eye to scan for any manges or reeks to shoot at. There’s nothing. Just me and my sweaty behind.

“Uh, Tower? This is dispatch, sensors are showing heavy winds approaching. Return to base.”

“Copy.” I breathe a sigh of relief and begin quickly tucking my hair into the hood attached to my suit. Which is as itchy and as awful as it sounds, but you have to do it so the helmet can get a good seal. The suit hisses as I close the latches around the neck and, once I’m sure I have everything closed properly, I carefully make my way down the ladder.

My suit sensors start screaming about the coming wind – I have only a few minutes to make it to the shack before it hits. My heart quickens but I’m sure I’ll make it in time. I slide down the last couple of rungs and start off an easy jog through the field and break onto the road, coming to a stop as I see a figure running toward me in the distance with a pack of manges closing in. “HELP!” It screams, I am familiar with its voice, though I’d never heard it filled with panic before.

I pull the rifle off of my back, dropping down to a firing position and pull the trigger. One of the manges falls and thrashes on the street, still trying to get back up and resume the chase. I take aim at another, squeeze the trigger, and there’s just a click. “Shit!” I pull back on the bolt to try to clear the jam and look up – the figure is already on top of me. “Watch out!” I scream as he barrels into me, my rifle knocked loose. I feel a rush of… something passing through me, I close my eyes and scream, expecting to be torn into by the pack of manges but nothing comes.

“Oh, thank God,” Rene pants, his breath coming out in ragged gasps.

“Thank God?! Rene what the hell –“ I open my eyes to see we’re surrounded by some sort of blue bubble, the dog-like creatures snap at it but they can’t break through. “How did you -?” I stare up at it in wonder. I’ve seen biotics in movies but never in real life - the energy swirling around is beautiful but its pulsing is giving me a headache.

“Me? You’re the one glowing.” He looks me and then looks away, embarrassed, “Sorry.”

“You should be sorry – running here without a weapon or a mask!” I admonish. I see my rifle laying out of reach and the treetops are beginning to bend.

“Not about that. About, you know, what I thought.”

It clicks. The bubble, Rene saying that I was glowing – it’s me. I’m the biotic. There’s a lot of superstition that goes with that type: That they’re aligned with something evil. That they can hear your thoughts. He thinks I can read his mind. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Rene.”

“Oh,” he says, almost disappointedly. Did he want me to know what he was thinking about?

“I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here,” I tell him, feeling resigned. The wind was already on us – the dogs had sunk their claws into the earth to keep them in place. Even if I could manage to run the dogs off, the ferocity of the wind would blow us into the trees.

“It does look pretty bad,” he agrees. I watch him tap at the omnitool panel on his wrist and it flares orange, creating a holographic gauntlet around the arm. The edge sparks with electricity and he touches it to the glowing bubble – for a moment, everything shimmers and the snapping manges fall to the ground, twitching. “Hah!” he crows. “I saw that in a movie once – never thought it would work but look at them! Fried!”

I watch in horror as the wind carries the bodies off – one hits a tree and bursts open. “We still can’t move – did you see that one?”

“Can’t we? Biotics move with their barriers in movies all the time.”

“Rene, I don’t know how I did this to begin with and I don’t want to end up like those things!”

“Okay, okay. We’ll just wait it out then,” he says. He scoots a little closer to me and brings his arm around my shoulders. I notice he’s wearing the shirt I always said looked best on him – it complimented his fair hair and brought out the blue in his eyes. I allow myself to settle back against him, though my suit completely blunts the comfort that he offered me.

“What were you all dressed up for?” I ask, may as well pass the time as long as we were stuck out here.

“I, uh,” he looks up at me sheepishly, “knew you were on duty today so I thought I’d bring lunch.”

“Lunch?”

“Yeah. Well, I had it but when the manges started coming after me, I threw it thinking that they’d go for it instead. I worked on it all morning. When they fried, my mouth started watering – I’m so hungry,” he laughs.

“Rene!” I laugh along.

“Not a proud moment. It’s just,” he sighs, “when you broke it off, you said it was because ‘we weren’t compatible’ but you never explained why. I knew the wind was coming and figured we’d talk it over while it passed. Like, if I knew, maybe there was something I could change? I don’t know. You’ve been working with the healer and I wanted you to know that I don’t have any problem with you working or waiting until later to have kids if you wanted. I mean, I’d still like to have them – kids, you know.”

“Rene,” I stop and the look in his eyes is worried. “I just, I mean, you wanted to move into the house,” I trail off.

“To be fair, I have six brothers and sisters. Half of which are already married with children that live there – it gets crowded! I thought maybe it’d be better if I moved in with you.”

“That’s just it, I don’t want to live with my parents! I want a house of my own, land of my own!”

“Whoa, whoa,” he says when the barrier flickers. “I would have done that, too. You know you’ve got to apply for land – and with that they want someone outside of your family to vouch for your work as a known producer, have to be married with at least one child. If you’re expecting someone like your father, you’re not going to find one your age. Hell, not even he would have met your expectations at our age,” he says, his brows furrowing with annoyance. “I love you, but if this is the reason why you broke up I guess you didn’t feel what I felt.” He shakes his head and sighs loudly. ��If you change your mind, let me know. I don’t even care about,” he waves at the barrier that’s been slowly shrinking, “this. Just think it over.”

“I will,” I tell him, feeling so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open.

We sit next to each other in silence while the wind howls around us. I don’t know how much time passed to where it started to die down. All I knew was I somehow needed to stay awake until it was over. I wanted to stretch my legs, rub my eyes, but all I could do was sit there and pray to keep it together minute by minute. When Rene mentioned something about the wind stopping, I was so relieved – I barely heard him say my name as I closed my eyes.

Just a minute, let me rest.