Chapter 5:

Tzilpapali’s ears receive information from Quixila played at exponentially higher speeds so that the voice matches Tzil’s current processing speed while she is in the R-Suit.

-Move exactly 220 meters forward from your starting point, and  63º in the y axis. Then, shoot at 22º,-35º,78º. Your objective is to hit the center of the target before the rifle placed 300 meters away, which will shoot as soon as you start moving, hits the same target. Commence action at the count of eleven.

With the orders set, Tzil waits for the signal. If there’s any discrepancy between the moment that the signal is sent and the moment Tzilpapali moves, it is imperceivable. Once she’s arrived at the designated area, she sets her aim slightly low, diagonally and to the right. Then she shoots at a target exactly 900 meters away from herself. 

A long blue round of pure blue Rhydian energy jettisons towards the large target at the same time that a bullet is almost about to strike the same objective. Before the bullet can hit, the blue light round annihilates the target in its place, leaving a gaping hole where a meter wide red spot used to be, and leaving the remaining parts of a thick, scrap metal target untouched. Further below, the round moved along and struck the ground, going a fair distance before spreading in a wide area and dissipating.

She’s successfully cleared the exercise drill. It’s the 6th time in a row in which she has performed this particular exercise without a hitch. However, it took 92 tries to get it right even once and a much larger number to do so consistently. It makes her proud to be able to do this one task as a result.

-Task over, you may rest.

Sounds Quixila’s voice over the transmitter. Hearing that, Tzil flies towards a safe landing area in the middle of the training field designated for the Bluelight. She turns it off and opens the hatch. Tzilpapali is currently wearing a thin, grey, fit, long-sleeved shirt and pants that protect her from heat or cold and don’t risk getting stuck with any part of the R-Suit while entering or exiting. She climbs down from her R-Suit. Immediately after, a truck comes by to take the R-Suit. And Tzilpapali heads to where Quixila, her superior officer, is.

Once she’s near, she salutes Quixila, who immediately speaks.

-At ease

She relaxes her posture while still keeping her back straighter than she used to in the past. She’s reached a point of familiarity where she can find common ground with Quixila and spend time leisurely. While training, however, there positions are hierarchical, thus, Tzil has to address Quixila with utmost respect. 

It’s late in the night, however, and training drills are over for the day. The next day starts early with Tzilpapali joining the rest of the recruits in morning marching exercises and daily work out. It has gotten easier to keep up than six months ago, when she started. According to Quixila, even if these aspects don’t affect her ability to drive the Bluelight directly, they give her the necessary discipline and health to perform at her best every time.

Both women make their way towards the base in the same truck. While they are there, Quixila begins talking. 

-It never gets old to see that thing soar. Remind me, why is it so small and blue again?

Asks Quixila.

-It is mostly focused on maximizing its mobility while flying through the air and being able to control directions more easily than with any other R-Suit. Blue cores are really good at optimizing their power output. 

Responds Tzil without being able to fully conceal her excitement.

-Right, right, what do other cores do though? Why not a bright red one, did you just like the name Bluelight?

Jokes Quixila while asking a second question. At this Tzilpapali laughs heartily and smiles. 

-None of that, though I must say, the name’s pretty great.

States Tzil, then she turns towards the truck carrying her R-Suit which can be seen going parallelly to their own from a window in the back. 

-Red cores are really good at sending out large amounts of energy without much control, green ones can send short bursts constantly with ease but are not great at sending them out continuously, and purple ones in turn are the best for constant output without enabling high highs or low lows in energy usage.

Throughout Tzil’s explanation, Quixila finds herself nodding quietly, trying to piece together the more mechanically oriented girl’s thought process.

-Does it even change that much? All of them are absolute beasts.

States Quixila bluntly.

-Honestly I have no clue, I’ve never seen another R-Suit in my life. It was important to me and I figured it was partly something I did for fun.

This time Quixila is the one that laughs

-Whatever makes you make things Tzil. I bet there’s some use to the Bluelight’s blue lights that we don’t know.

Both of them continue chatting while they go to the base. Eventually the two trucks go their separate ways. The Bluelight is taken to a heavily guarded hangar with expensive military equipment. While the truck with the two women follows the concrete path towards the base. Once there, they walk a short distance and go up an elevator then both disperse themselves to their individual rooms. Morning drills start early and wasting time is unnecessary.

Arriving at her room, Tzil takes the time to do some necessary chores before the following day’s required checkup. In spite of having her own place, she, like every other soldier, is required to keep it clean. She vacuums away the dust with a vacuum she made in her spare time, and then cleans it up with a mop. 

Her room is fairly spacious, it has a reasonably wide bed, a kitchen, a fridge, and a compact television. For the most part, she eats with the rest of the army. However, she usually arrives late from training drills with her R-Suit. As such, she fixes her own dinner with food that her fridge is stocked with daily. 

Since she winds up tired every day, her dinner mostly consists of sandwiches, or chicken stock and refried beans. That day is a sandwich day, and she stacks vegetables over chicken between two slices of bread, then eats it. After that she drops the crumbs in the trash can and washes the plate. 

After that is done, she is finished with her daily duties. She gives a sigh of relief, then she changes to her pajamas, and goes to sleep. Ever since she arrived, she’s found it progressively easier to sleep at an exact time of the day every day.

Getting woken up by an alarm placed on a room besides her own. Tzil brushes her teeth, ties up her hair, and dresses up in uniform. She is wearing a sleeveless shirt, pants and boots. Then she heads to the room with the alarm to turn it off before it rings again after 10 minutes.

Finishing with that, Tzilpapali leaves her room and heads towards the training area, arriving shortly before the rest of the unit with whom she trains. There, she is asked to get into position, aligning herself in one of several rows of troops. A drill sergeant commands them to march and gives them directions continuously. 

Just over an hour later, the group is sent to have breakfast. They use the time to talk between themselves and enjoy a short break. Eventually, they are tasked to continue their routine. that day it’s mostly basic workouts. They are all given a ratpack to add weight, and they are tasked with doing push ups, sit ups, and squats, and to run long distances while carrying it. 

Once they are done with that, they eat a second, smaller meal. A large meal will only hinder them at that point, so their superiors limit their food and water intake at that time of the day. And shortly after eating, the unit and Tzil are taken in different directions.

From this point on, Tzilpapali heads to her room to change to her R-Suit uniform. Following that, she goes to where the transport to the training ground is, and here she meets Quixila. She greets her as a subordinate is required to.

-Good Afternoon, ma’am.

To this Quixila just nods, they are placed in separate places in the truck. Tzilpapali is sitting in the back, while Quixila is past a barrier, sitting in the front. Tzilpapali hears and sees nothing special during the journey to the training ground. 

When the truck stops, she does as is expected of her. She heads down immediately and rushes to the R-Suit that is already standing and waiting for her to get in. Then she opens the hatch and enters, interfacing immediately. Quixila’s voice sounds in Tzilpapali’s ears over the communicator.

There’s 330 speakers playing different sounds in your surroundings. Discriminate the speaker that is playing a recording of a handgun shooting, pick it up gently and take it to the starting point. Then place it right back where it was.

With her orders ready, Tzil utilizes the R-suit’s enhanced senses to separate the sounds that she is hearing. Then, she localizes the sound of the handgun, and heads in its direction. She notices that the speaker is buried between two others, so she picks the one on top, leaves it where it is, and picks the one playing the sound of a handgun.

Once she is done with that, she controls her speed to reach the starting point without damaging the speaker. Then she heads back to where she initially found it, and places it beneath the other speaker again.

-Now, head back to the starting point and repeat the exercise, find the recording of a stove fire now. 

Says Quixila. Tzilpapali is made to repeat this training drill over and over until night arrives. It has been over a month since she fails, however, repeated exercises are required in order to keep her abilities in working order. And after she’s done, her routine is the same as the previous night. Thankfully for herself, the following day is her one day rest weekend.

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While the appearance of Tzilpapali’s R-Suit, has served to ease some of Il’Ilo’s fears, he still finds himself working night and day on the possible upcoming war. That day in particular, he is determining relevant geographic locations during the war, as well as potential risks that the Illyrian army poses in each of these locations. This task takes him all week, and it requires him to consult constantly with tactical commanders and other trusted men in Iltzik.

The sound of a knock on the door interrupts the mad clanking of keys of Il’Ilo’s work. 

-Open up

Says Il’ilo, impatient.

-Sir, a call from the empress. 

Says the man.

-Transfer it over. 

The man runs off, then Il’Ilo’s office phone begins to ring. Il’Ilo’s hand moves fast and forcefully. He takes the phone to his ear and begins to speak.

-Empress Tsuk’A, good evening.

Says Il’Ilo managing a standard formal tone, the same tone he used to manage with other superiors in the past. 

-Good evening Il’Ilo, I trust preparations are going well.

Says Tsuk’A

-Preparations only go well once they have to be tested. You’ve taught me as much, ma’am.

Says Il’Ilo.

-Well said, speaking of, how’s your little project coming along?

Asks Tsuk’A. 

-It would be best to see for yourself, ma’am. 

Says Il’Ilo, a hint of pride tinges his words.

-You know me well enough to know that that’s the intention. Tell your staff in Otzin to prepare a reception for the day after tomorrow. I don’t intend to make my presence widely known, aside from the people in charge of moving me along, the only people I need to meet are the R-Suit pilot and her commanding officer.

Says the empress.

-I’ll do exactly that then. 

Responds Il’Ilo

-Good, that will be all from my end. 

Finishes Tsuk’A

-Yes ma’am, have a good evening.

Says Il’Ilo

-Have a good evening Il’Ilo.

And with that, both of them hang the phone. Neither of them intent on wasting the other’s time. Both are struggling to find time to spend in necessary tasks. Spending any more time than necessary in communicating unnecessary information goes against Il’Ilo’s principles.

Nevertheless, he does need to communicate. More specifically, he needs to communicate effectively with his army and any involved commanders. It is for this reason, that he is currently scheduled to meet with Huicol, director of communications. 

The two of them have a history of working together. Huicol is older than Il’Ilo, he was already director of communications by the time Il’Ilo was given his own unit. Back when Il’Ilo was still actively participating in combat, an image of a grizzled Il’Ilo standing triumphantly,Huitzlian flag held high in his right hand, and a rifle on his left became one of many recruitment images that appeared everywhere in the Huitzlian net.

This image constituted Il’Ilo’s first forage into fame, as well as one of Huicol’s first proven successes as director of communications. The campaign overperformed, and soon there were more young people enlisting than ever before. The two of them would get acquainted some years after that, and Huicol would personally thank Il’Ilo for being such a useful promotional figure.

Huicol also oversaw developments related to the usage of encrypted messages to take information from one base to another. He was directly involved in the hiring process for researchers involved in finding new technology to code and decode messages. And he also gave the final pass to what was deemed functional or not.

Because of these reasons, Il’Ilo trusts Huicol much more than he trusts most commanders. To an extent, he considers the man more important than himself in ensuring the survival and continued success of anything from platoons to entire armies. In the end, no matter how many things he drafts out, if he is unable to explain it safely in order to ensure maximum logistic efficiency, his efforts are pointless.

Il’Ilo notices the time, there’s still 15 minutes before the meeting starts. Still, the most important thing to do at he moment is to arrive at the meeting room, even if he has to wait for some time. He walks calmly to the meeting room, a room with a large iron door that prevents people on the outside from hearing anything that is talked about in there. 

He sits there, waiting. Eventually, the door opens, revealing a wiry man old man whose tan skin, relaxed posture, and large smile, belie the age, while his wrinkles show it all the more. The man, Huicol, closes the door behind himself, then pulls the light aluminum chair, and finally begins talking. 

-You know, for someone with a title like “Hummingbird” you are much too massive of a man old friend.

In spite of himself, Il’Ilo finds himself having to laugh. The other man is as good as ever at finding the right words and time to lighten up the mood. Il’Ilo quickly returns to a neutral expression however. 

-None of my titles are quite right. We aren’t here to discuss that.

Says Il’Ilo

-Indeed we aren’t, there’s the agenda and all that. What’s on the agenda today?

Asks Huicol.

-We are doing a recruitment drive, there’s going to be more than one front moving at any given point in time, we need enough people in every one of them.

Il’Ilo stops and mentions.

-Our campaign should be like the one from when we were annexing places.

He says.

-You mean conquering. And no, that one was a fit for then but it isn’t now.

Says Huicol simply.

-Not a fit? Was it not the right one?

Asks Il’Ilo

-It’s harder to say than just the right one Il’Ilo. It’s a campaign and a campaign for war, there’s no right way to ask people, there’s just ways that will move people’s hearts and ways that won’t. Anything that moves people is a fit.

Says Huicol.

-The one from the past moved people then, what changed?

Asks Il’Ilo even more confused than before. At this, Huicol crosses his arms and leans back on his chair before looking down. He furrows his brow deep in thought before taking his time to elaborate a satisfying response.

-Back then we wanted to tell people that making the empire bigger was the best, we wanted them to feel unconditional love for Huitzli. If they see an image of existing strength when asked to defend us instead, they’ll ask “Why? You are strong enough as is.” The matter needs to concern them somehow.

Il’Ilo is taken aback by Huicol’s response. He wants to counter argue it, but he is unable to find anything to say in response. He nods, accepting that this is the reason why he’s brought Huicol in the first place.

-What do you suggest then?

He asks

-Something that makes us feel a sense of unity. Plin graduated from an outside community to a protected city not too long ago. We could maybe go there, pay some people, snap some pictures. 

Says Huicol. Il’Ilo stays put for a second before responding.

-Well we can’t tell them about the war or nobody is going to want to join and we’ll give the Ilvyrians an effective reason to attack. But how is that even related to recruiting?

Asks Il’Ilo

-See things that are good and you’ll want to protect them. Once the war starts our strategy could change, but now  is now. And now we need to make them feel like they’ll prevent things before they happen.

Il’Ilo nods, finally understanding. then he speaks.

-I see, we’ll need to set aside the budget for that. Will you need troops?

-Yes, quite a few.

Says Huicol. The two of them continue to speak for a long time defining specifics and determining who would be in charge of creating the actual ad campaign. Huicol has several teams set aside as options and Il’Ilo selects the one he believes is suitable.