Debrief and Disrobe

“In my mind there is a thought that comes creeping every night. Take the water, take the pill, this will make you feel alright. Save me from myself, Oh God! Save me from my own delights. But save me from the pain as well, it drives me, drives me, drives me...”

-from “My Venom”, spacer song

Yan scrambled to her feet.

"What the FUCK?" She yelled. "You could have killed us!"

Halen didn't respond, and instead walked slowly towards the group. Yan's fists were clenched. She stood stiffly. The only thing that stopped her from running and punching Halen in his face was the fact that Kino needed medical attention. That was more important than Yan taking out the anger that was now able to be released.

As Halen came closer, Yan walked away. She stalked across the room, watching what Halen did from the corner of her eye. He knelt down, exchanged quiet words with Sid, took a knife from his pocket, and cut away the sleeve of Kino's uniform and button down. Halen's bulk shielded Yan from the sight of Kino's mangled arm. Yan felt the power respond to Halen as he placed his hands on Kino.

She was grateful that he was healing Kino, but she was unbearably angry that she had been wounded in the first place. That wasn't... She didn't think that was supposed to happen.

After a long time, Halen stood up. His face was shining with sweat. Having the concentration to perform delicate work wasn't easy, and the power was hard to control when using it on living things, people in particular. Yan had come up against the edge of that herself when she had worked on her final project, the fishbowl, which seemed so long ago. The complexity and the lifelike nature of it made it difficult to control. Kino was an actual living person. The light of the divine in her probably fought against Halen's intrusion, even if he was healing her.

Yan had been pacing in the corner of the room.

"Come over here, Yan," Halen said. "It's ok." His voice, though low, echoed in the empty room.

Yan had no desire to do anything of the sort, but she couldn't disobey a direct command. She stalked over. Sid was still sitting on the ground, holding Kino's head in his lap. Yan could see the glint of something gold clutched in one of Kino's hands.

The sleeve that had been cut off from Kino's uniform was discarded on the ground, along with Sid's bloody cassock. Kino's bare arm was healed, though the place where the bullet had passed through was an ugly red. Yan suspected it would scar up. She was still unconscious for some reason. Maybe Sid had knocked her out earlier.

"Kino's fine," Halen said again. "Are you?"

"Am I fine?" Yan asked, her voice feeling detached to begin with, made even worse by the sound of it echoing back to her. "You could have killed her."

"I wouldn't have let it go that far," Halen said.

"I don't believe you," Yan said dully. "You let it go too far already."

"Kino is fine, Yan." His face twisted up in an expression that Yan couldn't understand. "The situation was programmed so that all shots would be non lethal. It was all controlled: even if you jumped in the path of a bullet the computer would alter its trajectory in real time," Halen said. "It was a fairly minor wound."

"But it still happened," Yan said. "And you made us keep going."

"In a real situation-" Halen started.

"This wasn't a real situation!" Yan shouted. Her own words jumped out, surprising her. "This was fake, and you let her get hurt anyway!"

"Yan," Sid said from the floor. "Take a deep breath." He was absently petting Kino's head, his hands still covered in drying blood. He sounded as shaken as he could sound, but Yan didn't want to hear it from him. Their usual, or as usual as they could be, for having known each other for less than a week, roles were reversed. The defiant Sid was sitting quietly, and the obedient Yan was yelling at her boss. The usually twitchy Kino was unnaturally still, still unconscious on the floor.

Yan started to cry. She felt totally numb inside, but tears poured out of her eyes and she was choking on the lump in her throat. She just stood there and sobbed. Halen and Sid watched her. Halen looked distinctly uncomfortable. Sid couldn't move, as he was still holding Kino's head, but he reached out a tendril of his power as a comforting and wordless gesture to Yan. This only made her cry harder.

She felt like a little girl again, feeling herself trapped in two dark rooms: one on a spaceship watching cargo be loaded in and out of bays, one here in the simulation room hearing the sounds of gunfire and seeing Kino bleeding out beside her.

"I'm sorry, Yan," Halen said finally. "I should have warned you that it was dangerous."

"I couldn't," Yan hiccoughed, "I didn't stop her from getting hurt."

"You did ok, Yan. You did ok," Halen said. He reached out awkwardly to pat her shoulder, but Yan yanked herself away from him.

On the floor, Kino made a groaning noise. Sid looked down at her in surprise and took his hand off her head. She blinked up at him owlishly.

"Are we done training?" Kino asked, sounding hoarse. "God, I'm thirsty. Heh, my arm's naked." Kino strung these statements together without pause, sounding strange.

Yan stared at her blankly. Kino struggled to extract herself from Sid's lap and sat up.

"Kino," Halen said, "would you mind telling me what's in your hand?"

Kino looked at both her hands, then held them up. "My locket," she said. A golden chain with a dangling open locket was in her uninjured one.

"And what was in the locket?" Halen asked.

Kino giggled hysterically. "That's for me to know," she said.

Yan was still quietly choking back tears. Now that Kino was awake and off his lap, Sid stood up and stretched.

"What's going on with her?" Sid asked Halen.

"Did you see her do something with that locket, during the simulation?" Halen asked. Sid shook his head no.

"She's high," Halen said. "There must have been a dose of Vena in that locket. Pretty bold move to carry it around with her, I'll admit."

"Noooooooo," Kino said dreamily.

"She's coming out of it now that she's awake," Halen said. "I wiped most of it from her system when I healed her."

"What?" Yan rubbed her face on her sleeve, making an ugly mess of it. "This is too much."

"She had a right idea, honestly," Halen said. "Vena is a massive painkiller. If it didn't also make her pass out it might have been good."

"How much longer will it take for this to wear off?" Sid asked.

"Ten minutes? I got rid of most of it." Halen guessed. "Look, there's a bathroom two doors down the hallway that way. Yan, Sid, go get yourselves cleaned up. I'll stay with her."

Yan gave Halen a look that clearly said that she didn't trust him with Kino for a single second, but she trudged after Sid anyway. The promised bathroom was a unisex affair, with just a single stall. Yan held the door open for Sid and they went in together. It wasn't as though either of them actually had to pee, they just had to get some of the blood off of Sid and the tears off Yan's face.

"I think this shirt is a lost cause," Sid said aloud, untucking his white button down from his pants. There was still a red handprint on it.

Yan sniffled and splashed some water on her face in the sink. Looking in the mirror her eyes were bright red and her face appeared haggard. Yan stepped away from the sink and pulled her cassock off over her head, short cape and all. Wordlessly she handed it to Sid.

"So you don't go around scaring people," she signed. Her own white button down was still clean, even if the armpits were soaked with nervous sweat. At least it didn't have bloodstains all over it.

Sid put on the offered garment. It was comically large on him, the bottom of it pooling up around his feet. Still, it was better than what he had.

"Thanks," he signed. He shuffled awkwardly over to the sink and started to wash himself up. The water pouring down into the drain turned a dark red. He wasn't looking directly at Yan, but he could see her in the mirror.

"Sorry for before," Yan signed. "I didn't mean to..." She still didn't know what she was feeling, let alone the sign to express it, so she just waved her hands somewhat frantically, gesturing at her whole self.

Sid gave her a look with raised eyebrows in the mirror. He was still washing his hands so he didn't respond. He shut off the water and turned around.

"It's ok," he signed. "You probably had a normal reaction. I don't know what normal is supposed to be."

Yan choked out a laugh and nodded.

"Thank you for doing all the shooting," Sid signed. "You did most of the work."

"I had no idea what I was doing," Yan signed. "I don't think I did a good job."

"You did better than I did," Sid replied.

"I knew I had to keep going so that Halen would stop," Yan signed. Sid nodded.

"You must have done enough," Sid signed. "You ready to go back out?"

Yan glanced at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were still red, but there was nothing she could do about that. She was feeling slightly calmer, now that she wasn't in the same room as Halen, and she felt slightly more prepared to go back. She nodded.

Sid smiled at her and held open the bathroom door. Her too long sleeves flopped over his hands.

"You're so little," Yan signed.

Sid had to push the sleeves back up to respond. "You're too tall."

Yan stuck her tongue out at him. The pair shuffled back down the hallway. Yelling at Halen, crying, and then talking to Sid had made Yan feel a little bit better. They reentered the simulation room.

Halen and Kino were sitting on the floor, not very close to each other. Kino seemed much more lucid than she had before, and the two were having a conversation. They looked up when Sid and Yan entered the room.

Kino was twisting the chain of her empty locket around her fingers.

"Are you feeling better, Kino?" Yan asked as they approached.

"I'm fine," Kino said. "Are you ok?"

Yan frowned. "I'm ok."

Halen looked at her. "I'm sorry for earlier, Yan."

Yan was feeling better enough that she wasn't going to start yelling at him again, but she wasn't happy. She scowled and scuffed her foot on the ground. "Whatever," she muttered under her breath.

"Take a seat for a minute," Halen said. "I know you want to get out of here, but I do want to debrief this before I let you go."

Reluctantly, Yan slid down onto the floor to sit next to Kino. Sid sat next to her on the other side. Sid knocked her elbow with his, a simple and reassuring gesture.

"I took some notes while I watched you," Halen said, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. "Before I talk about that, though, I want you to tell me what you thought of your own performance, and what you could do to improve. In general terms. We won't do this particular scenario again, so try to think of things that are widely applicable."

Halen looked at Sid, who was in the best state of the three of them, by about a mile.

"Me?" Sid asked. "I could have communicated better. I walked off without telling Yan and Kino where I was going," Sid shrugged. "Yan did most of the work. I could have started shooting, too."

Halen nodded. "Kino?"

"Don't get shot, next time. I should have been more proactive with defending myself," Kino said.

"Yan?"

"Just what Kino said, be more aware of defense," Yan muttered, looking down at the ground.

"None of you are wrong," Halen started. "Sid, communication is a major issue with you, and I don't doubt that it will continue to be in the future. Kino and Yan, I agree that you should have started defending yourselves as soon as things started going wrong. But let's go into more specifics." Halen consulted the piece of paper he was holding. Yan caught a glimpse of extremely messy handwriting, or possibly code.

"First of all, I'd say if you three are in a situation together, unless you discuss it beforehand and make some sort of real plan, you should stick together. You're stronger together than on your own. Sid, your curiosity is great, but you need to be practical. Obviously, at the real party, or in most situations, you don't need to be glued to each other at all times. But here you were explicitly told that something would be happening. If you know it's going to be dangerous, you should stick together. Got it?" Halen asked.

"Yeah, I get it," Sid said. He vainly tried to roll Yan's too long sleeves up his arms and keep them cuffed there.

"That goes for the both of you, too. You could have tried harder to get Sid to stick with you. Don't be afraid to speak up," Halen said. Yan was still looking down at the ground, so she wasn't entirely sure if he was addressing her or Kino.

"Ok," Yan muttered.

Why were they doing this? Talking it over seemed useless. She wanted to do nothing more than go back to her apartment and curl up in bed. Well, really what she wanted was to go back up the hill to the Academy, let herself into her shared dorm with Sylva, and watch a mind-numbing movie with her best friend. But that was impossible. Her dorm was empty and no longer hers, and Sylva was on the other side of the continent. That thought alone made Yan's throat close up with impending tears.

"Kino and Yan, you both spent a lot of time standing around looking worried before you got to doing anything. Being proactive is a key takeaway for you both," Halen said. Yan nodded mutely and could only assume Kino was doing the same next to her.

"Yan, making a light wasn't a bad idea completely, but it did have some major drawbacks. Anything that affects an area like that is just as much of a benefit to your enemies as it is to you. It drew attention to you, which wasn't ideal. And if you had cast it wrong, which you didn't, you cast it fine, but you could have set the room on fire, which we do want to try to avoid. I highly recommend you spend some time thinking of different ways you could accomplish the same goals, without providing advantages to your opponents," Halen said.

Sure, Yan would think about it. Not right now, though. She nodded again, picking some grime off her shoes, looking at the ground with the quiet desperation that continued to build up in her.

"All three of you: your first instinct was to dodge bullets instead of using the power. You may be used to using the power in everyday situations, but you need to get better of thinking of it as a tool that you should be using in every situation. It is an extension of you, one that will keep you alive when everything else fails," Halen said. "Dodging bullets is only good if the person shooting at you misses. Protecting yourself with the power will work much better."

"Got it," Sid said.

"Yan, you did good taking charge of the group when you were behind the long tables. Your offense and defense were both pretty good, though you could do with more variety in the things that you're able to do. We'll work on that later, though. For now, though, you did a good job," Halen said.

"Do any of you have any first aid training?" Halen asked.

"I do," Sid said.

Yan nodded. She had been trained aboard the Iron Dreams. Everybody had to be, in case of emergencies.

"We're going to get all three of you trained, or re-trained, in basic first aid, and then I'm going to teach you to use the power to supplement that. Keep that in mind as something we will work on going forward," Halen said. "Sid, your first aid was... acceptable. But I would have preferred if you noticed that Kino had taken a highly potent drug."

"Kino, from this moment on, consider yourself cut off from Vena," Halen said. "You being sober only conditionally is not something that I want to have to worry about." Yan noticed that he didn't mention at all that it was illegal or dangerous to take Vena. But at this point, Halen's piratical tendencies were the least of her concerns about the man. Considering they were the reason Yan had disliked him in the first place, it was amazing how much he had just done to earn her distrust.

"Fine." Kino made a bit of a strangled sound next to her, but she managed to agree to Halen's demand. Maybe because Halen's tone brooked no disagreement.

Yan hadn't even really processed the fact that Kino was taking Vena in general. She was hearing the words, but the impact of them wasn’t there. There was just too much going on. She was inside her own head, in a bubble that was both numb and dreadfully upset. The temporary relief she had felt from talking with Sid in the bathroom was gone, now that Halen wanted to talk things over with the group.

"There's only one other thing that I really wanted to bring up: Yan, you did really well in the simulation, but the moment you got out of it, you totally collapsed. Sometimes, in life, you're not going to have that luxury. Try to think about what you can do to keep yourself functioning even after the immediate danger has passed. If you don't know what that is right now, that's ok."

Yan looked up at Halen finally. He was looking at her with what seemed like a kind expression, and his words were calm, but Yan wasn't ready to accept any of that at face value. She just stared at him.

"That's all I have," Halen said, finally. "You three are free to go. Take the afternoon off, and we'll see you in Aymon's office at eight hours tomorrow."

"Sounds good," Sid said, clambering up and comically tripping on the too long cassock he was borrowing from Yan. "Come on, Yan." He held out a hand and hauled Yan to her feet. Kino got up behind her.

"Maybe Yan should have loaned her cassock to you," Sid remarked to Kino dryly, "You're in much worse of a state than I am."

Kino just shrugged and pulled off her cassock, then took off her button down, revealing a white tank top underneath. This, at least was unstained and unripped. Although it was severely unprofessional of her to go wandering through Stonecourt wearing just that, it was probably better than the alternative of bloodstained and amputated cassock and button down.

Halen stayed seated on the floor as the three of them left. That was for the best, as Yan couldn't bear to be around him any longer. Maybe she would feel better tomorrow.

The trio walked out of Stonecourt in silence, passing through checkpoints and handing over identification as required. They were all the way out of the building and in the hot summer air, walking down city streets, before any of them said anything else to each other.

"Does your arm hurt, Kino?" Yan asked, breaking the somewhat uncomfortable silence.

"No, it doesn't feel like anything," Kino said. "It's a little itchy."

It seemed like Kino was the most comfortable in the weather. Wearing only a tank top, she wasn't being suffocated by a cassock like Sid or somewhat strangled by a button down like Yan was.

"Halen did a good job fixing it, I think," Kino said. "I'm sorry that me getting hurt upset you. It was my fault."

"No, it wasn't," Yan said. "He should have warned us."

Kino shrugged. Yan kicked a rock down the sidewalk as the three walked. It rolled in front of Sid and he kicked it further.

"I'm sorry I freaked out on everyone," Yan said. "I don't know what's going on with me today."

"I'm glad you did," Sid said. "You saved me from having to do it."

Yan laughed a little. "I would have loved to see you yell at Halen."

"Oh, Yan, I don't yell. I talk with my fists," Sid said. Kino cackled and Yan did crack a smile.

"What are we going to do for the rest of the day?" Kino asked.

"We should probably look at the memory sticks that Rosario gave us," Sid said.

"Oh, yeah. I totally forgot about that," Yan said. "Which is amazing, since it was the number one thing on my mind when I woke up this morning."

"Want to place a bet?" Kino asked.

"On what?" Yan asked, wary.

"If, when we get back to the apartment, my stash will be gone," Kino said sadly.

"There's no use betting on that, that's gone for good," Sid said. "I cannot believe you've been using Vena, where do you even get that?"

"There's plenty of dealers in the city," Kino said. "It was nice while it lasted.”

"Why would you ever take that stuff?" Yan asked, wrinkling her nose. "It's dangerous, illegal, and a waste of money."

"It makes me feel calmer," Kino said. "It's good. But I guess I took too much today."

"Or it just reacts badly with being shot," Sid said. "I can't believe you were just bringing it back and forth through every security checkpoint. You're bolder than I was giving you credit for. No offense," Sid said.

"It's not like they were sniffing me out," Kino said. "And Halen knew before, I think."

"He probably didn't care because he does the stuff himself," Yan said darkly.

"I don't think so," Kino said. "He wouldn't do anything risky like that."

"If there's one thing we do know about him, it's that he's dedicated to what he does," Sid said. "For better or for worse."

"Ugh," Yan said.

"You're pretty calm about me having it," Kino said. "Why do you hate Halen so much?"

"Before today or after today?" Yan asked.

"Before," Kino clarified. "I don't understand why you got so upset today, either, since I was the one who actually got shot, but, you know. Before."

"Spacers hate pirates. That's just how it is," Yan said, sighed, and elaborated. "A few years before I was born, the Iron Dreams, my family's ship, was boarded by pirates. A lot of my family died. It was how our captain, Pellon, became the captain: the one before him was killed in the fighting and he was elected in the aftermath. That's how my grandmother died. A family doesn't forget things like that."

"I'm sorry," Kino said.

"Like I said, it happened before I was born. It happens on spacer ships all the time. We were one of the lucky ones: we were able to save our ship," Yan said. "Pirates are bloodthirsty and dangerous. Nothing Halen has done has convinced me that isn't true." Yan kicked the pebble further down the sidewalk.

They were approaching their apartment building. They let themselves in the front door. Yan waved at the man at the desk, who let the ragtag looking group up into the elevator. Standing in the hallway outside their apartments, Sid stripped off the cassock that Yan had loaned him.

"You are just too tall," he signed after handing it over. Yan, hands now full, just shrugged.

"Are we doing anything later?" Kino asked.

"I'm going to look at my book of secrets, then take a nap. After that, if you guys wanted to do dinner, we could do that," Yan said. "Oh, Sid, you keep your head shaved, do you do it yourself or do you go to a barber?" Yan asked this out loud.

"I do it myself," Sid signed back. "Do you want to be bald too?"

Yan shook her head. "No, just want it to get cut a little. I'll have to find a barber today. Maybe that's what I'll do with my afternoon, instead of sleeping."

"Well, text me if you want to hang out," Kino said, walking over to her door and unlocking it. "I'll be here."

Sid nodded. "I have things to work on," he signed to Yan. "I'll let you know," he said aloud to Kino, who smiled at his acknowledgement.

The three apprentices went their own ways, each into their own apartments, to spend the afternoon in their own way. Yan chose to learn the secrets of the universe.