“Little fox,” is the first thing Shunya hears when the blades of the helicopter finally stop spinning. Shunya tugs the safety undone and hops down onto the helipad before the door even slides completely open.

He greets his superior with a polite bow of his head, ignoring the disgusting, lukewarm stickiness all over his body, sweat and mud, and a plethora of things he would love to wash off as soon as possible. “Sir. What brings you here? I would have come down to you if you wanted the report early.”

Sahil shakes his head, plain black tie blowing in the dusty breeze cascading across the surrounding buildings’ tops. Unconsciously, Shunya reaches up to touch his own collar, the damp skin adhesive to his fingertips. He hated the thought of wearing a tie.

It feels too much like a lie, a single piece of spurious, constrictive fabric, a subterfuge for feigned aplomb. Additionally, of course, Shunya can’t tolerate the sensation of something, anything, resting against his throat, so that’s most likely the primary reason.

“Don’t worry about the report, I already know you completed your assignment; I expected nothing less. But this is about Arthit.”

“Tansy?” Shunya implores, shifting awkwardly as he bends ever-so-slightly at the waist and sticks a hand in his outer vest.

The weight of his tactical gear is starting to make his shoulder ache, digging into the tense muscle. He glances around, checking for additional presences that may be listening into the conversation—they’re still in a Maradas building, it’s strange for Sahil to refer to Arthit as anything but his Khloris title. “How is he? It’s been only three weeks, I can still take assignments by myself for a while. At least a bit longer—I doubt he’s raging to come back.”

Sahil sighs and gives him a small, tight smile, one that’s a confluence of frustration, exhaustion, pity, and sangfroid. Although, none of it seems to be directed at Shunya.

He raises an eyebrow at the older man, “Something wrong, Sir?”

“Arthit,” Sahil sighs once more, emphasizing the use of his name, “isn’t returning to the field. There was an admin meeting four days ago, after Arthit’s physical and psych eval. He passed the physical exam, but,” he trails off purposely, waiting for a beat for it to register and sink in. “His Khloris title’s been stripped as the lower brass are figuring out what to do with him. His future status is unconfirmed, but he—you get the point.” 

Shunya inhales deeply, compartmentalizing efficiently so that not even a sliver of it shows on his face.

Sahil frowns at him, and it’s honestly ironic that the man seems upset with the constant guard, because Sahil knows better than anyone how Shunya was trained all those years ago when he was just another disposable child soldier.

He’s tempted to point out that fact, knowing Sahil wouldn’t punish him for it, but knows it would be taking his agitation out on the wrong person. He lets the emotion sizzle and die within himself. 

Fiddling with the clasp of his first gun belt, Shunya replies with a statement instead of a question, “I’m being assigned a new partner.” 

“Yeah.”

“Well,” he hums, thinking of the few Khloris agents he’s in contact with and on good terms with. “Is it—wait, who’s Daliah’s partner right now?”

“Violet,” Sahil replies without hesitation. “Officialized last month, I believe. Received an assignment and the two were deployed to Burma; they were sent in for a CDM extraction request for a higher profile prison.”

Anamika, that lucky bitch, Shunya suppresses a sharp grin as he pictures Anamika’s highfalutin smirk, triumphant as she lords it over him. Whatever, honestly—he’ll just meet up with her when she gets back. But damn, he’d love to be in Burma right now.

“You think one of the reserves will be chosen as a new partner.” It’s disappointing, to be frank. The reserve subunit is composed of a handful newbies likely fresh out of training.

But teams are created and assigned to missions based on the difficulty of the task at hand. The assholes sat in the office chairs in the fortified underground can’t afford to bench Shunya, who takes primarily high-level, high-risk assignments.

Sahil just shrugs, “I don’t know yet, to be quite honest with you, little fox. But I just came to let you know to expect to be called in.” 

The wind blows sand through the shattered and loose-hinged windows of the ruined buildings around them, making a low and familiar whistling, one that Shunya is plenty accustomed to yet still finds oddly pleasant. His eyes sting when his loose and unkempt hair blows into his face with his back facing the hot gust. 

The sun hangs low, spilling fiery orange across the sky.

It was only a matter of time. It was a miracle that Arthit made it through training in the first place, much less hold a Khloris title for what should be—Shunya squints as he tries to remember—two years. And it’s better this—it’s better the unceremonious removal than having to deal with the unnecessary guilt of having him die in the field.

Arthit’s a sweet kid—one who probably deserves a ticket out that isn’t a bullet. However, Shunya isn’t too sure of the likelihood of that, either.

Shunya slowly curls his fingers into a fist, still blocking the sun but letting more light roll like waves over his knuckles and crash against his face, warm and temporarily blinding.

He rolls his left shoulder to ease the ache, eyes fluttering open again. “Thanks for the heads up, then.”

“Yeah, well,” Sahil answers, scratching his head. “I don’t mean to keep you, go clean up, and whatever.”

Shunya accepts the dismissal with a polite nod and walks past him toward the door leading to the staircase, gear still heavy on his shoulders.

Two days pass before Shunya finally gets a notice of summoning into office while resting in his silo, having finished all necessary reports. Courtesy of being a Khloris flower, he’s got a personal (aka private) silo, just a couple of kilometers away from town. From what he’s heard, the communal silos designated for some of the other units are absolutely filthy.

The drought in the midst of the rainy season has been nice, although the blazing sun beating against boiling cracked pavement isn’t exactly a “better” alternative to the pouring rain. But it means Shunya can go for a run without muddying his clothes, so he’ll take wins where he can get them.

It’s a typical post-mission recovery period, and typically, Shunya would spend his time training and skulking aimlessly around town after completing the formalities, but he figures it’s unnecessary now, seeing as he won’t be sent on any high level assignments if Maradas plans to assign a rookie to him like Sahil had feared.

He had shot Anamika a message earlier inquiring about the time of her return, but apparently it would be another few days due to information being compromised. The journalist who had been the whistleblower informant to the disappearance of a British-Cambodian diplomat’s family in Yangon dropped off the grid while Anamika—rather, Daliah and Violet’s plane was still in the air.

The UK officials who discreetly requested the extraction want the issue solved before the media catches hold, obviously, but Maradas had to bargain the return, as what’s the point of taking a mission if the risk is higher than the reward?

Not that Anamika or any of the KHLORIS agents will taste the profit slid across the table in exchange for the operation.

Taking the rickety elevator down to the third level of the conference building (it used to be an office of some kind, years ago), none of the folks passing glance twice at Shunya.

Finding the hallway he’s looking for, sunlight sparkling on chipped tile, he makes his way to the heavy, code-locked silver door. Next to it, a dark-skinned girl with tangled, hay-colored hair and bright green eyes sitting in one of the shattered window sills waves him through with the barrel of her shotgun when he flips the screen of his humming pager in her direction.

Wordlessly, he lifts an eyebrow. She grins at him, lopsided and all teeth, leaning back against the wall, uncrossing and recrossing her legs before settling the firearm back against her shoulder.

Shunya glances inconspicuously at the patch stitched into the front of her uniform shirt: 28-451.

Unit twenty-eight, guard duty. Unsurprising—Shunya recalls only Maradas units one through twenty take active assignments outside of Novaraya, and only twenty through twenty-five are regularly called on for assignments within the region.

He scans the back of his pager against the door sensor, listening to it unlock with a click.

Pushing it open, he’s met with the derisive stares of four lower brass administration officers. A fifth gaze is softer, and without checking, Shunya recognizes it to be Sahil, standing about a meter behind the men in black roller chairs at the far end of the round conference table.

It’s warm. Sticky. Shunya glances at the ugly paneled ceiling and finds the culprit—the air-conditioner is busted, dripping chemical-scented fluid onto the floor.

One of the men taps at the table, signaling him to approach.

Shunya folds his arms politely behind his back and obeys.

Of course, Shunya knows who he is, but names of authority mean so little to him in the world they live in, and Shunya will never call him by his name, so it’s alright if he knows him as he appears—lanky, wearing a counterfeit belt hidden by his belly, which flops over it boorishly, his gaze lazy but arrogant, a sloppy rose tattoo on his wrist, and a silver cross swinging like a pendulum from his neck, where the first three buttons of his white (yellow, sweat-stained) shirt are undone.

“Foxglove,” he greets Shunya in English.

“Sir.”

He lazily studies Shunya for a moment, noncommittal, before switching to Nayrak to ask, “I trust you’ve had a good resting period?”

“Same as usual, Sir,” Shunya takes the switch in stride.

“Hm,” he considers, leaning back in his chair. He uses his thenar to wipe excess sweat from his oily brow. “Alright, I know you hate small talk, so I’ll cut to it—the units work in teams. Khloris works in pairs of two. You had a partner. You lost him. You need another one now.”

He sounds like a caricature villain from a crappy PG-13 movie. Shunya finds it all ridiculously stupid. If you’re going to be performative, at least perform it well.

“Sir.” Shunya nods curtly. “How is Arthit? If I may.”

“Don’t think too hard about it. He’ll likely be transferred elsewhere, to reserves, if nothing else.”

Another one of the men pipes up, “Getting sentimental about it, Foxglove?”

Shunya wets his chapped lips with his tongue. “No, Sir.”

“Of course, I figured,” he laughs. “You’ve gone through a decent handful of partners, haven’t you?”

Imperceptibly, Shunya grits his teeth at the insinuation. Hair sticks to the back of his neck with moisture, and this train of conversation seems to be heading in a direct trip to nowhere at all. Pressing his tongue hard against his bottom teeth, Shunya exhales, “As we all have, Sir.”

“By we all, you mean the original Khloris soldiers?”

“I—I mean, I guess I do.”

It’s strange to reminisce. Although his memories of that time years ago are fuzzy, he recalls the original control group that went into Khloris’s trial run was about forty. Twenty completed the training and were subsequently numbered and named. That became the first set of Maradas’s infamous war-machines.

Although, over the last few years, the numbers of Trial Zero, Shunya’s group, of active KHLORIS soldiers have dwindled to about twelve. At least, last he checked. It’s hard to check heartbeats on moving shadows.

“That’s right, Daliah was your first partner, wasn’t she?”

Shunya refocuses as another administrator beside the man chuckles at that, pushing away from the table and nearly crashing into Sahil, who adeptly steps out of the way.

Shunya just blinks at him, expression unchanging.

The man’s throaty laughter dies quickly, and he frowns at Shunya, visibly annoyed. Off-put, maybe. Shunya thinks it’s hilarious—the way they expect things like this—expecting a person to fear you when you personally trained fear out of them. Raising a wolf among wolves in a forest and then expecting it to act like a dog when you drop it in a fenced-in yard, when you knew what it was in the first place.

Shunya keeps his gaze trained on the man, and continues staring. The man looks away. He mutters something like all still fucking creepy.

“It’ll be a waste to stick you with a reserve, considering the profile of the assignments you take. We figured it would be easier for you if we put you with someone somewhat familiar.”

“Ah,” Shunya vocalizes monotonously. At least he’s not getting a reserve or a trainee.

“It’s a funny coincidence, since we were just talking about the remaining first round of participants,” wrong, Shunya scoffs internally, there’s no such thing as a coincidence. Not here. “You’re acquainted with Iris, I presume? Khloris number four?”

Shunya takes care to keep his face flat, not betraying anything. After a moment of intentional pause, he clears his throat, “Somewhat. We trained together. But we aren’t close. I haven’t seen him in a long time.” 

“That’s fine, you’ll be seeing him plenty from now on, then.”

Sahil pipes up with infinitely more helpful information, a kind smile gracing his features. “He should be back soon—he was spectating some training exercises for Unit Seven in East Nayol, by the river. He’ll also be informed of this upon his return to central HQ.”

Shunya nods. Inhales. Compartmentalize. Don’t overthink it. Exhales. In English, he says, “Am I dismissed?” 

A chorus of nods send Shunya on his way; he bows politely before turning on his heel, expression dropping as his back turns. Pushing through the doors, he thumbs at the tattoo that sits below his collarbone, combat boots squeaking against the floor. Objectively, it’s not a bad deal. It’s been a while, though.

His pager beeps against his thigh with an update. That was quick. Shunya doesn’t check it—instead, he descends the emergency exit staircase and steps into the hot, dry air, where the sun perches in the cloudless sky, beating down relentlessly on the orange, dusty ground.

KHLORIS Number 04.

Shunya makes his way to the muddy green dirt bike parked in the lot on the west side of the building. Fumbling for the keys in his pocket, he nods a greeting at the bearded watchman slumped in a white plastic chair on the step of the security cubicle.

Shunya’s memories of Iris aren’t muddled, per se, but they are tinged with the unpleasant sensations of aching bones and pebbly dirt rubbed into freshly bleeding cuts. Wet hands—pus, not water. Blisters, obviously.

He’s not angry or verklempt by it, though. The Trial Zero training is the only reason he’s alive right now. Still, as there was no bond forged between the two of them during Trial Zero (virtue of competing for a chance at survival), Shunya hasn’t seen Iris, in passing or otherwise, in over two years.

He yawns, unlatching the motorbike lock and tapping the kickstand with his heel.