Failings of Earning Trust

‘You hardly look like the boss,’ Yumi thought to herself without repeating it aloud. That was her first reaction to seeing Sumiko before her. Though, there was something different about the way that she spoke and stood that marked her apart from bravado boy before her. Yumi could believe that she was the one in charge. “So what does the boss want from us?”

Staring at Sumiko, she needed to learn more. ‘I have just tiny bits of information. I can’t really gather up much of a cover story for us with that, not one that’ll convince them. This is a world of the future, information is going to be a lot easier for them to obtain. It’s not going to be like the demon world where showing proof was just a matter of being confident and powerful enough to back any claims you wanted to make.’ This world would prove more challenging to lie through, that much was clear already.

Sumiko certainly had the confidence as she walked up to the edge of the cell to stare directly back at Yumi with eye contact. Her hand rested on her hips trying to figure them out a little bit. “I need more hands.”

“Boss!” protested Bravado Boy that she would even consider the idea of using them.

A hand came up to stop him from going on longer than necessary. She already knew what he had to say to her. “Are you guys with the enemy?”

“No. We’d be pretty terrible at our jobs if we were.”

“You’re right there. Though I don’t know who you are or why you’re here. But show me what you can do and I’ll see about making those real uniforms.”

“You can’t be serious! We know nothing about them!”

“He’s right. You really going to trust us that easily?”

“Unless you enjoy the idea of practicing how to hold your breath in a vacuum, I think you’ll work with me.”

“The situation that bad?” The station had taken damage, as they experienced first hand. Though it had stopped shaking for a while now once they entered the cell. ‘They likely fixed whatever was threatening the station before seeing us. Priorities, but it’s still at risk? And they’re expecting us to help them?’ She found it a little hard to believe that they would be that useful in helping with the situation.

“We’re going to need everyone to help if we’re going to survive this.” It felt a little surprising to hear that come from someone in charge, but it also made clear the state of things. And Yumi didn’t really have a lot of options. Her goal remained the same as before.

Chapter 477 – Failings of Earning Trust

Out of their cell, the three castaways gathered with their captors, possibly future friends, in a large chamber filled with more people than they had seen in the entire time in the station. It gave them a better sign that there were definitely more people present. Indication was that there were quite a lot of people still on the station, despite what had happened with the attack.

As they entered the room, even the soldiers came to attention with Sumiko’s presence. ‘She really is the boss of everyone here. How does someone so young become the leader of all of this? They’re all looking to her for orders and help.’ It was a little inspiring for Yumi to see a woman so young, but in command and respected. She had so much that Yumi never knew, it was hard for her to try to push back down her envy of what Sumiko had.

However, they had a more important mission at hand that they needed to complete if they weren’t wanting to die. At the center of the large chamber, that was probably at least a hundred meters in diameter and half that tall creating a massive cylinder with multiple levels that people worked and coordinated the entire station’s functions. She had no idea what they were all doing to keep the station from falling apart, but she had to give them some thanks for keeping her alive.

Commanding the entire chamber was a central station or terminal of some sort that Sumiko approached. It effortlessly dwarfed her, reaching to the ceiling as a central pillar, though not as support, or if it did that was only secondary to the primary use it had. She tapped on the panels in her reach causing a projection to be created in the air. It was a perfect three dimensional object with no hint of it being fake. The only reason that they knew it was because they saw it being created. It went far beyond anything that they would have guessed for such technology.

What they saw being displayed didn’t really give them any sort of context to the scale of what they were working with. ‘A cylinder? That’s an odd shape for a station…’ The more that she stared upwards at it, she noticed that there was another part to it that was separate from the primary shape. Still attached, but at the end of the cylinder it held onto large mirrors that were as long as the main body.

Sumiko made a few more adjustments to the projector causing the 3D object to move from its awkward position into something more comfortable for them only a meter off the floor. “This should save your neck a little pain. It’s only really useful when I’m talking to the whole staff.”

Scale still had no meaning or context for Yumi as she looked around at the large shape before her. It had no mass, like a ghost. The outer extremities passed through her in a rather jarring way that felt like she was being violated. Everything about it looked so real that it shouldn’t have phased through her. If she gave more into her child-like curiosity she would have stuck her head inside to see if the interior was equally well recreated.

But directing the meeting, Sumiko stepped in front of them and split herself in half with the station. It grabbed everyone’s attention if not a little bit of their discomfort as well. She took hold of the station and moved it so that she could explain things to her new hired hands. “We’re right here,” she answered their curiosity with her index finger pointing out a tiny space on the station, which if it was accurate meant that what they were in was far more massive that Yumi could have guessed. They were at the extreme end of the titanic structure where a disc-like construct affixed itself to the cylinder. Their position sat a little on the outer center of it, likely where there was no normal gravity from the rotation motion of the station.

Suddenly, the projection changed with damage appearing in complete detail on the structure. The main body looked to have been spared any sort of damage, but the attachment clearly had significant damage brought to it by the attack. One of the spires that protruded from the disc was completely destroyed floating in wreckage around the station. Holes from attacks dotted the surface, likely one of them being where they had been.

She stepped around freezing the projection and zooming in more on it. “We’ve managed to prevent a critical cascade effect in the reactor, but the sub-reactor is still in danger. Though it’s not going to blow right now, we need to make repairs to the sub-reactor before it reaches a critical state and we have to eject it.”

“If you have the option, why not eject it now and save the risk?”

“Because we need it online to finish our work in time. The Feds are holding the line at point A325 of Neptune, but it’s only a matter of time before their defense crumbles and we face the full might of their invasion. I have a promise to keep and I plan to see that I don't start making bad habits now!”

The stakes were laid out before Yumi clearly. ‘At least I got some relative peace at the start of the last one before everything went to hell. I’ve already got one foot in…’ A battle for survival certainly had a familiar ring to it. It sadly was what she had become accustomed to as her new life that she would lead. “I’m presuming that you have something for us that is going to be realistic to achieve.”

“Naturally, I don’t know what your experience is and I’m not going to be sending you anywhere near the sub-reactor. That’s the current situation that we are in and we need you over here.” The position of the projection moved up taking them to the opposite end in a different spire completely. “We need to focus on the sub-reactor, but there’s another important task that we need solved that can be handled by the three of you.”

The station rotated giving them a cross section view of the structure in relation to what they were going to be fixing. “The mechanical mirror controls for the habitat are found here. Due to the damage that we’ve sustained, we can no longer control the mirror array from the command room. We need you to get the connection back up so that the people inside remain safe.”

Before Yumi protested to remind her that they were also not electricians, Sumiko turned around and waved down someone from the second floor. Once they arrived, she casually grabbed them like she was a friend and presented the woman to Yumi. “Karen here will guide you through what has to be done. Since the damage can just be rerouted it won’t be much more than physical labor that you need.”

Looking likely older than Sumiko, she politely nodded to the group of strangers showing more caution with them than her boss. It took her a little by surprise to see Karen though. Given that the last world was in Japan and all that she had seen so far was Japanese on the station, she figured that would be the case. Yet Karen was an American or maybe European, she could never really tell the difference between the two, she just guessed that first. Either way, the woman was clearly not Japanese. She didn’t know if that was a rare occurrence or not, since the rest of the staff was too far away for her normal eyesight to figure out anymore.

Yumi stepped forward, extending a hand of peace to the bright red headed woman that they would be taking orders from, though she still refused the kindness. Sumiko stepped in place of the woman for Yumi, grabbing her hand. “Pleased to have you on board! I look forward to seeing your success!”

“We’ll certainly do our best…” Yumi turned away quietly motioning to Nerine and her brother to join her. At the end of their task, she hoped to be able to get a better understanding of their situation and who the enemy was that was trying to kill them. If she was going to live long enough to be able to find her next personality and figure out what she had to do to win, she needed to stay alive.

Quickly running up to Yumi, ahead of the others, Sumiko leaned in to Yumi. “I also hope we can have a chat about the truth after this.”

“Right…” Yumi continued on breaking from Sumiko, not truly committing to the promise she wanted them to make. It didn’t come out like a demand, but it felt like one. The way that she was so close to her and kept it out of earshot of the others made it clear that even though she played things casually that she was just as serious as the others about knowing who their new guests were.

Stepping out of the command room and into the hall, Yumi looked forward to the same looking halls as she had seen before. They looked the same in the worst possible way. “I’m never going to be able to know where I’m going here.”

“You don’t have to,” a voice from above told them.

Yumi looked behind her, feeling like they popped up in her shadow somehow, though it was only Yori and Nerine. Her eyes glanced up to the ceiling looking for any signs of an intercom system. “Karen?”

“That’s right. I’ll be guiding you to your destination.”

It was the first time hearing her voice and she had a more confident tone than before simply judging from the way she remained silent and behind Sumiko. Perhaps it wasn’t caution as Yumi thought it had been. Not that now was really the time to try to understand strangers.

Though Yumi wasn’t seeing how it was going to be easier having the woman direct her by voice as they hurried. But before she could ask any questions, the hallway changed from its sci-fi white to a dimmer gray. Along the top, sides and bottom an in-motion bold blue line traveled ahead of them. “Our path.”

“I’ll direct you in the repairs once you’ve arrived at the location.”

“Right…”

It was longer than they expected to reach the mirror controls. The damage to the section of the station hadn’t been made very clear in the projection. Yumi saw that there were parts destroyed and exposed to space, but she figured that it was still mostly intact. Which it probably was, but they ran into numerous dead ends from collapsed rooms and halls that it felt otherwise.

A little out of breath and wishing for her powers back, the situation looked even worse than she imagined. Half of the ceiling had collapsed in the area, likely the reason for the failure. But nothing about this looked like they could do it with just the three of them. They needed more hands. “How are we supposed to repair this?”