Eleven: The Sequel of AlterMyth

Station To Station

Prologue

Metallic clicks echoed in a steady, monotonous tempo in the bedroom of a small hotel in Yekaterinburg as the sun rose. It was like the ticking of a clock, albeit with a more hollow tone of emptiness. The clicks emanated from that bedroom's wooden desk where Captain Mumei Nanashi was hunched over under the light of a desk lamp and the rising sun flowing in from the nearby window. Her M14 rifle, along with all of its array of cleaning materials and attachments, were spread out on the desk and were flanked by stripper clips of ammunition and twenty-round magazines.

Some were empty.

Some were already full.

Mumei was quiet and singularly focused on her task: slotting the stripper clips of bullets into the empty M14 magazines five bullets at a time.

It was something that Mumei was used to doing. She had meticulously reloaded magazines like that en masse before she deployed with her ACB in Vietnam, so her movements were fluid, practiced and precise. Loading magazines was also the first duty that Lady Knowledge gave to her when she was just a child trapped in the horror of the Korean War.

Somewhere in North-occupied South Korea about nineteen years ago, the young Mumei was taught how to load bullets into magazines by Lady Knowledge. In the rare moments of peace between the fighting, that was what Mumei and Lady Knowledge did together in the supply tents or on the field.

It was how the then-elementary school girl and her future mentor bonded in the midst of the explosions of artillery and mortar shells and the rattle of machine gun fire that fell like rain.

Now, a proper young woman and a Captain of the US Army, Mumei continued her tradition in reverent silence - in memory of Lady Knowledge.

In the few moments that the owl-girl blinked her eyes, she imagined that Lady Knowledge was there with her in that very room of the Yekaterinburg hotel. She imagined Lady Knowledge slotting rounds into a Thompson submachine gun's drum magazine while complaining about how Lady Janus stole her chocolate bar from their rations - or about General Douglas MacArthur's tobacco breath - or about how then Second Lieutenant Omega's crazy, albeit effective tactics nearly got the entire Tenth Council killed on more than one occasion.

When Mumei opened her eyes, however, Lady Knowledge wasn't there. She was alone in the room with a half-empty M14 magazine in hand.

Mumei shuddered. At times, she felt like she wanted to cry - but her tears have already long since gone dry. Tiny splotches of dried tears were scattered along with the gun grease, the droplets from her rifle's cleaning materials and stripper clips of ammunition.

The owl-girl closed her eyes again. But now, even her daydreams were devoid of her beloved mentor.

She gripped her half-empty magazine tightly.

"What am I to do...?" Mumei asked no one in particular, speaking to the absent phantom of her fading memories.

Her train of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door.

The clouds of melancholy over Mumei's head dissipated immediately, replaced by the rush of adrenaline. She set down her half-empty magazine and she swiftly reached for the loaded M1911 pistol that she wore by her hip. It was almost as if her body moved on its own and prepared itself to fight.

"Who's there?" Mumei demanded with a stern voice.

"It's me. Sana." Her visitor answered. The ex-astronaut opened the door slightly and poked her head through the threshold.

Mumei's expression softened once more. She moved her hand away from her pistol and answered, "Please come on in."

Sana opened the door slightly more, but she saw the battle rifle on Mumei's desk and relented. So, she held her ground and spoke gingerly through the threshold.