Legacy: Beyond the Veil

The Warbler

"Okay, now step onto the platform." The red-haired teen said from behind the console. Noah still hadn't caught his name. Or maybe he had, but it had simply gone in one ear and out the other. The past half-hour had been pretty hectic, after all.

"C'mon now, don't have all day." The boy said, not looking up from the two screens in front of him. Noah gently placed one foot on the circular pedestal that dominated the center of the room and watched as spools of data appeared on the console displays faster than he could follow.

The room seemed purely dedicated to house this strange device and its controls. Thick cables of all colors ran across the ceiling, walls and even the floor, hooking up the featureless metal platform to all manner of devices, most of which resembled something like stereo installations. Some of the speaker-esque boxes were set up at eye-level on tripods, others hung from the ceiling, while others again were angled at him from the floor. Like the cables, the devices were set up in a chaotic and haphazard kind of way that spoke of low budgets and improvised solutions, while also being weirdly organized in a sense. It was clear that whoever had installed these systems had known what they were doing, even if Noah didn't have a clue what the setup was supposed to be. If someone had shown him the machine without context and asked him to guess, he probably would have given an answer along the lines of a home studio for holographic rolls.

After a moment's hesitation, –a short-lived fantasy of resisting his captors once more– Noah slumped his shoulders and took the full step onto the pedestal. In truth, he didn't have the heart to fight back anymore. He'd had one shot, quite literally, and he'd blown it.
Noah had always wondered what firing a gun would feel like, though not in the boastful, creepy, near-obsessive way that some of his peers did. Weaponry was heavily romanticized in Runoran culture and media, its use synonymous with bravery, strength, and glory. Those who were willing to take up arms were the ones with the ability to defend all the Runora were and all they stood for.

His species' armies always needed soldiers. If they didn't fight, they would be wiped off the galactic map. That was what the recruitment rolls said, anyway. It was a message that had been drilled into Noah the same as it had been with every other Runoran child growing up.
From public firing ranges and military parades in the education districts to war-rolls played before bedtime, the leadership of his city spared no effort to convince the next generation to join up. And it worked, too: Over half of Noah's classmates hoped to serve in the Militia some day. With a bit of luck, a few of them might even pass the Academy's entrance exams, like his brother had.

Noah himself had never been particularly swayed by the recruitment efforts, something about them just put him off somehow. It made him avoid the public honor duels Cai loved to watch, or politely decline when his friends wanted to go watch a parade together. His mother often called him level-headed for it, though he didn't really know what that might mean. His mother often came with metaphors only she seemed to know.

Standing here, Noah quietly wished his head had been a little less level. Maybe that way he would have been able to actually fire the gun.

He ran through the steps again in his head; When he had the pistol firmly in both hands, he took off the safety first by flicking the small switch above the trigger. Next, he turned on the power cell fitted behind the chamber and waited for the pistol to automatically chamber a round. The whole process had amazingly taken him only about four seconds, but when he pulled the trigger expecting a deadly projectile to be spat out of the barrel, he was left with a disappointing metal click.

Perplexed, Noah had turned the pistol sideways to check if the safety really was off. Rosa needed no more opportunity and wrestled him to the ground before he could try shooting her a second time.