Beguile

She poked her head through the doorframe, glancing one way, then the other. She sighed. He wasn't here either, and this had been the final place she thought of to check for his presence. The Prime Beacon never made merry of himself for engaging in such fickle jests and plays of annoyance, so she could only presume responsibilities occupied him elsewhere.

But why wouldn't he establish the communications she sent him if that were the case? She held little worry that something happened to him given he was one of, if not the hardest human alive to kill, but the broken habit of immediate response left her uneasy.

Pa-5 would've moved on in her search; there was a chance Ni-6 would know where their superior was. She couldn't establish a communication with him either, though that was more of the natural state of affairs. He avoided all such distractions while on active duty. Before she could pull back from the doorframe, a soft, willowy voice danced from a corner of the office.

"I'd appreciate some company." It brought the rest of her inside, and she could see the Second Headman from her new position.

Plastered along the Prime Beacon's sofa, she was hugging one of the cushions to her chest, while her head, crooked in an awkward fashion along the arm of the furniture, tilted in her direction. "If I must, I'm prepared to use my authority to guarantee it."

"That…won't be necessary." She moved away from the door, hearing it close behind her. Her replacement legs brought her to the foot of the sofa, where she stared down at the vulnerably positioned headman. Her arm drifted upwards in question like it itself was unsure whether to grant the Second Headman a salute. "How may I help you, sir?"

"Sit." Though the Second Headman wasn't tall by any metric, the sofa was only wide enough for the sole occupant already present, who had stretched her entire body length from one end to the other. She fixed this by curling her legs up and tucking her knees into her stomach.

Pa-5 followed through with the order…or commanding request…and allowed herself to fold into the uncovered cushions. The Second Headman couldn't curl herself any higher though, so the soles of her feet still bumped into the serviceman's hip.

What was happening? Why was the Second Headman in the Prime Beacon's office? What was she doing? Weren't there existing standards or procedures preventing or disincentivizing this situation?

Her HUD informed her expectations existed between the political divides, but nothing had concretely received recording to prevent it. That left her all the more without a clue.

She observed the Second Headman out of the corner of her eye. She must've changed into a new skinsuit, because wrinkles dotted curved locations on her body, like the folds behind the small of her knees, or the stretched, taut section between her lower back and the bottom of her thighs. It was still reshaping itself to fit her form, like her own did. It stopped around her collar, leaving the neck free from obfuscation.

But what she wore didn't tell her why she was here, and why she wanted Pa-5 with her. So, she ventured a query. "Has your nose gotten any better?"

The Second Headman's eyes flicked down to her. Like she'd offered an invitation, the other woman stretched out her legs again, settling them with comfort across her lap. Pa-5 froze, and her petrification only turned more complete when offered a smile. "I don't wear the brace today, so it must."

"That's a relief to hear. I couldn't know how severe the damage was. Again, I apolog--"

"You broke it," she muttered. Then louder, clearer. "You broke it. I don't experience pain often, but for some reason, it hurt more than Aud teeth."

Before she could interject with something, anything, the Second Headman continued. "But it's fixed. Now, no more pain. It troubles me no longer." She rolled to the right, resting flat on her back. Her legs pressed closer to Pa-5's stomach. "And you? How has pain treated you?"

"Sir?"

"Do your injuries still plague you? Even now?"

"They do," she answered with hesitance. "My medical staff determined the symptoms as phantom pain."

"Is it constant in its beguilements?"

"It tends to, at times."

"So what will you do?" The Second Headman twisted around in her spot, until it was her head in Pa-5's lap, and her legs traveling up and dangling over the arm of the sofa.

The serviceman swallowed as the Second Headman pierced her with a curious gaze that shouldn't have been, yet still felt like she was before a firing line of WAVs. "Have you acclimated to the pain well enough to take part in the defense?"

"I-I shouldn't. My medical staff did not recommend I engage in such strenuous activities."

"What 'strenuous activities'?" The Second Headman crossed her arms behind her head. One elbow bit into her torso and Pa-5 smothered the instinctual inhalation. She adjusted herself until it was leaning off her, instead of pressing into her.

"You aren't a WAV pilot. Well you were, but I know you understand what I'm trying to say. You have the full functionality of any other engineer."

Pa-5 hid her frown. Was she attempting to recruit her? Being so close to the Prime Beacon, it was inevitable for her to develop a more intricate knowledge of the happenstance of the politics behind the public, or even public government scene.

Most employees of the Directory were aware that at the highest levels, there were disputes between the headmen and their subordinates over the methods, doctrines, and ideologies best suited for humanity's trying times, but that was the extent of it.

She knew better. The headmen weren't opposed over simpler concerns such as those, but the very nature of humanity's actions in the war. This meant far greater opposition in the form of indirect sabotage, like cutting down a ray's energy allocation. And there shouldn't be many lines the home interest weren't willing to cross.

Of course, they would never commit assault, assassination attempts, or coercion, but those were scraping the bottom of the case anyway. So she could see this as another attempt, seeing she held a special relationship with one of the direct representatives of the militarists.

"Or is it that the memory of what you suffered is overpowering? I don't blame you. I can't say how I would handle such trauma. Fear makes the best of humanity fold at the seams. It turns us into a more honest version of ourselves. No grander ideals. No ultimate mission to fulfill. There, the one thing you could find was the urge for self-preservation, wasn't it?"