Dara, Page, and the Secrets of the Multiverse

▷ 15.3

Two weeks were almost over, and Page couldn't wait to get out of the scrap yard. During her breaks, she heard of a team being assembled for a facility-wide takeover. The Domain had finished preparations and was ready to start scaling an offensive against active Laic territories. While mystic purges have been happening daily, with the captures sent to concentration camps and in research labs, they have rescued enough numbers and garnered refugees and volunteers to go against the Laic military. The Premier was confident, and it only meant the tech department had encountered a breakthrough. At least, that was Page's hope.

The deadline for application to the elite team being at the center of the takeover was the exact day Page and Dara's exile were over, so Page had an extra bounce to her steps, and the song playing in the cafeteria during lunch remained stuck in her head. It was a jovial, war tune, one sung by the previous generation when they were in the hustle of building the Domain while undergoing constant attacks from the Laics.

She pried a core from the present engine she worked on and turned it here and there. It wasn't too damaged—just a few leaks in the glass containment—and the mana hasn't dried up. She could still feel it in her skin, prickling and kissing with an unprecedented gentleness. With a predetermined swish, she set the core into the pile she had already made on the scrapyard floor. Another hand gripping a core whizzed into her periphery. She looked to the left to see Dara putting her recent haul into the lazy pyramid Page formed. Ah, so that was why she thought she was making too much progress lately. She had help.

The Premier had been right, though. Over the course of two weeks, the forced proximity mellowed their ire for each other. When Page analyzed why Dara got into her nerves so much, she found out because the girl had an argumentative air about her. Dara was a critical thinker, and she didn't want to follow orders blindly. Page wasn't the best at making her decisions sound...well, sound, but in her years in the field, she sometimes made calls whose motives weren't easily comprehensible. For her to continue being the Untouchable, she would have to go against the manual all the time, and for Dara who searched for reason every time her commandants opened their mouths, it would be a high hurdle to overcome.

Dara wasn't an imbecile. Far from it. She worked best when she knew what she was doing and why. Seeing her work in the scrapyard brought Page that insight. Was it part of the Premier's plan? It was impossible to tell what that woman thought, so Page would give herself the peace of mind by believing it probably was.

She blew a breath and pulled the waterskin on her belt. A compact, scratch-proof bulb meant to supply soldiers with the basic resource even in the battlefield. It was also protected with armor spells, so normal Laic tech wouldn't burst it to shards. She plopped to the ground and chugged the contents without care. Most soldiers filled it not with the clear, refreshing liquid, but with all kinds of alcoholic beverages. Page's preference was vodka. Sometimes, rum. Always vodka, if she could help it.

Dara settled beside her and rested her back on the vehicle's deflated wheels like Page did. Without missing a beat, Page offered her the waterskin. Dara's eyebrows crept up; Page watched it from her periphery. "Are you for real?" Dara said. "Why are you offering me water?"

Page snorted, jutting the open bulb closer to her nose. "Try again," she said. "I'm doing you a favor."

A hesitant grip laid over Page's as Dara plucked the bulb and raised it to her lips. One tentative sip later, and a blatant curse flew out of Dara. The girl wiped at the corner of her lips with the back of her hand. "What the f—that's vodka!" she complained. "Why are you drinking? At this hour?"

"Keeps me awake," Page said with a shrug. "Did you think we bring only water out there? Nah. Most cadets are drunks. Some good drunks, others, bad. But we're all drunks. High time you join the real ranks."

Page added a wink, but it might have only creeped Dara out. A visible shiver passed across the girl's shoulders. "You mean...you're under influence?" She inclined her head at Page. "During battle?"

"Eh, why not?" Page rolled her shoulders. "It also keeps the jitters away. Makes you just want to pop them spells at any Laics you see. Saves you the guilt."

Dara looked as if she wanted to argue, but Page gave her a leveled gaze. "Trust me, when you're on the front lines, you do what you can to survive, and you bring those habits home," she said. "That's just how it is."

She meant to add This is war, after all, but refrained.

"Did you see it?" Dara ventured, chewing on her lip. "The front lines, I mean."

Page spared the girl a brief lock in their gazes before turning her attention back to the setting sun past the Domain's barriers. "Three months," she said, her tone dropping into a harsh whisper. A rasp. "Wasn't pretty."

"I bet," Dara replied. She took a swig of the vodka. Page smirked. Soldiers learned, and they learned fast. "What made you join the Domain? The military?"

Faces flashed in Page's mind, ones she thought she forgot but apparently lingered at the back of her thoughts, fueling every bit of her actions, spurring her to keep moving forward, no matter what. "The Laics gunned my house down. I was the only one who survived," Page recounted. The sound of the flames, the shrill bangs of judgment from the rifles, the screams of the dying and the dead—it was as if it happened only yesterday. "I've got nowhere to go, so I joined. What else would I use my life for, right? The only other choice is being a Laic lab dog. This was better."

"I'm sorry that happened to you," Dara replied.

Page stuck a lip out with a half-shrug. "Happened a long time ago," she said. "Can't even feel it anymore. It's barely there."

Dara hummed. She emptied the bulb of its contents, frowning when there wasn't anything more coming out of the lip even when she upended it. Page laughed to herself. The girl's a lightweight. Page bumped a shoulder against Dara's. "Got anything similar?"

"Overly similar, yeah," Dara answered, her eyes beginning to droop. "It's basically the same experience."

Page scoffed. "I doubt," she said. She was about to open her mouth to say anything more when she felt a weight press against her. Dara had passed out, snoozing on Page's shoulder even though it was an hour before dinner.

"Svitsvak," Page cursed softly. "Never should have given you vodka."