The hangar break room remains a rather lively and noisy place to be in the station. Mostly because pilots are generally coming in and going out regularly. And whichever way they are going, they generally tend to strike up conversation with someone they have become friends with. But all of that is a distraction to me right now. What I am dealing with is of utmost importance. It is something I have coveted ever since my posting here. I analyse the map. This is tense. If I can play the next few moves right, I will have achieved what is quickly becoming one of my life’s goals. But I must be careful, because every time I have gotten this close, I have been betrayed by my own anticipation. My opponent on the other hand seemed calm as ever, even in the face of possible defeat. I looked up at him in the hopes of gaining even the slightest of advantages.
Ethan looked up at me observing him. He chuckled. “Staring at me isn’t going to do you any favours Sketch,”
I looked back at the map, “Hmm, that’s what you think Raven. I can read you pretty well. And from what I can see…” I looked back at him, “This is a very delicate moment in the game.”
His eye momentarily twitched.
“Oh? You were looking at something…” I said.
“What… the map?” He said looking up.
“What were you looking at on the map?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Hmm… Okay then, which side were you looking at?”
He looked straight into my eyes, unflinching. But I think I know how I can get to him.
I lifted the pen, and pointed it to his left of the map “Jeogi, were you looking at your left?”
His smile got wider. He lifted his hand up to his chin.
I pointed to my left now, “Or perhaps it was mine?”
He blinked, but right before he did, I saw his eyes twitch again. I have done it.
“Ah, so you do not want me to play here?” I drew a line on the map and handed it back to him.
Ethan sighed. “That is unfortunate…” He drew another line forming a box, then another and then another, and then another one…
“Huh? Jakkanman…”
“It really is unfortunate…” Ethan said, going on making boxes and filling out almost the entire map, save for a small section on his left. He marked all of the boxes with an R before handing the pen back to me.
I looked at him, “You tricked me…? Tto igyeoss-eo!! How do you always win?!”
“I mean, you can’t tell me you’re reading me. I’ll play you back.” He said with a smug look on his face.
I groaned and sank my face into my hands.
“Erm, are you not gonna finish the game?”
“Naneun pogihanda! I give up!!” I cried out, face still in my hands.
“Okay!” he leaned back startled.
I looked at him as he put away his pen and notepad containing the game we just played.
“How are you so good at these… ‘party games’ you called them?” I asked him.
“Well, I grew up with a pretty large but close family. One thing we used to do every weekend was sleep together and before bed we’d play these games.”
“Jeongmal? How big was your family?”
“Family of five- me, mom and dad, and my brother and sister. We did the same thing whenever we went to meet our grandparents as well,” he said sitting up after putting the things away.
No wonder I can never beat him. He has been playing these games his whole life. I wonder how well he fared against his family, and I shudder to think how good the rest of them could be if he already plays this well. Well, really… he only won because he tricked me… and because I relied too much on being able to read him.
“When is our next assignment by the way?” I asked him. Ethan is my flight partner after all.
“That is a good question. And by that, I mean I don’t know.” He said. “Well, I know what the assignment is though.”
“And what is it?”
“Well, it’s marked as a simple aerial escort. They’ll be travelling with us in our HEAV. I have a feeling it is going to be more than that though.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Hmm… Intuition.”
Right as he said that his PDA beeped as it received a message. He pulled it out and looked at it. “Oh, would you look at that…” He said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The people we are escorting will be coming in later today.”
“Ah,”
“Well, we should probably rest up then. They are coming in around four hours. I’ll ping you to remind you or to notify you if anything changes.”
“Al-ass-eo, I’ll take my leave then.”
“Mm-hmm, have a good rest.”
I head back to my barrack, as I call it. I’m thankful that it is empty. All of my bunkmates are off on duty so I have time to myself. I look at my notebook lying in the middle of the bed, but then my eyes shift to the rest of my bed, specifically my pillow. My subconscious has spoken. I take the notebook and its accompanying pencils, place them aside and flop onto my bed face-first. As my sleep catches up to me, a thought about how unfortunate it is that I could not continue my sketching from earlier gets brushed aside. No sooner had all of this happened before I heard my PDA shuffling over by my desk. I reach out to it and pick it up, refusing to believe that four hours have actually passed by. Sneaking a glance at the clock as I open my PDA to view my messages, I see that time has indeed passed. Forcing myself up, I see that the message is from Raven. Our passengers have arrived and they are waiting in the lobby. I roll out of bed, quickly fix my hair and head back out.
I was wondering who the passengers were. As I walked into the main building’s lobby, however, I saw a familiar face and my heart sank.
“Sketch? Is that you?” Ishida called out.
“Aniyo, please don’t tell me you are one of the passengers…” I prayed almost trying to prevent myself from hearing his answer.
“… I mean… I have a survey mission… And someone on site is a pilot for it…” he said, trying to respect my wishes, which only served to annoy me more.
“How many times do you intend to come back?”
“Okay, first of all, that is rude. Second, what have I done to piss you off?”
“Moleusinayo? If you don’t know, I have nothing to say,” I turned my back to him.
“Am I interrupting something?” The new voice caught me off guard. I looked around to see who spoke.
“Oh, no… just some bonding, I guess. Oh, let me introduce you guys to each other.” Ishida stepped aside to reveal who spoke up. “Chloe, this is Lee Seon-woo. She’s the flight partner for our pilot and will be serving as our ground guide and support. As you might have caught a second ago, her nickname is Sketch. And Sketch, this is Chloe Janes, she’s a cryptozoologist and a field researcher who has been specialising in ancient hollow earth civilizations. And she is joining us on the mission.”
“Oh! Pleasure to meet you,” I subtly bowed down as I held my hand out.
“Likewise!” she said taking my hand and giving it a firm shake. Letting go I turned to look around for Ethan.
“Eodie… Where is Raven?”
“He is speaking with passenger number three who happened to be the one who pitched this mission,” Ishida spoke up. “I believe they are talking about the particulars of the mission. Oh! Speaking of Raven, he told me to tell you to check in on their meeting.”
“Okay then, let me go check.”
I walked towards the meeting room that Ishida was pointing to. I knocked and then peeked in. Raven turned around in his chair and to his side was another man who was holding onto some maps.
“Ah, Ske- I mean, Lee… This is Dr Vansh Pali. He is the head researcher on this mission.” Ethan said.
We subtly bowed to each other, exchanging silent greetings. I then turned to Ethan. “Ishida said you wanted to speak to me?”
“Right, I was just talking to Dr Pali about our flight plan. I was hoping we could go over them later.”
“Of course. Is there anything else you need from me for now?”
“Could you just do a preliminary check on the maintenance and servicing of our HEAV? And nudge the team handling it to hurry up and finish it if they haven’t yet? I’ll come a little later and discuss the plan with you then.”
“Yes sir, and our passengers?”
Ethan turned to Dr Pali. “We still need to talk to admin about our offices and rooms, but we should be fine by ourselves.”
“Okay, I’ll take my leave then.”
Stepping out and away from the meeting room, I ran back into Ishida and Miss Janes.
“I need to go check on our equipment, I will be leaving now,” I told them making to leave.
“Sketch, before you leave, Admin and all the other places are exactly where they were as last time right?” Ishida spoke up. “We still need to officially log ourselves into the compound and collect our on-site clearance details.”
“Yes. Well, the cafeteria and mess have been moved, but everything else is the same.”
“The café has been moved? Where?!” he exclaimed.
“Ishida, jibjunghada… Focus…”
“Right, can’t get food without getting our details anyway,” Ishida said. “Okay, then I guess we’ll meet again later.”
“Thank you in advance for all your help.” Miss Janes said.
“The pleasure was mine, now if you will excuse me…” I said bowing to her, and then scowling at Ishida, taking a little bit of pleasure as he looked taken aback. I then left the lobby and headed towards the hangars to check on the equipment and hopefully find the maintenance team finishing up on our HEAV.
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