P R O X I M O



I stared at his back.

The dark ink work etched into the muscles of his board back. They were new. Or at least they were not there when I had known Artella Maxim. A white towel was wrapped around his waist and the steam from the bathroom was still pouring into my quarters.

"When did you get that?" I asked in a low voice. My arm was propped behind my head as I scanned the intricate network that looked closer to the inside of a computer than it did to anything organic.

"A while back," he murmured, attaching his wrist holo and searching through my clothing draws, "It was a nice reminder."

"Of what exactly?" I continued, scanning the lines of code and black network of lines, "Your love affair with tech..." I drawled.

He half turned his head as he pulled out one of my combat skins.

"Something like that."

I sighed through my nose and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My muscles did not ache. I didn't have the scent of him plastered over my skin and yet... It was the best nights sleep I had had in years.

"Do you ever answer anything directly?" I grunted, stepping out of the sheets and approaching him shirtless. This made him chuckle as the fabric descended over his chest and his hair poked through the other side in a damp mess.

I pulled open another drawer beside him and kept my eyes on my hands.

I felt his burning gaze but decided on the same safe and unspoken action of remaining near yet not touching. I yanked my clothes out and let it shut as I turned my back on him.

"What is that code for Artella?" I asked, slowly pulling my shirt over me.

He was silent for a long moment. So long that I thought he wouldn't answer me and it would sit as yet another unspoken thing between us. There was already so much. His clothing ruffled as he adorned himself with the rest amount his discarded weapons. His guns clicked into holsters and I slid my combats over me and turned to him.

He was already leant against the door watching me.

"Maybe I'll show you."

I frowned as he scanned the entrance doors and the hallway opened beyond. He stepped through without waiting for my answer and set a quick march to the lift.

A number of thoughts clouded my mind about him.

'Work with me. You might like it.'

'What do you want, Proximo Dartega?'

'I like it when you say my name.'

'I chose feeling nothing gladly so I didn't have to face what I felt for you.'

'Picking up where we left off...'

Those dark eyes that held promise of something more than the pain and disappearance the contractor held about him. We were on different paths him and I. We always had been. Now converging slowly like an inevitable ship destined to sink.

The lift took us low. Dozens of floors passed until I realised who he was taking us to.

"How do you know where we keep my sister?" I growled.

He threw me a simple look that said it didn't need answering. I measured my breathing and crossed my arms tighter.

"What are we doing here, Art?"

"You wanted to know. And she is the only one here who codes computers to read it."

"Read what?" I demanded, splaying my arms in the small space.

He simply ignored me as the lift doors opened silently and the wide hallway ended at a cavernous door. I had moved her here months before. I couldn't stand to have her rot in a cell with nothing to her name–and not when she was bound for another continent at some point... But first things first.

He surprised me by having the clearance to pass every lock and deterrent. Which I then suspected Dazz had something to do with since I had given her access to computer systems in there. I half knew she could walk out of here if she truly wanted to. But ever since our last conversation. Since she told me of her trapped world within Hades work... Something in her was gravitating towards me. Wanting what we had–

The doors opened and showed me my sister with her boots kicked up on a wide desk before many screens. A box of noodles in her hands and headphones covering her ears.

Just as it was when it was just us. Just as it was when I could not pull the trigger.

She spun in her chair with a wry smirk at Artella. Then it became wary when she saw who walked beside him.

She tossed the box aside and slid her headphones down her neck.

"Proximo..." She murmured.

My hands found my pockets and I focused on the screens behind her lined with stock graphs and figures. I didn't fail to notice the security feeds that had slipped off the screen quickly too. What did she see in this place...

"How are you doing Dazz?" Artella said easily as if they spoke often.

Now that I watched them. I realised that may be more often than I ever knew–

"You knew each other before." I stated, the slow realisation seizing my heart.

"Who else would tell him you're still alive?" She scoffed, playing with the strap of her tank top. Her hair was blue again. Maybe it was dyed from true preference now.

Artella took a seat in a spinning chair and propped his elbow on the other side of the desk.

"Got a minute?"

I stood there like fool staring between them. Noticing the ease. The interaction. It made so much more sense how easily he had kept dabs on me now. Going through my damn sister the years we were apart and she never even fucking told me–

"Wait, I think Prox is about to take my head off again..." She muttered, casting me a steady gaze.

"Nothing new then," Artella dismissed, waving to the tech before her, "I need a Virtu."

This gained her attention and she raised a slow eyebrow at him. I glared at the pair of them and absently brushed a hand against my knife belt.

"Funny. Everyone is asking for that lately." She muttered, swinging back to her screens.

"Who is everyone?" He quipped, watching her work.

"Xavier came here to run a very specific program. I think she was impressed." She shrugged, typing rapidly.

I finally lost patience and unrooted myself from the floor to secure another chair and sink into it on her left. I could feel her hyper aware of me–of how long it had been since we both sat in a room and coexisted as siblings.

"What is a Virtu." I stated flatly.

Dazz brushed a wisp of blue hair away before glancing at me with matching steel grey eyes.

"A programme you can code into your comm." She tapped her temple before turning back to her work, "You can run simulations... Virtually code realities and outcomes. It's all just probability really."

"So, what would Miss Xavier be down here asking you to simulate?"

She smirked at her screen and shrugged.

"That's the question isn't it." Then she turned to Art and held out her hand waiting.

"Oh, it's not... on a drive. It's on my back."

She stared at him blankly.

"This still isn't funny."

He answered her by ripping his shirt over his head.

"Oh, no that's okay I'm not into you like my brother is–"

I pinched the bridge of my nose and he turned his bare skin to her and all the ink and code with it. She didn't gasp like a fresh faced techie but she did however laugh.

"You put a matrix on your back? Are you insane or desperate?" She chuckled scanning every line in acute interest, "–This is fucking good by the way. Who coded it?"

"He died in an unfortunate accident." Artella answered simply.

"Uhuh." My sister nodded, scanning again. She drew her wrist up and scanned his entire back with curiosity drowning out everything else.

"So this makes sense to you?" I asked slowly, watching the lines of his back relax as he drew his shirt back over.

"Sure. But I can't see it. Only the comm of the user will." She shrugged. "I can build them though."

I shot a quick look at Art but he remained emotionless as the image of his back was drawn onto her computer and her software began rapidly ripping the numbers into lines of meaning. Another thought crossed me.

"So you have no idea what Makayla came to you for earlier?"

She chuckled, "Oh I do because she had to tell me to build the scenario. I've got to say I didn't think Scoprion's side hoe had it in her–"

"Enough." I growled. "Just send that program to my comm when it's done."

She hit her keyboard loudly before turning in her chair slowly. The programme still ran in the background. Art watched it as she faced me in hesitation on every square inch of her face.

"I heard I'm being shipped off continent."

A hard nod from me.

She drummed her fingers against her chair and chewed her lip.

"I've never left Merridian."

"I know."

"Will you?"

"Will I what?" I grunted.

"Ever leave?" She mumbled.

She couldn't even meet my eyes now. In that moment she looked so much like that scrawny little sister I scalded and protected in the scraps of Sector 52. The one I slid half of my Nebula cake to and the one that melted into my shadow when the world became too hideous to look at for too long.

"Don't."

Artella seemed to shift in his chair and focus on the screens more intently.

"You don't need to stay here for them–" She began with that famous anger entering her. I knew her too well and she was no wall flower to be protected anymore than Scorpion was a harmless civilian needing saving.

"You know it's too late after everything. You chose a side, Dazz."

"Hades didn't give me much fucking choice when he chose you to aim at." She growled, spinning in her chair again.

"We have bigger targets now..." I sighed thinking of our promise to end it all. Telling her all of this was out of the question–not when I couldn't fully trust her. Ending empires was exactly the kind of information she would use. "I made commitments I intend to follow through on."

She stared at me hard.

"I guess family doesn't come into that."

"It did." I said slowly, rising out of my chair and staring her down from full height. "And you fucked it for us."

"Proximo–"

"Spare me." I growled, turning from her. "You can finish this project with him, I'll see it myself soon enough."

She had no answer for me as I left them in that cavernous room laid with all her favourite items. Furnished with anything she desired. I had given her everything she wanted here.

But trust was one thing you didn't get back if you broke it.