#lynati

There’s a blip on his HUD as Blue Base comes within range. As fast as Tucker had made it to Red Base, the speed he puts on now puts it to shame. Church. In Blue Base. With actual vital signs. Because he’s alive. Alive in a living body. Did he always have that body? Did Freelancer grow it for him or something? Whatever, he’s here and alive is the point. Not erased or fragmented into unrecoverable pieces. There’s movement on the roof. Tucker’s tempted to try leaping directly on top of Blue Base, even knowing that this older-style armor doesn’t have the mods to manage that successfully. Tucker checks himself, and bolts up the ramp instead. And there he is, standing on top of Blue Base like he never left it (he never had), the stupid sniper rifle that he never learned to use properly held in his hands like a totem. It smacks against the front of Tucker’s armor when he flings his arms around Church, bearing him back against the merlon with a CLUNK. The last time Tucker had tried to tackle his friend, he’d passed right through him. But the rifle is real. The armor is real. Church is real. A fresh wave of dizziness comes over Tucker; everything still feels unreal, no matter how solid the proof before him. “What. In the HELL, Tucker.”  Church sounds almost as surprised as he does angry, and Tucker releases him before things can get even more awkward. Or violent. He takes a deep breath, trying to steady his equilibrium and his nerves. What to say? How to explain? He needs to plan his words carefully, to be clear and concise, to TELL HIM TELL HIM EVERYTHING TELL HIM RIGHT NOW!! The compulsion overrides all logic, and Tucker finds himself blurting out: “Look, I know you don’t know me that well, but you have to believe what I’m about to tell you. Sometime in the future, we leave Blood Gulch, and we learn a whole lot of shit that was supposed to be secret and we blow the lid off of a couple military conspiracies and stop a war, an actual war, and then we try to retire and we get these new bases, and I’m all like, there’s no better way you can pick up chicks than by being in a band-” Church maglocks the rifle to his back and catches both of Tucker’s wildly-gesticulating arms, pulling them still. “Tucker, what the fuck are you babbling about?” His stomach swoops with an awful feeling like deja vous mated with vertigo and then implanted him with the resulting embryo, but Tucker shakes free and soldiers forward. “I know all this sounds crazy, but eventually we become time-travel warriors, and then one day we try to save a friend of ours but instead we, like, broke reality or some shit and I wound up back here, eight years ago-” “Tucker? Tucker, calm down. Listen to me. You haven’t gone back in time, okay? You probably just jerked it too hard behind your special rock and passed out and had a dehydration dream. Go drink some water and stay out of the sun for a while, dipshit.” “But-” Tucker goes on to try to impress the importance- the truth- of what he’s saying to Church. Church, still standing directly in front of Tucker, responds by announcing he’s driving through a tunnel, making a noise like static, and turning off his radio. Tucker has missed this asshole so much. # [Sept 10, 2018.]