Atlas

It was a muggy Spring morning on the day the Weyland Consortium arrived on Earth, and Ryuji Sakamoto was in an apartment in Yongen-Jaya, discovering the joys of plastic models.

"Watch the knife, dummy!" This wasn't his voice, but the voice of the girl hovering over his shoulder. Ryuji jerked, the modelling knife in his hand hewing away from the desk he sat at.

"I wasn't gonna cut myself, Futaba!"

Futaba rolled her eyes behind her wide glasses. "Sure, idiot. Look, cut down towards the mat, okay? I don't want to have to explain to Haru why you lost a finger." The small girl headed back to her ridiculous rig of computer monitors, the torrent of information tinting her long orange hair in soda-fake colours.

Ryuji looked from the neon spiderweb of plastic in his other hand to the box. He'd been persuaded by the colourful art of one of his favourite mecha on the front, but the contents had been lies. Lies made of plastic and sticker sheets. Who built their own action figure? It was madness. Futaba needed to get a physical hobby so he didn't have to get dragged into this crap.

She had, however, just invoked Haru. Ryuji didn't know how to feel about that, or about Haru in general.

"Fine," he sighed, and raised the knife again. Then he felt a vibration, rumbling through his seat and the desk.

"Uh, Futaba?"

"That wasn't me!" Futaba glared at him. "Was it you?"

"I'm not that gassy."

Futaba snorted and turned back to her screens. Ryuji moved to cut the plastic again and felt the vibration again, rattling the plastic in front of him.

"Okay, I'm not going crazy. What was that? Earthquake?"

Futaba gasped. Ryuji span in his chair. The computer screens were a whirl of text strings and news clips, dancing too fast for Ryuji to parse.

"Ryuji! Something's here! Something big!" Futaba's fingers were blurs across the keyboard. "There's dropships, all over Japan, all over the Pacific, they're all -"

"Woah, woah, what?" Ryuji blinked in incomprehension. "Slow down! What's -"

"LOOK OUT THE WINDOW!"

Ryuji barely had time to hurl open the window of Futaba's apartment and stick his head out before the heat of the Atlas Dropship's engines washed over him.

---

"Looking good, Akira."

The dark-haired young man gently let the weights down from his bench press. He pushed his glasses back up his nose and smiled. "Don't I always?"

Ann, standing over him with her blonde hair haloed by the gym's cheap lighting, smirked and flicked her towel at him. "Jerk. C'mon, it's my turn. And I need a spotter, anyway."

Akira wondered if she was flirting. He'd made missteps before - ones that had hurt them both. Instead, he just breathed "sure" and stood up from the bench. The tremor came as he bent over to pick up his water bottle, and he stumbled, nearly face-planting into Ann's stomach. Only a reflexive foot stepping forward saved him.

"Smooth," came Ann's voice. She sounded as shocked as he felt.

"Earthquake?" was his response.

"No, it'd be way more sustained. What was - "

Akira's phone buzzed. Ann pulled hers out at the same time, both flicking to their messages.

YaBoiRyuji: HOLY FUCK LOOK OUTSIDE

---

Makoto Nijima didn't respond to the buzzing of her phone straight away. College assignments, especially for courses related to policing, didn't write themselves. She went to the end of the thought she was trying to express, brushed a lock of brown hair out of her face, and picked up her phone.

AkiraAkira: you gotta be kidding me
Medjed: dude it's everywhere, dropships all over the place like something outta starship troopers
YaBoiRyuji: they're all going to the pacific ocean, apparently
Blondeshell: what? why? (◕⌓◕;)
Medjed: all the news outlets say there's going to be a press release shortly, don't know anything else apart from that. can't scrape anything from my usual spots either. its all just wild guesses.

Makoto pursed her lips. Her friends weren't usually this active, not since real life had split them up somewhat. Usually it was just Ryuji and Futaba posting memes, or Ryuji and Haru posting cat pictures. Or just... Ryuji.

Her thumbs tapped out a message.

Justice Fist: I assume this might have something to do with the superheroes who reside out there?
YaBoiRyuji: hey makoto bb it's been a while! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
AkiraAkira: nice to see you again queen
Medjed: MAKOTO!!!! ╰( ･ ᗜ ･ )╯

Makoto smirked. She hadn't been called her code name in a while.

Blondshell: what makes you think that, makoto?
Medjed: strange things always happen around them, it's true
Justice Fist: I wasn't there for the first gathering, but I take it from your stories that they are a magnet for trouble.
YaBoiRyuji: yeah i cant believe we own a boat now
Justice Fist: I still don't believe that you do.
YaBioRyuji: you're gonna eat your words when we go on our kickass pirate cruise (ಠ ∩ಠ)
Saiyuri: Can we get back to the point?

---

Yusuke sighed and pocketed his phone down for a moment. The park's tranquility had been interrupted, and the birds he had been trying to sketch had taken off at the first wash of engine heat. Now the lake was duckless.

He'd been struggling for a while. After his visit to Kuwahawi with his friends, he'd come back and created what he'd thought were, at the time, some of his greatest works. Splashes of effervescent color, calm blues, feelings of complex tranquility. But then he'd shown them to his teacher.

"Something's missing here, Yusuke," he'd said.

Yusuke blinked. Criticism was still a little tough to take. "What is that?"

"You're a smart boy, Yusuke." There had been a twinkle in his teacher's eye. "You tell me."

Yusuke had studied his pictures for a long minute.

"People," he finished, at last. "Not... that there's no people, that would be facile. It's more that I didn't interact with many people, native or not. There's a human element missing."

That had been the solution. Yusuke had been looking forward to their next trip - a chance to correct this issue. To meet new people, gain their expiernces, and -

The phone buzzed. Yusuke sighed and pulled out his phone again. Tranquility and technology didn't often mix.

Medjed: okay holy shit news is coming through
Medjed: do not adjust your sets ladies and gents
FluffnStuff: What's going on? (⊙△⊙✿)
YaBoiRyuji: oh hi haru!
Medjed: lol ryuji
FluffnStuff: There's ships of some kind flying all over Tokyo!!
Saiyuri: Futaba is supposed to be telling us more as it comes, once she stops making fun of Ryuji.
Medjed: fuck off yiff boy I'll fight you
Blondeshell: everyone shut up!
AkiraAkira: did he just say Weyland?

---

Haru looked out of the window at the black dots soaring over Tokyo towards the bay, then back to the boardroom television. There was a man in a fir-green suit, with impossibly neat hair. He was saying a lot of words Haru had heard her father say in the boardroom, and not any words she liked. One hand went to a curl in her hair, circling the lock around a finger.

She was scared and she didn't know why.

YaBoiRyuji: can anyone decipher his fucking business speak?
Justice Fist: Language, Ryuji.
Medjed: i think the jist is that they're here to build something
AkiraAkira: Futaba, can you get any information on this beanstalk he keeps talking about
Medjed: no promises
Saiyuri: As in the western fairy tale?
Blondeshell: oh shit yusuke might be onto something
FluffnStuff: that doesn't make sense, you can't build something that tall
AkiraAkira: maybe we can't
Medjed: oh crap
Medjed: uh, when are we leaving for kuwahawi?
AkiraAkira: tomorrow, why?
Medjed: I don't think it's going to be much of a holiday :<
Justice Fist: Does this mean we need Morgana?
YaBoiRyuji: oh man srsly?!

Haru sighed and put the phone down.

"Oh dear," she whispered to the empty room.

---

They were on the plane. Akira, in the middle of the row of seats, squeezed Ann's hand on his right. She offered him a nervous smile. Ryuji snored in the seat on his left. Behind him, Makoto asked Yusuke if he could pass the biscuits, please. Haru was across the aisle from Ryuji, looking pensive.

There was one extra person, and they were in the cargo hold. They were probably going to hate this flight.

Akira should be looking forward to the holiday. It was going to be sun, sand and sea again. He could submit his college papers remotely. It wouldn't be difficult. He could manage all of this. He'd done it before.

"Keep telling yourself that," he muttered.

People would notice they were gone. How long could they be away before it started to look bad? What would happen? Futaba would know where they were, but she couldn't be there physically. She had school to go to. Sojiro knew, although he'd not approved in the slightest. "Don't come back dead, kid." Those had been his words, growled out over a cup of coffee.

Akira was going to ruin his friend's lives, if they were lucky.