Unmourned

An Argento Soma Fanfic

By Prospero Hibiki

If I was anything but a poor college student I would ... well I don't know what would happen since I doubt that this situation will change in the foreseeable future except if I fail out of said college. As it is I'm not making any money off of these characters and any character that you don't recognize from the Argento Soma series is mine. And the truly sad thing is I'm not even making money off of them. By the way for people who don't know the series (and if so why are you reading this) and those who just can't recognize the starting place, it's during episode eight.

I hate this life I'm living. Ryu Soma isn't me. He isn't what I wanted in life or want now, even. I despise him. He has a life that Ryu Soma could have enjoyed. That is if Ryu Soma had existed in the first place. He didn't of course, because before the accident I was Takuto Kaneshiro. I can't stand not being Takuto anymore. But at times...but at times...but at times I can't imagine ever being him again. I find myself thinking of things in ways that he never would, or feeling things that he never allowed himself to feel. It seems that Ryu Soma is not another Takuto Kaneshiro after all, and that makes me wonder. What does Ryu Soma want out of life? Would Ryu Soma? Devote his life to revenge? Would Ryu Soma have made that devil's bargain with the red-haired man?

The idiot in the other cell is busy at the moment listening to some mail he's received which is just as good for me since I don't want to deal with him at the moment. Dan Simmons makes me itch for some reason that I can't fathom, and it bothers me a great deal. It's almost as if he knows that I'm a traitor, but that's impossible. I wonder why though he always seems to track me down when I'm in the data library. Is he watching me? Have I betrayed myself? Is he there for reasons of his own?

It seems our food is here, but I can't seem to make myself care. Though strangely there seems to be conversation between whoever is bringing it and Simmons one sided though it is. I see the tray get pushed forward and realize that it is Guinivere Green one of the other pilots. Strange that she's bringing two prisoners their food. When I ask she just comments on the pilots being dispatched to other duties when not on alert. Doesn't make much difference to me one way or the other though. She turns to leave and I go back to my brooding. Or try too for she's pushed something though one of the slots. It's a newspaper.

"From your good coworker," she says before turning her cart around.

"Wait!" It's so sudden on my part that I don't even realize that it was me that spoke for a moment. But it worked and she's come back. "Do you have a pen?" She just stares at me for a moment before I can come up with a suitable excuse for needing a pen. "For the crossword." I don't quite know what she thinks of me and decide to just shrug it off as she leaves without saying another word. She doesn't owe me anything. I'm briefly disappointed though because I'd really wanted to write down some thoughts on possible improvements in the Sargs. But I guess I'll have to do so at another time if I still remember.

I've almost finished my meal, just ignoring the paper at the moment, when I hear another person coming through the entrance to the detention area. My eyebrows rise when I notice that it is Lt. Green. She gives me a smile as she pushes another object through the slots and one much larger than a pen. It's a legal pad with a pencil on top of it. On top of the pad is a sheet of paper with a crossword puzzle on it.

"There isn't a crossword puzzle today," smiling with her entire face as she says it. "So I thought you might want to try this one though it's hard. You'll probably need the notepad in order to finish it." She flashes me another quick smile before heading off once again.

I hadn't meant to do the crossword puzzle in the paper but suddenly the desire to do this one overwhelms me. Only several minutes into this one does it occur to me that this paper is from a computer printout. So just where did she go to print out a crossword puzzle for me? And why?

Two hours after starting it and I'm finally finished with the crossword. Several times during that time I'd switched over to write some thoughts down on the notepad concerning possible Sarg improvements though not as many as I'd hoped. Despite having read extensively on the Sargs just the other night I know very little about aspects that I'd consider useful. I suspect that any benefits from my expertise in material sciences would benefit most from upgrading the armaments. For aircraft, if they can be called that, they are frighteningly ill equipped given that they are routinely dispatched to fight aliens. We move like epee fencers darting about trying to lure them into a casual misstep where we dart in and finish them off. We do it that way because we have to. But what if we didn't? What we need is a way to propel better ammunition with more force than we currently do our current ammo. But what? And how?

Throwing the pad across the cell in disgust I grab the so far untouched paper and pick a place and start reading. And then it hits me. Soma. The article with my previous associates is on the front page and I can remember their exclamations as they mentioned that the new material reacted amazingly in zero gravity. A gravity gun. Similar to the old concept of a rail gun but through manipulation of gravity waves instead of magnets. And the Sargs have on board gravity engines, the alien motors.

"That's it! Soma is the answer!" For the first time in a long time I'm smiling and that thought is enough to push me over the edge and into laughter. I can hear Lt. Simmons asking me what's so funny, but I block him out and instead start concentrating on how to turn my concept into a reality. There's much to be done, especially if I want to finish with it by the time that I am let out of the cell.

There's a loud blaring sound that cuts off Simmon's latest attempt to pester me. I block it out as I have been blocking out him. Scrabbling around on the cot for a few seconds I finally find the sheet that I was looking for and double check the equation on it. Just as I'd thought, I'd used phi instead of mu and messed up everything on that page. It only takes a moment to fix and when I'm done I take a deep breath. It's finished. I've used every sheet of the notepad going onto the back of several of them. My stomach grumbles and I chuckle thinking of my old habits in college. I was used to having food to fuel these all night study sessions but this time I've only had one meal brought in by a guard to satisfy me. It was good that Lt. Green gave me a pencil because I'd been able to sharpen it with the knife that'd come with my meal the many times I'd broken the lead. As it is the pencil has clearly seen better days having both it's lead and eraser worn down to almost nothing. Right now though, there are only three things on my mind. The first is to get these schematics to the technicians in charge of armaments as soon as possible so my Sarg can get upgraded as soon as possible for a test run with the new equipment. Then I'm going to get some food and crash. Maybe not in that order. Almost forty-eight hours without sleep now. Reminds me of college.

All of a sudden my cell door slides open, and I look up in surprise. I hadn't thought that much time had passed yet. But obviously if we were being let out then I'd been busier than I'd thought. Or I'd passed out sometime while writing. Wouldn't have been the first time. Standing up I step into the doorway only to find Captain Heartland staring at me quizzically. I can guess why for I've seen that face on every one of my friends after one of my all night study sessions. I probably look even scarier now that I've picked up the scars on the left side of my face.

"Lt. Soma, didn't you hear the alarm claxon?"

Is that what that was? Not good. I can tell that I won't be in any condition to pilot for the next seven hours at least, and I still have to get these plans to the gun techs. "I'm sorry sir I must have tuned them out." I wince now because I can hear them now and they are almost deafening. Now that I think about it I wouldn't believe me either. I decide to go with a half-truth. "I'm sorry sir, but these cells give me flashbacks to my time in the hospital. I didn't get much sleep last night as a result." I hope that he accepts that and that he doesn't notice the decimated notepad that is strewn across the entire room. He won't though.

"I see." He gestures behind me. "And just what is that?"

Suddenly I see this for what it really is, an opportunity to get him on my side. "This sir, is a Sarg armament system one thousand times better than what we are currently armed with." Turning my back on him for a moment I start gathering up all of the sheets thankful that I'd remembered to number them all as I'd worked. "As it is I need to get this to our technicians so they can run up a working prototype. Or should I get this to some scientists to check the math. Yeah, some of the professors at Universal University. Dr. Weribugh is still with their physics department. I think I remember his number. Was it 846-7727 or 7277? We'll need to get some soma from the metallurgy labs there since I doubt we'd have the necessary materials on hand here. We might, but no more than enough for twenty of the bullets."

"Excuse me, but soma?" Captain Heartland is clearly confused not knowing how to deal with me spouting off ideas like this. Then again I'm not used to it either after so many months as Ryu Soma.

"Yes, soma. It's a new material discovered by some graduate students at Universal University. Here's the article if you're curious." I toss him the paper going back to sorting the pages. "I really must thank Lt. Green for bringing the paper yesterday. Without it I never would have thought of using the Sarg's gravity motor as a source of zero gravity to propel a soma projectile. All the math's here, and I'm fairly certain that I caught all the errors when I went through and double…Damn!"

"That's not language appropriate for an officer, Lt. Soma."

"I'm sorry sir, it's just that I put page 127 on the back of page sixty three. I must make a note of that on page 126 so it's printed up properly." I mark off the small correction in the footnotes of the proper page before moving on.

"One hundred and twenty seven pages?" The captain sounds shocked. "You wrote 127 pages in twelve hours?"

"What? Oh no! There's 174 pages. No, make that 178, I forgot about these over here." Finally they're all together. "But that's slightly large. Some of them aren't really written having my calculations on them and others have the schematics for the weapon. Really one of my more satisfying projects. Reminds me of my college days. If you'd excuse me Captain, I have to get this to the necessary people before I pass out when the endorphins run through my system. Which if my body follows it's normal pattern is going to happen in about thirty minutes." Seeing him nod in confusion I hurry past him.

It doesn't take very long for me to work my way down to the maintenance areas, and the expression on the head technician's face is awed after I've passed the documents to him. He said he'd contact everyone else I'd told him to while I got some rest. Directing me to his office he'd scarcely let me in before he went into his secretary's office to start photocopying all of the sheets in the proper order. The smells and sounds of machinery bring pleasant pieces of my past to mind as I slip into a perfectly restful sleep on the technician's hard government issue couch.

Someone is trying to shake me awake much earlier than I'd rather wake up, especially after such a long period awake. I figure I'll ask them politely to let me sleep before I bother to open my eyes. "Go away! Tired!" I roll back over so that I'm face down on the couch. When the person goes back to prodding me I snap at them once more. "The difficult I do immediately, if you want the impossible come back in a couple of hours and I'll have something for you." I don't know if they've heard me though since even to my ears that sounded rather unintelligible, but I really don't care right now. My body is telling me quite emphatically that I haven't gotten enough sleep

Apparently though I haven't expressed myself fully because instead of going away they are only trying harder. Weakly I raise a hand and wave it a few times barely noticing when it bangs into something soft that I can only think of being the couch but that's fairly strange because I thought the back of the couch was on my other side. "If it's about the math just contact Nathan Mathews at Universal U and ask him to check my work. Tell him it's a soma project by the Magician and he'll practically drool."

I can hear the door opening once more and there is another person coming into the room in addition to the person that still insists on bothering me. "Lt. Green, why are you and Lt. Soma still here?" Oh it's Commander Inez. Maybe she and Guinevere can make this person leave me alone.

"Ma'am, the Lieutenant doesn't seem capable of moving on his own." Oh so Guinevere is the person bothering me. Rats!

I groan when I hear the door open and close once more and the entrance of yet another set of footsteps. "Sorry to disturb you, Commander, Lieutenant, but I really need to ask Lt. Soma about some of these calculations. Sir, here on page 153 you say that the necessary plating should be equal to the coefficient of the gravitational force times a constant but none of us can seem figure out what the constant is or what unit of measurement you intended for the plating."

This is something even my tired brain can handle at the moment. Lifting my head high enough to be heard clearly I think back to the notes filed away in my brain before coming up with what the technician asked for. "The constant is mu, no wait that's the mistake I was making earlier it should be phi not mu. The plating should be done in millimeters because the force isn't as strong in that direction as in the long axis. You might want to check with Nathan Mathews at Universal U though to be sure. I'm sure I wrote down his number on one of the pages. He also might be able to come up with a better material to make the plating out of which could cut down on the cost. I just did that based on what we had on hand here." I would have continued but I could already hear him running off shouting directions to other workers in the workshop. Satisfied I let my head drop back down on the cushion.

"Lt. Soma, I'm going to assume that there is a good reason for all of this...activity." I can practically imagine the usually stoic Commander waving around one of her arms and the image makes me giggle. It's a sure sign that I need sleep. Or caffeine. Preferably sleep.

"There's no hope of me getting any sleep is there?" Sighing I lift my head. "Lt. Green, I'll get you anything you want, up to and including a marriage proposal, if you could see it in the kindness of your heart to get me a double strong hot chocolate made with milk and a caffeine pill. Oh yeah, and a bucket of ice water. Do that and I'd...well I don't know what I'd do. Let's just say I'll be eternally in your debt." I know that that I'm making extravagant promises but right now I couldn't care less. If she can pull both of those off I might just propose anyway.

She walks out and for a brief moment I imagine that I saw her blush. Impossible...unless I didn't hit the couch when I waved my hand around. It's a struggle to move myself into a sitting position and another to move one of my hands to support my face which feels like it's about to slide off at any moment now.

"Lt. Soma?" That's right the Commander asked me a question didn't she?

"Did you happen to talk to Captain Heartland?" Maybe I won't have to explain everything.

"Yes, but he only said that you had been acting quite strangely." Figures that I don't catch a break.

Pulling myself into a more studious posture I start tossing out the thought processes that prompted the creation of my gravity gun project. Hoping to stall as long as possible so that I can at least get the bucked of ice water, I throw in as much technical jargon as I possibly can. I think it works when I see her eyes glaze over slightly. Surprisingly it took a lot longer than I thought it would. I pause for a second to catch my breath and she cuts in.

"Lt. Soma, can you explain that in a way that I can understand?" I wince because that was exactly what I didn't want to do.

"Last night I managed to create a Sarg weapon system almost one thousand times more powerful than what we currently have."

She blinks. And blinks again. That's exactly the reason I didn't want to give her the short version. Her first response after shaking herself back into reality surprises me. "Does it work?" I was expecting something similar to how, let's go to the infirmary, or even the famous go back to the brig.

"It should. Even if we can't get a decent supply of the soma projectiles made, the gravity gun should still have an energy delivery rate equal to three of the air force's plane mounted laser cannons. That's if they were all held on target for a full minute and that would be per projectile. At the speed it would be traveling we should be able to pass through just about any barrier even a progressive alien creates. For example the H2's melting powers wouldn't have any time to destroy the projectile before impact. If we do manage to get a hold of soma projectiles then the projectile velocity should be significantly higher, how much so I can't guess." Her eyes are got that glazed look again, but as soon as I stopped she came back.

Turning around she went to the door and flipped the lock so that the deadbolt engaged. "Is this your professional analysis of the system Lt. Soma. Or should I say Takuto Kaneshiro?" She shakes her head. "I had suspicions about you, but then you proved to be such a capable pilot that I believed that I was mistaken. And now this. Who are you Ryu Soma?"

I freeze. She knew. "I was at one time Takuto Kaneshiro. I won't deny it since you have figured it out. As to who I am now? I don't know. I used to think that I was still Takuto, but flying once more has been so exhilarating. I've experienced emotions, ideas, insights that Takuto never had. I am Ryu Soma. I know that now. Maybe not the Ryu Soma that people wanted me to be, but Ryu Soma all the same." I look up at her from my position on the couch. "I guess the appropriate question now is what are you going to do about it?"

"Why?"

"Why not? My life was over. You were there. They weren't ever going to leave me alone, not after the accident. So when he came by and offered me a deal that could eventually get me what I wanted I took it."

"Who, and what deal?"

"He never told me his name, but he had red hair and a beard. He offered me the only thing I wanted. Revenge. Revenge on the thing that took from me the only thing I cared about. Frank. I hate him. He killed Maki and yet we're using him to fight these aliens."

"You do realize that what you've told me has affected how I shall use you as a resource in the future. You've also warned me about your attitude to Extra One."

"I know, and while I can accept that, it doesn't mean that I won't succeed in getting my revenge. I'm generally acknowledged to be a genius you know." I twitch the corner of my mouth into a smirk to show her that I'm not truly that arrogant. I mean, I am arrogant, but not that arrogant.

"I'm finding this to be a truly odd conversation Lt. Soma. If I didn't know everything about you that I do I would be quite reluctant about allowing you to even remain in this facility. And yet, knowing what I do know, I believe sending you away could quite possibly be the worst thing in the world for me to do." She frowned. "Just what do you think I should do with you?"

"Status quo ante?"

She shook her head. "Too many things have changed. Perhaps even more than you or I know. Too many people have seen too much for you to return to the way you were before. And yet you cannot be Takuto again. That is also not possible." She frowned again. "Perhaps a little of both. If this new you is here to stay, we can slowly edge you into a position where you will do the most good. And the least harm."

So this is it. It seems that I've set out into uncharted territory. Takuto Kaneshiro is finally dead. Ryu Soma is all that remains.