Celia's door had become, over the months, less a portal and more a hazard. Command manuals would someday list it under "structural risks": stained stickers, a suspicious goo trail near the threshold, and a war map made entirely of sticky notes that nobody in their right mind would try to alphabetize.
Rina stood outside and inhaled like a forensic investigator. The smell said a lot: old instant noodles, something faintly citrusy (probably an abandoned detergent experiment), and a lingering hint of victory (or at least delusion). She knocked. The door yawned open on a tilt, and an avalanche of soft objects tumbled into the hallway — plushies, rolled-up posters, and a sock that might have been alive.
"Celia?" Rina called, bracing a hand on the doorframe. The floor inside was a multicolored mosaic of chaos. There was a mountain of clothes whose summit proudly displayed a half-assembled model of a transport ship, and beside it, a small crater where a "science experiment" had clearly failed last week.
A head popped out from under a pile of blankets. Celia's goggles were askew. She gave Rina a sheepish salute and then, with theatrical seriousness, announced, "Affirmative, Commander. The situation is under semi-control."
Rina's eyes narrowed. "Semi-control is not a classification recognized by regulations."
"Noted," Celia said, immediately flipping onto her back and making a dramatic show of looking for a rulebook beneath a cushion. "I'll find the appropriate form."
Rina stepped inside and took three careful steps before her foot encountered something sticky and protested loudly. She peeled it off. It was a sticker shaped like a tiny rocket. Liri's handwriting scrawled in glitter across the adjacent pillow read: 'Launch when ready'.
Mira was already there, kneeling beside a dresser and cataloguing the chaos with an expression of solemn duty. "It's worse than last time," she said, measuring a stack of unopened mail. "There are three different kinds of dust."
Eira sank onto the nearest chair with her ever-present coffee, draped in a blanket as if it were ceremonial regalia. She glanced around, sipped, and offered the assessment only someone who had seen many low points could give: "It is consistent with a small cultural collapse."
Liri bounded in, a laundry basket on her hip and a hopeful smile. "We'll make this fun! Cleaning parties are the best!" She enthusiastically attempted to sit on the floor and instead slid halfway into a pile of comic books, surfacing like a flailing seal.
Rina drew a breath. "This is not a cleaning party. This is a mission. We will enter, we will secure, and we will retrieve all personal effects and at least three pairs of matched socks."
Celia popped up off the floor like it had been a spring. "Positive morale boost! Consider me Mission Lead." She skimmed a sticky note off the wall and stuck it to her forehead. It read: 'Lead with flair.'
Rina blinked slowly. "You are not leading logistics."
"Logistics is boring," Celia said. "Leadership is charming. Also, I made a detailed schematic." She unfolded a crumpled sheet of paper covered in wildly optimistic arrows and doodles of heroic knives. "See? Strategy."
Mira suppressed the urge to sigh and instead assigned roles with the efficiency of a woman who would rather be anywhere but knee-deep in this noise. "Rina, you coordinate. Eira, document and guard the coffee. Liri, gather loose items. I will inventory and create zones. Celia… you will not touch anything that looks remotely fragile."
Celia's face fell slightly, then brightened. "So I can touch everything else."
"No." Rina tried to be firmer than she felt. The thing about Celia was that she wore certainty like armor, and it frequently got them into trouble — but it was also why the rest of them loved her. "You can organize the sentimental artifacts table."
"Sentimental artifacts table," Celia repeated solemnly, as if pinned with an invisible ribbon. She snapped her fingers and set about placing an enormous stuffed bear on the floor and a teetering tower of mismatched mugs beside it.
"We'll start with surfaces," Mira said, and they set to work.
At first, cleaning felt almost meditative. Rina folded military-issue shirts into neat, indignant rectangles. Mira shelved items with military precision, labeling piles with crisp handwriting. Liri discovered a drawer of novelty pens and began cataloguing them by color and squeakiness; this is not the sort of classification anyone asked for, but it made her incredibly happy.
Eira, dutifully, took notes with a pen and a smoldering look on her face. She wrote down everything in long, deliberate strokes — what was thrown away, what should be recycled, and what, in a perfect world, would need to be chemically felled. When Rina caught sight of her list, it included a small notation: 'Celia: emotional hazard.' Rina smiled despite herself.
The first calamity occurred in the kitchenette, which, to no one's surprise, contained at least twelve unwashed mugs and a collection of spoons that had somehow formed a society. Celia, carrying a stack of plates like an overexcited parade leader, tripped on a trail of ribbon and turned, broadcasting ceramic clatter like a cannon. A mug shattered. Somewhere a tiny spoon sighed into a chipmunk wail.
Celia clapped both hands over her mouth. "I— I'll fix it! I'll fix it with adhesive!" She dashed out and returned with a superglue tube and an expression of reckless optimism that made Rina's skin prickle.
"Celia, do not superglue anything," Rina said, picturing the number of things that could permanently become one with each other.
"It's a bonding agent," Celia said defensively. "For teamwork."
Mira took the superglue away from her gently but firmly. "We will not be bonding ceramics. We will be disposing of broken ceramics."
They loaded the shard-laden paper towels into a bag. Liri, at the edge of a shelf, discovered a tangle of ribbon that, when pulled, set off a chain reaction of falling posters that struck the floor in a confetti of cartoonish mayhem. A laundry basket was launched. A model ship lost its mast. Somewhere in the pile, the sock that might have been alive let out a muffled squeak and then disappeared under a cushion.
Rina's plan was working until they reached the closet. The closet door had always been a place of mystery and whispered rumors. It was the last frontier. Rumors said ancient artifacts once lived in there; myths claimed it was where small snacks went to retire.
They opened it together, the five of them in a synchronized slow-breath, and the closet exhaled a gale of dust and an avalanche of garments.
Everything tumbled out: capes, costumes, half-finished knitting projects, a handful of glowsticks that sputtered to life, and — alarmingly — a single, solemn rubber chicken wearing a tiny helmet. It landed on Celia's head and, for a second, the chicken was the general of chaos.
Liri squealed with glee. "It's a ceremonial chicken!"
Eira murmured, "It has dignity."
Mira reached for a pile with gloved hands and found a small shoebox. Inside were letters, photographs, and a lopsided paper heart. Her hands paused. "Celia… these are…?"
Celia, who'd emerged from the mountain of textiles looking like a bedraggled parade, sank down on the closet lip and let out a breath. "Those are things I didn't know how to deal with," she said simply. Her voice trembled around the edges — not dramatic, not performative, just quiet and human.
Rina felt an unexpected tug in her chest. For all Celia's theatrics, the woman had a soft place that belonged to memory. Cleaning Celia's room suddenly felt less like a chore and more like a repair job on a fragile friend.
They made a little station: the sentimental artifacts table now had a proper label — "Handle with care (and cookies)." They opened the letters, read fragments, and in small, steady moments, the room gained a heartbeat. Celia explained, in fits, who had sent which note and why this sock was kept as a memento (it had apparently been on a mission that involved a particularly dramatic puddle).
Eira brewed coffee and proffered it like a peace treaty. Mira sat down for exactly three minutes and then resumed cataloguing. Liri organized the plushies into a defensive perimeter. Rina stacked shirts, aligning labels like tiny banners of order. Celia, quiet for once, carefully placed each small object back into a drawer with reverence.
It was during this gentle repair that they discovered the true disaster: under a stack of comic books and a cookbook titled Explosions for Dinner, there lay an envelope marked with Command insignia and sealed months ago.
Celia's face drained. "I thought I paid that… or sent it… I don't remember." Her fingers trembled when she slid the envelope into her palm. "I was supposed to respond."
Rina took the envelope with a steady hand and opened it. Inside, the letter was short and formal: a request for updated personal records and an invitation to a friendly recognition ceremony for the unit. It was a small thing, but it might have mattered. Celia's jaw tightened, and for a moment she looked like a kid who had been late to class.
Rina set the letter aside and, without thinking, said, "We'll handle it. We'll finish this room, we'll update the records, and we'll go to that ceremony together."
Celia blinked, surprised, then grinned in a way that made the room feel warmer. "Deal."
They pressed on. The afternoon blurred into a montage of cleaning: dusting, sweeping, vacuuming (Mira's method was a military-grade approach involving diagrams and a solemn vow never to overuse the vacuum), and a heroic attempt by Celia to assemble a small shelving unit that resulted in one extra screw and a sense of triumph that transcended logic.
At one point Liri found a jar of something labelled 'Emergency: Do Not Open — Possibly Alive.' She opened it. A small puff of glitter escaped and then, embarrassingly, a collection of tiny toy soldiers tumbled out in a stiff parade. Liri clapped delightedly. "They were just sleeping!" she declared.
By late afternoon, the room looked like a different place. The floor shone faintly, the posters were straight, and the sentimental artifacts table had a little sign with a doodled heart. Celia sat on her bed and looked around like someone who had just climbed a mountain.
"It's like… a new start," she said softly. It was the sort of line that could be swallowed by comedy, but it wasn't. It was honest.
Eira, who rarely gave away encouragement, set her mug down and said, "Looks better." It was succinct, but the tone carried weight.
Mira checked the inventory list. "Everything accounted for," she said, and there was a rare lift in her voice. She pocketed a pen like a victory token. "Except one: your old training badge."
"Oh." Celia's eyes went to a small spot on the shelf. She had been looking at it all day, apparently afraid to pick it up. Slowly, with a courage that only the reckless possess, she stood and retrieved it. The badge was scratched and warm from years of wear. She hooked it onto her shirt.
One by one, they did small, domestic things that were not nearly as glamorous as missions but carried the same kind of importance: hanging a towel on a hook, finding Liri's missing sock, putting back the teapot that somehow had found its way into a pile of fabric. They laughed when a hidden battery-powered disco light flickered on unexpectedly, turning the tidy room into a goofy, celebratory parade for exactly three minutes.
When they finished, Celia flopped on her newly bare rug and let out a long, satisfied sigh. The light from the window striped across her face like a benediction.
Rina looked at the clock and realized how much time had passed. She felt a quiet, anchored contentment — the peculiar kind that comes after an ordinary, meaningful labor done with people you trust. "We did this together," she said simply.
Celia turned her head. "We did." Her face softened. "Thank you, girls."
Liri hopped over, clutching the ceremonial rubber chicken which she had crowned with a paper party hat. "We should have more cleaning parties," she chirped.
"No," Mira said immediately, but it was gentle. "One is enough."
Eira took one last sip of coffee and stood. "I'll file the records tonight," she said. "And I'll set the coffee pot to automatic."
Celia blinked. "Automatic coffee maker? That sounds like sorcery."
"It's civilization," Eira said, then allowed herself a small smile.
They left the room together, closing the door quietly behind them. Celia paused with her hand on the knob and said, "Tomorrow, we'll hang the rest of the posters. And maybe—" she lowered her voice in conspiratorial awe — "—we'll have a small ceremony."
Rina grinned, shook her head, and added, "Only if Celia promises not to stage anything that involves glitter bombs."
Celia put on a face of wounded betrayal. "I solemnly swear. No glitter bombs."
Liri whispered, "Cross your heart?" and Celia made the most theatrical cross-heart gesture imaginable.
They walked down the hall with the easy companionship that had formed around them like an invisible blanket. The base hummed along, oblivious to the recovery mission they had just accomplished. Somewhere in the distance, a faint mechanical beeping sounded — the coffee machine, perhaps, coming online for the first time since the snackpocalypse.
It had been, by any measure, a small operation. No explosions, no appliances turned rogue. But they had done something harder than beating a machine: they had sat with one of their own and helped put pieces back together.
They were, in their own messy way, extraordinary.
To be continued on Chapter 8: The Base Inspection Disaster