“Is that some kind of celebration?” I yelled in excitement, trying to be the loudest among all these screamers, “Scathach! Is that staged?”
“On the abandoned building!” Someone’s blood-curdling scream was louder than me.
“They are homunculi.” Scathach answered shortly. She just gently waved her hands and the Void opened spurting dark clouds, as the wounds, blood and scars of the world. “Use the void to get to the lower floors,” She instructed the others.
I gestured towards the distant rooftop, “You mean these golden lights moving over there—”
The lady interrupted me with a blood-curdling scream as if she had spotted a meteor hurtling toward her. “Homunculi!” She cried, “Homunculi in the other building!”
“They are moving in between buildings!” Someone else with a thick pair of glasses and a funny moustache screamed.
It took less than 1 second for the entire rooftop to fall into dead, eerie silence, and another second for another chaos to erupt like volcanos in Pompeii. The lady who had screamed attempted to bolt towards the exit, only failed to merge into the escaping crowd and was jostled to the ground by the frantic crowd. It was already a packed rooftop, but the scene of everyone trying their best to squeeze into the exit reminded me of sardines jammed into a can. I clung to Scathach’s arm with all my strength to avoid getting swept out, and her tall figure in my eyes worked like a lighthouse in front of a ship.
“Everyone, remain calm! Allow officers to pass!” shouted a burly figure with a shaved head, but his commands went unheard as the crowd surged forward, disrupting the officers' formation. Amid the chaos, a younger officer stumbled and fell before us, his gun belt snapping and sending an M4 assault rifle tumbling toward one unfortunate individual. Reacting swiftly, I extended my arm and caught the rifle before it slid off the rooftop's edge. Meanwhile, Scathach deftly seized the collar of the fallen officer, lifting him as if he were a docile fowl.
“Hey, Officer!” I shouted, “I’m gonna borrow this for a bit! Scathach, cover your ears!”
She didn’t cover her ears as I told her but covered my ears when I turned the rifle to full auto and dumped a whole magazine towards the sky. “Shut up! All of you!” I pulled a new magazine from that officer’s chest rig and loaded the gun again, pointing the rifle towards the crowd, “Shut the fuck up! If whatever is on that roof is not killing you right now, I sure fucking will! Line up and let children and the elderly pass first! You guys shove another person again, I’m gonna toss your fucking corpse down the building to make you the fastest!”
“That is very—uncivilised,” Scathach let go of my ears and said, probably saying to me.
“I’m not going to toss my gun away like Obi-Wan even if you said it.”I tossed her a joke that she didn’t catch, “Everyone, shut the fuck up! They are not going to kill you now, but I will if all of you are going to be bitches! Line up and exit the roof and let the children and elderly pass first!”
The chubby bald guy emitted a shrill whistle, and his team quickly stepped aside and started to arrange the line. I just noticed that Souyo was next to him when he was busy helping trampled people up, and after they struggled to swim towards me in an ocean of people, I spared a hand to dig around in Souyo’s pocket for candies and filled my mouth with toffees.
“Very nice job, my little friend.” The chubby bald guy said kindly, “And, since you said children and elderly should go first, do you want to leave this to my men? I promise you I can handle this.”
“No, I should leave the last.” I said, “I have a feeling that these things on the roof will start a massacre when I am out of sight. Souyo—this is just like—”
At that moment, a void enveloped my consciousness and devoured it, as abrupt and disorienting as a dam suddenly halting a raging waterfall. My lungs screamed for air, together with the fainting vision, begging me to breathe, only after I realised that I somehow stopped automatically breathing. I struggled to blink, to swallow, to stand, feeling as though every automatic function had slipped from my grasp. Right now when I am telling you this, I am surprised that I was not incontinent, since all the senses blurred and ran wild, colours melting into a repulsive disproportion of grey stench, black bitterness and red cacophony.
“What did you do to him?” I heard Souyo’s roar, a sound more like the disorderly prelude of a lousy Jazz band rather than my kind friend. I either had a stroke or a brain bleed, I thought pessimistically, and I would end up in a wheelchair and communicate through a robotic voice. My pupils finally broke free from the dungeon of colours, and the first thing I saw other than the whirls of rainbows was Souyo with his sword in vessels-bulging hands. The chubby guy held Souyo down by the armpits, in many ways, like how I played with my stuffed bear, without the part of trying to break his neck.
“His brain was forcefully rebooted,” I heard Scathach saying in an anxious tone, “give him some time.”
“I’m hungry,” I said, immediately feeling surprised that I directly said that.
“He’s speaking now— Do you mind calming down now?” I distinguished that Scathach’s voice came from behind me, then I realised that she was the cushion that prevented me from knocking my head to the ground and actually starting a brain bleed. A hand entered my vision from the left side and stuffed a pineapple-flavoured candy into my mouth, I tried to bite on the burning thing, yet only bit my tongue.
“Fart,” I said. I felt like I should at least fart a little bit since I already noticed them, but no matter how hard I push, nothing was coming out.
“Feel free to do so, darling,” Scathach said, it sounded like she felt obliged to teach us a lesson there, “Look, gentlemen, what you are seeing is the sequela of memory wipes, when the patient’s brain temporarily lost many functions, the most commonly seen ones being losing the ability to control some muscles and language.” she stuffed another candy into my mouth, “And, assuming I did wipe his memory a moment ago, he would fall asleep and allow his brain to heal itself, but would not show such sequelae.”
“Y’all have to chill down,” The chubby guy said, “professor, you invented memory wiping, after all. I can see the reason why he puts you to be the first target to doubt.”
“China invented gunpowder, I don’t see you guys bitching about China every time someone gets killed by a gun,” I interrupted, at that moment I was reborn into a normal person again, “what the hell happened to me? Stroke?”
“Someone performed a memory wipe on you, dear. Judging by your Dynamic Oscillations, it was done for a while.” She held me in her arms, handled a device that looked like a crystal cube, and inputted a bunch of data I couldn’t read, “Have you ever had a similar experience before?” She asked.
“fainting in public and almost peeing my pants, no. Use another human as a meat chair, yes.”
“Brilliant, your logic ability and language organisation are recovering faster than many lousy cases.” She grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up, “Step your left leg— Now right. Brilliant, whoever did this to you surely knows what she is doing.”
“Yeah, think about who he is.” Souyo’s voice sounded shattered like he was short of breath. He silently followed me when I tested my legs, and when he realised that he didn’t get the chance to catch the falling me, he gently hugged me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I should notice sooner.”
“Notice what? I wasn’t dead and am not dead.” I tried to ease up the mood, my questions almost burst the banks of my brain but I could sense Souyo’s discomfort, “So, uh, is my memory fabricated? Or I’m hallucinating all of you, and Souyo never came back alive, and World War Z was never the best-selling movie of this year?”
“Iron Man 3 is the best-selling movie this year.” The young officer, whom I took his gun from, broke into my imagination, “Unless, in the next 4 months, some other movies just come out and get more than 1.2 billion worldwide box office.”
“Let’s not force him to think back, that doesn’t help his recovery.” I saw Souyo’s eyes when he helped me by my arm, overflowing with concern, “You should sleep. I guarantee you that we can solve this.”
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“No, I’m good. This is the closest time for me to become some kind of chosen one, yet you want me to walk away from it?” I grabbed onto his arm, not willing to admit it but felt my legs getting out of control, “So— judging on how other people fear them, I’m pretty surprised that we are not killed yet.”
“You suggesting?” The chubby guy held my other arm when I tilted. He had this light fragrance of shampoo on him that I liked.
“Anything abnormal that can result in them not attacking us? Any— unexpected events? For example, you guys withheld some cargoes coming this morning, and their weapons and ammo happened to hide in these cargoes?”
The moment I finished my sentence, I felt a strong force pulling my body towards the front and back — The chubby CIA officer was still mechanically walking me, following Souyo’s pace, not realising that Souyo stopped his steps, stupefied, but locked my arm in his hands, almost pulled it out of the socket.
“I’m sorry,” I heard him whisper, “I see it now. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Normandy, we can’t blame everything on you.” Scathach tried to free my arm, “No one could predict the future.”
“Souyo, look at me,” I said, slowly realising the missing piece of this puzzle, “squat down, so I can look you in the eyes.”
He did what I asked, I thought his suit pocket was bulging due to the food he hid inside, but turned out it was just a bunch of documents. When I held his hair and pulled his head closer, he tucked back his lips, like he was about to cry. I put my forehead on his, felt the warmth passing through my skin, and looked at him in the eyes.
“I don’t fully know what happened last time, but we didn’t die last time, Souyo,” I said, “we are going to survive this, again, together. And after that, you can pretend you are dead again, or do whatever you want. But we are the key to open doors, I need you to cheer up.”
“Homunculus is very — conformist. They tend to follow the order of their owners or customers in a very strict manner.” Scathach said, “If they were given the order not to target any Haos last time because the people behind this can’t afford to become hostile with Haos, that can very possibly be the reason why they hesitated to attack us now.”
“See, Scathach? I have real-life plot armour.” I bragged to my new friend, reaching into her pockets to search for treats, “This is just one of the possibilities, but we should at least give it a try. Is there anything we can use to communicate with these homunculi over there?”
The good thing was that Scathach was a professor, and she had a bunch of spare whiteboards in her Void space, and all buildings had these coin-operated scenery binoculars that could zoom in and out. “Don’t fire, I’m a Hao.” I wrote, drew a huge arrow pointing downwards raised the board, and saw some lights on and off.
“They are using flashlights. Morse codes,” The chubby guy said, his face pale. Around us, people were glancing up, their expressions a mix of hope and dread. “You may leave,” He translated slowly, squinting. "You-can-bring-five, we-need-the-rest.”
“Do you know Morse code?” I asked.
“Yes, well, we’re CIA officers. I’m Deputy Director Edward Williams, Directorate of Zero.” He said, “This is awkward, I wasn’t trained to tell people that I am a CIA officer. But I reckon this is one of these moments we can’t hold any secrets.”
“That is so great, tell them that I need to talk to my pilot before I leave. Also tell them that the pilot is from the House of Hua, which Hua spells as HUA. And tell Hua to bring my caramels.”
Edward passed the message to the homunculi, and soon I saw the figure of Captain Hua approaching with one of his hands holding candies and the other hand waving a stick with his white underwear tied on the tip. The people on the lower level quickly moved the barricades and let Captain Hua in, and climbing 10 floors to us with a flag made with underwear with all care was not even the worst thing that happened to him in the building.
“There are Homunculi only a few floors down, and they sealed the entrance.” His first sentence knocked my progress a few steps back, “People downstairs set barricades with furniture, but that won’t hold long if they decide to assault.”
“Maybe we should just kill our way out,” Souyo said, “Professor and I play the vanguard.”
“Stop the suicidal guilt, Souyo, it does no use,” I said, busy stuffing candies into my mouth but forgetting how sticky they could be. The rest stood next to me and stared until I found their sights burning.
“What?” I mumbled, my mouth barely could open due to the sticky candies, “I eat when I am stressed.”
“That is okay, little friend, do whatever is necessary to use your magic.” Edward looked excited, “so, eh, do you need the energy to do the summoning thing?”
“What summoning thing?”
“My nephew said magicians should summon something and these things fight each other until the last one — something that started with the sound of s? Eh, server? thunder?—”
My heart string was pulled up following the sound of the blade sliding out of the sheath, when Souyo pointed the sharp towards Edward without hesitation. “How much do you know?” He asked, a voice as cold as the blade.
That escalated too quickly for me to do anything when the CIA officers raised their guns on us, starting from the young one. As someone who had only raised guns on other people instead of being pointed at, my first intention was to pick up a silver tea tray and shield my face — then I felt like that wasn’t too polite, I struggled to raise the tray to Scathach’s face to shield her, but soon realising I lost my protection for doing that. The thing that made this even more cringe to me when I recollect, was that she chuckled, staring at the young idiot who thought all she needed was a silver tray to stop the bullets for her. But she didn’t pop that weak, fairy bubble in my head, instead, she picked me up, and two people suddenly could share the same shield.
“These people are more explosive than charged whale oil,” I heard Scathach sighing. Maybe being held like a cat and kept feet above the ground helped my blood flow, therefore I came up with an idea faster than normally it would take me to even get out of bed.
“We weaponised weather warfare,” I knocked the tray to attract everyone’s attention, and made the word “weaponised” up because I didn’t know if that was even an English word, “a few weeks ago, I did ask my aunty Suer to summon thunders and lightning. I think this is where the misunderstanding starts. It was Hao’s little secret, I have no idea how CIAs got to know that.”
The sugar I swallowed kept my brain running at the fastest speed since it was ever created. To put out a fire, start a bigger one next to it to use up all the oxygen, I quietly said to myself. Either the CIA knew about our little secret or not, but I didn’t think they would casually throw the fact out that easily, so I was leaning on the side of them not knowing, and Souyo’s nerve overreacted under such circumstances. But whether they knew it or not, it didn’t hurt us to give them the secret.
“Eh, no, we just got to know that, too.” Edward wiped his face with a cuff, and pushed his partner’s rifle down with great ease when he lowered his hand, “So, we are just having a misunderstanding.”
“I think it won’t be easy to pass the message to Obama when we all die here, right?” I tried to push further into their defences, “Look, judging by how magicians reacted, I don’t think there are enough reasons for them to let you guys go.”
“It’s probably the opposite. They would kill us first.”
“Then we can definitely help each other out.” I tilted my body towards my captain, and Scathach obediently turned my body towards him, “Captain, how many people can our plane carry?”
“I don’t fucking know — ask these Yankees, they designed the damn thing.” Captain Hua stood up and patted his knees like that was going to disperse his dramas away, “But even if she can carry a lot, I don’t see the future of us walking towards the plane holding hands.”
“Is it a C-17 Globemaster?” The young officer asked.
“Yeah, with an extra built-in oil tank.” Captain Hua finished a bottle of water in one swallow.
“We have 530 people in this building.” Scathach sounded worried, “Can one plane carry such an amount of people?”
“Gorgeous, as long as I’m holding the lever, the plane can take off even with 500 elephants in the cargo bay.” Captain Hua boasted, he always has this problem when he’s talking with beautiful ladies.
“Back in Kabul, I saw a flight mission of one C-17 and 400 passengers.” The young officer said genuinely, “Theoretically if each passenger weighs 180 pounds, it can take up to 1000 passengers. The problem would be how to transport 530 people onto the plane without being noticed. The landing square is too vast, and enemies have the high ground, they can easily suppress us.”
“Hey, I am the only one here who’s allowed to make a Star Wars joke.” I released the pressure valve of the freezer, “But then, I wish it was as easy as transporting stormtroopers when we try to put everyone aboard.”
“Can’t you use your magic to teleport people silently onto the plane?” Edward honestly just asked Scathach for me, I wanted to know that answer too, “I saw you teleporting everywhere.”
“Unfortunately, magics are not as useful as people would imagine.” her hands cupped her forehead and realised a sigh, “The longer the distance, the larger the mass, the more energy it costs to move something using the Void. With a transducer, or maybe just a few meters of distance, I can probably try—”
“How many meters can an average magician teleport?” I asked.
“Around 12 meters.” She answered. I felt like her knitting forehead was close to becoming another book, “But if I override my circuit with whale oil— no, still wouldn’t be enough. What if I go out and attract attention—”
“Alright, stop right there. Why are you magicians always filled with suicidal thoughts?” I gently pulled her hair for fun, “You are smart, explain this to me. Can you use Void magic on an object? Souyo applied magic on an object before to stop it from falling.”
“Void, no. The three principles of Void are storage, transportation and division.”
“So this transportation, let’s say Void builds an entrance and an exit, what if someone entered the entrance and never exited? And that follows the physical movement of this world, right?”
“Wait, I’m sorry, do you mind easing up on the physical part?”
“I mean, this planet is constantly moving, right?” I found it interesting to explain to someone way smarter than me, “Because if Souyo stopped a vase’s physical movement completely, shouldn’t it get launched oppositely in the direction of the earth spinning? So magic follows physical rules, and using magic is more like tossing a ball into the air of a moving car, the ball fall back into my hand.”
“Can’t you understand yet?” I looked at their lost eyes proudly, “We just need to make the building sink for some meters, let gravity fly.”