Kazin

Before I can make a move, the blurred figure of a thin, blonde boy pummels into the massive man, redirecting his tackle. Jin’s bioCharged leap serves its intended purpose, though Hazikawa is not as debilitated by the blow as I had hoped. I hurry towards Ghost, who lies motionless on the ground.

I frantically shake her shoulder. “Ghost!”

There is no response. I touch my hand against her temple; and my fingers, pressed against the back of her head, come away wet and warm.

I hear Jin as he screams and struggles against Hazikawa. Jin is small and agile—his size is his strength. The hulking man, with both his age and his bulk, is disadvantaged against Jin’s quick and viperous strikes. Hazikawa swings with an unbridled rage, as if we are monsters who have commit some great sin against him, and he has come to get his revenge.

Such hatred in those eyes. What suddenly changed? He sneers at us as if we are no better than wriggling worms in the dirt, deserving of no other fate than to be stomped out of existence.

“Little more,” I grimace to myself. I set the battery pack to max. I feel the power surging through my veins, and the strength returns, little by little, to each of my limbs.

“Jin!” I scream. “I’m almost there! Hold out a little more!”

Jin does not even have the luxury to reply. Hazikawa smashes his fists where Jin once stood. Jin vaults out of the way, then loses his balance. He lurches onto his side, then rolls on the ground to escape a series of pounding blows. Clouds of dust billow around us.

Jin is panting, his chest heaves. His bioEnhancements smoke and spark.

It’s at this moment that Hazikawa chooses to change tactics. His head pivots in a horrible, sluggish way, like one coming to a deep realization. He locks eyes with me, then casts his gaze down to Ghost, who is lying still at my feet.

He gives a cruel smile, then marches in our direction, his massive arms swinging like doomsday pendulums.

“Hey!” Jin screams. “Over here, you brutish little shit!” He waves his arms, to no avail.

Every muscle in my body tenses, and the cords of my neck contract and twist as I ready myself for a confrontation. My limbs have yet to be fully charged with energy—I am unsure if I even have enough for a well-charged attack to level such a large opponent. I haul Ghost over my shoulder, and place my battery pack into the nook of my free elbow.

Hazikawa lunges, hands outstretched, fingers sprawled like vices ready to snatch my body and wrench the life out of me.

I step nimbly to the right. My gaze follows his arm as it passes by me. Suddenly, it lashes out in my direction, and a hot, searing pain flares on the right side of my face. I stagger backwards but manage to keep my balance. I feel a cudgel-like fist hammer into my chest. I reel and become tangled in the jumble of my own frantic feet. Ghost, the battery pack, and I land upon the ground in a great heap.

Hazikawa takes one foreboding step, then launches himself into the air, preparing to smash his fist down into the earth, with me in between.

A high-pitched whir screeches from the side. With a speed and ferocity I had not thought possible, Jin bolts forward and arrows towards Hazikawa. There is a sickening crunch as Jin’s fist makes contact with Hazikawa’s jaw. The older man’s cheekbone caves in on itself, his eye bursts forth as the socket surrounding it crumples. His teeth splay out, then shoot from his mouth like stained white bullets. Hazikawa is dashed against a copper-colored building with eye-blurring velocity, painting the wall a deeper red with a scattering of his brains.

I stare at Jin, my mouth agape. He tumbles to his knee and grasps his trembling right arm. The bioEnhancements whine and shriek; Jin’s own cry grows louder in accompaniment. He falls onto the ground, cradling his arm at one moment, then pressing it desperately against the ground the next.

It is then that I realize what has unfolded. Jin’s nerves have burned. He has pushed his already damaged bioEnhancements to their limits, overriding the inhibitor.

No, no, no.

I crawl beside Jin. His jaw pulses as he grits his teeth in an attempt to contain the pain. Tears leak from the corners of his eyes as he writhes upon the ground. The visible skin on his arm appears splotched and bruised. Other areas are raw and bloody and burning from the heat emanating from his damaged bioEnhancements.

“It hurts,” Jin whispers hoarsely.

“We’ll…we’ll get you help,” I say, trying to remain calm. My hands are fidgety, grasping at the dirt, hovering over Jin’s trembling body, unsure of how I might offer comfort, if at all possible. “We’ll get you help, buddy.” A single tear gathers at the corner of my eye.

My fault. Jin saved me. My fault. Useless Kazin Moyashino. Useless as always.

In the distance, up the length of the street, bright lights appear as floating yellow orbs amidst the screen of smoke and haze. A deep rumble approaches us with the ominous relentlessness of an ocean wave. The smoke parts into swirls of mist for a train of armored crawlers.

Frantically, with as much haste as I can muster, I drag Jin and Ghost deep into the hiding place provided by the crates and the shadows of the alleyway. I take my place beside Old Man Hazikawa’s corpse just as the first of the crawlers hover past. For a brief moment, I am filled with a hope that they might have failed to spot me. That ounce of optimism is shattered when the armored escorts slow to a stop.

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Doors are opened, and soon, I am swarmed by a team of mercenaries. They are dressed in breastplates of polycarbonate or titanium. Many have been bioEnhanced to some degree. I lift my hands in surrender as they level their photonBlasters at me.

A short and stout man in a green titanium breastplate shoulders his way through the press. His tactical goggles glow yellow. bioEnhancement plates run up his left cheek to a pulsing green eye; his right eye is enshrined within a fleshy, pink scar running jagged down his forehead, all the way to his chin and neck.

He circles me, then whistles when he sees Hazikawa with his scattered brains.

“Well, well,” the mercenary says. He bends and lifts the silver fragment of a chip. “Looks like we have an experimental here.” He gestures to his henchmen. “Load him into the crawler. We don’t want to leave evidence just laying about.”

As his underlings lift Hazikawa’s body and gather the pieces of his brain, the mercenary captain levels his gaze at me. He rakes his eyes up and down my body, then lifts my shirt to see the dragon underneath.

“Yamda.” He smirks. “The VP will love this.” He reaches behind me and yanks the wires connecting my neck to the battery pack. Seeing my lack of resistance, the captain chuckles. “A bit low on power now, are we?” He beckons to his guards.

As I feel the plasma envelop my wrists, my vision seems to tunnel as I feel the true gravity of my situation. Why Hazikawa suddenly attacked us, or why he spoke of Vyvani, these things I do not understand. But I do seem to remember that he mentioned that Sangsum was inside the Factory. My arms begin trembling, and I start to feel queasy. When the guards push me towards their crawler, my knees buckle, and I stumble. I taste the musty dirt mixing with my saliva, and I find myself wishing that I could just turn invisible and remain where I lie.

The guards haul me to my feet and toss me into the crawler. I try to bring my breathing under control as the doors slam shut.

The captain takes his seat across from me. He removes his goggles and rubs his eyes. My ears are filled with the groaning rumble of the crawler as the convoy roars back towards the Factory.

I hope Jin and Ghost are okay.

“Sedate him,” the captain commands.

I feel a prick on my neck, and I am engulfed by darkness.

*******

When I awake, I find myself inside of an interrogation chamber. My arms and legs have been plasmaCuffed to the chair I am sitting in. I gaze at my surroundings, and nausea suddenly scrambles up my throat. I hurl over my chair to the side. Every sound seems to bounce off the cold, steel walls. The room is uniform and bland—the table before me and the walls around me and the chair I sit upon are all of the same material.

There is only one object that is different from the rest—a single VR pod connected to a series of screens and spherical holoViewers. But it is unlike any VR pod I have ever seen before. Most pods are enclosed, polycarbonate shells. This one is more akin to an open cradle.

I attempt to collect my thoughts, but the door cracks open before I can do so. My stomach twists at the sight of the man who walks inside. I grate my teeth at the fact that once again, this is how we encounter one another—myself as the unseemly and hapless prey, waiting to be slaughtered, and he as the captor, who holds my fate in his hands.

Our eyes meet, and we each detain the other in a stare of simmering, rueful spite. It is then that I realize for the first time, that he blames me just as much as I blame him—each holds the other accountable for his misfortunes. The thought enrages me.

Why? How dare he blame me for an unhappiness that was of his own doing?

An underling enters with a cushioned, velvet chair and sets it upon the ground, across from me. Sangsum Gato settles into his seat, the length of the table between us.

“So,” Sangsum begins. “You’re not dead.”

“Sit closer,” I goad through clenched teeth. “And I’ll make you wish I was.”

Sangsum glares at me, his eyes as cold as ice. His jaw muscles flex and throb beneath the white, fluorescent light.

“Good,” he says.

For a moment, his reply leaves me reeling in confusion. I blink, unable to think of a suitable reply.

“What?” I demand.

“It’s good that you haven’t died,” Sangsum explains tiredly. He has grown older—but not just in appearance. I can suddenly sense the weariness of his spirit. It is as if his soul has been drained and sapped, like a wet rag that has been cruelly twisted and expunged of its moisture until it is but a wrinkled, tattered heap, thrown aside after having served its purpose.

I can feel the indignant anger rearing its head within me, swelling until I cannot contain the wrathful shadow in its wake.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I roar. “You tried to kill me!”

There is a short silence. “I did,” Sangsum says, as if he had held his breath for too long. “I did,” he repeats.

My thoughts are swimming in murky bewilderment.

Sangsum slowly stands.

“It’s…truly regrettable that our reunion cannot be a happy occasion,” Sangsum says quietly.

Why is he talking like that?

“Though, I must admit, that Commissioner Akato’s betrayal does not incite me to anger.” Sangsum pulls a cigarette from his breast pocket and lights it. He expels a drawn-out cone of smoke, then closes his eyes in relief. “I suppose that in itself, is happy in a way.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I mutter.

Sangsum turns his head towards me. His hair is trimmed and gelled, and his piercing onyx eyes, once cruel in their glint, now seem dull and unpolished.

“You’ve changed,” Sangsum says, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. “We’ve all changed.” He sighs deeply, then gestures into the air. The door creaks open, and a trio of guards step inside.

“Hook him up,” Sangsum commands, almost reluctantly. “We’ll begin the process.” He turns to me, and I am shocked to see that the expression on his face is almost one of regret. “If you were not of the Yamda clan, Kazin, I might have merely had you released. Maybe even shipped out overseas to some quiet abode where you might spend the rest of your days in healing and peace. Your survival upends some things here, you see, and complicates things.”

Sangsum begins walking towards me. Each step he takes punctures a hole into my heart. He looms over me.

“But unhappy chance and cruel Providence have made it so that you are Yamda, and are therefore useful to me.” He pauses to take another whiff of his tobacco. He stares into some distant horizon. “I suppose this is where I say I’m sorry for your father.”

His last sentence sets me ablaze. I want to roar, but I can’t. Every muscle, every fiber, every strand of my being coils and stretches taut until I feel I will tear myself to shreds. And at the same time, it is as if my strength seeps slowly from me, like a trailing tendril of smoke. The strength was a false one, nothing but an illusion. A crumbly foundation, easily swept away. My efforts and past suddenly seem so futile. An insatiable bitterness threatens to usurp its place.

I remain silent as his underlings secure me into the strange VR pod. They begin working at the screens and the holoViewers to my rear.

I am numb as Sangsum stands over me. His face shimmers from the reflection of the activated viewers and screens.

“And I’m sorry for you too, Kazin.”

Sangsum nods his head to his underlings, and my sight fades to black. I am flung into a world of darkness, of pixels, of pain.