- Raimi Mœnnesi -

This isn’t happening.. surely.. right..? I stared down at the bedside table before me, it was made of rickety wood—as if it would collapse at any moment. I kept reading the note again and again, somehow wishing that this would all be a dream. But the sweet release of waking up would never come.

Ten slow minutes of staring at the note and dissociating passed before someone would finally notice me being awake. I heard the signature clicks of boots against hard stone, I looked towards the wooden door and waited for the person on the other end to open it. Instead of an immediate open however, the person simply knocked three times.

“Come in..” My voice was hoarse, and my head ached. After a moment of nothing, I was beginning to get worried that my voice wasn’t able to be heard; but the door slid open. The person on the other side was the woman I met yesterday.. or was it earlier that night..?

“Time to get up sleepyhead. You have a habit of sleeping in? It’s been a day since we knocked you out.” What. A day? No, that can’t be. She must be fucking with me, right? I opened my mouth to say something, but the air never reached my vocal cords. I stayed there, staring at the woman in shock.

“You alright? What was your name again.. Rami?” She seemed to be trying to calm me down genuinely. Her dark brown eyes had a hint of concern, but I could tell something else was lurking in the shadows of the concern.. some ulterior motive. I nodded, and blinked a few times; without realising I’d been staring for the past 40 seconds straight, my eyes had gotten dry. I held my palms over them, covering them from the harsh light of the lantern and the sun peeking through the slit in the wall.

“It’s Raimi, Raimi Mœnnesi.” I uttered, my voice was still a bit raspy, but not speaking had made it a fair amount clearer. The woman before me spoke again, her straight monotonous voice telling me to follow her. I replied with a straightforward ‘Yes.’ and followed her out of the door.

“Now, you’re probably a bit startled.. right? With the note and the sudden kidnapping. I’ll explain what everything is, and answer any questions you have while we walk, need a washroom break?” She turned back to face me and pointed to her left, embedded in the wall was a weirdly modern washroom; the inside a clinical white, humorously contrasting the dull greys and browns of the corridor I was in. I told her no, and she turned back around, resuming her speech:

“This facility is an old castle reformed to fit our needs. ‘Our’ being POLARIS. Polaris is an organisation formed from the ashes of the old Midnight Coalition; though considering your age I’m assuming you don’t know what that is,” She paused for a second to say hello to a passerby before continuing: “The Midnight Coalition was a group formed to keep the world in check from below. You could say we’re a necessary evil in this world.” She smirked after ending the sentence. The information was running through my mind at a million miles an hour. In the midst of it all, I was finally able to ask a question.

“Wh.. What happened at work? My place of work. It’s been two days, right??” She turned back to look at me and let out a small chuckle; as if to say ‘That’s what you’re worried about?’

“Well, it’s been a single day, and you’re considered missing. And for some reason, your elder brother is back in town. We think he’s the one who filed your missing persons report.” I immediately noticed how nonchalant she was.. as if this was a completely normal occurrence. Then the context of what she said caught up with me and my eyes widened, Rea is in town? What’s he doing? Isn’t he supposed to be doing treasury work?

“Do you know what he’s doing?” My voice had gotten considerably quieter, and calmer. I felt more at ease knowing my brother was in the area, after all—he’s the only blood relative I still have.

“One of our agents saw him enter the police station late at night, we don’t know for what, but it was after the missing persons report was filed, so it wasn’t for that.” I was confused, what could he be doing..? After a second of waiting, I motioned that we could continue walking.

“Oh, right, names. My name’s Auvesétt, I’m the highest ranking member you’ll be seeing. All of the higher ups like to keep to themselves, so I’m a bit of an intermediator and an enforcer.” She turned back around and started walking backwards while carrying on with her train of thought:

“This is our firing range, it goes out to 500 metres, you’ll be well acquainted with this spot in the near future. Coming up soon is the “dormitory” area, we’ll assign you a room to sleep in between the jobs we send you off on.” This was very coordinated, and meticulous. Auvesétt and I had passed by dozens of other people, men and women, old and young; this wasn’t just some pipedream made up by a crazed person.. this was more than that. This was real, as real it would ever get.

“Aaand finally we’ve reached our last destination. The place where you’ll be meeting with our orientation officer, Faein.” She came up close to me and whispered into my ear:

“He seems scary, but he’s a real sweet guy.” My expression shifted and I looked at her, she smiled and started walking back the way we came. As I pushed open the wooden door I saw a very burly, tall tan skinned man. He appeared to be in his 30s and had the body image of a god. He was wearing a black three piece suit, his slim black tie was messy and there was a small maroon flower in his left breast pocket.

“Good evening, you’re Raimi, correct?” His voice matched his stature—a voice deeper than the abyss, tinged with a slight accent; he wasn’t from Stelbari. I gave a slight nod and sat down in front of his desk. The sheaf of papers on his desk was thick, there was also a three ring binder on the left side. “Alright, where do we begin?”

⍖

“You want me to change my name?!!” My voice commonly cracks when I yell, not this time though.

“It’s not that we want you to, we need you to. Whether you like it or not, Raimi Mœnnesi is now dead. We made a quick and sloppy mould of your body and threw a rather lifelike copy of you down the river, so naturally, you’re considered dead outside of this room.” I could not fucking believe it. What would Rea think? What would everyone think?

“Am I allowed to tell Rea?” I asked sheepishly, his expression became straight, and he gained a small frown. He responded in his deep voice—feeling like rocks scraping against bricks in my ears.

“No. You won’t be able to talk to anyone you’ve known. You’re an operator of POLARIS, you will be abandoning who you once were. You saw that on the paperwork I just gave you right? Or did you just skim through the paper..?”

He splayed an impish grin. I did nothing except stare at the man before me. This was insane, mad, crazed; after thinking for a minute, I gave up trying to comprehend the entirety of it and shut my mind down.

“Can I choose my own name? What about people who might recognise me in public?” My voice had plateaued, and the monotony had come to a head.

“We’ve already made you a new identity. As well as all the necessary paperwork: a passport, government issued ID card, and a business credit card,” As he was speaking, my mind slowly droned out, the words he spoke became a slur of vowels and consonants. That was, until I heard my new name.

“—ame is Meri Akarosé, and you’ve been working with us since you were little. You’re an only child and you’re 19 years old.” Nothing remained from my previous identity. Then it all hit me at once, like a freight train; the second I arrived at that laundromat, my previous life had ended. I started laughing quietly to myself. For what reason? I don’t know.

⍖

“Hey.. done now?” Auvesétt had opened the door behind me slowly, her voice had gone back to its seemingly uncaring, dull timbre as when I first met her on the phone. I glanced back at her; she had a slightly curious, listless look to her face.

“Nice timing Auvesétt—yeah, we’re done here. This is the new operator; Meri Akarosé.” Faein’s hand came over the table, upon hearing the fabric crease, I turned back around and shook his larger-than-life sized hand. Auvesétt’s flat voice chimed in right after, telling me to follow her.

“Alright, now that the boring stuff is over with, we’re going to get you situated with this place.” As she closed the door behind us, she grabbed a folded up piece of paper out of her pocket. Upon unfurling it, it revealed itself to be a map of the entire compound. It looked like a typical national park or museum map, colour codes and all.

“You went from here, to here.” She pointed at two spots on the map, the first was the large castle that acted as a front for the place—it was the northernmost spot on the map, besides the small parking lot out the front. The second point was the building I was just in, it was on the southeast side; a lesser person would mistake it for a simple house. She handed me the paper map, telling me to follow close behind her.

“We’re going to the clothing hall, should be on the west side of the map. We need to get you fitted for some clothing, as well as see what size of kevlar vest you need.” As we walked, Auvesétt gave me more information about POLARIS. It’s a private organisation, very few world leaders know of its existence—if they do, it’s only because they commissioned the group. It’s largely a militaristic entity, often taking on jobs for the Tolstarre or Kinwaxean governments to help with the war; some people might call it a PMC. Recently, an Ackiwezan ambassador was assassinated for the illegal killing of prisoners of war, apparently they really kicked the hornets nest with that one.

“Finally, we’re here. Long walk huh?” Her friendly atmosphere was off putting. It felt extremely forced and fake, however, I didn’t know how Polaris dealt with retaliation so I kept my mouth shut. As she opened the glass door to the building, the smell of clean linen filled my nostrils.

The clothing hall was loud, and large. The constant whirring of sewing machines combined with a generic pop song playing over the loudspeaker gave me whiplash from entering from the relatively quiet and calm outdoors. I saw dozens of people hunched over the white sewing machines, nearly every single one of them was in sync. They appeared to be making black suits and other clothing items. The faint sound of Auvesétt talking got my attention, and I turned to see her speaking to a male receptionist in a grey t-shirt with black jeans. She seemed to notice me looking her way and beckoned me over.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Hey! This is the new girl, I’m showing her around! We’re here to get her fitted for shit!” She was nearly yelling over the loudness of the building. The tall, caucasian man looked at me and asked a question; although his voice had been drowned out in the sea of noises. I mouthed the word ‘What?’

“Hey! Come with me!” He spoke loudly, enough for me to hear him. I walked behind the desk into the room behind him, it was long, with the room split into three parts. One with the symbol for a male, and another for a female. He pointed towards the room with the female symbol.

⍖

After getting measured, I walked out of the internal room and stepped back out into the main, almost ear-piercingly loud room.

“Thanks Cidh!” Auvesétt yelled one last time before opening the door and leading me outside. We spent the rest of the morning walking around the entire compound, checking out various buildings; one being the armoury, another being the intelligence building, and the last being a combat course.

“Alright, we’re done now. Now, it’s time for you to get over to that range. Know how to shoot?” It sounded like ‘howtuh’ I shook my head no, and she dialled a number on her phone.

“It’s about our new operator. Yeah, nah.. She said she doesn’t know. I’ll send her over to you, alright, bye.” Her voice seemed dismissive to the person on the other end. She nodded at me and I started walking back towards the firing range.

- Rea Mœnnesi -

I was pacing around in the hidden office, rapidly standing and sitting back down. Where the fuck was she? Did she get taken away too? What happened? I grabbed the case files and examined them for the eleventh time, trying to comb through and find anything that would help me with this investigation.

“Hey fuckstick, come take a look at what I found.” Hisa’s voice came from the back of the room again, I walked over to her and asked what was up, she responded by turning the laptop to face me, on the screen was camera footage of a convenience store.. no, a pharmacy. Raimi was behind the counter, the same hooded figure walked up to the counter, bought a bottle of water, and left a card on the countertop. Through the grainy footage I could tell Raimi was confused, and anxious. Then I saw her put the card in her pocket. Shit.

“When was this? Yesterday?” I tried to cover up my worry with a calm voice. It seemed to have worked, causing Hisa to reply.

“Yeah, it was yesterday at 45:96:11. You recognise her?” I let out a quick ‘yeah’ before questioning her further.

“What happened after? Did she go home? Did she immediately drive off to her home or to somewhere else?” I needed something, anything.

“Looking at the back after she’s getting ready to leave shows that she goes in the direction of her home. We don’t have access to her home since those assholes in the IAS are investigating it; we’d be ‘tainting the crime scene.’” She had a look of disgust on her face, I felt the same way. The IAS was a national group that investigated cases on the base level; if they didn’t find a shred of evidence after a few weeks the case would go cold and be added onto the hundreds of others. I despised how they operated, quite lazily, and uncaring; as if the people’s lives were just a statistic to them.

“How about we go over to that pharmacy, it’s a 10 minute walk, right?” She nodded her head and I began walking towards the elevator. As I reached the cabinet in front of the elevator, the door opened; Kinaei was on the other side.

“What’s happening, are we on lunch break?” I told him what we were doing and he let out a loud audible sigh. Then he told us that he’ll stay back and start sifting through witness testimonies and reports. I gave him a head nod, then Hisa and I stepped into the elevator, pushing the first floor button.

⍖

By the time we arrived at the pharmacy, the clock read “52:89:91.” As we stepped out of the squad car, a female worker came walking out from inside.

“Are you here for Raimi? Her voice was timid, and had a faint shake to it. Her eyes seemed uncaring towards my sister’s disappearance, I held out my badge and asked her what she knew about what had happened.

“She came in late, it was a no call no show. When she did end up showing up she was normal, except for later on into the day; it’s like there was something that unsettled her a lot. She was really on edge, and it’s like she needed to leave desperately. I texted her an hour after she left to see if she got home safe, but I got left on seen.” I couldn’t detect a hint of malice in her tone, but her eyes never lost their listless, almost unsympathetic look to them—a trait of an Itavi, an ethnicity known for their cold scarlet eyes and pale skin.

“Alright, mind telling me when your text was seen? Might give us a lead. Also, who’s your manager?” Hisa stayed behind me quietly, the timid girl told us that the text message was last seen at 64:91:15. It lines up with her going straight home from work, as she’d left at 63:75:81—and that her manager’s name was Åarcka Fore. I thanked her and walked through the metal detector and sliding door to a rather large pharmacy; considering it wasn’t much more than a glorified convenience store. As I walked through the aisles towards the back of the store I noticed a few repairmen behind the counter.

“What’s going on here?” I tried talking loudly to get their attention over the sound of a power tool, it took saying it two more times for them to finally notice me.

“It’s broken, it’s been broken for three days now.” The middle aged male construction worker’s voice was smooth, and slightly high; his brown beard looking nicely shaven and his blue eyes seeming an almost comically saturated blue.

“Has it been recording? What’s wrong with it?” Now that the whirr from the constant unscrewing of the camera was gone my voice could be heard at a normal level. The bearded man in front of me told me that the camera's cable had been damaged, probably from some rodent hiding in the roof—the thought made me shiver, this was supposed to be a clinical environment.

“Know where Åarcka Fore is? He’s the office manager of this building. I’ve got a few questions for him.” My voice rang out through the empty building—and as fate would have it, Mr. Fore came walking into the main building the second after I finished my sentence.

“I’m Åarcka, nice to meet you. Will you two follow me to my office?” I nodded my head at him and looked back at Hisa, she had a resting expression of boredom. As we walked behind the manager, I started thinking of questions to ask him.

⍖

After the interrogation was over, I was left with more questions than answers. She had been acting strange, as if she needed to get out of there as quickly as possible; or at least that’s what Åarcka’s gut feeling was. His story aligned with what we saw on the camera footage, after Raimi received the item she started acting odd. Raimi had also texted Fore at 90:21:11—It was written in extreme shorthand, as if she were in a hurry. It read “I won’t be at work anymore.” The Stelbari characters used were informal; and broken, as if it wasn’t her who sent the text. In my thought I hadn’t realised that Hisa was on the phone with someone; she motioned me over.

“Rea, we need to talk outside of the building for a bit.” I was confused, but after walking outside, I saw her get a cigarette before grabbing an old, lightly rusted lighter.

“Listen here, you need to keep your cool. Alright?” The confusion had turned to concern, what did she have to tell me? How important was it? Was it something relating to Ra-

“Just now, the police have found Raimi’s body washed up along the Rrari River.”

- Meri Akarosé-

“Alrighty, this right ‘ere is a handgun chambered in .45 Sero, all of our operators use it; the ‘nly ones that matter anyway.” The old bearded man standing in front of me spoke with a thick eastern Stelbari accent, he looked exceptional for his age. His name was Sheruēz, and he was the lead firearm instructor for POLARIS. The handgun he held looked awfully.. boring, to say the least. It was rectangular, with the colour of the top being a glimmering silver, and the bottom being a dull grey.

“This one is hammer fired, that means when you pull this gun out you have to pull this cockin’ lever back.” He lifted his thumb up from the grip and pressed down on the hammer, it made a distinct ticking noise as it was pulled to the rear.

“Now the gun is live, if it had a magazine inside it would be hot.” The lingo was getting to my head, live.. hot.. this was going to take a while to learn, wasn't it? He reached down and slid out a rectangle; the magazine, out of his belt.

“With any firearm, you always gotta point the gun in a safe direction, even when it’s not loaded. The sweet spot’s around 45 degrees facing the ground; you also gotta learn to keep that finger out the trigger guard.” As he talked, he slowly stepped towards me, laying the gun flat on his palm. I reached out and grabbed it, it was a lot heavier than I was expecting; and the bottom wasn’t made out of plastic, like I’d originally guessed, it was warm steel. As I lifted it up to inspect it, it was a lot more detailed than I originally thought as well. The grip was aggressively stippled, with the top metal part having cuts on both the front and rear sides of the pistol. There were three levers on the left side of the gun, as well as a small button right underneath where the trigger was.

Sheruēz told me to step behind a counter and roof made of concrete, then he handed me the magazine. It was almost as heavy as the handgun itself, assuming correctly, I inserted the stainless steel rectangle into the bottom of the gun.

“Pull the top half back to put a round into the chamber, but first, put these on.” He handed me what appeared to be a pair of headphones, I was confused but after putting them on I realised why; the world went dead quiet around me. After walking and standing right at the edge of the range, I raised the handgun and closed my right eye.

“Woah woah! That’s not how we shoot ‘round here!” His voice was surprisingly loud, I looked back in bewilderment. That’s how everyone I saw shot, why couldn’t I do it?

“Hold your gun tight ‘nd firm, then keep both those eyes open and focus on your target. Make sure the small front post and the rear notches line up where you want to shoot. Also fix your posture, lean into it a bit.” I heeded his advice, opening my right eye and placing the almost transparent weapon sights over the centre of the paper target in the distance. I leaned forward slightly, and held my breath, moving the gun onto the centre of the target.

As I pulled the trigger, a bullet went down range; when I looked at the target, the bullet landed within the zone labelled “C.” However, in my excitement I didn’t realise the handgun had malfunctioned—an empty casing was sticking out of the top of the pistol. Behind me, Sheruēz was snickering, he spoke in an impish, but not condescending tone:

“Hahaha.. alright, pull that slide back and finish ejecting the round. You gotta remember not tuh’ be afraid of the damn thing, and let it surprise you. Hold the gun firmly this time.” I realigned the sights with the target and pulled the trigger firmly. This time I could hear the metallic twang and subsequent ring from the steel. My gun had messed up again, the empty bullet casing was facing the sky, I looked back at Sheruēz, he had gotten closer and mouthed the words: “Let me show you what you’re doing wrong.”

When I handed it over, he pulled the top back and the stuck brass spat out the top. It glinted and glimmered in the sunlight as it travelled towards the dirt; he looked at me and visibly grabbed it hard with his right hand—so much so that the tips of his fingers had turned white. Then he put his right hand and clasped the left, also considerably tight. A second later and the gun was fired; a perfect centre mass ‘A’ shot. As he walked over he handed it back, I knew the problem, I wasn’t gripping it hard enough. As I stepped into place, I firmly grasped the grip.

A second later and the bullet hit in the B area, but the malfunction had ceased. The gun was closed and I heard faint clapping coming from behind me—now I could understand the rush of shooting.

⍖

After a long morning of getting a streak of C’s, and then B’s, I asked Sheruēz over the radio how long I was going to be doing this. He replied, telling me he was on his way back and to expect something a little more.. different. I sighed and slid another magazine into the bottom and pulled the top slide back, letting it slam shut and chamber a round.

Once I shot the last round, I hit the small button below the trigger and the stainless steel magazine dropped out towards the concrete counter, making a hollow thud as it impacted. I looked back and saw Sheruēz standing at the small set of stairs behind me with a rather long rifle slung under his shoulder. His green camouflage vest had a few pouches with dark magazines sticking out of them:

“What’s that?” I asked, he replied with a mouthful, that being:

“Your next toy, better get used to this one too. It’s the main weapon for the POLARIS ground forces, the TIA ISRM1-A3; better known as the Derroprætys around here.” The name ‘Derroprætys’ was an interesting one. It was an insect species native to the rainforests in east Atekizara, it had beautiful, vibrant colours that warded predators away—and impossibly fast speed. The venom it emitted was fatal to most small rodents and other insects; an apex predator. The top half of the gun was long, the thinner end had a bunch of slim openings stretching the length of it, and had a thick dark grey cylinder inside. It was coloured the same silver colour as the handgun, although it remained unpolished like the handgun was. The bottom half had been recently repainted black, but the glare from the sun had washed away any detail besides the rather intricate outline of it. By the time he was handing the gun over, I was expecting it to have a considerable weight to it; but when I grabbed it, it was twice as heavy as I was imagining it to be. The sudden shift in weight made me lose my balance slightly; I caught myself and hefted it into both of my arms, it was astonishingly beautiful up close. I could see the detail of the bottom part without the glare, I saw various small bits and pieces sticking out, alongside writing engraved into the dark metallic surface. It was written in Tolstarran, being one of the main languages on Arct, schools around the country learned it as well. It read: “Tolstarre International Arms ISR”

“I’nt she a beaut?” That was it. His accent had reached its climax, I doubt he could sound more country than he just had. I let out a small chuckle, the reality of my situation was finally starting to set in. The chuckle had turned to quiet laughter; I thought about pinching myself to make sure this was real, but I soon realised that it was far too late for that.