The dishes on the table clattered, and the entire restaurant shook violently, as ear piercing explosions erupted everywhere. Screams, and shouts penetrated the dull streets, intertwined with bursts of gun fire, creating a violent melody.
Ciel's brown eyes glared at Saia waiting for a response, while the other customers looked confused, and scared. During this moment of uncertainty, Saia covered his right eye, and silently dug out a small handful of capsules from his coat, and crushed it with his left hand. Noticing this action Ciel casually covered her mouth, and nose.
The group of women targeting Ciel also looked rattled, and confused, but were able to retain their calm after a few minutes. The outside still shook violently, and more renewed gunfire and screams continued to leak into the restaurant.
“What's going on?” Ciel asked as she continued her meal.
“To tell you the truth I'm not really all that sure, all I knew was something was going to happen.”
Everyone remained inside to avoid the conflicts happening outside, unwilling to make any moves. Eventually over an hour had passed, and no one was willing to go outside until the sounds died down.
The blaring sirens finally stopped, and suddenly a holographic screen appeared on the wall of the restaurant. An androgynous looking man, with short blonde hair, and dark blue eyes. He looked relatively young, and should be in the early twenties.
The projection smiled proudly, and started to speak.
“I am Fremont of the liberation front, we oppose the tyrannical regime of CT Corp. Treating humans as live stock, and commodity. For too long we have been betrayed, and tread on, we will not tolerate this injustice any further.
We have gathered, strengthened, and organized to fight for a better future. We have been stepped on, ridiculed, robbed, and humiliated. They sell our children, take our wives, and poison our bodies.
I say no more.
We will take back our loved ones, our humanity, and our pride.
The man's charming face looked even more bright and charismatic as he motioned to the people on the other side of the projection.
Join me!
Join our cause, we have already taken this district, and will continue to take more, come to the gate for those courageous men, and women who wish for a brighter future.
We will push them back, we will regain what should be ours, and we will win!”
The man disappeared, to be replaced by small map, and a location, eventually the public announcement was cut off.
The gunfire died down, and so did the nearby explosions, almost everyone in the room looked shocked at what just happened.
The women who were targeting Ciel seemed conflicted and puzzled while whispering to themselves, eventually a woman with curly brown hair slammed the table with her hands, and nodded. Everyone in the restaurant were staring at the strange scene, the woman with brown hair ignored the onlookers, and stared strongly at the others.
Eventually they all nodded their heads, and tried leaving, only to stumble, and fall weakly barely being able to move. The onlookers remained puzzled, and so did the women.
Ciel stared at Saia silently.
“I thought they were going to make a move during the distraction, it's a bit unexpected they changed their minds.”
Saia walked up to a nearby poster pasted on the wall, he pierced the poster, and gently dug out a camera, crushing it in his left hand. He then pulled out a black metallic syringe from his sleeves, and walked up to the women.
One of the women stared at him in shock, and anger, she was about to say something but was unable to open her mouth.
“Relax I'll be injecting the antidote into you, or do you want to wait for over an hour before the effects leave?”
Without even bothering to communicate anymore, he quickly stabbed the needle into each of them.
“Hey what do you think you are doing to those women!”
One of the men tried to step up to stop Saia, Ciel was already up, and pointed a black hand gun at the approaching man, forcing him to back off.
Saia stared at one of the women that he suspected was modified, and spoke directly to her.
“Well it's likely your body will recover much faster then the others, so you'll be up in a few minutes.”
He then dug out a few plastic cards, and threw them unto the table. He stared at the worker, and smiled.
“Thanks for the meal.”
Without even waiting for a response, Saia already left, and Ciel followed afterwards.
............................
A large dark room surrounded by dozens of large screens were blinking profusely, as several men, and women, continued to voice reports loudly and in succession, overlapping each other, while inputting data in quick successive movement.
“District 15 clear.”
“Resistance in district 34.”
“The black hounds retaking district 30.”
“Blue team reporting, general manager Simoe captured.”
“Hacking power grid in district 25.”
“Cyan in district 21 agrees to the alliance.”
“White tyrant spotted in district 19.”
The endless reports flooded a familiar man with an androgynous face, it could even be described as somewhat beautiful. He was in a dark green uniform, in the centre of a group of operators constantly relaying information to him. A confident smile filled with warmth appeared on his face as he took in the reports.
“Back away from white tyrant, send Liza to Cyan, bring Simoe to HQ, lure black hounds into district 33, give up 34 and focus on 35.”
Images of battle, maps of districts, and charts were constantly churned out. Fremont easily memorized all the information, and organized it into his mind efficiently.
“Delay operation midnight by ten minutes, and starts operation security overlord.”
............................
Meanwhile amidst all the chaos spreading throughout the entire megacity, Saia was now inside a building on the 20th floor, the room he was in looked like a giant office with clean brown tiles, and large amounts of black couches, and tables. He was standing next to the glass walls, overlooking flames, and smoke sparking in the distance. Ciel was sitting in the corner of the room staring at a portable gaming device.
A middle aged man in a pure white suit walked in the room, his rugged face looked worn, but his black eyes were bright, and fiery.
“Sorry for the wait Saia, I had an emergency meeting with someone.”
“It's no problem Cyan, there's plenty of interesting things to watch tonight.”
The man walked up beside Saia, and also gazed at the ongoing conflict.
“It'll grow more intense.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Hmm, so your an insider huh.”
“That's a secret.”
Saia shook his head and walked back to sit on a couch, a woman dressed in a maid outfit placed some coffee on the table, bowed and immediately left. After examining the coffee for a few minutes, Saia slowly began to sip the bitter liquid.
“So, who is it?”
Cyan didn't respond, instead he snapped his fingers, and two large men from the other side of the doors slowly walked in. Behind them was a small young girl trailing behind, with short brown hair, in a plain pink dress.
Saia stared intently at the little girl, her black eyes looked dead, and not an ounce of emotion could be seen on her emotionless face.
“So she's the one?”
“Her name is Natasha, you probably know why I wanted you to meet her.”
“Yea, I feel a little bit of it coming from her.”
Saia nodded lightly, his right eye started to give a mechanical red glow as he stared at the little girl. The two men placed some documents on the table.
After noticing the commotion Ciel also paid attention to the little girl.
Saia ignored the documents, and slowly walked towards Natasha, staring directly into her eyes. The moment he noticed her eyes contract slightly, the floors started to rumble, and lights began to blink on, and off.
The closer he walked, the more weird metallic sounds could be heard all around him, as soon as he stepped within three feet of her, the ceiling broke open, and a large humanoid robot was blocking the path between him, and Natasha. The door was pushed open, and small cleaning machines poured into the room, and surrounded the little girl.
Saia did not move anymore, and after several minutes the cleaning robots deactivated, but the human shaped robot stared at Saia with it's mechanical eyes.
“A variant of technopathy huh, the ability to control machines.”
Cyan watched quietly from the side, and nodded.
“She's one of many children modified by CT Corp.”
Saia stared at the little girl and smiled, the girl unfortunately did not smile back, and instead stood stock still. He turned to Cyan, and spoke loudly.
“Will she let me get close?”
“No, the only reason she's fine with us is because she's used to us.
After a small sigh, Saia slowly began walking towards the girl again. The machines around her started to become active, and the room turned noisy. This time he did not stop and continued his steady pace. The robot in front immediately formed a fist, and made a direct punch to his chest, Saia just lightly chuckled and sidestepped, and then gently tapped the metallic arm downward with his fingers. The robot's fist immediately accelerated, and penetrated the floor below. Saia walked around the machine, and continued forward.
Before the robot could pull out it's arms, he gently patted it on the head, and the glowing mechanical eyes of the robot shuddered involuntarily, before shutting down.
Saia stared at Cyan.
“I'm not paying for that you know?”
“It's only a servant robot, I can easily replace it.”
The cleaning machines started to form a small barrier between him, and Natasha.
A small black gun formed in Ciel's hands, and she shot once, the bullet hit one cleaning machine, and exploded, releasing a small static field that caused the nearby machines to freeze up, and stop working.
Saia ignored what happened, and finally stood in front of the little girl, still looking at her directly in the eyes, he bent down and just casually patted the girl on the head. The dead black eyes just continued staring at him, and stood stock still like a robot.
After a few minutes of silence, the girl looked drowsy, and started to collapse, only to be caught by Saia.
Cyan saw that and frowned in displeasure.
“It's a bit creepy how you can so easily drug people, without anyone noticing.”
“Well I left some nanites floating around the room, all I really had to do was release the chemicals, and have them move it to the target. This doesn't really work against most alert people though.”
Saia carried the sleeping girl to a couch, and sat beside her, Cyan sat in the opposite direction with the two guards, and Ciel started to hover around in passing interest. Saia's right eye started to glow brighter, and his left hand started to hum.
He placed the hand on the girls head, and closed his eyes.
The slow rhythmic beat of her heart, the rushing stream of her blood, the slow breathing from her lungs, the numbers, and various statistics of her body slowly poured into his brain.
The temperature of her body could be felt, a small wave spread out inside the girl's body; over her heart, lungs, and organs. The diagram of her bone structure formed an outline inside Saia's head, the organs in her body slowly revealed itself inside the bones. The arteries, the veins, and the muscles gradually added unto the diagram, which soon formed the being known as Natasha.
Over two hours had passed, and Saia still had his eyes closed, while a strange green wave occasionally skirted past her body. Cyan just watched intently, while Ciel lost interest and just sat to the side. After another two hours passed Saia opened his eyes.
He reached out his hands, and began looking over the document, occasionally he would pull out a syringe and inject the girl with it, before going back to the papers. After several more hours he plopped the document on the table, and stretched out his arms.
Cyan looked at Saia intently.
“You done?”
“Yes, and I'm also a bit hungry.”
............................
The dining hall was large, and the bright room was simple, yet classy with black marble tiles, and wooden furniture. Decorated with abstract paintings on the wall, and low hanging exotic plants. The table was filled with bread, fresh salad, and several red meat dishes.
Saia took a bit of the flame charred meat, while Ciel ripped some bread and dipped it into the vegetable soup. Two maids stood on either side of Cyan, as he carefully cut a slab of meat, covered in a thick aromatic gravy.
“So what did you notice Saia?”
“She's a modified human alright she gives off that distinct feeling to me, but her body seems pretty ordinary, by the usual standards her body would have been strengthened as a prerequisite. She has an unique organ inside, acting as a miniature bio-plant that's producing a strange non-biological virus. If I'm not mistaken those micro-organisms are being leaked into the air right now, and attaching itself into nearby machines. ”
Ciel who was eating quietly chimed in.
“But that's not all right?”
Saia casually nodded.
“She's too young for the ability to develop at that age, and that's also considering CT Corp uses the technology of the 1st lab. What I can say is that the defects of rushed modifications are showing, and affecting parts of her brain, while simultaneously increasing cellular deterioration on various parts of her organs.”
Cyan closed his eyes for a few minutes before staring at Saia with a bit of anxiety.
“Please keep her with you as along as you can, until you can find a way to solve her problems. I will willingly cover the expenses.”
After a momentary silence, Saia nodded, the meal was finished quietly and Cyan produced a black memory stick, handing it to Saia.
“Here's the research data I promised you, and....”
A large man in a suit walked in and revealed, a small black case, the man opened the case revealing a flute, pulsing with strange light, next to it was a small booklet with a signature on it.
“The genesis flute, created by the genius musical artist in the year 2550, using material never seen before in this world, and created by an unknown craftsmen. It it said the melody affects human brain waves, giving it an otherworldly experience. Some people have been documented to be granted temporary synesthesia. ”
“Are you a fan of the artist?”
“Not at all, I just thought it would be fun to own it.”
............................
Men littered the streets like garbage, buildings continued to burn, and the thick smell of ash floated in the winds. The shrill screams of a man could be heard as he slumped unto the cement, next to a black portal the size of a manhole floating in the air.
Broken combat machines lay scattered on the streets, twisted metal limbs, and guns were spread out across the now silent district.
A long white limousine was parked in a corner, inside the car a middle aged man in a luxurious suit with short brown hair. He casually stared at the scene with a smile on his face, while being accompanied by two attractive woman in his arms wearing black collars.
“Those goddamn rebels, actually tried targeting me of all people, employees should really learn their roles in this world.”
As he said these words, an armed man burst out from a nearby alley way, and aimed his assault rifle at the limousine. Before the armed man could even pull the trigger, a dark portal formed near the man, and two mechanical hand's reached out, and snapped the rifle.
Another portal formed behind the man that was struggling to free himself, a single blade revealed itself, followed by two mechanical hands resembling a humans. A single horizontal slash, sent his head tumbling down, and his body to fall unto the street. The mechanical limbs slowly slid back into the portal, and everything remained quiet.
From the distance a woman appeared walking towards the limousine, her white hair contrasted with the dark sidewalk. The man in the limo stared at the woman intently, as she slowly drew nearer, his eyes widened slightly, and he smiled brightly.
She wore a black, and silver officer cap, and military uniform. It was covered with a black fur coat, and tied with a silver chain. Her beautiful face formed a bland expression, and her green eyes were alert, and focused.
Contrary to her looks, the way she moved, and acted lacked any feminine charm, and a domineering aura leaked from her presence. She walked up the to car window, and said in a blunt manner.
“The streets are riddled with hostiles, drive back to the safer districts, and stop wasting my time.”
A creepy smile formed on his face as he stared at the young woman.
“I was just waiting for you darling, come inside, it's pretty warm.”
The woman clicked her tongue in annoyance, and pointed her gloved hand at him.
A miniature black portal formed beside her, and a long black rifle slowly emerged, and tapped the window lightly.
“I only helped you because we have business, I'm not your body guard.”
“The beauty mark on your chin is really cute, I really like that.” He said playfully, while casually ignoring the rifle pointed at him
She clicked her tongue and the rifle disappeared. When she focused her attention on the two women inside, she witnessed something, it was only for a brief second but she saw green bits of ethereal light leaking from the women, as soon as she blinked, the lights disappeared like an illusion.
“Oh, are you interested in my girls, I didn't know you swung that way.”
Without even bothering to respond to the man inside, she abruptly turned around, and walked away.
Farther away, several kilometres from the city, a black armoured car was speeding away.
Saia was inside a newly acquired armoured vehicle in the driving seat, while Ciel who was in the rear was watching over a sleeping Natasha. The drive was silent, and barely anything was said, he only admired the dark landscape, with unique plants, and surrounding rubble. It was dark, it was lifeless, and it was broken. Skeletal remains could be seen poking out from the soil, and scattered to the side of the road. The roads were partially covered by plants, and a majority of them were in disrepair, the landscape looked desolate, with ruins of ancient building popping up in the distance.
In some corner of the land, an unknown conflict was likely brewing, and the people living in this world just grew fewer, how long will this trend continue, and how far will we last?
Saia was now witnessing the legacy of the people who lived here, as he continued to drive past the rubble. Bullet holes permanently etched into the sides of dilapidated buildings that are sparsely spread out. Long destroyed vehicles occasionally dotting the landscape, and heaps of twisted metal strewn carelessly all over the place.
While driving with a dazed look, he suddenly stopped the car, and quickly went out. Ciel who was curious followed him outside. She saw Saia staring at the sky, with a strange expression on his face.
“What happened?”
“I thought I saw something.”
Staring at the general direction he was looking at, the visual scope on her helmet started to magnify the perimeter, and switch to different filters, from infrared to radio waves. In the end she scanned patiently for several minutes, and eventually gave up.
“I didn't pick anything up.”
“Hmm you're a second seed after all.”
“What would that have to do with anything.”
“For now nothing.”
“You're being vague.”
“I simply believe if people truly wanted answers, they would put in the extra effort to discover it for themselves.”
“Yea, whatever, you're as difficult as always.”
As Ciel was about to go back in the vehicle, Saia spoke up.
“Ciel.”
“Hmm?”
“Quick question, If you had a pet dog that was suffering from an incurable disease, would you end it's pain quickly, or would you spend more time with it, and care for it until it's final days?”
“I don't like pets, and I'm more of a cat person anyways.”
As soon as she said those words, she went back into the vehicle, and closed the door. Saia just sighed lightly as he continued to gaze at the sky.
“... And she calls me difficult.”
.............
(Synesthesia: Condition when one type of sensation evokes another.)
For example: A condition where you can see music, or taste words.