Look at life and death. When one dies, another is born. On a broader spectrum of the world, there are checks and balances for every aspect of life. For every good, there is a bad. For every moment of happiness, there is great sorrow. The idea of one individual’s moment of joy thus causing a great tragedy to befall another is unacceptable. There must be a balance. Galea received nothing but pleasure from the killing of her family, it was my responsibility to direct the coming misfortune back to the source.
I was going to stop by and visit Theri, though the open wound on my hand needs medical attention. I take an emergency stairwell down to the first floor and call a cab. I need to get this finger back on before I rendezvous with Glenn.
______________________________________________________________________________
The only medic I truly trusted was a man by the name of Issac. A good man, not originally from Reno but he doesn’t let it get to him when some officers treat him poorly. Basement level one is where I’ll find him. A few officers greet me as I make my way up to the door. I stop for a moment to admire my bike, still resting on the side of the road, before moving through the main double doors. Most of the other detectives and footmen don’t pay me any mind, Glenn is the one to turn heads with his bombastic personality and seniority. The empty halls of the first floor are harrowing, knowing all that is going on below on the many sublevels of the police station.
The design of the Reno Police Department came during the War of the Alabaster Sky. Nuclear and biological weapons were a constant threat to public safety and so all on-site police operations were moved to the sublevels of the station. If something were to happen to the city, the station could be completely self-sufficient for up to two years. There are a series of tunnels that run below the city, connecting to points of interest. The capitol building, subway tunnels, major social areas, and other such things. It’s an efficient system, though since the war is over and there is no need to fear large-scale attack, the citizens have turned to call us “gophers' ' and many other creative names.
I digress. I make it to the elevator and set the course for the first sublevel.
The medical wing is as orderly as usual. The elevator, opens up to a spacious waiting room, with chairs and torn-up couches. Most nurses tend to those who are waiting to be seen while the rest escort patients through a narrow hallway on the opposite side of the room. They are dressed in skin-tight white jumpsuits with white face masks covering their nose and mouths. Officers who sustain severe wounds tend to go to official city hospitals, whereas simple wounds can be tended to here. Though there are many officers spread throughout the large area, it is quiet and controlled due to the attentive staff. One of the nurses comes to me as I get off the elevator.
“Miss Glass,” the nurse speaks. “I didn’t expect to see you back here so soon. How is your knee fairing?
“Good, I don’t feel any more pain,” I pull my hand from my pocket and let the makeshift bandage fall from my hand to the clean floors. “Got a new problem I need your help with.” Her eyes widen and she takes a hasty step forward.
“Miss Glass! Do you have the missing finger?”
“Yeah right here,” I pull the top of my index finger out of my pocket calmly. “Is it too late to spray it back on?” She turns my palm face up in her hand, studying it closely.
“It is seldom too late my dear. Open wounds will get you back right away,” She lifts my arm, places herself under my shoulder, and wraps her arm around my side.
“No, no it’s okay,” I slid away from her attempt at helping me walk. “I can do it myself.” She nods and takes me toward the central hallway. As I go, a few uniform officers of varying status give me harsh glares. They could have been waiting for hours and now have to watch me take their spot if only they knew that I brought this on myself.
We walk only for a few yards down the hall before she pulls me into the second door on the right. A man sits alone in the room, with dark black skin, a thin chin strap beard, and a shiny bald head. He is younger and more inexperienced compared to the day shift medics, but he seems to truly care about his work, so that’s all I can ask. He’s swiping through a datapad, and his eyes don’t look up when the door opens.
“Misha, what brings you to our neck of the woods,” a cold North Afro Territories accent compliments his words.
“Hey,” I pull my finger out from my jacket pocket, blood spilling onto the ground. He doesn’t flinch as he sees fresh blood leak from my shoddily bandaged-up finger leak from my hand to his bleach-smelling floor.
“Hey? Hey?” He scoffs, “You’re bleeding all over my clean floors, Tell me a bit more than ‘hey.’”
“Had an encounter with this wicked dog in an alley on the west side,” I walked over to his desk and offered my hand to him. His eyes go from a dark hazel to a glowing cyan as he analyzes the wound. “Serves me right for hopping fences as I do.”
“Oh no, no Fido is responsible for this one.” He touches the tip of the bone at the center of the wound, causing me to cry out in a moment of agony. “That is what you get for your recklessness.”
“Fuck,” I gasp.
“Adrenaline has finally dropped a bit, aye Misha?” Issac looks up to the nurse accompanying me here, “I need a can of goo and one of those heavy-duty bandages, you know, the red ones.”
“Right away doctor,” She steps aside and heads for the door.
“Thank you, madam,” he directed his attention back to me. “You must have been gagging someone, there are teeth marks on the inner parts of the palm. You are lucky it was just the finger.”
“It was a complicated situation,” I replied coldly.
“Sure, sure. A complicated trip to Tango Street? Or more in the line of Police brutality?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” I say as I take off my thick black overcoat. Issac gives me a disapproving look.
“Misha, I don’t like fixing you up. You have to be more careful,” He places his warm hand on my wrist. I don’t meet his gaze, but I nod. “And another thing. I will require answers the next time weird shit happens like this again, you heard?”
“Yes. Thank you for your understanding.” The nurse returns with the proper equipment for care.
“And patience. Never undercut patience,” He smiles. “Now let's get this pesky finger back on so we can get you home.”
“Home? The loss and resealing of minor limbs do not qualify an officer to head home early.”
______________________________________________________________________________
The finger went back on easily, sealing it took only a few minutes, and I stuck around in the waiting room for about fifteen minutes before it was dry and I was cleared to go back to work. I have to wear a plastic bag on it for the next 12 hours, along with the bandages, which is typically not ideal when trying to conceal an injury from a very nosy partner. Thankfully, Glenn was pulled for traffic duty because of a megacomplex fire. Since Glenn is gone I can’t head out on calls, desk work and dispatching is the only thing left to do until clocking out.
______________________________________________________________________________
Getting home and peeling off the many layers of clothing feels like a snake shedding its skin. I stand in the mirror in nothing but my underclothes, I do not like what I see. She is unruly and unclean.
I step back, remove the last layer of clothing, and step into the shower. The water pressure is as weak as a slight drizzle, but I welcome it. The cool water tightens the poor and I can’t help but bask in this replicated rain—time to put my body's neglect to an end. I check for my razor, and shampoo, and make sure there is enough body wash. I drench my hair and body in about half a bottle of each and sit on the shower floor.
I can’t get what that woman said out of my mind, “Will my eyes burn too?”
I’ve never seen anything like that before. Cybernetic implants are specifically designed to not overload under any circumstance, even going so far as completely shutting down before overheating. There have been corpses of construction workers on lines that power the whole city whose optic implants were still stable. Galea is no hacker, and the energy she ran through her daughter's body was only enough to light up that apartment. Perhaps the day crew will be able to turn up the father’s body to shine a bit more light on the situation.
Galea. She deserved what I did, but something still feels wrong. The weight of my actions is to pull at my neck, but I must go on. It was not something I had to do, but there must be a balance in what will remain of her existence. Accountability is a tremendous assignment for fate to handle on its own.
Thirty minutes pass, and the water shuts off automatically. I fork over an additional one hundred dollars a month for longer showers. When I step out I see that woman again in the mirror, She’s not perfect, but it’s a start.
_____________________________________________________________________________Morning. (Afternoon)
Rolling out of bed, 3 PM, earlier than usual. Breakfast. I checked the fridge. Disappointing but not surprising. Ordering it is.
______________________________________________________________________________
I dress in a fine black blouse with embroidered red roses all along the trim, and one size too big blue jeans. I pull up my contacts on Holo, looking for my mother’s number when a notification pops up in the center of my right optic, narrated in a monotone voice:
Long-range call from MARS, Tenya Sector
40 NAD per minute.
Do you accept?
Yes (One Blink)/No (Two Blinks)
I blink once and it begins to project their video feed. The screen beeps and my parents appear, they are sitting on their couch, light, and music surrounding them. All is right in the world.
“My baby girl!” My father bellows. He sits, adorned in his floral button-up shirt. He started losing his thick brown hair many years ago, but now refuses any implants or medication that would help him get it back. Dad persistently claims he is still the most handsome man on Mars. Mother on the other hand still looks to be in her late thirties, she went through a phase of obsessing over cosmetology implants. Though she stopped a few years ago, the implants were legit, and she’ll probably look this way until she dies. With all of that, she retains her warm smile and natural blue eye color.
“You look so tired,” Dad says.
“Daniel!” Mother slaps him on the shoulder.
“Thanks, Dad,” I can’t help but laugh.
“Can't a father worry about his daughter?” He continues, “Did you sleep at all last night?”
“I slept for a while after I got off work.”
“You know, you always struggle to sleep this time of year,” Mother squeaks, never having a solid voice.
“She's right! Ever since you were a girl.”
“What does that even mean?” I can’t help but keep laughing as they swarm me with their strange worries and observations. I sit back, take it all in for a minute, and let them keep running their mouths before attempting to change the subject.
“How are you both doing?”
“Good!” They both say, “Missing you,” Father finishes.
“I miss you too.”
“You don’t have to miss us, you know.” Mother chimes back in, “Dad has money set aside in a little savings account for whenever you want to visit, or hopefully stay! We won’t make you stay in the barn, promise.”
I’m a terrible daughter. I never do as they ask, I’ve given them no grandchildren, and I’ve yet to even visit their new home.
Why do they want me?
______________________________________________________________________________
“Did the day shift come up with the husband’s body?” I ask Glenn over Holo, fifteen minutes before I have to head for work.
“Yeah, they did. He was cut up and stuffed into garbage bags. Detective Castellan chased down the garbage truck that came by a couple of hours after shift change. Case closed I suppose.” Yeah… it should be.
“The woman was insane yesterday,” I say.
“I’m sorry you went alone, I should have been there.” Glenn looks disappointed in himself in the projection.
“There was something that she said, it's been getting to me.”
“What was it?”
“She said, ‘Do you think my eyes will burn too?” His eyes squinted as the words left my mouth.
“That’s… weird,” Glenn bluntly replies.
“I keep on thinking if there is a bit more to this story. I don’t think there is a doubt that she killed the girl and her husband. But…”
“But there could be something up with her cybernetics? Or the cybernetics of the victims?”
“Perhaps, I’m going to inquire more about the second body and go from there.”
“With the cause of death, it’s hard to tell if the eyes were burned, post, pre, or during death.”
“I know, but still. I have to know.”
______________________________________________________________________________
“This is Castellan,” his voice was of a higher pitch but still found a way to contain authority. “Are you going to be late again, Glass?”
“No nothing like that,” I reply. “I’m reaching out about the body you found yesterday.”
“Oh yeah, nothing I love more than picking up the literal trash that night shift left behind. Thanks a lot for that.” He’s right, but it wasn’t our fault Glenn got pulled away. However, I don’t think voicing that opinion is going to do anything to help me with a grumpy, sleep-deprived detective on his last nerve.
“I’m sorry, truly I am,” I do my best to sound sincere. Even when I try to express the emotion within my heart, I can barely put that effect into the words leaving my mouth. He takes a deep breath, there is the chatter of the precinct in the background of his audio.
“Shit,” he pauses for a moment. “You didn’t deserve that. How can I help Detective Glass? What do you want to know about the body?”
“I heard that the eyes of the husband were similar to that of the first victim.”
“True. The victim’s eyes were scorched, cyber burns covered the eye sockets, and warped the inner part of the victim's skull.”
“Could the cause of death have caused such an extreme implant failure?” The detective on the other end pauses momentarily, then clears his throat.
“No, I suppose not. His throat was slit.”
“That’s strange. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Of course. I suppose I was so determined to see this over and done with, I didn’t even care to question the horror of the incident.” He pauses, and mutters under his breath, “Fuck.” Disappointed in himself that he lacked the drive to question the irregularity sooner.
“It’s easy to bind wicked actions together when the culprits have already been found. I wouldn’t mind putting this business behind me either.”
“Yeah I guess so… I owe you one, Glass.”
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Don’t mention it. Once my shift starts, I’ll take a look at the body myself and then see if I can get into contact with the optic company. I hope I can get one of their producers down here to take a look at what happened.”
“Good luck, Chief has been barring manpower pretty hard. I hope she listens to you about this one.”
“Me too,” I say, already dreading the plea.
“Stay safe tonight, and if you need something, give me a call.”
______________________________________________________________________________
“Ready to head down?” Glenn asked from across our desk. I stared at my viewscreen, trying to find anything from previous case records with similarities to this case. My partner's voice is dulled by my focus, “Jeez, this case has you sucked in, doesn’t it?” He claps sharply in my direction, my head shoots over, and our eyes meet.
“I suppose it does, I guess I’m still getting used to this kind of crazy.” I motion to the images from the scene laid out across my desk.
“Yeah,” Glenn grimaces as he looks over the pictures of the young girl from yesterday. “The life of a detective is much easier when you can just say, ‘They did it for money.’” I nod my head and focus back on the screen.
“Castellan didn’t have any photos taken of the new body, and didn't even mention the cause of death in the report.” I analyze the data time and time again, it’s all vague, but just enough to get past the Captain's approval.
“We may want to do the guy a solid and fill it out before it reaches the chief's approval.”
No this seems different, a seasoned detective doesn’t make mistakes like that. You have to go out of your way to be that stupid.
“I suppose we’ll just have to take it all in ourselves.” I collect the physical images of the first crime scene and lock them in my desk before standing and looking back at Glenn, “Ready to head down?” He rolls his eyes and stands. The morgues are buried on the deepest level of the police station, the ninth floor. We head for the elevator.
“Just how far do you want to take this?” Glenn asks as we walk, occasionally exchanging a hello with every passing officer/detective.
“As far as it needs to go. If this was just a wicked coincidence then we can drop it ASAP. But if it’s not, corporate negligence or faulty installation… Well, we have to take it all the way.” I reply sternly.
“Hey, hey, I don’t want you to think I’m not in your corner, I just always want to make sure we're on the same page.”
“I know. You truly are a reliable guy.” Glenn looks almost embarrassed with such an earnest compliment. He laughs and puts his hand on my shoulder innocently. Even though it is a strictly platonic action, I can’t help but feel uncomfortable with the touch. I’ve been this way all of my “adult” life, the weight of physical contact has been too much for me.
“You’re just lucky you got such a handsome goon to follow you around.” It was only for a moment, but when his hand goes back to his side, my shoulder feels a thousand times lighter. We boarded the elevator and hit the button for subsection nine.
“I don’t know why I hang out with you,” I say, he snorts, and the door closes.
______________________________________________________________________________
Entering the morgue is like going to the doctor. There’s a lot of paperwork, waiting around in uncomfortable chairs, and an intense urge to run away as fast as you can. Van Nelson was the mortician's name, could never tell if that was their last name or an old war first name. Regardless, they are good at what they do, stopping at nothing to always ensure we have everything we need. By the time our paperwork was processed and we were cleared to go in to see the body, Van Nelson Walked through the back door and extended a greeting.
“Good to see you, Officer Glass and Officer Veritas.” They had almost glowing white skin, short raven hair, plaid lips, and a smile going from ear to ear. “What brings you down to the fridges today.”
“We’re here to examine the body of a…” I double-checked the name on my rig.
“Daniel Takesh,” Glenn finishes my sentence. Van Nelson smirks before turning and waving their hand for us to follow.
“Takesh huh?” The door leads into a smaller chamber connecting the two zones of the morgue, the lobby, and the cooler. The large metal door was like that of a commercial cooler, like at grocery stores and warehouses. Van Nelson walked up and yanked the door open with much effort. “Guy was in pieces when Castellan brought him in. I did the best I could to align the parts in the body bag.”
Fantastic.
The room was large, every few feet there was a vertical column with three rows. There were three other entrances to the room, one in each corner. Van Nelson dragged and punched in a few numbers on a panel and a drawer opened. The bed where the green body bag was lying extended past the wall it contained and levitated into the center of the room.
“There is not much else to say,” Van Nelson reached for the zipper. “Guy was sliced to bits and brought out to the garbage. A much more subtle killing than what happened to the daughter.”
“I can’t wait to put this case behind us,” Glenn’s words flow through an exasperated sigh.
“At least they're easier to move when they're in pieces like this,” Van Nelson slid down the zipper and revealed the corpse.
It was a total of five body parts:
The left leg, sock is still on.
The right arm and shoulder. The wrist was slit, inches deep.
Left arm and top of the torso, above the nipples. Ring finger missing.
Torso, below the nipples. Fifteen stab wounds.
Head.
I can’t make out much detail of his appearance, it is completely distorted by the harsh technical burns spreading from the eyes. Like the previous girl, the eyes are shriveled and dry sitting in the center of the socket.
“It’s the same as his daughter,” I say to Glenn.
“Yeah, and this confirms that the overload was not caused by electricity,” Glenn replies. Bingo.
“You’re correct. We need to do two things; get in contact with medical and see if we can get a brain scan on both victims and start poking the optics company.”
“Sounds good,” Glenn turns to Van Nelson. “Are we clear to have this body here for a while? You know how long some of these processes can take.”
“As far as I know, I’ll have to make a call to confirm,” Van Nelson replies.
“Then let’s go do that,” Glenn puts pressure on what is sure to be a long process. “Misha, I'll go make a call to medical while I’m at it. We can examine the body later if you want to just bag it and tag along.”
“No, you go ahead,” I look at the body. “I want to take a closer look and get some pictures before time affects its state.”
“Misha, it would be best if you just came with us. You wouldn’t be able to do more than a simple observation without the presence of a doctor.”
“That is exactly what I was hoping to accomplish. Don’t worry, I won’t be long.” Glenn nods and turns to Van Nelson, biting their lip. Glenn notices this hesitation as well.
“Don’t worry doc, Misha possesses a certain subtlety that many of the guys around here lack. It’ll be fine.” The mortician simply turns and begins to walk towards the door, Glenn staggers forward to catch up. He looked back at me and shrugged his shoulders.
“Sorry, Van Nelson, do you have any latex gloves around here?” I run a quick scan of the room and find a surprising lack of anything besides the corpse cabinets. It looks like they must no longer perform autopsies here if they perform them nowadays. Van Nelson doesn’t stop walking towards the door, “Van Nelson?” Glenn reaches out and touches the doctor’s shoulder, they grunt and turn to face us.
“Gloves, doc?” Glenn asks.
“Oh yes,” Van Nelson pauses. There is something off about their behavior, it changed like a flip of a switch. “There is a dial on the other side of the table, you can adjust it to provide whatever tools you need.” I walk to the other side of the table, away from the door, and bend over to see what he is talking about.
“Thank you.”
“No problem, ju-just don’t make any incisions or permanent scarring of the body while I or another mortician is out of the room.” I give him a firm nod before adjusting the dial to the option that says Protective Gloves. When I slide the dial over and press it in, the table hums for a moment before dispersing a tray from the side with a pair of latex gloves that are warm to the touch. I take off my coat, roll off my sleeves, and slide the latex onto my hands.
“See you in a bit, Misha,” Glenn shouts as the large metal door closes behind him. When I look over and realize that I cannot get out of the cooler unless I have the code, the other doors are the same. Locked in, I suppose I won’t be leaving until someone comes to retrieve me, or I complain enough on the coms that dispatch sends someone my way.
I shift my focus back to the corpse parts of Mr. Daniel Takesh. Using my optics I can tell that he possesses no other implants besides his optics. He is overtly average when it comes to size and stature, there aren’t any signs of struggle on his body. No scratches or significant bruising. A closer examination of the skull will be required, but there don’t seem to be any outstanding fractures or splits in the skin either. It’s as if he simply laid down and let that turn him into a pin cushion. I'll need to collect a blood sample for forensics to check for any position or other anesthesia.
The eyes themselves are all-consuming, the darkness of the technical burns creates two unnaturally dark holes within his face. I can only imagine the terror that must have gone through his mind if this was pre-mortem, it must have happened so fast that his mind couldn’t process what was occurring before it was scorched with this unnatural fire. There are no scratch marks on his head. There are faint red lines on his wrists, it’s hard to tell but he could have been tied down or handcuffed. I remove the watch attached to his wrist and place it on the table beside him. The skin is slightly raw and different to the touch in comparison to the rest of his arm and hand, I’m all but certain he was bound.
In one mad moment, one of the other corpse drawers hissed as the platform began to emerge from the wall. I glance around the room, for any sign as to why this is occurring but come up empty. There is a faint noise coming from within the chamber, a one-sided conversation, they're either crazy or in a communications channel. The voice is quiet, but I still my breathing so I can pick up some of the conversations.
“There is a back- It’s not going to be a problem-”
The platform is halfway out of the wall, and I can see the man’s legs shifting nervously on the bed. He continues to speak.
“The thing said the north corridor should be clear-” I quickly pressed myself along the wall, trying to belay his gaze as long as I could. All three doors are still locked in the morgue, I need to reach out to Glenn now, I use my optics as quickly as I can to send a text message, and a virtual eye-tracking keyboard comes up in my view.
Back to the morgue
Now
Locked in with an intruder
Emerge-
As my eyes darted to the letter “N,” I could see that the man had come fully outside the drawer and lifted himself to his side. He is a man of average build, completely dressed in black, covering most of the skin below his neck. Coming from the top of his collar is a scarf that covers his face from the top of the nose down. His hair is long and gray, tied in a ponytail that falls and sits at the center of his back. The only other feature I could make out was his eyes, they were cloudy and gray, like that of the blind.
“Who the fuck are you?” His words tumble out of his mouth and echo throughout the room. He slides into a sitting position, “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I’m a Detective,” I took a few steps back from Takesh’s bed.
“Oh so you’re smart then,” he remains sitting. “Smarter than the lot that runs around in the halls upstairs.” His smokey voice suggests that this is no young man.
“I’d like to think so,” I reply. A message appears in the top left of my optic, it’s from Glenn.
ON MY WAY
“Now you really must tell me what you’re doing here,” I continued. Sizing up this man, I don’t think I would be able to last very long in a fight. Glenn usually serves as the hammer, while I simply line up the nails. I can’t make out much about his cybernetics, his arms are completely artificial, and has five surgers running from shoulder to fingers. Surgers redirect energy from other cybernetics into others that the users deem more of a priority. Other than that, his body is a total dead zone, he must have some sort of device that covers his core systems.
“Use that noggin of yours and get the hell out of here,” he pushes himself.
“What is it that you want?”
“I need that body, the one you’re quivering over.” I look down to see that my right hand is shaking, I quickly grab it with my left and look back up at him, there is a satisfied grin spreading across his face.
“Why? What’s this all about?”
“I don’t rightly know darling, but I sure as hell ain’t about to let a job go unfinished.”
“Who employs you?”
“Would my hair be this gray if I went about saying stuff like that?”
“Your name then?” I say, trying to invoke some sense of authority over the situation.
“I could kill you right here and now, stuff you right back in that drawer. Now I’m going to ask you one last time to get the hell out of the way and stay there. Do you understand?” He steps up to the opposing side of Takesh’s bed and places both hands next to the bag, leaning forward toward me.
It would be so easy to simply turn my back, walk away, and move on to the next case in a line of thousands. The only family this guy has left is the one who slaughtered him. The point is pure speculation, Is it worth dying over? I could go home, call my parents, watch Holo, and maybe even swing by Glenn’s house for once to grab a bite.
It would be so easy.
“My name is Misha Glass. Detective Misha Glass.” I serve only ghosts. “I won’t let you take that body. Kill me, but remember that name.”
“Your death will be as if a single apple fell from a branch of a tree in an orchard.” He takes off the black leather glove on his right hand, revealing a fist entirely made out of steel, it glistens in the surgical light of the morgue. I need only to last until Glenn bursts through that door and kicks this guy's ass. “Are you sure about this, Glass?”
“No,” I take my overcoat off and throw it to the ground behind me. “But I can be.”
“I won’t make it pretty, Misha Glass. No open casket funerals for dumbass idealists who get in my way.” I place my hands on Takesh’s bed, mirroring the stranger. With my left hand, I turn the manifestation dial, setting it to a scalpel. His gaze of steel is solely focused on my face, he does not react to my sleight of hand. With a swift shift in his posture, he moved his arm with such a speed that I had not seen before. His metal right hand came flying toward my face, he was too fast, and I couldn’t get out of the way in time. I close my eyes and try to rip my head back as the metal of his hand crushes my nose, If I hadn’t recoiled it could have been a lot worse. I stumble into the wall to my left and clutch my nose. Between the water pooling at the bottom of my eyelids and the blood splattered on my eyebrows, I can see him walking around the bed, coming to see me off.
I need to find an edge, something to help me hold out. If I take another hit like that I’m finished. He’s only feet away.
His speed is useless if I can predict where his next attack is coming from, and when.
The surgers. I activate my diagnostic device on my optics, and his arms have normal operational power. However, with each step closer to my position, his right arm begins to receive more and more energy. I must watch it thoroughly, I’ll only have a fraction of a second to make use of this information.
He balls his fist as he is four feet away.
Now.
He sends his right fist flying for my throat, I quickly throw myself to the left, causing his fist to collide with the wall. He does not seem fazed by the collision, quite the opposite. He turns his head to me and grins. As he displays his satisfaction, I quickly squat underneath Takesh’s bed and put it between myself and the stranger.
“Not bad, Glass.” He reaches down by the side of Takesh's bed and picks up a scalpel, the one I thought I had manifested without his knowing. He holds the scalpel up to his eye in between the index and ring finger of his left hand. “Ya know, this is neat. I swear technology impresses me more and more every day.” He is sending power to his left hand, that scalpel is coming my way. It will move too fast to dodge it perfectly, I’ll simply need to guess and cover my vitals. His hand twitches forward, and I dive to the right this time, again providing the wall to keep myself standing. My right-hand goes to cover my throat, while my left covers my heart. The blade pierces my right hand and comes out halfway on the other side knocking the surface of my throat. He read my movements this time as well, I’d be dead if I hadn’t taken this precaution.
“Fuck…” I rip the blade out of my hand and wheeze, doing everything I can to stay standing. I’ve got the scalpel now, small victories.
“Gotcha that time, Glass,” his words are as sharp as the blade. “But I’m running out of time, which means you’re running out of time.” I have to dodge one more swing if I’m going to get this blade anywhere near a kill spot. I slowly step back and watch his every move like a hawk.
His arms fall limp to the side of his body, power is being directed somewhere else. The stranger takes a step towards the bed instead of to the side. He’s going to go underneath or over. He has no pupils, so I can’t get a read of what he is looking at. The eyes are the most important part of interpreting one's unspoken intentions.
I refuse to let him win. I refuse to die. Here, amongst the abandoned vessels of the spirits I swear to serve, it’s almost as if I can feel their spectral hands brushing against my electric skin. I can’t tell if they hope to drag me down or push me forward, but at least I’m not alone. I can’t help but let a fury, born of frustration, overtake me.
“Come on,” I howl. I feel as though every muscle in my body is igniting, the blood coursing through my veins becomes acidic, and my mind has never been sharper. “No open casket funeral, mother fucker.” He jumps, and the mechanisms of his leg implants can be heard as his feet leave a tiny imprint on the metal flooring. The stride of his leap carries him over Takesh’s body, and soars through the sky. The transfer of energy directs back to his left fist which he has raised above his head. I move forward in an attempt to cause his trajectory to overshoot and raise my right hand upwards thrusting towards his descending throat. I wanted this tiny blade to end such a momentous threat. It was a one-and-a-thousand chance and fate has never been a friend of mine.
The blade enters into the flesh below his collarbone, and the force of his impact causes his body to completely envelop the scalpel. The man with the white eyes’ fist collides down upon my right shoulder. I can hear my bones cracking, and my muscles tearing. His fist is not stopping, after it collides it continues to come crashing down toward the floor, taking my torso down with it. My back slams into the floor at the same time as his fist, he immediately goes for another punch directly into the center of my chest. Without even thinking I roll to the side, and the fist meets the ground with enough force to send a small gust of wind to grace my cheek. The stranger grunts in pain, in the corner of my eye I can see him clutch his fist and then feel where the scalpel had been inserted. I look over to my shoulder, my arm is being held to my body with a sleeve of flesh, any structure that my bones had provided was now in pieces. Without my optics, my vision would begin to fade, though this does not affect my strength.
Glenn must be getting close, there’s no way he would leave me in the dark for so long. I cannot attack or dodge another of his moves. All I can do now is to try and get closer to the door in the hopes that my partner intervenes. I use my left arm to pull myself across the chilled floor, my squirming legs trying to push me forward with little luck. The pain struck me like a bolt of lightning each time my shoulder collided with the ground. The stranger's hand gripped the back collar of my shirt and the waist of my slacks to lift me into the air. My hapless arm only dangled before he tossed me into the wall, I can’t process the pain. I fall limp onto my back, gazing up at the light.
His boot collides with my side, ribs break from under the force. There doesn’t seem to be additional power from his implants, this is human strength. Again his foot meets my side, and blood spurts from my mouth directly into the air before falling back down upon my forehead like crimson raindrops. He alternates between stomping and kicking my side.
With each wave of pain, my mind begins to fade, and reality feels further and further away from my grasp. The grip of the dead, their hands, they are pulling me to the other side.
I don’t want to go.
This cruelty.
This is evil.
I cannot bear it.
I refuse to die.
His assault pauses as he looks down at me, cocking his head as I use what little energy I have left to affix my gaze on him. My shaky breath filled the silence between us. He steps towards my head, slowly lifting his foot into the air. His milky gaze infuriates me, he better be looking me in the eye.
“I-” More blood gushes through my teeth and coats my lips. “Refuse…” One last testimony for the ghosts I could not aid. His boot manifests a seemingly infinite darkness before me.