Explaining things to her brother seemed way more complicated than Tala originally thought it would be.
“You see, a lot of strange shit had happened to me… today. You would not believe it,” she started, picking her words carefully.
“Who the hell is he?” Chitto asked, nodding his head toward Howey.
“He’s the guy who helped us.”
Chitto's face frowned, not understanding it completely, so he asked, “Helped us with what?”
“Don't you remember? There were these guys who tried to kidnap us, and…”
“Oh, yeah, the guys in dark suits. They run after us. They looked scary. What did they want?”
“I stopped to ask but they did not answer," Tala said sarcastically. "But... what they did do is shoot you with tranquilizers."
"Oh, yeah, I remember. The bicycle ride."
"Yes. But before they could take us away, Howey came and helped us.”
Chitto scratched his head, still not sure about anything. “Why would they want us and why did he help us?”
“They said I was infected with a foreign virus, and…” Tala said in a nonchalant voice, but then stopped.
“And?”
“It’s not a kind of a virus. It’s a sort of a thing that… hard to describe.”
Chitto's head twitched back, not understanding any of it. “Is it hurting you?”
“No.”
“Will it kill you?”
“I don’t think so?”
“Will it kill me?”
“It does not work like that.”
“But how did you get infected?”
“This guy… he was attacked by them, and I think he passed it on to me.”
Chitto let that sit in his brain for a moment, weighing it, then he asked, “So… Are you an alien now?”
Tala bulged her eyes at him, then looked at herself, not. “I don’t think so. Why are you asking me that?”
“You were super fast. Like I am supposed to be faster than you. And when you peddled that bike, you were so good, way better than me. That was just weird. So, is that why?”
“I… think so.”
Suddenly,
[Penalty!!
Transgression Detected!
Cost: 100 Agent Marks]
flashed in front of her eyes.
“What penalty?” she asked, not understanding what was going on
Howey chuckled behind her as she read,
[Revealing the Integration and the System to anyone is strictly prohibited as stated in the Rules of Conduct and Disclosure Agreement]
“Shit, now, I’m back where I started.”
“I told you. You better know the rules.”
“Shit. And I thought I was going up in no time.”
“What is it?” Chitto interrupted their talk, asking for an explanation.
“I can’t really… explain it right,” Tala picked her words. She knew if she told her brother that there were things she could not tell him, he might start to worry. Better to pick her words wisely.
Chitto squinted his eyes, suddenly looking at her all suspiciously. “Tell me, what is my favorite pop group?”
Tala shook her head, “You do not have a favorite pop group. You hate them all equally.”
Chitto flashed a smile on his face. “Good. That’s good. You know it. Now… Are you going to grow like a third eye, or…?”
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Don’t be stupid,” Tala snapped at him suddenly, but then she thought about it, and she said, “But, honestly, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It’s just how you use it.”
“And he has it too?” Chitto said, nodding again at Howey.
“Yes.”
“Okay. So... how do I get it?” Chitto asked.
“I do not know,” Tala said.
“I want it.”
“Wait,” Tala said as a new message popped inside her vision.
[New Mission Available]
“What is it?” she said and turned to look at Howey, just not to confuse her brother with the question, promising herself that as soon as she could, she would choose to go using telepathic controls.
[Go to the Airport and travel to San Diego, USA
Mission Class: 1]
“What’s going on?” her brother asked.
“I’ll tell you all about it. Just give me a second,” she told him, raising her finger to give her a minute and be quiet. Then she turned to Howey. “Did you get that?”
Howey did not say anything, just looked at her. Then, as she was ready to ask him again, he muttered out. "We're going to the airport."
“What? What’s going on? What are you not telling me? And why?” Chitto asked.
“I’m telling you plenty!” Tala said, acting upset. “The stuff I told you cost me already 100 points!”
[Penalty!!
Transgression Detected!
Cost: 200 Agent Marks]
“Shit!” Tala cursed out loud.
Howey chuckled some more.
“You better learn fast, girl,” he said.
Tala was going to say how she lost some more points but then bit her tongue as she knew that would also carry more penalty.
Her brother seemed confused and tried to make sense of it all. “Points… alien shit… damn. That’s interesting. Well, on the one hand, I have abusive parents that are just dying to beat the shit out of me, and on the other… I... I... don’t freakin’ even know.”
Howey sighed deeply and walked toward Chitto, taking a little white jar out of his pocket Then he opened it and took just a bit of translucent cream on top of his finger.
“Is that alien?” Chitto asked as he saw Howey move his finger toward his cheek that still had his father’s fingers marking on it.
Howey shrugged his shoulders and asked. “Does it matter if it helps you?”
“No,” Chitto answered frankly and allowed Howey to gently cover his cheek in a translucent cream. “Can you do something to make me forget about my parents too? Like, take them out of my memory for good?”
“No, I can’t,” Howey said and then added, “I’m not near powerful enough to do that. Sorry,” making Chitto open his eyes wide and look at him as if seeing a ghost. Or an alien.
“Freaken’ cool. Are you an alien?”
Howey just smiled, not answering anything, and Tala stepped in.
“Look, Chitto,” she told him. “I’ll explain everything in detail. It’s very strange. But what matters is that we will be okay.”
“I know,” he said but then suddenly frowned. “As long as you do not start to grow teeth and crave to eat my brain…”
“No. I don’t think it will come to that.”
“We have to run,” Howey reminded them. “We only have 60 minutes to get there.”
“Where are we going?”
“I'm taking your sister to the Airport.”
“I’m not going without my brother… anywhere,” Tala said, glancing back and forth between Chitto and Howey.
“I thought you may say that,” Howey said and pulled two blue passports out of the inside of his jacket. “That’s why I was late. Ran over to the Embassy. It took a bit longer to have them done though.”
Tala picked up the passport and opened it up to see her picture and name inside. To her great surprise, it was not a Japanese passport, not that she ever had one. It was the USA.
“I don’t know what passports look like, but this… looks pretty good,” she said.
“I know.”
“Did it cost you a lot of money?”
“No, my employer took care of it all.”
“Is it real? Would I have trouble when I travel?”
“Of course it’s real. So you won’t have any trouble.”
“Didn’t know I was a US citizen,” she said, all surprised.
“Well, you’re now. You’ve got the social security and everything now.”
Chitto picked the other document, examining it.
“Cool,” he said after a second, looking at his own picture. It was a good one, the one they put last year in the school’s yearbook.
“Yeah, my employer can do that.”
“And who is your employer? Like CIA?”
“Nope. No need to tell you anything now. You will meet him. That’s where you’re going. He wants to meet you.”
“So… Where are we going?” Chitto asked.
“You’re going to the States.”
“So, we really don’t need to go back home?”
“Nope. Forget about your home. You’re getting a new one. Look, I have no time to explain things now. The time is ticking. There is a whole hell that's breaking loose. And we need to move fast.”
“Okay, before we go anywhere, I need something, anything to drink. Like I’m so thirsty, I can hardly talk anymore,” Chitto said.
Tala muttered to herself, "That is not be a bad thing."
"Hey, I heard that!" Chitto answered her.
“There is orange juice in the fridge,” Howey said. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” Chitto said. “You want some, sis?” he asked turning to his sister. “I bet this is good stuff, not the kind we had this morning.”
“Hey! That was the best I could afford!” Tala protested. "You know how much I worked to be able to buy that?"
Watching him reach into the fridge, Tala approached Howey and pulled him by his sleeve, whispering the words out. “I have so many questions for you,” Tala said, staring him in the eyes.
“I will try to answer what I can. But we need to go. Look. This was supposed to be our fortress. It was built that way, but… something must have gone wrong. Now, you need to go to the States.”
“Yeah, I have it under my mission. Class 1. So, it should not be that difficult,” Tala whispered, making sure her brother could not hear her while he drank a glass full of juice.
[Penalty!!
Transgression Detected!
Cost: 400 Agent Marks]
“Shit, what was that now?”
“Well, we are discouraged from sharing our mission info with anyone. Don’t you know that?” Howey said smiling. "Or better yet, is there anything you do know?"
“Shit, you tell me that now,” she said, feeling upset. “
"It’s the third time I've been fined. In less than an hour!!”
Howey sighed and shook his head. “If it’s any consolation, I got like seven or eight violations during my first 24 hours. So, with you doing three in a matter of first few hours, is not that bad.”
“Shit, it will take me forever to get up now.”
“Na. Just keep on doing missions. You’ll get there in no time.”
“And what will you do with Daiki?”
“He is still sleeping. Let me take you to the airport, and then I’ll come back and deal with him. Come on, we have no time to spare. Let’s go. Take the whole bottle, Chitto. We need to run,” Howey said, hurrying them.
“But… just tell me something first… What if I don’t want to go?” Tala suddenly asked and stared into Howey’s face, trying to see what was being displayed there.
She was not quite sure she liked what she saw.