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A second chance

Lightning arched across the sky. People scurried about in search of a refuge as dark clouds gathered high above the concrete babel towers. Some unfolded their umbrellas and made a beeline to their shimmering mazdas and soon, heavy rain blurred the horizon, muffling the noise of the jostling crowd. The pale December moon hung from the ink blotted sky, a bloody scimitar peering from beneath it's gray studded robes.

"Why are you doing this?" His voice was not a cry of desperation. Six released the man from his cold embrace, revealing the gleaming chunk of metal lodged in the man's chest, tearing a bloody hole which gaped like the mouth of a dying animal.

"...I'm ... .I'm…not-'' His voice cracked like brittle ice. He coughed up thick pink froth as he gasped and spluttered. Six's eyes crinkled with disinterest. 

He leaned against the shuddering body of the man, holding him gently like the broken thing he was.

"I'm sorry, Eli."

"Mercy…..mercy…"Eli struggled to raise his right-hand in a final plea. He bent over, coughing, and his legs gave away as he slid down the wall. Six backed away, his face contorted with disgust. There was a loud thud, followed by the splash of flesh splitting open.

The man was not dead. Not yet. Six kneeled down on the floor, ripping off his white latex glove as he stretched it over the gaping wound. He brought his hand down to the crown of the man's head, over his blood matted hair, and finally, down to his weary eyes.

"Mercy?"

Six drew his index and middle finger across the man's blue eyelids in a sign of peace.

"I'm only following orders. The consul of Euridifice seeks justice." 

Six removed his coat and blanketed the man's body with it. Just then, someone knocked on the door. A brisk, short knock. Six slowly got to his feet.

"And justice…..is a merciless master."

The door crashed down and two black clad guards rushed in, guns drawn.

Once the debris settled, they moved back to the door, guns back in their holsters. The room was ' clean', and the wooden flooring gleamed with fresh lacquer. Any sign of intrusion would've left tracks. They turned away from the wreckage, and vanished just as quickly as they had come.

A chilling night breeze swirled into the empty room. The windows had been flung open. Far down below, traffic crawled up the wet black asphalt- a snake with a thousand, red-gold eyes. 

*********************

"Scopolamine Hydrobromide?"

I blinked as Dr. Ize pushed the needle into my arm.

"I'm surprised to hear that it was your idea, purely. I thought you were against…shortcuts of that sort?" He removed the tubbing and set the hypodermic down on the tray with a clink. As he moved to the sink to wash his hands, I strained my neck to catch a glimpse of his pale, veiny face."I wasn't feeling like knocking him down with a club, you know."

He chuckled faintly and closed the tap. I could hear the water gurgle before draining down the pipe. It made me wonder, was there a way to distinguish those pipes that transported waste , and those carrying blood and sputum from the storage?

" Your humor has gotten drier with the lack of rest, it seems," His eyes twitched as he spoke," And it seems that disobeying the doctor's orders has become the norm for you these days."

 I couldn't lie to him. It was a fact, not a choice. And it wasn't because of his unsettling red albino eyes or his bearing as an underground medic- it was the fault of a blue shimmering cube that was suspended in a glass cage a few feet away from my cot, on his table. 

That is a 'core', the source of the life essence of any hybrid. As fancy as that sounds, it's not really of much use to me. It reflected my phase, like a second consciousness existing outside my body. Most people manifest their cores inside their body. Well, not most. All hybrids. The only time it does manifest externally is when someone is dying at the time of their awakening. I didn't die. A crazy albino man in a lab coat saved me, and I ended up here. It's been almost a decade since then.

Unlike other doctors in the facility, Dr. Ize did not have neither an office of his own, nor a physician's copper badge. He worked underground. I'm his only patient. The rest, well I wouldn't call them patients, exactly. Victims would be a more suitable word.

"Like it or not, a small part of my hobby, as excruciating as it sounds, is to keep you alive and properly functioning," He turned around, waiting for me to put my clothes back on. The bandages were tight and annoying, and I saw the sickly glint in his eyes as he watched me dress,"so please make sure that you follow through."

I felt the soft soles of my shoes and sighed with relief. I did not find his operating room particularly charming to be honest. The door slammed shut behind us.

"It did make my job easier, the Scopolamine. The subject was in a state of induced hypnosis when you brought him in-" he waved two corpse guards over, "-a shame that you didn't use it this time."

The guards carried a body in a stretcher to where we were standing, and set it down on the cart.

"I found your glove taped to the hole in his chest. Thanks to that, he's alive. How unfortunate for him." Dr. Ize rasped as he stretched a mask over his face,"and how fortunate for-" he was interrupted by a guard, who had rushed over in a frenzy. The doctor excused himself and walked away.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I bent over the cart and gently peeled back the cover. He was alive. Barely. I rubbed his damp skin with the the pad of my thumb. It was cold to the touch, flaccid, like that of a dead fish.

"Six," Dr. Ize was right behind me when I turned.

He pulled a blanket over the corpse, and it began to inflate."The inspector asked for you." 

I nodded. It was not like I was going to stick around anyway. A corpse guard's prosthetic arm clinked as it crooked a finger at the doctor's to call him over again, in the middle of pushing a stretcher into one of the storage cells.

Getting out of the basement was a chore. There were hundreds of corpses being loaded into noisy machines- I caught the glimpse of a purple arm tearing at its inflatable-and clutched my stomach to stop myself from retching. Of course, they aren't dead. Nothing in this chamber is. From the entrance, the mortuary of Euridifice looked like a chaotic laundromat with an infinitude of its own reflections clashing against each other.-two bright silver mirrors, reaching into themselves. I swipe my ID and watch the door close ominously behind me. There are no guards outside. 

....

Strange.

There are no guards in the lobby either. The elevator doors open and close, and open again. Still not a soul in sight. I walk down the winding corridor with its imposing glass walls, my steps echoing down the hall. There are a few plants in golden pots and blue holograms flashing directions. A Siamese cat popped out of nowhere, swishing its tail as it waited at my heels. "Off to see the inspector as well?" I smiled warmly, trying to approach the furball. It hissed and leaped back. I slid my ID at the door I was facing. "Sorry, but I was here first." I watched the cat clawing at the door as it closed .

"Sir. You asked to see me?"

"Six,"his voice rumbled down the obsidian walls.

Taking it as permission, I ascend the polished stairs leading up to his office to be greeted with open doors ... .until the entry point.The last door was dark blue with a bright mural of Amaterasu, the Goddess of Sun and Divine Justice, emerging from her cave. This time instead of my ID, I took off my tie clip and swiped it against the green flashing slot. The doors slid open. 

"Sir." 

He still hasn't considered installing a chair. Besides his own, that is. Sparkling like Satan's ass from behind his desk, though I really can't see anything else in the chamber. Except for the gigantic statue of Themis protruding from the floor-I could see the faint light bouncing off her blindfold. The rest of the body, including the brass balance, was below the inspector's office, in the council hall. I've never been there myself. And I'm extremely grateful for that.

It's suffocatingly dark. The only light there is sickly blue, emanating from the enormous fish tank caged in the wall, framing a stiff, towering silhouette. Thin smoke swirled in the air above . I guess where his face is-from the smoldering cigar he is holding.

"There is news from.....the second division -"The silhouette shifted with the churning smoke, and my nose twitched-".....very unsettling news," His grating voice crawled into my ears, hot and heavy with tobacco.

"The second division?" 

They stopped functioning two decades ago.

He stubbed out the glowing cigar.

"It needs to be cleansed soon, before the purge. "

Isn't that what the purge is for?.....

"...I am dispatching you to the second division. Bring these people back to me. Alive."

The silhouette moved faster than what my eye could follow. I patted the cigarette ash off my blazer. There's a hole. And it wasn't because of the cigarette, I'm sure. 

"And next time, make yourself more presentable. You know how.....unsightly.....it is, don't you?"

Ah, the bloodstains.

"Yes sir."

"Six." He tapped his desk. "Fourteen will meet you in the dice room, for a short mission briefing."

"Yes sir."

A single tap. That was my sign to leave.

He hates bloodstains now, does he? I turned away, after sneaking one last glance at the churning fish tank, blue and red, stirring with pieces of human flesh. And glinting, sharp teeth.

"Have a good day, sir."

.

.

.

.

".....You live with your siblings, don't you?"

My hands freeze as I reach out to the door.

"...Sir?"

I turn around.

He flicked on the lights. At the exact moment, black shutters rolled over the tank. I could see him now. 

The walls of his office were filled with murals of warring Gods. He was seated behing his desk, in a red and black suit mandatory for inspectors, fingering through a file, a blue hologram of the globe floating above the desk. Perched on a high seat next to the chair is the Siamese cat I met at the entrance. It has the same, cold blue eyes as him.

"Six years old, female, Eight years old, male. Enrolled in Yokosuka Middle School. Of course they aren't your real siblings. I wonder how you managed to register yourself as their legal guardian, since you don't have a registered identity, per se."

His soulless eyes pierce my own gaze through his black ceramic mask, and a shiver ran down my spine. It is highly disrespectful for an agent to look a senior officer in the eye. I quickly avert my eyes, only to find to my suprise, his long fingers, charred at the tips, tugging my tie clip loose.

How did he get over here so quickly?

"Don't be suprised. You see, I happen to have siblings myself. One, to be exact. Well, not a sibling. We're twins. Lovely, wouldn't you say? For people like us, to have family?"

"....Sir.... I don't ... I don't understand what you're saying."

"But of course you knew that. I'm the one who asked you to eliminate Eli. I asked you myself, didn't 'I'?" He stepped back, peering at me through half closed lids as he brushed his hair back, letting out a strained chuckle," Obey without question, without doubt, with honesty complete and, without intentions, pure or impure," He chanted under his breath.

"Ah, well, it isn't a suprise then, that you killed my brother as ' I ' asked you to. But it is suprising, very suprising indeed...."

My fingers burned at the contact with his skin, but I lunged, snatching my clip and frantically swiping it against the slot.

"-that someone as weak as you could kill an inspector. What do say six?"

Open, damnit, open!

But why isn't he stopping me?

The doors whirred open...and I watched them close.

"Sir, what do you want from me?"

"I'm sick of people like you. Dogs who will do everything for the few crumbs that fall down from their master's plate. He had you on a leash for so long....."

His eyes are cold without a hint of sympathy. I have to stay calm. I wonder if Dr. Ize is down in the operating room, analysing my core. If I died here right now, would you know, Ize?

But if he really wanted me dead, what was the point of babbling about a new mission? 

"Agents are dispensable pawns, without an identity of their own. Do you know why your names are numbers that change every time you kill? So that you dogs don't get attached to even the idea of amounting to something. You don't have a permanent name. Atleast that was what I thought."

He swiped in the air and a blue screen popped up. The doors opened, startling me. 

"Ah, but you do have a name!"

A screen flashed right in front of me. 

"He must've had you on a tight leash, six. And I just found out what it is."

".....Hana?.....Ryu?" I choked up. A copper haired boy and a young girl in pajamas were playing with a husky in their living room. They were not alone. On the wall opposite to them, were multiple shadows. I couldn't hear what they were saying and I watched the screen, paralyzed. 

"Takashi! Your friends are really cool!" Ryu brandished a metal toy at the screen, happily jumping around. Hana was blinking at the window. 

A gun.

"I'm giving you a second chance, Ta-ka-shi."

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