It was odd that he was taken to a run-out-of-the-mill police station, even more so of how he was brought in. A brilliant blue sky blazed overhead complemented by the summer sun as scorching heat wrecked havoc to New York. The power grids were getting affected as the heat bent the necessary couplers maintaining the grids. The back-up generators were working just fine but at the expense of constant maintenance, the new technology surrounding the generators was fairly unstable and unreliable at times; but for the sake of funding they were kept online.
Older parts of the city, that were unaffected by the sudden technological revolution, were left in the dark. Literally. Rolling black-outs and overall structural power failure were common amongst these unprotected regions. The adherent necessity of staying with the older aesthetics of the 20th century metropolis didn’t assist as they were incompatible to the dazzling new technologies of the future.
Undaunted, however, these older communities survived with their wits, rather than to succumbed to the “easier lifestyle that leaves one unaccomplished” as they claimed. In this crummy little tri-state area, literally five blocks away from the dazzling Times Square, sat a lowly police station in the corner of nowhere and filth.
The air-conditioning had gone out but in order to accustom oneself to the insane heat the police officers had opted to bring their personal fans and other devices to keep the place cool. The more spiritual officers had brought in CDs and arcane stereos to blast their whale songs for the purpose of “Cooling our spirits, man.”
SWAT had brought him in. They were one of the oldest civil defense forces here that wasn’t completely overrun by the covert Section III. They took pride in their work, even when compared to the supersoldier Revs, Abnormals, or CEADs that Section III deployed daily to police the city.
“Looks like something outta a horror movie huh?” One of the officers claimed with a shit-eating grin, they looked at the apprehended man. His face was obscured by the nightmare black mask and the straightjacket gave him a shapeless form. His head was bowed as the men dragged him in the station. It was highly unorthodox of the SWAT unit being called in to take down one man but orders were orders.
Rumors circulated about persons of former descent to Section III running amok all over the U.S., news had never surfaced about these people so rumors were rumors. The man’s hands were handcuffed but his gait was relaxed, as if he were sleeping. The seven-man group stopped in front of the main desk in the station to approach a balding man in his forties drenched with sweat. The scowl on his face would have looked intimidating if his handlebar mustache didn’t look ridiculous caked with leftover chocolate cake.
“Just him? He doesn’t look that bad,” he mused as his eyes played over the man’s body, he certainly didn’t look intimidating in fact he looked like a teenager.
“Yeah, and here’s the thing, he was just sitting in that room alone doing nothing.” One of the officers replied, and then with a scoff he continued, “Then again, not much someone could do wrapped up like this.”
“Wait, he was like that when you got there?”
“Yep, like some wacko magician or something.” The other men laughed in agreement.
“Well we should probably take him ba-“ He stopped and looked over another man that had stepped forward. He was dressed neatly with a business ensemble but dark shades to obscure his eyes. The veteran police officer scoffed, unimpressed. He stopped the group of SWAT and flashed a quick badge.
“Excuse me, I would like to have a word with this man,” his inflection was smooth and confident, as if he were used to giving out absolute orders.
“Sorry man but,” the officer holding the captive took a closer look at the badge and noticed an odd emblem, it was of a pyramid with an eye in the center, it wasn’t something easily identifiable but they understood immediately, “Er, sorry sir, but we have explicit orders t-“
“And I am overriding those orders, now please move along and let me have a little talk with him.”
They didn’t protest any further. Stepping away from the quasi-Houdini they allowed him to stand on his own before the stranger took him by the shoulder and led him to the back of the building.
They took an interrogation room and stepped inside quickly. The neat and trim man had pushed the arrestee into the chair and reached over to the upper-right hand corner of the room to disable the camera. Sitting opposite of him on a dusty old table he took off his glasses and stared at him.
“Rumor has it that All Fiction can be sealed if they restrict movements in your hands,” the enigmatic man spoke first, “I personally don’t buy that, but it seems to have rendered you harmless, Minoru.”
Minoru said nothing and kept his head bowed. His interrogator took off his glasses and glared at him with his pale blue eyes.
“But then again, a coward like you should be used to playing dead hm?” His tone was flat and his expression was indifference as if he hadn’t cared for an answer or not. He stood up suddenly and walked over to Minoru. His hair was a listless blond and seemed to glow dangerously in the stark contrast to Minoru’s dark ensemble. He removed a syringe from his coat pocket and dangled it in front of Minoru’s face.
“They have been developing a serum to supposedly cure abnormalities or Negatives or whatever you’re calling it nowadays. The tests were good so far, there is a forty three percent success rate with the drug, but recent tests have been… less than successful,” his tonelessly and subtle indifference gave him an air of cruel stoicism, “About half of our pool were killed as a result of this, doesn’t make much of a difference with you though.”
He leaned in and started to press the needle against Minoru’s jacket.
“[Only forty three percent? You guys are slipping.]” His voice didn’t come from him but seemed to resonate in the room, vibrating off the walls, “[And you’re right though, I am harmless.]” A heavy air filled the room and the needle from the syringe bent under the weight. The agent quickly backed up to brandish his firearm until a wall of force collided with him and pinned him to the wall. He fought against his invisible bonds to no avail, he tried to choke out warnings to the other men in this building but his voice failed him. Minoru stood up slowly and deliberately and turned towards the captured man.
“[See? Harmless, you can blame me for this because it isn’t my fault.]” The words were like nails to a chalkboard. Suddenly the bonds that had restrained Minoru disappeared suddenly, erased from existence. He stood before the agent with a bright smile on his face and his messy mop of black hair ungracefully falling over his eyes.
“[Playing dead you say? I’m not good at pretending to be something I’m not Mr. Section III, so I avoid doing all of those messy acts; it’s easier sticking to what you know! Like this!]”
Minoru grabbed a handful of the man’s blond hair and with a quick tub he tore off the hair from its roots, and the man’s face along with it. Blood sprayed over the walls and Minoru’s smiling face and the intense wall of force pressed in until his internal organs were crushed under the pressure and his body collapsed in on itself.
The door opened and the balding man stepped inside to see Wayne Johnson, a lower level Section III agent tasked with the duty of subtle reconnaissance of all domestic activities in lower New York, sitting against the wall running his hand through his pale blond hair muttering incoherently to himself. Otherwise, the room was empty.
Besides it wasn’t like he was going to shell out a lot of money for a nice little building.
“Hm, I wonder when they’ll be here.” Minoru muttered to himself, his lack of altered speech indicated his calm disposition. The night before his untimely capture he had sent out a message to all of the Negatives he had come in contact with to come here, it wasn’t that hard since with All Fiction he had produced a slight telepathic ability to be able to communicate to everyone instantaneously. His Facebook got too much attention from Section III at one million friends he had to delete it lest he tempt capture.
To his knowledge he was the first arrival since the gates were locked.
It was a machine that had played five games simultaneously; Shiori felt like sitting somewhere and didn’t want to sit on the floor so she opted for the pool to play with the machine. The probes took and analyzed her exaggerated motions and translated them to movements in the game, she was playing chess, majong, Sudoku, Chinese Checkers and Kakuro at the same time.
“Man, it’s about time Section III started to actually response to that guy’s actions!” She had managed to come across news of the Section III agent that was rendered mentally unstable and was diagnosed with post-traumatic vocal disarticulation quickly by the Section III meds.
“But deploying every known supersoldier to take him and his little rag-tag team down is a bit overkill,” she took another huge bite of her bread, “Or rather, this is the perfect response! I should tell Calipher this but,” she scoffed, annoyed, “That little princess is with him, how annoying.”
She took a final bite, swallowing it whole and jumped on her feet, levitating to the pool deck. “Oh well, time to mess up their lovey-dovey moment!” She decided before running out of the room as the machine beeped and belched out in a mechanical voice: “WINNER, WINNER.”
After being quiet for months it was a bit surprising to read of his sudden activity up in northern Brooklyn but it was just like him. His movements were sporadic and random, as if he were just trailing along aimlessly. Ichigo slicked back her dark hair and pulled herself out of the pool. Her standard issued swimsuit was dark blue but popped against Ichigo’s complexion, she hated the swimsuit because it was so tight. Section III doesn’t like to revise uniforms so she was forced to stick with it. Then again, a personal swimsuit would work better…
She looked over at Calipher and shook her head dismissing that thought. She tugged at her swimsuit and walked over to him; he seemed to be absorbed in his work but would take notice of Ichigo’s lone footsteps in this large and empty room. It felt ridiculous investing in a large private pool in Calipher’s quarters considering he didn’t express interest in any aquatic activities, Ichigo was the only one who used it really.
“A little birdy told me that the higher echelon was deploying every available man, woman and child to chase after… Hmm, what was his name again… Ah, Minoru.” Ichigo said in a deliberate manner to Calipher. Ichigo never cared for whatever the Negatives were doing but something about them seemed a bit… appealing.
They were considered dark beings drenched in misery, that idea was so deliciously attractive that Ichigo couldn’t help but wonder what she would be like if she joined up with the-
“A bit overkill huh?” That idea was stupid; she shouldn’t have to think of something so naïve.
Older parts of the city, that were unaffected by the sudden technological revolution, were left in the dark. Literally. Rolling black-outs and overall structural power failure were common amongst these unprotected regions. The adherent necessity of staying with the older aesthetics of the 20th century metropolis didn’t assist as they were incompatible to the dazzling new technologies of the future.
Undaunted, however, these older communities survived with their wits, rather than to succumbed to the “easier lifestyle that leaves one unaccomplished” as they claimed. In this crummy little tri-state area, literally five blocks away from the dazzling Times Square, sat a lowly police station in the corner of nowhere and filth.
The air-conditioning had gone out but in order to accustom oneself to the insane heat the police officers had opted to bring their personal fans and other devices to keep the place cool. The more spiritual officers had brought in CDs and arcane stereos to blast their whale songs for the purpose of “Cooling our spirits, man.”
SWAT had brought him in. They were one of the oldest civil defense forces here that wasn’t completely overrun by the covert Section III. They took pride in their work, even when compared to the supersoldier Revs, Abnormals, or CEADs that Section III deployed daily to police the city.
“Looks like something outta a horror movie huh?” One of the officers claimed with a shit-eating grin, they looked at the apprehended man. His face was obscured by the nightmare black mask and the straightjacket gave him a shapeless form. His head was bowed as the men dragged him in the station. It was highly unorthodox of the SWAT unit being called in to take down one man but orders were orders.
Rumors circulated about persons of former descent to Section III running amok all over the U.S., news had never surfaced about these people so rumors were rumors. The man’s hands were handcuffed but his gait was relaxed, as if he were sleeping. The seven-man group stopped in front of the main desk in the station to approach a balding man in his forties drenched with sweat. The scowl on his face would have looked intimidating if his handlebar mustache didn’t look ridiculous caked with leftover chocolate cake.
“Just him? He doesn’t look that bad,” he mused as his eyes played over the man’s body, he certainly didn’t look intimidating in fact he looked like a teenager.
“Yeah, and here’s the thing, he was just sitting in that room alone doing nothing.” One of the officers replied, and then with a scoff he continued, “Then again, not much someone could do wrapped up like this.”
“Wait, he was like that when you got there?”
“Yep, like some wacko magician or something.” The other men laughed in agreement.
“Well we should probably take him ba-“ He stopped and looked over another man that had stepped forward. He was dressed neatly with a business ensemble but dark shades to obscure his eyes. The veteran police officer scoffed, unimpressed. He stopped the group of SWAT and flashed a quick badge.
“Excuse me, I would like to have a word with this man,” his inflection was smooth and confident, as if he were used to giving out absolute orders.
“Sorry man but,” the officer holding the captive took a closer look at the badge and noticed an odd emblem, it was of a pyramid with an eye in the center, it wasn’t something easily identifiable but they understood immediately, “Er, sorry sir, but we have explicit orders t-“
“And I am overriding those orders, now please move along and let me have a little talk with him.”
They didn’t protest any further. Stepping away from the quasi-Houdini they allowed him to stand on his own before the stranger took him by the shoulder and led him to the back of the building.
They took an interrogation room and stepped inside quickly. The neat and trim man had pushed the arrestee into the chair and reached over to the upper-right hand corner of the room to disable the camera. Sitting opposite of him on a dusty old table he took off his glasses and stared at him.
“Rumor has it that All Fiction can be sealed if they restrict movements in your hands,” the enigmatic man spoke first, “I personally don’t buy that, but it seems to have rendered you harmless, Minoru.”
Minoru said nothing and kept his head bowed. His interrogator took off his glasses and glared at him with his pale blue eyes.
“But then again, a coward like you should be used to playing dead hm?” His tone was flat and his expression was indifference as if he hadn’t cared for an answer or not. He stood up suddenly and walked over to Minoru. His hair was a listless blond and seemed to glow dangerously in the stark contrast to Minoru’s dark ensemble. He removed a syringe from his coat pocket and dangled it in front of Minoru’s face.
“They have been developing a serum to supposedly cure abnormalities or Negatives or whatever you’re calling it nowadays. The tests were good so far, there is a forty three percent success rate with the drug, but recent tests have been… less than successful,” his tonelessly and subtle indifference gave him an air of cruel stoicism, “About half of our pool were killed as a result of this, doesn’t make much of a difference with you though.”
He leaned in and started to press the needle against Minoru’s jacket.
“[Only forty three percent? You guys are slipping.]” His voice didn’t come from him but seemed to resonate in the room, vibrating off the walls, “[And you’re right though, I am harmless.]” A heavy air filled the room and the needle from the syringe bent under the weight. The agent quickly backed up to brandish his firearm until a wall of force collided with him and pinned him to the wall. He fought against his invisible bonds to no avail, he tried to choke out warnings to the other men in this building but his voice failed him. Minoru stood up slowly and deliberately and turned towards the captured man.
“[See? Harmless, you can blame me for this because it isn’t my fault.]” The words were like nails to a chalkboard. Suddenly the bonds that had restrained Minoru disappeared suddenly, erased from existence. He stood before the agent with a bright smile on his face and his messy mop of black hair ungracefully falling over his eyes.
“[Playing dead you say? I’m not good at pretending to be something I’m not Mr. Section III, so I avoid doing all of those messy acts; it’s easier sticking to what you know! Like this!]”
Minoru grabbed a handful of the man’s blond hair and with a quick tub he tore off the hair from its roots, and the man’s face along with it. Blood sprayed over the walls and Minoru’s smiling face and the intense wall of force pressed in until his internal organs were crushed under the pressure and his body collapsed in on itself.
The door opened and the balding man stepped inside to see Wayne Johnson, a lower level Section III agent tasked with the duty of subtle reconnaissance of all domestic activities in lower New York, sitting against the wall running his hand through his pale blond hair muttering incoherently to himself. Otherwise, the room was empty.
***
Minoru stepped in to look at the building. It was an abandoned warehouse in the outskirts of Manhattan. Literally centered in the middle of nowhere the building is in-between the shore of the Hudson River and an industrial park. It was a pathetic building that was smashed up from the inside, it looked like it could store about twenty thousand persons in it and was more of an auditorium than a storage place. Rusted chairs were scattered throughout the area and the walls were falling apart. It wasn’t an ideal place for a headquarters, or for anything for that manner, but it would do.
Besides it wasn’t like he was going to shell out a lot of money for a nice little building.
“Hm, I wonder when they’ll be here.” Minoru muttered to himself, his lack of altered speech indicated his calm disposition. The night before his untimely capture he had sent out a message to all of the Negatives he had come in contact with to come here, it wasn’t that hard since with All Fiction he had produced a slight telepathic ability to be able to communicate to everyone instantaneously. His Facebook got too much attention from Section III at one million friends he had to delete it lest he tempt capture.
To his knowledge he was the first arrival since the gates were locked.
***
“Nyahahaha!” Shiori’s wicked laugh echoed in pool. It was such a ridiculous investment to install a private indoor pool that was as big as an Olympic pool for a fourteen year old, but even without the help of Calipher she had managed to pull a few strings to get it done efficiently. She was sitting in the middle of the pool as she played around on some sort of electronic device that looked strikingly similar to the ancient iPod. She was cross-legged levitating a few feet off the surface of the water and was eating an obscenely large piece of bread while with her spare hand was making absurd hand motions to the far left. A machine sat to where she was gesturing to and had motion sensor probes levitating in the perimeter of the device and blinked red and green to Shiori’s movements.
It was a machine that had played five games simultaneously; Shiori felt like sitting somewhere and didn’t want to sit on the floor so she opted for the pool to play with the machine. The probes took and analyzed her exaggerated motions and translated them to movements in the game, she was playing chess, majong, Sudoku, Chinese Checkers and Kakuro at the same time.
“Man, it’s about time Section III started to actually response to that guy’s actions!” She had managed to come across news of the Section III agent that was rendered mentally unstable and was diagnosed with post-traumatic vocal disarticulation quickly by the Section III meds.
“But deploying every known supersoldier to take him and his little rag-tag team down is a bit overkill,” she took another huge bite of her bread, “Or rather, this is the perfect response! I should tell Calipher this but,” she scoffed, annoyed, “That little princess is with him, how annoying.”
She took a final bite, swallowing it whole and jumped on her feet, levitating to the pool deck. “Oh well, time to mess up their lovey-dovey moment!” She decided before running out of the room as the machine beeped and belched out in a mechanical voice: “WINNER, WINNER.”
***
Ichigo emerged from the water and took a delicious gasp of air filling her lungs. It wasn’t part of the test and in fact she had avoided any more testing for today by sneaking off and sticking to Calipher. Ichigo hated that routine of test, test, test, when all she wanted to do was remodel some more people. But more importantly she wanted to dissect that agent that had come in only twenty minutes ago. Apparently, he had a nasty run-in with someone but no one was squealing on who it was. But everyone knew that it had to be patient 005-MI-Z.
After being quiet for months it was a bit surprising to read of his sudden activity up in northern Brooklyn but it was just like him. His movements were sporadic and random, as if he were just trailing along aimlessly. Ichigo slicked back her dark hair and pulled herself out of the pool. Her standard issued swimsuit was dark blue but popped against Ichigo’s complexion, she hated the swimsuit because it was so tight. Section III doesn’t like to revise uniforms so she was forced to stick with it. Then again, a personal swimsuit would work better…
She looked over at Calipher and shook her head dismissing that thought. She tugged at her swimsuit and walked over to him; he seemed to be absorbed in his work but would take notice of Ichigo’s lone footsteps in this large and empty room. It felt ridiculous investing in a large private pool in Calipher’s quarters considering he didn’t express interest in any aquatic activities, Ichigo was the only one who used it really.
“A little birdy told me that the higher echelon was deploying every available man, woman and child to chase after… Hmm, what was his name again… Ah, Minoru.” Ichigo said in a deliberate manner to Calipher. Ichigo never cared for whatever the Negatives were doing but something about them seemed a bit… appealing.
They were considered dark beings drenched in misery, that idea was so deliciously attractive that Ichigo couldn’t help but wonder what she would be like if she joined up with the-
“A bit overkill huh?” That idea was stupid; she shouldn’t have to think of something so naïve.