Irritium - VI
VI
“We fight the eminent threat like a macrophage
Blood tears and sweat with a war we wage
If we can't get the key we'll break the cage
Bleed for liberty and get machines to rage“
(Ignite - Zebrahead)
Lynette leaned against a grey concrete wall in an empty hallway. The only light came through a minor gap of a slide door close by. She listened in on conversation in the meeting room as the members of the organisation waited for their briefing. Rumour was travelling fast in a tight knit group such as this one, she noted. Apparently, everyone in there had already heard of the events of last night. They had already given it a name: The Companion-Incident. Well, they weren’t really all that creative, seeing that the main target had indeed been the ‘companion’-type of machine. Some labelled them gynoids, but it was more socially acceptable to call them companions, especially as not all of them were even humanoid looking and had the human-female bodyshape that the term gynoid usually stood for. In fact, she had never once sawn a gynoid that really resembled a realistic female body. They were either bizarrely unrealistic in shape or were made specifically to be non-human. Human kind always had their very own fantasies about aliens after all, though none of them had ever been come close to being real. But who was she to judge? Fantasies had been her business for such a long time.
Lynette inspected her nails, bored waiting for the show in there to begin. There were about twenty people, all sitting on one table, all waiting and all talking simultaneously. Most of it was uninteresting, but the group sitting closes to the almost-closed door to the hallway she was in… well, they were amusing. From the sound of it they were young, foolish, and most excited about the beginnings of this new war that the ‘Companion-Incident’ would most likely cause. Sex was an old and serious business, that had always harboured most dangerous secrets. To give it into mechanical hands had not changed anything about that. “I tell you guys, a companion went riot.” The girl who had now spoken up seemed excited by the idea, she could hear a sort of glee in her voice. Her enthusiasm was immediately replied to by a sneering, deep sound. “ A companion who infected all of the other companions with a virus - all over the globe. Within one hour. Are you really that stupid, you blasted space monkey? They don’t have the brain capacities to do that. They’re mindless, dumb sex dolls, is what they are.” The girl who had spoken before didn’t seem particularly fathomed by the guys sarcastic words. She heard the sound of a chair being moved, and the voice of the girl seemed closer to the door now, though she spoke a bit more lowered. “Well, that’s what everyone would think. However, isn’t that the perfect cover as well? And it’s easy enough to tune and pimp a companion. Illegal, hell, yeah, sure. But what is illegal these days anyway, with no real legal authorities to even try and find transgressions like these? Where all in outlaw territory when it comes to androids, cyberspace and cybernetics.” Lynette remembered having heard a very similar statement not long ago. By someone who had been a producer of companions himself - though he had certainly sounded more saddened about it than this young girl. A more timid female voice spoke up, boredom being the most obvious tone. “Calm down, will you, Olive? The other squads are already staring. It’s not necessary to make this group seem more nuts than it already is.” The Olive-girl seemed to consider this, lowering her voice even further. “But it’s true, Min Ji. People don’t bother with modification-laws anymore. And it’s entirely too easy to tune them anyway. What if someone wanted to bang a companion with some more brains?” The sarcastic guy from before snorted. “Weird taste, some people have there. Me, I prefer them very much mindless.” “Ew, Sinclair. No one wants to have mental images of you getting anywhere with anyone.” “You know, you’re just my type, Min Ji. A little mindless Korean doll. Such a pity I’m not a woman, eh?” Olive interrupted the jabbing. “Yeah, okay, everyone has their tastes. But that’s just my point. Some people -yes, maybe not you, Sinclair - are turned on by intelligence. They could have programmed them to have mental growth. Maybe some even like them brilliant and a bit feisty. Rioting. Wouldn’t be a long stretch.” A fourth voice spoke up now. Calm, deep, and from the sound of it slightly older than the sarcastic guy or the enthusiastic girl. “Of cause it wouldn’t be a long stretch - though it’s not as easy for everyone else as it is for you to create an artificial intelligence that surpasses their own. Anyway, it’s less about brain capacity or intelligence but about technical abilities. I know you have a soft sport for fairy tales, Olive, but this isn’t about an oppressed life form overcoming their tormentor. You have to stop reading these books. Even if a Gynoid would be designed to want to free itself and others, it would never be able to design a virus, let alone overcome firewalls and feed it into the intranet of all the companions on the globe. There are safety measures in place to prevent that from happening. They literally can’t hurt themselves or go against their master registry of commands. And as much as I hate to have to agree with Sinclair, but he’s right there: this wasn’t a companion went wild.” “Thanks for the roses, Zahira.” “Screw you, Sinclair.”
Lynette saw the lifeless brown eyes of last night before her. Remembering how the face in the mirror had went from a cold mask to a gasping expression of terror, like someone who broke through the surface of cold water after having almost drowned, when oxygen suddenly ignited the lungs again. She had seen the confusion, the panic, and then the understanding. She had seen mind come to the mindless. And she knew that it had been only so very brief, that these eyes had once more come to be lifeless - and now forever - by her hands. Lynette closed her own eyes, a soundless sigh escaping her. They were on a wrong track there. Lynette wondered how many people shared this idea, though. Most people always feared that Androids or Robots would turn against them some day. Maybe even their own, artificial bodyparts. That was why the safety measures had been created, to make selfharm impossible, as well as any form of rioting. The majority of the population trusted these measures, as if they were a law of nature. Which would keep most people from expecting that it had been the companions themselves that had went on a riot. The government was likely to chalk it up against the attack of a hacker. As if it was that easy to hack into artificial minds and souls anymore. She wondered if anyone would ever find out the truth at all. She wondered if Charlene had a hunch. Maybe that was why she was here now.
Lynette could hear the door at the other side of the meeting room open, and the small group in there fell quiet. Steps made their way through the room, and someone cleared her throat. And then a very soft voice spoke up. “Good, I see that you’re all up and about. I expect you heard about the news of that incident that happened yesterday.” No one would think that there were twenty-one people in the room, judging by the silence in there now. Lynette stopped her inspection of her nails, and crossed her arms in front of her torso. The lady in there sure knew how to keep her crew in line. She wondered what made them so well ordered. She had heard rumours of Charlene McCrae, but they were pretty conflicting about what inspired that infamous loyalty in her organisation. Whenever Lynette heard that someone ‘inspired extraordinary loyalty’ in others, it was reason for ‘extraordinary’ caution. Fear was so easy to mistake for loyalty.
“You know I hate rumours, so I will now give you the facts. It was a matter of sixty minutes sharp, and that’s it. The intranet between all companions had apparently been infected. Every file in every companion to have ever been produced - whipped clean. Every directory in them - overwritten. Every way to locate them - erased. There are now about sixty million companions on the loose, with no safety measures left whatsoever, and absolutely no memory of who they are. The seven main governments plan to take care of this situation in a joined effort, disregarding the current tense affairs in the west. Several hunting organisations are on the lose, and trying to track down as many companions as possible. Ten thousand have been retreated so far, and now many different research facilities are trying to find any sort of trace on them.” Lynette saw the brown eyes again. A light brown, sprinkled with gold dust towards the centre, a dark ring encircling it. She remember the pupil dilating. “However, so far their efforts were fruitless. The last news was that there had been about thousands of sources to sort out, but half of them are likely to be straw puppets, and the other half has yet to be evaluated. And that is all the official information that is there so far. I don’t want to hear you guys adding to the nonsense that everyone else is so keen on sprouting right now. Are we clear?” “Crystal,” the sarcastic guy spoke up. “Good. Question?... Yes, Zahira?” “Do we plan to get involved?” Lynette almost smiled at that question. It was usually the first thing people wondered. How do I fit into this picture? Am I threatened by this? It was the first question Lynette had wondered when she had arrived here last night. Such a basic instinct in a living and unloving beings. “If any of the governments plan to get us involved - yes. We can hardly decline lest we want to make ourselves suspicious. Organisations like ours - any organisation focusing on retrieving, hunting and killing cybernetic entities - are likely to become primary suspects in the matter. We don’t the government to go ALICE on us.”
Of cause she had to bring that one up. A clever move on her part, as that had not happened too long ago and the painful memory was still fresh to the public and the insiders. It didn’t happen everyday that the government wilfully shot down a supplier of cybernetic organs like that. Especially not in such a … ruthless way. Lynette remembered it all. Remembered a woman of the western government, a woman of the arctic colonies, a man of the eastern government standing before cameras, telling the public a tale of betrayal. The truth, though always came back to bite the pack of lies. And the truth had had an ugly face. A face of rumours that ALICE-Corporations had produce an artificial liver with the possibility of a kill switch - of poisoning the body, instead of filtering any poison from it.
Paranoid as most important people were, it had led to the instant believe that it actually all of ALICE’s livers had been created that way, intentionally. After all, the no one could just open their body like that and look, right? And even if they could - no one would be able to find a programmed switch with the sole eye. And if they would have someone to find it - who could say what triggered the switch? Maybe taking the liver out would be fatal. The thought had been more poisonous than anything else inside of their bodies. People had begun to doubt not only ALICE but all other artificial parts of their body. They were so fragile, so easy to break and to tinker with in so many ways. A body that was not your own and could be turned against you any time.
There it had been again, the fear of all things that surpassed the human, of all things uncontrollable. One had to wonder why the people had only started to realise this now. Or why they had been so surprised by this realisation. Anything in a persons life was easy to break and to tinker with. Back in the days before the cybernetic revolution it had been external things that had caused death. Cars, mobile phones, or a trivial thing such as food. It was irrational to be fathomed by the possibility of ‘artificial organs’ not functioning like ‘real’ ones. After all, people usually wanted their artificial things to be better than the real deal. It had been the demand of the costumers that had led to this. Only a minor percentage of artificial organs were implanted out of necessity. Mostly it was vanity, or the desire to make things easier. To have a liver that could instantly filter out the alcohol. To have vocal chords that make you sound like a great opera singer. To have a metabolism that stopped you from gaining weight. And there was nothing wrong with desiring these, was there? Why make life harder if it could be so easy? Short-sightedness. That was the problem. People didn’t think wholesome, they think in focus points. They were blind to the things that weren’t obvious. Though, really, they were. It should be clear that things that could be created to be better, also always had the chance of being made worse. That was part of the deal, the other side of the medal. No good without bad. If you can’t carry the weight of the burden, don’t ask for it’s benefits.
However, that had not been what the public of the politicians had thought of the whole matter. Within a month the ALICE-Corporation had been deconstructed and practically erased from the face of the planet, with a feverent thirst for misplaced vengeance against the supplier - but rarely against the ones who had brought it upon themselves on their own. The government called it ‘Taking the fears of the people seriously’, or some other, equally empty phrase. Ridiculous. Taking down a supplier of artificial organs didn’t change anything about the nature of the fear. It was a step backwards, instead of forward. Instead of trying to see what they could do to prevent similar things for the future, they had tried to undo it as if it had never happened. Looking away.
If you had formerly worked with ALICE, it had been hard to get a job afterwards - or if you had anything ALICE had produced in your body. It had been a real witch-hunt, so to speak, until, after one month, the world was forced to realise that maybe… they had been fooled all along. As it turned out - there had never been such a thing as a kill switch in any liver ALICE had produced. And the rumour had been a carefully planted one in some part of cyberspace by a rivalling but smaller company. And that was the beauty of it all. The real thing that had been tinkered with had just been the fear inside the people. One of the greatest - if not the greatest - supplier of cybernetic organs brought down by badmouthing rivals. And the hypochondriac who had been more than happy to be victimized and who had proclaimed that they had always thought that there had been something wrong with their organs. Suddenly, though, no one spoke a word of that again. And no one used the name ALICE-Corporations anymore. Or not innocently- only with second thoughts.
And Charlene’s second thoughts were obvious. To scare her minions into silence and obedience. So it was fear, after all, that inspired their loyalty. “I take your silence as agreement. Good. Now that we have that matter taken care of, I want to move to the next point of this meeting. Jane finally was able to locate a member of G.A.L.A.T.E.A for us and we have made contact.” Lynette couldn’t help but raise and eyebrow at that. Charlene made it sound as if her organisation was hiding. G.A.L.A.T.E.A. was many things, but in hiding was not one of them. But she should not be surprised. She had been wary of this business from the beginning. That they had agreed to help Charlene’s organisation in the first place was mostly due to the fact that they liked to be informed on who were currently big in the headhunting business. That did not mean that they liked any of those organisations at all. In fact, Lynette couldn’t help but feel animosity for those who had found their place in society by hunting and killing others. But as the saying goes… keep your enemies closer than your friends. Which was easy to do, as Lynette couldn’t remember the last time she had ever considered anyone a friend. And in most friendships she had seen, one or the other had been artificially crafted to fit the role. It seemed to have become an obsolete concept to put up with the way people were born. “They agreed to send over one of their members to see if they can help our current case. Apparently, her official name is Lynette. I will introduce you to her tomorrow at the core meeting. Eve, I want you to brief the members of your squat, as I elected you to primarily work with her. And that’s it for now. Prepare for tomorrow, you are dismissed.”
The Room began to empty itself. Lynette heard people stand up, and that Min Ji passing by the hallway she stood in, mumbling something about ‘useless meetings’. When the room was mostly silent, Lynette could here the clicking of heels coming towards her hallway again. A second later, Charlene pushed the door open, and smiled brightly at Lynette. “Sorry that I had to make you wait. I had to say something about this, or they would have grown restless and just would have made up their own explanations and stories about everything. Sometimes I think I’m more of a kindergarten teacher than anything else, really.” Lynette nodded politely. Charlene looked exactly the same as she had yesterday, when Lynette had arrived on the roof of this skyscraper. She still wore a grey jumpsuit, black glasses, and had her brown hair pinned up with a pair of pencils. It made her look dishevelled, but it also made her look ‘normal’. It was different from what most people in positions of power liked to put up, though Lynette didn’t doubt for a second that this façade was any less carefully put up than her own. Though, yeah. Her turquoise hair, the lavish eyeshades and the long, fake lashes, the black leatherjacket and the ripped jeans with the big, black boots were possibly a bit more directly screaming ‘façade’. At least she didn’t pretend anything about her was real, though. For her taste, Charlene was trying a bit too hard. She pushed that thought away from her mind, and pushed her back away from the wall. “Shall we begin?” Charlene made a step to the side, pushing the slide door open even further. “Yes, of cause. Come in, please. I asked that a meal should be brought in. Do you still not want to eat anything?” Lynette shook her head, as she passed by Charlene and took in the room. A brown, big table filled the whole room. Its surface of polished metal reflected the light of blue light bulbs all over the equally blue painted ceiling. The floor was made of black marble. “It is against protocol to eat anything in a building that is not associated with G.A.L.A.T.E.A.” Charlene waved that off, as she closed the door and went to the part of the part of the room where she probably had been standing before as well. It wast he only side of the big table without a chair, but the wall of that side of the room was entirely made out of glass. The sun was still rising behind Charlene, and the red rays of sunshine mixed with the blue light in the room. Lynette sat down at the opposite part of the table, her back to a wall made out of a big, black screen. If that bothered Charlene, she didn’t let it show. She kept her smile. “Ah, yes, I heard that some organisations are like this with their property. I just wasn’t sure how strict this rule it. It seems slightly overdramatic to me, seeing that your body is most likely immune to any damage that could be done via food. But, … it’s your decision. I hope you won’t mind that I will most definitely need to eat, though. My stomach is killing me.” Lynette shook her head, but said no more. Charlene’s assumption that G.A.L.A.T.E.A. treated her as property was … telling, though. She had never implied such a thing, and it spoke volumes about Charlene’s own mindset if that was what she expected.
Charlene turned away from Lynette and went to a different room, from which she pulled in a small table on castors, that was filled to the brim with all sorts of fruit were. As Charlene sat down and immediately started to eat some strawberries, completely and loudly indulging in her food, Lynette entwined her fingers and rested them on her stomach. She sat exactly where she had been seated yesterday, after her arrival, and after Charlene had carefully explained her why exactly they needed G.A.L.A.T.E.A.’s help. It was a simple task of tracking down a person that did not want to be found. They had been at it for three month, but had not had any positive results so far. They had, however, found an encrypted trail the person they were to find had purposely left in cyberspace. G.A.L.A.T.E.A. was infamous for being able to decrypt pretty much anything, so it wasn’t surprising that they had come to request aid with that problem. What was surprising, though, was that Charlene had so willingly given away all information that had of the case, including the fact that the one who had given them this order was the eastern government themselves. Usually, a head-hunter kept their AUFTRAGSGEBER a secret at all costs, lest someone would try to steal the bounty money from them. She had also had no qualms to stress that her own organisation was unable to finish this project, and that it all depended on her help. Which, frankly speaking, made Lynette doubt that this really was about any bounty at all. It made her feel that G.A.L.A.T.E.A. was the prey here. A prey in a hunt she had not even known was going on, hunted by an organisation that had no business to meddle in their affairs.
That was why she had decided to come here at all. To play along and see through Charlene’s eyes, until she could see what it was that Charlene was looking for - and what she expected to find and see in G.A.L.A.T.E.A. She watched as Charlene now grabbed the bowl of raspberries and began to empty that in the same, indulging fashion she had formerly practically devoured the strawberries. The lower half of her face was now sticky with red juice. Lynette didn’t feel particularly disgusted, but she could not help to feel annoyed. Instead of getting artificial eyes maybe Charlene should have gotten an artificial, unhinging KIEFER for such a display. What pity that her show lacked the skill of subtlety, and that the punch she packed was aimed at such foolishness. Wasted power, wasted time. She wondered if Charlene would order a harem if she told her that she would be forbidden to have intercourse as well. And all off this just to put her on edge? Why go such length to stress how much they needed and wanted to work with G.A.L.A.T.E.A. if she now tried to create the impression being… an enemy? Or was she just aiming to tease her, trying to mock what she thought G.A.L.A.T.E.A.’s way? Lynette leaned back a bit, crossing her legs, but patiently waiting for Charlene to be done with her meal. She could only hope that the woman would keep up her speed, she really wasn’t keen on wasting any more time with this than she absolutely had to.
In fact, though, Charlene looked over to her after she finished the raspberries and now grabbed two peaches, one in each hand. Again, she smiled. “So, what do you think of them?” “Pardon?” Charlene pointed over her shoulder with her right thumb, towards the door. “My crew. Back in the meeting. I saw to it that the door had been open so you could hear them.” Charlene took a bite out of the first peach, and then directly one from the second. “Ah.” As if that hadn’t been clear already by the simple fact that Lynette had had to wait outside the room for her, instead of in her office. Or by the fact that she had had to wait in the only hallway that was off-limits to the ‘crew’ and where they would, under no circumstance, accidentally see her. And that woman really led a headhunting organisation - a business that lived of subtility. And what kind of answer did she expect now, anyway? “They seemed… young.” Charlene laughed loudly. “Well, yes. You don’t exactly grow old in this business. But that wasn’t what I meant. I meant the crew that I put together for this mission. Eve’s squad. I gave you the list last night? I thought you would like to hear a bit of them at least, before I introduce you tomorrow.” Lynette did indeed remember that Charlene had shown her a file of seven people. She had not cared to remember their names or faces, though. Lynette never cared to remember the people she met. It was pointless to try and hold onto such fleeting and fickle information. For one, Names and Faces changed so easily, and if she truly ever needed to find a person she could simply do so by scanning the resources of G.A.L.A.T.E.A.’s database. It was much more accurate than her single, subjective perception. Why Charlene asked for her opinion now was beyond her. But maybe it was a good way to… set some things straight. Lynette sighed. It was such a dreary business to deal with people and their minds. And she felt so tired of it.
She got up, which seemed to surprise Charlene enough to pause for a second, before she continued to stuff her face. Lynette turned towards the screen-wall in her back, putting her palm against the screen. Her fingertips sent impulses into the system, completely ignoring that, technically, it was locked. Had Charlene really wanted her to stop, she could have done so. She navigated her mind through the system, and when Lynette found the file of last night again, she had the picture of each person appear on the wall, one beside the other. She waited for her retina to run a check on the data of them all. After thirteen seconds she turned around, and walked to the other end of the wall, positioning herself with politely folded hands in front of the picture of Eve Summerdream. Charlene returned her stare, but didn’t stop eating.
“Specialisation in the field of human trafficking, due to own experience.” She made one step, stopped infront of the face of Zahira. “Former addict of various drugs, and now specialises in this field.” The next. Sinclair O’Connor. “Was, most likely, involed with the secret services of the eastern government before he took on his current identity and turned up in your ranks again. Specialized in various security systems.” The next made her pause. “Arvid, who had not been present in the meeting. Due to his being a former lab rat insomniac. Specialised in forms of hacking and manipulating data without leaving traces.” She moved to the next picture, her eyes never leaving Charlene’s face. “Takemizu Yori. Specialisation on the mechanical field, former involved with the arctic military.” Again, Lynette moved to the next one as soon as she finished speaking, only to start in the same clipped tone again. “Olive. Unknown former affiliation, though it is commonly believed that she is one of the government-issued androids that your organisation retrieved and kept. Specialisation in memory recalibration.” She moved to the next one, by now getting impatient with this. Charlene could have, of cause, interrupted her, but she simply kept staring and eating. “Jeong Min Ji. Specialised in espionage and gathering of information, former affiliation unknown.” And then, finally, when Lynette paused in front of the last one, she turned towards Charlene. “Alexei Cervenka, otherwise known as ‘The Chimera’. Specialised in malware of all kind. Your son, I believe.”
Charlene put her peaches down and leaned back in her chair, brushing off her fingers on her overall. A sarcastic smile had slipped onto her face, which had her lips pressed together all too tightly. She clapped her hands three times, afore resting them on the armrests of the chair. “Wonderful demonstration. I take it you share your speciality with Sinclair and Arvid. Your sense for putting on a show will go well with this squad.” Lynette’s eyebrows rose at that … challenge. “I only thought it fit to repay you in kind, after you seemed keen on testing G.A.L.A.T.E.A.’s resources. Though you really could have just asked and spared both of our time.” Charlene put a hand above her heart, now entirely cutting out the smiling, and putting an overly shocked expression. “Oh, really? Because I wasn’t aware that your organisation was as free giving as that, seeing that you’re so very secretive about anything pertaining to the setup of your group. Or your aims and goals, for that matter. Your affiliation. Your origin. Your team. There’s absolutely nothing to be found.” Ah, so they were really getting down to business now. Lynette sat down in her chair again. “It is logical. If you don’t exist, people can’t bother you. And there are always reasons behind all secrets. So far I was of the opinion that everyone tended their own secrets, and not those of strangers. I would suggest that we keep it that way? I really am not interested in meddling your affairs. In your affiliation with the eastern government, which you keep from your clients. And from your people. I fail to see why you handle other people’s business with more desire for transparency than you do with your own.”
Charlene’s face seemed to contort in a mixture of anger and smile, before she got up slowly, walking over to where Lynette sat. Her voice was lowered into an angry hiss. “I see you have done your homework before coming here. Which makes me wonder why you bothered at all. Or do you just enjoy threatening others? I hope you can deal with what might be thrown right back at you if you decide to go up against us. As you so brazenly pointed out, we have strong allies. Allies who are not inclined to tolerate your illegal business.” Lynette fought down the urge to get up as well. She turned her head away from Charlene, taking in the sight of the city in all it’s sad glory. All the grey skyscrapers, reaching towards the rising sun, forgetting about the ground they had been built on such a long time ago. “I am not threatening you, Miss McCrae. We couldn’t care less about your affiliations or who you tell about them. We wouldn’t earn anything of it to take away your credibility from your. If your organisation is destroyed, another will rise, with new secrets and new affiliations. It is all the same to us. We have no reason to fear you, nor do you have reason to fear us. As I said before, secrets are the WÄHRUNG of our time. It would be a ridiculous notion to try to gather them all, take them from other people, wouldn’t it?” Lynette looked back at Charlene. Wondering for a moment what the story of this individual might be. How she had ended up in such a position. And why she cared to stay there. As Charlene opened her mouth to speak, Lynette raised one of her hands, her palm towards Charlene. She was fed up with this already. Her fatigue almost overcoming her, wishing to just leave all this behind. “It is up to you, really. If you do still wish our assistance with your current… case, I suggest that you order that squad into this meeting room, so we can get this over with. And I also suggest that for the future, you don’t seek out G.A.L.A.T.E.A. under similar circumstances again. You may not have made an enemy today, but you most certainly didn’t make friend, Miss McCrae.” Charlene leaned back. She held up a hand, and someone entered the room to take away the food. “Very well. Very well. I shall have them send here.” Charlene’s feline smile was back on her face, revealing too many teeth. And then she turned on her heels, leaving the room through the hallway in which Lynette had been waiting before.
Lynette sat in a chair at the end of the meeting room, waiting in silence and contemplation. Again, she saw the brown eyes of last night. She saw the rain against the glass of the window, and saw the mourning expressions of the people who had found the lifeless eyes shortly after. And then she remember the same moment in a different place. She remembered empty, blue eyes and blood that ran down at the side of a face. Artificial blood, that remembered her so much of the raspberry-juice dripping from Charlene’s chin. She closed her eyes to push back the memory, massaging her temples in an old habit that had lost its purpose. Nothing could keep the memories from her. That was her burden. That was the dark side to her medal. One day it would break her. But that day hat not yet come. It was away a couple of years still. The sound of footsteps a few minutes later made her look up again, carefully observing the people that entered the room, one after one.
The first to come had brown eyes. It was Olive, who apparently had received her name based on her skin colour. She seemed young, maybe eighteen, with a mass of red, wild hair and in a brown leather coat. Directly after her followed Zahira, a woman with black eyes and black cornrows that led to an mohican of very tiny curls from her forehead to her neck. She had her arms crossed over her chest and her facial expression was tense. Her white clothes stood in contrast to her dark skin. After them came blue-eyed Yori and blue-eyed Arvid, holding hands. Arvid was just as pale as Yori, but where the small woman looked healthy, Arvid really did look the part of an insomniac, with dark circles under his eyes and almost frail. Green-eyed Sinclair came next, wearing a suit and an emerald tie that seemed the exact colour of his eyes. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets, and his whole posture seemed as if he was ready to jump into a fight head first. Directly after him came Eve, with steel-grey eyes, short white hair and a very pointy nose, as well as piercings all over her face. She looked the part of a rock star, though her facial expression was mostly icy. And at last black-eyed Min Ji and brown-eyed Alexei followed, carrying a box each, filled with various things that seemed to be mostly mechanical. And all of them seemed to stare over at here, wary, and maybe slightly… hostile. Lynette had no doubt that Charlene had given them a briefing of their own before sending them to her. Which probably meant that they had been in on the real mission behind this. Trying to find out more about G.A.L.A.T.E.A. Involuntarily, Lynette wondered how their eyes would look if the live vanished from them.
It was Eve that broke the silence, though, as Lynette offered neither greeting nor smile. She grabbed the box from Min Ji. “Don’t stand there like fools, you know the drill. Sit down, everyone and Alexei - hand out the data already.” Alexei tilted his head slightly towards Lynette, which loosened some strands of hair from his blonde ponytail. “Her?” Eve just stared at him for a second, before she made a sound that sounded vaguely like a growl, and Alexei shrugged, put his box down and got to business. Eve herself then seemingly took a deep breath and … walked over to Lynette. Her walk reminded Lynette vaguely of that of a tiger, who seemed unsure whether to rump or run. Then she paused in front of her, slightly bowing, though her eyes never left Lynette, seemingly waiting for something. So Lynette inclined her head, in reply, crossing her legs. She tried to keep her voice neutral as she spoke now, lest she provoke this tiger. “Eve Summerdream. You have a reputation in this business.” Eve blinked, very obviously not sure how to take these words. “Well… yeah, I’ve been in it far too long. It’s my first time meeting a Galatean, though.” Lynette had noted that everyone else eyed them carefully, and that Alexei had even stopped handing out the pads with the information. She took her time to meet everyone’s eyes - grey, black, brown, black, brown, blue, blue, green - before looking back at Eve. “Let’s hope that this will end up being a mutual positive experience, then.”
Eve seemed distrusting of her words, but nodded anyway. And then she walked to the other side of the table, and Alexei slid a pad towards Lynette, over the polished tabletop, and then positioned himself in a corner of the room behind Lynette. When Eve nodded towards him, he put his palm against the surface of the screen-wall. Lynette turned around with her chair, facing the screen that now came to live. A picture of a young woman appeared. She had dark skin and pink hair, as well as pink eyes. Eve spoke up, as Lynette drank in the appearance of the woman on the screen. “This is our target. We have reason to believe that she is the creator of a virus that has been nicknamed “Black Mage”. The virus is known for overriding certain files in an artificial memories, planting memories that had not been there before, as well as overriding the dream database of a person, replacing each dream in there with a different file, in which the infected dreams of himself as the last person on earth. We are to locate this person while other squads work on finding a way to erase that virus.” Another picture appeared besides the one of the pink-eyed-girl. It was a mixture of numbers and signs. “This is the code we found in the first person to have been infected. This girl is obviously mocking us. So far all of our decryption-squads have failed, as well as the decryption-specialists we have consulted. This is where you come in, Miss Lynette.”
Lynette kept her eyes on the code for a moment, afore looking back at the girl and these pink eyes. She remembered how they had looked when they had become lifeless once more, after the confusion, the despair, the frustration and the relieve. She closed her eyes for a second, conjuring up the memory of the message that now had found its encrypted way to this squad. A message that she had intended for someone else, initially. A message that had become obsolete already, with the events of last night. She looked at the girl again. Hawa. Her name had been Hawa at one time. So long ago. She didn’t remember what it had become afterwards, but was that even important? Lynette turned away from the screen, looking back at Eve.
“Don’t let those have children who are too much adult to see through the children’s eyes and let them shape their world according to their childish will. They will fall when the world betrays them and turns to the children of tomorrow. And what use would there be, in such a world, for fallen adults?”
Eve blinked. She glanced at Zahira, who shrugged. Sinclair clapped his hands. “Yeah, bravo, thanks for that piece of wisdom.” Lynette almost smiled. “Don’t thank me. Thank her. That’s your encrypted message.” An uneasy silence settled between them. And Lynette could see Alexei shift in the corners of her eyes. Obviously no one in the room quite wanted to believe her. So she got up, and pressed her hand against the screen much the same way Alexei had. Though the guy now took his hand from the screen as if it - or Lynette - had electrocuted him. Lynnette wondered what exactly Charlene had told them. They should be more afraid of their boss than of her. She watched, as the numbers and the signs began to rotate, switching to Korean signs. Then she took her palm from the screen and turned around. Olive suddenly stood up. “It’s a quote.” Her brown eyes were fixated on Eve, a sudden eagerness having replaced the formerly guarded expression. “I remember that. It’s old, very old. In fact, it’s even unclear who had written that. But it’s in a children’s book. I think the book was about flying turtles.” Now everyone stared at her, until Sinclair grabbed Olives wrist and pulled at it. “Sit down again, space monkey, before you hop on the table. Awesome that you like children’s books an all, but that’s not helping.” Eve kept looking at the quote, and then at Lynette, and then back at the quote, before she sighed and brush one hand through her hair. “Okay. Alexei, see if you can… confirm what our guest here says. Trace back what she did there. Yori, Arvid, you two go and run a check on that quote and see if you can find any usage of it that might give us pointers to the girls purpose or affiliations. Anything. A graffiti, a forum in the net, a movie. I don’t care. I refuse to see this as a dead end. Sinclair, you go and inform Charlene on this. Zahira, Olive, you two try and find that children’s book and bring it here. Maybe there’s a code in that quote. Lynette, I would like you to…” “Go.” “…what?” Lynette got up. “I think you would like me to go. My job here is done. I agreed to decrypt your message, no more, no less, and that I have done.” Eve frowned. “I think it had been agreed that you would help us locate this person.” Lynette shook her hand. “You are free to talk about this with Miss McCrae, but I think you will find that she agrees with me on this. Should you hit another dead end…well. I will know how to find you.” Lynette went to the door, though she turned around once more. Nobody in the room had moved, not even to stop her. “I would like to leave you with a word of advice, though. The person you are looking for will most likely not be in hiding. No one leaves such a quote who does not wish to be found. The question that seems more pressing to me is why someone who can create such a virus would carelessly leave such an invitation. You might find that the waters you are in are deeper and darker than you think.”
(Words: 7,330)