Angel Maker 4/27
title: Angel Maker
chapter rating: PG
warnings: mild language
summary: Mathematically gifted Oh Sehun makes a miscalculation that could cost him his life when he agrees to run an errand for an old high school acquaintance. The job brings Sehun face to face with much more than he'd bargained for and suddenly he has to question the binary makings of his existence, eventually ending up coming across the most delicate secret hosted by a quasi-governmental data bank.
story notes: See the foreword for more information on the story.
Sehun sighed and shook his head. "This is really pretty much of a mess", he said looking at the other two men and then at the little notes he'd scribbled on the back of one of the papers with a pencil he'd borrowed from Kris.
"Uhhuh?" the light haired male sitting opposite to him hummed. He was biting his lip and looking intensively, expectantly at Sehun. The brunette felt fiddly and squirmy under the stare. It made him more than uneasy. He'd always disliked being under scrutiny, be it by his peers or by teachers, even by his mother. The only person he believed had never done such a thing was his father; but then, it had been ages since they'd met the last time. Thinking about it, Sehun came to realize it must've been as long as it had been since the divorce, maybe longer.
He shook the thought of his parents; he'd left the house exactly because he needed a break from the way his mother didn't pay much mind to other people and only focused on her work. Frowning and eyeing the notes he'd made Sehun massaged his right shoulder. The height of the chair in relation to the height of the desk was so very wrong and he wished he could have something to make the chair a little bit higher. Kris was putting up with him quite well despite the obvious way in which he glanced at his watch in so very regular intervals. Checking the data one more time Sehun nodded to himself, and then sighed, saying, "Well, this is the best I can do..."
He handed the notes to Kris who nodded and silently accepted them. Nervous, the brunette followed as the light haired male looked at his writings. It was mostly simple words, hardly any of it making much sense, and the structure was probably all wrong. He'd done his best. What worried Sehun now was what would they do with him afterward. "The... There's one thing that keeps repeating", he said thoughtfully. "They talk about something... Angel Maker."
"They'd be pretty pleased to have you at the System", Kris said after a moment of eyeing the notes, briefly glancing his way and then looking at Tao who'd stood still at the door this whole time. "Usually even trained employees need a computer or two to make this much out of laundered data."
Sehun shrugged a little. "I... Well... I read a lot."
"Clearly."
The room was quiet for a little longer. Then Kris brushed his hair back and began gathering the documents into the brown paper files. "Do you understand any of this?" he asked, looking at Sehun while piling up the papers.
"That?" Sehun pointed a finger at his notes; Kris nodded again. "Uh... Not really." Frowning, he watched Kris. "What is the Angel Maker?"
The tall male came to a slow, slightly abrupt stop and then looked at Tao. They were staring at each other, probably considering his question. Sehun bit his lip lightly. He wondered if he ought to have said it was all right if they wouldn't tell him, that he'd done his share and that he'd return to the diner to spend the rest of the night on his own; he'd put this behind him and meet Jongin once more to have the other pay dinner and then this would all be in the past. But before he could, Kris had already sat back down and crossed his arms on the table.
"I figure you deserve to know, since you did give us a hand." The tall male was fiddling with a bangle on his wrist; it was mostly leather, but it had a small metal plate attached to it. As Sehun looked down at it Kris let go and pulled his sleeve over it. Sehun felt a bit flushed. "You're old enough to have lived the war?"
"Uh. No." He bit his lip lightly and shook his head a bit. "Err, I was born a bit later."
"Hmm", the other hummed low. "Well, you must've read about the war at school."
He nodded. "Yeah."
Kris looked at the paper files as he spoke. "Right at the end of the war, in a certain country, the government began experimenting on people who'd been exposed to various things during it. Poisons, bombings, you name it. They picked people like that, and did things to them, to put it simply." He fell into a thoughtful silence during which nothing moved and nothing made a sound. Sehun waited, fiddling with the opening of his left sleeve with his fingers. "Well, it got political and became a big thing. You can picture people weren't too happy. Anyway, the project went by the name Angel Maker, because the science behind it was supposed to be making better people and fixing whatever they believed had happened to those they experimented on. Trying to fix things and make the perfect human being."
"But", said Tao quietly.
"But", Kris repeated with a nod, "the people they used for their experiments didn't come out the same. They lost something in the process and became empty like ghosts. Then, because of all the pressure and attention, the project went underground and disappeared. Official statements obviously say it was shut down, but that's not what really happened."
Sehun listened quietly, nodding from time to time as he did. Was this true? He couldn't believe it. Sure, with the war all this time ago, a lot of things had happened; a lot of people had died and everyone who had lived through it had changed. That was natural. But those who had survived had been a valuable part of building this new world. Had someone really taken advantage of them like that and destroyed more lives in the name of science? For what? Money and fame? He didn't really understand the nature of these experiments, but hearing something like that had happened and that people had been changed by it made him shudder. Where had it happened, he wondered. Here? Somewhere close by? He swallowed and thought about the little story.
"So", he spoke after a moment during which Kris had clearly been following his facial expressions, letting him mull over the words, "are you interested in it? Does your work concern it?"
Kris let a dull, dry laugh. "You could say that", he nodded. His face was humourless. Sehun nodded in understanding. The other's reaction was enough of an answer; Kris and his black clad friend clearly had a reason to be interested in this.
"You should know", the light haired male spoke then, "that this information is really delicate. Keep it to yourself. I'm only telling you this because you gave a hand."
Sehun swallowed again and said quietly, "Sure."
"No word to anyone."
"Of course."
The other's fierce glare was enough of a warning: speak a word and you'll end up like the guy downstairs.
Kris stood up and picked up the files, stepping to go. He then stopped and looked at Sehun, still seated by the table. "Well, then. Maybe we'll meet again. See yourself out."
"Uh. Yeah."
The brown haired boy watched their backs as the two males left. Once they were out of his sight he inhaled deep and slow, then let a long sigh. Standing up he looked around the room once more and pulled on the CA cap before slowly retracing the steps to the stairway. He climbed down the stairs, checking his surroundings every now and then to make sure there really was no one. Down in the lobby he hurried past the reception without looking and rushed out of the building. The two tall men were gone entirely. Hesitatingly Sehun looked up at the hotel, wondering what should he do: there still was a body lying dead inside. Should he call the police?
In the end he decided not to. It wasn't his business. Cold as it was, Kris had said things had been that way before they'd arrived. It wasn't their problem, either. And who knows, he though as he quickly walked down to the street and down toward where he'd come from, maybe the other two had already called the cops. He should just leave as quietly as possible and not make a fuss. If he'd make the call he'd have to explain whatever it was that he was doing here.
Sehun walked fast, passing by the bar. The men had left and the door was closed. It was getting early. The subway station was more crowded now with people wearing suits ready to get to work or coming from late shifts standing in the escalators. They must've been the ones working far away at the other end of the whole city. Sehun took the stairs, rushing past the queues. He managed to secure himself a seat on the subway, leaning back in the bench, resting the back of his head against the window, letting his eyes slip shut for a second or two at times. He was growing sleepy, but he couldn't really think of a place to go to. Having had to work his head like that, looking at the numbers for a good while Sehun felt quite exhausted. He came to wonder whatever the System that Kris kept mentioning was; an office, a company, something like that, one that worked with numbers and data like that? The tall male had complimented his abilities with the codes. With some delay it put a small smile on his lips.
He got off at the central station.
There wasn't really anything for him to do. Biting his lip Sehun stood still outside the station doors. The night had been quite far from ordinary, and yet the rest of the city kept going on the way it usually would. As it got earlier the streets were quieter as they waited for the load of commuting employees, but the pulse of the night was still everywhere, humming its low-key note. It was like a song consisting of car sounds, the noise of people speaking, the high heels snapping against concrete with each step. An overwhelming load of sound Sehun stood listening, looking at nothing in particular. The book weighed in his bag and his feet were weary from the sudden hurry.
The thought of the body under the counter came back to him. It made him feel sick and his stomach twist. He'd seen a dead person, their blood spilled all over the office chair, and none of these people knew. He carried a terrible secret that gnawed at his self-consciousness and morals and made his gut spin and his head grow light. The gag reaction was inevitable. Biting his lip the brunette lowered his eyes to keep focused on one spot on the ground. At last he turned around to follow the stream of people, going with automaticity as he kept telling himself to be a man, he could do it, don't make an idiot out of yourself; you're not even drunk... He almost wished he was, though, that'd give him some excuse and it most likely would make the concept of a body and all that blood much easier to bear.
The streets took him without the need for him to put any thought into it. Right, two blocks, left, it was a pattern written in his head like a code, the coordinates consisting of perfect numbers that he could take out of his subconscious at any given time and let them lead him through the busy nights like it hadn't taken him any effort. He passed shops, people, then halted a little abruptly outside the glass doors of the little cafe. The flowers in the window indoors had drawn their heads into buds in favour of a peaceful night's sleep. The lights were out and the indoor view was silent and unmoving. Not having to consider twice Sehun fiddled with his bunch of keys, one finger through the hoop to keep them from falling as his hands trembled; bike key, house key, library night time access key… Then, finding the right one he unlocked the glass door, the closed-sign gently clanking against it as he pulled the door open and then closed it after him. The alarm system's quiet beeps pulled him closer to the earth, and he strode through the cafe to the kitchen and the back room to turn it off.
A silence like no other fell around him.
His stomach turned at the recurring thoughts.
Unable to withstand it the brown haired boy rushed back to the cafe and to the bathroom to the right of the counter.
It took him a good while to start feeling better. Washing his face with cold water Sehun stared at himself in the mirror: he was pale like no other, but at least there was an understandable, simple explanation. His stomach still squirmed, but wasn't trying to empty itself anymore, which was a good thing. Swallowing mucus and the ill flavour he leaned down to drink a mouthful of tap water to rid himself of the taste; then, turning the light off he roamed to the kitchen and found himself a piece of bread to munch on. Flipping the kitchen lights on the silence died into the almost inaudible, quiet hum of the lamps.
Whatever it was that had brought all this upon him, Sehun hoped it was now over and done with. He'd run Jongin's little errand, he'd put himself to a very awkward position, but maybe he'd never come across the two foreign men again. Hopefully so. He leaned his back against the wall as he ate. Having rid himself of the cap upon entering the young man brushed his free hand through the locks of brown hair and rubbed the side of his neck and right shoulder. Whatever the data had been, be their story about governmental human experiments true or made up, it was in the past and he could return to his everyday life. He'd spend what was left of tonight here, work his shift later, and then he'd eventually plan what to do with the next night. Home he wasn't going to go to, that much was certain.
Finishing the small piece of bread, not even having bothered to put any toppings on it, the brunette left his bag to the back room and splashed himself across the two-seat sofa by the brown littered desk.
chapter rating: PG
warnings: mild language
summary: Mathematically gifted Oh Sehun makes a miscalculation that could cost him his life when he agrees to run an errand for an old high school acquaintance. The job brings Sehun face to face with much more than he'd bargained for and suddenly he has to question the binary makings of his existence, eventually ending up coming across the most delicate secret hosted by a quasi-governmental data bank.
story notes: See the foreword for more information on the story.
Sehun sighed and shook his head. "This is really pretty much of a mess", he said looking at the other two men and then at the little notes he'd scribbled on the back of one of the papers with a pencil he'd borrowed from Kris.
"Uhhuh?" the light haired male sitting opposite to him hummed. He was biting his lip and looking intensively, expectantly at Sehun. The brunette felt fiddly and squirmy under the stare. It made him more than uneasy. He'd always disliked being under scrutiny, be it by his peers or by teachers, even by his mother. The only person he believed had never done such a thing was his father; but then, it had been ages since they'd met the last time. Thinking about it, Sehun came to realize it must've been as long as it had been since the divorce, maybe longer.
He shook the thought of his parents; he'd left the house exactly because he needed a break from the way his mother didn't pay much mind to other people and only focused on her work. Frowning and eyeing the notes he'd made Sehun massaged his right shoulder. The height of the chair in relation to the height of the desk was so very wrong and he wished he could have something to make the chair a little bit higher. Kris was putting up with him quite well despite the obvious way in which he glanced at his watch in so very regular intervals. Checking the data one more time Sehun nodded to himself, and then sighed, saying, "Well, this is the best I can do..."
He handed the notes to Kris who nodded and silently accepted them. Nervous, the brunette followed as the light haired male looked at his writings. It was mostly simple words, hardly any of it making much sense, and the structure was probably all wrong. He'd done his best. What worried Sehun now was what would they do with him afterward. "The... There's one thing that keeps repeating", he said thoughtfully. "They talk about something... Angel Maker."
"They'd be pretty pleased to have you at the System", Kris said after a moment of eyeing the notes, briefly glancing his way and then looking at Tao who'd stood still at the door this whole time. "Usually even trained employees need a computer or two to make this much out of laundered data."
Sehun shrugged a little. "I... Well... I read a lot."
"Clearly."
The room was quiet for a little longer. Then Kris brushed his hair back and began gathering the documents into the brown paper files. "Do you understand any of this?" he asked, looking at Sehun while piling up the papers.
"That?" Sehun pointed a finger at his notes; Kris nodded again. "Uh... Not really." Frowning, he watched Kris. "What is the Angel Maker?"
The tall male came to a slow, slightly abrupt stop and then looked at Tao. They were staring at each other, probably considering his question. Sehun bit his lip lightly. He wondered if he ought to have said it was all right if they wouldn't tell him, that he'd done his share and that he'd return to the diner to spend the rest of the night on his own; he'd put this behind him and meet Jongin once more to have the other pay dinner and then this would all be in the past. But before he could, Kris had already sat back down and crossed his arms on the table.
"I figure you deserve to know, since you did give us a hand." The tall male was fiddling with a bangle on his wrist; it was mostly leather, but it had a small metal plate attached to it. As Sehun looked down at it Kris let go and pulled his sleeve over it. Sehun felt a bit flushed. "You're old enough to have lived the war?"
"Uh. No." He bit his lip lightly and shook his head a bit. "Err, I was born a bit later."
"Hmm", the other hummed low. "Well, you must've read about the war at school."
He nodded. "Yeah."
Kris looked at the paper files as he spoke. "Right at the end of the war, in a certain country, the government began experimenting on people who'd been exposed to various things during it. Poisons, bombings, you name it. They picked people like that, and did things to them, to put it simply." He fell into a thoughtful silence during which nothing moved and nothing made a sound. Sehun waited, fiddling with the opening of his left sleeve with his fingers. "Well, it got political and became a big thing. You can picture people weren't too happy. Anyway, the project went by the name Angel Maker, because the science behind it was supposed to be making better people and fixing whatever they believed had happened to those they experimented on. Trying to fix things and make the perfect human being."
"But", said Tao quietly.
"But", Kris repeated with a nod, "the people they used for their experiments didn't come out the same. They lost something in the process and became empty like ghosts. Then, because of all the pressure and attention, the project went underground and disappeared. Official statements obviously say it was shut down, but that's not what really happened."
Sehun listened quietly, nodding from time to time as he did. Was this true? He couldn't believe it. Sure, with the war all this time ago, a lot of things had happened; a lot of people had died and everyone who had lived through it had changed. That was natural. But those who had survived had been a valuable part of building this new world. Had someone really taken advantage of them like that and destroyed more lives in the name of science? For what? Money and fame? He didn't really understand the nature of these experiments, but hearing something like that had happened and that people had been changed by it made him shudder. Where had it happened, he wondered. Here? Somewhere close by? He swallowed and thought about the little story.
"So", he spoke after a moment during which Kris had clearly been following his facial expressions, letting him mull over the words, "are you interested in it? Does your work concern it?"
Kris let a dull, dry laugh. "You could say that", he nodded. His face was humourless. Sehun nodded in understanding. The other's reaction was enough of an answer; Kris and his black clad friend clearly had a reason to be interested in this.
"You should know", the light haired male spoke then, "that this information is really delicate. Keep it to yourself. I'm only telling you this because you gave a hand."
Sehun swallowed again and said quietly, "Sure."
"No word to anyone."
"Of course."
The other's fierce glare was enough of a warning: speak a word and you'll end up like the guy downstairs.
Kris stood up and picked up the files, stepping to go. He then stopped and looked at Sehun, still seated by the table. "Well, then. Maybe we'll meet again. See yourself out."
"Uh. Yeah."
The brown haired boy watched their backs as the two males left. Once they were out of his sight he inhaled deep and slow, then let a long sigh. Standing up he looked around the room once more and pulled on the CA cap before slowly retracing the steps to the stairway. He climbed down the stairs, checking his surroundings every now and then to make sure there really was no one. Down in the lobby he hurried past the reception without looking and rushed out of the building. The two tall men were gone entirely. Hesitatingly Sehun looked up at the hotel, wondering what should he do: there still was a body lying dead inside. Should he call the police?
In the end he decided not to. It wasn't his business. Cold as it was, Kris had said things had been that way before they'd arrived. It wasn't their problem, either. And who knows, he though as he quickly walked down to the street and down toward where he'd come from, maybe the other two had already called the cops. He should just leave as quietly as possible and not make a fuss. If he'd make the call he'd have to explain whatever it was that he was doing here.
Sehun walked fast, passing by the bar. The men had left and the door was closed. It was getting early. The subway station was more crowded now with people wearing suits ready to get to work or coming from late shifts standing in the escalators. They must've been the ones working far away at the other end of the whole city. Sehun took the stairs, rushing past the queues. He managed to secure himself a seat on the subway, leaning back in the bench, resting the back of his head against the window, letting his eyes slip shut for a second or two at times. He was growing sleepy, but he couldn't really think of a place to go to. Having had to work his head like that, looking at the numbers for a good while Sehun felt quite exhausted. He came to wonder whatever the System that Kris kept mentioning was; an office, a company, something like that, one that worked with numbers and data like that? The tall male had complimented his abilities with the codes. With some delay it put a small smile on his lips.
He got off at the central station.
There wasn't really anything for him to do. Biting his lip Sehun stood still outside the station doors. The night had been quite far from ordinary, and yet the rest of the city kept going on the way it usually would. As it got earlier the streets were quieter as they waited for the load of commuting employees, but the pulse of the night was still everywhere, humming its low-key note. It was like a song consisting of car sounds, the noise of people speaking, the high heels snapping against concrete with each step. An overwhelming load of sound Sehun stood listening, looking at nothing in particular. The book weighed in his bag and his feet were weary from the sudden hurry.
The thought of the body under the counter came back to him. It made him feel sick and his stomach twist. He'd seen a dead person, their blood spilled all over the office chair, and none of these people knew. He carried a terrible secret that gnawed at his self-consciousness and morals and made his gut spin and his head grow light. The gag reaction was inevitable. Biting his lip the brunette lowered his eyes to keep focused on one spot on the ground. At last he turned around to follow the stream of people, going with automaticity as he kept telling himself to be a man, he could do it, don't make an idiot out of yourself; you're not even drunk... He almost wished he was, though, that'd give him some excuse and it most likely would make the concept of a body and all that blood much easier to bear.
The streets took him without the need for him to put any thought into it. Right, two blocks, left, it was a pattern written in his head like a code, the coordinates consisting of perfect numbers that he could take out of his subconscious at any given time and let them lead him through the busy nights like it hadn't taken him any effort. He passed shops, people, then halted a little abruptly outside the glass doors of the little cafe. The flowers in the window indoors had drawn their heads into buds in favour of a peaceful night's sleep. The lights were out and the indoor view was silent and unmoving. Not having to consider twice Sehun fiddled with his bunch of keys, one finger through the hoop to keep them from falling as his hands trembled; bike key, house key, library night time access key… Then, finding the right one he unlocked the glass door, the closed-sign gently clanking against it as he pulled the door open and then closed it after him. The alarm system's quiet beeps pulled him closer to the earth, and he strode through the cafe to the kitchen and the back room to turn it off.
A silence like no other fell around him.
His stomach turned at the recurring thoughts.
Unable to withstand it the brown haired boy rushed back to the cafe and to the bathroom to the right of the counter.
It took him a good while to start feeling better. Washing his face with cold water Sehun stared at himself in the mirror: he was pale like no other, but at least there was an understandable, simple explanation. His stomach still squirmed, but wasn't trying to empty itself anymore, which was a good thing. Swallowing mucus and the ill flavour he leaned down to drink a mouthful of tap water to rid himself of the taste; then, turning the light off he roamed to the kitchen and found himself a piece of bread to munch on. Flipping the kitchen lights on the silence died into the almost inaudible, quiet hum of the lamps.
Whatever it was that had brought all this upon him, Sehun hoped it was now over and done with. He'd run Jongin's little errand, he'd put himself to a very awkward position, but maybe he'd never come across the two foreign men again. Hopefully so. He leaned his back against the wall as he ate. Having rid himself of the cap upon entering the young man brushed his free hand through the locks of brown hair and rubbed the side of his neck and right shoulder. Whatever the data had been, be their story about governmental human experiments true or made up, it was in the past and he could return to his everyday life. He'd spend what was left of tonight here, work his shift later, and then he'd eventually plan what to do with the next night. Home he wasn't going to go to, that much was certain.
Finishing the small piece of bread, not even having bothered to put any toppings on it, the brunette left his bag to the back room and splashed himself across the two-seat sofa by the brown littered desk.