The girl had left a thick trail of oil from his open window. He had no idea how she could’ve climbed this far up. This was the eighth floor of this building.
“What—” The words got stuck in his throat, and he started coughing.
“Shh! Don’t yell. You don’t want your brother and sister to see me!”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” He yelled, his voice strained with anger. “This is my house!”
This brat was ruining his entire life. Sneaking into his room was a step too far.
“Calm down, sir!” she said in her usual sarcastic tone. “Just here to talk. I’m sorry about all the oil, though. You left me no choice.”
“I did! What part of ‘fuck off’ do you not understand?!”
“Ah well, can’t do that. Sorry, sir!”
Sir me in that tone one more time!
“G... E... T... O... U... T... !” he mouthed at her, twisting his face with as much anger as he possibly could.
“N... O... ” The girl shook her head from side to side. “We got off on the wrong foot. My bad. I hacked you, I’m sorry for that,” she said with a sigh. “I have something important to tell you. So please, listen first.”
Arcen frowned at her. He didn’t want to hear whatever it was. This kid was running circles around him.
“The tower you’re going to tomorrow,” she started out of nowhere. “It’s the newest one, it fell only few months ago. Very few people climbed it back then.”
“I’m not interested in whatever—”
“You’re going to get a black egg. They’ll want you to see its past.”
“I can’t see the past! What is this bullsh—”
“They’ll give you a headgear that can. It’ll be dangerous and unpleasant.”
“And you know this how?”
“I know things about stuff, that’s my whole thing,” she said, with a curt smile. “Anyway, that’s all up to you, sir. I’m just here to give you something.”
She tossed an oil-drenched card onto his mattress. It had a small black dot at its center.
“That’s a small sticker. When they give you the egg, just paste it on it somewhere.”
“And that’s supposed to do what? Make my day better?” Arcen asked. He wasn’t going to do anything this girl said, even if it was supposed to help him.
“It’s supposed to help me steal it, sir!”
Arcen chuckled. “And why would I do that?”
“You will, sir!” She pulled out a plastic folder from her raincoat and grinned menacingly. “I did some digging on you. Here’s what I found!”
She opened the folder and touched her left temple with two fingers. Arcen recoiled when her glowing eyes changed shape. Her pupils subdivided into four smaller circles. The document in her hands came up before his eyes.
──────────────────────────
Lemming Medical Institute
Incident Report
Patient: A. Henwick
Diagnosis: Post-Mayday Depressive Disorder
Report
Patient exhibited suicidal ideation, attempting overdose via ingestion of 26 sedative tablets. Intervention was successful due to patient’s atypical metabolic response. Patient successfully resuscitated.
Report
Patient exhibited suicidal ideation, attempting self-harm by leaping from a window. The patient was successfully apprehended by the facility’s suicide prevention safety net, preventing serious injury.
Report
Patient exhibited suicidal ideation by …
──────────────────────────
Arcen couldn’t even find the words to yell at her.
This was never supposed to come back. He spent a lot of money to bury it. It was never even put into any digital format.
“Eight suicide attempts in three years. That’s a lot. I understand you now, sir,” the slimy girl told him, attempting to smile.
“Where did you get this?”
“Broke into the hospital and found it.”
She waved the folder. He had to snatch it off her. He raised himself, ready to jump and kick this kid in the head. This was the final straw.
He hid his suicide attempts for a reason. He needed to get through that Helviter interview to land the job. It cost a $15,000 bribe to bury it. He didn’t have a penny to himself back then. It came from Kysa’s hard-earned money before she started working at Nymph Toad. It took him two years to pay her back, two years of getting his brain broken at Helviter. His blood boiled with pure rage the more he thought about this.
The girl stood up when he did. She shook the file. “I already scanned it. If you don’t behave and do what I want, I’m sending it to your bulb-headed boss! I can always steal the egg later. You get blacklisted by Helviter, no other corpo will hire you.”
“You!” Arcen yelled, jumping at her. She blurred past him and reappeared on the windowsill.
“I’m sorry things had to go this far, sir!” she told him, again with a smile.
“You threaten me at my own house, you bitch!”
“I understand. See you elsewhere, sir!” She jumped out of the window.
Arcen slipped and fell face first twice on his way to the window. He hoped the brat landed on the pavement and turned to paste. When he got there, she was nowhere to be seen.
“Fuck!” he yelled, punching the wall.
He heard footsteps behind him, and his door flung wide open. Kysa came running in with a Taser. She was a mess, suddenly awakened by his yelling.
“Who is it?! Someone broke in?! Who the fuck-” she yelled, pointing her taser at every piece of furniture in Arcen’s room.
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“It’s fine. It’s nothing.”
“Wait, the window?” She ran towards the window, slipped, and fell on her back. Her taser went flying.
“Ugh...what the hell is this...” She stood up, rubbing her back, and then she checked her fingers. “I-is this baby oil!?”
Arcen damn near jumped out of the same window when he realized what she must be thinking right now. He was mortified.
“No, Kysa! Wait, it’s not...!”
“Ugh, that hurt.” She stood up, grabbing her back as she picked up her oil-drenched taser from the floor. She stared at him, her hair a complete mess, and her face twisted into an unreadable expression. “Oh, so that’s why Gollum was sticky? He walked over this stuff too?!” She connected more dots in her mind.
Arcen stared at her in disbelief.
“Alright, you know what, I’m going back to sleep,” she said, turning around and walked back to his door.
“It’s not what you think!”
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but at least you’re having fun again!” She giggled.
I’m gonna kill myself again.
“That’s not what happened!”
“Good night, Arcie!” She sang while holding her laughter.
“Wha-s happening, guys...” Arcen heard Kylan’s sleepy voice in the corridor.
“Nothing, nothing. He just had a bad dream. Let’s just go!” Kysa slammed the door shut. He could hear her giggling on the other side.
Oh, fuck my life.
Arcen jumped back into bed, buried his octopus head in a pillow, and screamed into it.
Next morning, Arcen stood at the bus stop near his apartment where he usually waited for the bus to get to the train station. Two minutes past six, a Helviter car arrived to pick him up. It was an SUV, one of the brand new models of whatever brand it was before they tore off all labels and replaced with ‘H’ letters. The driver's compartment was black tinted and separated with a wall.
“Good morning, Mr. Henwick.”
He almost jumped back out. She was the hot woman at the front desk. Jenna. She had that unsettlingly pleasant receptionist smile plastered on her face, and her bright blue eyes never left his. She wasn’t even blinking.
“Good morning, Ms. Jenna.”
Why did they have to send her of all people!
The passenger section of this SUV was completely overhauled. There were two very comfortable looking leather couches and a small table at the center. He sat on the opposite couch by the black tinted window.
Big enough to have an orgy in here. Just what kind of money does R&D have to spare?
He wondered if he could ever climb high enough to go to work on one of these. He’d be fine without the freakishly blue eyed woman scanning him though.
“It’s twenty-seven percent chance of rain today. Not too bad, huh.”
He jolted again. He’d never heard this woman speak anything other than ‘Good morning Mr. Henwick’ for three years.
“Clear weather season going well, I see,” he replied, just to be polite.
“Yes. I hope people can have fun.”
People can have fun? The fuck is she, a robot?
He actually dared to look at her from head to toe. She had perfect proportions. The kind of woman that could’ve done well as a sports model, not a receptionist. She just needed an outfit change.
He felt a familiar tickle on the roof of his throat. His badly wired mutant instincts could never resist temptation whenever he liked something or someone. Jenna was premium eye candy. He rubbed his throat to quell it, faking a small burp.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jenna said out of nowhere.
He lifted his eyes off her curves. The woman had apologized for something. He hadn’t the slightest clue about what.
“I forgot your coffee. How do you like it, Mr. Henwick?” She opened a small compartment and summoned a coffee machine out of nowhere.
She pulled out a bag from another compartment as they waited for the water to boil. The black tinted windows around them suddenly turned opaque.
Arcen glanced at the black glass, trying to peer through it. “I thought we’re going to Wensik?”
“We are, but our R&D research station is in a classified location,” she said, smiling happily. She slid a small pass with ‘48h’ printed on it across the table at Arcen. “You must wear this at all times when you’re at the facility. It’s mandatory!” The tone of her voice was giddy, like she was just happy to tell him all about the regulations.
“Thanks, I’ll remember it.”
Arcen took out his wallet and slid the card in. He froze when he accidentally touched something oily.
It was the sticker card that oily girl left him last night.
He’d slid it into his wallet out of desperation. There was no way out of it. He couldn’t let her ruin his job. It was blackmail, but he had no recourse. That bribe to hide his suicide attempts was illegal in the first place. Helviter might not even stop at firing him. They’ll sue for all that he’s worth.
He threw a quick glance at Jenna. She was busy scrolling on her phone.
The SUV arrived at the destination after what felt like hours. It was a bumpy ride towards the end. They were both tossed around as the vehicle struggled up a mountain. The windows remained opaque throughout the journey, and he held on for dear life.
The door slid open after the vehicle came to a halt.
Arcen narrowed his eyes at the white sky. The scene that lay before him was one that he never expected to see. They were in the middle of a mountain forest. He was only few hundred meters away from a black wall that stretched from one corner of his eye to the other.
We’re next to a tower?!
Jenna got off after him and struggled on the muddy soil with her high heels. He gave her a hand, squirming inside. His aversion to touch only worsened when it came to the freakishly hot woman.
“Thank you so much!” She grabbed his hand, beaming at him with a distinctly different smile from her front desk smile.
The SUV reversed and left them both as soon as she got off. Arcen stared at the woman, dumbfounded.
“Ms. Jenna, I thought you’d be leaving?”
“Oh no, Mr. Henwick. I’m assigned to you for the next forty-eight hours.”
A woman this hot assigned to me? I can feel it. Something’s wrong.
After replying to him, Jenna turned to look up at the tower. Her eyes kept going up until she was staring at the clouds. Arcen turned back to the black wall, and his stomach dropped trying to comprehend the scale.
Three men came out of the wilderness. Two mutant security guards accompanied a man who wore a full business suit. He was bald, had pale khaki skin and a flat nose. Some sort of amphibian mutation. He carefully weaved his way over a rickety path made with loose wood planks as his guards walked with no regard to mud.
“Mr. Henwick, Ms. Jenna. Pleased to meet you two. Good morning and welcome to R&D research station Gamma-17.”
“Good morning, Mr. Torga.” Jenna greeted promptly, grabbing the man’s slightly webbed hand in a firm handshake.
“Nice to meet you.” Arcen shook the man’s cold, wet hand. He was rather handsome even with his amphibian mutation.
“Torga, I’m the project manager of this site.” He shook Arcen’s hand confidently.
The man guided them towards a tent in the clearing. It looked like a research tent more than it did a research station, as if it was only propped up this morning. There was a mountain of lumber behind it and some fallen trees. Three muddied excavators were parked at the far corner, covered with a black tarp. They were likely used to level the crude muddy path that they came here on.
Did this guy really name this lumber hut Gamma-17?
“Not a lot of space for a station, huh?” Arcen remarked, hopping to a plank to avoid a patch of mud.
“Oh, no, Mr. Henwick. This is not the station,” Torga answered with a polite scoff. “The station is inside the tower.”
Arcen missed his next hop and stepped neatly into the mud. He didn’t even bother pulling his shoe out. He stared at the amphibian project manager in disbelief.
So that was true! I’m going inside the fucking tower?!
“I’m sorry, I was told near a tower. Not inside of a tower?”
“We’ll be on the ground floor. There isn’t much of a difference, to be completely honest.” Torga paid no attention to his baffled face.
One of the guards helped Arcen back onto the planks. They quietly made it to the tent while Arcen brainstormed a hundred different ways to run away from here should the need arise.
Their walk continued for a few more minutes and they arrived at a muddy clearing that led a path into a hole at the bottom of the tower. The entrance to this clearing was marked with two red flags.
A screen popped up in Arcen’s Mind Matrix as soon as they passed this threshold.
┌───────═══?\\?//?═══───────┐
GGC UNITED STATES
︾
?─────────────────────────?
?
Public Safety Notification
─────────────
You are entering an unregulated zone!
?─────────────────────────?
Tower domains are beyond
GGC jurisdiction.
─────────────
Civil laws do not apply to any individual.
─────────────
There is no law enforcement presence.
─────────────
Caution is advised.
?─────────────────────────?
︽
└────────═════════────────┘
What the- Is it just telling me to be careful?
“Um, are you guys seeing this, It says on mine the law—” he said, gulping hard. He knew this from watching documentaries of course, but seeing the world government abandoning him to his fate with a few lines of text certainly didn’t help.
The two guards chuckled quietly to themselves.
“Yes, Mr. Henwick. There is no rule of law from this point onwards,” Torga said with a polite smile.
What did I just fucking get myself into?
