REND

Nothing can beat a hot shower after a jog to wash away the sticky sweat and dirt from my body. Okay, that wasn't accurate because a lot of things can beat a hot shower, like that helicopter with machine guns and missiles that tried to kill me at the docks. It was also a fact that a shower normally didn’t fight back, so it was pretty easy to beat.

But it was still awesome. Especially if you were using a full body shower system with eight body massage shower jets and an overhead rainfall shower, all of which had independent controls for pressure and temperature.

Just saying I could do a lot with this shower.

As I wondered how expensive all of this was, I ran my finger across my wound on my abdomen, now a scar, and even that scar was fading quickly. Soon, there would be no trace of it whatsoever. My flawless skin would be back. Fine, my skin was not really flawless, but it could be if I used Deen’s celeb-level, luxury skincare products long enough.

Deciding that I spent enough time racking up Deen’s water bill, I turned off the shower, dried myself, and dressed up in comfy shirt and shorts. Some of Deen’s friends were already hanging out below, and yes, those fake Corebrings weren’t my friends.

It was about time I made friends with them though. I might get a clue of what they really wanted with me and Deen, why Myra attacked us in the first place, or how did the 2Ms know about me.

They held plenty of secrets, but I also had mine. And I'd hold my trump card close for as long as possible while I was still trying to get my bearings in the midst of all of this crap.

The sound of the news blaring from a TV echoed through the spiral staircase as I descended to the entertainment room-slash-den-of-sorts where the meeting was going to be held. I caught snippets of it: the reporter talking about the investigation of the Sanders fire, some safety permit issues, the status of the injured, and the funeral of the dead.

“Switch the channel,” Myra said. I stopped going down, deciding to eavesdrop for a bit. “Why are we even watching this?” she said. “Too much annoying stuff in the news.”

“I’m checking if there's something about what happened at the docks,” said a voice I recognized to be Johann's. I met him only once before. Tall, serious face, a bit lanky, but also had broad shoulders. I recalled he worked at the police station in the Adumbrae Investigation Unit. I was sure he wasn’t a cop, but I didn’t exactly get what his job there was. A technician?

“What’s wrong, Myra?” Deen said. “And do you guys have any clue who attacked us at the mall? They should be brought to justice, not just for attacking us but also for injuring and killing those people.”

“Yeah, Myra. Those people should pay for what they did, right?” Reo said with subtle sarcasm that I picked up.

“Yes, they should,” Myra said, sounding strained.

I smirked. I wondered how Everett was holding up knowing he killed two people, even if unintentionally. I wouldn't care if I was in his shoes. He seemed like a normal decent person so he should be bothered by it.

Surprisingly, Everett spoke up. "They needlessly died in that fire. If only..."

Deen, apparently oblivious to the truth of the matter, said, “Don’t get disheartened. You couldn’t save everyone there. But you saved me and Erind, and we’re thankful for that. What we need to do is make sure the 2Ms don’t do it again.”

Everett said something I couldn’t make out.

“That’s enough,” Johann said. “Look the news already changed.”

That was my cue. I stepped loudly down the stairs and went inside the room. “Hello,” I said. “Dario’s not here yet?”

“Not yet,” Deen said. “But he texted me that he’s near. Have a seat, Erind. I heated some cookies over there at the bar. Some chips too, if you want.”

“Cookies and chips? Looks like we’re having a playdate,” I said.

“Sorry I couldn’t prepare anything better. I didn’t have the time.”

“It’s fine, really.”

Deen’s game room was not that huge, but huge enough for a pool table, the latest Imago Virtual Reality system, a minibar, and a bunch of beanbags of assorted colors congregating around a widescreen—probably fifty, maybe fifty-five inches. I didn’t take any of the snacks and plopped myself down on one of the beanbags.

The others weren't keen on continuing their conversation, and Deen didn’t know what to say, so all of us just watched the news with awkward silence.

The newscaster for XYTV reported, “The situation at Madagascar is now escalating with the appearance of the third Category Kreggan, Titan Class Adumbrae earlier today, prompting the Gerhard International Research Alliance to recommend to the UN Security Council to raise an alert for a possible Purple Bloom. The Free Will Initiative have already deployed their drones looking for the Purple Bloom.”

Reo whistled. “A Purple Bloom? Wow. Is Madagascar far from us?” he said, asking the question that I also thought of when the first Kreggan was reported at Madagascar.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s off the southeastern coast of South Africa.”

The new caster continued, “However, field correspondent Henry Leedy is here to give us good news. Henry?”

A male reporter appeared on screen wearing a bulletproof vest over his attire. He was in a military camp. “Yes, Caitlyn, very good news. A spokesperson from the UNSC forces deployed here informed us that the third Kreggan, designated as XV-03, may have been eliminated.”

The screen switched to a video of said Adumbrae. It took the form of a four-armed, six-legged giant centaur, about half as tall as the Statue of Liberty, with skeletal wings. A huge spear pierced its body—like it was stabbed with a telephone pole—entering from above its right shoulder and out its lower left side. Two of its excessively long treelike arms were trying to remove the spear while the other hands swatted at the drones and helicopters peppering it with gunfire and missiles. It had the face of a human baby with sprawling antlers of a deer, bawling, crying out in pain.

“Holy fuck,” Myra exclaimed.

“Holy fuck,” Johann confirmed.

We were all transfixed at the TV. The reporter said as the video played, “As you can see, this footage is not distorted compared to previous ones of the other Kreggans. That is because the US army has successfully hit XV-03 with an Eloyce Reality Wedge, minimizing its reality rending abilities. The Wedge has been converted to be fired from a rail-gun ship. This video was taken an hour ago before the US military had begun bombarding XV-03 with kinetic missiles from the new orbital weapons satellite Longinus. We are now trying to confirm the status of the Adumbrae. This may be the first time in history that human weaponry has brought down a Kreggan.”

“Longinus?” Myra said.

“That’s the name of the Roman soldier who stabbed the side of Jesus Christ with a spear,” I said.

“Wow, you know some stuff,” Reo said.

“People know stuff, Reo,” Myra said.

“Why did they name it that?" he said, ignoring Myra. "I’m not into religious symbolism but are they saying they could kill gods with that? That we don’t need the Corebrings anymore against the Adumbrae?”

“I wouldn’t equate Adumbrae to gods," said Johann. "More like demons and the Corebrings are gods.

"And we’re the puny humans stuck in between their fight," Myra interjected.

Reo leaned back and pointed at the TV. "The question should be: is the government thinking of using that Longinus against the Corebrings?”

“Hopefully not,” Everett said in a barely audible voice. “That’s what we’re fighting for, right? At least remove one reason for normal humans to fight the Corebrings, even if we ourselves aren’t normal humans anymore.”

Again, everyone descended to awkward silence, only to be broken by the sound of the doorbell.

“That must be Dario,” said Deen, relieved.

It was indeed him. He entered the room following Deen who opened the front door for him. “Can I connect to the TV?" he said. "Got some pics and vids to show you guys.” After Deen helped him, he turned to us. “Okay, update, I tried what I can with your friend, Ramello. I’m not sure what he remembers, he was pretty banged up anyway. He probably won’t remember much even if I didn’t use my powers on him. But we need to check up on him, okay?”

“Erind and I are on it,” Deen said.

Woah, I’m part of your group? Okay, sure. I nodded. “Yes, I’ll talk to Ramello when he gets back to school.”

“Next topic is the 2Ms, the Mark and Big Marcy brothers. The initial story for the docks incident was something with dangerous chemicals, but now they're saying it's connected to smuggling. At the moment, the police are treating it as a fight between groups of organized crime syndicates operating here in the city. I don’t know how it got twisted to that, but here we are.”

“The case got assigned to someone who I'm sure is in the 2Ms' pocket,” Johann said.

“Because of what happened, the 2Ms are lying low. My leads on their operations have dried up. Luckily, the Professor was able to supply us with new information.” Dario showed us a picture of a woman on the screen with silver hair in a fashionable bob cut. She had beautiful olive skin, delicate yet sharp facial features, including high, well-defined cheekbones, and curiously silver pupils that matched her hair. “I present to you Bianca Eleanor Ceressa.”

“She’s hot,” Reo hooted. “Wait, she looks familiar. I don’t watch TV much, but I think I've seen her somewhere before.”

“Bianca is a niece of Mario Ceressa, which you may recognize as the owner of a famous chain of luxury hotels. Their family also owns the Royal Ceressa Cruise lines—very subtle naming sense—and they also have stocks in the bio-augmentronics industry.”

“Oh, I remember now! She’s in that reality show…forgot the name. Bianca’s Travel Diary?”

“You watch that?” Myra said to Reo in a judging tone.

“No, but I see it sometimes when I flip channels.”

Dario cleared his throat. “Going back on track here. The Professor said she's a prospective customer of the 2Ms. We need to get close to her and try to find out the location of the Red Island.”

Red Island? I planned to just keep quiet, sit back and make myself small, but I was interested in possible food sources. I raised my hand. “What’s the Red Island?”

“Right, both of you still don’t know about it,” Dario said. “As I've explained, our enemies are trying to get the powers of the Adumbrae without getting taken over by them. The 2Ms already have a sort of prototype technology that does that to some extent. They offer this to the rich and powerful in return for funding and all kinds of support. And these customers of theirs are operated on at the Red Island. I believe it's also on this island where they keep their experiments and do some sort of maintenance on their customers.”

“So they wouldn’t turn into a monster like the one at the docks?” I said innocently.

“Yes,” Dario said. “The 2Ms dropped the ball on that one. I suspect it was a person that was recently operated on. Or maybe they were trying to make a mutant to sell as a weapon. If only we knew about it earlier then we could've staked out the docks. But now, I have no idea about their movements. Perhaps our best lead is Bianca here.” He jabbed his thumb at the screen. He showed us more pictures and videos of her.

“Those silver eyes look beautiful but also creepy,” Myra said.

“Augments,” Johann said. “She has the money for them.”

“Oh, they’re contacts,” Reo said. We all looked at him. “She showed that she’s just wearing contacts for fashion in her show.”

“You were really watching her show!”

Reo shrugged. “She said she's against any augments or enhancements. It’s odd she wants to be a customer of the 2Ms.”

“This is the information provided by the Professor,” said Dario, “so I trust it.” He next showed us a video of Bianca with two bodyguards. “I think you know about them, Reo?” he said.

“Since my TV viewing habits are already exposed, might as well. They’re fraternal twins, a guy and a gal. Zachary and Xazary. Pretty cool names. I have seen them a few times on the show shadowing Bianca. Based on the rumors on the internet from forums that I will not admit I browse, they're both not only augmented but also enhanced to the max, like performance-enhancing drugged-up galore, pumped high to the sky.”

“My sources also say their bio-augmentronics might rival Jim Ambrose’s.”

“He’s dead now though,” Myra muttered. "That electric fuck punched me."

Reo grinned. “Served him right.”

“What do we do next?” Johann said.

“That’s why we’re meeting tonight. The Professor only provided me with this information. It's up to us to decide our actions. Bianca is currently in this city, no doubt negotiating with the 2Ms. We should find her then get close to her. Maybe Myra can disguise—”

“Me? Why me? You don’t mean to tell me I’ll dress up and try to befriend her?”

“I’ll get close to her!” Obviously, it was Reo who said that.

"I'm not disguising myself. I'll get found out right away."

“Wait,” Dario said, “we’re just brainstorming here.”

Deen’s hand shot up and everyone stopped bickering. “If I may, I have a suggestion. You see, I also have seen Bianca. Not on TV, but personally. Earlier I was at a party and I saw her there. If you can just find the places she'll go to while she's in the city, maybe a bar or a restaurant, then I’ll try to get close to her. I don’t personally know her, but it’s easy to strike up a conversation since we have common friends.”

“Wow. Can you ask for her autograph?” Reo said. Myra punched him on the shoulder.

“That seems to be our best bet for now,” Dario said. “Are you okay going alone? We could have Myra go with you—”

“How about I go with Deen?” I said. “I can be Deen’s sidekick since she already has queen bee vibes. I’ll be perfect to tag along with her.”

“But the 2Ms already know your face,” Everett said.

"Bianca doesn't."

Deen said, "Will it matter?"

"What if they're watching Bianca because she's going to be one of them and then they'll spot Erind?"

"That's such a small chance though."

“We can disguise Erind to be safe," Reo said. "That’s way better than trying to disguise a gorilla like Myra.” His statement earned him another punch. “But seriously, you can’t expect Myra to act all fancy and girly and all that.”

“It'll be assuring to have Erind by my side," Deen said. I was expecting her to turn me down. "I think my power is enough to protect us. And we'll pick a public place anyway, we’re not going to follow them somewhere dangerous.”

“Are you sure about this, Erind?” Dario said, looking at me straight in the eye. “This is going to be dangerous.”

“Our existence is already dangerous,” Reo said.

“Well, we have fifty percent chance of getting out of this alive,” I said, trying to be humorous and get closer to them.

“Fifty percent? How so?”

“Either we get out alive…or we don’t.” That elicited a few chuckles.

Deen said, “I don’t think that’s how math works.”

“And that’s why I became a law student and not a mathematician.”