Short, Light, Free

When I came back to my senses, I locked the gun and removed its bullets.

Fatty returned and flung a bag of food toward me.

I fiddled with the bag and took out the soy milk.

It was salted. Fatty always got this wrong.

I sighed. “What’s the next mission?”

Smiling, Fatty replied, “Wait, let me take a look.”

He whipped out his phone and pressed a few buttons speedily. “Class C mission: Run an inspection through the deviants in the slum area.”

“Yet another life-wasting mission?” I asked.

“Isn’t it for your safety?” Fatty smiled.

…

Fatty’s my second partner.

Franklin was my first.

I was Franklin’s assistant at that time and did what Fatty’s mostly doing right now – receiving missions on his behalf.

Missions usually come in three classes: A, B, and C class.

Deviants will be categorized into two groups of threat or of no threat.

It was easy to separate them since any deviant with even the slightest intention to cause damage would be classified as a threat.

Deviants of no threat would fall into class C.

Deviants of any threat would fall under class B.

When two or more class B deviants work together, they become a class A threat.

Franklin only allowed me to accept class A missions.

He was a very capable lone wolf. He was the one who had taught me all my gun techniques.

But Franklin’s no longer around.

…

Inspecting the slum areas was the simplest mission of all class C missions.

Basically, it involved bringing a notebook, going house to house, and verifying the deviants’ identities.

Class B deviants could be killed immediately.

Deviants that posed no threat could live on like any human being on the condition that they have to be chemically castrated.

It was done to prevent them from handing their mutated genes down to the next generation.

As such, more than 90% of these people were poor.

And some threatening deviants would hide in the slums.

I knocked on the door as Fatty hid from a distance.

“Who is it?” A voice came from behind the door.

“Police. Conducting checks,” I shouted.

The door opened slowly as a thin figure appeared before me.

“Name?” I asked with a pen in my hand.

“Aike,” the frail figure answered softly with his mouth closed.

“What abilities?” I asked faintly.

Aike opened his mouth slowly and an eye-piercing light shone from within his mouth.

I immediately put my sunglasses on. “You can close your mouth now. Anyone else in the house?”

“My cousin, Dick,” he answered with his mouth shut tight.

“Get him here. What abilities?” I asked while subconsciously taking out my shotgun.

When the lights came on, another man emerged.

“Dick, no abilities. Just an extra thumb,” he reported before raising his right hand.

Starting from a few years ago, deviants with deformity fell under class C.

But in order to reduce the chances of newborns developing deformity, affected individuals would have to give up their rights to reproduce.

Don’t ask me why they couldn’t just undergo surgery to become a ‘normal’ person. Once born a deviant, always a deviant.

This label would stick with them for life. Any attempt to disguise themselves as a normal human being would throw them into class B.

I pressed a button on my sunglasses. With the thermal imaging switched on, I scanned the room once more.

I shut the door slowly when I was certain that there was no one else in the house.

Fatty walked over and smiled. “How was it?”

“What do you think? Next one.” I wrote some notes down before heading over to the next unit.

It took one morning to run through half the slums.

No discovery. There was nothing to be discovered.

This was the simplest mission, anyway.

The sun was burning the ground and there were exceptionally few people on the road.

Sweat poured down Fatty’s face. “I’m hungry, Jack. Let’s get some fast food. I want an ice cream cone.”

My phone suddenly rang.

It was the headquarters.

“Calling for Viper.”

“Viper, received,” I answered.

“Still in the slum area?”

“Just finished. I am about to leave,” I replied.

“Class A escapee was found within your region.”

“Class A? How many of them? What abilities?” I questioned.

“Just one. I’ll send his photo over to you.”

“Send it to Panda. I’m not using a smartphone. One person? Why Class A then?” I asked in doubt.

Upon hearing his name, Fatty asked, “Me? What are you doing to send?”

“Photograph of the suspect, Class A,” I informed.

Fatty closed his mouth and unlocked his phone.

“I don’t have any information for now. The tip-off came in a red document and I have no rights to get involved. I can only tell you that the suspect might have more than one special ability, hence a class A deviant. I’ll wait for your good news.”

Two class B partners working together would be regarded as a class A case. It must work the same for an individual with two class B abilities.

It was my first time experiencing something like this.

Fatty raised up his phone. “Any impression?”

I looked at the photograph in his mobile.

A very ordinary looking child, no different from any human being.

Except for his golden eyes, nothing else seemed strange.

I wrinkled my brows, slowly starting to recall something.

I flipped through my notebook.

Wait, I remember.

Unit 402.

An aged woman and her child.

This child was her kid.

They had a 90% resemblance, except that the child looked slightly younger than reflected in the photograph.

I opened the car door. “Mission, class A.”

Fatty looked displeased. “Nooooo, why a mission now?”

“Unit 402 from earlier. An old lady and a young child, do you remember?” I asked, jogging up the stairs.

Fatty stared at his screen, scratching his head. “I think so…”

I already got my shotgun ready as soon as I arrived at unit 402

I inserted the bullets and disabled the safety lock before knocking on the door.

The aged lady appeared. She was about sixty to seventy years old.

Pointing my gun straight at her, I demanded, “Where’s the child?”

I remembered her words. She had no superpower and she had to rent a unit here as she was too poor to raise her child elsewhere.

“Inside,” she pointed down at the hallway, her hand trembling.

I took out a glow stick, broke it, and threw it on the ground before walking in.

Shortly after, the orange-yellow light illuminated the whole room.

I had a clear look at the child’s face. He was staring at me.

He had a pair of bright golden eyes and he was smiling at me.

I aimed my gun at the child with one hand and used the other to obstruct the aged lady beside me.

I fired a shot.

The child stood in the same spot, unharmed.

The shot had been fired and the chair behind the child had been shattered.

Psychokinesis? Speed? Or did I miss?

All kinds of possibilities floated within my mind.

The child walked slowly toward me.

In a straight line

I took aim and fired once again.

The child dodged all of my bullets very naturally by leaning his body toward the left and right.

And the things behind him started crumbling.

He moved very slowly.

I fired consecutive shots but he managed to avoid them all.

He was in front of me by now.

I extended my arm in an attempt to grab him but he was already out of the room.

He stopped for a moment and we made eye contact.

He was smiling.

A mocking smile.

I raised my gun again. Half a meter’s distance.

He has nowhere to hide. It’s just not possible.

With his speed, he can never dodge this. I pulled the trigger.

No bullet left.

The child turned around, ready to flee.

He knew I had no bullets left? Is that his power?

Or what could it be?

Why was he bulletproof?

…

“Why shotgun, Franklin?” I asked.

“Do you know why I’m able to kill so many deviants?” he returned with another question.

“Can’t you kill them with other guns, too? It’s too easy to misfire with a shotgun,” I commented.

“Which is why I choose to work alone,” Franklin smiled.

“What do you mean?”

“Because first, no short-range shots will be missed, and second, I’d never want to miss,” he finished.

He became a lone wolf since no one dared to work with him.

Near-range shots weren’t supposed to go off-target but with Franklin’s shotgun, I’d misfired 7 bullets.

…

When I regained my senses, the child had already escaped over 20 meters away.

Fatty ran over and brushed past the child’s shoulder.

He gasped for air and looked at me, not knowing what to do.

“Shoot. He’s a class A deviant,” I instructed.

Fatty was stunned. “But…”

“But what? He’s running away,” I shouted anxiously.

Fatty retrieved his gun and fired a shot.

It was a hit.

The boy did not collapse. He kept running further and further away.

“You got it?” I shouted.

“Yes, but it’s a tracker that I’ve shot,” Fatty replied.

Looking at Fatty’s size, I decided not to have him chase after the child anymore.

I aimed the gun at the old lady’s head. “What is he, exactly?”

“He’s not my child. He’s my husband.”