Project: MI
Chapter 17

“Who the Hel are you?” Teruo demanded of the girl sitting on his bed. At least he thought she was a girl. Her features seemed somewhat...neutral and hard to place. The long hair and voice were his only clues. The pale skin and the unsettling eye color however did not help things.

Metamorphs always muddy things…

“Language,” the girl tsked at him, waving a finger in a scolding manner. “If you had a mother I’d bet she spends a lot of time with you over a sink with a bar of soap.”

“My guardian is in shouting distance,” Teruo replied. “I’m already neck deep in trouble, so you have until the count of three…”

“Look, I’m only interested in getting help,” she said, reaching behind her. “I don’t want to cause trouble for you or anything. You’re the only person I could turn to.”

Teruo hesitated. “The only person?”

The metamorph flashed him a grin. “Your reputation precedes you, but first…” Raising her hand, she presented to him a Guardian Sphere. Its electric eye was dark and lifeless.

“Accidently knocked this one out earlier today. It needs fixing. Care to play with it before we can talk under fake surveillance?”

That caught Teruo’s attention. A layer of security from a dummy system was always a plus. Wordlessly he snatched the orb from her hand and set to work on it with his Doctor device, popping open the back hatch.

“Where were you keeping this?” he asked out of mild curiosity. “I didn’t see it on you when you were in bird form.”

“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“A lady, huh? Is that how you identify?”

She tilted her head to one side, smirking in amusement. “You’re pretty precocious for a kid aren’t you? Does it bother you what I am?”

“Meh.” Teruo shrugged. “Clarity helps. He… She… Somewhere in between… If I have to refer to you in third person pronoun I like to know I’m using the right one. I don’t care if I have to refer to you as ‘hir’.” He coughed. “That’s with an ‘I’ by the way. Not an E.”

The metamorph leaned forward, seeming to take delight in their verbal fencing game. “What about my name? Would that help?”

“That’s only polite, but…” Teruo clicked off his device and snapped the hatch shut. “…I get the feeling that you’re in a position where giving me your name or any alias’ would be bad. Let’s keep that kind of information minimal.”

Grimacing at the thought of further interrogation from the CHC as he turned the orb over just in time to see the light in its eye turn on.

“Okay,” he said as it floated up in the air. “It’s all set. We can talk in private now, for a while anyway. Er…that is, unless, there are other spying stuff out there…”

“From my eye view, none that I saw that will be bothered by a bird in your house,” the metamorph chuckled. “A girl on the other hand…” She grinned. “That answer your question?”

“Adequately I guess. So what do you want? I take it you’re not in the kidnapping business…”

“Uh…no?” The girl tilted her head to one side. “Why would you ask that?”

“I hear Albion starts them young.” He folded his ‘Doctor Device’ in his lap. “Your accent’s pretty good by the way.”

The girl scowled. “I’m not looking to kidnap anybody. I’m trying to get help for a friend. He’s in a bit of a jam.” Looking down, she began to twirl her forefinger in the bed’s sheets in a spiraling motion. “He’s a heroi and the company, Romana Pax, did something with their latest update.” Reaching behind her, she pulled out a Companion Device. Teruo raised an eyebrow at it. It looked like a rather old model. “This one is a dummy version that I used to get some privacy with him and his Companion. It sent out a pre-prepared false report to the same source. They’re doing the same thing. They’re hiding what’s actually happening to him. I can help him but…he…he won’t believe me though.”

“So…what are you getting at exactly?” Teruo asked, a bored expression crossing his features. “My network privileges have been revoked. I won’t be able to go hacking or anything.”

That wasn’t exactly true of course, but the privilege revocation did complicate things considerably.

“Great…” the girl muttered, sounding as though she lost her best option. “So you’re useless to me. Coming here was a mistake.” She looked up at him, her eyes glistening a little. “Are you sure you can’t…? My friend… If he can’t control his powers…! If they find out he’s having dreams! They’ll…”

Teruo raised an eyebrow. “Dreams? He’s a heroi that’s under watch and he’s having dreams? Those dreams? And Romana Pax is hiding this from the feds?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, hoping desperately that this would spur him into taking some sort of action. “It’s…complicated. It doesn’t look like Romana Pax wants him to be suppressed. They’re loading the deck to make sure his powers are active and developing. His treatment is a placebo!”

Teruo ran a hand over his chin thoughtfully. If she’s telling the truth… “Yeah, that’s opening a Pandora’s box of problems. There’s no real reason for me to be involved though. I mean…isn’t the CHC investigating Romana Pax or something?” He remembered at least one news report in the past few days mentioning a break-in or some such that caught their eye. “They’ll get it all figured out.”

“And when they do they’ll kill him!” the girl hissed angrily in a barely restrained whisper, her serpentine eyes darkening dangerously. “He’s not just any heroi! He’s…” Her mouth snapped shut with an audible click and she glanced around nervously.

“Go on,” Teruo prompted. “Finish what you were going to say.”

“I shouldn’t.”

Teruo sighed. It was time to force the issue.

“Then we’re done talking.”

“No, hang on…”

“You’re not offering me anything, so why should I care?”

She sat there for a moment, her body shaking before she moved her lips.

“Omega…” she whispered.

Teruo felt his body grow cold at the word.

Looking at her more fully, Teruo adjusted his posture as the full weight of its meaning and everything it implied settled heavily over him.

“That’s… That’s bullshit,” Teruo said, his voice shaking a little but scathing in its delivery. “The government wouldn’t allow an Omega to live.”

“They have!” she insisted.

“Are you serious? Do you have proof of this?”

“Er…” The metamorph looked embarrassed now. “Not…Not on me. I can’t carry it. I’m not allowed to.”

Although… A part of him doubted. An Omega… And…right on time for the City to reappear too. That’s…a bizarre coincidence.

Too much of a coincidence. Omegas aren’t a dime a dozen.

“I’m telling you the truth!” the girl hissed desperately.

“What’s his name?”

She hesitated but leaned forward. “James Grey,” she said under her breath.

Teruo furrowed his brow, wondering if John had mentioned anything about him. Heroi involved his department and he did on occasion discuss them.

Not much of a chance of that if he’s an Omega. That would be national security, which is above the civilian pay grade when it comes to ‘need to know’. ‘Course, if he really is an Omega, he should be dead by now so…potential Omega? Is he emergent? Crap… I need to know more.

Teruo leaned back and cracked his knuckles. He looked over at his computer thoughtfully.

“I need to know more,” he mused to himself, only peripherally aware of the girl’s eyes lighting up with hope.

Ah…serpents… John is going to be pissed.

The tension in the main control room was knife-breaking from Anderson’s perspective. Beck and Jones, aside from terse questions, responses, or the odd order, had been silent ever since word came down from Steiner to get Ran prepped and ready for another incursion. Watching Beck unconsciously reach behind him and tug on his pony tail, he could hardly blame them. After all, he had been there for each and every one of the girl’s ‘incidents’.

It takes a special kind of stubbornness to stay the course when it’s clearly showing signs of rocky waters. Either that or a special kind of stupidity.

At this point he was unsure as to which it was when it came to Steiner or the individuals he worked for.

In Steiner’s case, whichever it is, it’s backed by far too much confidence.

He was interrupted from his thoughts as the doors swung open and in came two nurses, a guard flanked by a hovering orb, and the girl in question at the very center, her body supported by the two nurses. Anderson grimaced upon seeing her. She was thinner than when she first came here all those months ago, and her hair was unkempt and wild. He didn’t understand why this was the case. None of the doctors they had on staff could explain her deterioration. She was well-fed and, under proper suppression, was made to exercise, at least up until more recently. The only thing that they could agree on, at the moment, was that her condition was not life threatening.

For the moment that is.

As Anderson watched, the girl’s eyes lit up upon sighting her seat at the center of the room.

“I get to go outside again?” she asked breathily, her eyes shining with hope.

“Yes,” Jones replied, turning toward the girl. “But you have to remember our agreement. Complete your mission and we’ll allow you some ‘free’ time.”

Anderson glanced over at Beck in surprise. The man’s expression was impassive, leaving him with the impression that he knew full well about this. Pausing in his system checks, he went over to him.

“Sir?” he asked. “What is she talking about? I don’t remember…”

“It was decided just now,” Beck interrupted under his breath. “We’re reaching our limits in our ability to control Ran’s behavior and Steiner wants her on the job. Simple suppression and hypnotic suggestions don’t seem to be working as well as we would like them too, so we’re going with a bargaining approach. And before you ask, yes, I know how stupid this is. I said as much to Steiner.”

“But the signal and power strains…”

“Steiner’s going to work something out with our power company. They’re part of the ‘cabal’ anyway.”

“I…see.” Anderson ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll need to schedule something with our tech department then to make the necessary modifications as well.”

“You make it sound like that is so out of the ordinary that we would get in trouble for it.”

“It…complicates things.”

Beck turned at him with an annoyed expression and pointed meaningfully at Ran as she slowly, carefully, half-staggered her way over to her chair.

“She already complicates things! You want to raise a complaint now?!”

Anderson raised his hands in a placating gesture, feeling a little irritated himself now.

“I don’t mean any offense, sir,” he replied. “I am simply concerned about the security of the project.”

At that, Beck deflated a little and turned back toward his computer readout.

“In which case I think you are the best candidate to make sure that security is handled and handled properly.”

Anderson raised an eyebrow. “Sir?”

“Jones and I are going to have our hands full meddling with this girl. We need to break up the leadership roles. Is this sufficient?”

“I…”

“Rain, rain, go away,” came the sing-song voice of the girl as she stopped at her chair, interrupting the two men. Turning in her direction, Anderson shivered as she slid an almost loving hand over the chairs arms and over the shackles that would keep her in place. “Come again some other day…”

“The sooner this is over with, the better,” Anderson replied with a grimace.

“Then let’s get this over with,” said Beck, tapping a few controls. “All right. I’m keying into the alpha wave band and preparing to transmit. Anderson, Jones will need you to help her with the wave form emitters…”

She settled herself down in the chair and smiled as the shackles clicked closed around her wrists and ankles. The familiar cool feel of metal on skin brought a warm smile to her face as she thought of the outdoors and everything she wanted to do once she got out there.

Hurry… she thought, looking up at the helmet that descended toward her and would take her to where she desired most to be. Hurry. Hurry!

She wanted to laugh excitedly in elation as the helmet settled over her head and her vision transformed from one of darkness to the bright light of day.

Her form was different. A large, broad-brimmed hat sat on her head, keeping her from being blinded by the light that cast a golden glow on the clear blue sky. Back in her chair, she blinked back tears, relishing in the transmitted sensation of the breeze flowing over her body like a lover from the half-forgotten memories from the before time. Below her, in the streets below, she heard the sounds of vehicles driving and honking at each other. People swarmed around the sidewalks, ants to her view. Above her a plane flew, its engines roaring

She curled her toes in the fake boots and giggled. The sensation was almost too much for her.

“Ran…” whispered a voice from off to her side, the side that existed back in Romana Pax. “Focus. Remember your mission.”

“Okay,” she nodded, adjusting her hat. “I’ll remember.”

Her long coat fluttered like a cape in the wind as she stepped toward the edge of the building. Taking but a single breath, she took flight.”

“Well,” Beck said, folding his arms over his chest as he observed the scene unfold on the big screen, “the line is cast.”

Jones stepped back from her control panel, adjusting her earpiece so that she was covering the attached microphone.

“The system is already searching for Grey’s Companion,” she said. “It will guide her to it and him. We’ll see what catch we get then.”

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