Fiction project sample - The Delinquents

 

“The labyrinth of one's own intricacies births aspirations and ignites desire, only to become the labyrinth veiling the path towards it."

 

I’m finished.

“What?” Quentin asks over the phone, stopping midway through his 733rd narration of that time we played football in high school and I fell on a puddle of mud in front of some laughing girls.

I don’t reply, instead I sit there staring at the screen showing the scoreboard as the players of Wolverhampton Wanderers celebrate with their fans after scoring their 3rd goal of the game against my team, Liverpool.

“Jesus Christ” I swear while watching the replay of the build-up to the goal. Lethargic effort from my team. The players looking like they couldn’t care any less. Makes me feel sick for sitting here alone five thousand kilometres away, depressed and unemployed, watching them get battered before going home and earning millions.

“Isaac, you alright man” Quentin asks...

I don’t keep the annoyance off my voice “Yeah no I was just thinking about all that mud on my face and the laughing kids and how happy you are every time you repeat this shit over and over...”

He chuckles awkwardly and I wished he’d just cut the damn call.

It’s sweating inside my Liverpool top which I wear every time I watch the game. I want to take it off but then I feel like I’ll be violating something, breaking my faith in the team. Then I feel like an idiot for feeling that way.

“We need to meet brother, need to connect” Quentin continues...

We seem to have lost the ball after the kick-off and now the Wolves’ players are calmly passing it around ours, who seem like they’re running with mud in their boots, as the home crowd of Wolves’ fans cheer and celebrate every pass.

“I am here mate. You can come whenever you want” I say, like I do every time he talks about meeting each other. But I’m caught off guard when he asks, “how bout this Saturday then?”

This prick...

“Ummm...let me see” I reply as if I’m checking the dates... The next match is on Saturday, and it’s the derby against Everton. Can’t miss that. Plus I just don’t want to meet him. It’s tiring enough on the phone.

“Oooh, I have an exam that day, mate “, I lie.

“Which exam?”

“Qualifying exam for this job I’m applying” I say, keeping the annoyance off my voice this time. But inside I really wish I could tell him to do me a favor and cut the bloody damn call. And I’m about to do just that when he cuts me off and goes, “Oh, great good luck man.”

“Yeah thank-“

He continues in the same breath “Listen, I feel really sleepy now so I got to go, I’ll call you tomorrow yeah.”

I sigh, “Yeah. Bye”

And the call ends leaving me with the television sounds of the Wolves’ players and fans celebrating and cheering at full time while the commentators keep waxing lyrical about their valiant victory against Liverpool.

I don’t know if I’m sick because of the loss or sick because I care so much about the loss when there are much bigger things going on in my life which you could file under the “couldn’t get any worse” category.

I realize that without Quentin’s voice blaring in my ears, nothing is distracting me from my own thoughts and for a second, I wonder if I should call him back and soften things up for being an asshole and then immediately decide against it.

It’s a hot, humid night and that coupled with the tight top makes it beyond uncomfortable. I turn the TV off; the post-match scenes are unbearable. The silence that follows is sudden and I feel very, very alone in the house. It is only broken by the ticking of the clock. I glance in its direction; it’s a quarter to 1:00. Then I glance in the opposite direction at the shelf where I have kept my hall ticket and ID ready for tomorrow’s exam and decide that I should go to sleep.

Turning up the fan, I remove the jersey and toss it away before looking in the mirror. My skin is red from all the tension from watching that match. It looks pathetic and makes me feel even more pathetic. I decide to take a shower before going to bed and walk to the small room beside the kitchen where I hang my towels.

The light in the kitchen’s turned off and I don’t actually remember doing that after going in to get some water during half-time. I tell myself that I had probably just forgotten it and glance at the door in the corner, leading out to the back of the house making sure it’s locked. Don’t need a scary thought creeping into my mind when I’m alone for the night.

I grab a towel and go through everything quickly. Get in. Cold shower till it’s no longer uncomfortable and then turned off before I allow my thoughts to run free. It does its job and I feel...better. But still a little stuffy which I guess is probably a sleep issue and the thought of the exam in the morning.

I dry myself and leave the towel in the living room, avoiding the kitchen and turn everything off before grabbing my phone and going into my room, to sleep.

Which just doesn’t happen. Well, life these days is a sobering lesson on lowering my expectations. But I just wish I could flip that switch in my brain and go to sleep. Instead I lay on my bed, in the dark with the slight whirring of the fan the only thing that breaks the night’s silence, just wishing I had gone with mom and gran to my family home yesterday. They had asked to me to go with them but then I used tomorrow’s exam as an excuse and stayed behind. The truth is I just didn’t want to meet anyone back home. Too many questions, lectures on expectations and responsibilities, comparisons. How I once was a bright boy, now fading and needs to spark up before it all falls down. There’s enough of that in my own head, I could do without the other crap. But the dark and the silence and the emptiness around me seems so vast it’s like I’m floating in space and about to suffocate. And a part of me would’ve taken annoying relatives over this. I force thoughts of the Liverpool game away and instead wonder if Quentin’s asleep and think about calling him. But its late and I’d be disturbing him. Just like he does, every time he calls me in the most uncomfortable of hours. And he is probably the only person I could call now or... anytime these days. So I dial his number. He doesn’t answer.

I redial, reluctantly and hear a busy tone. Well...

I shift to my side, so I can see the door and out into the living room where faint light from the neighbour’s house trickles in through the windows. I don’t linger and close my eyes before I see something that puts too much doubt in my mind and think about tomorrow’s exam. The reporting time is at 8 in the morning. I’ve set an alarm for 6. Freshen up, grab something to eat and take the bus for an hour till I reach there. Should be okay...

But what even is the point? I’m not serious about passing the exam and I haven’t prepared anything. That leads to another series of thoughts involving pointless decisions and sunk cost fallacy and wasting life... I shift in bed again, rolling my left shoulder which had gotten injured while working out in the gym. It pops, sending a very faint pain through me. I miss going to the gym. It was the only two hours of my daily life that I really felt good. It did have its share of awkward moments - a crush on a girl who I still see in my dreams and struggling to come across well to her, uncomfortable eye contact with people way more attractive and well-built than me, blunders while working out... One time they were celebrating this guy’s birthday in there and they gave me one of those poppers and I messed that up in front of the crowd because I didn’t know how poppers were supposed to be popped. Because I don’t go to parties, I hate them. But it was still worth it and I miss it.... In the end that’s the kind of thing I largely miss in my life... Stuff that’s sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit. But it will make you want to get up and do it, even though it won’t be much but will be honest work at the very least.

.

.

.

I jerk suddenly out of my sleep from the buzzing of a mosquito hovering over my face. Sweat trickles down my neck and the side of my shirtless body. It’s hot inside my room and I realise the power is out. I run my hands to my side and check my phone. It’s a quarter past three. Its dead silent inside except for the ticking of the clock in the living room. My head’s still in that space between sleep and wake, lingering on the dream I was seeing, with the girl in the gym. She was talking to me about something, asked if I remembered something and laughed sweetly at me when I said I didn’t. Shit!

I should take another shower. Grabbing my phone, I kick my legs out the bed and just as I’m about to turn the flashlight on, I hear a sound. To the right of my room, from inside the kitchen. I freeze, and my gut knots up as my lizard brain screams in alarm. I sit still on my bed scanning the living room...which is still lit by the light coming in from the house nearby. My eyes drift to the main door. It’s just like I left it, closed from the inside with a steel bar across it. I hear another rattling from the kitchen. Someone’s inside, and has turned the power off.

My mind races, tracking back for clues. The person probably got in when I left the back door open while taking out the trash.

The light in the kitchen, earlier. Oh my God! I shudder, realizing my doubts were valid. So, whoever it is, they were inside while I was awake, and didn’t come at me earlier. Instead, they waited till I was asleep to turn the power off. A burglar then. A cookie burglar? Because what the fuck is a burglar doing inside a bloody kitchen.

Waiting for you to take the bait and walk into his trap, you idiot. My throat feels tight and it feels like my heart is thudding inside it. The suddenness of it all feels sort of surreal and I wonder for a moment if all this is just going on in my head. If it is that, then I hope I wake up only after it’s too late to make it to the exam. Then just don’t go for the exam anyway dumbass.

Sigh. I got to stop stalling. So, I count from one to ten, steadying myself. I put my glasses on, grab my phone firm in case I need my light and get out the bed slowly. My head still feels woozy, but I allow the urgency of the situation to take over and drive me. As silent as I can, I make my way to the door. A sound like a bubble of air popping from the kitchen, followed by the stretch of something elastic and then a couple of faint beeps. And silence. GULP!

Drenched in sweat I scan around before stepping out of my room. It’s a 7–8-meter walk to the kitchen door. And its halfway that I realize that I am walking barehanded into the room. I look around in the faint light searching for something to grab and see a metal cup on the table nearby. I walk towards it and take the lid off the cup, its filled halfway with water and it makes me aware of my thirst. I lift it and I’m caught for a moment deciding between whether I should drink it or splash it at the intruder before smashing his head with the metal. Just when, out the corner of my eye, I see something move. I jerk suddenly and the cup clatters onto the floor spilling the water, its noise consuming the night’s eery silence. I gasp in terror, recover myself the next second and charge, closing the distance in the next few seconds.

And nothing... The back door is still closed. Silence, except for the final echoes of the cup clattering on the floor. I stand there by the door, breathing heavily, panicky eyes darting around, wondering where the intruder’s hiding. Fear seeps inside me with each passing moment, making me too wary to go inside. And another thought flashes... When I took the trash out, I heard my phone ring from inside the kitchen, and the ring had stopped after a few seconds which at the time seemed shorter than usual. Like someone had declined the incoming call.

My instincts flare suddenly and I turn expecting something to come at me from behind. But there’s nothing there. I suck in a deep breath through my teeth. Which is when the scent hits me...it’s like... It’s like if room fresheners came in a “chemistry labs” flavour and someone just sprayed the shit out of it. It is dizzying and bites into me and it’s all I can do to stop my trembling feet from failing completely. My head starts to hurt and I clutch the doorframe for support, closing my eyes to gather myself. The girl’s laugh flashes in memory and I wish I had stayed asleep. I remember that in the dream I was working out in the gym and suddenly a sad love song started playing which made me sort of, you know...SAD. That’s when she came and talked to me. She talked to me about my dad. Asked if I remembered what I had told him... More thoughts... Another dream....

I am sitting on a chair, with dad and someone else, who I cannot make out clearly. We’re sitting around a round table and eating. And I remember feeling this very intense dread because it was our last meal together. It wasn’t spoken about or anything, it’s just that I knew it would be the last meal. I wonder who the third person was... My head feels like someone wrapped a thin copper wire round it and is pulling it tight. One moment it’s that, the next I snap back and I’m in my house, by the kitchen door, trembling with fear.

I can’t figure out the source of the scent, it’s coming from everywhere. I double tap my phone’s power button to turn the flashlight on. And it doesn’t work... My hands and feet don’t seem to respond and I suddenly feel very small. The phone starts heating up faintly and I look at the screen. Three green lines appear on the display, then it flashes and blinks off. Revealing a pale white face staring at me from the ceiling. I whirl to face it, body driven by cold fear. But I’m too slow. The door smashes on my face and I see a lot of flashing lights for a second as I hear the wet crunch of something breaking and then searing pain wells up on my face. My legs give and I fall, the momentum pushing me backwards into the kitchen.

Stars flood my vision. I try and blink them away and force myself to look around. My glasses are cracked and I hope my eyes have no broken shards stuck in them. I blink a little harder searching for any faint pain in my eye and I don’t get anything back. Either because nothing’s stuck there or because I can’t distinguish where each pain is coming from because my whole head hurts everywhere, in and out.

“Fuckin hell”, I breathe and peer through the broken lenses, at the creature which has hopped down from the ceiling and now stands at the doorway. Well, if I felt small a few moments before, now I feel insignificant. The sheer size and presence of the being is sobering. It crouches as it enters through the door and into the kitchen before rising to its full height. Standing upwards of seven feet and built like it lifts cars for its morning warm-up routine. Its pale grey skin runs smooth and flawless from its bald pate to its toes and it makes the thing stand out in the darkness. And now that I’m looking right at it, it dawns on me that it’s also the source of the nauseating chemical stench.

The sheer absurdity of it all makes it feel like another dream and I can’t help it. I laugh at its face, snorting blood through my aching nose. How in the actual fuck does a thing of this size and features manage to sneak in and hide and stick to the ceiling, all right in front of my eyes. I sigh, which now sounds more like a wet gurgle because of my injury and mentally confirm that I am an idiot of the highest fucking order. And then I laugh again because how the fu-

Heavy impact and a blinding light again.... More stars.... Cold pain on my neck.... Gasping for air....

I lay on my right side, face pressed against the floor by an enormous hand over my head making my entire body feel cold and frigid. It’s the only thing I feel. Other than something hard on my right hand. I’m clutching something but I struggle to remember anything for a second. I shiver and my breath comes out in spurts. My throat feels like a fucking desert and I can barely see through my eyes – partly because I don’t have my glasses there any longer and partly because of the tears welling up. My phone...? It’s my phone that I’m still clutching on my right hand.

I roll my left shoulder attempting to strike the arm at the creature. Suddenly, it’s like all the cold I was feeling coalesced on my injured left shoulder... leaving me screaming.

I got no idea how long that lasted. But at some point, I didn’t feel the hand on my face and I could roll and lay straight. The pain on my shoulder is eternal and immovable and just like that the smell in the room is now the least of my problems. I open my eyes; tears still filling them and see the creature’s pale legs next to me. My gaze travels up the length of its body. Either this thing’s got no genitals or its extremely shy and has hidden it. I see its face, now that it’s close. It’s got very wide eyes, two slits where its nose should be with its breath clouding in front of it and no mouth. Well actually, it’s like its lips are stitched and shut tight. I notice something blinking, a red light the source of which I can’t make out and it bounces around the room. Red blinking light, like the energy meter outside my house last day...

Oh shit! I didn’t pay the electricity bill. I remember Mom showing me the light on the meter and being pissed that I was delaying the payment.

So, is this a dream then, my brain reminding me to pay the bill...? I gaze up at the creature and ask huskily, “Is this a fucking dream?”

The creature doesn’t reply. Instead, it tilts its head and lowers itself, its long round arms come towards me, grabs me by the neck and hauls me up in the air, jerking the shoulder and sending me to heaven for another few moments. “Well, I’ll take that as a NO, then”

Why is it so damn cold, just fucking bury me in ice already! I gasp for air and my entire body and legs twitch as I struggle to free myself. I glance to my left and see a shelf with a few glass containers. With a sudden spurt of will, I swing my hand at it to grab one of the jars, biting the pain in. The creature notices this, its attention now falling on the shelf and jerks me away from it. Perfect! I catch it wrong footed and swing the phone held in my right hand with all the strength I could muster. And hear a very satisfying wet breaking sound.

The creature loses its balance, but not its grip on me... because of course it wouldn’t. And as it staggers, I flop around mid-air before my back slams against the shelf, sending me on yet another brief visit to heaven as it holds me against the hard wood, using me as leverage to steady itself.

I swing my phone again; it swats it away and I can distantly hear the sound of the device crashing somewhere. My senses start to warp and things are starting to fade.

I cling to my pathetic humour as comfort and wonder if this thing’s diet consists of ammonia plants and chemistry labs. Wish I could gather one last breath and say some cool last line like Harry Dresden would like... ‘HEY, HOLD YOUR FART YOU TWAT’. But no. It’s all just too sad. Meant to be, I guess. A wailing end.

I think of that dream again, with me and dad and wonder who the third person was. I imagine it as mom’s face, telling me to pay the bill. That doesn’t fit. I imagine it as the girl in the gym, that doesn’t work either.

Suddenly, I feel the cold slither up my throat and I realise that the creature is shifting its grip slightly upwards. Then I feel pressure on the back of my neck as my head is tilted to face the creature’s. Our eyes lock and my brain screams at me to flee...

But again... I’m too late...

 

 

 

“ Sacrifice through service is one’s easiest path to honour. “

“Well, I’ll take that as a NO, then” The boy, Isaac croaks as he struggles in my grip, shivering from the cold and his eyes wide from all the pain I am causing him. He isn’t a “boy”, he’s 24 but he doesn’t look it. And not in a good way either. All that privileged life and zero accountability has shaped his face to reflect his mind’s naivete.

He keeps thrashing and his left hand moves towards the shelf to grab one of the glass containers to hit me. I could let him struggle; he’s still got no chance. But broken glass would be an inconvenience, so I jerk him to the other side. He gasps and a sudden pang of concern makes me withdraw for a second. Isaac picks that moment and swings his right hand in a flash. I feel an impact on my face, something hard, immediately followed by a crunching sound. I don’t feel physical pain, instead it’s a cold buzzing sensation that wells up on my face, as the tens of thousands of cooling bots in my body rush to the area to neutralize the feeling of pain.

I don’t lose my grip on Isaac and slam him against the shelf again. He makes one final attempt in vain, swinging at my face. I swat it away and the phone crashes somewhere in the room’s corner.

Isaac’s body twitches and he looks absolutely cooked. And he probably doesn’t realize that he is pissing his pants right now. As the stench of his urine fills my senses I stand there waiting for the signal, willing Dillon, an operator in this and many other of my recent missions, to get on with it quickly. And then it arrives...

“ Eldridge to Scunthorpe

Source is prime Proceed with dissection

I repeat,

Source is prime Proceed with dissection

Eldridge out.

”

Dillon’s soft voice and crisp words are reassuring and that makes me worried. The fact that I am not assured of myself, and I, the best of my kind at doing this, needs someone with less than a third of my experience to put me on track. I’d be lying if I said I’m working with full clarity at the moment or all throughout the mission even. But right now, it’s not about clarity. On the field, it gets messy, especially with the kind of work I do and the unpredictability of it all. Your friend in such cases is not clarity, so much as calm.

To penetrate. To merge. To serve. That is the motto of my kind – The Bridge. Our purpose. And you can only plan so much for any of those things. It’s like they say- ‘no plan survives first contact’. So, way more often than not, it’s our resilience and resourcefulness that gets us through each situation. Which requires a sharp mind. And mine isn’t one at the moment.

I shove the looming doubt to the back of my brain and take a moment before the dissection. Isaac writhes in my grip and focusing on his struggle helps me maintain a certain detachment as I activate the systems for the process. It is quite ‘straightforward’ for me at this point. The first step is to activate the ocular link module in my system and arrest the Source’s brain activity through hypnosis. Following which I use the module to scan his brain, extracting his thoughts, memories and whatever else that occupies his mind, as data, all while feeding it to my own brain, or to be more accurate, the command centre. That is the penetrating part. After that is the merging, where I act as a vessel till the operators of The Nexus, splice and re-edit all of that data, before merging selected parts with another person’s mind – The Subject, Isabella. After which Isaac is left with his new mind. Which, in theory at least, is free of everything that holds him back from being an efficient human being. That should be job done.

All that transfer from Source to Subject takes around about a minute and a half in real time. But it is a very delicate and crude process which takes much longer in The Pit and could go south despite all the precision and focus you put in. I deactivate the sonic synthesizer before activating the module. The synthesizer is used to emit soundwaves of different spectrums for different purposes. In this case, I used it to awaken Isaac from his sleep and then also to compromise any electronic devices he carried, such as his phone, through an electronic jamming mechanism. It shouldn’t mess with the module or any of my systems as they’re well shielded. But I learned that a while after I had started this work and by that time, it had turned into a habit – Deactivating the synthesizer and then reactivating it once the penetration is done.

The arrogant voice of a young woman who is well aware of all she can do and all she can get away with thanks to her privilege, echoes in my head. Her name is...uh...Melanie, I think. But in my head, she is a fuzzy Smughead. Like Isaac, she is also approaching her mid-20s. And unlike this poor struggling chap in my grip, Smughead’s doing well in life as one of the four candidates in the Nexus’ Tip of The Spear Project. Today she’s here as an apprentice in the mission with a lot to prove. Like, showing her capacity for managing subservient elements like the Bridge, which she seems to interpret as being dominant and acting like a bitch to me.

I ignore her, because there isn’t much else that I could do. But she is right and I was going a little overboard with the violence in my own sick way of getting through all this quickly and ignore the emotional side and the uncharacteristic shadows its casting over me. Betraying everything I believed and threatening to tear away a mask I had forgotten about.

“ Eldridge to Scunthorpe

Synthesizer is deactivated

Activate Ocular Module,

I repeat,

Activate Ocular Module

Eldridge out

“

Dillon’s voice, urging me to keep things moving. Then I hear his voice again as he opens a private channel to me and speaks in a more informal, yet urgent tone…

“ Look mate, get on with it.

I need you to focus and stop swaying because your brain activity is through the roof and it’s not looking good. “

Shit! Smughead must be feasting over this in the lab right now. I wonder whether Petit, my boss, is watching all this. I can’t ask Dillon about it even though he is an interpreter and one of the few who could converse with The Bridge; I need to be face to face for that.

“ I am not telling you this so you’d start panicking

But I need you to be urgent And I need you to focus And get the fuck on with it, okay? The Subject is prime and is already waiting in The Pit, we don’t have any more time.

Good luck Laurence, Dillon out. “

Right! So that’s what I do then. I activate the Ocular Link Module. A faint heat pulses inside my head as it sets up. As the heat spreads and I feel it fill my entire head, I open my eyes and tilt Isaac’s head so I would stare straight into his eyes. The boy... I mean the “man”, who was still and cold, suddenly starts to jerk, perhaps out of some level of primal comprehension warning him to fly the fuck away from the danger. But the Link Module is precise and it hooks its claw into Isaac’s mind before he can look away.

To the “man”, it would seem like my black eyes just parted vertically, revealing strobing white points of light. He stares at it, mouth half-open, consciousness adrift, wheezing unevenly, body shuddering from the cold of my grip. I wait a couple of moments more just to be sure that the link is in place and then lower Isaac to his knees, easing the pressure off him and lower myself with him, taking care not to break the link. And wait there till Dillon confirms that the indexing of all the data is completed and they are ready to pull the lever and plunge us into The Pit, where the splicing and merging occurs.

As each second passes without the confirmation, I start worrying and my focus withers away. You cannot stop yourself from thinking or focus on not thinking, unless there is something else occupying or distracting you. Right at the moment I’m staring at Isaac’s wide, open eyes. They look so... out of place in his babyface. Like there’s so much brewing beneath the surface. Over the days of the scouting, I had noticed that the feeling of being alone is so deeply drilled in Isaac. It’s probably years of not fitting into groups which eventually made him into a sort of detached character. He isn’t antisocial, he can talk to people and get along but in a fundamental level, there is a belief that he doesn’t belong anywhere and his life’s search is to find somewhere he does belong to. He has so much bottled inside him which he yearns to express. Lot of times when I’ve watched him be alone and have a conversation with someone in his head like this girl, he’s really fond of and pretending like they’re there listening to him talking animatedly and passionately about something he finds fascinating or annoying or depressing or wholesome.

Maybe that explains the weight in his eyes. Perhaps he isn’t as naïve as I thought. Or as naïve as I made myself believe, in an attempt to simplify his character so I could keep myself detached.

Maybe he realises that the world has left him behind and for a second, I wish he would prove my doubts wrong. That his mind would accept the process without any resistance and the split wouldn’t fail. It isn’t inspiring or romantic but the process should take away what is holding him back and make him efficient, from a mental standpoint. Then the Nexus would make sure he gets a job. Obviously, it isn’t out of any concern for Isaac’s quality of life. But even as an insignificant pawn in the large game, he would live a normal life. And it’s his only chance at one, before the real dystopia kicks in.

Bloody hell I’ve gone soft. Willing Dillon to get the fuck on with his work, I stay there brooding while staring at Isaac. Just when I hear a ping. A familiar sound

‘REQUEST FOR RADIO CONNECTION’ – the holographic words float in my heads-up display. I check the connection; someone’s opened a private channel to me. It catches me off guard and sends my mind racing. Responding to it would mean pulling my focus away from Isaac. That would be suicidal, especially during the dissection stage.   I am able to shift my focus and try to decode the connection signature to see if it’s similar to what Dillon or the other operators from the Nexus use. Nothing shows up, welling more intrigue in me. If I were to respond then all will be screwed up. Whatever the module is scanning of Isaac is being transferred as data to be operated on by The Nexus. Break the link now and not only would it mean stopping the scan and the mission abruptly. But you also risk waking the Source abruptly from a state of deep hypnotic rest, which would have serious consequences on the person. Not to mention the chances of causing any sort of limbo as a result of failed brain data transfer. And a horde of other problems. Best I can do while working the Link Module is running checks in the background. I shouldn’t go beyond that. But the timing of it floods me with great doubt… I decide to not accept the connection and shift my focus to Isaac, about to block anonymous incoming connection requests, which I normally never have to do. Just when I feel another ping.

I ignore it again. But then it starts buzzing. Priority message then?

That gets my attention and I check again. There is a data package attached to message. My systems decode it in a flash and I’m about to open and read it when Dillon speaks again,

“

Scunthorpe, Stay in position Do not lose The Source Phase one approaching completion

Eldridge out.

“

Shit! The night just keeps giving. But I’ve been doing this for a dozen years and discretion isn’t anything alien to me. So, I stay put, letting the intrigue of the anonymous connection request nibble at the back of my mind while the scan completes. It might just be something random but the timing of it makes me feel that someone woke up and decided to do a bit of tomfoolery and they know exactly what they are doing. I have a sneaking suspicion as to who they might be as well and hopefully I’m right and this is one of their usual ploys to sabotage missions.

Smughead chatters over the radio:

“Anything bothering you, slave?”

Too many things. Too many things bother me much more than they used to: My soon to be useless body. Failing systems. The impending end for me. All the things I’ve seen. All the things I’ve done. How I’ve gone soft. How I’ve gone about this mission, selfishly seeking morality to excuse my inefficiency, all because this 24-year-old loser just reminds me of how spectacularly I’ve failed in life. But would Smughead get any of it if I could tell her. Hell, maybe I should make Isaac write my story – “The Philosophy of a Killing Machine”. Maybe it’s that, then. Knowing that in six months, it's the end of the story for me. And there’s no one in this world who would give a toss about it.

It’s what I deserve in the end. Craving empathy while intruding into someone’s house and beating the shit out of them before psychotically destroying them. Should say enough about me. Hopefully things go as planned and Isaac’s mind is receptive to the process. It’s not something I have much control over but I really hope he doesn’t end up like I fear; like me.

I hear a slight whir and a small beep – The Ocular Link Module has done its work. ‘PHASE ONE COMPLETED’ – the words appear in my HUD.

My breath clouds in front of me as I let out a deep sigh.

I brace for Dillon’s confirmation…

“ Good job, Scunthorpe Onto next phase… Brace for Pitfall

Eldridge out “

I relax a bit and pull my gaze away from Isaac who right now is as still as cold stone, his mouth slightly open. His neck is stiff and bruised from my grip. I scan his body, my systems analysing the extent of the violence I’ve inflicted, the results popping up one by one on my HUD. Nothing majorly bad. A broken nose, swollen eye, bruises here and there. His shoulder’s got worse but lucky for him, nothing’s broken or dislocated. He’ll recover, physically. But the mental trauma of tonight will wound him for life. Not going to lie, a part of me wishes I would’ve been gentler. But it’s the way the game’s played. Before taking the Source into The Pit, they should be in their most mentally vulnerable and primal state. And how better to achieve it than by inflicting fear. That is my job in the end as The Bridge – doing the dirty work for my masters. And the trauma allows them to manipulate The Source. To instil into their mind what their job is –

‘To Survive. To Sustain. To Serve.’

Efficiency, the theme of their lives. The aim being to create a sect of population devoid of anything that holds them back from being efficient workers, by severing their minds, like Isaac’s and letting them breed and raise children and expand their kind; expand the workforce; sustain the economy.

It doesn’t end there. The part that is severed from them is then processed, calibrated and personalised to be merged with another mind, that of The Subject – the masters, in this case a woman, Isabella. Their minds growing, carefully modelled and then trained to achieve a superior mental state so they could do their job –

‘To Create. To Expand. To Rule.’

The framework for a new society, foundations for a dystopia. And I just feel a bystander. I hear Smughead’s mocking voice distantly:

“ Good job!  Laurence the Legend. Old yet formidable “

I almost forget the data package which is still blinking at the corner of my HUD. I open it as the young woman keeps mocking,

“

Clap, Clap, Clap… Are you not entertained ladies and gentlemen?

”

At first, I don’t understand what I am looking at. The package contains an image of a hostage in a dimly lit room. Melanie has shut up and the silence left is kind of unsettling. I enhance the image and then zoom in. I can make out that it is a woman, but I still can’t see her face. She is wearing a familiar blue jumpsuit, the uniform of Nexus pupils. Her hair is messy and some of her skin is streaked with bruises. I search further and notice the badge above her left pocket, enhancing further till I can make it out. She is a Tip of The Spear candidate, a peer to Melanie then. And then a sick feeling creeps inside me as I read the name on the badge – KIM.  I wonder if anyone else in the backroom is seeing this. Likely not, this was a private connection. Which can still only be sent from The Nexus. An idea flashes and I scan the image for a watermark. I find it, the emblem now boldened over the image and my suspicion was right. It was sent from The Nexus. From the rogues – THE DELINQUENTS.

They have just gone and captured the best Nexus pupil to date and also the apprentice to Raymond Petit – The Brain.

“

Attention, Scunthorpe Data secured Source and Subject slots locked I repeat…

“

But why send it to me? Why now? I find something else from the scan. Below the emblem. It’s written in LexiCode – a set of digits and characters that make up the language used to communicate with The Bridge. They knew I’d get to this point, then.

“

Pitfall, imminent Stay alert Tether immediately after the lights go out

“

Dillon is an afterthought at the moment, because what I just read is a gut punch that sinks my stomach. The code shows two marker ID’s. Just a vague set of numbers and alphabets which you never remember. Not these two. Not for me. They are unmistakeable.

BRM-1146 and BRM-1147, the twins – Cassie and Regina.

The second number is encircled and an arrow points out from it to the words “says hi”.

It doesn’t answer any of my questions, but what it does is flush into me the vivid memories of something that to this day promises to haunt me in hell. I lose all composure and want to quit the mission and just fucking disappear or something. Dillon’s voice is nowhere. My head heats up and it feels like it’d explode any moment. I clutch tight onto Isaac, feeling like a ghost of myself.

Then the lights go out and it’s like a heavy hand just grabbed me and plunged me into dark cold water.