Continuity Corporations : Chapter 2 - Employee Training

 

The Veritas training hall was roughly as big as the central tunnel that constituted to be the company's bunker, though was considerably lighter and more uniquely decorated. It looked almost alike a mixture between a high school gymnasium and a shooting range, the floor a springy rubber that smelled strongly of plastic, lights hovering above that dangled from the ceiling like gantries. Pipes ran across the ceiling to great air conditioning units, fans whirring at routine intersections in the effort of excreting fresh air into the hall. It was cold and large and empty; the lights hummed as they worked. "This used to be an old training ground." Gemini walked forward into the space, A-65 and Caprica behind her. A-65 hadn't noticed yesterday: Caprica walked with a cane, more of a quarterstaff in form, a great stick of skinned and dried wood that looked almost alike a club in form.

"There was a testing company here: Meridian, it was called. Worked alongside other companies in small labs found upstairs, got moved to Cohesion a few years ago."

"The British Site?" A-65 asked. Caprica nodded her head.

"They were under-developed." She said, voice calm and matter-of-fact, "and there were so many hires over there that the whole operation was transferred. It's one of the most successful wings of Continuity Corporations, now."

A-65 looked out to the empty warehouse he stood within.

"How many tunnels are there like this, here? Under the facility?"

 Caprica shrugged.

"Hell if I know. I don't think most of us have any idea. Only a few have been opened up in recent times, to allow new operations in. It's more cost-effective to just leave the others dark and forgotten; to turn off the fans and lights and just sort of... leave them there."

Gemini had walked ahead into the warehouse, retrieving something from an aside room as A-65 and Caprica talked. She came out dragging something in one of her gauntleted hands, a rope attached to something heavy and wheeled. Caprica gave a sympathetic smile towards A-65 and leaned on her cane. What she was in sympathy towards, A-65 could not tell. A-65 looked to the large mechanism that Gemini had wheeled out, a large metal rack of sorts that sat atop many small wheels, whistling and squeaking like those of a shopping cart too old. There were metal silhouettes that stood in the metal, steel bars either side of them like a cage and dividing partitions jutting forward. It was massive though seemed to comprised of some light, shining material; a silver metal that looked almost translucent as light reflected through it. Heavy, sure, yet no-where near as heavy as it would have been were it made of metal. Gemini tugged and pulled at the wheeled rack, pulling it across the room so that it filled up the shorter wall of the cylindrical chamber, walking from one side to the other as she fastened the clamps atop the wheels.

"Do you know what this is?" Caprica asked, gesturing broadly to the space around her.

"It's my training."

"Do you know what it is we're going to practice?"

 "Shooting?"

A-65 had never shot a gun before. The two women, however, quite clearly had. They moved his arms and hands, spoke sternly yet calmly about safety, and illustrated how to aim and shoot. It seemed that, investigation work aside, the two were the standard trainers for those who needed such specialised education. It was perhaps another lucky coincidence stacked up in A-65's favour. He shot and missed and shot and hit, the two women nodding and giving pointers as they placed their firearms upon the shelf of the training rack. They were wearing ear defenders, yet A-65 was not. One of the implants he had been given in his revival – the cochlear implant nestled in his ear – should be remotely turned off or on. A mental command amplified the sound around him, Gemini's voice retaining its volume as background ambience filtered in. He had switched that noise-cancelling filter on and off a few times now as they had been shooting and it was a strange difference. He could still hear people, still hear voices when the filter was activated, though they sounded distant and almost robotic, the pops of the handguns little more than muffled exhalations of wind. Deactivated, all the sounds surged in at once: the rustle of clothes, the thunder of heartbeat, the texture and grate of the fan above them. He looked to Gemini. She shrugged. It seemed he was not quite the worst she had seen, yet needed more practice before a hazardous assignment. He could live with that. Caprica nodded in approval of Gemini's decision, their hour-or-so of practice concluded. They packed up and Gemini placed the handguns they had used in a bag, unloaded, and walked with them through the Veritas bunker. Cold metal halls. A-65 felt a heat in his chest, as if he had a fever, yet did not feel unwell in the slightest.

"It looks like the pairing is still occurring," A-1 said as A-65 lay on a table in the private medical suite he had stayed in the morning before. He wore only underwear, now, the anonymous surgeon permitted to see and know his identity. A metal machine loomed over A-65's face, almost alike a scarab in form, dangling from the wall as it hung attached to a mechanical arm. Lights occasionally flickered in his eyes and he winced. "I feel like I have a fever." He said, drawing the attention of A-1. The little man stood and plodded over towards the medical table, gloved hands pressing down onto his chest. The man grumbled something and fumbled, stripping the glove and pressing the back of his hand against A65's forehead. He had dark, tanned skin. Not as dark as A-65's, but tanned and brown. He put the glove back on and sat.

"How do you feel?" 

"The fever's just uncomfortable. I feel fine otherwise."

 "No aches?"

"No aches. No headaches. No blocked sinuses, no stinging pains. Nothing."

 A-1 hummed.

"Perhaps the pairing is occurring faster than expected, then. It comes with two signs: mental and physical. The mental signs I can examine, the physical you will feel." He broadly waved to the mechanical scarab. A-65 looked towards the monitor A-1 sat behind. It was difficult to see, though clearly what was being shown were graphs of some description. Brainwave graphs, it seemed, some kind of wavy line jutting up and down as the scarab shone down onto the man. A-1 stood and removed the mechanism, the graphs shutting down in turn. A-65 sat upright.

"It's likely that the fever will get worse." A-1 said, placing the man's clothes upon the bed beside him. "There will be a sensation, a burning. It will grow greatly, though you will be alright. Uncomfortable, yes, yet passable in time."

A-65 reached over for the clothes and pulled them towards him.

"What does that mean?" He asked. He had read the descriptions of PMAGE that A-1 and Scalar had provided him, yet they were written in terms he could not entirely understand, all medical and scientific and research-oriented, written with reference to other medical terms he did not understand. He knew what it did on paper: raised body temperature and adapted the body as such, yet could not understand how at all that assisted him in his recovery. A-1 looked to him.

"It means that your body will heat. It will reach a temperature and stay there. It is then that P-MAGE will pair and that body heat will be able to be expulsed. For the time, I believe, you will remain uncomfortable. There's not really much that can be done." He reached over towards the mechanical scarab, separating the robotic arm from the wall as A-65 pulled the squeaky plastic body suit over his torso. A-1 turned to him, scarab tucked under the arm like a loaf of bread: "That aside, you are doing quite well. Your recovery was a shocking success, I must admit." The suit sealed around the mask; A-1 checked the time on his phone. He had to go, it seemed, and ducked out of the medical suite quickly. Left alone for a moment, A-65 scratched the back of his neck and was perturbed to find a long and vertical scar that ran up the back of his scalp. 

MARCH 13 2021 

It was raining in the snow. Ice and frost became a mush of water that squelched and squirmed when step upon, dirty specks in the slush revealing the dark rubber of the tarmac beneath. It was coming down in sheets, rain hammering the slush to watery gruel that parted in waves as the tires of a car surged down the road. It was long and sleek, almost as dark as the night sky above with windows tinted a dark shade, almost alike sunglasses from the inside-looking-out. The headlights were bright yellow, lemon like in tone, the long and slender boot packed with a great, grey casket. The driver grunted. All of these country roads looked the same. He blended in with the car, almost, and of the four people that currently sat within it, seemed like the only one who truly blended in. He wore a black jacket, a suit, with a fedora atop his equally black hair. His face was clean shaven, pasty white in tone, and the right half of his face seemed sunken and paralysed, all wrinkled and gaunt with a silver patch over the eye.

"You're speeding, Wilfryd." Said the man next to him.

"Sorry. Just stressed."

 He eased up on the pedal, slowing and letting the rain hit the car in greater sheets. His passenger was right: the road was slippery. They could not afford an accident anyway, let alone with the payload they now bore in the trunk. That passenger was a similarly gaunt and pale man also with his right eye covered in a patch, his hair thick and grey-black. Tied behind his head in a ponytail, it fell behind the collar of the lab coat he wore, unbuttoned and with a loose white shirt beneath it. He leaned against the window to look out and heard a shuffling behind him.

"Where are we going?" There was a voice, weak and tired, feminine and calm yet with a distinct undertone of stress. He looked back and felt a pang of guilt in his chest. The woman had been hurt, beaten and bruised and bloodied, though he had tried his best to patch her up. Her face was scarred, back torn to shreds. Her whole torso was wrapped in bandages and her leg had been pretty badly torn up, too. Arkady gave a look of sympathy to her as he turned, a weary and anxious expression.

"Somewhere safe." he said, turning briefly to look at the road ahead before turning to look back at the woman.

"How are you feeling, Verity?" 

She sighed.

"A bit better. The painkillers got to everything except my leg, I think." She leaned against the coffin, arm on the lid, as someone small wrapped their arms around her side. Verity's hand reached down and rubbed their head, the rest of their body invisible beneath a heavy purple parka.

Arkady nodded.

 "Wilfryd?" He asked, "Where are we headed?"

"The border. We'll be let over." He said, confidence in his voice. Arkady nodded.

"We won't be an issue?" Verity asked. Wilfryd shook his head, looking in the rearview mirror towards his sister.

"Nope. They'll have a hell of a legal battle if they don't."

 Verity nodded and leaned back, hunched against the tough upholstery of the black Hearse. The coffin was beside her, the occasional thump from within not unnerving her in the slightest. She whispered something to the person clung around her waist and nodded, leaning forward to the two men in the front seats.

"We wouldn't have anything to eat, would we?"

 Arkady opened the glove box and rummaged around, shrugging and shutting the small hatch. Wilfryd opened the centre console and – still looking to the road – reached in, pulling out a bag of opened British sweets. Tough caramel, sweet and amber. He reached back.

"There you go, sweetheart."

 Verity shuffled back as the little hands snatched the bag from Wilfryd. The man smiled a genuine smile, though only half of his face moved.

"Will that be alright for you?"

 The little person did not respond, yet he heard them crunch down upon the candy. Verity smiled to them and rubbed their shoulder. The little person, young and tired, leaned into her and relaxed.

The road wound on ahead, long and slender, a single track that stretched on for miles as the tundra pulled back and clung to the sides behind a row of frigid ice. The heating in the car made it comfortable, Verity and the child sitting atop a blanket whilst Arkady slept against the window. The moon had risen, rain persisting, a silver glow illuminating the slush-filled and sodden road ahead. They were so alone, driving on that road, pushing ahead to a goal unseen as the ridges of hills stood behind the tundra and the snow. No cars came opposite them, no lights shining aside from that of the car and the moon. The rain fell and Wilfryd leaned forward. A large splash on the bonnet, ichorous and thick. Another splashing down, sliding over the metal and staining it red. Another splash, the rain's sound turning from a hammer to a punch. Every tap on the roof became a squelch, a splatter, the wheels churning through a liquid now too thick to be water. The silver light of the moon cast down on the land, illuminating the pearlesence of the snow as if it were day. Arkady, Verity and the child were asleep. The coffin lay still. Wilfryd was the only conscious mind in the car, and the sight of the fluid seeping from the sky put an ache in his eye. He stopped the car and winced; the ache subsided. He drew a deep breath, looking up to the rearview mirror as the lid of the coffin creaked and slid to a side. A man, neck slashed, sat upright. His blonde hair was dyed a strawberry pink through the ichor that spilled from that wound, which seemed to seal itself with fibres woven through muscle.

"It's here." The man said. Wilfryd looked to the road before him and nodded, keenly aware that the fluid bathing the car, falling from the sky in splattering sheets, was blood.

 MARCH 14 2021

The border security guards gave Arkady a funny look when he – a one eyed man of inscrutable age with a similarly one-eyed man sleeping beside him – pulled up to the checkpoint in a funeral car. They gave him a funnier look when he flashed them a bizarre passport aligning to a company they had never heard of and, upon confirming that he could, in reality, pass through, the funny look shifted to one of confusion and disgust. As the black Hearse rattled through the checkpoint, Arkady folded up the strange passport and put it in the glovebox. Wilfryd shifted and grunted, turning to the man and then to his sister, unseen in the back.

"Did we make it?"

 "Mhmm. Had to wait a bit, they phoned someone to check us."

"That's considerate." Wilfryd shifted in his seat and stretched. "Usually they just tear apart the car and question me until they realise they've made a mistake."

 "Would have been a nasty discovery for them, this time."

"Oh yeah."

 There was silence for a moment. Arkady rubbed his chin, eye glaring ahead to the cars and trucks that passed them by. They had entered civilisation, again, and there was a warmth in that.

"What do we do with the girl?"

 Verity stirred.

"I can deal with that," she said, the young child still sleeping, parka wrapped around their body as they lay curled into a ball.

 "At Continuity? We don't know how that would be received, especially if this whole thing is a joint operation."

"Not quite. I'm still on business leave, technically. Arkady, can you get in contact with Floss?" 

A nod confirmed what she needed to know; Verity leaned back against the car.

"Find somewhere you can drop us off," she said, "Preferably before you arrange travel to Mt. Asgard. She can stay with me at Site-Aorta and we can work on our... suspicions. Does that sound good?"

Wilfryd agreed, as did Arkady.

Verity smiled and rubbed the head of the girl, tapping twice on the coffin and getting one thump back in response.

 

MARCH 15 2021

Verity stood and stretched her legs, hugging her brother goodbye and holding the young girl's hand. Wilfryd got to a knee to get to her level and hugged her, too, handing her the bag of caramel sweets that – in her fatigued stupor – she had forgot to snatch from the car. The girl did not smile, but nodded in the sort of exchange Wilfryd would have given Arkady. With their transport there, Verity whispered something to the girl, out of the earshot of Wilfryd as the man trudged up through the snow towards the Hearse. Arkady was sitting on the bonnet, smoking, and raised a hand to the pair as Verity waved back, the two stepping into the back end of a large truck as the driver, a pale albino woman with gilded eyes, saluted Arkady. He waved back; Wilfryd leaned against the car. 

"How long before we get back?" 

"Fucking hell." Arkady muttered, looking to the man. "Long enough." He took a draw of his cigarette, smoke bellowing from his nostrils as the van veered onto the road, moving forwards until it disappeared from sight. "I think Verity's doing a bit better, you know."

Wilfryd nodded, hands in his pockets, and opened the car door, sliding into the driver's seat as Arkady sat beside him. Wilfryd looked in the rearview mirror for a moment. The engine churned alive.

JULY 21 2021 

Are you going to let this continue? Puffy vest, snarky expression. Something sticky on the floor.

A-65 was getting used to see Gemini when he awoke, again finding the woman leaning against the wall outside his dorm. It had been a handful of days since his orientation and the training had continued. His aim had gotten better, marginally, and the fever in his chest had grown to an all out burning sensation. It had spread through his limbs, his hands searing and legs always boiling with heat. He had slept with the covers thrown from his body, like a hot summer's day, and had been disappointed – if unsurprised – to find that he could not open the windows of his dorm. There wasn't even an option for air conditioning, just the fans that swept fresh air into the room. It was cold, after all, yet even so he felt that chill leaving his body. He wondered whether or not it would be worth checking in again with A-1, though reminded himself of the comments the doctor had made; that this was normal and to be expected, uncomfortable as it was. He had still yet to find out why exactly the P-MAGE had been implanted in him, and did not know what it contributed to his continued recovery. Something wrong with his ability to control body temperature? That did not seem out of the question, when he thought about it. If he had died in an accident involving fire, and if his body had been so badly burnt-

He stopped the train of thought. Gemini smiled towards him.

"Good sleep?"

 "Alright."

They walked across the freezing courtyard and throughout the facility. A-65 had yet to see all of it, he realised, his own experience largely delegated to the lowest floor where the private medical lounges, cafeteria and Veritas bunker lay. The upper two floors – as well as the network of tunnels that supposedly lay beneath the foundations of the facility – were an utter mystery to him. As he stood in the elevator, Gemini on her phone, a thought crossed his mind:

"Are there stairs down to the Veritas bunker?"

 

"Oh, yeah. There are stairs that lead all the way down, if you can open the doors to them. The elevators were all that were ever used back when the facility was being constructed. Some were big enough to carry power tools and materials – whatever was stored in the warehouses."

 "Why were the stairs there, then?"

Gemini turned off her phone and slipped it in one of the pockets of the denim jacket she seemed to always wear:

"In case of fire, so anyone lower could reach safety or so anyone higher up could get lower down."

A-65 nodded.

"You seem to know quite a bit about them."

She scoffed.

 "Only what I needed." Gemini went to say something yet paused herself, vaguely gesturing with a gauntleted hand: "The whole subterranean bit isn't really important. It was pertinent to know when I was hired, that's all. I was among the first to be hired for this branch of Veritas."

There was a chime: the elevator doors opened. Gemini waved to Virgo as they stepped out.

"They wanted people with an interest in 'company history' at the time. That all sort of changed a while ago. Now they'll take anyone they can find." She held open the door to the lounge, looking back to A-65. Her expression suddenly turned aghast.

 "No offence."

A-65 chuckled, modulator broadcasting a mechanical whirr of sound. It was perhaps the first time he had seen Gemini's face show such striking emotion. 

"Your aim's better."

  Caprica was looking over towards A-65, who stood holding the handguns they used whilst training. He wondered if they would ever use other firearms: a part of him did find such a prospect exciting, especially considering that these two had clearly done their due diligence when it came to the safety of such matters, another part of his mind weary and intimidated by the prospect. He placed the gun on the shelf, changing the cochlear settings to allow for him to hear the ambient sound of the tunnel. He tried to speak, to give thanks to Caprica for the compliment, but found that he caught over his words and stumbled, modulator letting out a stuttering grumble before he righted himself.

"Thank you."

 Caprica leaned on her walking stick. Again his mind split: there was a part of A-65 that sought interest in why she walked with the cane, another mortified by the prospect of so brazenly asking her a question with such personal undertones.

"You're actually doing quite well, you know." Caprica said, showing some empathy to the man. "All things considered, I mean. I can't imagine the last few days have been easy on you."

 "Yeah." he responded, "They haven't really. It's been... confusing."

"How are you feeling about it though, really?"

 A-65 looked to her. He wasn't sure. That was the most honest answer he could give: he wasn't sure.

Gemini looked to A-65 as the training session concluded, raising a gauntleted hand to her chin and resting her head against it. He pushed the training rack aside with ease; Caprica walked over to stand beside her. She asked what was next, and – to a degree – Gemini was not certain. They could continue training as they were, yet the actual effect of said training would be debatable. He knew how to shoot a gun. Did he know how to fight? She really didn't want to stereotype, but she had read his file. Hell, he had told her all about it in his hiring interview: he was quite the brawler growing up, largely friendless in the rougher streets of London. Even as he continued through life, minor childhood crimes behind him, physicality was important to the man. She could see it now in his built physique. The question arose, of course, for as to whether or not he could put it to use in times of stress. She turned to Caprica.

"I think I'll show him around the place. Take him to the Gym?"

Caprica nodded apprehensively as Gemini shook her hands by her side, the metal gauntlets clattering as the joints clashed together. Her hands were all sore and itchy and she flexed the metal in the fingers, waving over for A-65 to come towards her as they departed the Veritas tunnels. Caprica divided from them, seemingly bearing some work to do, and again the two stood alone in the elevator.

"Is your name actually Gemini?"

 She looked to the man. His voice had grown in confidence over the last few days, though still there were questions he asked. That was fine, she thought. It would do him no good to keep secrets.

"No. It's a title given to me from the company, just as you are A-65 and Caprica is Caprica."

"Do you know Caprica's real name."

There was a pause for a moment: Gemini eyed A-65.

 "Yeah." She said, "I'm still not sure if I'm meant to, though."

"She told you it?"

Gemini nodded. The elevator chimed, and they exited into the broad pyramidal auditorium. They walked through this space frequently and often saw a few others lingering in it. Elsewise it seemed abandoned, snow falling atop the windowed wall as a blizzard raged outside. A blizzard always seemed to be falling, and Gemini noted that A-65 always seemed to stop to look at the snow. Perhaps it was an act he did not realise he was commuting, standing and staring for a moment before parting back to the task at hand. It was a beautiful sight, the kind of sight that divided the coldness of the hollow atrium from the body. It was cold indeed, the company suits never thick enough to stave off the chill. Gemini placed her hands in her pockets. A-65 did not feel cold at all. Atriums passed them by as they walked, hallways of white and silver emerging from darkened doors, pristine white illuminating shaded corners as the day churned outside. Again, emptiness. A sense of forlorn longing. Gemini and A-65 did not speak much.

"I'm Hannah. Caprica's Verity."

 

"Good to see you again, A-65. How are you settling in?"

Scalar held a clipboard close to his chest, walking towards some meeting that seemingly gave him time to burn in chat. His mechanical hand tapped the surface of the cardboard, glasses glittering in the pearlesence. He bore a strange facial structure, smooth and plasticised yet without the shininess one exudes upon over-indulging in cosmetic surgery. He was of indeterminate age, and that was perhaps why A-65 felt on edge around the man. It might have been an effect of his position in the company, seemingly one administrative and advisory in nature. 

"Alright. The Veritas people have been a help." He gestured towards Gemini, who smiled to him and Scalar. The man leered towards Gemini, his vision falling again to A-65 as he gave a brief nod, flicked through the papers of the clipboard and examined one of its contents.

"I'm glad to hear it. I might have something for you in the future – you too, Agent Gemini?"

"Oh?" Scalar looked up through his glasses towards the woman, vision then focused on A-65 once more.

 "We received a tip," he said, "relating to the location of several seized shipments of our goods. On transit from Clarity – which is our manufacturing site, A-65 – a handful of sterilised implants were unlawfully held at the Canadian border. It seems that the incident is more, perhaps, than a simple lapse in communication."

Scalar held the clipboard to the side, an aura of fascination in his voice. It drew into solace, A-65 thought, or perhaps contemplation. His expression was almost nostalgic.

 "If the case is assigned to you – and that is an if – you may be assigned with some of the Epsilon women. I believe you haven't met them yet, A65?"

A-65 shook his head. Scalar grinned and explained that such an event would be a wonderful opportunity to gain an acquaintance with them.

Gemini sat atop one of the benches in the largely barren gymnasium, A65 looking around at the equipment and machinery. A-65 was stunned at the sheer scale of the facility, hallways and stairwells an interwoven mesh of metal that seemed to go on and on. There were only three floors in the site, yet they were massive in nature and each split between several sub-levels. All were barren. Not derelict or abandoned but simply forgotten; it was as if the site, with its fifty-or-so employees, was expecting a sudden boom of population. The upper limits stretched inwards into Mt. Asgard, the mountain alike a hollow shell that the metal of the facility had sunken into. The mind wandered to wonder about cave systems and hollow tunnels within the mountain, perhaps beneath their feet or behind the sealed panels of a fan-vented room. He wondered about the tunnels, too, and often found his mind drawn there. As big and empty as they seemed to be, he wanted to see them, and felt in his conscience a wonder for as to whether or not they would be any more populated than the empty atriums and corridors. The social spaces were where employees congregated, that much was obvious, and many seemed to stay in favourable spots day upon day. Only a few seemed brazen enough to take the considerable jaunts out into the dorm block more than necessary

In this, it seemed that a feeling of belonging, perhaps of companionship, had set in between several employees and their spaces. He saw the two masked men, who he had been told were 'Ecstasy' and 'Valium', stay together frequently, and had seen the younger hires stick together alike close friends. They were REM Tech, and did not seem dissimilar from Veritas in some regards. A-65 had not spoken to them, nor had he with many others outside of his own bubble. He wondered, now, whether or not the gym would become a safe space for him. A place for socialisation birthed from mutual interest.

 A handful of people, men and women, were using the equipment of the gym. They were all athletic, machines and exercises assisting them in their goal to retain their physical fitness. Some were thin and athletic, others more hench and muscular. All seemed to be knowing what they were doing. When asked what he thought of it A-65 responded honestly. The equipment was good, though nervousness had crawled into his psyche. Gemini had asked why. He had responded, again honestly, that he was not sure. He had never been one for nervousness.

Rayleigh sat on the seat of a lat raise machine and looked to A-65 and Gemini as they wandered throughout the gymnasium. The place was almost empty and smelled, just as the training grounds did, of rubber and plastic, the fans whirring overhead. She was short and squat, dark-skinned with puffy blonde hair, and wore simple exercise gear: a sports bra and tracksuit trousers. An ostomy bag sat at her waist, a metal augment behind her ear. She observed the two: Gemini she knew, but the other? The anonymous? She was unsure of them, and swung her legs around the machine to walk towards the pair. From the underside of her ribcage to the top of her pelvis lay a large vertical scar alike a burnt stain down her body, flesh twisting towards the warped point as if it were a searing bisection down her form, a dark line that split her torso. It was a large scar, yes, but she walked with confidence renewed and waved to the two as she approached. She muttered a hello to Gemini, who introduced her as "Ray" to A-65. It was the closest company name he had heard that drifted towards a title someone may actually give themselves.

"Are you new?" She asked. "I haven't seen you here before."

The circumstances around A-65's hiring were not public knowledge, then. He explained it to the woman, who smiled deeply towards him. It seemed there was a similarity, there. She gestured towards the great scar across her stomach and then to the implant at her ear. Reviving technology that came with an offer for employment. She did not complain in her explanation, the veiled generosity of the company rearing itself in A-65's mind. Her explanation was good, yet a question stood, a query for as to what accident would have caused such a clean bisection.

 A-65 did not think it wise to ask. A connection formed, then, between him and this "Ray", a link in origin that he seemed to share with her colleagues. A belonging, then, for Ray was a member of the Epsilon team that Scalar had spoke of, and all among her bore a scar similar to her own. There were only a handful of Epsilon members and, like Veritas, all were women. They were one of the military divisions beneath Continuity Corporations, a caste of elite soldiers who utilised – as Ray put it – "Advanced exoskeletal technology". Armour alike a knight's suit of plate metal, actuated and with the hydraulics that every limb were a concrete pillar, every blow strong enough to dent metal. Ray did not seem like the type to bear such ferocious strength, as she sat and explained her job. Curiosity passed through his mind.

He asked Gemini later if she had ever worked with Epsilon before. She said that she and Veritas had; that they were only brought out in extreme instances of trouble. That such power was to be used in an assignment given to Veritas confused Gemini. It was an oddity, though an exciting one. The tour had, by the point of that conversation, concluded. They walked down a hallway alone, great windows overlooking the valley to their left side. Footsteps echoed: Gemini held her hands in her pockets. They were cold and she could not warm them up.

"How do you feel about having an assignment?"

 She asked, footfalls drooping as A-65 continued walking ahead. He shrugged. A degree of confidence had entered his body and voice in the days since his arrival here yet apprehension still remained.

"I won't bother you, will I?"

 Snow fell against glass, air falling through vents. He turned to look at Gemini. The white light of this room was lesser: the late afternoon sun shone atop her, casting a flat grey tone across the room and painting her black silhouette across the wall.

"Bother me? Come on, A-65. Your training's done, now."

 She moved quickly, darting ahead with her body close to the floor. A-65 heard a clinking sound alike metal on tile, her heel swooping wide and taking the man entirely off his feet. He clattered back and hit the ground with a thud, Gemini swooping over the man in a quick motion to wrap her arm around his neck. She panted, though only for a moment, pulling the back of the man into her body as her grip around his neck tightened. The rubber of the suit squeaked as she did so; a warmness, distinct and feverlike, presented itself from beneath. Gemini had hoped that the stunt would go over well, risky as it had been, and it seemed that the man understood. He threw himself forward in a half-roll, hunching his shoulders to sling the woman from his back. Flexible, in a swooping motion her back bent in a way that in hindsight A-65 realised would probably have hurt him deeply to do. Her boots touched the tile, arms still wrapped around his neck. A-65 then threw himself on his side, rolling slightly – the woman darted her boots across the ground, another squeaking sound escaped from the abrasive materials and she crawled up against his back. That was to be expected, though, and – with a strength he had not utilised in a while – A-65 hauled himself to his feet, lurching forward to allow his feet to fall flat against the floor, strong leg muscles hauling his torso up. Gemini still clung to him and wrapped her legs around his torso, pulling tighter as A-65 felt pressure increase. Abruptly, he ran backwards, and slammed Gemini's back into the wall. She let out a winded huffing sound and the pressure instantly released, her arms and legs unsealing from his body as she slid down the wall. She gasped for air momentarily.

"Are you alright?" 

The modulator transmitted a tone that bore a definite twang of worry and Gemini scrambled to her feet: A-65 held out his hand and helped her up, the metal gauntlets keeping her fingers and wrist dexterous. She spluttered for a few moments, expression turning to an apprehensive smile.

"Was that another test?"

 Gemini nodded, though seemed flustered by something. Embarrassment? Exhilaration, perhaps? It was an expression that seemed, at least in some ways, strange to A-65. He was unsure what to make of it.

"You're stronger than I thought." She spluttered, again gasping as the air knocked from her chest returned. Unhurt from the escapade though surprised. A-65 looked to the gauntlets on her hands and rubbed his neck. The rubber was slick from moisture, not sweat from his body, but cool and slick. Water, cold and icy. He held his hand before the light of the window and the droplets shone like the diamonds of morning, fog-filtered dew.

 "Your gauntlets," he said, "What do they do?"

Gemini, who had put her hands in her pockets again, removed them and looked down towards the intricate mechanisms it bore. The metal plates sat above cloth, a central point at the back of the hand a hollow ring-shaped disc that bloomed with tubes and pipes. Some pipes were stationary, running down the back of the hand where no joints lay, others flexible and thin, perhaps rubber in form, that followed from the central ring to the fingers or wrist.

 "It's related to my implant, Cygnet-09." She said, voice meeker and quiet. "They help to diffuse water from my hands. Their skin is quite saturated. It isn't pretty."

MARCH 12 2021 

"She's on the move."

The casket was empty, rattling around the back of the hearse as Wilfryd cascaded down the empty roads of the Alaskan country. Amber streetlamps warmed the tarmac enough so that no snow had settled, the thin frost across the rubber a slippery and hazardous obstacle. Arkady sat beside the coffin, letting out a shout as the box rattled across the container. He was hunched, lying down beside it. Wilfryd was at the wheel, Eamon sitting beside him. He did not look as professional as the two suit clad man in the car, his pale skin covered by little more than a grey tracksuit. His hair was long, thick and a deep golden blonde, his face chiseled and and toned. Like the other men, his right eye was covered by a patch, though unlike the two others, the greyish tone it bore was shining alike metal, and the edges and vertices of the small covering seeped and melted into his flesh. He bore piercings on his nose and mouth, twin studs that bore total symmetry, and his voice spoke with a boisterous confidence.

 "Where?"

"God, in the middle of nowhere. Nearby Layman, I guess?"

  "The village? We used to pass through there." Wilfryd darted a glance up through the rearview mirror. Arkady had grabbed down upon the coffin and fastened straps against its side. It still rattled, and he let out a bride curse. Wilfryd looked back to the darkened road ahead.

"Which direction is she headed?"

 "Eastwards." Eamon was leaning against the car window, one hand propping up his head whilst the other lay wrapped around his torso. His eye was shut, expression focused in concentration.

"There's a road that way, but I can't be certain that she's heading for it."

 "How quickly is she running?"

"Quick." Eamon opened his eye and looked over to Arkady: "I guess we didn't need to bring that thing."

Arkady shot a glance up to Eamon, the man's metallic expression jovial. He was not so impressed, leering before letting out a yelp. He fell over the casket, rolling to the other side of it as Wilfryd spun the vehicle around, wheels skidding on ice, as they shot forward atop the tarmac to retrieve his sister

JULY 22 2021 

It was perhaps the first time that this atrium space had been used, A-65 thought. A small office room alike a lecture theatre, desks set up in neat rows barren of monitors, books or other remnants of scholarly detritus. The smooth material of the desks, glossy alike marble, seemed totally clean; the air was silent and devoid of dust. A-65 let out a squeaking noise as the plastic of his body suit brushed together. A few heads turned to him and he shrunk in embarrassment, the faces seeming distant yet familiar. A few sat alongside him: Gemini, Ray and a handful of others he had yet to meet: Ray's fellows in the Epsilon team. There was Eve, a posh looking woman with hair a golden blonde. Roe, with tanned skin and frizzy hair, and Ace. Ace's skin was similarly tanned, hair black and cropped, with her face striking and stern. She looked, as did the other Epsilon members and Gemini, towards the front of the atrium. Scalar stood there, busy as ever, flicking through papers and glancing up towards the six viewers. Tap, tap, tap.

"Approximately one month ago, Clarity completed the manufacture of thirty instances of Implantation 'D3', a medical chip that induces bodily paralysis through rapid muscular contraction." Scalar had lifted a laptop onto the desk and clicked at one of the keys. A symbol showed up on the monitor behind him: a silver disc tapered at both ends – a D3 implant.

"They are single-use implantations driven into the nape of the neck when one undergoes major implantation surgery. It paralyses the body, sealing the muscles and nerves: an anaesthetic that loosens the body and mind to allow for more... invasive procedures to take place. After the procedure is completed, the implant is removed and disposed of. Almost like a syringe: used once, then disposed of to maintain hygienic decorum. Cheap to produce, yet potentially hazardous if held within the wrong hands. Due to this, they need to be – quite obviously – declared upon international transportation. This shipment: shipment 'D3-17', was seized in defiance of this declaration. Assumed to be a misunderstanding, the shipping contractors at Clarity kept in contact with border control. The shipment has since been moved inland by an... independent party."

Scalar raised his mechanical hand to flick his blonde hair out from his eyes, which darted across the six viewers. He let out a sigh.

 "Said party had access to Continuity Corporations work visas, which allowed them to cross the border, take the implantations and drive them inland. The shipment bears an internal tracking device, of course, which followed the route the thieves took. They followed barren country roads until diverting into the Alaskan Taiga. It is there that the shipment has remained."

The image shifted: an aerial satellite shot of the shipment's last known location. The shipment itself was telegraphed through the use of a marker, a red dot that shone amidst a sea awash with white, green and brown. Almost a blur was the forest, totally barren of structures and crisscrossed with the serpentine silhouettes of rivers.

"Little is known about this region, especially when considering any potential inhabitants. The worst bet that surveyor teams can offer is that the forest bears some sort of compound involved in technology trafficking operations, with mild security formed of some kind of civilian gang. Organised crime; a cartel that operates as a valve distributing proprietary technology to the general public or similar illicit groups. Their most optimistic guess is that it's a distribution centre, and that another lapse in communication between us and border control has occurred. That uncertainty is why you are being sent in to investigate. We have made the necessary arrangements: you will receive another briefing tomorrow then leave for the site. We will remain in contact."

"What will we do when we get there?"

Scalar looked to Rayleigh. There was a strange emotion on his face, unreadable in his plastic expression.

"You will investigate the location that shipment D3-17 is broadcasting from. This is a reconnaissance operation first and foremost, a recovery operation second. We believe it likely that the shipment remains there – the tracking chip itself transmits the weight of the shipment, which has not changed since its transportation from Clarity. In this regard, it may reside within a warehouse unseen on maps. Something recently or covertly constructed. There are no records of building projects in the area."

"And protection?"

 "That is perhaps the greatest unknown of the whole situation, Rayleigh. It's why Epsilon is being put to the task. The shipment is ours, as are its contents. US border control did not take them, it seems. Contact is permitted."