I had never had to use a bra before. The thought catches me off guard as I contemplate my form reflected in the train cabin's window. Another little idiosyncrasy. I look like a woman my parents would have loved to set me up with in my first life. Possessed of a traditional beauty and demeanor to match. Perhaps Miyuki was that sort of woman?
Nevertheless I am not, at heart I simply desired honest and gainful employment that did not see me have to risk life and limb. A very simple desire that I believe people share, especially when presented with the alternative.
Well perhaps not all people I amended as I took note of a ruffian shooting himself up in the same train car I was using to get to my interviews. The other passengers gave him a wide enough berth that he had a large circle around him empty of occupants.
He looked like some professional asymmetric body builder that had eschewed any sort of aesthetic development of the body and had shifted his focus into getting the biggest of muscles. I would estimate his height to be around two and a half meters on average with a bicep and a thigh the size of watermelons. As if air pumped through his engorged veins and inflated them to grotesque proportions while his other half was that of a normal man with atrophied limbs from disuse. Did he walk with his left leg and place his right arm on the ground to pull himself forwards?
All things considered he did not make for a pretty sight. Especially with the metal bars that pierced his skin, body literally unable to support his muscles without assistance. I could only assume that future steroids were advanced enough to only target the limb they were injected in. Was this the result of not following proper use guidelines? Did he only have enough money to not die from his own stupidity? Shopping for clothes must be an effort in futility for him.
I ended my musing and looked away towards the speakers that came on with a smooth dun dun. "Now arriving at City Cent…"
"The fuck where you looking at!?" The ruffian shouted as he moved towards me. My earlier hypothesis proved partially correct, he stood on both legs, forced to bend the muscled one to account for the height differential and placed his right arm as a sort of third leg or cane while his other arm dangled awkwardly at his side.
When he finally loomed over my sitting form "Merely admiring the effort you put into your physique, it is astonishing." I responded sincerely. motioning to his body. The effort that went into making the drug he consumed and the metal rods accurately placed to provide the most support possible were worthy of admiration, as was the astonishing disfigurement that he suffered from. Would it have been more economical to amputate and purchase cyber replacements? It would have definitely been better for his quality of life.
"You like my guns, huh?" He said rhetorically, flexing both his arms above his head. I noted how he grabbed the hanging strap while he did so. "How about you come with me and I treat you to a private show up close and personal, promise to rock your body so well you'll need new chrome when I'm done with you."
"They are certainly something," I agreed. "however this is my stop and I have a meeting I need to attend, so I will have to demur your invitation. Maybe next time." I said smiling in a conciliatory fashion as I made to stand.
"I wasn't asking. Either you put your pretty mouth round lil Richie and start sucking or your brain can decorate the window and then I'll fuck what's left of you, maybe even take your ass with me. My personal joy toy." He said, having drawn a gun from his waistband and started waving it around to emphasize his points. "So what do you say?" He questioned, moving to press the gun against my head.
I spun a reflex enhancement formula and a mage shell around me. My hand shot to his and twisted the barrel upwards. My leg crashed into his weak knee, shattering it. I formed a knife hand and spun a mage blade on it, as he fell forwards I struck. Penetrating through his eyeball and exiting from the back of his skull.
I stared incredulously at his corpse, head halfway impaled through my forearm. There was something nagging at the back of my head but I couldn't quite figure out what was bothering me about it.
Before I could identify the issue the speakers came on. "You have now arrived at City Center." The soft voice of a woman said.
I released my grip on the now deformed gun barrel and heard its thunk echo through the silent train car. I put my free hand against his head and pulled my other arm free, dripping bits of gray and pink onto the floor.
I had dressed myself in cream colored jeans (that had been pilfered from my brother's wardrobe, I was not wearing any variation of a skirt to work, at least not without buying shorts to wear beneath), a button up blouse tucked into the jeans and a black suit jacket over it. I cut a rather assertive figure with the distinct tones breaking up the normal and monotonous greys whites and blacks, setting me apart from any other would be hire but at the same time not too bold as to be considered problematic.
With the way the blood had splattered all over me it was safe to say that I cut a much more distinctive and problematic figure half bathed in red. It was too late to go back to my apartment and change into something else so I pressed onwards towards Arasaka Tower.
My hands twitched towards my hair as I walked, aching to do something about it. It was infuriating to not be able to control such a simple aspect of my presentation. I would have to study different hairstyles after I cleaned myself. Were there any specialized cleaning products to wipe away blood from cloth and skin? I mused idly as I inspected my nails and did the best that I could to clean the gunk stuck beneath them without dirtying my other hand. Then I realized there were chunks of brain beneath my nails.
The blood was understandable, when closing in on aerial combat fine tuning a mage shell to keep out only certain levels of moisture and not others was a waste of calculating ability that could be better used to increase reflex enhancements or change the angle of approach or any one of a thousand little things to give you that extra edge.
The brain matter on the other hand was a solid chunk of flesh that should have been stopped by a mage shell as the mage blade is layered over it, not below.
...
I had no computation jewel.
I was inside a city of steel and concrete.
I had no magic.
...
Two of those things were much more important than the other.
I could feel my ears coloring with embarrassment. Upon being thrust into a dangerous situation I had fallen back onto the instincts of my past life that had served me so well. I would have to acquire better instincts.
I silenced that part of my brain that kept saying things about being peaceful and being different in this third life of mine so there would be no reason to retrain those instincts. The closest I had ever been to peace was my first life where each nation was capable of killing each and every other nation at the same time, or at least wiping out massive multi-city sized swathes of their population. Being able to protect myself would not go amiss.
At heart I was not a violent person and being good at a skill did not mean I would have to use it but needs must and if it became necessary then I preferred to be in the position where I could insure at bare minimum mutual destruction to make any rational actor reconsider their course of action.
I came to a stop before Arasaka Tower. I had forgotten what it was like to stand at the entrance of a building, turn my head up and have the illusion that it stretched forevermore into the sky. A good reminder of how very small we all are in the end. Ace of Aces, Devil of the Rhine, commander of the 203rd Air Mage Battalion, and unable to do anything but prolong the death knells of The Empire before the incompetence and utter lack of vision plaguing high command.
It was grating in the worst of ways, to have risked my life instead of having some cushy rear echelon position compounded by the pointless senselessness of the war itself and amplified by the stupidity of high command. Whatever treaty would have been forced upon Germania I was certain I would not be left with a single pfennig to my name. The government would not be able to afford it beneath the weight of reparations and it was oh so easy to steal the bread and labor from the jobless and likely destitute. It didn't matter that we had fought, killed and died at their behest.
The queer looks people were giving me brought me out of my thoughts. Staying still and staring up at a building instead of going in was weird and so I placed one foot in front of the other and entered through the sliding glass doors. Made my way past two cleverly designed full body metal detectors that meshed well with the architecture. Ignored the hexagonal stalactites near the roof and made my way to the Lobby hiding behind a massive pillar.
Three lounge areas greeted me with people already discussing business in quiet hushed tones. Shining lights hanging from the ceiling bathing the hexagonal stalactites to their sides in a golden gleam and beneath those overpasses high above me with people crossing from wall to wall.
Three elevators at the end of my path. I made my way into the centermost one and manipulated the holographic display to press the 43rd floor.
I held the elevator doors as a man made his way to join me.
If the man I had killed in the.. is it the metro if it is not underground? A tram would have rails on street level, an overway or superway? Like a pedestrian bridge to cross over a street but instead following the street from above. I was getting off topic.
If the man I had killed was a mesh of a biological body with technological bits mixed in then this man was the opposite. A steel body painted black with grey accents, a piece of artillery mounted on his shoulder, reinforced tubes running from the back of his suit to his head, the jaw part of his armor, with the only piece that had skin showing being the scalp on his head to a centimeter or so below his nose. Every step a ponderous thud that echoed through the lobby and rebounded inside the elevator.
We were not so different him and I.
"Would you happen to have a handkerchief?" I queried.
"No." He rumbled out in response.
"That's unfortunate." I commented as the doors closed.
Chp4
"I hope you have a wonderful and productive day." I said as I stepped out of the elevator.
The room I entered had rows upon rows of cylindrical glass tubes arrayed in concentric circles that varied in width and height from small jars to vase sized ones that came up to my knees and beyond that growing bigger as they approached the center. The biggest one was akin to a massive tree that had overgrown piping and tubes branching off from the bottom of it every which way and making a mess of the floor space.
Faint shadows floating in dark liquid, the only thing that could be discerned behind the fogged up glass. My breadth misted before my eyes. It was an interesting sensation, the way my body told my brain that it was cold but I didn't feel cold. Or I had the option to ignore it? It was muted, a distant awareness that I was cold but when I focused upon it brought into sharp relief allowing me to examine the sensation of phantom wind ghosting upon my skin making my hair stand on end.
It also had an unfortunate effect on the blood covering my face. Were there any publicly available baths or showers in the tower? I could do without the stickiness. Nevertheless I still needed to verify Myuki's past employment and check if I still had the job or not. If not I coul..a loud thump broke me out of my reverie. Turning around I found out that the handkerchief less cyborg had followed me off the elevator. I raised a single incredulous eyebrow at the red dimly lit orbs he had in his eye sockets. Of all the floors he could go to.
I sighed, releasing another puff of white air and continued on my way accompanied by an additional set of footsteps that were obscenely loud for the quiet of the laboratory. The trail I was following was a large circular path around the vials free of any tubing or wire mesh compared to the space between vials further in that was riddled with tripping hazards.
As we completed a half rotation I could hear a girlish voice speaking with a peppy tone.
"E-ri-ka!" The voice whined, enunciating each syllable. "Don't be like this, we always find a way to sort out our differences. Why does that have to change now?"
"Don't touch me!" The loud sound of skin striking skin accompanied the shrill scream, resounding from beyond the door.
Caught in an awkward situation where staying and eavesdropping was unprofessional but interrupting seemed significantly worse, with each passing moment the chance that someone would storm out and find me there only growing, resting the ability to spin a narrative from my hands. I could feel my indecisiveness increasing as I searched for the correct course of action.
"No call, no text, not even a letter for me to read and then you barge back into my life acting like nothing happened wanting to pick up where we left off because you need something!? Well guess what, nothing happened, for years and years nothing ever fucking happened so why don't you…" Naturally, my erstwhile companion -uncaring of the plight I had found myself in- merely plod onwards towards destined defeat dragging me with him by unfortunate association.
I reluctantly entered the room behind him and took my place at his right side.
It was… I was expecting black marble floors, perhaps an ergonomic table with a black chair behind it. The sort of thing that seemed appropriate or high tech and snobbish but not too snobbish as it wouldn't do to be gauche. An overcompensating room that screamed "I don't care if you're impressed… but please be impressed!". The type that fit with the architecture I had seen on my way here that spoke of the individual identity being subsumed or willingly divested from oneself to appear more Arasaka.
Instead it had a very homey feel to it. Bright yellow rays streaming in through the window covering a whole wall, warm looking rugs strategically placed beneath comfy looking couches that seemed designed to lounge around with them all facing the view from the city below with a kotatsu placed in between them. Meanwhile the owner worked behind a wooden desk on top of a chair with generous padding. Both the walls and floor were made of wood and their light brown tones meshed well with the light. The only thing that impacted the room's openness or appeal was in how the couches faced away from the door and the small corridor led directly to the desk without a place for a visitor to sit or wait.
In said corridor to the right of the wooden desk I found a woman roughly my own height with blue highlights in the last centimeters of her black shoulder length hair glaring murderously at my fellow cyborg.
"Adam." The woman warned, hands clenched at her sides.
Behind her a short redhead fuming in anger, tears brimming from her eyes.
"I haven't had a cut of fuckable meat in some time." My eyes widened at the impudence and my palm rose to cover my face. I should have hidden behind the doors and entered when he left, saved whatever career I could have salvaged from dying to his stupidity. "Yorinobu wishes to meet." The faint tinge of amusement barely discernible past the electronic growl of his voice modulators. At least one of us was having fun. I grit my teeth to keep my hands from wandering to his neck and doing something unfortunate.
His piece said he took a little chip of some kind and flicked it at the blue haired woman.
An older gentleman with a salt and pepper beard -hair likewise colored- blurred into existence catching the chip before it could touch her. A strong chiseled jaw, wide set shoulders, barely half a head shorter than Adam with a single fleck of hair covering his face and an odachi held behind him in his other hand.
"Did you fail to learn from Kagekaze-dono? I had thought you strived to correct your deficiencies with all that metal of yours Adam-bō, but it appears that what remains is far beyond its measly ability to fix."
Adam snorted in response. "The only deficiency is your flesh. Test your blade against me and you will find it lacking."
"Let the mongrel be Kenichi, we have matters to attend to."
"You heard her little samurai, scurry along."
And with that Kenichi silently departed behind the clacking heels of his employer leaving me alone in the room with the socially inept Adam and my own would be employer.