by Samuel Small
When his eyes opened they were met with pitch darkness. After a few seconds the bits of shadows began to fuzz over and Leal could make out indistinct shapes, although there weren't many to make out. Just the corner where the wall met the ceiling of the hotel room. A dull whine filled the room, which Leal wouldn’t have been able to hear had everything else not been so silent. Slowly he turned his head, even though he had a feeling he knew where the sound came from already.
The bed next to him was occupied, Hikawa’s back turned to him. She murmured a few things painfully then shivered. It looked like Leal was lucky, having been taken back into a happy memory. Hikawa, evidently, wasn’t so fortunate. He tried to give her privacy and not focus on the sound, but with nothing else filling the room he found himself deciphering the indistinct syllables. Her sister. The war. The power to end it from the inside. Just as Leal was about to turn away and shut her out, one last phrase left her lips.
“Why did you have to die for that thing?”
8
Leal and Hikawa hadn’t stepped so much as a foot onto the concrete streets of the Republic when a guard ran to them. They didn’t even ask him to verify himself or his guest, they got right to the point.
“Sir, General Iroh wants you to call him as soon as you get back.”
Leal already had an idea of what this was about and pulled out his comp. He pressed along the menu until he came to the portrait of General Iroh then clicked it. “General, this is Major Miles, calling as per your request.”
As he waiting for a response Leal checked on Hikawa, who wasn’t looking at him or the device she should have thought was strange. Her attention was focused on the towering buildings of the Republic that almost breached the rolling clouds above. Leal smirked at the idea of the woman, who always carried herself so indifferently, being interested in anything.
“Major Miles, good. I was waiting for your call.”
“You understand that you could have called me, correct sir?”
“I understand that, but I figured due to the sensitive nature of your investigation that I’d refrain from doing so.” There was a pause as General Iroh looked for the next words to say, but Leal already had a feeling of what they would be.
“Another murder, sir?”
“That’s correct, Major. I’ll send the coordinates to your comp.”
“Right,” Leal said, then clicked the device onto his waist. He turned to tell Hikawa what his call was about, but her jaded stare indicated that she understood. Without a word Leal began down the city streets, taking out his comp and checking the coordinates that General Iroh sent to him. They weren’t far, but something in them looked familiar. He wondered why that was when Hikawa’s voice broke his thoughts.
“This place, it’s as... advanced as I’d heard.”
“Do they talk about the Republic a lot in the Purist village?”
“Not really. It’s just that my daughter is very interested in this place.”
“I see. I suppose the younger generation doesn’t truly understand what happened.”
“I’d say they aren’t tainted by hate. Unlike us adults.”
Leal wanted to say that might be true, but then his mind flashed back to the size and stature of the murderer. They weren’t extremely small, but they didn’t look fully grown either. Perhaps a teenager.
“How old is your daughter?”
“She just turned sixteen.”
“I see…” Leal mumbled as he continued forward.
They walked into the winding streets of the Republic, brushing past travelers as they made their way to the scene. To Leal, there were two structures that seemed to look down on them the entire walk there. The first was the large tower of the administrative building. Ever present, that was where the higher government resided, including General Iroh and Führer Bellator. The second was the abandoned steel factory, which laid directly in his path. He marched toward it as if that were his destination, with the administrative building staring into his back.
Soon they entered the alleyway where the murder was committed. The entrance was roped off with yellow tape and several guards shoed some primary education students away. They all turned to take in Leal and snapped to attention. After all three saluted him, the one in the center approached. “Sir the body’s in there,” he said, pointing to the alley. Leal figured that much and nodded, then told Hikawa to follow him inside.
A body was slumped against a wall with a blanket draped over it, a streak of blood running from the top to the position it now lay. Hikawa didn’t seem at all apprehensive to see a violently murdered body, hell she seemed a bit impatient if anything. He should have figured she’d seen much during the war and tore the sheet off.
It was like every other corpse Leal had encountered. Pale face, frozen in horror. Guard uniform, just a little out of place due to the fight they put up. Those burn marks, unmistakably from a Purist. But there was something else that caught Leal’s eye as well. There were a few lacerations on the guard’s arm. Defensive wounds? The murderer hadn’t made any attempt to conceal that he was using a dagger this time around, despite the fact that none of the other bodies had those kinds of injuries before. Was it because Leal saw him and reported it?
As Leal stood there with his knuckle resting against his chin Hikawa came into view from his peripheral vision. She made her way to the body with confident steps then knelt down and ran her hand over the stomach, seeming to feel the rising bumps of the burns. “These are...uneven,” she mumbled.
“What does that mean?” Leal asked.
Hikawa paused over the body for a few seconds, her back turned to Leal, seeming to consider what the uneven burns meant. After a few seconds she looked at Leal from over her shoulder. “This wasn’t a natural Purist.”
“‘Natural’? What do you mean ‘natural’?” Leal asked as the woman got to her feet, but she didn’t answer, nor did she make any eye contact with him. Instead she only shook her head, eyes locked on the blood stained ground. “But if another has come into being…” she mumbled, although it seemed to be more to herself than to Leal. Her narrowed eyes shot open and she immediately headed out of the alley. “I have to go,” she said as she strode away. But Leal didn’t let her, he grabbed her forearm, prompting her to stop.
“Wait. I’m not a Purist, so I don’t know what any of that means. What do the burns being uneven have to do with anything? And what is this about them being unnatural?”
“It’s exactly because you’re not a Purist that I can’t tell you,” she said, then tore out of his grip. He followed her, repeating his questions as she ducked under the yellow tape. He followed her out of the crime scene and down the street, but she ignored him. Again, he extended his arm out to grab her, but she turned sharply around.
“I must be going now, Major,” she said with such authority that it forced Leal to stop. Her hands were clenched at her sides and her feet evenly spaced apart. A Purist battle stance he was all too familiar with. Leal let his outstretched hand drop to his side, then nodded.
“Right. Thank you for your help, regardless of how cryptic it might be.”
Then she turned and walked away. Leal could have sworn she mumbled “I’m sorry,” as she left, but it was probably his imagination. He watched her dark-haired figure fade into the maze of people that marched along the main road, then looked to the ground. Among a few trash cans was a charred piece of metal. This wasn’t too far from the crime scene so he decided to give it a closer look.
It looked like something that would snap onto the wrist, only the clamps were pried open from whatever broke them. There was a small nozzle at the front and the remains of what could have been a glass or plastic tank. It wasn’t attached to the device, but there were bits of shattered material in the area. Whatever this thing was it was cast aside in a hurry.
Unnatural, Leal thought. Then images flashed in his mind. The uneven burn marks. The lacerations that were only present on this most recent body. The charred device in his hand
. There was a connection between all of these things, he was sure of it. And hadn’t that kid, Loid, mentioned something about devices that could gather and fire Pure Sol? If this guy had such a device, if this was such a device, it would explain a few things.
A guard came in from the alleyway to talk to Leal, but at that point he’d already stuffed the strange device into his pocket. “Sir,” the guard said, but Leal turned away.
“I’m heading to the morgue. You guys can take it from here.”
9
When Leal first entered the morgue it seemed empty. The flickering lights cast everything in a strange morbid hue that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He’d never been here alone and he realized that it actually was pretty creepy if there wasn’t someone to talk to. He crept across the way and his attention was sent to the large files that lined the far wall. Within those files were numerous corpses, no doubt some of his comrades whose lives he’d yet to avenge. Leal’s eyes remained locked on those drawers until a bang came from the room next to him and he shouted then fell flat on his ass.
“Eh? Is someone there?”
The door creaked open, the boy Loid on the other side with his body behind it. He craned his neck out of the entryway and looked from side to side then to Leal. “My father is out at the moment, but if you’re willing to wait he’ll be right back.”
“No, that’s okay,” Leal said as he stood up. He dusted off whatever the hell was on his rear end, which he could only imagine considering the purpose of this place, then turned to Loid. “Actually, it’s for the better that he isn’t here. The one I came to talk to is you.”
“Me?” Loid said and pointed to his face, as if the matter needed additional clarification.
“Yes. Regarding those Pure Sol devices you’re working on…”
“Oh!” Loid said, then stepped out of the room and slammed the door shut by pressing his weight against it. He leaned into the door in a clear attempt to prevent Leal from entering. The Major tried to peek through the glass window that rested on it, but Loid raised himself to his tiptoes to obstruct his vision. “It’s a top-secret invention. I know that you guards all want the latest stuff, but I can’t just reveal-”
“Loid, do you see any advanced weaponry on my person?”
Leal extended his arms out so that Loid could get a good look at his equipment and the boy leaned in and scanned him. He looked up and down Leal’s body, poking his head from left to right, ending the inspection by sniffing Leal’s stomach for some reason. The boy seemed satisfied and returned to his standing position, although he no longer blocked the door so forcefully.
“Okay, so you aren’t inquiring about devices for your own personal use. Then what do you want to know?”
“What I want to know,” Leal said as he dug into his pocket. He felt the uneven and warped metal with his fingertip and fished it out. “Is if this is one of those devices.”
Loid grabbed it out of Leal’s extended hand then held it up to the poor light provided by the ceiling. It only took him a second to analyze it, as he soon returned it to Leal’s outstretched palm. “Yep that’s one of ‘em. The kind that can gather Pure Sol and release it, though the container looks busted. This one’s too destroyed for me to fix, but if you want I can-”
“That isn’t necessary, all I needed was confirmation,” Leal said, then felt the weight of the investigation bear into him all at once. He fell back and sat on one of the slabs used to examine bodies, but he didn’t care. He felt so exhausted it didn’t matter. So this guy wasn’t a natural Pure Sol user, hell he wasn’t a Sol user at all. But that still begged the question of why he bothered to use such a device. From what Leal had seen, he appeared much more comfortable with a blade than whatever the hell the device resting in his palm was.
Once his awe passed Leal looked to Loid, who seemed entranced by him for whatever reason. “Do you know where a normal citizen can get one of these?”
“A normal citizen? That would be impossible. Hell, even among the military I’ve been instructed to only give them to people who Führer Bellator himself approves.”
Leal made sure to file the part about Führer Bellator in his head for later consideration, then spoke. “Let me rephrase, is there a place where an ordinary citizen can go to steal this kind of device?”
“Yes,” Loid said, then explained.
10
It was dusk by the time Leal made it the factory. The sun was no longer visible but its presence still lingered, evident by the waning light. The city usually had some sort of streetlight or something that kept the shadows of the night at bay, but this place was different. The whole area lingered with darkness that crept along the edges of Leal’s vision and as the sun continued to dissipate it only got more intense.
Leal stood in front of the abandoned entryway of the factory and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness completely. If he was going to face what he thought he was going to face on the inside he’d need to be completely prepared. Leal scanned the rusted edges of the large open entryway and ran his hand along it. Some strange liquid rubbed onto his finger and he brushed it off on his pant leg.
The sun was gone now and his eyes were adjusted to the dark, but still Leal hesitated. He hadn’t bothered to tell anyone where he was going, not even General Iroh. That was because he already got the feeling he stumbled upon a few government secrets already and if knew too much…
Well, Leal didn’t want to think about that.
Being that standing there was only going to keep his mind wandering into darker places, he breathed in as much fresh air as he could, which still had a hint of dust and rust in it on account of his proximity to the factory, then took his first step inside.
Chains hung from the ceiling, swaying as if pulled along by the lingering spirits that rested here. The machines on the inside looked old and worn, some slumped over and slanted: an indication that they were crushed under their own weight over time. There were conveyor belts with pieces of metal still along the line, literally frozen in time. Leal wasn’t taking in the sights as he looked all around the dark factory, however. He was being sure to watch for any sign of movement, any slight shift within the shadows that may be his enemy. If he was correct-
Leal’s ears took in a faint sound. It was completely inaudible; the only indication that a sound occurred at all was a very dull vibration in his ear. He stopped dead in his tracks and tried to locate it or any indication that something was moving in this place.
It was dull, but after focusing heavily Leal was able to make out a slight tap. Something that could be dismissed as an animal or the wind to the uninterested ear. But Leal heard a cadence, a careful rhythm to the sound. It started, then stopped. Waited. Then started again.
Creeping footsteps.
Leal had the disadvantage of having walked right through the front door and was well out in the open. No doubt this person knew he was here. Yet they didn’t want him to know they were there and were avoiding him by steadily creeping away. That narrowed down the possibility of who it might be. If it was just some kid hanging out in a place they shouldn’t be they’d have just bolted as soon as he showed up. If it was a homeless person, they wouldn’t bother to hide. But this person was creeping along and based on the sound away from him. Leal focused his eyes on the encompassing darkness that swirled before him. He checked for any sign of movement and there it was, directly in front of him. A shift in the darkness.
“Halt!”
The movement stopped but Leal had track of where it was. The top of it moved and he knew why: they turned to look at him, where they’d see that he was focused directly on them. After that, the whole figure shifted, then lit up with a blue glow. Courtesy of the ball of Pure Sol gathering in their hand.
“I see you’ve managed to retrieve another one of those devices. Must’ve been difficult after your last one got fried,” Leal said as he inched his hand toward his rapier.
This other person’s body was now lit by the ball
they held in their hand. It was no doubt the same person he’d fought on that day. Same black trench coat, same small build. They held the ball in their hand casually, the same way one would hold an apple they were deciding to bite. Only in this case the person wasn’t deciding whether or not to eat, it was to attack. Leal wasn’t sure if this was a conscious decision or not, but he decided to find out.
“So what’s the point? Posing as a Purist, attacking guards? I can’t seem to figure out the endgame, no matter how many possibilities I consider.”
With those words, the cloaked boy’s body tensed ever so slightly. It was only the slightest of muscle spasms, but Leal had interrogated enough people to pick up on tiny details like that. So, this one was heavily focused on their end goal, their ideology. In that case…
“The Genocide was horrible and the current government hasn’t done anything to make up for it. They just act like it wasn’t their business, like overthrowing the Mad King was enough. Frankly, I find it disgusting.”
There was no bite on that one. Instead, the boy rose to full height, no longer seeming to consider what to do with the pulsing ball in their hand. They still held it the same way, but there was a confidence to it now. Like holding the final piece to a puzzle. Or the solution to a problem.
Leal clicked his tongue as energy tore out of that ball, headed straight for him. He quickly pivoted on his foot and let the river of light rush by, making a straight line out of the entryway he’d just gone through. It screeched and twisted, seeming to burn his skin despite the fact that he wasn’t touching it at all. He ignored the pain and darted for his opponent.
He ran along the trailing line of blue energy that roared and lit up the room with violently pulsing light. The heat flashed and sent his collar smacking against his neck, but Leal was barely aware of the sensation. Rather, he focused on his hip and the rapier that was sheathed there. In one quick motion he pulled it out, just as he closed in on his adversary.