"But I need to care for my brother. Can I bring him along with me to India? I won't let him know anything," Fumiko asks her first question.
"It's up to you but leaving him in India or Japan wouldn't make a difference to him," Goda replies.
"I don't understand," Fumiko says.
"You will be staying in our on-site hostel facility which is inaccessible by outsiders. Your brother will have to stay in his school hostel. There are strictly no visiting onto our premise and you as a staff member can only apply for home leave once a year. Our base is a high security facility. If everyone starts entering and leaving as he or she like, the level of security will be compromised. You might as well leave him back in a country where he has is less foreign," Goda adds.
"I... I can't. I'm all he has," Fumiko says feeling disappointed that the working conditions are not at all family friendly.
Fumiko stares down at her knees for a few seconds before announcing, "I can't accept the offer. I'm sorry." Money is no comparison to her brother. Since the loosing of her parents, Fumiko has come to realize that there is only one person left in this world who is of the same blood with her. She can't bear the mere thought of leaving him and letting him grow up alone. Money isn't everything, their bond is.
"This is a one time opportunity. The six others out there will trade anything to be offered the job," Goda tries to persuade.
"You can offer it to them. I'm sorry to have wasted your time," Fumiko declines the offer one more time and stands up from her chair, bows to him and turns to leave. The innocent and then naïve Fumiko does not know that this will eventually lead to her brother’s near death.
Goda sits back in his chair as he watches her leave. With his chin resting over his laced up fingers, he starts thinking, plotting.
"Mr. Goda, do we call schedule for another selection process?" the same Nigerian woman knocks on the already opened door before asking.
"No. She will be the candidate," Goda replies.
"I understand. I will have someone handle it," the woman says.
"Remember. The brother is the concern," Goda reminds before waving his hand for her to leave.
BACK TO CURRENT TIME
Ada raises her head from her forearms, blinking off the tears in her eyes, as she takes deep breaths to curb the sadness from choking her.
Back then, she has never wondered about the coincidences of her brother's accident to the Hive. However, since Zero unearths the piece of truth, she has lost all trust and the first thing that creeps into an empty heart is doubt.
Hiroto fell off the train's platform the day after my interview. Did Goda do this to him to get me here?
A sudden surge of horror floods through Ada's nerves, knowing that the Hive might have been responsible for her brother's accident. The mere thought that she has treated the Hive as her savior all these while makes her cringe.
However, being the rational kind Ada still needs to see solid evidence that proof her doubts.
Ada is determined to get to the bottom of it even if it is going to cost her her life. Ada keys a string of codes into the computer and starts to access data to lifegrids from six years ago. If this has been a plot and executed by one of the ghosts in this Hive, then there must be a record of it.
Her supercomputer then prompts:
Search project archive by:
○ Keywords
○ Date
○ Project ID
○ Randomer ID
○ Ghost ID
Ada then clicks at the first search criteria - keywords.
Enter keyword(s)
[ ]
To search by:
○ Exact match ○ All related matches
The computer prompts further.
Ada types in Hiroto Nakahara and clicks on Exact Match. She takes a deep breath hoping to find nothing and hits her finger onto the Enter button.
Her supercomputer returns to her one hundred and eighty four search results but it is easy to filter through for the right one as the date of her brother's accident was June 4th six years ago. Ada bites her teeth together anxiously as she screens the dates to the long list that backdated to the time the Hive was set up. Halfway down, she spots it!
Ada clicks on the file and it immediately downloads and opens onto her supercomputer. Indeed it is Goda's work. The truth crushes down on her brain blanking her out and like a puppet broken off it's strings, Ada keels over onto her knees as her left hand grabs the edge of the table for support. She feels sick to the core. They tried to murder her brother so that she will take this job. He is dead because of her and she now feels responsible for his death. She is what cost him his young life. Deranged and destroyed by the lies and betrayal of the Hive, Ada is now condemned to nothing but revenge.
Chapter 40
Malaysia: Thursday, 20th November 1:46 a.m.
A little stray puppy, fully black with just a single white heart shaped patch on the rump of its back is lost. It has lost its mother and has wandered too far off to ever find its way back to her. No one will understand how a barely six weeks old puppy can go so far off into the highway. Under the orangy streetlights, the puppy sees a pair of headlights coming. It quizzically trots into the middle of the three-lane highway to anticipate the arrival of a pair of rumbling lights. Speeding at 125km/hr in the dim lights, the sedan's driver can hardly see the black animal until the vehicle is just about ten meters before it. Tires screech as the driver immediately hits the brakes and veers the blue sedan away from the puppy, but she isn't fully successful. The front tire manages to brush against the puppy's left shoulder, ripping off a part of its skin by friction.
The driver, looking back through her rear view mirror sees the puppy still alive and whistles a breath in relieve that she did not squash the poor animal flat.
The puppy hobbles back towards the roadside and lies down whining in pain.
Not long after the painful incident, a single headlight is seen coming towards the puppy's direction. Frightened, the puppy backs up clumsily and falls backwards, rolling down into the ten meters steep gorge behind it.
The headlight zooms to the same spot and smoothly steers into the emergency lane before stopping by the roadside. It is the yellow and black super-bike. The rider in his gray coat removes his full faced helmet and alights from his machine. Chin removes his helmet and casually climbs over the metal barrier between the highway and the gorge. Under the dim lights he walks on the outside of the metal barrier until be sees it - the yellow paint mark on the tar beside the grass. Hidden under the overgrown grass of the slope is a rusty metal ladder.
"Light the ground," Chin instructs his leech and the clever instrument detects the device's orientation and emits a bright white light from its band according to Chin's movement to shine only to the ground.
With the guiding light, Chin steadily climbs down the ladder to the bottom of the gorge. He is not unaware of the puppy's continuous cry for help but there isn't a sentiment of sympathy left in him. Chin walks with a deaf ear to the man made tree and lowers one knee onto the grass. There is a small rock by the tree and Chin places his thumb to the surface of the rock. The surface lights up and scans his bio-metrics. The grass covered trapdoor before him depresses from the ground and slides open. Chin walks down the dark cement staircase with his heavy footsteps echoing into the hollow tunnel. Once he is inside the underground tunnel, the trapdoor slides close above him and the tunnel lights up like a jet bridge. Chin marches towards the metal door at the end of the twenty feet gray tunnel.
Chin continues over to the door and opens the simple shutter. Feeling overly secure that no one will discover the underground cell, Chin doesn’t even bother to lock the metal door. Chin pushes the heavy door back and it squeaks of weight.
From the inside, Nikki cringes with panic and fright as bright light slices into the darkness of her cell through the opened doorway. She closes her eyes and prays in sobs hoping that they will not kill her. The door swings open slowly and all she can see
through her squint is a dark shadow of a large man standing before the blinding white light.
"Oh my God... oh my God..." she sobs in a cracked voice, crying that all hope is lost. She is sure that isn't Zach. So it must be the kidnappers.
Nikki's dry and cracked lips trembles as she tries to swallow the little saliva left in her mouth down her sore and dry throat. No water or food have been provided to her since having been tied up inside the cell. This is the first time someone ever came around and she doesn't know what to hope for.
The man enters the cell and closes the door after him with a heavy clank and turns the cell lights on. Bright like the tunnel, Nikki's natural response is to shut her eyes from the blinding brightness.
"I see you are still alive," the killer utters in a spine chilling deep voice.
"Please spare me... You've got the wrong person... I'm just a clerk... I don't have money... we are not rich..." Nikki begs in tears. Once her eyes allow it, she opens them to see her abductor for the first time. The large Chinese man with a diagonal scar across his square face looks brutal and ferocious.
"I know who you are..." Chin continues with a sick laugh and a pause before resuming, "...Nikki Portman."
Nikki's already pale face turns stiff and blue with shock.
"What do you want?" Nikki stammers.
"Your life," Chin threatens with a cold, hard stare to which Nikki bursts out sobbing again.
"Where's my husband? What did you do to him?" Nikki further sobs her next question.
"He is enjoying much better treatment than you are," Chin answers, his face turning hard and cold again.
"Who sent you? Why are you doing this?" Nikki cries.
"You really want to know?" Chin asks, lowering his face towards hers as he snarls.
"If I'm going to die at least let me know what I am dying for," Nikki pleads. She cannot bare the thought of being murdered for no reason.
"You are the hostage and your husband is the target. Without you he won't listen to our instructions," Chin laments as he leans onto the metal door folding his arms onto his chest.
"Zach is just one of those normal guys. He can't possibly do anything for you," Nikki cries, biting on her lower lip.
"That's why we chose him. The perfect cover," Chin snorts as he takes a box of cigarette from his jacket pocket and removes one. He puts it up at his lips and lights it with a silver vintage Zippo lighter. Flipping the silver cap close, Chin takes a puff of his cigarette and blows the smoke out of his nostrils in the most enjoyable fashion.
"Are you going to kill him too?" Nikki sobs staring at the psychopath before her.
Chin looks at her smugly and nods. Nikki bursts out sobbing again.
"Why us? Why us? Why us you mother fucker!?" Nikki screams at Chin, trying to break free from the restrains of the metal chair.
"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk," Chin shakes his head in a cruel, teasing manner, "So thirsty for answers. I'll give you answers."
Nikki quietens down, breathing rapidly, staring angrily at her abductor.
"Your husband is killing people for us. He thinks that after he completes the tasks, we will release you," Chin elaborates coldly.
"You're lying! Zach won't even kill a fly," Nikki shouts at Chin.
"Why would I lie? Let me tell you something. Killing the first person is tough but as you kill your second and third it gets easier and it soon grows on you. Maybe he is already enjoying himself," Chin lets out a grunt.
"You sick fuck! Zach is not like you!" Nikki curses, sniffling.
"He is talented. Like a pro I heard. Sometimes all it takes is just one kill to unleash the thrill. He is no longer that good boy you fuck to bed every night," Chin tells taking another deep puff on his cigarette, "This is the first time I have a hostage and I can't wait till they give me the green light to slaughter you. I will gut you on that chair, alive and let your scream ring into my ears."
"You're sick! Crazy!" Nikki screams, shaking hard to free herself but to no avail.
"Consider yourself lucky. I treat my kills as my prize," Chin blows the smoke from his cigarette into little puffs of gray clouds.
"I don't understand..." Nikki shakes her head as she draws a deep breath to curb her sorrow and tears, "...You could have done it yourself. Why go through all the trouble just to make Zach do it?"
"Our organization is very careful. You see, murdering a politician or a celebrity will cause the whole world to hunt us. So, we use scapegoats like you. After the job is done, we finish you off and the trail ends. One or two normal people dying in some accident get forgotten pretty soon," Chin elaborates, enjoying the frightening look in his prey's eyes.
Nikki's jaw drops at the brutal truth she's hearing. It is crazy and brutal. How can such an organization even exist?? And to think that their results are harvested from innocent everyday people like her is just pure disgust.
Chin then walks over to her with his almost finished cigarette and takes the cigarette into his fingers. Looking down into the startled, hopeless eyes of the woman, he presses the cigarette butt onto her collarbone.
Nikki screams in pain as the cigarette burns into her delicate skin. Chin then lets the cigarette butt fall onto the ground as he backs up from her towards a large yellow hose attached to the huge tap in the wall next to the door.
"As much as I will love to torture you to death, I am obliged to keep you alive before your lovely little husband completes his tasks," Chin says, as he bends down and grabs the hose before continuing, "So, drink up."
Chin aims the hose at Nikki and turns the tap on, spraying the water over her face. With water pressure as strong as a commercial water jet's, Nikki can hardly breathe, choking and almost drowning. She desperately flips her head left and right to gasp for air while Chin enjoys shooting the water at her nose like playing an arcade game.
Chin finally stops when Nikki starts showing signs of choking. He turns the tap off and throws the hose onto the cement floor, lets out a shrill laugh and turns to leave. He pulls the heavy metal door open as Nikki coughs for air and turns the lights off. Exiting the room, he pulls the door shut behind him, leaving the room pitch dark once more. Nikki continues to cough, drawing rapid breaths of air into her deprived lungs.
Chin marches back towards the cement staircase of the tunnel and directs for the trapdoor to open by again placing his thumb onto the bio-metrics scanner on the wall. The trapdoor slides open and he exits into the darkness of the gorge. Once the trapdoor closes, the tunnel too drops into darkness. Chin, above ground again, hears the puppy whining and somehow it irks him. He draws his gun and tries to take an aim under the moonlight. Pulling the trigger, a bullet speeds towards the puppy.
Seeing Chin, the puppy tries to make his way towards the human for help but its clumsy and tired feet gave way when it stumbled into a rather deep puddle. That fall saved its life. The bullet misses its head by just a centimeter.
Chin let out a snort and proceeds to climb back up the metal ladder. A dog is not worth wasting his bullets for.
The puppy struggles in the puddle and finally manages to wade its way back up onto the grass. Its only hope of a human to help him is lost. However, something else has started to occupy its little mind. Its nose starts picking up a savory scent of meat and butter. Limping and drenched, it sniffs its way to the rock shaped bio-metrics sensor. It’s the scent of the burger Chin had eaten just before coming over to check on his hostage. The puppy starts licking and gnawing at the sensor, thinking that food might be inside the artificial rock.
TWO HOURS LATER
A black subcompact car stops at the emergency lane somewhat faraway from the spot where Chin has descended into the gorge. The car doors open and two women step out. It is Kaew and Yuna. They look around them. The GPS tracking of the phone stuck to Chin's super-bike gave them Chin's last location and reaching the same area, they are blanked out as to what he could have been doing in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing out there. Except for the highway and some streetlights th
ere is absolutely nothing else. Why would he travel out here, park himself by the roadside for nearly an hour before going straight back to his home?
"There's nothing here," Yuna sighs, her hands on her waist. She is wearing a baseball cap over a long ponytail, a gray body hugging mini-T, dark blue skinny jeans and sneakers.
"Maybe he meet someone?" Kaew suggests with a shrug and arms crossed over her chest. Kaew too is wearing a baseball cap over her long, silky hair. She dons a brown tank top over beige cargo pants and she too is wearing a pair of sneakers. No more the neon high heels she so loves, especially during operation.
"Maybe you're right. Let's go," Yuna says disappointingly and turns to walk back to the car.
"Wait. Yu listen," Kaew stops Yuna.
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