by A L Hart
2:39 a.m., she and four white coats were the only staff remaining on the lower levels. The only ones obsessively involved with the current request from overhead.
Apparently, over a week ago there was an incident up in Kansas that involved a psychic faery, overpowered succubus and C4I (Category 4 Immortal, a.k.a. unknown). They’d swept through the security system with the snap of a finger, obtained a prized immortal in their system, then wiped out the whole database to that lab.
The cause? Psychic faery.
The solution?
That was where she came in. Not to brag, but she was something of an expert in all things supernatural. Hence her rather prestigious title as America’s youngest, finest, most good-looking supernatural medic on the market. Contrary to what the ‘medic’ part may have implied, who and what she treated was strictly one-sided. Humans. Humans injured by supernatural encounters. What more, it was her job to work with a team of other medics to create preventive measures.
Occasionally, that meant conducting experiments to help enhance HB’s security against immortals.
Except with this one . . . She rapped her fingers along the ledge of the desk, looking over the two figures before her. The faery within the glass enclosure, his arms and legs strapped to the titanium seating, watched her through dreadful eyes of crystal blue, the gleam as unmistakable as the silent tears streaming down his cheeks.
In the enclosure beside him was one of the human volunteers (paid volunteers), a young portly lady who was in charge of cleaning the enclosures who likely needed the money for the holidays. She sat unbound, an elastic band wrapped around her head. In the folds of the band was a small metal chip infused with iron, the fae’s weakness, and etched into said metal was an arcane symbol whose design she couldn’t begin to decipher, but it just so happened, whatever the heptagonal shape represented, it repelled a faery’s psychic invasion.
It hadn’t been particularly easy to get the faery to cough up that tidbit of information. It took removing three fingers and a three day test of will before the abomination squaked and told her all she needed to know about its kind’s weaknesses. Which were very, very few. Not that she didn’t like a challenge here and there.
That said, not many faeries wielded such a lethal ability, only the clinically insane ones, he’d swore. When she’d argued that he had psychic abilities yet he didn’t behave as the insane might, he given the quirky reply ‘like doesn’t recognize like.’ That’d been when he lost the first finger.
Let the immortals tell it, all of HB’s agents were insane. Though, to be fair, her own staff accused her of having . . . moments.
Such as this one.
“Charge to 260,” she instructed.
The four techs exchanged looks and she could all but guess what they were about to say.
She spoke first. “The captain was clear in his instructions. We are to create a protective measure against a faery’s psychic ability so as not to have a repeat of what happened in Kansas, by any means necessary. These are those means.”
“We understand this, but also, this faery, he has a threshold. If we charge the human’s chip beyond 250v, when the faery attempts to use their psychic abilities on the human, his mind—his organs—might . . . liquidate.”
Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, Jai leaned forward. “And?”
The tech, a spindly, lanky guy with at least a foot on her, recoiled, fingers stamped onto his clipboard. “A-and our instructions were to find a deterrent to the faery’s psychic ability. We’ve done that. So long as our agents are wearing that chip, their mind will be impenetrable.”
“Yes, indeed. But wouldn’t it be grand if the chip not only prevented a faery’s power but destroyed the faery itself?”
“Yes, but—”
“Is the eradication of all immortals not one of the Hunter’s Bureaucracy’s highest priorities, second only to protecting humankind?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then why, dear, are you not charging to 260?”
The man gulped, bright eyes snapping to the control panel, where he turned the proper dial, the numbers on the screen along the back wall rising. Just as well, the ECG’s lines skyrocketed, reading the faery’s brain activity. Its panic.
Jai grinned, always feeling a perfect stasis come over her when the pieces of the universe fell in place according to her desire. The pieces of sweet justice. Humans 1, immortals 0.
Looking to the faery now, whose eyes had widen in abject terror, whose already pallid features were now gaunt and snow white, she said sweetly, “Alright, little fella. Once more from the top. Command the human in the enclosure beside you to stand.”
Now trembling, the faery with hair as golden as a morning sun, shook his head. The tears were flowing now. “I don’t want to die.”
In the enclosure to the right of him, the human volunteer shifted uncomfortably, having kept her eyes to the floor throughout the entire experiment. As a janitor, no doubt the woman was accustomed to all sorts of admittedly grotesque activity on the sublevel, but Jai supposed this was a smidge worse.
“Tick-tock, faery.”
“I can’t. I don’t want—”
“Die, yes, I heard you. Us insignificant, inferior humans do have that most basic of senses, contrary to what you might believe.”
“I swear to you, we will never go near another human if you release us. We will never harm anyone.” Shining blues looked into hers, pleading with the force of a creature snared between the lion’s teeth. Her teeth.
She might have feared her own mind might be at risk before such a being, but they’d been well prepared for the captured faery to be noncompliant.
Picking at the nonexistent grime beneath her fingernails, she examined her cuticles boredly. “I suppose your defiance is permission for us to cull off the both of you.”
Body shaking somewhat uncontrollably, those diamond eyes veered to the enclosure on left of him, where the tiny version of him huddled unconscious in the corner, fast asleep against the icy titanium floors. The depth of adoration to explode in his gaze fascinated her.
All of this did.
Immortals.
Faeries.
Their capacity for such human emotions and love for their offspring.
Though, she wasn’t an idiot. Knew all too well how deadly they were beneath their glamour of innocence. She’d watched humans fall prey to it time and again, witnessed the depravity they were capable of. Just as immortals exceeded mankind in matters of strength and ability, so too did they surpass them in evil.
Did she feel remorse when she rose and hovered her finger over the switch that would destroy the faery’s offspring? No, she’d lost such a useless sense years ago. If anything, she felt giddy, hopeful even that the faery would disobey.
Things were just that dull here in this sliver of Satan’s armpit, or Arizona, as some called it.
To her dismay, his tensed, vibrating body went lax, defeated. “Please, leave my boy be. I will do as you wish.”
She sighed. They always gave in prematurely.
Deflated, she dropped back into her chair and waved a hand at him. “Go on then.”
With a frail breath whispered past his lips, his last breath, he turned to the janitor, nothing but a glass pane separating them. She’d seen singularities like these before, where dying stars became a supernova and finally a black hole of damnation. Acceptance. That was what she saw on the creature’s face, acceptance of his inevitable death should he use his ability on such a piece of technology.
It happened in an instant.
His eyes were on the volunteer, the ECG beeping erratically, denoting his psychic activity, and then he simply slumped forward. As though a switch had been flicked off in his brain. The beeping continued, a doleful beep, beep . . . beep . . . beep.
“Riveting,” she breathed, then clapped in surprised awe as the blood began to ooze from every orifice of the creature’s being.
It was minutes before the ECG f
inally went dead, indicating the creature’s consciousness was no more. Minutes before one of the techs cleared their throat and said shakily, “Time of death, 3:09 a.m.”
As they helped the human from the enclosure, thanked and explained the payment options, Jai held her hand out for the successful prototype and they all scrambled to oblige.
This respect they afforded her, it had nothing to do with her ruthless and heartless demeanor for the immortal kind, or her title as “doctor” despite her youth, but everything to do with the fact that the captain of Arizona’s HB lab just so happened to be her father.
For the most part, she had no complaints.
“Would it not be wiser to keep the prototype here, Doctor? Where it can be protected?”
She came to her feet then, wrapping the band around her head. “I made it, I keep it. I have already distributed its blueprint. Notify the main compound it was a success and they can replicate their own, but this one is mine.”
The tech sighed but nodded.
She made to leave.
“Wait, Miss Yoon!”
She paused. “Hmm?”
The tech pointed to the enclosure. “What . . . what about the faery’s offspring?”
What kind of question was that? Brows raised, she didn’t even spare the thing a glance. “Get rid of it. And dispose of both subjects’ remains properly.”
The last thing they needed was more of the pests tracing the remnants of magic back here.
After all, she did have other things to attend to.
*****
And by other things, she meant dropping by McDonald’s before the morning rush came and swept out all the fresh pancakes and McGriddles. The iron chip—which she decided to name the Repeller—had been an approximate two week project. Two weeks of 12-16 hours shifts, slaving over texts and machines and running HB’s resources into the ground trying to capture a faery with abilities mimicking the one in Kansas so they might experiment against it. Whenever assigned such a mentally (and sometimes physically) demanding task, she always fasted.
Purged all the good stuff and opened her arms for the not so good. I.e. lettuce for breakfast, water for lunch, air for dinner. And when the project was over?
Hello, syrupy sweet heart disease. Was there any greater guilty pleasure?
She wondered this as she fished in her pocket for her apartment keys. When she found them, she pressed the button on her custom-made spine keychain to disable the alarm. She hummed the lyrics to Pistols at Dawn contently, and once inside, she said hi to Charlie Number 9, tossing her keys beside his tank and shaking in some food flakes. The aquarium had been a Christmas gift from last year. Sadly, Charlie numbers one through eight hadn’t made it, as she’d still been figuring out how to cycle a filter, but now Charlie Number 9 swam to the top to greet her (or eat the colorful flakes, if one wanted to be a glass half empty type), and she smiled, sliding the backpack onto the hardwood floors and sighing.
“You wouldn’t believe the day I had,” she told the gilled critter.
His gills opened and closed, perpetually wide eyes unfocused.
“Oh, Charlie, you always know what to say to me, but I’m afraid I can’t talk long. Food’s getting cold and last week’s analysis reports won’t review themselves.”
Right on time, her phone pinged as a reminder. Another sigh.
In the kitchen, she maneuvered around blindly, liking the darkness as she reached into her cabinet and took out her favorite plate and her own silverware. Once they were set, she took off her glasses and stretched out her back, then leaned against the windowsill that overlooked the fire escape, the courtyard and pond off in the distance. The streetlamps were motion sensitive, and since most of the residents were tucked into their beds, the night was dark, the glass near her face deliciously cold. She rested her forehead against it for just one second, but that was all she needed. The iciness warded off the strain of her thoughts, the day.
Her coworkers often referred to her as a machine behind her back and to her face. A lethal, heartless computer with an infinite amount of knowledge pertaining to not only immortalkind but also mankind and so much more. It was true. Her life had been a series of obtaining knowledge in every form it came in. Some children took pleasure in sports, but for her, learning had been the greatest sport, information the best thing one could equip themselves with.
Because in a world where those things prowled the streets, it wasn’t enough to simply train in combat and self-defense without training one vital part: the mind.
The mind was a formidable weapon.
This was where immortals and humans were equal. They each possessed the ability to use their wits for annihilation. To strip the other down of their consciousness, their soul and totally demolish their existence.
Twenty-four years she’d been on this planet. Twenty-four years she’d learned every second of every day, from how to cry when hungry as a child to how to read one of the most complex codes in recorded history: dark energy wavelengths.
But while she revelled in intelligence as much as she respected it, there was one drawback.
The staff had begun to expect it of her. More importantly, her father had. She was the most valued medic on the team across the nation. Any situation they brought to her feet, she assured them it was as good as done because that was what they expected. When you build such an infallible track record, you eventually reached a point you weren’t allowed to backslide. Failure wasn’t an option.
As a result, any time a project was assigned to her, she no longer knew how to say no. Forgot what the word vacation meant. And the more challenging the project, the more it enticed her—and undid her nerves.
Lives were in her hand.
The agents that milled in and out of that compound, they had families to return to, lives to live out to the fullest, and one vital mistake on her part, one failed security measure or incorrect diagnosis and like a fleeting star, their lives could cease to be. Just like today’s faery.
This was war. Plain and simple. And it was up to those like her to use creative innovations to keep humans on the same playing field as immortals—or who knew how long before they went extinct?
The notion was her weight to carry.
Every day the iron chip wasn’t in effect, how many faeries had compromised their units? How many humans suffered the consequence? Why hadn’t they discovered this ability sooner? Why hadn’t she? At least, that was the thought process of her coworkers.
But all in all, she tried to soothe herself, today hadn’t been terrible.
That was, not until a voice sounded from behind her.
Ch. 6
“You’re swinging straight, Peter,” Natalie scolded sternly, moving my extended fist slightly inward toward my chest. “You swing at any angle linear to your heart, because your opponent is likely to make themselves centered to be less of a target.”
“Contradicting,” Jera called out, having yet to take the lessons serious. It was a miracle we’d gotten her out of bed this morning seeing as she’d been in a mood ever since our first lesson—which we weren’t discussing. “If the opponent wants to be less of a target, they won’t stand front and center for Peter to do as he pleases. They’re going to stay in constant motion.”
“That depends on the opponent.”
“Which you seem to think is going to sit still with a sign on his head,” she countered.
“This is assuming you’re on the offense, not defense.”
“My way applies to both,” Jera said with finality, losing her fighting stance and crossing her arms.
Naturally, Natalie grinned at this and tightened her blond ponytail. Which she did before bar brawls. “Care to test that?”
Jera, fixing her black fingerless combat gloves, returned the smile. “I’d love to.”
“Um, Jera, maybe we should just stick to the lesson?” Lia offered, reading the underlying tension as easily as I. Her partner in crime, Danny, had gotten out of this lesson, explaining “the i
mportance of his education while his mind was still young and more receptive.” Though I could bet my life he went back to sleep the second we left the shop. Not that I had any hangups with it. The kid needed to slowly get back into his independence.
“Lia’s right,” I seconded, rubbing the back of my neck and contemplating what bones Jera might go after on Nat.
Both women moved as though we hadn’t said a word, lining up on the black dotted line next to us. Without looking at me, Natalie pointed to Lia. “You and Lia, partner up. Implement the tactics I showed you, Peter. You know, the instructor of this class?”
Jera scoffed, then glared when I moved to follow. “You practice her manners and the next person you face will laugh at those pitiful tactics.”
I paused.
“Laugh, until he flattens them on their face,” Nat said. “Like I intend to do with you.”
If only she knew.
I met Jera’s eyes and willed her to understand. Natalie was human. We were taking part in this as simple thanks for helping watch Danny while we went to rescue Lia. Nothing more, nothing less.
I could practically see in her eyes when she brushed the favor under the rug.
Neither woman could tolerate trash talking. Women in general didn’t tolerate backtalk. Instead, I learned, they revelled in returning it tenfold. Except, that was what normal women did, gossiped and used their tongues as swords. Seldom did they back it up with fists.
Which, I guess in retrospect, I should have seen this coming. Natalie with her background in all things fighting, Jera with her background in all things period.
Lia came and stood before me, shaking her head, black curls turning blue in the light. They were trying to grow longer, feathering slightly past her shoulders, though her fringes were tucked behind her ears. Her lips pursed in sad disbelief. “She doesn’t know what she’s getting into.”