As Hana gently weaved her way into the building, Zenith and Oyogu followed behind, with Zenith absolutely enamored by what he saw. The interior of the building was hectic in its design. Thick cables ran through messy floating squares that were originally supposed to make up the ceiling inside the tall area. People stood in all different places, chatting about random things, dressed in all different types of clothing. From pieces that could resist the acid rain, to some of the most legal skimp one could wear without getting a ticket. The people of Vladsvink clearly took variety in their wears to the next level, more so than the past life that Hana had led before her untimely demise of her own self doing.
Hana stepped into the back of an extremely long line, the two other members of her posse stepped behind her, flanking her sides. Zenith was eyeing every aspect of the building and the people that inhabited it, and Hana noticed out of the corner of her eye that he was staring at a group of women in the aforementioned skimpy clothing. She raised a hand and snapped her fingers to grab his attention, which made him almost step backwards in the surprising break of concentration he had.
“Stay focused, Zenith. We have work to do here,” she commanded in the auto-translated Russian.
The auto-translation unit built into every co-processor was essentially a small AI model that specialized in converting one language to another. It had been trained over the span of seven years to recognize all possible languages, in all possible accents, and in all possible methods of speaking. Muttering, shouting, whispering, normal speech, even a few odd cases were covered by the AI model. The method of making the user understand the speech was somewhat unknown, but it turned the original audio input and sent a false transcript to the language center of the brain, matching a translated version of whatever was said. In other words, it could trick the brain into understanding a language it had no conceivable knowledge of beforehand.
“Y–yes ma’am,” Zenith simply said, snapping his eyes back to her hand as it dropped back to her side. Hana could hear him make a swallow in the back of his throat, so she looked at him with her usual placid look.
“You’re uneasy.”
“Does it matter?” Zenith questioned back.
“It does. Do you wish to die before you can begin living again?”
He shakes his head in response.
“Then don’t f*** this up,” Hana simply responds, as the trio finally make it to the reception counter.
Hana leans against the messy grey counter and stares at a woman with an overbearingly large torso. The woman stares back, unamused at Hana’s purple eyes and platinum blonde hair.
“Watchu want, honey? I ain’t got all dayum day.”
Hana rolls her eyes, assuming the woman would pick up on the fact that she was a regular.
“I hear the angels flap their wings when provoked. Is that true?”
The broad woman quickly opened her dull eyes, almost springing back to life. She quickly grabbed a folder from beneath her side of the counter and handed it to her.
“Back at that door, over to the right. The acustomer will see you.”
Hana takes the folder and nods to her, stepping away with the other two in tow.
“What was that about?” Zenith asks, but is quickly shut up once more by Hana.
“You will get your answer once we’re alone.”
Zenith just sighs and follows behind Hana, with Oyogu on his side, still forming that triangle shape between them.
Hana’s eyes are locked onto the door just a few feet in front of her, and after checking to see if any eyes are watching–both physical and digital–she quickly opens the door and brings the two of them inside with her. Shutting it back and pressing her thumb to a device to lock the door. It made a gentle click once secured.
“You woke up with someone else’s identity chip,” Hana begins. “There’s a gentleman in this building that can re-write that identity chip with custom information that any system in this world can recognize. That, and your current chip is not tied to your soul. It’s only a matter of time before it recognizes that and attempts to fry you.”
Zenith looked at her with a finger pointed up, but quickly objected his own pretense, and followed behind her once more.
“In other words,” Oyogu said, holding a hand to his shoulder. “We’re making you fit for this world!”
Zenith only took in a deep breath, and walked with an heir of timidness in each step.
At the end of the hallway sat a dimly lit door. The walls were drab and covered in dirt and various kinds of harsh chemicals that left stains like nothing else Zenith had ever seen. Hana and Oyogu were used to this of course, the pollution on the outside of the city was nothing like the interiors of the buildings housed. Hana reached out to the door, opening it and keeping a hand at her waist, just in the event that something wasn’t right with the usual atmosphere of this room. But once she opened it, she laid eyes on a man with snake-like metal appendages bolted onto his fingers, working on a tiny board in the corner of the room.
“Richard.” Hana called out to him. He quickly looked up, his tattered face smiled once he saw her.
“Hana! It’s so good to see you, my dahling!” Richard replied with a thick Australian accent. He quickly got up and walked over to her. His stride was lanky and somewhat unbalanced, his clothes were as drab as the entrance to this back room, and his hands were cold to the touch once they grabbed Hana’s shoulders. Not to mention, he was about six foot tall, while Hana stood at only five-foot-two. She only looked up at him and bumped his hands off of her shoulders with both her fists with a simple, “Do not touch me.”
“Ah, s-sorry my dahling. What canz I do for ya, sweetie?”
“I got a fresh one, his name is Zenith. He needs his identity chip re-written. Can you do it?”
Richard only nods and smiles, then takes Zenith by the shoulder and pulls him to his side. Zenith doesn’t know how to react.
“Of course, hun. Evah’ since ya paid me for those other two, we’ve been pretty square. Now, what’s ya name, young man? Zenith, yea?” Richard asks Zenith as they are taken to an operating chair. Richard asks Zenith to lie face down on the chair, which he does promptly.
“How long should this take?” Zenith asks, getting worried as Richard walks away to grab a needle from one of his cabinets.
“Not long, mate. Just a few minutes, give or take on how hard that encryption on that chip is, aye? By the way, you’ve got a connection on your left hand, be a dear and ham’me it.”
Zenith looks down at his left wrist and finds an odd looking connector on the inside of his wrist. He assumes that this is the connection that Richard is talking about, and notices a button on the top part of the connector. He attempts to reach it with his finger but ultimately fails.
“Press ya fingers into your palm, that’ll work it out.” Richard says as he’s coming back with his standard set of equipment. Cleaning items, a syringe, some cutters, and a few more odds and ends Zenith can’t tell their purpose or name of. He quickly presses his fingertips into his palm, and the connector flips out and extends about three inches, just enough for Richard the grab the end and plug into a machine.
“Let’s see here… You’ll see a couple screens pop up, don’t worry ’bout ’em.”
A moment passes before Richard speaks again. Hana and Oyogu show up behind him and examine the monitor that Richard was looking at.
“Ya name’s Zenith Zimmer. Says ya date a’ birth is… not found. Citizen ID is seven-eight-four-three-nine-five-four-five, resident of Eden, yeah yeah tell me somethin’ I don’t know… A warrant? For a murder? What the hell ya done did, kid? Ya already kill someone to get here?”
Zenith looks at the man with plain fear in his eyes, trying to explain with only stutters and mutters before Richard laughs at him. No, he cackles at him. Before Hana slaps him upside the head.
“Work, is what I pay you for!” Hana yells in broken English at Richard, which seems to snap him out of his laughter better than the slap did.
“A’ight, a’ight! Goddamn, woman! I’ll have ya boy ready in ten minutes, just need’a put him under so his system doesn’t overload, yeah?”
“This works,” Hana replies, switching back to Russian, which is quickly auto translated as per usual. “I will pay you when are are finished.”
“Like clockwork, dahling… Go stand outside, I’ll have him awake and ready in a minute.”
Soon, Hana and Oyogu take their leave, and Richard grabs the syringe from the cart, flicking the end and pushing out some of the liquid. He smirks as soon as they shut the door, and looks down at Zenith. He pushes the needle into Zenith’s neck and pushes on the end of the syringe. His senses slowly begin to fade, his head falls into the chair, and his body begins to relax at all points.
“Poor girls… ain’t gotta clue I’m bein’ paid by that cult. You ain’t gonna be wakin’ up from this. Not here, anyway. Ya goddamn Otherside-ah… I’ll find a noice little trash heap for ya’ to bleed out on.”
Zenith can almost here giggling at all senses finally fade to blade, and a warmth seems to form on the back of his neck.
Minutes pass, nothing is heard on the other side of the door. Hana taps her foot in anticipation for Richard to give the go-ahead to come back inside.
Chapter 3 has been presented by…
The Cult of 2112
“GIVE IN OR GIVE UP.”
