Project LOSS

Chapter 8

Sitting atop a roof, legs dangling, Onaiah tapped her boot-clad heels against the brickwork in quiet rhythm. The weight of the foreign footwear felt strange to her after years of wearing nothing but the lightweight PAVE issue uniform.

Small square windows, some heavily laden with dust, some missing glass altogether, allowed her eagle eyes a somewhat constricted view of the two subjects of her mission. She was forced her to leave her physical body to get a decent fix on them. Zeroing in on the pair, she observed with the steely concentration and unending patience known only to PAVE’s top agents. Hours passed of frothy drinks and sporadic conversations with other patrons, the most noteworthy of which being the busty brunette in the blue silk dress.

Onaiah, a pretty girl herself, with unusual green eyes and soft, white-blonde hair framing her heart-shaped face, felt dull and childlike compared to this beautiful, yet strangely familiar woman. She generated a mental image to perform a scan of her files but found no information. Maybe she used to be famous, thought Onaiah. It seemed the most logical explanation.

The boys, unusually quiet that night, left the bar just after midnight, no doubt about to return to their home. Preparing to follow, Onaiah crouched, cat-like, waiting until the pair were barely within range of her enhanced hearing. She enjoyed their conversations despite herself, knowing that such people were an enemy to her cause, to PAVE’s ultimate mission and to humanity. Their words and actions conflicted with every piece of extensive data she held on them. At times, she was certain she must be mistaken on their identity. Surely the tall, handsome young man—who now haunted her dreams as well as dominated her waking attention—could not be the monster her superiors had described during her training.

“Well?” asked the shorter, more obnoxious brother.

“Hmm?”

“Out with it. You’re not happy with me, are you?”

“Why’s that then?”

“Stop answering questions with questions. It’s infuriating.”

“You’re infuriating.” Vrethie teased.

“Oh, you saw her Vreth, what was I supposed to do?” whined the shorter brother, becoming flustered and angry. “I’ve never seen a girl as pretty as her before. I wasn’t expecting her… she caught me off guard!”

“She may have been incredibly hot, but there was literally nothing going on upstairs,” revealed Vrethie. “The woman’s as dull as ditchwater.”

At that moment Onaiah loved him for that comment alone if nothing else.

She slunk over rain-slick rooftops, following the once again silent pair through what had been an industrial estate. Most of the crumbling old factories and warehouses closed down long before the event.

“Hey, what do you reckon she meant by a different way to pay?” Kai pondered, breaking the silence.

The taller boy frowned at his brother and sighed. “On second thoughts, you two are perfect for each other.”

Before Kai could ask for clarification, the handsome young man declared his intentions to “take off”. After saying their goodbyes, the shorter brother sped up to a pace that made him impossible to follow, even for one of PAVE’s top agents. Even with all the upgrades available, it was not possible to get close to the power, speed and ability those two possessed.

Onaiah didn’t mind. She was more than happy to have the other brother all to herself, except he had also disappeared.

What the…?

With keenly attuned senses, she noticed an odd displacement of air, a very slight breeze hitting the bare skin of her neck on the otherwise still night. She spun on her heels and to meet  ice-cold eyes, regarding her coolly.

How did he do that? her mind reeled. She panicked internally while fighting to keep a demeanour of outer calm.

“Yes?” she questioned the boy, hoping he was unaware of the extent of her stalking.

“You’ve been following us,” he stated, “Why is that?”

Hearing him speak at close range for the first time, she noticed the earthily masculine, almost raspy quality of his voice. His voice was not at all in fitting with his markedly feminine appearance.

“What makes you think I’ve been following you?” Onaiah asked.

“Cut the s**t,” he commanded, his icy eyes becoming hazy, dancing concentric circles of white light.

He’s trying to read my mind! thought Onaiah. An intense high-pitched ringing filled her head, like a migraine-inducing white light bouncing off every surface of her brain.

“Stop!” she screamed, holding her temples in vain. “It won’t work against me, you’re wasting your time,” she gasped.

“Then tell me why you were following us,” he pushed again.

 “Maybe I’m just one of your many admirers?” she cried, with a hint of anger to give credence to the cover-up.

“Well, I can’t read your mind, so you’re either with PAVE, or you have your own immunity to psychic attacks. I have to ask myself: what are the chances a good-looking girl with immunity to my power is going to pop up out of the blue?”

He gave her a look that said, ‘I’m not that stupid or that lucky,’ but all she could focus on was the fact he described her as ‘good looking’.

“Perhaps it’s your lucky day?” she suggested half-heartedly, losing any hope the lie would placate him.

“It’s not though. Is it?” he frowned.

Data spun through Onaiah’s brain, attempting to configure an escape route. There was none, other than to wait for Vrethies decision on how to deal with the situation.

“I’m almost sorry to say it, but I’m never going to see you again,” he said at last. “If I catch you lurking again, my brother will tear you limb from limb.”

“He’d do that?” asked Onaiah, with some scepticism. Up to that point she’d only seen Kai mildly irritated.

“Let me tell you a story about Kai,” Vrethie said with a sigh before regaling her with a colourful tale from Kai’s past.

“It was back when we first arrived. The City Defence head office would send over agent after agent to deal with the ‘problem child’, instead of letting us get on with it as they do now. This woman shows up, and she’s clearly very fond of herself, thinking she’s tougher than what she is, you know the type?”

Onaiah nodded. She knew the type. PAVE was full of self-important fools, many of whom had acted as her teachers.

“So, she introduces herself ‘I’m Genevieve, and I’m the one who will be telling you what to do from now on.’ Her smugness got all of our backs up, but Kai, being Kai, countered with ‘Hi, I’m Kai, and you can kiss my ass.’ This was not well received, and the two of them became embroiled in a d**k-measuring contest that was never going to end well.” He paused for a moment.

“So anyway, I can’t remember exactly what they said, but it escalated to the point where she was challenging him to hit her with all his strength. She just kept going on and on, so sure he couldn’t hurt her.”

“So he hit her?” asked Onaiah, though the answer was obvious.

“In the stomach.” He nodded, grimacing. “His fist came out the other side of her.”

“At first, she simply stood there, dripping stomach acid and waiting to heal, not grasping what Kai had tried to explain to her beforehand. No psychic abilities work against him; not even healing. He hits you with a fatal blow and that’s it. Curtains.” Vrethie drew a line from one side of his neck to the other with his index finger.

“She died?”

 “Would have… luckily, Milo was there to save her. He has the ability to heal others, a power I’m trying to learn myself.” He smiled proudly.

“Wow, really? You can do that?” Onaiah had never heard of anyone learning an ability. Generally, it was a case of pot luck—you got what you were given. Her lack of data pertaining to his strange teleportation ability was beginning to make sense. She must have had gaps in her intel because he had learnt new abilities, of which she was unaware. This startling revelation was going to be her saving grace once the PAVE council learnt of her missions’ failings.

He nodded, face turning dark once again. “I think it’s about time you scurried back to your bosses at PAVE,” he advised. Then he was gone.