Project LOSS

Chapter 11

First, there was a sensation of falling from a great height with dizzying speed. Then, colours that swirled and danced, flitting from formless opaque ghosts to intricate shapes and patterns that pulsed and burst from within each other in a never-ending sequence. Finally, a popping sensation before nothing but white blankness that stretched out forever and one terrifying question… ‘What am I?’

Panic sets in as the vast reaches of white reveal no answer.

Three faces swim into blurred vision. People.

I am a person, thinks Miaka. This thought triggers the floodgates of her mind to open, drowning her psyche with almost a hundred years’ worth of memories. Confusing memories she would soon forget.

“Is she going to be like that forever?” she hears the question but cannot sufficiently focus her senses to locate the source.

They mean me… I’m broken; she realised but could not open her mouth to cry out. ‘Oh help me please,’ she pleaded internally. A prayer addressing some vague idea of a deity she had never been completely sold on in life. She was shocked to hear a clear, kind voice reply: “Don’t worry, I will fix you.”

Feeling the realms of normal cognitive function within reach, but not being quite able to act was far more torturous than the years of being trapped within a mind-controlled body.

‘Oh please, please help me,’ she asked the voice before feeling many hands touching her head. Then normality. At least, she thought this was normal. It had been so long since she could entertain such a thought—or any thought that wasn’t planted into her brain by some external force or another.

She vaguely remembered the people surrounding her, enough to be embarrassed.

“Um… please could I borrow some clothing?” Miaka asked no one in particular and jumped at the barrage of cheers.

“Yes! It worked,” cried the boy, removing his outer layer of nightwear. The soft nightgown was warm and tinged with sweat, but she received it gratefully.

“We combined our power to save you!” he informed her and looked like he was going to explain how before being rudely interrupted by Kai.

“We can celebrate when she tells us what she knows,” Kai said. He barged past the smaller boy and glared down at Miaka. She shifted, pulling the corners of blue fabric over her knees.

Relief at being alive was short lived. Kai was powerful, pissed off and expecting an explanation for the night’s events. He’d been set to kill her before the brother arrived, and although his rage seemed to have subsided, she wasn’t altogether sure his anger wouldn’t resurface upon hearing her story.

What is my story? Miaka tried to remember the events leading up to this point. The details were muddy at best.

“Please don’t hurt me?” she asked pathetically, struck by a sudden urge of self-preservation. She wanted to do the things she missed; curling up with a friend and eating ice-cream. She wondered if they still made ice-cream in the free world and it struck her how weird it was to feel normal. To have a mind that could wander off on tangents and re-experience the cold, sweet Italian gelato consumed over ninety years ago while waiting for a friend to get a tattoo.

It took so long to obtain a fake I.D. that the tattooist didn’t even ask for it.

Feelings of boredom and annoyance at the friend flooded back. A friend who was most likely long dead. Guilt and mourning sunk her heart.

“Why did PAVE send you?” Kai asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“I… I don’t know,” started Miaka, eyes wide in anticipation of his reaction. “My orders were to seduce you, have intercourse with you, then return to them when you fell asleep.”

Kai turned away from her and looked at Vrethie, one eyebrow raised. “Why do PAVE care if I get laid?”

“DNA,” was Vrethie’s cryptic reply, met with confused faces.

“They probably want your genetic material,” Vrethie clarified.

“Makes sense… I am pretty awesome.”

“And modest too,” Milo commented with a smile. He was jabbed very lightly in the ribs by Kai.

Waves of relief washed over Miaka. The mood had become light, and Vrethie had been kind enough to fill the gaps in her story in such a manner that was sufficient to please his volatile brother. It was only with one danger neutralised that other threats dawned on her. The story about stealing 33K credits from a dangerous man hadn’t been a lie. Also, there was the issue of PAVE tracking her down and cutting her up to use as spare parts, as they had threatened to do if she failed her mission.

“What will you do now?” asked Milo

Miaka shrugged and sighed. “Run. Hide. Probably get killed anyway.”

“She could work for you?” suggested Milo to Kai and Vrethie who both frowned.

“As what? A maid or something?” Kai wondered out loud, apparently unafraid of appearing a misogynist.

 “I could babysit the kid?” she suggested, smiling at the boy. She estimated his age at around nine or ten.

The two older boys laughed. “He doesn’t need supervising”.

“Sure I do,” Milo argued, a faint dreamy smile plastered on his face.

“Well?” Vrethie addressed Miaka, “What can you do? You were an agent of PAVE. You probably retained any abilities you had before we ripped that chip out.”

 “They chose me based on my looks alone,” she shrugged. Their lack of confidence in her ability to do anything other than be beautiful had landed the mission with a high probability of failure. She had hardly exceeded those expectations. Thinking back to her time with PAVE filled her with a sense of dread and sadness. Their lack of care and consideration for the humans they were meant to be saving was staggering.

Having only one unique ability that might be useful, she figured it was best to mention that first.

“I can become invisible,” she told them.

The guys exchanged looks, noses wrinkled, and shrugged.

“Whatever, we do need a new admin assistant since Jimmi ran off,” Kai suggested.

“Yup, I’ve been picking up the slack but in all honesty, I’d rather have someone to help,” Vrethie admitted.

“Why did he leave?” Miaka asked, immediately regretting the question when Kai turned to Vrethie, raised his hands questioningly then let them drop to his sides with a loud slap.

“Yeah Vreth, why did he leave? Hmm?” Kai waited for an answer, but his brother’s face remained stoic.

After uncomfortable but short silence Vrethie asked, “Is the decoy personality thing a new PAVE tactic?”

“Huh?” Miaka asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, reading the mind of a PAVE agent is normally difficult. But I had no problem reading your mind… but you seemed so dumb. Almost brain dead.”

Miaka shrugged, no idea of what to tell him.

“Now I can read your mind, I see you’re actually pretty smart… aside from having no clue what I am talking about,” Vrethie smiled.

“Never mind. There’s a job tomorrow you could help with. It is charity, so no pay besides a little remuneration for expenses.”

“Yes, the reward is the warm sense of charity and giving something back to the community, at least that’s what Vrethie tries to convince me of,” Kai added. He didn’t look convinced.

Miaka was more than happy to help, though her sense of charity took a back seat in her list of priorities, behind her need for protection.

After saying their goodnights, the group left Miaka in the living room, piling up grey and mustard coloured blankets and a crusty feeling pillow on the sofa. “We will sort you out one of the spare rooms when we return from the job,” assured Vrethie before retreating to his sleeping quarters.

Not at all put out at the prospect of sleeping on a sofa, for she had slept in worse places, she laid back beneath the blankets and stared at the ceiling, afraid to sleep. For the first time in decades she was in full control of her conscious mind and was loathe to let that control slip, even into the most pleasant of dream states.

What if I never wake up? she thought, what if this is all a trick and they are planning on gutting me while I sleep? The train of thought led her to again contemplate the inherent strangeness of so-called ‘normal’ thought patterns.

After an hour or so the comfort of the well-cushioned sofa and plush blankets became the deciding factors in the war against sleep, drifting her gently into strange dreams of being trapped in rooms with no windows or doors.

Just before dawn broke, she woke with a start, and not relishing the thought of more dreams, instead found her way to the kitchen to start breakfast for the boys, grateful that they had not murdered her in the night.