Amelie hears the news
Having worked up a sweat I head out of my room and towards the shower. Once out of my door I find a room with a hexagonal shaped floor and a number of doors lined up in front of me.
This is known as the transition room and is common in most houses to make places easier to get to. In front of me are a number of doors that look a little like vault doors without the wheel that unlocks them. The knobs are made of metal and are only a slightly different golden colouring from the silver that is the rest of the doors.
In front of me is 3 different doors by the way. There are 4 in total including the one I just stepped out of. I head into the second door along and come across a completely white tiled space. Various bathroom necessities are ordered in lines on top of two shelves running near the ceiling on each side of the room.
Inside the room is your typical bathroom. On the left is a sink, b'day and shower. On the right is a bathtub, toilet and a sort of button that's just stuck in the wall. This button actually brings up a holographic screen that can be seen no matter what you're doing in the bathroom and is usually used for stopping people from being bored. Though personally I use it for news, training and such.
I head towards the shower while running through the plans for the day over in my head. First I'll have a shower and watch the news, see if there's anything interesting going on around my area. If there is I'll try and investigate it but if not I'll go search for work elsewhere.
Then once I'm done watching the news and getting a shower I'll quickly change into proper clothes with my combat suit underneath. Once that's done I'll grab a quick breakfast and get to that investigating. If there's nothing to investigate then I guess I'll pay a visit to the orphanage or Soph. Though I saw Soph yesterday so I suppose she'd just drive me off and I'll end up spending time at the orphanage anyway.
Sounds of rustling fabric and zippers being undone echo off the tiled walls as I get out of my clothes and ready for the shower. Once I am fully undressed I open the glass case concealing the shower from view and step inside. Before I actually get to showering though I have to wait for the water to heat up.
It won't take long though so I stand in the case but just a few steps away from the water as I press my palm on the wall next to me which causes the sound of water hitting the plastic flooring underneath me to fill my ears.
It only took a few seconds until I could see steam rising from the water in front of me as it hit the floor and the glass windows the shower is contained by started to fog up and obscure visibility even further. I could have the outside surroundings pasted onto the shower glass even as foggy as it is right now if I wanted to see it but until I want to see the news I don't really need that.
Plus I could use that same function for something far more useful. With that thought I turn the projector on and have the surroundings of my shower become a rocky waterfall area. Above me all I see is running water. Gone is the shower head and normal surroundings and the only thing I can see above my head is only a gushing waterfall of water.
Some of it's fake. Produced by the holo-tech in the shower. Some of it is the actual shower. But since I can't tell which is which physically I can only sense it through the contact of water on my skin. This exercise helps me to clear my mind and allows me to face the day with a refreshed mindset once I'm out of the shower.
For now though, it's simply here to make me focus. The scenery around me is certainly beautiful. A river of sorts with a calm current is running right underneath me and a good way into the distance. I can even see harmless fish swimming through the river and going about their daily tasks.
At the end of the peaceful river is a canyon of sorts. Just a massive split in the earth. It looks a little like a tourist destination for rock climbing in the way that the cliff is just the right height for someone to climb and not hurt themselves if they fell but still high enough that it would be considered rock climbing if they were to accomplish the feat. Obviously even with all this definition it is just a hologram so I couldn't actually climb it.
The rock itself seems to be a sort of combination of red and brown. The Mesopotamian look I believe it's called. Lots of sand and rocky cliffs yet in the middle of it all is a waterfall and a river. The one I'm currently showering in supposedly.
This scenery IS beautiful but that's exactly why it's distracting. So I focused on the waterfall and determined what parts of the water were actually real and what is just holographic as it hits my skin. I feel a drop fall on my right shoulder and look to see an entire spout of water fall on that location. I attempt to pick out the water particles that are real and the ones that are holographic and grab them.
If I'm correct my hands would start to feel wet as they gather the water and if not they would only feel the contact of dry air. Though more times than not, I'm correct. This is something I've been doing every day since I got the holo-tech upgrade for my shower and really it would be surprising if I wasn't nearly perfect in this area by now.
The task allows me to focus on something else that has become habit for me whenever I enter the shower. To repeat my creed to myself. I was taught that someone fighting without a code is too indecisive to win any sort of fight so whenever you engage in combat you must always have rules that you will never waver on.
Because of that I've always held myself to a certain standard in my mercenary work. Since I fight nearly every day of my life I need to have a set of rules that I never bend or break. Rules that both conform to my goals and don't leave me with any regrets later in life.
So I settled on this. If the orphanage is in danger no matter who it is, friend or foe, that's causing the danger. They are my enemy and I must stop them. Even embroiling the orphanage in schemes without their knowledge is worthy of being stopped though not punished.
Murder is allowed strictly when it's necessary. Necessary is defined by the following conditions: Should I be given an order I cannot refuse. Should they be a danger to myself or those I deem under my protection. Should they be a hindrance to my mission so large that removing them permanently is a significantly less dangerous option.
Bodily harm is allowed under the following conditions: If they have the means to cure themselves with ease. If they have committed an injustice as perceived by those I deem under my protection. If they are of a hindrance to my mission so large that I am large incapable of avoiding contact with them.
Invading privacy is allowed under the following conditions: If I believe they could be a threat to myself of those I deem under my protection. If my gut tells me that their plan is going to affect me or those I deem under protection in a major way. If I am given an order I cannot refuse.
Finally causes I would give my life for: The orphanage. Those I deem beneath my umbrella(examples include: Sophie, the director). I will not give my life for: An unreasonable order. A client. Those I deem under my protection.
Once I read out the almost legal like document in my mind I repeat it to myself a couple times before smiling to myself with nostalgia. I was taught when I was young to write this up or memorise it so well you can recite it by wrote on command. They didn't care what I wrote on this 'moral' document but I had to believe in it wholeheartedly and memorise it.
We only ever read them out to one person but still we were forced to write them out or memorise them and send them in. Because a single second's hesitation to do any of these things could result in the deaths of ourselves or things we would die for.
I asked Soph once to write out her own but hers was so incredibly simple. Murder is allowed if I don't trust them. Bodily harm is allowed all the time. Invading privacy is always allowed so long as they don't find out. And I would never die for anyone or anything.
I remember her reciting that to me with a straight face no shame or remorse. Her morals were incredibly loose and yet I knew she would stick to them and really meant it when she said she believed that was how the world worked. I couldn't blame her. I grew up in that environment too but still…
"She's… Crazy isn't she" I whisper to myself. Drowned out by the crashing sound of water hitting the plastic floor even if someone was in the room with me they wouldn't be able to hear it. Though if someone was watching me shower, they'd be dead before they got to tell anyone anyway. Yes that does fit the condition danger to myself.
Wow now I'm arguing with myself. I've picked up Soph's bad habits. Thinking about the supposed 'delicate flower' makes me smile once more. Well now that I'm awake enough to think about nostalgic memories I should watch the news for anything interesting while I clean off the sweat.
So I press the button next to the palm shaped device used to turn the shower on and suddenly the scenery around me disappears. Now I see the outside of the shower case clear as day despite being inside the shower at the moment. So I press my hand against the glass where the news hologram would be.
Even though my fingers are wet and the screen is clear glass and doesn't have any wires in it, the intentions are received and conveyed through that gesture and sent to the holo-screen which turns on and displays itself over my wall.
The news plays with the audio coming out completely clear despite the sound of water all around m. This is thanks to the inbuilt speakers in the room that adjust the sound depending on where it thinks you are. I have absolutely no idea how any of this works but it is rather impressive to me.
Soph could likely tell me but I've never been much of a tech person so I wouldn't really care and just leave that to her. The news itself is pretty straightforward. Just news about Flux expanding their market again and there's also apparently a company already dominating the market they're expanding into.
"I wonder if we teamed up with that company would they be able to help get rid of flux from this area for good." I mumble to myself seriously considering the idea. It's probably no more than a dream and even getting in contact with the company could be seen as a sort of betrayal by flux. Though since we don't actually work under them and we already declined to work for them they don't have anything to be angry about.
But they'd still lose profits if we teamed up together so they'd probably make up something to get us to stop. If that didn't work they'd get more pushy or even get nicer for a time before making things worse in the long run. They've run through every strategy in the book with us just to get us to comply with their demands and at this point we're used to it.
The company they're competing with this time is apparently Frame goods Ltd. A fairly new company run by an orphan who's parents were murdered brutally by some sort of psycho murderer. After that incident she became an eminent businesswoman and rose to fame with her ingenious technological ideas.
They apparently have some really good stuff. In fact I have one of their lasers that I use myself and it's certainly better than anything else in the market at a similar price range. Though it is priced higher than most other company's would but they deserve it.
It's going to be rather annoying that flux is going to take these clearly superior products off the market and I'm going to have to buy stuff somewhere else. Not that I could afford their gear in the first place but still.
The newscaster then moves on to describing an incident that happened in the local area. The news is set to preference any news in my general location by default and I'm not tech-savy enough to turn it off even if I want it to so it switches the channel automatically and I learn about a certain incident.
Apparently in one of the public area zones due to some terrorist an apartment building was blown to smithereens. In the late evening yesterday there was apparently some sort of implosion in one of the apartments in that building that caused the entire building to implode in on itself and all it's residents.
It was the work of high-grade military tech and people are trying to work out if a famous group got their hands on some military technology because if they did it could be a serious problem. I was going to dismiss it as just another tragedy that had nothing to do with me until I saw the name of the apartment building that it happened in.
"T-thats…" I stumble and stutter as I realize exactly where this news story had occurred. I quickly get out of the shower and grab a change of clothes from the closet before dashing out of the room and heading to the transition room again. Then this time I take the first door and find myself in another white tiled room.
This time though it gave off a more culinary than clean vibe. There was a desk or top whatever you wish to call it to my left and on that topspace was a machine made my mankoto. The machine looked a little like an old microwave or a box with a panel of buttons just sort of hanging off it like a neon sign at a bar.
I press the button to quickly get me a meal and go back out into the transition room before heading to the third door along. This time there was a space with a sofa across from a holographic screen. It was still pretty barebones apart from that but that was all I need. I quickly sit down on the sofa and turn on the screen.
Then I switch to the news channel I was watching a second ago and lean forward in both anxiety and interest. That's definitely Soph's area. She lives in an apartment building too. But surely she'd be able to get herself out of the implosion. She's always been resourceful like that.
I keep convincing myself of things such as that as I watch the news come back on and display the same story I was watching a second ago. They show footage of the wrecked building from the perspective of a security camera across the road and show that there was a massive implosion seemingly out of nowhere.
Yet my eyes spot a group of men dressed in black suits and sunglasses just on the edge of the camera's range. The news clearly isn't focussing on that which means these people must have some serious connections but I see them.
Then just as I manage to remember all the men's faces and watch what happens to all the residents they go on a commercial break. Some sort of nonsense about soap and dishwashers comes up on my screen and I click my tongue with annoyance. I don't need to learn about soap and dishwashers.
Regardless it gives me the time to hop back to the kitchen and completely ignore the area again before grabbing my food out of the Mankoto food synthesiser and head back to the sofa. The food synthesiser is it's official name but everyone just calls them food microwaves or some similar nickname.
Food synthesiser doesn't roll off the tongue and Mankoto are pretty famous for creating such names so their products always get weird community nicknames. Personally I just call it the koto or the food maker or something at least internally. I'll say the whole name out to clients and such but that's neither here nor there.
Finally the advertisements end and I can get a good look at what might have happened to Soph. They provide more details on the incident as they replay the footage they were showing before the break and add some commentary about what's happening on screen.
Apparently the tech used was something that creates a mini-black hole and could be catastrophic if it wasn't regulated properly. They talk about how someone with incredible resources would have had to at least supply this tech to them as it's not only hard to get a hold of but incredibly expensive even just to make it let alone purchase it.
The part that comes next however is the part I'm interested in and the part that shocks me the most. According to credible sources who investigated the incident this was caused by one Sophie Felivar as an act of revenge for an orphanage next to the area.
This shocks me to my core. Isn't that.. Sophie's name… There's no way Sophie would do this willingly. I mean I remembered it earlier. She wouldn't give her life for anything or anyone. Let alone something so petty as this. Even she would know that this would only bolster flux's reputation.
At that thought the pieces finally click into place for me. FLUX! Of course they set her up for the whole thing. The men in black suits mysteriously left out of the news report and the reason Sophie would implode her own apartment. The only reason Sophie would do something that put her in any sort of danger is if she didn't have a choice.
How would she have a choice when these guys were breaking into her apartment. They have the means. Though I can't see why they would want Sophie gone. She hasn't harmed them in any meaningful way. Sure she doesn't like them and that's public knowledge but there are plenty of people like that and some of them are a lot more driven about it than she is.
So why is she the one who they targeted with this weird assassination. It doesn't make sense for them to degrade her character and murder her if she was just another hater in a crowd. Clearly there's something more to this.
I'll have to investigate this. With that thought I don't even stay to listen to the rest of the news report and quickly finish off my food. I didn't even notice that I was just angrily crunching crackers between my teeth this entire time. But I did notice that I had to do something.
I had to investigate. To make sure Soph was still alive. If there was even a chance of her escaping she would have and it would be my job to find her. Don't worry Soph I'm coming to get you. So I darted out of my house through the front door connected to the room I was just watching the news in, grabbing my combat suit along the way.
It looked very similar to a watch without numerals or clock hands. Just a big circle in the middle of the part that connected it to my wrist. Of course because it's mine and I got it after Soph gave me that advice, it's red and black.
Thinking about Soph brings me back to the present rather abruptly as I realise I should be hurrying to her. My sense of danger is definitely off these last few years. It's like I don't find anything dangerous any more. Even though I know staring down the barrel of a laser is dangerous it's become more of a suggestion in the back of my mind that I can just keep in my head rather than alarm bells ringing in my mind as my survival instincts kick in.