I packed my ptop back into my bag. Carefully. I only got so much allowance from the Chrysallis and I did not want to spend all of it on another decent rig. Then I slung it over my shoulder and checked my desk. Just making sure I didn’t leave anything important behind, the one time I left my phone here was a disaster.

  “Nova, you’ll never believe what I figured out!” Called Jordie.

  The man was skinny, attractive in all the ways boys thought was attractive. Not that I’d know. Square jawline, combed bck hair, no spots or greasy stains on his expensive looking clothing. He wore a leather jacket with the top button done up. ‘Cause he thought it was cool.

  “I’m sure it’s another scheme you’re going to try and rope me into. I’m of half a mind to ignore it completely.” I replied bluntly. “You know I don’t want to get caught again. Actually none of us do, so I don’t know why you keep bothering to try. You’re the only one who’s willing to risk it and I’m pretty sure the teachers have noticed. Otherwise they’d have done something about you.” I looked around. With the end of css, everyone was getting into their little huddles of friends which meant the rest of mine were going to show up soon enough.

  “Aren’t you at least a little curious what he’s cooked up this time though? I mean, stupid as his ideas would be in practice they’re fun to py out in theory. Plus, every hole he finds has a story behind it. Back when he tried to hack that robotics company we discovered they were smuggling stolen parts from other countries and got a nice bounty from the cops for tipping them off.” Added Sophie.

  I don’t mind taking a second look at her. Lean, with a bit of muscle showing through here and there though unfortuantely hiding behind that long hoodie she always wears. Jogging bottoms that give me a real nice view from behind.

  Most striking to most would probably be the almost tousled looking vibrant pink hair on her head but for me it’s those emerald eyes. I dunno what it is about them. They just pull me in like little bck holes and I really should avoid getting lost in them right this moment. She did ask me a question. I think.

  “Not really.” I reply, keeping my voice steady. “The moment I get curious he’ll convince me it’s a good idea and I’ll get stuck somewhere like the Chrysallis again or worse, they’ll figure it out.”

  “Wow, is your impulse control really that bad?” Sophie asked and I had to give an immediate reply.

  “Oh, believe me. I’m trying.”

  “Well, it’s not like this pce was all that bad for us in the end though. I mean most of us met each other here. The equipment is pretty high end stuff too, so long as they let us use it. Plus there are so many secrets here. Like the archives they’ve got under strict military guard or the reason for this facility in the first pce. Not to mention the town itself. There’s a bunch of history here and it’s filled with mysteries.” Sophie excitedly continued on.

  “Don’t forget the spoooooooky rumours.” Added a third voice, Carrie.

  She was sparkly. Sequins on her pink, feathered coat glittered like the diamonds we all wished they were. Her hair was braided, little pstic things all over it. She had a handbag that she carried over one arm like she was some model and probably wished she was. In it though was nothing a model would normally have. It was stuffed to the brim with books, fantasy and whatnot I was pretty sure though, if I had to guess, there was probably some romance in there too. She was far too interested in my love life for me to actually believe she didn’t fantasise about it.

  “Yeah, those are interesting too actually. The royal family has always been a bit on the weird side, all their obsession with gothic architecture, tradition and whatnot. There are rumours they still conduct hunts to this day.” Sophie added.

  “What? Like real vampire hunters?” Jordie asked, sounding actually intrigued for a moment. Then he came back to himself. “Well, it’s not like that’s gonna make any money so what do you say Nova? How about you come with me and we can access some nice fat bank accounts. Only the corrupt, promise, they all poison orphans or whatever I’m sure you can find the evidence if you look for it.”

  “That’s your scheme this time? Only target the worthy?” I asked, kinda baffled. “The morals weren’t exactly my biggest problem with whatever you come up with. Sure, you seem like a sleezeball, but you’re decent enough to target the right people.”

  Jordie looked taken aback for a moment and smiled embarassedly while scratching the back of his head. “Thanks.” He said before quickly moving on. “The reason I picked them though is because I’m pretty sure the government would thank us for doing the job. You know they run this pce right? I figure they’d let us get away with it if we targetted the right people, even if we did get caught.”

  “That’s more like the Jordie I know!” Chirped Sophie. “Always finding loopholes. Though I am curious which companies you’ve decided on for your hit list.” She got out a notebook with a pen and clicked it’s tip. I checked my watch, knowing how long these things went on for and realised I didn’t have the time for this.

  “Look guys, as wonderful as this has been I really should get home. Percy gets miffed when I’m even a second te.” I stopped them before they could get into details.

  “Yeah, I guess having a brother like that can be hard.” Jordie sympathised but in that condescending way people always do when they hear my adopted family is autistic. It pulls a response from me it probably shouldn’t have.

  “No, it isn’t.” I snap back. “Percy is wonderful, if often misunderstood, I won’t have you insulting him with that condescending tone.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” Percy defended himself.

  “No one ever does.” I shot back.

  “Yeah but… You know what, forget it. I’m sorry ok? Promise it won’t happen again? I’ll even shake on it.” He said with a jovial smile, trying to lighten the mood. I accepted with a deep breath to calm myself.

  “Little harsh don’cha think Nova?” Asked Sophie and her being the one to say it gave me a second of pause to really think about it.

  “I mean yeah, sorry, but that’s kinda the point.” I say after another deep breath. “I hate that tone. Whenever anyone hears I’ve been adopted into an autistic family their immediate response is ‘that must suck’ or something along those lines. I’m tired of hearing it.” I expin.

  “I’d bet if I said that you’d have snapped again.” Teased Carrie. I decided to escape before she started again. Frankly, it’s shocking Sophie hasn’t noticed.

  “Anyway, gotta go. See ya ter!” I call before grabbing my bag and walking out the door.

  “Say sorry to Percy for me!” Jordie calls after me and I just wave him off. Percy wouldn’t care what he thought anyway.

  ---

  The moment I step out of the metal gates that enclose the Chrysallis, it’s like a whole different world. Inside, there were computers at every desk. Electronic keypads were next to every door and the lights turned on if you so much as blinked at them funny. Constant artificial light made me appreciate the beauty of night.

  The stars shone their light down upon the chrysallis and it didn’t look like much from the outside. A decrepid, old school building. The word ‘Crypto’ was spelled out in broken metal letters above the fence. The building itself was all bck, grey and purple with vines occasionally crawling over the building like snakes. If I didn’t know better, I’d think no one cleaned the pce. Nope, they cleaned it and in fact those vines were carefully cultivated by the gardener to look just like that.

  I turned around and headed out into the streets. Here, things were quite different. Instead of being bombarded with lights, sounds and tech – I was hit with the fresh smell of pond water. The ducks were quacking, the geese were honking and the boats were chugging.

  Plenty of canals ran along the road beside me and the cool night breeze blew into the reeds that covered each bank. Crickets sang, birds chirped and insects buzzed. The water in canals was never clear and the smell of motor oil from all the boats, along with their constant chugging, almost overpowered the nature. There was the occasional convenience store that was still open even this te at night but otherwise most of the houses had their lights out. There weren’t many people who walked these streets at night. I could see the reason for that, the nturns where the street lights were supposed to be. Some of them had been repced recently. Still, most sat there unused because it was extortionately expensive to keep oil burning nturns lit nowadays so instead they sat there, doing nothing but stinking up the streets.

  Unfortunately that meant it got fairly dark at night. I could barely see anything and my phone only had a tiny little fshlight that lit the small path in front of me. I didn’t want to slip and fall in the canal. My zanshin was pretty good but not pin drop in the heavy rain sure to come good, so I was also a little leary of attackers from the shadows. My teacher had caught me off guard too many times with that. Not to mention, I just had a bad feeling tonight.

  That meant I stayed far away from the edge of the path and kept myself hugging the walls of nearby buildings. They couldn’t be too close to the canal. Otherwise the foundation would be unstable, which meant if I stuck close enough to them I wouldn’t be too close to the canal. Of course, that was when it started to rain. Cursing, I tried to cover my phone with my hand but that didn’t help much. If anything, now I had soaking cold hands. I could feel my clothes clinging to me like tar and my hair was already dripping cold water down my chin and onto the ground. Percy was going to have a field day with my soaked, moppy hair.

  I started running, then stopped myself. I had just thought about not wanting to slip and fall in the canal so running in the rain wasn’t on the agenda. Reluctantly I began to carefully walk, briskly. It wasn’t the first time it had rained on my way home at least so I knew the way pretty well by now.

  As I turned a corner however a shadow darted past me. The sound of my phone hitting the floor rang surprisingly loud in my ears as I felt a hand cmp over my mouth. . I bit down. Hard. The taste of iron filled my mouth along with an incredible surge of warmth and pain that I figured was adrenaline. I couldn’t see if my attacker was surprised. Then there was a prick on my neck, like a two pronged needle. Gonna drug me? I’ll go down swinging.

  I bit my inner cheek. Hopefully countering any sedatives I might have been given, I struck back with my elbow. I managed to sm into their ribs. It hurt like hell.

  It wasn’t my attacker who screamed but my own muffled curse rang in my ears as I felt my elbow sm into a brick wall. The guy, body shape suggested guy, was built like a tank. New pn. I continued biting down as hard as I could and more blood filled my mouth. I stamped as hard as I could. I knew there was a nerve there and it would hurt him enough to let me go even if he had a lot of muscle to protect it.

  That strange warmth was now surging through my body and rapidly becoming cool. I figured I’d regained my calm. The guy still didn’t let go. I stamped again, harder and faster than I thought I was capable of, finally setting myself free.

  I kicked behind me and used the momentum to roll forwards and turn, facing my attacker. I could barely see him through the rain. A fsh of pale, smooth features and a bck trench coat along with distinctive red eyes that seemed to almost glow in the dark. It reminded me of the red eye you might see in photographs. Except this man was standing right in front of me and there wasn’t any light left to trick my eyes. I memorised what little of the face I saw while I could. Chin up, angur nose, combed back hair covered in a gel, well-tailored coat, probably rich, high end boots, triangur pendant, easily identifiable.

  Before I could think any further he lunged for me again. This time I noticed the gleam at his waist. A weapon. Small, sleek, blue, is that a gun? A glowing gun? Was it humming or were my ears ringing? His strike came almost zily towards my face yet it was fast, far more than I thought I’d be comfortable handling.

  My immediate reflex was thus to dodge by a fairly wide margin. Except I found my body responding faster than normal. That wide margin became a little too wide and it put me off bance, enough that he just swept my feet out from under me. Air left my lungs from the follow up stomp on my ribs. Red gleaming eyes peered down into my own and surprisingly a voice came from behind all the rain.

  “This is unexpected. A mortal that can fight evenly with me? I wonder where you got that strength from?” The man mused.

  He had the kind of silky voice I would expect from an actor or professor. The kind that droned on and on and made you miss the real substance of what they’re saying. So I didn’t bother looking for substance, I saw my opportunity and took it. There was something gleaming in his boot. I grabbed it and stabbed straight for the achilles heel while he was distracted with his musings.

  The knife plunged through the man’s skin and out the other side, spraying my face with blood. Once again I tasted iron and the coldness seemed to increase. It was getting hard to focus.

  “Mortal brat!” He cursed and kicked my ribs. For some reaosn, I could completely ignore the pain like it was barely there and I hopped to my feet. Still clutching the bloodied knife, I lunged. He was prepared this time though and my hand was swatted away as though I were a fly. The knife cttered to the floor. I felt him wrench my wrist and before I knew how I was on the ground again, staring into those gleaming red eyes.

  “I think that’s enough out of you. This has been entertaining but I really must attend to my duties.” He pulled another weapon from his waist. This time, I didn’t recognise it even when it was right in front of me.

  It looked almost like a raygun you might hear described in sci-fi stories or maybe a pistol designed with the same aesthetic in mind? I frantically looked around for anything or anyone to help.

  Something snapped.

  A thousand voices started whispering in my head, numbers flickering across my vision slowly transting into… I think those were pixels. Like a glitchy security camera, I watched the world through another point of view. The numbers, the whispers they all bombarded me but most importantly I saw an image. Hazy, indistinct but there was an old mp with a damaged hangar. They still contained some oil. I didn’t know if that thing ran on gunpowder but even a ser would be hot enough to set the oil on fire. I waited for my chance.

  The moment it came, I didn’t waste a second. I grabbed a rock from nearby and hurled it at the nturn. With a metallic cng oil spilled over the both of us. I panicked, not realising it would get me too. It was too te.

  I watched in horror as the barrel lit up and suddenly my vision was engulfed in fmes. My eyes darted for the canal I’d been following this whole time. Knowing what to do, feeling strangely calm despite my burning skin, I shoved myself off the bank and into the nearby canal. I wasn’t sure if I heard the sizzle of extinguished fire, though that might be impossible underwater. The pain was fairly dull at the moment but I knew this was adrenaline and if I didn’t find a way out I would drown. I kicked my legs as a test. I was still fit enough to swim so I did just that, breaching the surface and pulling myself back ashore.

  I immediately searched for my attacker. I found a still lit corpse lying against one of the nearby buildings, or at least I thought it was a corpse. Until it’s mouth moved. I didn’t know what it said but after that the decay happened all too quickly. The corpse became ash in an instant.

  I was left there, alone with the realisation of what I had just done and what I assumed was fading adrenaline or burn wounds. That coldness that was creeping through my veins? It swallowed me whole in an instant.

  ---

  Then I awoke, completely surrounded.

  Aligory