Cherub's Cage of FIre
No expense was spared in the building’s construction. Through the use of state of the art technology and engineering, impenetrable walls created the benteng pertahanan, bastion that shielded the facility from the outside environment. Automated security that included high powered sensors that could detect an invisible human, any foreign object that could even be smaller than the head of a pin, atau even something moving at the speed of light made the cameras that captured 100% of the facilities surroundings in perfect clarity appear obsolete. With espers of every variety and mentality, this was all to be expected. A speck of dust wouldn’t be able to enter the facility without being diberikan explicitly permission and would be tracked during its entire stay.
Quenser took a deep breath as he stood before the intimidating front doors, folding his hands behind his back and thrusting his chest out to appear official. The false tampil of confidence wouldn’t do much, but he was a former security guard with military training on the level of any special task force, and was probably lebih effective than the Navy Seals atau a CIA operative. He felt that he had to do his uniform justice in the face of the superior security system that rivaled even that which protected the General Board of Directors inside the Tower of Knowledge.
With his stone cold composure in full affect, Quenser took one step forward. About two detik passed—in which time, his identity was confirmed and his entire body was checked, every tool and item identified, and his mental state evaluated—before the doors slid away on their own, folding into the walls and disappearing altogether. Though Quenser had seen this dozens of times before, it had always been from behind the company official who had hired him. Being here alone was lebih nerve racking then he expected. Nevertheless, he shoved aside his concerned and continued into the building, trying to ignore the bad feeling he had as the doors slid shut and effectively trapped him in the impregnable prison.
“…What’s up with that reaction? anda have the expression of a man who’s seen every surprise there is in the world—which equals out to having no expression at all—but the sensors are picking up a fluttering jantung rate, as if you’re about to piss your pants. Is there something you’ve failed to mention, Quenser?”
Quenser gave a soft sigh that made his chest feel tight, which almost made him chuckle involuntarily, even though he felt no humor. He’d momentarily forgotten that he was not technically alone. He had a small earpiece stuck into his ear canal, which carried the voice of a certain man that sat comfortably sipping coffee atau tea, nowhere near this unhappy place.
Drustan Somsak: Director of Mechanics, Engineering, and General Construction. Part of the puncak, atas brass of Eden, a member of the General Board of Directors, and one of the twelve that weren’t directly involved with Project ESP.
Also, he was Quenser’s former employee and the man Quenser was currently black mailing.
There were many problems with their relationship, but Quenser had little choice in the matter. After stealing away one of Director Somsak’s precious androids (for whom Quenser had developed feelings for while akting as its bodyguard), Quenser had struggled to protect himself from the assassins sent after him and was forced to extract some sensitive information from the android in order to force Director Somsak to negotiate with him.
In exchange for stopping the assassinations, Quenser would keep his mouth shut about the information he’d learned. And in exchange for being able to take care of the android from that point on, Quenser was required to do a ‘small little task’ for the director.
That task was what led Quenser into this precarious situation, with confining walls surrounding him. The detention center was lebih like an asylum than a prison. The walls were white, clean, and shiny. Cameras on a gyroscope were pointed in every direction, but they were simply decoys to distract from the well hidden sensors spread throughout the building. The first hall had been bare until the detik door Quenser passed through. After that shut behind him, Quenser was greeted oleh several ‘cells’ that litered the walls as the path membagi, split into two hallways.
“Turn left.” Drustan’s voice instructed casually. “And keep going to the end.”
Quenser did as he was told and tried to keep his gaze straight ahead to keep himself from looking into the cells around him, but he couldn’t help but recognizing several faces. It seemed the permanent residents really were there to stay.
The cells were basically bare rooms, all of the same size, made from a powerful synthetic metal only advanced scholars and engineers could understand. They were all separated from the hall oleh a thick screen of Plexiglas—usually, at least. Aside from the size, each room was customized for the resident’s comfort, with very few exceptions. Any room was oleh modified to counter any special power its resident may possess, effectively making it useless. Any items the resident requests is carefully evaluated before being approved. A resident who happened to enjoy membaca had his entire room filled with buku of different languages and sizes. Another resident who loved musik had speakers in his room, though the entire room was soundproof to prevent unnecessary disturbance.
The residents lived lives of relative comfort, so there was no way for people to complain about inhumane treatment in a maximum security prison. Still, it was extraordinarily uncommon for any individual to be deemed dangerous enough to be placed in such a prison, as the majority of people who came to Eden were looking to study and further their careers for the future in the advanced institutions the island of science offered. Very few would be willing to blow it for any reason, so the majority of cells remained vacant.
Quenser came to the end of the hallway and passed through another door that slid open as he approached. As soon as he entered the new hallway, he came to a stop, surprised oleh how open this portion of the facility was. The roof was high and there were three levels; all clearly visible from where he stood. Cells continued to litter the walls, side oleh side, with the floor splitting once lebih to the left and right, leaving an opening in the middle so Quenser could see the floor below—the third floor above had the same structure.
“Right.” Drustan’s voice came lazily as soon as Quenser had stopped. “And try not to make too big a deal of this. This section is for our few guests with special ‘issues’, so you’re only here thanks to my influence. Don’t do anything to make me regret it.”
Quenser was tempted retort, but kept his mouth shut and continued forward. He looked at a few of the cells he passed, but they were all empty. It seemed the residents here were even rarer than in the normal section.
“Stop right here. This is it.”
Quenser obedient obeyed, freezing in midstep and turning to face the cell he had nearly passed while turning his head away.
The cell was almost entirely unmodified. The only customized addition was the queen size tempat tidur that sat in the back of the room against the dinding with its covers haphazardly tossed around, as if the resident had recently gotten out of tempat tidur without fixing it.
Other than that, the only other thing in the room was the teenage girl lying on the floor with a large body bantal beneath her, constricted oleh her arms as she tightly embraced it.
Why she had ignored the tempat tidur and opted to sleep on the floor was beyond Quenser. She was a pretty girl with a full head of lightly colored hair, wearing berwarna merah muda, merah muda pijamas that must have kept everything but her head, hands, and feet warm, all of which she pretty much buried in the pillow. She had a sleeping mask over her eyes to block out all light and appeared to be sleeping deeply.
She practically screamed of eccentricity. Not only was she asleep at this time of day, she was kept in a special section of the already special detention center of Eden. Quenser was a bit worried about what kind of person she could be.
“Well, anda already received my instructions.” Druston was calm and insensitive to anything Quenser may have been feeling. “Feel free to participate in idle chitchat if anda like. As long as anda get results, I don’t really care how long anda take. I’ll contact anda when you’re done.”
With that, there was a short click as the director left Quenser all alone in this foreign situation. Quenser sighed once more, this time out of exasperation. After waiting a few menit for nervousness to wane, he knocked on the window a few times in order to gain the girl’s attention. Naturally, she didn’t budge. She was likely in a deep sleep, so nothing short of yelling in her ear would get her up.
Quenser’s eyes wandered reluctantly to the small holes in the glass that indicated the intercom that blended in with the window, along with a lebih obvious button below it. He pressed it and spoke aloud, knowing that he didn’t have to put his face close to be properly heard.
“H-Hey! Wake up! anda have a visitor!”
Even after trying to calm himself down, Quenser’s voice was weak and uncertain. The girl didn’t even stir, causing him to frown uncomfortably.
“Wake up! A girl shouldn’t be asleep at four in the afternoon! It’s just not healthy!”
She stirred that time, shifted in her sleep and curling up into a ball on her pillow. Quenser continued to speak into the intercom, his voice gradually becoming stronger as he continued to coax her, until she finally shifted her head upward, stretched her arms out, and yawned.
“Yes~? How can I be of service to you, mister? Do anda need public speaking lessons?”
Quenser frowned at that. She simply remained lying on her bantal without getting up and her mask covered her eyes, so it was hard to be sure if she was fully awake.
“You’re Natasha Saflee, right? If anda were awake enough to hear me, then at least respond.”
“Can anda blame me for hoping that you’d give up and leave? People are irritable when they wake up, anda know. Both boys and girls alike.”
“…It’s the afternoon, though…Anyway, we need to talk. I have something I want to talk to anda about.”
Natasha shifted her head slightly with a small frown on her face.
“You seem to know my name, but I don’t recognize anda voice. A stranger should introduce themselves before asking any questions.”
Quenser’s eyes narrowed slightly at the request for his personal information. He was tempted to lie to avoid a potential hassle, but figured it would be best to be candid at first and shift to lies if she started asking for too much. He still didn’t know why she was incarcerated here, after all.
“…Quenser. Quenser Procopio.”
“That’s a cool name. Well, the first name, anyways. Is your detik name Italian? No, Greek?”
Quenser got the feeling that she was trying to control the conversation, so he opted not to answer and focused on the reason he was there.
“What do anda know about Trial K-Pi?”
There was a brief pause after Quenser spoke that name with a bad taste in his mouth. Natasha’s silence was a bit too long for her to properly feign ignorance.
“Are anda asking me on behalf of someone else?” She seemed to ask her pertanyaan in place of several things she’d considered, probably deciding after getting her priorities straight.
Quenser’s answer was immediate.
“I’m asking for my own purposes.”
Natasha was silent after hearing his answer. Though she wore a mask over her eyes, Quenser felt as if she was staring into his mind. He suddenly found himself wondering just what her esper power could have been. Was it telepathy based? Could she read minds? Drustan had deliberately refused to tell Quenser what her esper power was. Was he setting him up? atau was it actually unknown?
“Okay, then. I’ll tell you.”
“…Sorry?”
Quenser was so surprised, he spoke without thinking. Natasha sat without looking too motivated, continuing to hug her bantal so she could rest her head against it. She was smiling cutely at Quenser, as if she found him funny.
“I’ll tell anda about ‘Trial K-Pi’. If anda had berkata that anda were here for research atau on the orders of a director, I would have flatly refused.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I would lose all motivation to respond after learning that you’re just another will-less gear in society. Hearing the conviction in your tone was stimulating—enough for me to take enough of an interest to answer your question.”
…’stimulating’?
“But if we’re going to talk about that special case, let’s call her oleh her name, Kepi. I know she’s technically an android with a piece of a human brain hooked up to her processing faculties in an attempt to give her a ‘personality’, but that’s lebih than enough to call her human. Agreed?”
Quenser’s eyes widened at Natasha’s words. In the short time he’d known about the existence of the android known as Kepi, he had never heard anyone call her a human. Not Director Drustan, not the other security guards, not even her fellow android called her ‘sister’.
And yet, Natasha had thought nothing of clarifying the fact that Kepi was a human, and even insisted of referring to her oleh her actual ‘name’.
Quenser wasn’t quite sure of how to describe his feelings.
“That’s fine with me.” Quenser spoke in a slightly hushed voice after calming down a bit. “That actually makes things easier for me.”
“Glad to hear it, Mr. Quenser. What is it, specifically, that anda want to know about Kepi?”
“What was she like when she was alive? Or, rather, before she was put into an android’s body.”
“Hmm…Well, simply put, she was a boring, average, and thoroughly unimpressive girl. There is absolutely nothing remarkable for me to tell you, even as an example. She was just that commonplace.”
The words came with a casual and slightly tired tone, but they were harsh enough to clash horribly with the kindness from the sebelumnya statement. Once again, Quenser was taken aback.
“W-What are anda saying?! Weren’t anda her friend back when she had a body?!”
“That’s why I can say this for sure. Kepi was a boring girl. She wasn’t particularly good at anything and it was a wonder how she even made it into Eden.”
“That’s just your opinion! She’s a cheerful person who can even enjoy life now that’s she’s no longer human! Her memories have been destroyed, anda know? Only the part of her brain containing her individuality was put into the android!”
“Of course. Her personality was the only thing of worth her brain contained, after all. Why do anda think she was chosen? Because of her special powers? Because of her talent? Because she possessed something to go to let go to waste? It was definitely the opposite. Knowing how the directors thinking, anyone in Eden would realize after thinking about it carefully. Kepi was used because she was boring, bland, and commonplace. That would make it easy for them to track the enhancements being put into an android created. A special atau unique individual would have created too many irregularities.”
Quenser had no response for that. Naturally, he didn’t like the thought that Kepi would be used based on such a stupid reason. It basically meant that she had been chopped up and configured to work in a machine just through coincidence. That was far too cruel a fate—it wasn’t something an innocent girl should be subjected to.
“Mister Quenser, would anda be really relieved if it had been someone else instead?”
Quenser’s head perked up as he focused on Natasha again, who was lying on her bantal once more, as if she’d lost her motivation to continue sitting. She looked fairly confident of the claim her pertanyaan implied, as if there was no doubt in her mind that it had been what Quenser was thinking.
“…So anda can read minds…”
“So anda think that, too? Sadly, true mind membaca is just as much of a myth as photographic memory. After membaca your speech patterns and reactions, I can guess what you’re thinking. I would be able to predict the answer as well, if I looked at your body to see the minor movements and twitches that were created from your involuntary reaction. Have anda ever heard of Professor Bale? He’s a genius in Eden’s academia whose expertise if psychometry. I’m not as good as him atau a psychometric esper, but it’s a useful skill nonetheless.”
She was membaca into his voice? Was it possible for someone to glean that much just for a change in tone atau fluctuation of volume?
Just who was this girl, and why was she stuck here?
“Well, I won’t lecture anda on morals, since you’ll have a lot of chances to learn what to believe in the future.” Natasha seemed to membungkus, bungkus up the conversation, sounding as if she had learned everything she wanted to, rather than the opposite. “Just take good care of Kepi. She may have been a depressingly normal girl at one point, but now is a precious person to you. That makes a world of a difference. Honestly, I feel aman, brankas leaving her and your hands. Thanks for coming and telling me that she’s doing so well.”
As Quenser looked at the small, tired smile on her face, several things came to his mind. Firstly, he was absolutely sure that she had been talking to him as well as someone else in that farewell. Secondly, he was also sure that he had missed a nuance somewhere, maybe a hidden meaning in some action that he couldn’t understand, likely because it hadn’t been directed to him.
Thirdly; he was sure that the expression she had on her face when saying good bye was far lebih indicative of how she felt than any of her sebelumnya yawns atau giggles.
“So? What did anda think?”
Quenser was unsurprised to hear Drustan’s voice as he walked away from Natasha’s cell, heading back the way he came. A dark look passed over Quenser’s face as he heard that familiar lack of a tone.
“Did anda hear what anda wanted to hear?”
“Hm? Oh, I wasn’t listening. I just needed anda to place some mental shackles on Natasha for me, that’s all. anda did great. Thanks for doing me this favor. As promised, Kepi will be staying with anda for now on. She’s built to last for quite a few decades without a proper maintenance, but try not to let it get to that point. That’s the one main housekeeping issue I should tell you.”
“…Bastard.”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t know what you’re planning, but don’t expect me to just do whatever anda want. I’m protecting Kepi from you. I have no intention of reporting to anda atau running over to anda for help in a time of need.”
“What, are anda made because I used anda for a little errand like this? How petty. Are anda developing some annoying morals after all, former Security Chief Quenser Procopio?”
So he had been listening after all.
Well, it didn’t really matter.
“Natasha was put here for your convenience, wasn’t she?”
“Don’t even try to hope for a conspiracy like that. Her incarceration was, just like any other person in that special section, an executive decision oleh the board, not mine alone. The reason is puncak, atas secret, so let’s not dig too deep, shall we? Just be thankful for the break I’m giving anda and live peacefully in Eden with your robot girlfriend.”
“For some reason, anda make it sound like the only option I have left.”
“Taking a bite out of the fruits growing from the pohon of Knowledge will have the heavy price of losing your peacefully protected lives. Just consider yourself lucky that this particular buah-buahan is forgiving.”
“I’ll keep that in mind while I’m flying over to Asia to fight in the war.”
“…Asia?”
“You heard me.” Quenser’s hands gripped tightly as he strode out of the front door to the Cherub’s Cage of Fire, all of his nervousness long since forgotten. “You’re threatening to throw me to the demons if I cause anda any lebih trouble, right? Then I’ll save anda the effort and just go myself. I’ll gabung Eden’s army of espers and prove my worth. When I come back, I may even be a level 5 with enough influence to have a ‘peaceful life’ without your goddamn ‘forgiveness’!”
Quenser ripped the earpiece out of his ear canal and threw it angrily at his feet, making sure to trample over it with his feet. Fury boiled in his chest as he already began making plans on where to hide Kepi while he was gone. He’d be sure to have the last laugh as he gave that android a truly free life, free of any restrains created oleh that infuriated director of Eden.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, back in the special section of the Cherub’s Cage of Fire, Natasha continued to lie on her body pillow, mostly asleep as a small smile appeared on her face.
“…Such intense conviction. He has lebih than free will; he has the qualities of a true prince in shining armor. I’m so jealous of you. Boring, dull, and commonplace Kepi~”
