Bluries wore a white sundress over her slender hourglass figure with a red cotton belt as she walked across Elzar's school garden. She was of the house Chinti, a high house from the north of Reola and sat next to a dark stoic boy at the back of the classroom. They were currently on a break that would last for two days and she hoped to make friends with him soon. Bluries was a tall young athletic girl of African descent with a slim-thick form. She had silver tattoos across her arms, firm thighs and calves down to her feet. All made large to her proportions, honed and perfected from the repetitive movement of exercise of Vosla. At a young age, Bluries was already a trained killer as all children should be in the Reolan Empire. It was their culture. It was what it was. Bluries had dark eye shades of makeup on her eyes which were silver in colour. Her eyes were not hers anymore and had been removed and replaced with hyper evolved eyes with blood-red irises. She was the apotheosis of a beauty that invoked awe like an ethereal flower that gathered an audience. An audience that was more comfortable observing it rather than plucking it away from its domain. Bluries was specializing in Elzar for science, most specifically astronavigation and was headed to the hill at the far side of the school to set up her advanced grey coloured nautical sextant; it was a light instrument but was as big as a saxophone. She had over her shoulders a backpack containing graph sheets and a journal. She was studying a prophecy, a divine event documented and followed excessively from the ruins of the anon back channels on Reola to the far celestial bodies in the Reolan star system known to all human colonies as the Icicle. Everyone had a vague idea of what it meant because it was under researched and if it was, it was not shared with the public. Information was more valuable in Reola and everyone hoarded it. The Icicle may just be a name for the ever encroaching celestial body that was first recorded six years ago; cosmic event? Alien warship? She had no idea. As a child from the high house, she had learned early on that Reola's utopia, as some will say, thrived off selective ignorance. Many knew how a lot operated but many also couldn't even differentiate augmentation from magic. Not everyone was enlightened on how everything worked and why would they be? Their Empire was a lot of things but it didn't explain itself—to know, one had to investigate and arrive at their own conclusions. Only high houses and companies went into scientific pursuits as they were the only ones with the means and ends to pursue such endeavours. Bluries felt sorry for the common man on Reola, she was just fortunate that her ancestors, the Chintis chose to be the forerunners. Bluries reached the hill and passed a brown-haired boy, his name was Zet Vassar she thought. Zet was a tall pale boy, a young man in his twenties like them all but also augmented and augments aged up children.
Bluries appearance wasn't unique. Medical tattooing was quite common in the Reolan star system, with people bearing various coloured metallic designs, it was mostly simple lines and sigils on their arms or faces to the very intricate designs like whatever Bluries had going for her. The medical tattooing was usually used to edit a person's biological and genetic code. It was dangerous but was often used to cure and prevent new diseases. She had medical tattooing everywhere on her body. Which was mostly done with the silver tattoos trailing past her forehead, to her neck, across her shoulders and further splitting off on her breasts to her back then to her thighs down to the soles of her feet. Very few people survived this type of full body genetic editing, which made her a biological mystery. The silver on her chocolate skin seemed exotic but it was just an augment that allowed her to run and react faster to movement.
Zet smiled and waved as he walked by wearing a dark trouser and white shirt with a black jacket, she returned the greeting. Bluries began to set up her high-end grey coloured nautical sextant on the grass as she dropped her backpack and removed a mat along with a few graph sheets and a journal. She posed then sat down on the mat and began to slide through the numerous lenses that the instrument had, the sun had begun to set allowing better visibility of the celestial bodies above. Bluries saw a moving body about as small as a white dot but she was sure of motion as she had been monitoring the ever-shifting dot for two months now. She plotted on the graph sheets and scribbled on some papers and wrote in her journal, the results were the same as before but varied. It was a spaceship it had to be but it was outside the Reolan star system. And very far away.
She got up and packed her bag pack and high-end grey coloured nautical sextant. And left back for her room. She had notes to write.
***
Taslin walked calmly as he moved through the supermarket, sellers were enthusiastic about selling their products from fruits to electronics to medicine. Woodling was an impressive city of trade that drew different folks as one could buy rarer food at a decent price. Taslin stopped to look at apples at a stall of the supermarket, the supermarket was as large and sprawling with equally spaced distance from each stall. To his left a family of five children bought fabrics from a merchant as their father and mother sampled furniture. Taslin sampled an apple as he saw the shadow in his peripheral vision stop at another stall and pretended to be interested in storage chips. Taslin bought the juicy red apple and began to pace nonchalantly. Taslin didn't know how the shadow had found him and knew the dangers of his chosen profession. He inhaled and then exhaled repeatedly to reduce his heartbeat and calm himself.
Taslin finished the apple and disposed of it and kept on walking as he entered a park. The shadow followed, Taslin then crossed the beautiful field of sunflowers as he moved deeper into the park's forest and exited to a sprawling block of old warehouse buildings owned by Kosokon.
***
Dalton was dressed in the black uniform of a Warden. He had been on a trail of a suspicious individual. A bloody enigma if he ever saw one. Dalton didn't understand the target, he had been following John Grey for two days and found the young man unique. Dalton would never admit it but he was more fascinated and curious than he was impressed by John Grey's irrational routes like a leaf in the whims of a windy day. John Grey moved with a purpose and motive but his circuitous plot through his journey from Rague were dizzying to even the trained eye. Dalton had failed to divine a pattern of movement and sometimes pondered if he was following a mad man, it was as though he rolled a die for every turn or bend he took. John Grey and if that was his real name, Dalton thought, was constantly vigilant, didn't seem to carry a phone as no device on him geo-pinged and worse he left no fingerprints. He had been following from afar and watched him cross into the park and walked behind him at a safe distance. Throughout the walk, the target had not once looked back and seemed unaware of Dalton's existence. The target had been identified as 'John Grey' by the train registry he hacked. The man took a side street as Dalton was looking at his phone. The information firm knew him only by his Barron ID that spiralled into a cobweb of fifty-one email addresses. He ran quickly so as not to lose him then turned straight into the side street and was greeted with a hard punch in the face. It was a sunny day and he lay staring at the sun as he lost consciousness.
***
Taslin stared at the man laying on the ground, he needed to interrogate him. He looked around and found a warehouse then proceeded to drag him through the rusted door. On the other side of the door was a dark room full of obsolete Kosokon products and relics of the Old Earth, paintings and sculptures which were shipped here but lost and no one cared to steal them, a strange era though everyone was obsessed about the past. A scattered ray of sunshine shone through the windows illuminating the dilapidated surroundings. The man with blond hair groaned as Taslin dragged him by his ankles through the doorway and deposited him against the wall near one of the Kosokon brand crates. Taslin searched through the man's clothing, from his overcoat to his pockets and then his briefcase while the man breathed with a low groan because the left side of his face was swollen from the blunt trauma. Taslin examined him and was secretly thankful that his captive's jaw still worked. Taslin searched him and found a Navdev wallet, spare ammunition for a Stellaris handgun, a standard issue Warden's private radio, a cell phone—the primitive type that hadn't been sold on the market for three millennia which originated from a manufacturing company on Old Earth in one of the Asian countries either Taiwan, Vietnam or China.
Taslin also found the suppressed Stellaris handgun in brown leather shoulder rigging. He took everything and dropped it on the floor out of the man's reach. Taslin was well versed in Vosla, the traditional art form of Reolan martial combat taught to every child before they are nine. But he only started to really develop his own fighting form four years ago after the incident. No doubt the captive was already familiar with all forms of torture. Although all forms of Vosla were the same, there were similarities depending on when it came down to the individual. The key mantra was always—a man could only fight in the form he practiced. Should the man dream of a way out of his restraints, he would have to fight Taslin to escape. Taslin held up the Navdev wallet for the man to see.
"Identification and personal belongings? A grave mistake. I guess you must be new to this? I'm talking about field work—" Taslin said. He looked through the Navdev cold storage wallet which was a cross between biometric bank transfer payment technology and a casual holder of bank and identification cards.
"Fuck you," the man said.
"Hmmm Mr Dalton Lun, this is the worst situation a shadow can find himself in, so I encourage you to cooperate" Taslin said.
The man's eyes began to focus as his coordination returned. His gaze flicked towards Taslin then turned to survey the warehouse. His hands and feet were bound by reusable zip ties, Despite the obvious pain and his captive status he was infuriated and embarrassed. The captive was somewhere in his twenties—twenty-four after Taslin checked his wallet—the captive's desperate face bore the continued abuse and effects of alcohol and tobacco. Both were readily available on Reola and the common man bore no immunity to the long-term effects that using those products caused, unlike the nobility. Taslin smiled at his thoughts after realising that his family never indulged. Gold tattoos of a leopard glinted at his neck and cycled down to his thick arms. He had a deep voice with a polished accent. "Again, fuck you." the man repeated.
Taslin brought a finger to his lips. "Shh…be quiet."
The captive just watched Taslin in silence before saying with cold detachment. "I'm gonna kill you, I ain't talking, you might as well shoot me now."
Taslin considered; torture was only effective if it yielded results—many did not understand the craft and in the end, maimed and bled their captives. And are now left with a corpse and a mess. People would say anything to make their captor stop peeling back their flesh and nails. Taslin could picture it before it happened:
"Do you know why I am breaking your fingers" and Dalton screaming "NO"
Taslin could bet that at some point he would say "YES"
Fear was the key. Fear of the pain to be expected and not the pain inflicted. He unbuttoned his dark overcoat and removed a clear jar containing a centipede as long as an index finger with cybernetic augmentations cascading across its fleshy skin. It was slimy.
"What the actual fuck! have you had that on you the whole time?" the captive screamed, at Taslin as he too recognised what it was.
Taslin shrugged and said "Got it as payment for fixing a vehicle for a black merchant trader, he didn't have my fee, but he did have this beauty in his possession, he called it Hector."
"You fucker, stop playing around…" the man shook his head as he stared at the ground. "You know you can't have that…it belongs to—"
"The Admonistrium" Taslin said, as he lifted the transparent cup capsule into the ray of light from an over-head window, the creature screeched and ran around its transparent prison looking for shade. Its purple crystalline skin produced slime to rehydrate its flesh.
"Who are you?!" the man asked. The sweat marked the armpits of his dark uniform's long sleeve shirt and was now forming dark stains. The captive tensed continuously at his restraints.
"I prefer to keep that to myself, Dalton." Taslin replied and then asked. "Why were you following me?"
Taslin smiled when he saw Dalton's shoulders begin to relax. And felt amusement about how he must look to Dalton. The man probably thought him evil. Taslin raised a brow.
"I work for an information firm that deals in false identity sting operations." Dalton said. His eyes focused excessively on Hector inside his clear capsule.
"How long have you been following me?" Taslin asked. He was worried that his true identity had been discovered but he banished the thought, if they knew, the Admonistrium would have sent someone more competent, not that Dalton wasn't but he would soon be dead and Taslin knew that death was the ultimate separator. The wall that severed the world—of the conquerors and the conquered. He was better than Dalton.
"You came under our radar last year but fell off, but recently reappeared again, slippery as an eel. I was the only operative close by so I was dispatched" Dalton said.
"Do you know who I am?" Taslin asked.
"No I don't, no one at the firm does, we used a honeypot funnel of emails we provide commercially to catch criminals, but you kept deleting and opening new accounts three days apart from each other," Dalton said. Still finding the absurdity of what he was saying and his predicament—mindboggling.
"Barron was the ID you kept using so we triangulated and found close to fifty-one emails associated with that ID, Barron, so it was easy from there as you never went above fifty-one or below it. Including this John Grey identity, you are running around with." Dalton said, with a smirk. Apparently there was a method to the madness.
Taslin understood that with conversation came comfort and with that confidence. Dalton may be cooperating now but that didn't mean he wasn't devising a way of escape. Taslin paced backwards then turned around and looked at Dalton again and quickly realised he was stalling. He proceeded to engage him again.
"Since you are in the data mining profession, tell me all about the Icicle?" Taslin asked. It was a mystery he followed pertaining to different spider webs of theories all leading to this phenomenon known as the Icicle—a coming invasion. Taslin was an engineering hobbyist working on different projects including weapons and a spaceship he was yet to perfect back home. But this caught his interest. From the dawn of human civilisation, anything that entailed invasion was usually accompanied with death. The wall that severed the world.
"It is a myth, complete and utter bollocks. Bunch of crazy talk about an alien invasion that started six years ago." Dalton said. "Only nutjobs buy into it"
"I doubt, The Admonistrium loves to memory hole and censor as well as gate keep knowledge to only a select 'few' leaving the 'many' to stumble through the dark." Taslin said.
"Sorry pal I can't help you there" Dalton said.
"Okay" Taslin said, as he approached Dalton where he was seated on the floor and squatted to his eye level.
"Would you let me go?" Dalton asked, as he quickly realised the mood shift, he was sweating profusely. His blue eyes wide with fear.
"I don't need to any more, do I?" Taslin said. He reached out with his hands and with a twist—broke Dalton's neck.