Ten minutes later, she came to a screeching halt outside Helviter HQ’s main gate in her Honda SUV. The vehicle shouldn’t have screeched that way—she had only gotten it a year ago. Neither was it supposed to be dented in six different places, but that was unavoidable with her atrocious parallel parking skills.
He deposited himself in the passenger seat, making sure to put the seat belt on before doing anything else. Just one look at her told him she was indeed here to drag him into some bullshit.
She hadn’t even bothered to change out of her outfit, and she looked sticky with sweat.
“Arcie, long time no see!” she sang cheerfully, reaching over for half of a hug.
Kysa was six years older than him, and Kylan, his brother, was almost seventeen. Growing up, he never thought he wanted to be with these two after getting a job, but the Mayday scared all three of them badly enough into sticking together as a family.
He returned the sticky, sweaty hug, making sure not to shove his nose anywhere near her neck. He didn’t want to suffocate in deodorant, perfume, and Kysa essence.
That long time no see was a bit of an exaggeration. She had seen him a day ago. It was just that their paths didn’t cross very often these days, even if they lived together. She worked night shifts, and he worked day shifts. Most days, she was going to sleep when he was waking up. Today, things were different at both ends.
She squeezed his soft octopus flesh with her vice-grip of a hug. Kysa was aggressively healthy and energetic as she always was.
Whenever he saw her, he couldn’t help but think about how lucky she was. She had won the moment she was born. She was attractive in both looks and personality—a combination that never once failed her in any pursuit in her life.
She was his opposite in all possible aspects to the point of parody. They couldn’t have been more different if they tried.
Naturally, they grew apart during her troubled teen years, where she started burning through a long list of boyfriends. Back then, Arcen only thought of his sister as a real person whenever she snapped, when she wasn’t herself at all. He used to piss her off just to see it.
She had been just as lucky on the Mayday—sleeping under a thick, weighted blanket next to one of her boyfriends. The Mayday light never touched her, and she remained a hundred percent human exactly as she always was, keeping her green eyed, blonde-haired, perfect nosed, and healthy-skinned glory fully intact.
He never really forgave her for that.
The bitch.
The word had leaked from the bottom of his mind, where he had residual hate from years of petty incidents. It wasn’t fair at all now.
Although she never suffered a mutation, Kysa turned into a completely different person post Mayday, one that was far easier to love as a brother. He could no longer imagine hating her for any reason, but some bitter feelings still leaked through the cracks.
One day I’m gonna stop calling her names in my head.
“We’re going home, right? Please?” Arcen asked with an uncomfortable sigh, noticing the location pin on the map that was definitely not that.
“No, since I already need a bath, we’re going to Delta Hot Springs!”
He stared at her dumbfounded, unable to believe her spontaneous planning. This sounded like an all-time Hall of Famer.
“…and I’m supposed to watch your ass getting tenderized in the spa?” he asked with an exasperated sigh. “You know I don’t like that stuff done to mine!”
“You don’t have to!” Kysa laughed. “It’s just for a little dunk, think of yourself like a purple little cookie,” she cooed at him like she was talking to a five-year-old and stepped on the gas.
He wasn’t in the mood for hot springs on a Tuesday. But here he was, an octopus being taken there to be boiled in a pool.
Just kill me.
The dunk, as she called it, was far more pleasant than he had imagined on the way. This wasn’t the first time he liked something that his sister came up with that he hated at the start.
He liked it because this turned out to be the perfect day to be there. The place was the least crowded it could ever be. Very few people were insane or leisurely enough to be there at twelve midday on a Tuesday. Aside from them, there was only an elderly couple and a middle-aged man with a laptop.
They had a pool for themselves. He stayed in his corner, feeling exactly like a boiled octopus. He weighed almost three hundred kilograms due to his mutation, but his big head and tentacles were buoyant.
He felt good about ten minutes into the dunk. He didn’t have the energy or the enthusiasm like Kysa to do things in the pool. He just floated around with a bored expression, trying to get a quick nap.
Kysa woke him up by trickling water onto his face. He raised himself, ready to complain. She had a towel around her shoulders and her phone with her. It seemed her ‘dunk’ was over.
Damn, did I already get a nap?!
The hot water had made him too comfortable. The nap felt like a blink that skipped time itself.
“I need to talk to you about something before we go…” Kysa said, wading next to him and leaning back on the edge.
“Sure, go ahead,” he said, in a significantly better mood now that he was in a freshly boiled state.
She held her phone with the screen pushed firmly against her chest. Her free hand was already on his elbow, slowly caressing his purple skin.
That was the usual way she started telling something that could potentially set him off. The touch was to test his temperature. If he let her touch him, it meant go ahead. If he jolted away, that meant he wasn’t in the mood. She usually didn’t start anything with the actual topic either.
“You alright, Arcie? You didn’t tell me why you got a day off. You always have good performance. So, that was a lie, wasn’t it?” she asked, curling her lip and narrowing her eyes at him.
That was no surprise.
Kysa was always insane at reading people, and since Mayday, she was particularly insane at reading him above all other people. Lying to her required real effort. ‘Good performance’ wasn’t going to cut it.
“Nothing to worry about, just a work thing. I’ll be fine,” he used more words this time. He didn’t want to worry her because her solutions to his problems had a way of pissing him off.
“Anything you can tell me?” She asked softly, as he still didn’t answer.
“No, It’s a classified thing.”
“Take it easy then, please. You sound…off.”
“Don’t worry, it’s fine,” Arcen said, snapping his wet fingers. “What did you want to talk about? That it?” he asked, pointing at the phone she held tightly against her chest.
“It’s about Kye. Promise me you won’t get too mad?”
He already knew this was going to ruin the rest of his day as soon as he heard the name. He took a deep breath and nodded, tentacles bopping.
What did that loser do this time...
She showed him her phone. It was a photo of their precious little brother talking with what looked like a street hooker. Arcen wiped his wet fingers on her towel, grabbed the phone, and zoomed in.
Well, here we fucking go. That’s him, alright.
“Are you sure this is exactly what it looks like?” He couldn’t tell if the fishnets were some new teenage fashion trend. His brother had…questionable tastes in girls that he wanted—ones that drowned him in tears after two or three months on average.
“How do we know this isn’t just some girl with daddy issues?”
“Everyone I know has daddy issues. But this one’s working the Sixth Street.”
Arcen sighed. Of course, Kysa knew all the hookers in a fifty-mile radius. She worked as a pole dancer at the Nymph Toad, the biggest strip club in New Manning. She was one of the key members of the NT dance club, which got her a lot of backup dancer gigs at concerts. She’d been in rehearsal for one all morning.
Apart from dancing her way to the top, she was also really good at being a micro celebrity because she was a model from a young age. In some months, she made anywhere from two to five times his salary, and she did it without ever having to wear a brain-fucking flesh helmet.
Despite the money made, her lifestyle was quite expensive. While she dealt with bigger numbers more often than he did, it never really gave their family the stability of a steady monthly paycheck.
“Did you talk to this girl or anything?” He asked after a long pause.
“I don’t know her enough to ask her about her clients.”
“Send this to me. I’ll talk to him.”
“Don’t hit him or anything!” Kysa said with a worried look on her face.
Still babying that loser.
“If I do, that’s between us. You stay out of it,” he told her, handing her accursed phone back.
It was blowing up with heart notifications even as he held it. He didn’t want to open one of those on accident and see something that’d make him want to put bleach in his eyes.
Kysa leaned on him instead of taking the phone back. He waved it a couple of times in front of her face, but there was no response. He felt her breath tickle the crook of his neck instead.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Hey, what are you doing? Take your phone?” Arcen said, looking at her, annoyed. He hadn’t told her anything that warranted her leaning on him. This felt like a second topic that had crashed out of nowhere. Maybe she had something else she wanted to talk about, or she felt cuddly for no reason.
Why is she like, hanging on me though?
As he turned, trying to lift Kysa’s head off his shoulder, he saw a pair of glowing orange eyes staring back at him like two headlights.
“Y-you!” he yelled, almost dropping the phone into the hot water. If his sister hadn’t been leaning on him, he would’ve slipped off the edge and found a way to drown, even with his octopus buoyancy.
“Calm down, we’re in public, sir!” the slimy brat said in a sing-song voice. She was standing right behind him on the edge, leaning over his sister. The way she said ‘Sir’ still ticked him off.
“W-what did you do to my—” Arcen howled, heart racing. He clutched the phone, holding it close to him on the opposite side, ready to dial 911.
His eyes blacked out, engulfing him in complete darkness just like it had happened on the train.
He felt her small, oily fingers sneaking the phone out of his hand.
“Please don’t panic. It’s like hitting pause, don’t worry, sir, I won’t hurt you or anyone.”
His vision flickered back, and he heard the clatter as the girl placed the phone on a chair behind him.
“Help!” he yelled, but it came out in the exact volume of a wheeze out of his mouth.
“Don’t do that, I just want to talk, sir,” she said, circling back to him. She crouched on the edge next to him, trapping him between her and his sister’s deadweight.
Unable to do anything, he just stared. The girl was dripping oil from head to toe like a fountain.
“Sorry, I sweat when I’m nervous,” she told him, tucking a wet strand of dark brown hair behind her ear with an uncomfortable smile.
That’s her sweat?!
“Who the fuck are you? Why are you doing this?” His voice came out at a normal volume.
“My name’s not that important. I know yours, Arcen Henwick. Nice name, sir! I just want to talk, that’s all.“
“T-talk about what!” he howled, his volume going down the higher he wanted it to be in his mind.
“About your weekend overtime gig in Wensik, there are things that you should know before stepping into a tower, you know. It can be really dangerous.”
“W-what?! I’m not going into a tower, though. Station’s near one of the towers, not inside it.”
“That’s what they told you?” She burst out laughing.
After calming herself down, she turned to him, her four petal pupil eyes staring directly into his eyes. “I think we can help each other,” she said, all emotion vanishing from her small face.
“I told you I’m not interested!” Arcen yelled, his voice growing smaller the louder he wanted to yell. She was mind-hacking him as if he were an old radio. This was his third time telling the girl to get lost, but she wasn’t deterred at all.
“I understand. Sorry, sir,” she repeated the same thing she told him the last two times. It was usually what someone would say before leaving, but she didn’t leave at all. She just crouched there, staring at him like a snake. Her eyes looked like egg yolks, completely smooth. Her pupils slowly warped like ferrofluid.
She didn’t have a single blemish or scar on her very human-looking skin. The contrast between her perfectly human looks and her eyes made her creepy.
It’s like she’s pretending to be human.
He was getting nowhere telling her to get lost. He had a different question.
“What the fuck even are you?!”
“Wonder about that myself sometimes. Anyway, do you want to see that profile of you that I pulled up on the train?” She asked, switching topics herself.
“I’m already in trouble for that! Just leave me the fuck alone! I don’t want anything to do with you!”
“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you didn’t see the numbers. You’re very valuable to Helviter. Don’t you wanna see how much again?”
He pursed his lips. He did want to see that. He just didn’t want to make it seem like it was his idea.
“Luckily for you, I took a snapshot. This is just a picture. You won’t get a call from your boss again,” she snapped her fingers in front of his eyes.
The dashboard that he saw popped into existence before his nose.
┌──═════════──???──═════════──┐
HELVITER INDUSTRIES
︾
EMPLOYEE PROFILE
──────────────────────────
?INFORMATION?
──────────────────────────
ID: 1768-C
NAME: ARCEN HENWICK
DEPARTMENT: FERTILITY
POSITION: LEAD SORTER
──────────────────────────
?PRODUCTIVITY?
──────────────────────────
SORTED: 30,342
GROSS:: $65,181,400
SAVINGS: $23,348 +0.08%
──────────────────────────
?CONTRACT?
──────────────────────────
CHRONOS
GLIMPSES OF THE FUTURE
──────────────────────────
?STATS?
──────────────────────────
╭──────╮
ERY
[L-5]
[H-8]
╰──────╯
╭──────╮
HER
[T-9]
[D-8]
╰──────╯
╭──────╮
MAO
[O-7]
[C-6]
╰──────╯
╭──────╮
PAN
[H-5]
[D-8]
╰──────╯
╭──────╮
BRA
[C-6]
[D-2]
╰──────╯
╭──────╮
APO
[L-5]
[D-8]
╰──────╯
╭──────╮
OSI
[L-7]
[D-6]
╰──────╯
╭──────╮
CHR
[F-16]
[P-3]
╰──────╯
──────────────────────────
[Condensed Mode]
Internal Use Only
└──═════════──???──═════════──┘
“This doesn’t make a lot of sense. This is what it all really means,” she said, tapping her temple again, highlighting the [condensed mode] link. The profile flickered and updated.
┌──═════════──???──═════════──┐
HELVITER INDUSTRIES
︾
EMPLOYEE PROFILE
──────────────────────────
?INFORMATION?
──────────────────────────
ID: 1768-C
Name: Arcen Henwick
Department: Fertility
Position: Lead Sorter
──────────────────────────
?PRODUCTIVITY?
──────────────────────────
Viable Embryos Sorted: 30,342
Gross Revenue Generated:: $65,181,400
Employee Fixed Savings: $23,348 +0.08%
──────────────────────────
?DUALITY CONTRACT?
──────────────────────────
Auditor: Chronos
Title: Glimpses of the Future
Type: Sub Contract
Cost: $1,300 [Single Use]
──────────────────────────
?STATS?
──────────────────────────
┌───────────────┐
Erynnis
──────────────
Love/Devotion: 5
Hate/Vengeance: 8
└───────────────┘
┌───────────────┐
Maoseth
──────────────
Order/Control: 7
Chaos/Freedom: 6
└───────────────┘
┌───────────────┐
Hermayal
──────────────
Truth/Honesty: 9
Deception/Guile: 8
└───────────────┘
┌───────────────┐
Pandorai
──────────────
Hope/Ambition: 5
Despair/Sorrow: 8
└───────────────┘
┌───────────────┐
Brahmara
──────────────
Creation/Innovation: 6
Destruction/Demolition: 2
└───────────────┘
┌───────────────┐
Apollyon
──────────────
Light/Awareness: 5
Darkness/Ignorance: 8
└───────────────┘
┌───────────────┐
Osiryn
──────────────
Life/Growth: 7
Death/Decay: 6
└───────────────┘
┌───────────────┐
Chronos
──────────────
Future/Foresight: 16
Past/Memory: 3
└───────────────┘
──────────────────────────
[Verbose Mode]
Internal Use Only
└──═════════──???──═════════──┘
He couldn’t resist reading through it, no matter how pissed and stressed he was.
Some of these words in the verbose mode like ambition, control, awareness, foresight, and memory, were his employee metrics on the regular dashboard. These attributes were clearly categorized by the names of post-Mayday Gods.
With the way they were separated by a slash, it seemed the second word of every attribute served as an additional description. Love meant Devotion. Hate meant Vengeance.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because we’re friends?” She asked sarcastically. “I’m kidding, I just wanted to give you something,” she crossed her arms over her knees, adjusting her posture with a sigh.
Her tone shifted to something like a schoolteacher out of nowhere and she continued. “I’m sure you saw these stats on Mayday. They’re the same ones. It’s just that your company renamed them with different words to make them fit their system. So, when it says love slash devotion, the first half of that is the original named attribute.”
“The Mind Matrix is just an interface that the GGC made. All the corpos use their own interfaces on top of it. All of these are layers built on top of the real system that started on Mayday, It’s the one that showed you rules, do you remember it?”
Arcen didn’t want to seem too eager to know more, but what she was saying did sound interesting. He knew half of it already, for example, he knew how others built their own UIs on top GGC Mind Matrix.
This stats part of it was new to him. He saw numbers and words on Mayday—ones that he forgot almost immediately and didn’t care about since. What she was saying made sense. Helviter had just renamed Hope to Ambition, tracking the same number as whatever system that cursed the Earth eight years ago.
That means they’re picking and choosing the stats relevant to the job.
With all of this new knowledge, he could no longer tell who was in charge of the world. The gods, the GGC or the megacorporations.
He didn’t remember his initial numbers, but most of them were still single digits. Whoever was counting them haven’t been doing a lot of counting, if that’s all he got in eight years.
His numbers did change while he was doing his job. It was unpredictable, and no one knew how to just make it happen. Of the stats that changed the most, Future/Foresight was his best metric. He had a fair guess it had something to do with his contract, Glimpses of the Future, from Chronos, who was the God of Future and Past.
Did my Future stat go up when I was sorting embryos?
Discussing these things with the oily brat was a slippery slope. He didn’t know what her motives were, and he didn’t want to know either.
“You didn’t answer me with that. Why are you telling me all this?” he asked, trying to raise his voice.
“Because you shouldn’t go into a tower expecting to press buttons like it’s a fucking app. Do you remember the Rootsong or not, answer my question!” she said sternly.
What the fuck is a root song!
“I remember squiggles and hums, that’s all,” Arcen said apprehensively. Eight years was a long time ago. For him, it may as well have been a different lifetime.
“Good. Then you remember. That’s the real system. It’s the one you’ll see in the tower. You’ll remember how to sing it once you’re there.”
The girl stood, combing her hair back. “You still want nothing to do with me, and my time’s up. So, I’ll see you later, sir,” she said, waving at him.
Kysa snapped awake once the girl disappeared.
She looked around, her eyes narrowed to slits as if she woke up from the greatest sleep of her life. She took a deep breath and yawned.
“Arcie… I feel so sleepy,” she mumbled, putting her head back on his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him.
Arcen patted her head.
She’s going to come around again. I should catch this fucking oily brat the next time.
