“Get out.” He said, his voice as calm as a spring breeze. His right hand rested on the arm of the swivel chair while he tapped the mahogany desk with his left. The analogue clock hung on the wall behind him ticked by the second, hitting his composed façade like a sledgehammer straight to his heart.

“So that’s it? Because of a single mistake, you are kicking us all out?” The woman opposite him spoke out in anger. Her red ashamed visage created a gap with her tall, explosive stature. She dressed herself in a ruby red office dress with plum red lipstick and crimson glazed high heels. But today, that red was not the red of passion but the red of shame and guilt.

All the other employees of his short-lived company watched on with trepidation through the glass walls as the lady in red and him went back and forth, all but one young woman in a cute black trench coat, sitting on a beanbag to the side while sipping on a can of beer. She sneered at Sarah’s shamelessness, before glaring at the cooling unit of the outer office. Of all days, the building management had to pick today to do maintenance. But of course, her dissatisfaction went unnoticed by others, who had far larger problems to worry about.

“Mistake? So you mistakenly lied to the media, gave them detailed stories that never happened, and dried the dirty laundry of my sister house’s for the whole world to see. Then you made a deal on behalf of my company with the guy who literally tried to steal our technology, accidentally?” The man said with no effort to hide the sarcasm.

The woman turned her face away in humiliation but still tried to say her piece, “It’s just business; there shouldn’t be personal feelings involved. Think of the potential of what I did, please! If played right, which I will, we can turn this start-up into a Multi-billion credit enterprise in less than a few months! We can compensate your sister’s family with cold hard cash! It’s all worth the results-”

The man scoffed, “You, of all people, know very well what I want and what I don’t. You went behind my back and turned this whole two-faced company against my own bloody family! You made the media bring pitchforks to their doorsteps when they just want to live a quiet fucking life! And you say that was fucking worth it? Worth what exactly?”

“If you aren’t prepared to be ruthless, then why even join the business world with a hot potato like that power source you invented? You should at least hear Mister Jason out and then consider-”, The woman shook her hands frantically as she continued her self-justified explanation.

But she was cut off by a loud drawn-out sigh. The man rubbed his forehead, trying to hold down a splitting headache.

“You aren’t suitable. None of you are. You are just money-hungry bastards who don’t give two cents about what the single-core should be used for. All you do is go for the highest bidder regardless of the consequences, regardless of my own damn opinion on the matter. You toyed with my aspirations, and you know what hurts the most? You lot fucking betrayed my trust in the name of ‘it will be worth it.’ You think I am the same kind of person as you. Sorry, but I can’t be such a hyena when there are better alternatives around.”

He stopped the woman who was practically begging at this point, “Sarah, don’t make me call the security. I will still pay you and ‘your people’ the contracted amount. And extra for terminating the contract early. This company is done. I’m tired; I need a long rest.”

The woman went quiet. Her face turned deathly pale at the realization that the man really was serious.

Her eyes began darting around in panic. She had predicted some backlash, but this was definitely not the result she or her actual employer ever hoped for. This was a gate closed, not a business negotiation!

“I-I can make it up to you.” The woman brought out a piece of paper from her red handbag, “Please, I beg you, don’t misunderstand me; I’m not the kind of person you think I am! Everything I did was for this company and for us, and I made a mistake because I let my love blind me! I let your love for me blind me. I know you also want to build a future where you and I can be happy. I-I actually always liked you too, but I was always afraid you would reject me because I can’t divorce my husband. So I had to hide some things from you. I know my mistakes now. We can work this out together. This time, I promise I won’t make such silly mistakes. So please, don’t be hasty.

T-That’s right, come to my house tonight. Let’s think about what we can accomplish, the unlimited funds for the future of your hard-built company! You can do so much more with the money only I can make for you. You can build all the humanitarian technology you want if you just be a bit open-minded!”

The man patiently listened to her excuses for the last time. Seeing how she was so shameless till the very end, he felt his heart shatter. ‘How could I have been so blind, ah.’

He slowly swivelled his chair around, facing away from the woman who now had tears and snot ruining her exquisite make-up. “Sarah... Don’t embarrass yourself any longer. Don’t make me lose the last bit of respect I have for you. A girl of your talents can shine elsewhere without the need to sell your body or betray your husband… So… just go.”

He closed his eyes, refusing to entertain Sarah any longer. Seeing that he had made up his mind, she finally tore away all the façades of earnestness she had put on. No longer was the tenderness of a coy woman there, but a vengeful femme who had her desires wronged.

“You’ll regret this, you know that, right? You think you’re the only hot shit on the market? I will see how many of those unrealistic, utopian dreams you can pull off being so naïve. They’ll eat you alive, this world.” She spat out, hoping to provoke a final reply.

But after a few minutes of silence, Sarah’s shoulders slump. It really was over, and she knew it. And she wept. She kneeled on the floor and cried hard for just one more chance. But the man did not even look at her.

He just sat there in his dark titanium chair, thinking, regretting, ruminating. He ignored all the pleading and grovelling the other former employees of his now-defunct company did after Sarah had stormed out, before they too gave up and left.

Even after a few hours had passed, he simply sat there with glossed over eyes, sighing deep at what an absolute fool he was.

*******

*thud*

He was rudely jolted awake from his thoughts by a bamboo take-out box being slammed quite rudely on his desk—a logo of an animated chicken wearing a kimono winked at him the moment his eyes crossed that of the mascot’s.

‘Who the fuc-’

The shock had finally pushed the man beyond his stress threshold for the day. He was just about blast into a satisfying round of expletives when he looked up and witnessed the beautiful face of an angel, no, a succubus!

The woman was short, petite even. But had thick curves where she needed and deep valleys where she wanted. She had a seductive shine on her violet-tinged lips and a coquettish gleam in her foxy pink eyes. A lock of her wavy shoulder-length platinum blonde hair swayed in front of her face, which she so daintily combed behind her small, ruby-studded ears.

That tight denim blouse looking ready to burst open and those risqué heart-shaped hot pants with just enough skin and butt peeking out to give someone a mad blush in a cold winter night. Her smoky make-up and that floral-chained black choker…Why…Why…

‘Why the hell is she wearing something so bloody indecent in my perfectly civil office room?!’

Then he saw her angry pout, and the sweat on her forehead ruining the make-up… and the full-body khaki trench coat tossed crassly on the sofa.

‘Right… today was the date night with her girlfriend….’ The man averted his gaze. But then smiled for the first time that day. This could be considered a small form of revenge. She forced him to be a villain, and he ruined her sexy time with Naomi.

Tit-for-tat.

This spicy pipsqueak who had inappropriately dolled herself up was the only person unfazed by what had just happened, when it happened. The only ‘employee’ not to beg for a second chance, because her entire being oozed a kind of confidence that when she wanted a second chance, or a seventh chance, the man could only bow his head and oblige her commands.

Because she was his bestest friend ever! The man affirmed that fact once more as he scrutinized that face he so desperately wished to never see again.

“Eat up, doofus. You’re stomach’s been rumbling like an angry kettle the last few minutes.” She chirped with an irritating note, sliding half of the bento in his direction.

“You’re still here…I thought you left.” The man muttered, organizing his disorderly mind away for the anger and evil. “Thank you, by the way. For telling me what they were up to.” The man said, but gratitude wasn’t the only thing that reached his cloudy eyes. He had more complex emotions seeing her. His saviour and his destroyer.

“As they like to say on that side of the yellow river, ‘Without you, I would have sold myself as a slave and would be counting the money for my seller’s convenience’.” He gave her a weak laugh before picking up a fried chicken with a spork. Chopsticks were too meta for his meagre abilities.

“Enough of that. It’s my job.” The young woman rebuked with a mouth full of karaage chicken.

“Which one? This, or the one for the Intelligence agency?” He asked; a bit of spite could not help leak into his voice even though he saw the goodwill behind her completely selfish actions. His heart was bitter and sour, but the chicken tasted sweet and gingery on his tongue. He chewed on it some more, and the flavour of the beer batter finally assaulted his taste buds.

Crunchy.

“Both! And enough of that sulking.” She sighed, trying to poke the man’s cheek with her oily chopsticks. She then asked as her feet dangled from his mahogany desk on which she so impudently sat, “So now what? Are you really going to close store?”

“Yes.” He answered, frowning as he considered if he should push her off from his prized table.

But he had worse things to worry about. A bit of bone had someone gotten stuck between his teeth. He poked at it with his tongue until it freed before drinking a large gulp of water. “I am going to licence out the single-core to other companies, or the state for that matter.”

The woman frowned at the revelation.

“… Isn’t that the same as what Sarah tried to do?”

“No! She wanted to give the technology to an arms developer, who would turn the single-core into a bomb that can blow up a city. No matter how eco-friendly they promise to make their doomsday machine, I want my stuff to have nothing to do with it. I’m going to put stringent and specific clauses on what the tech can and can’t be used for.”

“So that’s it then?”

“Yes. I don’t trust myself enough to keep a reign on what a person with too much ambition will do. I don’t trust people, in general, to keep their ambitions to themselves either. Better let the government handle all that. And besides,”

He looked at the young woman again. She looked to be enjoying this synthetic meal far more than he was. He winced when he saw her scoop out some wasabi paste with her finger and eating it raw.

“Isn’t a dissolution beneficial to you too? That’s why you told me about all the backdoor deals Sarah was doing in the first place. So that you can spend less time babysitting me and more time with your spy bullcrap.”

“Hells, for the last time. I am not a spy, and it isn’t crap. It’s homeland security.” She glared at him. “To answer your question, yes, it is, in fact, extremely beneficial to me if you could just laze around at home without me having to wipe your behinds every time something goes wrong. We reached an agreement on that, and I will not accept you backing out after all that trouble. Sarcastic quips are fine, though; yours are very weak.”

The man ignored her offhand insult, “Aren’t you in detention? Even if your workload lessens and I don’t get my tech stolen by who knows what, will the agency even put you back on the field just because?”

The young woman frowned, twirling a lock of her hair. She knew he was right. But her confusion didn’t linger for long, “Even if they won’t. I can just work on the dead cases collecting dust in the archives. With your company now dissolved, I have all the free time I need. If I can produce results, I’m sure they will reinstate me!” She nodded, as if to convince herself of her masterplan.

“… Whatever, I’m going home. It’s been a tiring day, and my sister should be worried sick about by now.”

“Want me to drive you back?” She offered.

The man looked her in the eyes hard and long. He wanted to find some sinister motive there but only found a confused head-tilt. The man then realized he didn’t really care what scheme the young woman was hatching. She was the only one who reached out to help him in this cesspit full of traitors, when she was the one that literally least needed to.

He could give her some benefit of the doubt.

The man looked away right before the woman was about to blow her top. Better to stop early with the oogling before she punched him in the guts again.

“Sure, but I’m taking the beer then.” The man smirked out a reply after grabbing both cans of kraft, ignoring the young woman’s feeble yet cute protests.

That night, he got so drunk that he got a hangover before even collapsing on the bed.

***

He woke with a start. His vision was still blurry, but his mind instantly caught some anomalies. The air of the room felt rustic on his skin. ‘Ahhh, my head. What a strange nightmare. Fuck, did the air purifier break down?’

He tried to grab his aching head, trying to reign in the migraine. But something small and soft slammed into his face with a thwack. A loud cry of a baby from somewhere near him made his headache worse, and his mind confused.

Why would there be a baby on his bed?

Last night he really had drunk too much 60% brew. He needed to drown out what had happened with Sarah, and booze was one of the more enjoyable ways to do it. The exploding Octa-core Annihilator certainly didn’t help either.

‘Wait, Sarah wasn’t on the Gigantomachy! I fired her three decades ago!’

He rubbed his temples, trying to make some sense of his jumbled mind. But this damn squishy thing kept thwacking him left and right. The crying was still going strong, and now the thwacker was wet and slimy, getting some sort of water goop all over his face.

‘Go away!’ He tried to yell out. But all that left his mouth was a “Waaaaah Wahh!”

‘Waaaaait a minute,’ He stopped, his body stilling like a needle. His vision slowly cleared. He concentrated on the thing that kept hitting him.

It was a hand—pint-sized like a baby’s, a bit pinkish too. But there was something wrong… it had six fingers. The last one was like a thumb but grew beside what should be the pinky.

His gaze followed the hand to figure out the hateful fella who kept slapping him, only to find the palm joining with a forearm connected to the arm at the elbow and finally, a shoulder.

His shoulder.

‘Oh,’ he gasped, and the crying stopped. Only soft breathing remained.

He realized it was actually him who was crying.

‘Am I still dreaming?’ He thought in bewilderment as he struggled to lift his head up.

He couldn’t. It was damn heavy. He couldn’t stand either. His legs kept curling up above his belly no matter what he tried to do.

His mind sank into a haze of mist. It felt like his brain was frying every time he tried to think his current situation through. But he still tried. This was probably the most realistic lucid dream he had ever had, and he was no longer enjoying being in it.

‘Did someone plug me into a virtual reality pod? So we didn’t… die….’

It was then that the memories of the blast returned in full force. The pain of getting his every nerve overloaded with infinite random information surfaced as he found himself back into the core room of the Gigantomachy. This time though, the whole structure was made out of solid light and kept fading in and out like a realistic illusion.

The heat seared his eyeballs; the radiation mutated his innards.

The pain was too much. He screamed and passed out.

***

He woke up again, this time without the nightmares or the pain. His mind was clear as water, but his body was still uncooperative.

“Where am I? Why am I a baby? What happened to the Gigantomachy? Did the Collective get the data packet?” He said as he looked up at the stone ceiling. There was a glowing stone stuck on there, in the shape of a cloud—the soft light illuminating the room.

Suddenly he heard a squeaky voice speak from beside, “W-Where am I? Why is my body so little? Where’s the weapon control? I need to shoot down even one enemy fighter before I die!”

He turned his head around with great difficulty to see another baby with an extremely distressed face looking straight at him with giant lilac eyes.

It was she, by the rounded features of her face. But he could be mistaken. Because the baby was honestly the weirdest toddler he had ever laid eyes on.

Blue hairs like gently placed weaves of leaves topped her cute head. Her skin was an unnatural hue of white, like white paint, or the blank canvas of a photo editing software. It felt eerily out of place, and the bluish blood vessels underneath that skin gave her an even more ethereal presence.

Not to mention the deep blue tattoos that lined her face and body in an intricately drawn vine-like pattern. She looked like a baby fished straight out of a fantasy game.

Her glistening eyes kept a hold on his own gaze for a few more minutes. He felt strange emotions bubble gently in his mind.

They were like faded sights, sounds, scents, touch, and tastes all together in one packaged bundle.

Separate, he would have ignored them as his mind playing tricks. Together, they painted the picture of a specific person he was just about starting to miss. ‘Could it be?’

He called out a name in an alien voice. The name of his best friend who should have died with him. The other party’s eyes stretched wide at the sudden call. Far wider than naturally possible as a human.

The feeling in his mind turned static, his best friend’s face overlapping with the strange blue and white baby.

Then, it started hurting.

‘Oh no, not agaaaa…iin….’ an infantile scream escaped his mouth. The last thing he saw before passing out was a dark silhouette rushing towards him with a glowing apparatus in both hands, and the other blue and while baby screaming twice as loud as his consciousness faded to black.