“Jared? Jared! Wake up, you have guests,” a maid shook me awake as gently as she could. I’d seen her around before, but with all that unfolded, many of the mansion’s attendants’ identities were a blur to me. I pushed myself upright quite unenthusiastically.

Guests? I wondered who they might be. With recent events, the estate security wouldn’t let just any John Doe in, unless specifically instructed to by a resident of the Ugo estate. My natural curiosity and knack for tinkering around the what-ifs slowly pushed my mind towards a more attentive state as I sauntered down the stairs in sleepwear.

“Ugo,” the TEO greeted. It was Ferris Andino, but he wasn’t the only Andino present. His brother, my teacher appeared behind him. I was a little surprised when I saw someone somewhat hiding behind my teacher too.

“It was really shocking,” Samuel said five minutes into our conversation, “when that robot attacked. I’d never think you were involved in such a situation,” he said, staring blankly into his cup of tea. He was speaking of when this all started, when Cennet programmed a TS to kidnap me from school. Thinking back on it then, it felt like something that happened ages ago. “I mean, you were, er–”

“Just some kid who was bullied and too weak to do anything, right?” I finished what I was certain were the thoughts in his mind.

“Y-yeah, sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’d have thought the same. But you know, Mr Andino, there was something you said that always stuck with me. I remember those words clearly. ‘Doing nothing is the worst thing to do.’ You said that to me when you were trying to get me to squeal on my bullies. It’s strange, that I never fought back there, yet I chose to fight an enemy ten times more dangerous.”

A snigger came from Ferris, “Are you for real? You’re a weird kid, you know that?”

“Yeah,” I laughed, “more than I’d like to admit.” I turned to look at Samuel Andino’s daughter, “Cindy, right? How are you feeling?”

“I-I’m, good,” she replied softly, hardly able to make eye-contact.

Samuel giggled, “Hahaha, she’s just nervous. She became a big fan of you ever since you started blowing up on the ‘net.”

“Is that so? Well, your uncle, Ferris has my number. You can talk to me anytime you feel like,” I encouraged with a pleasant smile on my face. “So, Ferris, I know you’re an opportunist, so…”

“What? Can’t I just come by with my bro for a simple visit?”

“…”

“Well, you’re not wrong I guess,” he admitted. “Those fellas we brought in said some interesting things. For example, a little project called Vasc. According to the suspects, it’s just ‘one side of the coin’. Not even they know what the other side is.”

“What is Vasc?”

“A formula that’s supposed to grant the user regenerative abilities. Aside from that, they don’t know much else. Apparently Cennet gives them a concentrated version of the drug, shows them how to dilute it and tells them to test it out and send him reports.”

To test something like that, they’d have to cause damage to see if it works. The hell is Cennet doing?

“We got a location too,” he added, a bit chipper, “we’re going to smoke him out real soon.”

If only he knew what would happen, he’d have never allowed that raid to happen.

The next day, I was in my private lab working on some minor improvements for the TK and got a phone call from Cindy of all people, weeping in the dead of night. I could barely make out her words. Her dad had to relay the message to me.

I slipped the goggles over my eyes and full-throttled the Grav with my TK easily keeping pace. How ironic, that the hospital chosen to nurse the twenty-three injured and store the bodies of eleven dead TEOs was Boundless Hope. Thankfully, Ferris was amongst the living.

“It happened earlier today, ‘round noon,” Samuel said, looking piteously at his gravely injured brother who laid unconscious. “We got the call not too long ago. They raided a lab outside the city, but,” he balled his fist and furrowed his brows a little, not wanting his daughter to worry even more from showing his own emotions too much, “they were set up. Cennet knew they were coming. I was told all of this happened in under five minutes.”

“I see. I’m sorry this happened,” just then, a slew of people came into the ward and circled around, friends and family by the looks of it. “I should go. Call me when he’s awake, will you?” I asked and promptly left.

My curiosity almost killed me in the couple days I waited for that call, and when I got the call it only served to rekindle that fiery ensemble of questions sneaking about in my mind. How exactly did David Cennet overpower a task force from the TEO?

When I arrived at Ferris’ bedside, only Samuel and that old coot that’s in charge of the case were there. “What is he doing here?!” she annoyingly questioned the very person she came to visit.

She stood up, “This is official police business, and not within visiting hours, so I suggest y–”

“Esther!” Ferris yelled softly to get her attention, “I asked Samuel to call him.” With that, she boiled down a bit, then took her seat.

“You saw what happened on the body cams. Cennet is no longer normal. Even his damn robots are too much for us. Frankly, there’s no way we can do this without the help of another abnormal person. That’s why…”

“He spoke to me,” an old man with hair as white as snow walked into our little meeting, “about this young lad. Let me make this clear, Jared Ugo. We need your help if we want to catch David Cennet. Either you work something out so that we can use the equipment you make, or, you help us. I’d much prefer the first option though. If you decide to help us yourself, know that you must be covert about it. Should you be injured, or die, know that we will fully deny ever allowing you to work with us. You’re a mature kid, I’m sure you understand,” he patted my shoulder. “That is all. Oh, and Samuel, welcome back,” he left right after, leaving me with a decision to make.

“Don’t be stupid, kid. There is no benefit for you,” Esther warned immediately, “they’re just trying to use you. Don’t be a hero.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” after all, a hero is far from what I am. “So, what exactly happened?” I asked, and they showed me collective recordings of the raid. I watched it again and again, like an addicting show.

“You said he was developing a drug for regeneration. You didn’t say it was for super strength and super speed too.”

Cennet barehandedly, albeit not singlehandedly, destroyed the TEO task force. His kicks and punches were inhumanely fast and powerful, enough to have his opponents airborne after a heavy strike. The TK’s thick hide could probably take a few blows from him, but me? Definitely not. That uncouth little thought that marred itself onto my conscience, seemed to dwindle away every time I replayed the video. How am I supposed to get revenge on a monster like that? I thought, wracking my brains about my next move.

“Have Randy send me these videos. And tell me if you’re making another raid again,” I stood up and looked at Samuel, “I take it that ‘welcome back’ means that you were TEO before?” I inquired and he answered with a nod.

With that, I began flying back to my lab to brainstorm some ideas but the TK’s voice caught my attention mid-flight, “Something is following us,” it warned. And as if my ears magically worked again, I finally heard the sound of a projectile headed for us. I turned around and put both shielders up, my TK doing the same. A rocket beelined towards us, but against the energy waves of four shielders, there was no way it would even scratch us. It blew up, pushing me downward. Right then, a group of TS swarmed us, restricting my TK’s movement and assaulting me with a liquid in some vials. They broke those thin glass tubes over my face and a powder escaped, which unfortunately I inhaled.

I woke up some time later – I wasn’t sure when – in the middle of the road, causing a huge traffic jam because my TK would not allow anyone to move me or even drive near me. “It’s okay,” I said, holding my head to somewhat ease the rippling headaches, “stand down,” I said, slowly getting up. There were a few TS bodies scattered about the road. “How long was I unconscious?”

“Approximately seven minutes, sir.”

The crowd of cameras and phones made a circle, chattering away. Married with the honking horns of angered drivers, my headache ravaged me even more. All of my gear was still there, nothing was out of place. What the hell was that about? I checked around my clothes quickly to make sure no tracking device was placed on me, then hurriedly flew away. The minute I touched down at the lab, a worried Anna phoned me and I had to spend a while convincing her I was okay.

Later that night, I fell asleep tracing up schematics for another device.

A sweltering heat waved over my body. I was soaked in sweat. A headache, throbbing and unrefined randomly targeted areas of my brain and pulsed in agonising pain endlessly. I awoke from that, in dizziness and confusion. “Ugh,” I said, holding my head as the intensity steadily increased. My body’s temperature was skyrocketing and my skin was becoming increasingly sensitive to the touch, to the point where just a simple touch to the arm was painful. The headaches didn’t stop, neither did my temperature. My vision was blurry, but clear enough to see my bloodshot eyes in the mirror as my hands clumsily grabbed onto the first-aid cabinet. Was I sick? Why was my body acting this way? Thinking I could press through, I curled up on a chair, haplessly trying to absorb the pain, but it persevered to my points where my bones felt like they were deconstructing. My skull had a hand in it, squeezing down on a random part of my brain every few seconds. My heart was in full swing, as if it was competing with the gushing waters of a busted fire hydrant. My eyes burnt, simply inhaling burnt. My muscles began sporadically contracting and expanding, causing immense agony with each contraction all over my body. That was when I realised this was no passing fever or flu and that something really was wrong with me. My arms and legs jerked about uncontrollably. My back and core muscles began doing the same, weird convulsions over my entire body as if I was poisoned.

“T-TK! Take me–hospital!” I said, my words broken, my speech slurred. I arrived there and was given some medication, probably pain-killers to weather the storm whilst they hopelessly tried to figure out what was wrong. They even questioned TK about my health record, but there was nothing of the sort. The painkillers weren’t as effective as I’d have liked them to be, but they did at least make it so that the pain didn’t warrant the screaming I entered the hospital with. I was now silently squirming about on the bed, gripping onto the bars in futile hope that whatever this was would subside.

Thankfully, the sleeping pills did their job, and the pain eventually went away. When I awoke the next morning, my skin was covered in dried blood.

“Well, looks like I got company,” someone joked. It was Ferris, one leg in a cast whilst Cindy wheeled him over to my bed.

“Well, this is weird. I didn’t even see which hospital I got admitted to. And to end up in the same ward as you too, are you sure you didn’t infect me with something because you were lonely?”

We all shared a laugh, but he turned serious after a while, “What happened? You were on the news lying unconscious in the middle of the road.”

“Yeah, some TS attacked. They had sleep powder or something. Next thing I know, I’m on some street with my TK over me.”

“Don’t you find that weird? The minute we raid–tried raiding his lab, you get attacked and then get some weird illness.”

“Are you saying I was injected with that thing?”

“Vasc. It’s likely.”

“Well, I’m not feeling like I’m healed, so it must’ve been a failed test drug he injected.” There was a silence, a little cease in speech that spelled the importance of the words to come.

“Jared, you may die,” he said, quite solemnly. I wondered why words so morbid did not faze me. Was I becoming too accustomed to these mishaps? To suffering? No, I thought, dismissing that misconception. Deep down I acknowledged that whatever wrath was brought down upon me by Cennet was fair, considering what I did to his son, Jonathan. Skulking around in the back of my mind, I knew that whatever happened in our little war was nothing either of us could complain about. I knew that this colossal drive – this thirst even – was slowly sawing the already thinning reins on my conscience.

“I won’t. Cennet won’t kill me. If he wanted to, I’d have been dead years ago.”

Ferris was about to mouth something, but decided against it; he instead shrugged, “Just don’t push yourself too hard, eh?”

We chatted like that every now and then, whenever I wasn’t suffering the symptoms of Vasc. In all honestly, I expected to be discharged within two days for the most. That thinking was horribly misconstrued. I’d been hospitalised for a month, the attacks worsening each time. I’d never seen Anna as distraught throughout my stay. Thankfully, the drug’s effects diminished drastically at the end of the third week, but not all of the effects.

The pain went away eventually, but in turn I had become, stronger. My muscle, as meagre as it was, became ever so slightly bigger and much hardier. It became obvious during my last few attacks. Once the pain and burning reached a certain level, it almost instantly subsided. It felt like a combination of my body involuntarily numbing the parts that hurt, and somehow removing the source of the pain itself. Now more than ever I became curious as to what I was injected with. The doctors, after dozens of tests, figured nothing out.

Many of the injured TEOs, including Ferris, were discharged before me. I was home for a few days, under strict warning from Anna to stay away from the lab for the time being; easier said than done. The quaint feeling my lab gave off was too much to possibly resist, so I ended up back there anyway.

After watching the bodycam videos, I couldn’t pinpoint any tricks. It was all raw physical strength and speed. How do I defend against that? I pondered, then realised how much he made me feel like I was driven into a corner with my only option being to survive. Just how much did he know of me? How little did I know of him? Cennet’s cunning was maddening. It always felt like he was a few steps ahead of my every move, yet I knew there was something he was waiting for, some reason he couldn’t yet do what he wanted. “What are you waiting on?” I thought out loud.

“For you to become strong,” a voice echoed across the room, “otherwise killing you wouldn’t taste as sweet as I want it to,” Cennet said, emerging from behind one of my machines.