“Good evening, Mister Hiro, Miss Eve.” The man in the middle spoke once the other two stood at the sides of the girls.

Eve went behind Charlotte and grabbed her back.

“Hello gentlemen, what can I do for you?” Charlotte kept her attention on the man in the middle and the other two in the corners of her eyes.

“We were requested to bring you with us.” The man pointed at her with his chin and crossed his arms.

“Me?” Charlotte pointed at herself with her right finger and frowned. This, they called me Hiro, so they don’t suspect me, I think. Or maybe it’s to avoid unnecessary problems… Damn.

The man nodded and closed the distance while he brought up his left hand, he put it on her shoulder. Charlotte let him and turned her head to Eve for a moment.

“What about her? I want to at least bring her home, would you let me?” Eve tightened her grip on Charlotte’s clothes and sucked up air.

“There’s no need.”

“I insist, you’re only looking for me, right? At least let this girl go and I promise I’ll follow you without making a scene. We’re close already.” She smiled at the man and started to walk without him answering. Eve followed with trembling steps

The trio let them past without saying anything and followed some meters behind.

“Hiro!” Eve whispered in her ears. “W-what if they get to know where I live?! I’ll be in danger, no? I-I don’t want anything to happen to my family!”

“I believe they already know. They’re waiting for us, no? Also, if I’m not back by tomorrow’s afternoon, you can use everything in my bag. Be careful with it.”

“…! Y-you don’t mean!” Eve’s mouth was shut with a finger.

Charlotte approached and hugged her. She then held Eve’s head between her hands and lowered it to her level and joined their foreheads together. “Don’t worry. I don’t think anything bad’s gonna happen to me.” She lowered it more and kissed the slightly tanned skin.

Eve opened her mouth slightly but decided against making a sound. She just nodded and righted her body, her hands wrapped around Charlotte tightly. They continued to walk to her building.

Charlotte saw how Eve entered it and closed her eyes. She saw nothing wrong in the building and apparently her family was alright, she then looked behind her. She opened her eyes and sighed.

“Ok, let’s go.” She turned to the men standing some meters behind her and walked to them.

The man in the middle brought up his hand up and went to her shoulder once more. She shooed it away. The man stood with his hand in the air, a blank expression in his covered face.

“I don’t fancy being touched, refrain from it. I’m following you, remember?” She walked past him and in between the other two. “Let’s go? I want this to be over with, it’s tiring for me and want to sleep already.”

She walked a few steps and looked back at the trio, a grin in her face. “If you’re not moving, can I go back?”

“A-ah, no. Let’s go.” One of the men at the sides said and walked to her side, the other followed him to the other and the one in the middle stood at their back.

They walked back to the skyscrapers in the Lurian Alliance territory and entered one, a different one from the one she just came out of. The staff saw them and said nothing to the trio covering their faces. They walked through the hall and arrived to four metallic doors in a wall, they were elevators but had no buttons to call for them. After one opened its doors, they went in.

Charlotte saw a normal looking elevator once inside, except there was no panel in it, only a big mirror and a camera in the corner. As soon as the door closed, it started its ascend without any input.

She felt a tremor after a moment and the door opened. The man who spoke the most at the beginning went out first and the other waited with her. She closed her eyes for a few seconds. She opened them before one of the two touched her and walked out. She arrived to the door where the man stood at the side and studied it, it was a wooden door painted white without any engravings and a metallic, shiny and simple knob. Above it, the number 389 marked the room. She looked around only to see more doors, five more in the same wing past the corridor, and six in the other side. A window on each end.

“You can go in.” The man in front of room 389 said and moved no further, the two other men waited beside the elevator.

She turned her head to the man and then to the door without lifting a finger. And she waited.

“What are you waiting for? Go in.” The man said after a minute, his voice betrayed his stoic face as annoyance accompanied it.

“Oh, right. Can you open it? I’m afraid of what might be inside.” The man sighed loudly as his left hand grabbed the knob, turned it and pushed it enough for a small slit to form between the door and its frame.

“Here, happy?”

“Yep, thanks.” She smiled and the man’s face twitched. She pushed it slowly with her feet and went past the frame. Inside, she closed the door in the same way.

“Hello. Boy.” She heard a distorted voice echoing through the room.

Charlotte jumped at the strangeness of the voice and looked around. It looked like a normal living room. Three brown leathered sofas were placed at the end of the room. The one which gave her its back was big enough for three men to comfortably sit in, the other two were only big enough for one, they stood at each side of the big one. She could see a big TV placed at the end of the room, in front of the sofas. She stood past the door and a corridor separated the door and the cozy living room she just saw. There were frames placed in its walls, a small gallery of sorts. Pictures of the city, and paintings of landscapes or people. More than 10 were placed and once she arrived to the living room, she saw more in the other walls.

She saw a small and low table between the couches with some books placed on it. To the right of the TV was an engraved closed door and to its left stood a frame, she could see a kitchen in the other side. Above the TV a small camera recorded her every action. She turned back and saw two more in the corners of the room. Let’s play for a bit.

“So? Why did you want me?” She crossed her arms after she completed a slow spin while looking around and her eyes fixed on the camera over the TV. She let her weight rest on her left leg, the other one tapping the floor with a slow rhythm of twos and threes.

“Aren’t you the insolent one?” The voice came throughout the room, anger aparent in its distorted sound.

“I’m sorry. But I’m tired, you see, I had a pretty tiring day.”

“Do tell me.”

Charlotte grinned and shifted to the other leg. “Well, for starters. In the morning I went to school.”

“Heh! School? And that’s tiring?”

“Not in the least. But I didn’t sleep at all last night. Also, I ate out with some friend in, huh, I don’t remember the name. Anyway, we wanted to see that concert in the park, but they didn’t allow me to enter, dumb people.” She shrugged and let her arms fall to her side. “I wanted that problem to be fixed so I looked for help in the back streets. My dear friend followed me and got to know something a little problematic of me. I promised to treat her to whatever she wanted as an apology and brought her to, uh… How’s it called, socks? I’m really bad with names, excuse me. Anyway, in there I met this pretty waitress and made her cry without knowing, you know, I’m really bad with words and I said something I shouldn’t have.”

“That’s an interesting story… Did you see her crying?”

Her grin widened. “You tell me, miss exhibitionist.”

*Thud!

Her grin disappeared when the room gained an eerie silence. She looked back at the closed entrance. She walked to the left wall and leaned between two paintings, her left hand placed on her back. Is she angry? I teased her too much? Heheh.

After a minute, she heard the door at the other side of the room creak open. “Come in.” The distorted voice sounded once again.

Charlotte closed her eyes and entered the Crystal’s Space. A projection only of her body was already in display. “Wide Range Scan.”

An image of the surroundings appeared before her, she looked at the corridor behind the door and saw three rooms, the first two at the right side and the last one at the end of it. The girl had covered herself in a blanket and stood in front of a lot of screens in the last room, the chair she previously used had fallen to the floor. She couldn’t see any danger in the corridor, nor any hidden weapon or mechanism, the same as before.

She opened her eyes and followed the instructions. She walked to the corridor and arrived to the first door which had its door open and eyed the other two rooms. She pushed it open with her right foot and entered it, hand still on the back.

“So? What do you want?” She spoke to a lighted screen in the room.

It was a bedroom with king sized bed in the middle of it. The screen was to her left, and a desk with a large number of cosmetics and paints to her right, two paintings above it. A red curtain behind the bed prevented her to see past the window. No camera in sight. She walked to the desk and looked at the paintings. The first one she saw was a portrait and resembled the exhibitionist girl she saw in the Sock’s Candy restaurant and who stood in the other room. The other one was a painting of a city, it wasn’t Paversia as there weren’t as many skyscrapers as she had seen the previous days, she thought.

“How did you know?” A girlish voice came from the white screen.

“A trade’s secret.” She kept her eyes in the painting of the city.

“Who’re you?”

“I wonder. Who am I? Eve calls me Hiro... I don’t recall my name.” Charlotte shook her head.

The room regained its silence and Charlotte closed her eyes for a moment. The girl was in the second room and had a dress over previous her bare body. When did she go there?

Charlotte turned to the door and waited. After a few seconds, the girl entered the room in a pink frilled dress which went past her knees and covered her arms to the wrist. She wore white leggings and pink sandals as well. She didn’t have the purple wig she had in the restaurant but the pinkish blond hair still felt peculiar to Charlotte, it went a little past her shoulders. She had a mole above her right, thin eyebrow and a somewhat oval face. She walked to Charlotte and held out her hand once she was only a meter away.

“I want compensation.” She demanded.

“Compensation? Why?” Charlotte tilted her head, fighting against a smile trying to surface.

“You did something disrespectful and need to pay for it.”

“Disrespectful how?” She tilted her head to the other side.

“! A boy must never speak of a woman’s attire! Much less when she’s working in a place like that!” The girl shouted, the hand closed in a fist as she brought it down.

Charlotte put both hands in her ears and closed her eyes. She saw nothing new in the house so she opened them again.

“Really? If that’s all then I’ll part.” She walked past the girl.

“Y-you want to die that badly?!” The girl said without turning her body, rooted in the floor.

“Who’d want that? But, I’m not a boy so I shouldn’t pay for a boy’s mistake.” She turned around and looked at the girl, she stood under the door.

“W-what?” The black mole jumped in her ashen white face. She turned slowly.

“Oh? You didn’t know? Sorry.” Charlotte brought her right hand to her face and made an apologizing gesture.

“That’s… Ok? No! That’s not okay! If you’re a girl then you should understand! What you did was mean and have to pay for it! Now, way more than before because you know our pain!”

“Huh? Our pain? What pain? The monthly terror? Yeah, that’s awful but one can only live with it.”

The girl’s face gained a bit of color and looked to the side for a moment. “Not that! We need to protect ourselves in this city. And we’re the most vulnerable! I’m at risk now because of what you did!”

“Huh? Really? How so?”

“A-ah… Eh, that’s not your problem. All you need to know is that I’m about to get fired and with that, my livelihood in here.” She gritted her teeth and tightened her fists, her eyes now in the floor.

“That, is very different from what you said before. You should’ve started with that.” Charlotte sighed and turned to the rooted girl. “How much is it?”

“… Because you’re a girl, 5 grands.”

Charlotte stared at her and put her left pinky in her ears. “Excuse me? And what if I was a boy?”

“… One.” The girl looked at her and then down to the floor.

“Are you kidding me, Right? How would I get that kind of money? Even if I had it, how would I know I need to bring that ‘mount here? Are you kidding me? Hey, look at me! Tell me what to do and why’s it so expensive for women!”

“That’s,” the girl touched the dress and fumbled with it, “because we’re useful for certain things in the city. The most experienced ones get to leave the city for a while and do business outside. Also, if one had that kind of money and gave it, it’ll be considered as payment for protection. If you don’t have it and are in this kind of situation, then you’re enforced to join. If you don’t pay, or don’t join. You’re getting killed once out of the building.”

“… I. I’m a boy then, yeah.”

“Huh? No, you’re a girl, you already said so!” She shouted.

Charlotte approached her as fast she could and covered her mouth with her right hand. “It's the same with men, right? I only have to pay a thousand g- FC, right? Then I prefer to be a boy, yeah.”

The girl opened her eyes wide and nodded. Before she could utter a word, she realized a hard object was pressed in her belly. She looked down and saw the gun in Charlotte’s hands.

“Keep silent.” Charlotte said coldly, her hand still over the girl’s mouth. “If you want to speak, do so softly. Understand?”

The girl nodded slowly; her face devoid of color. Charlotte let go of her mouth and waited for her to speak.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to speak aloud. Y-yeah, y-you’re a boy, so you got the thousand with you?”

Charlotte shook her head. “Close to it, but no. I got uh, around nine hundred… Can you lend me the rest?”

And there goes the little money I exchanged today. She sighed and waited for the girl’s answer. Oh, right.

“What’s your name anyway?”

“Uh? Oh, Olimpia.” She looked at her and then at the ground.

“So? Will you lend me it?”

“How do I know you’re paying me back?”

“Hmm, right.” Charlotte looked at the ceiling and then back at Olimpia. “Yeah, I can lend you something and come for it later with the money.”

“Oh, what?” She looked up with interest.

“This.” Charlotte pointed the gun at Olimpia who jumped back in fright. “Heh.”

She walked to the living room and sat in a single sofa. She took out the cartridge and placed the gun on the table. She waited for the girl to come out.

“You should stop scaring me like that.” Olimpia said as she walked out the corridor.

“Heheh, sorry. Eve also says that, I’m like a bully, a small one.” Charlotte said as she scratched her cheek. “Here, you hold it and I come tomorrow for it, how does it sound?”

“Is it really worth? Firearms are pretty expensive, and this one looks new.”

“I guess, I don’t have much apart from it, but I don’t want to be held down.”

“Oh, you don’t want work for us that badly? Luxuria is one of the best bands to work with.”

“Luxuria…” Charlotte said without emotion, she remembered Eve said something about them, but her memory was fuzzy to the rumors and the fashion.

Olimpia felt more interest in the girl/boy in front of her. He, she? Is good at deducing things, and has no qualms about walking to an obvious trap. She also threatened me in my house, but I’m a girl and we’re alone. Ah, but he’s, she’s also a girl. But, to not fear the Luxuria…

“How do you want me to address you?”

“Hiro, remember?”

“No, not that, as a girl or as a boy.”

“Oh, as, a boy.” Charlotte turned to the table. “For how long do I need to work for them?”

“Hmm? For them? To Luxuria?” Olimpia shook her head. “Once you join you have to work for them until they allow you to leave.”

“… That’s what I don’t want. I like to have my freedom, you know.”

“What’s freedom?” Olimpia sat on the back of the sofa, her back to Charlotte and her eyes to the floor. “Free time to indulge in your hobbies? Or free reign to do whatever want? committing crimes left and right? They are a different kind of freedom, but freedom nonetheless.”

“I didn’t see the face of a philosopher in you. At least you’re right. I want free reign, but I guess the most one can get is to indulge in their hobbies.”

“I get told that a lot.” She laughed. “I like to read, so I know some words.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m eighteen, almost nineteen.”

“Oh, you’re, older than me, huh.”

“Yep, so listen to me! Youngsters must listen the advice of their elders!”

“Alright, granny.”

Olimpia jumped from the backrest of the sofa and hit Charlotte’s head in the process, which called a cry of protest from the petite girl. “Anyway, I don’t think you should bother to pay the fine. They’ll pay you enough, and it mostly depends on your work and what you do. What’re you good with?”

Charlotte rubbed off the pain in her head and said without turning around. “I’m good with bodies, I mean, as a doctor or something like that, and with technology. I’m not an expert as I’m still learning about the human body. I wanted to work with modified humans after I got the required exam and papers for it.”

“And you call yourself a girl? A mechanic? Hahaha.” Her eyes closed as her laugher grew.

“Is it that weird for a woman?” Charlotte pouted.

“Nono, I didn’t intend to be mean. But it’s odd enough. There’s another thing I want to know, why’re you not in the database of the city?”

“Oh.”

“Yep, when someone I know looked in there, they found nothing on you. You’re an outsider, right? Your reaction earlier confirmed it. And you’re obviously without an ID. That’s why it was decided to recruit you.” Charlotte kept her mouth shut. After a minute, Olimpia couldn’t bear with it and continued. “That was what I was going to threaten you with before, I panicked when you disclosed who I was so I had to come out and do it personally.”

“Sorry?” Charlotte couldn’t help but shout in her mind. And I keep telling to myself to be more cautious!

“Don’t worry. You need an ID, though. If you join us, we’ll provide a new one. We just need a bit of blood to register you in the city.”

“… Can I have a moment to consider?” She asked without force in her voice.

“Of course, but you can’t leave until you decide.”

“Mind if I use your restroom? I’ve been holding since earlier in the day.”

She went to the corridor following Olimpia’s instructions, even if she already knew the way. She entered it and sat on the toilet to do her business. She relaxed her body and closed her eyes.

“Can I do something about my DNA?” Was the first thing she said inside the colorless space. “I already made a molecule out of pure elements, but it took a lot of time and was way less complex than a DNA… I can do it if I have samples, no? How difficult will it be? I have more energy than before I consumed the CECC, but I’ve been spending a lot these few days, I also will need time to recover it. Fortunately, I’ve not spent a lot today so I should have a lot to spare. Prism, how much do I have left of the max capacity?”

86.62%

“And of that, how much of that is the CECC?”

29.23%

“That’s too little, but I can only try.”

She brought forward the image of Gustave and her in meditation. She made herself small and went into her body. She arrived to her veins and looked for a blood cell. She made herself smaller and went in the nucleus, to the DNA.

“How to modify it… I wanted more time to look into it.” She saw the mess around her, the DNA was suspended in there and looked like a long thread jumbled in. She didn’t know the way to differentiate it nor what belonged to what.

She tried to tell it apart for a while in vain, it was a total mess. “Prism, search for cells in which this here is separated. If I remember right, there should be 23 parts, or couples? Chromosome is its name. I don’t know why this’s like this.”

After a few seconds, a window popped in front of her with an arrow. She followed it and arrived to a bloated cell. Inside, she saw how the nucleus had disappeared and the DNA was differentiated. After she asked Prism to save the DNA in a script, she went out of her body and into Gut’s. She promptly found a similar cell and saved its DNA as well.

“Now, on to combine them.” She took half of hers and half of his, and joined them together. “This should be enough?”

She asked for a moving image to appear, a memory. It would tire her but it was necessary. She joined the two in there and asked Prism to look out for any anomality. After a minute, Prism popped up with a word: Unstable.

Charlotte sighed and then opened her eyes.

I need to make a new one which won’t be recognized. I also need more samples so it can’t be traced.

She walked out of the restroom and to Olimpia who sat in the big sofa, a book in her hands.

“Can I walk through the building? I wanna look around for a while and get my thoughts together.”

“You took your sweet time.” She put down the book and stood from her seat. “Alright, but we’ll accompany you, we don’t want you fleeing.”