My sister, Emily Licht, waved and smiled at me. Her hair was dyed a vivid orange, the natural brown peeking out at the tip of her bobcut. She wore a red-white jacket over a public school girls’ uniform. A sticker-decorated schoolbag lay on the side of the couch, where she was joined with her mother and father. She waited me to respond and I saw the face of a red-eyed, tear-streaked girl who had repeatedly called a dozen times but never got a response because her dipshit of a brother was flat on his ass in a pub.

I curled up my fist and slammed it straight into my face.

Damage to nose! -3 HP!

The cartilage of my buckled beneath the force of my fist. The pain rang out like a sharp chime from the bell.

"Kyle!" My sister cried. "What are you doing?"

“I kept calling you, but you never picked up. Where were you? Mom and Dad and I were so worried!”

I grasped my skin with my fingers and jammed a fingernail between the skin until a drop of blood crawled out. A second followed, a third, a fourth. The sharp pain held steady like a piano’s chord. In the distance, like the far off roar of the ocean, my father was on his feet, his stomp echoing through the living room.

“Stop that, Kyle!” Emily shouted. “You’re hurting yourself.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t go into your room again. I won’t tell Mom and Dad about the packages beneath the mattresses! Please let go, Kyle…”

“What are you doing? Do something, doctor!” My father marched over to the screen. “You said he was safe!”

“You think you can get into university? You barely studied! Stop wasting time and think about your future for once, for god’s sake!”

“Kyle, is something wrong? Do you need us to come over? ” My mother—without grey hair, dressed in a bright smock, vitality thriving inside her middle-aged frame—said. She grabbed her purse, flipping through the contacts.

“Why…I don’t understand…we tried to raise you right. Why can’t you just tell us, son?”

The vision of a husk of a human through a tube turned slowly to stare at me, disappointment in every inch of movement. It was a grey box of ashes, side-by-side with another like two flower pots. Then, a grave. Two graves. I felt myself inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale and…

The IV drip crashed to the ground as I tore the syringe from my arm and flung it aside. Next was the med-patch covering the burn on my arm. I wasn’t done yet. Didn’t even flinch. Emily recoiled, covering in mouth, as I exposed my third-degree burn in front of the entire audience. The lump of yellowish-brown flesh on my arm pulsed back, akin to badly roasted chicken slathered in custard. Down my finger went. A burst of liquid popped out. I cried out as the biggest wave of agony crashed through me and that’s when the nurse restrained me.

Re-opened wound! -7 HP!

Please don't self-damage, Boss! It's not productive to your health, or your mission.

ALICE, please shut up for a while.

“Requiring assistance!” She barked out. “Patient PT-10034 is undergoing a violent episode! Bring sedatives and additional med-patches!”

“No need…” I mumbled.

“Come on, Mom, we have to go! Kyle’s not right!” Emily cried, pulling on my mother’s sleeve. She agreed, because the entire family was picking themselves off the couch for the door.

“Hang on, son! We’re coming!” My mother exclaimed.

“I said, shut up!” I hollered.

That caught everyone’s attention.

"Kyle?" Emily asked, weakly.

"Sorry," I said, "Sorry, everyone.”

“What?”

I slumped back on my pillow. Blood and yellow fluid dripped out of the newly opened wound, staining the white mattress. A fluorescent light glared down at my stupidity from above.

“Fine! Go off! I don’t care, Kyle! I have a life outside of you!”

“First the drug habit, now this? Get out of this household and don’t return. You’ve caused us enough trouble.”

“Oh, so now you show up? Some brother and son you turned out to be. I had to take care of her myself you know. I can’t stand to look at you…”

I covered with my face with an arm.

“Had to make sure this wasn’t a dream.”

In the aftermath of my little incident, the doctor had a lot of questions for me. It was understandable, but I really wasn’t in a talkative mood.

“I was tied up by gangers in their basement and I have zero clue what they put in my food.” I answered, “I dunno, maybe there were some hallucinogens in there. And maybe that Impurity drove me nuts with her presence alone.”

The doctor peered at me. “Mr. Licht, we take Impurity-related mental afflictions very serious in this country. You need to provide us with a clear answer.”

“I’m the one with smoke in my lungs and burns up my ass and you’re telling me to figure it out?” I groused. My voice echoed through my head. Couldn’t believe what I saying, hearing.

“Kyle, don’t be rude to the doctors.” My mother chided. I shrugged.

“Sorry, mom.” Sorry for coming home at the dead of night stinking like beer.

“You haven’t fully answered the question.” The doctor said.

“I’ve had a shit week. Figure it out, doc.” Emily’s eyebrows rose up in mock surprise. My father gave her a look and she pouted, but went back.

“If you have a mental affliction, we will need to perform tests. Depending on the severity, we may need to transfer him to a containment facility. Then there’s a possibility of developing into a kinetic.”

“They said he was kidnapped off the streets, then attacked by a fire Impurity!” My mother cried. “He needs to be let go and sent to his family. Please doctor, can’t you give him some space? He needs rest now.

“We will still need to perform some checkups on his mental state, especially considering what he did earlier.”

“You can do those checkups later. I want to talk with my son.” My father growled.

“Geez Kyle, if you thought you were dreaming, you could’ve pinched yourself. Self-harm to that level is not okay!” Emily said. “Heck, or I could’ve told you about all those embarrassing secrets you did as a kid! Like the time you…uh, never mind.”

I didn’t say a word.

“Wow. You really had it bad. Um, I’m sorry for eating your treacle, too.” Emily trailed off. “You’re not gonna react to that either?” Emily trailed off.

“It’s all good.” I said, hollowly. “Eat as much as you like.”

“It’s all gone, actually. So never mind…”

“Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? You’re the one who got all beat up.”

I wanted to laugh. Where do I even begin?

Instead, I buried my face in my pillow and refused to answer further. There was nothing left at the end of my rope. Everyone got the hint. My family shut off the call, promising to wish again. The doctor and nurse wasted no time in applying more tests on me. Mental cognitive tests on computers, more blood drawing, bandage applying and more. I let them. Must’ve passed whatever conditions, because they didn’t complain, although I detected increased observation on me.

The days passed. Wake up, eat terrible hospital food, stare at the television, sleep. My mind was that of the static of its bad signal. This world was a bad dream. Melbourne didn’t exist, instead replaced by that Bearbrass city. Apparently a naming decision from the nineteenth century didn’t stick, leading to that abomination of a name. It did sound cool for five seconds until I realised you could take out two letters from the middle.

The hospital cleared me for release after five more days in there. ALICE hadn’t bothered me in all that time, thankfully. Either because I wasn’t battle ready or even she realized, in all her loopiness, that I was in no mental state to put up with INTERFACE-OS’s bullshit.,

After checking my vitals and mental state via an interview, they determined me safe enough to release back into the public. Apparently, this was a common occurrence for those exposed to Impurity attacks. Only the most volatile or psychotic of patients were kept confined.

I technically hadn’t done anything illegal to warrant a detainment. Although, the receiptionist did warn me not to piss off the local-police, in a tone that spoke of too many caffeine pills and not enough shits to give. The security guard at the other end gave me the stinkeye, too.

Emily bounded down the sidewalk towards a four-wheel drive. Wireless headphones were attached to her ears, blasting out cheery pop music, loud enough for me to hear tinny traces. Her schoolbag had stickers and a purple-pink keychain of some cartoon character onto it. I’d forgotten just how much energy she used to have. We piled in the car and set off.

We piled into the car.

Ever had a dream where you were in your normal life, but a few things were off? Maybe a family member you lost was having a conversation. Maybe the trees were made out of jelly. Maybe the roads broke off into an abyss of bloodstains and corpses as the smell of gunfire filled your nostrils and pulse grenades exploded into the distances. At least I could wake up in those. The only thing I could do now was to sit along for the ride and pretend everything was fine.

“Are you alright, son? Do you need to take a few days off school?”

“Yeah.” I replied. The last school I visited as a military academy in the East. Had to train a whole bunch of insurgents for a revolution. That succeeded—the revolution didn’t.

“Here.” My mom handed me a plastic container. I opened it. Sliced apples. “Help yourself. You need your vitamins.”

“Ooh, gimme.”

“Emily! Those are for your brother.”

“It’s fine.” I said. “She can have them.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had fresh food.

I stared out the windows. Melbourne—no Bearbrass, flashed past me. Bright, neon city lights. Concrete roads beneath towering skyscrapers. Pedestrians—rich, young, old, new—in suits and jackets, skirts and uniforms moving through the roads, chatting, talking, conducting business, trying to survive. The humming of passing cars. Leaves falling off public trees. The electrical screeches, distant, of the electronic railways passing by.

Almost the way I remembered it. But there were more police on the streets. Armored ones, similar to that IST team who pulled me out the fire. More posters and signs warning of Impurity attacks. An undercurrent of tension and fear in the residents.

I’d always conducted business in Melbourne, even when my family didn’t want me, all the way up until my exile from Australia. What can I say? It’s a decent city. All metropoles were havens of corruption, soul-crushing work, but at least Melbourne had the decent to keep a decent menu around.

We stopped at an apartment building. It blended in with the rest of the streets, tall, dark grey and shaped like a block of Stonehenge. A small garden, combined with a reception area, awaited out front. Beside the building were convenience stores, a bank and a few cheap restaurants, their neon signs flashing up with fried noodles, burgers and chocolate snacks. It was a building I had broken into a hundred times, seen a hundred times more and should have faded from my memory seconds later.

But my sister, my mother, my father, smiled at the front entrance, like a nostalgic old friend had just greeted them. I tried to smile with them. It felt as strained as the ropes that tied me up in the interrogation room.

Fifth floor. Apartment block 506. Mandated by the government, allocated by the private corporation, residence for a house of four. I kicked my shoes off at the door and stepped into a cozy little home. A rack of shoes. A holo-TV displaying news and the weather, its automated message welcoming us home to moment we stepped inside.

A tablecloth mech-embroidered with logos of Australia’s footy teams, half of which I recognized. A fridge with a rack of sharp knives next to it. Fresh fruit in a basket. A portrait of a family on the wall. I saw my younger’s self smile and tried hard not to look away.

Fortunately, the house wasn’t big enough that I didn’t need to ask where my bedroom went. It didn’t take long for me to find my room. It wasn’t the big one where my parents slept, nor was it the aggressively decorated one.

I didn’t exactly know what to expect when the door slid open. Fuck me, if you asked me what I had been like as a kid, I’d tell you that I never bothered staying in my family’s place at all, then told you to piss off. Coffin hotels, subways, homeless camps and safehouses—those were my haunts. Give me a dry piece of bench hidden from the rain and I’d show you how to powernap like a pro.

A desk with a holo-lamp, a tablet and an E-reader filled with textbooks. Paper notes stuck to the wall, reminders of literature assignments and Impurity reports. A humming computer hooked up to a games system, complete with VR. A poster of some action hero with a goofy grin, walking away from explosions. A soft bed, with fresh sheets that were scrunched up and kicked to one side. I climbed onto it and lay down without taking my clothes off. The room reeked off faint sweat and energy drinks.

“Kyle, it’s time to eat!” My sister called. She waited, then frowned, sticking her head through the doorway to my room. “Kyle?”

“What?” I asked.

“Dinner. You coming?”

I didn’t move.

“Mom’s making your favorite. You’re not gonna make me drag you off the bed, are you?”

“Give me a moment. Please.”

“Oh. Well, alright.” She said. “You wanna eat in your room today?”

“I dunno.”

“I’ll come back later and check. Take a break for now!”

The pitter-patter of her slippers faded into the distance. A pot hissed and bubbled. The roar of a fan swept oil scents away.

I lay down on it and stared at the ceiling. I immersed myself in the bedroom of this eighteen-year old boy, this weak-ass kid who couldn’t lift a single barbell outside a video game, who probably stayed out of trouble instead of rushing head along into it, who managed to listen to his parents, maintained a relationship with his little sister and acted the part of a good son without falling into drugs and alcohol and violence and…

I had just killed that boy and taken his skin.

God help me.

ALICE. Are you there?

It’s been 118 hours, 45 minutes and 34 seconds since we last spoke. What’s up, Boss?

I’ve made my decision. Get me started. Make me a top Impurity suppression soldier or whatever.

Is that confirmation?

Train me, mold me, break my ideals…I don’t care. Just give me the power to not screw up in this world.

In that case, let’s get started right away!