Chapter 4: Finding Durim

Sector 19

The marketplace was dark and crowded. People squeezed narrow openings and vendors shouted to no one in particular to buy their products.

Keiko had a cloak on, her head and most of her face covered by the large hood. She was searching for him: Durim. The omnibook took the form of a normal watch but with it connected to her nervous system she could use facial recognition without blowing her cover as an agent. The omnibook linked her vision to the MRPA database of all the categorized mutants. Her eyes buzzed over the crowd, red, human, red, human, red. She walked through the busy market, people all trying to push through the crowd. She saw a building where two men stood outside the door, green, mutant; there’s Durim’s men. She grinned as their profiles from MRPA’s database showed next to their faces.

She walked to the building and went to open the door when one of the men stepped in front of her, “And where do you think you’re going?”

She realized that she hadn’t thought this part of the plan through. If she revealed herself as an agent, they would warn Durim of her coming. If she fought through them, she might draw police, or worse; STAM agents.

“Oh?” one of the guards looked under her hood and caught a glimpse of her face, “You must be one of the Boss’ new women,”

The other guard sighed, “Another one so young?”

“You are too old fashioned man,” the original guard set his hand on the door, “Now a days age doesn’t matter, the younger the better,” he opened the door and ushered her inside, “He is in the back room,”

She walked down a dark hallway and opened up the next door to be attacked by loud music, he does his business in a night club?! No wonder he was so easy to find. She pushed through the crowd of women that were dancing on the bright dance floor. This club seemed to be filled with only women: all hardly dressed and dancing. She made her way to the back VIP room and found him sitting on a large couch, woman were all sprawled on the couch, on the floor, on the table. They were all moaning and rolling around.

“Ahhh a new customer I see,” Durim grinned and placed his hands together. Durim dressed rather tacky for a drug dealer, his hair was shaved close to his head- his eyes were sharp.

Keiko looked at the woman in horror, “What’s wrong with them?”

Durim laughed, “Wrong with them? No, no you misunderstand. Everything is right with them. Have you ever taken Free? I suppose by the stunned look on your face that you haven’t. All of the people here are experiencing the pure joy of what it is like to feel your brain release all of the chemicals it holds back. They are experiencing 100% of every sensation,” he traced his finger across a woman’s leg and she tensed and arched her back as she moaned and suddenly fell back down, breathing heavy- “If you’d like to try I could arrange something-”

Unable to listen to his babbling any longer she pulled down her hood and stretched out her hands, the doors slamming shut around her, air huh?

Durim was too shocked, “Y-y-y-y-you’re 013…you’re the elemental…. you’re MRPA!” he glared at her, “What do you want, agent?”

“Your happiness drug is killing people! You’re a murderer!”

“That’s not true I-”

“MS is made for people who need to hide! It isn’t a toy that you can just sell and make money off of,” she reached out her hand and Durim was shoved forward violently by a gust of air. She snatched his collar and brought his face to hers, “Or did you forget your dependence on MS. I wonder Durim, when’s your next dosage?” they both turned to look at the clock: 11:59, “Oh, looks like it might be soon,”

Durim began to try and squirm away from her, “Please, I need to take it if I don’t-”

“What Durim, what happens if a mutant doesn’t take MS?”

Durim pulled out a bottle of pills that Keiko quickly smacked out of his hand, “No!”

“Oh I’m sorry, I’m just so clumsy,”

Durim’s face began to bubble and Keiko dropped him, “Ahhh!!”

“This is why you have MS! If you try to murder more people for some quick cash I will be back for you!” she pushed her boot onto his chest.

He hissed at her. Durim was a mutant, his body was covered in scales and his tongue was a snake’s tongue, his yellow eyes glared at her with such hatred. The women in the room screamed as they saw him, but were unable to move due to the drugs in their system.

“Now are you going to behave or do I have to revoke your prescription privileges?” Keiko pushed her boot heel into his head.

He shook his head, “Fine, fine. Sssss I’ll do whatever Red wantssss me to do,”

“Who’s a good snake?” she tossed an MS pill to him and he caught it in his mouth. His body immediately turning back into a human form.

“You’ll pay for this 013! I may be loyal to Red, but you. You’re nothing! If you think I’m the only mutant giving out Free-”

The doors slammed open and suddenly there was gun pointed at Keiko’s head. Shoutarou sighed, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Agents should know better than to leave their tracks behind,”

Sector 12

“Do you really know where we are going 00?” Akumako sighed as she followed Arisa through the woods.

She turned around abruptly, “YOU were the one who insisted we not take the streets! If YOU wouldn’t have insisted we would be there already but nooooo we just had to go through the scary woods at this late hour. And you know what else, YOU were supposed to be navigating because YOU said that last time…”

Akumako closed her eyes and drowned out Arisa’s ranting. She would calm down in a moment and they would make progress- her thoughts were interrupted by one loud snapping sound-in one swift motion Akumako covered Arisa’s mouth and hid behind a dense bush. Arisa’s eyes were wide in shock but she didn’t fight the sudden move. Akumako looked through the small gaps in the bush and saw them.

-------~~~~~~~---------

Kenji was walking a few paces behind Kyoushirou, one hand thumbing through the handbook on the dog tags and one hand dragging his staff through the ground behind him, “So...white mutants are babies and they get stronger up to blue mutants are agents of a mutant organization?” he sighed in frustration, “They’re organized??”

Without turning around Kyou responded, “For several years STAM has been facing mutants with structure, intel, and uniforms. We don’t know what their organization is called but we know their HQ is in the 27th Sector.”

“Hmm...what are these black agents then?”

“The top 3 agents of the mutants. With white to red mutants we contain first, blue mutants we dispose of because they are too dangerous, but the black agents….we try to contain them so that we can study them.”

Kenji turned off the dog tags display and nodded, “Right...right….what’s containing mean?”

Kyou turned to look at him shocked, “Are you serious?”

Kenji smiled and scratched his neck.

Kyou groaned, “STAM is made up of officers and agents. We 6 are agents and we take the most dangerous missions that involve capturing and controlling illegal mutant activity,” he paused to make sure Kenji was following along and sighed again, “We agents are broken up into 3 teams, those teams have 1 container, me, and 1 disposer, you. Containers lead the team and contain the mutant, disposers are to dispose of the mutant if anything happens to me- the container. Make sense?”

Kenji nodded slowly, “So that makes us a killing team ey???”

Kyou could see the dark grin cover over Kenji’s face, “Our job is to keep humans safe,” he felt a throbbing from his head, “You really think I want someone like you on my team?”

“Heyyyyy what did I do man? I just got here,”

“I’ll tell you what you did, I don’t need a disposer on my team. All I need is my own Containing ability so why don’t you just back off? You aren’t even a disposer! You don’t have an anti-mutant weapon-”

Kenji pointed his spear at Kyoushirou’s neck, “Listen up weakling. I don’t need any fancy weapon that you people can create. Mutants die just like humans do so I’ll stick to my regular weapon-”

Kyoushirou pushed his spear aside, “Just remember, newbie. You pull anything on a mission with me and I will report you. By STAM protocol you don’t get to move a muscle until I give you permission or die. Keep that in mind, ” the two began to slowly continue their walk.

Arisa slowly let out her breath, she could feel her cheeks flush from just looking at him, Kawamiya Kyoushirou...you’re upset about having a disposer on your team?...could it be...

Akumako didn’t move until her ears could no longer hear their steps, Reikokuna Kenji…as I thought you were one of them…

“Let’s get moving before they make more rounds,” Akumako stood and brushed off the dirt from her leg.