Chapter Four

June 27th

Part one

156th branch office, Downtown Manhattan noon

“I have a new update. Stigmata Enhancer has been blacklisted and look at what I have for you,” Jasmine said, handing her brother a small metal box.

He opens the box looking at his sister. “Give me a sec.”

Marquise sat at his desk taking out a tool kit and the device from the box, connecting the device to his computer via scanner. “How did you manage to get a hold of… you do realize you can get into serious trouble for that?” he said coldly as he searched the device, exploring the device outer and internal components.

Jasmine sighed. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard this speech before. She sits in the chair next to her brother reaching her hand out. “This group was more cooperative since one of the members there has already been arrested by me before. Making him talk was easy.”

“By threatening to cast them into the shadow realm?” Marquis said, handing his sister the device. “Is it actually true that this piece of equipment can awaken and enhance your biotic category? is it better than the L-VII implants?”

“Well, needless to say it does according to the sources. Out preforming the latest neural biotic implants.”

Marquis takes a long glance at the ear shaped apparatus. “Well, I suppose we can test it out. It’ll be quicker to get the answers through results but then again, I heard about what side effects it can have. Such a—"

Then a sudden spark hits him. Wait if I were to use it I’ll become a higher category biotic than my sis.

“I’ll be able to get my payback on her today is the day to feel—”

“Alive?~ Spilling your thoughts again, lil bro~~” Jasmine said, standing over him. She tries to force her brother to wear the apparatus, her cheery smile frightened him as he kept the device away from him.

"You wanna try it, right?"

“I’m joking! I'm joking! Chill sis chill!” Marquis catches his breath and sits up in his chair and starts typing. “While I was at it, I got in contact with the main branch minutes before the site was banned from the public. I complied all exchange data from all 200 branches, the device has already reached the hands of 10,000 people.”

Jasmine shoulders drop and her head tilts as she listens to her brother with a downbeat face.

“Majority of the purchases weren't through the site. Since the main branch got involved with the case closing down the site, there was a major exchange change. People are making in-person purchases making it harder for Public Safety to crackdown on the suspects."

“That only made the situation worse, hmm?—bro can you find the trade locations and time of exchange using the date of the recent arrest involved in the case?”

Marquis looks over his shoulder confused. “Yeah, I can but what good will that do us?”

Jasmine pats him on the shoulders. “Trust me, my intuition is kicking.”

“Alright, let’s do this.”

An hour and a half past. Marquis sifted through the data showing his sister.

“Here you go sis, the required data that you wanted.”

“You’re so sweet—What the hell! How many—”

“254 locations, here take this instead it'll be less of a hassle, if you upload the data to Network Sleeve,” Marquis said, picking a thin clear object thin as paper, handing it to his sister.

Jasmine takes the object and doubles taps the surface, the screen illuminates and a map of the locations appears.

“I won’t be able to cover all these places all in one day even if the areas are clustered like this. Request assistance from the 154th and 155th branches and send them the data.”

“Nothing I can do there sis because I did it right when I pulled up the data.”

“Good looking out,” Jasmine sighed, glancing down at the screen swiping at the screen, she pressed her thumb on the screen as the screen scans her fingerprint.

Marquis looks up at his sister's face, making his face change. He takes the device away from his sister, making her flinch. He pressed his finger on the screen scanning his fingerprint.

“Sis, you look exhausted. When was the last time you slept?”

Jasmine reaches out for the device, Marquis hands it back to his sister but he keeps his grip as she tries to take it back.

“I haven’t slept in two days.”

“Why?”

“Had to attend a meeting with other branch junior supervisors. Because the top bras wouldn't even bat an eye if we can’t pinpoint the actual harm in this case. That's how the site was taken down, we had to show them in preson.”

Marquis sighed letting go of the pad turning back to his computer. “First objective is to prevent the situation from inflating. Second objective is to further enhance our understanding of the enhancer. I’ll get in contact with my technical junior supervisors while I’m at it. I might get some help figuring out this device.”

“Thanks For helping me, I'll buy you that parfait when all this is done.” Jasmine hugs her brother and vanishes.

Marquis sat up straight and rolled his shoulders aggressively pushing the keys with blazen speed all he could think about was that parfait a sweet reward was waiting for him.

A few seconds later the phone next to him rings, he pauses answering the call.

“Hello, this is Venessa Wingate, I just received the device schematics a moment ago.”

“Professor Wingate, how is it possible for a person to jump categories through hardware? Not even a L-VII Amp implant can do something like this.”

“Hmm, it’s a daunting task to pull off,” Venessa hands her colleague a sheet of paper.

“The time required for developing the components and wide distribution can be concluded that it originated somewhere off the mainland. The development can be calculated to a decade from its complexity. It’s a steep incline but you already knew that.”

“Yes, that’s correct.” Marquis opens the refrigerator and grabs a bottle of water and twists the cap. “Moreover, there’s an encrypted file built into the software. After decrypting the file, a security mechanism with a cypher is required to gain access to the internal files.” Marquis reaches in the cabinet grabbing a granola bar.

“Yes, I ran into the same problem on my end, my team in the technical department and Cyber Security Department is currently trying to bypass the system security.” Venessa eyes was sharp as a cold scalpel glaring at her holo-display.

Marquis gulps hard as his body shivers. “Ahm…When I scanned its internals, I noticed it's equipped with something coded as Node Slate, I did some searching for any details on Node Slate but nothing matched, it doesn't exist.”

“Node Slate was an experimental 8th-generation artificial stigmata nodule set on giving the host a biotic ability unlike their natural counterparts with promising results. It was slated to be used in neural augmentations, those artificial stigmata nodes react to the bioelectricity and brain activity to activate it’s given abilities."

"If it was promising, why the sudden stop?"

"The Period of Stagnation, happened right after the Lunar Calamity, without resources for physical augmentations to limit any adverse effects from the implant, the project was called off. Anything related to science was heavily scrutinized, research funding tightly restricted, the public sector became terrified of biotics and powerful science and tech corporations, major international organizations condemned the International Science Community. But this is different, this Stigmata Enhancer violates every restriction imposed on the community.”

“But how did someone get their hands on such high grade tech used in augmentations, Black market?”

“That’s one of many possibilities or maybe a secret benefactor that still have the research data but I have to go. Swing on by, around noon so we can discuss more.”

“Alright, see you in a few.”

Marquis hangs up the phone and looks around the empty office. “It feels like we’re close but so far from finding a solution to this problem.” He goes through his contacts and stops on Shantae’s communication number and pushes the call button.

The line rings for a few seconds before the other line clicked.

“Hey Shantae—”

“The number that you dialed is not in service, please—”

Marquis hangs up. “That’s odd, her Network Sleeve is always on. I should go see her later, I still want to know what she wanted to show me.”

*******

Shantae grips the device as she speed walks through the park, heart racing and sweaty palms. Who would have thought that something this small could cause such a huge problem? She takes a seat on the park bench and loosens her fist and looks at the device with confliction in her eyes.

I mean any normal person would get spooked seeing an object of unknown origin giving them powers. The teachers are always saying through tough training you’ll become a biotic but obtaining that power through easy means isn’t something others respond well to. Shantae fiddles with the device peering into the transparent finish. But— Her shoulders droop. No matter how hard I push myself, the road I’m on continues to get longer. Should I accept the fact that I was born incapable? What am I good for?

As she thinks voices resonated from behind her snapping Shantae out of her train of thought.

“Th…that’s unfair man! This is far from what we agreed on!”

Shantae turned her head slightly to the right and saw a group of teenage boys occupying a rundown gazebo behind her.

“We agreed on the deal that I bring the money and you’ll give me what I came for. So, stop messing around and hand it over,” the boy said.

“Oh, I know the deal is still on, it's just the price went up because of the supply shortage.” Holding the device, he snickers showing off the earpiece. “You can have it when you bring the other 350 bucks.”

“Cut the crap and give me my money back!” the boy sprints after the group but one of the boys from the clique punches the pursuing teen in the face knocking him to the floor.

“No refunds, it's in the agreement.”

“Hell, this boy is annoying, seeing his face pissess me off.”

Two of the boys from the group surround the downed boy, they begin kicking him to the floor forcing the boy to curl up.

“Yeo, knock it off and sit him up,” one of the boys said.

They stop and pick up the scuffed-up boy.

The man kneels and flashed the device in front of the boy’s face smiling. “We’ve been dying to test out our abilities since the first day using the enhancer. What a better time like now.”

“Are you serious?” one of the boys asked.

They laughed as they pinned the scuffed-up boy to the wall. “L…let me go I’ll get you the other hal—”

Shantae slowly slides off the bench and onto the floor, keeping hidden. She gulped hard as she heard both laughter and grunting just beyond the hedge. Mom and Dad always told me about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Shantae reaches into her pocket and takes out her phone.

I’ll just call Public Safe— her words cut short when she noticed her Network Sleeve was out of battery. Crap! I forgot to put it on the charger before going to sleep last night! Out of all days it had to be today!

She clenched her fist, ready to slam it into the concrete floor but she stopped. I can’t do that because dad will kill me.

“Hey, what are you doing snooping around?”

Shantae's face was drained of its meline pigment when she heard one of the guys talking near her. He sounds really close.

“You should mind your business, girl.”

Too close! Shantae jumps up to her feet and snatches her bag. “Nope I was just passing on through bye!” she quickly about-face and hastily walked away.

She slows down then comes to a normal walk. She clenched her bag strap and pounders as she stared up at the tall trees blocking out the sun. I’m sorry, I didn’t have much of a choice. What can I do? There are six of them and only one of me. As for me, I just moved to this city two years ago.

Shantae came to a slower walking speed as she thought deeply about the situation. He’s a complete stranger to me. It’s not like I have an obligation to risk my own life for his. I’ll just act like I didn’t see any of it happening. That’s the right thing to do…Right?

Shantae’s feet came to a stop, she straightened her back with her fist clenched and eyes closed.

“Th…that’s enough already,” Shantae said as she gripped the bag strap. “He’s had enough, you’ll only hurt him more.”

The guys halted their assault on the injured boy and pushed him to the floor.

“What’s this?” one of the boys said as he approached Shantae.

Her voice spoke loudly but behind her closed eyelids were eyes full of fear ready to burst into tears. “I said he’s already injured.” Her voice was raspy, nearly choking on her own words. But can I call myself a decent human when seeing someone getting picked on and not doing anything about it?

“What were you saying?”

Shantae opens her eyes only to be staring at the guy’s chest. She tried to look up at him, but her body wasn’t responding to her.

“Cat’s got your tongue, missy?”

Her breathing becomes shallow, her heart begins to pump faster, and her body stiffens like a statue. The longer he loomed over her she can feel his glare beaming down on top of her head.

“This will make you talk!” The guy clenched his fist and struck the gazebo wall driving his fist through.

Shantae screams, closing her eyes. She begins to take deeper breaths as the guy strikes the wall repeatedly getting closer to her.

“You damn kids these days have a lot of guts to stand up to anyone."

The guy and his group laughed as they continued to kick the boy.

"You’re just a scumbag with borrowed power, and people such as yourself have no right to point fingers at anyone. You have no right to mock others for standing up to people without power. Their strength comes from their will, not from a piece of hardware.”

Shantae opens her eyes to the voice that spoke. That voice. Her eyes went from dark to light when she saw Jasmine’s small brown round face and fuzzy ponytail.

The guys looked back at Jasmine, closely examined her. One of the guys snarled after getting a glimpse of Jasmine’s badge. “Shit, she’s with Public Safety.”

“There’s no escape. Turn yourselves over and don’t make it hard for yourselves.”

One of the guys mean mugs Jasmine as he gets closer to her. “This one is a bit tomboyish but think we have make uses of—”

The man vanished when Jasmine touched his shoulder, the man reappearing a few feet behind the others landing in a dumpster. “He was getting on my nerves.”

Before the man could register what occurred in that instant trash cans landed on top of him from above.

“People like you belong in the trash,” Jasmine uttered, imitating flipping her hair looking down on the group of misfits.

The guy sucks his teeth and grins as his hand twitches. “Little kids with such cocky attitudes genuinely make my stomach turn.”

"Someone is getting too confident about himself. Maybe I should humble you, teach you that having abilities doesn’t change you as a person. I'm certain that your parents taught you that."

The gazebo begins to shake, the roited wood snaps with ease and begins to levitate. Shantae fell on her back looking up at the floating roof dangling a few feet over Jasmine’s head. No way, Jasmine!

Shantae tries to warn her friend but she was still a bit shaken up to even talk or even move.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have quite a mouth on you? How about we change that.” He makes a small gesture with his fingers releasing the debris as it roars crashing down on top of Jasmine.

Without a single movement the falling rubble drops behind the guy a few inches away from his back.

“I take it that plenty has told you the same but today was just a bad one to open your damn mouth.” Jasmine teleports to the right of the man and delivers a swift kick to the head with great force, knocking the man unconscious.

Jasmine pulls her hair tie, flicking her curly hair glancing over at the groups leader taking a drag of his cigarette. “I’ve heard of you. You’re that Category 5 Biotic capable of teleporting. If they were smart enough to examine their foe they'll still be standing.” He takes another drag of his cigarette looking at the unrecognizable structure.

“That Phase Gate ability is pretty impressive and rare, making you a force to be recognized. This is the first time seeing it firsthand. You rose through the system in such a short time.” He looks down at Jasmine’s right wrist glancing at the orange glowing band slowly rotating and shifting around her wrist.

Jasmine sighs. “Geez, you talk just as big as this dunce, you also talk as if none of this has nothing to do with you, what’s up with that? Look just surren—”

“What the hell do I look like taking orders from some little girl with some authority? This gang…” the man drops his cigarette and steps on it.

“It’s like my family, we laugh off the robbing, threats, and violence everyday it’s what we do. The other ‘bad things’ we've done it all. And enjoyed it and didn’t care who got mad.”

His crooked smile sent shivers down Jasmine’s spine, she hunches over staring at the man as he rambles.

“In the end we’re always face to face with you Public Safety shits. Always sticking their nose in something that has nothing to do with them.” Without a moment of hesitation, he lunges at Jasmine.

“Eh? These types are just too bothersome. Even your voice is starting to irritate me.” Jasmine shifts her foot just an inch and teleports behind the charging target. “Getting revenge is out of the…” Jasmine looks around her as the man suddenly vanishes from right in front of her.

I know I’m not going crazy but did he just disappear? No that’s not it— that snake! Jasmine quickly spins and blocks the man’s kick.

Tch! He couldn’t have teleported otherwise I would have felt a spatial ripple. Jasmine closes her empty hand and opens; she held a skewer as she analyzes her target. I have to immobilize him. Jasmine eyes locks onto the man’s leg, she drops the skewer and it vanishes.

The man smiles, showing his crooked grin.

Jasmine jolted as she was facing eye to eye with the man, she looks at his right hand and noticed him holding a 4 inch knife.

The bladed weapon was a few hairs away from her face, however the swinging knife missed.

Jasmine teleports far behind the man staring him down.

He turns around pointing his knife at Jasmine. “What happened to that lay back attitude of yours? Lost that snarky attitude?”

Jasmine kept her eyes on him. Her face twitches the longer she looks at him. He’s definitely not part of Phase 11 Tree like me. What is this power? But more importantly he's physically armed.

She looks behind the man and without a word Jasmine runs off picking up a glass bottle. "He's too dangerous to face head on. Time for isolation."

The man was confused, not sure what happened he glanced back seeing Shantae and the injured boy were gone. He stomped out his cigarette and chased after Jasmine into a building that was slated for demolition.

Jasmine leaps over a piece of machinery and waited for the man up on the second floor. Scanning the bare second floor interior.

Apprehending him out in the open is impossible with so much open space for him to move around, making the space smaller leaves me with a smaller margin of error.

The upstairs floor was filled with support columns leaving a higher number of blind spots for her to be more weary of a surprise attack but she knew the risk. When the sound of footsteps echoed through the hallway the glass bottle vanished.

"You have to be a fool to follow another person into an empty building not knowing what's waiting on the inside. I guess I'm that fool but I refuse to leave things undone. I lost out on some money, nothing personal kid," the man said as he walked into the room looking around, taking out his knife.

Jasmine locks onto the man pointing a skewer at his leg. "Well, even we Category 5s have to play strategically, regardless of the enemy. Strength isn't always the action." Jasmine leaps out from behind a pillar throwing the skewer; however he was well alerted, dodging to the left as it embedded itself into the concrete wall.

The instant I'm out of sight is when he moves, the changing in his position is always behind me, why?

She dashed to the left, the moment she was out of his sight, Jasmine immediately stopped changing direction flanking him on his left avoiding the lunging knife.

He grunts falling onto one knee pulling out the skewer and glancing behind him, the skewer he was holding was the one Jasmine dropped earlier. He snickers and says to Jasmine, "You’re as dangerous as they said. No wonder you're infamous in the Underworld, I have to know, what you did do to piss them off that bad for them to put a vast bounty on your head?"

"It's complicated."

Jasmine teleports to a column with her back facing her attacker, from the corner of her eye she spots a pile of unused plywood up against the wal along the far left wall.

He's definitely a teleporter but he doesn't use the Phase Gate as I do. There are 4 known types of teleportation through the void: Phase Gate, Phase Out, Hitchhiker, and Schrödinger's cat.

She teleports again across the room but the moment she turned around to attack she was stuck from the left. Jasmine anticipated that he'll attack from behind; she was certain, but was null when he changed his attack pattern. He trips Jasmine and grabs her slender arm forcing her to the ground.

"I never use the same strategy more than once. I do it to give my target the false sense of hope thinking they can read the next move," he said slowly twisting Jasmine’s arm, she grinds her teeth as the pain worsens.

I can easily remove Phase Gate and Phase Out since they're sister abilities. I can feel when someone is moving through the 11th dimension. Schrödinger's Cat is by far the easiest to detect, and relies on the possibility of a person being there or not.

Jasmine teleports again, backing herself between two columns and a wall to her back. Hitchhiker is the only one that can easily bypass the gates without needing to enter. He's slipping through the instant I jump. He has to be spatially sensitive in order to know where and when to jump. Now I just have to put my plan into action.

"You run more than you talk," he said, dragging a black bag labeled sawdust.

"The question is what will I do to you?"

He swung the bag, the bag burst, flinging sawdust in every direction, Jasmine closed her eyes, she knew it was risky to close her eyes on an enemy as dangerous as him. I need that right--

The sound of crunching glass from behind her echoed in the midst of the chaos, it was the only thing she was focused on.

Jasmine tossed several skewers directly in front of her even though the enemy was behind her, she dashed forward. The knife was a few inches from stabbing her in the back.

I got what I wanted! Jasmine vanished along with the several thrown skewers, several sheets of plywood blocked the only direction for retreat, it was then he realized he was boxed in on all sides. He turned around facing Jasmine, he made an attempt to teleport behind her but realized there was no space for him to move.

He can't transition far if both of them are isolated. Neither one of them are willing to be teleported into a wall or the columns.

The suspect attempted to defend him against Jasmine’s attack but two of her skewers were embedded in his elbows without him noticing.

The suspect was knocked through the barricade with Jasmine kneeing him in the chest.

He bellows as her full weight comes down on him as they hit the floor, her knees dug deep into his upper chest muscles pressing out the air. She quickly turns him over and cuffed him, she then ripped a piece of fabric from his shirt and blindfolded him.

"With all that rambling you were doing you failed to realize I wasn't trapped with you. You were trapped with me," Jasmine said, holding her arm.

Kicking the knife away from them out of his reach, she reached into his back pocket taking out his wallet as she sat on his back keeping him in close contact.

"Let's see. Rondell Brown, 34, 6'1, a Category 4, Ability: Hitchhiker as figured, Level two Sensitivity AND an former marine! It's a good thing I was the one who got to him."

She searched the rest of the wallet finding a folded piece of paper with a list of names and locations.

"This is where you sell the enhancers. You were worth the pain after all! but I'm not sure how command is going to handle you."

She check his ears for the Stigmata Enhancer but neither ear held one. "He a natural Category 4. Well, at least we can get answers from him."

*******