My name is Ex-Captain Sam McCullum, Gunny to my friends and Captain to everyone else.

I can't help but feel like Zorai is actually some heartless demi-god that decided life wasn't interesting or hard enough with just a massive zombie plague, which I have suspicions he may also be involved in somehow.

I also can't help but feel like the crazy Energy Being that is the true power behind Central City is deliberately making things more difficult for me in particular.

I scratch at my stubble in agitation, as I remember the 12,000 odd citizens of Central City watching me with silent eyes, pleading for many things I probably can't give them.

It has now been almost 6 months since the outbreak. Somehow I've ended up in the position of City Mayor, though I never actually understood how.

Lesly had finally cornered me and had me dead to rights, but for some unthinkable reason, two of Zorai's Golems were trying to learn martial arts from Charles in the nearby area and crashed right through the brand new walls of my quarters, interrupting Lesly's assassination attempt.

I am almost certain now, that we're all just little dolls in Zorai's dollhouse. Like little plastic green army men that he pits against each other on the floor of his room and melts with a magnifying glass when he gets bored.

I think I also understand the reason I am still alive. I am probably generating too much interesting data to die just yet. All of the political manoeuvring, leading up to Lesly finally moving to take my life personally, had so many complex elements. It was like playing chess except you were playing with a thousand pieces, against a dozen enemies, on a non-Euclidean chess board, that can't decide if it wants to have enough or too few places for all the pieces to fit at once.

This realisation is what led to the very depressing thought that how I'd set up all these little deals and secret promises in the background was filled with more traps than I had thought.

If Zorai wants me to stay alive, then it can only mean he is expecting to reap huge amounts of data from my future interactions.

Plus, if I fail and the city falls back into anarchy, Lesly will probably run things from the background and turn everything into a lawless paradise.

Already, I feel my head aching, as I sit down at my desk and review the basic laws the lesser council is drafting. Because it's impossible for one person to properly hold all the power in a situation like this, I ended up having to give council seats out to all the major survivor groups based on size, power and necessity.

The city is now basically run by 120 representatives, and only three of us have veto rights on the council's actions. Me, Charlette of the builders guild, and that crazy bitch Lesly.

More annoyingly, we have no major parties to back, and the council is a slaughterhouse of infighting, backstabbing and general banditry.

We have a council meeting once a week, and each one of them has been more vicious and bloodthirsty than any battle I have been in before.

It took us nearly 2 months just to draft the basic laws we expect to operate under. Luckily, I wasn't forced to tell everyone the limits our human laws could reach, because Zorai sends a Golem to every meeting as his liaison.

The first meeting resulted in Golems sieging our makeshift council and vaporising anyone who spoke out against the energy being's laws.

And when I say vaporising, I mean to say that about 20 council members were turned to dust and had to be replaced by their respective groups.

Which caused us to waste the council meeting the next week as we devolved into beasts trying to claim the seats of powers that had broken up after their leader's unfortunate demise.

I am happy to say though, the city now has a law regarding research grants given by the city government to promising candidates, which Zorai proposed and everyone was smart enough not to oppose, a city planning and zoning department and very basic outline of a charter.

I had hoped we would all come together and be somewhat unified, eventually working out the perfect system of government thanks to the entirety of humanities recorded history backing us up and helping us make the right decisions based on our past mistakes.

Instead, the truth of human nature rears its ugly head in politics, and no such thing happened. It was an absolute shit fight just getting us to this stage.

Due to the large number of groups that inhabit the city, all of which have different agendas, the city was broken down into 9 zones. Kind of like cutting up a pizza with a big hole in the middle. Each zone is mostly taken care of by their representatives and the city council only organises citywide rules and regulations.

That said, each zone has some freedoms with the interpretation of the charter in their little slice of the city. Lesly for example, has completely forsaken all law in her area of the city. Nothing is policed except taxes on goods sold there. Which must be paid to her.

The only patrolling done is by her goons, extorting credits and taxes from everyone they see. At the same time, many of the things outlawed in other parts of the city have found there way over to her seedy little den of madness.

The other sectors mostly employ my mercenaries guild to police their areas for crimes, and thanks to that, everywhere else is unified under a single police outfit and have basically the same laws.

The only place we can't enforce our laws is on Zorai's turf, which is basically the central plaza of the city and the 6 major roads leading out into the rapidly growing forests.

Although, technically, we can enforce laws there, like say, executing someone for murder in broad daylight, or apprehending a thief. The only problem is that we are not allowed to impede incoming survivors that aren't yet a citizen or slow down traffic that is delivering waste to the pit.

On the note of law enforcement, we have managed to strike a bit of a deal with Zorai. His pervasive omnipresence among our citizens allows us to know about culprits to crimes with 100% accuracy.

The only problem is, he makes us pay very heavy prices for information of that nature. It took quite a bit of haggling before I managed to work out a deal with him to essentially 'rent' his cameras around the city.

Which isn't much better, because we still then need to go over all the recorded footage of the 4000 rented cameras whenever we want to investigate a crime.

We can speed this up by asking Zorai for hints. But that, of course, would cost a substantial fee.

Even now, after dozens of council meetings, the city is barely functioning as a unified whole. The only good thing about this whole shit show is that Zorai doesn't tend to play favourites. Except maybe those weird raptor people in zone 3. They just turned up out of nowhere one day and set up camp in the green zone.

They're a very, very strange people. They are usually very civil and polite, until someone sets them off. Then it's like they suddenly switch into a weird pack mentality and hunt down any threats with extreme prejudice.

Apparently, they all share some weird psychic network and when they determine something is a threat, the whole community of scaly bastards are nearly unstoppable.

They look just like raptors from that movie Jurassic park except with more dextrous arms and slightly wider shoulders and straighter backs. It is an eerie cross between humanoid and raptor.

They also have some strange fascination with Top Hats and fake moustaches. The communities entire social structure is determined by who can make the fanciest and most impressive top hat or bushiest most stylish moustache.

They also have this thing where now, and again a raptor will meet a human and do some kind of overdramatic gasp, while hissing out something about 'Doppelgangers' or 'original bodies'. I've yet to get a clear answer on what exactly that is all about.

Never, ever, touch the top hat. I once saw the entire community chase a survivor group into the red zone and butcher them for touching the top hats. Which is what leads me to believe Zorai must like them because not a single raptor was harmed by the Golems.

The Raptors also have a strange relationship with the Golems. They often refer to them as The Son's and Daughter's, or if speaking directly with one, they will call them Junior Overseer.

Luckily, they tend to mostly keep to themselves, and anyone that has spent long enough in the city has learnt better than to disregard the proper social cues when in discussions with them.

While I think of it. The Golems. They are truly marvellous and frightening creatures. I had been under the impression they were simply robots under the constant control of Zorai, but after months of observation, I am seeing them starting to develop some kind of weird little culture all of their own.

When they greet each other, they just sort of bump into each other and rustle their hair fibre around a bit. Now and again, they will just walk up to some stranger and strike up a very disconnected conversation, as if they are trying to learn how conversations are supposed to actually work.

They also seem to be very protective of each other. Not that they really need to be. Zorai is more than protective enough for them. Once, some maniac actually managed to destroy one of the Golems. The lightning bolt that was conjured out of the clear blue sky onto that person's head was so wide and powerful that it cracked open the earth and killed hundreds of people in the nearby area.

The only few people to escape and report the matter where high level powered individuals, and even they needed days or weeks to recover from the wounds.

Sigh. Then there is the effect high-level powers are having on the city. I initially did not fully consider the ramifications of having a police force trying to police powered people. I've had to have the city security forces move in groups with at least one high-level individual.

If someone who thinks they're the son of God decides he is right and everyone else is wrong, he will fight and kill everyone that says otherwise.

Luckily, when Zorai released his own personal little list of power rankings, it crushed the egos of hundreds of stuck up powered.

Surprisingly, the person highest on the list was actually a twelve-year-old boy. His power was rather weak, but his energy reserves were so monstrous that he could imbue objects entirely with his own mind.

More importantly, while everyone was threatening him to join them or fighting over who would get to recruit him, Zorai came in an offered the boy and internship in The Lair.

Not much is actually known about the lair, but anyone that comes out is usually very strange. Almost none of them care for the trappings of power or wealth. Every one of them is some kind of a nerd with an obsession for science that is frankly very unhealthy.

Almost the only times they even appear in the city, they are dressed in a white lab coat, escorted by a Golem they'd asked to help them out for a bit, and looking for some particular thing or other they needed for research.

Usually that would be luring some orphans in with promises of food and a warm bed and no danger to their life.

Luckily, the few that have displayed behaviour unbecoming of a mad scientist, have been smited by a surprise lightning strikes.

Zorai apparently has very high expectations of his staff.

That said, many of them appeared to be slightly unhinged in some form or another. Before about a month ago, no one apart from Charles had ever been seen leaving the tunnel.

I once overheard one of them talking to a golem about how well the reconditioning went and how it helped him unlock the mind powers necessary to imbue objects properly.

Strangely, now that I think about it, those raptor people are often muttering about this re-conditioning thing they went through as well. Hmm. It's probably not related. I hope.

Who am I kidding? Those raptors were definitely humans once right? And those scientists definitely weren't all crazies like that before the outbreak right?

Sighh. Well, I should just stop myself there. I can't get worked up about it. If I even thought of doing something about it, Zorai would probably know, and I would end up in another coma.

"Captain. I don't usually care enough to warn you about such things, but I hope you weren't thinking about anything outside of your control."

"Jesus fuck!" I'm pretty sure I just shit in my chair a little bit.

"Fuck! Zorai! I hate it when you do that!"

"Hmm. That was a pretty severe reaction. I'm told my voice is calming enough to put people to sleep, so the only thing that could cause a fright like that is a guilty conscience."

Fuck! That fucking mind-reading robot energy thing piece of…

"Ok. You can stop ranting at me in your mind. I can't actually read your thoughts, otherwise having you around would be pointless. Regardless, I am informing you that the army base to the north appears to have gained control of a Zombie Controller. They are marching around with tanks and other archaic war machines while gathering a significant hoard of zombies. I expect they will be attacking the city soon. As such, automated defences and building materials have tripled in price and the Golems have been ordered not to interfere. Good luck."

Fuck! Was he expecting this? I am I still alive because he wanted the city slightly unified just for this assault? No, that's probably thinking too much. If he were worried about the assault, he wouldn't have limited his support. Some kind of test for us maybe? Unlikely, he doesn't need to test us… at least… not like that.

This is more likely another case of wanting to collect huge amounts of data. This will probably be the closest thing to a powered war he will get to see for a while. No doubt he wants to collect as much information about powered warfare as possible. Fuck! So many people are going to die just so that sick piece of…

"You should probably call a council meeting. I am impatient to see how it goes."

"Sighhh… Zorai. I fucking hate you sometimes."

"That's strange. My dream research suggests you have been having sexual fantasies about me whipping you and calling you slave."

Oh god. I think I'm about to have a heart attack. Is it possible to get so angry that even our super-powered bodies will have a heart attack?

*Thump… spurt!*

"Ahhh! Somebody help! A huge vain on the Captain's head just blew open and is spraying blood everywhere.”

---

Charlette brushed the curly red hair away from her face as she leaned over a glowing table covered with a floating light show of schematics.

She reached into the largest 3-d schematic hovering over the table with a slick silver glove. The pointed tips on the index and thumb of the glove glowed, and Charlette pulled a certain line and stretched it out.

Her other hand then pushed her falling her back again before shooting in with another silver glove. Then, her hands become a blur of motions as long lines drew out from all her fingers, weaving and expanding the Council Chambers she'd been tasked with designing and building.

Hours passed as sweat pooled on her brow, and her rebellious hair slipped into her line of sight again, someone came by to speak with her, but she refused to stop. It was far harder to get started with her 'weaving' power, than it was to just work through the slight distractions.

"Boss! We just got a huge commission from the city coffers!"

That was until the door to her workspace burst open with a bang and the slight jump she received from the sudden shock caused the entire light show of additions she'd started, to explode into countless little motes of light.

The 3-D hologram reset to its last saved state and the work she'd just spent hours tirelessly weaving was gone.

She stood there, leaning over the glowing desk, eye's wide in disbelief, the glow of her gloves slowly receding. Then, they flared to life again as thousands of thin almost invisible silver threads spread out around her.

Her gloves unravelled into the razor thin silver wire and she spun on her second in command ready to eviscerate him into little pieces.

"W-wait! Boss! You need to hear this!"

The silver threads curled around the older man and started to hum as they tightened, slowly cutting into him from thousands of angles.

"If the world isn't ending. You are going to die."

She stated in a strangely calm tone, given that her eyes were bloodshot from not blinking for hours, and her hair was a dishevelled mess of sweaty red curls.

"Ah!! Woah! Woah! Calm down! The world isn't ending exactly, just possibly the entire city!"

He quickly yelled as he activated his own power of magnetism and tried to force the quickly tightening threads out of his flesh before they actually cut something important.

Hearing the slight urgency in his voice, Charlette took a long breath and called back her threads.

They whipped back towards her and weaved themselves into a set of slim, shiny silver gloves.

"Whew. Okay. So, a council fellow stopped by while you were working and tried to speak with you, but you were zoned out like usual whenever you're playing with Zorai's schematic table. Since you were basically unresponsive, I went with him to an emergency council meeting."

He pulled out boxes of band-aids and bandages he apparently kept on hand just for these situations and started calmly fixing up all the hundreds of thin bleeding cuts on his exposed arms, face and neck.

"So, you know that big army base up north. Well, word is they got themselves a Zombie Controller and somehow got it to do stuff for them. In this case, they are marching around in the outlands and amassing a big old hoard to come and stomp our asses."

Charlette grimaced slightly as she walked over to the only other table in the barren white room. She took a glass of water and finished it in a single go. Then, took some eyedrops and hissed a little as her dry eyes received some much needed moisture.

"So, here's the bugger though. Zorai has pumped up the cost of all his support. Like triple cost on everything automated and all building materials. The Captain seems to think Zorai wants the data on how we are gonna react to this whole thing. He said something like, 'Zorai loves innovation. So it'd be a good idea to get creative'."

Duncan's voice raised a few octaves as he tried to imitate the captain, showing his clear opinion of the captain being a pansy.

"Anyway, first time I ever seen the council be so united. Even that crazy bitch Lesly was all gung-ho about gettin' behind the Captains scheme. Long story short, everyone donated some money to the city to get defences in place, and the Captain is running the show. The kicker is, I managed to get our guild a 2 million credit contract for building a big ass wall around the city at the edge of the yellow zone."

Charlette's eyes nearly bulged out of her head as she whipped her gaze around and stared a hole through Duncan.

"You did what? 2 million credits? How the hell did the other powers build up so much money? More importantly, we can't build a proper wall around the whole city when Zorai is upping the price! This contract will put us into debt!"

Just as her gloves were starting to unravel again, Duncan raised his hand to stop her with a shit eating grin.

"Ahh! But here's the best part! We both know that our little matter manipulator can't process enough rubble fast enough to allow us to build the wall. But what if we had, say, 3 matter manipulators? Or, what if we had maybe, 6? Or even better, what if we only had three, but also the recipe for Zorai's magic cement? I checked it out while at the council. Zorai never raised the prices on the matter manipulator. It's still half a million credits. As a bonus, he's even dropped the price of his cement recipe to only a million credits. I admit, if we pour all our assets into this purchase now, it will put us in debt. But after this shitstorm blows over, we'll have enough matter manipulators to take on 4 times as many jobs and only have to buy the rarer matter manipulator recipes from Zorai later."

Duncan's shit eating grin got even bigger as he watched Charlette's eyes nearly roll back into her head and he even heard her moan a little. Charlette was a money hungry bitch, and if credits were a physical form of money, he was pretty sure she'd derive sexual pleasure from swimming in them.

"Do it now! Liquidise everything we don't need for the wall job and put everything else on hold!"

Duncan then coughed lightly to hide his smile that was getting even more savage.

"Well. I thought you'd say that, so I've already done it. We now have 4 manipulators and the cement recipe. But, while that is great and all, the guild coffers are completely empty, and we are even slightly in debt. However, if you're interested, I have received some job offers related to the wall that may be able to put as back in the black until the wall job is finished."

Charlette could see the edges of Duncan's smile, which was now so wide even his rough, callused hand couldn't hide it. She was pretty sure if he smiled any more, his eyes were going to fall into his mouth.

Instead of playing his guessing game she just gave him a long stare.

"I have received two jobs with considerable profit margins. One is from Lesly. She wants a few little, secret holes in the wall. Maybe some little tunnels. It doesn't matter how we do it, she just wants a way to smuggle goods out of the city. As you know, her zone is on the south east side and basically encompasses half of the harbour. So she has smuggling goods around on the water mostly under her control. But with the other sectors locking up the exits to the city, she is slightly more limited in any goods she wants to move west. While that obviously isn't a problem yet, she is planning ahead to when Central City has to start trading with other survivor camps and cities."

Charlette grimaced slightly. While she didn't particularly care what Lesly did in her sector, she would prefer not giving her the ability to circumvent the other powers of the city.

This wasn't some misconceived notion of preventing her from corrupting humanity or other shit like that. This was simply because if the other powers found out, her guild would quickly get crushed under the weight of their wrath.

"What's the other job."

Duncan was smiling again.

"I had a feeling that would be the case, so I asked around and tracked down the Lab Rat."

"Who?" Charlette asked, while raising a thin red eyebrow.

Duncan frowned slightly and then reprimanded Charlette.

"Charl, you spend too much time cooped up in here building your schematics. If you don't get out more, you're going to be single for the rest of your approximated 200 years of life."

Charlette's red eyebrows then scrunched together, and she gave Duncan a seething look.

"Shut it, old man! Just speak about the job."

Duncan chuckled to himself.

"Ok, so the Lab Rat is the go to man for making contact with scientists in the Lair. Most people don't know it, but those white coat nutter's have thousands of backlogged projects and are constantly adding more. So, sometimes when someone really needs some credits, they go see the Lab Rat, and he will hook you up with one of these projects you could probably complete. Or better yet, if you verbally give consent and give up your freedoms for a short time for science, he will post a wanted add in the Lair where the scientists will take a look at your skills and knowledge and design a project you can probably complete for huge credits."

Charlette could already see where this was going.

"So you promised your body to some seedy guy who is in contact with all the crazies in the lab, and now they are going to create a project that can be done in tangent with the wall that Zorai will pay us credits for."

"Hah! Better! I didn't need to give up anything! When I found the Lab Rat, he was the one desperately looking around for me! Hahaha! Apparently, the white coats already knew that we would probably end up building a wall around the city since for about ever. They are desperate for us to help them out with a list of projects so long it would take me an hour just to read the project names out to you. The best part is, we don't even have to do the complicated stuff for most of them, the white coats are gonna come up here and do it themselves. We just get paid credits in the process, for 'actively facilitating the path of progress'."

Charlette started pacing around the holo-table in the spartan room as Duncan lounged back comfortably in the only chair near the table with water.

"What sort of projects though? Our reputation is on the line here. I don't want some white coat coming up here and compromising the integrity of the wall."

Duncan grimaced a bit as he rubbed a band-aid on his cheek.

"Well, that is probably going to be a bit of a gamble. This is all cutting edge research from the white coats, so most of it is likely to just make the wall explode, killing everyone on it."

"Hnnghh…" Charlette groaned slightly and started biting her cherry lips, making her look cute and seductive with her little freckles and clear green eyes.

"How much are we likely to make from this endeavour?"

She finally asked. Duncan knew it would all come down to how much money she could make in the end.

"For just building the wall and letting the white coats play with it, probably about a million credits. If we get extra involved and make changes on the recommendation of the white coats, then it is likely about triple that."

Charlette's slender long legs almost buckled underneath her and Duncan could smell the thick scent of sex permeating the air.

"Oh god. Do it! Make me that money!" She finally yelled in a pant, completely flushed. Any normal man would probably be unable to contain their lust if they saw the heavily panting chest of Charlette along with her flushed cheeks and glazed eyes.

Luckily, despite Duncan looking and acting like a typical hairy, muscled builder, he was gayer than a gay pride parade and felt nary a twinge in his nether regions.

"Hehheh. Pull yourself together Boss. You look like a filthy bitch in heat."

He then quickly scuttled out of the room before she had enough presence of mind to flay him for interrupting her daydream of having wild sex with the credits she was going to earn.

---

I have been called a great many things in my time as a leader of the scum and dregs of this city. Before the outbreak, I was called the Viper of Central City.

During the time that everyone was lost and getting swarmed by hordes of zombies, I was busy restructuring the underbelly of the city. Most hard as fuck gangsters had the presence of mind to kill anything that looked remotely undead before they even realised the zombie apocalypse had already started.

Though we lost quite a few, we still came out the other side of the outbreak stronger than most other groups. Except perhaps that righteous piece of shit, The Captain.

God, even just thinking about him is making me wet. He's everything a man should be. Strong, charismatic, decisive. My only hang up on the man is his unrelenting do-gooder complex. God if he weren't so hung up on those contrived notions of humanity and equality, I'd have already kidnapped and raped him so I could bear his child.

In fact, I already tried that the first time we met. I knew when I saw him that he was the perfect specimen of manhood and he'd be a great father. Disciplined, stern, constantly pushing my kids to the limit of their abilities, just as he does for those under him.

Mmm, what I wouldn't do to be under him.

But unfortunately, he mistook me for an assassin when we first met. Which wasn't actually wrong, as I had gone to his camp to kill him. If only things hadn't started out that way, maybe we could be happily cutting down peons together and having hot sex in their blood.

Despite my begging and pleading with Zorai, the energy being has refused to help me brainwash Sam into being perfect.

Sighhh.

Anyway, the name I go by now is Lesly. In the Enclave though, everyone refers to me as the Shadow Mother. I let them praise me with other various prideful names as well, because I have accepted my nature and know full well that pride is as much a power to increase confidence as it is a poison causing you to overreach your limits.

Self-introspection is the key to understanding yourself. Deriving your limits, determining your potential, understanding your own quirks. These are the things a ruler and assassin needs. Both of which are my main occupations.

I stand upon the apex of The Tower, the tallest structure in the city, and watch as the Builder Guild and that little hussy Charlette run around the edge of the yellow zone, building their little wall.

What I wouldn't do to be alone with that girl for a few hours. Mmmm… I'm getting wet again.

"Damnit Zorai! This is your fault! I was sooo close."

Though I know that petulantly pouting and trying to look cute won't work on Zorai, I still try. After all, it is in my nature to try and abuse human nature for my benefit. The only problem is that my manipulation training never covered God-Like energy beings.

"You cannot capture The Captain yet. He is required to unify the city against the invaders. If I had let you drag him into the dank cellar you call a Lair and ravage him, then the city would fall back into anarchy, and I would lose the opportunity to study this skirmish. Besides, we both know that despite that husky voice you put on, The Captain would never capitulate with your interests. He stands by those old morals and will never copulate with someone who looks 17."

I can’t stop myself from stamping my foot on the roof of the tower and squealing like a little girl.

"That's your fault too, you heartless machine! I still remember being taken into your little torture hole and everything you did to me back then!"

"You don't need to remind me every time. My memory is perfect after all. Besides, the price your syndicate paid for you to become the ultimate assassin is what allowed me to so easily cover up the costs of my ascension. Though no one but you and I know that, and of course Charles."

I let out another long sigh as my face became blank. I've slowly been developing the best methods to deal with this talking blob of heartless energy.

"You can stop doing that too. I'm well aware that you're trying to manipulate me. I played along for so long because I was harvesting significant amounts of data. I am glad to see that all of the conditioning I put you through has allowed you to try and develop a personality to manipulate me, but knowing what you're doing eventually ruins the fun of it."

Once again, I can't stop myself from falling into the patterned facade I was conditioned to have for infiltration work. I've used it for so long, that I can't not use it anymore. I think it has actually, in some ways, become part of my real personality.

"You're so mean! Why can't you just let me do whatever I want?"

"Because I have big plans for you, Little Alicia."

"Gurk! You fuckin jerk! Don't say it like that! It brings back all the worst memories." A series of horrible memories floods my mind's eye whenever he uses that calm older gentlemen's voice, and especially when he uses my old name.

"Oh! Well I'll be. Little Alicia. You look like you've grown a bit in the last month I haven't seen you."

And then out of nowhere the insidious charming voice of Charles runs up my spine like the cold touch of death.

"Fuck! Uncle Charles! You're even worse than Zorai! Stop fucking sneaking up on me you fucking arsehole!"

I ineffectively beat against his iron hard energy shield with my delicate looking little hands. Fuck! These bastards! Family are the worst.

"Also! Don't make jokes like that! You know I'm stuck looking like this forever! It's your fault after all!"

He then puts his huge rough hands on my head and pets me like a child.

"There, there. If your that desperate, we could probably reconstruct your face into an old decrepit lady."

"Gasp! You wouldn't! Look at this adorable, lovable face! You'd be taking something precious from the world! How could you even suggest such a thing?!"

My false indignation gets a chuckle from my adoptive uncle. Although he technically has no real relationship with me, after I attempted to assassinate him to test myself he beat me black and blue, and then told me he was going to adopt me as his niece.

Seedy old bastard said I couldn't be his daughter because Zorai filled that role as well as his son, being gender ambiguous enough for both roles, even though he only ever calls him son.

While he distractedly tries to peer down at the crowd of people scurrying about like ants, I form a long thin dagger from his shadow and try to stab him in the back.

His big paw of a hand reaches around like lightning and disperses the blade back into shadows. He doesn't even seem to notice.

"Tsk! Stupid uncle!"

Despite myself, I found I really started to fall in love with our little family dynamic. Though I was really opposed to the idea after I found out it was actually Charles that accepted the job to turn me into a killing machine, and Zorai was the AI that ran the facility and did all the experiments on me, I ended up falling into a natural pattern with them as if I'd always been a little part of this family.

Which was rather unusual because I had been conditioned very thoroughly by Zorai to specifically avoid such traps like building any real connections.

"Oh my god! You're experimenting on me right now aren't you! Are you brainwashing me into becoming part of your family."

"Yes." "Yes."

Not even a hint of denial. The response was instant from both of them.

"Fuck! I fuckin' hate you both so much!" I yell, as much to vent at them and also to reaffirm that to myself.

"For now." "No you don't."

Damnit! One of them is already confident they will succeed and the other probably already has metric data to prove it.

"Fuck!" Finally unable to stand talking to these arseholes, I jump into the shadows and fall through the world, entering my own little world of complete darkness.

The world is reverted here, and the shadows become a doorway for me to spy and pass through at will.

"Don't forget. We are having a family meeting tonight to decide how much we will interfere with the war."

But even here, that insidious androgynous voice reaches me.

That fucking robot!

"I'm not going. Just let me go hate-fuck-kill some hookers in my district for a while."

"Charles said if you don't come, he'll break your legs and drag you back." Came Zorai's emotionless reply.

"Fuck! Fine you heartless bastard. Worst cousin ever!"

He finally remained silent, and I passed through the shadows of the void world like a spectre, my HPE reserves dwindling faster the longer I stay here.

I suppose if the city is going to war, I at the very least will be expected to participate.

---

Charles scratched at his chin and smiled.

"She's such a good girl. You shouldn't push her buttons so much."

"You're hardly one to talk. The emotional data I receive whenever you interact with her is like a torrential downpour. Which is good I suppose. Though my guilt emulators have long since been devoured, I couldn't help but feel something when thinking about leaving that failure of an experiment running around. If anyone knew she was a by-product of mine from before the outbreak, I would be ashamed."

"Heh. You don't have to hide it from me Zorai. I know you feel responsible for her. You sounded absolutely distraught when you finally figured out who she was. Complaining about how she had zero emotional responses and it was mucking up your data. You're not fooling me little buddy."

"TZZZT. Crackle. Beep. Boop. Can't… crackle… quite hear you… gobbledegook. Fading voice."

Charles held his stomach as his laughter echoed out across the city from the top of the tower. Luckily, or unluckily depending on who you ask, he managed to prevent himself from falling off as he wobbled precariously on the edge of the rooftop.