Chapter Twenty Nine

After the injection they took me to a bed.

Roger, that polygraphic division officer, walked over and sat next to the bad.

“Soldier,” he barked with a commanding tone, “Stand up.”

Despite the aches of side effects I was enduring, I still managed to stand up.

“What number is this?” He held up three fingers.

“Three. Sir.”

“No, now I’m telling you it’s four. What number is this?” His hand didn’t change at all.

Yeah it should be three. But he said it was four. My head lost the capability of thinking quickly. My brain felt like a lazy kid refusing to wake up in the morning. So why not just listen to him? He said it was four. So it was four.

“Four. Sir.”

He smiled and spoke into a device, “Trial one passed.”

Then the memory fast forwarded again.

Now I was outside. It was a huge clearing. Around fifty human prisoners were kneeling on the ground with hands tied on their back. Roger handed a machine gun to me.

“Shoot,” he said.

Without a word of disagreement, even without a thought, I opened fire. Now as I watch this with my conscious mind, I can sense that my mind at that time was completely paralyzed.

“Trial two passed.”

Roger was with me the entire time? Then… He knew about all those. He saw all those. But he never told me and Skye. He would betray us. I have to warn Skye.

No, Skye is also seeing those, but she isn’t ending the memory. She’s still fast forwarding it.

Being in the Reader is the only chance you can have two thoughts at once. One is your current conscious thought. The other is the thought inside the memory. I’m trying to convince myself with the thought in the memory that these crimes were committed without any of my knowledge, but I still can’t forgive myself.

This third piece of memory. I was in a luxuriously decorated room, one that, of course, I have no memories of. I was standing next to Roger with arms crossed behind my back. Typical bodyguard stance. In front of me was Roger in his human disguise suit.

Then human leaders walked in. The metropolis presidents. They showed no signs of fear or terror on their faces, as if this meeting with them were fully prepared by them. They took seats without asking, and some even showed friendly gestures towards Roger.

“Have you considered the request?” Roger spoke first.

“Yes. You could come and visit our highly classified military base twenty days later. Everything will be prepared for you to see.” This was the president of the Oceanic Metropolis.

“No. I’m referring to more than that. This is the time when we need to stand together.”

“Elaborate.”

“I’m asking you to give me the highest security clearance to your system.” Clearly this sentence was directed to all of the presidents. “I have already told you a lot about myself. Including the coordinates of the base.”

“And in return I didn’t blow it up,” said the Northern Metropolis President.

Roger was still trying to remain calm, but his voice contained some obvious upstrokes. “Are you still not aware of this situation we are facing. We need to be united. Jump out of your box of imagination.”

Nonsense. You are saying this just so you can infiltrate the human government facilities. Revealing the coordinates of the base is a worthy tradeoff. I feel the need of breaking out of the Raader. It is clear that Roger must not be trusted.

But Skye is still continuing the memories. The memories are more valuable at this moment, because now it concerns not only Jessica but also the rest of humanity. What is their master evil plan?

Then more chaotic things happened.

Gunshots were suddenly firing outside the meeting room.

“The presidents are the priorities,” Roger gave me this command.

The me in the memory immediately escorted the presidents to a safe corner in the meeting room. As the door was kicked open, a grenade was thrown in.

I raced over in a superhuman speed, and, before the grenade could detonate, I returned it back to the direction it came from.

I don’t know what I was thinking in that memory, but looking at these events from the past, that move was definitely risky. But all I did back then were following Roger’s orders.

Two soldiers came in from the door holding assault rifles in their hands. I took out my pistol and fired at them before they could even focus their attention on the presidents. Those two were probably just scouts. However, the me in the memory were not surprised at all when I saw the uniform these soldiers were wearing.

Those were uniforms of the base. Their uniforms.

So what now? The me in the present is already thinking out all possible explanations for this. Was that accidental friendly firing? Were they humans pretending to be the soldiers of the base? Were they intentionally arranged there to assassinate the presidents?

More soldiers were about to enter the room, but one of them carried a heavy shield. They learned their lessons. I wasted two bullets on the shield and watched them ricocheting off. The magazine could hold twelve bullets. Now only eight left.

I ran over, and dived under as they started firing. I aimed accurately at the shield holder’s kneecap. Two shots, and the shield dropped. Six rounds left.

Behind the shield were five soldiers holding assault rifles and wearing bulletproof armor. Oh crap. Even the me in the present is wondering how I could have survived all that.

And here came the answer.

Behind all five of the soldiers a shadow flew over. As it got closer I could identify it as a young man. Possibly similar age as me. But his movements were too fast for me to detect his features.

And wherever he went, blood gushed out like fountain.

The soldier standing at the end fell to the ground, revealing a huge gash on the throat. A well-aimed and deep cut that severed the main arteries of the circulatory system and definitely was fatal.

The four highly trained soldiers immediately sensed the danger and snapped back their heads. Meanwhile, that ninja assassin already neutralized another soldier. With a fatal slash on the wrist this time.

The three remaining soldiers opened fire, but that assassin already saw that coming. He dived and rolled forward on the ground, but these movement didn’t slow him down at all. The soldier closest to him fell with a painful cry, and the artery on his left thigh was severed. A closer look and it was shown that the right thigh was also stabbed.

The two soldiers just opened fire frantically, as if this was the first time they touched a gun and they couldn’t harness the recoil. And this time I couldn’t even identify how he managed to kill them.

Now I could take a closer look.

He was armed with only a dagger. The blade still gave off the silver luster as if the blood of the victims cleansed it. He wore no body armor. Just a set of fit clothing that was neither too loose nor too tight.

As the assassin was about to leave, I called out in a mechanical voice. “Who are you?”

“You’ll see one day.” He responded every word with a choppy cut. His voice did not contain any crests or troughs, but it wasn’t mechanical like mine. His voice was intentionally manipulated into this calm tone. Then the next second his shadow already left the room.

This memory has ended and Skye fast forwards again.

What? There’s more? I’m really concerned about the time running short in reality. After all we have just intruded the base, and I don’t believe it would be this easy. This must be a trap! Roger will betray us!

I can’t do anything. Only Roger or Skye can cut off the memory.

Why isn’t Skye ending it? Is the memory too valuable? Is she confident that we can escape? Or… I don’t even want to think about this.

Is Skye with Roger? A double agent?

My surroundings flash again.

Now I am, or was, in a room. Here I could see many of the elite Higher Officials on throne-like chairs one story above me. It felt like an arena, like the ancient Colosseum in the Central Metropolis. Was I about to fight a lion?

No. Worse.

Roger walked up behind me. He handed me a pistol. In the present now, my conscious mind knows what that pistol will be used for, but I am not aware of that at all in the past.

As if it was indeed an actual arena, the ground in front of me opened, and from the empty hole rose a chair. Tied onto the chair was Jessica.

The me in that memory didn’t even flinch. I took the pistol Roger handed over.

Roger nodded his head slightly, the same way in every other executions.