How much is an emotion worth?
Extracting what once was considered a fundamental part of being, Trait Banks give monetary means to a once unquantifiable asset. A talent? Dashiel Crane is called many things, freak most commonly gifted most kindly. His astounding intellect, powers of observation, and ability to deduce aide him as Lieutenant of Republic Cities’ Trait Larceny Department. Though the prowess of his mind does little to quell his addictive personality or endear him to his peers. But alone protects him. Alone protects others. A personality? Mariner Coul is a liar. She takes many names - many missions - for the sake of her father and brother. Her family name strikes fear into the hearts of Trait Banks and all who value their attributes. The perpetrators of Republic City, if not the nation's, largest larceny operation claim her familial ties. She’s going to ensure they stay on top. A facet? Both Mariner and Dashiel's games end with the other’s demise. To get there the daughter of thieves must play as one of the angels. While the genius pretends to play with others. But once the stage is set will either be able to shed their disguises? |
Darkest Minds
Working on it! Currently at two chapters and around 7,000 words
Characters involved: Dashiel Crane & Mariner Coul (Pages located on Republic City) Writing Type: Closed, I don't commission people to write this. Status: This is fully written by me and I concentrate on it the most . So far, I'm excited how it's turning out. |
Chapter One
The house sees many things and hides much more.
It was beautiful once, years ago, when the city rose to prominence. Now, the city, no, the metropolis is emboldened by a new age. Bright and sprawling and noisy, it thrives. Casting out the old house, it leaves nothing to harken back to the past.
A relic of times past, it waits. Time creeps by, shown only in the peeling of once gilded wallpaper and fading of tasseled drapes. Neighboring houses fall, factories take their place. Industrial buildings plume smoke into the air, clouding the sky. The city has grown west - the old house on the outskirts, it can feel the thrumming of life from the center, the blaring of horns, and calls of sirens. Yet, it is apart, sound oddly silent and time oddly still.
Surrounded by places of labor, it provides a safe haven. Once magnificent doors provide an entryway into a refuge for the lonely and forgotten. The house knows it’s own and provides for them.
Shards of windows litter floors ripped to shreds. People have taken anything of value in the time prior, and abandon things they deem of no monetary worth. Gutted of its original furnishing and skin, it has since accumulated new things. Trash to make up for the stolen floors, ragged sheets, and plastic bags to fill the demolished drywall. Nothing but natural light has filled the house for quite some time, though that bothers no one.
The furnishings are gone, looted around the same time as the copper plumbing, and what remains is the interior of a dumpster. Stained mattresses line the halls, odd broken down wood pieces, stuffing gone chairs whose glory days have passed.
Filth fills every crevice, every creak, in the house that once but never again will be a home.
Vermin loiter, both in their human and beast form. The house doesn’t per say like them but knows they have nowhere else. Lonely wanderers give it meaning, for a house isn’t a house if it has no one to shelter.
Discarded individuals are in no short supply, though they lack respect and receive none. Cigarettes burn what little remains of the walls, needles scratch the shoddily repaired floors, the only cultury left are spoons.
Broken dreams to match the windows and lost potential to keep stride with the litter. Shells are funny things - the house is one, and so are the residents inside it.
The house knows it’s own, and none more so than the man currently propped up in the corner of its third story. Him, it likes. Call it sentiment, but he’s haunted here off and on since he was fifteen. The house likes how sharp his eyes are, how he carries himself through the corridors. The man meant for the glory days of the residence, but as broken as the halls are now. It likes how to the outside world his facade claims he doesn’t belong here but enters nonetheless and his shoulders drop their burden.
He isn’t like the others, yet in some ways, he’s all too similar. But he’s kind to the house, always sure to sit by a window and let the smoke of his cigarettes vent out, so it has no problems if his attire doesn’t fit the impoverished landscape or if, on occasion, he draws in ones who don’t belong.
The woman in no way is one of the houses’. At one time she could have been compelled to come sit beside the man, but those days of impressionable childhood have pasted. She strides with purpose, paying no heed to the hollow eyes that follow her. Impeccably dressed, blouse crisp and white overcoat and skirt black and tidy, she’s all business and ticking time in a way that never reaches this place.
High heels click as she ascends the steps, drowning out the creaking of rotting wood, but she needs no added height. She towers among those here. Her mannerisms are quick, controlled, every move precise and methodical as she scans the room. Why does she bother? He is a creature of habit, and so is she. This is a routine each has done countless times before.
Her eyes latch onto the man, if his eyes are sharp hers are daggers, and approaches with determined strides. She moves so apart from everyone here, a bit of pride and danger mixed with somewhere to be.
He watches her come, so does the house. Mind still pleasantly foggy, he attempts to understand why she has done so. Letting his eyes rake over her, the clogs turn, over and over, puzzling it out. Since he’s seen her last there have been subtle changes, but the main things stay the same. A business cut to her silky auburn hair, so short that the edges curl outwards. Recently trimmed by the looks of it, since the ends haven’t yet begun to fray.
He hates the color it reminds him of his parents, though perhaps he should recall his other siblings as well. They call his burnt, he’s thankful it doesn’t look like theirs instead a dark chestnut, he wouldn’t consider it so.
Focus, he chides and his gazes meanders to her face. Eyes icy, as always, pupils slightly dilated. That’s new. A hint of blush dots her cheeks, the makeup unusually soft since she’s coming from her office. A harsher look is typical, unless -
From underneath the ruffles of her blouse he catches sight of a gold necklace, there’s a hint of something nice behind the reek of the house (perfume), the pupils, he’d bet if she’d allow him to take her pulse. Oh, he’s a fool.
“You're coming from a date,” he says, distracted from what he was originally looking for (something he can’t recall anyway). The words come out jagged, tongue oddly thick from its lack of use. It makes the sneer on the last word not as noticeable, though he’s sure the point is made.
She clicks her tongue, arms folded and nose turned down on him. In some way, it reminds him of their mother - something he doesn’t wish to ponder. “Little brother,” and she actually sounds sad, “that took you nearly thirty seconds.”
“Delilah,” he hopes it sounds as patronizing as she addressed him, “the last case was closed, I’m on the good stuff.” From his spot on the ground, he schools his lips into some semblance of a smirk, “you should be happy I know who you are.”
“I can tell,” his sister states, and for being so monotone the words annoy him. He knows she can, Delilah’s always been better than him - even though she’s nothing compared to the other men of their family. He’s the runt, the black sheep. Something he would like to reminisce about alone. “Dashiel,” her eyes flicker in a way he knows mean trouble, “you worry us with this behavior.”
He scoffs, dropping the smile, “Sister of mine,” and he rolls his head into the palm of his hand, which he’s propped up on his knee, “you speaking of emotions is unbecoming, tell me why you’re here.”
No soul would dare mistake his sister for the meaning behind her name (delight) when her eyes betray their anger and flicker at him. He’s reminded that the hottest part of the flame does burn blue. “Can you not figure it out, little brother? Since you think yourself so clever?” Delilah moves forward as if wanting to come closer, but relents and stays a bit further than arm's length. Her voice is harsh, tone remaining flat and unaffected, the alto is like her eyes. Unrelenting, sharp, and cold.
“I know everything you’ve done for the past month, by looking at you. Surely you can tell one thing about me? I know you’re about three hours from the height of your high since your lucid enough to recall my name, but also not ready for another because your eyes are dull. I know you finished the Lanster Case to high praise but not a call from mother since you’re here,” she gestures to the walls around them and he wonders if he can hide her body without anyone ever discovering it. She glances at her watch, something Dashel has never seen her without, like this isn’t worth her time, “Dorian called you though and that didn’t go well. Because you’re wearing your beige trench coat instead of the grey one, which you prefer, but since you’re mad at him you refuse to have anything to do with one of his gifts. You’ve been here two weeks, approximately.” She pauses, and Dashiel, in hindsight, knows he should have faked ignorance on knowing who she was.
“You know, I can do better than that. You’ve been here two hundred and seventy-seven hours, judging by the state of your hair which you haven’t styled and has curled which I know you hate. And also the fact that my surveillance on your flat mysteriously died two hundred and seventy-seven hours ago. You have lost nine pounds and haven’t slept in three days, your hands are shaking.”
The flood of information stops, and he supposes Delilah is waiting for him to praise her intellect like they're children once more. “Four days,” he says instead and cocks his head at her, “how was your date?” Noting the still solid clasp on his sister's purse and taking into account how she never relatches it he says, “He paid for dinner I assume?”
“You should sell this addictive personality of yours,” Delilah glances down at him, she never looks at him (earnest and truthful, without digging for something), not anymore. “These drugs make you so dull. And yes, she paid.”
How could he have missed it? The distinct second aroma, speaking of a feminine date. He has the chemicals to thank, the cool tide of indifference the drugs bring. The water to douse the fire of his frantic thoughts. It’s something she doesn’t understand, why he needs the calm. Voicing the reasons brings lectures about control and how intelligence shouldn’t be abused. “Not all of us sell every inconvenient emotion, sister.”
A smile, now she’s amused, never a good sign. “The Trait Banks take them all, shouldn’t you know? And all emotion should be disposed of Dashiel.”
The lovely Trait Banks, extracting and inserting emotions, skills, and meins where a regular bank manages funds. He likes them. More specifically, enjoys how people like to misuse the illegal (for private sector) Trait Bank technology of removing and obtaining traits. If you want to knit-pick, he loves hunting people who do all sort of dastardly things, like stealing traits. Which, in his opinion (which is never incorrect) is the most interesting, can't people be happy with their own personalities? Rarely does interchanging, deleting or adding traits make a person less dull. “I have never sold a trait,” the repeated refrain pointless, they both know it.
“Strange, for the Lieutenant of Republic Cities’ Trait Larceny Department to not use the establishments he protects.”
“I don’t explicitly pander to the Trait Banks.” Why do they even speak? It’s all the same, every day the same game. Years ago, years from now. They’re stuck in a rut, how dull.
The script continues. Dashiel’s digging through the pocket of his coat before she speaks, “Tally?” And the small handbook is turned over.
Their unspoken agreement is dull, though it’s kept him alive. His hands, though their own accord, document every ounce of substance he puts in his system. It’s a repetitive task, and he hates it - but still, the leather bound black notebook is a constant. Familial.
Silence overtakes the house once more, broken only by the turning of pages. Icy eyes regard him once more, after a minute he fidgets unsure as to why Delilah has rendered him an insect. “You should be happy your alive.” She says, handing it back to him, careful not to touch him.
“Living,” he drawls with a sigh, “how dull.” And it's true. His elder sister pulling him out of his stupor had brought back the pounding of his head. Delilah’s desire that he focus changes all the water to steam. Dull. Dull. Dull, dull, dull! Drawing both of his knees close, Dashiel attempts to quell the thoughts igniting. He notices things, like Delilah, and draws conclusions from them. It helps with his work and nothing else, in attempts to reveal hidden truths his mind burns away everything else. Including clarity.
It leaps, his mind and he has no choice but to obey - a dog tethered by a chain.
Other people in the room? Two.
The first, a woman hooked last year, no in the last six months. She still shoots up under the control of vanity, places hidden with ease (her calves). Her boyfriend, former, abusive his fault she’s her. She’s tucked in the other corner (wants to control the situation), no one to flank her back (untrusting), eyes flickering warily (abuse) onto him (abuse by a male, judging on age a boyfriend). Former, no current, business major, finance. Her bag ladened with textbooks, university jacket embroidered with a letter (business), dressed like his sister. She failed a test, why else would she be here?
Dull, his mind screams, and he frantically tells it he’s trying. So boring, it thinks of the woman, that was child’s play.
The man. Thoughts race around him faster. Old, middle-aged. Marital problems (ring tan, no ring). Tried (aren't they all). Low life (hands unworn, clothes of no particular worth, here - that in of itself worthy of the classification), eyes beady and hard. Long time user (collapsed veins in his arms, not trying to hide it). Abusive? (sprawled out in the middle of the room, not particularly cautious) No. Lazy, almost to the point of (depressed). Children? Two. (One of those bracelets children make out of rubber). Mismatched socks unhidden by his sandals (father, uncontested). Marital problems, drugs, children. The wife took the kids.
Easy, dull, bored. Bored, bored, bored. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to get rid of the sensory information. It’s so loud, all the things he’s capable of observing, how his mind pieces it together. With his eyes closed, it’s worse, there’s nothing to distract him, his mind spinning into overdrive without anything to occupy it. Wrenching his eyes open, he leaps to his feet (a slight overstatement in his current inebriation).
Eyes watch him (always watching, never frantic, how is she so calm? Her mind must be like his, how?), sympathy (no pity, his mind corrects) lactating her gaze. She has a high opinion of him, had anyway. In Delilah’s eyes he’s fallen, but in truth, he’s never climbed.
He leaves her eyes before he does something regretful (like cling to her and sob how many sounds there are). Makeup, pupils, handbag (date), perfume and verbal confirmation (with a woman. His sister likes said unnamed girl. He files this away for closer examination later). Coming to see him (something to tell him). Directly from work, the pity, waiting for him to figure it out (because he’ll be angry when he does. It’s something bad.) “Did I get fired?” Dashiel asks, cocking his head at her slightly. He sees himself reflected in her eyes, vaguely manic, his hands are indeed shaking.
“No,” monotone has turned to clipped (he must be right in a way), “The department has elected to hire a Chief Inspector.”
Words turn over in his head, and he fiddles with them. Chief (in charge of, the most important, respected. Comparable to a lieutenant). Inspector (looking in to, scrutinizing, by the books. Like detective. Dashiel's force is made of detectives). This new person, he dislikes him immensely. “They're going to undermine my entire operation!” Your routine of delegating cases you deem boring to your underlings, deeming them, solving one or two difficult cases and congratulating yourself with a high? A snide voice asks, and unfortunately, it’s not the alto of the sibling in front of him. “They have no right, the department is unprecedentedly efficient, with half the manpower.”
“That it may be,” she lazily glances down at her watch and scrutinizes it with disdain, “but the consensus of your superiors is that your rash, unpredictable, have no understanding or care of the rules, and a liability. They are bringing in a person who has a track record of being unlike you so they do not have to seek termination.”
The desire to destroy something is overwhelming, “What superious? The superintendent?” He growls, the rush to his head out of anger (one hundred percent not due to lack of subsidence and rest). “I am not an unruly child deserving of a slap on the wrist!”
Delilah is silent, rolling her tongue over her teeth (a tell). She wants to say that much worse punishment was given to them when they were young. “Look at your current situation, brother. I am not adverse to you acquiring a partner to keep you in check.”
What like you, remains unsaid in the silence between them.
He wants to argue that he needs no handler, but that’s null and void given his current situation. “I have to go,” Delilah says abruptly as if he needs to be told after her battle with the watch.
“Have to save the president?” He says watching her retreating form.
Heels clicking away makes him feel odd, he blames it on his still falling high, “Not my job.”
“Right. Off to save the country?”
Completely gone, Delilah’s voice still rings through the house, their parting farewell (like clockwork), “I’ll be in touch.”
Dull, his mind supplies without any real bite. He should go back to his house, prepare for tomorrow's trials with an undoubtedly boring person. Glancing around the room, his mind spins. Chaotic.
He should go.
He does.
But he’ll be back, the house has no doubts.
It was beautiful once, years ago, when the city rose to prominence. Now, the city, no, the metropolis is emboldened by a new age. Bright and sprawling and noisy, it thrives. Casting out the old house, it leaves nothing to harken back to the past.
A relic of times past, it waits. Time creeps by, shown only in the peeling of once gilded wallpaper and fading of tasseled drapes. Neighboring houses fall, factories take their place. Industrial buildings plume smoke into the air, clouding the sky. The city has grown west - the old house on the outskirts, it can feel the thrumming of life from the center, the blaring of horns, and calls of sirens. Yet, it is apart, sound oddly silent and time oddly still.
Surrounded by places of labor, it provides a safe haven. Once magnificent doors provide an entryway into a refuge for the lonely and forgotten. The house knows it’s own and provides for them.
Shards of windows litter floors ripped to shreds. People have taken anything of value in the time prior, and abandon things they deem of no monetary worth. Gutted of its original furnishing and skin, it has since accumulated new things. Trash to make up for the stolen floors, ragged sheets, and plastic bags to fill the demolished drywall. Nothing but natural light has filled the house for quite some time, though that bothers no one.
The furnishings are gone, looted around the same time as the copper plumbing, and what remains is the interior of a dumpster. Stained mattresses line the halls, odd broken down wood pieces, stuffing gone chairs whose glory days have passed.
Filth fills every crevice, every creak, in the house that once but never again will be a home.
Vermin loiter, both in their human and beast form. The house doesn’t per say like them but knows they have nowhere else. Lonely wanderers give it meaning, for a house isn’t a house if it has no one to shelter.
Discarded individuals are in no short supply, though they lack respect and receive none. Cigarettes burn what little remains of the walls, needles scratch the shoddily repaired floors, the only cultury left are spoons.
Broken dreams to match the windows and lost potential to keep stride with the litter. Shells are funny things - the house is one, and so are the residents inside it.
The house knows it’s own, and none more so than the man currently propped up in the corner of its third story. Him, it likes. Call it sentiment, but he’s haunted here off and on since he was fifteen. The house likes how sharp his eyes are, how he carries himself through the corridors. The man meant for the glory days of the residence, but as broken as the halls are now. It likes how to the outside world his facade claims he doesn’t belong here but enters nonetheless and his shoulders drop their burden.
He isn’t like the others, yet in some ways, he’s all too similar. But he’s kind to the house, always sure to sit by a window and let the smoke of his cigarettes vent out, so it has no problems if his attire doesn’t fit the impoverished landscape or if, on occasion, he draws in ones who don’t belong.
The woman in no way is one of the houses’. At one time she could have been compelled to come sit beside the man, but those days of impressionable childhood have pasted. She strides with purpose, paying no heed to the hollow eyes that follow her. Impeccably dressed, blouse crisp and white overcoat and skirt black and tidy, she’s all business and ticking time in a way that never reaches this place.
High heels click as she ascends the steps, drowning out the creaking of rotting wood, but she needs no added height. She towers among those here. Her mannerisms are quick, controlled, every move precise and methodical as she scans the room. Why does she bother? He is a creature of habit, and so is she. This is a routine each has done countless times before.
Her eyes latch onto the man, if his eyes are sharp hers are daggers, and approaches with determined strides. She moves so apart from everyone here, a bit of pride and danger mixed with somewhere to be.
He watches her come, so does the house. Mind still pleasantly foggy, he attempts to understand why she has done so. Letting his eyes rake over her, the clogs turn, over and over, puzzling it out. Since he’s seen her last there have been subtle changes, but the main things stay the same. A business cut to her silky auburn hair, so short that the edges curl outwards. Recently trimmed by the looks of it, since the ends haven’t yet begun to fray.
He hates the color it reminds him of his parents, though perhaps he should recall his other siblings as well. They call his burnt, he’s thankful it doesn’t look like theirs instead a dark chestnut, he wouldn’t consider it so.
Focus, he chides and his gazes meanders to her face. Eyes icy, as always, pupils slightly dilated. That’s new. A hint of blush dots her cheeks, the makeup unusually soft since she’s coming from her office. A harsher look is typical, unless -
From underneath the ruffles of her blouse he catches sight of a gold necklace, there’s a hint of something nice behind the reek of the house (perfume), the pupils, he’d bet if she’d allow him to take her pulse. Oh, he’s a fool.
“You're coming from a date,” he says, distracted from what he was originally looking for (something he can’t recall anyway). The words come out jagged, tongue oddly thick from its lack of use. It makes the sneer on the last word not as noticeable, though he’s sure the point is made.
She clicks her tongue, arms folded and nose turned down on him. In some way, it reminds him of their mother - something he doesn’t wish to ponder. “Little brother,” and she actually sounds sad, “that took you nearly thirty seconds.”
“Delilah,” he hopes it sounds as patronizing as she addressed him, “the last case was closed, I’m on the good stuff.” From his spot on the ground, he schools his lips into some semblance of a smirk, “you should be happy I know who you are.”
“I can tell,” his sister states, and for being so monotone the words annoy him. He knows she can, Delilah’s always been better than him - even though she’s nothing compared to the other men of their family. He’s the runt, the black sheep. Something he would like to reminisce about alone. “Dashiel,” her eyes flicker in a way he knows mean trouble, “you worry us with this behavior.”
He scoffs, dropping the smile, “Sister of mine,” and he rolls his head into the palm of his hand, which he’s propped up on his knee, “you speaking of emotions is unbecoming, tell me why you’re here.”
No soul would dare mistake his sister for the meaning behind her name (delight) when her eyes betray their anger and flicker at him. He’s reminded that the hottest part of the flame does burn blue. “Can you not figure it out, little brother? Since you think yourself so clever?” Delilah moves forward as if wanting to come closer, but relents and stays a bit further than arm's length. Her voice is harsh, tone remaining flat and unaffected, the alto is like her eyes. Unrelenting, sharp, and cold.
“I know everything you’ve done for the past month, by looking at you. Surely you can tell one thing about me? I know you’re about three hours from the height of your high since your lucid enough to recall my name, but also not ready for another because your eyes are dull. I know you finished the Lanster Case to high praise but not a call from mother since you’re here,” she gestures to the walls around them and he wonders if he can hide her body without anyone ever discovering it. She glances at her watch, something Dashel has never seen her without, like this isn’t worth her time, “Dorian called you though and that didn’t go well. Because you’re wearing your beige trench coat instead of the grey one, which you prefer, but since you’re mad at him you refuse to have anything to do with one of his gifts. You’ve been here two weeks, approximately.” She pauses, and Dashiel, in hindsight, knows he should have faked ignorance on knowing who she was.
“You know, I can do better than that. You’ve been here two hundred and seventy-seven hours, judging by the state of your hair which you haven’t styled and has curled which I know you hate. And also the fact that my surveillance on your flat mysteriously died two hundred and seventy-seven hours ago. You have lost nine pounds and haven’t slept in three days, your hands are shaking.”
The flood of information stops, and he supposes Delilah is waiting for him to praise her intellect like they're children once more. “Four days,” he says instead and cocks his head at her, “how was your date?” Noting the still solid clasp on his sister's purse and taking into account how she never relatches it he says, “He paid for dinner I assume?”
“You should sell this addictive personality of yours,” Delilah glances down at him, she never looks at him (earnest and truthful, without digging for something), not anymore. “These drugs make you so dull. And yes, she paid.”
How could he have missed it? The distinct second aroma, speaking of a feminine date. He has the chemicals to thank, the cool tide of indifference the drugs bring. The water to douse the fire of his frantic thoughts. It’s something she doesn’t understand, why he needs the calm. Voicing the reasons brings lectures about control and how intelligence shouldn’t be abused. “Not all of us sell every inconvenient emotion, sister.”
A smile, now she’s amused, never a good sign. “The Trait Banks take them all, shouldn’t you know? And all emotion should be disposed of Dashiel.”
The lovely Trait Banks, extracting and inserting emotions, skills, and meins where a regular bank manages funds. He likes them. More specifically, enjoys how people like to misuse the illegal (for private sector) Trait Bank technology of removing and obtaining traits. If you want to knit-pick, he loves hunting people who do all sort of dastardly things, like stealing traits. Which, in his opinion (which is never incorrect) is the most interesting, can't people be happy with their own personalities? Rarely does interchanging, deleting or adding traits make a person less dull. “I have never sold a trait,” the repeated refrain pointless, they both know it.
“Strange, for the Lieutenant of Republic Cities’ Trait Larceny Department to not use the establishments he protects.”
“I don’t explicitly pander to the Trait Banks.” Why do they even speak? It’s all the same, every day the same game. Years ago, years from now. They’re stuck in a rut, how dull.
The script continues. Dashiel’s digging through the pocket of his coat before she speaks, “Tally?” And the small handbook is turned over.
Their unspoken agreement is dull, though it’s kept him alive. His hands, though their own accord, document every ounce of substance he puts in his system. It’s a repetitive task, and he hates it - but still, the leather bound black notebook is a constant. Familial.
Silence overtakes the house once more, broken only by the turning of pages. Icy eyes regard him once more, after a minute he fidgets unsure as to why Delilah has rendered him an insect. “You should be happy your alive.” She says, handing it back to him, careful not to touch him.
“Living,” he drawls with a sigh, “how dull.” And it's true. His elder sister pulling him out of his stupor had brought back the pounding of his head. Delilah’s desire that he focus changes all the water to steam. Dull. Dull. Dull, dull, dull! Drawing both of his knees close, Dashiel attempts to quell the thoughts igniting. He notices things, like Delilah, and draws conclusions from them. It helps with his work and nothing else, in attempts to reveal hidden truths his mind burns away everything else. Including clarity.
It leaps, his mind and he has no choice but to obey - a dog tethered by a chain.
Other people in the room? Two.
The first, a woman hooked last year, no in the last six months. She still shoots up under the control of vanity, places hidden with ease (her calves). Her boyfriend, former, abusive his fault she’s her. She’s tucked in the other corner (wants to control the situation), no one to flank her back (untrusting), eyes flickering warily (abuse) onto him (abuse by a male, judging on age a boyfriend). Former, no current, business major, finance. Her bag ladened with textbooks, university jacket embroidered with a letter (business), dressed like his sister. She failed a test, why else would she be here?
Dull, his mind screams, and he frantically tells it he’s trying. So boring, it thinks of the woman, that was child’s play.
The man. Thoughts race around him faster. Old, middle-aged. Marital problems (ring tan, no ring). Tried (aren't they all). Low life (hands unworn, clothes of no particular worth, here - that in of itself worthy of the classification), eyes beady and hard. Long time user (collapsed veins in his arms, not trying to hide it). Abusive? (sprawled out in the middle of the room, not particularly cautious) No. Lazy, almost to the point of (depressed). Children? Two. (One of those bracelets children make out of rubber). Mismatched socks unhidden by his sandals (father, uncontested). Marital problems, drugs, children. The wife took the kids.
Easy, dull, bored. Bored, bored, bored. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to get rid of the sensory information. It’s so loud, all the things he’s capable of observing, how his mind pieces it together. With his eyes closed, it’s worse, there’s nothing to distract him, his mind spinning into overdrive without anything to occupy it. Wrenching his eyes open, he leaps to his feet (a slight overstatement in his current inebriation).
Eyes watch him (always watching, never frantic, how is she so calm? Her mind must be like his, how?), sympathy (no pity, his mind corrects) lactating her gaze. She has a high opinion of him, had anyway. In Delilah’s eyes he’s fallen, but in truth, he’s never climbed.
He leaves her eyes before he does something regretful (like cling to her and sob how many sounds there are). Makeup, pupils, handbag (date), perfume and verbal confirmation (with a woman. His sister likes said unnamed girl. He files this away for closer examination later). Coming to see him (something to tell him). Directly from work, the pity, waiting for him to figure it out (because he’ll be angry when he does. It’s something bad.) “Did I get fired?” Dashiel asks, cocking his head at her slightly. He sees himself reflected in her eyes, vaguely manic, his hands are indeed shaking.
“No,” monotone has turned to clipped (he must be right in a way), “The department has elected to hire a Chief Inspector.”
Words turn over in his head, and he fiddles with them. Chief (in charge of, the most important, respected. Comparable to a lieutenant). Inspector (looking in to, scrutinizing, by the books. Like detective. Dashiel's force is made of detectives). This new person, he dislikes him immensely. “They're going to undermine my entire operation!” Your routine of delegating cases you deem boring to your underlings, deeming them, solving one or two difficult cases and congratulating yourself with a high? A snide voice asks, and unfortunately, it’s not the alto of the sibling in front of him. “They have no right, the department is unprecedentedly efficient, with half the manpower.”
“That it may be,” she lazily glances down at her watch and scrutinizes it with disdain, “but the consensus of your superiors is that your rash, unpredictable, have no understanding or care of the rules, and a liability. They are bringing in a person who has a track record of being unlike you so they do not have to seek termination.”
The desire to destroy something is overwhelming, “What superious? The superintendent?” He growls, the rush to his head out of anger (one hundred percent not due to lack of subsidence and rest). “I am not an unruly child deserving of a slap on the wrist!”
Delilah is silent, rolling her tongue over her teeth (a tell). She wants to say that much worse punishment was given to them when they were young. “Look at your current situation, brother. I am not adverse to you acquiring a partner to keep you in check.”
What like you, remains unsaid in the silence between them.
He wants to argue that he needs no handler, but that’s null and void given his current situation. “I have to go,” Delilah says abruptly as if he needs to be told after her battle with the watch.
“Have to save the president?” He says watching her retreating form.
Heels clicking away makes him feel odd, he blames it on his still falling high, “Not my job.”
“Right. Off to save the country?”
Completely gone, Delilah’s voice still rings through the house, their parting farewell (like clockwork), “I’ll be in touch.”
Dull, his mind supplies without any real bite. He should go back to his house, prepare for tomorrow's trials with an undoubtedly boring person. Glancing around the room, his mind spins. Chaotic.
He should go.
He does.
But he’ll be back, the house has no doubts.
Chapter Two
The game has one prize - worth more than simple currency - and two competitors - willing to do anything to clinch victory.
There are rules, groundwork, for the dalliance as all things have. They are singular, however, repeated in different endless variants. Rules upon rules simmer down to a rule - the rule.
All else is fair.
When every tactic imaginable is allowed, horrors beyond imagination occur. Yet, the reward is too great - the stakes too high - so the end must justify the means. For complete control over the scientifically named Trait, Emotion, and Skill Exchange and Remover (layman's terms the rolling acronym of TESER) would mean control over the world.
And so the two come to play vying for the machine the headlines call ‘A tool to Usher in the New Age’. Entirely correct in their deceleration of “Changer of Traits… and the Way We Live’.
Public sector Trait Banks - the only organization by law capable of owning a TESER and performing removal, exchange, and additive operations - obey the rule. Few complain when this action leads to banks filled to the brim with negative attributes and empty of good ones. They keep silent while line after line of those who wish for unobtainable traits are turned away. Even when the workload piles high, filled with people who buy their skills and ax their vices, and the tellers demand more pay the public doesn’t speak their discontent.
The rule is law, the banks follow laws akin to the most devout. Simple mathematics tell how they've decided to fill their turns.
Private sector Trait Larceny Operations circumvent the rule in service of the public's demand crisis. Illegal, stolen, or shoddily (not for the lack of trying) made TESERs, dot black markets and serve those with enough means to look. Private TERSER uses range from nefarious to mundane.
But the rule is bypassed in a clever way, a loophole found in the fine print. Larceny operations cast their hand reeking of schemes.
A rather important piece of the private sector, the Coul Coterie, makes a move.
“Mallory or is it Deirdre? Perhaps Loralei this time?” She turns, relieved to be back in the comforts of a silent house. One where her footsteps echo and approaching danger is never undetected for she can sense any change in the still air of her childhood. The singsong countertenor quells her mind with its familiarity yet leaves her heart thudding in thinly concealed foreboding.
Narrow eyes greet her, refreshingly level with her face. It’s been a while since she’s spoken with a man her height. “Akuji,” and the smile she gives him is real.
“Little sister, father raised you better,” he chides in only the way her other half can - a mix of disappointment, glee, and excitement difficult to pin sincerity too. The room is somehow diminished under his scrutiny. The silence of the halls less welcoming and more dead, walls adorned with portraits of ancestors long buried littered with dust instead of hidden magic. She has to wonder if she too is a relic a time since passed.
Clasping two hands on her shoulders he declares, “My, Mariner, have you grown?” before enveloping her in a hug. They clash in a hard sort of way, all sharp edges and signs of pieces that don't quite fit together anymore - weight has been lost on both their parts. She fights the urge to stiffen, forcing herself to breathe in the scent of salt and oranges. It’s Akuji, relax.
He pulls back after a half-hearted reciprocation and shoots her a grin that curls too high. Marin sees herself in his slick black hair and familiar sepia skin, much like the mellow-brown light that baths a forest.
“Unlikely, little viper.” Her voice rises to meet his, though it remains deeper. The eyes of her twin, the main reason for his nickname, gleam dangerous, inky pools as they latch onto her. A cloudless night, they remain flat - light refusing to catch in their depths. Akuji likes to tease that her almost chocolate eyes are far too expressive and brag his are far better for lying. The old adage of windows and souls comes to mind but then what does that say about him? Or her for that matter?
Gesturing for her to walk by his side, her brother hums. “So how'd it go?” His flippancy sends a surge of annoyance through Marin. Addressing her latest mission as one would a trip to the mall would earn anyone else a swift reprimand. In this case, she holds her tongue. For one, it's Akuji her elder (be it by only twelve minutes) and main proprietor of their families less than legal business. For another, Akuji is nothing but carelessness and mock upturned lips. It's why their father entrusts her with the delicate parts of their ventures.
Wordlessly, she removes the latest TESER component out of her pocket and passes it over. The cylindrical orb fits nicely in the palm of her brother's hand, silver atop brown like a flash of lightning across prairie. The processor rivals the most funded of Trait Banks, the newest in the Psion line. Expensive and worth its weight it will serve as an upgrade to their current tech. “Adequate,” he says, tossing it into the air complete disregard shown for the object worth more than anything they lay claim to, more than their lives. People would die, kill, for it. People have.
“Obtaining it was straightforward,” Marin tells him fixated on the ground as they walk. A sudden stop when they reach an old bookshelf, straight out of Victorian times, draws her eyes up. Unlike the rest of the house it's dusted, the dirt that clings to everything else absent from the spines of the books and the dark oak wood. She isn't surprised when Akuji's bony fingers skim across the tomes and tug.
A kiss of cold air greets them, walls changing from muted reds to illuminated fluorescent when they pass through the hidden entrance and descend. It does strange things to their shadows and the linoleum floors. She shivers.
The underground compound stretches for miles with numerous exits and entrances. For her, above holds fonder memories. Yet, Akuji's home is here under the harsh yellow and dull white.
As children, he used to beg to come down with their father, into the world of the Coul Coterie; their family enterprise. Marin always pled to stay out.
“Ah yes, only a month or so undercover.”
Adopting a stuttering tilt and drawing in her shoulders she replies, “Yes. As Rebecca Tillerson.”
Her brother has many smiles, most promise sin, fitting for the heir of a multi-million trait fraud operation. The one he gives her now is boyish, open, and reaching his eyes.
Marin worries for him, she always has. Even though her debatable elder, Akuji has always felt like her responsibility. He's younger than his twenty-three years and without their mother, she's always protected him.
Or tried, at least - their stepmother. Akuji -
he’s her brother and that woman, she resists snarling -
so bright and his laugh - it's a sliver of memory now.
With only their father and his questionable antics, she fears he's ensnared in something they are both incapable of handling.
“Anyway,” she continues cherishing the mirth that lingers in his eyes, “he was sentimental enough to change the safe passcode to Rebecca's birthday.”
Akuji lets out a long, gusty sigh, “Really, are people so foolish?”
Patting this arm and far from feinting sympathy, Marin takes her time in answering. “Well,” she says, the hallway has leveled out. Still, narrow and lit with flickering bulbs, it now, without pomp or circumstance, has doors placed evenly on both sides. “Our families built an empire on it.”
The Couls have spent lifetimes doing the work of the Banks for substantially cheaper. The maintenance of TESERs is low without added government tax and regulations. They delete, insert, and exchange traits for the common man. If that's all they did the work would be fulfilling, beneficial, but you don't make millions catering to the peasants.
The rich want rare traits, the ability to play instruments or high intelligence. The Couls steal those things. Because if there's one rule, it's that TESERs cannot create traits, skills, and emotions. Those have to be taken from a human source.
“About that,” Akuji doesn't meet her eyes, his voice muted, “father wants you to take another assignment.”
It's not to be unexpected, but Marin has to hide her disappointment. She just returned. It would be nice to oversee what her brother has done in her time away among other things, “I suppose this is Selena's doing.” Bitterness seeps into her voice and she does little to cage it.
There's a subtle flinch at the sound of their stepmother's name from her brother, “No, there was an accident.”
“An accident,” she echoes. One of the downfalls of being a Coul - there are a strange amount of accidents. “So she's gone,” Marin’s tongue states, ever diplomatic, even as her mind processes this revelation. Selena. Sly eyes dull, lashing hands stilled. Dare she hope?
“Very,” his playful answer doesn’t match the flash of fear in the abyss of his eyes as he shoots her a sharp smile. She has no doubt this is his doing. “No, father is,” he pauses, gathering his thoughts, “concerned about our operation in Republic City.”
Birthplace of the Coul Coterie and about the furthest thing from her mind, the bustling streets and skyscraper skyline have been graced with Marin’s presence exactly once. A metropolis is good for business, potential customers are abundant and trait theft is easy to pin on smaller local thieves than trace back to them. Republic City is no ordinary metropolis either, it’s a growing one. With rich and poor and a widening divide between them there is trait demand and supply respectively.
Her family has roots woven deep into the booming heart of the concrete jungle. It’s one of their safest areas: wealthy customers, poor suppliers willing to hand over traits for scraps, an almost untraceable theft operation for traits people are unwilling to sell, and enough blackmail on the Police and Trait Larceny forces for when things go south. “Why?” is the only question in light of the facts.
“Things have been shaken up, rather substantially.”
Under normal circumstances, when the groundwork for the family business isn’t in danger, Marin indulges her brother’s song-like manner and the needless way he pads his sentences. “How,” she snaps and doesn’t feel guilty until Akuji’s shoulders slump along with his head.
In his reduced posture, the gauntness of his face and the odd fit to his tailored suit hits Marin full force. Whatever happened in her time away has taken its toll on her brother, and she isn’t improving matters. “Sorry, little viper, it’s just important I get all the information before jumping into a mission.”
He scowls, features hard, “I know.” Back straightening, head lifted, hands clasped behind his back, and eyes expressionless the Coul heir is a separate entity from Akuji, “The past two years in Republic city have been productive, yet in the last sixteen months the Larceny Department has tightened their grip on the city. Our profits have tumbled, our operatives have been detained, they have gotten closer to connecting the dots than ever before.”
Frowning, Marin questions, “Why don’t we just remind Lieutenant Rasnic what we have on him?”
“He’s out of the picture, fired.” The clipped response is directed at the floor while he cracks his neck.
“Then pull out the records on his second, what was it? Reeves? Ross?”
“Gone as well, the entire office has been overhauled. We need new data on everyone.”
She blinks, it’s taken years to build up enough to hold down Republic city’s force. To have all that destroyed is a devastating blow but also an interesting development. Curiosity is something to quelled, her father’s first lesson, yet she can’t suppress a tinge of the long thought TESER deleted emotion.
“And I suppose I’m to steal this data.”
“Yes,” Akuji says stopping abruptly and opening a door identical to the white lines on either side of them, “and no. We have something a bit more invasive.”
The room on the other side of the door is small. White and untextured like all of the compound, it’s adorned with only an old TESER, the table on which the machine sits upon, and a chair. An operating room, then. The chair, metal and bolted to the ground, is equipped with arm and ankle restraints - a splash of earth hues against the white that her eyes have trouble straying from.
Involuntary procedures.
“Bring her in.” Her brother orders, his voice although loud is flat and hard, startling her. Minions of her father flood in, four in total. They look nothing alike, but Marin has a hard time differentiating them. Without eye contact, they slink past ghost-like in their grey uniforms and silent black shoes. They coordinate with one another, not a step or breath individual, like interlocking parts.
The gaged woman held between them is a different story. Whereas the others exist she lives. The blood-wine of her shirt leaps with each agitated intake of stale air and her eyes race claiming a color-rich as the earth’s soil; stained with the hickory of wood intended for a fire on a cold, winter night engulfing its warmth. Buried kindness eclipses, a sort of goodness lingers, and Marin knows that whatever this woman does, her intentions will never carry any hint of malevolence.
It reminds her of her mother, and nights spent curled against an immovable force vowing to keep her safe.
They strap her to the chair and a sense of dread crashes surer than ocean waves upon Marin. “Meredith Gravely,” Akuji says it like a taunt - melodic and sweet but venomous, like the sugary flavor of arsenic. The woman’s head swivels from the door to them. Faced with her captors, her eyes don’t darken with rage instead flooding with some emotion Marin knows her father TESERed away. “She looks remarkably similar to us, wouldn’t you say?”
No, she wants to spit, those eyes are further apart from Akuji’s dark depths and her lies than a feline and a canine. But that isn’t the answer he wants or expects, so Marin looks elsewhere. Their skin is about the same, hair raven black, she’s similarly built (not tall nor short, fat or skinny, not particularly striking but someone who you could recall), and about their age. She shrugs her agreement and her brother’s grin practically oozes.
“Age twenty-four, no close relatives or friends, relocating to Republic from Joansburg where she’ll serve as Chief Inspector to the Trait Larceny Department.” He stops, his hands leaving their position to fiddle with the cuff of his jacket. A real smile plays on the edge of his fake one, she’s ignorant on something Akuji knows.
Confusion creeps onto her face, dragging Marin’s mouth into a frown, “Any notable traits?”
“Honest, reliable, trustable, diligent,” The words drip like the vilest attributes in all of creation, “loyal, insightful, rule-following.”
“Nothing we’d want,” she muses then grinds her teeth, “Why’s she here?”
In cadences of measured arrogance, he explains as he drifts over to the TESER, “She’s your mission.” Her brother's attention turns to fiddling with the controls. Small and compact, the monitor glows a faint blue - a color engulfed by the fluorescent lights - when powered up. The desktop of the TESER stands at the ready on the floor, sleek and metallic, though it whines with the simple act of starting. Top-of-the-line a few years ago (six, if her guess is right and this is an Upsilon class S model. Rarely is she wrong concerning TESERs), it now is hardly worth its weight in bricks. The new operation updates, on a desktop this old, would run slower than an old glass window - arcane before its first decade - isn't that always the way? Endless updates and requirements added to the software while the hardware proclaimed state of the art months before becomes obsolete. The new TESER desktops are never thinner or smaller, lighter perhaps, easier to break certainly. A move by the government manufacturers to drive up operation prices.
A necessity for them, unfortunately.
The only reason for them to use a TESER of this age would be if they were attempting to deal with memories. New laws, instated about five years ago, forbid banks from performing memory transfers, deletions, and insertions. Memories are too fickle to tamper with, too intertwined with a person’s self for any operations to guarantee success and safety. Copies are the only legal memory operation left. All TESERs produced after the law no longer run memory operation software.
It still doesn’t add up. Her missions are primarily to retrieve, steal, or purchase the latest TESER components (desktops, monitors, headgear, and processors). In rarer cases, she talks with clients or abducts unwilling trait donors. And though she often develops false identities to further her objective, even changing her traits, never has she required memories. “I’m going undercover.”
“Good,” Akuji hums, sarcastic, almost done with the procedure commands. “Sometimes you are so slow,” with one last flourish he finishes and the TESER proceeds to buzz. Her brother moves to place the headgear, simple neurotransmitters inlaid in a helmet- like cap (something that remains rather stagnant in hardware modifications), onto Gravely. “I’ll just tell you,” he locks eyes with her while snapping the contraption in place. “You’re going undercover as Meredith Gravely.”
Marin glances from the woman to her brother and back, her mouth pursed yet slightly open and loose. A shock of cool metal pressed onto her head echoes in her mind, “What?” She hates questioning tenor that undercurrents her voice and focuses on the headgear forced upon her.
“Look at her!” Akuji shouts, surprising her and himself - if his slight jump is any tell. Cold hands wisp through Marin’s hair, tightening the straps of the TESER, freezing her rigid. “You’re near identical. She’s going into a high position in Republic City, in a department, we need data on. There is no better opportunity.”
It makes sense, logically. Emotionally, a part of her rebels at the thought of assuming the role of someone else. Her missions, the characters she plays, they're exactly that. Characters. Adapted for a specific job. This is a living breathing person, as Marin is, who she’s expected to - “I,” words fail, stuck in an incoherent stutter, “what about her?”
Akuji migrates back to the TESER (since when had he been so close to her?) moving as if he has no bones at all, “She’ll be taken care of,” Black pools lock onto her, a solemn look foreign on his face, “And Marin be careful, from what we've gathered the Republic City Lieutenant is clever.”
Smarter than you? She asks or doesn’t flinching at the sudden whine of noise rising like a swarm of summer acadias. If Marin collapses after the sound surges white hot, she doesn’t notice consumed by the rising black tide of TESER induced sleep.
The last thing she catches is the glint of unnatural light on her brother's teeth - lips drawn painfully wide, grinning like he's just won a game.
There are rules, groundwork, for the dalliance as all things have. They are singular, however, repeated in different endless variants. Rules upon rules simmer down to a rule - the rule.
All else is fair.
When every tactic imaginable is allowed, horrors beyond imagination occur. Yet, the reward is too great - the stakes too high - so the end must justify the means. For complete control over the scientifically named Trait, Emotion, and Skill Exchange and Remover (layman's terms the rolling acronym of TESER) would mean control over the world.
And so the two come to play vying for the machine the headlines call ‘A tool to Usher in the New Age’. Entirely correct in their deceleration of “Changer of Traits… and the Way We Live’.
Public sector Trait Banks - the only organization by law capable of owning a TESER and performing removal, exchange, and additive operations - obey the rule. Few complain when this action leads to banks filled to the brim with negative attributes and empty of good ones. They keep silent while line after line of those who wish for unobtainable traits are turned away. Even when the workload piles high, filled with people who buy their skills and ax their vices, and the tellers demand more pay the public doesn’t speak their discontent.
The rule is law, the banks follow laws akin to the most devout. Simple mathematics tell how they've decided to fill their turns.
Private sector Trait Larceny Operations circumvent the rule in service of the public's demand crisis. Illegal, stolen, or shoddily (not for the lack of trying) made TESERs, dot black markets and serve those with enough means to look. Private TERSER uses range from nefarious to mundane.
But the rule is bypassed in a clever way, a loophole found in the fine print. Larceny operations cast their hand reeking of schemes.
A rather important piece of the private sector, the Coul Coterie, makes a move.
“Mallory or is it Deirdre? Perhaps Loralei this time?” She turns, relieved to be back in the comforts of a silent house. One where her footsteps echo and approaching danger is never undetected for she can sense any change in the still air of her childhood. The singsong countertenor quells her mind with its familiarity yet leaves her heart thudding in thinly concealed foreboding.
Narrow eyes greet her, refreshingly level with her face. It’s been a while since she’s spoken with a man her height. “Akuji,” and the smile she gives him is real.
“Little sister, father raised you better,” he chides in only the way her other half can - a mix of disappointment, glee, and excitement difficult to pin sincerity too. The room is somehow diminished under his scrutiny. The silence of the halls less welcoming and more dead, walls adorned with portraits of ancestors long buried littered with dust instead of hidden magic. She has to wonder if she too is a relic a time since passed.
Clasping two hands on her shoulders he declares, “My, Mariner, have you grown?” before enveloping her in a hug. They clash in a hard sort of way, all sharp edges and signs of pieces that don't quite fit together anymore - weight has been lost on both their parts. She fights the urge to stiffen, forcing herself to breathe in the scent of salt and oranges. It’s Akuji, relax.
He pulls back after a half-hearted reciprocation and shoots her a grin that curls too high. Marin sees herself in his slick black hair and familiar sepia skin, much like the mellow-brown light that baths a forest.
“Unlikely, little viper.” Her voice rises to meet his, though it remains deeper. The eyes of her twin, the main reason for his nickname, gleam dangerous, inky pools as they latch onto her. A cloudless night, they remain flat - light refusing to catch in their depths. Akuji likes to tease that her almost chocolate eyes are far too expressive and brag his are far better for lying. The old adage of windows and souls comes to mind but then what does that say about him? Or her for that matter?
Gesturing for her to walk by his side, her brother hums. “So how'd it go?” His flippancy sends a surge of annoyance through Marin. Addressing her latest mission as one would a trip to the mall would earn anyone else a swift reprimand. In this case, she holds her tongue. For one, it's Akuji her elder (be it by only twelve minutes) and main proprietor of their families less than legal business. For another, Akuji is nothing but carelessness and mock upturned lips. It's why their father entrusts her with the delicate parts of their ventures.
Wordlessly, she removes the latest TESER component out of her pocket and passes it over. The cylindrical orb fits nicely in the palm of her brother's hand, silver atop brown like a flash of lightning across prairie. The processor rivals the most funded of Trait Banks, the newest in the Psion line. Expensive and worth its weight it will serve as an upgrade to their current tech. “Adequate,” he says, tossing it into the air complete disregard shown for the object worth more than anything they lay claim to, more than their lives. People would die, kill, for it. People have.
“Obtaining it was straightforward,” Marin tells him fixated on the ground as they walk. A sudden stop when they reach an old bookshelf, straight out of Victorian times, draws her eyes up. Unlike the rest of the house it's dusted, the dirt that clings to everything else absent from the spines of the books and the dark oak wood. She isn't surprised when Akuji's bony fingers skim across the tomes and tug.
A kiss of cold air greets them, walls changing from muted reds to illuminated fluorescent when they pass through the hidden entrance and descend. It does strange things to their shadows and the linoleum floors. She shivers.
The underground compound stretches for miles with numerous exits and entrances. For her, above holds fonder memories. Yet, Akuji's home is here under the harsh yellow and dull white.
As children, he used to beg to come down with their father, into the world of the Coul Coterie; their family enterprise. Marin always pled to stay out.
“Ah yes, only a month or so undercover.”
Adopting a stuttering tilt and drawing in her shoulders she replies, “Yes. As Rebecca Tillerson.”
Her brother has many smiles, most promise sin, fitting for the heir of a multi-million trait fraud operation. The one he gives her now is boyish, open, and reaching his eyes.
Marin worries for him, she always has. Even though her debatable elder, Akuji has always felt like her responsibility. He's younger than his twenty-three years and without their mother, she's always protected him.
Or tried, at least - their stepmother. Akuji -
he’s her brother and that woman, she resists snarling -
so bright and his laugh - it's a sliver of memory now.
With only their father and his questionable antics, she fears he's ensnared in something they are both incapable of handling.
“Anyway,” she continues cherishing the mirth that lingers in his eyes, “he was sentimental enough to change the safe passcode to Rebecca's birthday.”
Akuji lets out a long, gusty sigh, “Really, are people so foolish?”
Patting this arm and far from feinting sympathy, Marin takes her time in answering. “Well,” she says, the hallway has leveled out. Still, narrow and lit with flickering bulbs, it now, without pomp or circumstance, has doors placed evenly on both sides. “Our families built an empire on it.”
The Couls have spent lifetimes doing the work of the Banks for substantially cheaper. The maintenance of TESERs is low without added government tax and regulations. They delete, insert, and exchange traits for the common man. If that's all they did the work would be fulfilling, beneficial, but you don't make millions catering to the peasants.
The rich want rare traits, the ability to play instruments or high intelligence. The Couls steal those things. Because if there's one rule, it's that TESERs cannot create traits, skills, and emotions. Those have to be taken from a human source.
“About that,” Akuji doesn't meet her eyes, his voice muted, “father wants you to take another assignment.”
It's not to be unexpected, but Marin has to hide her disappointment. She just returned. It would be nice to oversee what her brother has done in her time away among other things, “I suppose this is Selena's doing.” Bitterness seeps into her voice and she does little to cage it.
There's a subtle flinch at the sound of their stepmother's name from her brother, “No, there was an accident.”
“An accident,” she echoes. One of the downfalls of being a Coul - there are a strange amount of accidents. “So she's gone,” Marin’s tongue states, ever diplomatic, even as her mind processes this revelation. Selena. Sly eyes dull, lashing hands stilled. Dare she hope?
“Very,” his playful answer doesn’t match the flash of fear in the abyss of his eyes as he shoots her a sharp smile. She has no doubt this is his doing. “No, father is,” he pauses, gathering his thoughts, “concerned about our operation in Republic City.”
Birthplace of the Coul Coterie and about the furthest thing from her mind, the bustling streets and skyscraper skyline have been graced with Marin’s presence exactly once. A metropolis is good for business, potential customers are abundant and trait theft is easy to pin on smaller local thieves than trace back to them. Republic City is no ordinary metropolis either, it’s a growing one. With rich and poor and a widening divide between them there is trait demand and supply respectively.
Her family has roots woven deep into the booming heart of the concrete jungle. It’s one of their safest areas: wealthy customers, poor suppliers willing to hand over traits for scraps, an almost untraceable theft operation for traits people are unwilling to sell, and enough blackmail on the Police and Trait Larceny forces for when things go south. “Why?” is the only question in light of the facts.
“Things have been shaken up, rather substantially.”
Under normal circumstances, when the groundwork for the family business isn’t in danger, Marin indulges her brother’s song-like manner and the needless way he pads his sentences. “How,” she snaps and doesn’t feel guilty until Akuji’s shoulders slump along with his head.
In his reduced posture, the gauntness of his face and the odd fit to his tailored suit hits Marin full force. Whatever happened in her time away has taken its toll on her brother, and she isn’t improving matters. “Sorry, little viper, it’s just important I get all the information before jumping into a mission.”
He scowls, features hard, “I know.” Back straightening, head lifted, hands clasped behind his back, and eyes expressionless the Coul heir is a separate entity from Akuji, “The past two years in Republic city have been productive, yet in the last sixteen months the Larceny Department has tightened their grip on the city. Our profits have tumbled, our operatives have been detained, they have gotten closer to connecting the dots than ever before.”
Frowning, Marin questions, “Why don’t we just remind Lieutenant Rasnic what we have on him?”
“He’s out of the picture, fired.” The clipped response is directed at the floor while he cracks his neck.
“Then pull out the records on his second, what was it? Reeves? Ross?”
“Gone as well, the entire office has been overhauled. We need new data on everyone.”
She blinks, it’s taken years to build up enough to hold down Republic city’s force. To have all that destroyed is a devastating blow but also an interesting development. Curiosity is something to quelled, her father’s first lesson, yet she can’t suppress a tinge of the long thought TESER deleted emotion.
“And I suppose I’m to steal this data.”
“Yes,” Akuji says stopping abruptly and opening a door identical to the white lines on either side of them, “and no. We have something a bit more invasive.”
The room on the other side of the door is small. White and untextured like all of the compound, it’s adorned with only an old TESER, the table on which the machine sits upon, and a chair. An operating room, then. The chair, metal and bolted to the ground, is equipped with arm and ankle restraints - a splash of earth hues against the white that her eyes have trouble straying from.
Involuntary procedures.
“Bring her in.” Her brother orders, his voice although loud is flat and hard, startling her. Minions of her father flood in, four in total. They look nothing alike, but Marin has a hard time differentiating them. Without eye contact, they slink past ghost-like in their grey uniforms and silent black shoes. They coordinate with one another, not a step or breath individual, like interlocking parts.
The gaged woman held between them is a different story. Whereas the others exist she lives. The blood-wine of her shirt leaps with each agitated intake of stale air and her eyes race claiming a color-rich as the earth’s soil; stained with the hickory of wood intended for a fire on a cold, winter night engulfing its warmth. Buried kindness eclipses, a sort of goodness lingers, and Marin knows that whatever this woman does, her intentions will never carry any hint of malevolence.
It reminds her of her mother, and nights spent curled against an immovable force vowing to keep her safe.
They strap her to the chair and a sense of dread crashes surer than ocean waves upon Marin. “Meredith Gravely,” Akuji says it like a taunt - melodic and sweet but venomous, like the sugary flavor of arsenic. The woman’s head swivels from the door to them. Faced with her captors, her eyes don’t darken with rage instead flooding with some emotion Marin knows her father TESERed away. “She looks remarkably similar to us, wouldn’t you say?”
No, she wants to spit, those eyes are further apart from Akuji’s dark depths and her lies than a feline and a canine. But that isn’t the answer he wants or expects, so Marin looks elsewhere. Their skin is about the same, hair raven black, she’s similarly built (not tall nor short, fat or skinny, not particularly striking but someone who you could recall), and about their age. She shrugs her agreement and her brother’s grin practically oozes.
“Age twenty-four, no close relatives or friends, relocating to Republic from Joansburg where she’ll serve as Chief Inspector to the Trait Larceny Department.” He stops, his hands leaving their position to fiddle with the cuff of his jacket. A real smile plays on the edge of his fake one, she’s ignorant on something Akuji knows.
Confusion creeps onto her face, dragging Marin’s mouth into a frown, “Any notable traits?”
“Honest, reliable, trustable, diligent,” The words drip like the vilest attributes in all of creation, “loyal, insightful, rule-following.”
“Nothing we’d want,” she muses then grinds her teeth, “Why’s she here?”
In cadences of measured arrogance, he explains as he drifts over to the TESER, “She’s your mission.” Her brother's attention turns to fiddling with the controls. Small and compact, the monitor glows a faint blue - a color engulfed by the fluorescent lights - when powered up. The desktop of the TESER stands at the ready on the floor, sleek and metallic, though it whines with the simple act of starting. Top-of-the-line a few years ago (six, if her guess is right and this is an Upsilon class S model. Rarely is she wrong concerning TESERs), it now is hardly worth its weight in bricks. The new operation updates, on a desktop this old, would run slower than an old glass window - arcane before its first decade - isn't that always the way? Endless updates and requirements added to the software while the hardware proclaimed state of the art months before becomes obsolete. The new TESER desktops are never thinner or smaller, lighter perhaps, easier to break certainly. A move by the government manufacturers to drive up operation prices.
A necessity for them, unfortunately.
The only reason for them to use a TESER of this age would be if they were attempting to deal with memories. New laws, instated about five years ago, forbid banks from performing memory transfers, deletions, and insertions. Memories are too fickle to tamper with, too intertwined with a person’s self for any operations to guarantee success and safety. Copies are the only legal memory operation left. All TESERs produced after the law no longer run memory operation software.
It still doesn’t add up. Her missions are primarily to retrieve, steal, or purchase the latest TESER components (desktops, monitors, headgear, and processors). In rarer cases, she talks with clients or abducts unwilling trait donors. And though she often develops false identities to further her objective, even changing her traits, never has she required memories. “I’m going undercover.”
“Good,” Akuji hums, sarcastic, almost done with the procedure commands. “Sometimes you are so slow,” with one last flourish he finishes and the TESER proceeds to buzz. Her brother moves to place the headgear, simple neurotransmitters inlaid in a helmet- like cap (something that remains rather stagnant in hardware modifications), onto Gravely. “I’ll just tell you,” he locks eyes with her while snapping the contraption in place. “You’re going undercover as Meredith Gravely.”
Marin glances from the woman to her brother and back, her mouth pursed yet slightly open and loose. A shock of cool metal pressed onto her head echoes in her mind, “What?” She hates questioning tenor that undercurrents her voice and focuses on the headgear forced upon her.
“Look at her!” Akuji shouts, surprising her and himself - if his slight jump is any tell. Cold hands wisp through Marin’s hair, tightening the straps of the TESER, freezing her rigid. “You’re near identical. She’s going into a high position in Republic City, in a department, we need data on. There is no better opportunity.”
It makes sense, logically. Emotionally, a part of her rebels at the thought of assuming the role of someone else. Her missions, the characters she plays, they're exactly that. Characters. Adapted for a specific job. This is a living breathing person, as Marin is, who she’s expected to - “I,” words fail, stuck in an incoherent stutter, “what about her?”
Akuji migrates back to the TESER (since when had he been so close to her?) moving as if he has no bones at all, “She’ll be taken care of,” Black pools lock onto her, a solemn look foreign on his face, “And Marin be careful, from what we've gathered the Republic City Lieutenant is clever.”
Smarter than you? She asks or doesn’t flinching at the sudden whine of noise rising like a swarm of summer acadias. If Marin collapses after the sound surges white hot, she doesn’t notice consumed by the rising black tide of TESER induced sleep.
The last thing she catches is the glint of unnatural light on her brother's teeth - lips drawn painfully wide, grinning like he's just won a game.