Big Brother was gloomy and moody whenever I saw him. Sometimes I'd wake up during the night and see him cying softly in a corner by the fire. I didn't understand why he was so upset. What was wrong with him?
When I went to comfort him, Shigure or Homeward would pull me back, telling me it was best to leave Big Brother alone. I heard them talking one night while they thought I was asleep. It had something to do with the big gentle giant mother. She had rejected him on my behalf as a potential mate for somebody or something like that because of a brother-sister thing or something.
Whatever. They said I didn't need to think or worry over it and these days, the less thinking I did, the better. Which wasn't very useful when I wanted to say something but couldn't find the right words. Or when I was poking the fire on an impulse and nearly burned myself when I got too close.
There was definitely still something wrong with my head outside of the broken glass shards in my mind. Sometimes, I had to revert to calling them Coffee Citrus, Egg Yolk Pastry or Bone Soup Man. Sometimes I didn't recognise them at all and it would take me a long time to find the right file that would tell me who they were and why we were living in a cave high up in the mountains.
It turned out that we weren't just living in one cave. It was a whole system of caves. Some sections were sealed off. Because of the dangerous creatures living there, Homeward told me.
On the days where I was feeling better, we'd travel for a while. Sometimes through the cave system. Sometimes over ground. Sometimes, Big Brother would protect me while Homeward and Shigure fought off an attacking monster. I wasn't much help. It was even more frustrating than when I had been an active team member with Big Brother.
Slowly, very slowly, we made our way toward the edge of the Tangled Ranges to where the trees thinned out and houses popped up here and there. Some houses were abandoned and falling down. Some had been damaged by beasts from the mountains. Very few appeared to still be lived in.
We passed by one particular house that had the doors and windows all smashed in. My feet froze and refused to move. I tripped and would have fallen had Shigure not been nearby. He noticed something was wrong before I even did.
A flash of an image rushed through my mind. Being chained to a bed. That man. Those centaurs who had taken me away. That man. Man. He, he, he… that…
A finger touched my head and I passed out before I could think of remember much further.
Familiar walls. Familiar smells.
Back. I was back.
Back where?
Office. This was an office?
Sick bay. Office sick bay.
Who was that?
People bustled by a trolley going in and out of a curtained cubicle. I heard a hearty laugh and the voice of, of, of, of…
Shigure rushed into the room followed by a lady. Familiar lady. I should know this lady. Juicy, tangy summer plums.
Couldn't breathe.
He was here, here, here, here…
I could feel it. Remember it. Was drowning in it. Dying in it.
Shigure touched my forehead and the next thing I knew, I was on a little trolley bed in a gym. It took me a moment to recognise the little gym. Our gym. Our office. Our bedrooms. Safe. I was safe. Safe. Back safely.
Suddenly, I began to sob. Deep wracking sobs that hurt and ached but felt good at the same time. I didn't know exactly why and yet knew entirely why. It didn't make sense. I didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. The pain and anguish was spilling out and overflowing. Like poison being drawn from a wound. Like a vegetable stuck in the gullet being pulled out. Uncomfortable and yet relieving at the same time.
I didn't know how long I cried for. My eyes, eyebrows and nose ached. I had gotten tears and mucous smeared everywhere and couldn't breathe because of it. My eyes had almost swelled themselves shut.
Someone patiently helped me to wash my face, wipe my nose and got me to blow into a tissue. More than one tissue. They coaxed some food and drink into me and crooned a wordless song, stroking my back. A heat pack was pressed into my arms and I hugged the warm thing to my chest, so that it could ease the cold icy feeling in my chest.
"Good girl," said Shigure. "This is good. It's good to cry and get it out. You'll heal faster with this. No need to be ashamed. Take the time you need."
You have your good days and you have your bad days. Some days are almost like normal. Some days you hide in your bed and jump at every shadow.
On the good days, Shigure would coax me out of our shared dormitory and office space. Sometimes we'd meet with other agents or trainees and I'd train with them. Sometimes, an older agent would sit and chat with Shigure and I'd listen to their stories. Once or twice, Shigure took me out into the gulf in a little boat with a sputtering motor and he'd tell me about the war in the gulf. At some point in time, Homeward Bound went home.
I hadn't wanted him and his cooking to go, which had elicited laughter. But away he had gone all the same, leaving me to return to the old diet of canteen or takeaway food.
On the worse days where I couldn't muster up the courage to step out the door, Shigure would do intensive training with me. Physical and mental exercises and games. He would teach or help me analyse things. Tell me about historical battles or events in which City Agents took part in. He seemed to have taken part in many major cases himself.
Did that mean he was old? Is that why he had silver hair? Why was he hiding from the people higher up than the Director? Was he from the same generation or an older generation than the Director? Or was he from a hidden generation who had been trained and sent on missions while they were still children? Most of the older generation vets had disappeared during or after the last invasion of the Gulf. Where had they gone?
We met up with Mr Holt and his new group of trainees a few times. I'd be the star student for once, knowing all the answers, but against a group of people who have never been on the field before, that was easy. But at least it proved to me that I had made progress.
I was grilled in my jumping and leaping ability, so that I could make consistent and measured leaps. I studied languages and learned to be able to tell when I was auto-translating or interpreting information coming at me. Why certain words or phrases were used. The cultural background and history to the major languages used by the migrants in our city. That helped add colour and life to what I heard or read, so that there was a greater depth of meaning in the interpretation or translation.
I worked with Shigure in back office stuff. Transcriptions, translations and analyses. Shigure pointed out nuances in language and the ways words could be twisted to add a connotation to match the flavour of the original language. He was amazing at this kind of stuff.
That was when he was not hiding in his room or up a tree or somewhere hidden and high up, out of sight, reading his perverted novels. Content would accidentally leak into our shared chat group when he was immersed and sometimes I'd just shut the door, not wanting to hear about this stuff. Sometimes, to tease him, I'd deface the running image by carefully introducing details into the narrative in his head until he noticed that the first male lead had somehow turned into a busty bearded lady in a blue dress.
Or maybe he did notice and was just reacting so that he'd get a laugh out of me. There wasn't much to laugh about, so it was good to take what I could.
Then we started going out into the field, taking on small cases. They were simple open and shut cases involving finding evidence or convincing a criminal to confess. Once, I ran a criminal down into the ground all on my own, with Shigure remaining just a few steps away to witness it all and was met with Shigure's proud smile when he caught up.
When the annual assessment came by and I passed with flying colours, I stood there in a daze. My name was in the top hundred. Most of the assessors and some of the older seniors cheered for me when I was called up to the front to receive the 'Most Improved' medal. I had to be led there by the hand because I was frozen. I couldn't believe it myself.
At the side, I saw Mr Holt, Shigure and Big Brother collecting money from all the bets they had made. Sarden stood with the security guards in their navy uniform, puffing out his chest and declaring we had been fellow barrel scraper classmates. I was glad he seemed happy with his new position.
Susan Worth, our director, gave me a hug and whispered a 'well done' in my ear when she gave me my encouragement prize. A gift voucher to a nearby restaurant that sold my favourite ice-cream and desserts but was usually too expensive for me to frequent.
"I'm pretty sure you'll like your prize," she told me with a wink.
"It was just a fluke," a senior agent I passed on the way back to my seat muttered to his neighbour. "Of course she'd improve so much after such intensive training from one of our best agents. Wait 'til next year and we'll see her return to the bottom of the rankings again. Or wait and see when she stops being Kimi Shigure's partner."
I lowered my head and told myself that I mustn't slack on my training and on improving myself. Next year, I'd beat that senior agent's ranking in the top seventy and teach him a lesson for looking down at a junior.