|| Chapter 9: Liminal Changes ||
It wasn't long before Uzi entered the tower to discuss things N, leaving the ravenette alone in the snow-covered streets. After a while, she went to call for him and froze with furrowed brows when she noticed that he was missing. The only evidence that he left behind was a pool of black ink and blood staining the snow. A sharp sigh escaped her lips and she ruffled her hair under her beanie from frustration.
She grew tense when she felt something sharp tap her shoulder from behind. Cautiously, she looked over her shoulder and cringed when she saw a sharp arrow-shaped stinger. Her gaze followed its tail and her face paled, gulping. Soon, the ravenette's bored face came into view as he hung upside down from the corpse tower wall. "Notice: This is a message for Worker Drone Uzi Doorman," He told her, his stinger returned to his feet, "User will be recovering at Shelter #001. The passcode is 27599#." She furrowed her brows at his words before pursing her lips in a thin line when he added, "Mutation levels have reached a life-threatening stage."
Without another word, he leapt into the sky, leaving a sudden gust of wind in his wake. She placed her forearm over her face, covering her eyes from the wind. Speechless, she watched how his figure zipped through the sky like a bullet before disappearing in the distance. "What the hell happened to him...?" She mumbled out with concern and uneasiness, clenching her fist next to her side.
---- A week later ----
It's been a week ever since Uzi banished herself from the colony. The sun illuminated the deserted streets as the blizzard settled down for the morning. She decided to go check up on the ravenette since she had been focusing on finding clues with N and had forgotten about him. A loud yet annoyed groan left her, dragging her feet through the thick snow as she trudged her way to Shelter #001.
'He might know why my eye is like this,' She thought to herself, frowning when she recalled how one of her eyes started to act weird. The iris kept flickering between a hexagon symbol that had three arrows attached to it. 'I hope he's back to normal...' She pursed her lips with concern, feeling goosebumps run across her skin. All she knew was that he started to act strange after he got injured with N's nanite acid during the invasion night.
There was a huge possibility that his genetics were evolving into something unknown, hence why he was getting drone-like features. She snapped out of her thoughts when she noticed that she was in front of the facility's elevators on the porch. A sigh of relief escaped her lips and she entered the passcode into the keypad. "Bingo," She mumbled with a smirk when a 'ding' was heard as the keypad lit up with a green light, showing that the password was correct.
Casually, she entered the elevator and pressed the 'fourth-floor' button. Soon, the elevator started to descend and she watched the other floors pass her with amazement. 'I hate to admit it but...' She scratched her cheek with a slightly envious look in her eyes, 'I can see why he left the colony to stay here...' The elevator came to a stop, its doors slid open with a small 'ding.' Slowly, she stepped out of the elevator and glanced around before heading towards a tall metal door.
Cautiously, she turned the doorknob open and grimaced at how heavy the door was to push. After she got through the doorway, her jaw fell open at the interior of the apartment. It looked like a cosy cottage yet it had hologram screens with dozens of X-ray scan results on them. The apartment was more open since there weren't walls separating the kitchen, living room, and office room.
As she rounded the corner of the entrance hall, she froze when her eyes landed on an unexpected sight. In the middle of the living room, the ravenette - who was shirtless - was doing a forearm stand with ease. Casually, he did a split as he balanced in that position. His eyes were glued to a gigantic blue hologram screen that was floating in front of him. On the screen, a tall male drone was fighting against a tall slender female drone with a sabre. She noticed that the ravenette's hair was freshly cut into an undercut while two long earrings dangled from his ears.
When he heard the faint sound of shuffling behind him, his ears perked up and turned his head in that direction. Startled at Uzi's sudden and unexpected arrival, he almost lost balance and fell over. Bewildered, he switched the screen off and twisted his lower body as he flipped himself into a normal sitting position. "W-Why are you..?" He stuttered out with a dumbfounded expression and tightened his sweatpants when they started to hang over his hips, "How did you get in here...?"
She didn't answer him - her gaze was locked onto his face, feeling her stomach churn in uneasiness and mixed emotions. His hair was darker than before - now it was a pitch-black colour rather than an ashy one. His eyes seemed sharper and more fox-like, giving his dark irises a dangerous glint. His jawline was more refined and sharper, almost as if he lost a bit of weight.
"I got lucky," She blurted out, lying to him with a blank face, "I just kept pressing the buttons until it opened." Confused yet taken aback, he furrowed his brows at her. "That's not concerning at all," He sarcastically retorted with a sigh, ruffling his hair as he stood up from the floor. "So, whatcha ya want from me, Mrs. Little Troublemaker?" He asked her with a smirk, crossing his arms over his bare chest.
"I just wanted to see whether you were still alive after you know..." She trailed off with her lips in a thin line, avoiding his gaze, "You almost died a few times so..." Amused, he chuckled and picked up a protein shaker from the coffee table next to the couch. "Aw, were you worried about me?" He teased her as he popped the lid of the shaker open, smirking, "How cute of you, kid."
Irked and embarrassed, she glared at him and clicked her tongue. "But you don't have to do that," He reassured her with a hum, taking a sip of the protein shake, "I recovered from a six-day coma so I'm back on my feet as usual." That caught her attention almost instantly. "A coma?" She repeated in a slightly strained voice, staring at him with her hands curled into fists next to her sides, "You were knocked out for six days?"
"Yep," He nonchalantly confirmed with a shrug and placed the protein shake back onto the table, "I woke up yesterday." With a soft grunt, he plopped himself onto the couch with his feet propped up on the armrest, "Apparently, after N snapped my neck, Ellipse forced my body into 'Emergency Recovery Mode'."
He folded his arms behind his back, staring at the ceiling as he added, "It must've been a fatal situation if she had to activate that mode." She tensed up at his words, recalling the scene of N strangling him and snapping his neck like a twig. "But seeing that you're alive," He continued slowly, glancing at her, "You must've killed the murder drones or something."
"Kinda..." She told him with an awkward expression. Casually, he gestured for her to take a seat on the couch opposite from him. As she sat down, she placed her leg over her thigh with a frown. "N rebelled against J and V so I teamed up with him to stop them from destroying the colony," She explained with a small frown on her lips, "But you psssshtt ...into a... pzzzaat... pssssat..."
It felt like a spark of electricity ran through his head, causing him to flinch with a groan. He grabbed his head with furrowed brows as Uzi's voice became static. "And then psssshtt... I came to check on you," She ended her story and noticed that he was frowning in pain. "Hey, are you okay? What-" She got up in concern, however, she almost jumped five feet in the air when the front door slammed open.
Thunderous footsteps erupted throughout the area as a tall slender woman - who had droopy sunset-coloured eyes, extremely long silver hair in a ponytail and was dressed in a black business suit - stormed into the apartment. The moment she stepped into the living room, her fierce gaze landed on Uzi. Uzi tensed up under her gaze, feeling small and intimidated.
However, she had seen such a gaze before. Her chest tightened up when she realised where she had seen it. "You..." She uttered in a low whisper, glaring at her as the ravenette's cold piercing gaze overlapped hers, "It was you..." Ellipse ignored her and rushed to the ravenette, who was calming down from the unexpected pain.
Uzi watched how Ellipse got on her knees and reached out to touch his face, only to be slapped away. The sound of his hand making contact with hers echoed throughout the room before a heavy silence replaced it. "Don't touch me," He glowered with a vicious yet menacing look in his squinted eyes. Immediately, her hands recoiled back to her thighs and she lowered her head.
"What's going on?" A deep yet hoarse voice asked from the entryway, causing Uzi to look in that direction. Ezekiel walked into view, raising a brow at them. He was dressed in a tight black sleeveless top and gym pants with boots. His messy brown hair was soaked with sweat while his confused gaze flickered between Uzi, Ellipse, and the ravenette. His gaze stayed on Uzi for a few seconds, analysing her.
"You're a Worker Drone," He noted with a look of realization, "What's a worker drone doing here?" Uzi's skin crawled at his reaction and she unconsciously took a step back. 'He's a murder drone,' She frowned with tense shoulders, growing wary of the brunette. "You don't have to worry about him, kid," The ravenette's voice snapped her out of her thoughts, causing her to look at him in disbelief.
Slowly, he got up from the couch, ignoring Ellipse kneeling on the floor. He shoved his hands into his pockets and glanced at Ezekiel, who avoided his gaze with a flustered look. "He drinks on the old oil downstairs to keep his systems stable," He reassured her with a strained smile as he walked towards her, "So he won't attack you." She flinched when he swung his arm around her shoulder and escorted her out of the apartment, locking the door behind him.
Once they were outside the apartment, his smile turned into a serious frown. "Those two have been keeping an eye on me since yesterday," He whispered to her, catching her off guard with how close he was to her ear, "And I don't like it." He pulled her into the elevator and pressed the 'floor five' button. The doors slid closed in front of them before the elevator started to descend. "I know for a fact that you didn't come here to check up on me, kid," He told her with a blank expression, leaning his weight on his right leg, "So what's the problem?"
She looked at him with a shocked expression, completely speechless. To regain composure, she shook her head and cleared her throat. "We couldn't find anything so far," She revealed with a frustrated sigh and leaned against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest, "N and I have been looking everywhere for clues and V doesn't want to cooperate at all."
"Oh, V is still alive?" He asked, raising a brow at the unexpected news, "What happened to J?" A sheepish expression appeared on her face for a second before she appeared triumphant, "I deleted her from existence with my railgun." He rolled his eyes at her before chuckling, "Good for you." Soon, the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. They entered the laboratory and he noticed how messy the work desks were. Suspiciously, he narrowed his eyes and stared at the desks littered with papers and blueprints. 'I don't remember taking those out,' He hummed lowly with a displeased frown, 'So why are they...?'
"By the way," Uzi's voice snapped him out of his daze-like state, causing him to glance at her, "My right eye got really weird lately." She picked up a white lab coat from a hanger and tossed it to him, unable to ignore the sight of his bare upper body any longer. Casually, he caught it and tugged it on with a scoff.
"What do you mean by that?" He queried with a raised brow and gestured for her to sit down at an empty work desk. "A weird symbol keeps popping up whenever I look into a mirror," She explained with an unnerved yet annoyed frown, showing that she was distressed about it. "Let me take a quick look at it," He mumbled loud enough for her to hear and tugged white latex gloves on, "You said it was your right eye, hm?"
"Yep," She quickly confirmed, closing her left eye as he picked up a flashlight and loomed over her. Carefully, his fingers held her eyelid open and held the flashlight above it, closely peering at it. Her pupils shrunk at the bright light yet nothing was strange. "Hmmm," He hummed with a frown, clicking the flashlight off and picking up a small hand mirror from the table. "Look into this for a second," He told her with a concentrated expression, holding the small hand mirror over her right eye. She obeyed him and looked into it. The moment she saw herself in the mirror, the iris in her right eye transformed into a neon purple hexagon that had three arrows attached to it.
Immediately, the mirror cracked completely. Startled, he dropped the cracked mirror with wide eyes and snapped his gaze to the symbol. As his gaze locked with the symbol, he heard his heartbeat in his ears. Unconsciously, he grabbed her shoulders and towered over her. Uzi was startled and tense at his actions. He had no idea that his eyes were burning a bright sunset colour as sweat dripped down his face.
He appeared disoriented and confused when he couldn't move his body away from her. Her eyes trembled as she stared into his fierce irises. A burning sensation appeared in his left eye, causing him to groan in pain. She watched how his pupil transformed into a '⪤' shape. Suddenly, he pulled away from her, stumbling back. "Fuck!" He screeched while holding his face in his hand, witnessing how the vision in his left eye was getting extremely blurry.
He grabbed the table side with a clenched jaw, glaring at the floor as he resisted the pain. The pain started to get more intense and he crouched to the floor, panting. "...You should go," He hurriedly told her in a hoarse voice without raising his head to look at her, "I'll come to the landing pod tonight..." With a nod, she scurried out of the lab and entered the elevator. As she pressed the 'top floor' button, she watched how he desperately grabbed a pen from the table. Her eyes widened in horror when he held the pen in the air and plunged it into his thigh. However, just as it was about to reach his thigh, the elevator doors closed in front of her.
"Arghhh!" His muffled screams could be heard from inside the elevator, hinting that the pen reached its destination. Slowly, the elevator started to ascend and she sunk to the floor, feeling her breathing grow sharper and faster. Her entire body started to tremble and her vision got blurry for a second. "Blegh..." She quickly covered her mouth when she felt bile come up her throat and she gulped it down before it could escape. Once the elevator stopped and opened its doors, she didn't hesitate to sprint out of there. Large puffs of air escaped into the air as she ran through the melting snow.
She didn't stop at all; she kept running.