Zeine had a dream, he dreamt he was back there in the alley, invisible flames licking his body, but his mind stayed lucid, and he saw again that strange memory through a haze, like the memory of a long forgotten dream.
"Zeine!" the same woman's voice called, "Zeine!"
There was fire. Fire engulfed his vision, and he saw amongst the flames, a face, a man's face, flawless and luminescent, like a Greek god from the legends.
The man regarded him with an unfathomable expression, his red eyes, golden pupils bore into Zeine's. In the background, Zeine could still hear the calls of "Zeine!" which was gradually subsiding, as if the caller was getting farther and farther away from him.
"Who are you?" Zeine demanded.
And the dream came to an abrupt end.
Zeine woke up and found himself lying in bed, staring at the white ceiling of the hospital ward.
And someone poked his head into his vision and waved cheerily, saying "You're up!"
"Who are you?" Zeine asked, feeling a little bit stupid.
This someone was a young man in his twenties, His hair was messy, but that only made him look cooler, he wore flashy e-sports outfit, hiking boots, and under his outfit he wore a white shirt with the picture of an anime girl.
Zeine suddenly realized he could see this person's underclothes, though he wasn't really seeing it, the man was dressed up normally, not wearing his shorts outside his trousers like superman, but Zeine knew his shorts were red without actually seeing it, and--he could see more--wait, but--who would have pictures of anime girls on their underwear?
And he directed his attention somewhere else to not have to look at this weirdo, but, why is everyone so hot today, he could see the underwear of passing nurses and doctors, he looked away and saw a few girls from his high school coincidently visiting someone in the same ward with him, they weren't hiding their underwear either.
Is this heaven?
No, it was his interlink, Zeine realized, it had somehow mutated, and he was now like a human radar, able to detect the color, size, and texture of every underwear in the vicinity of a hundred yards, and he felt a twinge of guilt for invading everyone's privacy so blatantly.
He tried to turn it off, but found he couldn't, rather, it only got clearer as he tried to use it.
He could see everything about everyone, the flow of blood, pounding heart, bones, tissue, digesting pulp in stomachs--Whew, all overlapping in one graph. But he could see each distinct detail with absolute clarity, it had not messed up his vision with these excess information or mingled together like it should, instead, he found he could miraculously take in all these information simultaneously.
And there was more, a glow came from within everyone's frame, it was especially prominent in their heads.
"Hey Zeine! I saw ya pass out down in that bloody street, and I called the ambulance to fetch ya. In case ye don't know, my names Kaem, Kaem Yang."
said the young man as he helped Zeine sit up in his bed, and as their hands touched, Kaem glanced at the golden marks on Zeine's right hand. An unreadable expression crossed his face fleetingly, but Zeine saw it.
"What's that?" Kaem asked with convincing curiosity.
He's pretending, Zeine thought, and the realization that he thought so shocked him, how did he know? It was as if he'd seen it on Kaem's face.
He did see it, the glow, it told him that, he could feel that glow in everyone's head, he could read something from it, information he normally can't see, and streaks of light like meteorites danced around in that glow.
This ability could come in handy, he thought.
He shrugged at Kaem, "Part of my tattoo, what, you interested?"
Disbelief emanated from Yang, but he smiled good-naturedly and gave him a convincing nod of appraisement.
"Not bad, I like ye tattoo." he said.
Lying, Zeine observed, so people's expression can truly be misleading.
Damn, botched this, thought Caimen Yang, as he pretended to inquire after Zeine's condition, I could have driven him while he was out to the base and talk things over out in the open, instead I took this son of a b***h to hospital and now I have to play this f**king damn good-hearted big brother personality, what the F**K was I thinking. And this Kaem, that's the worst name I've used so far. This is all ye fault Helina, I'm already working over-time to cover your damn shift and now I have to deal with an idiot popping out of nowhere while you stay comfortably in jail and take a comfit little night stroll whenever you want!
Well then, a little use of clearance won't hurt, I'm not breaking ye damn credos, it's work, it's business.
Suddenly, Zeine felt something change in the atmosphere, before he knew it, a mighty shockwave came crushing at him from Kaem.
Darkness, the same darkness he just escaped from hours ago enveloped him again.
"Wait, No!" he yelled, all composure lost, the trapped sensation gripped him again, he relived the relentless torcher in his mind, the horror...
"Cool it ye brat! Now--let's see." Caimen appeared from out of nowhere just like A.D. did in the alley.
"What are you doing! Let me out!" yelled Zeine, interrupting him.
"C'mon, we're reasonable people, just wanna chat without so many people hearing, what's with the hysterics?"
Caimen squinted as if looking at invisible screens, "Zeine Li, born in year 29, claiming rations, living alone in Zeuil street, high school student..."
"A strange record, too much missing, ye parents' case was like a stone dropped into the sea. And now, ye a clearance wielder. What happened to ya, tell me, don't talk shit, I'll know if ye lied, and I let ya leave when we're all done."
His words were soothing despite the relentless cussing and swearing.
"Who are you anyway." asked Zeine.
"I'll tell ya if ye answer ma questions first." replied Caimen.
After a while, Zeine calmed down and recounted the story of his encounter.
"Well bravo!" Caimen clapped as Zeine finished. "Now, do ye have questions for me?"
Zeine was surprised: "What do you mean? I don't want to know anything, I just want to live my life as it should have been, as if this had never happened."
"So many strange things happening, some monster taking ye organs, ye suddenly acquire new ability, and the charms ye suddenly got. If I were ye, I'd be bursting with questions."
"I don't need to know the answers, all I know is I 'm going to make a fortune as a private detective."
Zeine had not told Kaem he could also see underwear, making it sound like he could tell lies from truth by being extremely observant.
"Where's ye Eighth-grader syndrome, ye not that old, don't ye teenagers daydream about saving the world every d**m second?" asked Caimen
"It's not like that Kaem, I only daydream being a singer." replied Zeine.
"Drab, and its Caimen, dump Kaem, since ye don't wanna hear the truth, well I'm not begging for ye to listen, I'm forcing ye." signed Caimen.
Zeine listened as Yang outlined another side of the world underneath its placid surface, one that he'd never imagined.
Clearance was the power to defy nature, one unique to mankind and differs from person to person, historically people have exploited the powers of clearance, like magic and sorcery from the Europe , ninjutsu from Japan district, Kung Fu from China. Gifted humans could utilize the power of their will and generate a clearance field of their own, whose power they can harness. But with the rise of science and the industrial revolution, people gradually forgot and defied the existence of clearance.
But strictly speaking clearance itself was a branch of science, parallel to the mechanisms of nature and can be studied, the mathematical explanation for clearance and various classifications of it underwent rigorous argument and pain-staking experiments. If one ignores its unstable nature, it had the potential to surmount scientific means of production and modern weaponry, from ancient times up till this day, clearance had always been, and will probably always be the quickest way for an individual to attain power.
And there were people who wanted to harness this power for ill-use, those who convert their clearance to contamination and bring chaos and destruction to the world. To bring justice upon these evil clearance wielders, an association of other clearance wielders--La Maison d'illusions had been established and had remained active for thousands of years, today, it worked both to conceal their existence and to protect the normal people from harm.
Even through their efforts, the existence of clearance wielders was discovered, and the holy church, the most powerful religious department to date, allowed by law to own troops and weapons, supported by the government, set out to hunt down all clearance wielders in secret.
After he finished, Caimen invited Zeine to join La Maison d'illusions, for "The safety of himself and the public", which Zeine declined.
"Since ye clearance is trash, I'm not worried, but if anything bad happens to ye, ye can call me, protecting the damn lives of every citizen is our f**king obligation, goodbye and I hope I'd never see ye again."
And as he and Zeine parted ways, Caimen smirked.
As he walked away, he muttered under his breath,
"I was joking lad, ye really think I'm as stupid as I look? You can see through lies, can ya? Doesn't matter, I'll be keeping an eye on ye."
The vague outline of a drone followed Zeine.
"Ouch, what was that?" Zeine looked around him, perplexed, after a moment, he slapped himself and left.
A tiny chip, the color of Zeine's skin embedded itself in his neck.
Time to deal with more pressing matters, thought Caimen, and he glanced at the broken robot lying at the backseat of his car.
The outline of his car flickered, and blue lines like 3D line-framing covered the surface of its every component, it squeezed and morphed homeomorphically, moments later, the large rusty jeep disappeared, and a sleek racing car stood in its place, it had Toksaki Mona's picture painted on the sides, the same anime girl he was wearing on his shirt and his shorts.
Time to roll, he thought, thousands of digital screens popped up in his vision, there were random file streams, websites, databases, codes, videos from surveillance cameras, graphs and call logs.
And as his clearance field knitted itself into existence, expanding to its fullest, an avatar, a loli with emerald green cat ears and cat tail, matching green hair, dressed in Japanese high school uniforms, the splitting image of Toksaki Mona materialized beside him. Her lovely face, like an anime come to life was pouting, and she tried to scowl at Caimen, but the twinkle in her eyes exposed her intense joy in seeing him again.
"Caimen~~ Last time you left me alone all of a sudden without even saying goodbye, you need to compensate for my lost emotional value." she said.
Caimen patted the loli's head, smiled affectionately, gazing deeply into the loli's beautiful dark eyes, and then spoke with the glib charm of a mature and cultured man.
"I'm so sorry Mona, but there really was an emergency, will you please forgive me this time..."
And he stopped, and sniffed the air, brightened and said fondly,
"Hmm~~ you smell of lavender today, Mona, lovely as ever. But~~we'll have to refresh ourselves later, now it's time for work. How's it going, Mona?"
"I got the firewalls breached yesterday, they noticed after a while and fixed the loophole, but I left a backdoor without their noticing, We can takeover control at any moment." said Mona beaming.
"Well done, Mona!" exclaimed Caimen, stroking her face as she squealed with mixed pleasure and protest.
"We'll get to the bottom of this, a traitor among our ranks, an infiltrator in the government, things are getting interesting. And this rookie could be a surprise for them." murmured Caimen as he scanned the stream of data.