"How are you feeling, Miss Kanashima? Is everything still comfortable? Can I get you anything?"
Why are these guys helping me out? It almost seems like that cool guy, Kailao, actually just hates me. Well, he's somewhat rude to Kim too.
"Yeah, I'm okay. It doesn't hurt."
It had been about thirty minutes since the three descended into the basement of the convenience store, and at most fifteen had passed during her time hooked up to the supercharger, all thanks to Kim's help and intimate knowledge of both the machine and the ALFA virus itself. She had gotten used to the hum and increased flow of electrons by now, her battery was already about seventy percent full. Kailao must've been further along already, actually it was surprising he wasn't done by now, he's been hooked up for double the time. Perhaps his battery capacity was much larger than she originally thought, maybe even unnaturally large. There was a possibility of her own size being abnormally small too, or even both could be true. Either way, they continued facing each other, her gunmetal grey eyes staring at the light eyelids of her companion.
"Oh, don't worry about him, he just likes to meditate during this time, how odd."
"Kettle, meet pot."
"You're responding to me? Kailao, what's wrong?"
"I'm not quite sure, but something is wrong. Blueberry, do you feel that?"
What does Blueberry even mean? They've both called me it at this point. Is it some sort of nickname? Definitely not an endearing one. What even was a blueberry? It sounds derogatory.
His right eye cracked open, revealing the deep pools of glowing gold once more. Switching his gaze between the both of them a few times, he took a deep breath and stood up, pulling his own dark yellow cable out of the chair. The machine beeped three times before falling back asleep, the screens on the side shutting off. Turning his back towards the two girls, he stretched from his position by spreading his laterals, only turning his head to look back at them, specifically Kanashima.
"You're not even fully charged yet, Kailao, at least wait a bit longer! You don't hate me that much."
"Be advised, Lady Kanashima. You are being tracked by a Jackal. Location unknown, proceed with caution."
What is a Jackal? Again with these esoteric terms. At least it's helpful, and it confirms the feelings Kailao just expressed. They're on me faster than I thought.
She didn't have those same battle hardened instincts as Kailao to tell, but luckily the soft, sweet voice in her head was Kanashima's own substitute for experience. It had never been wrong before, and if it were true she would have to move, just like the other supercharger user was doing right now. Looking back up at the rather helpful woman, a confused, but slightly frightened expression creeping into her cute visage. As much as they joked around with each other, Kim trusted his read on the situations they got in, nothing sharpens iron like iron.
"No, he is right. I'm being tracked."
"Wait, what?"
"Right. We need to get out of here. Kim, close up. Kanashima, with me."
Without waiting for the other's inputs, confirmations, or opinions, he jumped back onto the ladder, pressing the same button on the wall for the trapdoor. Shooting up the rungs three at a time, the hatch barely opened in time for his head to peek out into the store. At the same time, the actually quite adorable supervisor helped her again with the connection from her wrist to the machine. Unplugging the cable from the side, a quick tug was all it took for it to retract back into Kanashima's wrist, coiling back inside and dropping the flap back over it. The outline of the area lingered for a few moments longer before becoming flush with her tan skin once more. Watching her every move, she gave a quick smile once her assistant was done, but she was already turned away, ready to work on the next objective.
Splitting off from the group, Kim went towards the back of the room and laid one of her smaller hands onto a seemingly random brick. It lit up again in a soft yellow, much less vibrant than the earlier instance where Kailao opened the trapdoor up. A few moments passed before more bricks connected to it were outlined in the same muted yellow, then all folding into and revealing a new tertiary room. All she could see were a few holographic screens lighting up all sorts of random colors, including her own signature purple.
A few beeps emitted from the room in a friendly tone before the wall returned to its original position, blocking off the control room once more and enclosing the store employee inside. The back room must've been soundproof as now the charging area was silent once more, leaving her all alone with herself, her thoughts, and the chaste voice in her head.
"Be advised, Lady Kanashima. Twelve hostiles on your tail. More than ten klicks."
Kailao was right, they had to get moving and fast, he told her to move already. All she was doing by lingering in the basement was wasting time, she was no longer hooked up to the machine so her roughly seventy percent of energy would have to last. The charger was truly a miracle of modern invention, it was taking forever when she was just letting it trickle into her capacitors with the two corporate headhunters. What a shame it was banned, if she could get out of here, it would be quite nice to own one inside her own residence.
The Void's helpful voice once again shook her out of her initial stupor. It was terrifying that one of them was tracking her, but the seemingly rude man was right, she needed to get out of here. The ten units of distance that the voice referred to was about as good as she was going to get, the mysterious diction of the voice would continue to allude her for now. She sprinted through the narrow room and grabbed back onto the rickety ladder, climbing up, not nearly as fast as the cool individual.
God, there's twelve on my case now? I couldn't possibly be that important. That's an incredible increase from three.
Punching her body through the trapdoor, she dropped her foot down onto the top of the cover. The store looked the exact same, luckily no new person was currently in the store, the only person she was already acquainted with was holding another glass bottle of the dark liquid
"Took you long enough. Move."
Without completing the purchase, he stuffed the cold beverage into one of the several inner pockets of his thick leather coat, patting the outside with his other hand. Pushing through the single glass door, his black suede shoe sat on the corner, propping the door open just for her.
"Don't just stand there. Move, Blueberry."
The two poured out of the corner store to a relatively quieter night than earlier. The personal vehicles were much more sparse across the wide road, most vendors on each of the sidewalks had already closed up for the night, and several businesses' cheap neon lights no longer decorated the dull concrete jungle. Looking in each and every direction, people were in her sight, but none obviously affiliated with the cops, nor looked to be on super high alert like how she imagined the officers would be. Standing next to a stagnant Kailao, she clutched her forehead with her right hand. Just which way was she supposed to go?
"Be advised, Lady Kanashima. Location update, more than ten klicks, on your five."
Again with the numbers? This time my five?
The mystery of the numbers still plagued Kanashima's mind as she ran through the different pathways through her mind. The intimate knowledge she had of running through all the alleys was helpful, but without knowing the proper direction to navigate, it was almost useless, she had just as good of a chance of hand delivering herself into their arms as she did getting away. The soft and calm voice was trying to tell her in what direction they were, but still, math was not her thing, and especially not numerical patterns, her brain was simply not able to comprehend this. Even through the difficulty, she would have to find a way, some variable to change how she was thinking about the problem. Luckily, there was a different method to consider the numbers through right next to her.
"They're on our five."
"Understood. Let's make our move, Blueberry."
Nodding along with her valuable shared information, he didn't seem all that surprised at all with the esoteric wording the Void had told her. All she did was relay the same information she was given, and it seemed like Kailao knew what it meant, or managed it to figure out the mystery multitudes faster than she did. Hopefully he would share the useful information with her, learning how the voice communicates would certainly be a boon to her overall life.
Running off in the direction the man of swagger led her in, she caught up to his side. Weaving through the alleys, he quickly proved himself to be another savant of the tricky concrete labyrinth, expertly avoiding each and every dead end, double back area, and exposed lengths of areas in case they caught them.
"How did you know what I meant?"
"Meant by what?"
"The numbers. I've been… receiving information from a source in that format."
"Have you ever seen an old-timey clock?"
Kanashima couldn't help but look up at the de facto leader of the two with a hint of curiosity panging her face. He couldn't possibly mean one of those huge rectangular prisms that would sit on any sort of side table, only displaying the time on half of one of its large faces. They were so odd and inefficient that she had only seen them in the incredibly old, pre World War Four films. There was absolutely nothing she could think of that would connect the oversized brick to something as esoteric and personal as direction.
"Nope."
"Right, course not. Should have figured."
Digging through his black denim pants pockets this time rather than his more favored jacket spaces, he fished out a fancy and thin screened device, further supporting her earlier assertion that he was way too rich to be hanging out in a poor district just like hers. He was absolutely holding back a significant amount of information, some that would pertain to that very question, but she was in no position to ask about it, he was already helping her due to that knowledge. Her brother taught her that it was okay to accept help, even if it felt odd and she felt undeserving of it.
Morgan, it's kind of like your own way of still helping me out. I wish I could have returned the favor.
Pulling the digital display and holding it up and in front of her, he clicked on a setting and tilted the rectangle on its z axis. Soon, light began to spit out of the top and coalesce into a holographic object right in front of her, showing a circular item with twelve numbers. Two sticks expanded from the center of the face, each pointing to a different number, five and eleven, that just so happened to oddly be across from each other.
"This is an analog clock. There are numbers from one through twelve. The position is in relation to your person facing twelve. Five was the number you were given, so the position called was behind you. Eleven is the way that we began to run, directly in the other direction of five."
"Right. That makes sense."
That makes absolutely no sense at all. I've never even seen this object, much less have the ability to associate my tangible body with an idea that predates everything we had ever known.
This so-called analog clock sat in front of her view for a few moments longer as she tried to memorize the numbers. Given enough time, she could theoretically figure out the rather odd concept, but it would have to wait until she was no longer under pressure. That would have to be added to the already large curriculum she wanted.
"Be advised, Lady Kanashima, on your six. Nine klicks out."
"They are getting closer, fast."
"Well, we'll just have to speed up then, don't we?"