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Chapter 17
By Agent Havoc
Kuri’s home was everything Anika had imagined It to be. She herself had been a child of the streets in the past and recognised with familiarity many of the things Kuri had scavenged to survive. The piles of old newspaper, the rags, the empty boxes… Anika herself had lived in such a way in the past and she felt sorry for the kid since he had to go through this, like she had. The surprising thing is that Kuri had chosen a place in the Core to set up a squatting place.
She had lived this way until she met Darian, who, like a knight in shining armor had taken her away from her misery and into a dreamworld where adventure and money awaited them everywhere they went. The dream ended the minute she and Darian seperated a moments ago to become a nightmare. But this nightmare was reality in its purest form and there were no chances of Anika waking up next to Darian peacefully and realising this wasn’t real.
She looked at Kuri and his house and smiled sadly. Why was she whining so much? Darian can take care of himself if this brave kid here could. Sure, he had been captured by the cops but he knew more than a trick or two and would without any doubt escape. That is, unless he had been killed…
A lump formed itself in her throat at that dreadful thought and she shifted her thoughts immediately elsewhere to make sure that she wouldn’t break down on the spot.
She looked at Talehn and Cisia…Poor Cisia who was in la-la-land right now, who had no idea what was happenning to her. And Talehn who was looking at her awaiting for explanations.
In the corner of her eye, Anika noticed that there was somebody else lying in another mattress behing a wall made of cardboard boxes… She could only see the person’s feet and deduced right away with their size that this person was a child. She made a mental note to herself that she would ask Kuri about It later. Right now, she would have to explain everything to Talehn about this whole situation. But random thoughts about her partner kept her from thinking straight.
« Anika!", said Talehn as he sat down on a a block of ciment, "Are you going to explain to me what the hell’s going on here? »
Kuri sat down next to Talehn and both of them looked at her attentively.
The young woman sighed.
« Alright Talehn, but you’ll be the one explaining everything to Cisia when she wakes up later on. I believe you’re the one she trusts the most here and she’ll listen to you okay? »
« Agreed", answered Talehn, "let’s hear It now »
Anika opened her briefcase and saw all the money inside and the file on Cisia that Lester of the Ministry had given to her. She took out the file and a pile of bills that were kept together with a rubber string. 10 000 credits. That was 1/5 of what Darian and her had been payed to recapture Cisia. She threw that pile of money at Kuri smiling. The kid caught it and looked at it with a pleased look of shock on his small face.
« That’s my way of saying thanks, kiddo. », said Anika warmly « I hope It gives you a chance to start over. »
Kuri stood up and ran to Anika, teary eyed as he was and gave the young woman a big hug, crying tears of joy.
« Thank you so much… You may have just saved Mikan’s life » said the boy sobbing
Mikan? Thought Anika…Who was Mikan?
She patted him on the back and sat down on the floor. Kuri followed her lead.
« Alright, said Anika, this is how It goes… Listen carefully , Talehn, because It does get complicated »
« I’m all ears, Miss Jansen. » answered Talehn
Anika cleared her throat and started; « As you know veery well already Talehn, Ether used to be a natural source of energy that was intangible and that flowed through the air .Mages and sorcerers tapped into to make their spells work. With the Age of Industrialisation coming up a hundred years ago, Ether started to be used as an energy source for machines. You know as well as I do that most sorcerers and mages have been hunted down and destroyed by the Ministry so that they would be the only people to tap into Ether ressources. However, as fate would have It, the industries and machines would use up the Ether we have too quickly, and the Ministry had to find a way to regenerate Ether in a faster way. They tried the Interface project on a few regular human beings with success but regular humans died within weeks in the machine. They came up with an idea : Since most of the minor sorcerers mages had already been killed in the past already, and only the Ancient Mages survived, they figured that If they had the Ancient Mages in their hands, they’d be able to produce Ether and probably survive. Because one way or another, the Ancient Mages were known to be people whose spells came from inside of them, not incanted in the air like regular and minor mages. And so that was It, the Ministry knew what they needed and hired a team of hunters to track down and capture an Ancient Mage .Only the best had been selected in that team, and the corporation of TracerCo who played alot with genetically engineered life forms sent their two most promising genetically engineered corporate raiders : Isabella Manchester and Darian Ashley… »
« Wait a minute!", interrupted Talehn, "Darian Ashley? Your partner? He’s a TracerCo Raider? »
« He used to be!", answered Anika annoyed ," he escaped from them seven years ago, but his resume doesn’t have anything to do with this story so let’s get on with this shall we? »
« So that team of hunters were sent to capture an Ancient Mage. They were hot on the trail of the Ancient Necromancer Mage and Master of black magic Dalasius and played a cat and mouse game over the planet for a few months. Most of the team of hunters had been killed by Dalasius by then, and only Darian, isabella Manchester and 3 others had survived. On a team of 20 profeessionals, only 5 had survived. In the end, the hunters laid down a trap for Dalasius that killed 2 more of the hunters, including Isabella. But the trap had worked; Dalasius wasbeen captured and brought in for the Ministry.
Darian decided to keep an eye on what that was all about and checked in without any autorisation on the continuing Dalasius file. Surely you’ve heard of that great Ether reactor explosion 8 years ago? Well, that was Dalasius killing himself and all the scientists and technicians that were around him, because he was tired of being in captivity. But parts of his body were found on the site of his suicide and the Ministry started to clone Dalasius to make another lasting Interface.
Valeri, Aydan, Jessia, Malakite…All children that the Ministry had created with Dalasius’ genetics material… All failed experiments because they also died after a certain time, sure, they lasted longer than regular interfaces, but they still died. Then, they created Cisia, whose age processus thay accelerated and stopped when she reached adulthood, because they understood that Ether is produced in vaster quantities when you are an adult mage. Without them knowing It, Darian had kept an eye on this whole situation all along and the Ministry decided to hire Darian again after you helped Cisia escape. But this time, Darian had done his homework and understood what was going on as he read the file.
Darian understood that Cisia was a direct clone of Dalasius with all of his powers, wich made her dangerous. He also understood that the overload of Ether that such a powerful mage would unload would be extremely harmful for the environment and that in no way must Cisia be reintegrated to that machine. Her being hooked up in that machine could mean mass destruction on the world. And from what he had learned on mages…There were alot of chances that Cisia’s body may be possessed by Dalasius who would be seeking revenge. And Darian knew how ruthless and evil Dalasius could be. There are ways of exorcising such an evil spirit from a person permanently but we don’t know how. For that, we’ll have to find an Ancient Mage that works in the arts of White Magic, but we have no tracks leading to any of them. Actually, her attacking us a few moments ago is a confirmation that Dalasius has indeedpossessed her. »
Anika took out the metal box in her pockets and took out a seringe.
« The liquid in these seringes is J-10… It’s a chemical substance that neutalises the flow of Ether in a person’s veins tmporarily. Sticking this into Cisia keeps the Ether out of her thus pushing away Dalasius.When Cisia wakes up , she’ll be safe for a while but she’ll be open to possession a few days after that. Darian has a alot of J10 in his safehouse so we should be okay on that side. He kept the formula from his days when he hunted Dalasius... Anyway, what we have to do here is find a white mage to free Cisia and somehow clean our traces so that The Ministry won’t have a trail on us. Something else that would be good to do is to destroy any genetic materials and blueprints of Dalasius so that the Ministry won’t be able to make another Interface that could a potential planet destroyer .. »
She looked at Talehn grimly.
« Any questions boys? » she asked smiling.
Talehn looked at Kuri and then at Anika... then he looked at Cisia for a long time. What had he just gotten himself into?
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