6. Ninety percent Human
•••
Toy Land
New City of Shanghai
Hour 10:15
•••
Once in he is a different person. Or so it seems. Chief Agent Daldong: mysterious, calm, and fully in control of himself. Even when he is getting scolded, his demeanor won't give away.
And that's the only thing in this world that can make the otherwise calm and pleasant Shannon Hai explode.
"How many times do I really have to remind you that the Code of Conduct is not just a few sentences displayed on a screen?"
Shannon sounds exhausted as he pinches the top of his nose. He could tell the tension headache that has been bothering him all day is getting worse due to all of this. He kicks off from his chair and nervously paces around the narrow viewing area of the lab. This, as he can tell already, is going to end up in a lot of paperwork on his table. Shannon mindlessly picks on his maroon tie, dusts off his gentle grey suit for non-existent dust and even adjusts his decently styled hair to stays gelled backward, assuring the finishing touch to his manly appearance. Unless for the crinkles forming on his forehead thanks to the agent in the room, he should be looking very young and presentable, even in his late fifties.
"Now they will suspect us for the sudden disappearance of the substance." Shannon exclaims.
"Which they should be doing if anyone of the so called intelligent Earthians of their staff have a slightest of a brain--" prompts the agent, "And Sir, I'm sure they already know. There's literally no one on this Earth dare enough to go against the RIOTS other than us. Not even the government, you know that."
"Not my point Daldong." Reasons the senior, "From whom did you get the permission to use your sixth sense abilities against a fellow human?", his words weighting with restlessness than fury as Shannon speaks--"What do you think anything would be called a 'Secret mission' if it is not supposed to be kept undercover?"
Not feeling like to argue with the old man, Heba decides to keep silent till he gets done. Instead, he vaguely investigates the other side of the viewing room, his boss's wrath fading out in the background, mostly unheard.
On the other side of the one-way mirror is a vast space, around a dozen of glass capsules filled in some jelly like substance, kept side by side giving the place a look of a weird aquarium. Each of the capsule is occupied by a human, limply lying in there, totally unaware of how their body came to be preserved in a Reliver Room like this. Some of them are confirmed to be deceased while other bodies await their lost souls to return before the jelly expire.
Heba notices those in white lab coats walk and talk about the vast space, busy checking and operating the capsules. Among the folk he sees his brute escort busy working on a tube attached to a certain capsule, in which the inanimate body inside seems to be someone Heba should know. His eyes go wide at sudden realization, and even before he knows he is standing up right at the one-way mirror, mouth hanging open and eyes about to pop out.
"Ho--how...is he here?", he quires being unable to believe his own eyes.
Behind the glass in a lone capsule, mercilessly dipped in the sickly green jelly-like substance is his colleague, X, the one who went missing in the action months ago.
Startled by the sudden movement the brute almost drops the glass tube in his hand but recovers fast and replies Heba with, "Oh him? We found him in a gutter nearby. "
Puzzled Heba's eyes waver between the capsule and his senior. "I thought you sent him--"
"--To collect data. Yes I did. But being as clever as his chief in causing troubles the fella has somehow managed to end up in some infamous gutter in Shanghai. I always wonder what was I thinking when I thought of assigning you people as Agents here."
The older gestures him to the door that opens to the other side of the lab. "Come. There's something you need to see."
Shannon leads the way and leaves the room first while Heba strolls behind him as he was asked. But Heba feels as if he cannot really cross the door as he strikes to a halt at the threshold. His knuckles have turned white from the force with which he held the metal knob, too far gone in his nerves to notice. He doesn't dare to move from this position, eyes fixed on the floating body of X in the glass capsule, a brutal scar across the now unconscious agent's naked chest.
"Well apparently, X has misplaced his conscience somewhere while dealing with our foes, probably during the fight that earned him that scary scar across his chest." Says Shanonn as he claps his hands twice and a glowing screen materialize in front of them out of thin air.
"I wasn't doubting him to be swimming in the slime when I saw him in a Reliver Capsule." Heba retorts as he finally finds the courage to release the doorknob and walks into the room. Shannon gives him a peculiar look before resuming his demonstration on his now mostly-dead Agent in a capsule.
"We could have most definitely saved him with only the Reliver Capsule treatment but we have another problem here." He proceeds to swipe across the screen and points something on it to the younger.
"What now?"
"So, we did a quick test on his Human Type identity before we actually start his treatments and guess what, it turned out that it's time we make it mandatory to do some advanced tests on the new intake. Specially, regarding the Human Type. "Current system seems to have some serious issues in calculating the correct Human Type." The screen glows in red and green as it depicts a set of bars of different heights and widths accompanied by a lengthy paragraph describing the test results.
"Read this for me, will you?" Offers the older male as the younger obliges. His eyes goes wide as he reads the ending line of the lengthy description of X's Human Type report.
"He is-- not a seventy percent human! HE is A freaking NIENTY perCENT!"
A heavy sigh weaves up from the agent as he proceeds to massages his temples, reaching the peek frustration regarding his colleague. "Is there any hope putting him in there then? Does this preservation procedure work for someone that humane?"
"Hopefully. Yes. The new formula can hold it up for someone that humane too but not for too long." Shannon assures as he swipes the screen out of the air.
"But the thing is that he needs to be fast. " He turns to Daldong and looks dead in the eye, "Though our surgeons and the formula can keep his body alive for now, the conscience must return for him to really start the healing process. We, now, don't possess the technology or resources it takes to treat a human that humane...for you know...they are pretty rare."
He breaks his gaze to wave at someone from the white coated crowd and signals something with his hands. In an instant the capsule next to X's makes a weird noise and the jelly inside evaporates out of sight. The body inside which was getting the supported by the green jelly so far drops on to the metal bottom of the capsule with a resonating thud.
"It's either he himself finds his body and returns or we will have to watch him slowly die. This formula, for him, is not a permanent solution unlike for us. And he needs to return before that body turns into... you know, probably dolomite."
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