Canaan's POV, ?
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Where... am I? I was going to meet Alphard... Did I already meet her? Is the meeting already over or is it yet to happen? I don't even know... As I open my eyes I see very little, only a vast and desolate place. Everything looks so grey, the sky, the sand on the ground... Corpses and abandoned military equipment... this is a battlefield? Or is the war already over? What would I be doing here, of all places?
"Canaan..." There she is, Alphard. Finally... After all this time I finally caught her... She is slowly approaching me on unsteady feet, she appears to be in quite a bad shape. She looks the same as I remember her, though the lower half of her left arm is missing. Well, of course it is... Her coat is shredded and worn, just as her black pants, one of her suspenders is torn as well and her face doesn't betray a single one of her thoughts, as always...
"Alphard... I finally caught you." What was I going to tell her again? I'm sure that I thought of some things, but I can't remember it at all... Something about saving her, something about pardoning her... I was going to make everything alright somehow, but here I am, I can't even think of a single sentence to say... There is so much I want to ask her, so much I want to tell her, but none of it is coming out of my mouth...
"It's been a while, hasn't it? So, what are you here for?" She is flashing me one of her usual sarcastic grins, talking to me casually as if she was just out shopping and came back home. Home...? I want to take her home with me, I want to give her a home... I feel as if I'd have a hangover... she is coming closer and I start walking towards her as well. She looks somewhat paler than how I remember her...
"I'm here for you. You will come back with me, whether you like it or don't!" That's right! I will take her home with me and we will have a normal life, I'm sure Alphard can adapt to such a lifestyle, just going shopping or hanging out with friends. Maybe everything can be the way it was before she killed Siam again, at least between the two of us. That won't bring Siam back, but it will make sure that I don't lose her as well...
"Is that so? I have no such plans and I have absolutely no intention of coming with you or even leaving this place at all. This is our home, remember?" That's right, this place is just how our home used to be back then, all the death and destruction... but it doesn't have to be our home anymore, we could just go to Japan or anywhere else and live happily with Maria, Mino and Yun Yun, we aren't bound to this place anymore...
"What are you talking about? There is nothing here for either of us. Just come with me, let's forget all about this place and what was before, let's find a new home..." Now we are standing face to face, even though I have grown a little bit in this last year she is still towering above me, she is still intimidating me... Though I'm not sure if it really is about size, she was always far above me and a few steps ahead of me, except for the last meeting we had on the train...
"You should have gone and searched your own home after I was gone, you could have just left me alone and found your own happiness. Yet here we are again. Is this what you want to do, chasing after my ghost the way I was running from Siam's for the rest of your own miserable life?" There seems to be a little bit of pain in her voice, just the smallest trace... Is she really thinking what she's saying or just acting?
"I have a home I can return to, but I won't return to that place without you, got it? I will take you there, even by force if I have to! I'm not chasing any ghosts, you are alive and well, just standing right in front of me." She really is good at concealing her own thoughts and emotions, I can't interpret her facial expression at all and her body is straight as always, all I have learned about human behaviour proves useless against her...
"Weren't you the one saying I was already dead? I would love to see you try. If I didn't slip on the train that time I would have defeated you and I most certainly wouldn't have shown you any mercy." I would almost believe it, but it didn't feel as if she was really trying to kill me at that time... She was just trying to provoke me so that I would use all of my strength against her. I can't bear it any longer, I just throw my arms around her and bury my face in her chest...
"Stop it, you idiot! I know you better than that... I didn't see any hostility coming from you at that time, I saw just how damn lonely you were all that time!" I hug her even tighter, pressing myself completely against her warm and strong body. There are bruises all over her, but she still looks as beautiful as she always did... I want to take her home with me, now even more than ever before...
"*Sigh* What am I going to do with you? Seriously, no matter how many times I kick you, you will just come back for more, won't you? Well, that's the stubborn and stupid little sister I know..." She is responding to me!? She even puts her arms around me... her upper left arm is pressing against my back while she is stroking my hair with her right hand, slightly rumbling it... And she called me her little sister... I could just melt into this feeling...
"Alphard... I won't ever let you go again! Even if I have to stand here with you for the rest of our lives!" I can feel some tears building up in my eyes, but it isn't because I'm sad... I'm so happy right now! Everything will be fine now, won't it? We will return home and be happy with everyone, though Alphard will probably need some time adjusting to her new environment and getting used to social interactions, just like me...
"That won't be possible... it's already far too late for any of that, Canaan... I'm a terrorist, the whole world is looking for me to put me down. And if you stay with me the same will happen to you. I don't want that for you..." I almost forgot about all that in my bliss... it's been so long since Alphard called me Canaan instead of despair, let alone her little sister... If I can just get her to listen to me a little bit more...
"Alphard, that's not true. Well, it is, but you always have a plan up your sleeves or make one up within seconds, don't you? You could break free from this place, from Siam and even from all the governments in the world if you'd just want to, couldn't you?" Alphard was always like this, she always had at least one plan to get whatever she wanted, if only she'd want... Now she is just letting her hand moving down my back, resting on my hip...
"If you had said that a year ago... No, even then it wouldn't have mattered. There was never any chance for me to be something other than what I am now, Siam made that decision for me a long time ago." That's... Siam just did the best thing for us he could think of, he always protected us. "Think what you want to, I have made my decision a long time ago. I won't go anywhere other than where I am now, ever."
"Please, Alphard, just retu-" Suddenly Alphard makes a move, she took my gun right out of the holster at my hip! I try to move, but the gun in her hand is already pressed against the back of my head... "Alphard... Stop it already. I know that you don't want this anymore, I saw your true colours on that train... You were so lonely... If you'd just come with me I could help you, we could work something out with the governments..."
"You don't seem to understand me, do you? I told you, time and again, that I won't leave this place. I was glad that you were able to escape from here, a part of me at least, but if you just return here..." She is looking at me and for the first time since I met her I activate my synesthesia... Her colour...! It isn't the white of loneliness I saw in her before, it's pitch black... despair... "You don't leave me any other choice, do you...? My days have turned to night, the darkness has consumed the light, a long time ago..."
She takes the gun away from my head for a moment and I am about to breathe out a sigh of relief, but now she is pointing the gun against her own head! "Alphard! What the hell are you doing!? STOP IT!" I take my arms away from her back and try to get the gun out of her hand, but she lifts her knee with much force and hits me directly in the pit of my stomach. And as I am stumbling backwards...
"This will be for the best. For both of us. Good night, Canaan..."
*BANG*
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"ALPHAAAARD!" Just in the moment when Alphard pulled the trigger the whole scene changed suddenly, I'm not longer on a battlefield or something like that, I'm sitting... in one of the seats of a small plane? That's right... Natsume and I are the only ones on the plane, except for the pilot, it is a private jet of Natsume's employers or something, I guess. We will get down at an airport in the Swiss and take a car or something like that from there.
"Canaan...?" Natsume is sitting next to me, looking up from her laptop, staring at me confused and slightly annoyed. It was just a dream...I can feel sweat all over me and tears in my eyes, I must look horrible right now... But I'm really relieved... what kind of a dream was that anyways? Alphard wouldn't do something like that, right? I couldn't bear it if she did something like that just after I got so close to breaking through to her...
"It's... nothing. I'm just very anxious about meeting Alphard again after all that time, I guess." I quickly wipe away the sweat and tears, why did that have to happen in front of Natsume, of all people? Well, not that it really matters, I just feel rather embarrassed now. Though this whole dream makes me think about what might happen even more, maybe there was some sort of hidden message in it. Or not so hidden...
"Are you certain of that? If you are to become an impediment of this operation we should remove you before it even begins." There she goes again with her efficiency and objectivity. I don't think much would change if they would just let a computer handle her part, at least I wouldn't dislike a computer. Well, I won't have to put up with her much longer, so I'll just have to bear with it for now...
"I'm sure, otherwise I wouldn't be here. Besides, you have no-one else who could take on Alphard and the entire leadership of Snake, do you?" Alphard probably isn't as good as she used to be, loosing an arm probably effects a lot of things, but Alphard used to be the strongest person I ever knew, so she is probably still very dangerous... And I didn't slack off during all that time, though I didn't make any significant progress either...
"I do have faith in your abilities, but you mental condition is starting to worry me, you are displaying symptoms of an unhealthy obsession with your target and I don't want anything to jeopardise this mission. I will personally accompany you this time and make sure that you do kill Alphard, otherwise I will do it myself." I don't think Alphard would just let Natsume do that... but I can't let her try to kill Alphard either when we meet...
"Just do what you want to, I'm sure that Alphard would just politely wait for you to pull the trigger." If Natsume could have killed Alphard on her own she would've done so years ago, Alphard was always getting in her way and Natsume wants anything in her way gone as soon as possible. She might be good with a gun, I've never seen her use one, but I'm more than sure that Alphard and I are better.
"Isn't copying Alphard's haircut enough for you? Now you are adapting to her behaviour as well... If this goes on I will have a perfect clone of her if we have to wait for another year." I'm not adapting to her behaviour or her looks at all! A ponytail is just much more practical, the hairs don't get in my face while I fight or at some other time. That always annoyed me about my old hairstyle... And Natsume usually makes me act more sarcastic by default...
"Whatever. Give me that laptop for a second, I want to check out my e-mails." Maybe Kodoku wrote me another e-mail, though the last one sounded like a definite farewell. I could really need some distractions to calm me down right now and I would never talk to Natsume about feeling any sympathy for Alphard, otherwise she'd probably throw me out of the plane while still in mid-air...
"My employers have provided you with a laptop you may use for the duration of this mission, it is in a case under your seat. Didn't you pay any attention while I was explaining the details?" Well, I spend half the night thinking about Alphard instead of sleeping, so I had to catch up on it a little bit and listening to Natsume's lengthy explanations didn't really help that much either...
I mumble something about sleeping and she just sighs, turning her attention back to her own laptop. I guess she's had enough of me, just as I had enough of her. Under my seat, huh? I reach under it and there is a handle for something. I give it a small pull and indeed there is a small case with a laptop and some money in it, I guess these are my resources for this mission.
I start it right up and there is no password yet, so I can probably give it my own. On the other hand Natsume probably monitors what I do with it, I would think that she is more than capable of doing so. Not that it matters, I have no plans of discussing my dream or my feelings towards Alphard with Kodoku at the moment, I just want to see if there is anything for me at all. One new e-mail...
"Well, I have sent the specifics about your target to Natsume, but I will send them to you as well, just in case. We will meet in a hotel in Reims, but that information probably isn't relevant to you, Natsume will bring you there. It will supposedly be a masked ball, so I hope you can dance... Alphard may or may not participate, I myself don't know. She will make an appearance at the end of the ball, at least that was mentioned."
Hm, a masked ball...? That doesn't really sound like Alphard, but I guess it would fit her somewhat at the same time, she was always good at pretending... I can't dance at all... I guess this won't be as easy as I thought it would be, Natsume won't let me attack them unless Alphard is there, she wouldn't want to alarm Alphard before she is certain of her presence. The ensuing chaos of an attack would be the perfect chance for her to flee...
"The hall will have no decorations and everything will be under heavy guard by Snake soldiers, so hiding there is out of the question. You could probably take care of them, but the whole meeting will get cancelled if their headquarter lost contact with even one of the squads, so you will have to blend in with the other leaders. There are supposedly 32 persons in total, whether Alphard is one of them is uncertain."
Great, that sounds like real fun... blending in with the Snakes... I just want to get rid of them and meet Alphard, but Natsume won't take any risks as long as we don't even know if Alphard will come at all. That will be a lot more effort than my usual operations, so I'd better get some extra payments after all of this is over. Now that I think about it, if I get Alphard to cooperate with me I probably won't get any payment at all...
"I have sent you the profiles of four of the leaders, they will be staying in town and you will assume the roles of two of them. I picked them for you because they aren't very important, so you shouldn't have to engage too much in the discussions about the politics of Snake. In the attachment you will find detailed descriptions of them, the ones you choose will be your first targets. You should read through all of that, you have to be 'in character' until Alphard shows up."
Just wonderful... I was never a very good actor and now he expects me to assume the role of one of the leaders of Snake? I don't see Natsume having any trouble playing that part, but I... *Sigh* Well, it won't be for long, I guess. So I should read through the scripts and learn as much as I can about one of them. Well, Natsume will probably make the choice for me and I don't exactly envy her for that.
"I didn't tell you why we think Alphard will show up, I forgot about telling you, I already told Natsume. All of us leaders have received a video message from her and we already checked it, it appears to be the real thing, not some sort of forgery. I will send you a link at the end of the e-mail as well. You will need a password, I wrote it down for you as well. Hm, this will be a masked ball, so would you mind if I ask for your hand for the dance?"
Joking as always, huh? I don't know how to dance at all... Well, he would probably be a lot more understanding than the other ones, especially if we know who the other one is. Well, I can't say that I really know him, but I think he is a good person, based on our little chats so far. He was very helpful and it wouldn't make any sense for him to treat me any different now, he had many other chances to try to kill me, had he wanted to.
"Well, I would like a dance with you, but if you don't want to I can understand that. Though you should know that the dancing part is mandatory, you will have to dance, no matter how good or bad you are. Orders from above the top. Well, I guess we will meet soon, won't we? I'm a little bit excited about that, considering the circumstances, but I look forward to it all the same. See you."
A mandatory dance? Who makes up such nonsense!? *Sigh* Well, I am very flexible and I've learned a lot about martial arts, Siam even had me and Alphard dance together from time to time, though it was more of a joke for him, I guess... I don't really look forward to that part of the whole operation, but I'll have to do what I have to do, won't I? My only alternatives would be Natsume or some stranger who is a leader of Snake...
"Hm, I don't know anything about dancing or acting, but I guess I'll have to do it if I want to meet Alphard. Well, I guess I can dance with you, but only if you promise to be lenient, this is the first time I dance ever since I was a child. I would really prefer it to just get in there and blast away all of the other leaders, but there is no helping it, I guess. I just hope that your information is as accurate as always... See you."
What's next? The link to the video he sent me, I guess. Let's see, password... those are words from my native tongue, it means something like treacherous play when translated, that fits the Snakes just fine. Now the video is loading... after several seconds it starts playing, it displays a small part of a room, but there is little one can see in it. Only a table in the centre of the room, and sitting at the table...
"I wish to thank you for taking care of my organisation while I was gone, I would like to personally reward the leaders who watched over our projects during my absence. Do not confuse this video with an invitation, this is a direct order. Should you decide to ignore my orders this will be your death sentence. The only excuse you could have for not showing up would be your own death."
After that sentence she makes a rather long and grave pause, as if to let that new information sink in with her subordinates. It really is Alphard, I don't need my synesthesia or any tests to know that. I can only see her upper body, what remains of her left arm is probably below the table while she supports her chin with her right hand, looking as apathetic as always, but that doesn't make her threat less real.
"You will receive a letter within the next days, if you lose the invitation you will not be permitted to enter and that effectively means that you lose your life. All further information will be revealed to you in said letters which will be signed with my name, making them official documents of Snake and proving my claim of being Alphard Alshua. Test my claims if my words are not enough for you."
Hm, that seems to be it. Not very much information, but Natsume probably tested the video already, so I guess it's the real deal. Kodoku probably has his own letter attached to the e-mail, so there will be the information about the location and other relevant things. I guess I can just turn off the laptop now, I could still use a little bit of sleep... I reach out for the switch and just as I am about to press it...
"I look forward to seeing you, despair..." Was I imagining this just now...? I don't think Natsume knows that Alphard used to call me that, so she wouldn't notice this as being related to me, but it is like a personal invitation for me. So she knows that I will come after her... So much for the ambush, even now she is a step ahead of me... but the leaders of Snake seem to be unaware of this, if Kodoku is to be trusted...
"Do you know anything about that last sentence? My investigations didn't reveal any significance to that statement, but maybe you would know something? You know her better than anyone else." Alphard seems to have her plan set into motion already and I was a part of it before I was even aware of the existence of any plans. But her plan seems to bring us together this time, so I will just trust her and follow it for now...
"No idea. Maybe she has finally gone crazy?" That should make Natsume feel better, the idea of Alphard going insane... Alphard always was a little bit insane, in my opinion, but it never got in her way... Now I finally turn off the laptop, I will read through the documents some other time... I just want to sleep for a while now...
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Alphard's POV, run-down apartment
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Everything is proceeding as planned. Canaan and Natsume Yuri will walk right in and take care of all my problems for me, it could be part of a comedy. I am fairly certain that most of the so-called leaders of my precious little organisation will appear, they still fear me more than anything else... But they have to be replaced, they have outlived their usefulness a long time ago and almost all of them are already having plots to remove me again...
I wonder how many plans to assassinate me are already in motion, probably at least one for each of the leaders. Well, I will have to disappoint them, I won't reveal my appearance until they are all dead. And once that has happened I will take care of Canaan, I am rather sure that she got my invitations for her, there were more than enough for even her to notice. I wonder if Natsume will even make it through the little scene I have staged for them...
'Bellum omnium contra omnes', was it? Well, with the slight addition of 'atque omnes pro me'. 'The war of all against all and all that for me.' That should be a fairly amusing sight for me, though I will be there for the whole time, lying in wait... Canaan will survive, of that I am more than sure, I know it for certain. She would never get this far and just die on the last few meters of her way, that wouldn't be like her.
I won't even have to kill a single one of them on my own, I will just release some information about how the leaders have betrayed one another, that should give them enough reason to start shooting. I will have to push them a little bit, but I've been collecting data about their operations for almost a year and found more than enough. Once the first shot is fired there will be no turning back and all of them will be at each other's throats...
Had they done what I as their leader asked them to do they could live on, but they have displayed their intentions so well that Canaan's synesthesia couldn't reveal anything to me about them which I didn't know already. *Sigh* Canaan, hm? She had the chance to leave me and our past behind, I did my best to give her that opportunity. I played my act so that she would hate me, yet she tried to save me...
Her actions were almost as unreasonable as those of Liang Qi. If I hadn't taken that vaccine from her she would have died back then, or worse. Well, I am glad that I did what I did, otherwise I wouldn't have anyone within Snake whom I can trust. I don't trust Liang Qi as a person, but her actions are predictable and I know exactly how I have to pull the strings to make her move in the direction I want her to.
Cummings is still with her, I just don't get them at all... 'Love' is what he called it, just as she called her obsession with me 'love', but neither of them had a reasonable explanation for their actions. Cummings almost got himself killed and was happy while doing so for her, she almost got herself killed when I taught her a little lesson about disobeying my orders... Aren't humans supposed to be scared of death?
And then we have Canaan... no matter how many times I beat her up or put her friends in danger, she always came back to avenge Siam. Siam, of all people... the same Siam that started my hatred for the world and everything in it, the same Siam that was going to raise her the same way... I wouldn't allow that, I wanted to give her a chance for a different life. Had she just forgotten about avenging Siam and finding me...
"You were a great mentor in my place. Though I wonder why you are calling her 'Canaan' now. Didn't you tell her that her name was despair?" Here he is again, looking at me slightly amused. He won't ever let me rest, fate just won't ever let me escape from this cursed forearm and him, will it? Well, Siam destroyed my life long before I killed him, so there isn't anything I have to lose or anything I have to treasure.
"It was her own choice, she had more than enough chances to escape the fate you have forged for me. It doesn't matter what I tried, she just wouldn't hate me as I had hoped, and thus you lose this game of ours, don't you?" He wanted to raise her to become like me, a killing machine and a relict of war that has no reason or purpose to exist but to fight. And if there aren't any wars to fight in we just have to create new ones to give our lives a reason.
"You are wrong, I have won in the end. Canaan was my light and she has found a way of light in all the darkness we brought upon her life, she is stronger than ever before. It was foolish of me to raise the both of you the way I did, but in the end you performed a task I wasn't able to. I have you to thank for that." He really makes me angry... The Canaan that is today is not something we created, she shaped herself with the help of her friends...
"So I was just an expedient for you? Canaan must have been very naive, even back then, if she ever thought of you as anything close to a fatherly figure, something else both of us never had. We just had you and you were going to sacrifice us on an altar for your own hatred." Her calling him a father... or calling me her sister. She must have been walking through her life with a blindfold until I killed Siam.
"That... is probably true, I was never a father for either of you. But I did love you, I did what I thought would be best for you... I am sorry, it was a mistake." Now he dares to look at me with sad eyes, as if asking me to forgive him for the things he did!? I may never be free, but at least I can take some comfort in the knowledge that he is bound to me for the rest of my life as well, living on as a ghost of the past, never allowed to rest.
"You will never find your peace with what you've done, Siam, just as I will never find peace the way you made me. But it probably won't be long now, I don't want to stay in this world for too much longer, this will hopefully be my last great performance." I am so tired of it all... politics, money, all those other petty things humans cling to... I just want to escape it all and finally rest, no more pain, no hatred, just a void where I can forget about all that...
"I failed to show you the beauty of this world when I was still alive, all I was thinking about until my last seconds finally arrived was how to raise you to be the perfect machines for war. But there always was beauty in this world, even in the middle of a hopeless battlefield one can find a beacon of love and hope, isn't that right, Alphard?" What is he even getting at? My world, the world he created for me, is devoid of such emotions...
"There is no beauty in this world, just ugliness hiding behind a beautiful mask. Aren't I the best proof for that claim?" Others consider my appearance beautiful, though I can't take any pleasure in 'looking good' and things like that, it is just superficial and petty, as all humans are. I guess that I should expect that, after all I am just an average terrorist, so why should anyone bother to think about what might be going on in my head?
"Is that how I taught you to see the world? I don't quite believe that, after all I can see what is in your head, I am just a fabrication of your memories and thoughts, that's what you always told me since that day. And I must say that I see my own light in your very thoughts quite often, in those thoughts not tainted by me." *Sigh* I talked to him yet again, it would probably be a better idea to just ignore him completely. If only I could do that...
"You didn't bring a single glimpse of light into my world, I would've been better off if I had never seen it and just died on the battlefield before we even met." Sometimes I really wish that was what had happened, if I had just died on some battlefield without a name, without even a grave, just lying there, being forgotten by everyone except for the wild dogs thanking me for the feast... wouldn't that have been better in the long run?
"That's not true, and you know it. Canaan is your light as well, whether you want to admit it or don't. You don't want to die, I remember how happy you felt when she held onto your arm, trying to pull you up. Even back then you took a shine to her, when we were all together, didn't you? You were her older sister and pretty proud of that, if your memories don't betray me, do you remember how you used to dance with her?"
"I guess..." I'm not sure if I could call her stumbling over her own two feet a dance, but it was close enough, wasn't it? Well, there are some nice memories, but they aren't enough to outweigh the bad ones, are they? For every nice memory with Canaan I remember at least three scenes where I was hurt, by you, by society, by everything... How could I cherish something good in such a world? It will just be taken from me again...
"Well, you won't know unless you try, will you? Why don't you take a chance for her, just this once? It won't hurt you, will it? You could just give it one last chance and rest after that, if it fails. Is that so much to ask for? All you have to do is take her hand, she already reached out for you once." He doesn't understand anything at all... If I don't lead Snake someone else will come and do it, someone even worse.
"I have to play my part until the end of this play, just as you have played your own role until I wrote you off the script. Now it doesn't even matter anymore, I will continue my path, down and down, until I sink to the bottom and will rest there..." That's all I can ask for. If I live on I will just assume my old role and fight against the world and the corruption while being corrupted to the very core of my own soul, if there even is such a thing...
"You are right about that part, except for you none could tame the Snakes and have them fight for a cause which is even remotely good, without your leadership they will just sink deeper and deeper, even below you. But does that mean you have to reject any form of kindness from anyone? You should tell me, I was never as good at developing complex plans as you were and Canaan probably feels the same."
"Why would I want to live on if there is nothing worth doing for me? The world and Canaan would be better off if I wasn't there, if my body had stayed in the war where my mind still lingers to this very day." If only Canaan could let me go, she would be free to return to her precious friends and her home, she could escape this nightmare. Why is she even still pursuing me, if she isn't going to take revenge?
"She is searching for someone precious to her, her older sister who has gone astray a long time ago, she always did that, since the day you shot me. She was wondering why her beloved sister would do something like that, she was crying out, praying for you to turn back and stop doing what you did. She did hate you at first, but that faded as well as time passed by. Wouldn't she be worth living for?"
"What would you know about her inner thoughts and motivation? You are just my subconscious, searching for an easy way out of this. Did you even stop for a second to think about what it would mean if I went with her? I could deliver myself to 'justice', but that would be the same as shooting myself. I could run away again, with her, but that way she wouldn't pull me out of the abyss, she would be pulled down with me instead."
"So you do care for her, though you won't admit it openly, otherwise you would've never thought about things like what the consequences for her would be. But you aren't the Alphard I knew at all, the Alphard I know would think of some great scheme to get her way, no matter how low the odds of winning are. You could free yourself if you would let yourself." He might be right about that, but would that end him or would it just increase my torture? This discussion is over, there is nothing more to say.
*Sigh* Time to get up. It is slightly uncomfortable in this old building, very cold and the floor is hard. Well, that's hardly a reason to complain, I have slept in worse places and for now I want to stay concealed, so I will have to bear with it for the time being. Besides, it's a good way to train immune system, a soft bed and a warm home would make me weak. A shower wouldn't be bad, but I will wait with that until I will attend my own little masked ball.
What should I do today? I have some free time, so I might just go out for a little while. Well, I will disguise myself, that way no one should recognise me, even if I were to meet them. Cummings can take care of business for me right now, though I will have to check his report later on. Liang Qi will probably jump right at me, it has been more than a month since I met her. She is still obsessed with me...
That is rather beneficial for me, so I won't complain. Though I wish she could just stop that, I think it's gotten worse since I took the vaccine from her hands and crushed the sample under my boots. That research will be continued by Natsume either way, my plan will work on even if I'm not there to execute it. They will bring about their own fall with this research, foolish as they are. Well, that is hardly something to blame me for, is it?
Quite amusing, now that I think about it. If their results would become something I actually need I could just steal it right back. Other users of snyesthesia could be a bother for some of my future operations, if there are any, but there are ways to trick that ability, so if they do complete this research I will just have to give my soldiers training to manipulate their own emotions or to suppress them, that way synesthesia is useless.
If they would reproduce the mutations in Canaan, the Ua virus can cause many different symptoms and reacts different to different hosts. it would be much more complicated if they could control the effects of the virus and use it to their advantage, but I have all of it under control, I can end all of their research in that department with a single one of my orders. One order and their laboratories will be dust.
Well, I can worry about that if the time ever comes, one of their best researchers is part of Snake. He will send me a report if they can use it, nothing else until then. They won't suspect a thing until then, he is just a very talented doctor with no apparent connection to Snake whatsoever. This data never really left my hand, I just lend it to them, if I ever feel the need to do something about it I will.
Of course I wouldn't be foolish enough to let everything rest on a single person, humans are unreliable at best and those laboratories send all of their results towards a headquarter with better protection, but that place was already hacked and many delightful surprises would wait for them if they tried to use that terminal, many viruses lie dormant in it, just waiting for my orders to activate. I have even more back-up plans, but those two should be sufficient.
I think I will just go for a little stroll. It's pretty cold, but the weather is nice and I still have some hours until I have to meet Cummings.
...
Author's note: Well, we aren't too sure about how we portray the characters, maybe Alphard is a little bit too... melancholic and suicidal? We just felt that she would be exactly like that if she really tried to save Canaan all that time and thought the only solution would be her death. This probably contradicts canon, but whatever... I hope you still like it, there will be brighter days for her later on, of that we're pretty sure.
