007 on 004

Cyborg number: 004. Real name: Albert Heinrich. Black-Ghost-enforced-Codename: Shinigami/ Sensenmann/ Reaper. Date of birth: 11th November 1933. Date of death: 20th February 1964. Date of re-birth as a cyborg: 21st February 1964, at approximately five in the morning. Cyborg abilities: armed almost literally to the teeth. Eye colour: grey. Hair colour: blonde.

This much I know. This much I have been able to find out through casual conversation and observation. I like to think I'm good at reading people; it comes with the territory in acting. I can look at 002 and see a young man who dislikes feeling helpless. He hates to be treated like a child and considers anything except charging headfirst into conflict as a sign of weakness. I look at 005 and I see a man who looks at the whole world and sees a mirror, except he can't see his own reflection in it. Under his calm exterior, he's just as confused as the rest of us; the only difference is that he's not afraid of not knowing. I don't know what to make of 004.

What do you say to a man who isn't afraid of anything? No really, that wasn't a joke; I'm actually asking. As strange as it may seem, I am at a loss for words. The man is just unreadable. He doesn't talk much and is surprisingly frank when he does. He is perfectly cordial to those around him most of the time, broken only by occasional fits of temper in battle (and occasionally out of it). I'm still trying to figure out if he was being serious with me when he answered "touch screens" when I asked him what in the modern world he found hardest to get used to. (He was completely straight-faced when he answered, but...) And yes, I am a tiny bit nervous around him, mainly because he seems to have taken to this whole cyborg affair a little too well.

No, wait, sorry, that's not what I mean. I don't think he's inhuman. I just mean that he doesn't seem scared of the power he's been given and he doesn't seem to have any qualms about attacking those who would put the team in danger. When I asked him about them, he told me he'd never even held a gun before becoming a cyborg, nor had he had anything resembling combat training. See, you look at 008 and you can tell he's used to this. He's familiar with weapons and calm in a crisis. Compare that to someone like 003 (or yes, even to me) and you're completely at the other end of the spectrum. We hold those guns like they're going to explode in our faces at any second and we still hesitate before attacking, even when our lives are quite obviously in danger. 004, however, I would describe as an amateur enthusiast. He doesn't shy away from attacking our enemies or putting himself in harm's way. Compared to 008, he has no tactics, experience or style but he has more than enough enthusiasm to get him through. 009 and 002 are the same, but, not really on the same scale, if you get my meaning. With 004, I just keep wondering what it is that drives him to be so steady when death is screaming in his face. He just, I don't know, accepts it all. What is it that drives a man to become so reckless?

But of course, at the same time I'll bet my boots he isn't as adjusted as he acts. I may not be a mind reader (and no, 001, if you can hear this, it isn't an invitation to prove me wrong) but I can at least pick up on some hints when someone isn't all together.

Let me set the scene first, if you'll humour me. We had barely been out of Black Ghost's clutches for a day when we arrived in Japan. After three solid days of fighting for our lives and flying across the world, we were all pretty much on the brink of complete physical and emotional exhaustion. We arrived at Mr Kosumi's house a little before 3AM local time, barely able to think straight, let alone fight for our lives. We were all very much aware that coming to this place was a huge gamble and that there was at least some chance that our enemy would already be there, ready and waiting for us, but, at that point we wouldn't have been able to do much about it anyway. Thankfully, it was just the old man in the house. After letting us in, Kosumi was either polite or tired enough not to ask us what was going on. He just pointed to a western style living room and told us all to try and get some sleep for the time being. (His house is actually impressively big. We would all later get our own bedrooms but at that point every spare room in the building was full of junk and none of us could be bothered tidying.) The conversation about who would sleep where was mercifully brief. 003 and 001, being the only woman and baby present, would get the armchair to share. 002 and 008 would share two-seater sofa and 006 and I would share the three-seater. 009, 005 and 004 each picked an area of floor to sleep on and within ten minutes we were all out for the count.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who woke up during that first night. Even the smallest noises disturbed my sleep. Every rolling wave in the sea became the roaring of an engine, full of soldiers. Every seagull cry was an alarm, wailing into the night. You get the idea. I ended up leaving the makeshift dormitory for a glass of water. On my way through, I got a look at the others as they slept. 004 was not sleeping well. He kept moving in his sleep, his face changing. I know that kind if sleep. It is the sleep of a person who has gotten used to being next to someone else at night. Instinctively, you end up noticing the other person's presence in your sleep and you don't rest right without them beside you. I went through it when Sophie left me. Who was he missing? Of course he hasn't spoken about it and I'm not brave enough to just ask out of nowhere.

Putting all this into words is a bit of a tricky process, you know. As a group, we are bound together by necessity, made brothers by circumstance. When danger threatens, we work as a single unit, protecting each others' backs, saving the world... But, you take the danger away, we lose all that. We revert to what we really are: a group of ordinary civilians. Lost, frightened, mutilated and so far out of our depth that we can't even see the shore anymore. We argue, we make mistakes, we keep one another at arm's length. Some of us even disappear off to other continents. 004 vanishes off to Germany when the fight ends, spends his free time in a tiny one-bed apartment in Berlin and works part time for a dingy delivery company, surrounded by men half his age at least. He could be living it up with us in Japan, eating fine cuisine every day and enjoying the relative calm that we share in peacetime. Some people are naturally loners, I suppose.

All I can think about is how he manages to get past airport security. I mean, the man is almost entirely made of metal, right? And I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a passport anymore either. Or a driving licence? How does he do anything? I guess some folk are just a whole lot more resourceful and/or willing to risk trouble to get what they want. I should really try to think outside the box more often...

But that's it, isn't it? Some people can just take risks, and others can't. I thought I was living dangerously at the age of 17 when I smoked pot in a friend's house while his parents were out at a concert. But yet, here I am, a cyborg soldier, able to defy the laws of biology, mechanics and biomechanics. We all have our hidden depths. In time, we will all learn more about one another. As the bard himself once wrote "let every eye negotiate for itself"...