The cashier gave them a strange look and Frankenstein turned to give her a reassuring smile, though his heart was pounding hard in his chest. "Ah, fancy meeting you here!" He exclaimed with fake cheer directed towards M-24. "Let's go and catch up outside."
The cashier gave him a dubious look, not failing to observe how the both of them had paled considerably. She opened her mouth to say something, but Raizel beat her to it.
"I want another candy," he said, sliding his hand into Frankenstein's and gripping it tightly. M-24 looked down at him and his eyes widened a little in confusion.
"O-okay." She said and slipped Raizel another candy and rung up Frankenstein's purchases. Frankenstein grabbed the bag and pulled Raizel out of the supermarket, giving M-24 a meaningful look. Frankenstein stepped outside and went to a secluded spot in the parking lot from where he could see the doors perfectly well. M-24 ambled out not long after, his solitary purchase cradled close to his chest and he donned his hat as soon as he spotted Frankenstein.
Raizel tugged on his hand and Frankenstein gave him an imploring look, asking him silently to get behind him. M-24 had seen him already so there was no hiding him, but Frankenstein could try.
"Dr. F," M-24 greeted nervously and looked between the pair of them with a gaze that betrayed interest. "It's been a long time."
"Five years, give or take," Frankenstein said airily, clutching at Raizel's fingers out of sight.
"Never thought I'd run into you here. We thought you had gotten away for good, if you weren't dead already, that is." There was a shifty look on his face and Frankenstein's eyes narrowed at that.
"You kidnapped those kids?" He got straight to the point, ignoring M-24's attempts to stall for time before any backup arrived, which Frankenstein was sure was on its way. "Don't think I don't know."
M-24 gave him a sheepish look and backed a little, raising his hands to pacify Frankenstein's anger. "Does it matter that we did? Besides, why are you here? Roaming around in public?"
"I have my reasons," Frankenstein replied, before grabbing the lapels of M-24's coat and dragging him down forcefully. "How many of you are here? Tell me or I might be forced to break your neck."
M-24 was a big guy, fairly strong physically, but Frankenstein was stronger. M-24 knew it too because he made no moves to shake Frankenstein off. "Just me and M-21," he said quickly.
Frankenstein let him go, not all that mollified, but it would have to do under the circumstances. "Just you two? What about the rest of your comrades?"
M-24's expression closed off. "Dead," he said in a vacant voice and pulled at his coat in a distracted manner.
"Oh."
It wasn't something Frankenstein hadn't foreseen, but it still came as a surprise. Frankenstein could commiserate with that, though he did not know what to offer as comfort. What could his words mean to someone like these people who were even worse off than he was?
"M-21 will be here soon. I haven't told him what happened, so…" M-24 said then, scuffing his shoes on the pavement and looking for all intents and purposes like an awkward child.
"Let those kids go, M-24," Frankenstein implored instead, ignoring the way out even though it had been given to him, because he knew what kind of people these two were.
"We're not all as lucky as you were, Dr. F," M-24 said quietly. "You were able to make a clean break, but we can't. I can't. You were always kind to us back then, so just this time I'll let you go. Please," his face twisted in remorse. "Don't force me."
"Do you really think you are letting me go?" Frankenstein asked, shifting the shopping bag from his right hand to the left and letting go of Raizel's hand. He could feel Raizel's discomfort and wanted nothing but to take him to a safe place, away from the drama from his past life. It couldn't be helped right now, however.
"I know I can't take you on alone, but if M-21 comes here, even you'd have a hard time fighting off the both of us."
"Really now?" Frankenstein pushed his fingers into his hair, pushing it away from his face as he regarded M-24 with a smirk. To think these guys were not taking him seriously. It had been a while since he'd fought someone, but he was raring to go, blood singing in his veins from long-forgotten excitement. He would have too, if not for a small hand coming to rest on his arm, stopping him in his tracks.
Frankenstein started, sighed and shook his head, pulling away from the confrontational stance.
"Right," he cleared his throat and took Raizel's hand in his again. "M-24, the kids –"
"M-24?" Another voice joined his and they all turned to look at the new arrival. Frankenstein had now lost his window of opportunity to escape unscathed because between the two of them, M-24 was kinder, more prone to being generous than M-21. Not to say that M-21 wasn't a good guy – they both were, but M-21 was extremely protective of his comrades and would do anything for them. Go to any lengths. It helped that he was the strongest among them, and as such he had taken on the role of saving them. Between M-24's safety and Frankenstein's, he would definitely choose M-24 – and Frankenstein didn't resent that. But.
He would never let the kids go.
"Dr. F?" M-21 exclaimed, just as taken aback at M-24 was and Frankenstein suppressed a sigh.
"Right, we're going to attract too much attention standing here in such a suspicious way. Let's go to that café." He pointed to a nearby one and looked at Raizel for confirmation. Raizel, for his part, looked a little perturbed but he made no moves to dissuade Frankenstein otherwise. Then, Frankenstein remembered. "Ah yes, the kids. Are they safe, at least?"
"What?" Asked M-21, shocked. He was definitely not expecting to meet Frankenstein here, or that he'd know what they had been up to.
"Yes," M-24 answered pretty much simultaneously. "We knocked them out. They aren't hurt."
"M-24, you…"
"Let's not make a scene here, M-21," he said. "We can't walk away from this. Not now."
Without further ado, they made their way to the café where Frankenstein ordered a vanilla milkshake for Raizel and an Americano for himself. The other two ordered lattes and they waited in complete silence until their orders arrived.
Raizel took to his drink with barely concealed delight and sipped at it with dignity mere mortals could never exhibit. Frankenstein suppressed a burst of fondness at the image and turned to look at the others, trying to focus at the task at hand.
"So," Frankenstein said, tasting the bitter blend on his tongue. "Why did you kidnap those children?"
M-21 crossed his arms and tried to give him an intimidating glare, growling when he spoke, though the effect was marred by the cheery atmosphere of the café and the peppy music playing in the background: "What is it to you?"
"Yes," M-24 agreed. "What is it to you? You got out of the Union. What more do you want?"
"Union?"
"They are calling themselves that now, after you'd escaped with so much data and information about our bases," M-21 said.
"I escaped with what?"
"The data?" M-24 said, puzzled. "The location of all the bases around the world, all our weapons, biological as well as mechanical alike, you escaped with them, right?"
Frankenstein pursed his lips. He couldn't remember if he did and that was worrying in itself. "I am not sure if I did."
"What are you talking about?" M-21 snapped. "We were all told to shoot you down on sight, if we ever crossed paths with you. You stole the only blueprints of our latest technologies and made off with it. How can you not know?"
Frankenstein bowed his head and searched deep into his memories, but nothing seemed to come to mind. He raised his head after a few minutes and gave them an apologetic look. "I'm afraid I've lost my memories of that incident completely. If I did steal something, I can no longer remember it."
"Well," M-21 sighed in irritation. "That's just great. How is it that you have forgotten something so important? You were one of the Union's most brilliant scientists. You worked right under the authority of the First Elder. How can you be living here, in this little town, wasting your time taking care of kids?"
Raizel looked up at that, putting away his empty glass. He didn't seem offended at the way M-21 had alluded to him, but Frankenstein bristled anyway.
"That day," Frankenstein said. "I had jumped off the cliff the moment I had a lucid moment between the drug-fuelled haze they kept me in. I dived off a cliff because I didn't want to live like that anymore. It was just my luck that below the tree cover that broke my fall, there was a giant hidden lake. I fell into the water and only a few broken bones. Nothing I couldn't recover from, and it was such a pity."
M-21 snapped his mouth close and glared at his cold latte. M-24 had wisely finished his, trying to not get between the two hot-headed men.
"I wanted to die, you know. It seemed like that was the only way I could stop them from exploiting my intelligence. I had never been allowed the free use of my own intellect. They harvested it and made it completely inaccessible to me by putting me on mind-controlling drugs. You have heard of those, right?" Not everyone was forced to take them, after all. A lot of people were kept in line by fear tactics, but it wasn't possible to harness true brilliance by force. It had to be coerced out through other, more sinister methods.
M-24 looked truly shocked. "They put you on drugs? But that would kill you sooner or later, surely, they wouldn't…?"
Frankenstein smiled grimly and both M-24 and M-21 winced. These two had been rather naïve, and as such were never very successful as agents since they lacked the ruthless ways of most other, more favoured ones. It was no wonder that they were pretty much on the bottom rung of the ladder of the Organisation's hierarchy, though they had immense potential, if Frankenstein remembered right.
M-21 placed his hand on M-24's arm, sharing a look that conveyed something to the other that Frankenstein wasn't privy to. He finished his coffee and placed the cup back in the saucer with a delicate little clink. He turned to Raizel to see if there was something else he'd like, and found himself the sole focus of two concerned red eyes. Raizel's lips were thinned in displeasure and the look in his eyes was pained.
Was he concerned about Frankenstein? Or bothered by the almost flippant way Frankenstein treated his mortality?
"Do you want to try the mango flavour?" Frankenstein asked softly, smiling down at him to put him at ease.
Raizel nodded, but there was still a distraught cast to his expression that bothered Frankenstein. But there wasn't anything he could do about it though – or anyone, really.
"To lose your will – the very essence of humanity is the worst you can do to someone who possesses it," Raizel spoke quietly, breaking the awkward silence left behind by the earlier conversation. "It is a great crime to breach that inviolate space that exists within humans and then gain control of it. Humans are not meant to have someone else in their head." Raizel looked sadly at both Frankenstein and M-24. "Subjugating a human's body is already unforgivable – to do it to their minds as well is inconceivably awful."
M-21 and M-24 stared Raizel in shock whereas Frankenstein just felt a great sorrow in his heart. Not just because Raizel's words rang true; it was also because he knew how much Raizel blamed himself for the predicament they were in. The grief Raizel felt was smothering Frankenstein right this moment, robbing him the ability to even speak or comfort Raizel the way he should be.
It was then that M-24 clutched at his chest and made a distressed sound. "It hurts," he said faintly. "Looking at him – it hurts." He pointed in Raizel's direction, struggling to breathe.
Raizel's eyes widened and his body dissolved into the thin air, leaving both M-21 and M-24 stunned. They had been in a secluded spot so the sudden disappearing act hadn't attracted any untoward attention, but Frankenstein still felt like he had lost a few years of his life just to that. If he had any left to lose, that is.
"What the fuck?" M-21 was the first one to recover, clutching at M-24's arm and trying to shield him from a foe he couldn't even see.
Frankenstein pinched the bridge of his nose and reached out with his newly enhanced senses. He was able to locate Raizel fairly quickly. He was at home, probably at one of the windows and looking desolately out of them. Raizel's soul felt wounded. He had been afraid of hurting someone with his enormous psychic field and Frankenstein had still lured him out. Not that he would blame Frankenstein.
No, he would only blame himself.
"Yeah, about that," Frankenstein said. Going to Raizel right now was futile. He'd just disappear further. He might even return to the castle and not let Frankenstein follow. It was a miracle as it is that he'd opted to return home, and not back to the prison. Frankenstein was grateful – he really was. "That person is psychic and can't really contain his powers that well. It's not his fault – he was hurt by the people who formed the Organisation and as such his powers leak out from his body. He's always in pain because of that, but to him violating someone's mental space is worse than the agony he goes through on a daily basis."
"Psychic?" M-21 repeated sceptically. The frown across his scarred mouth told Frankenstein just how much stock he put into Frankenstein's words.
"You saw him disappear right in front of your eyes. You can't say that it didn't happen," Frankenstein pointed out. Every nerve inside his body screamed at him to go to Raizel, to fold his little form in his arms and soothe his pain. He resisted the urge with great effort and focused on his duty – for he had one now. He had to save the kids these two had kidnapped, and perhaps help them out in the process, too.
"Why was it so painful? My heart hurt so much that I thought I was going to die," M-24 said hoarsely. His fingers were still trembling, his face was covered in cold sweat and he had an unhealthy pallor on his face. But that was to be expected: he had been hit with the full force of Raizel's sadness and guilty-conscience right in the face when he hadn't become used to it the way Frankenstein had.
He had no mental shields to speak of.
"That's just a fraction of what he feels every day," Frankenstein murmured, tracing the edge of the coffee cup. "He was just upset enough to forget that he shouldn't have let his own control slip."
"What is he?" M-21 asked, rubbing M-24's arm and scooting even closer to him as if he could physically soak up the awful feeling M-24 was suffering from.
"I don't know," Frankenstein admitted. "The others haven't told me, and I don't want to ask him personally. If he thinks I really need that information, he will tell me. That's what I believe." He did have some ideas, however, but this was no time for idle speculation.
They gave him a doubtful look.
"No, really." Frankenstein sighed and closed his eyes. "When the information becomes truly necessary, he will divulge it without question. Even if talking about it makes him sad."
"How can you trust him so much?" It was M-21 who asked him that, and he seemed conflicted. "How can you trust something you can't even understand or know anything about?"
"Did you look at him?" Frankenstein asked with a soft laugh. When they nodded at him, understanding dawning in their eyes, he continued: "He just inspires confidence in a way nothing or no one else can. I have lived with him for almost eight months now and he has never harmed me. I can't explain it, but it's probably his aura? It's very calming and gentle. Just like him."
"So a form of mind-control?" M-21 bared his teeth in distaste, because just like Frankenstein it was a sore spot for him.
Frankenstein shook his head. "No. He doesn't use mind-control. What I feel from him is the warmth of his soul, if you can accept soul as a concept that exists. His soul shields me from my own demons, protecting me and holding me close as if I were something precious." He dipped his head to hide his fond smile. "Even someone like me…"
Silence prevailed awhile as each of them were lost in their own thoughts, working out the import of today's events. Eventually, Frankenstein brought up the reason they had come here in the first place.
"The kids, will you let them go? What even happened that you had to involve civilians?"
"We were transporting a shipment of goods to a certain place – sorry that we can't tell you where – and they saw us loading some of it up. They probably didn't think much of it, but it's the Union's policy to eliminate witnesses," M-24 answered, ignoring M-21's alarmed look.
"Have they seen your faces?" Frankenstein asked.
"Yes."
"When they saw you load the supplies or when you kidnapped them?"
"When we were loading up the supplies. We made sure to kidnap them quietly, though it was difficult in the museum. I didn't want to use the mind-wiping drug on them, though that would have left them alive. It's better to die than to have that used on you.'
Frankenstein couldn't help agreeing. The resultant brain damage from that drug was more than dreadful.
"Still," Frankenstein said. "If they haven't seen who kidnapped them, I think it would be better to let them go. I can't overlook this, not when innocent lives are involved."
"You," M-21 said sharply, jabbing a finger in his direction in accusation. "You have killed plenty of innocents before."
"And not a day goes by when I don't try to remind myself of that," Frankenstein replied in a solemn voice. "Not a moment when I don't blame myself for killing them even though it wasn't done on purpose. I don't want more people to lose their lives pointlessly. Surely even you understand that, M-21?"
M-21 wouldn't meet his eyes anymore.
"M-21, you know Dr. F is right."
"Frankenstein."
"What?" asked M-24, turning to throw him a quizzical look.
"Call me Frankenstein. That's my name now."
"Frankenstein, then," M-21 said gruffly and grabbed a nearby napkin, scribbled a few lines on it and pushed it into Frankenstein's hands. "That's where they are. Go and free them, if you want. We'll be off now. Stay out of sight, if you know what's good for you."
"I will." He knew that he had a chance at spending the rest of his life peacefully, but he also knew that he couldn't afford that. But no need to worry these two. And speaking of which: "Where are you two going?"
"Back to our mission," M-21 said in a sullen voice. "I'm sure the higher ups will be very interested to know why we were late in our delivery."
Frankenstein tapped his lips with a finger and regarded them with renewed interest. "You could also not go back…"
"What?" both M-21 and M-24 exclaimed together.
The thing was that Frankenstein remembered Dr. Crombel all too well. M-21 and M-24 were agents who worked under his authority, and as such were answerable to him in a direct chain of command. Frankenstein didn't want to send them back to that hell, not when he knew intimately just how it was. All of the researchers the Organisation had, only a handful weren't downright crazy. It didn't matter if it was Crombel or Aris or Ignes, Frankenstein hated the lot of them with a burning passion.
"Stay with us. It would help you heal, in any case," Frankenstein said. He knew Raizel wouldn't mind, in fact he would love to extend his protection to the people abused by those traitors. "Being with Raizel, you know that kid, will help you gain a better control of your mind and repel the others from the Organisation."
M-21 sat down slowly and stared at Frankenstein as if he had grown a second head.
"What you say sounds too good to be true. How do I know you aren't just going to use us?"
"That's a valid concern," Frankenstein said and gave the matter some thought. Then he produced a notebook from his pocket and wrote down a number. "I'll show you my trust first. Here's my phone number. Call me if you change your mind."
He was aware that they could just hand him over to the Organisation and earn some privileges, but what kind of life was that? It was an acceptable risk – they could always go live somewhere else, that wasn't an issue, really.
"All right," M-21 said and walked out of the café with M-24 and Frankenstein watched them go.
He ordered another cup of hot coffee and mulled over the new information he had gained today. He wrote it down in his notebook using the cipher he usually didn't usually utilise, and tucked it away. Enough of that, he now had a much more important thing to do.
Go comfort Raizel and ply him with tea and sweets. And rescue the children, of course.
