The Voice in Your Heart
Page 11: And Yet, It Is
"Back on that topic, now, Delta?" Epsilon chuckled. "Care to fill me in the details?"
"After I put Red Alert down and killed the fuck out of Sigma with X and Zee, I got accepted into the Hunters the following week." Delta explained. "Of course, it's on the condition that I never leave."
Epsilon winced. "God damn, that sounded like what I was subjected to. No one ever cared to tell me about my possible future after Jakob, like no one cared, like I was never supposed to leave. Are you sure you can't retire, even after like, eleven years of servitude? Have they ever named a punishment for if you decide to leave, or ask to leave?" he commented.
Axl tensed before he replied. "No, they never did. You're right that it feels like they're perfectly confident I'm never going to leave, and honestly, I AM not planning to leave anytime soon. Because right now, theoretically, life's good. I've got a steady job that's not really dangerous 'cos I'm an S-rank now, and I have tons of cash I'm not really using. But now that you mention it, it's possible that I'm living in a gilded cage…"
"Honestly, Delta, if you like it, then it's fine. Because a life like yours, a life like a normal-ish working person, is what I had wanted. Sure, it's kind of dull right now, but to brighten it up, you don't really need to make a radical alteration to it. In fact, you have the means to slowly change your life." Epsilon explained.
"But we've tried. You got me into numerous things, none of which really stuck. Like, we hung out sometimes, tried fishing, for example. And then you tried to get me into cooking, but eventually we just decided to stop after the smorgasbord of ingredients and prep that goes into only one dish, and I just have no time as a hunter. And so on." Axl argued.
"I brought up leaving earlier, but do you really have a good reason to leave?" Epsilon questioned. "Are you really serious about leaving all this behind? You worked your ass off to get here, right?"
"The thing is, I'm not even sure if it's worth it. Sure, I earned it, and life's stable and OK right now, but I just…everything just feels so monotone, once you pointed it out." Axl explained.
"I can't help but think but you need to calm down a little. I know that I had a point back there and you know, too, but I don't want you to recklessly make a life-changing decision, especially if it's because of what I said out of nowhere." Epsilon said.
Axl sighed. "You're right…I'm getting all tense for no reason. But still, Epsilon. Eleven years of doing the same goddamn things. Can you believe it? I joined, and then about 2 years later, Laurentia came here with Bris. 5 years later, I got my A rank, and then Laurentia finished the first actual New-Gen—you. 3 years later, you rebelled, and then we met and I got my S rank shortly afterwards. One year later, here we are now." Axl tensed and coughed. "Nothing really changed in my life. All I had been saying…is just the changes of other people's lives. My life only really changed when we met."
"So you have this gut feeling that it's time to get to the next level?" Epsilon asked. "And what does it have to do with you suspecting that something's up when you got nearly-instantly accepted into the Maverick Hunters?"
"Like you said—I feel like that me being in a gilded cage is something deliberately done to me. Like they want to keep me here. Look, I have no problems staying a hunter forever. But I have a problem with being used, like last time." Axl explained, his mental voice turning into a low growl at the end. "I want to know if I really was used."
"There's no way to find out, considering your cert said that you were accepted because of your dedication to the greater good…" Epsilon sighed. "But if you wanna find out so badly, then we may have to do something illegal…" he continued.
"Epsilon. What the fuck. I want to know the truth, not get kicked out." Axl said.
"Look, do you wanna find out or not?" Epsilon said. "I know it sounds messed up, but fuck the police, it doesn't matter if we don't get caught. I have the exact powers to help you with that, it's called Stealth Mode. And you know I'm an ace at hacking. That's how I managed to sneak out of my workshop and start the rebellion without anybody knowing the real truth." he explained.
"God damn, Epsilon, should've brought it up earlier." Axl chuckled, his real body heaving a sigh. "So what do you have in mind?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Epsilon chuckled. "Let's go to the S-class area in the Hunter archives and start messing around until we find it!"
Axl groaned. He would've smacked Epsilon in the face hard if the latter had a body of his own. "What the fuck are we going to fucking do, you fucked up motherfucking motherfucker? There's no direction whatsoever in it! So we're just gonna walk around the place and randomly browse through entries to find information that's obviously not put out there for everyone to see? There's got to be something concrete we know we'll do!"
"Excuse me, I don't know jack shit about the S-class areas, also because you've never been there, either!" Epsilon defended himself. "We can get a librarian to guide us, but that's obviously not the way to go if you want to hack for confidential information! Randomly messing around there is obviously the only way to go right now."
"Alright, alright…" Axl sighed, his real body chuckling. "I've got nothing else to do for the day since I'm done with my patrolling shift, so let's get going."
"You sure this Stealth Mode isn't gonna be detected by the camera at all?"
Arriving in the empty S-class area invisible, Axl questioned Epsilon.
"If it's not as effective as I told you, I wouldn't be here with you right now." Epsilon giggled. "Honestly, it was funny when we walked around shelves to find a blind spot to turn invisible."
"Yeah, it would be funny if I suddenly turned invisible while I was being recorded. Funnier thing is how empty this place is and how tiny the visitor history is, even for the whole decade. Like no one cares about it." Axl added. "So, I guess our destination is that big supercomputer in the center of this area."
"That brochure we picked up in the beginning of the area said that the big thing's basically all the data related to the Mavhunters are. Like, it's the server of the Hunters' cloud storage system. So if I'm going to hack for possibly deleted files or guarded files, it's all there." Epsilon explained.
"Epsilon. What if the proof of the true reason behind my integration's deleted?" Axl questioned. "It's been 11 years, you know. Are you sure you can recover data from that so long ago?"
"Delta. This is the 23rd century. This isn't the 2000s. Meanwhile, people regretting the data they lost years ago will always exist, and technology will continue to evolve to accommodate more people, those people included. I'm confident I can scrounge it up." Epsilon explained.
"Alright…" Axl responded as he walked towards the gigantic supercomputer. "Show me what you've got."
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This ties back to my first fic ever on FFN, called We Want You. If you've read it, you know what's coming. Including the whole of We Want You will be redundant, so I'm just going to skip over it and let you read it if you're interested. Even if you're not reading it, Page 12 will be written in such a manner that even if you don't, you can understand what's going on anyways.