Chapter 28

Mid-day sunlight overheated her sleeping face and finally dragged her from the world of dreams. She had intentionally overslept and by the time she arrived at the labs the others were just breaking for lunch. If they were curious about her uncharacteristic lateness such thoughts were well masked behind respectful expressions.

She was once again alone before the sterile room. The harsh scent of chemical cleaner assaulted her nose, obviously used to mask the reek and rot of death. A watery reflection of blue light washed over the still wet countertops. The colored effect came from the aquarium that used the light to highlight the otherwise translucent bodies of jellyfish. Their rounds slowed as she drew near and they bundled closer to one another as if to converse among themselves and whisper their accusations.

Sherry stopped when she reached a small cage off to the side of the room that she had instructed those under her not to process with the others. The lab techs had been the ones to perform the needed necropsies, as she'd been unable. Her expertise wasn't in forensic pathology besides, veterinary or otherwise. She took a breath and looked inside, sure that she would simply find one more rat she had killed. Her eyes fell over an empty cage and she had to scan the small space again.

A tiny pink nose poked out of a burrowed nest in the corner. A very tiny pink nose.

She scooped out a handful of bedding from the corner, overestimating the size of the rat she was trying to pick up. A baby rat stirred from the pile of wood shavings, twitching its nose about to find its way, its eyes still firmly shut. She shifted the remaining wood shavings about, finding the cage truly empty apart from its single occupant. She sat down at a stool and studied the little rat, her mind whirling with questions.

It had reversed its biological clock just like the immortal jellyfish. How? She glanced up at the tank. The blue light from the tank shone down across her features. Their bodies blinked silently in that same way they always did, but did not relinquish their secrets. Why did it happen to this particular rat? She examined his body closely. His nose ran and his shut eyes had crusts in the corners. He was sick. Was he sick before, or was it because of the poison? Perhaps his sickness was why he had been sleeping before when all the others had died. She thought back to his behavior just before he'd taken the poison. Distress, anxiety, stress.

A theory formed. That jellyfish she'd watched revert back had been distressed at the time as well. Perhaps the chemicals released during stress were the trigger, or something similar to do with an organism's reaction to sickness. She placed the baby rat back in the cage.

This was a noteworthy breakthrough in the Silver Bullet project, but she didn't have any of her files on the project to record it. Even if she did though, she wasn't quite sure she would have recorded it. She didn't want to give them the answer they wanted, despite having spent the vast majority of her life working toward that very goal.

Sherry monitored the baby rat over the next several weeks as she continued work on the poison, but never wrote any findings down. She planned to tell any lab tech who asked that one of the rats from the trials before had given birth, but none of them did.

Life fell back into routine; she would leave for the lab in the mornings, met up with Gin sometime in the afternoon, come back to work for a few hours before clocking out. It was comfortable. Almost enough that some days she could forget the project she was developing was a poison. That was until one morning reminded her that it wasn't something she should keep allowing herself to forget.

It hadn't seemed like a morning out of the ordinary until she stepped through the front doors of the drug company where the labs were located. A thick black-garbed arm pulled her aside, sternly redirecting her path to a different hallway than she would need to get to the labs. His grip wasn't particularly painful, but fighting it would have been as impossible as moving a brick wall. His silent presence loomed over her, and his dark tinted glasses guarded any humanizing expression of his eyes. His mouth was a thin line between a heavily squared jaw, and did not offer any reassurances either.

"What's your division? Under whose authority are you acting?" She demanded. Her voice was much more confident than she felt really.

"I'm not here to answer questions." His tone wasn't entirely as unsympathetic as his appearance, and he quickly relented, offering her an answer despite his previous claim. "Today's orders were orchestrated under the direction of that person."

"I'm under Gin's supervision, why wasn't he the one to relay my instructions or direct my movements?"

"I'm not under orders to inform you of other operatives movements." He asserted, evidently trying to sound more firm this time.

"But that's not to say you don't know yourself."

Silence.

She gave an exasperated huff. "What is your codename then? You must be of some decent rank if you've been tasked with taking me whatever it is we're going."

She thought for a moment that she might as well have been speaking to that brick wall he'd made her think of before.

"Vodka." He supplied, not looking down to the side where she walked next to him.

"And what's my codename, Vodka?"

His bafflement was evident in his expression despite the large portion of it that had been blocked by the glasses. "A scientist with a codename?"

"Not too highly ranked then."

He jerked his whole body to glance at her with a confused scowl that creased the lines of his broad face. Silence followed the abnormal emotional reaction; he actively sealed his lips together so she couldn't trick any more information from him. That must have been the reason for the sunglasses, he was too emotionally reactive and easily read. It was an atypical trait in an organization member because they valued secrecy so much, and it intrigued her, making her wonder what skills he must possess to make that liability worth the risk.

"What are the orders for today then?" She asked as they came to the end of the hall.

He wordlessly opened the back exit of the building and gestured for her to step through and into the van parked there. The drive was silent, and their arrival at the destination ever more so. She was escorted into the lobby of an office building where they passed a receptionist who was studiously avoiding looking up at them. The continuous clack clack of keys on the keyboard felt unnatural, the timing was off somehow, like she was only pretending to have something to type. They passed three or four more pairs of eyes that did not meet theirs but seemed to follow them after they were by. Next, they stepped onto an open floor of cubicles that sat empty like it was the weekend and not midweek, except the buzzing panel lights overhead were on and the heat of running computers stifled the air. Vodka sat down at a desk chair and gestured for her to do likewise.

"What are we waiting for?" Sherry asked, not taking his silent instruction. His head was turned to watch the doors, though the dark glasses made it difficult to tell where he was truly looking. "What are our orders?" She nearly yelled.

"Shh," His head whipped toward hers, and a hand reached out in her direction to silence her. "To be quiet, to sit, and to wait for orders to leave."

"What?"

"Your part is already done," he explained in a harsh whisper. "It's important that he not follow us in here." He continued his watch of the doors, his posture tense waiting for action.

"Who exactly is-" she was cut off by his gloved hand that had actually reached all the way to her mouth this time. The metallic taste of gunpowder and the smell of fabric softener rubbed onto her lips.

She flopped down on a desk chair and crossed her arms in wait.

...

Gin watched the front of an office building, waiting for their plan to unfold. He had been parked to survey the entrance for an hour now and the song of birds pierced the car's exterior and filled the silence of that time.

The high moan of a bush warbler's whistle sounded from some unseen place nearby in increasingly irritating increments. It was a low whistle that subtly built and cut off on a slightly shrill note. In spring, the whistle in its call crescendoed into a shutter of chirps. In winter, the abrupt stop to building notes without a resolution left the listener to do the shuttering.

That particular bird was alternatively known by the name 'the bird that announces the coming spring'. After an hour of the same abruptly ending whistle Gin was more than tempted to shoot the little herald wherever he was hiding.

Finally the first of the plan came to motion. Sherry and Vodka stepped through the entrance of the office building. Gin was mostly there to monitor and intersect in the event of something going awry, although missions to control intelligence rarely turned so badly. A tall figure in a knitted cap strode along the same route a few seconds after them. The building's front door closed behind the traitorous Rye as per the plan. He had followed the tracker Vermouth found on Sherry's coat perhaps a month and a half ago, and if all went to plan he would act as he had before and inform the rival syndicate of this location where stock was held as well. The FBI was trying to stir up conflict between the two groups, probably to manufacture an opening for them to strike the Organization themselves.

Gin was occupied spying on the interior of the lobby with binoculars, where Vermouth disguised as Sherry was giving Rye an easy target to follow, when a bulky figure passed in front of the scope's view. He lowered the binoculars and saw an all too familiar group stalking Rye.

Now that was troublesome. The Organization hadn't planned to have that group come to the location until later. It shouldn't even have been a possibility. That person would have never allowed a plan where their rivals and Sherry might intercept. That person wouldn't even allow Rye to follow Sherry herself while in the building. The boss had insisted that after Sherry - whom Rye was already keeping surveillance on, and so her role could not be cut out entirely - lured him to the building that they make a switch with Vermouth, even though this was only supposed to be a mission to set up a trap. The problem was they had expected the FBI agent to behave as before and trail her to an Organization hideout alone. It wouldn't make sense for him to bring along the other syndicate while Sherry was still at the location, because he wouldn't want to see her hurt. Counting on the moral code of a traitor and double agent was faulty logic as it turned out.

Damn, this was going to be a lot messier than they had planned. Gin unholstered his gun, and headed for the building.

...

Two bangs sounded in a distant part of the building, another two followed almost as though they were an echo. Sherry whipped her head toward the sound and at the same time was yanked up out of her chair by her arm and into a dead run for the room's exit.

Gunfire resounded in sporadic bursts, but no voices screamed in terror, no footsteps trampled their way to safety. Each shot felt intentional, like she was listening to a firework show.

She was too caught up in listening to the distant fight, looking back over her shoulder, that she didn't notice the stairs until she tripped down the first of them. Vodka's large hand caught her upper arm just below her shoulder and continued with his quick pace once she was stable. It was the first time in her startled state that she thought of the person pulling her behind him, rather than just the force nearly jerking her shoulder from its socket. He had been muttering about some group being early and overeager.

He stopped only a moment to scan the lobby. A stench like rusted metal and a dirty bathroom struck her before he yanked her after him once again. There was smoke in the air and blood on the floor. A very distant part of her mind recognized some of the faces among the dead as ones she'd seen month and months ago. The receptionist was cowering in a tight ball under the heavy wooden desk and Sherry caught the hint of a suppressed whimper before being wrenched through the doors.

The same van from before screeched onto the road before the building, parking by the curb across the street. They ran to it, away from the building.

"The hell is going on!" She jerked her arm free of his iron grip before they reached it.

"Get in the van!" he reached out to grab her. She jumped back, surprising herself with her quickness.

There was a small flare of orange light inside the building they'd run from. And then a much, much larger one that engulfed everything.

She didn't see anything past the bright flash, not then in that moment. Didn't think on the wall of the blast crashing into the countless people she'd seen inside, like a heavy ocean wave sweeping out their legs. Didn't think on the heat scorching flesh and bone, or the panic that had barely a fraction of a moment to manifest before all conscious thought was snuffed from the building.

She saw, she thought, only of the unfolding cluster of fire expanding out and consuming her whole field of vision with its intensity. In that moment, she was a long stalk of seaweed, firmly rooted but thrashed easily out with the shock. Before her a massive rock sunk to the seafloor and unsettled a thick cloud obscuring the previously clear water. Small rocks and shells sailed past her out of the mucked water.

In reality, the bits of debris blown from the explosion's plume were flaming. Liquid fire spilled out across the ground in front of the building.

She was pulled backwards, not by the shock wave now, but a thick hand with squared fingers. The heavy door slammed before her, but the sound was dwarfed in comparison to the static roar that had just blown out her ears. Her entire chest shook with heavy breaths as the van sped away from the burning building.

...

Vermouth watched the explosives they'd set detonate with a fair amount of satisfaction. Events hadn't unfolded exactly as she planned, but the results were close enough to what she had intended that she wasn't really worried about the accelerated time frame.

She did start to sweat a moment when she first noticed Gin inside the building. She was disguised as Sherry standing in front of the elevator in the lobby, waiting for it to come down at the time. She was watching the watery reflection of the room on the elevator's closed doors when she spotted him. Gin must have thought it fit to intervene because those goons had tailed the FBI agent Akai Shuichi and so were early. They were less of a problem than Gin might have proven. There wasn't a question in her mind who Gin's first shot would be if she left it up to him to begin the firefight.

Gin's first shot would be Akai, undoubtedly. Not only was he a traitor and the ex-member Rye, he was no longer any use to them. Furthermore, of those Gin could expect return fire from, Akai was probably the best trained and best shot and therefore the most risk.

Vermouth got a feel on the miniature pistol concealed in her coat sleeve and eyeballed approximately where she would need to aim in the room from the reflection. Two men of intimidating stature but dull sheeplike expressions stood near the front desk not far from Akai. Akai himself leaned against the desk as though he could be talking with the desk clerk whose hands shook at the keys she would not look up from. It was a warped scene and not just from the distorting metal doors she saw it through; everyone's mundane actions inherently a mockery, even her own.

She turned and fired at the two she'd singled out. Akai and the receptionist dove behind the protection of the desk with a speed that spoke of his expectation of her shots. She hadn't had the time to think of that particularity as the fight broke out. Gin was the next to fire taking out two more of their rivals as they drew their guns. A few of their rivals ran for the halls and protection of the first floor, others returned fire at Gin.

In the entire exchange Akai never ran to protect her despite the fact that she was quite convincingly disguised as Sherry. It was Gin's assumption that he would make some effort that ultimately let him slip away.

Vermouth thought on the strangeness of Akai's behavior now as she watched the fire clean up their mess. A distant siren wailed and she turned to go. Perhaps it wasn't just Gin who could see through her disguises. It was time to start a new study then, and figure out what it was she needed to adjust.

...

It was long after the other scientists left, and Sherry sat alone typing on her computer, where she hadn't budged since early morning. They'd brought her back to the labs after the explosion. The driver had been hesitant to leave her in her state, but Vodka sighted the original plan arguing the instructions were for them to bring her back to the labs. She'd agreed with Vodka's argument only because she had desperately wanted to exit the van at the time. Once there, she hadn't regained the frame of mind to drive home.

Now she was alone. Even the fluorescent overhead lights had ceased their buzzing and called it a night before her, abandoning her to the deep shadows that obscured the details of the room and filled its corners. The colored backlights of the jellyfish tanks cast a diluted glow across the metal surface of nearby countertops, but other than that only the harsh white light of her screen illuminated the space.

She hardly saw the figures and equations she punched in, and the click of the keys had stopped registering hours before. When she closed her eyes all she could see was the burning flash of bright light against the back of her eyelids. Like an intensified version of the afterglow of the computer screen in the dark before her.

The typing stopped a moment and she skimmed over her work for errors. These weren't just empty symbols and she knew it. It was a weapon. A weapon she was creating and they would use on their enemies and perceived enemies alike.

She rested her arms on the bitterly cold counter surface and dug her chin into the corner of her elbow. She tried to squeeze away the tears from staring at the bright screen in the dark, and her eyes squinted closed like the those of the dying lab rats. Still, she didn't turn off the screen of blaring light, gazing into it endlessly between blinking away tears.

...

Akai stared as the building he'd left behind him burst out with the force of the explosion. Evidence and leads all engulfed in flame at once leaving him and his team at the FBI with nothing. The member's of the Organization in Black had scattered and he could no more catch or follow them as he could grab hold of the smoke fading out on the wind. Though he felt the frustration of desperately wanting to try. It was the same hopeless feeling he'd had when he came back to Akemi's barren apartment and knew in an instant that trying to follow her would be the death of her.

He did the only thing left to do. He texted his boss at the FBI.

The last of the leads from our initial infiltration just blew up in our face. Drawing back our efforts until new leads surface. I remain in Japan until further notice.

He snapped the phone closed and turned his back on the black smoke billowing out of his latest failure.

...

Sherry startled awake with a sharp inhale of breath when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Gin." She jerked her head up to face him, her heart flittering with the fast pace of a bee's wings. She forced herself to prop the rest of the way up. Every part of her was uncomfortably heavy from the position she had slept.

"They said they'd closed down shop for the night after everyone left." The line of his mouth was taut. Just behind him the blinds on a window had been slanted open and revealed the first blue shades of dawn touching the edge of the horizon. "To find you here after searching bloody everywhere-" He looked singularly angry; his body rigid and his face cast in a heavy scowl. It kept her rush of adrenaline up. She could feel how wide her eyes stretched. With the disorientation of just waking, she sprang to her feet, but immediately fumbled on her stiff and uncoordinated legs.

He caught her forearms. "Stop. Slow down." The undersides of her arms were cold to the touch from sleeping on the metal countertop. She noticed this now at the stark difference in temperature between her arms and his hot grip. He helped her to a stool and she refound her balance with a grip on the counter's edge. Its surface hadn't grown warmer by even a degree from her sleeping on it.

"I was up late working." She mumbled to the ground. "I must have fallen asleep."

"You've never worked late before. How could you not think to call after the encounter we just had? Do you have any idea what I thought-"

"Sorry." The word was empty. Her gaze drifted to the slits of early light shining in dusted bars across the concrete floor. "I wanted to finish it, because of what happened." The sentiment tasted false, although the words were not entirely untrue. Only how she made them sound like she meant. As though she desired to complete it so they could use it. In truth, she wanted to finish that poison only as much as she wanted to be done with it entirely.

He tilted his head to find where she'd turned her face. They knew each other well enough to know when the other's words were as plainly false as those.

"What happened then? What did you see?" He asked finally.

"That is the question, isn't it? 'What did I see?'" She felt like she was trying to breath in with a closed throat. A high thin moan echoed in her mind, more felt than audible. "What does it matter now? I didn't see anything more than I already knew, you could say." Yesterday was only a vivid reminder to her of the true nature of the Organization.

"You're being intentionally cryptic now." Gin said.

"There was someone missing from their ranks in that exchange, but I don't need to tell you that."

He narrowed his eyes.

"Back on the Isle of Mermaids, when you went back. You killed him, didn't you? Like you killed that professor after I'd left before. But it wasn't because it was your job, or because he was a threat, was it?" She searched his eyes for regret, for remorse. And found only ice. He was past feeling and unreceptive.

Gin was so broken, it was in that moment she realized he didn't feel it anymore. Death had no depth to him. His cold exterior ran through and through and he had turned to some unfeeling substance, like the steel counters in the lab; indifferent to the work they were used to accomplish.

"You knew. When-?"

A pang of sadness started to weigh on her. That was his reaction. Only surprise at her knowledge. This was perhaps the worst part. "I had my suspicions that was your job in the Organization from the beginning. You didn't actually think I believed that bit about acting as bodyguards on that first assignment? Two codenamed members for that purpose is laughable." She was still searching his eyes, with a vain and desperate hope. "It wasn't something that I learned at a specific point, only something I guessed at and tried to pretend wasn't true. I didn't want to know you were killing people for them at the same time we were growing close. So I didn't, but now..."

A silence sat over the room. Gin stared out the window for a time before meeting her eye. "You think I've killed too many people for you to ignore."

"It's not the number of people you've killed Gin. It's that if you were to go back and do it all again you wouldn't change a damn thing."

There was so much more she wanted to say, more she needed to argue out, words she didn't want to regret leaving unsaid. But this wasn't a conversation anymore and that was part of the problem.

He wasn't saying anything. Nothing important anyway. He hardly seemed to respond. He had to know what this meant. He was too smart not to. How could he know and not care? Why wouldn't he respond?

She was abandoning the hope she'd held out for him and he looked the same as ever.

Desperation clawed at her in the silence they left, the silence it was getting harder to break with every moment that passed.

"Gin," she said exhaling out all the breath she'd been holding. "I've loved- I was starting to love- I- I've lost you. I can't keep- " she took a breath to regain composer. "This is goodbye Gin. An end of it."

She snapped the screen of the laptop closed. The click was remarkably loud in the thick silence of the room. Her retreating steps sounded soft in comparison, but were made harsher by the absence of his long strides following after.