It's been awhile haha ha hahaha ha
This is INC-10EA speaking, I thought to nothing in particular.
On cue, a notepad document flashed into existence on my augmented reality device. A red dot flashed on the top right corner of the interface, signifying that my speech-to-text software was activated.
I am about to experience a major CK-class Processor Vandalism scenario, I continued. Caused by the wish of contractee C616056-EA-CN. More information is documented in log files prefixed INC-10EA-1999, as the scenario is to be designated. The circumstances leading to INC-10EA-1999 leads me to believe this scenario will be irreversible within reasonable resources.
I believe that INC-10EA-4199 will also gravely affect my competency at my designated enterprise. Since incubators are unfit for reassignment, I have made the decision to be decommissioned. I have activated a revised version of the normal personal termination protocols that will eliminate my main hive mind in approximately eleven minutes.
Because of the importance of C-37477-JP-EA be successfully harvested, I advise a more competent replacement be sent to Earth immediately.
And that was the report. Sensing that I had nothing more to say, the document vanished on its own and uploaded itself to the incubator's archives to be reviewed.
I suppose this was it. I zoned myself back into the real world.
There she was - number one's limp body. Not a corpse yet, fortunately, just unconscious. She was gagged and bound to a table, though. That new girl really knew how to tie a damn good knot, though; the rope was so tight that it was cutting off the circulation to her extremities.
My internal clock alerted me that I had exactly ten minutes left before I went kablooie. I tensed up; that was the time, that was the time that the one would hear the monarch speak to you. And speak of the devil; in flash, the big man himself materialized into my vision. He just went and popped up on my display and started speaking his piece.
"My friend. INC-10EA. If you are seeing this, your natural life had reached, or will reach soon, its end. I would like to take this moment to thank you for leaving this universe a better place then when you found it. Even if you have not, you shall be the mistake that we learn from to create a better tomorrow. The stepping stone for us to reach even greater heights. We reach ever closer to perfection. For this, I thank you. I wish you luck on the other side."
He disappeared. It filled me with comfort to see him speak, though it was probably some sort of preprogrammed reaction, or something.
So, this was it. Huh.
I lived a productive life, I think. I had no regrets. And now, it was time for my last contract!
II
I'm here for the grief seeds.
"I only have one", Sofia said. She was in the bathroom of her residence in Malibu, alone, facing at a mirror, desperately trying to contain her unruly black hair with a hear band.
You only have one?
Sofia somehow shifted her fingers the wrong way, causing the hair band to launch off of her hand and disappearing somewhere.. She lost her grip on her ponytail, and the afro sprung back to its original position. Sofia collapsed on to a chair in frustration. "Where the fuck does this bitch find the time to keep a fucking afro?" she cursed. "Why the fuck does a white person even have an afro?"
Afros are not hard to grow out of, I advised. You've probably noticed that your hair's been collapsing during the past days, and if you just wait for some more, you'll probably lose-
"No." Sofia interrupted. "I am tired of this..." she gestured vaguely around her scalp. "this foul ball of moss, getting in the way of everything I do. I will chop my hair off with a dull cleaver if I can't get rid of it today. If you can't help with that, can you please just, I dunno, scram? You know where I keep my grief seeds."
I suppose I can come later to style your hair for you if you wish. However, I have more pressing matters to attend to at present and must depart soon.
"You can style hair?" Sofia glanced at me in curious amusement.
Kyubey. Magical hairstylist. Extraordinaire.
Anything to keep my contracts efficient, I said evenly.
"Just checking, you aren't like, really bad at it, right?" Sofia asked. "This isn't your first time ever, right?"
I have only done it once or twice, but my clients have all reported that I did adequately.
"Have you ever managed an afro?"
No, I admitted. But I doubt I'll have much trouble learning.
"I guess you couldn't really make this worse even if you tried." Sofia ruffled her hair. "And, er, you're here for the grief seed?"
Yep. It's in the usual place?
"Yes."
Uh... mind reminding me where that is?
"You don't need to play coy with me." Sofia said. "You know where it is."
I've genuinely forgot. Server's bugged. Come on, just tell me.
"It's in the drawer under the dishwasher."
Alright. Be careful with the scissors. If you shave yourself bald then there's nothing I can do.
"Sure."
I left Sofia to her own devices and traversed through several hallways, stairs, and rooms of Sofia's gigantic mansion until I reached the kitchen. Sofia's (non-magical) housemaid was also there, scrubbing the kitchen countertop with a washcloth. Usually, I'd wait until the maid wasn't in the house, but I was already late to the aforementioned "more pressing matter" and needed to expedite things. Adieu, Sofia. May a flight of angels sing thee to thy rest.
I
Now that Kyubey has promised her a hairstyling session, there was nothing left for her to do. Sofia sighed. To prepare for the annihilation of the afro, she had bought all the books on hairstyling from her local bookstore and one of every hair product from her local pharmacy, but it looked like that Kyubey was just going to over and style her hair for her, huh? Another two hours of time down the drain.
Come the fuck on Sofia, of course Kyubey would be able to style hair. After all, doesn't he knows everything?
Sofia left the bathroom, leaving the mess of hairbrushes, hair gels, and fallen black locks for the maid to clean up. Wait, the maid was gone. The maid was gone, otherwise Kyubey wouldn't have been here. God damn it. Why was the maid gone? She still had at least… there's no clock in her bathroom, but it still felt a little bit too soon. Whatever, she had another maid coming tomorrow. But Sofia didn't really want to pee looking at this kind of a mess for the rest of the day… ugh, screw it.
Sofia grabbed a trash bin, held the opening level with the sink, and swiped all the different hair bottles and sinks into it (leaving the books so she can put it into her collection later. Sofia very much liked books). Realizing that throwing out brand new stuff would make people judge her, she crumpled a few pieces of toilet paper to cover the the contents. Satisfied, she grabbed the trash can and began the arduous trek through her mansion to her, er, trash place. When she passed the kitchen, she was surprised to see that her maid was still here.
"Oh!" Sofia said. "You're… you're not gone?"
The maid stared at Sofia. "No, ma'am," she said in heavily accented English. "I still have two hours." She nodded, and kept wiping the countertop with a washcloth.
That must've been the first time Kyubey came to her house when the maid was here still here! His business must've had been pretty urgent, then.
"Can you please throw this away for me?" Sofia gestured at the trash bin on the ground.
"Yes." The maid said. "After I scrub the countertop, dear. Just leave it there."
Sofia snorted. After hundreds of years of living in the body of other people, Sofia had learnt to disregard condescending remarks from strangers.
"Thanks, thank you," said Sofia. "let me uh… let me pay you?"
"No, no!" The maid said. "Already paid last week!"
"Right. Yeah. Right. Uh huh." Sofia said. She noticed that she was sweating. "It's getting a little hot in here. Did you turn the heater on?"
"No!." the maid said, sounding defensive for some reason. "I would not do that."
Well, the heater was definitely on. Blasts of heat was blowing through the house, and Sofia was getting sweaty with her thin blouse. Hm. The dishwasher drawer was ajar. That must've been Kyubey; the drawer under the dishwasher was where she kept her used up grief seeds. But did Kyubey recycle the grief seed out while the maid was there to see everything? Why was he this desperate for a single grief seed? If the things he was going to handle were that urgent, why'd he stop here in the first place? And couldn't he have used one of his two thousand strong clone army? Sofia made a mental note to ask him the next time he was here… and it was getting really hot, wasn't it? Sofia undid another button on her blouse.
What did she even come to the kitchen to do again? Whatever.
Sofia yawned and started shuffling back to her room, kick-a-kicking in her bunny slippers. There was no mistake, the house was getting hotter and hotter by the second. Where was the air conditioning system anyways? Sofia definitely never turned it on, she was pretty much immune to petty cold and Malibu was pretty temperate even during winter. The maid was good; she wouldn't snoop around her house. Plus, the telltale fanning sound was missing. This couldn't be a magical girl attack, right?
Sofia manifested her ring into the soul gem form and transformed into her magical girl attire (a fucking mushroom, for some reason; a huge red cap on her head and a red dress, all with polka dots on it, and a backpack with more smaller mushrooms growing out of it. Also a steampunk eyepiece around her eyes). She noticed that her soul gem wasn't really looking too good and she was generally not very prepared at all for an incoming magical girl, if there were going to be one. She fished out a grief seed from her left pants pocket and applied it to her soul gem.
In her hundred years of being a magical girl, Sofia realized that if she put something in the pockets of her costume (the backpack was purely ornamental and Sofia had no idea how to open it or what it was filled with), it'll disappear when the transformation is deactivated but reappear right where you left it when you transform back. It was easily the best place to hide anything ever. Sofia, not one to waste this opportunity, has five grief seeds tucked away in her extremely shallow left pocket (Her right pocket was reserved for something way more important).
Though black streams of grief steadily osmosed from her soul gem, Sofia's paranoia only grew. If this was a magical girl attack, it shouldn't have been a big deal; her power would absolutely destroy anyone who tried to come for her.
WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
The sound made Sofia jump. She turned around and conjured her magical weapon, the fearsome instrument of mass destruction that brings fear to whoever sees it, a bright green plastic water gun.
There was no one there. Now that Sofia was thinking about it, the whirring sound had probably came from a vacuum cleaner. Everything was just fine, Sofia had to stop being paranoid, there were no reason for anyone to go for her. She needed to turn off the heater. The room was getting hotter as Sofia stood there, hotter than any heater should be able to take any house to, and it was coming towards her-
PHOOSH.
Sofia felt a wave of extremely hot rush of air speeding towards her from behind, accompanied by the telltale roar of fire. Definitely a magical girl, then. A magical girl… who had thought it was a good idea to reveal her presence and ruin the effectivity of her ambush by arbitrarily heating up the house？
Sofia conjured a ball of energy from her left hand and lobbed it straight up. Before the aforementioned energy ball was able to hit its target (the ceiling), Sofia turned around and threw a second ball toward what she hoped would be the source of the flames.
The first energy blast hit the roof, resulting in Sofia instantaneously teleporting right underneath it. The aforementioned blast of heat - apparently a jet of fire - whizzed past harmlessly below her. There was no time to take a breather, though- another jet of fire was coming towards her and was about to roast her like a rotisserie chicken before her second energy ball landed and teleported her directly in front of her ambusher.
Said ambusher was a scrawny, Mexican looking chick with really really large eyes, wearing what appeared to be a hazmat suit. She was also holding a slick flamethrower of sparkling steel, customized with fiery spray paint. There were several exhaust pipes protruding from the sides, like a fancy modified car engine. They seem to be functional, occasionally expelling noxious gray smog. Hazmat chick looked quite taken aback that her initial shots didn't work.
Sofia summoned up her water pistol again and pointed its barrel at hazmat chick's visor.
"Better luck next time," Sofia said. Then she pulled the trigger.
Despite the almost point blank range, the water sizzled and completely evaporated before it could touch the hazmat suit chick, who wasted no time before reorienting her flamethrower and firing at Sofia's face.
The pain was hell. Sofia screamed in agony and called upon her soul gem to dampen the pain, before lobbing another energy blast at a random direction and teleporting away. but the damage had already been done. The fire, the fire was definitely imbued with some sort of magic, Sofia was sure of it. Her soul gem was darkening, way faster than it was supposed to be when dampening pain in normally, and the burn wounds on her face wasn't getting better at all. The skin was still splitting, more angry red boils were erupting, and… her eyes were watering, though the tears were a lot stickier than usual and blot out her vision. She tried to wiped her eyes and found her fingertip covered in golden pus.
Sofia quickly cut off all magic. Her vision returned to normal, the boils stopped sprouting, but the feeling of being roasted alive returned. Her face felt so raw. For some reason she wanted to touch it, but that probably wouldn't end well, since every breeze of wind brought on a wave of pain. Sofia had not felt pain in a while. She used her gem to dampen even the most minor of toe stubs. Ice, she needed an ice pack, maybe that'll help, but the kitchen was on the opposite direction blocked by the hazmat suit girl, and what the fuck was she thinking, an ice pack? Really?
Sofia assessed her surroundings. She was in her mansion's living room. Where did the maid go? Did the specialist escort her out? Whatever, it doesn't matter right now. She can die for all Sofia cares.
Sofia tried to formulate a strategy. The teleporting balls was not her ability - it used to be the ability of Lucia Mount, the magical girl in Thousand Oaks whose body Sofia was inhibiting right now. You see, Sofia's ability allows her to possess anyone she hit with her water gun. However, she could not use Lucia's ability to her best yet. In time, Sofia would completely crush the remainder of Lucia's psyche and completely master her skillset, but since she was only a day into her possession, the three that she already fired was the best that she could do for at least another half hour. Enchanting a weapon with Lucia's ability would have allowed her to get more bang for her buck, but Sofia had panicked and now she was paying the price for it.
Lucia also had a pair of brass knuckles as her magical weapon of sorts. Sofia could summon it fine, but she didn't fucking know how to use that shit. Sofia got that you were supposed to put them around your fingers, but they were heavy and awkward, kind of like wearing several diamond rings on every finger. Sofia usually never play around with her possessee's (that's a funny word) magical weapons. Plus, the specialist was making water evaporate instantly around her, you think Sofia's gonna get close enough to her to use melee?
God damn it, Hazmat chick's ability was such a stupidly perfect counter to Sofia's that she might as well not have one. Kyubey had to have been responsible for this. Hazmat chick must've been a specialist, a magical girl that killed other magical girls that Kyubey didn't like for grief seeds, then. It was the only logical explanation. She seems to have known that Sofia had the teleporting pearls, thus the second anticipative shot at the ceiling from earlier. No reason to shoot at a perfectly good roof otherwise. Kyubey's visit from earlier must've been in preparation for this; check if Sofia was still there, confiscate Sofia's grief seeds and other resoruces.
That doesn't matter right now. If Sofia played all her cards correctly, she should be able to defeat the specialist still. In her experimentation with her water gun, Sofia found that water is created a little farther out from the barrel of her gun. If she fires at the specialist at complete point blank range, the water should score a hit just fine… actually, no this was impractical too. Sofia had absolutely no need to defeat the specialist. She just needs to buy enough time to escape the house and she can blip off the radar. Except she can't, Kyubey could sniff out soul gems like a bloodhound, but killing this girl will just invite him to hire another stronger girl to take her place.
The specialist ejected the gasoline cartridge from her flamethrower, poured some magic into it, and then reapplied it again.
Well, then. It was time to detonate the first plan. Ignoring her blistering facial muscles, Sofia quickly grabbed the first object she could find from the small makeup table next to her - an alarm clock - and enchanted it, making it look identical to one of Lucia's teleportation pearls. Making sure that the specialist were looking right at her, Sofia lobbed the enchanted clock as hard as she could towards her.
The specialist immediately manifested her flamethrower, turned around and took rapid steps backwards, ready to fire. Sofia made a beeline for the the nearest window.
With a thunk, the the glowing ball landed on the ground and became a clock again. The specialist, realizing that she's been tricked, immediately turned around only to find that Sofia has disappeared.
Meanwhile, Sofia managed to reach one of the fifty different bedrooms in her mansion. She ran towards the window, curled her palm into a fist, and punched the window as hard as she could.
"Fuck!"
Sofia's knuckle somehow bounced harmlessly off the glass. There wasn't even a crack, and her fist hurt like she had just punched solid concrete. What happened to her bullshit magical girl super strength? What the fuck was this fucking window made out of, diamond fiber? Sofia tried to dampen the pain with her soul gem, and immediately her hand started to turn an angry shade of red, like she had just doused the whole thing in hot oil. Fuck, this won't do. Sofia gathered up a bit more force and punched the window again. This time, the tiniest of cracks appeared.
You idiot, Sofia, just use the brass knuckles!
Right! With a flash of turquoise light, Sofia conjured up a pair of coppery brass knuckles with small patches of oxidation, cackling with not-trivial watts of electricity that would fry Sofia if she wasn't careful. She threw another, harder punch on the glass. With the added steel, cracks began to spiderweb through the window from Sofia's impact point.
Sofia brought back her fist to swing for another punch. Before her fist could connect, the specialist had found her. Her flamethrower's exhaust pipes proved way too big for the narrow doorway, so she dismissed it, opting instead to run into the room and sock Sofia in the face.
Except instead of a fist, it was a shard of the fucking sun. Sofia screamed in pain. The patch of skin where the specialist had touched had instantly became the color of charred ash as yellow pus started to ooze out of it. Whatever the specialist's weird effect on gems be damned, Sofia activated her soul to full pain dampening power and the pain of pressing your face on the sun became the pain of pressing your face on a barbecue grill. In other words, still not enough. Sofia kept screaming, maybe she was crying, she couldn't tell ya, the tears evaporated before it could go anywhere.
The specialist pressed a steaming hot boot on her waistband, instantly incinerating her magical girl costume and the fabric that composed her right pocket, revealing a ziploc bag full of viscous red matter. The specialist picked it up, examined it, and crushed it to cinders with her hand-
Sofia knew this part.
After all, she was a specialist herself. This part, she knew this part. The specialist had already won. They had full control of the situation. Now, her job was to torture Sofia until she becomes a witch so Kyubey can then swoop in and reap the spoils.
As per protocol, the file of Arlene Watanabe manifested into my head as soon as I saw her.
Classification: IOI C1
Description: S92-US-84, born Hina Miyazaki in 1987, is a female human of Asian ancestry (see attached picture). She offers high-end landscaping/housemaking services for hire. Currently, one of her employers is S92-US. As her designation and classification suggests, S92-US-84 exhibits neither potential nor any unique skillsets or relationships with contractees. S92-US-84 is not to be observed, nor is personnel authorized to influence her in any way, even in the event of a life-threatening situation. Amniatherapy procedures are to be conducted in the event of intelligence on incubatorial operations being leaked to her.
Analysis: Unnecessary
Method: N/A
Wish: N/A
Watanabe was a IOI, class 1. IOI stood for "individual of Interest", which meant any non-contractee individuals (including animals, animals were individuals too) involved in incubatorial operations. This was, of course, a very broad definition, and you've got to look at the class as well. Class 1s like Watanabe were simply vague acquaintances of a contractee. Usually, they weren't important at all, and no resources are to be used on them. In fact, that was one of the criteria to become a class 1: not needing any resources to manage.
Sofia purposely hired someone who worked in the same day of the week as I collected grief seeds to annoy me, but Watanabe had never given me any trouble other than cause me to slightly reroute my schedule. Unfortunately, due to the destructive powers of the specialist I had hired to terminate Sofia, Watanabe would probably croak before the end fo the day.
But, I mean, who cares?
The chances of this woman bearing a contractable offspring that matures into contracting age before that "situation" in Japan culminates is no short of statistically irrelevant. Allowing this woman to live would not result in a net profit. Anyone can see that. Literally anyone can see that. Literally anyone can see that.
It doesn't matter that who she is, it doesn't matter at all, it doesn't matter what kind of family-
Classification: IOI C1
Description: C21384-US-34, born Andrew Watanabe in 2002, is a male of Asian ancestry. He is currently unemployed and attends A. E. Wright Middle School at Calabasas, California. Currently, he attends the same school and shares one Computer Science class with contractee C21384-US. As his designation and classification suggests, C21384-US-34 exhibits neither potential nor any unique skillsets or relationship with contractees. C21384-US-34 is not to be observed, nor is personnel authorized to influence him in any way, even in the event of a life-threatening situation. Amniatherapy procedures are to be conducted in the event of intelligence on incubatorial operations being leaked to him.
Analysis: Unnecessary
Method: N/A
Wish: N/A
Classification: IOI C1
Description: C21384-US-35, born Andrea Watanabe in 2002, is a female of Asian ancestry. She is currently unemployed and attends A. E. Wright Middle School at Calabasas, California. Currently, she attends the same school and shares one Algebra 2 and Computer Science class with contractee C21384-US. As her designation and classification suggests, C21384-US-35 exhibits neither potential, nor does he exhibit any unique skillsets or relationship with contractees. C21384-US-35 is not to be observed, nor is personnel authorized to influence her in any way, even in the event of a life-threatening situation. Amniatherapy procedures are to be conducted in the event of intelligence on incubatorial operations being leaked to him.
Analysis: Unnecessary
Method: N/A
Wish: N/A
Classification: IOI C2
Description: C21384-US-167, born Carlson Watanabe in 1990, is a male of Asian ancestry. He is currently employed at A. E. Wrigh Middle School in Calabasas, California as its Advanced Computer Science teacher. Currently, one of his classes includes C21384-US. C21384-US-35 does not exhibit potential, but his position as a teacher of C21384-US's could lead to some influence over C21384-US. C21384-US-34 is to be observed peripherally, but personnel is not authorized to influence him in any way, even in the event of a life-threatening situation. Amniatherapy procedures are to be conducted in the event of intelligence on incubatorial operations being leaked to him.
Analysis: Carlson Watanabe has two children, C21384-US-34 and C21384-US-35 and partner S92-US-84. All three can be considered pressure points to be used for blackmail.
Method: N/A
Wish: N/A
No, shut up. Shut up. Shut the fuck up. With a swipe of my hand, I dismissed all the three (three) different files the appeared when I mentioned the family of this random maid. But it doesn't matter, since I've processed all of it already and the three people whose lives I would ruin if I allowed this maid to die were playing out before my eyes.
No, remember, Kyubey! It doesn't matter that these families exists, the only thing that mattered was the energy. The energy. The energy. Ultimately, that was all that mattered in the end.
But it would be so easy to spare her. So god damn easy. Text the specialist, tell her to smoke the maid out of the house first. That would do it. It would be so easy to not ruin the lives of these innocent people, and one of them was a teacher. A teacher, a teacher. A teacher, who interacts with children every single day, the future of this race. Except after I was done, there wouldn't be a future? So why I using this argument against myself? And WHY WAS IT WORKING?
But what does that mean to me? What does it mean to me that the maid isn't dead? In the end, nothing. No, think objectively. If it meant nothing to me to just let the maid die, then I just leave instead of having this stupid argument with myself.
If I save this maid. Instant morale boost form me, the annoying voice in the back of my head goes away. There are some very important tasks I need to get out of the way today; I cannot afford this irrelevant, irrelevant woman on the back of my mind at all times.
If I do not save the maid, the instincts I no longer have to conserve as much energy as possible is reinforced. My desperate yet irrelevant need to still be seen as an incubator is reinforced. But that voice in the back of my head never goes away, potentally jeopardizing my mission of assassinating Sofia. If I am not on my top performance today, Sofia could potentially cause a catastrophic loss of energy much more significant than anything that this woman would cost if she was let into the wild.
Yes, yes. That voice in the back of my head is nothing but another roadblock I have to get through - like the Holocaust, the great depression, the massacres - it was an unprecedented and unorthodox one, I admit, and definitely not one that I was taught to manage, but it can still be easily circumvented with the intelligence and rationality of an incubator.
Still the rationalist facade? The humans are still your chess pieces, ay?
The words had still stung. But, basked in the triumph of my victory, I could not feel it.
You have saved a life today. I congratulated the voice.
I left Sofia's mansion to rot inside my memories.
[A/N] It's been awhile, god damn. A literal year. Wow. Jesus. That's a lot of time.
I wanted to write out two chapters at once so I don't just give you this chapter and have you forget about everything again, so chapter 3 is literally completely finished and will come one week later, March 31st on my time zone. There is no more false promises to be made, it is literally completely done and I have revised it and am 100% completely happy with it. Look out for that!
Chapter 4 will NOT come one week after that, though. We can hope that it won't take another year.
Obviously it didn't take me a whole year to write ~10000 words. I literally did not know where the fuck I was going with this when I first started writing this, though now I suppose I do. I went through many iterations of these two chapters, and all of them have failed, and finally I'm happy with this. Except I'm not, something will come up after I've published this, I'm absolutely sure of it. I hope you enjoyed, and if you would please drop a review after you've finished reading, I literally do not care about anything else.
And why yes, the specialists here are a blatant ripoff of Fargo's terminatrixes!