Beyond The Gate

Chapter 4 – Truths

Panting, my body moving backwards without permission until it leaded back against the wall, a hand of mine touched my throat, still pained from the wire that had dug into it a moment before. I could hear my brain whirling as I recovered from the shock of my own actions – I'd sworn never to use that power since then. The current moment however, was not the time to think about that, as a twined blade cut into the wall beside my head. Shifting away, my heart started to pound faster as I let a bit of panic flood my system, knowing that my payment would strike me soon, and with the masked BK-201 still around it would spell worse news than normal.

Pushing off from the wall, I ran at the masked man, grabbing the twined blade that had dropped to the floor earlier, and twisting it up to run through his gut. He proved faster than me however, dodging that move, and the one I made after that before catching my wrist with his gloved hand. Tightening his grip on my wrist, it shot pain into my hand automatically opening it and dropping the blade once more to the ground. He then pulled my wrist above my head, leaning down to look me in the eyes through his mask – though I couldn't see his eyes through the mask, I figured that was what he was doing.

"One last chance, where'd you hide that information you stole?" It was odd to have his face this close to mine and yet not be able to feel his breath as he spoke. I glared at him, trying to hold the typical contractor like coldness over my features.

"You think I'll tell you? What will you do if I don't, kill me? The Syndicate will kill me the moment they find out I breathed a word of it to you." Even though the mask on his face hadn't moved, I could have almost sworn then that he was giving me a furious look. Tugging to free my wrist from his hand, I stepped backwards. That was the moment when he activated his contract again, the blue glow forming around him, pain suddenly screaming through my body like every cell was being ripped apart from the inside. I couldn't tell where the pain was coming from, or if I was even standing up right anymore. Sound did not make it to my ears, nor light to my eyes, the pain was just so intense that nothing else mattered. There was only one thought in my brain coherent through the pain; where was BK-201? I couldn't let him get the better of me, even with this pain holding me down.

If he gets the better of me… If he…

"Dan?" I groaned at the voice, shifting away from it. "Dan, if you don't open your eyes, I'm getting Xiao."

"Xiao can't get me here, I'm dead." My voice was hoarse as I responded to the monotonous voice that sounded like Cai's.

"You're not dead." Cai's voice replied, and I opened my eyes immediately. Looking down at me was Cai's pink heart shaped face, curly brown hair framing it. Groaning again, I rolled onto my side away from her, a damp cloth falling from my forehead as I did so.

"I don't know which is worse then," I muttered, staring at the floor of my apartment. "Cai, how did I survive? Why didn't he kill me?"

"Why would I know?" Cai looked at me with a blank expression on her face as she said this, and I cursed how annoyed that made me. If this lifeless doll was going to say things like that to me, the least she could do was act more like a person that would say those things.

"Finally decided to join us did you, Dan?" Xiao spoke as he entered my apartment, his polished black shoes venting the man's frustration as they noisily moved across the thinly carpeted floor. "Did you think I'd let you lie down on the job, especially after you let BK-201 get the jump on you?"

"I wasn't lying down on the jo-" I cut myself off then as I realized something. "How did you know that it was BK-201 that got the jump on me?"

"I overheard you and Cai talking," he replied after a short pause, a suspicious expression passing over his face. Something wasn't right here, I'd never said that it was BK-201 – that annoying masked man – that was the one to jump me, so how did Xiao know that?

"Ludicrous, you couldn't have overheard it because I never said it." I watched him carefully as I sat up, feeling that my body was pain free after paying my contract.

"I see that the infamous Yi-min isn't just the simple beauty she used to play herself up to be-"

"Don't use that name, Xiao! I'll kill you if that name ever comes from your lips again…" I stopped talking as Cai grabbed my arm, but I didn't need her warning, I saw the pistol Xiao was carrying the moment his hand moved for it.

"You kill me? Now that is a laughable idea, Yi-min the eraser killing someone. You who could delete a man's entire history faster than the blink of an eye?" Xiao smiled to himself as he shook his head, pausing in his monologue for a moment to do so. "I should have known that Hei wouldn't kill you, he has become increasingly… unreliable recently."

"Hei?" The name didn't ring any bells, so why did Xiao mention it? Could it have been…

"The masked man," Cai whispered, her lips barely moving as our eyes locked.

"But never mind that, the higher ups will deal with him soon enough. First I have two mistakes to correct-" Xiao aimed his gun square at me and pulled the trigger. The noise of it was so loud that a barely heard myself cried out as I was pushed back onto the floor, a dead weight landing on top of me. I couldn't breathe as I tried to mentally find where I had been shot; how was I still alive when Xiao has been standing so close? He couldn't be that bad of a shot… could he? "Damn that doll. Her programming was stronger than I thought. Your turn now, Dan."

"No!" I cried out, my brain whizzing at high speeds as I activated my contract. Xiao will pay for what he has done, for killing Cai… for trying to kill me – I'll erase that horrible man from the face of existence, it'll be as if he was never born!

Stumbling through the street, I couldn't remember which way I was going, only that I wanted to keep moving. There was something wrong with my payment, the pain this time was not the same intensity as I expected, and it was lasting too long. Normally it would hit me all at once, and I would pass out – at the moment I was lucky if I could keep my mind off of it for long enough to cross the road. I bumped into a few people as I went, many of them continuing on without a word, some muttering something that I pretended not to hear.

Cai, that poor girl, she had so much life left to her - barely eighteen when I first met her four years ago – and she threw herself in front of me… to save my life. Where do they go, the people like us, the ones labelled Contractors and Dolls? Was there a place out there… a Heaven for the supernatural?

"I'm sorry," I whispered as I bumped into another person, not looking at them as I spoke.

"Miss, are you alright?" The voice, I recognized it from somewhere, could it be?

"You're the one they call 'Hei'?"

"How did you-?" There was that steel edge in his voice, the one that BK-201 used both times I met him. This was the man that had been sent to kill me, the man Xiao had used to turn on us. I had lost my team because of Xiao's… reason, because this man didn't kill me when he should have.

"Xiao told me. He is the reason you knew where to find me, about the information, the reason the Syndicate of all people sent you."

"What are you going to do?" I laughed.

"What can I do? My team is dead, I'm nothing without them and there is no one else-" I felt a sharp pain in my chest, my hand reaching up to grab the pained flesh, a warm liquid pouring through my fingers. It was impossible to breath, and every attempt caused more pain – I felt my knees give way, but the ground never came in contact with my body.

Breathe… must breathe… take another breath…