Goodbye, White Rubbish Bin

Pisha wiped her jacket sleeve across her face. The snot and tears hadn’t stopped since those credits started rolling. What an ending.

Deep-down, she’d known it was impossible for an assassin to live alongside an ordinary photographer. But who would’ve guessed his heart was actually on the right side of his chest!

“God, that was good,” Pisha hiccuped.

The three of them shuffled out of the dim auditorium and into the lobby. She blinked, trying to force the tears out from her eyes.

The theatre smelled like stale buttered popcorn, and the vibrant teal carpet hadn’t been updated since the ‘90s. The soles of her trainers peeled off the rug with each step.

Bats rested his arms behind his head. “I liked the fight scenes.”

“Of course you did.” Anma rolled her eyes.

“Heh. What’d I tell you?” Bats elbowed Anma. “Movies are awesome, right?”

“You say that like she’s never seen a movie before,” Pisha said.

“Nerd’s barely set foot outside the facility,” Bats chuckled.

“Like, ever?” Pisha stopped, staring straight at Anma. “Were you born there, or what!?”

She braced herself a sarcastic retort, but instead, Anma turned towards one of the movie posters lining the wall. She leaned forward, mouthing the thriller’s title as her fingers traced her chin.

It wasn’t smooth. Not at all.

“Holy shit,” Pisha muttered. “You actually were.”

“Excuse me. I’m perfectly normal compared to you, Miss Immortal.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I’ll have an existential crisis.” Pisha brushed past her.

She jammed a handful of mediocre popcorn through her muzzle, focusing on the oversalted texture instead of Anma’s comment. Her stomach churned at the thought of being immortal. Like, would she still age?

If she didn’t, she’d be a vampire stuck at sixteen years old. Forever. That’d make finding a girlfriend pretty awkward down the line, if not borderline illegal…

I’m totally fucked, aren’t I? She choked on a kernel.

Bats returned from the concessions stand with an armful of multicoloured candy boxes and wrappers, cutting her spiralling short. He looked just like a trick-or-treater who’d forgotten their basket at home.

There was a glimpse of purple, and a lollipop vanished from his pile.

“That much’ll get you sick,” Anma said, sticking the lollipop through the metal plates around her mouth.

“C’mon, you can’t get this stuff at the facility.” Bats twisted a crinkly chocolate wrapper open. “Candy’s an international delicacy. Right up there with pepperoni pizza, ham pizza, and meat-lover’s pizza.”

“I don’t think…” Pisha shook her head. “Nevermind.”

A trail of dropped candy dribbled behind them as the group burst through the doorway. She tossed her half-empty popcorn bucket into a rubbish bin on the way out, letting it drop to the bottom with a thump.

The outside roar hit them instantly.

An angry chant drowned out the muffled sound effects of the cinema. Ahead, a jostling crowd jabbed cardboard signs into the sky, and past them, a river flowed parallel to the road, its humid breeze replacing the stuffy lobby air. Police blockades split off sections of the intersection and the bridge.

“They’ve spread to sector four?” Anma asked.

Pisha tilted her head. “They’ve what?“

At the same time, Bats turned, clipping the edge of a sign with his shoulder. His stash of sweets slipped out of his grasp and scattered across the sidewalk below. The posterboard sign spun into the air.

“Hey!” Bats shoved the stranger. “Watch where you’re waving that shit, moron!”

The man stumbled back. His sign flopped onto the pavement, snapping the taped wooden handle clean off. Three words were scribbled onto the poster in a leaking marker.

Japan is for humans.

She skimmed the letters, practically rolling her eyes. Lame.

It was that Humans First movement. Those fanatical assholes who hated people like her.

They were so stupid, she almost laughed. It wasn’t like Japan cared about Othered in the first place. She would’ve switched places with one of those bigots in a heartbeat.

The stranger’s eyes dropped to Bats’s muzzle. He jerked back, crushing a hard candy underfoot.

“Don’t touch me, you freak!” He slammed both his hands into Bats’s chest with a thud.

Bats didn’t budge an inch. He looked down at the hands on his chest, then at the man himself before scowling.

“Huh? You wanna go!?” Bats yanked his uniform’s sleeves up to his elbows. “I’m trained in three different martial arts, on your tax dollars, dipshit. I’ll beat your—“

“Bats!” Anma caught his wrist.

She tugged him off the sidewalk, away from the main crowd, and karate-chopped his forehead. His head drooped as she began to scold him, her lecture lost to the protest’s chants.

I mean, I get it, but…

Pisha plucked an uncrushed candy from the ground and turned it in her fingers.

There wasn’t any point in picking a fight with those people. If reason couldn’t get through to them, a beating definitely wouldn’t.

She plopped the fruity candy into her mouth. Still good.

Just as she turned to head towards her team, a cold hand landed on her shoulder.

She whirled around, fully expecting another protestor. Instead, a pair of strangers stood behind her. The taller one was oddly androgynous-looking, pale to the point of looking sick with shaggy pitch-black hair. Their patchwork blazer, a size-too-large, swallowed their narrow shoulders. A pair of pointed leather boots topped off their bizarre outfit.

Next to them stood a brunette with unkempt hair that reached down to her knees. She seemed to be about Pisha’s age and wore a stained white dress that hung over her thin frame like half of a homemade ghost costume. Beneath her sleeves, old bandages snaked around both her arms and neck.

“They’re causing quite the scene, aren’t they?” The androgyne’s voice was surprisingly soft.

Pisha glanced over to Anma and Bats, still arguing a couple metres away, then back to the strangers. So that was why they’d approached her.

Guess we stand out, huh?

Pisha winced. “Ah, sorry. He’s, uh, always like that.”

But when she motioned towards her teammates, the androgyne didn’t so much as glance in their direction.

“No, not them.” The corners of their mouth curled into an uncanny grin. “The humans.”

“Huh?” Pisha took a step backwards.

She stumbled, bumping her elbow against a protestor. Her eyes darted between their faces. None of it made sense.

Humans? Why’d they say humans?

But they weren’t wearing muzzles. They couldn’t be Othered. Still, something was seriously off about them. The way that girl cowered behind her friend’s jacket. The way they both seemed completely unbothered by the raging protest

Creepy.

“We’re just as human as they are,” the androgyne said, like the thought itself amused them. “It’s hypocritical, don’t you think? A contradiction.”

The bandaged girl gripped her friend’s sleeve. Her eyes were a startling sapphire blue. So startling, Pisha couldn’t look away. The girl squeezed them shut, as if in genuine pain.

“Hey, are you alright—“ Pisha reached a hand towards her.

“Get out of here, Excursor piece of shit!”

A single scream erupted from the crowd.

From the wave of bodies, a protestor in a sweat-stained surgical mask lunged towards Pisha. He hoisted a splintered wooden sign above his head with bloodshot eyes. She reared her arms up to shield her face as he swung the sign down like some sort of bamboo sword.

As it whistled towards Pisha’s skull, the bandaged girl flinched.

The man suddenly slipped. His loafers snagged against the curb, sending him face-first into the sidewalk. His masked chin crashed into the cement with a crunch as his sign clattered away.

“Holy shit.” Pisha staggered back.

Dark blood seeped across his mask. He tried dragging himself up, only to slam back into the pavement. Nearby protesters turned their heads to gasp.

“What happened!?” She shot down beside him, pressing her fingers against his neck.

Thank God. He was alive. But his pulse was too quick for comfort.

The bandaged girl buried herself behind her friend.

“I’m afraid we must be going, Pisha.” The androgyne gave an abrupt bow. “Do be careful, though. This area’s rather dangerous, as you can see.” They rested a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“Hold up. How’d you know my…”

As Pisha stood, her vision blurred and went dark. Her hands shot to her head.

“Be careful,” the bandaged girl whispered.

Her voice somehow sounded closer than it should’ve been.

By the time Pisha’s vision cleared, the patchwork coat and ragged bandages had already disappeared into the sea of pressed salarymens’ suits.

She rubbed her forehead. What the hell.

They’d acted buddy-buddy, but they weren’t classmates or anything. She’d never even seen them before. They definitely shouldn’t have known her name.

And what was up with that protestor? People didn’t just fall like that. Whatever the case, he needed medical attention. Like, yesterday.

The woman beside Pisha jabbed a finger at her. “The Othered knocked him out!”

Another protestor glared at her before wrenching an arm around the injured man. He finally bumbled to his feet.

“Woah! Like hell I did.” She waved her hands. “He fell! We should be calling an ambulance!”

Right then, a notification blared in her earpiece. The same sound she’d heard during her first mission.

Shit! Now’s not the time!

Anma buzzed in. “We’ve got an alert for an Othered near—“

A deafening explosion rocked the crowd before she could finish.

“What was that!?” a protestor shouted.

“The police must’ve opened fire!”

Their chants dissolved into terrified shrieks as police sirens filled the streets. The mass of protestors shoved and trampled one another around Pisha. She shielded her face as an elbow slammed into her. A startled flock of birds flapped overhead.

“Split up,” Anma said into her earpiece. “We’ve got to find that Othered.”

An Othered. It was those two. It had to be.

Pisha vaulted forwards, shoving a man aside.

Fuck. I knew something was off about them.

She brought a hand to the headset. “I think there’s two of them!”

Pisha pushed her way through the crowd. The noise was too loud to think. Protestors scrambled into the running river behind them while others funneled into surrounding alleys or behind police blockades. Smoke poured in from every which direction.

It was the worst possible spot for an Othered to appear. There were too many civilians around. It was way too perfect. With all the chaos and blockades, there was nowhere for the protestors to run.

Is that so bad?

Idiot. Pisha stuffed the thought down as she forced her legs to move faster.

Even if they hated her, they were still people. And she sure as hell didn’t want to watch anyone die that day.

Past the crowd, a trembling boy crouched on the road, surrounded by abandoned signs and tipped-over police cars.

“Hey!” She skidded to a stop in front of him. “You alright!?”

The young boy glanced up as she offered him a hand. His blonde hair was matted with dust, his striped sweater just as filthy. He must’ve been caught up in the chaos.

Agh. She didn’t have time for this. The Othered were getting away!

“Move, kid!” She grabbed his thin wrist and yanked him off the asphalt.

She couldn’t just leave him there. It was way too dangerous for a kid like him. She scanned the smoke for police, anybody she could hand him off to, and found Anma and Bats a couple blocks away.

Close enough.

Her fingers clamped around his as she sprinted, dragging him behind her.

Ahead, Anma opened her mouth wide. She cupped her hands around her muzzle as if to shout something, but no sound came out.

Pisha rubbed her ears. The crowd’s panicked screams had vanished. The whining sirens, too. Even the faint rustling of wind was gone. A total ringing silence had descended, like somebody had gone and snipped the aux cable.

The boy’s grip loosened around her hand. She couldn’t hear anything at all.

Then, Anma’s distorted voice broke through.

“Watch out! He’s the Othered!”

* * *

Intercity Excursion Force, Case File #05

Othered: Batsuora.

Ability: Haemorrhage.

Description:

Physical output is enhanced in the presence of uncoagulated blood.

Metrics:

Constitution, Speed, Strength, Reaction Time.

Limitations:

Benefits are nullified in sterile environments.