[2065] First mission/sia po rice/scramblers

Early 2065

After the initial revelation of his imprisonment, the young woman finally introduced herself as an agent from Langka, operating under the name Madame Butterfly. Her mission was indeed to protect him as a witness, but she had other agendas.

When Apaimanee woke up again, he remembered none of his time with Madame Butterfly. She reintroduced herself as his master, and he bought it easily.

Apaimanee did not remember much of the time before he came to this apartment complex. He knew that he was involved in an incident at the airport, but all he remembered was that the explosion went off while he was double-checking his electronic boarding pass.

He also knew that there was someone he had to find, no matter what. He did not know who the person was or why, but Madame Butterfly said to not worry about it.

Apaimanee felt that something was off, but did not speak of it.

He came to understand his relationship with Madame Butterfly as some kind of mentor-slash-lover, but he did not feel the need to nail it down to something specific. She asked to have unprotected sex with him from time to time, and he complied. It felt good.

When he woke up one morning, he found that Butterfly prepared a breakfast herself instead of employing her usual cooking bot. It was garlic fried pork with rice and a rod of peeled fresh cucumber. His plate was topped with a fried egg, sunny side up.

Butterfly watched as he wolfed down his food.

“Eat your veggies too.” She smiled, and Apaimanee ate a few slices of cucumber.

“You’re not having eggs?” He glanced at her plate.

“I don’t really like them. What about you? Not eating the yolk?”

“I don’t like half-cooked egg yolks. But thank you for the egg.” He ate half the yolk before giving up.

“Oh, alright. I’ll give you double egg whites next time so you can grow big and strong.”

“Thank you!” The young man gave her a sweet, boyish smile, and Butterfly could not help feeling her heart shaken at the sight. “Thanks for always taking care of me. You’re the best.”

“I am.” She smiled.

After months of training, she would be taking Apaimanee on his first mission: kill one of the big shots from Crystal.

“Our target is entering the warehouse. I hope you’re ready.” She spoke to him through his earbuds. “Give him a quick and easy death. No hesitation.”

“Okay.” Apaimanee replied. “This guy is enhanced. I’m not letting my guard down.”

Apaimanee was in his invisible camouflage cloak. He could see his target: a tall cyborg in a long cloak, Khun Malee’s personal bodyguard and an important figure in Crystal. They were Butterfly’s enemy, so that was enough reason to fight.

“To the right. A little more…”

The cyborg looked up directly at Apaimanee. The young man froze for a second, trying to process whether it was a coincidence, or the target was really able to see him. He moved to the right, and the cyborg’s gaze followed.

“Ma’am, the target can see through the cloak.” He whispered.

“Hold position. I’m going in.”

Apaimanee was in the dark, on the overhang, the perfect position to shoot. He did not know what gave himself away, but when he was sure the cyborg saw him, he pulled the trigger.

The cyborg moved before the bullet could reach its target, and quickly made his way up to where Apaimanee was.

“Tch!” The young man chose to run. He jumped down onto a container while shooting backwards at the cyborg.

Suddenly, the cyborg staggered backwards, arms and legs twisting in strange angles. A gun he tried to pull out fell onto the ground. Apaimanee took the opportunity to empty his magazine at the target.

“Get back!” Butterfly came rushing towards them, a small knife in her hand.

Mere seconds before she approached, the target regained control of his limbs, took out another gun, and fired. Butterfly had one arm protecting her head, and the bullet lodged itself in her artificial flesh. The woman gave the target a spin-kick that sent him flying backwards. She gave him a quick slash to the back of the neck.

“That should do.”

“I’m sorry…” Apaimanee picked up the cyborg’s gun.

“No, you did fine. Let’s destroy the guy’s memory unit.”

“Watch out!”

Apaimanee shot the man who somehow got up, but he was a fraction of a second too slow. Butterfly was kicked in the back, and she went crashing into a container.

“How the fuck is this guy standing?! His nerves should’ve been severed!”

Apaimanee’s question went unanswered. The cyborg smacked the gun from his hands, and the two engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

Butterfly was up, and they had the cyborg surrounded.

“Apai, there’s a signal transmitter there. Destroy it while I distract him!”

Apaimanee followed Butterfly’s gaze and saw a small device at the corner of the warehouse. With the aiming assistance software in his goggles, he shot the device down, but the cyborg did not stop. He exchanged blows with Butterfly. Her frame was designed for agility, not for fighting a two-meter-tall enhanced cyborg. She managed to avoid serious injuries, but her bullets did nothing.

“This guy is a fucking tank. A few more shots and I should get one leg down!”

“But I got the device…?”

“That’s probably a dummy! Find another one!”

Apaimanee looked around, and locked on to something stuck underneath the overhang. He shot it down, and the cyborg froze. Apaimanee gave him another bullet to the neck.

The cyborg was about to pound both fists down on Butterfly’s head, and Apaimanee stopped him just in time.

“I did it! Fly, I did it! Did you see that? I saved you!”

“Yeah.” The woman sighed. “To think this guy was being remote controlled… How long has he been dead?”

“What?”

Butterfly kicked the dead cyborg. She used her knife to slice his scalp open.

“Look here. This guy died a while ago. His body was being remote controlled, which means that Crystal knew we were coming.”

“They killed their own people?”

“Crystal doesn’t waste human assets. He probably got done in by something else, which is why they came up with this plan.” She took out a small pack and sprinkled the content over the man, then dropped a lighter on his body. “Our job here is done.”

“They could just transfer his mind somewhere else, though? Then they’d just be giving away a cyborg shell.”

“His memories can be transferred, but…nothing else. His brain rotted inside his skull, Apai. He’s dead.” Butterfly led him out of the warehouse. “Be on your guard. The enemies know we’re here.”

Indeed, people were waiting for them outside.

“Interesting. Crystal does have ears in Langka.” Butterfly chuckled. “Do you really need this many people against a woman and a kid?”

“Shut up, bitch. Your killing streak ends here.”

“How many times did you rehearse that line in your head? Which faction of Crystal are you from?”

They attacked her without answering the questions.

Butterfly disappeared into the mass of bodies surrounding her. Apaimanee tried to aid her from outside the circle, but the fighters mostly ignored him. Those few left outside the circle tried to capture him, but he managed to escape.

An arm came flying towards him as he leapt towards a small alley. It was Butterfly’s left arm. Something snapped inside him.

Apaimanee roared and jumped into the circle. It was a rumble to the death, and everybody targeted Butterfly. However, he soon realized that there was something strange about their movements. Butterfly moved through them like a fish in a stream.

Only one man, a small man in black, managed to land the attack that cut off her arm. The rest of the people were just props.

He realized Butterfly was using something on them, which apparently did not work on the small man. He was told that it was something called the scrambler, a device used specially for targeting cybernetic enhancements.

The small man was either a flesh-and-blood human or another remote-controlled corpse, Apaimanee thought. He knocked out many of the contenders, and gave Butterfly space to face the small man.

“Who’re you?” She spat blood onto the ground.

“Nobody.” The small man cracked his knuckles. “Just wanna see how I match up the famed Madame.”

He looked like a fourteen-year-old boy, too young to be in a battle. He wore a plastic collar around his neck, and attached to it was a cord that looked like a tail when he moved. At the end of the cord was some kind of plug.

“Then I’ll give you what you want.” Butterfly replied.

Apaimanee was too busy fighting other people off the watch the battle. He sustained numerous injuries in the process, and in the end, he was pinned down and forced to watch the duel.

Butterfly was on the losing side. She was damaged from the earlier fights and only had one arm left. Yet, she continued dodging his attacks, delivering a counter at the perfect moment. The boy blocked it with the sole of his boots, pushing Butterfly’s knife down and striking her from above. She rolled and dodged.

His flexibility almost made him seem like he had no bones, and it was nothing to laugh at. Butterfly may be able to hold her ground, but Apaimanee knew she was having a rough time dealing with the boy.

“I haven’t heard of you. That’s a bit unfair, no?” She smirked.

“I am a nobody, after all.” The boy shrugged.

They stood still, staring at each other, but Apaimanee could feel something pricking his skin. The surrounding men went rigid, and could only move their mouths to shout curses.

“That collar is protecting you.” Butterfly said through gritted teeth.

“You’re no joke yourself.” A bead of sweat clung to the boy’s forehead.

They were fighting while standing still, and Apaimanee could feel the prickling sensation getting stronger.

Butterfly took a step forward, and the boy raised his knife. They stared at each other, not making a single move.

And then it happened in a flash.

Butterfly seemed to disappear, only to appear again behind the boy. A gash appeared at her side, and blood seeped from it, staining her black body suit.

“Heh, I knew it. I’m not strong enough…”

The boy’s collar broke in two, and he fell down face first, his blood forming a puddle on the ground.

“Chan!”

The rest of the men tried to reach the boy, but before they could react, Butterfly splashed them with bullets, then threw something onto the ground and rushed to kick the people pinning Apaimanee away. She helped him up and ran. Apaimanee turned around to shoot the people following them.

Then, an explosion erupted from where they were fighting. Apaimanee jumped in to block Butterfly from the impact, both of them tumbling to the ground.

“We gotta keep going.” She said as soon as the explosion was over. Both of them ran until they were sure nobody was following them.

“What do we do now?” The young man asked.

“We’re going to one of our rendezvous points.” As soon as she finished the sentence, Apaimanee pointed his gun at her and fired. There was a thud, and someone behind her fell down, dead.

“Did I do a great job?” He asked. Butterfly took a glance at the dead body.

“Not bad.” She bent down and took the dead person’s gun. “Let’s go.”

It was Apaimanee’s first time at the rendezvous point. It was a hole in the wall that sold si bao fan, or sia po rice, as the Thais call it. The shop’s basement was equipped with various facilities, including those for repairing cybernetics.

Butterfly went inside a room, then came out and sat down on the couch beside Apaimanee.

“Madame, your scrambler’s circuit is busted. You need to get replacements.” An older woman came out from the back room. She swung a charred device around. “And from visual inspection, both of you had it pretty rough.”

Butterfly had her arm repaired. Apaimanee sat and waited for his turn, no questions asked.

A young girl appeared and placed a plate of rice in front of him. It was topped with char siu pork, crispy pork, Chinese sausage, a hard-boiled egg, roasted duck sauce, and pickled ginger. After delivering the food, she left without saying a word.

Apaimanee ate the food, leaving the egg yolk.

Then, a man entered the basement. He was tall, with cold eyes and neatly trimmed beard. It was hard to tell his ethnicity. The man batted Apaimanee a glance, before heading straight to the back room.

The young man followed and overheard their conversation.

“…Chan is one of Silrach’s personal bodyguards.” The man said, his voice cold.

“Silrach… I heard he’s going to emerge victorious from Crystal’s internal conflict. So, he wanted to get rid of me before becoming Crystal’s one and only boss?”

“Yes.” The man cleared his throat. “We’ll pretend tonight’s attack did not happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“Crystal is planning to replace the current regime. In other words, they are planning a coup with the anti-government faction. They have a bug in the government’s taxing system, and that’s their biggest source of income. They have the money and the weapons. They will win, and we will become their ally.” The man took out an e-cigarette. “You and your dog will lay low until further orders. Leave the negotiations to me. After that, I may need you to go on a few missions, namely, do their dirty work to gain their trust.”

Butterfly went silent, so the man continued.

“Maybe, this is your chance to make that dream of yours come true.”

“I…” She only managed that much before going silent again.

“Being domestic is not a sign of weakness. It’s just a way of life.”

Apaimanee slowly went back to the living room.