[2086] Betrayals

12th March, 2086

Singkut glanced at an advertisement that appeared on the corner of his screen. Neo Tokyo music festival, accepting applications. Make yourself known. He scoffed, then tapped ‘settings’ and hid the ad, as it was ‘irrelevant’.

The boy chasing after Neo-Tokyo died twenty-something years ago. It was something best left in the past, like a worn-out stuffed toy.

He watched Levana pace the room. She asked him to leave, but he stayed, saying that he wanted to be here for her.

Huren entered the room, leading a horse and a boy. Singkut froze when he saw the little boy, and so did the boy.

Sudsakorn furrowed his brows, then his attention shifted elsewhere.

“I thought you were alone in here. Levana, we need to talk.” Huren gestured with his eyes for Singkut to leave.

The man picked up his bag and left the room, closing the door behind him and walked down the hallway, out of the building. He put on earbuds and listened in to the conversation inside the room.

Sud and Nil were moved into an adjacent room, while the siblings had a fierce debate. Levana dropped herself onto the couch, mumbling about how she should have let Singkut stay as her backup. She rarely won an argument against her much older brother.

“Khun Malee will destroy us.”

“That’s a possibility. Madame almost killed her son, so I can imagine how enraged Malee would be.”

“It’s always Madame! She’s a lance in your crib.”

“You didn’t do any better either, Levana. It was a bad idea buying data from that horse.”

“What if we just pretend to return the data, and say that we’re buying it back from Nil? This way, we can maintain our relationship with Khun Malee and find a way to destroy her satellite system at a later date. We could inject a virus or a spyware into her system instead. Nil would be able to make something like that. If she needs someone to blame, then everything falls on Nil alone.”

The conversation went on. Singkut bought a cup of coffee from a vending machine and took a sip. Horrible synthetic stuff.

Back at the mansion, Nil paced the soundproof room while Sud laid on the bed, exhausted.

“Hey, Sud.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry it turned out this way.”

The boy opened his eyes and rolled over, facing the cyborg horse.

“I’m tired.”

“I know. I just needed to say it.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“I want to give you an answer, but I really don’t know. I shouldn’t drag you into all this.”

“But you’re my friend.” The boy smiled. “I’m still glad I came along.”

Nil’s external communications were forced to go offline since entering the mansion, but somehow, they got a message notification beeping in the corner.

“Hold on…”

It was a short voice clip transmitted from the device in the next room. Nil played it and heard everything.

“Fuck…”

“What?”

“They’re planning to use me.” Nil kicked the door, but it did not budge. “Everyone’s all the same! They’re all just trying to use me for their own gains! I should’ve known Levana’s pure and innocent public profile was just a farce!”

“Hold on, what’s going on?”

Seeing that Sud was terrified, Nil managed to calm down.

“They’re going to get the data from me, use me to plant a virus in the system, and then blame me for doing all this alone.” Nil paced the room once more. It was the same no matter where they went. It was only the big shots who could control destiny. “I’m just going to destroy the whole system. They still need my data to get the system at 100% functionality. That’ll be my chance.”

“Okay. Can I help?” Sud cocked his head to the side.

“Yeah, why don’t you start by convincing those people in the next room to let us go? I’ll go back to Crystal and destroy them from the inside…and just wait…”

The boy nodded. Then, the door opened. A servant came in and told them to go into the next room, where Levana wanted to start the data extraction process. Nil heaved a sigh and got mentally prepared.

The version of the software returned to Malee by Levana was found to contain a corrosive virus, and it sparked a conflict between the two long-time rivals, driving a wedge into Malee’s already-bad relationship with her spouse.

The one who discovered the virus was none other than Nil, or so they said. It was that Nil sent Sud to spread the news, and Sud chose to leak it to Singkut, who conveniently happened to be around.

It was so that Sud and his pet dragon-horse returned to Crystal, where the latter was put under strict offline mode, while Sud was put under house arrest. Sin visited him occasionally, and one day came with a man whom Sud did not recognize.

“Do you remember me now?” He draped a mask over his face, and his appearance became that of Singkut.

“You’re that uncle that helped us!”

“Yes.” He pulled the mask off. “This is my real face. My name is Apaimanee.”

Sud’s jaws dropped.

“Dad?! I… I didn’t recognize you! You’ve changed so much!”

Apaimanee stood still as his young son hugged him. Sin left the room, telling the two that he’d be outside.

They were practically strangers, but Sud did his best to make conversation with his father. The boy soon thought that something was off.

“Are you really my dad?”

“Why?”

“I don’t remember my dad being so cold. Can you play that pi?”

“No. This is strictly for work.” His tone left no room for debate, and the boy felt that it was really weird and wanted to go home.

“You will soon go home, after April 13th.” Apaimanee said, and left the room without a goodbye.

Sin came in when he left, and suddenly Sud felt that his older brother who almost killed his friend was very approachable.

“I’m not playing a prank on you. Your father’s been like that for a while.”

“What happened?”

Sin’s mouth formed a straight line. He considered his words for a few seconds.

“Would you like to hear it?”

Sin only got to the part when his father retrieved the memory disk when Chan came in.

“Sin, no time to chat. It’s time for rehearsal.”