Chapter 13:

We demand some god damn empathy.

Faustic


Like the cells of Eustachia prison, the rooms in the Medical Pavilion were wax-white. Or maybe Séquard only imagined it. With each passing day spent within this tiny room, the place felt more and more like an asylum. Perhaps it was the monotony, perhaps it was the medications; he couldn’t tell anymore. His gown seemed more like a straitjacket, and the opera over the intercoms –its piercing tenor– reminded him of his screaming soldiers in Shanghai, a homunculus’s claws driven through their bellies.

He heard a loud thumping noise, like the reverb of artillery fire on timber. It took him a moment to realise it was a just a knocking at the door.

“Come in,” said Séquard.

The door opened just a crack, and Chang stepped through. For just a heartbeat, he wore his old cadet uniform, and his hair was cut short. The next, his Runner’s coat. “Major General,” he saluted. “Good to see you’re still kicking.”

“Well, for almost thirty minutes, I wasn’t. I’m practically a zombie right now.”

“You’re the healthiest zombie I’ve ever seen, sir.”

“You won’t be saying that once you see how many drugs I have to take.” Séquard grabbed a sheet of paper from the bedside table and read off it. “Perindopril, amlodipine besylate, aza…aza…azaothio–”

“Azathioprine, sir,” Chang finished off. “It’s an immunosuppressant. Weakens your immune system so your body doesn’t reject its new organs after a transplant.”

“That so? Doctors said my heart got cut into bits, and the wild boy made a meal out of my intestines. Apparently they had to put homunculus parts inside me to replace ‘em.”

“Homunculi share large amounts of genetic and tissue overlap with us. Enough that they’re the safest source for transplants, outside of synthetic organs.”

“Heh. It’s ironic, isn’t it? I spent the better half of my life slaughtering them, and one of them ends up saving my life.”

“At least it’s not a pig, sir.”

Séquard laughed. “Suppose I’d never see bacon the same way again.”

Chang bent down and stuck a finger into his boot. “So I tried to sneak a couple things in for you. Unfortunately, the nurse found most of them, but I managed to…

He pulled out a cigar. “I managed to get one thing past her.”

“Atta boy.”

Chang held the lighter for Séquard as he brushed the cigar tip over its flame. He pulled back, breathing deeply. The puff of smoke shone black against the pale white room. That smoke, more than anything else so far, reminded him of the war. He could have remembered it as the flames that burnt Gwangju to the ground, the coal-black remains of the innocents that chose to stay. Instead, he remembered it as the cigarettes he shared with his battalion, when their rations had all but run dry. It was his best memory.

“Sir,” said Chang. “I…read the report. Of what happened.”

“Focus too much on those and you’ll only ever think of the past.”

“You’re an Elite Runner, sir. Possibly the best. You killed a Grendel model by yourself, and if the Colonel hadn’t done it, you probably would’ve been the one to win us the war. But that boy…that boy’s just table scraps. You could’ve killed him with just your pinky.”

Séquard took another puff. “You’re a smart kid. You already know the answer.”

“Even at the cost of your life?”

“I swore an oath, boy. As have you. Any Runner would have done the same.”

The Triton emerged from the coast off Cricoid Bay, right beneath the bleeding sun. Its lumbering trunks struggled on the bay’s sandy terrain, the ground too soft to withstand the titan’s weight. Chang couldn’t remember the last time he had an active mission in the daylight. It couldn’t have been since the war. Homunculi weren’t nocturnal by nature, but under the crushing force of urbanisation, even monsters had to adapt. No doubt it would’ve been difficult to hunt prey when predators were right around the corner. Hell, sometimes the prey were the predators.

Looking behind, out over that great blue ocean, wavy with seafoam, and with the golden sand underfoot, Cricoid Bay seemed like paradise. Chang almost believed it, if not for the military aircrafts that flooded the sky. Their roaring engines made it difficult to enjoy the cry of seagulls in the distance.

He piloted the Triton into camp, where much of the military and other Runners gathered. There, the Triton knelt down, and he climbed out of the cockpit.

“First Rank Runner, Hannibal Chang, reporting in,” he said, approaching the lead Runner.

“Elite Runner, Mobitz.” The man was tall, unnaturally so, and spoke with a cold drone. He had a face that would’ve felt too naked without the pair of round glasses that framed it. “Walter Mobitz.”

“Could I get a rundown of the situation, sir?”

Mobitz pointed at the complex over the grassy hill. Where the Runners Bureau headquarters seemed designed to feel daunting and cold, the Menagerie stood like a resort. It was strange to imagine the federation dumping so much money into a place to keep homunculi alive.

“About four hours ago, the Menagerie was taken over by what we believe are an organisation of Eco-terrorists. They’ve sealed the place shut. Turned it into a fortress. Worst of all, we believe they’ve taken the workers hostage. At least, we hope so. It’s entirely possible they’ve killed everyone else.”

“And the media blackout?”

“First thing we set up was jamming equipment. Not a thing’s going to be coming out of that place except via shortwave radio.”

“We’ve got contact!” A woman called out. She was working at a rudimentary computer lab, set up on the grass under a tarp tent. One of the monitors was flashing yellow. “Call from the leader.”

Mobitz walked over and took the transponder from the woman’s hand. It came alive with a buzz. “Who am I speaking to?” a voice came through.

“Elite Rank Runner, Walter Mobitz. What are your terms?”

“Do you represent the Federation? Or just the Runner’s Bureau?”

“Both. I represent the interests of both.”

“You are part of the problem, Mr Mobitz.” The last word was barely audible through the static. “The Federation has put the fate of their country, not in politicians, but in soldiers.”

“I am not a soldier, I am– “

“A butcher. An exterminator. I know you’re not military, but you serve the Federation like dogs so frankly, you’re all the same to me.”

“Then you would understand that as a soldier, I leave the ideologies and rhetoric to the bureaucrats. What are your terms?”

“You’ll find out in five minutes.” At last, the transmission quality cleared up enough that the voice sounded human. “That is all.”

Mei ended the transmission, and the screen returned to a view of the outside. A beautiful one, if not for the Runners and soldiers that lined the hills like ants, the copters blaring overhead, so loud they were audible even this deep down. The Garden of Eden, blighted by tyranny and apathy.

“Someone give me an update,” she called out. “Did we find anything new?”

“We rounded up the last of the workers,” said Ulna, rubbing at his eyebags. He hadn’t gotten a lick of sleep for days, from prepping for this mission to executing it, the stress was proving a lot. Everyone was tired. “We finally managed to get through into the cafetaria.”

“And the vault?”

“Still sealed. The drill’s not doing shit, we’re gonna move to the thermal lance soon.”

“Keep at it. Whatever’s inside, it’ll be worth it.”

“Yes, ma’am. How ‘bout you?”

“I’m alive,” said Mei. “More than I can say for some.”

“You’ve got to rest sometime too. Have somebody else take your shift.”

“We have the broadcast in five minutes. I’ve got to get ready.”

“And you’ll sleep after?”

She began to walk away. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

Ulna folded his arms just as she passed him. “You know, ma’am, I think maybe it’s best you keep your mask off for the broadcast. It’s not like the anonymity matters anymore.”

“The world needs to know we’re serious.”

“The world needs to know we’re people, too. It makes us more relatable. More sincere. Besides, you need to hurry up and accept that you’re a beautiful woman.”

Mei stopped, right in the doorway. She could’ve said something. Maybe she should have. Chances are, neither of them would be alive in a few days, so what’s the harm? Dying in someone’s embrace instead of dying alone.

In the end, Mei did what she always did. She made a choice she would regret, and she walked away.

“This is Great Saph to Little Saph,” Mei spoke through her interface. “We are ready for broadcast.”

“This is Little Saph. We have a small issue. The Runners are jamming us to all hell; I can barely hear you as is.”

“Can you do it?”

“I don’t know, Mei. Even the most world-renowned hackers couldn’t stand this amount of interference for more than ninety seconds.”

“How much time can you buy us?”

Mei could almost hear the Spider smirk. “Three minutes.”

“And that’s why we hired you.”

“How are things over there, girl?”

“MJC Daily’s agreed to show us. Reluctantly. 48 News and the French haven’t said anything, but they can’t keep silent once we’re live. I’ll talk to you later, focus on your job.” Mei directed the call aside while she turned her attention back to the room. She had her mask off and hair down. Maybe in a kinder world, she’d have been able to put on some make-up, but for now, this was good. Ulna flashed her a goofy smile behind the camera.

“Dumbass,” she muttered under her breath. “Alright, somebody count me down.”

“T-minus five seconds,” one of her men called out. “Four, three, two, one…”

“My name is Tang Mei-ling. To the media, and most of the world, I am Helen Tang. To my friends and the people who see me as someone more, I am just Mei. I hope someday, all of you will call me that. Now, I’m no journalist, but let’s get straight into this.”

Mei clicked the remote in her hand, and the screen behind her flashed awake. She had to mute the video. Many of her men behind the camera looked away.

“What you see behind you was smuggled out of a Homunculi farm. Well, farm is putting it kindly. It’s a fucking slaughterhouse. You see Homunculi tortured and maimed without anaesthetics, cubs left crawling on the floors to die, and all the while, men who are either apathetic to it all, or downright relish in it.

“But it is necessary, you say. The farms exist because without them, we all starve, and every industry has bad apples, so what? I am an idealist, someone who believes in a better future, but please do not mistake that for naivety. I understand that, despite the cruelty of it all, the farms need to be there, and we haven’t taken over this facility for the sake of fighting for a cause nobody will support us on.”

Mei clicked again, and the video changed. She kept the sound muted. “But this place. The Menagerie. The public knows it as holding ground for the Bureau to study Homunculi in a near-wild environment. In truth, it is a facility for them to run tests. Experimentation on live subjects. Everything from cosmetics to medicine to…well…”

The final video; one they got not an hour ago. Security footage from just last week, of a Homunculus, its limbs tied down in thick metal cuffs. The scientist in frame held up something metallic, and spoke into the camera. Mei kept the sound for this one.

“This is May fourteenth,” the scientist said. “Cybernetic enhancement of homunculi, trial one-two-six. While in human subjects, transhumanist enhancements of the leg is a simple matter, the muscular structure of the homunculi lower limb makes it difficult for the same grafting techniques to be utilised. Homunculi possess an additional set of adductor muscles, their gastrocnemius and sartorius are at least 48% larger, yet 78% more flexible. So, we are testing a new theory. Instead of trying to develop new techniques based around the physiology of a homunculus, we shall try and make the Homunculus physiology more…human.”

The scientist held up a cast saw. “We will begin by removing the second pair of adductors brevis.”

Mei lowered the volume, but she didn’t mute. The world needed to hear those screams– then they can decide if it was all for a greater purpose. “The Bureau wants you to believe homunculi are dangerous. They are the greatest enemy. That their extinction, or at least absolute enslavement, is good. What they don’t want you to know, is that they want to turn homunculi into weapons. Gone is the need to spend twenty-five million dollars on a Blackhawk. Homunculi are faster, more deadly, and best of all, you don’t need to spend a cent to get more of them.

“Make no mistake, we are not opposed to the fact that homunculi blood fuels our society. We only wish that they are not fucking tortured and abused. We are not saying we should give them the same rights as a person, only that maybe they deserve more than to be stuck in cages all their lives and be our guinea pigs.”

She raised a fist up. “We demand that the Federation and the Runner’s Bureau cease all Homunculi experimentation and improve the conditions in all Homunculi farms. We demand the Federation pass the Homunculi Care and Protection Act, drafted by Sir Dimitri Faust seven years ago. We are the Homunculi Liberation Front, and we demand some god damn empathy.”