are_you_watching?

Juliette, I thought. In theory, she should be here with a few dozens of agents to destabilise the current political and economical landscape of Britannia. Mainly, the corporations and big enterprises, which hold similar power to the Imperator. Difference is, he holds a -spiritual?- power over the populace. That is a difficult kind of power to dethrone, but I’ll try my best.

As we approach the next portal door, a buzzing sound can be heard from the inside. What's more worrying, is that we are already in front of it. What in the world is going on in the-

React. Fast. Now.

Primal instincts reign supreme over my body. I flex my knees and act quickly. Grabbing Leonard by the neck, I take him and throw him to the sides of the door. Followed by my actions, the door comes out flying with an explosive noise that resonates through the hallway.

“I’m-I'm sorry!” A voice that I couldn't immediately recognize by the ringing in my ears.

Leonard seems more mad than scared. He stands up rather disoriented and proceeds to go inside with the case.

“Juliette! What have I told you about using your augmented arm right now!?” If my ear ringing didn't go away by the time he yelled, he would have cleared my ears by himself.

“I was just showing it to Murph! I’m really sorry”. Ah, now I know who it is. Regaining composure, I venture into the portal to see a martial arts dojo. Quite a reminiscing picture, if I say so myself.

The sunshine coming from the glass roof in the middle covers the white mattress on the floor, while also beautifying the oak planks that the dojo is made of. Screens at the opposite side of the room detail an augmented arm, its composition and characteristics. Some of the screens have information about my equipment.

“Hello there, Juliette. Quite a ruckus you have here” Trying to be as annoying as possible, the last sentence came out of my mouth.

“Oh, you arrived. Nice to see you, Julian.” Almost instantly, her expression turned from embarrassment to seriousness.

Directing my attention to the blown up door now on the floor, she sees my gaze and interjects before me saying a word.

“I was showing the Captain my new arm. That’s all.” With a quick glance at Murph, she regains composure.

“Leonard, did you give him his equipment?” Looking at the case, she sighs.

“Not yet, I was actually hoping for him to test it out here.” As he says so, he puts the case on the floor and opens it.

“What a spoiled brat you are, Julian. Just take the augmented body parts and everything will be easier” A bit angry, I would say.

“You are as delightful as always, Jules.” I always try to set her off -catching her off guard- but for now, I really need my hands on Leonard’s equipment.

While approaching the Doc, Murph and Juliette start talking about her augmented arm. I take some quick glances to Jules, as she speaks with the Captain. I can see a slight smile on her face. She really likes the Captain.

After various training sessions with none other than Murph himself, she has become a top agent within our organisation. Quite agile and strong, she went for augmentations on her body recently. Her beauty also makes her more fit for infiltration missions than me. Not my words, her parents said so.

Her expression is as calm and collected as always. Her long silver hair that reflects the sunlight like snow, along with her green eyes that capture the attention of every room she walks in, make her seem like royalty or a VIP.

Funnily enough, her parents are directors at the Department of Adventitious Intelligence, essentially making them our bosses. I’ve talked with them a few times, but they seemed distant from their daughter, more focused on their roles as leaders of the DAI. Rarely they asked me how she was handling herself in the various operations that we had since she joined in 2084.

A few minutes later, I have equipped everything that Leonard developed for me. A quick look at the mirror and I see an elegant me. How cool, I actually like this outfit. Blue shirt with rolled up sleeves to appear more casual, black leather vest and a black tie to protect my chest, black suit pants which are really comfortable and allow a lot of movement, accompanied with brown leather military boots.

Along with my black hair and hazel eyes, a sense of pride fills me. Look at what I have achieved, where I am, what I’m about to do.

Are you watching, mom and dad? Wherever you are.

No, no. Why do I think of them right now? I have accomplished a lot, I need to be proud of myself for my sake, not for their approval. I don't even know them. But, deep inside me, I would like to see them and ask them that question. So I have a closure of sorts.

No, stop it. It's just a fairytale ending at this point. Move on. Yeah, move on.

“Good! A distinguishable look from the rest. Personal Protection Outfit, or as I like to call it, PPO. You’ll need it to face those Laurel monsters. It stores a portion of the damages that you receive and slowly delivers the forces applied to you over time.” With a prideful look on his face, he checks that the system within the suit is properly initialised.

“That's really neat. Thanks.”

“No worries. It could be better though, with some implants to reconstruct your body to something strong-".

“I’m flattered by the offer, Leonard, but it's just not on the table” I cut short his proposal. I hope I didn't sound like a jerk. A quiet tch sound comes from my back. Juliette’s, probably

“What about these ones? I’m really biassed towards the glove.”

“I think you noticed, comfort is not a problem, as it's as heavy as a feather. Fingerless, also. It adds a touch” Coming closer to me, with a device in his hand. Similar to a pistol, it has a barrel with a needle resembling a syringe. He loads a blue liquid within the small tanks on the handle of the dispositive.

“You need this to control both the Gravity Gloves, and my precious Lorentz.” He says, as he puts the needle at the back of my neck

“What is it?” This is unnerving. Don't really like things in my body that I don't know what they are

“The liquid is just a medium of transportation. The important part is, the nanochip inside of it floating around.” Pulling the trigger, a slight pain circles through my body. A slight grunt escapes through my mouth.

“It’s okay, you’ll feel better later. The chip should be on, right… about… now” Looking at the screens picturing the glove and Lorentz, a magenta light turns on.

“Now, try it!” An excited expression, similar to the curiosity of a child's floods Leonard.

An avalanche of information rushes through my brain. Pain is the only feeling on my body, as a headache takes over me. I drop on my knees and start panting. Sweat drops fall on the oak planks from my forehead. Few seconds later, I can stand up. Feeling a bit disoriented, I now perceive two objects at my disposal. Not because I have them in my hand. Rather, a connection with them was formed.

“How are you feeling? Are you okay?” Juliette asked me, as she and Murph rushed to my side.

“They now should be entangled with you. The interesting part is, no one has ever done this before, so, tell me… How would you describe it?” Almost tripping and falling to the floor, Leonard sprints to his desk to grab a tablet with a metallic pen.

“They are subordinates of mine, condemned to serve me until eternity does not exist.”

It's like I’ve known them since I was a child. Feels natural to be around them. Like they are a part of my own body, and I too am a part of them. Quantum entanglement, transmission of information in an instant between two objects. In this case, I am the node that connects the branches.

A mastery of sorts has formed in me to be able to handle them, although I have never seen them in my life. But, it is locked away. Only a part of it is known to me. I see it by reminiscing about memories of an old experienced warrior fading away and converting to dust, as the many souls that he had taken are laughing at his current pathetic state.

“Puff… Hahahahahaha” Trying to contain herself, she eventually gave in to the laughter.

“Is there a problem, princess?”

“How can you say that with a straight face? You sounded so pretentious.” She says, as her laughing comes to an end.

“It’s just how I feel! What’s the problem!? Don’t you remember the ashamed little girl that was apologising for breaking the door?” This girl has a way to sometimes upset me.

It might be immature, but I don’t care.

I point at her with Lorentz, in a threatening way. I go to one of the sides of the mattress..

She immediately understands. We’ve done this many times before “Come then, wonder boy. Show me what you got.”

Her face filled with confidence, she sets herself in position, opposite of me.

The sunlight covers us both. Her white shirt with rolled up sleeves shows her new arm. Users that had it for a much longer time would not have those marks of fusion of flesh and steel. Murph and Leonard are standing still, watching our every move. Although nothing still happened, tension rises in the room. At any given point, a snap can occur.

How many times have we done this in the past? The only difference now is that innocence is no longer there. She has an augmented arm, giving in to that idea of the machine and human hybrid. I talked with her about it and at first, she did not understand me, but lately she got my point. Still, she opted into it.

I didn’t try to convince her to not do it, but to just think about it for a second. There have been cases of agents becoming unaware of their own existence once they reached a certain percentage of their body converted to augmentations. Wouldn’t be a problem to the DAI, nor the other thousands of agents, but to me, it would mean a casualty that I could have avoided; considering that the majority of cases end up in suicide.

In a quick movement, she readied herself to approach me. Flexing her knees, lowering her centre of mass, all tactics that I know of. A blink of an eye and I wouldn’t have registered that she was speeding to me as fast as a mechanical bullet.

With a signal from my brain, I activate the GSE Glove. A rush of heat at the back of my hand makes me aware of its successful activation. The blue battery core in the middle is now glowing slightly.

mode_gravity_field: 1

Without my inner voice saying it, I heard a faint female voice, corroborating my request of activation. As Juliette is approaching me, she prepares her augmented arm by touching its black button on her wrist. Desemboding itself, the arm has a coil of copper in its middle section, emanating a crimson red light as a consequence of the heat that is produced.

By a motion of my hand, from above to below, I create a gravity field strong enough to apprehend her on to the ground. The strategy works for a moment, until she sweeps the floor with an electric whip coming from her human hand. A chirping sound comes from the mattress as it sets to a burn at the touch of the electrified whip cable.

The whip gets to my right leg, and with a pull of her arm, she throws me to the ground. Ouch. Wait, it's not as hurtful as I thought. The PPO, as Leonard likes to call it (the guy is a genius, but doesnt know how to call his inventions), is functioning correctly. I only received a quarter of the damage that I would have sustained otherwise.

The force field I created has vanished. Jules gets up and approaches me. In a fast manner, I stand up with my arms ready for a fist fight. She comes to me and throws a few punches, while I deflect most of them except one, which was powered by her augmented arm. By instinct, I point the glove with my palm open towards her. I send a pulse of gravitational force to her, which makes her take a few steps back.

Sweeping my foot that was tangled by her now on-the-floor whip, I free myself from its claws, ending with a perfect stance to run towards her. Juliette, who has dropped on the floor facing the sun, rapidly uses her flexibility -and her inhumanly strong arm- and gets up with only one arm, shooting an electric pulse through the floor, provoking a tingling feeling on my foot.

Not giving in to that incredible demonstration of expertise over her own body, I start to run and to catch up to her, unveiling Lorentz from my waist.

normal_mode: 1

A male voice again appears inside my mind, as I think of activating the katana. It's quite terrifying. Leonard didn't tell me about this. A second later, as I was approaching her, from the metal case that my hardware was in, eight black steel-like pieces came flying through the room to attach themselves to the handle. Deep clicking sounds were heard as the pieces colocated almost seamlessly one next to each other to form the complete form of Lorentz.

Reaching her, I point at her with the katana and command it to do a piercing move.

action_recall_trhust: execute

After the male voice spoke, the pieces that constituted the blade detached themselves in a perfect straight line, touching her right human arm, cutting her skin superficially. Small droplets of blood fall on the cloth, tainting a small portion of the mattress. Retracting the blade to its normal state, the clicking sound is heard while I’m pointing my gloved hand with my palm open towards where she's standing.

I stopped dead in my tracks and proceeded to launch another avalanche of gravitational force to her feet. Noticing it, she jumped and, as a counter attack, rapidly through a small tripwire cable to my glove. Buzzing sounds come from the electrified cable as it reaches my hand. Stepping aside, I evade it effortlessly.

Using that opportunity, she shoots a metal ball to my face through her coil on her metallic arm, using it as a railgun. As fast as I am, my instincts can only get me so far. Hitting me in the face, I imagine that part is now swollen.

That's it. I'm going to play outside the box now. My beautiful face is a no zone.

With my mind set on a goal, I try a move. Pointing my glove towards her, I try to control her body. Suddenly, the female voice appears again.

warning: the specified object is primarily organic matter, which is not supported by the system. further attempts would damage the device.

Oh well, that’s sad. Let’s try another move, then.

I flip Lorentz in a quick manner, and detach the steel black pieces, only slightly, so that they’re essentially floating and not one piece. With my glove in the spine of one of the pieces, I exert a force field to send the piece flying. A failed attempt, as she calmly deflects them with her modified arm. It was worth the attempt.

“Not you too, Julian!” Leonard shouted, as the piece that I sent flying ended up destroying a part of the wall of the place. But neither I nor her cared about it.

“Let's end this already, Juliette.”

“Stop with the tricks then. Come fight me bare handed.” As she says so, she disarms herself.

I took a glance at her arm that could destroy my skull into pieces if she wanted to. A fair fight is impossible considering that monstrosity.

“Don’t worry, there is something called honour in me. I figure you don't know what it is, always getting an upper hand with distractions and unorthodox methods.”

The mattress muffles the sound of my weaponry falling down. Let’s have some fun. “A win's a win. But a bare handed fight sounds nice.”

We both step closer to the middle and begin our match. Punches come and go, deflects and hooks attempts are tried by both of us. Evenly matched, I knew that this wasn’t going anywhere. Kicks and elbows techniques are frequent when facing Juliette. I already know how she fought, and she also knows what I do.

In a sudden improvisation, she grabs her electric whip from the floor while I was being cornered by her distance by her kicks. A slight mental smirk comes to mind. I knew it.

She then proceeds to trap my left arm and pulls me closer to her. As soon as I’m close enough, I spit on her eye to distract her.

“That’s gross!”

Panicked by my sudden action, I used the distraction and pulled my electric revolver and aimed at her head.

Making it as if I pulled the trigger, I knew that I had won the encounter. “Bang, you lost.”

“Ughh” A grunt from Jules is followed by both of us dropping to the floor.

“You can’t win in my field of expertise. You are too pure for that.” She actually tried to trick me for a moment. But I’m the master trickster, lady. You were simply outclassed.

“That’s not fair. It’s the first time I’ve done it. How could you know?” As calm as she usually is, her voice denotes a slight irritation.

“I didn't know. I have had it since the beginning, just in case.”

“I have to give it to you. You win this time. But some day, I’d like to have a fair fight. Equal grounding.”

Wow, she really is asking me that. Normally, she is colder than this. Did she have a talk with Murph that changed something within her? Cap really likes her. Maybe he did say something to her.

“Maybe after we finish this operation.”

“Okay then, it's a deal?” She moves herself closer and stands up, still panting a little. Of course, I also stood up as she stretched her hand to me.

“Deal” We handshake. I can feel her hand is filled with bruises and calluses from all her extensive training. But still, it looks soft.

The sunlight is now on the horizon of a mountain, treating us with an orange setting in the room. The mattress has a curved line of blackness, from the electric whip. Behind Juliette, the wall has a crack with a piece of the blade of Lorentz stuck on it. And on my right, an angry Leonard is barking at me.

“Kid, you’ll have to pay for the damages!”

Stepping in, Murph talked with him a little bit and calmed him down. He winked at me once he convinced Leonard of something.

With a heavy sigh, the Doctor says to me “Never thought of using the GSE Glove to shoot a piece of Lorentz”

“Regarding that, did you implement an IA in the chip that you gave me? Some actions that I made were confirmed by voices.”

Slightly confused, Leonard titled his head to the right. A chill comes down my spine. If he doesn’t know what it is, then what is going on? Is it me or the chip? I look at Juliette and she is also perturbed a bit. Murph remains stoic to my situation.

Now I’m a bit scared. How in the world then, am I hearing voices? Have I gone crazy? Mentally unstable? Normally, when I’m nervous I show a calm exterior. But now, this is terrifying. I let a frightened look crack through my inner self to my body.

“I’ll look into it, don't worry, haha. Maybe it's an experimental feature that a subordinate forgot to remove.” Leonard says, trying to comfort me.

“Yeah, it might just be that, Julian.” Jules also comes in. Murph nodges to her statement.

“I hope so.”

“Now, you two need to sleep. It’s already 1 AM, and tomorrow is the big day.”

Captain pats my shoulder and Juliette’s too. I decided that is the only thing I can do right now, I actually am tired. Don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep soundly, though. That voice is something that I have to be on the lookout for.

With a reunion with the cold royalty of Juliette, and my new equipment, the big day is now at the touch of my palms. A bright hope is in the future, I can feel it. It’s going to be okay.

we are not the only ones inside your mind, J.

Lying in bed, the male and female voices once again make their way through, making a presence inside my thoughts. In unison, they deliver me a final message in my tries at reaching a sound slumber.

Cold winds from the past rush through my brain, with such strength that I even sense them once more. Lonely nights spent training to become a worthy asset to the CEC, callus forming in my hands and bleedings from beatings in mock battles torment my mind.

I’m being watched, not only by the enemy. Shit. Who else is in here?