There were only the original members of squad nine left inside the room. Kay didn’t want their first interaction to end on a sour note, so he had cut it short. It was better to quit for the day to avoid it affecting their future working relationship. They’d decided to get together again for a sparring match.
Although Aki’s space ability was impressive, Kay still wanted to get a grasp of her combat standards. He didn’t know what the requirements were for Aki to use her ability. Or what its limitations were. He hadn’t asked. He had already been pleasantly surprised that Aki had been rather obliging in answering their questions. There was no need to push his luck. They hadn’t yet got a new mission, so there were more opportunities to talk.
Although Kay had wanted a private sparring match, he knew the others would object. Of course, he understood their reasoning. It wasn’t that he was against them watching, but Rae could get too hot-blooded and Caden had no filter.
In the end, Kay had said that he would take Aiden along as a referee, and nobody had any objection to that. Aiden had the most mellow temper amongst them, and he thought Aki wouldn’t have any issue with it.
“What are your opinions?” Kay leaned back in his chair and waited for the others to speak.
“I don’t like her and I don’t like the idea of having anybody new in our team.” was Rae’s simple statement.
“You never like anyone new.” Kay felt slightly speechless at her attitude. Rae was the worst at undercover missions. She could never reign in her temper when dealing with new people. Casual conversations were fine, but if they had to charm a target and get them to spill the beans…
Once, Rae had knocked out their target because he hit on her ‘in an especially disgusting manner’ as she put it. Kay and Caden had especially good hearing. The guy had invited Rae for some drinks in the private area of the public bathhouse. They knew the sexual nature of the invitation wasn’t why Rae had lost the last remaining shred of her already thin patience. In the end, they had to resort to abducting the guy and interrogate him.
Every Enhanced had some residual effects from the blood that was used for their blood crystals. More specifically, the animal. One of Rae’s side effects just happened to result in aversion of water. Depending on her state of mind, the effects could be mild or severe. Their target had just had to bring it up when Rae was already irate because she had to act chummy with someone she didn’t know. Whether her aversion for new people was also a result of residual effect from the blood crystal, nobody knew.
“You always act like someone stepped on your tail when you have to get along with someone new,” Caden made fun of Rae’s prickly character.
“Well, I’m not like you that would fuck anyone that listens to me for more than three minutes. It’s a damn miracle how people even manage that. They must just stare at your charming face and pretend to be deaf.”
Caden immediately choked on his mirth.
“Fuck, it’s no wonder you have no friends aside from us. Anyone that can tolerate that mouth of yours must be sick in the head!”
“It’s good that you finally admit your idiocy.”
“You–” Caden stared at his brother for help, but Aiden ignored him completely and looked at Kay instead.
“You have all day left to quarrel with each other. Let’s concentrate on the matter at hand. I want to hear your opinions. Only then can I consider how to deal with the situation going forward.”
“I guess she could be worse,” Rae grumbled unwillingly. “But I still don’t like it.”
“She doesn’t seem as bad as the rumours say. Although her behaviour in front of us might be fake.”
“Captain, you told us to exaggerate our dislike and unwillingness to see her reaction. She was quite patient despite our bad attitude. I don’t think she would’ve tolerated our behaviour if she had any big backing inside the RRC.”
Kay nodded in appreciation at Aiden’s comment. Although that move had been a bit risky, Kay was sure that with their good performance rate they wouldn’t get too much trouble. Even if Aki was the daughter of Greystone, the man wouldn’t do anything too drastic to them.
Creating Enhanced wasn’t easy. Training and educating them took a lot of time as well. As long as they didn’t hurt or attack Aki, the most severe punishment should be stripping them of their commodities. And those could always be earned back with enough hard work.
Kay rather take the risk to get a reading of Aki’s attitude than play subservient without a chance to change that relationship in the future.
“I think the same. Aki probably receives some special treatment because of her ability, but she doesn’t have someone important backing her. Or she doesn’t like that person. The space affinity allowed her to do solo missions for so long and gave her a high survival rate. I’m guessing the earthworms wasn’t the first time she got into an accident. Now that she almost got killed, the RRC became worried. They don’t want to lose their, probably only, Enhanced with a space ability.”
Kay finished his analysis with a slight sneer as he mentioned the RRC. The facility didn’t have sympathy for anyone. For them, everything was a matter of furthering their research and putting their successes to good use.
They all were examples of that.
Notes:
Story rec of the day: ‘Mist’. It’s a gay action/mystery novel written by Wei Feng Ji Xu (https://www.novelupdates.com/series/mist/). It deals with concepts of time and time paradoxes. It’s a great read and the romance is the perfect spice, not too much, not too little.
