The Eyes of Hurricane

Dr. Omura, hands shaking, pressed the call button on his link and a pink bud of light appeared in his ear piece. It was disturbingly silent on the other end.

"They've found her, executor," he fought to keep his voice level. "She was, just as you said, trying to flee the city. Apparently she ran out of energy and her disLocator quit working."

The doctor waited for some kind of response. None was forthcoming. He swallowed, but his mouth was dry.

"I expect them to bring her to the labs within the hour. If you wished..."

"I'll be there," was all that he said before the connection was severed.

Dr. Omura pulled the link out of his ear hastily and leaned over the counter breathing heavily. Looking down at his own aged hands he noticed them quivering involuntarily and tried to still them. They stubbornly disobeyed. He brushed the few straggly hairs he had left out of his face and back over a balding pate where they clung sweatily. He examined his disorganized laboratory, countless unfinished projects lying across every level surface, bubbling under the hood, and sticking out of overfilled cupboards. What would he need? Oh yes. He walked over to a medicine locker and withdrew a scalpel. The hand holding it trembled all the more.

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She had to be resuscitated from the stupor the Hei Shi had beat her into. She awoke face down on the laboratory floor gagging at the smell of ammonia. She looked up to see the armed men standing above her and her face blanched. She appeared suddenly far too small for her body armor, which was marred in places by the scrapes and scars of combat.

"Hurricane," she was addressed by the executor, Katashi Blade, who stood in a far corner in his customary white tailored suit looking away from her as if examining, with interest, the contents of a nearby bubbling vial. "I know that you understand the situation you are in, but I want you to nod anyway to make it real for yourself. Nod your head if you know why you are here."

A tear escaped her left eye and fled down her cheek, but she made no sound as she nodded her head slowly. Katashi neither looked nor made any sign that he was paying attention. Dr. Omura tried very hard not to let his thoughts betray how much he resented being made to be a witness to these proceedings.

"Good. You think that I chose you for your talents Hurricane and up till now it has been useful to let you think that. You think that I promoted you over countless other able candidates because I spotted some secret ability the others lacked. Sadly you are mistaken. You are a very ordinary girl Hurricane. That in itself is no great crime. For that I would have had you killed in your sleep so that you would not be awake now, experiencing this anguish," Blade bent closer to the glass of the hood, something was moving about in the vial that caught his attention.

"No Hurricane, I chose you because of your pliability. I required someone upon whom to test the disLocator, and someone who I could blame for Goshi's failure to put down the insurrection. It is convenient that you were able to do both." Katashi Blade turned purposefully to face her, his eyes covered with opaque white shades.

"So you see, I've really brought you here to express my gratitude. You've taught me several, very interesting things, and I am a man who always appreciates a chance to grow," with that he nodded and the Hei Shi immediately grabbed Hurricane's arms and stretched her out. Another soldier came behind her and unfastened her body armor. It came off and clattered to the floor. She flinched.

Dr. Omura, mouth clamped shut to prevent himself vomiting, stepped forward and swiftly cut her shirt away, baring a pale and muscular back. From between her shoulder blades a massive red pulsating cyst protruded, with tendrils that reached out like veins across the whole length of her torso. The sight of it startled Dr. Omura so much he dropped his scalpel.

"Shit. It's... so fast! So much faster than we anticipated, executor," he fumbled around for the scalpel not able to peel his eyes away from the alien growth.

The white form of Katashi Blade remained completely motionless, not a quiver of a single facial muscle betrayed any emotion and yet the room was filling, palpably, with his displeasure. Hurricane felt as though gravity had suddenly become subjective and her destiny lie in being obliterated by the black hole of a man in front of her. Broken in countless ways from within she felt a moist warmth spreading down her thighs and she longed with a profound longing for the bliss of unconsciousness.

Instead, the executor strode noiselessly over to her, crouching to put his face at a level with hers. One hand tipped his shades partway down his nose so that she might see directly into his eyes. His remarkable eyes. Laughing eyes, but cold. Not warm at all. Eyes which made her feel pathetic and worthless.

"Lest you think yourself completely unremarkable in every way, Hurricane, let me assure you that you did surprise me in one fundamental way. I never imagined that you would have Moses and Acetylene Sue within your grasp and still manage to fuck things up so utterly. You've cost me a great deal of money, not to mention the lives of 300 trained Goshi soldiers, and for that I ordered them to wake you up. I ordered them to revive you so that you would be conscious as we remove the disLocator from your body, which to your great misfortune, you gleefully permitted us to install in the place of your first thoracic vertebra. It will hurt, I imagine, quite unlike anything you've ever felt before and because I am something of a connoisseur when it comes to pain I will remain here with you so that I might taste what this new agony is like."

She began screaming before Dr. Omura even touched the scalpel to her flesh...

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The surgery did not take long since there was no imperative to keep the patient alive. Very soon a bloody electronic device with a small chip of whiterock lay in an aluminum tray on the counter. Hurricane's body was dumped in an empty cell for disposal in the morning, a jagged hole gaping between her shoulder blades. The corpse lay unmoving all night with only Karia to witness the very early stages of decay commencing. The directors would hear only that Hurricane had failed and been dismissed. If they questioned Katashi closely it might be suggested that she had fled Geneva Prime. In any case, neither they, nor the doctor, nor Katashi himself would ever know that alone in the darkness, in a cell in the Goshi tower, blood began leaking from the eyes of Hurricane.