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“Domestic Violence calls are some of the most dangerous calls that police can respond to. It is IMPERATIVE that you keep your head on a swivel, and that your eyes are kept OPEN!”162Please respect copyright.PENANA1a52nrumNG
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—A Saber Parish Law Enforcement Academy instructor to a class of cadets, while speaking on the dangers officers must be aware of when responding to domestic violence calls.162Please respect copyright.PENANAnEJH74zXZy
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New Helensburge, Saber Parish, Louisiana, USA,
Monday, October 1, 2035,
Roughly Two Years Post Advent,
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The Louisiana night was warm by most people’s standards, but not by those of the southern state. A cool breeze blew through the southern night—even more evident on the city’s rooftops, in comparison to the city streets—but he barely knew it. Every inch of his body was covered in black cloth, except for his head, which was beneath the modified, black motorcycle helmet, and that might not even count, considering he wore a black, fabric ski mask beneath that helmet. His face could not be discovered by his enemies. He would not let it be discovered by his enemies.
The moment that his feet touched something, a pillar of fire was generated beneath them, and simultaneously solidified, becoming a mass of orange crystal. This hurled him upwards—or forwards, if the pillar was pointed in that direction, and tilted at an angle. The man—he had the body of a teenage boy, but his childhood had ended years before those of his peers faded into their teenage and adult years—controlled these flames. He was the one generating them with nothing but a thought, and perhaps some willpower.
This man—or boy, if one chose to call him such a word—or man-boy, hurled himself from roof to roof, searching, seeking out the abusers. To him, they were not people, those he dubbed abusers. They were violent, rabid, beasts. The difference between criminals and abusers—in his opinion, anyways—was whether or not they had forfeited their personhood in the process of committing their illegal acts. He would call his prey animals, but the young man would have considered that too insulting to actual animals, like dogs—which, from what he had been told—loyally provided their humans with security and companionship. People who picked a pocket got arrested. The child beaters—and spouse beaters—got put in the ground. The youth in question had been hunting abusers in this manner for almost two months. He wasn’t crazy—would a lunatic be able to recruit a hacker to his cause? Sure, he might not be able to fix this system that left the victims of such violent crimes out in the cold, but he could end those who abused the innocent, protect those who fell through the cracks, and all while flipping said system a massive middle finger in the process.
The system that failed me. The system that failed my family. They, it—the system—that sees us all as numbers, statistics. It does not see us as people. Fuck the system.
The words rang through the thoughts inside his head, through his mind, and rang true, as he went from rooftop to rooftop.
The abuse is what forged me and made me into Pyre. Sure, the Advent Virus gave me my Variant abilities, but powers, abilities—whatever you want to call them—are nothing without the will to use them! Soon enough, I’ll be ready. I’ll lop the smug head off of my family’s attacker, m—
What was that?
Pyre looked around, utterly silent, his thoughts interrupted. He was on top of an apartment complex—or one of the half-a-dozen, three-story buildings composing it, anyway. The sound was akin to a dull thud and could have been a piece of furniture falling. Straining, Pyre’s ears picked up another sound. The sound of a woman begging.
“Please…let me go…let me—.” Her pleas—whoever she was—were abruptly cut off by a dull thud, followed by deafening silence. The woman’s voice had been desperate, panicked, fearful…just like another woman’s voice, which Pyre had heard all those years ago. It was coming from somewhere in the building beneath his feet.
I will not fail! Not because I cannot fail, but because I will not let myself fail, Pyre thought.
Running to the balcony that Pyre believed to be closest to the voice’s origin point, Pyre found that the balconies along one side of the building jutted out from under the roof. It was a one-story drop, but time was short. Pyre jumped down and landed on his feet with what would have likely been enough force to break bones on an un-enhanced individual, but was inadequate to break Pyre’s. In the process, Pyre nearly landed on a small metal table and two little metal stools. Yet Pyre didn’t think of that at all, as he came face to face with a sliding glass door. By this point, Pyre was acting mostly on instinct and adrenaline, but what little thought was left in Pyre’s head went something along the lines of, TO HELL WITH STEALTH! Accordingly, Pyre picked up one of the stools and hurled it through one of the two panels of glass that made up the sliding, glass door—the entrance to the balcony. That panel of glass shattered, the shards flowing across the wooden floor, as the metal stool’s four legs bounced off of—and visibly damaged—the drywall on the other side of what looked like the master bedroom, judging by the furniture.
Glass crunched underfoot as Pyre ran through that room, not even bothering to make some attempt at being stealthy anymore, before descending a staircase, and emerging into another room—which appeared to be one of those hybrid rooms; the rooms that served, or serve, simultaneously as two or more rooms; in this case, both a living room and a dining room, all rolled into one. This assessment was based on the furniture, and the doorless, kitchenette entrance Pyre passed as he approached the original location of the woman’s voice, her pleas now replaced by the soft sound of that same woman crying. There was a rectangular dining table with wooden chairs around it on one side of the room—closer to the kitchenette, and to where Pyre entered the apartment—with a sofa, coffee table, and a flatscreen on a television stand occupying the other half of the room. Another sliding, glass door stood on the far side of the room, leading to a second-story balcony, presumably beneath the third-story balcony that Pyre had used to enter the apartment. Beneath the staircase Pyre had descended was another set of stairs, presumably leading to the ground floor and the apartment’s front door.
There was a man next to the dining table, muscles seemingly bulging out of his pale arms, and veins seemingly bulging out of those muscles, facing Pyre. He was quite literally frothing at the mouth—the way one would imagine a rabid dog foaming at the lips—while holding a kitchen knife in the abuser’s right hand. Behind him lay a young, blonde woman, battered and bruised, kneeling next to a small, wailing toddler who lay in swaddling clothes, on the floor. The blonde woman was cradling her own broken, left arm.
Pyre noticed the white froth, a sort of foam-like substance, spewing from the man’s mouth. He figured—on some mental level or another—that this guy could have been on some mind-altering substance, perhaps a hardcore narcotic of some sort. But that was no excuse for breaking the arm of the lady who lay behind the abuser.
Charging at Pyre, the man swung the knife, lunging for Pyre’s neck. Pyre countered by grabbing the abuser’s wrist in Pyre’s left hand—the heat and fire-resistant black work gloves Pyre wore did not hinder his grip in the slightest as he did so—before slamming the palm of his right hand into his enemy’s right elbow, shattering the bones in that joint. That should have made the abuser drop the knife, whimpering and cowering in pain. Instead, the abuser was largely unfazed, as the abuser switched which hand the knife was in as he charged at Pyre, like a frenzied animal.
What the hell is this asshole high on?
Pyre thought that question just in time to feel the wind go out of his chest, when said abuser kicked him in the gut, forcing Pyre to the floor, before pinning him there, by straddling him beneath the abuser’s pelvis. Either this guy was another Variant, possessing enhanced strength, or he was drugged up to his eyeballs—maybe above his eyeballs—and out the rear. Maybe he was both a Variant and drugged out of his mind. Regardless, the only reason he’d managed to get this far is that his sheer strength and speed had surprised Pyre.
Not like I haven’t seen this shit before—I just need to focus, damn it, Pyre thought.
Furiously, the abuser, the fool—whatever one wanted to call Pyre’s then-current enemy—plunged the knife’s blade downwards, towards the general bodily region of Pyre’s neck, shoulders, and upper chest. The knife was now held in the abuser’s other hand, as he plunged it towards…well, Pyre wasn’t sure exactly which one of those body parts the abuser was aiming for but did not have time to dwell on it anyway. Urgently, Pyre grabbed the man’s left wrist in one hand, while taking the abuser’s throat in the other, and—with much exertion and struggle—managed to hold both of them, as well as the blade, which was in the abuser’s left hand, back.
I can’t use a Storm of Shrapnel made from solidified fire—there would be too much risk of a sliver slicing or impaling the victims in the room, Pyre thought, regarding a tactic that could bring another level of lethal efficiency to a fight—assuming that one could ensure no innocent bystanders were in the line of fire, especially while being outside Pyre’s line of sight.
Knowing that he would not survive long like this and that his enhanced strength was outmatched by the presumably enhanced strength of the abuser he was fighting, Pyre fell back on another Variant ability of his—his ability to superheat his own body, or in this case, his hands—which Pyre, now desperate, let burn far hotter than he typically would. The last time the temperature of Pyre’s body had risen this rapidly, the thermometer Pyre had been using to measure his body temperature broke after a few minutes, and Pyre ended up feeling sick for a few days.
A strong stench, similar to burning beef or pork—namely the stench of burning flesh—rapidly filled the air as the abuser dropped the knife, his left wrist still clutched tightly in Pyre’s right hand, which Pyre had superheated to the point of charring the flesh of his enemy’s wrist and throat, to such an extent that the affected skin had been charred black, like charcoal. This also melted a small patch of the floor’s tan carpet and began to melt the black work glove off of Pyre’s right hand. The workman’s glove in question was made specifically to be melt-resistant, fire-resistant, and heat-resistant, and was meant to withstand the most extreme temperatures possible of such a workman’s glove, so this was saying something. Pyre decided that this wasn’t working, and so Pyre let go of the abuser’s wrist as he allowed his left hand—which he had heated to a far higher temperature than his right hand—to start cooling down, stripping off a sizable layer of flesh from the abuser’s now charred wrist with Pyre’s fingertips in the process. That said, Pyre kept his grip on the man’s throat.
Just as well too, considering that Pyre’s body, while immune to thermal burns, was still susceptible to heat exhaustion and heatstroke over time—which presumably included internal organ damage—as well as certain types of burns inflicted by more than mere heat, such as chemical burns and electrical burns. Thusly, Pyre was likely susceptible to organ damage from long periods of superheating his own body. To make things worse, even superheating one part of his body—and only one part of his body—would invariably cause a proportionate, albeit slightly less severe, rise in the temperature of the rest of his body, as the heat radiated from the superheated body part. And, after once accidentally making himself sick while testing out his ability to elevate his body temperature, Pyre had not been so eager to put such theories to the test with his body again.
The abuser kneeled over Pyre for a moment after Pyre let go of his wrist, doing nothing, as though in a trance. Immediately taking advantage of the abuser’s inaction, Pyre scrambled to get out from under him, thinking, Most people would be rolling around on the floor in agony by now. What the fucking fuck?
Before he could stand fully upright, Pyre’s target reached to reclaim the knife with the abuser’s left hand. This was the abuser’s fatal mistake. As Pyre lunged at the abuser, a flame ignited in Pyre’s right hand, and—inside a split second—the flame had both elongated and solidified, forming a knife made from the orange crystal, which Pyre knew to be solidified fire. Before the abuser could bring his reclaimed weapon to bear, Pyre plunged the knife hewn of solidified fire into the abuser’s neck, then pulled it out and plunged it back in, over and over, until his arm hurt from the exertion, and the now nearly decapitated abuser had fallen to the floor, limp, lifeless, and dead, his head held to his shoulders by a string of flesh and fatty tissues, which was roughly the same thickness as one of Pyre’s thumbs. Blood had splattered all over Pyre in the process, with the blade of Pyre’s knife having flung blood from the dead abuser onto the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling. At some point, the abuser’s knife had fallen from the man’s hand to the beige, carpet-clad floor, as the abuser’s corpse fell on top of Pyre.
I will not run again, Pyre thought.
Pyre rolled the corpse off of himself—prompting a dull thud as it hit the floor—and stood up. The air now reeked of burnt flesh and melted fabrics—regardless of what particular fibers the now bloodstained carpet was made of. The woman looked up at Pyre, her green eyes swirling with emotion.
Is she feeling…what? Anger? Fear? Hatred? Relief? A cocktail of two or more? All of the above, Pyre briefly pondered which emotions were swirling in her eyes, but he couldn’t tell.
Fuck it. I’ve never been good at emotional shit, Pyre silently concluded.
“Ma’am, is your child injured? Are you hurt anywhere other than your arm,” Pyre asked, his voice altered by a Vocal Disguise Unit fitted onto his modified motorcycle helmet, near his mouth. It came out sounding synthetic, distorted, simultaneously sounding genuinely demonic and computer generated.
She looked at him, her eyes wide, yelling, “No! Stay back! Please!”.
“Hey, I’m not here to hurt you, ma’am,” Pyre said, trying to soothe the lady, before asking, “Do you want me to set your arm? It looks broken.”.
Her reply was, “No! Stay back, you damned Variant! Stay back!”.
“Ma’am, if I wanted you dead, I’d have made it happen already,” Pyre sounded off, more than a little irritated, and having to remind himself that he didn’t want to traumatize her further, “I’d recommend calling an ambulance. I’ll be going now.”.
With those words, Pyre walked back to the stairs, up the stairs, and left the apartment via the same route through which he had entered it, careful not to touch anything with his right hand.
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Richard Caperno felt the pressure on all of his four limbs as these bastards held him down, spread-eagle. Hell, he felt it through the cast on his left forearm, as the grass was crushed beneath him.
“You tried to rat on me, Mexican,” one of his five attackers said.
Unfortunately, it was only after trying to report the violence these bigoted Neanderthals had put him through that Richard was informed of how the ringleader of this—well, Richard didn’t know if these idiots technically counted as a gang, although they definitely acted as one. Anyway, the ringleader was more than a student—he was the very rich, very spoiled, very bigoted, and often very violent, nephew of the school’s principal, and Richard had only learned this an hour ago, after reporting him to Monte Cristo Junior High’s faculty. Apparently, the old hag had tipped her nephew off. Richard decided that he would need to use his computer skills to do something very vicious to get payback. Assuming Richard could still type after this next beating, that is.
“It’s Hispanic American, idiot,” Richard sounded off angrily. These assholes could break bones, but Richard would not cower for them. Richard was nobody’s coward and nobody’s plaything.
“What did you say? I couldn’t hear you over the scurrying of other rats, illegal,” the asshole taunted. His name was David Smith. As if the name could be more stereotypically white. Eh, maybe if the bastard’s first name was John?
David continued, now mimicking a Mexican accent that was notably absent from Richard’s voice, “That’s just foolish. Go back where you came from, hombre!”.
“Ok. New Orleans. So do I report you to NHPD, NOPD, or the FBI,” Richard sounded off, “Kidnapping, aggravated assault, battery, grievous bodily harm! Oh, and stalking! Let’s not forget the stalking! Just remember what they say about cellmates in juvie!”.
Another voice spoke up from the direction of Richard’s legs, saying, “I can’t believe we’ve got a wetback for a cop! In our town!”.
“My mother is an outstanding police officer, and dad earned his citizenship through military service! You wouldn’t have the guts to serve as a Marine, or the brains to write a parking ticket, let alone make police captain, asshole,” Richard snarled.
More taunting voices spoke after Richard said that.
“Aw, I think we’ve got an angry Mexican!”
“Let’s just break his legs and be done with it already.”
“What? You scared of his mom?”
“Fuck no! I just don’t wanna miss soccer practice!”
“Eh, I suppose angry’s his middle name.”
Richard retorted to the taunting by shooting his mouth off, “What! Didn’t David’s mother tell you? He’s getting a new half-brother! I’m practically his father now!”.
Judging by David’s face, he was furious. Then, a sadistic smile cracked David’s ugly mug in half, as David spoke.
“I say we castrate this fool.”.
Richard thought that was an idle threat, until—with one hand—David pulled out a hunting knife from a book bag, which David had set down on the ground earlier—positioned so that it was next to Richard’s head, and in his line of sight. The knife was matte black and big. David seemed full of bloodlust as he held it in his right hand. David approached Richard and reached for Richard’s belt with David’s left hand. Then David looked away, confused, as though someone else was there.
“Get outta here, weirdo,” David yelled. It was probably another student. A moment of dead silence followed as David waited for a reply, and got none. Then came more discussion from Richard’s attackers.
“Should we do him next?”
“How about we leave?”
“What? Scared?”
“No! I just don’t want a witness.”
“That weirdo? I know Alex.”
“You know that freak?”
“Yeah. He’s a pushover. But he’s a smart pushover.”
“What’s that mean?”
“He won’t rat. He’s heard what happens to rats at Monte Cristo Junior High, and anywhere else.”
A quiet, faint, voice, sounding not sadistic, and—weirdly—not exactly scared either, but rather, sounding agonized and traumatized, as though he were mentally somewhere else, broke the silence, in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper, saying, “I will not run again.”.
David turned to face someone—Richard couldn’t see who, but it was presumably Alex,—saying, “Again, huh? Okay then. You can watch, Alex.”.
“We should probably go now.”
“What? You scared of Richard? Or Alex?”
“Neither! I just don’t think this is smart.”
With that, Richard felt David’s hands around his throat, blocking off the air from his lungs. David was now on top of Richard, choking him out, the knife now laying on the grass a few feet away from Richard, just out of reach—though it wasn’t like Richard could have reached for it. Richard struggled, but couldn’t get free of the hands pinning him down, or those choking him out. His vision became blurry and was going black. Just before the darkness claimed him, Richard heard something else. That same phrase, only now, the voice behind it was screaming it at the top of his lungs, filled with an extreme, primal, frenzy of rage.
“I WILL NOT RUN AGAIN!”
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It was roughly two in the morning when Pyre reached the Brunswick Academy campus. The campus was the size of several city blocks, with the perimeter surrounded by a brick wall topped with barbed wire, but there was a noticeable lack of security cameras around the dorm halls.
Pyre managed to go from rooftop to rooftop without any problems, ultimately landing on the rooftop of Dorm Hall A, a six-story building full of high school students. From there, Pyre found the correct sixth-story balcony and jumped down. The door to this balcony was also a sliding door, composed of two plate glass panels on a metal frame. Finding it unlocked, Pyre gripped the door’s handle, and quietly slid it open.
Don’t want to wake him up. That’d be a poor way to repay him for helping me get this far, Pyre thought.
After entering, Pyre slid the door shut and locked it behind himself. Pyre then closed the curtains behind the door. This balcony faced the rest of the city, not the interior of the campus, so the risk of being spotted from any balcony of the other dorm halls was minimal. Not zero, but minimal.
I really need to set up a forward operating base other than our dorm room. It’s all a question of where, though, Pyre thought.
Looking around, Pyre appraised the blue-walled room, suddenly scared that he may have entered the wrong dorm room by mistake. In the room were a bunkbed, two brown wooden desks, two corresponding brown, wooden chairs, two white, plastic trashcans, two black wooden wardrobes, a pair of mini-fridges, and a pair of small, wooden, brown bookshelves. The sound of snoring came from the top bunk.
Richard must be tired, after helping me so much. Working to acquire and improve all this gear must be tiring. He was still working away when I left, Pyre thought.
Pulling a black, gym-style duffle bag out from under the bottom bunk, Pyre went to one of the two other doors in the room—assuming that the closet doors were excluded from that count—a pair of white painted, wooden things, one of which had several locks, chains, and deadbolts, in addition to the standard lock on the golden, chrome doorknob. The additional locks had been added by the room’s residents. After carefully checking to make sure that the entrance door for their room was thoroughly locked, the young man put the gym bag down on the lower bunk’s mattress, before Pyre unzipped it, and began to methodically strip off the uniform he wore.
Some would have called it either a “disguise” or a “costume”, both terms that the young man in question loathed. “Costume” made it sound like a joke. Sure, it kept his legal identity secret, which, in turn, made an ambush against him or his family when he was out of uniform nearly impossible—hence why the uniform was technically a “disguise”—but Pyre still thought of it as a “uniform”. He felt that he was closest to his true, ideal, self when wearing it. When in the uniform, he was powerful, doing important work, protecting people, and making a difference. In the uniform, he could make sure the pain he and his family had suffered would not be repeated—or, if its repetition was inevitable, he could punish the abusers. In the uniform, he could atone for his long-abandoned cowardice. Out of the uniform, he was the one that his teachers typically praised, but who hadn’t had any courage when it counted.
I will not run again, Pyre thought.
Pyre started by undoing the chin strap of the helmet and pulling it away from his head. It was a matte black motorcycle helmet, with a tinted visor, a Vocal Disguise Unit fitted over the mouth area of the helmet, and the Pyre insignia—his insignia—painted on the sides of the helmet. Said insignia was an orange flame, engulfing an eyeball, the iris of this eyeball a ring of crimson around the jet black pupil, with bloodshot veins snaking around the white sclera of the eye, like venom coursing through the veins of a snakebite victim. Placing the helmet in the duffle bag, Pyre’s hands retrieved a laundry sack from the gym duffle, before his attention went to the rest of his uniform, which he thoroughly inspected.
Then Pyre removed the black ski mask he wore under his helmet—which he put inside the laundry bag—before taking the Bluetooth earpiece from his left ear, which he turned off, as he did with the burner smartwatch on his wrist and the burner smartphone in one of his jacket pockets. These were purchased using forged IDs, and paid for with bank notes taken from criminals Pyre stopped in those instances where the money couldn’t be returned to the bills’ rightful owners.
Usually, the money came from drug dealers who were encountered by Pyre. Their so-called “goods” killed people, fueled violence, and reduced their victims to husks through addiction. Pyre had no reservations about sorting them out with extreme violence. This manner of acquiring funds is how Pyre got most of his gear, yet Pyre did not consider it theft—it was blood money, yes, but it was blood money that was being diverted away from its intended purpose of killing innocents and towards the noble purpose of saving innocent lives.
Next, Pyre unbuttoned the black jacket he wore. It was a plain, fatigue-style jacket, which could best be summarized as a black version of the United States Army’s Cold War-era BDU—the acronym standing for Battle Dress Uniform—jacket. The jacket failed to cover his neck, so Pyre wore a black scarf, with the ends tucked into the jacket. By way of physical descriptions, the jacket had four button-up pockets, one on each breast, and an additional button-up pocket below both breast pockets. The Pyre insignia was embroidered on the jacket’s left breast pocket, the shoulders, and a larger version on the back of the jacket. Emptying the pockets of their remaining contents—including a pair of grey, brick-like power packs, a pair of smartphone charging cables, and a folding pocketknife, along with some spare trauma bandages, spare tourniquets, and a few extra pouches of hemostatic powder, which would come in very useful if he were ever to get injured. The battery packs and chargers were inside sealed plastic bags, meant to keep them dry. These he removed from the plastic bag and placed on the bunk with his other electronic gear, before he put the rest of the small items back in the gym duffle, alongside the scarf, which had to be washed separately from the rest of the uniform to avoid shrinking it. The jacket, and the white, long-sleeved crewneck shirt beneath it, Pyre placed into the laundry sack.
Coming to the police-style duty belt he wore, ringed with an assortment of pouches, Pyre removed it, and the black, soft shell medical kit strapped to it, which looked akin to a one-foot tall, six inches thick, and eight-inch wide, box on his left hip, with a handle on the top end of it. Additionally, his duty belt held, among other items; a flashlight; a few small, plastic boxes of spare batteries; a multitool in a belt pouch; a survival knife; a collapsible, police style-baton; and handcuffs—in case he ever needed to take a target alive, which was unlikely—alongside several pairs of zip-cuffs; among other items in various belt pouches. The whole of the duty belt and medical kit he placed in the gym duffle, before taking off the plain, brown leather belt beneath the duty belt, which was holding up his black cargo pants. The second belt, Pyre placed with the duty belt.
Emptying the pockets of his black cargo pants, Pyre removed even more small plastic boxes of AA batteries, two spare flashlights, a spare folding Swiss pocketknife, a spare multitool, and—in addition to what was inside the medical kit—more bandages, spare EMT sheers, plus some spare tourniquets, and more pouches of hemostatic powder. Then, Pyre pulled off the black combat boots he wore, followed swiftly by the black cargo pants, the latter of which he placed in the laundry sack—or laundry bag, depending on what one called it—after he emptied the pockets of the cargo pants, along with the set of grey, wool socks, and the one remaining of the two black work gloves he’d been wearing, as he made a mental note to figure out how to carry a backup pair of work gloves on his person. It wouldn’t do to leave fingerprints all over. The contents of the uniform’s pockets and the black combat boots Pyre had worn went straight into the duffle, next to the laundry bag, which he shoved back into the duffle.
Doing laundry on a nightly basis might attract unwanted attention. That’s why he had a week’s worth of uniforms, except for the duty belt, combat boots, and helmet. He had only two pairs of combat boots, two duty belts, and two helmets.
Zipping up the duffle and sliding it under the bed, Pyre collected the electronics—the burner smartphone, battery packs, and the like—that he used as Pyre, and hooked them up to charging cables, which were, in turn, plugged into a USB charging rack in a turquoise plastic bin, positioned underneath Pyre’s desk in one corner of the dorm room. After setting up the electronics to charge, Pyre went to one of the two wooden wardrobes and grabbed a set of clothes that he used as pajamas—a pair of green and red pajama pants, a pair of black underwear that were not drenched with sweat—unlike what he’d been wearing—a grey, sleeveless undershirt, and a green sweatshirt. Then he went through one of the doors in the dorm, by the foot of the bunkbed, into an adjoining bathroom.
Tossing the nightwear down onto the white marble—or was it fake marble? He couldn’t tell. Anyway, tossing it down onto the bathroom counter, Pyre closed the bathroom door, stripped off the sweaty underwear—which he dropped down to the white tile floor—and turned on the shower, before the young man brushed his teeth as the shower water warmed up. Spitting into the basin after his teeth were brushed, Pyre rinsed out the basin and stepped into the shower, then efficiently washed his body. Stepping out afterward, he toweled off and got dressed, before proceeding to just…stop. It was so late that it was early, and in roughly three or four hours, he’d have to head to class. It was a waste of time, yet he couldn’t stop himself. Not that Pyre needed more than three hours of sleep—studies had discovered that many Variants found themselves requiring only half or a quarter of the sleep they’d needed before the Advent. For Pyre, it was true that he’d gone from needing nine hours of sleep to feel fully rested to only needing two and being able to function on one—although only having one hour would leave him feeling tired when he woke up. Three hours was like sleeping in for Pyre.
Stopping, Pyre turned and stared into the bathroom mirror, into a reflection of a face that felt foreign, yet which he knew to be his own. It had bland, almost pale skin, prominent cheekbones, and a pointy roman nose, with a sharp chin. Its eyes were a pale, icy blue, and its blonde hair was recently cut short. Once the hair had been long and curly, but Pyre had gotten it cut back into a buzzcut to make it easier to wash. And, much more secretively, easier to fit under a helmet. It was the face of Alex Westsmith.
Coming back to his sense of self, the young man, now Alex, turned away, scooped the used underwear off of the tile floor of the bathroom, and went to bed.162Please respect copyright.PENANAMKnOd5M4DW