Omnificial (3)

"Why do you know so much about me?" Danny moves his legs off the couch and stands up on his own two feet, his balance shaking as the blood rushes to his head.

"Danny, when I found you dead in that alleyway, your body was absolutely mutilated, your body parts were in every nook and cranny in every spot possible. Vale had destroyed your body and turned you into mince meat to get rid of any evidence." JK swallows his own spit. "I was absolutely mortified when I came across your mutilated corpse, but when I tried to walk away, you woke up."

Jodi looks at JK with a look of approval on her face. "Just like what happened to me."

"In the few seconds that I had turned and walked away, your body had rematerialized and reformed itself. Back into your human form." JK points to his own chest. "Your heart was missing, so I decided to take it upon myself to replace your heart, just like I did with Jodi."

Jodi grabs Danny's hand and places it on her chest. Danny freaks out for a moment before realising now is not the time to make any jokes. Danny places his hand on Jodi's chest and feels the circulating beat of electricity running through her body, like a rhythm. "You feel it too, don't you?"

Danny's heartbeat starts to synchronize with Jodi's. "I feel it." He swallows his own spit.

"In exactly a month from now, Cathode City will be debuting Piloting as an official sport with its legal arenas. That means we only have thirty-one days to cement ourselves as the greatest Piloting team in the entire world." JK forms his hand into a fist. "The mavericks have longed reign over the Piloting scene, but with their captain, Astel, gone, it's time to take back what's ours."

"To take back what's ours." Jodi grabs Danny's hand as she slips her fingers through the gaps of Danny's, interlocking their fingers. "I'm begging you, Danny. Join us."

Danny's palms started sweating as he didn't know what to do. "Why are we even trying to get rid of the Mavericks? Aren't there hundreds of groups way worse than them? Besides, one of them even saved me!"

"That fucking bitch Dedeath." Jodi changed her expression immediately as she clutched Danny's hand even harder. "That fucker is the reason why I died, she doesn't know how to keep her legs or mouth closed." Jodi nearly crushes Danny's hand.

"Her what close-?" Danny groans as his hand are being crushed more and more.

"Each of the Mavericks has done heinous crimes that have gone unpunished," JK explains. "I've been a part of their team for nearly 6 years, and their captain in action right now, Vale, is onto me. He's starting to question my loyalty to them." JK says. "It won't be long before he catches onto me and tries to kill me."

Danny sits back down on the couch and takes a deep breath in, trying to absorb all of this information. "So what? For the next month I'm just gonna give living here with this woman I've never met in my life and just train to win a tournament in a sport I learned about, what, yesterday?"

"Sorry kid, you stumbled upon a rabbit hole and you've ventured far too deep into it, there's no going back now. I'll make it as blatant as I can for you Danny." JK looks Danny in the eye, through the tiny holes in his mask. "You have no choice."

Jodi shrugs her shoulders.

"Right." Danny looks at his left arm and sees the empty void that is the absence of his left hand. Even though his left arm had been severed, he could still feel the blood pulsating through the veins in his hand, like it was still there. "Do I get food?"

"Sandwiches." Doctor Foster places the tray of sandwiches on the kitchen counter.

"We'll make sure you're well fed and you live a comfortable life." Jodi kicks her feet up on the couch. "You don't have to think for yourself, just do as we say."

Danny relaxes his back and lays his head on the top of the couch. "I can live with that." Danny closes his eyes and falls back into a deep slumber, the weight of his eyes pushing themselves down.

x x x x x

Cars drift through the streets of Cathode city at night, their neon lights illuminating the street in a purple glow. Giant holograms of half-naked women grabbing the attention of those down below light the night sky with an obnoxious hue, blocking out the natural sky with piercing colours.

Danny is sitting on the couch, his eyes closed as he tries to get some peace of mind. Alice Everland is sitting across the room, on a chair facing towards him. "Now I think about it, you're not Atsel." She's sat backwards on a chair, her arms resting on the rest of the chair.

Danny opens his eyes and sees Alice sitting opposite him. "Who even are you?"

"I don't know." Alice plays with a pen on the counter, flipping it back and forth. "Who are you?"

"I don't know either." Danny takes a deep exhale as he kicks his feet onto the coffee table. "We're just two strangers."

"I guess so." Alice accidentally presses on the pen with too much strength and snaps it in half, causing the ink to leak out of the cartridge. "You know I'm not a real human, right?" Alice reminds Danny. "I'm just a robot, a really realistic one."

"I don't know about you, but I've never met a robot that's sentient and self-aware." Danny looks to the side, admiring the view over central Cathode City.

"The last time I could remember being awake was 6 months ago," Alice says out of the blue. "But I feel like, I've forgotten who I was in those months leading up. It's all felt like a haze, glimpses of memories flashing inside my he-"

"head that never fully forms complete memories." Danny finishes Alice's sentence for her. "You too?"

Alice scoffs. "You do realise I'm a robot right, you're sympathising with a robot. You're like one of those sad old dudes who buy a robot and marry them."

"I think you're more than a robot." Danny laughs at Alice's joke. "I think you're more human than most humans on this cursed earth."