Beyond the Horizon

32. Riot

The bad guys always lost.

          That was the way it was meant to be.

          The bad guys lost, and the good guys got away.

          Nezumi had spent most of his life on the road. He'd spent the night in wayward bus stations, dozed in darkened corners of mom and pop shops that were too foolish to check for stowaways before closing for the night, and spent time in a place with an abundance of television screens. He'd watched enough television shows and movies in his downtime to know that, somehow, the bad guys were meant to lose.

          If his life were an action movie, then Horizon Labs would have fallen long ago. Nezumi fit the role of downtrodden protagonist perfectly―pursued by old enemies with a bounty on his head, fleeing from a corrupt organization hiding in plain sight. With nowhere left to turn, Nezumi's only chance to rid himself of this burden was to eliminate the evil at its source: cutting Horizon Labs down, once and for all. Their existence was a blight on humanity, and something needed to happen that would raze them to the ground.

          If life were a movie, Nezumi would have used everything in his arsenal to take them down. He'd team up with new allies and craft a crew strong enough to cut Horizon Labs apart from within. Once the Lab came crashing to the ground, Nezumi's perfect ending would begin. He'd be living happily in the countryside, Shion at his side, without fear that the Lab and its abundance of horrible agents lurked around every corner.

          But life wasn't a movie.

          No heroes had risen to tear the Lab to the ground and liberate the superhumans in the time since Nezumi's parents' murders. No knight in shining armor had swept in to save him from the horrible life on the streets he'd been forced to live. No one had protected him from the Lab's ever-watchful eye, or shielded him from their transport vehicles and guns.

          If there was to be any sort of happy ending in this life, Nezumi was going to have to make it happen on his own.

          There was, however, such a thing as "karmic justice." Nezumi stared into Mirai's glazed brown eyes, his influence piercing down into her psyche. He held her in place like a puppet, or a pinned insect. The undercurrents of her subconscious mind thrummed beneath his Grip, but she'd already fallen in too deep. Underestimating him had made her mind weak against his mental assault. Once he'd found a foothold, she'd fallen like a rotten tree. Nezumi had his next pawn.

          His eyes flickered over to Benkei. He'd managed to get a firm Grip on him, too, before all this started, but the other guard had managed to jam his scrambler in too quickly. Either that, or he'd never removed it in the first place. Rookies were more careful about obeying the rules than seasoned employees.

          Fine.

          Two was better than nothing.

          Phase One had worked like a charm. Better than Nezumi could have dreamed. Now all Nezumi had to do was erase any sort of suspicion, and he'd be in the clear.

          Adrenaline punched through his veins. He felt trembly and anxious, like a little kid waiting for his parents to stop arguing. So much had gone in his favor, but that made it so much easier to take away. He needed to be careful.

          :Punch me,: Nezumi ordered Mirai, gazing deep into her eyes. :Make it look like you're pissed.:

          As a trained agent, Mirai might have gone for her buzz baton. But humans made foolish mistakes when clouded by anger. Takaya Mirai, second in command to Officer Rashi, had managed to suppress a dangerous threat. Her victory had made her cocky. Now that a prisoner had managed to knock her to the floor, effectively toppling her from her pedestal, it only made sense that she'd give in to her furious impulses.