LINKAGE (boyxboy)

CHAPTER 14: WISDOM COMES WITH AGE

Philly walked inside a lab inside the Sozzieck Institute like he did every day of his week. He held his PAD molded in a 15-centimeter square checking if he got authorization from his superior to use one of the samples of modified seeds they had locked up in storage. Unfortunately, the message was still unanswered and Philly snorted at that.

When he got out of the laboratory room, he found a man standing in the corridor right next to him. He wore an all-black suit and had a tiny square device on his neck, which was white but in between seconds a light blue color was lightened in its extremities.

"Hello, sir." He looked at the man once again, realizing he was not from the institute since he didn't sense an identity. "I see you're not from here. Do you need help with something?"

"Yes, Phillipy." He opened his hand to make a holographic representation of two people pop up in perfect coloration. One of them he recognized as Isaac, his missing high school colleague he hadn't seen for ages, and the other one was a boy he didn't acknowledge at first sight, then he remembered seeing that face on TV a couple of times. "Have you seen one of these two man?" The suit guy asked.

"I haven't seen Isaac in ages. He's missing for 5 years now." He was saying the truth. Back in that day, he didn't see Isaac, just Lola. "And the other one, well I just saw his face on TV."

"Look behind you."

"What?" When Philly looked behind him, two men came out of invisibility standing on the sides of the black-suited man, both taking a full silenced shot at Phill's head, taking him down instantly. The man turned his hologram off, looking at the body splattered on the floor, but with no blood coming out of it. These bullets are made to leave no trace behind, they stop the bleeding instantly, but since the shot was taken right in the brain, there wasn't much to do about it. The poison inside the bullet was now spreading, finishing to kill the brain and starting to kill the organs.

"Pitiful liar."

Days have come and gone. Life inside the bunker was not that bad for Gavin. He took some time to walk over the place, take care of the plants, exercise and watch TV. He was getting used to seeing his face on that big screen almost every day on the news. Isaac did pretty much the same, but he took some time to search for some things on the internet about their current goal. He was very aware that they stayed a lot of days without doing anything, but he wanted to chill for a bit.

Living with Gavin was not a bad thing, it was much more neutral than a bad or good thing. They didn't exchange deep conversations since that other night, it was something very situational for them to talk about, but both boys were comfortable that way, without invading each other's personal space. At first, Isaac thought living with Gavin would be a disaster, like they would argue every day and Gavin would do things to annoy him, but the truth is that Gavin really does not care that much to do such a thing. Obviously, the conversation they had that other night helped to ease things between the boys, but if it didn't happen, still the situation wouldn't be that bad. Just a bit bad.

In that morning, Isaac felt like it was time to leave the bunker and continue advancing toward their objective. He sat on that big couch in the living room while a TV series was on. Isaac wore black casual pants with a dark blue long-sleeve shirt. "GAVIN!" He screamed out, trying to reach him without having to get up from the couch. "GAVIN?"

"WHAT?" His voice sounded muffled from the distance.

"LIVING ROOM, NOW." He grabbed his PAD on his side and increased its size to a computer screen size. The strong lighting of the device brightened his face very well.

"What's the emergency?" Gavin wore a black stamped t-shirt with a colorful illustration of a woman smoking a cigarette and wearing lingerie.

Isaac looked carefully at that stamp. "Did not know you were into that stuff."