Renegade Reborn

Part 9

Mr. Alexander slowly dropped the phone from his ear, hanging up and giving Ren an appraising glance. "You called?" Ren said mildly, quirking one eyebrow.

The man stood and nodded, unclasping his glasses from where they hung off his shirt and placing them on his face. He looked like he had been studying something fascinating for a long time. I wonder what, Ren thought dryly. Could it have anything to do with...drumroll...me?

"Please, sit," Mr. Alexander said, gesturing to the chair on the other side of his desk, across from his own. Ren sank into the oxblood seat, tension creeping up his spine like a bug. What had modern medecine revealed about him? The question churned through Ren's thoughts as the human reached into his pocket and withdrew a steel chain with two matching, black rubber-edged dog tags dangling from the end. Alexander handed them over, depositing them in Ren's suddenly outstretched palm. "Been a bit since I last wore tags," Ren murmured, examining the small steel plates. The information engraved was different from what usually went on military tags, laid out in a name/division/race/blood type format. Drakos Malachai, COBRA Unit 5, angel/demon, Mutated AB- Tc(a-) Do(a-) Vel-. Freakin' hell, his blood had actually typed? Nevermind the 'mutated' and the three extremely rare subgroups tagging along after it, that was cool! Leo Alexander had his full attention now. But something else on the tags caught his eye. On the line below his blood type was graven a small infinity. What did that mean?

He presented the tag to the man and asked,"The infinity. What does that signify?"

Mr. Alexander replied," It's because on our power scales, given what we've observed, you're off the charts."

Ren raised his eyebrows, impressed, as he slipped the chain over his head. Well, that's just stroking my ego to an obscene degree. "What else did you need me for?" he queried.

"There's one more thing you need to do, and then it's off to debriefing. Follow me?"

Ren followed the small man out of Mr. Alexander's office and down to a cold stone room with an odd-looking machine in the middle and a rack of different-sized metal masks against the walls. The two men walked over to a rack of larger masks, and Mr. Alexander impatiently gestured for Ren to bend down. The human selected one of the plain steel faceplates and held it up to Ren's face. He shook his head and sized up, this time holding a slightly larger mask. He held it up to Ren's face and now nodded in approval. "Good," he said happily, striding over to the machine and placing the mask in a hole in the side.

The thing whirred and pulled the mask in until Ren could no longer see it. Mr. Alexander beckoned him over to the machine's screen, and understanding blossomed in Ren's mind. This is where I make that mask they want me to wear. His thoughts suddenly turned grim. I have a feeling I won't enjoy putting on another mask. What will it dredge up? He really didn't want to watch and relive flashes of his tortures; Ren sincerely hoped all that was behind him. Forever.

Ren needed no instructions to figure out how to get the mask-maker to work. It wasn't that hard in the first place, and his brain had already scanned the innards and calculated everything he needed to know based on the gathered data. His fingers danced across the touchscreen, selecting designs and colors from the exhaustive lists, manipulating placements and playing with shades and hues. The machine whirred and hissed in response, etching his choices into the metal and spraying paint in precise shapes.

The finished mask was ejected into a tray along the machine's side, and Ren lifted it and held it up to head height. He examined his creation with grim eyes, then nodded. "That will do," he rasped, memories of confinement already crowding down on him. The faceplate disappeared, banished to an interdimensional pocket as Ren turned to Mr. Alexander. "I'm ready for that debriefing," Ren said quietly.