Ex Vivo (#2 EX TRILOGY)

Chapter 17

Akoma carefully walked through the dark hole Stallion had created in the wall and realized it led to the backyard of the nightclub facing the street. She ran into the street with no clue of where she was heading to and scanned the area. At that time of the night, the streets were almost deserted.

Her phone started to ring and she remembered that she had put it back on without even realizing. It was from Ender. "What is going on?" she asked angrily.

Akoma stopped to catch her breath and replied, "Amuzu is dead. He was murdered by – "

"Who? Suzy?"

"No. The man Suzy was with. He's from Ex Vivo. Amuzu was found dangling from the ceiling with his head stuck in it. It was a horrible scene. Now I know that these people are not mere humans."

Ender scoffed. "Why do you say that? Don't be silly."

"I watched him ran through a concrete wall and break through it as though it were a sheet of paper. He took off with Suzy after killing Amuzu. You've got to believe this, because I wasn't alone."

Ender paused for a moment, and Akoma panicked, having vowed to herself not to divulge any detail about her unknown associate. "Who else saw it?" Ender asked. Akoma shut her eyes and tried hard to keep her mouth shut. "You will tell me everything. Who was with you?" This one was more compelling, and it sort of gripped Akoma's tongue.

"Akoma!" Akoma turned around and saw Faisal approaching. He looked more terrified than she was when he got close. "Where are they? What on earth happened back there?"

"Is that Faisal?" Ender asked. "Is he the one who was with you?"

Akoma took a deep breath and stuttered, "Y- well – y – yes."

"I see. Abort the mission and return to your hotel room at once. We will talk about this later."

Akoma sensed a note of fear in Ender's voice and frowned. She had never sounded that way before, especially when a report like this had succeeded in getting her to cancel an involvement in an Ex Gratia mission. "But Ender, this freak killed the poor boy because of Suzy. What if all these people are murderers?"

"Do as I say and stop asking questions! Go home! You're officially off this operation until further notice. Until then, serve ex gratia to only regular cases. Good night."

"But how do I know what's regular from what's –", Akoma began to ask, but the call ended abruptly and she blinked at the screen of her phone. She looked up at Faisal who merely stood there with tears in his eyes. He received a call on his phone and he took it unwillingly, but instantly, his eyes widened, and a weird smile appeared on his face. At first Akoma thought he was going to harm her with that look, but slowly, the smile faded and was replaced with confusion. He looked around him and then at Akoma.

"Who are you?" he asked. "How did I get here?" He scratched his head and grimaced. "Is that blood on your forehead – and your clothes too?"

Akoma shook her head and walked away from him, concluding that Ender had also released him from her spell and for that matter, duty. She broke into a trot down the street towards Labour roundabout and looked ahead, and as soon as she glimpsed a flash of green light from a distance, she remembered the freak who had attacked her hours ago and had a hunch that she had to go further and see what was going on. She started to feel worried for Poku and feared her chances of getting information about Ex Vivo would be lost if he happened to get killed in pursuit. She took that route heading towards Roman Hill and walked up the street leading to Prempeh Assembly Hall. When she remembered that the zone she had gotten into was rumoured to be unsafe and she had gotten there without a weapon, she hesitated and stood there alone in the night, listening and hoping she would hear a scream or her name. Suddenly, someone touched her shoulder from behind and she let out a scream. She stumbled in an attempt to flee and fell, and when she looked up, she clutched her chest and sighed.

"Are you mad?" she cried out and scowled at Poku who stared down at her in silence. She realized he was not smiling this time, but looked agitated by something. He looked unharmed. He just scanned the street carefully and cocked his head to listen. "Where are they?" Akoma whispered.

Poku shook his head. He held out a hand and helped Akoma to her feet. He steered her down the street to the taxi station in front of the fuel station and got her into one of the taxis. Akoma was surprised. "Go home. That's enough for the night. The taxi will take you anywhere. It's on me." He smiled at last and leaned over to stroke her face through the window. "You're a beautiful woman. You should take good care of yourself. I know you will." Before Akoma could speak, he kissed her. If not for the fact that it felt nothing like any kiss she had ever had from any man in this world, Akoma would have naturally slapped this guy, but she found herself holding on and thinking of many things to cause a delay thirty seconds beyond the usual reaction time. Akoma felt him touch her phone, but ignored it and kept her eyes closed. Poku pulled back and winked at her, and as he turned to leave, he said, "I'd love to see you again. This weekend, definitely." He hopped away happily like a child, and Akoma shook her head. It shocked her to notice that throughout the ride back to the hotel, it felt like Poku's lips were still glued to hers, and she could not help biting her lips every now and then.

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Akoma had a lot of trouble getting her mind clean and her body sound when she returned to the hotel that night. As she took a shower, thoughts of Poku kept coming to her and the kiss was weakening her emotionally. She had no idea what the gentleman had done to her, but whatever it was, it was scarier than enjoyable. She left the bathroom and sat on her bed with a towel around her. The last romantic encounter she had had with a man was with Rich, her ex-husband. She had given out her heart to someone who had turned out to be a pawn in Ender's hand through another Ex Agent she had killed, who called himself Derrick under the alias Nii, posing as a photographer, neighbour and friend. She had completely felt desensitized after that revelation and the enslavement, but meeting Poku seemed to have turned a light bulb that had been dead back on. As long as she remained with him, she seemed to have some control of her will against Ender's spell, and she remembered every moment she had acted on her own accord and not Ender's. She knew it was totally against her own minuscule moral codes to allow herself to wander off to a man she hardly knew, since the last encounter had ended pretty badly, but she could not help admitting she looked forward to see Poku again – not only because of her desire to know more about Ex Vivo, but because he was fun, and he made her feel important.

Suddenly, a sill idea occurred to her. She reached for her phone and installed the Ex Vivo app, and just when she attempted to sign up for an account with the intention of modelling a replica of Poku out of curiosity, the system froze, and after a minute-long loading screen, a message that got Akoma's heart to skip a beat appeared on the screen.

You are already signed in to Ex Vivo.

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Meanwhile, Suzy was lying in bed still unconscious at her place near campus, and Stallion sat watching over her in a chair across the room. He looked down at his left forearm and gazed at a bloody tear in his skin, but underneath the injury was a network of circuits, hydraulics and flexible titanium coils wrapped around what appeared to be an exposed region of thick titanium radius and ulna, and the coils contracted each time he moved his fingers. He held the fingers of his right arm over it, and as he passed his palm over the tear to and fro, the tissue started to grow, and the tear healed slowly.