DERELICT

CHAPTER 2

I awoke to Corlendo cooing at my door, his voice was sprightly which sounded odd due to the fact it's tone was so dark.

"Go away." I murmured. In the morning my voice shifts and changes as it tries to remember it's original settings, not those of the voices within my memories, and so my voice sounded like a cross between the Officer's and Jaika's. Any way I could phrase how it sounded would not add much appeal to the groggy voice that awakened from my lips. Corlendo snickered,

"That's my Gale." Corlendo had taken to teasing me with a shortened version of my code-name, referring to how overbearing I sounded in the mornings due to being surrounded by mostly men for the past weeks. Damn voice-box alterations. I rolled from my left side to my right and the visable-metal, I had removed the synthetic skin due to an accident during my training with Corlendo involving fire (apparently synthetic skin does not bode well with heat) and some extinguishing vapour, of my arm clinked against the cold marble-shell of my bed. The noise was enough to make me flinch as my robotic-ears began to adjust their sensitivity to the sounds around me. Sometimes I loathed these cybernetics rather than appreciated them, I had been told it would take a few years to get used to but for now I was forced to bear the pains and burdens of their faults, after all I was only an experiment, granted some would say an accomplishment to science and technology. Corlendo entered my cell without much thought on whether I would be dressed or not, unfortunately it was the latter, but he did not seem to care as he strolled into my room and flicked on the dim light. Thankfully my eyes had not been replaced, only adjusted to allow a view clearer than that of the average human, so I did not wince to the light as I had to sounds and my own voice. Corlendo sighed and poked my spine with his foot, my back was to him.

"Give off." I batted my left hand at him and he let out an animalistic growl,

"Agent do I have to remind you that today is your last day of training before your assessment and your potential departure from Eliteist Control tomorrow?"

I sunk into my matress and felt my heart suck into a void within my chest. I made sure to cling the stone-coloured sheets of my bed to my chest, like-wise to how I'd hide beneath them as a child, as I turned to face him, opening a single eye to glance at him while tired. Corlendo, unlike the other members of The Council, was actually very beautiful, maybe even handsome. His face looked hand-crafted and shared similar, striking features to Jaika: a sharp nose, well-structured cheek bones and eyes full of a fire or a yearning for battle. I realise now why I thought he was dark like the other men, it was due to his constant expression, as if he wanted to inflict pain which buried a fear deep within me but also lured me to the curious air that surrounded him. His brown eyes, some may argue as being red, pierced my one open eye and caused it to flee behind my eyelid. I heard him laugh menacingly and imagined him sweeping his long, black hair back with his right hand, a particular habit of his. I always thought that Corlendo looked very vamperic, like the creatures which people used to write about in books of fantasy. Some of the other female agents used to gossip about Corlendo though I never knew who he was and although he apparently often visited the training quater I never noticed him, until a couple of weeks ago he was non-existant in my mind.

"Come, Gale, we need to ensure you're ready for your test tomorrow."

I groaned and reluctantly pulled myself from my bed, once he had left the room, to equip myself with my usual gear: the personalised, black armour which now sagged over my robotic right arm due to the lack of synthetic skin, my sniper, my three blades and my two pistols which glowed as Nova began to awaken within my armour, one purple and one blue. My pistols would not awaken until Nova was fully activated within my armour, which they'd then glow one purple and one blue, as parts of her also inhabited within their mechanisms and it was her who controlled the nuclear power within them. Yes, my pistols were full of energy which was potentionally fatal for not only my enemies but also for myself which is why Nova was incharge of them but also why they were only to be used as a last resort as, if over-used, I could suffer the consiquences of R.D, radiation disease. I had heard of a couple of people around the edges of the Eliteist compound falling sick with R.D. but there was never any recorded fatalities, of course that was also all "classified data". I pulled on my knee-high boots and bolted the metal covering of my knee, the boots were designed to make little-to-no sound when moving. I sluggishly dragged my feet, even while scuffing my heels across the stone floor was no sound made and I found myself rather impressed by their design. Corlendo was waiting in the third room down the hall, my appartment was rather large, which just so happened to be a broad room with a padded floor. The room, like most of the compound, was steel in colour and material, all bar the floor. Corlendo was wearing an outfit similar to mine although his lacked the white shoulder-pads, stripe down the back and cybernetic number as he did not partake in the CBP. "One of the best," he'd always say, I guess he used to be in the pri-ops team within the Eliteist Soldier academy. Corlendo took a moment to attach a mini-cannon onto his left arm. The weapon looked beautiful and reminded me of the arm of the robot from the acadamy's training quater, same ominous yellow glow spiralling around the odd, runic patterns engraved into it's silvery, metal shell. The gun clicked and began to heat up, I could see heat-waves buldging around it, though Corlendo did not seem to be affected.