Argon-3

Chapter 1 : The Facility

               The door opened and I was greeted by a strange man. "Gajin is the name, and I'll be showin' you round these here headquarters today, nice to meet ya!" the man said. In the moment it surprised me as it seemed he took on an accent unbecoming of what I had just experienced from our recent encounter. He had black hair spiked with green streaks lining the top, his body was hunched just slightly in that sort of sexy way. His face was like a K-pop star with a scar running from the left corner of his jaw to the corner of his mouth. He had a marijuana pipe hanging low on his lips though he didn't seem like a smoker. His eyes were emerald green and his face was clean shaven. If you had asked me at the time, I would've said he was around seventeen. After gawking for a bit, I felt a strange knocking on my head. "Ya good there?" he looked at me curiously, feeling embarrassed I responded, "Oh yeah, sorry, yeah I'm fine. Just a bit tired." I could feel him consciously staring into my eyes trying to figure me out, I felt this menacing presence before it all dissipated in an instant, "Oh alright, we'll I'd better show ya round, before the boss man gets upset," he said in a chipper tone. It was strange it seemed like he was fluctuating between two accents. A colder one, and that of a low budget cowboy film. With this quick exchange he began walking off turning away from me, before adjusting his head to look at me giving me a quick wink and a smile. I couldn't quite put my finger on how I felt about him, but I decided it was meaningless to evade him. After all I had no idea what the layout of this place was.

After a few moments, and some security checks, we made it into the main hangar. Gajin motioned to his left immediately by the entrance, "Over here we have a small on-site school," then motioned to the immediate right, "Our training center," motioning once more, "Over there we have the research area, I wouldn't recommend going in there, they ahh. Well there isn't anything you want to see in there," he had pointed to a large structure in the left corner. "Of course, we have a few other amenities but if you ever need any help there are plenty of maps around the hangar," after mentioning this we headed on towards a general hangout place, "Now it's time to show you around, ya know. Gotta meet some people, make some friends. Of course, you'll always have me," the last words he said lingered like a snakes poison. It was creepy. We neared a tented area, in which I heard the bustling noises of a crowd of people. Flipping back a fold I saw a multitude of people laughing and enjoying their day. Gajin entered first, being eccentric and yelling, "I'm here my beauties," before being completely ignored. His posture of grandeur quickly turned into that of sorrow. After this sudden mood swing, he shifted back to normal before motioning for me to enter. I lifted the tent flap to the extent I needed and took a calm pace into the tent, expecting not even a flutter from anyone. Instead I was greeted with dead silence. I saw groups of people, in fact everyone in the rather large tented area quieted and immediately stopped whatever they were doing, leaving nothing but awkward silence. I saw groups of Recruits and Puppets stop their studying, Officers looking away from their drinks. There I stood, basked in complete silence for what seemed like eternity. The silence was tearing away at my self-image and I decided to speak, say anything really. Until I realized just a second later that no one cared, almost immediately after it had begun people went back to what they were doing paying me no mind. "Huh," I thought to myself in that moment, I made a huge and very little impact at the same time, I guess. Gajin saw the look of distress plastered on my face, and headed towards me ringing his left arm around my neck, "Eh, don't worry. They're always like this with new blood, even if you are there superior. I mean they don't know that," he chuckled, honestly more like a cackle. This is when he decided to lead me to his troupe. We swerved around a few tables, I almost knocked over a drink, before heading to the main bar area. There I saw a group of people enjoying some drinks. "Here we are," he proclaimed.

"Bar keep, two Stale Mates please," Gajin yelled before looking at my stature and correcting himself, though the correction was inaccurate, "I mean make that a Stale Mate, and a Club Soda," he winked at me which I could only take as him saying he revealed some sort of secret. How old did he think I was? All of a sudden, one of the people I could assume was part of his troupe turned around. She was beautiful, in her own right. She had light blue hair, which darkened near the tips. One of her eyes was mostly covered, and the one I could see showed a nice sea-green color. Her face had a girlish charm, but her lips gave off a smug attitude. She wore headphones around her neck, with a tank-top under an unzipped jacket. She had a few bruises near her neck, they looked like they had been covered up with something but it didn't completely hide them. She blew the hair out of her face, revealing her heterochromia (different colored eyes), the eye that had been concealed was similar to the sea-green eye but more like a seafoam color. Then she spoke, "Gajin, what wacko did you bring this time?" "Now, now be nice, dis here fella's your superior!" Gajin spoke commandingly though I could tell he had light-hearted intentions. Even after speaking genuinely, it still sent a chill down everyone's spine, all of them turned around at once yelling, "What?"

Gajin feeling bewildered by their strange response, though now that I think about it, I feel he may've been pretending and had fully expected this, he responded, "This here is Benny Goodmen, a newly transferred General." They looked towards me inspecting me, first from the bottom then to the top, the girl was the first to speak, "Really?" There was, well, a lot of tension in the air. I felt like I was in some anime where black lines had appeared on these slumped figures, and everyone had spirals in their eyes. Suddenly, I was snapped back to reality when I felt a hand reach out to me, "Name's Jessie, Jessie Quill," she said to me. I met her hand with mine, and responded, "Pleasure to meet you, my name is Benny, Benny Goodmen." "Look at da little love birds," Gajin sang. When Jessie heard this her eyes flared with anger, a millisecond after this change in mood I heard a yelp of pain, "Urgh," I looked at his now limping leg where I saw a gash and a tear on the pants, and behind it a knife laid on the floor. "Ah come on, he was just teasing ya, Jess. He hasn't seen you shake hands with another man in forever," I saw a man at the far corner to the left of his troupe. He was burlier and hairier than anyone I'd seen before. Muscular and a little heavy-set at the same time. He wore a green tank-top like outfit, it appeared as though it was a button up shirt, which he had ripped the arms and collar off of. His face was covered in scars, he had a five-o'clock shadow on his face and a gritting grin plastered on. His hair was slicked back and had a dark brown color to it. His eyes showed a brown color, and he held a deep voice. He got up from his charge and took a few steps before arriving in front of me, "The name's Jack, but my nickname around these parts is Crusher. Call me whatever you see fit, Jess trusts ya I'll trust ya" he said to me. Next another guy popped off his chair, though his stature was unexpected. Umm, well he was umm, shorter than expected. He wore thick glasses and his face held a gray beard. "Professor Lionheart, at your service, and yes before you ask, I'm 4'6." I honestly was astonished in this moment, to see this person who looked like the gnome out of a fairytale. Before I could respond one more person turned around, she was truly beautiful. "My name is Amanda, Amanda Beckon," she said her voice like smooth red wine. Her face was dignified, like that of royalty. Her hair was a silky brown that waved and flowed down to her chest, she wore a red dress which complemented her eyes. Just imagine that one girl from school that everyone wanted to have sex with, and multiply it by one-thousand, that's what I was thinking in that moment while my brain tried to grasp what I was seeing. I won't go into detail, because even now it's a little fuzzy. "Wow," is all my body could muster. Gajin noticed, and comforted me, "Don't worry, most of everyone I've ever met has had that reaction, "he said slipping in and out of his accent almost unnoticeably, almost. She got up from her seat leaving behind her sparkling wine, and took a courteous bow raising her dress and bowing her head. All I could do in return was take a bow as well, though it was so bad my Renaissance Era ancestors probably rolled over in their grave. "It's a pleasure to meet you all, my name is Benny Goodmen, though you may call me Ben for short," I added returning to my normal stance. "That's fine, whatever, what's this about superior I want the details," Jessie stated expectantly. Gajin grimaced still slightly holding the cut given to him, by Jess. "Let's take an actual seat at one of these tables, and maybe our friend here will fill us in," Gajin said, coldly, and at the time I couldn't understand why. Now I wish I didn't.