Sharpshooter

???, 2050

At least, I hope it’s 2050.

    Groggily, I open my eyes and find a brown potato bag on my head.

    I test my hands and find them bound to what seems like a metal pole with two loops. The edges of my wrists are already raw from struggling against the metal cuffs. I’m sitting on something slippery– wax.

    Weirdly, I don’t feel the pain I felt the last time I was awake. My left kneecap is fine– actually, better than before, considering that everytime I stooped down my bones would creak. 

    I roll back my shoulders against the pole, trying to stretch myself when a voice rings out.

    “Oh, damn. He’s awake.”

    My lilac eyes widen– and yes, I said lilac. 

    I’m something of a genetically modified freako. Slightly. But still.

    I try and open my mouth to speak but instead, my speech comes out something like: “Mrhghhharghhhhhhhhhh…”

    The feminine voice snorts.

    “Yeah, he don’t sound too good,” a deep man's voice echoes. Maybe late thirties, mid forties judging on the smoker’s rasp.

    Judging on the acoustics of his snicker, we are in a basement with wood walls.

    “Take his potato sack off.”

    I would bet all my credits that nobody in the world has ever said that sentence before.

    Footsteps come towards me and suddenly the world is too bright for me to comprehend. Fresh air fills my lungs, and as I squint, I can see that we are in a very finely made basement with waxed floors and bookshelves. The exit is on the right, between two bookshelves. If I could just get these handcuffs off–

    “Don’t even try, 204,” The girl says, shrugging.

    Even though at that moment she wasn’t wearing the cadet uniform, I could still tell that this girl was the girl who shot my left kneecap with deadly accuracy. 

She has a pixie cut– black hair with brown streaks. Her blue almond eyes suggest strong asian heritage, but her bone structure suggests a dancer’s– 5’6, about 130 pounds, and muscular. She’s wearing a white tank top with camo pants that are clearly strapped with enough weapons to blow up a facility. On her feet are heavy tan boots which click on the ground with every step– expensive and durable. I can tell by the texture that they’re waterproof– hell, everything proof. The girl has a snake earring crawling up her ear– which is strange, because they don’t allow jewelry for cadets. Not even dog tags. With today’s technology a chip embedded in your skin will provide more information than any file can.

The middle aged man on her right has salt and pepper hair and a stubble. He’s average in height and has very broad shoulders. All the muscle is in his arms. He has grey eyes and olive skin. He’s wearing an old t-shirt with worn out lettering and camo pants too, but his are much looser and more relaxed. He only has a hand gun strapped at his side and a couple of blades. For some reason he’s not wearing any shoes. He’s barefoot. He has dog tags around his neck– three of them to be exact.

I pull my hands against the metal cuffs again and scowl. At that moment, my red hair decides to fall in my eyes and I have to blow it away to look at them again.

“Who are you? Why am I here? Who are you affiliated with? Do you work with COBRA? What is your purpose–”
    “Hold on there, kid,” The middle aged man said with a laugh, his shoulders shaking. “You really think that we’re gonna answer all those questions when we can see you eyeing the door and the dog tags around my neck to try and plan an escape?”