There was no dream. Andrew woke up only to the sound of his set alarm for 9 AM. That was late for him, at least.
It was always jarring to wake up in his bed and not in his CDR bunk. It almost felt like he was in some other world, like a dream within a dream if that made any sense. It took a second before he remembered yesterday’s hungover events.
Personally, Andrew rolled his eyes at the scheduling of duty and rotations. Too much time of inaction, and too little time to rest. It was like higher was trying to find the golden-mean of fucking over its people. But, what the hell, there was nothing Andrew could do about it.
He cooked eggs. Ignored television. And looked at the groupchat.
Singh: Smith, did you break up with her yet? PS: Sorry about making out with her.
She posted a video of her rinsing her mouth out. It was done with the exaggeration to be funny, yet sincere at the same time. After a little while, Smith finally texted back.
Smith: Wasn’t your fault.
Gutierrez: He’s right. Asian shawty was trynna fuck around.
Smith: Okay, that was a bit much Guti.
Gutierrez: My bad.
The eggs finished up at that point. Andrew took the plate over to the dining table and had a nice breakfast with a nice view. He could see the whole city from here, as usual, though with some strange layer of distance. Maybe he was just exhausted, but things just felt different now.
Smith: But yeah, I did break up with her. She was crying over the phone the whole time too.
Kang: Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.
Smith: Kang, what the fuck does that mean?
Kang: She outed her true nature by lying. That’s why it was easy to see through the crocodile tears. Better to cut her off now than let her hurt you for the future.
Gutierrez: Motherfucker thinks he’s Confucius.
Everyone started liking Gutierrez’s comment, including Andrew. He smiled as he finally put his phone away. In a world that seemed to keep moving, it was nice to find that he always had his squad at his back.
Then he finally got another text. This time, it wasn’t from the groupchat, but a direct message.
Hannah: Hey, sorry about the randomness, but I really need your help.
Andrew blinked at the text. It took him a bit to remember when she had gotten his number—it was when she was organizing the reverse make-a-wish kid to see the Sergeant. But even then, it still felt weird of her to text.
Andrew: Sure, what’s up?
Hannah: Can you meet me at the city mall ASAP?
It took a second for Andrew’s mind to register the text. It just seemed like such a weird request, not to mention the ambiguity. For all he knew, she could be getting mugged. It seemed that urgent, at least.
Andrew: Sure. I’m heading out now.
It was time to save Hannah, as usual.
***
“What the fuck?”
Andrew stared at the boba shop’s poster which stared back like a demon. Megacup 2-for-1 Available for Couples! Actually, it was probably worse than the demons he faced. He’d much rather go toe to toe with the Beast of Gluttony all over again.
“See! This was urgent! It’s a limited offer!” Hannah cried. She pointed to the line, which extended all the way to the end of the hall. That was definitely a feat, since it was already a huge mall.
“But it’s for couples…” a dumb-fuck Andrew mumbled.
“They’re not gonna know that!”
She tugged him all the way at the end of the line. First real day of a break, and it’s to be wasted on some girl who wanted some stupid deal. How glorious. The CDRs really do make sacrifices for society.
“Sorry about the text and all,” Hannah mumbled. “I just knew that you were off-duty today, so I thought that I’d give you a call. Was I interrupting anything important?”
“No, you’re fine.” To be fair, Andrew really didn’t have anything planned today. If she didn’t invite him over, he’d probably just sit around the house all day or go on a random walk. Silently making fun of idiots on the street was only fun to a point.
He had to admit though, Hannah was dressed really nice. Usually wearing a white labcoat, she looked good in her white sundress and white shoes. Hannah looked pretty.
By comparison, Andrew was wearing a hoodie and sweatpants. He didn’t even have time to wash his hair, since he thought she was in some actual danger. “I really wished you told me it wasn’t an emergency.”
“Well, if I told you it was just for a deal, would you have even shown up?”
Andrew shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I just hope you know that I was ready to stop, drop, and roll at any moment’s notice. Considering the kind of jobs we usually deal with, I think you understand.”
He watched her face wince with that realization. “Oh… that… that makes more sense actually… sorry…”
“You don’t have to apologize. Just know that when it comes to this kind of stuff, you shouldn’t put in asap in your text. It makes me think you actually need something as soon as possible, and not at the next convenient second.”
They eventually made it to the front of the line, where they rang up the order. Andrew almost acted like an authentic boyfriend as he moved out of the way and let Hannah order.
“Hi, can I have…” In turn, she acted like an authentic girlfriend by how she didn’t know the literal fucking item she had been waiting to order. “A uh… black sugar megacup…?”
The cashier got the order. Andrew slid his card before Hannah could move. “Call it a courtesy from CDR-4,” he said. “For all the good work. Oh, and all the good drawings.”
“Don’t you mention those drawings!”
She was about to smack him, but the cashier spoke first. “I got a black sugar megacup for… H and A…?”
Hannah’s hand was literally mid-air as she slowly turned her body and picked up the massive cup. It was essentially the size of one of those 7/11 Double Gulp Cups but if it was literally just filled with boba and black sugar milk tea. “Thank you very much…”
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They sat down at some nearby table, where Andrew scoffed at the name she chose for the order. “H and A? Really?”
Hannah took a massive gulp from the straw. It must’ve been something around a quarter of the whole thing. “Yeah, it’s our initials,” she said while chewing on tapioca. “It was a partner effort.”
“Not really.” Andrew pointed back to the line, where a single guy—though the width of two guys—ordered a megacup by himself. No couple needed, since the cashier couldn’t care less. “You could’ve ordered it by yourself,” Andrew sighed.
“Oh, quit complaining,” Hannah giggled. “You’re already here. Help me finish this.”
“I’ll get a heart attack.”
“Please?” Hannah asked with puppy eyes.
While Andrew could be a cold-hearted demon killer, he couldn’t reject a look like that. “No wonder you’ve made it so far,” Andrew scoffed as he picked up the straw. “You’re too good at groveling.”
He took a sip. The weird part wasn’t that they were using the same straw—he didn’t think that deep about it—the weird part was that the drink was actually good. The sweetness wasn’t enough to cause a cringe, the boba wasn’t stiff enough to force a chew, and the ice wasn’t funneled in for the sake of space.
Even after that sip, Andrew was taken aback. “Wow.”
“See?”
“Okay, now I get why you asked me to come asap.”
“Now you know that some of my ideas aren’t half bad.”
Andrew took another sip. By that point, they had both taken up around half the cup. “Who said your ideas were bad? The Sergeant’s been giving nothing but praise, and I thought Doctor Shiro was also supportive.”
“Oh, I have no problem with them. It’s just with those higher-ups.”
“Higher?”
“Yeah…” Hannah started fiddling with the straw like a nervous cat. “I haven’t had the real opportunity to meet the chief, but that annoying…” She looked around to make sure nobody was listening. “Asshole. Captain Jacobs, I mean.”
Now she was talking truth. Andrew smiled as he was happily assured that it wasn’t just the CDRs that were having a problem with him. Yesterday’s brief, alone, could cement his personal irritations. “That guy wants to make CDRs a part of the police without any real preparation,” Hannah added. “I’ve even run the numbers!”
“Of course you ran the numbers.”
“I’m serious!” she continued. “Immediate integration with the police would require so much new training, overhaul, and just plain money. But big daddy Jacobs is saying, Oh no! I want it to happen right now! Lab! Make me some APE that’s way cheaper! I’m sure there’s not gonna be an issue!”
“He said that?” Andrew asked.
“Something along those lines. He swung by and asked us all about the APE suits, its vulnerabilities, and all that. I kind of hid to the side, since my social battery was not having it, but Doctor Shiro was getting pressed. I’m talking about issues about how it could be hacked, how there’s little chinks in the armor here and there, not to mention how easily modifiable it is.”
“Hm.” Andrew didn’t like the sound of that. Maybe his recurring nightmares had a piece in that, but he could never look at Captain Jacobs as a sane human being. No sane man would drill a man’s skull and yammer about Rene Descartes—or whatever that nightmare was about.
“Anyway, he was asking about cheaper APEs that couldn’t be modified and were unhackable. As it stands, some bad guy could probably wire into your comms and mess things up, but no demon would want to do that.”
Andrew was thoroughly impressed. Hannah sure knew what she was talking about, despite not being in the CDRs. “What about criminals? Wouldn’t they want one of our suits so they could just lay waste to a battalion of cops?”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t make much money,” she said. “Besides, to actually hack into one of your suits, you need a whole lot of codes that only a deep insider would know. You might as well have the whole CDR force be turned upside down, at that point.”
Hannah took a deep sip. It was the only real break in talking that she had in a while. For an introvert, who usually couldn’t be trusted with holding a jar of peanut butter without dropping it, she could surely give some good information. “Anyway, that’s all I have on my mind.”
It took a second to realize that, at that point, the cup was empty. They had talked for a while about the most random things. “You know, I am a little curious,” Andrew suddenly asked. “Do you know anything about asylums here? Like where they put crazy people?”
“You shouldn’t say crazy people.”
“You know what I mean,” Andrew sighed.
Hannah paused for a second. It was definitely a question that came from left field, but she tried her best to answer it. “I’m not sure I think about mental institutions much, especially here in New Changan. I mean, it’s still a relatively young city, but it should still have some places. Why do you ask?”
Andrew didn’t really know why he was asking; he just knew that he needed answers. “Just name the biggest place you know.”
“I don’t think–”
“Please.”
Hannah paused. An uncomfortable pause. Especially given that she was giving her whole mind out just a moment ago. “Can we at least talk about this somewhere else?” she finally whispered.
***
Neither of them uttered a word as they headed over to Hannah’s apartment. As soon as they stepped inside, Hannah made sure to lock the door behind her, check around the walls with a flashlight, and quickly review camera footage. “Sorry, I just have to be careful.”
“A little paranoid, don’t you think? Fine with bitching about Captain Jacobs, APE vulnerabilities, and criminals, but a little much to talk about asylums,” Andrew lightly chuckled. He had hoped that it would properly defuse the intensity.
It didn’t.
“I was only an intern,” she whispered. “I was assigned to Doctor Myers’s department in Demonic Studies. I only got to speak with him a few times in the initial period, but he seemed nice enough. Mentally sane, if you want to put it like that.”
Footsteps came outside. Hannah froze. Andrew checked the peephole. It was just a couple holding hands and giggling. They were gone in less than half a minute. “Yeah?” he asked. “What happened?”
“Well, he started calling in sick. I had been assigned to coffee duty, since they didn’t trust us interns with anything, so I got to listen in from everyone around the division. He had apparently gotten some weird dreams of being in another body. If that wasn’t weird enough, he later started hearing some voices. Demon voices, if that wasn’t bad enough.”
“Hearing demon voices?” Andrew muttered. At least he didn’t really go through that. Or did he? There was that one dream where a voice whispered something along the lines of, ‘You can have the power and strength to protect everyone.’ But other than that, he didn’t consider himself a nutjob. “Probably a load of bullshit,” he finally said.
“Honestly, I thought so too,” Hannah added. “The department didn’t have access to living demons, since the CDRs usually torched them, so they mainly relied on reading up on demons before the transformation. That much studying, without good sleep, is probably enough to drive anyone crazy. But…”
“But?”
“But one day, they just got rid of his name from any list. Dr. Richard Myers just blotted out with black marker, like it was some kind of top secret thing. The department was dismantled, apparently for budgetary efficiency, and I was transferred to Doctor Shiro’s department in General Research and Development. He put in a good letter, got me hired, and the rest is history. Honestly, I didn’t think about Dr. Myers until you started asking.”
“And Doctor Myers?”
“Disappeared off the face of the earth,” she answered. “If he was just insane, then he was probably sent to New Changan Mental Institute. I hear that some psychiatric casualties from the CDRs end up there, though I don’t think they disappear like he did.”
Andrew dryly chuckled. “Something about this stinks.”
Hannah shrugged. “That’s why I’m so careful about this. I really don’t think I should be knowing anything about it, and I really don’t think we should’ve been having this conversation in the first place.”
“Yet here we are.”
“Yeah… yet here we are…”
They just stood there for a second. Maybe to admire the one silent time in their lives, where nothing was moving. Weird as it seemed, Andrew seemed to empathize with her a little more. While he was busy fighting in the streets, she was busy fighting in the offices. She was expected to be an expert in everything and a beginner in none. The same pressure, but in a different flavor.
Finally, Andrew sighed. “I don’t want to overstay my visit. I can get going.”
“No, don’t worry, it’s fine. Sorry for dragging you out here.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
They ended up trading apologies back and forth, until they exchanged a quick goodbye, and Andrew shuffled himself out the door. There wasn’t anything else to it, other than questions he had to keep buried in his mind. At least he wasn’t in an asylum straitjacket.