8

Everyone had gathered in the lab room on the second floor. Works, as usual, occupied the only available chair, calmly glancing over at his laptop computer's screen. Lowlife was leaning against the closed metal door, next to Masahito, Xian, and Akaya - Masahito's cousin.

Lowlife turned around, opened the door and looked outside. He slammed it shut after a quick look on each side.

"Oh, please!" Lowlife threw his arms up. "An android not feeling well, wait 'till I phone the Elenbakk division about this!" He opened the door and stepped outside. "They'll be laughing their asses off!"

"Hold it!" Masahito reached out and forced the man back inside. "You're not going anywhere, Lowlife. It's not a joke. I saw her cry! It was weird, almost supernatural. Give it a rest for once."

"Want me to show you some softness?" Masahito opened his hand and hung it next to his crotch. "Come closer, once I grab hold of you, you'll melt like shit-flavored ice cream in a hot summer sun while you plead for me to release your family jewels! I bet I won't be able to find them anyways - I heard American ones were just one carat!"

"Shut up!" Akaya screamed at the two. "Let's get this damn thing done and over with, I'm not gonna stay here until Christmas for Christ's sake! Come on, Works! The faster you start, the faster I'm outta here and back to relaxation. Shit, I don't even know why I'm being called up here! What kind of organization is that?!"

Works took a slow and deep breath, and pressed a key on his keyboard. "...The bitch has a point." He looked at the three oddballs once again and made sure they would stay silent from now on. Then, he faced Dream. "All right. Let's start. Dream, I won't take the long path - it's obvious Department Twisted wanted you. So I will get up close and personal right now. What's your life story and why did they decide to pick you up tonight?"

The mutant glanced at the three standing next to the door. Her hands shook almost imperceptibly, but it was the spot Works was looking at in particular.

She stared at him with disbelief. "Well, who are you all anyways?... Why am I here?"

Works leaned back. "I guess it's logical we answer first. We are the Crate, a liberator group working to drive Department Twisted out of New Colombus. Our operations consist of rescuing test mutants, deleting computer databases, and destroying research material, all in the effort to eventually force the labs to close down. Many of the mutants making the Crate come from the Department. There is also a large part of humans, and a small part of androids. The reason we took you in was because I happened to intercept an order - I was very lucky; the Department had forgotten to encrypt the message. The order was to capture you and take you to a lab, anytime during your concert tonight. It was up to the fighters to develop a strategy, as it was a last minute mission. I responded by sending in my own fighters, who disabled the building's cameras, watched the corridors and snuck into the star rooms to take you here, where you would be safe. I heard that you gave a little hand in helping the team out. I take that as a sign of trust. Now to you..."

"Okay..." She took a deep breath. "I do not remember much about my childhood aside from the fact that I had a few teachers who taught me the art of singing, dancing and expressions. I do remember the home I was in though. It had windows but they were all covered by some kind of semi-transparent film on the outside, so that all I could see was a yellow glow during the day and a dark blue glow during the night. Also, the teachers were allowed to enter a particular room on the second floor, and I wasn't. There was a front door, but it was always locked and I couldn't open it. In fact, my teachers came and went via the second floor's door, always. One of them slept in the house though. The others said they left for home every evening. Then, on my twentieth birthday, my teachers told me they would go forever and would be replaced by an agent. I didn't know what that meant at the time but anyways - I was blindfolded and led up to the second floor. They made me walk through the door, and then I wandered about for a while, always under their guide, and then I ended up outside for the first time in my life. They removed my blindfold and presented me to my new agent, whom I knew as Dorval Cardinal. He was a Eurasian of sorts, he had a weird accent too. I was told my purpose in life was to sing. So that's what I did up until then. I never knew I was going to get kidnapped. In fact, I thought you were the bad guys but when I heard that your opponents shot in the pack without consideration for hostages, I concluded you just had to have better intentions than they did."

Works nodded and put everything down on computer. "And... do you have an idea why they might be looking for you?"

"I knew I was different from the start. Back during my childhood, I told my teachers that I heard voices in my head, and sometimes those voices talked out of my mouth. But my teachers said it was normal, even though they were so different than I was. I didn't understand why my skin was blue. I didn't understand why I had those appendages instead of hair. I didn't understand why I had so many voices and my teachers only had one. But whenever I asked that kind of question, they answered that asking such questions was immoral and when I generated those wicked thoughts, it made baby jesus cry. Later on, I found out I didn't need to move my lips to speak. The voices too, so they began speaking on their own too, sometimes on my behalf. I didn't want them to take me over but it was impossible. For some reason, we could all speak at the same time with no problem."

"It was fake. There never was any hidden chorus. It was information leaked by Mr. Cardinal. Everything came from me. My voices and I could all sing at once."

Works threw something at his brother. "Shut up, dammit!" He smiled at Dream. "Continue..."

"To make a long story short, there isn't just one Dream. I share that body with twelve other souls."

#122

There had been a lot of talk about androids when Shrike was there. I could recall her claiming we all had a soul. Each body, each thing capable of making its own decisions housed a soul. Animals, humans, mutants, even androids were sentient beings and should be treated with respect. The only things she claimed didn't have a soul were robots and Reli monsters.

I had noticed a sort of duality within Shrike right from the start. She was the sweet and sour kind, but the two personalities were so set apart from each other, sometimes she became a completely new person in a flash. One minute, she was all caring and loving, and the next, she was ready to kill anyone who had the misfortune to walk by.

Then there was Sierra. I saw her as the perfect contrast. She was a little angel, though I knew she was absolutely immature. My main argument was that she didn't know how to behave with Shrike, so they always rubbed each other the wrong way. I think it was good for Sierra, the disappearing of Shrike.

But looking at them has made me ask myself so many questions. The one that stood out the most was this one: if someone suffers from split-personality disorder, is he still only one soul inside this body?

She asked them to look. They gathered up like sheep around a shepherd and peered at her mouth. When she opened, they found teeth and a tongue, but that was the end of it. A little deeper into the midnight blue mouth was a wall, covered by suspicious bumps. Works had already figured out the surprise and backed away. The others looked closer, closer, and closer.

Akaya suddenly turned around and grabbed Works by his shirt. "Holy shit, look what they've done to her! We need to go and blow those fuckers up right now! Why didn't you ever stock on explosives?!"

Masahito came to the rescue and pulled her away. Works sighed and looked at the young woman with disgust.

"All right." He said. "I'm sorry I've pulled you up here. It's obvious I'll never find a use for you in this place. You can go."

She was about to roar a response, but Masahito quickly led her to the door and wished her good night.

"Of course." The chief rubbed his hands together and laid them on the keyboard. "Don't spare the details, please!"

I got a little note from Masahito. He had handed it over to me while we were riding back home. Alexanne was still busy at the Crate's base and would only come later during the night. I didn't mind anyways. Next on my list was finding something to do for the next few hours. It was only two o' clock in the morning.

The little note ended up being not so little after all. I had been given a detailed profile of the goddess, as I like to call her, neatly arranged in a stapled booklet of six pages.

I gave a check at her background and Works' notes about it. Turns out she was another test from the Department, and those guys wanted her back after all. Works assumed DT had put Dream up front to reap up profits from sales at concerts, CDs, royalties and everything else related to stardom. His next hypothesis was that they wanted to make her vanish from public view before her popularity went down, claim her dead in an accident, and a little later they would've released an exclusive CD featuring songs never heard before even in concert, all this in her memory. If Works is right, that means DT was richer by a few millions.

I also learned the interesting reason for all her voices. I also found out how they worked. Each voice controlled a tiny little mouth inside her normal mouth. The mini-mouth had a rudimentary set of teeth, a tongue, and vocal chords. Food was sent to a common digestive system, but air was directed to one tiny pair of lungs per mouth. That made for a stunning twenty-six lungs! As for the tentacle-like appendages replacing her hair, it was assumed it was just to make her look a little more alien and beautiful, to complement the blue skin. Good call, I'd say. Would've been a pain in the neck to look for a hair color that could match well with blue skin, especially a tone as light and powdery as hers. I think she was in fact completely hairless. I have yet to confirm that though.

"Most of the time, we speak to each other through some kind of internal dialogue. We can hear each other's thoughts in a sense but we can keep them to ourselves if we wish. It was like... as if my brain was a meeting place. We could speak to each other - those were shared thoughts - but we could also think to ourselves, and those, on one else could hear these thoughts. The sharing is useful though, because we can keep in synch with each other then singing."

"Interesting..." Works saved his file and continued typing. "Go on - I can keep up."

"We all share the same name - Dream. It's supposed to be my artist name but I really don't have any other. We consider ourselves as many consciousnesses in one body, but we act as one being because it makes it easier. Anyways, I wasn't allowed to share my secret with others of course. Officially, there was me, a hidden chorus, and that was all. Only Dorval knew what I really was."

"Everyone, but I was elected as leader. I was, in a sense, the most neutral of all the souls, so I made my little speech and the others agreed to let me take command. The way we set it up was that I controlled the body and my own mini-mouth. The others controlled their own mini-mouths and respiration. The main mouth is shared between all of us - if anyone speaks, she can use the main mouth to make it look like I'm a normal person."

"Okay... And, do you have any idea why the Department would come for you at this particular time?"

"All right... That ought to do it." He typed a few more commands into the computer and pressed his printer button. "Bro, Masahito, take a copy each. Mas, you'll share your copy with Exi and Elise."

Masahito grabbed his stack of paper. "Got it. Oh, did you find any home for Elise by the way? She doesn't seem all right whenever she's with us."

"Not yet, sorry. I actually had a room in here since two of operatives got shot down tonight, but I'll be giving it to Dream since she needs to be in a safe place and the Crate is the only place I have in mind. If you could keep Elise with you a little more, you'd be doing me a great favor." Works then clapped his hands together. "All right! Nothing planned tomorrow, so take it easy. Masahito, when is Akaya supposed to go back to Sofia?"

"Hmm, okay... All right, we're Wednesday?... Okay, we'll try to win the war by next Tuesday."

Masahito doubled up in laughter. "Oh god, you bastard! Wait 'till I tell Akaya about this one; she'll be coming into your office with a shotgun pointed at your balls, man!"

"Thanks for the heads-up. I'll go get my jock strap." Works stood up and called the singer up with a motion of his hand. "Okay, Dream! Come with me, I'll show you your room."

I went to my room early. I didn't feel like eating tonight, so I left Masahito in the kitchen and went to browse the channels on the TV. Dammit, one thousand and five hundred channels of stolen satellite signal and the piece of crap isn't even able to give me a good program! The night's gonna be a long one...

I found it weird that those people didn't have a computer connected to the network. Masahito told me they didn't want to be connected for fear of getting busted transferring messages around. That was why the Crate's computers weren't wired either. Everything had to be done offline.

Gradually, my mind began wandering off into hundreds of apocalyptic scenarios of all kinds. I soon became lost in my fantasy, planning out what I would do if Dream turned out to be a mole, if the Department invaded the base, if Alexanne happened to be an alien, crazy things like that.

On every scenario, I saw her. She punched a wall down, and went crazy on all the bad guys and saved us. Shrike "Shurikane" Naïnsev, the only person in the world I wouldn't want to fight against unless it was for practice. Give me anyone except her.

I decided to take out a picture of Sierra for old times' sake. I compared it to a picture of Alexanne and started looking for similarities out of boredom... Hey, why not.

"Just felt like asking." Okay, so they weren't related. Sierra had Naïnsev for a last name since she was considered as Shrike's daughter. Had the mutant been related, she would've had Naïnsev as last name too - it was logical... No, wait. Usually they take up the father's last name. Now that sent my theory down the drain right there. But nothing kept me from checking out the family tree...

Oh, why should I do this anyways. I think they're related simply because they are just bitches who want to show off, yet they're too cute to hate.

...I wish I could be able to sleep. Would keep me from idle-thinking all the time...