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Chapter Fifteen
Diagnosis
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“Ren.”
The leader of the wild masks held up a hushing finger for a moment as he finished downing the entire pitcher of filtered water. “What’s up?”
Ren calmly and reasonably responded to the revelation that the blanket draped across his shoulders like a royal robe had been dragged through the watercolor paint kit on the floor and now had a streak of smudged colors running through the tail end of it by almost screaming and gripping at the decorated portion with a look of the utmost anguish plastered across his features.
“That.” Tone sighed, walking around the distraught Ren and picking up the dropped pitcher, returning it to its rightful place in the refrigerator. “Corey’s going to be mad when he finds out you don’t have any appreciation for his school projects.”
“Was leaving all the watercolors out on the floor part of it?” Ren grumbled, rubbing his hand over the decorated portion of his blanket in an attempt to remove it.
“He’ll just have to cite your cuddle rag as extracurricular.” Tone chuckled, earning the glare of all glares from Ren in retort. “Which reminds me, aren’t you due at the tailors sometime today?”
“Right,” Ren grumbled, balling up the blanket and tossing it into the bedroom. “If he’s going to be a wild mask he’s going to have to look the part. In the meantime, see if you can come up with a game plan for approaching testing out the mask while we’re gone; I want to be able to anticipate any future movements on the Pangolin’s part.”
“What a dumb name.” Ren sorted through a pile of unfolded laundry, picking out his attire while Tone scratched at his chin. “Literally anything would’ve been better than Pangolins for a group name.”
“Whatever you say, you Renegade.” Tone’s implied grin was ginormous.
“Shush.” He held up a cautionary finger as he stooped to grab a dropped sock. “If you have a problem with the naming scheme you can go exhume Wild and ask him to change it in the past so it sounded cooler from the beginning. I’ve got to dress; I should be around to pick up Corey sometime tonight.”
With those words he closed the bathroom door and began bellowing out his hatred for a particular section of the dividing wall, which he ungraciously rammed his toe into. Pausing for a moment, Tone walked across the room and hesitantly looked inside the open bedroom door.
After a moment, he slowly turned away, the wall cavity revealed by the bunk being down containing nothing at all.
—
“Keep still.” The gloved hand slowly touched the screwdriver. “It’s necessary for me to match your rhythm. All that squirming about is making my job harder.”
A glance was sent to one of the large silhouettes in the room, their featureless faces staring silently back at him. “You’ve got a real passion for this sort of thing, don’t you? Making people that don’t exist. Do they work for you, or do you find it too amoral to abide by that?”
The man said nothing, partially because he had no real motivation to respond and partially because of the state of shock he was in. Another part of his reasoning may have been the screwdriver lodged deep into his chest, vibrating in tune with every beat of his heart.
“You know what it’s like to be in time with everything in the universe?” The gloved man continued, his fingertips touching the base of the screwdriver as he kept the rhythm going. “Everything has a rhythm, a time it is kept in, never failing to keep its own pace. If you can match that, you can do the impossible - predict any motion, move with any other. It’s why your attempt to stab me with this went so horribly, horribly wrong… For you, anyways.”
He gestured with his head towards the figures surrounding him. “You said that these things have ribs and lungs to mimic the rise and fall of breathing. But you didn’t mention that they have no rhythm. Even their components have lost their original rhythm. They aren’t powered by circuits or engines, and they’re incredibly resilient… I wonder, how is it that you made them?”
“Well, it’s not important.” He sighed as the man began to seize. “One last question and then I’ll let nature take its course. You mentioned a Kahn when you spoke with her; with Know gone, it’s hard for us to gleam who that is exactly. Care to enlighten me?”
“Bummer.” He sighed, standing back up and adjusting his bright red suit. “That’s all she wrote, I guess.” He turned his gaze back towards the frames surrounding him, and removing the screwdriver from the body of its host, he scratched two lopsided circles on the slab face of the largest one.
“That’ll help you see better.”
—
“Yuengyeung?”
Race slowly tipped her sunglasses down in the direction of the stewardess. “That have kōhī?”
The stewardess nodded eagerly, but her face fell as Race waved her away, returning to the magazine she had been mostly pretending to read. With a dejected look the stewardess returned to report that the one passenger still refused to purchase anything.
Discretely, Race tipped the magazine in the window out of the way in order to observe Rook, who was poking at the bolts in the wing at various speeds. She smiled slightly; nothing had gone wrong. Perhaps the Pangolins truly were keeping away, as the flying member of their crew had claimed.
Rook suddenly looked up, and Race met his gaze politely, only realizing a moment after he had not been focused on her. As he turned towards the front of the plane, Race got the impression from the split second before fire enveloped the window that something had just entered the engine.
—
“Well, how does it feel?”
Corey looked at the back of his legs, the cuff of his suitpants just touching his sneakers. “It’s like my school uniform, but better. Did you actually drop half your month’s salary for this?”
“It’s not like you’re going to be doing any of the fighting.” Ren shrugged. “I think I can afford to splurge a little when it comes to your official wild masks attire.”
“I guess,” Corey mused, still looking the outfit over. “It would just make much more sense if we got something a little cheaper. So we can afford to buy food 'n all.”
“Hey, c’mon, we’re not that poor.” Ren ushered him along with a slight push to the shoulder, trying to decide if that comment was meant as an insult or just an observation. “I’ve got to get you back to the apartment so I can keep up appearances at the news station. Race and Rook are due back from Hong Kong today, and they’ll probably be back at the apartment in a couple hours.”
“Does that mean I’ll be trying out the mask today?” Corey’s body language acted exceedingly casual, but as he got into the passenger seat of the vehicle, his eyes gleamed with excitement.
“We’ve got to figure out what our enemies are planning while they’re not busy trying anything.” Ren started up the car, conveniently the exact same make and model of the one that had been totaled. “Consider this your first official mission as one of the wild masks.”
The car slowly drove away, Corey rattling his seat in excitement. A curl of cigarette smoke licked over the brim of the wide hat.
—
Race picked her head up, slowly looking around. The entirety of the crew, the passengers, and what seemed like all of Tokyo from the volume of the screams, was in an absolute panic. Some passengers had begun to put on life vests, others had begun running about the plane in a frenzy. A glance out the window revealed Rook was gone, and so was most of the engine.
Fiddling with her seatbelt, she finally freed herself from the plane seat, and started dizzily making her way to the back of the plane. It swam with lights, the terrified noises of her fellow passengers, and more than once a panicked attendant smashed past her and knocked her to the ground. Before she could make it to the back, however, someone with one of the few parachutes threw the emergency door open, tearing it off in an instant and sucking several of the passengers outside.
The roar of the rushing wind made the situation inside even more intolerable. Race staggered, dropping to the ground after a moment, and waking up against one of the forward seats, with the plane at a steep angle. Looking up, the door was just aside her, and with an effort she pushed herself to the frame, clawed her way through, and let herself get thrown from the plane.
With the wind whipping around her, she was only barely aware of the pair of legs which slowly descended alongside her as Rook matched her falling speed, cradling her in his arms as he slowed their fall. “Are you alright, Race?”
“What… What happened?” Race blinked, looking around. “The engine…”
“The water’s going to be cold.” Rook replied, forcing a life jacket over her. “I can set you down on some luggage, but you’ll have to share space with the other passengers. Some didn’t make it; they’re probably still floating about nearby. But I have to go, the plane’s about to hit the water, and there’s still people aboard.”
“Wait.” Race pressed her hand against Rook’s shoulder. “We can’t be seen here. We’re the Wild Masks. What if somebody-”
“You were registered as being on the flight; I’m the only one at risk here.” Rook replied, nearing the floating pile of suitcases and plastic containers housing most of the passengers, with the women and few children taking up nearly every available space on top and the men all treading water around it. “Talk to Ren as soon as you get rescued, he’ll have something figured out by then.”
No sooner had he set her down than he suddenly sped off, flying in a perfectly straight line towards the plane, which with a horrific roar smashed into the hard surface of the water. Despite the crying children surrounding her, Race felt as if the whole world had just gone quiet.
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