Chapter 180: Willing Hostage.
"What the fuck did you put inside of me?" Usami closed her eyes and steadied her balance and then fell to her knees and then turned her spear and stabbed herself through her throat, opening it up and shrinking her spear to the size of a knife and using it to flick out a chip that had been planted in her throat, coughing and dropping to her hands again.
"Heal." She whispered inaudibly and clasped her hands over her neck, shutting the wound and then stabbing the tracker. "You, where is the exit?" She looked at the closest scientist who was holding a clipboard between himself and her.
"Hold it, Usami Takae, you\'re not permitted to go anywhere." The man in the observation room spoke up after watching her tear her throat open and seal it shut as if it was something she had done before.
"Are you gonna bring an army to stop me from leaving?" She asked, and he looked at his fellow scientists and cleared his throat. "Let me answer that for you, it\'s no, you can\'t stop me, you don\'t have the resources nor the power to stop me!" She raised her spear and angled it towards the door. "If you don\'t let me out I\'m gonna start making doors."
"We are beneath a lake-"
"The pressure nor the water won\'t kill me-" she took a calming breath and prepared to throw.
"If you break the walls of the facility you will kill everyone here-"
"That\'s not my-"
"Including your brother." He finished, and all her fight left her body as even the spear in her grasp fell to the ground echoing through the silence and then disappearing. "When you started showing signs of waking up a week ago, we moved him over, just in case you turned out to be hostile it seems I was right, please take a seat, he is on his way."
"Why would I believe anything you say when you won\'t even show yourself?" She looked at the camera in the corner. "Do you think I can\'t find you?"
"I don\'t know what you\'re capable of, and as a man of science who has envisioned possible alien or terrestrial entities that defy said science I was sure to not underestimate the possibility of you being something malevolent, so I have made many countermeasures, the first is a chip directly on his central nervous system, if you so much as breathe the wrong way it will activate and kill him, and it isn\'t a case like yours where we were unable to break your skin, if you try removing it or even touch it, it\'ll activate all on its own, so as I said, please take a seat and wait patiently for your brother to arrive, doctor, please hand her your tablet and leave." He ordered and then cleared his throat again.
She didn\'t respond, she sat obediently on her bed and watched the man slowly and timidly approach her, stretching his hand with the tablet while trying to stay as far away as possible.
"It\'s locked." She looked up at the man after trying to open it.
"T-the password is DaddyGojo27, caps on the G and D." He answered and then retreated back to the door and left with everyone else.
"What am I looking at?" Usami asked as soon as it was opened to the homescreen with "Atlas" spinning.
"Use the search, you\'re looking for the Alpha-T300, that\'s the chip inside of your brother\'s nervous system, all the information you need on it is right at your fingertips."
"Aren\'t you afraid I\'ll figure out how to remove it?" She asked, but after finding her search one of the first things she saw was that the chip couldn\'t be removed without implications of heavy nerve damage, it was a one-way prototype designed specifically because of her, there was even video documentation of the chip being surgically planted into the back of his neck.
"Of course this was a gamble, had you not cared about the boy it would have been the end of us as you boast, but clearly you do."
"What do you want from me?" She asked calmly and turned off the screen after blitzing through the information, making sure to memorise everything before crushing the tablet in her grasp and throwing the pieces in the corner.
"I want answers, let\'s start from the begining." He sat down and adjusted his tie while the others in observation released a deep sigh of relief. "What is your name?"
"Usami Takae." She replied.
"How old are you, Usami?"
"Twenty-two, I think."
"You disappeared three years ago, there is CCTV footage of you and six other individuals vanishing from plain sight in the middle of the day, can you tell me what happened?"
"Three years?" Usami gasped.
"Can you please answer the question?" He asked, and her eyes narrowed as she thought about how she should answer this.
"I don\'t remember, I was supposed to be going to classes when my friend recognised someone and we started walking toward them, and then everything went black after that."
"So you have no recollection of any kind?"
"I just told you I don\'t remember what happened!" She snapped. "Why isn\'t my brother here yet!?"
"Calm down and take a seat Usami."
"Do you honestly think you hold the cards because you have him?" She asked flashing her spear and slicing the bed in half. "If you kill my brother I\'ll turn this whole world into hell!"
"But are you willing to see him die though?" The man asked after a few seconds of silence. "Are you willing to kill your brother to get to me?"
She tossed and turned in frustration, raising her spear several times to throw it and then lowering it again. "Fuck!" Usami cursed and walked over to the farthest corner from the camera and sat on the floor burying her face in her knees. "I don\'t remember anything, I was on campus, and then I was here, it\'s all... Black."
"We\'ll move on then." He shook his head and leaned closer to the mic. "We already know everything there is to know about you, so what we want to know most of all is what you seem unable to answer, in the meantime we will run tests-"
"Not before I see my-" She raised her head ready to lash out again but froze when a teen boy stepped through the doors. "Uriyu!" She leapt to her feet, appearing before him with such speeds that everything behind her was violently toppled over, and ont of the lights burst with a loud pop causing him to flinch and take a step backwards.
"It\'s really you..." The boy looked up at her.
"You\'re so much taller now..." she stared.
His eyes like hers were dark grey, almost black, his hair was short and trimmed at the sides and he was wearing a plain white shirt and pants and indoor shoes. "Usami... no... big sis, it\'s you, right?" He mused and then winced when he saw her fall heavily to the floor before him. "What are you doi-"
"Uriyu." She whispered his name, holding his hand gently and resting her cheek in his palm. "You\'re all grown up now..."
"What? I\'m only thirteen." He stared at her, unsure of how to react to someone he had not seen in three years of being a labrat.
"I missed three years," Usami shook and stood, opening her arms before him. "Can I hug you, Uriyu?" She asked, although she waited even he could see the desperation in her expression as she begged with her eyes rather than her voice.
"No, you\'re disgusting, there\'s blood on you." He pinched his nose.
"Right, you hate the sight of blood, I forgot, I\'m sor-"
"Where have you been?"
"I-"
"Why did you leave me by myself, big sis, what happened to your promise that you\'d never go away like our parents did?" He narrowed his eyes.
"Let me explain-"
"Why did you even come back?"
"Uriyu, don\'t antagonise her, she woke up from a coma and asked for you first, we have already explained this to you, your sister shouldn\'t be under any stress just yet." He heard the man over the comms and clicked his tongue in irritation.
"Then... don\'t people die when they go into comas, why did you bother waking up after three years, are you trying to come back and ruin my life after I finally have a family that gives a shit?" He asked, and before she could answer or retort he turned and walked away.
"Wait!" Usami reached out and grabbed his hand, but she froze when he looked around at her again, those eyes that used to be filled with joy and sad tears now bore none, they were empty and full of hatred towards her.
"I said don\'t touch me."
"Please..." Usami let go of his hand and fell to her knees again. "Let me explain."
"Where were you?" He looked at the red marks her blood left on his sleeves with visible disgust.
"I..." She lowered her gaze, glancing at the camera in the corner. "I don\'t remember."
"Then how can you explain if you don\'t even know?"
"Uriyu, please." Usami reached out to him but then withdrew her hands and hugged herself. "Can I at least hold you?"
"I don\'t want anything to do with you." He stormed off after seeing her cry.
"Sir..." The doctor next to the man looked at him worriedly. "What if she loses it?"
"Usami Takae, are you okay?" He asked, staring at her and anticipating a negative reaction, but sighed when she stood up and went back into the lab and sat on the broken bed in the mess she had left.
"Okay, I\'ve seen him, and I\'ve seen the implant in his neck, he\'s safe and healthy, and he sounds happy." She stared at the camera again. "I won\'t do anything to make his life miserable, so go ahead."
"Pardon?" The man queried.
"You want something from me, and as long as I comply you\'ll keep taking care of him, right?" She stared, hugging her knees to herself.
"That is correct."
"Then name your conditions, whatever it is, you want a town to vanish, a city to burn, you want a president dead, you want the world turned upside-down, tell me, as long as Uriyu gets a good life I will do anything you want, so go ahead."
"What do I do to keep him alive?"