Frank was up early. He was always up early. He had his alarm go off at four in the morning for a reason. Being up early gave Frank some time to get ready before work. Get some stuff done. Carefully, he made his bed and picked out his outfit for the day. A shirt, a tie, a suit to match. He did not have much of a section for each, so he had to be careful in order that each day’s clothes not appear too much like the last. After carefully picking his clothes, he put them out on the bed, laying them flat against the soft comforter.
Pulling on tight shorts and a logo-less Tee, Frank went out for his morning jog. It was always best to get a run in before the rest of the compound had woken up. People could be judgmental, especially at the speeds which Frank always used for his morning jogs. The purpose wasn’t to cover distance or get faster or test his limits. He ran in the mornings as a way of waking himself. And that was much easier to do at medium paces than fast ones.
After a nice, brisk thirty minutes, he returned to his small apartment. Turning on the shower as hot as it could go, Frank stripped off his tight exercise clothes and chugged down a liter of water. The shower produced a slight ping, informing him that the water had reached the temperature he’d set. He walked back over to the shower, and hopped in. Like the jog, it wasn’t strictly necessary. A thirty-minute jog hardly caused the man to work up a sweat. But cleaning wasn’t the point of his morning showers, just like working out wasn’t the point of his morning jogs. It was just another part of his routine, a way to move him from being awake to being fully functional.
This morning’s shower was a short one. Four minutes after entering the scalding water, he tapped the icon labeled ‘Finish Shower’. That set into motion the end cycle. The water cooled down from his set forty-five to a chilly fifteen or so. After a few moments at that temperature, meant to close the user’s pores which the warm water had opened, the water shut off completely, leaving Frank, standing in the small shower, dripping wet with cold water. He flicked a switch next to the shower, and the fan turned on. The dehydration process took about thirty seconds, and at the level of humidity it produced, people were generally dry within a minute, two if they had long hair. Frank’s near hairless body meant it took barely forty seconds to dry off.
He stepped out into the main bathroom to look at himself in the mirror. The scars were barely visible anymore. Frank couldn’t help but smile as he worked his fingers across where they had once been. The marvels of modern medicine still surprised him sometimes. He turned and flicked the switch again, now that he was dry. The fan noise stopped. He walked out of the bathroom and began to dress himself in the carefully selected clothes.
The sounds of his neighbors’ morning wake-up alerts began to surround him. This was generally how Frank knew to get dressed, but he was running early today. Checking himself in the mirror one last time, making sure everything looked alright, he walked out of his apartment to go to the office.
Frank loved his office building. Not simply because it was a beautiful area, but more so what it represented. The building itself was several stories, reaching up towards the sky. It had been designed by artists, and those designs had been given to architects to make the physically impossible structure into something that could stand on its own. It was a truly breathtaking sight, but that wasn’t why Frank loved coming to this place in the morning. For Frank, this building was more than a simple office building. For Frank, this was a symbol of his own personal freedom. His past had tried to force him into a lifestyle, one he didn’t want to be a part of, but he’d escaped to here. He’d gotten a job at the office. And now, he was freed of his past. Even the scars of it were fading away.
Frank walked up the stairs in the office to his small cubicle. He sat down in the small chair and hunched over his computer. The company had emailed him about the efficiency of the current waste management system. Evidently, its programming was causing a slight backup. He pulled up the code and leaned back in his chair.
The rest of the office filed in shortly after him. As he passed Frank’s cubicle, Ismael looked at his screen. “You’ve got the shit assignment?” he said, with a chuckle at his own joke.
Frank looked up at the short, heavyset man. Twenty-seven seconds, his mind instinctively told him, but he suppressed that feeling. “Yeah, Ish,” he replied, a smirk, “But at least I don’t smell like it.”
Ismael feigned offense. “I’ll have to warn your mother about that smell, then,” he said, as he walked into the cubicle next to Frank.
“When you find her, would you mind telling me?” Frank asked, “It’s been near fifty years since we last spoke.”
Ismael leaned back and looked at Frank. “I don’t believe you,” he said, still smiling, “You don’t look a day past forty.”
Frank waved him off. “I’ve got to clean up somebody else’s shit. I don’t need you lying to flatter me.”
Ismael shrugged as he rolled back into his cubicle. “Wasn’t lying. You do look really young.”
Frank forced out a chuckle. The scars may be fading, but their effects certainly hadn’t. Ismael was right, Frank looked really young for his age. According to his doctor, he probably would forever. Pushing those dark thoughts from his mind, Frank got to work finding whatever bug was in the waste disposal code which was causing the backup.
He had finished it before lunch. It had been a simple variable from a minor operation in the middle of the code, which had been set to start at one instead of zero. It had taken a long time to find it, but once he had, it was the easiest fix imaginable. Standing up, triumphantly, Frank headed downstairs for his lunch break.
He was eating his sandwich when the alarm began to sound. It wasn’t a common alarm, in fact it was an alarm that had not gone off since he had arrived as an employee, but it was one he knew instinctively. There’d been a breech somewhere. Security would take care of it. He continued to eat his sandwich. He looked up for a moment, and saw a squad of people, dressed in all black riot gear, firing a missile at his office. No one would destroy his office. Those thoughts he’d been pushing back, he let loose. His tray flew into the air, intercepting the missile and, at the velocity Frank had tossed it, cleanly slicing the explosive from the propulsion system. The rocket harmlessly hit the building. The explosive slammed into the ground meters from the men who had fired the missile. The explosion was enormous, engulfing the individual with the launcher as well as his squad. Frank finished his sandwich.
There was another explosion, near the top of the building. Frank’s eyes shot up, following the noise. Ten similarly dressed people were breaking into the top floors, where the research divisions were. He tried to suppress his response, but after letting himself go once, there was no stopping the beast within. His body launched up almost automatically, running up the side of the building at blinding speed. The people lunching in the Plaza were astonished. They’d known Frank for a few years, and never seen him like this. He made it up those twenty stories in a matter of seconds, and his arms passed through the chests of the assault team’s rear guard. Stopping in the window, toes clinging to the sill as he stared down the rest of the team, he allowed the two bodies to fall off of his arms to the ground.
“I thought this place was supposed to be freak free,” said one of the attackers to the person next to him.
Frank smiled. “Thank you,” he said, preternaturally calmly, “I was wondering who would be next.” And, faster than the man could realize, Frank had covered the four meters to his position and picked him up off the ground.
“Wait!” said another, apparently the leader, “You don’t know what we’re doing. You don’t know who we are. Who we work for.”
Frank casually tossed the man he’d been holding out the window. “I don’t care. This is my home, and you’re breaking it.”
The leader looked at Frank. “Why do you care?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Frank said.
One of the attackers fired at him. The bullets hurt as they hit him, breaking his skin then clattering to the ground. Blood began to stain his shirt and suit. Frank pulled one of the bullets from his arm and flicked it at the woman who’d shot him. It went clean through her ballistic helmet, then her head, and back out the other side of her helmet. She collapsed to the ground. “It would be best for all of you if you just left.”
The leader shook her head. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
Frank understood. He nodded. “Then I am sorry,” he said, honestly. Had things gone the slightest bit differently, he might have been one of these.
The attackers, all but the leader, open fired at Frank. Rolling out of the path of the bullets, he picked up the gun of the dead attacker, and five shots later, only the leader was left standing. Frank stood up straight and asked, “Any requests.”
The leader nodded, knowing full well she was outmatched. “Kill me.”
Frank nodded back. Alive, the soldier would face torture for everything she knew. She would undoubtedly give nothing, meaning she would suffer immense pain for no one’s benefit besides the torturer’s sadistic pleasure. He sighed and pulled another bullet from himself, this time his chest. “Until we meet again,” he said, sorrow in his eyes. The leader bowed her head as Frank flicked the bullet through her brain. She was dead instantly.
Frank turned around and took a running leap out of the building in the direction of his apartment. He needed to change his clothes. Taking off his shirt and suit, he picked out a different set of clothes in a hurry. His lunchbreak was nearly over, and he’d undoubtedly missed an email or three while he had been working on the waste management system. He walked back to the office and looked around. The alarm had stopped. Everything had gone back to normal. He walked up the stairs to his cubicle and hunched over his computer.
Ismael passed him on the way to his workstation. “Sorry you had to do that,” he said, knowingly.
Frank nodded, a resigned sadness in his eyes. “So am I.”