Aberrant Pt. 04

"What is soma anyway, and what does it have to do with us?" Vanessa said, pulling Tavi up to hug her.

Sean Toulman (Null): "It's- dead nova bits as a drug." Sean said, choosing the simplest method of describing it.

Sean looked around - and saw that the building's structure was mostly intact, and the only people here were a waitress and a cook, who were both cowering in the kitchen. But Sean also saw four armored flying-cars zoom out of the sky, the source of the sirens. They were parking nearby, and armored men were emerging, with the SFPD emblazoned on their blue armor.

Tavi whimpered, hugging Vanessa as Takai shook his head.

"Soma..." he gulped. "They...take a nova, usually one who just erupted. They...dissect them..." his face paled. "Extract mite from muscle tissue, red-7 from serotonin glands...and soma by cutting ground up...node with cocaine..." he looked sick.

Alexa made a face. "That's disgusting."

"It's...big in China, the Triads grab some young nova from their billion citizens, someone the government would prefer not be there..." Takai shook his head, then hung it forward as the SWAT teaam approached cautiously.

Vanessa blinked, hugging her girlfriend tightly, "So.. you.. have the potential to become a very famous man, Takai.." She said, blinking slightly, waving to the SWAT team, "Don't worry, we're good guys!"

Gillian Haynes: "Cut with cocaine or shit. It's...fucked." Gillian added, walking around the room. She jerked up and turned to watch at the armored men began to emerge and just raised her hands and slammed them down. She exploded in smoke that revealed nothing a moment later.

Sean nodded to the information.

Jay gestured for Vanessa, waving her over toward her girlfriend. Then he raised his hands, stepped forward, and announced to the SWAT team. "My name is Jared Vance. I made the call. We have six dead Mitoids and a lot of statements to make."

"Takai, do you have your phone?" Sean asked. Everyone would get an apologetic text not long after from Gillian, pointing out that she REALLY wasn't keen on being in any form of limelight. No hard feelings.

Sean would smirk at the text and fire a quick one back. 'Then stay out of the limelight, no hard feelings

Takai chuckled, softly. "My family has left me in an impossible place. This fame is no comfort, Vanessa Stacks..." he said, then chuckled. "By the way...please...forgive me." He paused. "I believed it would help, if you thought my numbers were better than they were..." He handed the phone over to Sean, grinning slightly.

As he spoke, the SWAT team came in.

It took the rest of the night to debrief them - and the most chilling thing discovered...was the facts about soma. But after that, a close second, was the fact that the photographs of the strip club only showed the five miteoids.

The twenty Yakuza with railguns, monomolecular swords and laser pistols? They were not in any photograph...they did not exist, save in their memories. Implanted into their memories the instant that they arrived by a telepath more powerful than they had imagined.

It was hard to get any sleep that night - even if they had just taken a huge step towards dismantling the Yakuza's operations on the west coast...and possibly...the world.

TO BE CONTINUED