章 2: Agoraphobia
Okay, listen. My platoon and a couple others are a little more different than what people would expect. We're labeled as the "Specialists," but everyone calls us the circus. Pretty fitting considering how everyone is. Anyways, let me introduce everyone.
I open the door of the car closest to me and instantly recognize a familiar face. Or I guess what's covering his face. The person sat in the other back passenger seat was wearing a zip-up hoodie that covers his neck underneath a black suit. Along with that was a bunch of cloth covering up his bandaged head and a pair of sunglasses resting on his face that were dark enough to make it impossible to see his eyes. Not a single bit of skin is exposed with even his hands being covered with leather gloves.
Say "hi" to Drake. That's what everyone calls him at least. No one really knows his name or anything about him which doesn't help the fact that him not talking at all is pretty mysterious enough. A bit of an oddball even compared to the rest of us. Not sure where or how he got picked up, but from what I've heard, he's a pretty essential part of our platoon. And yes, I say "from what I've heard" because I haven't actually seen him in action yet. I'm still new so I think it makes sense, but those rumors can only make me wonder more about the guy.
Taking the seat on the other side of the car, a big redhead with combed back hair and a beard can be seen sitting in the front passenger seat. Oh, and when I say big, I mean BIG. I wish I was kidding, but he's at least 7 feet tall, and that's being generous. Mr. Fee Fye Fo Fum is Pavul Bardin. He had on a black vest with a white button-up underneath. A few tattoos were visible due to his rolled up sleeves and a couple rings sparkled on his fingers.
He's the leader of our little squad as well as the brawn behind everything. Apparently he has this thing called myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy that just causes him to have a lot of muscle mass and strength. Still makes me wonder how something like that is considered a disorder.
As for this guy's character, he's a pretty stern one all in all. A little rude to other people, but he treats us well at least. He even has little nicknames for us! Drake was the nickname that was given to the other guy, Chrissy's is Queen Bee, and I'm Wulf. 99% sure it's because of my wolfcut, but still a cute nickname nonetheless.
Speaking of Chrissy, say hi, she's right in front of me. She has on a suit specifically tailored for all four of her arms and a white dress shirt that was unbuttoned more at the top. But yeah, she has four arms. I think you can put together that my platoon is a bunch of people with special things that give them some kind of edge in a fight. I know the four arm thing is a little skeptical, but hear me out: Chrissy has full control over all of her arms, which is incredibly rare in all cases of people having multiple limbs. Not to mention, she's also just a plain genius. She can pick up any sort of skill and get to the point where normal people would take years to work towards in the matter of a few hours. With that, she was able to get the basics and more of how to fight with any kind of weapon. I'm talking four handguns, four knives, wielding two rifles, or turning a normal sniper rifle into a fully automatic one with how fast she can reload it. A little insane in my opinion, but y'know.
She's also... how do I put it nicely? She's a bit of a bitch. I mean, I like her! She also treats me well, but the vibes she gives off is a bit out there sometimes. Flirty and a bit of a smartass are two things I can't handle too well in a person. Not to mention a god-complex.
Last, but certainly and definitely not least, me! Yeah, I get I can rewind time, which I'm really not sure why I can, but what did the government classify me as in terms of specialties? Through a bunch of tests, they concluded that my thing was "hyper sensitive epinephrine disorder," which basically translates into having an enhanced reaction to adrenaline, causing my body to instantly perceive ill intent and avoid it. Obviously not accurate in the slightest, but hey, at least I don't have to go through the trouble of explaining to people that I'm in a time loop. Can't imagine the trouble that would cause me anyways.
From what I've know, there's a couple other Specialist platoons out there; just out of our jurisdiction at least. Who knows what those other guys are capable of?
"Vivian, sweetie!" I flinch from hearing my name. Chrissy starts up the car again as she continues to talk to me. There's hardly ever a time when this car is filled with complete silence, which I'm all for! It's just that after spending like two hours trying to kill one dude, I get a little mentally tired.
"Yeah? What do you want this time?"
"Oh, no need to be so rude! I just wanted to ask what you wanted to eat, that's all. I was thinking maybe Dim Sum or ramen?" She says looking at me through the rear-view mirror.
I frown and tense up my face. "Did you bring those up 'cuz I'm Asian?"
"Huh? No! Why would you even suggest that?" Chrissy laughs sheepishly while making a right turn out of the neighborhood gates.
"Bee," Pavul interjects with his heavy Russian accent. "don't say thing like that! It's so racer." Racer? Oh.
"It's racist." I said while looking out the window and at the passing cars.
"Racer, racist, same thing! I don't get why you all had to make the English so difficult." The man grumbled while turning his head back at me.
"Well, I didn't invent the language, now did I? Go take it up with the asshole who invented it. Oh! That's right! The guy died before your great-grandparents even had a chance to fuck! How sad." My voice raises as I squint back at Pavul. For our so called "leader" he's pretty special in the head if you know what I mean.
The man huffed and turned his attention back to the road. "Always happens, Wulf. I try to communicate and you always snap back!" He folds his arms as he exhales through his nose. After that, the car remains silent for a moment.
He is kinda right about that, but at the same time I'm pretty damn tired. I think my actions are justified. But... the least I can do is cooperate.
"Ramen sounds good though." I say nonchalantly, dismissing the short banter me and Pavul had.
"Great! Pavul, you mind letting Team 6 know we're eating at O-Noodles?" Chrissy chirps as her lower right hand taps on the car screen to enter our destination.
Team 6 is another Specialist team that we work with every now and then. In fact, we collab so often, our members have became pretty good friends. Besides me of course. It's not that I'm shy or anything, it's just hard for me to talk to people okay? Especially since it's hard for me to focus on just about anything, plus, I think at this point, you know how I act.
We arrive at the ramen place after maybe 15 minutes or so. It's a small and lowkey place overall, but everyone in our team agrees that this is the best place for ramen in Texas. Even Drake agrees! He only drinks the soup through a straw for some reason, but he's a big fan!
Everyone steps out of the car followed by the doors closing and the two short beeps indicating the vehicle locked. Looking at the ramen shop, the whole place was empty other than the workers behind the counter and kitchen and four other people in suits seated next to the window. One of said individuals, a man with brown hair parted to the side notices us and waves over. Chrissy opens the door, causing a gentle chime to sound before we step inside.
"Team 13, how's it going? Heard Vivian just got a job done, am I right? Congrats!" The guy with brown hair and tired eyes says, putting his hands together to applaud lightly. This is Alex, a guy with schizophrenia. Again, doesn't seem like much, but I like adding the shock factor after I tell you guys a general sense of what they can do. It's fun that way!
Instead of the hallucinations making him grow crazy or something, they actually help him out. From what he's told us, he can see arrows and outlines of people that indicate what to do in certain situations, along with voices in his head that give him information on things. All of these don't go away though, so you can imagine that he doesn't get too much sleep with all of that.
"Oh, yeah. Thanks?" I look off to the side and eye the other three individuals sitting on Alex's side of the table. The girl with black pigtails and pink streaks of hair is Lola. Her thing is a special mutation with her genes or something called ACTN3 which gives her more endurance I think? All I remember is that she's able to go on for long periods of time without getting tired and she trains her legs the most. Trust me, I've sparred with her, and comparing her kicks to a gunshot, I'd pick a gunshot over getting hit with those things.
To the right of her was a guy with darker skin and a messy bowl cut. Much like a lot of other Specialists, Raneem was a genius in one specific thing, and that thing was geometry. Never liked that part of math, but he seemed to like it so much that he invented sniper rifle ammunition specifically designed to ricochet. That and paired with his quick brain, he can basically shoot you in your own hotel room through a vent.
Last guy... y'know, I never actually got to know his name. I do know that he's a good swimmer and can hold his breath for really long periods of time underwater. Not the coolest thing ever. That's it. No "if's"or "but's." Why should you need to be good at holding your breath when scuba gear is a thing?
But as you can see, the stuff Team 6 is good at is vastly different to the team I'm in. From what I remember Team 6 caters towards infiltration and more quiet kills. As for my team, the only way I can describe what we specialize in are "leave no witnesses" type missions. Give us a cult or a terrorist group and a few days and we can clear them out. We can still take smaller side jobs like the guy I killed earlier. It pays the bills and more until we get deployed for a higher-scale job. How else am I supposed to fill my house with useless shit to feel like a billionaire?
Jokes aside, Team 6 already got a table of 8 for us: a long one with 4 chairs on each side for each team. Chrissy sat in front of Alex, I sat in front of Lola(mainly because I love her looks, like honestly, slay), Pavul sat in front of Raneem, and Drake sat in front of the guy who's name I forgot.
We all ordered our stuff and talked while we waited for the food, and by "we," I mean everyone else but me. I have, like, 5 gacha games on my phone and they won't grind themselves! How do I hop into a conversation anyway when it's all filled with boring stuff like weight-lifting and gun models? Sure, it's stuff I dabble in sometimes but it's not like I love them enough to talk about them.
"So, Chrissy, I heard you got that MRAD you were always dreaming of buying. How's it treating you so far?" Raneem says tapping the table lightly.
Chrissy put on an excited smile and began ranting on and on. "I love how portable it is!" and "So many cals work on it!" were a few of the things she said about whatever. I have a question: what the fuck is an MRAD? And what the hell does she mean by cals? Like calories? I don't get why people have to come up with shortened names that are so broad to the point they could be anything.
Oh, and another thing: why is there a guy outside the window with a gun barrel sticking out his sleeve?
My eyes widen and I blink. Wait. You're kidding.
The man outside the window opens fire, causing the window to shatter along with thousands of bullets creating holes in our bodies. Team 6 was the first to go, with Lola collapsing into her bowl of ramen and the others falling to the side. The image of her falling forward like that unlocked that memory for me again.
As the face of my dead best friend flashes through my head, I feel something else go through my head and the warm trickling feeling of blood dripping down, well, everywhere. From my face to my neck, to my chest. I cough up a puddle of blood before falling back and out of my seat.
Chrissy and Pavul are dead too. The bullet lodged in my neck won't even let me turn my head to see how mutilated Drake was.
Well this sucks. Not in the fact that I just died again, but the fact that I might have to go through god knows how many lives to get out of this one alive! Not to mention, everyone else! I don't even want to think about the employees working here. Can I get a damn break?
Whatever. At least I can go fix that one spelling error I made texting one of my friends. Here we go again.
Death 2.
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット