Chapter Ten: Senseless

Walking quietly through the halls back to his room, Ronin found himself deep in thought, not a rare thing for him, but deep nonetheless.

The other Directors had given him a hand selected list of the people they thought would best fit for the new Project.

Mostly researchers in weapons and defensive tech, but there were a few outliers to be considered as well. The researchers they'd recommended were all, of course, fit enough for combat, some experienced, some newly trained.

They'd given him a list of forty names and dossiers total, but he intended to whittle that number down to four plus he and Silas to make six.

In the list of forty, five of the people were considered outliers, researchers who had gone mysteriously silent in recent years. Once a member, always a member, unless you were removed for some offense, something that very rarely happened. All the members of the Bureau had proven themselves at one time or another. It was generally fairly difficult to be promoted within the ranks, Ronin and Silas's rapid advancement was considered extremely unusual.

Ronin's work and personal research were considered so far beyond the average that they'd decided that he deserved the resources the rank of Director could afford him, particularly since there seemed no sign of him slowing down.

Silas's work with the situation with Evelyn was so exemplary that she'd been promoted just for her involvement, though Ronin knew she'd have made her name sooner or later. He fully expected her to be a Director soon enough, to be honest.

Thinking on what kind of things the Ghosts would need to do, he decided death was probably a guarantee, or else his physical state wouldn't have been a factor.

Pulling up a table of the names in his V.U.I., he tapped in parameters, starting by duplicating the list and separating one group with deaths caused and the other by deaths witnessed.

Taking a quick look, he removed anyone with a higher amount of deaths witnessed than caused.

Someone who'd been subject to death against their will would be more likely to be a liability he figured.

That cut his list down by half immediately, leaving twenty names, all with fairly long lists of credits to them.

Thinking more, he separated his list based on field of study, which gave him several lists. Weapon design, Defensive tools, Biology, Statistics, Aether Manipulation, and Data were his fields available.

Looking at the list for Biology, there was only one person with any valuable amount of medical research or experience present, so he moved him to the list of people to keep, removing the rest.

Eighteen choices left.

Two of the outliers were in Weapon Design, and both had enormous kill counts to their names, with both of them focusing in different forms of weaponry, ballistic and melee.

Moving their names to the keep list, he removed the rest and had ten more people left.

Thinking for a moment, he removed the entire Statistics list and focused on Aether Manipulation.

Reading through each of their dossiers rapidly, he picked three of them and removed the rest.

On the list for Defense Tools, there were two people, but only one of them had any measure of actual success, so he was the obvious choice, but the other one had a long, long list of inventions that were markedly more interesting and exotic.

The obvious choice had a long list of creatively "safe" designs, mostly enhancements of former versions of existing tech.

Shrugging a bit, he selected the second name and removed the safe bet from the list.

Last was Data, the hardest choice between three names.

Silas specialized in Data Manipulation, but she had a pretty hard focus on V.U.I. and datapads, and two of the three names focused on those as well, which made sense considering the growing market and field, but the final remaining name focused entirely on computer based data manipulation.

Picking the computer member, he removed the other names and was left with the ten candidates he'd be working with.

As he walked, he'd continued working, hoping to be finished before he reached his room, so he could draft an initial list and tool requisition, which he'd succeeded in doing.

Reaching his door just as he finished the list, he went to unlock it, only to find that it was already unlocked.

Truth be told, he'd been spending more and more time in his Bureau quarters and office so he could get to the testing areas faster, but he was pretty sure he'd locked his door the last time he'd left.

Narrowing his eyes slightly, he slowly opened the door, unsure of what he'd find.

As the door opened more, he began to hear voices and heavy breathing, and his heart dropped to the bottom of his chest.

Forcing the paranoid thoughts out, he pushed forward faster, one of the voices becoming more and more familiar as he did.

As he finally entered the room, her voice grew louder, and so did the other.

In the weeks he'd been researching his new capabilities and responsibilities he'd made sure to find time to talk with her and spend time with her, he'd been positive that she was happy with him.

Apparently he'd been horrifically wrong, because before him was Liliana with nobody other than Joseph.

Their gasps grew louder as he watched, perfectly silent, his new body and experience enabling him to remain as silent as a shadow.

Ronin was not a man easily taken by anger, his self control denied it well before it ever became a factor, preferring to rely on logic than blind emotion, but as he watched, he felt what could only be described as rage growing within him.

He felt...cold...he'd always heard rage described as hot, similar to fire, but what he felt was more ice, more empty.

As his rage grew, as the cold deepened, he watched them slow to a stop, despite him being sure they had no idea he was present.

Joseph looked deep into Liliana's eyes and whispered, "I love you so much Liliana...I've always wanted to take you for my own."

Expecting her to turn him down again, hoping against hope that she had just given into lust, made a poor choice, Ronin felt as though his heart stopped as he listened to her say, "I love you too, Joseph. I love you so very much...Daniel's been so...so distant, so different lately...this time with you these last couple of weeks has been so amazing."

His voice like ice, Ronin said, "You know I've been going by Ronin lately, Lily."

She screamed and jumped out of his bed, practically knocking over his shelves as she did so. Running to him she tried to explain, but he just glared at her, ignoring her words as she began to cry, sobbing uncontrollably.

He motioned his hand at the bed and said, "The man you love is there Lily. Why not run to him?"

She stopped still, her crying stopped as though he'd slapped her across the face.

She backed away from him, and he started moving to the bed and she tried to stop him.

"Daniel, please, I'm begging you, don't do anything to him," she begged as she grabbed his arm.

"My name is Ronin," he said as he shook her free effortlessly and kept walking to the bed.

Joseph looked at Ronin and looked at Liliana and said, "You said he never came here anymore!"

Ronin cocked his head at Joseph and said, "What difference does it make whether I"m here or not? Would it have stopped you? Why? Why my room, why MY bed and not your own?"

Joseph smirked at Ronin, remembering the man who wouldn't dare to lift a finger to him and said, "Why not? Huh? Why wouldn't I? Your bed's nicer than mine, plus I needed her to start to forget you, and what better way to do that than to let her betray you?!"

Ronin stared at Joseph, barely an emotion present and without a word, grabbed Joseph by his hair and lifted him up so he was eye level.

Screaming, Joseph tried to punch Ronin in the chest, only to find that was as hard as metal, immediately holding his hand in pain.

Ronin smiled and threw Joseph at the wall so hard it left an indent in the metal wall.

Crouching so he was eye level with Joseph, who had slid to the floor to a sitting position, breathing but clearly in an enormous amount of pain, he heard Joseph trying to talk through his gasps.

Tapping his ear, he asked, "What was that, Joseph? For the whole class please, it's RUDE to whisper," punching him the chest as he finished.

Before Joseph could try and talk through the new wave of pain, Liliana yelled, "Stop it Daniel! None of this would have happened if you hadn't been spending all your time with that SLUT! I'd have NEVER even gone to see him if you hadn't been with her!"

Ronin sighed and stood, shaking his head as he did.

She was clearly going to continue insulting one of his researchers and that couldn't be allowed.

Tapping his V.U.I. he pulled a device he'd developed recently, one that countered sound by sending opposing sound waves at its target.

Pointing at her, he said, "Lily, Lily, LILY. Had you even bothered to TALK to me, you'd know that Silas WORKS for me."

Lilianna was trying to talk, clearly afraid at the silence coming from her throat where there should be sound, but hearing this, she stopped.

"Ready to be polite?"

She looked at him, stunned and fell to her knees as he turned the device off and she started crying again, repeating how sorry she was over and over

Joseph started motioning as though he were accessing something in his V.U.I. and Ronin pushed his hand against the wall with his foot, hard enough to immobilize him, but not hard enough to break it and Joseph glared at him impotently.

"A lady is speaking, Joseph. Don't you dare interrupt her," Ronin said coldly.

Liliana continued sobbing and begging for his forgiveness, eventually drifting into an alternating insistence that she loved him and was so so sorry, both of which he decided to ignore.

"Liliana. We all make mistakes and poor choices, and as much as I wholeheartedly loathe what you've done, I do love you. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive you though, so get out. Now," Ronin said, his pain clear in his voice.

Turning back to Joseph, he said, "You had something to say?"

Looking up into his eyes, Joseph asked, "Who the hell are you?!"

Ronin smiled again and picked Joseph up by his hair again, dragging him to the doorway and threw him into the hall as he said, "My name is Ronin, that's all you need to know."