Cold Blooded

Deals

"I didn't realize you would be back so soon!" Zandik said to the man in the doorway. "When was my last reboot?"

"That was nearly twenty years ago, Three," The man said with a sigh, his eerie grin sliding off. "And I told you to stop calling me 'Brother.' You know that that is not what we are."

"Wait," Chongyun swung his legs over the side of the cot. "Are you his Big Brother?"

"Ugh, no," The man ran a hand through his hair. "I can't believe he gets away with calling Prime that. I'm Dottore."

"I thought other him was Dottore," Chongyun said, pointing a finger at Zandik.

"Well, yes. There are lots of us, okay?" The man was now clearly agitated. "He is Three and I'm Thirty Seven, alright? Why am I even explaining this to you? Three, come on."

"Can my new friend come too this time?" Zandik looked up at Thirty Seven. "He's very nice and I promise he won't get in the way."

"Of course he can, Three." Thirty Seven's smile returned. "I was planning on inviting him along anyways. Come along, Friend."

Chongyun didn't like the way that the man talked, there was something strange to him. Zandik pulled off his jacket and threw it over Chongyun's bare shoulders. "Come with us."

The little boy grabbed Chongyun's hand and led him down the hallways and into a room with different instruments around the walls and a flat metal table in the center. A chair sat off in the corner and Zandik pointed Chongyun towards it before jumping on to the table.

"Ready?" Thirty Seven asked Zandik, who gave a small nod. "Okay, see you in a bit." The older segment went to Zandik's back and began to mess with something. The boy's eyes fluttered then closed, his head collapsing onto his chest.

"So clearly he told you his past, and all that messy business," Thirty Seven walked over to Chongyun. "Prime still cares for this miserable welp for some reason, but he is nothing to me. I am nothing more than his caretaker at this point. His death would be nothing more than inconvenient for me, but I keep him alive because why burden myself with even that small inconvenience.

"In fact, I have actually found a use for him. Not 'Zandik' per say, but someone else in this broken mind." The man grabbed the boy's limp head and gave it a small shake. "You see, by taking out certain shards of his core, I can remove certain personalities." He laid Zandik down on his back and pulled out a pair of tweezers. "These shards here, here, here, and here. Contain Zandik's entire personality. Remove them and he is gone from the body." The shards of the core landed with a clatter in a small tin cup Thirty Seven had pulled out. "These shards over here contain the one with the severe inferiority complex." More clatters in a different cup. "And with the two strongest personalities gone, the next strongest takes over."

Thirty Seven took the tin cups and placed them on a shelf. He slowly walked over to Chongyun and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Here is the deal, my friend. This personality will be the one mainly in charge of you. He will be in control of everything related to your case. However, the original one needs to think that he is only out of control for short periods of time instead of months. Your job will be to make sure that he believes that."

"Why would I ever do that?" Chongyun spat. He didn't know much about Zandik or Thirty Seven or 'Prime' or really what was happening at all, but he knew that Zandik had lost too much to not be given the truth.

"Well, I told you that he is expendable to me, didn't I?" Thirty Seven walked around to the back of the chair and leaned down to whisper in Chongyun's ear. "Should he ever suspect that anything is off, I will kill him. I saw how you held him before I came into the room, you care about the little freak. If you fail, he will be dead before you can do anything to stop me."

"Don't call him a freak," Chongyun said through gritted teeth.

"Hah!" Thirty Seven strolled back to Zandik's limp body. "I don't believe you are currently in the position to be giving me orders. Anyways, in case you doubt the power I hold over this boy, watch me. If a small accident occurred while I was conducting maintenance, he would be dead in seconds."

The man chuckled and began by removing the pieces of metal protecting Zandik's mouthpiece. He slid his fingers over a latch and the mask opened up like a pair of double doors. Thirty Seven pulled out the speaker and began to inspect it. "If my wire cutters happened to slip, he might never speak again, you know."

Thirty Seven replaced the speaker and reassembled the mouthpiece, bit by bit. He then moved to Zandik's arm. He carefully slid off the glove and rolled up the shirt to reveal the wires and metal beneath, the man slowly slid his fingers over the joints to the tips of the spindly fingers.

"Has he shown you how much he loves to write and draw?" Thirty Seven whispered. "He really loves it, even though his words are barely legible and his drawings look like those of a toddler. If I happened to mess up here, he would never be able to have the same dexterity again. Now that would be a shame wouldn't it?"

Chingyun could hear the threat in his voice and stayed silent. The boy was at a loss for what to do. Thirty Seven turned to him with a twisted smile. He slid his finger into the inner workings of Zandik's arm and pulled out a single wire. He drew a pair of wire cutters from a drawer and lowered it closer to the wire. He clicked his tongue like the ticking of a clock.

"Fine! I'll do it!" Chongyun cried, he jumped to his feet and winced at the pain. "I'll do whatever you need, just leave him alone. He's already broken enough. Just- just leave him alone."

"Wonderful," He said with that twisted smile. "Now, I have one last thing I would like to show you before I activate him again. Just y'know an extra little warning. Come with me."

He left Zandik at the table and headed out of the room. Chongyun looked at the boy on the table one last time and followed Thirty Seven out the door.

~author's note~

Sorry for the short chapter. I'm getting a bit behind in writing, but i still should be fine with getting them out on time. Thanks for reading!

artist for chapter art @xrxca24x