Chapter Text
[100%] , his computer always showed, glowing with pride at its owner’s success.
It had been several years since Clay had been given his cybernetic additions, gifting him new legs, a new arm, and a cybernetic eye after the explosion he fell victim to. He became part of the CY-borg program, a project that his parents had paid a worthy sum for him to join.
The only joy he had, unfortunately, had to be removed from his life once the prosthetics were attached. When Clay was younger, he loved to dance. The feeling of the adrenaline rushing through his body as he moved across the floor felt like his own personal drug, but one that was lost after the surgery. The perfect — Clay’s favourite word, as he knew the world should be run perfectly and that he would do anything to keep it as such — movements he used to be able to replicate were no longer there, and Clay lost his will to dance.
Now, his blood intermixed with a dark blue liquid people called etherum which powered his mechanical body parts. Cyborgs often felt it rush through their system when they became too emotional, like acid rushing through their veins, burning them alive as they bite their tongues, wishing for the moment to pass. Clay didn’t enjoy the sensation but thankfully, the feeling of pain of the etherum was muted by the costly implants in his amygdala, lowering his emotional levels, not unlike a robot.
When he did bleed, it was a dark purple. People had started to call cyborg blood ‘ Purple Heart’ , the actual name of the colour that they happened to bleed, ironically. It was what separated him from being human, and what made others more cautious of the man when he did get hurt.
Another benefit of the cybernetic parts, he supposed, would be the use of them in his career as a detective who had yet to fail a case assigned to him (out of the 87 cases total that he had been assigned). His eye assisted with his daily tasks, picking up pieces of evidence the normal, human eye often overlooked, finding suspects in hiding with a simple scan of their face. Other times, it was a checklist for him, in case he forgot something. His legs and arm helped him with more manual tasks at hand, helping him climb faster than the average man, blocking punches thrown his way, making him more superior, more perfect .
Today’s task was simple:
Interrogate informant on the new drug [Unidentified]; Location: John Hopkins Hospital, Maryland
Clay walked by the white doors in the white hallway that was built within the white building, a stark contrast in his black and gray suit with the same gait he always had (timed 1, 2, 3, 4, the same rhythm that he held constantly) the perfect pace for walking anywhere without risking being late.
The walk to the room had been exerting as nurses everywhere would walk up to him, warning him to show that he was a cyborg before talking to the informant, though they would not give a reason why to his increasing confusion besides one hurried nurse rushing off to another patient, telling him something that he couldn’t hear in time.
Finally, he made it to the room [Room 24] , he noticed as his eye caught flecks of different coloured paints all over the door.
He knocked on the dirty, paint-splattered door and listened for a response. A murmur was heard from behind the walls and the door opened. Clay’s job was simple: walk in, ask questions, gather information, walk out. He had not expected the occupant (who had black hair, he noted) to screech and slam the white door, much too close to his face for his own comfort.
A nurse dressed in pink rushed over, apologizing for the patient’s behaviour before entering the room. Rushed sentences spilled past the door and it opened again. The nurse apologized again before opening the door a little more for him to enter. That first meeting was not perfect, whatsoever.
This time, cautiously, Clay entered the room and noticed the colours immediately. The base colour of the wall was the shade of etherum (#335FCC) with painted swirls of a dark purple that looked eerily like the colour of Purple Heart.
The patient in front of him wore a white sweater and leggings, matching the door with the flecks of paint on her face, clothes, and hands. A strange, azure aura seemed to engulf her, the colours softly glowing around her like a colourful fire that would not extinguish. She sat on the floor, using a thin paintbrush to paint more swirls of Purple Heart purple — #5D33CC to be specific — onto the blue hospital wall. She turned to look at him, her motions imperfectly timed until she stopped in front of him, staring at him intently.
She forcefully grabbed his left hand as she held it up to her face, inspecting it.
And then she licked it.
Clay jumped, startled at her sudden action as he yanked his hand away from the patient. The wet feeling of her tongue was still on his palm which he wiped off on his jacket, feeling slightly uncomfortable, along with the etherum rushing through his veins at his sudden shock.
“I’m sorry.” She smiled at him (the aura changed into a bright, happy, sunflower yellow and the room felt like it had brightened ten-fold) like she hadn’t just licked his cybernetic hand. “What’d you want?”
He looked at the patient, her eyes a gentle green that reminded him of the spring grass right before 7 A.M., watching her. “Erm,” he stuttered, still stunned from her greeting, “I’m Clay, otherwise known as SUN-Y. I’d like to know your name to confirm a potential informant for a case.”
Her green eyes seemed to glow with a curious feeling Clay felt that no other person could replicate as the aura around the patient turned a royal yellow. (#FADA5E, he identified as he stored the colour code in his personal database. He liked the shade.)
“I’m Sonex Mauve.” Identity Confirmed. The words flashed out of the corner of his eye, reminding him of his task at the hospital. She looked up at her room’s ceiling, gazing at the golden swirls on the light blue ceiling she had probably painted. “You can’t be here.”
Clay turned to look at her. “Why not?” She slowly leaned her head to one side, her gaze still looking up.
“I don’t know.”
What.
He wasn’t sure what to expect from the girl with a purple (Mauve, hex code #6D4752) surname, especially with what he had experienced in the past few minutes, so he decided the best course of action would be to ease into the conversation.
“Why are you called SUN-Y?” She asked before he could formulate a question for her, startling him out of his thought process. He balked, blinking quickly as words flew across his vision again, trying to formulate an answer. “It’s a joke in my squad,” He started off, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly, “It stands for Super Unique…”
Clay inhaled and closed his eyes, realizing why he never explained the acronym.
“...Nutjob.” He listened for a giggle at his nickname, which was nowhere near the perfect nickname he would have preferred. But there was none, and he opened his eyes to see why silence was his only audience. There was only Sonex, tilting her head to the side and staring at him with wide, green eyes. “You didn’t explain the Y.”
“That’s just my program’s name. Y2H. They shortened it.” She nodded, seemingly satisfied as she looked up. Clay frowned, realizing that even with his cybernetic eye, he wasn’t actually able to understand her behaviour. That was not normal.
“Do you know why you’re a Permanent Resident?” Her gaze snapped down to look at him, mint-coloured eyes painfully softening, looking at the ceiling as she recalled the memories that luckily lasted ever since the accident. “Yes.”
“Can you tell them to me?”
She sighed softly and Clay watched the aura of colour change to a dull cadet blue. “I was attacked by a man under the influence of a drug and was saved by a cyborg. Then the doctors realized I had- I had… I had- ” She frowned as she cut off, stopping her attempts at forcing the word out from her head. Sonex held up her arm, looking at the silver band around her wrist. “Dysnomia.”
Informant confirmed knowledge of the drug [Unidentified]
The patient has dysnomia (define: a mild, fluent type of aphasia where an individual has word retrieval failures)
He watched her walk in the wild style of pace she had before, to the palette that lay on the mahogany side drawer, and set down the paintbrush. She sat down on her bed (with a blanket the colour of cornflower) and patted the spot next to her, inviting him to sit. How funny it was, that her pace was 0.4 seconds slower than his perfect walk.
Clay blinked, unused to the casual way she treated him compared to the people of Maryland, who preferred him distant and a far distance away. He listened and proceeded to sit where she had indicated. “Can you tell me about the drug?” She laid down across her bed, sighing as the aura around her fluctuated, coiling around him like a snake as she looked at him.
“I can’t tell you much because I don’t-” She stuttered, frowning as she did, “-do not remember a lot,” the aura glowed a magnificent sunset gold as she emphasised her words, “but I can tell you that it made the user…” She hummed, trying to remember the word, “crazy. The man had these crazy eyes- God… his pupils were blown up so much that it was like looking at a-,” she bit her lip, “-a demon .” She nodded a bit, confirming to herself that she knew the word.
She shivered as she wrapped her arms around her body and the aura that had been hugging him turned a brilliant scarlet red, rushing back to surround her like a shield as she started to recall more detailed information. “He had crazy strength…” She blinked, her eyes focusing on a specific drop of yellow paint as he watched. “And ripped apart a man that was like- just like you. He had purple blood.”
She furrowed her eyebrows, a look at Clay rather liked on her face (with that pondering look in her eyes as she tried to focus on a word) “I think the woman who gave it to the crazy one called it- She called it- Something…” She snapped her fingers together exactly seven times before her aura flashed from the dull blue to bright red-orange, sitting up on the bed as she exclaimed, “Psycho!”
Name of drug identified [Psycho]
Signs of [Psycho] identified: blown pupils, extreme strength, extreme aggression
“The other person called it Psycho.” She repeated the word over a few times, attempting to remember it. She stood up, grabbing the paintbrush as she started to paint swirls on the walls again as she hummed a tune that he could not identify.
And that’s how he left Sonex, with a tune on her lips with an aura of soft pink.
Clay wasn’t sure what to expect the second time he went to the hospital, with his black shoes contrasting against the white tiles of the hospital as he walked through the halls to find the room (#D24) and knock, this time, backing away from the door to ensure the girl would not slam the door on his face again.
He heard the sound of a loud crash of metal hitting ceramic and a yelp from a female that he had only interrogated the other day. He quickly opened the door to investigate the loud sounds, a nurse trailing behind him to make sure her patient was alright.
There sat Sonex, sitting on the ground with a spilled paint can that seemed to bleed purple by her side. Her side was covered in (#5D33CC) paint and her cheeks were smeared with the same colour as she sheepishly smiled at the assistant.
“There was a knock,” was her only explanation as her nurse smiled and helped her clean the mess of paint. The nurse let out a sigh, shaking her head in amusement at the woman who sat on the floor, covered in paint. Clay walked over to help and the girl looked at him with her green eyes (were they brighter now? The shade was darker than the last time he had seen her, more forest green than meadow), the aura around her a bright cerulean blue. “Who is he?” The nurse sighed.
Clay blinked as the nurse gave him an apologetic smile, her eyes telling him ‘I’ll explain somewhere else,’ as his gaze fell and he went back to cleaning the floor before the acrylic paint dried on the white tiles.
[Nurse identified: Erica Sandoval: 6 years of employment in the Permanent Patient ward, assigned to Sonex Mauve 4 years ago. Nominated Nurse of the Month 23/72 times, won 12/23]
Erica helped the woman stand and brought a fresh set of clothing out for her to wear. Clay looked at the blue paint that covered his fingers, feeling… something. The woman he had talked to had forgotten him somehow, and she had no trace of any anesthesia in her system; that made him feel something more than uncomfortable but less than disgusted.
Disturbed, the word should be.
He stood up as the last of the purple transferred onto the once pristine towel and placed the wet rag to the side. Sonex had put on a burgundy-coloured tank top and grey sweatpants, yawning as the needle slid into her arm and dulled her senses.
Erica slowly lowered the girl onto the bed where she lay, her eyelids covering the bright green eyes and Clay watched the aura around her turn a deep, calming blue.
She tapped on his shoulder, gesturing for him to sit on an armchair in Sonex’s room as she sat on the other seat. “Why does she not remember me?” The nurse sighed as her eyes slid from him to the sleeping woman on the bed.
“Sonex was beaten badly when they found her. We’re still not sure to what extent, though we believe it may have been that she was hit near the cerebral cortex of the brain,” she bit her lip, “and that may have caused some trauma to her memory.” Clay processed the new information thoughtfully.
The patient has brain trauma --> Memory loss [not yet explained] Beaten to near death: Ask how
Task(s) added.
Clay smiled, an indication to himself to start interrogating. “The MPD is currently investigating the drug known as Psycho and we believe we can help Sonex if we gain more information. Would you mind cooperating?” Erica frowned, contemplating her options.
She sighed. “For Sonex.” Clay smiled, nodding.
“How does her memory loss work?” She frowned, thinking for a few minutes before she crossed her legs and explained about how she couldn’t recognize people by sight but instead preferred to kiss — or in his case, lick — people. They didn’t know why, but eventually accepted it as Sonex’s greeting.
At first, Erica considered it extremely unsanitary, but over time like the rest of the staff, she came to accept it. It was obvious that the girl was touch-starved, and her mind had never been able to grow out of the childish mindset it had been stuck in. “How badly was she beaten?” Erica stiffened, looking at the cyborg with an apprehensive look before sighing again.
[Sigh count: 5]
She stood up, carefully making her way to Sonex’s nightstand. Erica slowly kneeled and pulled open the drawer, the sound of wood grating against metal. She reached into the shelf and pulled out a bright silver pocket watch, the metal infused with a blue gem.
[Gem identified: Azurite]
The nurse made her way over to him again, sitting back down in the armchair facing Clay. She handed it over for him to inspect. “A pocket watch?” He asked, amusement in his voice. Erica grimaced at his tone as she took back the watch, opening it. Clay looked at the cracked glass, noticing the dark red colour on it. It clicked.
“Was she found with glass shards in her forehead, Ms. Sandoval?” Clay asked, quietly as he glanced at the sleeping girl to assure himself that she had not woken to his voice. The nurse whipped her head up as she looked at Clay in surprise at his quick speculation and nodded. “Exactly. We believe her father ,” he blinked in surprise, “threw this at her while he was under the influence. And with the strength he had...”
[Assailant identified: Eli Mauve. Deceased.]
“Her father did this to her? The speech impairment? The memory-” Erica nodded, stopping his question short.
“We found her over another cyborg, keeping us away from him even after he had died. We supposed the trauma from her father made her extremely nervous around other males but she holds a certain love for cyborgs because of the one that had protected her.”
He sighed, cracking his right thumb, and then his knuckles as he thought about the next thing to ask before he ended his interrogation before Ms. Sandoval became tired of his questioning.
“Do you see the aura around her?” He had always been perplexed about the changing hues surrounding his informant, even calibrating his eye several times to double-check if it was just a malfunction.
To his confusion, the glow was just there. It only surrounded Sonex, not around him, not around anyone else. It was something that he wasn’t able to solve, and it was frustrating because he was supposed to be able to solve everything , perfectly.
She blinked. “Excuse me?” He coughed, backtracking quickly as he realized she didn’t know anything, guessed from the look of confusion. “Just a question to ensure my cybernetic eye isn’t acting up. I ask it every time I end a questionnaire.”
She nodded with understanding, having noticed the prosthetics when he walked in and Sonex’s comfortableness with him. He went back to Sonex, who lay on the bed, her eyes drooping and her breathing a steady rate. “Are you done talking about me?”
Clay froze in surprise, responses forming quickly across his vision before he blinked them all away. His face must have shown his surprised curiosity as she let out a laugh, the musical sound similar to the introductory tune before a fast-paced salsa.
“I may be on these drugs, but I’m no idiot, sir. It’s not too hard to-” She yawned as the drugs took effect.
The dark blue aura had been turned to a peculiar and slightly irritating white. The starkness of it, along with the glow of the aura, hurt. Clay blinked more as he squinted, waiting for it to go away.
The colour only enveloped her even more and Clay took that as a farewell, bidding her a good day and ensuring — after she had grabbed his wrist, asking if he’d be back tomorrow, she wanted to talk to the new cyborg — that he would return the following after she wasn’t so tired, he left.
Slowly, it became normal for people to see the cyborg visiting the same room, extracting information day-by-day until the date of May 5th.
On that day, Clay made his way to the familiar paint-stained door with the same pace he had always had, wearing his black and grey suit, now stained with different splatters of colour from his visits to Sonex.
For some reason, his shoes clicked too loud, the sharp sound echoing like a snap in the halls that even with a large number of people populating the corridors, felt muted.
There was something off about today, and he didn’t like it.
His pace quickened from the usual steps he took and became long strides, finally letting go of his never-changing walk to reach his destination quicker, his mind running faster and faster as the etherum in his veins started to burn.
He barged into the room and blinked quickly at the stark white walls that seemed to glow so brightly that as he had to squint. “Sonex?” It was silent. He turned around to leave the room to ask for a nurse and watched as the door closed, trapping him.
The sound of the door closing echoed in the white chamber. Clay’s hand froze, inches away from the handle that had just been pushed away from him. “Hello?”
There was a laugh, one that Clay specifically recalled from the time he had first started to promise his informant his visits. It was one that made him roll his shoulders back and hide at the same time. “Sonex?” He asked again, confused and nervous, feeling the etherum burn away at his veins as his panic continued to rise.
“I’m sorry.”
Clay stopped looking around wildly, instead, searching for the source of the voice, his body frozen in place as calm panic replaced his initial distress, his brain from place to place as he tried to recall anything that could help him find her. “Where are you?”
“What’d you want?”
He pleaded with the voice, feeling distressed in the white chamber. It was white, always white, that made him avoid her. The bright white aura that would surround her, pushing him away from her as he avoided its bright glow. “To find you- To find Sonex!” Why was her room so… white? Where was the colour, where was the joy, where was she? The colour tore at his eyes, ruination burning through his mind as he continued to search for any sign of the woman.
“I’m Sonex Mauve.”
He nodded frantically at the confirmation, blood rushing faster and faster to the point where he could taste the bitter acid on his tongue, making him want to gag, to heave, to tear at his own body until the etherum bled out and he could bleed red again. “Yes, I’m here to find you! Please tell me where you are.” His frantic words were no longer the smooth sounds he had taught himself to control.
“You can’t be here.”
Clay’s hands went into his hair, sliding his fingers across his scalp as the worry grew more and more. “Sonex, where are you? ” The voice didn’t reply for a few minutes and Clay was left in desperate silence.
“I don’t know.”
The silence continued as Clay stood in the stark white room, his eyes desperate, his body in pain, and his mind haywire. Why wasn’t everything going to plan? Why wasn’t it perfect?
“It’s time for you to let go of your world, Clay.”
[98.88%], his computer now showed, glowing with a sickly shade of white and red.