Work Text:
“Sit down, Polyblank, because this mission is important.”
The old train doors had barely shut before the Director spoke, taking Polyblank off-guard. He merely nodded and took a seat, crossing his legs. The Director took a long sip of the drink on his desk. The room smelled like alcohol. The chalkboard, usually having a scribble of the mission site or object of interest, had a man drawn on it. A cyborg, to be specific. And beside him was a sketch of-
“This butcher has a black market artificial organ,” the Director spoke, jarring him out of his thoughts. Something in Polyblank’s stomach twisted. Where was he going with this? “We’ll need you to retrieve this by any means necessary. And, do dispose of the body properly when you’re done. Leave no traces.”
This was new.
This was different from kidnapping some poor wanted sap in the middle of the night and driving to a secondary location. This wasn’t just helping a murder - he’d seen people die plenty of times, but never by his own hand.
A lump formed in his throat. He picked his words carefully. ‘So I’ll have to kill this person?’
The Director nodded. Something about the way he looked at him made his skin crawl. “Is there a problem?”
‘No.’ He signed quickly, to erase any doubt in his skill. It wasn’t that different from watching another agent kill someone. He was a professional - he should’ve expected he’d have to get his hands dirty eventually.
“Then get going.” A drawer opened and the Director set a bottle of pills on the desk with a light clack.
Already? So fast? Polyblank knew, all other missions went like that. He got the info and he left. Still, he couldn’t help but stare at the image. The organ looked like a heart, sort of. He nodded stiffly, picked up the Missionoyl prescription, and took a pill without thinking too hard about how he’d actually do it.
Any other day, he could’ve counted down. Five seconds was all it took. But his man ran a mile a minute, dreading the confrontation. He was alone, he’d have to find a way to off the target. To get rid of the body-
Everything went black.
Just for a fraction of a second, and then he was standing in a marketplace. Bustling with people.
With potential witnesses.
He felt stared at. Were they watching him? Sure, most spared him a look because he popped into existence for no apparent reason. But did anyone suspect anything? He started walking, feigning interest in the shops lining the cramped street. At least the people in Ikayaki knew to mind their business and keep their heads down. This place was tidier, which meant people actually cared about what happened.
He scanned the store signs with intent, shoving his hands into his pockets. A butcher. It’d be easy enough to get a weapon in a butcher shop, of all places. Why did the Director have to send him in alone? Not that he would ever risk stepping out of line by asking for a helper.
There.
He zeroed in on the storefront and strode right toward it. Not too fast; leisurely, like a normal customer. It was clean. He’d seen a few butcher shops in his life - all from the more run-down edges of society. Who even was this guy?
It was against policy to question such things. To ask why.
He must’ve been rich to afford a heart. That was the most Polyblank allowed himself to guess.
A bell above the front door chimed a pleasant sound as he stepped inside. Adjusting his tie, he looked around. The man behind the counter smiled at him. His target smiled at him. “Hello! Looking for anything in particular?”
‘Just browsing,’ he said, which wasn’t technically a lie. And he did examine the products in the display cases. Raw, red meat. Fish. He clasped his hands behind his back, thinking. Would it be wise to go for the violent route right away?
No. Not with so many people outside. If someone walked in, well… Then he’d have to dispose of more bodies. And the thought of taking more lives than necessary made him cringe on the inside.
He spent some minutes keeping his word of just browsing. Something about the artwork decorating the walls reminded him of an underhanded practice those types of shops did. One was a faded painting of a mermaid on old parchment, hung inconspicuously alongside other miscellaneous sea-related paintings. ‘Do you, by chance, sell mermaid?’
Something in the man’s expression shifted. His smile dropped, but he didn’t look angry. “You know that’s illegal here, right?”
He tilted his head. ‘I didn’t ask if it was illegal here, did I?’
The butcher’s smile returned, although with a new tinge to it. He looked Polyblank up and down, as if guessing how much money he had on him. “It’s not cheap, you know. You can take a peek in the back, I’ll let you pick what catches your interest.”
‘That sounds lovely.’ A lie.
The butcher opened the half-gate leading behind the counter. “Follow me and don’t touch anything, or we’re going to have problems, got it?”
‘Understood.’ He followed the man at a respectable distance. His apron was smeared with blood, and as they walked into the back, the signature coppery scent of blood hit him.
Various animals hung strung up from the ceiling. Pigs, goats, miscellaneous four-legged things in general. Skinned and bled. Or bleeding still, into industrial wastebaskets. Laid across a smooth shiny table was a mermaid. Her throat slit, bled pale.
Holding back any visible disgust, he approached the corpse. Stared at it. Wondered if she had a family.
“Got more, but they’re just the tails and meat stored separately.” The butcher shrugged, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him. He wondered if anyone would miss the mermaid, or any of the other dismembered individuals hidden out of sight. Would anyone miss the butcher?
‘How do you prepare them?’
“I skin the tail, so you can keep the scales. I know a taxidermist, if you want a model,” the man mused, walking along. Polyblank followed, staying at the tools laid across a cart. Knives and scalpels and things he didn’t even know the use of. “Eating the lungs is very nutritious, did you know that?”
‘I did not,’ he signed, distracted by the options.
“Lengthens your lifespan, you know. Helps you breathe better,” he went on, lingering at the mermaid’s side. Polyblank silently picked up the biggest knife on the tray. Blood still crusted its blade. His heart began to hammer in his chest. He was going to do it. He was going to murder someone.
“What are you doing?”
He turned. Stared at the butcher. Color drained from the man’s features. “Put that down, now. Look, I’ll lower the cost, but I’m sure you understand, these things are hard to get-”
He held the knife like a switchblade, pointed up, and slammed it into the man’s abdomen.
Red soaked his white gloves. The human body was so warm. The butcher stumbled, attempted to speak, but only blood came out. Polyblank shoved the man down and practically jumped on him, slamming a foot down on his chest to keep him down. He couldn’t hear past his own rush of blood, couldn’t hear if he was trying to beg for his life or scream for help.
He barely felt himself jam the blade into his neck, like how he watched others do so many times before. Bloor pooled across the floor, smeared against the counter when the man tried grabbing something, anything. One of his hands tightened around his wrist.
A visceral disgust swelled in him. He stood abruptly, kicking his hand off, and stepped back. His internal fans kicked into high gear as he watched him bleed out. He couldn’t tell when he actually died and when it was just the nervous system acting up. Blood pooled up in the man’s mouth, bubbling up and running down his face. His eyes glazed over.
Polyblank wiped the blood off the knife with the hem of his suit. He couldn’t look completely away from the corpse, half expecting it to sit back up. But it didn’t move. He did it. The first part of his job, done.
Time wouldn’t let him feel happy about that for long. Moving fast, he plucked what looked like what he imagined a bone saw to be off the tray and knelt at the body’s side. Roughly, he cut down the front of its shirt, enough to get to the heart.
He got to work.
Bone cracked under force. It was fascinating, really, how wet people’s insides were. He was up to his wrists in it, haphazardly doing whatever he could to just pry that damn heart out of its chest.
It was smooth, off-red, all lumpy and netted with some sort of mesh. He could feel its rough, disgusting texture through his soaked-through gloves. He ungracefully freed the valve arteries from their hold and, finally, lifted the organ free.
Now to clean up. His knees were sore by the time he straightened up. Leaving his tools laying in the viscera, he went about finding a bag to put the heart in.
It was so quiet, with the butcher dead. It left him alone with just the sound of his own stressed fans as company. His shoes didn’t click on the cold grey concrete floor anymore, instead sticking with every step. Methodically, he set the bagged organ aside, found what looked like a trash bag for pig carcasses, and debated the body. It would fit.
And so he stole the corpse’s keys, stuffed it into the black bag and, after looking down at himself, stripped off his suit jacket as well. Into the bag it went, too.
An apron hung from a hook on the far wall, which he snagged and put on. It was dirty, too, blending in with his haggard and messy look. With a grunt, he hoisted the evidence bag over his shoulder and unlocked the back door with the key. It was warm and slippery in his hand, but after some fumbling, he pushed the door open.
The bag landed in the dumpster with a wet thump of jostling things. He hurried back inside before anyone could stumble across the sight and ask questions. He was an innocent butcher worker, disposing of… whatever they didn’t use. Innocent!
Kicking the door shut, he stared at the mess he made. That’d be hell to clean out. But the Director said to leave no trace, so he wouldn’t take any risks. A drain sat in the middle of the floor, so he just needed to wash it all down…
Eventually, he found a janitor’s cart, pried it out of the closet, and nearly broke a faucet trying to get it far enough to fill it with water. He kept himself moving, working, constantly, to keep himself from thinking too hard about what he did. Anything to keep the realization from sinking in.
As calmly as possible, he soaked the mop, and began cleaning.
And as the gore slipped down the drain, out of sight, he began to calm down. His heart, safe in his chest and not mechanical, slowed its beat to something normal. The cleaned tools returned to their rightful places and his gloves reluctantly went into the trash. Luckily, he found a pack of latex ones to replace them. The mere thought of touching the place with his bare hands made him shudder.
Before he knew it, the room looked… normal, all things considered. Clean. The mermaid’s body still lay like a corpse primed for autopsy. Cattle still hung from hooks. Almost in a trance, he shuffled out of the back room and into the front. Nobody had come in, by some miracle, and nobody noticed when he locked the door and flipped the open sign to closed.
When it was all said and done, he picked up the bag with the heart and waited.
5, 4, 3…
2…
1-
The breath caught in his throat as he appeared in the Director’s office. Stiffly, without even saying hello, he held out the bag.
“Good work, Blanks.” He stood and took the item from him. He didn’t even want to know why he wanted that organ in particular, out of all of the illegal ones out there. His boss walked out from behind his desk and clapped a hand on his back. “I knew you could do it.”
At a loss for words, or maybe not trusting himself, he just gave a thumbs-up. He did it, alright. He murdered a man and stole an organ.
The Director smiled. “Go home and wash up. You did good today.”
He nodded, turned, and shuffled out of the train without signing a word. His hands began to tremble. Why? It was long over, and there was no changing the past.
“Polyblank? Are you alright?” IX asked, as he passed by her without saying goodbye. She only looked more concerned when he turned just enough to see her.
He nodded. She frowned. “Okay, just… Know I’m here if you need to talk, alright?” She made a disapproving sound when he turned away from her.
He went home.