Indigo Corp. Northeast, Boston, Massachusetts | September 29, 20:19

The SUV rounded the corner, bringing the large, modern building into view. Its windows reflecting the ever-glowing lights of the corporation campus, its large windows clear on the ground floor to reveal walls painted the trademarked indigo color.

The SUV pulled into the parking structure of Indigo Corporation's New England Headquarters, where it idled next to an elevator.

One of the back-doors opened and out stepped a lithe man with piercing jade eyes and metal black hair tied into a low, loose pony. He reached back into the vehicle, slinging a large canvas bag over his shoulder and pushing a pair of sunglasses up from his tawny, smooth face.

He was followed by two others. A large, brutish young man with slicked-back bronze hair; he had a strong jaw and his skin was tanned, with several red scuffs healing along his thick forearms. The last to leave the SUV was a shorter man with a dark fauxhawk, and a scar traced across his squat, golden-toned face.

All three were dressed in black.

The SUV pulled away and the odd trio loaded into the elevator. A panel of shiny buttons greeted them as the sound-proofed doors closed.

"Welcome to Indigo Corporation," a synthetic female voice sounded from concealed speakers. "Which floor would you like to go to?"

The man with the bag and sunglasses pulled out a transparent ID, no bigger than a credit card, from his pocket and held it up to a hidden sensor under the bottom lip of the button panel.

"Please verify credentials," the voice said.

He pressed the floor buttons in a practiced sequence.

"Welcome back," the voice greeted. "Team Leader Codéza, your presence has been requested on sub-level six, conference room nine. Presence is not immediately requested. Would you like to go to sub-level six?"

"No, bring us to sub-level ten, barracks two," Codéza answered, shifting the weight of his bag to his other shoulder.

The elevator lurched into a downward motion, which startled the larger and youngest member of the trio.

The doors opened up to a white hallway with indigo trimming along the crown molding. Sub-level ten opened up at the end of the hallway to a wide, circular room lined with black couches and closed-circuit screens. As Codéza and his team passed one monitor, bright words conveyed that lunch that day would be between a sushi bar and a vegan-friendly vegetable pasta.

Beyond the circular room more hallways radiated out in several directions.

"Man, that was a long job," the scarred man said with a sideways smile. "We just got back and now there's more work. It's like they know that I put in for vacation time at the end of this week."

"Work's work, Dorrick." Codéza shrugged. He only shuffled past his teammate - he hadn't slept in three days and it was starting to weigh heavier on him knowing his bed was almost within reach. "We can't complain if the work comes."

"I know that," Dorrick frowned, pausing to look back at the youngest member of the team. "Tenfo, c'mon. That's not your TV."

The young man had paused in front of the screen that displayed the lunch menu, staring tiredly at it. He mumbled disdainfully about vegetables before finally moving to join his older team mates.

"You seem excited to be taking your vacation time," Codéza gave a sly grin. "Going to visit your lady friend, yes? Erika is her name, right?" His grin evolved into a smirk as he made a crude gesture with his hand.

"You're a dick," Dorrick shook his head, but the corners of his narrow blue eyes crinkled.

Codéza continued grinning. "Not my business if you wanna have some fun. With Erika."

"You could use some fun," Dorrick shook his head again. "With real people."

Codéza gasped, feigning offense as he clung to his bag defensively.

"Ruck doesn't count, because Ruck is an extension of you, or whatever you do with it," Dorrick sighed.

"Tenfo, did you hear that threat?" Codéza stopped, mock-ducking behind the big teenager. "Defend your primary asset!"

Tenfo only looked between them and letting out a deep sigh. "I'm tired," he said, his exhaustion evident in his gravelly voice. "I want to sleep. There's vegetables-" he stopped talking as another Indigo team passed by, averting his rusty gaze to the floor.

Codéza let out a sigh of his own, brushing off the air of fun. "'Kay, 'kay. Dorrick, take him down to his room," he turned, heading for one of the other hallways. "They're more used to you returning him, y'know?"

Dorrick nodded, and he and Tenfo went down one of the other passages.

Codéza took the sunglasses off his head as he got half-way down his chosen path, slipping them onto the collar of his black t-shirt. His jade eyes calmed as he watched the end of the hall grow closer and closer. Then there would be another hall, and then he would have to go past a small cantina to the area of the barracks with cement walls. His room would be the last in a smaller corridor.

He commanded the door to open without speaking a word and it slid open for him.

His room was slightly bigger than the college dorm rooms he'd seen in American movies growing up. His walls were plastered with posters of single-player video games, where there had been an in-wall shelving space there were now rows of half-assembled machines and disassembled electronics.

He dropped his bag on his pillows, sitting on the red and white comforter on his bed to remove his boots. It was quiet, save for the whirring orchestra of computers coming to life in his presence. His body moved automatically, but his mind ran through the circuits of his creations.

Finally, he held out a hand to their general area, willing a general thought to them to save their data and close down. All but one machine obeyed. The only machine left rolled in the bag on the pillows until it came tumbling out: a chrome, ovular shape like a flat egg.

"You awake?" he spoke to it.

Codéza knew it was a stupid question, of course it was awake. He made it stay awake, just as he then made the slats on the side of the machine open and commanded the four spider-like legs to move it towards him. Sometimes he made it dance around like a dog, always excited to see him; other times he let his subconscious drive it, at those times the machine behaved more like a child that would run around and knock things over.

Codéza removed his pants and threw back the covers, climbing into bed. He willed the machine to come over to him again, he picked it up carefully and held it above him as he lay on his back. "You tired, too, Ruck?"

Rucksack V2's metal legs splayed gently and he rubbed his thumbs on the cold metal of its sides. Codéza placed his most precious machine next to him, covering both himself and Ruck with the blanket before commanding the light to turn off.

And the technopath went to sleep.

⭐⭐⭐

Indigo Corp. Northeast, Boston, Massachusetts | September 30, 09:03

There were plenty more people buzzing around the barracks after Codéza had woken up and gotten something to eat. Ruck clung to his back with its legs, fitting snugly and secure over the leather vest he had to wear while carrying the machine on his back.

A technopath was a strange and rare phenomenon, even for people as advanced as those working for Indigo. Codéza had free reign of the Boston base that had taken him in and served as his home since he was ten.

Some Human workers, mostly non-field agents, would pass him by, giving him a wide space; they were more afraid of him than they let on. Each field team had at least one Human member; a hands-on handler of sorts. The only Human in Indigo who could stand him was Dorrick Roche: Asian-American of unknown origins with a girlfriend who lived overseas. Or that was what Dorrick kept claiming, anyways. Codéza liked to tease him, but he did let the man have his privacy.

Other Team Leaders, other Psion like him, weren't so much afraid of him as they were unsure - Psion were a near-Human race and had organic abilities that affected organic senses. Codéza's rare abilities didn't fall under that same umbrella.

Then there were the Chimeras, who would never look up at or speak to anyone in Indigo unless directed to. They were genetic experiments that were biologically programmed to protect their Psion creators. Each unit had one Chimera; Tenfo was "glitchy" and so he was one-of-a-kind, but that was why Codéza had chosen him.

It was turning out to be a typical day; except for the message that had been left for him in conference room six.

Conference room six wasn't anything special. It was a windowless, gray room with a long oak table and several empty chairs. A large screen display took up the wall perpendicular to the door, controlled bu a glassy panel of buttons on a remote that sat centered on the table.

But Codéza didn't need a remote.

He went right to work: mentally flicking through the menus and credential pins before he had sat down. Once he had chosen a seat - right up next to the large screen - he willed the message to play.

The screen turned black.

"You should have arrived back in Boston base by fifteen past twenty, local time," came a digitally scrambled, deep voice.

Codéza immediately sat upright and attentive.

It was one of the owners of Indigo Corporation. Each one had a different voice-scrambling sequence, a different vocal disguise, but Codéza was familiar with this particular one.

This type of message always hard-deleted themselves from the servers after playing. Codéza had once used Ruck to take a recording of this owner's voice. He had only been partially successful at decrypting the audio. It belonged to a man with a strange, almost musical British accent... or was it a post Australian? Codéza never particularly understood how accents in English worked.

"Accounting for your usual routine, you should be hearing his message just past oh-nine-hundred." The voice, as always, was right. "I know this new assignment is rather short-notice, but your team is needed for a domestic situation. It will not show up on Indigo's records."

Sounded interesting enough to him. But a job not showing up on any record had sparked his interested more than usual.

"An Indigo informant confirmed that Roanoke Company was holding an extraterrestrial specimen for the United States Government. This specimen escaped from their custody. Your team is to apprehend this specimen and bring it back to base. Alive."

Codéza sat back in his chair. He had dealt with similar jobs before, minus the alien part. At least he had an answer for why the assignment wouldn't be on record.

"Be advised: this specimen is highly dangerous. Using the CRDNA it's estimated Chimera Level Eight. I suspect you'll easily be able to bypass Roanoke Company's systems yourself for more details."