Ugh, this is impossible…!

One cheek squished against the plastic surface of the food court table, Lamb gazed at his phone with a defeated sigh. It had only been two hours, and the gap between him and everyone else was at least 50 points…. How could they have accumulated so many points so quickly? Were they completing a mission every five minutes or something? Were they super-human? Well, technically, they were, but still…

So much for proving myself…

Out of the thirteen pairs, Lamb was ranked thirteen. He didn’t really understand why – he thought he’d been completing missions at a decent pace. He’d started off with the task of shadowing a repeat offender who had been spotted with a large knife in Downtown Eastside, but the man ended up returning to his housing facility without incident. That had earned him ten points, since it hadn’t escalated. Lamb then accepted a mission to capture video evidence of a suspected animal abuse case in an apartment complex. He did spend a while getting his drone set up and learning how to control it, but that had earned him a good twenty-five points.

Then, the case that had led him here, to the food court of a Chinatown mall, had started off as reports of an aged woman acting strangely in the area. She had appeared to be unarmed, but had been aggressively shouting at people. Lamb had shadowed her for a good fifteen or so minutes before she’d suddenly leapt at a passing lady and began to scream.

Of course, Lamb had leapt into action and pulled her away quickly. The victim, although shaken, had thanked him and continued her way in a rush. Alicia had recommended that he take the woman to a nearby hospital, as she was clearly suffering from some sort of mental distress. But as Lamb had been trying to convince her to follow him to the train station, she’d declared that she was thirsty.

And so, Lamb had taken her to the food court and bought her a drink. They had sat here at this table, sipping on their lemon ice teas from the pho shop, until about fifteen minutes ago, when a teenage girl had run over in a panic and called the woman their ‘mom.’ The girl had apologized and thanked Lamb several times, then guided the woman – who had completely calmed down after her drink – out of the mall.

That had only earned him fifteen points, since it had only been a mildly escalated shadow case. Considering that it had cost him nearly an hour, it probably hadn’t been worth it. If he’d listened to Alicia and dropped off the woman at a hospital, then he would’ve had at least another half hour and maybe another twenty points. Still, if he did this again, Lamb reckoned he would make the same decision. Another twenty points still put him dead last, anyway…

The others are in pairs. He was taking a small break before setting off again, so he tried to do some math. I have 50 points. Twelfth place has 95 points. It kinda makes sense, I guess. If they had two people, they could theoretically complete double the amount of missions. But first place… he didn’t know who they were, since Alicia didn’t reveal any names, but first place had a whopping 530 points. That was more than ten times the amount of points he had…! How in the world…?!

Sighing forlornly again, Lamb closed his eyes. Everyone is so good…

He hadn’t really believed that he was different from the others, even though he’d often heard that he was a special case.

Generation Ones – the category of Sentinels that Hermes, Puma, and everyone except Messiah belonged to – had an ‘integration level’ of roughly 20%. That meant, as far as Lamb understood, that roughly 20% of their neurons had been integrated with artificial machinery. But because of special circumstances that had never been explained to him, Lamb’s integration was only at 10% – half of everyone else.  Higher integration generally meant greater control over more technology, so essentially, Lamb’s Sentinel abilities were weak.

Lamb’s low integration was probably also why he didn’t suffer from any inhibition. A side effect of machine integration was an imbalance in neurotransmitters – the human brain proteins important for many aspects of emotion. By measuring the concentrations of different neurotransmitters in their brains, Ypsilon regularly checked their inhibition levels and categorized them into two types – positive inhibition, which meant that they couldn’t feel good things, and negative inhibition, which meant they couldn’t feel bad things. This year, Lamb’s results had come back as 0% and 0% for both categories, as they had always been. Hermes’ had been 20% positive inhibition and 30% negative inhibition – relatively average values for a Gen One Sentinel. So while Lamb found himself stressing over every little thing like a normal university student, Hermes was usually very chill.

I wonder what Messiah’s stats are…

He’d been too caught up in work to think about other things, but now Lamb’s fascination with the masked Sentinel was returning. Still, he held some lingering resentment towards Messiah for abandoning him, and Lamb continued the thought with an aggravated huff.

He’s probably 100% inhibited, that cold-hearted cyborg.

A pang of guilt immediately surged through his chest, and Lamb hastily took it back with an internal apology. No, no… Messiah’s reasonings had been somewhat understandable. Something as grand as Gen Zero shouldn’t be expected to participate in such a petty little contest between commoners like Lamb…

Though, I don’t even think I can put myself in the same category as everyone else, now… Sighing again, Lamb gazed wistfully at the leaderboard on his phone. Everyone else is so much better…

Feeling sorry for himself, Lamb closed his eyes and contemplated giving up. What would be worse, coming in last even though he tried his best, or stopping early so they wouldn’t think he tried at all…? His ear, pressed against the cold plastic of the table, buzzed with noise from the busy mall, comforting his lonely self with vague chatter. Or at least, it had been comforting, until a shrill scream jolted him out of his seat.

On complete instinct, Lamb ran towards the sound of the scream, which quickly became a commotion of loud footsteps and deep shouting now. He found himself at the railings of the food court, gazing down at the mall’s first floor. A dark-haired figure, carrying some large object underneath his black windbreaker, was sprinting towards the south exit. Some distance behind, two men in security guard uniforms were chasing him, shouting.

The figure reached the south exit with seconds to spare, but as they ran up to the automatic door, it didn’t open. Lamb wasn’t completely sure what was going on, but something told him that he shouldn’t let the figure through – and keeping doors shut was something that even a weakling like him could reliably do.

Realizing that the doors really weren’t going to open, the figure began to panic, and then tried to bolt into a nearby store – but by then, it was too late. The security guards caught up, bowled them to the ground, and wrestled what looked like a boxed electronic out from their arms. Feeling a pang of pity as the figure writhed and began to let out hoarse screams, Lamb stepped away from the railings. The doors that he’d been controlling earlier slid open, then closed again as onlookers from both sides jumped hastily back.

<Mission complete. Codename Lamb, you have earned 20 mission points.>

Alicia’s voice suddenly swept through his head, and Lamb jumped in surprise.

Huh? He glanced down at his phone, confused – but he hadn’t accepted any missions yet – and saw that his points had indeed increased to 70. That put him reasonably close to 12^th place…!

Wait, 20 points? Just for that? Lamb glanced down again dubiously. The figure had stopped shouting now, and was standing with one security guard with his hands held behind his back. The other was holding the box, and speaking on the phone. That was over in two minutes.

“Hey!”

A sudden shout from behind him made Lamb jump and he whirled around in instinctive alarm, only to blink in surprise as he spotted two familiar faces walking towards him. Puma, who’s shout was drawing looks from bystanders, was wearing his characteristic wide smirk. Beside him, Hermes looked completely and utterly nonchalant.

If it had only been Puma, Lamb would have scowled and shouted something back. But he felt so graced by the sight of Hermes’ amber gaze that he greeted them with the beginnings of a hello. Only the first huff came out, though, as Puma stepped up and suddenly fisted the front of his sweater.

“You’ve got some nerve, stealing our mission points.” Puma’s voice was sharp in mock anger, but it was clear from his grin and sparkling chestnut eyes that he was simply teasing Lamb.

“Huh? Steal?” Caught between indignance and confusion, Lamb grabbed Puma’s wrist and cast Hermes a questioning look as he half-heartedly tried to free himself from the man’s grasp.

“You didn’t even do it on purpose?” Puma laughed, while Hermes scoffed and glanced off to the side.

“Told you he didn’t know.” Hermes gazed at the empty table where Lamb had left his drink for a moment, then glanced back with a raised eyebrow. “Where’s Messiah?”

Not wanting to admit that he’d been abandoned again in front of Puma, Lamb finally shoved himself away from the man and fixed up his hoodie with a grumble. “He’s busy with… stuff.”

Hermes’ eyebrow twitched a little higher, but he seemed to decide not to comment. Puma, though, didn’t let Lamb escape that easily.

Stepping forward, Puma hooked an arm over Lamb’s shoulder and forced the boy to stumble close with a dark chuckle. “I was gonna beat up the team who stole our mission, but I won’t since it’s you. You’re the poor soul in last place, after all.”

Stiffening, Lamb averted his gaze and struggled to free himself from Puma’s subtle arm-lock. “W-What makes you so sure?!”

Puma chuckled light-heartedly. “Oh, Hermes did some magic on his phone to unhide all the details that Alicia is storing for the contest.” He pointed at the brown-haired boy, and Lamb turned to his friend with a shocked gasp.

“You hacked into Alicia?!”

Sighing, Hermes held up his phone, showing Lamb the leaderboard – but with visible Codenames written beside each of the rankings in light grey. “I didn’t really hack it, it just required some problem-solving. They probably left it possible as a way for us to use our powers to gain an advantage. I’m sure others have figured it out already, too.” He shrugged, and lowered his phone away from Lamb’s aghast stare.

“Wait…” Lamb had only caught a glimpse of Hermes phone so he couldn’t be sure, but he thought he’d seen familiar names in the rank-one spot. “You’re in first place…?!”

“Hm?” Hermes cast him an idle glance. “Of course.”

At the same time, Puma hooked his arm further and growled. “Who do you think I am?!”

“W-Wait…” Still not able to comprehend that it was these people, the Sentinels that Lamb saw almost daily, behind the insane 530-point statistic, Lamb stared at Hermes with round eyes and stammered, “H-How’d you get so far ahead…?!”

Hermes sighed, obviously thinking that it would be tedious to explain. But Puma, who never gave up a chance to brag, answered him smugly.

“Hermes used his nerd brain to guesstimate which missions were good. High-impact missions with huge points, or really short ones that give points quickly. Then the amazing me goes and clears them all with exceeding speed.” Puma pointed a thumb at his chest and chuckled triumphantly. “It’s easy.”

Hermes cast Lamb a pointed look. “I’m guessing you didn’t think about that at all.”

“Uh, nope…” He really hadn’t thought about that at all. He’d just gone and picked whatever looked familiar to him… leave it up to Hermes to find such an efficient path to victory. Lamb felt his shock ebb into awe as he gazed at his friend.

Hermes blinked, then averted his gaze from Lamb’s amazed stare. A strange twist appeared on his lips, but it disappeared when he spoke up in his usual tone. “By the way, there’s a good mission for you. It’s a super-high point reward for busting someone distributing unsafe drugs at a nightclub. You’ve done that kind of thing before, right?”

“Oh?” Lamb reached vaguely for his phone. “I didn’t see it on the list of available missions earlier…”

“Yeah, it was picked up,” Puma chimed in. “But that doesn’t matter – whoever completes the objective gets the points. You can steal it from them, just like you stole ours.”

Apprehensive at the thought of giving anyone a reason to dislike him, Lamb hesitated. “Ehh, but…”  

Chuckling, Puma shifted his arm up and ruffled Lamb’s hair vigorously. “C’mon, it’s a contest, nobody’s gonna get mad at you for trying. Me and Hermes forgave you, didn’t we?” He scoffed and added mercilessly, “You’re dead last right now, you know.”

Urk, I know…! Lamb hesitated, but being able to save himself from the embarrassment of last place was a tempting offer…

“Well… I can always send you the info,” Hermes pointed out lightly. “Since it’s not your mission, you won’t have Alicia’s help, though. If you’re still up for it, I think the reward would bump you up to maybe 7^th place. It’s pretty nice.”

Seventh…! He wouldn’t even be close to being last, then…! If he could do that all by himself, then that was almost the same as being first…! Well, sort-of, anyway – close enough. Fired up, Lamb clenched his fists and ducked out of Puma’s arm with a determined huff. “Okay. I’ll take it.”

“You should clean up a bit, then.” Puma didn’t try to capture him again, but the man did reach out and flick at Lamb’s baggy sweater. “You’d stick out if you went to a nightclub dressed like that.”

Suddenly feeling abashed at his choice of comfortable clothing – Puma always made the effort to look nice, and it had definitely left an impact on his own habits – Lamb ruffled his hair self-consciously. But before he could grudgingly ask where exactly he could do that in this stimulated city, Hermes answered him briskly.

“You can get a fresh set of supplies at the outpost where we first started. You should get going if you want to steal the mission, so why don’t you head out, and I’ll send you the details along the way?”

“Okay! Thanks!” Excited again by the prospect of success, Lamb turned, but stopped suddenly and glanced over his shoulder. “Wait, if this is so good, why aren’t you guys doing it?”

Grinning darkly, Puma lifted his fingers in a peace sign. “Obviously, cause we have something even better.” Behind him, Hermes nodded his head in agreement.

“Yeah, we do, but it’s a job that needs two people.” Hermes shrugged rather unapologetically. “Besides, you have no hope of competing against us anyway. We’re already doing you a favour.”

“Oof.” Lamb winced, but he backed away with a forlorn chuckle. “True. Thanks, then.”

“You’re welcome!” Puma declared smugly. “That’s just how nice I am!”

In the shadow of the man’s loud voice, Hermes sighed. “Good luck, mate.”