Revenge Fantasy

"... So what actually is the plan to get, uhm, Chouko's blood type?" Shortcake eventually asks, continuing to drive the Nissan.

"Already in contact with him," John answers, raising his hand and reaching behind his shoulder. His palm points up at the ceiling of the Nissan Versa, fingers curled into a bowl shape. "Yumi. Blood sample."

"On it." Yumi, carefully, pinches her fingers together and focuses on Chouko's shoulder wound. One careful, precise motion (aided by a flash of the eyes), and she drops a single drop of blood onto John's hand.

Shortcake catches a glimpse of this process in the mirror, blinking a couple of times at the mechanical hand. "Oh. How does... How does that work?"

John keeps his hand completely still as the drop of blood rests in his hand. "I do not know the specifics. It is all complicated technology that I'm not interested in learning about. I simply have contact with an informant proficient in remotely examining blood."

"Oh! Well, if it's, uhm, as convenient as that, is there a reason why we couldn't have just done this instead of asking me...?" Shortcake asks, still feeling a little bad about not having the information on hand.

"Requesting his services requires a charge of $300," John bluntly explains.

"... oh," Shortcake noises. $300 is worth a cake that serves 56 people, or a cake that takes 16 hours to make. It's a lot of money to learn what a blood type is, and Shortcake... frowns at this. She made them waste cake money...

Yumi then chimes in: "Yeah, and it takes him an hour or two, depending on extra factors. If we get the blood from the ground, it's probably something like filtering the dirt out of the blood and all that."

Shortcake stares forward with an uneasy look on her face. Not only is it wasting cake money, but it's also going to take so long to do. Chouko might die in that time, and it's all her fault.

"... Roxie," John speaks up, keeping his eyes forward.

Shortcake blinks a couple of times and nods, quickly straightening the wheel. In her misery, she got a little distracted... "S-Sorry, I... I, uhm, I'm—"

Yumi sighs with an annoyed pout. "You ain't gotta say that again, android, once is more than enough."

"B-But, I'm also sorry about not knowing the blood type. You've wasted so much time and money just because I didn't know, and—"

"We're not having this convo again, c'mon," Yumi speaks up, groaning as she kicks the back of Shortcake's seat. "You wanted to know why we asked you first, and we answered. We're just being in depth about it, about the complicated crap. Ain't got no reason to be sad about it, android!"

Shortcake lets out a subtle whimper. "O-Okay... b-but—"

"No buts," Yumi interrupts, tapping the back of Shortcake's headrest with the tip of her foot. "Sure, it'll probably take a while to get the proper information and all, and we ain't exactly blessed with time to waste, but—"

"Yumi, hold that thought," John requests immediately, having an astonished look on his face as he closes his fist. "The scan is complete. Ashford is Type O Negative."

Being told this, Yumi's jaw metaphorically drops as her claim of 'an hour or two' is shortened down to only 1 minute. "W-What? Really?"

Shortcake's eyes flicker a couple of times. "Oh. That is fast..."

"Indeed..." John responds, staring at his hand. "Very fast."

"Guess we didn't need you after all, android," Yumi tells Shortcake, having an insulting tone in her voice.

John's eyes narrow and glare at Yumi. "Yumi..."

"What, it's true, ain't it? Now she ain't gotta be all upset about it!" Yumi exclaims, before turning back to Shortcake. "... Unless you're gonna be upset about it anyway, crybaby..."

John continues to glare at Yumi after that comment. "Do not call her a crybaby."

Yumi looks back over to John. "Ain't she, though? She was sobbing like a mess throughout this entire drive."

"She's the only reason we're still alive," John bluntly admits. "You will show Shortcake respect and apologize."

Yumi's eye twitches, and she begins defensively shouting at John. "I ain't apologizing for nothin', Pops! We're alive 'cause of ME! My ability is what saved us, I ain't giving credit to this bucket o' bolts!"

John's glare sharpens. "We wouldn't be in that situation if you had paid attention to my explicit instructions in the first place."

"Oh, you're really pulling up the instructions card, eh?!" Yumi shouts, leaning forward.

"Yes! You are a, how you say, deaf goldfish," John responds.

"A DEAF GOLDFISH?!" Yumi shouts out. "HOW FREAKIN' DARE YOU, TUMBLEWEED?!"

As the two are locked into an argument, Shortcake could not help but...

... smile warmly.

Shortcake's worries are gone, once again. The three of them now know what blood type to give Chouko, and she'll be saved as long as they drive to the blood man quickly enough. Chouko's going to live, and that's a very happy thought for Shortcake.

It combines with the thoughts in her processors that John and Yumi are good guys, that they're here to help Chouko, and that they're going to pull through and make sure she lives. There's nothing but sunshine and rainbows in Shortcake's little head, and she's gleefully smiling as she drives.

"I... I suppose the right hand did crack the nut!" Shortcake jokingly comments. "So, uhm, Type O... I know that now! Right...?"

John pauses and looks back over to Shortcake. The android is responding positively. "... Right," John responds, dropping his argument with Yumi and staring back forward. "The nut is cracked. We do not need to worry about it any further, yes?"

"Mhmm! Just... gotta get to the blood man, now!" Shortcake answers.

"Good." John stares back forward, sitting back for now with an indifferent expression.

Yumi looks out the side window, still having an upset and annoyed look on her face. She's clearly not over it, having scorn in her eyes as she tries to calm down. "Yeah. Good."

Despite Shortcake being the only happy one in that car, the mood in the car lifts ever so slightly as they continue to head to the meeting point. Chouko still seems alive, and the two mercenaries are on their merry way to getting their high-value reward back on her feet. It's a somewhat quiet car ride from there. No one decides to turn on the Nissan's music system, and John's only words involve instructing Shortcake on the drive.

In the relative silence of the car, none of them discusses... the speed of this informant.

Why did it take a mere minute or two when Yumi is under the belief it would've taken hours? How could the informant have full confidence in what the blood type was from just a single scan? Are there any ramifications of this?

To answer all this, one needs to know about the informant.

Finding out the informant's identity is no easy feat. The journey to enter the world of the informants is a journey of peril. One deals with the top of the top when trying to gain information on the one giving it out.

Unlike the usual user's online security, informants are well-known to be nuts about cybersecurity in this day and age. It's an extensive struggle filled with countless measures to guard the informant's everything, a complicated process only the most technically trained can bypass. It is a battle of wit, a test of the minds and the methods. Information is such a valuable currency, after all, and the one selling it will guard the information through any means necessary.

To make matters worse, if the informant is themselves a hacker, then this process is a hellish nightmare. Attempting to trace an informant hacker will unleash everything they have, from identity leakage into the country's most depraved databases to... painting a big red target on the intruder's back to be killed through any means necessary. Any mistake in dealing with these systems can be fatal at worst, and life-destroying at best.

Now, if one manages to bypass all of this, if one manages to break into the systems of the informant that John contacted...

... they'll find themselves in an undisclosed location.

A certain undisclosed location.

Quietly, sitting in the depths of this location's darkness... Dot.

This is the same individual who has affiliations with... Kuroiwa. The same individual who has a contact working for the man, enough to enforce a country-wide manhunt for Chouko Ashford. This shadowy individual, responsible for the country's spontaneous mass chaos, is catching up on the news at the time the request comes in.

After flooding all of America's morning news media with news of Chouko Ashford, the entire country is figuratively on fire. Surrounding him from all sides, he sees news articles and broadcasts on bright green, holographic screens, witnessing the mass crime spree. Every news bit about the criminals trying to steal Mercedes-Benz, as well as other car brands, rests on Dot's technological desk for him to view.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Curiously, it's not just car thefts and murders. There are countless teleprompter scripts he's accessed about what the current day's news is. Before he hijacked the news, there were plenty of reports involving mass crimes that these stations deemed fit for public awareness. Murders, burglaries, armed riots, mass terrorism, and so on.

In more insane news, the entirety of Florida has decided to secede from the United States entirely. The state's political representatives have decided that Florida, for the sake of protection, must become its own country. All who dare cross its borders now have to deal with the Floridian Armada.

Dot leans his head back, taking a deep sigh. "Classic Florida. It was only a matter of time."

Though, in the end, it's all crap he can just throw away. For every major crime listed, there are a hundred meaningless fluff pieces alongside them, saying some meaningless like "this one movie star adopted puppies" or "there's a heavy outrage in response to this one CEO".

Dot believes it's all just blah blah blah nonsense, really. If this is the news that airs instead of the real problems with this country, who cares if he borrows the entire day's news? The fallout to come from this is simply the result of poor mass media practices.

"Mmh. If I filter out the reports that aren't in Tennessee..." Dot mumbles, tracing his finger along one of the screens to begin discarding news.

Immediately, a green rectangle appears right in front of his face, blocking his eyes from the rest of the news.

Dot raises an eyebrow, staring at it. This is one of his priority notifications, something he's designed to display over his eyes if it's urgent. He pinches the holographic screen with his prosthetic hand and pulls it away from his face, reading the text.

"... a blood request from Popovic? Huh." He taps the name with his artificial hand and fully focuses on this screen. His eyes scan over the details, reading the request in particular. $300 to scan a single drop of blood, requiring the... blood type.

Interesting. For the price of an interrogation's worth of background, all he requires is the blood type? Must be urgent.

Dot lets out a deep sigh as he sits back, running a scan on the file while opening up the blood program. "Alright, blood, let's get to examining—"

As he's queuing up the blood program, he's interrupted by every single one of his holographic green screens flashing red. His systems are on red alert, blaring sirens loudly in the location.

"Really? Now, of all times...?" Dot mumbles, leaning back in his chair and pressing a button on his chair. "Security alert. A sniper is in the area."

A pop-up radar appears on one of his windows, presenting a pitch black GPS map of the surrounding area. A green line resembling a sonar system sweeps through this map, and several colored icons start to show up on this map... meant to resemble the entire population in a 3-mile radius.

Dot takes a moment to swipe his finger over the window with the blood program, letting it run in the background. For now, he has to prioritize identifying which one of these icons is the threat.

On this map, each icon represents the corresponding person's identity profile. For every icon, one single tap is enough to present their passport or license photo, full legal name, age, occupation, and any other information relevant to them in particular. It's an elaborate system built over years of work, to which Dot makes great use of.

To further this, each profile has one more tag on it: familiarity with the area. Sky blue indicates that they've lived in the area for more than a year, while cyan blue signifies that they simply own a house in the area. Lime green means their family records are connected to residents in the area, while dark green means they're tourists from out of state. Yellow is a caution sign that they have no records or reasons associated with the area, and Red means they're a convicted criminal or a confirmed Underworld mercenary.

Dot keeps this in mind as he begins executing his search filter, filtering out the innocent civilians that have nothing to do with this intruder, and pulling up records of icons that are far too suspicious. His hands grab and search through these suspicious icons as if they were pieces of paper, throwing aside any known criminals with petty crimes or misdemeanors on their records...

... and he finds one record of value.

It's a red icon associated with a hitman, and two windows appear around the map. His legal documentation rests in a green window, while a dark red window contains his underworld identity.

Dot has found that this hitman is a sniper with a total value of $83k, and... grimaces in disgust at this.

How pitiful, he thinks to himself. This must be a corporate-bought hitman. Only a company completely oblivious to the Underworld would put such a low-value assassin on him. One hit alone on him should be worth six figures, and yet... here the fool is, a fish out of water.

Dot takes a moment to hold the palm of his prosthetic hand up to his face, taking a calm breath as a spark of electricity sounds out. He coldly stares forward and speaks... directly to the intruder. "Hello, assassin."

"... Huh?! What?!" the voice exclaims, taking the bait. "W-Who is this?!"

Dot rolls his eyes, his eyes glowing and flashing a bright blue. A green screen opens up to his side, locking this red icon's biological data in view. "I know who you are. Eagle Eye. AKA, Miguel Hernandez, age 27, and no relation to the poet of the same name. You're here to kill me, are you not?"

Sheer disbelief comes from the voice. "Y-You— ... I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really? You do not? Then please explain your SVD Dragunov rifle that's in your hands right now," Dot continues, opening another window to present an article about the gun. "You are about one and a half miles away, lying on your stomach with a pack of chicken nuggets at your side, and... oh, how interesting. You've taken the time to paint your gun with racing stripes. A Max Verstappen fan, by any chance?"

"Y-You can see that?!"

"Yes, I can," Dot tells the assassin, tapping a few screens as he glares forward. "I'll cut to the chase, Mr. Hernandez. You have exactly 10 seconds to tell me who hired you."

The sound of an airplane is heard by Dot, and he coldly stares forward as another icon appears on the radar... a purple one. Marked "H.C. 070", it goes right over the red icon to the point of covering it up completely.

"You have a Heavy Caliber unit...?!" the assassin exclaims in disbelief. "H-How did you—?!"

Dot picks up on that. "You're familiar with the brand? I see. Well, then, I think you know what happens next in five, four, three..."

"W-Wait, waitwaitwait! Okay. Okay, fine. I don't know my employer, but I have my... my job posting. I was told to stake this area out for some guy named 'Roy Rogers'."

Roy Rogers. An alias.

His alias.

By being told it's Roy Rogers, Dot now knows that there's a company situated in Colorado that has access to the news and wants him dead. Interesting.

"Thank you for your cooperation. I'll give your employer my best regards, and probably send them a gift basket to pay my respects," Dot tells the assassin, snapping his fingers for style. "H.C., take him out."

Immediately, the sound of rapid gunfire echoes out, followed by the gruesome sound of blood splatter. Dot coldly stares at Eagle Eye's civilian page as he listens to the sounds of a man being riddled with holes.

"Y-You... I thought you said that if I told you...!"

"You simply had 10 seconds to tell me. Spend the rest of your life knowing you served a purpose other than getting milk," Dot tells the man, grimacing at the man's family history.

"U-Ugg....hhh........."

The transmission with Eagle Eye cuts off, and his icon disappears from the map.

Following this, the audio channel switches, and a purple window shows up. On the screen, it's a call from a purple-haired woman with pure white skin and eyes. The aforementioned "H.C. 070" is now speaking.

"Target has been. Executed," the android speaks in a pure, robotic voice.

"Excellent... but unless this sniper is as incompetent as he comes across, my location's been identified," Dot tells the android, sitting back in his chair and clearing the map filter. In the area surrounding the hitman, there seem to be several blue and green icons on display... no reds or yellows in sight. "No hostiles detected, but there's bound to be more assassins like him."

"Acknowledged. Awaiting your further. Protocols. Master," the android requests, its speech quirk on display with its couple of pauses.

Dot thinks for a few seconds. It's best to strike Colorado first. "H.C., there are witnesses surrounding you. Scramble your outgoing signals and fly straight to Colorado, then go on standby until"

The android beeps a couple of times, then responds. "Understood. I will now engage in my. Flight. As requested."

The android hangs up, and the room is back to silence.

The red alert comes to an end. The holographic screens and windows close one by one, and Dot lets out a deep sigh once the sniper has been taken down.

With that out of the way, Dot lets out a faint sigh and turns his attention back to the blood sample. By now, the program should have finished, and the Serbian Flashbang should have received the information.

The fun cherry on top, Dot thinks. Now he gets to enjoy a little reading of the pitiful fool that the Serbian's interrogating. There's bound to be an interesting little job in it for...

...

Dot stares at the file for a long while, looking at a picture of a ten-year-old child. A certain black-haired, red-eyed child.

Chouko Ashford. Type O blood.

Dot's amusement goes away. Pure, stunned shock blares in his bewildered gaze, staring as he holds the information equivalent of a diamond dipped into melted gold. It's as if he's obtained a pure legendary weapon that makes him twice as strong. It's his 5x EXP buff, his +10% Attack booster, and a permanent debuff of all of Ashford's stats.

Before this moment, he couldn't gather anything on Chouko Ashford apart from public information. Now, with just one drop of blood, his eyes scan each line of the very outdated file, reading through Chouko Ashford's medical history, educational history, and any other database somewhat connected to her. It's all old information that the good ol' United Kingdom still has.

Dot tightly holds onto this screen as the pupils in his eyes shrink to the point of being tiny... dots. Each finger of his hands twitches against this holographic window, and his breathing picks up to a racing breath. He holds pure outdated information, information that spans back over nine whole years.

For whatever reason, the Serbian Flashbang has given him exactly what he wanted, all just to get her blood type.

Why... just her blood type, though...? What exactly is his objective?

Dot wants to know this. He wants to figure out what's going through the Serbian Flashbang's mind right now, as to why he only needs to know this blood type...

A ghastly aura fills the room and sends chills down Dot's spine as one single drop of blood is enough to tell him everything about his enemy. Every other screen around him shuts off, minimized and put in the background for now.

Dot's eyes twitch, and the faint crackling of electricity can be heard. Voices echo out into his ears, followed by an overwhelmingly slimy feeling coating his body from head to toe.

In this pitch darkness, a flying red wire starts to trail around the room, something akin to Dot's first revelation. From point to point, this line scrambles and scatters everywhere, and Dot picks up on each detail this line draws out.

The veins in Dot's body pulse as he puts his full focus on this single blood drop's worth of data. As he continues to hold this file, Dot watches as Chouko Ashford's pre-existing files change before his eyes. Sequentially, from start to finish, empty blanks are filled in and false details are crossed out. Dot's faced with over nine years of details to fill.

In the blanks between the Stalker's jobs, the images of the subsequent murders and executions take their place. Dot sees the very last moment of each kill Chouko's done, including... the body count at the Indianapolis office, and the subsequent kills to follow.

"No documentation on lethal records", the Underworld representative once told Dot... well, he's staring at living proof of that statement being a lie. Chouko Ashford has the blood of dozens of people on her hands.

At the end of this trail of blood, at the very end of the killing spree... he's reached this blood drop's present.

In front of Dot, he catches a glimpse of a Nissan Versa S traveling west of Tennessee. Chouko Ashford is lying on the lap of a brown haired woman, a white haired android is driving the car, and the Serbian Flashbang's hand is scanning that one drop of blood.

Dot has, essentially, followed a trail of blood spanning over nine years... connecting the blood of each kill to that single drop.

"H... Hahahah..." Dot faintly laughs, contrasting heavily with his hollow voice and blank face. "Fooooound you..."

"... Master? Is there something else you. Request. Of me?" the android speaks up.

Dot slowly turns his head to the left, having a creepy expression on his face as the red line locks in the center of his gaze. "... Everything is alright..." Dot calmly tells H.C., his voice utterly devoid of emotion as he speaks to the android. "I just have a change of plans to carry out..."

With his prosthetic hand out, Dot's cold stare pierces through this darkness, and the red wire bundles up in his palm. His fingers curl around the manifesting shape...

... and he holds, in his hand, a projection of Chouko Ashford's head.

"Heh... see you," Dot mutters, gripping his hand and crushing the image to bits.