𝐴𝑈𝑇 𝑁𝐸𝐶𝐴𝑅𝐸

RECORDS ( general tw/cw: death, guns, weapons, violence, descriptions of interrogations, allusions to situations where police are involved, there is no brutality, but they use threats )

LOCATION: nondescript interrogation room, ██████ HQ DATE & TIME: 03:25, 5th of March, 2029 NOTES: by agent ███ doe

a young man, who seems to be in his early twenties, sits at the interrogation table. he keeps pushing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses up his nose. at each movement, the handcuffs clang against the steel table, making a loud noise. this seems to bother him as he leans back each time, huffs of breath falling from his lips, looking around. his curly, dark hair flops against his forehead, he makes an attempt to get it off of his eyes. this only causes more noise. his leg moves up and down in restlessness, impatient. when the door finally opens, he tries to sit still.

AGENT DOE: can you state your name for the file? SUSPECT: ... and why exactly would i do that?

chin raises up in defiance. it's easy to figure out this isn't his forte. his words have a lilt to them that gives way to stutter. the agent stands up, a 'tsk' falling from their lips. they press the button of the intercom next to the door, utter a few words. time stretches thin. the man tries not to fidget. there are drops of sweat by his temple. chest rising up and down in breaths only slightly quicker than normal. after a moment, the door opens, and the agent is given a laptop.

it's thrown on the table, making such a loud noise that the man flinches. tries to cover it up with a cough. it has a steel case on it. stickers litter every corner of its lid. most of them are colorful. ranging from 'fuck the police' to 'pwnd' to 'your password was too short, so i changed it'. AGENT DOE probably would have laughed, if not for the fact that this — fucking teen is the one who got into their systems.

AGENT DOE: because... not corporating isn't going to get you anywhere. you see this? what do you think we will find when we sweep for your fingerprints? and i'm not only talking about the physical ones. i have men who can crack this. and they can do it quick. so stop. wasting. my. time.

half a lie. half a truth. AGENT DOE has already tried letting them crack it. they told them it would take days. maybe weeks. this is... easier. maybe they can even get something else out of this. two birds with one stone. the man on the chair continues to fidget, eyes flitting to the laptop, and then back at the agent.

SUSPECT: you may call me nix. nix turner.

an attempt by AGENT DOE not to sigh. fingers going up to the bridge of their nose, closing their eyes shut. one. two. three. deep breaths. an exercise they picked up during psych training. opens their eyes back up again. leans forward.

AGENT DOE: you have two options in front of you, mr. turner. you either rot in jail for the rest of your life... which isn't very pretty, believe me...

an intentional pause. light reflects off of the man's glasses. AGENT DOE wonders if they will see that spark of defiance again. if they did not catch him right-handed, he would not believe this boy to be capable of doing what he had done a couple of days ago. a federal offense, complete taking over their systems. a clusterfuck that will take them months to fix.

AGENT DOE: or... i let you go. a friend, from a place you have not heard of before. will visit you. with a job offer.

an ultimatum. there is no illusion of choice. this is how nix turner gets recruited into mercy. with degrees in industrial engineering, computer science, and complex networks ( albeit not under the name nix turner ), he finishes his junior training with stellar results. after his graduation, the intelligence division is where he gets assigned.

—

LOCATION: hr office, MERCY HQ DATE & TIME: 09:17, 24th of April, 2046 NOTES: by doctor ██████

intelligence agent nix turner, codename: neo, thirty-nine years of age, sits in front of the HR DIRECTOR. once they look down at his file, there is a picture of the interrogation in the attached images. one they have seen once, many years ago. the physical difference between then and now seems to be the grey in nix's hair, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, his glasses only slightly more modern. while his countenance certainly seems to be the same person, the way they hold themselves is no way alike. the person in front of them seems tired, shoulders slumped, a tight edge to his face. a quiet determination opposite to the erratic fear from two decades ago. sorrow that they have not been able to keep at bay.

HR DIRECTOR: agent neo. do i understand this right... they've told me you want to resign? with so close to being a head agent?

a pause. he sits up straight. regardless of the exhaustion and grief that seems to cling on to him, his voice comes out firm. resolute.

NIX TURNER: yes, sir. i have put in my letter last week. i thank mercy for everything it has done for me, but i... do not belong in this division anymore.

the hr director takes off their own glasses, sets it on the table. this is a sensitive subject matter. they know everything and nothing. many people know, much, much less than they do. then there are things some people know. whispers in corridors. this is none of these things. everyone knows what happened. they try not to look at turner with pity in their eyes, but a sort of empathy. nix does not think it works particularly well.

HR DIRECTOR: does this have anything to do with... what happened? you know you can always take another sabbatical. clear your head. come back.

a subtle, hopefully imperceptible flinch. 'what happened', nix has been dealing with what happened for the past year. the way the shots sounded in his ear, the way he screamed despite every single training he had. husband — darling, dearest, dead. that's what it all came to in the end. he cannot take sitting at his desk anymore, guiding someone else to death. not after him. not after 'what happened'. what a joke. to be asked to put grief in a box. to lock it tight. to put that box in one of the dusty filing cabinets in the archive, from a time everything used to be analog. ridiculous. no, nix has made up his mind.

NIX TURNER: thank you, sir. but... i have to decline. i'll be... working at sentinel, as arranged.

a hum, closing off a digital file. this is how nix turner leaves mercy. much to everyone's surprise. this is not for long.

—

LOCATION: hr office, MERCY HQ, again DATE & TIME: 11:42, 3rd of April, 2049 NOTES: by recruiter ██████ smith

this is getting comical, nix thinks idly. what are the odds he is getting recruited for the same company, for the second time around. thanks to a joint venture between sentinel and mercy. to which he is the tailor-made candidate, with his background in espionage, intelligence, as well as phd in industrial engineering.

RECRUITER SMITH: mr. turner. i suppose this will be an easier final interview. you already know mercy so well. you've worked here for... seventeen years until you resigned from intelligence?

NIX TURNER: doctor. it's doctor turner. but- yes. that is correct. have been working with sentinel for the past three years.

his employment under them has been interesting, to say the least. not in a bad way at that, just unusual to what he used to be doing. as much as he had been subjected to weapons and had been tinkering on them for longer than that, the last three years had been intensive in terms of him actually learning more about sentinel and what they were capable of. he didn't have trouble catching up. it matched up with his skill set quite well.

RECRUITER SMITH: of course, doctor turner... i am happy to tell you that after many discussions internally and externally. we are offering you the head sentinel armaments position.

a part of him expected this. mostly, he is honored, he really is. however, the rest of him sees the irony in all of this. that the reason he left was bullshit in the first place. that his husband was never dead to begin with. it was a lie he was forced to believe in until —- he cuts that line of thought. not the place, or the time. he has already made up his mind before the interview. it all boils down to a few words, signing away the next chapter of his life.

NIX TURNER: and i'm honored to accept, ms. smith. can't wait to get started.

BIOGRAPHY ( general tw/cw: death, fire, kidnapping, violence )

fire spreads through your veins.

vivid, yet fragmented memories of standing in front of a house in the dark. flashing lights, sirens all around you, falling on deaf ears.

you look up. the flames from the windows reflect against a tear-stricken face.

is this a real memory? or a nightmare?

you wake up.

—

kittakhun ( endearingly shortened to kit ) chaichana has been raised by his mother for as long as he can remember. it's natural for a single mother's love to stretch thin, especially one who has to juggle making a living for them, but kit doesn't have any complaints. he goes to school and comes back, helps whatever he can around the café that his mother owns.

the bell above the door rings often. it's a melody that the boy is used to. an elderly couple, another pair of regulars, enter inside. kit's sitting at one of the corner tables, hunched over his homework. wrinkly hands gently pat his hair and tell him to work hard before making it to their usual booth.

he runs between the cook's legs, stealing some candies from the counter. gentle, fond sighs fall from his mother's lips, and she tells him to be careful of the stove lest he gets burned.

it's a good childhood except for his father's absence. kit sometimes feels guilty about this line of thinking, that maybe it would have been better for him not to be in the picture at all. the man sometimes shows up for his birthdays, then disappears for a few years. other times, kit can see him smiling from afar at his violin recital, and then he disappears before he can even speak to him.

it troubles him in ways a young boy's mind cannot put into words. anger and frustration swim low in his belly. hands curled into fists at the lack of answers, lack of reasoning.

so, he tries to find answers in whichever way he can. asking his mother directly never works, so he tries other ways around it. asks his mother's friends, looks through old letters. takes his father's printed picture and asks the regulars of the café who give him weird looks.

until, one day —- he hears it. quiet on his feet, he reaches his mother's room, and from the gap in the door, he can see her. can hear the quiet, broken hitches of breath, the way she is curled into herself. shoulders trembling. a sort of helplessness in her countenance he will never forget.

after that, he stops. stops asking questions, stops trying to figure it out. he has his mother by his side, and that's enough- that's always been enough.

until, fate weaves his webs. twists and cuts the strings holding him up.

this memory's only in pieces: kit wakes up with a hand on his mouth. a sweet, revolting smell, emanating from a piece of white cloth. he can hear the muffled screams, feel how his scalp hurts from being pulled downstairs to the cafe. then there are chairs, they scrape against the ground, in a way his mother always hated. there's... someone on top of them, tied down, struggling. when his vision clears, recollection sets in. it is his parents with duct tape around their mouths. wrists and ankles tied down to the chair. tear marks on their cheeks, wrists rubbed raw from the rope.

this is the last time he sees them.

one day later, he wakes up. fluorescent lights hurt his eyes. there's an iv by his bedside. there are burns tracing up his arms. a few hours later, a police officer comes. she tells him his parents have died in a housefire. a freak accident. a gas leak. ( 'be careful with the stove, kit!' ). they tell him that he is the only survivor. and it's gone- all of it's gone. the café, their house, kit's violin, the pictures his mother has hung up on the wall, some of them hers, some of them his. it's all gone.

and no one believes him. no one believes in the boogeyman who murdered his parents. they chalk it up to the colorful imagination of an eleven-year-old. a trauma response. how he doesn't recollect every single detail, how his mind fills the gaps to make memories more palatable.

he's put into the foster system after that. too old, too headstrong to be one of the favorites, he ends up back in the orphanage after a few weeks at a time.

there's a fire inside of him, one that never goes out — lit up by the sheer belief he has in his own truth. in himself. that he knows he wasn't lying. he knows what happened. and he will be the one to uncover it one day.

this does not mean the trips to the counselor's office, or every return from a foster family stings any less. but the shell around him hardens how lava turns into molten black stone.

when he turns eighteen, he leaves that place. learns how to survive on his own feet. takes a couple of odd jobs here and there, waiting tables, bartending, and cooking at restaurants where he has to look the other way.

it's a while after that mercy finds him. orphans always make the best recruits, after all. and the way the tactical agent looks at him sparks something in his chest that this might be the way to the answers he has been looking for all these years. that maybe, just maybe, he will be uncovering his own truth sooner than later.

after his training, it doesn't take him too long to sign up for the solaris drug. sees the potential in it, and a part of him looks for that thrill, the idea of mutations, of powers, knowing how useful it will be in this line of work. then —- he gets what he asked for. his own powers.

another cruel web of fate. as if someone is laughing down at him.

pyrokinesis. fire manipulation. as the result of the drug, he can manifest sparks at the end of his fingertips. burn a house with the snap of his fingers. make their enemies scream in agony and wish for a better end.

his life has been defined by fire, and it never lets go of him.

eventually, this too, is taken in stride. phoenix is what they call him. an apt name for a boy who knows nothing but to survive. to reinvent himself so that he can burn brighter, fight harder.

he learns how to live with his mutation, how to make it his own. how to use it to do what he does best. having been part of mercy for almost a decade now, he thrives in the field. embraces the fact that by definition, he is disposable, and this makes it all worth so much more. enjoys having fun, a charming grin on his lips, hands always warm when they wrap around someone's waist. and then- knows when to jump back into that state of mission.