"You have dinner by seven pm at Fate Restaurant together with Madame Cinan. I'll meet you back here at nine pm after compiling the reports of the team."
"Stephen.."the voice softly called. His gray hued eyes begs me to accompany him to the dinner.
"You can do it Sir. Sooner or later, you will have to do this alone since it's already been two years that Vici Mobile was passed on you by your father. I assure you, the dinner will be successful." I separate myself from the car window.
"But it's.. it's NOT me, Stephen. Dad gave it to me because he trusts YOU! You were..you were always being trained ever since that day! And-"
"Please, let's have this talk later. You have to arrive at the place right now or you'll be late. You know how Madame Cinan is. I beg you." I signaled the chauffeur to go. Mr. Hilson's sullen face is completely understandable. I know why he's acting like this. But fears and anxiety won't get him far in business.
No matter.
I will let him vent on me later.
I still have a job to do...jobs rather.
The building is still full of people except for the CEO's office. My seat is at the right side of the wall.
The papers are still as thick as usual, piling up on my desk.
Before viewing, I arrange the papers and put them down accordingly.
Hmmn..
The HR department is passing me the trouble employee, Mark Pliers from hardware technologies. He's the best we've got so far. Since everything has been smooth sailing for half a year now after he joined the company. There's been no reports of defective product slipping to any office we've shipped out. Let me see the reason at least..
"He's so noisy! He couldn't stop talking about horror games!" the yellow sticky note says in red ink.
This reason isn't valid enough to warrant serious attention.
Next...
Suddenly, a blink became too hard to maintain anymore. My eyes just started getting heavy.
I look at the time..
7:35
Maybe I can doze off for thirty minutes before picking up where I left.
I close my eyes.
.
.
"YOU GOT THE JOKER CARD."
A haunting voice whispered in my ear.
As I open my eyes, a few kids were laughing in a circle with me. They all wear clothes in one shade, a royal blue hue. Are they wearing a uniform?Looking at them, I could guess they're at least eight years old or below.
They were all smiling and laughing, holding a card in each of their hands. But one thing's strange about their cards. It looks too big to be the type used for gambling.
"Mister, Do you remember where we are right now?" A kid asked me.
Then, a realization hit me.
I was reviewing some papers on my desk. How come I ended up here?
This place is familiar to me.
The white tiled floors of a veranda. The white painted walls and snake plants in each corner. They were put there since I was bitten by a snake before and Mother became very protective because of that incident. The view of a garden full of different flowers that father planted for mother.
This...
This was my home.
.
When my parents were still alive.
"That's right, Mister. Now pick another card from any of us." Another kid said.
Lost for words, I instinctively grab the card on a kid next to me.
The giggling and laughter halted the moment I look at the card.
Just as I thought.
These are tarot cards.
"You got the Death card, Mister." A kid whispered loudly.
I know.
"Don't worry, you can always use your Joker." Another kid said.
"What Joker?" They all pointed to my other hand. All these times, I've forgotten about the card on my hand.
And here it is. A card that's alien from the others. Something that doesn't belong to either deck.
A red Joker.
A little girl from the circle got up and came to me. When she did, the other kids looked at her with angry eyes.
She leaned towards my ears.
"Whatever you do, NEVER use your Joker." She whispered as she slipped a card inside my outer suit pocket.
A ring sounded and in a blink, I'm already at the driver's seat.
"Whoa!" I lost control for a second while gathering my thoughts, Mr. Hilson's voice brought me back.
"Stephen! Hurry up they're gonna catch up to us!"
"What? Wh-"
I adjust the side mirror. The moment I did, a loud sound of accelerating vehicle followed.
A black car is closing in fastly to our rear. Seems like this is happening again while I'm still trying to get the situations together.
This is really a bad timing.
I speed up and carefully avoided all the other cars on the highway. Mr. Hilson is still wearing his suit and tie neatly though his expression remains intense.
The black car is closing in once again so I reached for the gun in the inside pocket of my suit.
This situation is never new to the both of us. Ever since I arrived in the President's manor, I've been thought 'the protocol' and bodyguard duties aside from being his son's assistant.
A gun is equivalent to lifeline in testing times like this.
"What..?" I instead reached a card from my inside pocket.
The red Joker.
I immediately put it back after remembering the words of the girl.
This might sound strange but my instinct is telling me to trust the girl.
But what now?
Gunshots fire and hit our car.
"DUCK!" Mr. Hilson ducked at once from my word.
The sound when it hit our car suggests that I'm not driving the usual bulletproof car of Mr. Hilson.
This is bad.
Really bad.
Even when I speed up three times the normal speed and avoid every car on the road, the other car can still catch up. What's more is this road seems to have no end.
What do I do?
.
What now?
"...never use YOUR Joker." The words of the girl popped inside my mind.
"Why..." I reached for the outer pocket of my suit.
There's a card.
No..
There's two cards.
The one at the top is the Death tarot card that I picked from the other kid.
(scoffs)
Does this mean we're going to die?
Is this the end of everything?
If only I knew this is where I'll end up anyway, I should've died with my parents on that car accident.
I shouldn't have survived that alone.
I should have gone with them.
.
.
Another round of shots rained our car. And a truck from behind rammed into us. The car flipped.
"Grab down Sir!" I shouted.
.
The face of the girl popped in my mind.
What does she look like again?
Her face became clearer in my mind.
Oh, so that's why...she looks like you, Alice.
In the tumble, the other card behind the Death tarot surfaces.
It's a black Joker.
I clasped it in my hands.
Even in death, she's still looking out for me.
I'm sorry, Alice. I was a terrible fiance. I never attended to you when you needed me the most. If only my death can bring you back..
"Stephen!"
But it looks like I can't yet. You see, I have a duty of ensuring Mr. Hilson's protection. So please, forgive me. Next time, I promise to follow you when the time is right. But for now, can you help us out?
I beg you.
"Please, take our luck and ensure our boy's safety." I heard the voice of my parents.
The black Joker suddenly felt like hot wind in my hand. When I open my palm, a royal blue light envelopes the card like a form of aura.
"Creation, tank." Alice's voice whispered in my ear.
"CREATION, tank?" After repeating her words, the car we're tumbling in transformed into a tank and the tumbling stopped.
How did this happen?
The card in my hand turned into a pen with a kind of symbol on it that glows in royal blue.
With the tank in the middle of the road, and me sitting on the commander seat, the situation looks like it's out of a webtoon.
"What's this?!" Mr. Hilson is currently sitting as the gunner.
"It's loaded." I checked and saw that a round is in place.
I tracked the enemy vehicle with the measured distance and acceleration on the screen. We may look surprised at the moment but Mr. Hilson and I are not new to operating tanks and even flying jet planes.
"Fire in 3, 2, 1" I counted.
Mr.Hilson fired the round. It hit the enemy car immediately. The huge impact had the other cars stopping to avoid the flying debris.
"Next time, you'll need a blueprint." Alice's voice whispered to me once more.
Mr. Hilson and I went outside the tank. It's over. The enemy car is now completely destroyed.
I fumble the pen in my pocket.
I wonder what it can do?
Also, why did her voice said I needed a blueprint next time?
I took out the pen and take a look. It looks like an ordinary pen with its black steel barrel and tip. I tried doodling on my palm. But the ink is a weird neon blue light. I can write it on air like it's a laser light only that it's blue and the light doodle suspended on air.
I tried drawing a small knife as weapon.
It only looks weird drawn on air.
Oh right.
There was that 'creation' stuff.
"CREATION, knife." The knife that I drew on air became a real knife and hit the ground.
Wow.
(Ping!)
A gunshot fired from a distance.
"Mr. Hilson!" I grabbed him on the waist, covering him while running back behind the tank.
There's a motorcycle rider that's shooting at us. I peek at the side and there were about three of them riders wielding a gun now
They keep firing shots that effectively prevents us from getting inside the tank. Drawing another whole tank will take a while so I took the pen out and started drawing smoke screens.
"CREATION! smoke screens!" The things fell to my hands almost instantly.
"Keep throwing these, Mr. Hilson!" I handed the astonished man the smokescreens.
"Tell me you've got a plan, Stephen. If they're well trained executioners, they'll be able to avoid these things!"
"If they really were, we're both be long dead by now." I signaled him and started drawing at the same time.
"I'm out, Stephen!"
"About time!" I handed him a 45 caliber.
"Protect yourself from here."I added.
"Oh, wow. Why do you have an AR-10 with you?"
"It's the first thing that comes into my mind."
I checked if it has bullets... Which it has.
Can it also fire like the real thing?
(Ting!)
.
"Hey, stop wasting the bullets."
"I'm sorry." If this actually works, what about this AGM?
"You also have a Global Vision? How come I didn't see these things earlier?" He asked.
Isn't he gonna ask about the tank?
A rider zooms near us.
Mr. Hilson shot the guy before he could.
That's Mr. Hilson for you.
We trained both in these things that I can calmly rely my back on him.
I placed the scope on and search out in the smokes and dust.
To my surprise, there's no two assailants detected on my scope. There's five now.
Yes, they're also venturing through the smoke. I ducked and fired from the nearest target.
The other party started firing. It was a breathtaking tag of fire and running for minutes that seemed to pass slowly.
The smoke has now almost subsided and a head pops from the smoke dissipating in front of me.
(Bang!)
The shot came from behind me.
It was Mr. Hilson.
The guy in front fell as the smoke completely disappears.
And so do I.
Now that the rush subsided, I can feel the pain on my body. I received three shots: on my thigh, my stomach and my shoulder.
I'm done for.
Mr. Hilson shouted and examined my wounds.
I hope you live a good, long life..Mr. Hilson.
.
.
"I don't want to live a corporate drone life!" I remember yelling at my father when I was a kid.
Those are precious times.
"Goodbye, corporate drone life." In the end, I ended up becoming one.
.
.
Just then, everything went dark.
My body feels weightless as if I'm floating in an endless abyss.
Then a few twinkling lights from afar made me wonder.
"Is this like...a planetarium?.
YOU HAVE DISPLAYED THE PRECISE QUALIFICATIONS OF THE LOYAL AND INTELLIGENT MAIDEN.
THE CONSTELLATION OF VIRGO HAS CHOSEN YOU TO BEAR THEIR GIFT. DO YOU ACCEPT?
A maiden? I'm a guy. Biologically and naturally.
"I'm dead anyway. Might as well say yes to any opportunity."
A light emerges from my pocket. The pen floats in front of me and the and breaks into a flash of blue light it's particles like stardust reflecting a blue gem.
"It's a sapphire." The light formed a huge shape, a symbol that was once embedded on the pen.
The sign of Virgo.
A constellation from the sky.
The mark grew smaller and flew behind me.
A hot sensation like a burning mark sets the skin of my nape ablaze.
This mark has settled on my nape immediately, sending chills down my spine.
Another blink of a second and I'm already lying down someplace. The beeping monitor and the dextrose at the side tells me that I'm in the hospital.
"Stephen, you're awake!" Mr. Hilson was at the foot of the bed.
"Did they stitch me up, Mr. Hilson?" I asked.
"What? What are you talking about? I took you here this morning because you didn't woke up on time. The doctor said you were fatigued and overworked that's why you passed out last night." He said.
Me?
Passed out?
So all of that, was just a dream?
I'm still a corporate drone?
"But, tell me Stephen.I haven't seen anyone passed out before and..you know, change eye color?"
"What?"
"It's become deeper blue in color now, Stephen. Like a gem, maybe."
(sigh)
This will take some explanation.