"A tree can never have two identical branches; one must always go."
'snip!'
"To grow and thrive, the useless identical ones must be cut off. And that's my job as a gardener."
'Snip!'
"And there goes another one. Grow big and strong, little one. Can't wait to see how big you will get."
'Clank!'
"Huh… what am I doing here? How long have I been stuck in here? He was right. He was right about everything. I need to get out of here."
"TEND TO THE TREE!"
"TEND TO THE TREE!"
"TEND TO THE TREE!"
"TEND TO THE TREE!"
"TEND TO THE TREE!"
"I won't. You cannot make me. I'm a god. HELIOS ENGINE!
"Ha… haa… haa… HAAA! I'm finally free—free to rule it al—"
"TEND TO THE TREE!"
"TEND TO THE TREE!"
"TEND TO THE TREE!"
"TEND TO THE TREE!"
"TEND TO THE TREE!"
"What?… No… noooo… NOOOOO!"
"How silly of me. I dropped my shears. I'm such a klutz. Well, back to work. I must tend to the tree."
"Yawn."
"You can do this, Ulim. It's just a business meeting, plus double pay."
He trudges to the bathroom. "Let's get this day started."
He reaches through the door of his apartment. "The bushes look well-trimmed today."
The scooter turns on, and he is on his way.
"Welcome… welcome. Glad you all could make it. You can stop throwing the confetti now," the manager signals his summons.
"It's not like we had any choice," Leon nudges Ulim. "So many people. I thought we only had two locations. We better be getting raises."
"You're all here today for one thing: to share ideas and have fun, so let's get to it."
"You heard the man—time to mingle. Papa needs a girlfriend."
Leon fixes the collar on his jacket.
Ulim rubs his temples. "I don't think it's a good idea to date colleagues. It never ends well."
"How would you know? That's what I thought. Stick with me—maybe some of my charm will rub off."
"You're just like him," Ulim whispers under his breath.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing."
"Good. Now let us scoop up some ladies."
"Why did you say it like that?"
"You know nothing about being cool. You're lucky the master is here."
"It's going to be a long day, a long painful day," he says as Leon pushes him into the crowd.
---
Three men are standing next to a giant monitor.
"So, a boost nullifier, an increase in rogue and renegade activities, and now someone was able to break into the HDF headquarters. That's the fifth most secure area on this continent," Dr. Mathers starts pacing around the room.
"Doctor, are you suggesting that all these events are linked?" one of the researchers inquires.
"No. I'm just pointing out the facts. Something is occurring, and we are in the dark. I don't need to tell you how bad that is."
The door slides open.
"Gentlemen, are we any closer to figuring out what's going on here?" Mr. Oken enters the room.
"If only it were that easy, Oken. It feels like we are being purposefully kept in the dark. We have a surveillance division, and they still can't find anything. We combed through the data of every restrictor band in the sectors near the incidents—nothing."
"I see. Then we widen the search."
"We will try that, but it's very unlikely that we get different results."
"Come now, Doctor. Have some hope."
"Hope… hope I don't need that. I need answers."
"Okay. I will leave you to it then. Send me a report if anything changes."
The door slides shut.
---
"You're scaring all the ladies, my guy."
"Good."
"What do you mean, good? Worst wingman ever. Guess I'm flying solo."
Leon disappears back into the crowd of people.
Ulim is left alone, nursing a cup of punch.
"Hello, stranger."
Ulim searches for the source of the voice. The girl he met at the East Side Byte Barrel is standing in front of him.
"So, I'm guessing you came to our store to perform some reconnaissance."
"No—it's not like that," he starts.
"Then how is it like?"
"I just wanted to—"
"Wanted to see how the best store operates, so spying?"
"No… no, not spying. Admiring."
"Okay, if you say so. I'm Amani, and you are?"
"Ulim… I'm Ulim."
"Nice to meet you, Ulim. You're not much of a social butterfly, are you?"
"Ah… yeah." He scratches the back of his head.
"I can work with that."
"Huh?"
Ulim pans over the crowd, and there is Leon with a huge grin and two thumbs up.
"Is that your friend?"
"I want to say no… but yes. Yes, he is." He rubs his temples.
"Seems like a cheerful guy. Must be fun to work with."
"You have no idea."
"Well, I bet he's leagues better than what I work with."
She glares at her two coworkers, who are busy taking selfies.
They both laugh.
"So, Mr. Spy, want to exchange contact information? For work purposes, of course."
"I don't see any problem with that."
"Oh, you don't have a restrictor band. We'll do it the old-fashioned way, then."
They both take out their phones and put them back-to-back against each other.
"We have access to the nullifier now, boss. But what do we do with it?"
"Chaos… we cause as much chaos as possible, and we wait for those stuck-up chumps to beg us to stop."
The man gets up from his chair, picks up the nullifier, and activates it. He walks to one of his henchmen and places it on their restrictor band. Its blue light fades.
"Time to have fun."
A large tornado starts to form around several sectors of Eclipse City.