7.09 The Underground
December 2384
The smell of stale water and other, worse things filled Miori’s nostrils as her and her companions entered through a long-forgotten but recently used manhole into the old drainage channels. From what Annie told her, these channels were sealed off some decades ago, and now, despite the rain outside, the only water flowing through them was whatever entered through whatever few small openings remained.
Miori heard a trickle as some green water was flowing through the channel below them, barely wider than her palm. Annie fetched a flashlight out of her pocket and illuminated their surroundings beyond the irregular lighting from the open manhole, and Miori could see muddy footprints on the concrete of the elevated path. Shoes of different make were intermingling, and around them were large barefoot prints with pointy tips, hinting at sharp nails.
“They definitely went this way,” Annie explained, and Zach looked like he wanted to turn around again before she grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him forward.
“On, mighty warrior of Valhalla! If there are bloodthirsty orcs down here, we’ll need your valiant protection!”
“Stop teasing him already. He’s helping us,” Miori spoke to Annie as she followed her, but the woman let out a laugh.
“Don’t you worry, Miori! I tease him this way because I like him!” she spoke, and Zach turned his head around, raising a brow.
“As a friend, of course,” she added and poked her tongue out at him, and he turned back around with an eye roll.
The path ahead was completely shrouded in darkness, with their flashlight only reaching a few meters ahead. The echoes of their steps intermingled with the constant dripping of water as they made their way through the eerily empty discharge channel, and the only other sound they heard from time to time was the squeak of a rat.
“So, what happened to the outside? And why were these channels abandoned?” Miori asked to break the silence, and Annie shrugged.
“A war happened, and a civil war right after, with nukes and other nasty weaponry. Governments collapsed, people starved to death because the soil was poisoned, and soon the only people with the resources to bring back some order were the moneybags. These days the world is a series of walled-off cities separated by the wasteland.”
Miori listened to her, though as she mentioned ‘nukes’, some alarm bells went off in her mind.
“Wait, are the people who landed out there in danger?”
“Hm? Oh, because of radiation? It’s been long enough that a short stay is no issue, so don’t be worried. It’s a good reason to hurry up and save them as fast as we can though, hm?” Annie spoke with a smile, then she looked ahead and pointed at a rat that was scurrying away from their light.
“Look, Zach! It’s one of your guild mates!”
“Oh, piss off.”
***
They kept following the footprints for what felt like an eternity, though as Miori asked for the time, Annie informed her that they had only been here for ten minutes. Miori had partially transformed to add the blue glow of her hair to the flashlight, guiding their way, and now she could see graffiti on the walls as they passed. It was old, possibly from the time when this place had been abandoned. Some of the graffiti was messages for other survivors of the war, others marked territory of gangs that were no longer down here. One claimed all the water that flowed through these canals for the author, and yet another was a religious fanatic calling for repentance in the face of the nuclear judgment day.
“This looks like it was complete anarchy. You’re telling me that your world recovered from it in just a few decades?” Miori asked with some amazement, and Annie nodded.
“Not without outside help. We have some colonies in the solar system, and the CEOs who wintered through it on the moon brought back construction equipment and grand plans for a world in which they rule supreme.”
“And rule supreme they did,” Zach commented dryly.
“There’s still a government and police of sorts, but the corpos pull all the strings. If they don’t want a murder investigated? Then the police won’t even deliver the news to the widow.”
Annie got a little quiet after that comment, and the trio simply continued advancing through the darkness until they suddenly stood in front of a grate barring their way. The footprints they had been following simply ended there.
“That’s not good,” Zach remarked dryly, reaching for his revolver. He froze mid-movement as a click could be heard behind them, then he turned around – slowly.
Multiple people stood behind them, with weapons pointed at the trio, together with a flashlight. Miori couldn’t’ make out their faces, but they were hulkingly tall from what little she could see against the blinding light. Nevertheless, she transformed into Ma Bellona and jumped in front of Annie and Zach to shield them.
One of the people pointing their guns at them stepped forward, and now, finally, could Bellona see who or what they were: the orcs out of Annie’s tales.
“Stop! Who are you? What you want in tunnels?” the man demanded to know in a broken version of whatever language Annie and Zach were speaking. He was tall, almost two heads taller than Bellona, and large tusks grew out of the corners of his mouth, making it hard to read his facial expression as he kept gesturing with the gun.
Bellona didn’t have her halberd summoned just yet, and she didn’t want to risk her companions’ lives with a bullheaded charge, so she simply kept her defensive posture and answered the man.
“We’re looking for a large group of humans who entered these channels. We’re not here to cause trouble, we just want to bring them home!” She spoke towards the tall green man – who looked utterly befuddled for some reason.
“…what did you just grunt there?” Annie asked from behind, and Bellona blinked, then she realized that her magic had her speak the orc’s own language.
“You speak our language?” the orc spoke in a rather suspicious tone – and far more fluently.
“I have a translator,” Bellona replied, and the orc grimaced, thrusting his gun towards her until it almost touched her forehead.
“Then you’re one of their drones! The ones made of hard light! They can speak any language they heard once!” he barked, and Bellona raised her hands.
“I’m not one of their ‘drones’! I’m a flesh and blood human, but from another world!” she protested, and the orc’s eyelid twitched. He almost looked like he wanted to shoot her, so she followed up.
“If the people I’m looking for are down here, they will recognize me! Just take us to them!”
The orc grunted in response, then he looked at the two behind her.
“City folk… how can we be sure they’re not working for the corporations?”
“I suppose you haven’t heard about us causing a commotion in the city just to get out, yet?” Bellona asked him and he let out a short laugh.
“Gorrash is on watch and told us on the radio that there was some kind of commotion. Explosions and shooting, with their mechs flying through the sky, chasing someone before losing track. So that was you?” The orc spoke and shouldered his gun. He exhaled noisily, then he gestured for them to follow him.
“Alright, follow me. But if you’re lying and the people we took in don’t recognize you, we’ll lock you up.”
Bellona turned around and gestured for the duo to follow her. Zach looked a little hesitant, keeping his jacket unbuttoned and his hand close to where he kept his revolver, while Annie looked like she completely trusted Bellona’s judgment and quietly came along, even as some more orcs flanked them to make sure they wouldn’t pull anything funny.
Their guards led them through the labyrinthine tunnels of the old sewer system, with the rear guard making sure to erase any footsteps they left behind. And then, after ten more minutes, Bellona saw something amazing.
In front of them, the canal finally ended in a much larger area, and as they stepped into the light, they were greeted by a strange, stunning sight.
Bellona was aware of Tokyo’s G-cans, the large collection tanks belonging to the city’s own discharge channels, but the construction she entered was even grander than those.
From top to bottom the cavern must have measured a hundred meters, and it was so long that she couldn’t make out the end behind the rows of large concrete pillars that kept the ceiling stable. But more impressive than that was what had been built inside this space.
A shantytown hugged the massive concrete pillars, complete with houses made from metal sheets, as well as crude bridges that connected them to each other. No construction was lower than ten meters above the ground, where rainwater was collected from multiple channels flowing inside. Despite the primitive architecture, Miori could see some impressive constructions. There was a hydroponic farm floating on the water below, with UV lamps, turning the murky water into edible vegetables. And speaking of said water, there were multiple floatation devices carrying pumps, which brought the fluid up into what looked like a filtration system, and right after that, into a giant kettle to kill anything small enough to get through the filters.
She saw humans walking on the metal sheet pathways between houses and between pillars, as well as the orcs and goblins who made up the other residents.
The large orc led them up a ramp towards the first shantytown clinging to a concrete pillar. In parts the metal sheets became wide enough that one could call them a street. A long row of huts greeted them, with curious eyes following them from the darkness inside. They passed by a few other orcs, who greeted their guide with nods, while the smaller goblins preferred to stay out of their way entirely.
“This is impressive… is this all built from scratch?” Zach asked as he looked around, inspecting the hydroponic farm which floated on the water below like a houseboat. Their guide acknowledged the question with a little grunt before he attempted to communicate in Zach’s language.
“Cityfolk help. Outcasts, like us,” he strung together, and Zach nodded. His usually nervous behavior subsided a little as he took in the sights around them. Now they saw some humans, too, who were engaged in conversation with the orcs. They were people with implants and bionics of varying quality – some nearly unnoticeable like Zach and Annie’s eye implants, other had visible pistons sticking out of their artificial arms. The clear difference appeared to be whether they brought their implants with them after leaving the city or assembled them locally.
“That produce in the farm down there would fetch a fortune in the city… real vegetables are only for the elite. The rest of us eats flavored mealworm protein,” Annie mused, and the orc snorted.
“Can’t eat money. All we have. Can’t sell or buy in city, either.”
They arrived at some kind of plaza: a giant platform made from the same steel plates as everything else these people built in the cavernous space, which connected not just two, but five whole pillars. Massive supporting beams had been attached to the concrete to hold up this platform, which Bellona now identified as the town square. To her surprise, she saw children playing in this place. Human children ran around together with green-skinned ones, kicking around a ball that was carefully handmade by one of the residents. Some heads turned and whispers were exchanged.
“How long have you been here, again?” Bellona asked her guide, who let out a ‘hmm’ before he answered, much more eloquently while speaking his own language.
“Seventeen of the local years. We held on to hope that we could find a way home soon, but… one year passed, then another. Before we knew it, we settled down. Those of us who had families before found new ones.”
“What are you talking about?” Annie demanded to know, slightly pouting.
“They settled down and had new families here,” Bellona translated for her, and Annie looked at their guide suspiciously.
“…with each other, right?”
Her guide appeared to catch that, turning around and looking at Annie with some confusion in his eyes.
“Of course. Why ask?” he inquired, and Annie squirmed uncomfortably in place.
“Well, you know… there’s been stories about… how orcs and goblins… well, when people went missing, especially the women, people said that, uh… it’s in the nature of orcs and goblins to… er… you know…”
The large orc showed the first strong emotion that Bellona could properly read off his face even with the tusks, and it was disgust. He didn’t even bother to speak Annie’s language as he gave his response.
“Oh, by the gods, they really think we’d mate with human women…? But they don’t even have…! No, no… that’s way too disgusting to think about. No offense, but you’re not in the least bit attractive to our people.”
“What’d he say?”
“That they have nothing to do with the disappearances in your city,” Bellona delivered a half truth, and their guide let out an amused little snort upon hearing her, then he addressed Annie himself.
“We not know about missing people. Likely scapegoat for… ‘corpos’,” he suggested, and Annie nodded.
“That’s something they would do.”
The four soon arrived in front of a larger house, and their guide nodded towards the door.
“Town hall,” he spoke and pushed the doors open. And inside, Bellona finally found the people she came here for. The hall was barely large enough to accommodate the people within. They sat huddled, with uncertainty written across their faces, while some local humans and orcs tended to them, handing out food which some took with quiet thanks, while others looked fearfully at their helpers. But soon after the group entered, the first people recognized and a murmur went through the crowd.
“That’s Bellona Azure…”
“Isn’t that Sol’s mentor?”
“What is she doing here?”
“Isn’t it obvious? She’s here to save us!”
The last voice belonged to a young girl, who quickly stood up and gestured towards her.
“She’s going to bring us home! Aren’t you?”
All eyes rested on Bellona, and she stepped further into the room to tell the people about their situation.
It had been a few hours since Bellona explained the situation to the stranded people from Tokyo. At this point, all they could do was wait for Mana and Arisu to come and find them with their portal magic. In the meantime, their guide, now having introduced himself as Garnuk, brought them to his home, where he introduced them to his son, Tarnek. He was green and strong like his father, though the similarities soon ended there, as he spoke fluently in Zach and Annie’s language.
They got a little history lesson about the place: Seventeen years ago, a strange disturbance shook Garnuk’s homeland. Strange metal beasts that weren’t native to their world emerged and attacked, and while he set out with his warriors to face them, his warband and many like them were swallowed up by the disturbances. They landed inside the city, just as they were in the middle of a charge and only barely managed to stop themselves before they would have struck down any passersby.
They couldn’t think long about their strange situation, however, as the corporate private security forces immediately hunted them down, scattering them through the streets. They would have all perished there if Garnuk hadn’t managed to get word out to the scattered groups and organized a retreat through the sewer system.
Hunted by the corporation, theirs was a journey of many days during which they lost countless people, but ultimately, they shook off their pursuers, landing in the old collection tanks. Theirs was a shabby, pathetic existence as sewer rats until they met their first outcasts. Among them a hydroponics expert who had fallen out of favor with the corporations and fled underground, as the elite would rather see him die than let him bring his expertise to the lower rungs of society. More people quickly followed after him, enabling cultural and technological exchange, turning the underground hive into a refuge for those shunned by the corporate world.
“And that’s how you learned to speak the language so fluently?” Bellona asked, and Tarnek nodded.
“Grew up around Doctor Gidead, the hydroponics expert. I was always around him and helped him get the parts he needed, and in turn he taught me.”
Bellona looked outside the window where the locals went about their day, carrying canisters of purified water, baskets full of produce from the hydroponic farms and bundles of caught rats. The latter sent a little shiver down her spine.
“They live underground with only floodlights as their sun… and yet they continue, resisting the hopelessness of their situation,” Bellona proper mused, and Miori’s mind had to agree.
If possible, I’d like to save them, too. Arisu can do it, I think.
“This Doctor Gidead… I’d like to meet him if no one minds,” Annie spoke up, and some heads turned her way.
“I’ve never had real vegetables. Always felt like a pipe dream… I want to know all I can about how to grow them…” she admitted bashfully.
“Well, sure, why not,” Zach mumbled, and Tarnek nodded in agreement.
“I think it’s about time he has some human visitors again. Constantly being around green plants and green people could hurt his eyes in the long term,” Tarnek chuckled, earning him a raised brow from Zach.
“Oh, come on! Let a guy be funny once in a while!”
***
The hydroponic garden was larger than it looked from the town above. It spanned several stadiums in size, and the scent of the nutrient-rich liquid running through the many trays as well as the produce itself filled the air. Tomatoes, lettuce, leeks, many other leafy greens and herbs, all of those usually so common sights for Bellona had Annie and Zach in absolute awe.
“This… with this we could…!” Annie stammered, almost bumping into a rack of leafy greens.
“I’ve never seen so many natural plants before…”
“It’s because after the war real food was a luxury for a while, and the people in charge liked it that way, so they kept it to themselves, telling the general population that growing real food is too hard to do with the soil still bearing the marks of nuclear war,” a new voice spoke, and the trio turned around.
A man in his sixties walked towards them. If Bellona had to make a comparison to Earth, then he looked Japanese to her eyes. He wore thick-rimmed glasses that appeared like they had been taped together multiple times. The lab coat he wore was similarly worn down, with the occasional mended holes and stains, yet despite his appearance, he carried himself like someone who was used to standing on top of the social hierarchy.
“Doctor Gidead!” Tarnek exclaimed with a grin and walked towards him, giving the man a big hug. The older man’s face contorted a little as the hug was a little too tight for his liking, and he quickly patted Tarnek’s back to signal his circumstances.
“Okay, okay, no need to kill me, my boy! I just want to know who you brought here.”
“We’re just… some people from the city,” Zach spoke, gesturing towards himself and Annie, then he pointed towards Bellona.
“She, however, is from the same world as those humans you recently took into your care. She’ll bring them home; we’re just waiting for… someone to come and pick them up.”
“Ah, I see! Well, I hope you’ll get them out of here, soon. I don’t know what exactly happened, but I can only imagine that this bastard Hayder pulled some strange tricks again, for one goal or another…”
“Oh? You know him? Closely, if you talk like that?” Annie observed, and the man turned away from her, clearing his throat.
“Well, as the leading expert in hydroponics, I’ve had contact with the rich and the famous who hold themselves above the rest of us through their ability to eat ‘real’ food, so…”
He dodged Annie’s questioning gaze afterwards and appeared thankful that Zach had a different question, who pointed to the UV lamps and pumps and other equipment.
“Where are you getting all the electricity from?”
“Ah, we’re stealing it, of course. Prosperity City’s infrastructure is such a byzantine mess that no one’s going to notice a couple of megawatts missing. I can actually show you where we’re plugging into the network and… who the hell are you?”
The sudden addition at the end of his excuse made Bellona turn around, ready to fight, but what she saw was instead a sight for sore eyes.
Arisu and the witch duo were peeking through a portal, startling the older man, who stumbled back and almost fell until Tarnek braced him and examined the trio before turning towards Bellona.
“I’m guessing your means of getting your people out of here appeared.”
After the arrival of Mana and her friends, things got very hectic. Zach watched on as they brought the people from the other world towards the plaza and opened portals – though, surprisingly, they didn’t directly lead to Tokyo, but to a door in the middle of Prosperity City, which in turn led into a white void after the witch unlocked it with a special key. Space was sparse, so a long queue formed, which would take a while longer to walk through in its entirety.
“Well. I’m glad that things went well and these people will return home safely,” Annie spoke right next to him, and he gave her a tired look. She grinned and held a fist his way, presumably for him to bump it with his own. He didn’t.
“Come on, don’t leave me hanging, here! Weren’t we a great team? We could do so much more and get people to stop playing that damn game when it comes back online, and-”
“Annette!” Zach interrupted her, and the sharp tone of his voice surprised her, he could tell. At least she was listening now.
“When all of this is over, I want us to go our separate ways,” he spoke, and for some reason, he saw disappointment in Annie’s eyes.
Don’t give me that look. We’re just allies of convenience who only know each other due to being former enemies. We’re not friends.
“Huh? Why? Is it because of all the teasing? I can stop if it bothers you that much, really!” she promised, but he shook his head.
“No. We’re just in way too different worlds. You hacked that communicator, didn’t you? I can’t do any of that. I’m just some guy who works in a cubicle and then plays being a hero in video games when he goes home. My only redeeming feature during this trip was that I know how to shoot, but I only learned that to defend myself against ‘lowlifes’.”
“Well, we could still…!”
“No, Annie. I’m tired of playing the hero, alright? And now, just… give me a moment, please.”
He turned around and started walking, but Annie wasn’t done yet.
“Aren’t you at least going to talk to the witch? Didn’t she make you reconsider everything? Introduce yourself so that she knows who you are!”
He stopped and considered her proposal for a moment, but he simply shook his head and kept walking, heading for a quiet corner.
The town of metal sheets was a little more chaotic than the alleys of Prosperity City he knew, but there was a bit of familiarity as well. There were alleys that served no other purpose than to allow electrical lines to enter the buildings, and to offer a space for ventilation to do its work without bothering people.
He leaned against one of the walls, staring towards the concrete ceiling of the cavern as he slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground.
Going our ‘separate ways’. What a pretty euphemism.
Zach pulled his revolver out of his jacket and checked the drum. He bought this gun a few years ago after being robbed by a bunch of hulking brutes. For self-defense, or so he told himself. In truth he was pining for the day he could blast a ‘lowlife’ in the head if they looked like they would jump him, or if they threatened others near him. A pathetic little hero fantasy that a concerning number of people in the world have at one point or another.
He wasn’t a hero. Never had been one. And nothing made that clearer to him than the events of today - in particular, him seeing Mana, the witch he only ever knew from his video games, in the flesh.
Until now, there was always a layer of plausible deniability to his actions in World of Infinity. When his troops challenged champions that defended towns and bested them in single combat, or in open warfare, there were always those who got left behind. Crying children as well as wailing men and women who ran up to their slain fathers, mothers, husbands, wives or siblings. He always thought it was some kind of sick joke on part of the game developers to have such lifelike reactions from the NPCs to the loss of a loved one.
He thought it was something like those old games in which NPCs were made to scream the names of other NPCs who got killed despite the game not offering a peaceful solution to the fights. A cheap trick to force an empathetic reaction out of the player.
However, he had real blood on his hands, no matter if he was separated from the actual act of killing by his virtual rat avatar.
The cold steel of his gun’s muzzle pushed against his temple and he closed his eyes, letting moments pass while holding his breath, then he lowered his hand and put the gun back into his lap.
Stupid. The whole point of going your separate way from her is so you can off yourself without her ever hearing about it. Don’t rush things, you idiot.
He closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands, letting out a long groan before he got back on his feet.
No, that’s not the issue. I’m just too much of a coward to kill myself. I can’t even pay for the lives I’ve taken.
He turned around and almost ran into the witch – not a very difficult feat, seeing how the girl barely reached up to his chest.
“I would have made a portal to send the bullet somewhere else, just so you know. No promises about your ears surviving the bang, however,” the girl spoke, looking up at him with her golden cat eyes. Zach clicked his tongue and looked to the side.
“How thoughtful.”
“So, what’s your issue, Ka’zarr? Why point that thing at yourself?”
Zach raised a brow and looked the young girl directly in the eyes.
“So, you realized who I am. And why do you think, hm? I can never undo what I did, even if the corpos tricked me into thinking that it was all just a game. I killed people, ripped them from their families, left the crying survivors and then complained on the forums that the devs were emotionally manipulative with their NPC scripting.”
“You were tricked, and so were a lot of other people. I don’t blame you; I blame the ones who made the game and knew what they were doing.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I pulled the trigger! That I drove the spear into their hearts!” Zach shouted, and the witch took a step back in surprise. Memories flashed his mind’s eye again. A girl, about the same age as this oh-so-powerful witch in front of him, clung to the corpse of a soldier his group defeated and shook him, trying to wake her older brother up. Once she realized the futility of her actions, her eyes locked onto him, full of hatred.
“None of the people I hurt while playing this game will ever forgive me, so why should I?” he concluded, and the cat-eared witch let out a long sigh. She quickly cleared the distance between them and shoved her closed fist into his chest, making Zach flinch. He fully expected her to punch him with all her might, but instead she grabbed his hand and put hers on top, then she opened her fist and let something fall into his open palm.
As he checked the strange object, it was a medallion on a small chain. A talisman he could wear around his neck. The medallion itself had familiar runes etched into its surface.
“A gift from Odin himself. He saw all of you guys vanish and was worried, so I told him about your true nature. He knew, of course, with his powers, but regardless, he looked relieved and told me to give this to you when I see you.”
Zach nodded and was about to put the medallion on as the witch kicked him in the shin and he sharply inhaled, collapsing on the ground and holding his aching leg.
“Ah, fuck! What the…?”
“And this is from me, for forgetting that you also helped people. Like me! Like my entire world! You were the one who made it possible for Bellona to destroy the game and end the attack! Don’t forget that! Don’t throw your life away, do something with it!”
The witch showed a pout and walked off with large, stomping steps as Zach rubbed his leg and quite literally sat on his thoughts for a while longer.
Annette entered the hydroponic farm again as everyone was busy entering Mana’s portal one by one to be brought back home. Doctor ‘Gidead’ was busy caring for the plants again, despite the commotion outside.
“I’m assuming you’re not here because of the plants, even though you were genuinely interested in them earlier,” the man asked her and she turned her head away.
“There’s one thing I need to confirm,” Annette spoke, keeping her hand under her jacket, on the grip of her gun.
“I think we can spare us the interrogation. Yes, I am Masao Katsuya, son of the co-founder of Hayder-Katsuya. You realized the moment you looked at me, didn’t you?”
Annette didn’t know what to make of it. For the past fifteen years, the megacorporation ruling over the lives of everyone in Prosperity City had been solely under the thumb of only one of its founders: Christian Hayder. There were rumors of a power struggle, which saw Kenji Katsuya assassinated, and his son, who studied hydroponics and held ‘radical’ beliefs that the technology should be made public disappeared right after.
“May I ask you to take your hand off your gun? I’m not your enemy,” the man spoke, not even turning around to face her as he checked the nutrient levels of his setup.
“…I’m not sure if that’s really true. You and your father were part of the corpos who ran the city into the shit!” Annette declared, but she took her hand off the pistol’s grip anyway. Katsuya continued unbothered, inspecting the leaves of the tomato plants for something. Annette had no clue how plants could require that much attention.
“You want to know why my father was assassinated and Hayder forced me into hiding, then?” the old man spoke, still inspecting the plants. He gently thumbed over their surfaces and inspected them one by one.
“It’s true that my father isn’t a hero in this story. He invented cybernetic augmentations that would allow people to be remotely controlled – primarily for military use, to make sure that critical strategic operations wouldn’t falter in the face of human limitations. He realized what he had done once Hayder started abducting people and blaming the ‘Orcs from another world’ for it, though by that time it was too late. My father got murdered by one of the abducted people, augmented with the cybernetics he himself invented, and soon they came for me as well. You know the rest.”
Annette stared the man down, even as she was only presented with his back.
“And you really want to bring real food to the people? Or do you have some kind of ulterior motive?”
“Oh, please. I could be telling the truth, or I could be lying, you wouldn’t have a way to tell. Just asking me won’t do you any good. Besides, it’s not like I’m in any position to realize any of my… aspirations. I’ll die as a simple man, providing the knowledge for growing vegetables from tainted sewer water to a group of exiles like me.”
He turned around to face her now, hands in his tattered lab coat’s pockets.
“I’m interested in one thing, though: how the hell did you get out of the city while it was in lockdown?”
Annette tilted her head; in her mind, her escape’s success was quite clearly a grand achievement on her end, so she told him. She told him about the motorcycles, about the chaos that Bellona caused, and how the people were angrily pushing past the corpo police and reclaiming the freeways, allowing for Zach and her to slip past unnoticed. He listened, but while Annette expected him to be impressed, he instead grew pale.
“And you said that… the buildings that appeared were on the news? That they claimed that corpo police were investigating?”
“Sure! Why…? Why do you make it sound like that’s bad…?”
“How in the world could you believe that you were the first to reach those ruins, then? Damn it!” he exclaimed and immediately put his hand on an earpiece he was wearing.
“Garnuk! When’s the last time you heard from Gorrash?” he immediately inquired, pacing up and down.
“I told you, you have to check in with lookouts every fifteen minutes! How long has it been since the last time?”
More pacing, then he stopped and grew even paler.
“Four hours?! You need to get everyone who can use a weapon armed and ready to-”
Before Masao could finish his words, an explosion rocked the underground city. Large chunks of concrete fell and smashed huts with their inhabitants, followed by rainfall and gunfire.
Hayder-Katsuya’s corporate police force found them.