Sunday Pilots 6 - Disagreeable [2/3] – A dystopian hero civil war story (Patreon)

They jumped through a second story window and sailed down into the gardens, larger than some apartment blocks, below. Their descent was slowed, first by a purposeful attempt of holding onto a thin branch of a nearby tree, which broke under the combined weight and impact, and then by sailing randomly through a perfectly horse shaped hedge. Afterwards, it looked more like a retarded donkey. Nykoh disliked the destruction of such property, but he did like his body intact and it wasn’t his decision anyway.

The better question was why Linua was even taking the effort of guiding him in a manner that didn’t harm him. She had no real reason to keep him fully functional, all she needed were his legs. 

Her allies must have already taken care off the air support, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to cross the garden unmolested like this. There were several people with flight abilities that oversaw such operations.

“There is your bald lover,” a mocking voice shouted. It belonged to a man clad head to toe in green. The cap, the over-all, the rainboots, all were green. With his gloved hands, he waved them closer hastily. “We don’t have all day, Nua!”

A cloud of smoke bubbled out of Nykoh’s mouth and formed the rough outline of a face. “Urgh, shut up, Cassick!” Linua told him in the voice of the mindlessly annoyed, ripping the top-most button off of Nykoh’s uniform. Guiding her newest hostage to the sewer lid the green man held open, they all vanished underground. 

At least being the new hostage was the best reason Nykoh could think off why they making sure they could continue to transport him. She threw that button into the water, where the implanted tracker would be either destroyed or swim down a wrong path and confuse the State authorities.

They must have been working on an outdated, incomplete or otherwise wrong version of the doctrine if they knew about that trick but now about the extra sensor under his skin.

He checked with the Fatelines again, after they had descended. The sewers in this part of the city were clean. Of course, their job was still to transport filth down a canal system, but for that they were as non-filthy as it allowed. No rats, no unnecessary stink (they were even parts that had the thick smell of perfume decadently overpowering that of human waste), even the water looked as pure as it possibly could be.

The steps he had to take were still guiding him down the route that would make this mission a success. Make his missions a success, to be more precise. While everyone else’s top priority had been to rescue the hostages and make sure the Chaos didn’t take off with any more of whatever they had sought than was necessary, he had received a special mission. His first priority was: Find the hideout of Chaos. 

As he was a rare asset with a future prediction ability, he was uniquely suited for such a task. Sadly, despite being his Random (and as such strongest) ability, it wasn’t great for detailed tasks like this. The Fatelines only told him where to go or pointed him at what to do something with, they didn’t say when and they didn’t make clear under what conditions. They would change if he was too late, but not too soon. If he formulated his questions correctly it would also show him which tools he would need, but that was very time intensive.

He really hoped that the tracking device hidden under the skin of his stomach was all he would need to get the job done.

The environment transformed around them over the distance of their fleight. From pristine, to normal to finally run-down sewers where the rats lurked in every shadow, visible or otherwise. 

Years of living by the ticking of the clock had honed Nykoh’s sense of time, so he was pretty certain that they had been fleeing for over four hours at that point. Chasing forces where at a minimum, a show not actually out to find them but just to make it seem like the State was trying the usual.

With the hostage situation resolved, the higher-ups must have made the decision to let Nykoh be their signal to find the enemy base. Once he was static somewhere for a pre-determined amount of time, they would, so the protocols dictated, come down in full force.

The fact that they were ready to sacrifice as valuable a soldier as him in this endeavour meant that Chaos was recognized as a high-level threat. Nykoh ceased thinking about that as they ascended to the city.

In a way there was very little difference between the sewers and the part of the city he found himself in now. Half-decayed buildings, only held up by people using their powers with such a lack of professionalism that it was clear that they didn’t have a license, were the most luxurious things around. Many people lived in shacks of welded together metal, smaller than the average bed and still able to house all of their possessions whilst being their place to sleep. Others yet lived in cardboard boxes that showed damage from the elements. The people that didn’t sleep shooed the rats away. There would have been more misery to be seen if there had been any working lanterns around, rather than just fires inside metal cans.

It was hard to believe that this was the situation a mere four hours away from the Inner Districts, but tall, highly surveyed walls didn’t separate them for no reason.

Still, Nykoh hadn’t been here in…yes, when had the last time he had been here been? Certainly, he had missions in the area, but most of this was work for the Second and Third District.

The sight made him sick, the third time he actually felt something today, after annoyance and panic. Three more emotions than he usually afforded with each day. He didn’t remember this being the situation outside the walls. The State ensured him that everything outside was as good as it could be, but this certainly didn’t look like that.

‘This must have be an area recently struck by a natural disaster or a terrorist attack and the State is just currently taking a break from cleaning this mess up,’ he rationalized, ‘Most likely they pulled back so Chaos can keep bringing me along unobstructed. Yes, most likely Chaos is even the reason the place still looks like th-‘

“An official!” a kid shouted. Not in the excited tone of somebody seeing a hero, but in the quivering, crying shout of a child that had actually found a monster under their bed. People got up, ready to throw whatever unimportant pebble they could get their hands on.

“Relax, you leguaans!” the green man shouted them down before the first stone came loose, coming out of the sewers behind him. “He’s carrying Lenua. We are taking him to the base.”

Relieved sighs and angered grumbles came from all around as people dropped their improvised projectiles and went back to their misery. Nykoh was completely confused as he was carried along. The dissonance between what these people should act like in his presence and what they did act like were too heavy. Why was he, a hero of the military districts, being treated like the villain. Even more important, why did the members of Chaos appear like saints to them?

They continued moving. ‘I am going to give you control over your head so you can drink it aaaaaaaall in,’ Linua’s voice told him, the nerves in his neck prickling again, ‘judging by your heart rate, this is a giant shocker.’

Nykoh began looking around with his own eyes immediately. There was no corner that looked any better. The only thing that made him belief he was even still in the same world as the one he had been in four hours earlier were the floodlights of the inner districts illuminating even the clouds above.

He heard a child laughing and dared to hope that not everyone here lay wasted. What he found was like a dandelion slipping between concrete. In the light of a few extra bonfires, children were sliding down a piece of concrete that had once belonged to the roof of a nearby building. It was covered in some sort of slime, probably a power of the adult overseeing it. He had nothing but smiles for these kids that could laugh even in these dire times, and nothing but disdain in his eyes when he saw Nykoh.

“We are almost there,” the green man said in the only tone he seemed to have, mocking and snarky, “so don’t worry, ‘hero’, you won’t have to look at the people of your country much longer.”

It had been long enough already.